The MAGA base is still irate at the Trump administration’s decision to essentially drop the Jeffrey Epstein case. 

Trump made a dubiously timed Truth Social post on Monday praising FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino for “locking up criminals, and cleaning up America’s streets.” The praise came after a day of excoriation from the deep MAGA base, as they called for the heads of Patel, Bongino, and Attorney General Pam Bondi. And they have a point—all three of the senior Trump officials (and even Vice President JD Vance) either outright pushed or fanned the flames of the idea that Epstein didn’t kill himself. 

When Bongino replied to Trump’s praise with a nonchalant “We are doubling down. No letting up,” the supporters who once felt represented by Bongino came for him. Nearly every reply to the post was a reference to Epstein and Bongino’s broken promise. 

“Sorry sir, today is not a good day to try and inspire confidence. How did we go from ‘the client list is on my desk’ to there is no list and he killed himself?” said one dismayed loyalist. “How is [Ghislaine] Maxwell in prison for trafficking to no one?”

“Dan we need answers on the Epstein stuff bro, can’t let Bondi off the hook for lying to everybody,” the Hodge Twins posted. 

“The only thing we see you doubling down on is covering up the Epstein stuff. He trafficked kids to someone, and I don’t buy for a second that the FBI doesn’t know a single one of his clients,” an account with “America First Christian” in its bio wrote. “You should resign in disgrace.”

Frankly, it is weird. Unearthing the Epstein case and exposing Democrats like the Clintons and Obamas has been a longtime talking point of MAGA’s QAnon wing that reached the campaign’s mainstream. This current moment highlights the “real MAGA” versus “traditional neocon” split that has been a constant point of friction within Trump’s administrations. And it is surfacing once again as people like Patel and Bongino, who are of that “real MAGA” ilk, make decisions that so many of their supporters feel are aligned with the “deep state,” which must certainly feel like a dagger to the heart to them.   

“Sorry Dan. Practically been a zealot behind you forever. After yesterday, I no longer trust you or anyone else there. You people are no better than the last admin. You just talk a better game,” said another. “We’re not stupid.” 

As Donald Trump has rapidly expanded immigration enforcement, he and his administration have also begun stripping government oversight—and people are already dying, according to a report published by CNN Tuesday.

Court documents filed in April as part of a lawsuit against the Trump administration revealed that the Trump administration effectively shuttered three watchdog organizations at the Department of Homeland Security. Employees at the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, or CRCL; the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, or CISOMB; and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, or OIDO, were abruptly suspended in March and given a separation date of May 23.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s budget requests for the fiscal year 2026, zeroed out the OIDO budget. The Trump administration has claimed that the budget request was merely a recommendation from the president, according to CNN.

While the DHS has claimed to have plans to reconstruct department oversight, rebuilding the watchdogs would likely take time—time that immigrant detainees don’t have. The new Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman Ronald Sartini, the person charged with reassessing the DHS’s oversight efforts, was stranded as the only employee assigned to CISOMB, CRCL, and OIDO, according to CNN.

As DHS carries out a massive reduction in force, the size of its detainment and deportation operation has only grown. Since Trump’s inauguration in January, 60 local, state, and federal prisons—public and private—have been detaining immigrants for DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

At least 12 people have already died in ICE custody so far this year, the same number that died in all of 2024. Administration officials have brushed off these deaths as business as usual, but Michelle Brané, a former Immigration Detention Ombudsman, told CNN that the death toll “could be much higher.”

“People’s lives are at risk,” Brané said.

Katie Shepherd, who previously served as a senior policy advisor at CRCL before she was removed as part of the DHS oversight cuts, said the agency was moving in the wrong direction.

“As the Trump administration is doubling down on immigration enforcement, and the number of people in custody is rapidly increasing, we should be increasing oversight, not eliminating it,” Shepherd said.

When asked about the ongoing cases at CRCL, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told CNN that the department was still “committed to civil rights,” claiming that CRCL had “actually undermined civil rights protections as well as basic federal law enforcement.”

“All legally required functions are still being carried out—but in a more efficient and cost-effective way, and without compromising the department’s core mission of securing the homeland,” McLaughlin said. “Oversight offices continue to receive and open new complaints and investigations.”

The United States doesn’t have the missile stockpile it........

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