As President Donald Trump faces an escalating political firestorm over his broken promises to release the full contents of the Jeffrey Epstein files, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, has turned her attention elsewhere: to drag queens, transgender people, and Pride parades.
On Thursday evening, Greene posted on X (formerly Twitter) that if Trump “was guilty of anything regarding Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats would have used it against him the past 4 years.” She then pivoted into the kind of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric that has become her trademark, accusing Democrats of defending “drag queen story time, naked men dancing in front of children at pride parades” and “mentally ill men in girls and women’s bathrooms.”
The post came just hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump once sent Epstein a sexually suggestive birthday letter in 2003. The note, reviewed by the Journal, included typewritten text framed by a crude hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, with Trump’s signature placed suggestively beneath her waistline. Trump denied authorship and threatened legal action.
But the damage was already done. For more than a week, conservative influencers have openly revolted over the Trump administration’s July 7 decision not to release additional Epstein files. In an unsigned Justice Department memo, it stated that there was “no incriminating client list,” a direct contradiction of years of MAGA messaging, including promises made by Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
On Thursday, Bondi said she was ready to move the court to unseal grand jury transcripts.
Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California who is the gay ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said he has no faith in the Trump administration to be truthful. “Donald Trump is hiding something,” Garcia told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Thursday night. “He spent his entire campaign talking about releasing the Epstein files… instead, he’s betrayed his base and his promises.”
Garcia said the sudden reversal and Bondi’s promise to release grand jury material selectively reflect a desperate strategy. “I don’t trust any process that Pam Bondi is going to be involved in,” he said. “Their entire job is to protect Donald Trump.”
Garcia stressed that this moment was created not by Democrats, but by Trump himself. “This is here not because Democrats campaigned on it, not because we were talking about the Epstein files or what we thought were conspiracy theories, but because Donald Trump made it central to his win,” he said. “He’s betrayed his base.”
This article originally appeared on Advocate: As Trump faces escalating Epstein scandal, Marjorie Taylor Green targets drag queens