Republicans in Washington are tied up in knots over Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump spent the 2024 campaign vowing to expose those contained on his fabled “client list”, with MAGA lining up behind him to cheer him on. And, for a brief shining moment, it seemed like all their dreams would come true. Pam Bondi confirmed the client list was on her desk and that it’d only be a formality until it went public. Then in a heartbeat everything changed: Trump suddenly said the client list didn’t exist, that you’re a stupid weakling if you wanted to see it, and anyway, the whole thing is a Democrat plot by, I dunno, Barack Obama or something. This deeply suspicious reversal caught everyone by surprise and is currently gumming up the legislative system as Republicans frantically figure out how to avoid offending Dear Leader. Democrats have concluded that whatever’s in those files must implicate Trump – why else would he be so determined that everyone forget about them? As such, Democrats are putting Republicans in a tough spot by forcing votes on legislation that would force the release of the Epstein files. The Republican response? Well, they’re throwing their toys out of the pram! Rather than face criticism from their base for voting against making the Epstein files public, they’re simply not going to have any floor business at all in the House. Rep. Jim McGovern confirmed that Republicans are running scared, telling The Hill: “We’re done. Not reporting out a rule, we’re done for the night, we’re done for the week. … There’s some issues going on within the Republican conference, I think around the Epstein stuff, that they can’t seem to get under control.” Republican Rules Committee member Ralph Norman (who last week bizarrely claimed that A.I. had been used to forge Trump’s Epstein birthday message) tried to handwave the Epstein thing away as Democrat “grandstanding”: “Democrats keep putting all these amendments up. They want to make Epstein — and, you know, we’re all for transparency, and we’re going to do that, but what they want to do is grandstand.” A disaster of their own making It’s safe to say Trump and his MAGA Republicans are entirely responsible for their current misery. They leaned hard into the idea that there was an establishment cover-up of who Epstein’s financial backers, patrons, and confidants were, saying exposing them was an integral part of “draining the swamp”. Their most passionate supporters ate that up, eager to see which elite 1%ers were snugly entangled in Epstein’s web of child abuse and sexual depravity. Who could have possibly predicted this would eventually backfire on Trump himself? After all, we already knew he’d been a close friend of Epstein, frequently flew on his private jet, and there were multiple pictures and videos of them laughing at some private joke! Whatever the case, Democrats are now smelling blood in the water and refusing to let up on Trump’s Epstein links. It’s time to see if Trump can live up to his “Teflon Don” reputation, and we can’t wait to find out what his and Epstein’s “wonderful secrets” are…