Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

There is a clear link between media coverage of the child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s files and Trump’s deployment of Federalized National Guards and Marines into the Democratic-leaning cities of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Trump has also promised to send troops into other cities that heavily voted for Democrats. These actions will divert public and media attention away from ongoing calls to release the files that the government holds.

Trump is more afraid that an embarrassing connection to Epstein might be exposed than he is about Democrats filing lawsuits or the fact that 47% of adults nationwide disapprove of him sending Marines into L.A. Public opinion doesn’t weigh as heavily as maintaining support from the MAGA base. These supporters are mostly rural and small-town residents, not people from big cities. They aren’t worried about troops in large cities, but they do want to uncover the hidden, nefarious details in the Epstein files.

Trump knows that his supporters care more about providing safety and moral stability for their families than about constitutional limits on his power. By attacking Democrats as immoral, anti-family, corrupt, and weak on crime—especially by accusing them of tolerating pedophilia—he promises to remove these terrible people from government.

Trump joined the conspiracy movement to help him become president.

Trump promoted the extreme Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which surfaced in late 2016 after WikiLeaks published the unsecured Gmail account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, just six weeks before the election. The alt-right conspiracy collective, QAnon, weaponized Pizzagate as part of its overarching campaign to attract support for President Donald Trump, according to research done by sociologist Paul Bleakley of Middlesex University, UK.

QAnon continued to promote the Pizzagate theory throughout Trump’s first term. They claimed that a group of Democratic Party leaders, including Clinton, was involved in ritual Satanic abuse of children at a pizza place in Washington, DC. More importantly, these were the elites running the deep state that Trump was trying to dismantle. Benefiting from this theory, Trump didn’t see a downside–until Epstein’s arrest in July 2019.

Trump was once close to Epstein, with pictures showing the two together, next to their wives, all smiling for photos. However, after Epstein’s arrest, Trump stated he “was not a fan” of Epstein and had a falling out long before the arrest. When Epstein, alone in his cell, was found dead—later deemed a suicide by the FBI—Trump called for a “full investigation.” Additionally, several right-wing figures called for examining his death and releasing information from his trial. Among the most vocal was the current FBI Director.

Kash Patel and his Deputy Director, Dan Bongino, called for the federal government to release Jeffrey Epstein’s “list” before Trump appointed them to their current positions, where they are now leading the investigation to find that list. Patel criticized the Republican-led House for failing to obtain “Epstein’s list” in December 2023, telling right-wing commentator Benny Johnson, “What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can’t get the list?”

In another interview that month, which has come back to haunt him, Patel told BlazeTV host Glenn Beck about Epstein’s “black book,” saying the FBI had the book. “That’s under direct control of the director of the FBI,” which he now heads. In 2023, Bongino said on his podcast, “Listen, that Jeffrey Epstein story is significant; please do not let that story fade away. Keep your focus on this.” He also amplified claims that the government was hiding information about Epstein’s associates and death.

Even just before winning a second term, Trump said on “Fox & Friends Weekend” in 2023 that if he were elected president, he guessed he would release the Epstein files, even “though it had phony stuff in it”. A weak and timid response compared to what he had previously said. That was a clear sign that he thought he might face a tough choice if his name was too closely linked to Epstein’s activities in the files.

A timeline of how the Epstein Files challenged Trump’s power during the first year of his second term.

In February 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi told John Roberts of Fox News that the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients was “sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.” To quell the rising interest in what was in the Epstein files, Trump invited 15 right-wing influencers to the White House on Thursday, Feb 27th, to receive “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” binders provided by Attorney General Bondi. After some complained about their value, Bondi admitted that the information in them was already public afterwards when they complained.

Complaints also came from Trump’s strongest Congressional allies, who felt disappointed by his weak response. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) posted on February 27 on X,**“**THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment, GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!” A post that received 4.6 million views.

After the initial backlash from Trump allies about not receiving enough Epstein files, Trump gradually started to downplay the Epstein documents, leaving others to comment. In early March 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that Americans would “get the full Epstein files,” although with some redactions, promising that “everything’s going to come out to the public.”

On April 22, during an Oval Office interview, when asked when the files would be released, Trump said, “I don’t know. I’ll speak to the Attorney General about that.” But then he showed a hint of where he was headed on this issue, beginning to call the whole Epstein files affair a “hoax” and saying that the Democrats had fabricated it.

A meeting with Bondi inMay (there’s no public record of the exact date) took place, during which Bondi told Trump that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and ABC News. This initiated a deflection campaign aimed at shifting attention away from the Epstein files and toward the most dramatic action Trump could take to overshadow concerns and appeal to his MAGA base.

That month, during his second term, Trump publicly mentioned deploying the National Guard to cities for the first time. He initially moved them into D.C. However, later in May, during an Oval Office press conference, he indicated the possibility of expanding deployments to other cities, specifically naming Chicago and New York.

Junedidn’t start well for Trump. On June 7, Elon Musk posted on his personal X account, which has over 224 million followers, that President Donald Trump was “in the Epstein files.” This was before Bondi’s May meeting with Trump was made public by the White House or media outlets.

That same day,June 7, Trump sent 2,000 federalized California National Guards to Los Angeles following protests over ICE raids. They were there to protect federal property and personnel, not to conduct civilian policing, which they were prohibited from doing under the section of the law that Trump cited. A little later, he added 700 active-duty Marines. Was Trump, trumping Musk with the help of soldiers he commandeered from California and the Department of Defense? It worked – Trump captured the headlines and overshadowed media’s interest in Epstein.

Trump likely felt that he finally met his MAGA supporters’ demand to release the Epstein files in June. Therefore, on July 6, the Justice Department and FBI issued an unsigned joint memo stating they have no evidence that Epstein kept a “client list.” Axios reported the story the same day.

The next day, serious cracks appeared in the MAGA movement. On July 7, Trump ally Mike Lindell posted on X, “As trusted voices like @FBIDDBongino, @FBIDirectorKash, and @AGPamBondi align with the official story, many are asking: Who’s still willing to demand real answers?” MAGA influencer Rogan O’Handley, known as DC Draino, also shared on X, “We all know this is a shameful cover-up to protect the most heinous elites.”

On Tuesday,July 8, Tucker Carlson, who attracts millions of views for his posts, sharply questioned the reliability of the memo. Speaking with journalist Saagar Enjeti, Carlson said, “Pam Bondi … went on television [and] said, ‘We have the truth and we’re gonna give it to you.’” Trump responded to Carlson’s poke at him, saying it was “unbelievable” that Americans were still talking about Epstein, urging the public to move on.

Cracks also emerged within Trump’s closest circle. On Wednesday, **July 9,**during a meeting with Bondi and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino expressed frustration about the decision not to release any more Epstein files. Until that meeting, Bondi, Patel, and Bongino had all supported releasing additional files. Shortly after the meeting, Patel and Bongino reluctantly adopted the party line that there was nothing more to uncover in the Epstein files.

Having dealt with an inside-the-palace revolt, Trump moved to rally his base. On July 15, he called some of his supporters “weaklings” who were being influenced by Democratic “bullshit” about Epstein, and stated he no longer wanted their support.

Key MAGA influencers were not so easily controlled. Two days later, on July 17, Carlson told NPR host Steve Inskeep, “The fact that the U.S. government, the one that I voted for, has said case closed; shut up, conspiracy theorist, was too much for me.” Then, on **July 20,**Congressman Tim Burchett publicly called for the release of the Department of Justice’s evidence against Epstein during a televised interview.

On July 21, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said that if the DOJ didn’t release more information on Epstein, his supporters would no longer back Trump. This was despite Trump having requested the unsealing of grand jury testimony in Epstein’s criminal case.

Trump was in such serious trouble for stalling on the Epstein files that a Quinnipiac poll in July showed nearly two-thirds of voters disapproved of his handling, including more than one-third of Republicans.

With Trump’s base splintering, the war against blue cities begins in August.

At the end of July, Trump’s allies were losing patience with him over the Epstein files. He believed he could soothe their concerns by saying,” I have asked the Justice Department to release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to Court Approval.” He knew the court wouldn’t release them, so he could blame them for halting the process.

Some MAGA Republicans kept pressing for the Feds to release more information beyond what was in the testimonies. Trump and the Republican Party couldn’t afford to lose these supporters. Some MAGA Republicans kept pressing for the Feds to release more information beyond what was in the testimonies. Trump and the Republican Party couldn’t afford to lose these supporters. A University of California at Davis 2022 studyshowed that 34% of all self-identified Republicans who voted for Trump could be classified as MAGA, and after Trump’s election, it increased to 52%.

To keep his white MAGA base loyal, despite issues with the Epstein files, Trump probably understood that launching a domestic militarized crackdown on the corrupt and crime-heavy Democratic blue cities might achieve that. Hey, they never voted for him, and few Republicans lived there.

Additionally, fighting crime is a significant win for Trump. The fear of crime runs deep in Republican ranks compared to the Democrats. A Gallup poll conducted in October 2024 found 78% of Republicans viewed crime in the US as an extremely or very serious problem. Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey from April 2024 found that 68% of Republicans believe that reducing crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress. This compares to 47% of Democrats.

Unable to get unshackled to those damn files, a serious incident occurred in the streets of Washington D.C. that ignited Trump’s long-held inclination to use federal officers to clean up the corruption in many Democratic controlled cities.

On August 3, a 19-year-old former staffer of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was assaulted in an attempted carjacking in Washington, D.C. Trump, always the entrepreneur, realized he had just been given an opportunity to respond dramatically and make headlines.

Eight days later, on **August 11,**Trump announced the deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., with his intention to place the city’s police department under federal control to combat rising crime. There had been many prior criminal incidents more severe than this one, but the timing was perfect for Trump. He called the statistics from the Feds and the City showing that violent crime has declined precipitously since a spike in 2023, a “total fraud,” without providing evidence.

On August 22, Trump threatened to send the National Guard to Chicago and New York. However, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon had been planning weeks earlier to deploy the National Guard and possibly active-duty troops to Chicago.

A pattern was emerging with Trump sending federalized troops into cities where most residents were minorities: New York, 69%; Chicago, 61%; Baltimore, 74%; D.C., 61%; and Los Angeles, 71%. Would Trump’s mainly white MAGA voters criticize him for deploying military force into these cities?

Would residents of Ohio’s capital, Columbus, and Tennessee’s capital, Nashville, which have higher rates of violent crime than Washington, D.C., and predominantly white residential populations, welcome armed soldiers patrolling their cities? Nonetheless, their Republican Governors are sending their state’s National Guard members to D.C. to make the streets safer from crime instead to their own capitals that have more violent crime. They wouldn’t think of having their capitols occupied by armed National Guard units patrolling, as Trump has directed the Guard to do in the nation’s capital.

As Trump’s deployment of federal troops into Democratic-led cities gains momentum, the responsibility of handling Epstein’s lists falls to Trump ally and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer.

He plans to take witness testimony during the committee’s investigation into Epstein in August and September. The DOJ sent batches of Epstein-related redacted documents to Comer’s committee, but Democrats on the committee say most of them had already been publicly released.

Meanwhile, MAGA and Republican Trump allies who criticized Trump for slow walking the release of critical information are now thanking him for cooperating. Trump, by releasing these documents and tapes of his former personal attorney interviewing Epstein’s convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, seems to have turned the tide in his favor.

Democrats cannot ignore why the Epstein files matter so much to Trump’s MAGA supporters. They believe a deep state elite is working to weaken Trump’s power, which is their shield from the evil done by that elite. But what if Trump is now part of that deep state elite? His decision not to release any significant Epstein files, especially after he and his handpicked cabinet members claim they don’t exist, raises questions.

Comer’s strategy is to drown those questions with a flood of irrelevant material and then claim the investigation has explored all options. Democrats on Comer’s committee have limited ways to challenge his decisions. Surprisingly the Republicans on the committee, after weeks of pressure from Oversight Committee Democrats, issued a subpoena for a slew of documents held by Epstein’s estate. This is an obvious effort from the Republicans to build credibility with Trump supporters that had been criticizing Trump and them.

Trump and Comer work together to link Democrats like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates to being in Epstein’s circle. However, it’s clear that Trump was deeply involved and would suffer the most if records showed how close he was. For example, how often did he fly on Epstein’s personal jet, Lolita, which was used to transport visitors to his private island for illicit activities?

Even with the release of new information, after the FBI has redacted all mention of Trump, as Bloomberg News reported, it is highly unlikely that anything not already in the public domain will be learned about Trump’s relationship to Epstein. However, there is one caveat: Trump could agree to let his name out or sign a privacy waiver. Don’t count on that happening, unless there is a MAGA insurrection against the Republican establishment that is defending Trump.

The bottom line for Democrats is that while they clearly need to oppose Trump’s militarization of urban police, they also should work to explore how Trump is connected to the deep state that ignored or even concealed Epstein’s worst acts. That is the sharpest lance they have for piercing the MAGA’s self-imposed denial that Trump is not part of the new deep state trying to reshape the country to benefit an elite rather than the rest of us, including his followers.

The post The Art of Deflection: Trump Sent Troops Into Cities Not to Fight Crime But to Deflect From the Epstein Files appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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