MAGA influencers 'conspicuously quiet' after Trump named in new Epstein files: NYT
New York Times writer Alan Feuer says pro-Trump influencers have “always had a lot to say about the Jeffrey Epstein files.”
Several called for the files release before President Donald Trump was re-elected, certain they would “expose a cabal of Democrats who had palled around” with Epstein after he’d been exposed as a convicted sex offender, said Feuer. Several more criticized Trump this year as he sought to block the files’ release, calling them a “Democratic hoax.”
“But many of them were conspicuously quiet on Tuesday, when the Justice Department released a batch of materials that contained hundreds of mentions of Mr. Trump," Feuer said. “Their silence contrasted with the uproar made over the weekend when the department’s first release focused on former President Bill Clinton, including an image, stripped of context, showing him reclining in a hot tub. MAGA influencer Laura Loomer – also known as Trump's unofficial "loyalty enforcer" — mocked Clinton on social media after the photos emerged.
“On Tuesday, however, Ms. Loomer said nothing about the newly released materials, which showed, among other things, that federal prosecutors had determined that Mr. Trump had flown on Mr. Epstein’s private plane more times than they originally knew,” Feuer noted. “Instead, Ms. Loomer seemed to post about everything except the Epstein files: immigrant work visas; ‘anti-white racism’; next year’s midterm elections; and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York.”
Feuer identified similar silence with conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley, who posts on X under the handle DC Draino. On Friday, O’Handley was also berating Clinton, writing how the Epstein files had depicted him “shirtless in a hot tub with a female that is not his wife.”
“But on Tuesday, Mr. O’Handley had nothing at all to say about the files,” said Feuer.
The same went for pro-Trump podcaster and “The Benny Show,” host Benny Johnson, who Feuer said much preferred posting about fired transgender instructors rather than Epstein.
“One Trump-friendly account did, however, post about the newly released files: the one run by the Justice Department,” said Feuer, adding that the department quickly jumped to defend the president as if they were his personal troupe of lawyers.
Read the New York Times report at this link.