Conspiracy theories abound when the government misleads

These two stories aren’t entirely unrelated. Government misdirection has contributed to a collapse of public trust in its institutions. So has a decade of relentless attacks by Trump on the “deep state.” Squandered credibility makes it hard for the Justice Department or the intelligence community to persuade skeptical Americans that there’s nothing more to share about Epstein’s dealings with powerful figures, including Trump.

This week exposed the limits of even Trump’s ability to tell his base what to think. The president on Thursday directed the Justice Department to ask a judge to release “all pertinent” grand jury testimony in the Epstein case. He did so shortly after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump contributed a doodle of a naked woman to Epstein’s 50th birthday album in 2003. “May every day be another wonderful secret,” the future president purportedly wrote, though Trump denies it.

Trump’s reversal came a day after he called the Epstein saga a “hoax” and lashed out at supporters seeking to learn more. But the grand jury testimony — which he knows a judge might not even unseal — would represent a fraction of the evidence that investigators gathered. For example, it probably wouldn’t include Trump’s reported Epstein birthday letter.

Americans are understandably suspicious. A Reuters-Ipsos poll this week found that 69% of Americans think the federal government is hiding details about Epstein’s clients. A CNN poll this month found only 3% of Americans are satisfied with the information the government put out about the case.

The Justice Department has good reason to refrain from releasing raw investigative information, in the Epstein case or any other. Prosecutors risk smearing people who are incidentally mentioned in files or for whom there was insufficient evidence to charge with crimes. There’s also a public interest in protecting victim privacy.

That is why Trump officials should not have fanned the Epstein conspiracy theories to begin with. Now, they are reaping what they sowed. In 2019, after Epstein’s death in federal custody, which was ruled a suicide, Trump retweeted a claim that Epstein “had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead.” Conservative influencers were given binders during a White House visit this February purporting to be the “first phrase” of the Epstein files. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in May that there are “tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children.” She had also indicated that Epstein’s client list was sitting on her desk for review. Now, her spokespeople say no such list exists.

America’s paranoid style of politics is nothing new. Over the decades, elites failed Americans enough times to produce a crisis of faith in government rooted in real-world examples. The Pentagon Papers exposed a pattern of lies about the Vietnam War, during which 58,220 Americans died. Watergate showed a conspiracy that really did go all the way to the top.

When Oswald killed Kennedy, three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing at least most of the time. Since 2007, that number has never been higher than 30%. The U.S. preemptively invaded Iraq based on cherry-picked intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. Trump’s 2016 victory was partly a response to these and other failures.

In 2020, a group of 51 former intelligence officials shredded their credibility by signing a public letter insisting the release of Hunter Biden’s emails “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” The laptop that contained them was authentic. Joe Biden’s campaign knew that when it pressured social media companies to suppress stories about its damaging contents. These same operatives also covered up Biden’s decline in hopes of winning in 2024.

Not every paranoid fantasy that gains traction on the internet is true, and the Justice Department should not release investigative files willy-nilly to satisfy the conspiracy theorists. Even if the full Epstein file were opened and revealed nothing of interest to the public, it probably would not deter fabulists from spinning new theories.

But Americans would not be so receptive to such theorizing had elite institutions avoided some of their spectacular stumbles — or if U.S. leaders refrained from amplifying them. The government’s long-term challenge is to rebuild trust with the public. At the moment, too many officials are eroding it further.