ArcaMax

Reacting with borderline hysteria to demands that the government open its files on Jeffrey Epstein -- the deceased pedophile and financier who once described himself as Donald Trump's "best friend" -- the president has aroused suspicion even among MAGA cultists. Few Americans believe the excuses Trump and his appointees in the Justice Department and FBI offer for pretending they have no relevant files about Epstein's depredations or that there is "nothing to see here." The Wall Street Journal's revelation of a racy scrawled message from Trump to Epstein on his 50th birthday underlined the appearance of a coverup.

In his latest gambit Trump is imitating a president he truly admires -- the legendary crook Richard M. Nixon -- by adopting what became known during the Watergate scandal as the "modified limited hangout." That's the best shorthand description of Trump's order to Attorney General Pamela Bondi to release grand jury testimony from the Epstein sex crimes prosecution (which ended in 2019 with his reported suicide in a federal detention facility).

It is a phrase originally uttered by John Ehrlichman, the late Nixon White House aide whose career ended with a federal conviction for obstruction of justice and conspiracy. On the afternoon of March 22, 1973, in an Oval Office meeting that included Nixon, Ehrlichman, White House counsel John Dean, Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman and Attorney General John Mitchell, the president and his advisers plotted how to extend their coverup of the Watergate burglary and an assortment of related felonies.

They decided to concoct a misleading official report on the White House role in the burglary, with "facts" designed to exculpate the president and his gang. Worried that even a phony report would provide too much information, Nixon asked whether "we want to ... go this route now? And let it hang out, so to speak?"

"It's a limited hangout," replied Haldeman.

Dean agreed, and then Ehrlichman chimed in: "It's a modified limited hangout."

Fast-forward to Trump on the evening of July 17, 2025.

"Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval," he wrote in a post on Truth Social. "This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!"

Trump has never explained -- and will never explain -- how the Epstein case, which he and his MAGA cohort have exploited for years, became a Democratic "scam." Many of the conspiracy theories involving Epstein, "perpetuated" by his favorite crackpots, supposedly implicate Democrats in the most terrible crimes imaginable. Yet it is Democrats, along with a few Republicans willing to stand up to Trump, who now clamor for transparency on Epstein.

They won't get much if anything from a grand jury transcript. Trump, as a convicted felon, and Bondi, as a career prosecutor, both know how very limited that document will prove to be, if a court ever approves its disclosure. The testimony and investigative evidence presented in Epstein's prosecution will implicate him -- not the various friends, associates and public figures whose names and faces may appear in the gigabytes of text, video and financial data seized by the FBI.

No doubt Trump feels assured that his own name and image won't appear in the grand jury documents -- because he was never questioned or investigated in the case that focused solely on Epstein. He feels safe in urging their release, hoping and praying that will quell the conspiracy-crazed mob that he created.

It won't.

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To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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