Washington – Jeffrey Epstein is dead, but the White House does not seem to kill her story.
President Donald Trump and his collaborators were satisfied with silence as a strategy to eliminate criticism from his Refusal to publish files Cetal the Federal Government’s investigation into Epstein, according to a senior administration and republicans familiar with the thought of the White House.
For weeks, stories on Epstein, the financier and the friend of the political lighting deceased by suicide on hold Essay on accusations of sex trafficking In 2019, made the headlines.
In a break in the Trump usual crisis communication model – which emphasizes an all -hand approach on the bridge to defend it on television and on social networks – the Epstein affair was greeted by more restraint from the White House.
Trump himself noted that he did not want members of his administration to talk about the question constantly, said a person close to the White House at NBC News. And the aid of the White House has clearly indicated that no one in the administration is authorized to speak of Epstein without high -level verification, according to a senior administration who spoke subject to anonymity.
“The communications office must be directly involved in all aspects,” said the manager. “Each” I “must be dotted, and each” t “must be crossed through us.”
Trump employees would like Epstein storm to pass, but they know they cannot keep Trump and other leaders of television administration at a time when they try to promote his political victories and program.
The senior administration official said that the White House officials will not stop making the media appearances, which will inevitably lead to Epstein issues. But they always try to determine how to balance Trump’s defense on the question while diverting the investigations by praising his achievements.
This represents a kind of change for a president who generally liked that his main deputies and leaders of the administration defend him solidly in the media, regardless of the problem.
“The questions will happen, but whether or not we are committed to consideration,” said the official.
But Trump, who is used to leading the news, discovers that there are limits to his ability to detach himself from a problem that has angry the parts of his Maga base, consumed media, disclosed by a popular culture and mobilized a democratic party that was sleeping and divided since his re -elect in November.
Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida ruled against The Ministry of Justice’s request to provide testimonies from the Grand Jury in the Epstein case, launching a series of new titles. Then, the Wall Street Journal, belonging to the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, reported that the prosecutor General Pam Bondi had said to Trump in May That his name appears in Epstein files – even if he told journalists in July that Bondi had not informed him that he had been appointed.
“The fact is that the president launched [Epstein] From his club to be a snapping, “said the White House communications director Steven Cheung, in a statement.” It is nothing more than a continuation of the false news concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media, just like the scandal of Obama Russiagate, of which President Trump was right. “”
Asset Called Epstein a “great guy” In 2002, but said in 2019 that they had “dropped a long time ago”. He said he had no knowledge of what Epstein was doing.
Trump Trump undoubtedly accused former President Barack Obama of having committed a “betrayal” because the American intelligence agencies noted, during the warmth of the 2016 campaign, that Russia had tried to intervene during this year elections to help Trump.
Trump made the allegation very accused in response to the question of a journalist on Epstein, and this caused a rare reprimand of the Obama office, who qualified the “ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous and ridiculous A low attempted distraction. “”
Officials of the White House hope to limit the radius of the explosion of a self-determined scandal that Trump and his administration have accused the main democrats of hiding information on Epstein when he was looking for the presidency. Bondi raised expectations among supporters of Trump in February By promising to publish long -standing files for a long timeTell Fox News that the list of Epstein customers was “seated on my desk right now”. But his own Ministry of Justice said this month He didn’t have Such a “list of customers” and other files remain in the hands of his administration.
Trump quick pivot To a wave of other problems that also drive its base, have contained a large part of the discomfort among the best influencers of Maga. However, political agents in both parties see the question as a question that hurts Trump and helps Democrats.
“Things are obviously different from it,” said a republican agent familiar with the White House thought. “It has exploded a little hole in Maga, so the reflexive defense mode, as we have often seen in the past, will not always be the essential. [White House] might expect that certain interviewers are friendly and remain on the script; It is not guaranteed with it.
Some Democrats see the problem as a perfect vehicle to paint Trump as an elite protecting the powerful to the detriment of the masses, undergoing the image he made as a populist champion of the empesses.
“This is the first time that we get her – on something for real, and it’s just a clean and clean blow,” said Mike Nellis, a democratic strategist who works with several potential candidates in 2028. “He cannot get out of it.”
Nelis said that Epstein Imbroglio could be part of a mid-term presidential message and 2028 because he threatens Maga’s confidence in the GOP’s commitment to expose corruption. He noted that vice-president JD Vance, widely considered as a leading candidate for the republican appointment of 2028, mainly ceased to speak of Epstein after having agreed in an interview with the podcastor adapted to Maga Theo von last year that the documents should be made public. (Von last week published a clip of Commentary on x and written: “Yeah, what has changed?”)
First message from Vance In the middle of the recent tumult came last week, after the publication of the Wall Street Journal an article About a letter comprising a racy drawing that Trump would have sent Epstein for his birthday in 2003. He described the article as “complete and absolute bulls-“.
But other Democrats have expressed reserves to go too far ahead of Epstein files.
“I think it is emblematic of the real lack of opportunities that demons have at the moment,” said a national democratic strategist. “Trump has somehow offered that, and even if it’s great to capitalize on it – and I’m glad that people are – I would warn the demons to think it’s a hot ticket to everything.”
For the Republicans, it is recognized that it will be practically impossible to turn the page on this story so early, especially since it started with an internal maga rift.
“Short of a war or a news event that changes life,” said an ally of Trump, “I don’t know what does the trick.”
The Republican leaders of the Congress have so far eluded a bipartite thrust to demand the release of Epstein files, and the president of the Mike Johnson room, R-La., postpone his room early For its annual recess in August, the Democrats forced multiple difficult votes on the subject in a committee.
They obtained a victory on Wednesday, when three Republicans joined the Democrats on a sub-comity of surveillance of the Chamber to vote for Aspiration The Ministry of Justice for Epstein files.
And with the Republican representative Thomas Massie, from Kentucky, and the Democratic representative Ro Khanna, of California, threatening to force a voting on the room on the files with a procedural maneuver, rarely used, a role of role can be inevitable in the fall.
Kevin Olaasanoye, Democrat Stratège and former executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said that considerable attempts by the White House to divert from the Epstein saga were obvious. In addition to the Trump’s betrayal Obama accusation, the Trump administration, during last week, published files on the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who was murdered in 1968, and asserted – In contradiction of past probes – which Russia has not tried to interfere in the 2016 elections.
“They throw everything against the wall,” he said. “It is a question of emphasizing the hypocrisy of what the Republicans have done. They say one thing, and they are literally in the air open by doing another.”