About a year ago, as the Republican-led Congress continued to sputter, a prominent right-wing activist named Laura Loomer published an interesting complaint to social media. “James Comer needs to be replaced as the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee,” Loomer argued. “He has failed at all of his ‘investigations’ that have gone nowhere.”
At face value, the criticism was hardly baseless: The Kentucky congressman launched all kinds of partisan probes during the last Congress, each of which amounted to nothing. It was easy to understand why those in the GOP’s right-wing base would feel unsatisfied.
But the problem wasn’t with Comer, at least not entirely. The Oversight Committee chair and his partners went looking for scandals and failed — not because they were incompetent investigators, but because there were no scandals to find. If conservatives hired Bigfoot hunters and no creature was found, the proper response would be “I guess there’s no Bigfoot,” not “Clearly we need better Bigfoot hunters.”
This came to mind reading the NBC News report on the right’s anger about the Trump administration’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, who died behind bars in 2019 while facing federal charges of child sex trafficking.
Conservative internet and media personalities are criticizing Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Trump administration after a recent government memo appeared to contradict statements Bondi made about the case of convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. … In particular, conservatives have expressed anger that Trump and other administration members promised tangible disclosures about Epstein if Trump were elected.
That second sentence is the key: The point isn’t just that members of Team Trump looked into Epstein’s death, it’s that they made bold declarations about the legitimacy of the right’s conspiracy theories into Epstein’s death.
This, naturally, got conservative conspiracy theorists’ hopes up, which left the right feeling that much more dejected when Team Trump turned around and effectively said, “Never mind. Move on. There’s nothing more to see here.”
But stepping back, what makes these developments even more notable is the familiarity of the circumstances: On an endless list of conspiracy theories, Republicans have been over-promising and under-delivering for many years.
Republican officials told their far-right base they would uncover evidence of Joe Biden taking bribes. And proof that tech companies were discriminating against conservatives. And confirmation that the FBI had been “weaponized.”
Those same Republicans vowed to discredit Trump’s Russia scandal. And expose hidden truths about Benghazi. And prove that Planned Parenthood was up to no good. And show that the IRS “scandal” was real. And find evidence of systemic voter fraud. Over and over again, GOP officials told the right’s conspiracy theorists, “Trust us. There’s evidence buried in a pot of gold on the horizon. Just stick with us — keep voting, keep donating, keep supporting — and eventually we’ll deliver the answers you’re looking for.” Except, that hasn’t happened, because those answers don’t exist. The next time Republicans turn to those same conspiracy theorists, making bold promises about all the great information they’ll uncover with yet another investigation, conservatives should remember the feeling they had right after Attorney General Pam Bondi told them there is no Epstein “client list,” after having basically said the opposite during a Fox News interview months earlier.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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