Democrats say the Jeffrey Epstein files are capturing the President Trump they have tried to portray for years, predicting the controversy will paint the darkest image of Trump to date.
They have dug into the issue and see it as a crisis for Trump because it cuts a wedge between the president and his core supporters.
“The Epstein files have become more of a symbol that is starting to crack the image Trump supporters had, that he was on their side,” Democratic strategist Eddie Vale said.
And the timing couldn’t be worse for Trump, who is facing low approval numbers as consumers gripe about affordability and inflation.
“These show him siding with the literal pedophile and the elites, and it’s happening at the same time that he’s giving bailouts to Argentina and throwing parties for kings and foreign leaders while people can’t pay the grocery bills,” Vale added.
The sentiment comes as the House prepares to vote on a measure Tuesday that would require the Justice Department to release troves of files it has collected in its investigation of Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
On Sunday evening, after weeks of resistance to the movement on Capitol Hill to back the legislation, Trump reversed course and encouraged Republican lawmakers to vote to release the Epstein documents “because we have nothing to hide.”
“Nobody cared about Jeffrey Epstein when he was alive, and, if the Democrats had anything, they would have released it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
In the post, Trump said it was “time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party.”
But Democrats say even if the files show Trump wasn’t directly culpable, they make the point Democrats have been trying to make about Trump since he began to run for president a decade ago.
“The reason why this is such a crisis for Trump to me is that this is a story about abuse of power and a world that is inaccessible to so many Americans,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne said. “At a minimum it seems like Donald Trump was aware that Jeffrey Epstein’s behavior was not on the up and up and it gets at an authenticity thing for Trump and looking out for the rich and powerful.”
In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) mentioned that he never said the files would implicate Trump. “And I really don’t think that they will,” added Massie, one of a handful of Republicans who backed a discharge petition to force a vote on the matter.
Massie said he thinks Trump is “trying to protect a bunch of rich and powerful friends, billionaires, donors to his campaign, friends in his social circles.”
“That’s my operating theory on why he’s trying so hard to keep these files closed,” the congressman said.
While the measure is expected to pass the House overwhelmingly, it could face hurdles in the Senate, and it’s unclear whether Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) would bring it up for a vote in the upper chamber.
Trump said Monday that if Congress passed the measure, he would sign it.
“We have nothing to do with Epstein,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “The Democrats do — all of his friends were Democrats.”
In the lead-up to the House vote, Democrats were applying pressure on Trump.
On Sunday, after Trump urged the House to pass the measure, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the social platform X to send a message to the president.
“The vote is to compel YOU to release them,” Schumer said. “Let’s make this easier. Just release the files now.”
At the same time, some Democrats made it clear that neither party would ultimately score points on this issue.
“Nobody benefits from the Epstein tragedy,” Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said.
At the same time, Simmons said Trump has hurt himself by initially “dodging his commitment to release the files.”
“Now the Republican Party has forced Trump to change his position,” Simmons added. “It won’t be the last time.”
Shermichael Singleton, a strategist who worked in the Trump administration during the president’s first term, said he doesn’t think there’s any electoral benefit for Democrats.
“I think it’s intriguing. I think it’s juicy,” Singleton acknowledged. “But why did Democrats win two weeks ago? They won because they felt like we have not done enough to answer the question of affordability and cost of living. And that is what will benefit Democrats. Not fishing for something that they hope will stick.”
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