It ‘Tears My Guts Out’

Many in the MAGA movement are in a state of anger and disbelief over the Justice Department and FBI’s memo disclosing that there was no evidence of a Jeffrey Epstein “client list” that incriminated powerful people amid his perpetration of child sexual abuse. Among those was right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who posted a video showing his raw reaction to the memo.

The memo released Monday by the DOJ and FBI (available at this link) says that an “exhaustive review” of Epstein documents found “no credible evidence” that Epstein “blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” Axios broke news of the memo on Sunday.

More from Variety

Jones shared his reaction in a video Monday posted on X, in which he teared up discussing the Epstein case. He alleged in the caption, “The DOJ is running cover for the CIA and Mossad. NO ONE IS BUYING THIS!! Next the DOJ will say ‘Actually, Jeffrey Epstein never even existed.’ This is over the top sickening.”

“It’s beyond insane,” Jones said. “You couldn’t try to hurt yourself worse. You couldn’t try to discredit the FBI worse than what they’ve done.”

Jones criticized U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who had told Fox News in a Feb. 21 interview that an alleged list of Epstein’s sex-trafficking clients was “sitting on my desk right now.”

“All those videos are saying, ‘Yeah, she’s seen the videos, it’s all coming out.’ And then now it doesn’t exist? I mean, what?” Jones said in the video. Jones also speculated that FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino are “being tortured” and said, “I think you see them losing their souls on live TV.”

“So this is the swamp winning,” Jones said. “The question is, is Trump’s DOJ actually using this to control the deep state, or are they just so overwhelmed by it they are tapping out?”

Jones, who shot the video in his car, at another point became tearful and said, “I just got to the office, I’m going to go throw up, actually… I mean, I’m physically gonna puke, probably right now. My mouth is watering right now because I have integrity. I just really need the Trump administration to succeed, and to save this country, and they’re doing so much good. And then for them to do something like this tears my guts out.”

Jones added that “the left, they’re all complicit. They’re openly promoting pedophilia. We know they’re pure evil. And they’ll think it’s all funny, ‘Oh, look, Alex is sad. MAGA’s tearing [itself] apart.’”

Jones and his company Infowars filed for bankruptcy after the families of victims in the Sandy Hook mass shooting in Connecticut won judgments in 2022 totaling nearly $1.5 billion against Jones in defamation lawsuits. Jones had repeatedly promoted baseless conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre.

Epstein, the disgraced multimillionaire financier and convicted sex offender, died in 2019 in what authorities said was a suicide while he was being held in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The DOJ-FBI memo released Monday also reiterated findings that Epstein died by suicide: “After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019.”

On Feb. 27, Bondi — who was appointed by Trump — declassified and publicly released the “first phase” of files related to Epstein and “his sexual exploitation of over 250 underage girls at his homes in New York and Florida, among other locations,” according to a Department of Justice announcement. Many of the documents had already been public.

Elon Musk, amid an escalating feud with President Trump that exploded last month, claimed in a June 5 post on X (which he has since deleted) that Trump “is in the Epstein files,” which he asserted “is the real reason they haven’t been made public.”

The DOJ-FBI memo said the FBI “conducted digital searches of its databases, hard drives, and network drives as well as physical searches of squad areas, locked cabinets, desks, closets, and other areas where responsive material may have been stored.” It continued, “These searches uncovered a significant amount of material, including more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence.” The files relating to Epstein “include a large volume of images of Epstein, images and videos of victims who are either minors or appear to be minors, and over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography,” the DOJ-FBI memo said. “Consistent with prior disclosures, this review confirmed that Epstein harmed over one thousand victims.”

“Through this review, we found no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials and will not permit the release of child pornography,” the DOJ-FBI memo said. “One of our highest priorities is combatting child exploitation and bringing justice to victims. Perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein serves neither of those ends.”

Best of Variety

The post It ‘Tears My Guts Out’ appeared first on Variety.