The Unnecessary Baggage of Trump’s Epstein-Tainted Associates

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

 

In the hermetically sealed, ideologically homogenous salons in which progressive infotainment addicts confine themselves, the notion that Donald Trump is criminally implicated in Jeffrey Epstein’s sordid affairs is dogma. This leads the progressive politicians who cater to that audience to say things like this:

 

 

The president and his allies have not been able to leverage reckless remarks like these, render them liabilities, and impose a political price on their expostulators. They don’t even seem to be trying. It’s not at all clear why.

 

Over the weekend, the Miami Herald revealed new and credible details of the FBI’s mid-aughts investigation into Epstein’s criminal activities. The Herald’s report rests on the testimony of onetime Palm Beach, Fla., police chief Michael Reiter, whose Epstein-skeptical credentials are sterling. Reiter publicly criticized local prosecutors in 2006 when they opted not to charge Epstein outright but put the allegations against him before a grand jury. Reiter’s lobbying won out in 2008, helping scuttle Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement and paving the way for his conviction.

 

In 2019, Reiter provided the FBI with a statement in which he recalled a conversation he had with Trump in the summer of 2006. According to Reiter, Trump appreciated the former police chief’s work. “Thank goodness you’re stopping him; everyone has known he’s been doing this,” the future president reportedly said. In addition, Trump advised investigators to “focus” their attention on Epstein’s “operative,” Ghislaine Maxwell, because “she is evil.”

 

The revelation adds substance to Trump’s claim that he cut off relations with Epstein in the mid-aughts. It is certainly more compelling as the circumstantial evidence that Trump’s critics bring to bear to accuse Trump of complicity with, if not direct participation in, Epstein’s crimes. So, why isn’t the Trump administration making a bigger deal of this? Perhaps because doing so would make little sense given the company Trump and his movement keep.

 

This week, Donald Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, lobbied an appeals court to drop the charges against the president’s onetime aide and federal convict, Steve Bannon. Sauer argued “that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.” If the appeal persuades the court’s justices, the move would effectively erase Bannon’s conviction on charges of obstructing the House investigation into the January 6 riots. (Bannon was also indicted over a scheme to bilk donors out of cash under the false pretense that they would fund the construction of the border wall, but the president pardoned his former associate for that one.)

 

There are many reasons why the Justice Department might circle the wagons around Bannon, most of which probably have nothing to do with the fact that he was chummy with Epstein long after the child abuser was convicted of his crimes. Indeed, even on the eve of Epstein’s final arrest, Bannon was committed to making a documentary about the former financier explicitly designed to rehabilitate his image. But the DOJ’s rally to Bannon’s side is conspicuous. Behavior like this is the agar in which conspiracy theories bloom.

 

Likewise, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick maintained surreptitious relations with Epstein long after he repeatedly claimed (once, under oath) that he cut the pervert off. “Lutnick previously said that he cut off contact with Epstein after 2005,” CNBC reported. But the so-called “Epstein Files” indicate that Lutnick was being deceptive. “In December 2012, Epstein invited Lutnick to lunch on his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the documents showed. The two men also had business dealings as recently as 2014, CBS News reported.”

 

Trump and his allies should make hay of the Miami Herald’s discovery, but the political benefits they might reap from that exercise will be limited by the administration’s efforts to shield those in Trump’s orbit with deeper ties to Epstein from accountability. Certainly, figures like Bannon and Lutnick, who are guilty not of mere association but of misleading law enforcement, lawmakers, or the public, complicate the White House’s efforts to indemnify the president. It’s not at all clear why these two replaceable components in the MAGA machine are worth the effort.