The 'Epstein Files' and Scandal Management in Trump 2.0
Core features of this presidency undermine the White House's defense.
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How a president manages incipient or full-fledged scandals is a test of White House capacities with serious consequences for his political standing and, relatedly, the achievement of his governing agenda. President Trump has been struggling to manage the “Epstein files” controversy, and his leadership style and unique approach to executive branch administration are a large part of the problem. In Trump 1.0, his conception of the office, impulses, and predilections that complicate scandal crisis management were on display, but in Trump 2.0, he has set up a government enabling him, to his detriment, to give them full play.
It may seem unlikely that Trump would have any more difficulty surviving this personal scandal than the ones he overcame on the way to the White House (the Hollywood Access audio tape) and then in winning a second term (Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll). But the Epstein episode now in progress is different. In two of the notable prior cases, he denied the allegations and his supporters chose to believe him or discounted the significance of the allegations. While downplaying the extent and nature of their personal relationship, Trump called Epstein a “creep” and until recently validated the calls for the public release of more information about the case. None of the prior cases implicated his supporters’ deep concerns with conspiracies by Democrats and other enemies to commit and cover up the sexual abuse of minors. This is a case where die-hard MAGA supporters, fervent followers of the president, are as committed as any to the view that there is a scandal in full bloom.
Here, Trump’s problems are breaking new ground and compound the challenges of scandal management. Normally, a president fighting off scandal counts on “base” support as a first line of defense he can keep solidly in his corner to the bitter end. This support was critical to President Clinton in the Lewinsky scandal; it eventually but not immediately melted away in President Nixon’s “Watergate” disaster, dooming him. Trump held on to this core loyalty in the Russia matter. In what seems an unprecedented development in the annals of modern scandal, his own base is the first and most inflamed over the failure of his own government to make the promised disclosure of files, lists, or other information it has declined to release.
It is in these exceptional circumstances that Trump has to deal with his “Epstein files” problem, and the type of presidency he has established makes it a presidency that much harder for him to defend under these pressures. There are at least five vulnerabilities built into his governing model that pose major problems for him in the Epstein matter.
Control of His Department of Justice
One might think that Trump’s rejection of the norm of separation of the White House from law enforcement functions would serve him well under the threat of scandal. This is correct to this extent: He need not fear that his attorney general will go rogue and appoint a special counsel. Should he not want files released, the AG will not release them; should he want a motion to the court to release grand jury materials (if not all of them), she can be expected to comply—as she has.
This absolute control over the department he has wanted and has now achieved in Trump 2.0 cuts in various ways, not all helpful to a president in conditions of scandal. His AG’s wholehearted commitment to Trump’s MAGA politics led her to make sensational claims about the files on her desk and the “phases” of their release. She played a short-term political game at longer term cost and now shares responsibility for stoking scandal by failing to deliver on this promise. It was an “own goal,” but one more likely to be scored at the president’s expense because he and the attorney general see her department as no different in mission than other agencies, and Bondi no less a member of the president’s political team than other cabinet officials and senior aides.
Moreover, an AG and DOJ conceived as appropriately functioning in this way, under his thumb, cannot provide him with the cover a president may need. Trump’s base expects her, as he does, to be on the program, in locked step with her boss, and so it does not accept any impediment the law might present for the release of information they crave. This president has surrendered any capacity to defer, with ostensible reluctance and resignation, to any legal conclusion an AG might reach that, no, the law limits what they can release from the Epstein investigative record—and, no worries, department professionals have scoured the records, and there is nothing to see.
Especially in a period of polarization and distrust in government, Americans may be generally skeptical that presidents and their AG keep meaningful distance between them on issues of real importance to the president. Whatever remained of this norm and any associated expectations, Trump has sacrificed them. An AG who is credibly independent in important respects might have a value he has never recognized.
Truth Social
Trump’s continuous use of social media as an instrument of government and communication with the public is a defining feature of his presidential style. It has become even more pronounced in Trump 2.0. As of early June, Trump had produced over 2000 original posts in this new term, and, in the first 100 days, had posted approximately 15 times per day.
Before turning to issues of substance, this compulsive posting in the Epstein matter creates for Trump a problem of tone. He is an angry poster. His regular exhibition of rage, which may work for him in other contexts, does not fit all that well with a strategy of defending against scandal. He keeps the issues front and center. He comes off as defensive. Perhaps Trump is calculating that this barrage of attacks will eventually quell the MAGA uprising. It is a gamble, if he is engaging at all in any strategic assessment of the pros and cons, and it may work out. In the meantime, he has been writing one Epstein headline after another.
Then comes the additional trouble with his use of impulsively prepared social media messages to make factual claims. In response to the Wall Street Journal story reporting on a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, Trump zeroed in on the allegation that he had done a sketch to accompany the greeting. He denied that he sketched—“I don’t draw pictures,” and, even more, “I never wrote a picture in my life”—only to be contradicted by reports published shortly thereafter that show that over the years he drew fairly regularly. In some cases, he donated drawings for charity events.
Perhaps most self-defeating, Trump has introduced into the discussion of scandal an additional reason for calls for the full release of information that he is trying to prevent. He has suggested that Democrats are behind the scandal, among them Presidents Obama and Biden, and Hillary Clinton, because they somehow created the records that his base is clamoring for. Of course, if any of that were true, the scandal would be precisely the kind that in the past he is most committed to pursuing, a case in point being the “Russia hoax” he alleges was perpetrated by hostile law enforcement and intelligence community sources under the direction of Democrats. Normally presidents are well advised to exercise caution in answering accusations of scandalous misconduct by agreeing that it has occurred but not where the press is looking for it.
It may seem that this is no different from the Clintons claiming a “right-wing conspiracy” behind the allegations against Bill Clinton, or Trump’s charge, which he is still apparently pursuing, that the “deep state” and his political opponents cooked up the Russia hoax. A key difference in the Epstein case is that the only answer to the version of scandal he is propounding is for the government to release the very records he is trying to hold back. Only the full disclosure MAGA is clamoring for will permit an evaluation of what is real, or not, in these allegations. If he authorizes only a partial disclosure to support his claims, the move only fuels demand for the rest: “Why stop there?” We might expect the same response then that we see now to his authorization to seek release of “pertinent” grand jury material, namely that it is not enough, that only the whole kit and caboodle will do.
And finally, it may always be helpful for an officeholder facing scandal to discredit the source of their troubles by rallying supporters around the counter-narrative of a conspiracy behind the attacks on their leader. Trump, however, has been firing in all directions as his mood moves him: the news media, Democrats, radical left lunatics, foolish MAGA conspiracy theorists. The net effect is a loss of focus in the defense, only highlighting his refusal to support full disclosure.
The Revenge of the Bureaucracy
In the history of presidential scandal, administrations often have to fear or contend with attacks from within their own governing ranks, most often by the leak of damaging information to the press. Trump has long been preoccupied with this “deep state” danger, particularly how it powered the Russia-related investigations of his 2016 campaign. He has responded in term 2.0 vengefully and in blunderbuss fashion with the extensive firing of Department of Justice and FBI officials and employees, and the initiation of internal investigations of DOJ and Bureau misconduct in relation to the Jan. 6 prosecutions. By one report, more than 200 employees have been fired, affecting not only senior officials but also support staff.
Therein lies the risk: that this war on the investigative and law enforcement communities motivates a counterattack from those fired, or even others remaining within the department, who resent the dozens of terminations and the investigations. They may have stories to tell, with first or secondhand access to the information to support them, and they can count on news media eager to hear what they have to say. Trump cannot fire fast enough, and in sufficiently targeted ways, to eliminate that risk.
Trump’s Choice of High-Level Kitchen Cabinet Members
Presidents have full freedom to choose their own outside advisors or “kitchen cabinets” from outside the ranks of government. It’s on the whole good that they do, as they have the chance to guard against West Wing group think and widen the range of perspectives available to them. Particularly helpful in the choice of presidential advisors are the attributes of expertise and discretion.
Trump’s choice of high-level advisors is problematic, a major risk factor for him, as evident in the Epstein matter. He has chosen individuals with no government experience or expertise but with a large independent following who do not view themselves much bound by discretion or any special responsibilities attendant upon being an influential presidential adviser.
Most prominent has been Elon Musk, whom Trump brought in as the leader and face of DOGE and who has since been feuding with Trump, with his more than 220 million X followers as an audience for attacks that have included Trump’s relationship to Epstein as the president’s motive for withholding the files. Musk has deleted some of these tweets and expressed doubts about the veracity of the birthday letter, but Trump must know that Musk is at best unpredictable and could resume an antagonistic posture at any time. Another volatile adviser is Laura Loomer who appeared to use her influence with Trump to move him to fire members of the National Security Council she distrusted as politically unreliable. She, too, publicly pressed the president for the release of the files and has advocated for the appointment of a special counsel as “the best thing” in keeping the Epstein controversy from “consum[ing] his presidency.” Loomer has expressed support for the president in response to the Wall Street Journal story, but she still favors more of a release of information than the administration has been prepared to provide. And, as in Musk’s case, Trump cannot be sure of what Loomer may say next.
For a president to choose for influential advisors individuals like Musk and Loomer who break with him openly when he most needs the help is, at best, unusual. He has been drawn to these public personalities whose favor he largely enjoys. That works when they are squarely in his corner and stay there, and it is costly when they decide to go their own way.
Defamation Suit
This president’s political playbook includes the use of litigation against the press to score points against stories he does not like and to discourage more of the same in the future. He has now filed suit against The Wall Street Journal over its Epstein reporting, claiming “not … less than $10 billion” for financial and reputational damage. He took The Journal to court after pledging that he would sue them “just like I sued everyone else,” and bragging about his success in forcing settlements from ABC and CBS.
For someone who was looking to keep a lid on the release of information, a defamation suit is a questionable strategic move. Those who defend these suits have rights to discovery to material that bear on the truth and falsity of the reporting. The Journal will certainly bring to this defense an impressive army of lawyers. Trump may be counting on a settlement, like ones he exacted from ABC and CBS, but it is not clear that in this case The Journal has any reason to acknowledge error in its reporting or reach some settlement that implies it breached its journalistic ethics or responsibilities.
Conclusion
It is too early to judge the likely course of events in the Epstein case. Trump may well get past the scandal. Commentators have made thoughtful cases that he will. Having normalized his particular brand of presidential rhetoric and conduct, Trump may be more protected than most presidents from the plague of scandal. He is also the beneficiary, as he often is, of a pliant congressional leadership that, once chiming in with MAGA on the need for release, is now adjourning the House early for the summer to protect Trump from a vote on the Epstein matter.
The fact remains that the kind of president that Trump is and wants to be, running the government in the way that he does, complicates his chances of successfully putting this—or any scandals that may erupt—behind him. Experienced lawyers and communication strategists would certainly tell him this, but he may not be listening to them—or the ones he picked to give the advice were poorly chosen or unwilling to tell him what he doesn’t want to hear.
There is one other risk factor—high-risk—that often accounts for the durability of scandal: underlying discontent with presidential performance. Scandals may persist, or grow to dangerous proportions, against a background of negative job approval. The politically stronger presidents, like Bill Clinton in 1998–1999, are in the better position to push through a crisis. It is a factor over which presidents have less control than scandal management strategies, but the White House has reason for concern.