Five key questions answered about the Trump administration’s Epstein files chaos

President Donald Trump is facing a firestorm as his supporters turn against him because of his laissez-faire approach to the Jeffrey Epstein files.

For years, Trump had told his supporters he would release Epstein’s alleged client list, which reportedly contains high-level celebrities and politicians.

Now, his administration has claimed no such list exists, sparking furore and allegations of a cover-up on a grand scale.

He dismissed further calls to release the records as ‘pretty boring’, adding that ‘credible information has been given’.

He told reporters: ‘I don’t understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody.’

Trump also praised Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the case and said she should release ‘whatever she thinks is credible’.

The situation at hand has raised more questions than answers, and the issue isn’t going away as easily as Trump had hoped.

Why aren’t the Epstein files being released?

Epstein’s ‘list’ is a long-rumoured dossier of names of people – famous politicians and celebrities – who were ‘clients’ of Epstein.

It was alleged that those on the list flew to Epstein’s notorious private island in the US Virgin Islands, where alleged human trafficking and sex abuse took place.

In the years since Epstein’s death, multiple ‘leaks’ of the alleged list were shared online – one naming Prince Andrew, Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton and Stephen Hawking as some of the 187 involved.

The highly anticipated list won’t be made public because it ‘doesn’t exist’ – but it hasn’t stopped rampant speculation and anger.

What does Trump say about the Epstein files?

Trump, who was long rumoured to be among the clients listed in Epstein’s files, promised to release the information about Epstein once in office again.

The bombshell announcement that the list doesn’t actually exist comes weeks after Elon Musk claimed Trump’s name was in the Epstein files, which the president had then refused to release, claiming it was the real reason the files had not been made public.

The accusation raised eyebrows, especially considering Trump and Epstein’s friendship, which is well-documented and goes back decades.

Trump told reporters after the bombshell announcement of no client list: ‘He’s dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life.

‘I don’t understand what the interest or what the fascination is, I really don’t. And the credible information’s been given.’

What has Pam Bondi said about the Epstein files?

In February this year, US Attorney General Bondi said the names of people on flight logs to Epstein’s sickening private island would be released.

When asked at the time about the list of Epstein’s clients, Bondi said: ‘It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump.’

Bondi did say in a statement that the FBI was still in the midst of reviewing ‘tens of thousands of videos’ of Epstein with ‘children or child porn’.

In a press conference yesterday, she was pressed about the files, to which she replied: ‘We’re going to fight to keep America safe again and we’re fighting together as a team. That’s what’s so important right now.’

What have Republicans said?

Anger is growing among Trump’s base of Republican supporters, who have called for transparency about the files for years.

Some are so outraged that they’ve even burned their red ‘Make America Great Again’ hats.

One of his voters replied below the post that his statement had ‘broken her heart’: ‘These victims were someone’s daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters. Someone’s child. Please reconsider, sir. I voted for everything you are doing!’

Another suggested that the President was failing to ‘read the room’ and said that the MAGA faithful would not just ‘fall in line’.

Far-right influencers are also calling for people to burn their famous MAGA hats. Nick Fuentes wrote: ‘We need to burn our MAGA hats, I think that’s a solution.

‘That’s the only language Trump will understand. He needs to be abandoned at this point. Now he’s going to tell us there’s no Epstein black book, no client list.

‘The message needs to be this: ‘We’re done. We don’t understand. The radical right is f***ing furious. We are done.’

What could happen to Ghislaine Maxwell?

The elephant in the room of this chaos is Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s ‘right hand woman’ for years of the sex trafficking.

She’s currently serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking, but has been brought up again as Republicans search for answers about the lack of transparency with the files.

This week, her family came forward and claimed she didn’t receive a fair trial due to the public’s appetite for justice after Epstein died.

There have even been suggestions that she could be free if her plea to challenge her imprisonment is granted, under an agreement that Epstein made with the Department of Justice in 2007.

The agreement stated the DOJ wouldn’t prosecute his co-conspirators after he ‘paid fines, paid victims millions of dollars and served 13 months in prison.’

But the deal only applied in Florida, not New York, where Maxwell was and was put on trial.

Some have even expressed worries that Maxwell could end up dead like Epstein in a suicide. Conspiracy theorists still believe Epstein did not die from suicide, but was killed.

Maxwell’s former cellmate Jessica Watkins came forward and wrote on X this week: ‘Just putting this out there: I know Ghislaine Maxwell personally when I was in prison with her. She isn’t suicidal in the least.

‘There are also virtually no working cameras in FCI Tallahassee. Just getting ahead of potential narratives.’

Watkins, who was pardoned by Trump, said there were ‘maybe ten’ working cameras at the prison when she lived there in an open dorm with Maxwell. She added that if Maxwell were to disappear, ‘it would not (be) by her own hand’.

But conspiracies and speculation continue to swirl, with recent claims from Elon Musk that explosive files are still under wraps but ‘the truth will come out’ only fuelling theories.

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