The Epstein client list story is not political. It’s not amusing. It is tragic.

Well, another day of dancing on the damaged desktops of right-wing media figures over their freakout about the collapse of the Jeffrey Epstein files story. Conservative and liberal columnists alike are having a field day excavating podcast appearances by Kash Patel promising that if he was in power, he would release all the stuff the FBI has on Epstein immediately. “Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are," Patel bellowed on the YouTube show of Trump-promoter Benny Johnson in 2023.

Dan Bongino, the conservative radio host turned Deputy Director of the FBI, made a career out of promoting Epstein conspiracies, beginning with the theory that Epstein didn’t commit suicide in the Manhattan Correctional Center but was murdered to end his prosecution for sex trafficking and coverup the scandal of “elites” who were Epstein’s “clients.”

MAGA world wasn’t happy yesterday when an FBI memo leaked, blowing up the entire Jeffrey Epstein Conspiracy Industrial Complex. The FBI released video tape taken in the federal prison in lower Manhattan from the night Epstein died in 2019 showing no one entered his cell from 10:40 p.m. when he was locked down for the night, until 6:30 the next morning when he was found dead. Conveniently, the FBI memo concluded that Epstein never had a so-called client list that MAGA world had contended he used to blackmail business leaders, celebrities and political figures.

There was much chortling in February when Attorney General Pam Bondi, with great fanfare, released binders titled “The Epstein Files: Phase One” to a gaggle of right-wing influencers who had been invited to the White House. The binders turned out to contain news stories about Epstein and other publicly available material. Bondi attempted to explain away the disappointing “declassified” public material by telling reporters that the DOJ was going through a “truckload” of Epstein material provided by the FBI. Questioned on Fox News about the Epstein client list, Bondi claimed, “It’s sitting on my desk right now.”

Look at what happened within the walls of the White House today: Trump, Bondi, and Patel appeared before the press and tried to explain away the sudden collapse of the Epstein story. Bondi claimed she wasn’t referring to an Epstein client list but rather to an Epstein file that was “sitting on my desk, along with the JFK, MLK files as well. That’s what I meant by that.”

Trump jumped in, replying to the question by bringing up the tragedy of the drownings in Texas in comparison: “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking — we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable.”

“This creep” was a close friend of Donald Trump’s in Manhattan for years. Trump and his wife Melania were photographed with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his fixer and pimp, at a Manhattan party, and there are many other photos of Trump and Epstein together. Could that explain the backpedaling, dodging, and chasm-jumping that the White House, DOJ, and FBI are doing today about Trump and his friend?

There is a problem with all the fun MAGA world has been having with the Epstein story: He was a pedophile, and his victims were young girls who were lured to his Manhattan apartment, Palm Beach mansion, and other properties, including his private estate in the Virgin Islands, with promises of acting and modeling careers. Instead, they were sexually assaulted by adult males including Epstein himself and a member of the British royal family, among others.

I cannot attempt to even imagine the hideous experience of being abused like the young victims of Jeffrey Epstein. The sexual abuse of underage girls and boys is not a story. It is a horror that has involved the Catholic Church, protestant religious denominations, and the entertainment business. The horror knows no boundaries. It happens down the street from you and me. People you know, both male and female, have been abused as children.

It is a sad commentary that it takes a public figure like Jeffrey Epstein, or a prominent Bishop, or celebrity television preacher for this terrible behavior of our species to become public, and it is even sadder that the abuse of children became a spectacle that today landed within the White House, the office and residence of the President of the United States.

That Donald Trump’s Attorney General was questioned in his presence about her handling of a sex scandal involving one of his personal friends is an enormous outrage that in another time, involving another man, would have brought down a president. That in itself is a terrible commentary on how low we have fallen as the nation that put that man in that room in that previously august national treasure known as the White House.

But it is too easy to lose sight of the story behind the scandal, the very real damage that has been done again and again, over and over, to little children who were powerless to stop the powerful men who destroyed their innocence and scarred them for life, whether those men were presidents, businessmen, celebrities, or their own fathers, uncles, or neighbors.

The story of Jeffrey Epstein and the crimes he committed is not a political story. It is not something that should be bandied about by podcasters and television news hosts, or in posts on platforms like X and Facebook. Child abuse is a civilizational tragedy and a crime. All those who have abused children should be prosecuted and put behind bars, no matter who they are or what their station in life.

Period.