“‘Then You are a king!’ Pilate said.
‘You say that I am a king,’ Jesus answered. ‘For this reason I was born and have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.’
‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked.
And having said this, he went out again to the Jews and told them, ‘I find no basis for a charge against Him.’”
Something about Jeffrey Epstein makes people walk away from the truth with more questions than answers.
Something other than the truth seems to keep getting in the way.
The recent about-face by the Trump administration on the “Epstein files” has created a dizzying reaction across the political scene, from outrage to disbelief to disappointment to political opportunism, rank hypocrisy, and noxious sensationalism.
It is strange. What was once an ardent campaign promise to expose the machinations of a depraved elite has now, somehow, become a dangerous political liability for Trump and team.
What changed?
Who knows? Does it even matter? What is truth, anyway, in the context of hard-boiled political necessity?
What is truth to a pragmatic political leader when he has a country to run, competing interests (elite or mainstreet) to appease, a dishonest opposition to oppose, and the next election to win?
Whatever the truth, Trump and team are definitely acting spooked by what they have seen behind the scenes regarding Epstein. The necessities they face must be full of Faustian bargains. Their attempts to redirect and reframe the issue for their constituency (as yet another Democrat hoax or corporate media witch-hunt) have come across as a hurried and muddied mess that very few Americans, except the most loyal Trump supporters, actually believe.
The more Trump tells the populist crowd, “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” the more the crowd wonders aloud what exactly is going on behind that curtain – all as the corporate press and political opposition smell blood in the muddied waters.
Yet, I wonder: Does the crowd really want the truth, or do they just want Barabbas?
Does the press really want the truth, or do they want to chase clicks with the latest headlines?
Do Trump’s political enemies really want the truth, or do they want him brought down by any means necessary, punished for punishment’s sake?
What is truth to an impressionable and distrustful mob? What is truth to a head-hunting press? What is truth to political enemies? What is truth to American presidents? What is truth to covert institutions who operate with impunity in the shadows?
Truth is, the truth is too often regarded by almost all as just another means to their ends in a pointless competition over whose whims will pretend to be king for a fading day – truth conscripted as chattel to be used and abused in order to climb a ladder from which all will eventually lose their footing and fall.
Pontius Pilate climbed the ladder in his time. He saw the truth of innocence before him, yet walked away from hearing the answer in order to appease the crowd, fated by his clever detachment to condemn an innocent man to torture and death.
What is the truth of the Epstein scandal? How many people are using Epstein to climb the ladder? How many innocents have suffered for the sake of the climb?
I don’t pretend to know. There is much that is known, yet much remains unknown.
But would our political leaders condemn those they knew to be innocent for political expediency? Would they then walk away and wash their hands of responsibility?
That I suspect I do know, and I suspect you do, too.
No doubt, I am walking away with more questions than answers when it comes to the truth of what happened with Epstein. Too many questions and too few answers. Yet for the sake of argument, allow me one more line of inquiry.
Even if all the worst allegations of the abuse of children are true, even if all the perpetrators of such evils were named, shamed, and punished with a public death – would that really be justice enough for those children?
What manmade system of justice could ever give back the innocence ripped from those children?
None.
Only the truth of the man who Pilate reluctantly put to death, who suffered the gravest injustice at our hands to wash away the blood from our hands, could ever fully set right such a profound wrong – or ever truly answer Pilate’s jest.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL, M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances, as well as any feedback, please email [email protected]. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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