Steve Bannon joined a growing chorus of MAGA influencers coalescing behind President Donald Trump in the wake of the Wall Street Journal report about a ribald birthday letter bearing Trump’s name that was sent to Jeffrey Epstein,

Trump knew Epstein socially in the 1990s and early 2000s. During the 2021 trial of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, the financier's longtime pilot, Lawrence Visoski, testified that Trump flew on Epstein's private plane multiple times. Trump has denied being on the plane.

The Trump administration’s findings run counter to the dominant theory of the online right — that Epstein had a list of public officials and celebrities he passed off underage victims to, that the purpose was to gather kompromat on some of the world’s most powerful people,