It all finally makes sense

New reporting from The Wall Street Journal has revealed a key moment that may explain the Trump administration’s shifting approach to the Jeffrey Epstein files. According to the Journal, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told President Donald Trump during a White House meeting in May that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files.

The revelation has sparked questions about what the administration knew and when they knew it. Critics are now looking back at statements made by Trump and his officials to see if they tried to mislead the public about information the Justice Department had regarding Trump’s connections to the late convicted sex offender, especially given past evidence of Trump praising Jeffrey Epstein in his own writings.

The Trump administration’s suspicious behavior around Epstein files suddenly makes sense once you see what happened in May. Before this reported briefing, Trump’s statements about the files included unusual qualifiers that he typically does not use when discussing investigations that interest him. After May, the administration’s tone became notably more defensive and brief, even as his own MAGA supporters demanded full transparency on the Epstein files.

Key changes in Trump’s messaging after the May briefing

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump told Fox News that he would release more information if reelected. However, he quickly added concerns about the impact on third parties and worried there might be “phony stuff” in the government files. These are not typical concerns Trump raises about other investigations.

More recently, Trump has said he supports releasing only “credible” information and “pertinent” grand jury testimony. He has also started blaming the Democratic Party and mainstream media for the focus on Epstein files, even though these groups had little direct involvement in creating the current situation.

White House communications director Steven Cheung pushed back against criticism, calling reports “nothing more than out-of-context frame grabs of innocuous videos and pictures of widely attended events.” He added that Trump “kicked him out of his club for being a creep” and called the coverage “fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.” The Justice Department called the Journal’s story “a collection of falsehoods and innuendo.”

The administration’s recent actions to gather more information also appear designed to look busy without producing meaningful results. They have moved to unseal grand jury testimony and are seeking information from Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year prison sentence. However, a Florida judge denied the request to unseal grand jury testimony this week, and Maxwell has serious credibility problems that make her an unreliable source.

These efforts share one important feature: their results are outside the government’s control. The administration could release much of the material in its possession without needing permission from courts or unreliable witnesses, but it has chosen paths that are likely to produce little new information while appearing to take action.