Epstein list brings a frenzy of Clinton and Trump conspiracies

Less than an hour before a trove of papers related to sex trafficking financier Jeffrey Epstein was unsealed Wednesday night, former President Donald Trump’s niece and longtime antagonist Mary Trump sent out a blast email titled “REVEALED: My Uncle & Epstein’s List” to her nearly 140,000 newsletter followers.

But, much like the release of Epstein documents this week, Mary Trump’s post revealed little.

Instead, the bestselling author rehashed the former president’s onetime friendship with Epstein and mentioned an unnamed woman who had made lurid abuse claims against Donald Trump before withdrawing her case.

At the other end of the dial, popular conservative commentator Glenn Beck told his 450,000 paid subscribers that “we know Bill Clinton’s mentioned 50 times” in the Epstein documents, while failing to note that the prominent Democrat’s name appeared repeatedly because of a legal argument over a witness’ truthfulness – and not because of any new claims of wrongdoing by Clinton.

The release of the long-anticipated Epstein files by a Manhattan federal judge has sparked a feeding frenzy by hardcore partisans and conspiracy theorists, fueled in part by misinformation and internet fakes – another example of surging political paranoia and mistrust as the U.S. enters a high-stakes election year, experts say.

Hoping for ‘the next big thing’ to bring down political enemies

“There’s a word for it: hopium,” said Mike Rothschild, an author who researches conspiracy movements. “It's this addictive hope that that the next big thing is going to come and – forget about all the failures – this is going to be the thing that finally brings down your enemy, whether your enemy is liberal or conservative.”

“That strain of unshakable belief," he said, ''it's a very human thing.”

As the release of the documents neared, speculation of what − and who − they might expose reached a boil. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said he expected to see congressional colleagues revealed as friends of Epstein. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel threatened to sue New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers for suggesting on ESPN that Kimmel would be named in the papers. (He wasn't.)

Related: ESPN issues apology for Aaron Rodgers' comments about Jimmy Kimmel on Pat McAfee Show

More: Jimmy Kimmel strikes back at Aaron Rodgers after he speculates comedian is on Epstein list

Red meat for haters of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump

The “Epstein list,” and the scandal surrounding the multimillionaire’s exploitation of teenage girls, offers plenty of red meat for partisans on the right and left.

Trump and Epstein were filmed and photographed together at parties, and in 2002 he praised the wealthy businessman as a "terrific guy.”

“He’s a lot of fun to be with," Trump told New York Magazine. "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

Clinton, like Trump, appears on flight logs for Epstein’s private jet. Clinton’s spokesman said in 2019, after Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, that the former president had flown on Epstein’s jet to destinations in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Both Clinton and Trump said after the 2019 arrest they were unaware of Epstein’s crimes and hadn’t spoken to him for more than a decade. Trump told reporters in the White House the two had fallen out. “I was not a fan,” he said.

And testimony in the papers released this week has discredited claims that Clinton was ever a guest at Epstein’s private 70-acre Caribbean Island, which he has always denied. But that hasn’t stopped social media personalities with huge audiences from stitching either Clinton or Trump – depending on the poster’s sympathy – to Epstein’s side.

Trump – despite his own partying with Epstein – helped drive the island narrative, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015: “Bill Clinton? Nice guy. A lot of problems coming up in the famous island with Epstein." Donald Trump Jr. boosted those claims this week in a post that received 2.7 million views.

Related: Judge denied Epstein accuser's request to depose Bill Clinton, 'Epstein list' records show

More: Jeffrey Epstein document release highlights his sprawling connections across states

The 'Epstein list' and Epstein conspiracies

Both former presidents have been accused of sexual misconduct. Clinton was impeached in 1998 over his affair with a White House intern. In May, a jury in a federal civil lawsuit found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in damages. He has appealed.

By Thursday afternoon, ahead of the release of another batch of Epstein documents, popular social media accounts were claiming that an Iowa school shooting earlier that same day had been staged to divert attention from potentially embarrassing disclosures in the Epstein papers.

That conspiracy theory points to a broader, and less partisan, mistrust of American elites and the conviction that powerful people will do anything to cover their tracks.

“I think there is the perception that Epstein ran in these rarefied circles, elites of society, of arts, and politics, culture, royalty – and that most of them somehow knew something about what was going on, didn't say anything, didn't do anything,” said Rothschild, the author of "Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories." “A lot of what's happening is this guilt by association, that anybody who had anything to do with Epstein is also linked to the worst things Epstein did.”

More: What's true and false about Jeffrey Epstein and the individuals on his list

On Thursday, Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who was pivotal in bringing Epstein down, took on her colleagues in the news media for downplaying the new documents.

“The way the Mainstream media is dismissing the Jeffrey Epstein files reminds me how it pretty much ignored the fact that Epstein molested dozens of girls in 2008 because, well, there was no proof,” Brown wrote on X (formerly Twitter), adding, “nothing here behind the curtain to examine, right?”

Brown was referring to a 2008 sweetheart deal that allowed Epstein to serve 13 months in a Florida jail on a single count of soliciting a minor for prostitution, ending a federal investigation in which he faced a potential life sentence. The prosecutor who signed off on that deal, Alex Acosta, later served in Trump’s Cabinet as U.S. labor secretary.

How did Jeffrey Epstein die?

Even Epstein’s 2019 death by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell has been spun as a murder instigated by either Clinton or Trump to cover up his crimes.

On Wednesday, Mary Trump referred to Epstein as having “allegedly committed suicide,” despite an investigation showing how lax supervision allowed Epstein to kill himself. Donald Trump, while president, retweeted a conservative poster's claim that Epstein had somehow been murdered by the Clintons – while in a federal detention center operated by Trump’s Justice Department.

More: Jeffrey Epstein suicide blamed on 'chronic problems' within Bureau of Prisons. What we know

Still: Someone was likely abusing children alongside Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein is dead and Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Every other prominent person who has been alleged in civil court proceedings to have joined in Epstein’s crimes – a list that notably doesn’t include either Clinton or Trump – has denied it, and no one else has been prosecuted.

“The public interest must still be served in learning more about the scale and scope of Epstein's racket to further the important goal of shutting down sex trafficking wherever it exists and holding more to account,” Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for one of Epstein’s victims, said this week. “The unsealing of these documents gets us closer to that goal.”

Related: Judge denied Epstein accuser's request to depose Bill Clinton, 'Epstein list' records show

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jeffrey Epstein documents stoke Clinton, Trump conspiracy theories