From Will Sommer's 11-24-25 NEW YORK TIMES article entitled "QAnon Isn’t So Thrilled About the Epstein Revelations":
A day after the House passed a bill to order the Justice Department to release its Epstein files, Jon Herold, a QAnon promoter who broadcasts under the name Patel Patriot, seemed disappointed that more of Mr. Epstein’s crimes might be revealed. “All the awful things that people are saying, I hope it’s not true,” Mr. Herold said. “I don’t want to see any of it.”
Given that the conspiracy theory doubles as a cult of personality built around Mr. Trump, this sort of reaction isn’t particularly surprising. But the new emails do suggest the conspiracy theorists were right about Mr. Epstein’s significance — albeit not in the ways they thought [...].
Mr. Epstein should matter to QAnon because he was a rare example of the supposed sex-trafficking cabal’s machinations coming out in the open. While Mr. Epstein was mentioned relatively rarely in QAnon before his 2019 indictment, his mysterious death propelled QAnon recruitment and provided endless alleys for its amateur internet sleuths to explore.
But Mr. Trump’s long friendship with Mr. Epstein has always been awkward for QAnon believers to explain. Why was Mr. Trump, supposedly the ultimate avenger of abused children, videotaped palling around with Mr. Epstein? Why was he calling a known sex trafficker who paid dozens of girls, some as young as 14, to have sex with him, a “terrific guy?” Why did he appoint Alex Acosta, the prosecutor in Florida who helped give Mr. Epstein a sweetheart plea deal in 2007, to his cabinet?
The traditional QAnon explanation for the pair’s closeness has been that Mr. Trump was getting close to Mr. Epstein just to bring more publicity to his crimes. It’s not the most compelling argument, even by QAnon standards, and it’s looked even shakier as more Epstein emails about Mr. Trump have come out [...].
QAnon’s retreat from the Epstein story is striking because there remain real questions about Mr. Epstein that could make for a rich vein of new theorizing. How exactly did Mr. Epstein get so rich? Why were so many wealthy, powerful men friends with him? Why did he move so easily through the global financial system?
But for most QAnon believers the priority is protecting Mr. Trump at all costs. Even if it means no longer asking questions. Even if it means letting the moment they finally got something right pass them by. Even if it means continuing to thirst for a storm that will never come...
To read the entire article, click HERE.
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