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The Epstein Scandal Is Getting Much Worse. Don’t Look Away

Coverage of the Epstein scandal is starting to wane, we can't let the story fade from the conversation.

Dan Pfeiffer

Aug 7

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Donald Trump is desperately trying to turn the page on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal that has engulfed his presidency for the last several weeks. Questions about the government-wide effort to hide his close ties to America’s most notorious sex trafficker continue to dog Trump everywhere he goes — but you can feel the intensity of the questions waning with every passing day.

August is often when scandals dissipate. With Congress out of town, it’s sleepy season in the nation’s capital. The media, like everyone else, takes time off. The pace slows down. Without congressional Democrats in town to drive the story, the press starts to lose focus.

One of the dynamics sustaining media interest in the Epstein story has been criticism from some of Trump’s most prominent online supporters. The press loves an intra-party fight, and after a decade of slavish loyalty to Trump, it’s been quite notable to see so many right-wing media personalities turn on him over Epstein. According to a report in the Washington Post, Trump has had a modicum of success getting right-wing media to stop hitting him on the issue.

I’ve seen other data suggesting the Post may be overstating the case, but they’re right that a civil war has broken out.

I’m very concerned that the media — and some Democrats who would prefer to focus on other issues — are going to move on at the exact moment the scandal is becoming more insidious. We simply cannot let Trump, his administration, and Republicans in Congress cover up a president’s ties to a child sex trafficker.

Let me state that again: the President used to party with a child sex trafficker.

Resetting the Stakes

Since America is in its goldfish era — where our collective attention span shrinks by the day — I find it helpful to periodically restate the central facts of the Epstein scandal. Otherwise, the story devolves into a tale of broken campaign promises and hypocritical messaging, instead of what it actually is: a potentially criminal conspiracy to protect a president from accountability.

The Epstein scandal is not about a broken campaign promise. It’s much bigger than that...