Happy Easter. Christ is risen from the dead (indeed, He is risen!) and the Epstein Files have been consigned to the tomb to never rise again. Rest in peace. Was there ever anything to be so concerned about in the end? If anything can be judged by their staying power, the Epstein thing couldn’t have been terribly important. What’s a couple torture videos between billionaires, after all?
The darkest thing about the three million heavily redacted files out of the six million the DOJ holds is how quickly they evaporated into the ether. For the treasure trove of evidence they seem to be, the way they churned through the news cycle like any old pulpy travesty or tragedy is astonishing. Nothing like sending Iran back to the stone age to divert the attention of planet earth, is there? Or should it be outrage over the gas pump? How about another do-si-do around the moon? Anything but the Epstein Files.
Granted, the Senate Judiciary Committee fomented over the files for a while, grilling Attorney General Pam Bondi who sputtered back like a belligerent, blonde sausage. But there was nothing to show for it. Nothing to show except for the show we are all a part of. The puppet masters continue their control-regime apace and the outcries are dying away, as they always do. The deepest silence of all, though, is Donald Trump’s—and to the devil’s delight.
The files include footage of Epstein being interviewed by Steve Bannon, which intended to highlight Epstein’s philanthropy and help sweep away his criminal record. In a line of questioning about why Epstein chose to work with so many corrupt individuals, Bannon suddenly asks him, “Do you think you’re the devil himself?” “Why would you say that?” Epstein smiles slightly, intelligently, and then replies, “No, the devil scares me.”
For a man who swings in satanic circles, that’s scary. The devil’s finest trick, according to the French poet Baudelaire, is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist; but to those he can’t trick, he would have your taciturn—if browbeaten—sanction. Of course, the devil prefers noise, but he also appreciates a certain silence—as in, the lack of objection or acknowledgment of the evil he labors to make the norm through mass acquiescence.
Silence is the devil’s trump card. He doesn’t want to proclaim himself too overtly, and he wants you to accept him with quiet complicity. And there’s a good deal of that don’t-tell silence from the most powerful man in the world, who is running a government that should expose and prosecute those who have ravaged the innocent. But the devil scares President Trump, too.
Silence is the devil’s trump card. He doesn’t want to proclaim himself too overtly, and he wants you to accept him with quiet complicity.Tweet ThisOne of the now infamous Epstein Files is an email from Epstein to his minxish abettor, Ghislaine Maxwell, in which he said that the “dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.” This, of all things, is a reference to a Sherlock Holmes story. In “The Adventure of Silver Blaze,” Holmes deduces the culprit by the circumstance that the watchdog didn’t bark on the night of the crime, pointing to its familiarity with the perpetrator.
What Epstein was referring to regarding Trump’s silence is not altogether clear. It could have been a comment on the “Teflon Don,” how Trump always avoided mention and implication regarding the Epstein victims and their accusations. Considering the time stamp, he could also have been musing how Trump never disavowed being an informant to the police during the Palm Beach investigation which led to Epstein’s conviction as a sex offender.
Donald Trump still hasn’t barked, and it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to peg him as a suspect. The leader of the free world should be outraged at the stench of such slavery—but he is not. He has been all too silent about what everyone should be talking about: the high-rolling pedophile ring of traffickers that hold the strings of money and power.
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” Trump has said incredulously. He’s been calling the Epstein Files a “Democrat hoax,” even though he admitted years ago that Epstein surrounded himself with beautiful women, many of whom were on the “younger side.”
The Epstein Files are anything but a hoax. They are a horror, and the sculptures by guerilla artist The Secret Handshake appearing on the National Mall of Trump and Epstein frolicking and flying Jack-and-Rose-style over the prow of the Titanic are wickedly and unwelcomingly incisive.
The Epstein Files are anything but a hoax. They are a horror.Tweet ThisTrump may say nonchalantly that he has nothing to hide, but his DOJ clearly does. It redacted victims and perpetrators alike in a compulsory, uneven, and even vindictive rollout that tried to make everyone want the Epstein Files to go away as much as Trump did. The files very likely incriminate Trump, but the blowback over his initial refusal to release them forced him to reveal some of them, and the Justice Department kept them all sufficiently stunning, yet unsubstantiated.
The ouster of AG Pam Bondi is more than likely another instance of Trump’s refusal to address the monsters that stalk among us. Trump’s firing of Bondi appears to be, in part, for her mishandling of the files—and she was pretty cringy: from her crowing that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk to review,” to saying there was no Epstein client list, to thumping that no files would be released, to yelling at Congress between redacted blocks that Trump was “the most transparent president in the nation’s history,” while reminding everyone that the Dow was over 50 thou (implying that the stock market would fall if those who ran the stock market fell).
Bondi was a mess. But, in all likelihood, her removal is a reward for a job well done (despite her failure to indict Trump’s political enemies), keeping the crosshairs off the rich and powerful people that Trump wishes to protect because he is one of them—and because he fears what could happen to him (or to his family) if the devilish details were released. These masters of our universe are so fearful—fearful of each other, fearful for what is at stake, and fearful of the one they have sold their souls to.
Bondi has done her DOJ duty in “releasing” the Epstein Files according to order in a show of being too loyal to the president, carrying out whatever he wants no matter how absurd or illegal. It destroyed her credibility—which is fine, since Trump doesn’t want any credibility around the Epstein files. Bondi protected them from the public to protect the people Trump wanted protected (probably including himself).
A new spring dawns on an old darkness that hardly retreats to caves and cracks as it used to—an evil that is beginning to grin smugly in the sun, not bothering to hide anymore before a people who have grown numb to it. Their silence can be counted as acceptance. Can yours?
Bondi protected them from the public to protect the people Trump wanted protected (probably including himself).Tweet ThisBe wary. No one can reasonably accept that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his prison cell. (The Mossad is slicker than that.) Whether he was murdered or is still alive is up for debate, and so it must be when the official narrative is clearly a lie. Question everything—or, alternatively, question nothing.
That is what the devils desire. The Epstein Files are becoming part of the fabric of conspiracy-theory entertainment. They have a Netflix series already, where everything is reduced to fantastic fluff, while Trump keeps up his “nothing to see here” shoulder-shruggery when there is clearly much to be seen that will never be seen because it would expose an evil whose admission would be totally unsupportable in society. (But have you seen the drawings for the new White House ballroom?) Trump is still the dog that didn’t bark, trying to divert attention by not sounding the alarm on the files.
The enormity of the files is only emphasized by their lack of emphasis, and it is the duty of Catholics to drill in on the truth as opposed to the news. Trump’s silence and inaction on the Epstein scandal might be tantamount to complicity and even guilt. The way he used Bondi as a sacrificial lamb doubles down on this view that he simply wants to protect the perpetrators in the files.
The news becomes old news far too quickly—to the detriment of human intelligence—which is the devil’s freshest and finest stratagem. It is his trump card, designed to bury his progress or else flash it as far too advanced to do anything about—so why even bother about it? Trump’s dogged silence should not be overlooked or Trumpsplained away—it is criminally eloquent and bespeaks the realm of sin that Catholics must conquer by the grace of the risen Christ.
In his first interview with Fox News, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “I think that to the extent that the Epstein Files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward.” The light of spring and the Resurrection will burst through this determined darkness, and Catholics must be bearers of that light.
As Mr. Holmes reminds us, “The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood”; but a resurrected people aren’t scared of the devil. Only dead things go along with the stream. We live in our God, and so we say: long live the Epstein Files. The game’s afoot. Release the hounds.
Do you really think that if Trump had been guilty of anything prosecutable, the corrupt DOJ under Biden would not have released it and charged him with anything they could find?
My goodness, such a silly screed. I expect better from Crisis.
With regrets that you found my opinion piece disappointing, I respectfully maintain that there is need for impassioned and pressured demand to expose the truth concerning evil actors clothed in immense power who prey upon the innocent and ignorant. If my outcry for this exposure is a silly screed, I can only say that it comes, though imperfectly, from a sincere desire for awareness and justice. God bless you and thank you for your comment.
I think what’s missing from this discussion is balance, and without that, the argument loses credibility.
To be clear, I don’t think everything Donald Trump says or how he says it is beyond criticism. Many Catholics were uncomfortable with his tone toward the Pope, and that’s a fair critique.
But the reverse also needs to be true if we’re being intellectually honest.
Pope Leo XIV has been very vocal in condemning the war with Iran, calling escalation “unacceptable” and urging political leaders to reject war.
At the same time, critics, including many Catholics, have pointed out that his messaging appears uneven, particularly in not equally emphasizing Iran’s well-documented human rights abuses or threats.
That perceived imbalance is what people are reacting to, not the idea of peace itself, which of course aligns with the Gospel.
There’s also a broader concern here: when a global religious leader speaks forcefully on one side of a geopolitical conflict, engages with certain political figures (meeting with Axelrod who is not even Catholic – a Dem strategist) and appears less engaged with others (he is American but can’t come for our 250th birthday?), it can create the perception, fair or not, of political asymmetry. And perception matters, especially at that level of influence.
On the Epstein issue, we should be careful not to overreach. The absence of prosecution is not proof of innocence but it’s also not proof of guilt. It simply means we should avoid drawing conclusions that go beyond the evidence.
What I do think is real and worth acknowledging is that reactions to Trump often become so emotionally charged that objectivity breaks down. People call it “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” and while the phrase is loaded, the underlying phenomenon is recognizable. That said, the opposite problem exists too, uncritical defense. Neither serves the truth.
This is exactly why Crisis Magazine is such a valuable platform. It has the opportunity to host serious, principled discussions where:
* political leaders are held accountable
* Church leaders are also open to respectful critique
* and both are evaluated against the same moral standard
If we want credibility as Catholics and as thinkers, we have to be consistent.
The standard should be simple:
apply truth, justice, and moral clarity evenly regardless of who it benefits.
My intention with this piece was not to present an imbalanced brood—though I fear it may have come off that way. I believe that a balanced discussion and credible argument would be more achievable if there were a balanced presentation of the truth regarding the files. As it is, there are only cloaks and daggers and lifted curtain corners. Too much remains hidden, which suggests to me that it won’t bear the light. From the little we have been shown, I don’t think it is necessarily imbalanced to presume that more and even greater evils lurk behind the redacted blocks and the unreleased files; evils that should be exposed and exorcised. Loud demand for that is warranted, in my opinion. Thank you for your comment. God bless you.
Epstein had been in his grave for about a year-and-a-half when Biden was inaugurated and through four long years of lawfare against Trump we heard nothing about Epstein’s depredations.
Then suddenly Trump was elected and Epstein came back to life. Why?
Well the hope was that there was some Trump/Epstein link that would destroy Trump’s reputation once and for all.
Never mind that the Biden Justice Department/FBI/CIA etc had come up with Zilch over four years of unfettered access to all the information available – there must be something there.
Turn south there isn’t anything there. Trump befriended Epstein in the 90’s m, they had a falling out and Trump banned him Mar-a-Lago in early 2000’s.
Turns out Trump marries his girlfriends. That dog won’t hunt.
But some still live out the Russia Collusion hoax. It’s what we don’t know that matters they tell us.
How to explain? Not hard: TDS.
On stilts.
Sadly, Crisis is circling the drain under the current management that is suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Forget the useful and thought provoking articles of yore; now the main purpose of Crisis is to bash Trump. If I wanted drivel like this, I could just visit one of the mainstream media sites. I’m out!
Too many Trump supporters respond to any criticism of Trump with “You have TDS!”, which is, frankly, cult-like behavior. Catholics should know that we should not put our trust in princes, instead recognizing that every politician is open to criticism, including Trump. And recently, Trump has done a lot for Catholics to be critical of, and so we will run articles critical of him.
And the TDS accusation is weak when you consider that “current management” (i.e., me) voted for Trump in 2024, publicly supported him during the campaign, and would love for him to succeed because I know how bad the Democrats are.
The accusation of cult-like thinking would have more impact if you actually addressed the points made.
Simply dismissing arguments as unworthy is not persuasive.
So, how exactly do you explain the fact that interest ignited in the Epstein files when Trump was elected after lying dormant for the four years of the Biden administration?
Mr. Jones,
I was replying to Mr. Miller, who made no argument – he simply said that “current management that is suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Regarding the points you made, you are rewriting history. The entirety of Trump’s team during the 2024 campaign said that the Epstein files were covering up nasty stuff and they had to be released. Even early in the administration they were still singing that tune. Then Trump pivoted around May 2025 to say it was a Democrat hoax. Sorry, but only Trump sycophants believe that. So the question becomes: why did Trump pivot and decide to change his position on this matter (just like he’s changed a number of other positions since last May)? There’s multiple possible explanations.
Personally, I don’t think the Epstein files likely indict Trump himself, although I wouldn’t completely rule out that possibility, especially considering how much he backtracked once it looked like they were actually going to come out. But like you said, I think that likely would have been revealed already by the previous administration. That doesn’t mean, however, that the Epstein files don’t implicate someone close to Trump, or someone very influential with Trump, or somehow wouldn’t harm his presidency (or more importantly, make Trump *think* it would harm his presidency). Again, there are multiple possible explanations.
Regardless of what’s driving it, Trump’s 180 on this issue alienated a lot of his supporters, and only Trump sycophants refuse to accept that *something* funny happened on the way to draining the swamp. What exactly it was, we don’t know, but we should be open to the possibility that Trump is compromised in some way.
My hope is that Trump returns to his 2024 self and his campaign promises. That’s what I voted for, and that’s what I still want. If you want to call that TDS, that’s fine, but it has as much power as the Left calling someone a racist at this point.
Eric
Eric,
With all respect, I am not rewriting history. My account of Bernstein being of no interest during the four years of the Biden administration and springing to life after Trump’s election is wholly accurate.
Rewriting history would be pushing the notion that full disclosure of the Epstein files was a Trump core policy position when in fact it was never mentioned by Trump except in response to a reporter’s question.
Even then, Trump equivocated saying things like he wasn’t opposed to it, you shouldn’t harm the innocent, etc.
That brings us back to the “what we don’t know/no smoke” speculation that passes for actual evidence in the fever swamps.
The fact remains that Biden had unobstructed access to the full files. It’s silly to speculate they would have ignored the evidence if Trump, or anyone near him, was implicated in any vulgarity.
Surely you can find something more important to think about.
Speculation presented as moral certainty isn’t serious analysis. I expect better from Crisis.
This is an opinion piece and opinions are often speculative—especially when there is a paucity of facts. Any overture suggesting moral certainty was not my intention. I may very well be wrong or have been off in my tone, but my hope was to ignite righteous indignation over the Epstein Files, which are seemingly fading into oblivion as if they were insoluble or didn’t matter. I have spent considerable time over them and their commentary, and so I don’t think my reactions are baseless or purely speculative. I pray that I do not cause further confusion, but rather, help to steel Catholics to take a side in the fight for something worth fighting for, namely, the files cultural importance, their release, and their serious investigation by law enforcement officials. Thank you for your comment. God bless you.