Trump’s Epstein Letter Isn’t the Scandal You Think It Is

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I know all of us are not that interested in the Jeffrey Epstein letter and the Epstein controversies, but let’s just go through it very quickly.

Recently, President Donald Trump, his administration, as characterized by the Department of Justice, Attorney General Pam Bondi, did not release the full “list,” as had been promised. That sort of embarrassed FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who said that they had FBI material that would be released. Turns out, Donald Trump then got angry at his base, but especially at the Democrats, who said that Trump was trying to hide something.

The long and the short of it: There was never a list where he had a list of people who had engaged in pornographic or pedophilic behavior at his various residences. What the list implied was that in 2008, his first trial—and then again a few years later—there were a lot of testimonies in these indictments and convictions and text and evidence that was subpoenaed. So, names came up in text messages, emails, maybe some video on logs on the airplane. So, there’s a long list, apparently, of over 170 people.

And for some reason, Donald Trump, initially, ordered Pam Bondi—or she did spontaneously—to contradict her earlier promise to release all the information. That started the controversy. And now, apparently, they’re going to release names.

We already have about 90 names. And they range from Louis Freeh, the former strong Catholic father of six and FBI director, to Leonardo DiCaprio, Bruce Willis, Kevin Spacey, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

What am I getting at? All of these people had come in contact with this near-billionaire, Jeffrey Epstein. Apparently, he was close to Harvard University. He had a temporary office there. His modus operandi was to lavish money on political candidates, foundations, universities, celebrities, and entertain. And there was a subset in that group that engaged in pedophilic behavior.

Because remember, he was charged with trafficking. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted for 20 years, as his accomplice, for hiring out—or forcing, I should say—a 14-year-old girl and others to have sexual relations with these prominent people.

But here’s the thing: The Democrats did not release any of this information. Donald Trump initially didn’t. Then he, under pressure, says he will.

What’s going on? What’s going on is there’s all of these people of various statuses—and no one knows to what degree—they happened to meet Jeffrey Epstein. They happened to talk to him on the phone. They had a business engagement. They rode on an airplane. Are they actually engaged in any wrong behavior? But the point is, unless you become transparent and let it sort out, this controversy will turn into a near-scandal.

So what’s the status of the so-called Epstein files? I think Donald Trump is going to release all the information that the government has. There’ll probably be 150 or 200 names. And we’ll let the internet mob or individuals or Freedom of Information requests or lower court judges, they will adjudicate it and we will find out the particular statuses. The vast majority of people will be very innocent, that they didn’t do anything wrong. But there will be some people that will have a cast, a shadow of doubt. And we’ll have to find out.

There’s another subtext to this, and that is Donald Trump, it was told—we were told by The Wall Street Journal—wrote a letter to Jeffrey Epstein to congratulate him on his birthday. And it was very risque—I think they used the word “bawdy.” We also had letters from people like Alan Dershowitz.

This was at a period where Donald Trump was, apparently, bumped into him or knew him and he saw him at Mar-a-Lago. Remember, though, in 2019, he said that he had kicked out Jeffrey Epstein a couple of years earlier than his first indictment. So, whatever the letter is—and I’ll get to that in a second—Donald Trump had already, apparently, severed relationships with him after the birthday congratulatory letter, but before he was indicted.

So, what am I getting at? Donald Trump can say, “I didn’t know what he was involved in. That’s why I wrote this kind of risque letter.” But he is not saying that. But he could say that. “And then I found out that he was under indictment for sexual relations. I had seen him at my club. He was hitting on a young teenager. So I broke all relationships before he was indicted.”

The letter just is a very strange, imaginary conversation that somebody typed out: Trump, Epstein, Trump, Epstein. It doesn’t sound like Donald Trump’s vocabulary or his modus operandi. I don’t think he uses the word “enigma.” There’s a lot of vocabulary that’s non-Trumpian. And I don’t think he used a platonic dialogue type of communications. And then there is an addendum where he has a picture of a nude girl. And he writes his name in such a fashion that might be construed as offering pubic hair in the groin area. And that has set the world on fire.

Donald Trump denies all of this. And I think it’ll be very hard to prove that that typewritten letter was his, unless they can trace, you know, the machine or something like that or fingerprint. I don’t know. But it’s gonna be very hard. I don’t know why The Wall Street Journal jumped to that conclusion.

But let’s just say that everything The Wall Street Journal alleges is true. It’s not a scandal for a variety of reasons.

Donald Trump had no knowledge—I guess, at least—that he was involved in these activities. He was just a risque character, like many people in Manhattan. And then once he did discover at Mar-a-Lago that he was hitting on pre-adolescent or 14-, 13-year-old girls, then he, supposedly, kicked Jeffrey Epstein out. And then later, he was indicted.

But there’s also another scenario. And that is Donald Trump—this has all been vetted. This is all computed into the Trump candidacy and presidency. We went through the Access Hollywood scandal, supposedly, when he used risque words. We went through the Stormy Daniels imbroglio. We went through the E. Jean Carroll.

We know that Donald Trump is a multibillionaire and that the Manhattan social life, for men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, was sort of wild. And we don’t quite know exactly what he did. But we’re not shocked that he used a type of language or he associated with other people. But there’s no evidence he was involved in criminal activity.

And so, I think it’ll die. And I think The Wall Street Journal will have to make a correction, unless they want to take Donald Trump to court and Donald Trump wants to see—he’s filed suit against them. And there’ll be a lot of discovery and who knows what will happen.

But for right now, I think he’s salvaged this problem and aborted a controversy by just saying, “Get this stuff out there and let the people decide.” It’s the way it always should be in a democracy, in an open society.

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