These MAGA women call out an alleged GOP sexual predator. It’s not who you hope it is

Amid the Tony Gonzales scandal, three of the Texas Republican’s female colleagues are demanding his resignation. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) all voted to release the Epstein Files too. But in a not-very-odd disconnect, none of them are speaking out against the person who appears in those files nearly as often as Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

All three Republican women have picked up the fully false narrative that Donald Trump has been “exonerated” in relation to Epstein — his language, which they repeat. Trump hasn’t been exonerated at all, because he has yet to see the inside of a courtroom in connection with the Epstein Files.

As part of my endless pursuit of the truth, I continue to try to annoy Mace enough that she’ll finally give me a real answer as to why she won’t say that Trump is in the Epstein Files. I emailed her comms director twice this week. Since they don’t like my questions, I got the same answer twice:

It irritates me that these people think I’m as stupid as they are.

This is Russian Propaganda 101: Keep repeating the lie until everyone believes it. But consider the Epstein bombshells that have detonated just this week, prominently including an allegation, apparently deemed credible enough to have been investigated, that Trump committed a crime against a child, as part of the Epstein-Maxwell sex trafficking ring.

So if these Republican women are capable of seeing that Rep. Gonzales is alleged to have done terrible things involving a grown woman who then killed herself — allegations he denies — why can’t the same women hold Trump to the same sort of standards, especially since the terrible things he is alleged to have done involved a child?

Along those lines, why didn’t any Republicans travel with Democrats for the billionaire Les Wexner’s Epstein deposition, but then all managed to clear their schedules to be in the room where Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton gave their sworn testimonies?

I know, we KNOW why. I just want them to admit it.

When it comes to Head Case Mace, I’m guessing she’s holding back because she doesn’t want to lose Trump’s endorsement for her flailing gubernatorial campaign in South Carolina. There’s a reason she hasn’t resigned her House seat. She has to keep playing the favorite now that Marjorie Taylor Greene has been banished from MAGAville forever.

I sent the same emails to the comms directors for Anna Paulina Luna-tic and Grandmother of the Year Lauren Boebert, but neither responded. It’s a frustrating endeavor to try to get anyone to say anything truthful about Trump, because they’re scared of retribution. But again, he blocked me on Twitter more than a decade ago and I’m fine, so I really don’t understand why anyone is afraid of such a thin-skinned, lying Friend of Jeffrey.

What makes it more difficult to comprehend is watching Republican men hold Trump accountable, instead of GOP women. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has been in full lockstep with a Democratic colleague, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), when it comes to Epstein. If Massie can do it, why can’t the rest of the party? I’m not a big fan of Massie in general, particularly regarding January 6th, but he’s on the correct side of history when it comes to the Epstein Files.

I also reached out to Massie’s office. The guy who answers his DC office phone and I shared a little chuckle over the “exonerated” line being parroted by those women and the rest of the MAGA cult. There was no reply from Massie’s comms guy by press time, but that’s okay. I got a corker of a quote from someone else who knows a thing or two about the Epstein Files, because he’s been investigating the financials for years: my home-state senator, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Wyden (or, as I like to call him, “Senator Chutzpah,” a reference to his latest book) has been looking into the Russian and American banks that financed the international sex trafficking ring run by Epstein and Maxwell. He always stresses that the key to nailing Trump is to follow the money, which is why I keep this screenshot on my phone. It’s of a Twitter thread Sen. Wyden wrote in July last year as a handy way to clap back at the MAGA trolls who still try to false equivalence their way out of every Trump-Epstein accusation.

Feel free to save it to your device. There’s always room for the truth next to those cute cat pics and whatever you ate last night.

Anyway, the Senate Finance Committee is hitting the same wall as House Oversight: Treasury Secretary Scott “What Epstein Files?” Bessent won’t allow them full access to his department’s own Epstein Files, which too many people don’t know exist. I don’t know why — or indeed why Bessent doesn’t care that Trump thinks Bessent’s marriage to a man isn’t real — because Bessent won’t respond to me, just like he won’t respond to my senator. It’s good company to be in, at least.

I got to spend a few moments on Friday with Senator Chutzpah, after his press conference at Portland Coffee Roasters to highlight the impact of Trump’s tariffs on small businesses. I asked what he would say to the MAGA cult about the lies they’re being fed about Trump being “exonerated.”

“Some of these people have as much interest in justice as Bonnie and Clyde,” he said, tipping me a wink.

Great line — but unfortunately, it might just make Nancy Mace show up to work on Monday cosplaying as a gun moll, instead of Hester Prynne.

• Tara Dublin is a political writer/commentator based in Portland, OR, who has been blocked by Donald Trump on Twitter since August 2015 and can occasionally be heard as a fill-in host on SiriusXM Progress. She is also the author of The Sound of Settling, a rock ‘n’ roll love story available at taradublinrocks.com