The latest tranche of Epstein files released by the Justice Department has sent shockwaves through the international community. Foreign governments, royal families, businesses, universities, and cultural institutions are investigating those with ties to the notorious sex criminal, and powerful figures around the world have been forced to step down from influential positions amid revelations that they were a part of his network. The United States, however, doesn’t seem to care so much.
It should be one of the most consequential sex and crime scandals in the history of the United States, but many of those tied to Epstein are skating by with little in the way of consequence. President Donald Trump — a longtime friend of Epstein’s whose name allegedly appears in the files over a million times — and other figures working within or tied to his administration seem to not only hang above the fray, but enjoy the protection of the American justice system.
This week, Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, where she thrice refused to acknowledge a group of survivors sitting in the hearing room, who all affirmed that they had not been granted an opportunity to meet with the attorney general despite their requests. Bondi refused to answer questions about the Justice Department’s failure to open investigations in potential coconspirators, and dismissed questions from lawmakers about the department’s sloppy handling of sensitive victim information, and about the over-redaction of potentially incriminating information.
The White House also shrugged off questions about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who — although not implicated in any criminality — was caught in a bold-faced lie about the extent of his dealings with Epstein. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt abruptly cut off a press briefing after being asked by a reporter if the administration would continue to stand by Lutnick. “Secretary Lutnick remains a very important member of President Trump’s team, and the president fully supports the secretary,” Leavitt said. Trump has also brushed off questions about Lutnick and other figures tied to the administration appearing in the files.
But outside of America’s borders, Epstein’s ghost is threatening to topple governments and prompting a wave of public and private sector resignations.
In the United Kingdom, the former Prince Andrew — now citizen Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after being stripped of his titles in 2025 — was evicted from the royal “lodge” he shared with his ex-wife Sarah Furgeson, the former Duchess of York, who was also revealed to have a financial relationship with Epstein earlier this month. Mountbatten-Windsor settled a civil lawsuit in 2022 brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell of trafficking her to the former prince and other men when she was a teenager.
Now, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service is weighing an investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor over new evidence that he may have transferred confidential government reports to Epstein while representing the kingdom as a trade envoy.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, meanwhile, is facing calls for his own resignation and a potential vote of no confidence over his relationship with Peter Mandelson, a prominent figure in the Labour Party who was tapped to serve as United States Ambassador under Starmer. Questions about the extent Starmer was aware of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein were heightened after newly released emails revealed that the two men had joked about Epstein’s relationships with young women, and that Mendelson may have provided Epstein with sensitive government emails containing privileged financial information.
Two high-level officials in Starmer’s administration have resigned in the face of the scandal, Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party this month after being dismissed from his ambassadorship last year, and authorities are exploring a criminal investigation into his conduct. While Starmer insists he was misled by Mandelson about his ties to Epstein, in the view of the UK public and lawmakers, the buck stops with him.
Consequences are being felt in other nations, as well. Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit is in hot water after emails revealed she had borrowed one of Epstein’s Palm Beach properties in 2013. Norway’s former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland has also been embroiled in the scandal. On Thursday, Thorbjørn was charged with corruption by Norwegian authorities in connection to Epstein, after being stripped of his diplomatic immunity earlier this week.
Jack Lang, France’s former Culture Minister, resigned last week from his position as president of the prestigious Arab World Institute in Paris. In Slovakia, a national security adviser to Prime Minister Robert Fico stepped down earlier this month. A Swedish U.N. official resigned after the documents revealed a visit to Epstein’s island. Several other countries — including Poland and Lithuania — have opened investigations into the potential trafficking of girls from their nations.
On Friday, DP World Chairman and Chief Executive Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem — who was discovered to be one of the names of potential Epstein co-conspirators whose name was redacted in files after a review by lawmakers — resigned from his position atop the Emirati international exporter.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who pushed to unredact the names of Bin Sulayem and five other individuals, wrote on X after Bin Sulayem’s resignation that he and other lawmakers would “not rest until there is elite accountability for the Epstein class.”
But in the United States, the Justice Department has staunchly refused to pursue further criminal investigations into Epstein’s potential co-conspirators or participants in his trafficking ring. Resignations have been few, and powerful figures with ties to Epstein, from former President Bill Clinton and Microsoft founder Bill Gates to Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon seem to have been afforded cover under Trump and his administration’s repeated insistence that the scandal is a “hoax” and that Americans should turn their focus elsewhere.
As the international community rallies to excise the cancer of Epstein’s crimes from its public institutions, Americans can only watch from afar, and lament the decay of what was once a model justice system.
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Donald Trump speaks in front of the American flag at the White House, on May 12, 2026.
It’s the Corruption, Stupid
Let’s say it plainly: There has never been a president as corrupt as Donald Trump. There is no close second in our history.
Take two days in May as Exhibit A. Americans just found out that in the first quarter of this year, Trump’s stock portfolio made 3,600 trades — an average of nearly 60 a day. This is a rapacious pace that would make a day trader on meth blush. Many of these appear suspiciously timed to benefit from actions approved by the president himself. For example, his Nvidia stock surged after Trump announced the company would be permitted to sell its cutting-edge AI chips to China. Similar suspiciously well-timed calls were made ahead of big government moves involving other companies, from Intel to Palantir to Boeing. The Trump Organization says all trades are made by a third-party investment advisor. If so, they appear to be psychic.
But the apparent insider trading scam being run from within the Oval Office is small change — merely millions of dollars — compared to the self-dealing plunder of $1.8 billion tax-payer dollars being pushed through the DOJ and IRS.
There’s never been a sitting president who sued his own government for $10 billion. That’s because it’s absurdly corrupt. But that’s what Donald Trump did, arguing he had suffered damages from prosecutions pursued before he was reelected. Trump, like many of his supporters, persistently confuses persecution with prosecution.
The judge who heard the case convened an independent panel to review the suit, suspecting it might be a scam. Before the case could be dismissed, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — who had previously served as Trump’s personal lawyer — declared that the bogus suit would be preemptively settled, not for $10 billion, but for the symbolic sum of $1.776 billion, which Trump said will be distributed to persecuted political allies.
This is a shakedown. The president is compelling a Justice Department he controls to redirect money from taxpayers — that’s you — to his most fervent supporters. This slush fund will set off a cash grab among MAGA lawyers and be used to reward partisan fanatics who attacked the U.S. Capitol — and police officers — on his behalf.
If that wasn’t enough of a blatantly illegal use of presidential power, it was revealed that the “settlement” deal included a pledge signed by the acting attorney general that would ensure — in the hysterical all caps of a Trump tweet — that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” any tax claims, audits or related prosecutions against Trump, his family or their businesses. This is an attempt to get a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card for the Trump family — a license to steal.
All of this is insane. All of it is unethical, and much of it is illegal and impeachable — but our system was not designed to deal with a shamelessly self-dealing president, a spineless Republican Congress, and a complaint conservative Supreme Court that has refused to enforce the emoluments clause of the Constitution and ruled that Trump has immunity for actions he takes as president. That ruling may prove to be the most consequential — and most corrosive — act of judicial abdication in American history. Against this partisan-group think, individual acts of courage matter. So kudos to the top lawyer at the Treasury Department, Brian Morrissey, who at least had the integrity to resign rather than oversee this tax-payer funded plunder.
Just to close out the corruption-palooza, Trump announced that he would endorse the Lone Star State poster-boy of corruption, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in his primary against incumbent GOP Senator John Cornyn. Paxton’s scandals include a truly buffoonish array of fraud and bribery charges that resulted in him nearly being impeached by the state legislature. But corruption is a feature, not a bug, of Trumpland.All this smacks of late Rome and you’d be forgiven for half expecting Trump will next appoint a horse to an open Cabinet position, with Republicans rationalizing the need for more equine representation. It is no more absurd that the cavalcade of Trump appointees refusing to say that Biden won the 2020 election during their confirmation hearings in the Senate. The decision to parrot unreality for partisan gain defines deviancy down.
But in the search for something hopeful to hold onto in dark times, you can find some comfort in the fact that corruption is often the thing that turns the tide against authoritarian-adjacent administrations. And there is evidence this is happening.
Trump’s billions in self-enrichment, his reflexive twisting of U.S. policy to sell out long-term national interests and enduring values, comes at a moment when nearly half of Americans say they are feeling extremely anxious about their own financial situation.
That anxiety is driven by the widening gap between Main Street and Wall Street, a gap set on fire by a trade war and a real war Trump started, which has no end in sight but promises to further raise energy prices, fertilizer prices, and strangle the global economy. While CEOs embrace the transactional nature of this president, kissing his ring and offering vigs, the situation is grim if you’re not lining up at the Trump trough. At a time when the super-rich are getting richer, everyone else is told to go to hell by the man in the White House.
These are precisely the kinds of conditions that turn people against an aging, autocratic president who shows contempt for the very people who put him in office. It is not just that Trump’s approval numbers have plummeted to the point where two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing. It is that Trump, for the first time, is opposed by a majority of non-college-educated white voters — a.k.a. his base — and they feel betrayed because Trump is raking in billions of dollars while they struggle to pay rent and buy groceries. Trump has dismissed and discounted their concerns, turning a blind eye to the anger about rising costs that carried him back into the presidency.
Trump’s aim is to make his thievery so blatant that we collectively become numb to it and disfigure our democracy in the process. Once upon a time conservatives warned about the dangers of “crony capitalism” and corruption. Now they are silent and complicit. It is the temporary triumph of partisanship over principle. Patriotism demands that we reassert the basic American idea that no man is above the law and that our presidents are not kings.