THE EPSTEIN SHADOW

Donald Trump's embrace of conspiracy theories has backfired

- BY PHILIP ELLIOTT

DONALD TRUMP HAS OPENLY FLIRTED WITH nearly every major conspiracy theory of the past half-century, and championed one of the most reckless through his insistence without evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. But what’s dominated the summer of 2025 is an intrigue he spent much of the previous year promising to crack if he returned to office—the truth about how registered sex offender and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein lived and died.

Like so much else that grew into a headache for Trump, this started with pursuit of a quick headline without thinking through how it might end. Now, the Epstein saga has become a snowball racing down Mount MAGA that the President has lost the capacity to stop.

To recap, Epstein was at the center of a network of superrich and privileged people rumored to exploit young women and girls as part of a sex-trafficking scheme that was said to include a whole host of boldface names. Trump, even though he counted Epstein as a friend for over a decade, nonetheless fed suspicion about the former Mara-Lago regular at campaign rallies and in online posts.