The Justice Division requested a federal court docket on July 18, 2025, to unseal grand jury transcripts in Jeffrey Epstein’s case. The route from President Donald Trump got here after weeks of frustration amongst some far-right teams over his management’s refusal to unencumber the whole and unredacted “Epstein files.”
Epstein, a rich financier with high-profile connections, used to be arrested in 2019 on intercourse trafficking fees and later died by means of suicide in a Long island prison waiting for trial.
In early 2025, a federal court docket unsealed parts of the court docket paperwork. Whilst names of one of the crucial alleged purchasers and sufferers had been launched, many had been redacted or withheld.
Epstein’s arrest and dying become a central center of attention for QAnon fans, who noticed them as evidence of a hidden world elite engaged in kid trafficking and secure by means of tough establishments. The discharge – or withholding – of the Epstein recordsdata is ceaselessly cited inside QAnon motion circles as proof of a broader cover-up by means of the so-called “deep state.”
Some fans of the MAGA – Make The usa Nice Once more – motion and the Republican Celebration consider within the false declare that the US is secretly managed by means of a cabal of elites who’re pedophiles, intercourse traffickers and satanists.
Over the years, what began as a baseless conspiracy on difficult to understand platforms has migrated into the mainstream. It has influenced rhetoric and coverage debates, or even reshaped the American political panorama. The foundational trust of lots of the QAnon fans is that Trump is a heroic determine preventing the elite pedophile ring.
Trump’s makes an attempt at downplaying or obstructing the very disclosures they consider would validate their worldview has resulted in confusion. To a few, the extend within the unencumber of the recordsdata appears like a betrayal, and even the potential of his wrongdoing. Others are looking to reinterpret Trump’s movements via an increasing number of baseless conspiracy common sense.
Trump has publicly pushed aside calls for for the total unencumber of the Epstein Recordsdata as a “hoax.” He has additionally made false claims. On July 15, 2025, Trump stated: “And I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey. They were made up by Obama.”
As a student who research extremism, I do know that the motion perspectives Trump as a mythological determine and it translates Trump’s movements to suit this overarching narrative – an elasticity which makes the motion each sturdy and perilous.
From Pizzagate to QAnon
The QAnon motion started with the Pizzagate conspiracy idea in 2016, which falsely claimed that high-ranking Democrats had been working a kid intercourse trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. The baseless idea received sufficient on-line momentum {that a} guy armed with an attack rifle stormed the eating place, in search of to “free the children.”
In 2017, an nameless determine known as “Q” started posting cryptic messages on message forums like 4chan and 8kun. The baseless accusations of a world community of elites desirous about controlling world establishments, together with governments, companies, and the media, in addition to working a kid trafficking and formality abuse, had been central to the QAnon motion’s narrative.
Supporters of President Donald Trump with messages relating to the QAnon conspiracy idea at a marketing campaign rally at Las Vegas Conference Heart on February 21, 2020.
Mario Tama/Getty Pictures
The motion has recruited fans via language like “Save the Children,” to mobilize round problems of kid trafficking.
The QAnon motion recruits new fans via appeals to forestall kid trafficking.
Hollie Adams/Getty Pictures
Many QAnon adherents, specifically girls, had been attracted to the motion via such appeals to kid coverage. In step with psychologists Sophia Moskalenko and Mia Bloom, this sort of enchantment faucets into tough emotional instincts, making conspiracy theories like QAnon extra persuasive and tougher to dislodge, even within the face of contradictory proof.
QAnon motion’s upward push
QAnon fans perceived Trump as a messianic determine operating to reveal this cabal in a climactic reckoning referred to as “The Storm” – a second when mass arrests would in the end carry justice.
They claimed that this second would ultimately carry a few “Great Awakening,” a connection with the non secular revivalist actions of the 18th and nineteenth centuries. On this context the word described the meant political and religious enlightenment that might observe “The Storm” – a second of mass realization when other people would “wake up” to the reality concerning the “deep state.”
Trump reposted a picture of himself dressed in a Q lapel pin overlaid with the phrases ‘The Storm is Coming.’
Olivier Douliery/AFP by the use of Getty Pictures
In 2019, the FBI recognized QAnon as a home terrorism risk, and main social media platforms started banning similar content material, however by means of then, QAnon had bled into mainstream conservative politics. Q-endorsing applicants, similar to Marjorie Taylor Greene, ran for and gained elected place of job a 12 months later.
Trump and QAnon
Right through Trump’s first management – from 2017 to 2021 – the QAnon motion flourished. The posts from Q claimed to expose insider wisdom of a secret conflict being waged by means of the president, ceaselessly in coordination with the army, towards the tough elite.
Trump by no means explicitly recommended the motion, however he did little to distance himself from it.
His management additionally integrated figures, like former Nationwide Safety Adviser Michael Flynn, who overtly interacted with Q content material on-line.
Trump’s rhetoric, particularly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, gave new existence to QAnon narratives. When he wondered the integrity of the electoral procedure, QAnon fans interpreted it as affirmation of the deep state’s meddling.
Then again, after Trump’s loss to Joe Biden within the 2020 presidential race, QAnon fans revised their unique prophecy to take care of trust in “The Storm” and “The Great Awakening.” Some claimed the defeat used to be a part of a bigger secret plan, with Biden’s presidency serving as a canopy for exposing the deep state. Some believed Trump remained the actual president at the back of the scenes, whilst others reframed the awakening as a non secular fairly than political tournament.
Certainly, by means of 2020, a number of congressional applicants overtly embraced or confirmed sympathy for the QAnon motion.
At quite a lot of marketing campaign rallies in 2022 and after Trump used the motion’s symbolism. On Reality Social, his social media platform, he retweeted Q-affiliated accounts, and praised QAnon supporters as “people who love our country.” That very same 12 months he reposted a picture of himself dressed in a Q lapel pin overlaid with the phrases “The Storm is Coming.”
After the 2020 elections
Trump’s departure from the White Area in January 2021 created an existential disaster for the QAnon motion. Predictions that he would claim martial legislation or arrest Joe Biden and different Democrats on Inauguration Day did not materialize. Q’s posts additionally stopped, leaving many fans adrift.
Some deserted the idea. Others rationalized the failed predictions or embraced new conspiracy narratives, similar to the realization that Trump used to be nonetheless secretly in rate or that the army would quickly act to reinstate him.
Some QAnon communities merged with or had been absorbed into broader anti-vaccine, anti-globalist, and Christian nationalist actions.
How giant is the motion?
Estimating the selection of QAnon believers is tricky as a result of many people don’t overtly determine with the motion, and people who do ceaselessly dangle a spread of loosely hooked up or partial ideals fairly than adhering to a constant or uniform ideology. Now not everybody who stocks a Q meme or echoes a Q speaking level identifies as being a part of the motion.
That stated, surveys by means of teams just like the 2024 Public Faith Analysis Institute and the Related Press have discovered that 15–20% of American citizens consider in a few of QAnon’s core claims, such because the lifestyles of a secret staff of Devil-worshipping elites controlling the federal government.
Amongst Republican citizens, the quantity is ceaselessly upper.
This doesn’t imply a majority of these persons are hardcore QAnon adherents, nevertheless it does display how a ways the narrative, or portions of it, has seeped into mainstream pondering.
Epstein as proof of ‘the cabal’
The Trump management’s failure to expose the ideas in Epstein recordsdata has fueled inner confusion, disillusionment or even radicalization throughout the motion.
For some QAnon believers, this failure used to be a turning level: if Trump – as soon as observed because the hero within the conspiracy narrative – would now not or may now not disclose the reality, then the “deep state” should be extra entrenched than imagined.
On the identical time, frustrations have grown inside MAGA and the QAnon motion’s areas. Some see it as a failure to satisfy considered one of his maximum vital guarantees: exposing elite pedophiles. Others consider the extend is strategic, some other instance of “the plan” requiring extra endurance.
The QAnon motion continues to conform, at the same time as its central determine hedges and hesitates, appearing how potent myths can also be in instances of uncertainty. Personally, working out why this trust continues to realize traction is very important for working out the present state of American democracy.
