The Justice Department’s release of millions of its files from a criminal investigation into sex predator Jeffrey Epstein has toppled high-powered careers, spurred new investigations around the world and led to the arrests of royals. Throughout it all, however, one group has remained totally unscathed: President Donald Trump’s inner circle.
The past week has driven home the double standard, with both one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful policymakers in former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and one of the richest men in the world, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, facing consequences for their sleazy friendships with Epstein.
Congressional depositions of Bill and Hillary Clinton only further highlighted the pattern, with House members grilling the former first couple about their relationship with Epstein and the pictures of the former president enjoying himself in the financier’s company. The pictures, videos and correspondence showing the current president’s relationship with Epstein have not prompted similar congressional scrutiny.
Before Bill Clinton’s deposition on Friday, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) lamented how powerful people who’ve associated with Epstein “haven’t been held accountable and they haven’t even had to answer questions about what they knew and when they knew it.”
The release of the Epstein Files — spurred in part by Comer’s committee — has finally brought some accountability, Comer said: “We’ve already seen a lot of very powerful people who have been held accountable by having to resign in disgrace from various boards all over the world.”
It’s true: In recent weeks high-level figures in academia, science, law, entertainment and finance have all resigned their positions following revelations of their lengthy and controversial communications with Epstein.
But, so far, none of the figures in Trump world who were deeply connected to Epstein have faced any fallout, and Republicans have shown no interest in probing the president’s own relationship with Epstein even as they haul in one of his predecessors for questioning.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, however, is testing the durability of the MAGA protection bubble. He lived next door to Epstein in New York City, and the Justice Department’s files revealed he visited Epstein’s Caribbean island, Little St. James, even though he’d previously said he’d cut ties with Epstein in 2005, before he was first charged with crimes for prostituting minors.
Lutnick remains in office despite calls from Democrats and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), for his resignation. But Comer has said he’d be interested in hauling Lutnick before his committee. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a member of the panel, said this week she’d vote for a subpoena, and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), another committee member, said he believes there’d be enough votes to authorize one.
“We’re going to continue to ask questions of everyone that shows up in photos on the island and things like that,” Comer said Friday.
Meanwhile, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is still amping up the MAGA faithful on his podcast despite his extensive communications and scheming with Epstein. Billionaire far-right activist Elon Musk has also not suffered any consequences for his efforts to get invited to Epstein’s island, which came to light this month after he’d previously described rejecting all invitations. “Do you have any parties planned?” Musk asked Epstein in one email trying to schedule a visit. And, of course, there’s Trump, whom Epstein said was his “closest friend” for 10 years and is known to have cavorted with Epstein and young women in the 1990s and early 2000s before a reported falling-out.
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Outside of MAGA world, accountability has been swifter.
Summers, who is also a former president of Harvard University, announced he would resign from his role as a professor at the end of this school term after his correspondence with Epstein came to light this month. Summers also resigned from his board position at OpenAI and a number of policy groups. Kathryn Ruemmler, former White House counsel in the Obama administration, declared she would resign from her position as chief legal counsel for the investment firm Goldman Sachs on June 30.
Other old political figures have also stepped down from their current roles, including former Maine Democratic Sen. George Mitchell from his Mitchell Institute and former Nebraska Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey from his role as chairman of a clean energy company.
Scientists and academics including leading neuroscientist Richard Axel, paleontologist Jack Horner and math professor Martin Nowak have all either resigned or been placed on leave out of their positions. Brad Karp, the chairman of the white-shoe law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, stepped down on Feb. 4. Top-flight Hollywood agent Casey Wasserman announced he would sell his firm on Feb. 13, although he has not stepped down from his role leading the U.S. Olympic committee for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Hyatt Hotels executive chairman Thomas Pritzker — a cousin of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — stepped down on Feb. 17. Microsoft founder Bill Gates did not step down from his personal foundation, but did apologize to staff while admitting to having affairs with two Russian women.
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So why has Trump world escaped any ramifications for palling around with the world’s most notorious sex criminal?
First, there’s the Republican-controlled Congress acting as a rubber stamp for the Trump administration. Without any meaningful sense of itself as an independent branch, the Republican Congress has embraced extreme partisanship and shunted oversight of the administration. The House Oversight Committee interviewed Hillary Clinton, who did not know Epstein and never communicated with him, partly to find out why Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell had been a guest at her daughter’s wedding (she was an invited guest’s plus-one, Clinton said). Trump and first lady Melania Trump were both close friends with Epstein and Maxwell.
Second, Trump ended the independence of the Department of Justice, meaning that it won’t undertake any investigations without his approval. This corruption of federal law enforcement, enabled by the Supreme Court’s Trump v. U.S. decision, removes yet another lever of oversight and accountability.
Third, MAGA is not interested in accountability for Republicans generally. Trump has granted pardons to campaign donors and fraudsters, not to mention more than a thousand rioters, without any pushback. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) maintains the nominal support of party leadership even though he had an affair with a staffer who later killed herself.
All of these are downstream from the final and most important reason: no one in Trump world is more connected to Epstein here than Trump. He was Epstein’s “closest friend” for 10 years, according to Epstein. He and Epstein have been captured on video ogling young women (“She’s hot,” Trump says to Epstein.). Trump wrote a creepy birthday note inside the outline of a woman’s body for Epstein. They attended parties with young women, sometimes as the only two men in attendance. They spoke on the phone frequently. They invited each other to tennis matches and lingerie parties. They shared women as partners. And Trump is alleged to have sexually assaulted a model in front of Epstein.
“Terrific guy,” Trump infamously said in a 2002 profile of Epstein. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Across the Atlantic, Europe has seen the biggest fallout with the arrests of former British Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, ex-British Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson, former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland and Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen on charges ranging from sharing state secrets to corruption in their relationships with Epstein.
This only further highlights the elite impunity that has come to mark the second Trump administration. Elected as a tribune of the people to fight against elites, Trump has instead acted to protect the rich and powerful from regulation, criminal prosecution, taxes and oversight. Most importantly, he has insulated himself, his administration and his hangers-on from legal accountability and oversight.
The disparate Epstein fallout hasn’t escaped notice in Washington.
“There are other societies that are applying the proper seriousness and gravity to the matter,” Khanna said earlier this month. “And if the British monarchy can take this seriously, how about the American democracy?”