Donald Trump Is in a Tailspin

It is also a gift to the Democrats, who are powerless in the minority and abject at messaging. They have thus far struggled to harness popular anger over the administration’s immigration policies, ruinous legislation, gutting of the federal government, and more. But the party has effectively weaponized Epstein, aided by popular interest and the fact that, well, the president certainly seems to be up to something shady.

House Democrats’ push to release the files was so successful that it caused Johnson to literally run away. He will presumably spend the summer recess thinking about how to respond to Democratic efforts to divide his caucus and push for the full release of the files, but it’s not clear that there is anything short of “full transparency” that can do that. He’s caught in a bind. At the same time, investigative efforts—particularly the House’s plan to subpoena the Department of Justice for its Epstein documents, and perhaps Senator Ron Wyden’s suggestion that the DOJ “follow the money” with Epstein—may very well be fruitful. The House Oversight Committee’s subpoena of Epstein’s former girlfriend and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell may or may not be as fruitful, depending on what deals she makes before her testimony. (Regardless, it will continue to fuel interest in the story, even if it’s a dud—because if she doesn’t reveal anything it will be assumed that Trump’s allies at the DOJ got to her.) In any case, this is a huge story that will likely ensnare several powerful people and hold the public’s attention—and, in doing so, will serve as a continual reminder that the president of the United States was close friends with the twenty-first century’s most notorious pedophile.

For Democrats, the Epstein story does pose risks, as well, many of which should be familiar to anyone who remembers the long investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Here, as was true then, the most likely result is something that is damning but far less salacious than what is rumored. In 2016, it turned out that Trump was openly encouraging and attempting to benefit from Russian efforts to interfere in the election—but not that he was a compromised, blackmailed puppet of Vladimir Putin (or, for that matter, that he had paid Russian sex workers to pee on a bed Barack Obama had slept in). What we know about Trump is damning enough—being friends with Epstein is bad, and reporting suggests that he and others in Epstein’s orbit had a good enough understanding of what he was up to—even if no evidence emerges that he was one of his “clients,” which is not a revelation that Democrats should hold their breath for.