With Epsteinomics, Secrets Don't Die. They Get Paywalled

Justice is nice, but extortion pays better.

Ajax and Cassandra by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1806

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Republicans can’t seem to escape a simple truism — the internet is forever. Every interview, social media post, or offhand remark has permanence.

So naturally, watching them try to outrun their past selves has become an entertaining blood sport. Sort of like the Hunger Games without the plot twists.

The latest televised battle royale is the supposed “Epstein list” — the client list of convicted sex offender and Trump’s bestie, Jeffrey Epstein.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, Republicans rage-baited voters, promising to release the Epstein files. In June 2024, Trump reassured Fox News viewers he would declassify Justice Department and FBI files related to Epstein… if re‑elected.

Now? The election is long over. Trump wants everyone to stop talking about Epstein and “wasting time.”

J.D. Vance is also haunted by his past comments. In 2021, Vance fumed on X. “And then that guy [Epstein] died mysteriously in jail? And now we just don’t talk about it.”

Now? Vance has a bad case of lockjaw.

And then there’s Kash Patel, who may be the first man in political history to pre-roast his future self. In 2023, on Steve Bannon’s War Room, Kash Patel went full flamethrower, accusing Bill Gates of “lobbying Congress night and day to prevent the disclosure of that list,” even lamenting: “God knows the FBI isn’t going to do anything.”

You foxy, little Cassandra…Prognosticating your own incompetence. Adorable.

Even more damning, in one interview, Patel claimed Epstein had a “black book.” When asked who had the black book, Patel didn’t miss a beat.

“The FBI.”

Now? The head of the FBI says the black book never existed.

Also a vocal ally, Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino reportedly pushed hard behind the scenes for the release of the Epstein files. When told the list would not be released, he threatened to resign.

Now? Bongino nearly broke a vertebra backpedaling. Apparently, there’s “nothing further to share.”

However, the pièce de résistance of cover-ups was Pam Bondi’s unfortunate humble brag in February 2025. When asked by Fox News if she had the list, she practically dry-humped her mic. The list “is on my desk,” she boasted, just waiting for a “directive from the President.”

Now? The desk ate the list. It doesn’t exist. And the boss who made that directive is vehemently defending his stooge.

Of course, MAGA is having a mega meltdown. Alex Jones cried Alligator Alcatraz tears. Laura Loomer called for Bondi to resign. Musk stirred the turd on X. And I am fairly certain a few gold crosses imploded.

And while Trump has silenced dissenters by suing Paramount, threatening to defund PBS, firing four-star generals, and defying judges, he can’t take away MAGA’s mouthpiece so easily.

Still, he is trying. Recently, Republicans voted 211–210 to block the public from seeing the Epstein files. Odd. Why do we need to hide the Epstein files if they do not exist?

No worries. Yesterday, Trump found a new spin — Biden made up the list.

Let’s just pause there. Epstein died in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office. His buddies spent the last year swearing they had the files. They campaigned on them. They nearly resigned over them. And now they want you to believe Biden conjured the whole thing up during one of his afternoon pudding breaks. Sure. And while we’re at it, maybe Hillary built Pedophile Island out of Benghazi emails.

So, to recap, there’s a list. Except the list doesn’t exist. Unless Democrats ask to see it, in which case, the list does exist. And as always, everything is Biden’s fault.

Confused? That’s the point.

As usual, let’s play my favorite game. Follow the money…

Epsteinomics: The Unspoken Economy of American Power

Epstein didn’t just run a sex trafficking ring. He ran a surveillance operation with NDAs, cameras, and a recruitment team. His flying monkeys were an army of beautiful women who recruited more beautiful women (mostly underage) in a honey trap as organized as any pyramid scheme.

In other words, Jeffrey Epstein ran a Ponzi human trafficking scheme. The girls were the bait, the mansions were the trap, and the real product?

Leverage.

In interviews, Epstein bragged that he had dirt on everyone. That’s what many don’t understand about Epstein’s version of human trafficking. He didn’t get rich selling bodies — he got rich selling the fear of exposure. The island was just the showroom. The actual transactions occurred later, through wiring instructions and lawyer-vetted threats.

Which brings us to Trump.

Everyone keeps asking: Who is Trump trying to protect? Is he on the list? Who else is?

Wrong questions.

The right ones are: How much is that list worth? Or more precisely, who can Trump extort?

Imagine if Trump (or a loyal surrogate) quietly reaches out to wealthy individuals rumored to be on the list — hedge fund bros, princes, tech moguls, foreign diplomats, media execs — and offers an off-the-record assurance:

(Said in my best Scarface voice.)

“Don’t worry. You won’t be named… if my family gets the support it needs.”

Well, that’s a page straight out of Putin’s KGB handbook.

Or how about a controlled leak strategy? Trump floats a few low-impact names — washed-up celebrities, minor royals, dead billionaires — to prove the list is real, then says, “More to come… soon.”

This turns the Epstein list into a serial drama that TACO can drag out for months. Every time he guts Medicaid, tanks the economy, or needs a distraction, he just trots out a name from the Epstein list. That way, he keeps the public chasing shiny things. Meanwhile, Trump becomes the sole gatekeeper of who’s next, making allies nervous and enemies pliable.

Go ahead and accuse me of wearing the tiniest of tin hats, but given Trump’s past grift, it is entirely plausible that he viewed the Epstein files as just another revenue stream— a chance to profit off of others’ secrets.

It certainly isn’t out of character. Trump has monetized everything from Trump Bibles to eau de Trump diaper cologne. This is the man who siphoned money from a kid’s cancer charity into his business, hustled MAGA hats at Fort Bragg, refused to return stolen classified documents, and used a porn star hush payment as a campaign strategy. So naturally, one could imagine the Grifter-in-Chief took one look at those files and thought, I could really make some meme coin off this.

Trump doesn’t even need actual proof to extort his friends and enemies. He just needs the threat of proof. The implication that he might have access to something “worse” is worth millions to paranoid billionaires.

Sure, the extorted can complain, but who will believe them? There’s a reason why Trump bragged he could walk down 5th Avenue, shoot someone, and he wouldn’t lose any voters. Trump’s entire grift is bluffing like he has a royal flush when he’s holding a receipt from Bed Bath & Beyond.

That’s Epsteinomics: secrets as assets, silence as revenue, and morality as optional.

Secrets Belong to the Powerful

Trump’s base — though often misinformed — isn’t dumb. They see the panic. They hear the silence. And for once, the grift doesn’t look clever. It looks complicit.

But here’s the problem. Even Trump’s most rabid supporters are not monsters. They are parents. Grandparents. Humans. And nothing short-circuits a cult like the suspicion that your leader is hiding something that puts your children at risk.

Of course, every administration has skeletons, but the Epstein debacle isn’t just scandalous — it’s systemic. This wasn’t a random orgy at a billionaire’s lair. This was a blackmail network. Recruiters. Hidden cameras. Flights. NDAs. Pam Bondi’s recent claim that there were “thousands of videos.”

Videotape evidence isn’t about sex. It’s about power.

Oscar Wilde understood it best. “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” Epstein exploited that power.

Now, if the Epstein files disappear, we won’t just lose names; we’ll lose a moment of reckoning. We’ll tell survivors, yet again, that money matters more than justice.

The next Epstein isn’t hiding. He’s waiting. Watching. And drafting blueprints for a bigger island.

Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. Subscribe to Conversations with Carlyn for free content every Wednesday, or become a paid subscriber to get the juicy stuff on Sundays.