Fox News Stars Dump on Trump Shutting Down Epstein Conspiracy for ‘Political Purposes’

In the inner circle of Fox News personalities and pro-MAGA voices, it’s hard to find three more loyal and influential figures than host Laura Ingraham, contributor Mollie Hemingway, and frequent guest Tom Fitton. That’s what makes it particularly noteworthy that, on Wednesday night, all three gathered on The Ingraham Angle to criticize President Donald Trump — or more precisely, his administration’s — handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

The flashpoint is a Sunday night memo from the Department of Justice, which concluded that Epstein died by suicide and confirmed there is no “client list” of powerful figures to be exposed for raping underaged girls. This conclusion came as a shock to conspiracy theorists who had long believed Trump would deliver long-promised justice and transparency on the matter.

Some of the loudest voices fueling those expectations are now members of the Trump administration, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. All three have been regulars on Fox News — Bongino even as a host. During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Bondi made headlines by walking back previous comments made on Fox News, in which she claimed the “client list” was sitting on her desk. She clarified that she had meant the case files were available for review, and went on to shift her story, saying the thousands of videos in evidence weren’t recordings of abuse but merely child pornography Epstein had downloaded.

The QAnon-influenced wing of the MAGA movement has been furious over the lack of transparency and the shifting explanations. That frustration was palpable — though measured — in this surprising Fox News segment, which delivered uncharacteristically harsh criticism of the Trump administration. Coming from such loyalists, the rebuke marked a significant pivot.

“President Trump and his AG hoped that they had put an end to the Epstein story,” Ingraham said, after airing clips of Bondi, Patel, and Trump discussing the case in what she described as an “inconsistent manner.”

“Yet for some of the administration’s top allies, this raised more questions than it answered. Online and on-air podcasters, radio show hosts, others cried foul, alleging a cover-up of the most heinous crimes against children,” she continued, before noting that Fitton’s Judicial Watch had “filed a FOIA lawsuit that covered all these records, including what we now understand to be child porn videos that Bondi said would never see the light of day.”

She then played a clip of Benny Johnson asking Patel — before he became FBI Director — why the Biden administration was allegedly covering up the list. “Simple because of who’s on that list,” Patel said. “What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can’t get the list? Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.”

“He sounded pretty definitive there,” Ingraham noted, before asking Fitton, “So what changed?”

“I think they decided, for political purposes, they didn’t want to include the individuals who are on these lists and put them in the public domain,” Fitton replied. That’s a stunning accusation coming from someone who has been one of Trump’s staunchest legal defenders. “They were concerned that some of them may not have done something warranting the disclosure.”

“I mean that’s that’s the most charitable interpretation,” he continued, adding, “But there IS a list, there’s no doubt, I mean they talk about in the memo they wrote, ‘Well, there’s no incriminating client list.’ What does that mean? I want the non-incriminating client list.”

“And of course a client list is a term of art right where where is associates where’s the list of contacts you know we asked under our FOIA lawsuit Pam Bondi give us the documents that you say you’re looking at to give us documents about the release of these documents you said the fb i was obstructing the release they came back to us that we have nothing,” he concluded.

Hemingway framed the administration’s handling of the Epstein case as a “proxy” for other high-profile conspiracy theories, including assassination attempts on Trump, JFK, and the “Russia collusion hoax.”

“But no one feels very satisfied with the level of investigation that was taking place or the transparency,” she said. “And it seems that the FBI and other government agencies care more about managing the narrative than actually just revealing the information that needs to be revealed.”

After airing a clip of a former inmate in Epstein’s jail insisting there was “no way” he could have killed himself, Ingraham made a cautiously critical observation.

“This all adds to the swirl of a bit of confusion about this and doubt,” she said. “And again, the government only, I think, engenders trust among the American people with full transparency. So when Pam Bondi — and everyone knows how much I like Pam Bondi, I like her a lot — But when she says, ‘well, those are basically never going to see the light of day,’ But who, was it downloaded child porn or was it, were there individuals engaged in acts with children? That’s the question, I think. And unless any, either of you know what the definitive answer is, I don’t know.”

That Fox News—long the most loyal megaphone for Donald Trump—is now airing pointed critiques of his administration’s Epstein cover-up speaks volumes. It’s a striking pivot that reveals just how potent the backlash has become. Even Trump’s staunchest allies seem to realize that, in this case, placating the base’s outrage matters more than protecting the boss.

Watch above via Fox News