Trump tries to close the Epstein investigation.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

Are you new here? Get free emails to your inbox daily. Would you rather listen? You can find our podcast here.

Today’s read: 15 minutes.

A discussion about ranked-choice voting.

Back in April, Executive Editor Isaac Saul sat down with Nick Troiano, the executive director of election-reform nonprofit Unite America, to talk about ranked-choice voting. It’s the second time Isaac has interviewed Nick and the first of several upcoming videos Tangle will be producing on election reform. You can check out the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for more here!

Quick hits.

1. In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court temporarily paused an order by a federal judge that barred the Trump administration from carrying out mass reductions in the federal workforce. (The decision)
2. The Internal Revenue Service said in a court filing that churches and other houses of worship can endorse political candidates to their congregations, creating an exemption in an existing ban on political activity by tax-exempt nonprofits. (The filing)
3. An unknown individual has contacted at least five government officials using artificial intelligence to mimic Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Authorities believe the individual is attempting to gain access to government information or accounts. (The impostor)
4. The Trump administration is reportedly deliberating whether to send an additional Patriot air-defense system to Ukraine. The report follows President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States will send more weapons to Ukraine. (The report)
5. The Justice Department charged 10 people for allegedly planning an ambush at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Texas on Friday. (The charges)

Today’s topic.

The Epstein files. On Monday night, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a joint memo with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) affirming prior findings in the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The memo concludes that materials related to the Epstein case prove that he had committed suicide in 2019, that Epstein did not have a “client list,” and that no other parties were materially implicated as a result of the government’s investigation. Additionally, the memo stated that the federal government would keep materials relevant to his case sealed to protect victims.

Back up: Jeffrey Epstein was a wealthy financier with influential global connections who was charged in 2019 with sex trafficking minors and conspiracy to sex-traffic dozens of underage girls. Shortly after his arrest, Epstein died in his cell in what was officially ruled a suicide. However, due to the high-profile individuals linked to him, Epstein’s death sparked widespread speculation that he had been covertly killed and prompted public demand that information about his co-conspirators and clients be made public.

The DOJ and FBI memo contradicts previous statements and commitments made by leaders in both agencies. Before being appointed to their current roles, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino speculated that Epstein’s suicide was a cover-up and advocated for the release of the entirety of the files related to his investigation. However, both Patel and Bongino now say that they have reviewed Epstein’s file, confirmed he committed suicide, and determined his case file should not be released to protect victims.

Attorney General Pam Bondi is also facing scrutiny, particularly for comments she made in February that suggested she was considering releasing Epstein’s client list. "It's sitting on my desk right now to review," Bondi said. "That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that.” At the time, Bondi and Patel had just authorized a partial distribution of the files that contained little new information.

Many conservative commenters have criticized Bondi and the administration for choosing not to release new information about Epstein, with some suggesting that President Donald Trump may be personally implicated. In a since-deleted post on X from June, former White House advisor Elon Musk claimed that Donald Trump was implicated in the Epstein files. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump dismissed a question during a cabinet meeting about the Epstein files. “Are you still talking about Epstein,” Trump asked. “This guy has been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this creep?”

Today, we’ll get into what the left and right are saying about the Epstein files. Then I’ll give my take.

What the left is saying.

• The left views the case’s denouement as a predictable letdown after the Trump administration ginned up false hopes of an exposé. 
• Some say the memo is a blow to conservative conspiracy theorists. 
• Others say the left should be equally outraged by the case’s handling.

In CNN, Aaron Blake wrote about “Pam Bondi’s botched handling of the Epstein files.”

“None of this is new or surprising to anyone who has followed the Epstein case closely. New York City’s medical examiner had ruled the death a suicide. The attorney general in Trump’s first term, Bill Barr, had come to the same conclusion, despite his initial suspicions of something more sinister. A Justice Department Inspector General report also pushed back on the idea the death was anything but a suicide, while criticizing staff failures that allowed such a thing to happen,” Blake said. “Still, the memo undercuts theories that continued to circulate, including that there was proof that influential figures were involved in Epstein’s exploitation of underage girls.”

“The idea that Epstein kept a ‘client list’ that potentially implicated influential figures has become an article of faith in some circles. Key Republican lawmakers have treated its existence as an established fact and pushed for its release. And a big reason for that was Bondi herself,” Blake wrote. “Bondi said there were ‘tens of thousands of videos of Epstein ‘with children or child porn.’ Bondi first made the assertion on a secretly recorded video. Then she repeated the claim publicly, possibly in an effort to get ahead of that video’s release… But just a month later, FBI Director Kash Patel appeared to walk back Bondi’s claim.”

In Salon, Sophia Tesfaye said the memo “slams the door on MAGA-world's long-running Epstein grift.”

“After Sunday’s anticlimactic release, the conspiracy theorists who have suggested that Epstein’s death in custody was nefarious — and meant to cover up a wide range of crimes, presumably committed by leading Democrats and liberal celebrities — have seemingly turned on Trump and his team,” Tesfaye wrote. “According to this newly released DOJ memo, there is no ‘incriminating ‘client list,’ no ‘credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals’ and no ‘evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.’”

“This is hardly the first time that Trump’s diehard fans have been left holding his bag of broken promises. But coupled with rumors that Trump plans to provide relief to farmers and factory owners by offering amnesty to undocumented laborers in certain fields, we begin to see the MAGA coalition fraying seriously. More wars, fewer deportations and no Epstein list is a far cry from the core of Trump’s America First platform.”

In The Guardian, Arwa Mahdawi argued “MAGA aren’t the only ones who should be outraged” by the memo.

“Great minds have looked into the case and discovered there is nothing more to uncover. So don’t waste your time wondering which powerful people might have been part of Epstein’s alleged trafficking operation. There’s nothing to see here – nothing at all. Case officially closed. That, in essence, was the message from the Trump administration over the weekend,” Mahdawi said. “It’s always fun when the Maga crowd realise what the people they propelled into power are really like. But why are rightwing voices the loudest on this topic?”

“I’ll tell you what is not a conspiracy: the fact that there are a lot of high-status people who are very interested in covering up their association with the disgraced financier. It is not a conspiracy to say the US has a two-tier justice system where rich and powerful people can do terrible things and face no consequences,” Mahdawi wrote. Epstein “was enabled by people who looked the other way, who helped whitewash his reputation, who hobnobbed with him in high society. Those people are still out there, living their best lives. And it is looking increasingly likely they will never be held accountable.”

What the right is saying.

• The right is critical of the administration’s handling of the case, with many saying that they misled the country.
• Some doubt the FBI and DOJ’s claims.
• Others say the story is a lesson on what happens when conspiracy theorists gain power.

In National Review, Jim Geraghty called the memo “a dramatic reversal.”

“How do you get a conspiracy theorist to stop believing in the conspiracy? Put him in charge of revealing the conspiracy, with full police powers and no excuse for failing to deliver the full story or hold the perpetrators accountable,” Geraghty wrote. “As recently as February 7, Dan Bongino was hosting his podcast, talking up Epstein’s connections to the Clintons, and declaring, ‘It’s time to start overturning that rock, and seeing what’s underneath.’ Keep in mind, Bongino is now the deputy director of the FBI… Whoopsie! It turns out the list never existed, according to Bongino’s department now.”

“At absolute minimum, Bondi had no problem creating a false impression of what she had found and what kinds of information would be released. At absolute minimum, when Bongino was a podcaster, he felt comfortable speaking about theories and allegations as if they were proven facts,” Geraghty said. “We have a lot of people in our government who lie… They don’t see any contradiction in making media appearances for years, making accusations of the most salacious and notorious crimes, and then, once they’re in a position of power and authority to bring criminal charges, shrugging their shoulders and announcing that there’s no evidence.”

In Hot Air, David Strom said “nobody is buying the Epstein memo.”

“To be clear, Pam Bondi and the Justice Department have not said that there is no evidence against Epstein. There are videos they are withholding due to court orders (to protect victims), and others that amount to child pornography. They claim that the evidence stops there,” Strom wrote. “Unfortunately for them, few people believe that the evidence stopped there. With so many prominent people visiting the same island where the crimes took place, and at the same time Epstein was committing the crimes, it seems implausible that nobody else was involved. As for whether Epstein killed himself… opinions are split more evenly. The claim is more plausible, but the circumstances surrounding his death lead to suspicion.”

“The people most angry about how this has been handled are Trump's most vociferous supporters. They take it as a betrayal and an indication that the Deep State is still in control. I can't say that this is the case — it could well be that the evidence just isn't there, either because not enough existed to justify prosecutions, or because it disappeared in the weeks before Trump took office,” Strom said. “Regardless of what the actual facts are, this disaster is a self-inflicted wound. Big promises were made, along with big accusations implicating very powerful people. Now all those promises are unfulfilled.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about “the Epstein conspiracy boomerang.”

“These are boom times for conspiracy theorists, and one problem is they’re never satisfied. There’s always another coverup to unravel, or another hidden file somewhere that the evil establishment is hiding. That’s what Trump Justice Department officials are learning to their dismay now that they’re trying to close the books on the prosecution and death of Jeffrey Epstein,” the board said. “Government investigators ruled years ago that the sex offender killed himself in prison, but many on the political right don’t want to believe it. The skeptics included Kash Patel and Dan Bongino before President Trump chose them to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Laura Loomer, Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists think Messrs. Patel and Bongino, as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi, must be lying, or have been co-opted, or who knows what,” the board wrote. “There’s a lesson here for partisans who think they can ride conspiracies to power. They can easily boomerang on you once you’re in a position to see the real evidence and then have to convince a public that doesn’t trust anyone in power. Welcome to the rotten establishment, Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino.”

My take.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Many of the same people who stoked theories about Epstein are now targeted by the people they misled.
• We don’t have any strong evidence that the government is hiding a “client list” or covering up a murder.
• I feel some catharsis here, but am mostly concerned about what comes next.

Let me start with this: Through all the nonsense we are going to cover here, don’t forget about the victims. Real girls were trafficked and abused, and their lives were stolen from them by Epstein, Maxwell, and whoever else actually participated in their schemes. And on days like today, their stories are moved to the background while lasting repercussions for their abusers seem evasive and delayed. For that, we should feel a sense of shame and injustice, and we should do whatever we can to keep the focus on their suffering. 

Now, I hate the expression “conspiracy theory” and have been advocating against its casual use for a couple years now. I especially object to how commonly people use the term to slander popular beliefs that contradict institutional statements but are highly credible; we’ve learned that many “conspiracy theories” have ended up being true. But today, I’m going to use the expression to refer to things I’d define like this: a belief or set of beliefs which connect unrelated observations together based on a set of fundamentally false assumptions.

As the internet has proliferated unsubstantiated assumptions, conspiracies have become more abundant. The internet has also incentivized politicians, political influencers, media outlets, and pundits to constantly battle for attention. Attention means influence, which translates to votes, fundraising clicks, subscriptions and money, depending on what you are looking for. And easy ways to get attention include: stoking conspiracies, evoking fear, and providing shock value. 

For about a decade now, the war for conservative attention has been dominated by some of the most conspiratorial thinkers. In simple terms: Conspiracy theories have become central to right-wing discourse. Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Candace Owens and — yes — Donald Trump, are some of the most popular participants. Each of them has elevated a handful of deranged theories about how the world works that are incredibly conspiratorial (read: based on false assumptions) — from the 2020 “stolen election” to Paul Pelosi being with a gay prostitute when he was nearly beaten to death to Democratic pedophilia rings and the Obama birther conspiracy. 

To be clear, I’m not saying conservatives have a monopoly on conspiracies — the left deals in a great many of its own conspiracy theories. But I am saying that liberal discourse is much less dominated by overt loyalty to conspiratorial thinking. The conservative writer Richard Hanania has broken this phenomenon down in convincing terms, and I find this excerpt particularly memorable:

Democrats may have flaws. But if tomorrow Ivanka Trump got into a car accident, I promise you that you would not have rampant speculation by Chuck Schumer, Rachel Maddow, and Barack Obama that she was actually buying crack or driving to get an abortion at the time. Some left-wing influencers might suggest things like this, but they wouldn’t have the status of Trump, Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson, and members of Congress. Republican conspiracy theories are at the center of conservative discourse and messaging. Conspiracy theorists on the left, in contrast, are usually marginalized.

For several years now, I’ve been warning about what will come after all the intricate threading of these conspiracies falls apart. In 2021, for example, Donald Trump Jr. tried to urge Americans storming the Capitol building to back off. Many of his followers responded to his request by telling him to “stand down” and saying this was now “bigger” than him. As I said at the time, Trump Jr. had lost control of the train that he built — he spent months convincing people of the belief that the election had been stolen, then got nervous when his followers took the rational action that followed that belief (fight for democracy).

Similarly, in February, when a set of conservative influencers “received the Epstein files” (which ended up being a publicly available nothingburger), I warned that those influencers had also lost control of the train. Their followers were pissed, suspecting the influencers themselves might now be in on the conspiracies they themselves had cultivated. And that phenomenon just got supercharged this week.

The Justice Department’s decision to announce Jeffrey Epstein had “no incriminating ‘client list’,” that he did in fact kill himself, and that they would keep the files related to his case sealed spurred understandable outrage — it was the rational response to beliefs the administration encouraged. Since the campaign, Team Trump has been promising the goods:

• JD Vance, in October of 2024, on what they would do when in office: “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.”
• Attorney General Pam Bondi, in February, 2025, on the Epstein list: “It is sitting on my desk right now, to review.”
• Alina Habba, counsel to the president, in February 2025, on releasing the client list: “Absolutely. I think it would be negligent for us not to. You have to hold individuals who are indeed rapists accountable. We have to have them tried, in my opinion.”
• Pam Bondi, again, in March: “A truckload of evidence arrived. It’s now in the possession of the FBI. [FBI Director] Kash [Patel] is going to get me and himself really a detailed report as to why all these documents and evidence had been withheld.”
• FBI Director Kash Patel, in June, on the concealment of evidence and the existence of damning videos: “You’re going to get all that information. Like, that’s literally what we’re putting together. And we’re going to give you every single thing we have and can. And that’s the whole point. … Now we’re figuring out how to put it out.”

Popular right-wing influences went even further on social media, declaring in no uncertain terms that they “SAW THE LEAKED EPSTEIN FILES” and warned people to “GET READY FOR THE WORLD TO CHANGE.” Of course, don’t forget President Trump, who repeatedly amplified conspiracy theories that the Clintons were responsible for Epstein’s death in federal custody.

This was always — always — nonsense. Epstein killed himself, and no evidence of any kind has suggested otherwise, only pure speculation. There is no “Epstein client list” and never has been. Journalists covering his story closely have repeatedly tried to communicate this to the public for years, but with little success. 

And the idea that Trump — a public official whose relationship to Epstein was closer and more intimate than any other I can think of — was going to be the person to blow the lid off this whole thing was always farcical. Remember: Trump and Epstein each described one another as close friends, Trump made comments about Epstein that look incredibly damning in hindsight, and Trump personally knew Epstein’s longtime fixer Ghislane Maxwell. That’s more than you can say about most of the people conspiracists associate with Epstein, yet for some reason Trump has largely avoided scrutiny. To call this dynamic “mindboggling” doesn’t really do it justice. 

What’s more, Bondi was the Florida attorney general when Epstein’s plane records became public, and she resisted calls to aggressively pursue more serious charges against Epstein. And Epstein had yet to be investigated because Alexander Acosta, who worked in the first Trump administration, oversaw a sweetheart plea deal Florida gave Epstein in 2008 — one so egregious that a federal judge blocked it, ruling that Acosta had violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act by keeping the deal from Epstein’s victims. 

This is the administration that has, for months, pretended they would blow the lid off this case. Yet Trump remains largely unimplicated. 

It is shocking, really, to watch as many of Trump’s most loyal followers blame Bondi, or Patel, or Bongino, as if these people haven’t pledged total allegiance to Trump and don’t serve at his pleasure. Bondi is, by all accounts, an extension of Trump’s administration — as disheartening as it is that the lines between the attorney general’s office and the presidency are being absolutely erased. To believe that she is closing this case down without Trump’s green light or explicit encouragement is simply absurd. There are really only two options: Trump, Bondi, Patel and Bongino are now telling the truth (which is what I think), or they are covering something up to protect more powerful parties, which would logically have to include Trump (or, at the very least, some of his close allies). 

I have to admit to a certain amount of catharsis about this, like when stolen election conspiracies fell apart. Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, two people I’ve warned were partisan hacks unfit for the FBI, are now being devoured by the online monster they created. In reality, I think they are now finally telling the truth; they got inside, they looked for the goods, and they realized they had nothing to offer their misled followers. It’s hard to spare any empathy for them.

However, I’m also unsettled about whatever comes next. First, people like Trump, Bondi, Patel, and Bongino convinced people that Epstein was killed because he had a list of powerful people who were actually child molesters. Then, after rising to power in part on promises to expose that list and seek justice, they got access to the files and declared there is actually nothing to see here. Now their followers are breaking from them — refusing to believe that everything they have been told is a lie and insisting Trump et. al are now part of the cover-up. What comes next? If storming the Capitol was the rational response to the 2020 stolen election conspiracy, what is the rational response to this?

Take the survey: Do you think the government has a list of Epstein’s clients? Let us know!

Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.

Your questions, answered.

Q: Why are the reader questions always the thing to be cut for time/length? Tangle doesn't have to abide by traditional news standards so why cut it when you don't have to?

— Antonio from Seattle, WA

Tangle: We’ll try to answer this question briefly, so it doesn’t meet the same unfortunate fate! No, we aren’t subject to the same constraints as traditional media (page limits, editorial oversight, and physical space on a printed page). However, we do still have constraints.

First, if our emails get too long, they get clipped — meaning your inbox cuts off the newsletter midway through and you have to click away to read the whole thing. This hurts deliverability of our newsletter, which hurts our business, which hurts our product.

Second, we know that we’re competing for attention every day, and that if we demand more and more of our readers’ time we’ll lose some of them. So we set ourselves a word limit that not only safely keeps our emails from being clipped, but keeps us asking for a reasonable amount of attention.

Third, the reader question is what we decide to cut because it’s the only section that exceeds a few hundred words and isn’t essential to that day’s coverage. Other sections are either way too necessary or way too small to skip for space.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

A new study from researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of California, Los Angeles found that the health of children in the United States has significantly declined across almost all major health metrics over the past 17 years. The study analyzed 172 health indicators using data from five national surveys, U.S. and international mortality databases, and a network of pediatric health systems. Among other findings, the study reported that children and teens in the U.S. were nearly twice as likely to die as their peers in 18 other high-income countries between 2007 and 2022, while chronic conditions and diagnoses of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders all rose sharply. UCLA Health has the story.

Numbers.

• 6. The approximate number of years since Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell while facing federal charges for sex trafficking minors.
• 240. The prison sentence (in months) for Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. 
• 200. The approximate number of pages in the first phase of declassified “Epstein Files” released by the Justice Department in February. 
• 37%. The percentage of Americans who thought Epstein committed suicide shortly after this death in August 2019, according to a Certus Insights poll.
• 53%. Of those who think Epstein committed suicide, the percentage who believe prison guards intentionally gave him the opportunity to do so. 
• 35%. The percentage of Americans who think Epstein was murdered.
• 83%. Of those who think Epstein was murdered, the percentage who believe that a well known public figure had Epstein killed to stop him from testifying.

The extras.

• One year ago today we covered the French election.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was our archived piece on whether the government is in the pocket of the elite.
• Nothing to do with politics: Photos from the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.
• Yesterday’s survey: 1,788 readers responded to our survey on the Supreme Court’s ruling on Texas’s age-verification law with 39% supporting the legal arguments and practical outcomes. “I think that if the Supreme Court had applied ‘strict scrutiny’ and the case was lost, that would have been disastrous. Taking a step to limit exposure of children to pornography is overdue and just common sense,” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

On June 22, over 70 pilot whales became stranded on the shores of Ólafsfjörður, a small town in northern Iceland. Local police, firefighters, volunteers, and rescue teams from four neighboring towns came together in an attempt to refloat the whales. Thanks to their coordinated efforts (and a brief flood), the team succeeded in returning all the whales safely back into the fjord. “I was surprised at how well it went,” Lára Stefánsdóttir, one rescue worker, said. “We didn’t expect to get every one out.” Iceland Review has the story, and you can see pictures here.

Don’t forget...

📣 Share Tangle on Twitter here, Facebook here, or LinkedIn here.

🎧 We have a podcast you can listen to here.