Donald Trump gets away with it. That has been true his entire life – whatever the crisis, or the scandal, Trump seems to come out ahead. His casino businesses went bankrupt, and Trump was fine. He was denounced by Republicans after the 6 January insurrection, and he bounced right back. He gets convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York court, and he gets re-elected as President.
Even Trump’s critics acknowledge this fact – he picked up the nickname “Teflon Don” in his first term, and it has stuck around ever since. Trump had a 79-year-long run of good luck, and he doesn’t seem to expect his streak to break any time soon.
The President appears to be celebrating after the latest release of documents from the Epstein files by the Department of Justice, which have raised major questions for figures like Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, but nothing too difficult for Trump.
The President seems so confident that the story is swinging his way that on Monday he even threatened to sue the Grammys host Trevor Noah over a quip he made about Trump visiting Epstein’s island at the ceremony.
It is characteristic of Trump to treat a scandal about the systemic rape, trafficking and abuse of women and girls over a period of years as just another political football – or a cudgel with which to beat his adversaries.
But it may also represent hubris by a President who is increasingly detached from reality, planning monuments across Washington DC, putting his name on its buildings, and trying to secure prestigious awards in his own name. Trump may have forgotten some of the facts on the ground when it comes to the Epstein story.
Trump, his future wife Melania, Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida in February 2000 (Photo: Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)It is true that focus in recent days has been on figures like Mandelson, Mountbatten-Windsor, and multiple figures from Hollywood – including Melania director Brett Ratner – and academia. But if anyone in Trumpworld were capable of thinking more than one step ahead, that might give them reason to pause.
Many of these figures were on the edges of Epstein’s orbit. They were often hangers-on in his orbit, some – like Elon Musk – seemingly keen to attend Epstein’s infamous parties, others hanging on to a relationship with Epstein for the connections he could make for them, or the financial opportunities he could provide.
Those relatively distant relationships are now proving enough to force people to stand down from jobs, issue public apologies, or face sustained public scrutiny. Donald Trump, though, is no casual acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein – he was described as his “best friend” for a decade or more. Trump himself has already admitted Epstein recruited some girls as “masseuses” from Mar-a-Lago. It is a matter of public record that the two men had partied together in the company of young women.
Trump’s public stance is that he had no relationship with Epstein after 2005 or so. He denies any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and any awareness of his crimes at the time they were in contact. But the documents released to date from his own Department of Justice (DOJ) still raise questions. The New York Times estimates at least 5,300 documents in the Epstein files reference Trump.
An undated photo from Epstein’s personal collection released by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee in December, showing Epstein with Trump (Photo: House Oversight Democrats / AFP via Getty Images)Some of these are lurid but unverified tips called into FBI tip lines – which often attract outlandish but untrue claims. But many corroborate media reporting, some of it previously denied by Trump, about the closeness of Trump and Epstein, including his participation in writing a birthday message for Epstein’s 50th. Later messages show contacts between Trump’s campaign manager Steve Bannon and Epstein. Where others have one or two meetings, Trump has a history with Epstein going back decades.
Trump seems to regard the US Attorney General Pam Bondi as his personal lawyer – as evidenced by Bondi claiming personal credit when former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested for reporting protests in Minneapolis last week. Few trust his Department of Justice to act against Trump’s interests, or to be independent. There is ongoing suspicion that Trump’s DOJ would hide documents that might be particularly damaging to the President.
That risks backfiring on Trump. If the Epstein Files continue to be published and nothing too damaging to Trump is revealed – even if it genuinely isn’t there – people will always suspect that the DOJ covered it up for him. Questions will continue for ever. The DOJ doesn’t have the credibility to end the scandal.
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If documents come out, then Trump will struggle to say they are fakes, or a hatchet job. If there ever was a Deep State, it has been dismantled by now – the apparatus of the US Government is in Trump’s hands. He cannot shake it off. Trump has tried time and again to make the Epstein scandal go away, and it never has. This is the one he cannot shake off.
Trump is not the first man to get the nickname “Teflon Don”. The first was a flamboyant and media friendly New York mafioso, John Gotti, who was put on trial three times in the 1980s and acquitted all three times – coming to be seen as untouchable.
Eventually, though, Gotti’s luck ran out: he died in prison in 2002. There is still time for his successor’s luck to run out, too.
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