When the shutdown ended, Arizona Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva was finally sworn in 50 days after she was elected. She promptly signed the discharge petition to release the full Epstein files, getting it past 218 signatures and forcing a vote in the House. Democrats were jubilant in the expectation that this would finally expose Trump and bring us to a point where Republicans are perhaps forced to remove him from office—or at least forced to reckon with his moral deficiencies.
The problem is, even assuming the best case for Democrats (and the worst for Trump), and even though every House Republican but one hopped on the “release the files” bandwagon, neither of these things are likely to ever happen. Let me walk you through how things will proceed.
First, let’s assume—purely hypothetically and for the sake of argument—that compromising pictures exist of Trump exist with an underage girl. Trump will do everything in his power to make sure these never see the light of day. He will first refuse to release them, and he’ll go to court to do it, which will drag out for months or even years. He will also have his minions work to destroy all proof that the evidence ever existed.
If forced, he will release redacted files. If Democrats realize the pictures are doctored or have been removed from the filings, they’ll have to go back to the courts again to get the unredacted version. Trump will (again) drag this out for months if not years. We can see the seeds of it already, in the fact that they are reopening federal investigations to plausibly deny the release on information related to an ongoing probe.
The Supreme Court’s deference to the executive office and law enforcement makes it likely that Trump will get a favorable ruling at some point that prevents the release of the photos. Even if he loses in the courts his team can always refuse to comply, as they’ve already done in so many cases, dragging it out further.
Given all this, it’s very unlikely that the House will ever receive anything incriminating Trump.
But even if it does, what happens then?
“They’re AI fake images.” “Fake news.” “They were planted by the Biden administration to slander me.” “Total witch hunt.” “No President has been treated more unfairly than me.” “Bondi will be opening investigations into the people slandering me…” We’ve heard this song and dance before, and this time will be no different.
The social media that MAGA hangs out on (X, Truth Social, Parler, Facebook, TikTok, etc...) will steer people to content that either avoids the photos or supports the claims they are a hoax. AI chatbots like Grok will quickly be tuned and trained to repeat and support these lies, as Grok already does with Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. With this propaganda flooding their feeds, the MAGA base will never believe the evidence. They’ll angrily call Republican politicians, demanding that they stand up for the president against the fake Biden evidence.
But suppose that Democrats win the House in 2026 and in the face of all this work up the gumption to send articles of impeachment to the Senate. With that sort of pressure from Trump and his base, I can’t imagine getting to 67 votes in the Senate. If it looked to be getting close, Trump would pull out all the stops, including using DOJ and ICE to intimidate wavering Republicans. And if that failed, he could always invoke the Insurrection Act, declare martial law in the Capitol, and make sure the vote didn’t happen.
When you look at the chain of events required for the documents to be released without edits, scrubs, or redaction, and for them to avoid being destroyed before Trump’s time in office expires, it’s almost impossible for them to be released before the 2028 election, much less before next year’s mid-terms. Factor in the tools that Trump has available to combat incriminating evidence that’s come to light, and several miracles or deus ex machina events will have to take place before Trump pays any sort of price.
All it would take is for the Supreme Court to agree that yes, the executive branch can redact whatever it wants if it is related to an ongoing investigation of any sort. Or executive privilege. Or national security. Given how this court has deferred to the executive branch, Trump’s lawyers will throw spaghetti at the wall until something sticks. Then it is game over.
You would think people opposed to Trump would have figured this out by now. Every time they start getting “happy on the farm” about Trump finally facing consequences of his actions, he inevitably escapes them.
He survived the Stormy Daniels payoffs and Mueller investigation. He escaped punishment for stealing top-secret documents and showing them to casual friends. He escaped child rape allegations before the 2016 election (this was the woman who alleged that Trump raped her when she was 13; she was going to go public just before the 2016 election but canceled because she had received threats). He was convicted in civil court of sexual assault, but he has yet to pay a dime of the $88 million he owes. He was convicted of 34 felonies in criminal court but avoided all punishment. He survived the January 6 insurrection and the criminal investigation for meddling in the 2020 Georgia election, where he was literally caught on tape demanding the governor “find” votes for him. The man has spent his life learning to use his power and money to escape consequences for criminal acts; it’s perhaps his greatest talent.
So, when I look ahead at what it would take to remove him from office (or even get incriminating evidence to the House), the path is very narrow, and many barriers would have to be overcome. I believe he will not face consequences of any sort, regardless of what is (or was, if he’s already had evidence destroyed or covered up) in the files.
Betting that the president of the United States doesn’t find a way out of this, when he’s consolidated all the power of the federal government in the executive branch and controls the GOP with an iron fist, is like watching the Harlem Globetrotters whomp the Washington Generals for 10 years and betting all your money against them because, “I thought the Generals were due.”
