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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Martin Belam

Monday briefing: How Trump and his allies flipped and flipped again on the Epstein files

Donald Trump speaks at the signing ceremony ‘Fostering the Future’ executive order in the East Room of the White House.
Donald Trump has gone from demanding the Epstein files be made public to dismissing the saga as a ‘Democratic hoax’. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty

Good morning. Leading Republicans were once full-throated in their calls for the release of every single scrap of information the US government might hold on the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to the establishment.

Years of Maga supporters entertaining the QAnon-fuelled frenzy of pizzagate conspiracies seemed to have pushed senior GOP figures in a direction where they believed publication of more information on the Epstein case would expose the Democratic party elite and the “wokerati” of Hollywood as vile sex fiends.

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