Editor’s note: This editorial originally ran in fellow CNHI paper Tahlequah (Oklahoma) Daily Press.

So now some in the Trump administration are saying documents detailing the sex-trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein were invented by former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

This smacks of another ridiculous move to rewrite history — something that’s become all too common in the political arena these days, and by putting the kibosh on the implication that the files would be released, President Trump has now hoisted himself with his own petard.

For many months now, conservative activists and pundits have demanded that Epstein’s so-called “client list” be made public. In fact, a number of speculative documents have been circulating just as long, featuring names of high-profile Democrats in political and entertainment circles. Some of the besmirched individuals are otherwise well-respected, without any blemishes to their reputations. At least, they were squeaky-clean until the speculative lists began making the rounds on social media.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that many conservatives — and more than a few liberals — believed the apparent slander generated by these lists. and given the nature of the targeted people, it’s no surprise that Americans would want the guilty parties tarred and feathered, if rumors they were involved in trafficking children are true.

At this point, it’s impossible to say whether a list exists — and if there is, whose names might be on it. The smart money is on a swatch of elite from both political parties. But it wasn’t the Democrats who were clamoring about the Epstein files; after all, according to the MAGA crowd, Democrats were implicated far more than Republicans. Indeed, many who are now in the Trump administration were among those pushing the hardest for a reveal.

If Trump wants the furor over the supposed client list to die down, he’s going to have to get rid of the people in his Cabinet who have used the purported existence of this document to damage the reputations of their perceived enemies. He’ll have to start with Attorney General Pam Bondi, who strongly implied she had the list on her desk. Though she later clarified she was referring to the entire Epstein file, the fact that she’s refusing to release whatever is there — or telling the American public to “move along, nothing to see here” — smacks of a potential coverup. Bondi and others like her have two choices: either to admit they were making it all up as they went along to ruin a number of celebrities and well-heeled folks in the opposing camp, or to release the documents and let the chips fall where they may. If they don’t, MAGA loyalists — the vast majority of whom believe the list exists — are going to turn on them. Whether they will turn on Trump is anybody’s guess, but with the midterms looming, he can’t really afford to take the chance.

Trump’s claim that “nobody cares” about the Epstein case is dead wrong, and he knows it — although he may hope by saying that, it will come to pass. In this case, he’s better off doing what he does best: Hang the purveyors of the sordid tale out to dry, thereby saving his own skin — and with it, his big, beautiful agenda.