Between his effective takeover of Washington, D.C., and empty gestures like faux-banning flag-burning, Donald Trump has successfully bounced his Jeffrey Epstein scandal from mainstream news headlines. But there are still signs that the larger American public — including the conspiracist portion of Trump’s MAGA base — is not yet ready to move on. It remains true that the child sex predator once described Trump as his “closest friend” and that the White House has reneged on promises the president made during the 2024 campaign to release the voluminous FBI files collected over the course of two federal investigations into Epstein for sex crimes against minors.
Trump’s reason for the evasion is not mysterious. As the Wall Street Journal reported in July, Attorney General Pam Bondi allegedly told the president that his “name appeared multiple times” in the Epstein files, and Trump appears determined to keep the public from knowing exactly what federal law enforcement had to say about him.
Trump and congressional Republicans have been trying to create the illusion of releasing information. But they’ve actually been suppressing it through strategies like issuing a blaze of subpoenas for testimony from former Democratic officials to create a smokescreen of activity — all the while not actually doing anything meaningful. By far, the most controversial of the efforts at faking transparency has been the interview of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend and convicted co-conspirator, who is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for sex trafficking minors — although it’s a stretch to call what she offered to Deputy Attorney General (and former Trump defense attorney) Todd Blanche an “interview.” Instead, Maxwell served up a bunch of lies and deflections that he mostly accepted at face value. In a seeming reward for her actions, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison, which is typically not an option for convicted sex offenders.
But Trump got what he must have wanted: Maxwell claimed she never saw him do anything “inappropriate” and even, laughably, denied Trump and Epstein’s well-documented close friendship. What is immediately apparent to anybody of good faith is that her word on this matter means less than nothing.
But Trump got what he must have wanted: Maxwell claimed she never saw him do anything “inappropriate” and even, laughably, denied Trump and Epstein’s well-documented close friendship. What is immediately apparent to anybody of good faith is that her word on this matter means less than nothing.
In 2022, federal prosecutors wrote in Maxwell’s sentencing memorandum that she “has lied repeatedly about her crimes” and shows “an utter lack of remorse.” Maxwell continued this pattern in her interview with Blanche, claiming she didn’t recruit teen girls into sexual servitude to Epstein — even though that’s what she was convicted of doing. “During Todd Blanche’s bizarre interview, she is never challenged about her court-proven lies, providing her a platform to rewrite history,” wrote the family of the deceased Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s reported victims whose deposition was used as evidence in Maxwell’s trial.
And yet congressional Republicans and MAGA influencers are acting like this serial liar’s word is gold. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., claimed Maxwell “vindicated” Trump. MAGA conspiracist Rogan O’Handley declared this means Trump is “clean.” Trump traveling companion Laura Loomer told POLITICO that Maxwell’s testimony proved the president is “an honorable person.” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, announced that Maxwell showed “President Trump didn’t do anything wrong here.” (Jordan was recently deposed himself in a federal lawsuit brought by former Ohio State University student wrestlers, who have claimed they were sexually abused by the team’s doctor while Jordan served as an assistant coach for eight years. Many of the former athletes have alleged that the Ohio congressman was aware of the abuse and failed to protect them.)
The GOP’s willingness to take the word of a convicted felon, child sex trafficker and proven liar is due in large part to the desperation of the MAGA movement. Trump behaves so much like a guilty person that they will cling to any shred of “evidence,” no matter how ridiculous, to hide the obvious from themselves.
But their complicity also has a lot to do with Maxwell’s gender. Throughout society, there persists this notion that women are inherently kinder and gentler than men. As I wrote last week, this stereotype reaches ludicrous heights on the right, so much that they imagine Melania Trump, of all people, as a saintly figure. Outlets like Newsmax have even gone so far as to portray Maxwell as possibly “innocent,” as if she were just a dumb bunny wrapped up in Epstein’s schemes, instead of an eager co-conspirator.
What’s especially unsettling here is how Maxwell’s strategy to help Trump resembles her tactics in recruiting victims for Epstein. In both cases, she has used her gender to create assumptions that she’s safe and reliable. She allowed her targets to put their trust in her so she could exploit them for the benefit of the man for whom she’s hustling. When Maxwell was with Epstein, she approached teenage girls and offered to “help” them get better jobs. They went along with it because they weren’t afraid of a woman as they might have been with a man. What’s frustrating is that, on average, women are safer than men, who do commit crimes at much higher rates than women. But as the Maxwell case shows, averages aren’t promises. There are plenty of female criminals, even if there are fewer of them than men.
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Maxwell is now playing the same trick with MAGA conspiracy theorists: She’s using her gender to lull them into believing a story that falls apart under even the slightest scrutiny. (For instance, Maxwell claimed the photo of her posing with Giuffre and Prince Andrew is “literally a fake.” She doesn’t even try to make her lies sound credible.) But because she’s a woman, it’s easier for some to ignore the actual facts and just assume she is honest — when she very much is not.
There’s an obvious difference here. When Maxwell was working with Epstein, the teenage targets of her lies were undeniably victims. Now, when she appears to be doing Trump’s bidding, it’s safe to say her intended audience is complicit in their own deception. They are letting themselves sign off on this B.S. because they find her dishonest narrative more comfortable than the nagging recorded facts about Trump and Epstein’s relationship — and the even more disturbing implications that Trump could be hiding what the FBI found when they went digging.
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It’s also telling that the MAGA audience is awfully selective in what women they choose to listen to and believe. FBI investigators say they have discovered over 1,000 women and girls who were allegedly victimized by Epstein and Maxwell. Many of the victims have been actively communicating with the press, begging Republicans and the Justice Department to prioritize them over the desires of a convicted sex criminal like Maxwell. Despite all the claims of wanting “transparency,” Bondi, the White House and congressional Republicans have shown no interest in listening to victims. Somehow, House Republicans thought to subpoena Hillary Clinton about the Epstein case, but they have not asked a single victim to speak about what she experienced. Blanche interviewed Maxwell for two days, but he apparently hasn’t even considered talking to the women whose testimony helped convict her.
This, too, fits into the right’s distorted gender stereotypes. Women are considered especially trustworthy and safe, but only if they are complying with what men want from them — in this case, Maxwell offering the preposterous claim that Trump was a “gentleman in all respects.” If women resist men, however, they are seen as quarrelsome and disobedient, and no longer trustworthy. This dangerous model is generally convenient when denying or downplaying sexual abuse, because victims who speak out are easy to dismiss as troublemakers.
In this case, the right’s notions of “good” versus “bad” womanhood reveals a deep sickness. It renders a convicted child sex predator as trustworthy when she’s compliant with what male authorities want from her, while actual victims are brushed aside. MAGA’s stereotypes make for a perfect inversion of reality — especially because delusion is the state in which they need to live.
