Sullivan, Begich underwent Epstein conversion therapy

“Here’s the truth, I voted to force Trump’s DOJ to release the Epstein files,” Sen. Dan Sullivan says in one of the countless campaign ads that Alaskans have to endure for a few more weeks.

What Sullivan doesn’t say in his ad is that it was only after Donald Trump gave Sullivan and other Republicans permission to vote to “force” the release of the files that Sullivan hopped on the bandwagon.

That’s the truth.

Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich the Third spent most of 2025 trying to prevent the release of the Epstein files, refusing to cross Trump, who opposed any measure to release files about the dead sex offender and his cronies.

It was only after Trump surrendered on the matter last November that Begich and Sullivan underwent Epstein conversion therapy.

Sullivan and Begich changed their positions after Trump said the measure should be approved, claiming he had nothing to hide and it was all a Democratic hoax “perpetrated by the Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from our Great Success of the Republican Party.”

Begich had previously refused to sign a petition to force the bill to a vote, agreeing with Trump and the Republican leadership that no vote should be held.

With Trump’s change of position allowing Republicans to support the bill, the House voted 427-1 to release the files, while the Senate approved the measure with no opposition and without a recorded vote.

Begich and Sullivan changed their positions after Trump gave the green light.

Both men wanted to portray what they did as an act of courage.

“I was committed to voting yes on this bill for quite some time,” Begich the Third claimed in remarks quoted by Alaska Public Media last November. “I think transparency is important.”\

In the Senate, the GOP Epstein converts abandoned the position they had taken two months earlier when they refused to deal with the issue, claiming it was a matter of propriety to oppose a Democratic amendment to make the files public.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Sullivan joined 49 other Republicans in September 2025 to block a vote aimed at forcing the Department of Justice to release its files on the sex offender who had friends in high places.

Murkowski was the last senator to vote, which made it 51-49 to table an amendment that would have required the Department of Justice to release all the Epstein files that senators of both parties claim they want to be released.

Murkowski cast the deciding vote—as the move to table the amendment would have failed 50-50 had she voted to take up the matter. You can argue that each of the 50 other Republicans, including Sullivan, cast the deciding vote to keep Epstein’s records away from the public, but she waited until the last moment to reveal her position.

At that time Trump had not surrendered on the Epstein files.

Had Murkowski voted for the amendment then, she told reporter Liz Ruskin, it would have killed the underlying bill, the National Defense Authorization Act.

“What we were trying to do was to keep a poison pill off of the NDAA. And we did just that,” Murkowski said defending her vote.

It would have forced Trump’s hand. The poison pill would not have been fatal for the defense bill.

To her credit, Murkowski had been calling for action to release the files for months, unlike Sullivan and the transparent Begich the Third.

Senate Republicans claimed the amendment by Sen. Chuck Schumer they defeated a year ago was a violation of unwritten Senate rules, that the amendment had no business being made to the defense bill and that it was a stunt designed to put Republicans on the spot.

All that was probably true, but it was also true that the president who sent Epstein a lewd birthday card and told his pal, “We have certain things in common Jeffrey,” can count on subservient senators to protect his hide. And conceal his “wonderful secret.”

In a 2025 Sullivan form letter to Alaskans who complained about an Epstein coverup, he ducked the central question about keeping materials secret, but said he believed the Trump administration would release information that was appropriate without congressional action.

“I trust the Department of Justice to carefully consider the release of relevant materials, while simultaneously ensuring that Epstein’s victims remain protected and that legal protocols are upheld,” Sullivan said in the summer of 2025.

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