The Rise of the Epstein Democrat

The New Yorker·Apr 24

The Rise of the Epstein Democrat

In demanding the release of the Epstein files, the Party has embraced a radically new way of fighting Donald Trump. Is it a good idea?April 24, 2026Illustration by Jared Bartman; Source photographs from GettyIn February, 2019, the Democrat-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform organized a hearing with a star witness they thought would shine a light on the sprawling nexus of scandal engulfing Donald Trump’s first Administration. That witness was Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, who had already pleaded guilty to orchestrating hush-money payments to two women with whom Trump had allegedly had affairs, and to misleading Congress about the extent of Trump’s involvement in talks to erect a building in Moscow with his name on it. Democratic leaders were wary of treading on the toes of Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Trump’s ties to Russia, but nonetheless hoped that Cohen’s testimony would be Watergate-level explosive. In the end, Cohen did not come armed with hard proof of Russian collusion but did present documentation linking Trump directly to the hush-money payments. Ro Khanna, a Democratic member of the committee, described this as a “smoking gun,” one that demonstrated Trump was, at minimum, guilty of “garden-variety financial fraud.”At