Alan Zendell, February 16, 2026

If you’re sick of hearing about the Epstein files, hang in there a little longer. They may be the quickest way to defang Trump. Judging by how people are reacting to the heavily redacted versions released by DOJ, we can make a pretty good guess about where this is leading.

In Europe, prominent people are dropping like flies. Apparently, Europeans, who have always been cavalier about things like affairs and mistresses have lines they won’t cross, and trafficking of women and pedophilia are high on that list. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emanuel Macron are both reeling because people at the ambassadorial level were found to have close ties with Epstein. The diplomats are gone, and public sentiment is so negative, the governments of those two allies might fall.

Today, the New York Times reported that my alma mater, Columbia University, the first major school to fall to Trump’s extortion to the tune of $221 million, punished two people in the Columbia Dental School for allowing Epstein to influence them to accept his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, into the school. “…Columbia said it was cutting all ties to Dr. [Thomas] Magnani and stripping Dr. [Letty] Moss-Salentijn of her administrative duties at the dental college, where she remains a tenured faculty member. Several other people implicated in the episode had already ended their affiliations with the school…”

Then there’s Trump’s Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick. The Hill reported that “Republican senators are worried that revelations around Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein could balloon into a bigger political liability for the GOP heading into this year’s midterm elections.” Yet, Trump, who may never have admitted he was wrong in his entire life, is projecting indifference, posting support for Lutnick.

You can’t trust a word Trump says whether it’s spoken or incompetently typed on his Truth Social platform. More than likely, he’s scrambling with his fixers over this. Trump doesn’t give a damn about Lutnick any more than he cares about anyone else he’s ever done business with. What worries him is that a simple search of the released electronic Epstein files turned up Trump’s name more than a million times.

We don’t know whether Trump is guilty of a crime, but now that the unredacted files are available to Congress, we’ll find out before long. It may not always be true that where there’s smoke there’s fire, but Trump’s history and the remarkable number of women who have gone public to accuse him of various forms of sexual misconduct suggest otherwise. Remember the infamous hush-money payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels?

Former rabid Trumpers like Kentucky’s Thomas Massie and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene have already broken with Trump over the Epstein files. All the major press outlets have reported that a significant group of other Republican Representatives and Senators agree with Massie and Greene but are laying low to avoid Trump’s ire. Trump’s hold on the Republican Party and his ability to intimidate any Congressperson who fails his loyalty test are declining. The accumulation of outrageous attempts to re-write our Constitution and undermine our democracy have unleashed unprecedented anger against the administration, even worse than the backlash Richard Nixon faced over Watergate.

Hang in there. This will take time, but Trump’s hold on his Congressional majorities is looking more and more fragile. The midterm elections are in nine months, and they will either end Trump’s reign of terror, or enable him to continue causing havoc both in the United States and all over the world.

The Times editorial Board today published a warning that with the expiration of the last nuclear arms limitation treaty, this month, Trump appears to be determined to ramp up production of nuclear weapons, triggering another nuclear arms race. There are many in Congress who believe the same thing. While the Epstein files have no direct connection to nuclear weapons, if The Times is correct, anything that reduces or nullifies Trump’s influence must be taken seriously.

Trump has already shown his desperation about the midterms, making wild statements about federalizing the election, although the Constitution grants control of elections to the states. And his attempts to force Congress to pass a law requiring every voter to prove their citizenship is being rebuffed by red and blue state election officials. Like most of Trump’s bluster, the talk of taking over the election is just noise. It’s also misguided, since the percentage of people who have easy access to birth certificates and passports is much higher in blue states than red.

Republican Congress people in swing districts and some formerly red districts now fear defeat in November, which means that as the midterms approach, Trump will lose his razor-thin majority in Congress. The same spineless wimps who caved to him will now cave to the polls. If the Epstein files demonstrate that Trump was involved in the sickness perpetrated by Epstein, he’ll be done. Hang in there, folks. If they believe Trump is guilty of trafficking or pedophilia, his own party will impeach him this time.