Donald Trump is known for his emphatic use of capital letters to express his frustration or anger.

On Sunday night, he took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to issue what could be considered the most significant concession of his second term so far.

Trump urged House Republicans to vote in favor of releasing the remaining unpublished files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. He stated this was necessary “because we have nothing to hide.” He further claimed it was time to move beyond what he called a “Democrat Hoax” crafted by “Radical Left Lunatics” to distract from the Republican Party’s accomplishments, including their recent success in averting a government shutdown.

He emphasized that the nation should not fall into the “Epstein ‘TRAP,'” warning against becoming sidetracked by a deceased sex offender who, in his words, “nobody cared about…when he was alive,” instead of focusing on his administration’s achievements.

What Trump didn’t mention was that his comments marked a significant reversal amid a controversy that has been mishandled to the point of overshadowing his presidency.

Prior to the weekend, Trump had resisted the release of government-held information on the Epstein scandal. His change of heart came only after realizing that even members of his own party were not in agreement with his stance.

Like the Democrats, Republicans say they want transparency about what Epstein investigators have uncovered, especially if it pertains to an old Epstein mucker who now inhabits the White House.

This reportedly close friendship, coupled with Trump’s failed attempts to play it down, have antagonised many of his own MAGA supporters who suspect the 47th President IS at the heart of a vast (and entirely unproven) conspiracy to protect the rich and powerful.

And that crisis in Trump’s once rock-solid base of support erupted on Tuesday when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted, with the President’s grudging blessing, by 427 to 1 to release the remaining Epstein files.

And that crisis in Trump’s once rock-solid base of support erupted on Tuesday when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted, with the President’s grudging blessing, by 427 to 1 to release the remaining Epstein files.

The decision, which would compel the Justice Department to disclose its evidence against Epstein (who died while awaiting trial), was swiftly approved unanimously by the Senate and sent yesterday [weds] to Trump to sign off .

It’s the first concrete sign, say pundits, that Trump’s once iron grip on Republicans is slipping.

How did Trump know Epstein in the first place?

Of all the potential difficulties that Trump might have faced in his second term, few could have predicted the most intractable would be a long-expired friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a former neighbour and fellow party boy among the billionaires of Palm Beach, Florida.

This was during a period – from the late 1980s to the early 2000s – well before The Donald ever dreamed of a political career.

Epstein died in a prison cell 2019 but Trump – who’s consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to his former friend – insists they’d fallen out as far back as 2004.

The president says they became estranged because Epstein was recruiting teenage girls from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to work for him. Others say it occurred when they both tried to buy the same Florida property.

Why is the Epstein scandal still rumbling on?

It’s not just because Trump and Epstein were once best buddies, although that has inevitably turbocharged the intrigue.

In fact, there were many unanswered questions left when the financier died in a New York prison cell in 2019, not least the mysteries of where his money came from and who else was involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking and abuse of women.

Some of Epstein’s accusers – there are potentially hundreds – claim he farmed them out as young women or even as underage girls to his rich and powerful friends.

Yet only one person aside from Epstein, former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, has ever been prosecuted over this alleged sex trafficking ring.

Today, the women who claim to be Epstein’s victims are among the loudest voices calling for Trump and Congress to publish everything it has on the case so that others – not only individuals who abused them but institutions who either aided or ignored Epstein’s behaviour – might be brought to book.

Some big names have been toppled already.

Prince Andrew – now plain Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, of course – is ruined thanks to his connection to Epstein and the financier’s self-described ‘sex slave’, the late Virginia Giuffre.

(Andrew has always denied wrongdoing, including Virginia’s claims that they had sex three times when she was a teenager.)

A handful of others, including former Barclays chief Jes Staley and former ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, have been damaged through their connection with Epstein. Otherwise, the scandal has been conspicuous for how few people have been made accountable.

Why has the Epstein scandal engulfed the Trump administration?

Last week, Democrats on the House Oversight committee released three newly acquired emails that mentioned Trump from among thousands held by the Epstein estate. The Republicans responded by releasing the remaining 23,000 pages.

But whether this huge dump of Epstein emails has left us any the wiser about the case is debatable.

Epstein was a notorious liar and manipulator who loved to exaggerate how close he was to the rich and powerful. Moreover, his emails aren’t just unreliable they’re usually incomprehensible. The spelling, like the grammar, is dreadful and he loved to write in riddles.

Yet, once again, the president has been his own worst enemy.

While running for the White House, he and close allies relentlessly encouraged supporters, especially the many conspiracy theorists among them, to believe there had been a huge cover-up around Epstein and that the federal government was protecting powerful individuals.

Many of these conspiracy theorists – who still believe, for example, that Epstein didn’t commit suicide but was murdered to ensure his silence – have shown they are willing to put this obsession before their loyalty to Trump.

And Epstein, remember, was a generous donor to the Democrat Party with friends including former Democrat president Bill Clinton. Republicans have long scented a major political scandal that could sink their Washington rivals.

Not that it’s quite working out like that.

Despite Trump’s volte face – last week he urged the Justice Department to launch an investigation into Epstein’s relationship with prominent Democrats – it’s Republicans who are now more likely to panic at mention of the ‘E’ word.

Trump had pledged in his 2024 election campaign that he would declassify the Epstein files, including a much-anticipated ‘list’ of clients of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.

But, in a hugely embarrassing (not to say, suspicious) about-turn, some of the very same Trumpites such as Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel – who had previously fanned the flames of the conspiracy theory – announced once they got into power that, well, there was actually no list.

Even his own supporters scoffed. Late last week, Trump had a spectacular bust up with Marjorie Taylor Greene, previously one of his loudest supporters in Congress, whom he condemned as a ‘traitor’ and ‘lunatic’ thanks largely to her insistence that the Epstein files be released.

Meanwhile, Trump’s concerted efforts to distance himself from Epstein have backfired.

For years, Trump had played down his relationship with the billionaire financier, insisting they were merely associates and that – as he claimed after the latter’s disgrace – he’d never liked him anyway.

It has since emerged that the truth may have been rather different.

What do we now know about Trump’s involvement with Epstein?

Trump and Epstein attended numerous parties together and it’s claimed that in 1992 Trump arranged for a ‘calendar girl’ competition for ‘VIP guests’ to be held at his Palm Beach home ofMar-a-Lago, where he and Epstein were the only two men watching the 28 glamorous contestants.

But Trump has insisted that he never took part in Epstein’s sordid sexual activities and had no idea they were even taking place.

This is despite telling the author of a 2002 magazine article that Epstein was a ‘terrific guy… it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side’.

Trump’s name appeared seven times in the passenger logs of Epstein’s private jets.

For Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003 – three years before he was first arrested – Trump allegedly wrote a cryptic message to him alongside a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman in a book of tributes from friends. (Trump denies doing it and is suing the Wall Street Journal’s parent company Dow Jones and owner Rupert Murdoch for claiming that he did).

Although the president says he cut off contact with Epstein in 2004 after he poached Virginia Giuffre from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club (to work as a ‘masseuse’, Epstein was still discussing his old friend 14 years later.

Among the messages released by Congress last week was a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell in which Epstein said: ‘I want you to realise that that the dog that hasn’t barked is trump… [VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him, he has never once been mentioned.’

(The White House later said the redacted name was that of Virginia Giuffre who, in a deposition lodged before her death earlier this year, said that Trump never had sex with her or even flirted.)

In 2015, Epstein emailed a journalist to ask: ‘Would you like photso [sic] of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen.’

Epstein also told him about Trump once being ‘so focused’ on watching young women in a swimming pool that he bumped into a door, ‘leaving his nose print on the glass’.

In another email, this time from 2018, Epstein said of Trump that ‘I am the one able to take him down’. In a message to a former White House lawyer for Barack Obama, ‘I know how dirty donald is’.

The White House said these emails ‘prove literally nothing’ while Trump has dismissed them as a ‘hoax’.

Who else has been implicated?

Who would have thought Peter Mandelson would become the first politician to be brought down by the scandal. The former New Labour supremo and Business Secretary in Gordon Brown’s government, was sacked as UK Ambassador to Washington in September after emails showed he’d been rather closer to Epstein than he’d previously admitted.

In particular, he’d sent Epstein supportive messages after the financier pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor and was still in touch with him in 2016.

The newly released emails have further damaged Andrew Mountbatten Windsor who, referring to the now-notorious photo that showed him with 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, has steadfastly insisted it is a fake.

As he said in his car-crash Newsnight interview in 2019: ‘I can absolutely categorically tell you [the meeting with Virginia] never happened.’

Yet an email sent by Epstein to a journalist in 2011, reads: ‘Yes she [Giuffre] was on my plane and yes she had her picture taken with Andrew.’ It is supposed that the camera was held by Epstein himself.

This week, Larry Summers, former president of Harvard University and Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, said he will step back from public life after his emails with Epstein – including some in which he asked for advice on pursuing a woman he described as a ‘mentee’ – were made public.

‘I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognise the pain they have caused,’ said Summers.

What else could come out?

Although thousands of pages of Epstein-related documents have been released, even more have not.

Most of the discussion has focused on a supposed list of Epstein’s sex trafficking clients which, if it exists, is yet to emerge. The Department of Justice insists that no such list exists.

Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s former lawyer, says Epstein never had any such list but believes the FBI did draw up one of people it suspected were on it. We haven’t seen that list, either.

Then there is Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year sentence for helping Epstein.

She has made it clear she doesn’t want her testimony to the grand jury (which examined the evidence before she went to trial) in her case to be unsealed, so it seems fairly likely that there is, indeed, more to come out about her.

The other abiding question – at least among Trump’s opponents – is whether there’s anything in the correspondence that could bring down the president.

Given that the Biden administration, which of course had no love for Trump, never tried to do anything with the contents of the files, it seems unlikely.

Yet Trump’s refusal to abide by his election promise to reveal all on Epstein has already cost him dearly with some of his supporters and possibly sparked a backlash just as his popularity is fading in the polls.

The sex-abusing financier who boasted that ‘I am the one able to take him down’ might yet manage it.