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The Free Press
The Epstein Conspiracy Theorists Will Never Be Satisfied
The Epstein Conspiracy Theorists Will Never Be Satisfied
Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein, and musician Michael Bolton are seen in Palm Beach, Florida, in February 2000. (Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)
Waving away questions about Epstein, the president sounded like the deep state he had run against in 2016 and again in 2020.
By Peter Savodnik
07.11.25 — U.S. Politics
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The Free Press
The Free Press
The Epstein Conspiracy Theorists Will Never Be Satisfied

The MAGA revolution—haunted by the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein—is eating its own. No one should be surprised.

It started in the summer of 2020. That was when Donald Trump did something American presidents usually don’t do: publicly question his attorney general—and, in particular, his finding that the sex trafficker had committed suicide in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, in Lower Manhattan, in August 2019.

The president suggested, without offering evidence, that the truth was murkier and more sinister. “Was it suicide?” Trump, then facing a tough reelection battle, mused in an interview. “Was he killed?”

Trump’s remarks were couched in an off-the-cuff comment about Epstein’s partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, who had been charged with helping Epstein procure underage girls and who was convicted in 2021 and is now serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida.

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Peter Savodnik

Peter Savodnik is senior editor at The Free Press. Previously, he wrote for Vanity Fair, as well as GQ, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Wired, and other venues—reporting from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, South Asia, and across the United States. His book, The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union, was published in 2013.

Tags:
Donald Trump
Politics
Crime
Celebrity
Jeffrey Epstein
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