Interesting theory from Jeff Childers' Substack today…
When Trump calls the Epstein scandal a "Democrat hoax" and "scam," most people assume he's gaslighting. But … what if he means something more tactical? Maybe Trump isn't saying that Epstein didn't commit crimes. Maybe he's hinting that Democrats (and their deep state allies) weaponized the aftermath. Such as padding the FBI case file with misleading misinformation; creating just-plausible-enough "evidence" to entrap Trump or his allies; flooding the archive with innuendo, red herrings, and manufactured grotesqueries (like "bawdy letters" allegedly signed "Donald"); and intentionally making it too politically dangerous to release.
Maybe they aimed to put Trump in an impossible fix: either don't release, and break his promises, or release, and get manufactured Epstein spooge all over himself and every other significant Republican.
Democrats had four long years to get ready. This theory would explain why Bondi first said, "I have the file" and then said, "there's nothing to see here." Maybe she wasn't backtracking. Maybe she was dodging the trap. She didn't flip she recognized a setup.
In other words, when Trump says Democrat hoax, maybe he means they sabotaged the file.
Did Bondi discover the Democrats had prepared a honeypot? They were aware of all the many promises made by Bondi, Kash, and Bongino to release the entire Epstein file. Did they prepare for it, by loading the file up with so many lies it would be impossible to untangle? Fine. We'll pack it so full of so much scandalous crap that when it comes out, it destroys Trump's people, not ours.
But Trump went sideways, and said, "we're not releasing it." It caused the Democrats to lose their marbles, turn on a dime, and suddenly start demanding it now! Hence the sudden surge of press coverage, calls from the left for "full transparency," and suspiciously timed media grenades (like the mystery Birthday Scrapbook) that just happened to target Trump and no one else.
Unlike the bloated FBI archive, the grand jury transcript is court-sealed, time-locked (2019), prosecutor-curated, sworn and vetted, and immune to post-hoc deep-state meddling. It's the version of the case built before Epstein's death, before Biden's DOJ, and before the cleanup crew arrived. It's the last known account of the crimes as the Trump DOJ saw them.
When Democrats suddenly start demanding the release of the "full Epstein file" after four years of DOJ silence, sealed records, and zero momentum they mean they want their trap to spring. The last thing they want is for the grand jury file to be opened.
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/honeypot-friday-july-18-2025-c-and?selection=1dbcc0c5-e948-4217-8b55-c727f5c14908&r=dzrj0&utm_medium=ios