Jul. 20, 2025 |
The Epstein files meet institutional reality. The U.S. Justice Department issued finding this week that caught many—not least among President Donald Trump’s political base—by great surprise: The DoJ concluded they have no evidence supporting the theory that the convicted sex offender, disgraced financier, and now deceased Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a “client list,” or was murdered.
This directly contradicts years of promises from Trump and his allies about exposing deep conspiracies, of which the Epstein theory figured most prominently. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had told Fox News that the Justice Department planned to publish “a lot of flight logs” and “a lot of names” related to Epstein. Meanwhile, the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, and it’s deputy director, Dan Bongino, were, in their former roles as social-media influencers, prominent among those who disputed official accounts that Epstein died by suicide.
Trump’s base accordingly erupted in fury, while the president responded that those turning on him over the issue are being “weaklings,” who are falling prey to Democratic “bullshit,” and declared he doesn’t want their support anymore. Even House Speaker Mike Johnson broke with the president, calling for the files to be released.
The whole episode reveals a structural vulnerability in populist governance: Movements that gain power by promising to expose institutional corruption must eventually become those institutions. Trump built his brand on distrusting government agencies, but now his own appointees run those same agencies—and they’re producing findings that contradict the conspiracy theories that helped elect him.
Which raises the question of what happens when populist mythology collides with institutional reality.
Well?