Donald Trump remains concerned about the Epstein files for multiple reasons: millions more pages have yet to come out, and the names in those that have are “sacrificial lambs,” Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf says.
Rothkopf, a foreign policy analyst, told The Daily Beast Podcast that the multi-million-page dump of files last week is evidence that the Department of Justice thinks something is afoot. He added that Trump is thinking about the potential for crimes to still be prosecuted and for his base to turn on him.
“Three million pages released, three million pages not released. Now, there’s no legal grounds for them not to do it, so obviously, since they’re releasing all of this information that’s embarrassing, they think something really bad is going on there,” Rothkopf told host Joanna Coles.
He added: “The more I hear about Epstein, the more I read about Epstein, the more it’s very clear that really horrifically bad stuff was happening there, and I think Donald Trump wonders whether crimes were committed. I think in his mind, what he’s concerned about is there are crimes where there is no statute of limitation, or there are crimes that will disgust even his last remaining followers.”
Why else, Rothkopf argued, would the Trump administration make the Epstein files the “centerpiece of the news.”
“There is something murky at the core of all of this that we just don’t know, but all the evidence says there are a lot of people out there trying desperately to hide it,” he said.
Some prominent figures mentioned in the latest files release, Rothkopf said, amounted to “sacrificial lambs.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who had denied being close to Epstein, planned a trip with his family to Epstein’s Caribbean island in December 2012—years after Epstein had become a sex offender, the files show.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was also mentioned in the files. Epstein, in an email draft, seemed to suggest that Gates had contracted an STD from “sex with Russian girls” and then sought Epstein’s help in acquiring drugs to manage it. A representative for Gates called the claim “absolutely absurd and completely false.”
Epstein wrote the draft after he tried but failed to broker a business venture between the Gates Foundation and JPMorgan Chase—a move that would have likely benefitted him financially.
Whom those “sacrificial lambs” are designed to protect isn’t yet clear, Rothkopf said. But the story is surely “not going away.”
“There are so many people who had reputations, and they’re being destroyed... These are all the sacrificial lambs. These are the people who are being given up to protect other people,” Rothkopf said.
He then noted that one individual involved in Epstein’s 2008 plea deal was close to 79-year-old Trump. Alexander Acosta, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida who approved giving Epstein immunity from facing federal criminal charges, was labor secretary in Trump’s first term.
“We know that a lot of the people who are close to Trump are close to Trump because they can help him keep a lid on this,” Rothkopf concluded. “This story is not going away.”
When reached for comment, the White House called attention to Trump biographer and Daily Beast podcast co-host Michael Wolff’s communications with Epstein, which he has explained.
“Why isn’t the Daily Beast concerned with their own employee – Michael Wolff – closely corresponding with, and even offering advice to Jeffrey Epstein, in addition to spreading countless lies?” spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
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