Explaining the Right is a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know.
Over the past week, House and Senate Republicans have joined the Trump administration in obstructing the release of the Epstein files—obscuring a scheme that victimized underage girls for the benefit of extremely wealthy men.
This is just the latest chapter in the right’s long-running affiliation with pedophilia. The GOP itself has been involved in several pedophile-related scandals while also trying to leverage legitimate public concerns about child abuse for its political gain.
A history of scandal
President Donald Trump is the central figure in the current Epstein scandal. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were known to be friends in the past, and the Wall Street Journal recently revealed that Trump sent Epstein a sexually explicit birthday letter, featuring a drawing of a naked woman and the message, “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
The Journal also reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi alerted Trump that his name was included in the Epstein files, which his administration has refused to release.
But even outside of the Epstein scandal, Trump has a past chockfull of sexualizing young women, including children. In a 2006 interview with shock jock Howard Stern, Trump said he had no age limit on how young a woman he dated could be before stopping himself.
“No, I have no age—I mean, I have [an] age limit. I don’t want to be like Congressman Foley with, you know, 12-year-olds,” Trump said.
Trump was also accused of walking into the dressing room at the Miss Teen USA beauty pageant—which Trump owned at the time—where contestants as young as 15 years old were undressing. According to witnesses, Trump said, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.”
The Foley scandal that Trump ironically referenced contributed to Republicans losing control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections. The GOP was left scrambling after it was revealed that then-Rep. Mark Foley of Florida sent inappropriate sexual texts to congressional pages. In one instance, Foley reportedly sent explicit emails to a former page who was 16 years old at the time.
Republican leadership was aware of Foley’s actions but did not remove him from his position or otherwise sanction him.
The Republican leader who presided over the Foley scandal turned out to be an offender himself. Speaker Dennis Hastert, who held his position from 1999 to 2007, admitted in court that he repeatedly sexually abused boys who he coached when he was a high school wrestling coach.
The topic of wrestling was also involved in the sexual abuse scandal involving Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Trump’s most prominent congressional supporters. Jordan has been accused of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse perpetrated against members of the Ohio State wrestling team, where Jordan was a coach. Some of the victims were underage, including one who said he was 14 or 15 when he was abused.
And Republicans had a similar problem on their hands when Alabama Judge Roy Moore ran for Senate in 2017. Moore was accused by multiple women of attempting to engage them in romantic relationships when they were as young as 14 years old and Moore was in his 30s. Moore lost the race to Democrat Doug Jones.
Abuse allegations as a campaign tactic
Republicans have also used the issue of child sexual abuse as a political weapon, usually by promoting baseless conspiracy theories to attack the left and any institutions seen as unfriendly to the conservative movement.
The Pizzagate conspiracy falsely alleged that prominent leftists were trafficking children and inspired a would-be shooter in Washington, D.C. The related QAnon conspiracy—promoted by figures close to Trump—pushed similarly unhinged notions and has been the motivation for several crimes including murder.
QAnon adherents even made the baseless claim that furniture retailer Wayfair was somehow involved in the trafficking of children.
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Ahead of his failed presidential run, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spearheaded a campaign accusing Disney of “grooming” children in an attempt to affiliate acceptance of LGBTQ+ people with abuse. The campaign was highly promoted by Fox News, the right’s leading propaganda outlet.
Similarly, conspiracies surrounding Epstein and his death were invoked by the right as a way to attack Democrats and elites who conservatives have linked to liberalism. The reelection of Trump was supposed to reveal the inner workings of these networks once and for all.
Backfire
Now the right has been forced to scramble. Instead of proving their conspiracies about Epstein, it is Republicans who are suffering in public opinion polling.
Trump, a diehard conspiracy theorist, is now the central figure deflecting questions about the Epstein files.
Republicans who have politically capitalized on public fears about child abuse are now being dragged down by yet another pedophile scandal.