Trump cannot dispel the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein | Sidney Blumenthal

Trump's grooming of his followers is impossible to undo. Now he is bedeviled by a conspiracy theory gap

Some enchanted evening, Donald Trump saw a stranger across a crowded room.

It is likely that there is hardly anyone living who knows exactly under what glowing lights Donald Trump met Jeffrey Epstein, except perhaps Trump himself and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend who is serving a 20-year prison term for helping to procure minors for sexual abuse. Trump said in an interview in 2002, when his Epstein relationship was still tight, that it had been a 15-year mutual admiration society. Epstein was a terrific guy" and a lot of fun to be with," and likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side". Epstein described himself as Donald's closest friend for 10 years".