It’s a political base problem few are willing to admit.

Republicans are imploding over Jeffrey Epstein, and the evidence is hard to miss. The panic among GOP lawmakers is unlike anything I’ve seen in a decade of reporting on Congress.

Republicans can’t keep their heads down and trust that the base will keep holding them up, because the Republican base is what’s causing the current panic.

Far-right lawmakers are anxiously trying to navigate around the Scylla of Trump and congressional leadership pushing them to hold off on the Epstein issue, and the Charybdis of the hot-headed multitudes who lifted them into office after getting them to promise to reveal every dark secret of the Epstein case.