WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Thursday executed a stunning and abrupt reversal on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, directing his attorney general to seek the release of some documents just one day after labeling the entire saga a “hoax” and branding his own supporters “weaklings” for pursuing it. The dramatic pivot came hours after The Wall Street Journal published a report detailing a sexually suggestive letter, allegedly bearing Trump’s name, that was part of a 2003 birthday album for Epstein.
The president furiously denied writing the letter, promising a lawsuit against the newspaper, but the revelation appears to have been the final straw in a controversy that has spiraled out of his control. After nearly two weeks of being at war with his own base, facing open revolt from conservative media, and watching his administration descend into bitter infighting, the president has been forced to abandon his defiant stonewalling. The reversal, however, may be too little, too late to placate a movement that feels betrayed, and it has only deepened the mystery surrounding the government’s handling of the explosive case.
The latest chapter in the saga began with the Journal’s report on a letter included in a birthday album for Epstein, reportedly collected by the disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell years before the wealthy financier’s first arrest. According to the newspaper, which described the letter but did not publish a full image, the text bearing Trump’s name is framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and concludes with the words, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump’s response was immediate and volcanic. In a lengthy social media post Thursday night, he slammed the story as “false, malicious, and defamatory,” claiming he had personally spoken to the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its top editor, Emma Tucker, to tell them the letter was a “fake.”
“These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures,” Trump wrote, promising to sue the paper. Vice President JD Vance joined the counter-attack, writing on X, “Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?”
Yet, even as the White House was in full attack mode, the political pressure, which had been building for days, became untenable. The combination of the damaging new report and growing frustration from Trump-allied lawmakers on Capitol Hill seemingly forced the president’s hand. In a whiplash-inducing reversal from his stance just 24 hours earlier, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to try to make some of the documents in the case public.
In a subsequent statement, Bondi announced she would seek court permission on Friday to release grand jury information related to the case. However, this move comes with significant caveats. Any release requires a judge’s approval, a process that is by no means guaranteed. Furthermore, the request is limited to grand jury material and does not address the vast trove of additional evidence collected by federal law enforcement in the sprawling investigation—evidence that Bondi announced last week would not be released.
This sudden, limited concession is a dramatic retreat from the defiant posture Trump has held for nearly two weeks. The crisis began when his own Justice Department released a memo stating that, contrary to years of hype and speculation within the MAGA movement, Jeffrey Epstein did not possess a “client list” of elites to whom underage girls were trafficked. The memo also stated no more files would be made public.
The announcement sparked a furious backlash from Trump’s most loyal defenders, who felt betrayed by an administration that had promised ultimate transparency. Attorney General Bondi, who had previously handed out binders to conservative influencers at the White House labeled “Epstein Files: Phase 1,” became the primary target of their rage.
Instead of trying to soothe his base, Trump went on the offensive against them. He tried to downplay the issue, urging his followers to stop wasting “Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.” When that failed, his rhetoric escalated dramatically. He declared the entire matter the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” claimed without evidence that Democrats had doctored files, and finally, in his Wednesday social media post, lashed out at his own supporters as “weaklings” who had been “conned by the Lunatic Left.”
“I don’t want their support anymore!” he declared.
The strategy backfired, only deepening the sense of betrayal and fueling the revolt. The infighting has had a tangible impact, paralyzing parts of the government. The controversy snarled the House’s efforts to pass a spending cuts bill on Thursday, as Democrats used procedural moves to force votes on releasing the Epstein documents. The chaos has also touched off a testy and unresolved conflict between Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, with neither official publicly addressing reports of a tense exchange at the White House.
The saga has also resurfaced scrutiny of Trump’s own past. His social ties to Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s are well-documented, including a 1992 video showing the two men chatting and gesturing at young women at a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. While the president has never been accused of misconduct in connection with Epstein’s crimes and has stated he had a falling-out with him long ago, the association provides a charged backdrop to the current controversy.
In an administration that prides itself on its ability to change the narrative, the Epstein saga has had remarkable staying power. It is a crisis largely of the president’s own making, born from a political strategy that for years encouraged his supporters to believe in vast, dark conspiracies. Now, faced with the reality of governing, he has been unable to produce the smoking gun he and his allies promised. His attempts to dismiss the issue have failed, and his attacks on his own base have only intensified their resolve.
The president’s abrupt reversal is a desperate attempt to regain control of a story that has spiraled far beyond him. But it remains to be seen whether the promise of a limited, court-approved release of documents will be enough to placate a movement that was promised a reckoning and now believes it is witnessing a cover-up at the highest levels of the government it helped elect.
