Trump gives a lesson in how not to handle a scandal

There’s nothing Washington likes more than a scandal. Most quickly fade away. But every once in a while, there’s a scandal that takes root, that just won’t go away. President Nixon had Water-gate, President Bill Clinton had Whitewater and President Trump now has Geoffrey Epstein.

But what’s unique about the Epstein-gate scandal is that this is not something Democrats laid on Trump. From the start, this scandal was entirely of Trump’s own creation. He brought it on himself. He created it, he fanned the flames, and now he can’t get out from under it. 

Forget the politics. Just stand back for a moment and review how Trump’s mishandled the Epstein matter. It’s been one ham-handed mistake after another. Either he or whoever is advising him on how to deal with Epstein should be fired for incompetence. 

It all started with a baseless conspiracy spread by right-wing extremists, accusing Democrats of refusing to release the Epstein files in order to cover up the names of prominent Democrats involved in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. Instead of dismissing it as another looney-tunes theory, Trump latched on to it — as he had previously done with the “birther” conspiracy theory — and made it his own. 

Prominent supporters such as JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino have demanded that the Department of Justice release the complete Epstein files — and Trump promised that, if elected, he’d do so. That’s mistake number one. 

Then, once back in office, Trump continued to fan the flames. On Feb. 21, now-Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News the Epstein file was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” And, lest there be any doubt who’s really running the Department of Justice, she added: “That’s been a directive by President Trump.” Six days later, she invited a group of right-wing influencers to the White House and gave them big binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” This did nothing but build expectations among Trump supporters that the “truth” would finally come out in some future phase. That’s mistake number two. 

Then, on July 7, Trump did a complete reversal. With his approval, Bondi released a statement saying the Department of Justice was dropping the whole matter because it had found “no incriminating client list” for Epstein, and not enough information to bring charges against anybody associated with him. Trump not only praised Bondi’s decision, he scolded fellow Republicans on social media, telling them to move on “and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.” That’s mistake number three. 

Meanwhile, House Republicans tried to help Trump squelch the Epstein matter by having the House Oversight Committee subpoena all Epstein files from the Department of Justice and the Epstein estate. That only made it worse. Out of those documents came damning evidence that Trump was closer to Epstein than he had admitted. First came the famous birthday book, with a drawing and suggestive message, allegedly from Trump. Second, three emails were released by Democrats last week, in one of which Epstein said Trump had spent “hours” at his house talking with Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims. That only raised more questions about Trump’s relationship with the convicted sex-offender, who died in prison in 2019. That was mistake number four. 

For his part, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) shut down the House of Representatives for nearly eight weeks, in part to avoid a vote on a bipartisan resolution to demand that the Department of Justice release the full Epstein files. He did that, only to be forced to schedule a vote for this week, in which dozens of Republicans are expected to break ranks and join the Democrats in voting aye. At the last minute, in a desperation move, Trump even summoned Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to the White House to persuade her to change her vote. She refused. Mistakes five and six. 

Next, Trump ordered the Justice Department to undertake an investigation into prominent Democrats who may have associated with Epstein. Bondi immediately agreed to this, even though, after an earlier investigation, she had concluded there was no incriminating evidence against anyone. That may have enabled Bondi to say she couldn’t release the Epstein files because of a pending investigation, but then, after fighting it for two months, Trump suddenly changed course again and urged Republicans to vote to release the files. That will just keep the Epstein scandal alive. Mistakes seven and eight. 

For Trump, as columnist Jonathan Alter wrote, the Epstein scandal is like a bad case of herpes. It just won’t go away. Why? Because Trump still won’t do what he should have done in the first place and release all the files.  

 Bill Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”