Trump can try and distract, but I still want to know what’s in the Epstein files

A social media post by the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. includes a photo of the slain civil rights icon and the words, “Now, do the Epstein files.”

That’s Bernice King’s clapback to President Donald Trump’s release of thousands of documents relating to the FBI’s surveillance of her father and his assassination in 1968.

She didn’t want the files released, and sees the timing for what it is: yet another attempt by Trump to try and steer the national conversation away from himself and his friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

I personally hadn’t been paying all that much attention to the situation surrounding Epstein, who prosecutors said killed himself in a federal prison cell in 2019 after being arrested on sex trafficking charges.

We’re in the dog days of summer and have plenty of things closer to home going on, given the District Council 33 strike, which is now over, the looming SEPTA crisis, and the ongoing gun violence in Philly.

Even so, my spidey senses went off earlier this month after the U.S. Department of Justice basically threw up its collective hands by announcing that although Epstein had more than 1,000 victims, there is no “incriminating ‘client list.’”

During his presidential campaign, Trump said he would release the Epstein files. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi told a Fox News interviewer that the Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now.”

I believed her, and remember thinking that now maybe we’d get to the bottom of this.

Then, on July 7, the Justice Department released a two-page memo basically saying there’s nothing there. If that’s true, then why did Bondi say she had a list on her desk this past winter? What happened to it? Was she lying then, or is she lying now?

Instead of answers, the American public has been subjected to literally one distraction after another.

On Sunday, Trump went on Truth Social and threatened to block the Washington Commanders’ stadium deal if the NFL team didn’t change its name back to the ethnic slur it had been. (He also called for the Cleveland Guardians to revert to its previous name, as well.)

Then, Trump posted what appears to be an AI-generated video of former President Barack Obama kneeling as he is handcuffed and arrested. In the video, a smiling Trump looks on as one of his campaign songs, “YMCA” by Village People, plays in the background. It’s weird, not to mention profoundly disturbing, to get a deepfake from a leader who has access to the nuclear codes.

This follows National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard’s trumped-up claim that Obama conspired to subvert Trump’s 2016 presidential election win by linking it to Russian influence. The lie prompted a rare rebuke from the nation’s first Black president.

“Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,” Obama spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush wrote. “But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”

Even MAGA stalwarts are outraged and see through the president’s repeated efforts to change the subject. They are demanding the Trump administration release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into the late financier.

“If you tell the base of people, who support you, of deep state treasonous crimes, election interference, blackmail, and rich powerful elite evil cabals, then you must take down every enemy of The People,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) wrote on the social media platform known as X. “If not. The base will turn and there’s no going back.”

She added: “Dangling bits of red meat no longer satisfies. They want the whole steak dinner and will accept nothing else.”

The issue has become such a political hot potato that the U.S. House recessed early for its monthlong summer break to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files.

Ultimately, no matter what the Trump administration throws at us, we are still going to come back to the Epstein saga. This is bigger than one person. It’s about power and sex trafficking and who gets away with what.

Epstein may be dead, but many of the powerful men with whom he associated and reportedly supplied with young girls are still around, and have never been brought to justice.

The Trump administration’s failure to make good on promises to release an Epstein client list and other documents only serves to fuel more demands for answers, which is why officials should finally release the files — like they did MLK’s.

If they are smart, they will — unless they can’t because Trump’s name is in there.