Opinion
By Jeff Childers
2/28/25
Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday. It’s also the end of the first full month of Trump’s second term as President of the United States. I was all set to tackle an irreverent ‘first 40 days’ roundup when the Administration fumbled a Jeffrey Epstein-sized hand grenade into the national conversation. Was it Trump’s first mistake—or was it a genius masterstroke? A C&C special edition.
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Let’s try to make some sense out of yesterday’s Epstein catastrophe. Newsweek’s headline blared, “Jeffrey Epstein file release “debacle” unites both sides.” Was the disastrous non-disclosure an unforced error —case not closed— or are there pieces we should try to connect into a fascinating flex by the Trump team?
Let’s start with the obvious. We happen to know a lot about Epstein— no thanks to our so-called law enforcement agencies. Intrepid independent journalist and author Whitney Webb wrote a dense, two-volume encyclopedia titled, One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein, Vols.1 and 2. You might call Whitney the nation’s Epstein Specialist.
But several broad areas —all controlled by said law-enforcement agencies— remain lodged in inky darkness. First, who ran Epstein? Nobody believes that the shady prep school science teacher suddenly became a billionaire “international man of mystery” through his own genius. At least I’ve never heard anyone make the argument, and if I did, I would probably laugh hard enough to cough up my left kidney.
Was Epstein run by CIA? Mossad? The Mafia? All three, working together?
Second, what was he really up to? Epstein’s wing-woman and deputy sex wrangler —his handler?— was Madame Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of British media scion Robert Maxwell. Daddy Maxwell was deeply tied to British MI6, the CIA, and Mossad. In her spare time, Ghislaine also ran a bunch of bizarre “international charities,” including one intended to build a giant underwater city (a joint venture with the Clinton Foundation). She even had a submarine driver’s license. I am not making that up. It’s classic Bond villain stuff. And I would bet a year’s salary —plus my kid’s bicycles— that Maxwell’s charities were funded with USAID money, one way or another.
It gets weirder. Epstein has been connected, through his own words, to bizarre theories of genetic experimentation. Starting around 2006 —right before his fruitless Florida prosecution— the international mystery man was busily adding brilliant scientists like Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, and AI pioneer Marvin Minsky to his existing collection of politicians and billionaires. Why? Why did his New Mexico ranch property include “upscale features” like a basement dental chair?
Third, the all-consuming question of greatest public interest: Which elites who hung around with him used Epstein’s sex trafficking “services?” It is not just morbid curiosity. The question cuts directly to the heart of the nation’s two-tiered justice system. You and I can be prosecuted for failing to report a $600 Venmo payment for selling a used scooter. But apparently that very same system collaborates to protect well-connected rapists and pedophiles allowed to skate away without account.
None of them has been investigated, much less prosecuted. The obvious cover-up of elite criminals is itself evidence of the rotten foundations of federal “justice.” It has been left to the trafficked victims to sue in civil court.
Finally, where is all the evidence? Epstein was prosecuted several times. He did a stint in federal prison, where things went even more sideways. There should be hundreds of bankers’ boxes of accumulated documents. Where are the videos? Jeffrey’s jet and all his houses were completely wired to record every inch of areas where the action surely occurred. Where have those recordings gone? Who has them?
Where are his bank statements?
Presumably, the DOJ has that evidence. Maybe stored in the underwater city’s evidence locker. But anyway, Epstein is (allegedly) dead. Ghislaine is in prison, doing time in a low-security federal facility in Tallahassee. Locals call it Club Fed. (She is currently appealing to the Supreme Court. Good luck.) It’s been years, no new investigations have been announced, so give one good reason why the evidence is still being withheld.
I’ll wait.
Here is a reality that we all must confront. The forces arrayed against any disclosure of Epstein’s client list include the most powerful humans who have ever lived. It probably includes influential billionaires, established politicians, judges, lawyers, scientists, generals, kings, activists, mobsters, and possibly reptilians and the guy who prunes the White House rose bushes. Disclosure is no small thing. If it ever happens —and I mean ‘if’— it will be the greatest political accomplishment in history.
To say the odds are stacked against disclosure is like saying handing a two-year-old a permanent marker is bound to cause mischief.
I don’t say this to discourage you. It’s just the size of the job. There’s never been a bigger job. And the odds for success have never been worse. It is what it is.
Now let’s dive into the cesspool of current events.
🔥 In case you missed yesterday’s excitement, here’s the short version. Trump promised throughout his campaign to release the Epstein files (along with other key files, like JFK’s). His appointees, like new Attorney General Pam Bondi, repeatedly vowed full disclosure. So yesterday, social media was shocked and titillated when joy-filled conservative influencers appeared outside the White House in photos triumphantly holding up disquietingly thin binders labeled “Epstein files-Phase 1.”
After a short period of “information embargo,” during which time the influencers announced upcoming live shows for the big reveal, and the public anxiously waited in dreadful anticipation, the influencers excitedly announced … a nothing burger. With cheese. The binder had only a couple hundred pages of redacted documents that were all publicly available in unredacted form.
In other words, nothing we haven’t already seen. No names. No videos. Nada.
Rage ensued. And who could blame us for feeling enraged? Headline from schadenfreude-filled Hollywood Reporter, published at 2:45am this morning:
So … what on Earth? Did the Trump Team finally shoot itself in the foot? Is the campaign promise broken? Well, this is where things start to get … weird.
🔥 A few hours after the big binder show unfolded outside the White House, a Pam Bondi memo written in tones of quiet fury was leaked to social media.
Pam’s curt memo was addressed to newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel (who has also repeatedly and loudly promised Epstein disclosure). She wrote, “Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession
of thousands of pages of documents related to Epstein. Despite repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files. When we spoke yesterday, you were just as surprised to learn this new information.”
Pam gave Kash till this morning at 8am to cough up the complete Epstein file. “I am also directing you,” Pam’s letter continued, “to conduct an immediate investigation into why my order to the FBI was not followed. You will deliver to me a comprehensive report of your findings and proposed personnel action within 14 days.”
In other words, a private letter between Pam and Kash somehow immediately found its way to all over social media. Fox News ran segments focusing on the Southern District of New York (SDNY) FBI’s field office, pointing out that James Comey’s daughter was the SDNY Assistant US Attorney who handled both the Epstein and Maxwell cases, and that the SDNY FBI office was run by James Dennehy — who infamously directed his staff to “dig in” after Trump’s election.
CLIP: Fox’s Jesse Waters expresses anger and skepticism over SDNY team (1:39).
For her part, Pam went on conservative media last night, appearing on Mark Levin’s show, and throwing SDNY under the Epstein bus:
CLIP: Pam Bondi blames SDNY for hoodwinking her and the country (1:17).
Everyone was talking about it. Mega-podcaster Tim Pool is a pretty smart guy, which is one reason people enjoy his show. He’s beginning to catch on to the way Trump 2.0 does things. He spoke to several of the influencers (he didn’t say who) who were at the White House yesterday for a completely different reason. Tim said they reported that the binder event was impromptu, a surprise.
CLIP: Tim Pool speculates over the reason for the Epstein influencer event (3:59).
Pool speculated that the binder show was meant for the media — not for us. Reporters took rolls of film of the influencers and the binders and everyone paid attention. It instantly became the world’s top story at the speed of social media, which couldn’t stop speculating about it.
Tim was right to suspect an ulterior motive.
If Pam Bondi wanted to set up a problem-response-solution giving Kash Patel justification for cleaning house in SDNY, this one-day media operation combined with her leaked letter was perfectly fit for purpose. Whatever Kash does next will forever be framed in the narrative garb of getting to the bottom of the Epstein coverup.
That’s just the first and most obvious possibility. Now let’s pull the camera back out a little bit more. What else was happening at the White House while the Trump Team was staging the dramatic Epstein non-event?
🚀 ABC ran its version of the story under the snooze-inducing headline, “Takeaways from Keir Starmer’s trip to Washington.” The sub-headline pluckily added nothing, saying, “Prime Minister Keir Starmer has landed back in Britain with the satisfaction of a tricky mission not quite accomplished, but off to a flying start.”
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his “negotiating team” arrived at the White House yesterday just as the surprise Epstein non-disclosure show was starting to be teased. Starmer’s goal was, on behalf of all Europe, to “persuade” President Trump to return to fighting with Russia and send hundreds of billions more to Ukraine.
Europe is like an insane, unfaithful girlfriend who is always trying to convince you to go fight her maniac, motorcycle-ganged ex-boyfriend. No tactic is too underhanded, dirty, or emotionally manipulative for her. She is totally obsessed with it. Sometimes, you wonder whether the only reason she’s with you is to get you to fight him. Sometimes, you even catch yourself thinking you might stand a chance. And then you sober up.
That’s Europe. Our insane, unfaithful girlfriend. She wants us to go fight Russia.
Sorry, but Starmer even sits like a girl. Look at that picture above again. The Prime Minister came to sweet-talk —and probably threaten— President Trump, but he had no idea what he was messing with. He found out, though.
🔥 What the British are missing is doom. Doom is sitting, cross-legged, right in front of their faces. Trump has no reason to love the Brits. He has every reason to hate them. He probably hates them even more than they hate Putin.
I do not know Trump’s mind or his heart. But look at the facts. Trump’s first term, and the cascade of post-presidency criminal prosecutions, were ginned up by a lowlight named Christopher Steele. Steele used to work for MI6, the UK’s version of the CIA, as its Russian Desk director. Nobody credible believes Steele is out of MI6, for the same reason that ex-CIA employees who remain in good graces never really leave the CIA.
In his totally imaginary and now debunked “dossier,” Steele even accused Trump of taking urine baths with Russian hookers. They won the prize. I can’t think of anything more offensive to say beyond that. And Steele’s literally unbelievable dossier was the pretext for the Deep State’s RussiaGate, impeachment, Crossfire Hurricane, and the Mar-a-Lago raid.
Even I can easily guess that Trump might have hard feelings about the whole “misunderstanding.” Sure, the CIA asked MI6 for its help. And sure, MI6 subbed the job out to their prior Russia desk agent. But MI6, not the CIA, was the “cutout” used to launder the Trump-Russia hoax—keeping it one step removed from direct U.S. government fingerprints. Crooked British teeth marks are all over the operation.
Just look at the President’s face:
Yikes.
🔥 What the British should have done is come clean. They should’ve already arrested Steele for election interference, misinformation, or drinking tea in a Chinese mug. Whatever. It’s not hard. They can arrest people for praying or mean tweets over there. And they should’ve already hand-delivered a massive report dripping with apologies and explaining how the whole thing happened and how it could never happen again.
But they are just like that tattooed, nose-ringed crazy girlfriend. They can’t think of anything except their ex-boyfriend, Rodimir Flutin. He’s getting away with everything! What they are not thinking about, but absolutely should be, is self-preservation. You with me so far?
🔥 Let’s chalk up what we do know about yesterday’s events. At some point yesterday morning, just before Trump’s meeting with Prime Minister Starmer, without prior notice, the White House rounded up a bunch of conservative influencers, handed them fake Epstein binders, paraded them before the rabid corporate press, and told them not to talk about any of it until after the meeting with Starmer was done.
Those are all facts.
You are probably wondering, what connects Starmer, Trump, and Epstein? I’ll tell you. One of Epstein’s highest-profile buddies was Prince Andrew. The men go way back. Andrew was a frequent Epstein visitor and plane-flier. Even after Epstein’s 2010 conviction for sex crimes, Andrew was photographed strolling with the mystery man in Central Park.
Doing the job the DOJ should have done, former sex-slave Virginia Guiffre sued Andrews, accusing the Prince of r-ping her over and over, as Epstein and Maxwell repeatedly trafficked her to his Royal highness, in Maxwell’s London townhouse, Epstein’s New York Mansion, and on Little St. James Island.
Andrew denied all guilt but settled with Virgina out of court for $12 million dollars. (Ahem. “Hush money.”)
The public backlash led to a few slaps on the wrist. Andrew stepped down from his royal duties. The Queen stripped his military titles. And he was, reportedly, excluded from future public royal events. It shows the Royals knew they had a problem.
If Virginia Giuffre’s allegations against Prince Andrew were conclusively confirmed—say through hard evidence like videos, emails, or unsealed testimonies—it would be devastating for both Andrew personally and for the British Royal Family as an institution. Not inconceivably, it could shatter the British government, sending Starmer and his entire party to a political Siberian gulag.
During the exciting several hours following the moment when the Trump-loyal conservative pundits held up their binders for media cameras, nobody squirmed in their padded seats more energetically than did one Sir Kier Starmer.
🔥 So … was the hastily arranged Epstein binder spectacle a threat? A plain-as-day threat Trump delivered right before the British summit convened? A blunt message saying don’t threaten me, you nincompoops, because I will tear down the Royal Palace so fast it will make your tea-stained faces spin.
If I’m right, then Starmer fled Washington in a panic. That explains the corporate media’s muted coverage of the meeting (the NYT, for example, generously teased it in advance but ignored yesterday’s actual meeting). The Brits are frantically scrambling behind the scenes to figure out what Trump actually has on Epstein, Andrew, and their intelligence agencies.
The British Deep State, already caught once trying to sabotage the President, is out of leverage.
We can’t know for sure, but Trump’s flipped the geopolitical chessboard again. If the Epstein files are hostages locking Britain in a political chokehold, expect seismic shifts in U.S.-UK ties and the entire Epstein mess.
Crazy, wonderful times.
Have a fabulous Friday! We’ll knit the threads of essential news together again right here, same time, tomorrow morning. See you then.Upgrade to paid
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
