For the QAnon followers and assorted conspiracy theorists at the core of President Trump’s MAGA coalition, the existence of the storied “Jeffrey Epstein Files” might as well be the movement’s gospel truth. Trump himself boasted that Epstein's files were so damning that their big reveal would put most of his Democratic opponents behind bars.

Instead, the conspiracy theory that gave us Trump is now threatening to burn his presidency to the ground.

Trump sold himself to conspiracy-minded voters as the only man in America capable of “draining the swamp” and revealing the true scope of Epstein’s sex trafficking and grimy influence-peddling. His claim this week that the Epstein files never existed set off a MAGA crisis of faith that cut deeper and broader than any past quarrel — it’s even fracturing his own ultra-loyalist Cabinet.

The Department of Justice is so paralyzed by Epstein-related turf wars that Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino briefly

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