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I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be sucked into reading more of the Epstein emails. We read them mainly because the Department of Justice has become corrupted and is no longer trusted. Meanwhile, large portions of the press, social media, elected officials, and we, the public, like moths to a flame, increasingly thrive on and are entertained by controversy and judging others.
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At this point, with so many traditional norms being violated, we need to figure out how to restore justice to the Justice Department in a more secure way for future generations. Like responding to Humpty Dumpty’s fall, it will require far more than trying to glue together some outer shell. The intense political and tabloid fascination with Epstein sidetracks us from that effort. That obsession began with the QAnon movement [ [link removed] ], which itself started with a series of anonymous social media posts that were read, reinterpreted, and shared across platforms. Its supporters, including figures like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, spread more posts and related memes, mainly to attack others.
At QAnon’s core is the belief that Satan-worshiping pedophiles are part of a large group of elitists involved in government, business, and media who conspire against the rest of us. These ideas gained extra weight through support from President Trump, who also claims to be fighting against some elitist dark state. In return for their support, he has retweeted QAnon claims, said that “they do like me,” and even posted an image of himself wearing a Q lapel pin with the words, “The Storm Is Coming.” His sons [ [link removed] ] have also engaged in similar behavior.
But my focus here isn’t on QAnon. It’s on how such a bizarre, unproven conspiracy theory corrupts the Justice Department, the White House, Congress, and even us.
Enter Jeffrey Epstein. To QAnon supporters, his child sex trafficking operation, combined with his well-known connections to Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and others, serves as proof supporting their claims.
Attorney General Pam Bondi [ [link removed] ] then fanned the flames. First, she responded to a Fox News question by saying, “It’s sitting on my desk right now,” with many believing that “it” referred to a suspected “client list.” Adding fuel to the fire, she later stated that the Department had a “truckload” of previously undisclosed documents and more than 10,000 videos and images depicting child abuse material.
Then the Justice Department backtracked [ [link removed] ], claiming it hadn’t found anything worth pursuing further. Additionally, to protect individuals’ privacy, it would limit the release of documents. Of course, one of the people included in the documents released was the President himself [ [link removed] ], thus leading to a conspiracy theory on the left. The White House further stoked this fire by pressuring Congressional Republicans not to request the release of this material.
Amid all this, the President continues to undermine standard due proces [ [link removed] ]s by constantly demanding that the Department investigate and try his enemies, such as James Comey, Letitia Smith, and Adam Schiff. The Department has begun doing so even though lawyers overseeing potential investigations say there is no evidence to support such efforts, and they either get fired or feel pressured to quit just for doing their jobs.
In fact, the Justice Department’s stated concern about the privacy of individuals in the Epstein documents was correct. In our system of justice, individuals are treated as innocent until proven guilty, and, under past, well-established Justice Department norms, it is wrong to “try” people in a public arena, as well as release information about them, if the Department does not believe there is sufficient evidence to pursue a case against them.
Few now trust the Department when it appeals to a norm it violates at will. The QAnon conspiracy theorists, still clinging to their theories, insisted that the Republicans release all the files. At the same time, the Democrats believed there might be more information to attack the President, even if only to disprove his claims of limited engagement. Perhaps because the subset of files first released did not show any incriminating activity by the President, the White House finally decided to abandon its position on releasing all the files. Expect it to launch its own media blitzes against any Democrat who has had some relationship with Epstein.
Because Congress has now passed, and the President has signed legislation [ [link removed] ] to release the files, the media is now being filled with new revelations about many of Epstein’s relationships. The two parties now fight over controlling the narrative, with little attention to restoring justice.
Three conclusions.
(1) We’ve all been caught up in a shallow game of judging others in the media, as if that’s the point of politics. Besides being unhelpful, it diminishes us. David Brooks [ [link removed] ] is right to steer us away from this debate and toward the critical issues and problems we should be addressing.
(2) If we were to criticize everyone who seeks out wealthy and powerful individuals, we would have to condemn not just Bill Clinton and Larry Summers, who sought money for their charitable efforts, but nearly every research university, hospital, think tank, and charity that seeks support from the Epsteins of the world. It’s not pretty, but it reflects our reality. In my recent book (see note below), I demonstrate how wealth inequality breeds dependence of individuals on the wealthy. This dependence seeps through the charitable sector as well.
(3) For so much of the media, whether social, mainstream press, or Fox News and MSNBC, the battles are exciting. However, they distract us from attention to future actions, whether legislative or constitutional, required to invigorate a Justice Department that most of us can trust, as well as to address other government functions that have been broken and can’t simply be put back together the same way.
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