Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Gangster president Trump and his Justice Department lackeys are engaged in a coordinated cover-up of his entanglements with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein by unleashing a blizzard of insults, lies, and worn-out conspiracy accusations to deflect criticism. So far this hasn’t worked.
But the same authoritarian tactics that have failed to kill the Epstein story were successfully executed most recently to seize ideological control of Columbia University and the Paramount/CBS media empire. While their acquiescence to Trump’s censorious coercion briefly broke through, the Epstein scandal dominated cable television news for weeks.
Liberals are enjoying the Ouroboros spectacle of the conspiracist-in-chief getting devoured by his own weaponized conspiracy, as some MAGA faithful are at long last beginning to see through Trump’s lies, after hundreds of thousands of blatant falsehoods. Even the venomous conspiracy profiteer and bigoted, hate-fueled MAGA demagogue Alex Jones was brought to tears of confusion over Trump’s “flip-flops” and “betrayal.”
A foundational myth of the MAGA movement is that the revelation of the Epstein files, including a “client list,” will expose the deep state corruption and moral depravity of Democrats and liberal elites. The Epstein secrets integrate with the QAnon conspiracy that insists America is run by a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democratic pedophiles and that their hero Trump would reveal and then vanquish these evildoers in a series of humiliating mass arrests known as “The Storm.”
Trump not only said that he would release the Epstein documents but even appointed officials — Kash Patel as FBI director and Dan Bongino as deputy director — who built their media brands on the Epstein conspiracy. As podcasters, they stoked the MAGAverse with a rabid anticipation that Trump would unseal the files and perp walk the pedophiles exposed therein.
Early in 2025, Attorney General and Trump devotee Pam “Himmler” Bondi sent MAGAworld into a frenzy by claiming she was reviewing Epstein’s “client list” and promising to release more files from the sex-trafficking investigation.
Trump’s blood-thirsty base breathlessly awaited an imminent exposure of pedophiliac criminality. “The mob wants to eat,” said former CIA officer Mike Baker, “and they’ve been throwing red meat to the mob about the Epstein files now for years.”
However, in May, it was revealed by the Wall Street Journal that Bondi told Trump that “his name appeared multiple times in the files.”
A sudden smokescreen of silence enveloped Trump officials. Meant to terminate any further talk of Epstein, Bondi’s DOJ and Patel’s FBI declared that there is “no evidence” of an Epstein “client list” implicating high-profile figures in sex trafficking or sexual abuse crimes. Exasperating MAGA disciples, the DOJ — run by Trump‘s former impeachment lawyer Bondi and his personal lawyer Todd Blanche — showed they will protect Trump rather than expose and jail “deep state sex predators.”
Trying to beat back the hungry MAGA mob, Trump attacked supporters who called for transparency as “weaklings” and “stupid.” When reality, or math, does not bend to his will, he reacts like a petulant child — as on Friday when he fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the brutal job numbers showed that his shakedown tariffs were causing unemployment to increase as the economy contracts.
After insults failed to quell the demand for the Epstein files, Trump excreted lies, obfuscations, and refurbished conspiracies.
Conspiracies have been the vampiric lifeblood for Trump’s political career since the days when he spread the birther lie that President Obama was not born in the U.S. More than a decade later, a squirming Trump came full circle by trying to divert attention from the Epstein conspiracy with a laughably desperate one that Obama committed “treasonous conspiracy” to interfere in the 2016 election.
Despite wall-to-wall coverage by Fox News, the “Obama conspiracy” failed to take off. In retreating from his promise to release the Epstein secrets, Trump has earned the indignation of voters from across the political spectrum. Influential podcaster and Trump endorser Joe Rogan said that releasing the Epstein files is a “line in the sand” and that Trump was attempting to “gaslight” everyone.
Spewing out more smoke, Deputy Attorney General Blanche met secretly with Ghislaine Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence as Epstein’s sex-trafficking co-conspirator, sex abuser and unremorseful liar. Outraging and disgusting Maxwell’s victims, their families and most others, Trump did not rule out a pardon for Maxwell, presumably so she would falsely exonerate him. Friday, days after the meeting with Blanche, Maxwell was suspiciously moved, without explanation, to a low-security, “luxury“ prison in Texas — an extraordinary privilege for a monster convicted of heinous crimes against children and a punch in the face to her victims.
While traveling in Scotland last week on tax-payer money to further enrich himself by opening yet another waste-of-space golf course, Trump suggested that his name may have been etched onto the Epstein files by Joe Biden’s magical autopen. He blathered, “Those files were run by the worst scum on Earth, by Comey, they were run by Garland, they were run by Biden, and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen.”
Trump — Epstein’s self-described closest friend for ten years — could shut down the scandal talk by releasing all the Epstein files — that is, unless they contain damning evidence. While he can’t stop himself from talking about it, he is fueling the flames of the scandal, contradicting himself and behaving exactly like a guilty person — a perception reinforced by his long history of sexual misconduct: a conviction for sexual abuse, boasting about sexual assault, and credible rape allegations.
Unfortunately, the media focus on Epstein has diverted attention from the ongoing Israeli war crimes and barbaric genocide in Gaza. Intentionally starving children to death, Israel‘s denial of water, food, electricity and medical supplies has created a mass manmade famine. US-backed Israeli forces have turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths as the IDF slaughters people waiting for food.
The Epstein scandal also overshadowed Trump’s recent triumph of corruption, as both Columbia University and Paramount/CBS surrendered to conspiratorial accusations and financial shakedowns. While these repulsive “victories” briefly seeped through the blizzard of Epstein coverage, they did not receive the sustained attention they deserved. In these instances, lies and intimidation — perpetrated by the Justice Department — succeeded in coercing institutions to eliminate dissent and capitulate to white nationalist ideology.
Two weeks ago Stephen Colbert — the king of late night ratings who has mocked, ridiculed and eviscerated Trump for a decade — was canceled by CBS, ending the iconic Late Show when Colbert‘s contract runs out in May 2026. This occurred two days after Colbert scorched Paramount — CBS’s parent company — for caving to Trump and handing over a $16 million payoff to settle his “60 Minutes” lawsuit. (Full disclosure: my son and nephew currently work for Colbert on the Late Show and both worked for him on The Colbert Report.)
Calling the payoff “a big fat bribe,” Colbert indicted Paramount for paying protection money to placate Trump and thus induce his FCC chairman Brendan Carr to favor Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance media. Dumping Colbert, who had been recently nominated for his 33rd Emmy, right after he criticized CBS reeked of censorship. CBS claimed the reason was financial. As Juan Cole wrote, “In the age of creeping Trumpian fascism, this firing may be more than a typical studio cost-cutting measure taken in the shadow of a looming merger.”
Gleeful that a critic had been temporarily silenced, the psycho president celebrated, crowing on UnTruth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.” His celebration will be short-lived. Colbert will soon bring his sharp intelligence and astringent comedy back to television.
Trump’s mobster-style protection racket was not restricted to CBS, nor is Paramount’s capitulation unique. Last December, ABC News paid $15 million to Trump to settle a legally dubious defamation lawsuit over free speech statements regarding the civil judgment that Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll.
Two days after the Colbert cancellation, the FCC approved, in a 2-1 vote, the $8 billion Paramount merger with Skydance in a brazen display of corruption that mocked any pretense of propriety. Paramount’s greed-fueled boss, Shari Redstone, will be billions richer and CBS will become even more Trump-friendly.
As part of the merger agreement, Skydance vowed to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, while encouraging “viewpoint diversity.” Translation: Skydance will eradicate any program designed to prevent racial or gender inequality; Skydance promised that “diversity of opinion” meant “PSA advertisements and other broadcast transmissions that support conservative causes supported by President Trump.”
The lone FCC vote against the merger came from lawyer Anna Gomez who called Skydance “cowardly” for agreeing to adopt “never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial content” that violate the First Amendment. She added, “The Paramount payout and this reckless approval have emboldened those who believe the government can — and should — abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions.”
As with Paramount/CBS and ABC, other media companies have succumbed to Trump’s extortion racket. In January, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta paid a bribe of $25 million to Trump to settle a ridiculous lawsuit after the company followed its own well-understood guidelines and suspended Trump from Facebook and Instagram for inciting violence at the Capitol.
The message sent by these media corporations is that journalists and news organizations should think twice before publishing facts or criticism that might upset the thin-skinned, toddler president. Executives at CBS pressured “60 Minutes” not to run certain controversial stories. As Colbert said in a monologue, “CBS is morally bankrupt.”
In another loathsome example of institutional capitulation to Trump‘s racketeering, Columbia University protected its funding and sacrificed its freedom. Blackmailed with the loss of government research grants and threatened with investigations into phony accusations of antisemitism, Columbia University agreed to pay a $221 million fine.
The university also made a host of academic, admissions and governance concessions to the Trump regime in a corrupt deal that marks the dawn of a new era of repression, bribery and regulation by deal making, in higher education.
After Columbia became the protest epicenter of a nationwide movement of campus encampments condemning the Israeli genocide in Gaza, congressional Republicans seized upon the protests to make cynical and unfounded accusations that the university engaged in antisemitism. Hoping to mollify Republicans, the university invited police onto its campus in a frantic and sadistic crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus speech.
Unsatisfied, Republicans demanded more and more from Columbia. Intensifying their repression, Columbia’s leadership disciplined, suspended and expelled protesting students, failed to protect Palestine supporters from relentless harassment, and hounded faculty who dare stand up for their students. Columbia even updated its public safety protocols to allow ICE on campus without a judicial warrant.
Among other fascistic acts, ICE kidnapped and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent master’s graduate who was a lead negotiator with the Columbia administration during the Gaza solidarity encampment. Held in detention in Louisiana for three months, a federal judge freed him in June.
Continuing the Republican attack, the White House partnered with the Department of Justice to exert further pressure on Columbia, looking to exert a level of ideological control over the university’s internal operations that is unprecedented.
The university’s vast federal research funding — issued as grants that enable scientists, doctors and academics to pursue knowledge with enormously positive implications for American commerce, health and wellbeing — was held hostage. Columbia capitulated and slunk to “the negotiating table” — really, an exchange on the precise terms of its extortion.
The Trump administration got everything it wanted, including a DOJ-approved monitor who will review Columbia’s admissions records, with the express intent of enforcing a Supreme Court ban on affirmative action. In other words, a white nationalist ideologue will ensure that the university does not admit too many non-white students.
“The deal leaves the university exposed to the shifting whims of this federal administration and sets a dangerous precedent for higher education across the U.S.,” said Columbia Literature Professor Joseph Slaughter. “It provided no legal safeguards that might protect Columbia from further federal extortion and political interference.”
Columbia’s appeasement has been vilified especially in comparison to the actions of Harvard, which brought a lawsuit to restore federal funding cuts and to preserve its ability to enroll international students. The Trump administration cast its fight with both schools as a justified response to antisemitism.
One of New York’s most prominent Jewish leaders Representative and Columbia alum Jerrold Nadler said that unlike Harvard, his alma mater “effectively waved the white flag,” allowing “a once highly-respected institution to succumb” to coercion. “This disgraceful and humiliating action will not, in any way, improve the situation on campus for Jewish students.”
“Molesting Liberty,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2025
“The agreement,” wrote Columbia Law School professor David Pozen, “gives legal form to an extortion scheme.” The process was something akin to a mob boss demanding protection money from a local business. “Nice research university you have here,” the Justice Department seemed to say to Columbia. “Would be a shame if something were to happen to it.”
Another perilous feature of Columbia’s submission: The Trump administration has made it clear that while Columbia is first in line, it intends to reach comparable agreements with other schools — to scale the Columbia shakedown into a broader model of managing universities deemed “too woke.”
As has already occurred with media corporations, law firms, and tariffs, regulation by deal is coming to higher education — deals strong-armed onto schools after terminating or threatening their federal funds. Last week Brown University caved to Trump’s funding threats.
These deals will not be the product of thorough investigations or judicial findings of misconduct. No established legal process was followed for the Columbia agreement. No genuine legal dispute was resolved. As Pozen wrote “The style of regulation reflected in the Columbia deal is at once far more coercive and far more arbitrary — opaque in development, unpredictable in application, deeply susceptible to personalism and corruption, and only contingently connected to the laws Congress has written.”
The Christian nationalists, election deniers, neo-fascists, Project 2025 apparatchiks and crypto-hawkers that compose the Trump regime have little regard for academic freedom, scientific progress or creative expression. Undermining these values, Trump and the Justice Department are waging an ideological war whose goal is to transform these universities and media networks into arms of the MAGA state.
American institutions are enabling a dangerous slide into a gangster-style dictatorship — one that wields threats, bogus lawsuits, fabricated conspiracies, and extortion as its strategy. In this climate of capitulation and fear, acts of institutional resistance — like Harvard’s — are vital to providing an inspirational rebuke amid a sea of cowardice.
The fissures in the MAGA firmament over Trump’s and the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein scandal are a welcome development. Will the ghost of Epstein somehow bring down Trump? Unlikely.
However, the cracks in Trump’s support should be leveraged to weaken the administration and stop or slow down the malign president from dragging the country further down a sewer of despotism, corruption, cruelty and fiscal stupidity.
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