Trump Caught in His Own Trap
By Mona
Charen
July 18, 2025 6 min read
A new poll, on a matter that adamantly should not be
decided by untutored public opinion, finds that 79% of Americans believe all of
the documents relating to the Epstein case should be disclosed. A shocking
result? Not quite. Ask Americans, who've been hearing wall-to-wall accusations
about secret sex abuse cabals, celebrity client lists and government cover-ups
whether they want to know the full story and — whaddaya know — they say yes.
They're wrong, and I'll come back to that. But first, there
is someone who is less enthusiastic about disclosing all available records, and
that person is President Donald Trump. Asked last April whether he would
release whatever information the government has about a number of A-list
conspiracy theories, Trump was unequivocal ... until it came to Epstein.
Q: Would you declassify the JFK files?
A: Yeah. I did a lot of it.
Q: Would you declassify the 9/11 files?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you declassify the Epstein files?
A: Yeah, yeah, I would.
Q: All right.
A: I guess I would. I think that less so because you don't
want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there, because it's a lot
of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would, or at least —
Q: You think that would restore trust, help restore trust?
A: I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others,
certainly about the way he died. ... But I'd go a long way toward that one. ...
On the matter of releasing the results of investigations,
the man is right.
There's a reason we have a tradition in this country
(formerly a nation of laws) that strongly discourages the government from
releasing the results of investigations that do not result in a criminal charge
— precisely because these investigations unearth unsubstantiated gossip, bad
faith accusations and other potentially damaging information — and if there is
no criminal procedure, the citizen will be denied an opportunity to rebut the
charges. So Trump is correct that a responsible government should tread
carefully before releasing the results of criminal investigations or other
inquiries, taking care to redact names or other identifying information about
innocent people.
Now let's come back to the world we actually inhabit.
That's not Trump's motivation. Trump has done more than anyone to demolish the
laws, traditions and basic decency that should govern in these matters. He has
himself spewed the kind of incendiary accusations about people (of treason, of
vote stealing, even of murder) that undermine faith in the system. Even on the
topic of Epstein, Trump was happy to pile on with MAGA forces in stoking
suspicion. In 2019, he retweeted a post suggesting that Bill Clinton might have
been involved with Epstein. Asked to elaborate, he resorted to the "just
asking questions" dodge: "So you have to ask: Did Bill Clinton go to
the island? That's the question. If you find that out, you're going to know a
lot."
He and the forces he unleashed have destroyed the norms and
rules that protect innocent people from unjust accusations and flagrant
incitement. He cannot hide behind those destroyed norms now. They're gone. MAGA
influencers have stoked the Epstein conspiracy theories and countless other
lies and calumnies with Trump's blessing for years. In 2023, Kash Patel
confidently explained why the Biden administration hadn't released the Epstein
files: "Simple, because of who's on that list." Talk show host Dan
Bongino, now deputy director of the FBI, repeatedly demanded to know "what
the hell they were hiding."
Epstein was an adjudicated pedophile. But that was just the
springboard to suggest a far more comprehensive corruption deforming elites in
America. MAGA foot soldiers like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson and Benny Johnson
piled on, encouraging their audiences to believe that Jeffrey Epstein was a
deep state operative who ran a pedophile ring that serviced every liberal or
Democrat MAGA despised.
Trump has never shown anything like concern for the
innocent — just the opposite. If the innocent are in his way, he will mow them
down without a backward glance. If you're a law-abiding, legal immigrant
unjustly detained or even deported to a foreign prison by ICE, don't expect
this president to pause for a moment. If you are a legal permanent resident
wrongfully detained by immigration authorities for exercising your First
Amendment right to speak, don't turn to this president for relief. If you've been
defamed or targeted or even had a violent mob sent after you shouting
"Hang Mike Pence," don't expect concern for your innocence to cross
Trump's mind.
No, the only person whose privacy and reputation Trump has
any concern about is Trump. And that's why his uncharacteristic reticence about
releasing the Epstein files is suspicious. He was happy to encourage the most
reckless speculation about a deep state pedophile conspiracy while he was
running for office, but now that the worm has turned, he's suddenly concerned
about "innocent" people being hurt. It is impossible to imagine that
his reticence arises from anything other than self-interest. He seems to be
running scared.
It's poetic justice.
