New information from Jeffrey Epstein’s dossier dropped again on Friday. This time: House Democrats released new photos featuring Donald Trump and other powerful figures like Bill Clinton, Steve Bannon and Richard Branson, culled from tens of thousands of photos from the Epstein estate.
But Epstein’s connections to these men — none of whom have been accused of wrongdoing by law enforcement — have become public record, and the photos themselves don’t tell us much.
In fact, Friday morning’s more surprising news may have come from a different source: the polls.
The investigation further illustrates how troubling the impending loss of documents could be for Trump, especially ahead of next Friday’s deadline for the Justice Department to turn over documents to Congress. That’s because many Americans — even Republicans — are inclined to believe, or at least entertain, the idea that Trump is aware of something nasty.
The Reuters-Ipsos poll asked Americans whether they thought Trump was unaware of Epstein’s alleged crimes before they became public. Only 18% said Trump was “somewhat” or “very” likely not to know. Fully 60% said Trump knew “not too much” or “not at all.” The odds of believing Trump knows something are 3 to 1.
Even among Republicans, slightly more think Trump might know (39%) than think he doesn’t (34%).
Trump has again not been accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein case, and he has denied involvement.
But it’s not just this poll that suggests the public thinks he has something to hide.
Yahoo News – A YouGov survey in July asked Trump not only whether he was aware of Epstein’s alleged crimes, but also whether he committed crimes with Epstein. About half of Americans (48%) say they believe Trump did it.
But perhaps more notably, only 24% of Americans doubt he did it. The rest are neutral.
Then again, even many Republicans aren’t ruling it out. Only 55% of Republicans immediately rejected the claim. (13% believe Trump committed crimes with Epstein, while a third are neutral.)
Just to highlight the noteworthy thing these polls tell us: Three-quarters of Americans say they’re still open to the possibility President of the United States Know or even participate in a crime with a notorious pedophile. Even many Republicans believe he knew what Epstein was doing.
This suggests that even if there is no conclusive evidence linking Trump to wrongdoing, additional documents to be released could be detrimental to the president because they continue to mention Trump or include photos of him, as before. (As for the photos and emails from the estate released by House Oversight Committee Democrats, the White House claimed it was a “Democrat hoax” and said the emails “prove absolutely nothing except that President Trump did nothing wrong” and said the administration “did more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats did.”)
The poll shows some important caveats.
One is that the poll question did not specify what type of crime it was. Of course, Epstein was known for a very specific type of crime. But perhaps part of the reason most people think Trump is guilty of a crime is that Americans largely believe that very powerful people are capable of committing crimes certain kinds criminal behavior.
In fact, we’ve even seen this happen before with Trump. Polls during the 2024 campaign showed that 54%-38% of voters said they believed Trump had committed “serious federal crimes.” A poll conducted long before his indictment amid the scandal over Trump’s apparent pressure on Ukraine for help in the 2020 election found that 63% believed Trump had at least “likely” done something illegal during his political career.
So some of them can be baked.
But as for Epstein’s crimes, unlike his indictment or the Ukraine scandal, there’s no conclusive evidence that Trump was involved or knew about them.
This may also be partly due to Trump’s handling of the Epstein files and what we’ve learned so far.
Quite simply, the president does a lot of things that really make it seem like he has something to hide. They included a series of misleading statements about his past ties to Epstein, as well as his slow disclosure of information about Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s recruitment of an underage employee from Giuffre’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Virginia.
There are also multiple data points that suggest Trump knew Epstein was at least particularly interested in young women. It’s not just his infamous 2002 statement about Epstein’s preference for “younger” women.
Epstein emails released last month even showed that Epstein privately suggested that Trump knew something about Epstein and the girl. “Of course he knew about these girls…” Epstein said at some point in 2019, apparently referring to Maxwell’s recruitment. In another 2011 email, Epstein called Trump a “dog that doesn’t bark” and said Giuffre spent “several hours at my house” with Trump.
Given all of this, it shouldn’t be too surprising that many Americans believe the worst, and that even more appear to be at least open to Trump’s alleged or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
But with less than a week to go until Friday’s deadline to release Justice Department documents, the numbers are not what Trump wants to see.
They heighten the real political dangers facing the president. After all, Americans have viewed the Epstein dossier in the worst possible light for some time. Trump just gave them reason to believe he had something to hide.
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