It was more than just another manic Monday on July 7th for the Trump administration and many MAGA supporters, when the Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Jeffrey Epstein’s death in jail in 2019 was a suicide and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had no “incriminating client list” as it related to the Epstein files. Such an ambiguous response resulted in seismic reverberations throughout all corners of the MAGASPHERE. Megyn Kelly, Patrick Bet-David, Tim Poole, Benny Johnson, Alex Jones, Candace Owens, Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, the Hodge twins, Roseanne Barr, and other Trump supporters and sycophants went into major meltdown mode. Many lambasted the administration, in particular, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and President Trump himself.

The reality is that intense and fierce outrage toward the Justice Department and FBI has transcended partisan lines. Numerous conservative pundits and commentators, in addition to a few Republican politicians, have expressed the most rage, with accusations and implications that the government is covering up information associated with the case to shield powerful and influential public figures and private citizens.

Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, the FBI’s top two leaders and former right-wing podcasters who marinated in Epstein conspiracy theories, have endured considerable ire from Trump supporters for endorsing the memo. Both men were targets of criticism in recent months for switching positions on claims that Epstein was murdered in his jail cell - a theory many in the MAGA movement have long harbored – instead, arguing that the convicted sex offender committed suicide. Bondi and Bongino were embroiled in a contentious spat last week after a leaked memo from the FBI and DOJ revealed that both agencies had closed out the case and that no “client list” existed for Epstein.

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files has been far from stellar. In response to a question from a host on an interview on Fox News earlier this year as to whether the Justice Department would release a “list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients,” Bondi stated that the list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” Several months later, however, she did a U-turn and claimed that investigators had no access to any sort of list. Understandably, such a political about face was not going to sit well even among some skeptics, let alone supporters. People were hungry for answers.

Alt-right podcaster Jack Posobiec skewered her on his show for saying the Epstein case was closed, arguing that that is “not how you treat the American people. I feel very angry, upset, used . . . from having gone to the White House and receiving this binder full of baloney that was completely publicly available information already that we were told was new information on Epstein. It wasn’t. We were told that more information was coming. It wasn’t. “It’s some form of Shakespearean absurdist tragedy,” former FBI Chief Andrew McCabe, who served as head of the agency during the previous Trump presidency, commented in an CNN interview. “Anyone in the FBI, you’re watching this circus take place at the absolute highest levels of the organization, and you’re asking yourself, like, ‘These are our leaders?’”

To be certain, Donald Trump certainly did not do himself or his staff any favors by his dismissive reactions to the controversy: “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable. Do you want to waste time? I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we’re having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration . . .

A few days later he posted on Truth Social “What’s going on with my boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.” to assigning blame to former presidents Barack Obama Joe Biden and former presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton! Talk about political theater of the obscene!

Perhaps the president fails to understand that there are many individuals across the political spectrum interested in this controversy. We are not talking about a group of adults who attended numerous adult-themed events where hedonistic activity occurred solely with other adults’ consent. The Epstein case, as it was presented to the public by several administration officials, involved searing, sordid, and scurrilous allegations that underage young girls from marginalized backgrounds were being recruited to perform sexual favors for grown, adult men (in many cases, wealthy VIPs or prominent citizens). In essence, these girls were being sexually exploited. The feds closely examined “over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography” by influential pedophiles.

As many of us see it, this is an important issue to be “obsessed” with. Most people, regardless of their political persuasion, believe that the individuals who participated in such a sadistic exploitation of minors need to be exposed and brought to justice. There is no such thing as “moving on” from such heinous criminal activity!

Whether such a badly handled scandal will end up becoming the administration’s Achilles heel is unclear at the moment. Nonetheless, one thing is for certain: unlike Signalgate, this is a controversy that has enraged many members of the MAGA faithful (and others), and it does not demonstrate any signs of abating in the near future. As the old saying goes “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” President Trump, Pam Bondi and others in the administration are unsparingly learning such a truthful reality.