Not so long ago, the release of thousands of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, replete with embarrassing photos of Bill Clinton and other celebrities, would have set a TPUSA conference ablaze.
We are in a different time now. Most of AmericaFest, an annual gathering of the right thrown by the conservative youth group founded by Charlie Kirk, received the latest release of a trove of Epstein files with outright indifference.
“I didn’t see the new release,” said one attendee wearing a red MAGA hat. “The Friday before Christmas and no one cared,” joked another. “Oh, they did?” responded a third. When I explained the new revelations, they were dismissive. “Whoever died on Epstein island, who was taken advantage of, there’s more people in your neighborhood Planned Parenthood being put to death,” said one.
On Friday, Donald Trump’s Justice Department released more than 13,000 documents relating to investigations into Epstein, the notorious financier and sex criminal who died by suicide while awaiting trial for trafficking minors in 2019. The partial release, which was compelled by an order from Congress, was heavily redacted. It included a conspicuous number of photos of Clinton, with little sight of Trump, leading critics to accuse the administration of selective release and redaction. Epstein’s victims quickly expressed their fury over what they said was an inadequate disclosure.
Trump is mentioned in the dump. One document, which has been previously reported, details an alleged interaction between a child who accused Epstein of abuse and Trump. The girl, who is not identified, claimed that in 1994, when she was 14, Epstein brought her to Mar-a-Lago. “This is a good one, right?” Epstein told Trump when he introduced the two, according to the girl. Trump, she said, smiled and nodded in agreement.
The headliners at the TPUSA conference, held in Phoenix, Arizona this week, made no mention of the new documents. The only reference to the late sex criminal came Thursday night, when Ben Shapiro, in a diatribe against Steve Bannon, pointed out that he served as “a PR agent for Jeffrey Epstein.”
Eric Bolling, the conservative commentator and longtime Trump ally, told me the Trump base was tuning out of the Epstein story because “trust has been exhausted.”
“One side stopped trusting institutions a long time ago and the other keeps waiting for them to deliver,” he said. “Transparency was promised for years. What people got was a slow drip of useless distractions. Without trust and accountability, even explosive disclosures fall flat.”
