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Rightwing influencers in the US who are often aligned with Donald Trump are angry that a joint justice department and FBI memo has dismissed the existence of a “client list” in the case against late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The disgraced financier killed himself in a jail cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City in 2019 while awaiting prosecution on child sex-trafficking and conspiracy charges.
Almost ever since, Epstein’s death has been the subject of conspiracy theories on the right, including a supposed “client list” that he purportedly used to blackmail wealthy co-conspirators.
Trump’s presidential administration then created anticipation that the alleged list would be publicly disclosed, including the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, who had told Fox News in an interview: “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.”
But then a review conducted by the justice department and FBI “revealed no incriminating ‘client list’”, said an unsigned and undated memo first obtained by Axios on Sunday.
The memo added: “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Further, the two-page, undated and unsigned memo stated that the government holds roughly 300 gigabytes of the evidence against Epstein, but that much of it would never be released because it contained identifying details about victims of trafficking or child abuse imagery.
“Only a fraction of this material would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial – as the seal served only to protect victims and did not expose any additional third parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing,” the memo stated.
Those findings have prompted rightwing influencers who are frequently in favor of Trump’s policies to suggest that the federal government is protecting a powerful cabal of pedophiles.
Some rightwing activists have even argued that the “deep state” – a term they use to describe what they purport to be a permanent government of bureaucrats and operatives in place to thwart Trump – is more muscular than they imagined.
“Contextualizing all of this – this seems like unforgivable behavior,” conservative influencer Liz Wheeler said on the Glenn Beck show on Monday, according to the New Republic.
“Trump has to fire Pam Bondi,” said Keith and Kevin Hodge, known as the Hodge Twins on social media. “She went on camera and told the world she has the Epstein client list on her desk … Now they say there is no list??”
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Conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones added in an X post: “Next the [justice department] will say, ‘Actually, Jeffrey Epstein never even existed.’ This is over the top sickening.”
The White House in February had evidently tried to satiate rightwing influencers demanding new information about Epstein with binders relating to his case. But they contained little if any new information that wasn’t already publicly available.
“How could [Bondi] give the American people those ‘phase 1’ binders that contained nothing?” Wheeler said after the new memo first reported by Axios.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has also been pressed about the statements, arguing Bondi used the term “client list” to refer to the entirety of evidence against Epstein.
“She was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper, in relation to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, that’s what the attorney general was referring to, and I’ll let her speak for that,” Leavitt said.
