Trump is playing a dangerous game with the Epstein files

Europeans woke to the news that Donald Trump had executed one of the sharpest U-turns of his presidency and is now arguing that Republicans should vote to release the so-called Epstein files.

His decision followed months in which he had resisted calls to release the files, which are lodged in the Department of Justice, and after a week in which he had turned against one of his hitherto closest Republican allies, the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling her “wacky” and a “traitor” for demanding the files’ release.

He explained the change by saying that the issue had become a distraction from the Republican Party’s work (which is true), and because “we have nothing to hide" (which remains to be seen).

U-turns are hardly unheard of in Trumpworld, nor is their unapologetic execution. Recent precedents include his attitude to Ukraine and his continual flip-flopping on trade tariffs, and it has been said that he simply adopts the view of the last person he spoke to.

On the morning after the night before his latest reversal, however, the central questions are why, and why now. After all, if he had nothing to hide, why did he not support the release of the files before the issue became a weapon in the hands of congressional Democrats and gained a political head of steam? He could have saved himself – and stalwart allies-turned-enemies such as Taylor Greene – a lot of trouble.

Trump is the supreme political pragmatist. He will have weighed up the political damage to himself, to his presidency and to his party from continuing to oppose the release of the files and concluded that this had become greater than any possible benefits. This either constitutes a big gamble on his part or confidence that the documents will leave him in the clear.

If the three most recently released emails are the most damaging his political enemies can find, any damage could well be limited. None of these was from or to Trump. One suggested that Trump may on one occasion have spent time with a woman, identified as the former Prince Andrew’s accuser, Virginia Giuffre, at Epstein’s New York residence, and another that Trump “knew about the women”. But there is still no evidence that, after Epstein’s conviction, the future president was close to him or consorted with him.

It might be added that for Trump, as a prominent player on the New York business scene, to have had nothing whatsoever to do with Epstein in his pre-politics years would also stretch belief.

Assuming the complete files soon see the light of day – which is not a foregone conclusion, as their release could yet be blocked by the Senate even if approval sails through the House – there are several possible answers to the question of what comes next.

The first is that Trump is as absent from the documents as he has maintained, and there is nothing to see. Essentially, he is vindicated, although this would not prevent his opponents from claiming that the files were somehow sanitised or selected to spare him.

The second is that, while Trump may be personally in the clear, associates and political allies may not be, with the risk of political damage to Trump’s immediate team or to the Republicans in next year’s mid-term congressional elections or the presidential election in 2028. This could be another reason why Trump resisted the files’ release for so long.

Thus far, the one name being bandied around is that of the former president Bill Clinton. But this is a name that stands to inflict no damage whatsoever on either Trump or the Republicans, or even the Democrats, given both the time that has elapsed since Clinton was in political contention and what is known about him.

The third possibility is that the files indeed contain evidence, or at least strong suggestions, that Trump was on much closer terms with Epstein, and for longer, than has so far been revealed. The women’s and victims’ groups that have been doing the hard yards by calling for the release of the files will have their cause immeasurably strengthened, and the political pressure could be such as to force Trump’s resignation or his impeachment.

Trump’s facility for keeping his personal behaviour and his political fate in separate boxes, however, should not be underestimated. Without incontrovertible evidence of a closer and more recent relationship to Epstein than has so far emerged, it is more than likely he could bluster his way out.

Trump’s opponents during his first presidential campaign made efforts to discredit him over his relations with women and the language he used, but they made little progress, with some of his older female supporters arguing that this was just how men at a certain time, or a certain age, behave.

Times may have changed – a little, with Jeffrey Epstein being the arch-criminal of our day and victims/survivors’ groups, not just in relation to Epstein, riding high. But it is far too soon to forecast that the files could claim this presidential scalp. Trump’s Teflon qualities, his limited time left at the White House, and the slowness with which the wheels of US politics and justice often move, all mean that the 47th president of the United States will probably serve out his term.