In this week's SojoMail, Amar D. Peterman writes that Trump’s 180-degree turn on the Epstein files has not gone unnoticed by his base. But will it matter?
Whether it was documentaries, movies, national nonprofits, or Christian celebrity advocates, white evangelical Christians have long placed sex trafficking among their highest moral concerns. As social ethicist Nicole S. Symmonds rightly summarizes, “Anti-trafficking work is coated with and coded by evangelical whiteness, which uses the norms of sexual, social, and racial purity in their interactions with and recovery of trafficking victims and survivors.” Considering this reality, it should come as no surprise that President Donald Trump would hone in on a human trafficking conspiracy that involved leaders at the highest level of our government to solidify his already firm foothold among evangelical Christians. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump tapped into the missionary fervor of his evangelical MAGA base by saying that he would release the Epstein files. These files are legal documents pertaining to the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, who was a multi-millionaire and convicted pedophile. In 2019, while imprisoned and awaiting a federal trial on sex trafficking charges, Epstein hung himself. His suicide led to a string of conspiracy theories, popularized not only by MAGA supporters and QAnon conspiracists but also by members of the Republican Party, who insisted that Epstein did not kill himself but was instead murdered. According to these groups, the legal documents and evidence collected by the Justice Department held the potential to expose the criminal underbelly of Democrats and progressive elites. But despite Trump’s previous comments indicating a willingness to release the Epstein files and thereby expose this “deep state,” in early July, the Trump administration’s rhetoric about the Epstein files took a decisive turn. Although critiques of Trump have come from far and wide, this critical call is coming from inside the house. | 
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