Mar-A-Gulago | Trump and Epstein

Dan Bongino is threatening to resign from the CIA. His boss, Kash Patel, is said to be having doubts too.

For those who don’t know, Bongino is the current Deputy Director of the CIA—a man whose career path runs from NYPD cop to Secret Service agent to full-blown MAGA media personality. I’ve followed him on social media for years—not because I admire him, but because I find him a useful lens into the darker corners of the MAGAverse and QAnon. Also, let’s be honest: “Bongino” sounds like the nickname of a uni housemate who had an industrial-strength bong.

His output is predictably dense with conspiracy theories, performative rage at liberals, and the kind of relentless, self-pitying grievance that seems to define the modern American right.

Bongino was one of the most vocal promoters of the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories, insisting Epstein was murdered to silence him, and that a “client list” of powerful elites—mainly liberal ones—was being kept hidden. This fantasy was repeated so often it became a kind of scripture within MAGA circles.

His boss, CIA Director Kash Patel, is cut from the same cloth. Always looking like he’s taken a few too many hits off the Bongino, Patel even published a children’s book designed to explain Trump-era conspiracies to pre-schoolers. Start ’em young, right?

Back in reality (or what’s left of it), Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General, has now officially announced that there is no Epstein client list, and that there is clear evidence Epstein hanged himself. This is a marked shift from her earlier claims, when she took office insisting that the Epstein list was “on her desk” and ready to go public.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, taking a brief break from trying to make Twitter/X worse, used his platform to claim that Trump’s name is on the Epstein list. That’s the same list that no longer exists. The result? Utter chaos in MAGAland.

So is Trump on the Epstein list? It depends which list you mean. He certainly knew Epstein—there are photos, quotes, even friendly party invites. At one point, Trump called him “a terrific guy” who “likes women on the younger side.” Later, he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. Nothing conclusive has ever been proven. But for a movement obsessed with ‘just asking questions’, it’s strange how few of those questions get asked when the name is Donald J. Trump.

But if it was all exaggerated as Trump claims why did Epstein kill himself?

The movement is in crisis. The Epstein list was a matter of faith among hardcore QAnon believers—a promised reckoning where all the child-abusing leftist elites would be exposed. It was central to a worldview that cast Trump and his allies as heroic truth-tellers battling a Satanic, paedophilic deep state.

Now, that worldview is crumbling. Trump himself has backed Bondi’s assertion that there is no list, no conspiracy. This betrayal cuts deeper than any policy disappointment. For many MAGA supporters, it’s more painful than losing healthcare or seeing their relatives deported.

The reality is this: Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and Dan Bongino owe their positions entirely to Trump’s patronage. None of them has experience in intelligence or justice. For the first time in its history, neither the CIA Director nor Deputy Director has a background with the agency. This isn’t just unprecedented—it’s a national security risk. The grown-ups were pushed out, and the cranks were let in.

All three of them built their personal brands by promising vengeance on behalf of Trump—saying that once in power, he would unleash hell on the deep state, unmask the paedophiles, and reveal hidden truths. The problem? These promises were based on fiction. They were lies—and now, having won power on those lies, they’re struggling to deliver.

They aren’t alone. RFK Jr., now bizarrely in charge of U.S. healthcare, is an even more prolific peddler of nonsense and conspiracy. His appointment suggests that truth itself is optional in this administration.

Trump, Patel, Bondi, and Bongino have all flirted with QAnon, the deranged theory that Democrats like Hillary Clinton are part of a global paedophile ring. They stoked expectations they can’t now meet. They filled the internet with bravado, bending reality to serve short-term tactical goals. And now that MAGA believers want results—arrests, prosecutions, lists—they’re scrambling.

The deeper problem is that they’ve created a perpetual cycle of paranoia. Conspiracists never get closure; they just find bigger conspiracies. The Epstein list isn’t missing—it was never real. But acknowledging that is like asking a cult member to admit their prophet was lying.

Bongino, meanwhile, is juggling a backlog of other conspiracy promises:

• The discovery of cocaine in the West Wing during the Biden years.
• The leak of the Supreme Court draft overturning Roe v. Wade.
• The pipe bombs found near party HQs just before January 6th.

All of these were meant to be smoking guns. None of them were. But they fed the base. And now, Bongino and his ilk are trapped between two forces:

1. Trump, who has no consistency of thought, no loyalty, and no attention span.
2. The MAGA base, who made them rich and famous, and now demand results.

Everyone who rises under Trump knows the golden rule: he is never wrong. If anything goes wrong, someone else takes the blame. Your job isn’t to lead or govern—it’s to absorb the criticism he cannot be seen to deserve.

Bongino, to his credit, seems to be the only one smart enough to realise the trap. Trump’s favour is fleeting, fragile, and transactional. Today’s golden boy is tomorrow’s scapegoat.

Maybe Bongino will swallow his pride and hang on, living in the glossy bubble of Mar-A-Lago—a surreal court of gold leaf, plaster cherubs, sycophants on tap, and late-night imperial rants on personally owned social media platforms.

Mar-A-Gulago.

The whole scandal shows how this White House works. Not on strategy. Not on policy. Just whims—some cruel, some idiotic, all designed for one purpose: to keep Trump at the centre of attention.

The Epstein fiasco reveals more than just a MAGA betrayal. It shows how far the administration has slid into the Führerprinzip—Trump is MAGA, Trump is America, and Trump is always right.

Truth and falsehood don’t matter anymore. Once you stop caring about the difference, you lose the ability to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong.

And that’s the real conspiracy.

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