In a “truth is stranger than fiction” moment, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee posted an all-caps message on X yesterday.
BREAKING: EPSTEIN FILES RELEASED, the message read, offering a link for the reader to click on. But instead of a trove of files, what the public saw was a Rick Astley music video, “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The public had just been rickrolled, a bait and switch joke that has existed on the internet for years. The post has since been removed.
The public had good reason to believe the drop was real: Attorney General Pam Bondi had teased the release of the files, which she said were sitting on her desk. The idea that they were being opened to the public was bolstered by images of a group of influencers leaving the White House holding large white binders that read “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.”
What the group of 15 influencers found in the binders was