Attorney
General
Pam Bondi’s contentious
House
hearing about
the
Justice Department’s handling
of the Epstein files offered a
clear message to the nation:
sex trafficking of women and
minors is perfectly acceptable
as long as wealthy white men
do it.
Jeffrey
Epstein,
the disgraced late sex
trafficker, fixer, and
political networker, was found
to have ties to huge number of
the world’s elites on both
sides of the political aisle —
including Elon Musk, Peter
Thiel, Ehud Barak, Bill Gates,
Steve Bannon, Larry Summers,
Bill Clinton, and of course,
Donald Trump.
For
years,
Trump’s conservative backers
have attacked LGBTQ+ people, drag
queens, immigrants,
and others, claiming a desire
to protect women and children
from rapists and groomers.
Trump even boasted that
“whether
the women liked it or not,” he
would “protect” them from
migrants, whom he slandered as
“monsters” who “kidnap and
kill our children.”
But
when
given the opportunity to seek
justice for countless women
and children who were
trafficked, abused, and
exploited by the world’s
wealthiest, most powerful
people, the MAGA movement and
its leaders have shown a
startling disinterest in
accountability. During her
hearing Bondi tried
desperately to deflect
attention, claiming that
the
stock market was more
deserving of public attention
than Epstein’s victims.
Even
the
Republican rank and file is now
mysteriously detached from the Epstein
files.
Polls show
that
in summer 2025, 40 percent of
GOP voters disapproved of the
federal government’s handling
of the Epstein files. But by
January 2026, only about half
that percentage disapproved —
even after the Trump
administration missed its
deadline
to release millions of files
and then released them in a
way that exposed
the
victims while protecting the
perpetrators.
While
some European
leaders are
facing
harsh consequences for
associating with
Epstein, no
Americans
outside of
Epstein
and his closest associate
Ghislaine Maxwell have faced
any consequences, legal or
otherwise.
That’s
despite
very concrete ties between the
Trump administration and the
sex trafficker. Not only did
Trump’s Commerce
Secretary Howard
Lutnick admit
to
visiting Epstein island after
lying about it (and has so far
faced no consequences), but
Trump himself is named
more
than a million times in
the
files, according to lawmakers
with access to the unredacted
documents. Several victims
identify Trump by name, alleging
he
raped and assaulted them.
And
it’s
not just Trump. Epstein was an
equal opportunity fixer. He
was just as friendly with
liberals as he was with
conservatives, including
Summers, Clinton, and,
disconcertingly for the
American left, Noam
Chomsky.
For elites like Epstein,
ideological differences were
superficial. The real
distinction was money, power,
and connections.
Epstein
was
a glorified drug dealer and his drugs of
choice were the vulnerable bodies of
women and children, offered up to his
friends and allies as the forbidden
currency he traded in. A useful moniker
has emerged to describe the global
network of elites whose power and
privilege continues to protect them from
accountability: the Epstein Class.
Georgia
Senator John
Ossoff,
who faces reelection in 2026,
is deploying this label,
understanding that voters — at
least those who haven’t bought
into the MAGA cult — are
increasingly aware of the
double standards that wealthy
power players are held to.
“This is the Epstein class,
ruling our country,” said Ossoff in
reference to those who make up the Trump
administration. “They are the elites
they pretend to hate.”
He’s
right.
And if the Trump administration won’t
hold them to account, Americans should
demand leaders who will.
This
commentary
was produced by
Economy for All,
a project of the
Independent
Media Institute.
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