The MAGA revolution—haunted by the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein—is eating its own. No one should be surprised.

It started in the summer of 2020. That was when Donald Trump did something American presidents usually don’t do: publicly question his attorney general—and, in particular, his finding that the sex trafficker had committed suicide in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, in Lower Manhattan, in August 2019.

The president suggested, without offering evidence, that the truth was murkier and more sinister. “Was it suicide?” Trump, then facing a tough reelection battle, mused in an interview. “Was he killed?”

Trump’s remarks were couched in an off-the-cuff comment about Epstein’s partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, who had been charged with helping Epstein procure underage girls and who was convicted in 2021 and is now serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida.