By JAY. H. ELL
‘Yeah, I’d take a look at it. … I’d be inclined to do The Epstein. I’d have no problem with it.’ — Donald Trump, September 2024 (two months before the presidential election).
THE EPSTEIN FILES are still central to the American political scene. The recent tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, the firing and then rehiring of the late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, and Donald Trump are all interconnected through the Epstein scandal. Trump is desperate to keep the files under wraps, and considers any Republican calling for release as ‘hostile’. So far, enough Republicans have risked his wrath to ultimately force a debate in the House of Representatives.
I will first outline Kirk’s commitment to the release of the files, and then profile the charismatic young man to show how influential and central he was to the Trump MAGA movement. Next, I will show how the connection between Trump, Kimmel, Kirk and Epstein played out. I conclude with a note on how ubiquitous ‘the files’ are in the current political scene, and why they will continue to be a central factor.
Kirk and the Epstein files
During the 2024 campaign, Charlie Kirk was in sync with releasing the Epstein Files. Right until July 2025, he was a vocal critic of the Department of Justice for failing to release them. He demanded full transparency. He urged the Trump administration to ‘fix the mess by disclosing more information’. Under intense pressure from Donald Trump, as were several other right-wing influencers, Kirk backed off. He fell in line, announcing: ‘I am done talking about Epstein for the time being.’
A day before his death on 9 September, Kirk hosted a show titled ‘Do We Have The Epstein Files Or Not?’ Obviously frustrated by the Trump administration, he once again called for ‘the full unredacted release of the Jeffrey Epstein files’, and repeated his demand for ‘full transparency by the Department of Justice’. He linked his appeal to the broader unaccountability of elites in spite of a bipartisan congressional push. His podcast, ’The Charlie Kirk Show’, was on the top tier of Apple Podcasts.
So the hope that Kirk’s death coincides with the burial of the Epstein files is just that — a hope. Just a day before his death, Kirk himself had resuscitated his own desire for the truth, in spite of Trump’s need to bury the whole matter. Who knows what Trump had told him in July to shut him up, and who knows why Kirk was no longer convinced by Trump’s pleas, and elected to defy him?
But just who was this Charlie Kirk, who was in the tight inner circle of Trump whisperers?
About Charlie Kirk
Those who have only became aware of Kirk as a result of his assassination must have been bewildered by the fact that nearly the whole Trump cabinet was present at his nationally televised funeral. Furthermore, the event was addressed by the vice-president and the president himself in front of a crowd of 95 000. The short answer is that Kirk was a phenom. He had to have been to achieve this status at 31 years of age. He is generally regarded as the organiser who delivered young male voters who usually don’t vote to the Trump campaign, thereby tipping the 2024 presidential election in his favour. But he was far more than that.
At the age of 18, Kirk founded an organization, Turning Point, which was rapidly funded so as to provide a Conservative voice on college campuses, which was lacking at that time. He took on all comers, and in spite of his rigid beliefs he was a skilled listener as well as orator. His fame in the latter area led to invitations to the illustrious historic debating halls of Oxford and Cambridge – not bad for a college drop-out.
At the same time, he became very influential in the Republican Party — to be more specific, with Trump. Besides his radio talk shows, speech tours and conventions, he wrote three books, the most influential being The MAGA Doctrine – an organised version of Trump’s ramblings.
Most significantly, besides his conservative appeal to young male voters and his right-wing schtick, he called for ‘a patriot’ to bail out the attacker who had hammered the head of Nancy Pelosi’s the 81-year-old husband, and organized buses to the 6 January Trump meeting at the Elipse.
So he was solidly and unquestionably hard-right MAGA, but also paid more than lip service to the Christian part of Christian Nationalism. Kirk’s central message was faith, family and country. In addition, he was about the manosphere, straightness (no LGBT people), and — most importantly — Trumpism. He totally dominated the right-wing internet space,much to the annoyance of the right-wing extremist Michael Fuentes. At the other end of the political spectrum, Kirk was a lightning rod for the far-left bloggists, some of whom disgustingly celebrated his death. dd
Besides his organizational capabilities and charisma, this remarkable young man also forged strategic allegiances with the Evangelical Christians. First, there a short-term relationship with the legendary Jerry Faldwell, and then with pastor Rob McCoy, to form the alliance Turning Point Faith. The objective was to involve pastors and church leaders in national politics so that American society could return to ‘foundational Christian values’. Reportedly, more than $5 million were devoted to rallying pastors and church leaders to to this task.
So Charlie Kirk was a central figure in the MAGA world. He headed a crucial organisation that had helped Trump to succeed in 2024, solidified Evangelicals’ support behind Trump, and led a vast following in the new Christian manosphere. He was arguably the most powerful individual on the political scene outside of conventional politics.
To illustrate Kirk’s importance, when Trump asked his wife what he could do for her after her husband’s untimely death, she asked that he, the President, be as available to her when she called as he had been to her husband, to which Trump replied in the affirmative.
Donald Trump with Erika Kirk at the Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk in the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, 21 September 2025.
White House Photo by Daniel Torok (Wikimedia Commons)Â
Kirk’s untimely demise led to a flood of internet coverage, as well as in legacy media. One of the participants in this discourse was ABC’S late-night comedian, Jimmy Kimmel, and therein lies a story of several dimensions.
About Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel, an immensely popular and strident Trump critic, regularly satirised Trump not releasing the Epstein files. For example, following The Wall Street Journal publication of Trump’s alleged birthday note to Epstein, Kimmel maintained that the issue,’was a gift that keeps on giving’.
Two days after Kirk’s funeral, Kimmel made the following political remarks, but nothing near the bile being spewed on the internet (Trump had already warned him that he would be the next comedian after CBS’s Stephen Colbert to be terminated): ‘We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize the kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.’
Pretty mild stuff as far as political comment goes, but enough to set in motion Trump’s prophecy that ‘Kimmel would be the next to go’. The message came from the extremely powerful chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Brendon Carr, who advised ABC: ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way.’ Within hours. Kimmel was suspended ‘indefinitely’, provoking massive protests from the entertainment sector, the public, and all sides of the political spectrum. One of the cardinal American constitutional values — ‘Freedom of the Press’ – had just been blatantly violated.
Within a week an emotional Kimmel was back on air, stating that it was never his intention to make Kirk’s assassination ‘funny’. A day later he was on about Trump being stuck on the escalator in order to distract from ‘The Epstein Files’.
A recurring theme: the Epstein files
Trump the populist was an outsider who sold the story that he supported those who had been left out and abandoned in favour of the elites and the powerful. For whatever reason, pedophilia was associated with those ‘ubermensch’. During the 2016 presidential campaign, it was Hillary Clinton who supposedly conducted a pedophilia ring underneath a Pizza Parlor. During the 2024 campaign, the key to what the powerful were hiding was in the files of the Kennedy Assassination, The Martin Luther King Assassination, 9/11 and The Epstein Files. Besides Trump, his attorney-general, his FBI director and his assistant all promised their release. They are now involved in the cover-up.
As Kimmel mused in his monologue days before his suspension: ‘The Republican Senators just blocked a motion to force a motion on making the Department of Justice release the files … The Republicans have spent the last four years demanding the release of the Epstein files, and the last four months screaming, ‘Do not release The Epstein Files!’
Two women who were in the best position to understand Epstein’s frame of mind prior to his death have recently claimed that they believed he did not commit suicide, adding more drama to this saga. In a mammoth investigative three-part series titled ‘The Perversion of Justice’ which led to Epstein’s rearrest in 2019, Julie K. Brown from The Miami Herald claimed that Epstein would have believed he could escape prosecution because he had obtained an undertaking from the Florida Federal Prosecutor that he could not be prosecuted for his alleged actions should he plead guilty to a lesser charge.
And in a soft-ball interview, in which she exculpated Trump for any untoward behaviour, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator also said she did not believe he had committed suicide. Needless to say, this prompted the conspiracy theorists to spin all sorts of plots. So what happens next?
Congress and the Epstein files
Even with the govenrment shutdown resulting in more threats to the social safety net, the Immigration and Customs, (ICE), government personnel snatching people of the streets, and the bizarre meeting of all the military generals who were addressed by the Secretary of War (legally still Defense), Pete Hegseth, and a low-energy and rambling Trump, Epstein just won’t go away.
The vote needed in the House of Representatives to force the release of the documents, recordings. photographs and videos from the Epstein investigation was scheduled for 7 October. However, the Republican Speaker has closed the House of Representatives for at least that week.
The Democratic representative Ro Khana has claimed that, once the matter hits the floor, at least 40 more Republicans will vote for the release. If that is true, it will constitute a wholesale rebellion against Trump, who has claimed that a vote by Republicans in favour of the public sharing of the Epstein files ‘would be a very hostile act’. The Democrats believe this such a hot issue that they are fund-raising over it. Money is also being collected to put up a billboard in Times Square.
The Epstein estate has already released some damning evidence to Congress, including ‘The Epstein Birthday Book’, which has inflammatory entries, allegedly by Trump and about Trump.
Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon and Elon Musk, all luminaries of the Republican Party, are also mentioned in the files. Moreover, the Republican Congresswomen demanding justice for the victims have threatened to release, under protection of the Legislature’s rules, 20 names of men involved in Epstein’s activities. To add to the president’s displeasure, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has magnified the controversy by claiming that Epstein was the greatest blackmailer of all time. He went on to say he wouldn’t have spent one day in the company of that ‘creep’, who was Trump’s best friend for a decade.
At the end of the day …Â
For whatever reasons, the Epstein files must be pretty incriminating, While for the moment just a few Republican legislators are protesting, the influential manosphere, including the late, irreplaceable Charlie Kirk, has regarded pedophilia as a central evil, and is consequently on the wrong side of the president’s revised position. When the House of Representatives finally debates the issue, it will certainly produce some fireworks.
This is an edited version of an article on Jay H. Ell’s website, I Write What I Like. Used with permission.
FEATURED IMAGE: President Donald Trump with Erika Kirk at the Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk in the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, 21 September 2025. White House Photo by Daniel Torok (Wikimedia Commons)