Transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes is still a crime, though.
The island is in the US Virgin islands, IIRC?
Right, which means they had to be transported out of their state of origin to get them there.
Exactly. Who in their right mind would want to be accused of being a pedophile and respond with “well, technically…”?
Kelly also did something really shitty to try to change the discourse. She described these girls as “barely legal”. No, they are not barely legal. They are illegal for sexual purposes, end of story. But there she is trying to frame it as “close enough”. Disgusting.
Right, there’s a comedian who made a similar point:
I wouldn’t think there was anything in there that would materially harm him were it not for Trump himself. He’s terrified. You make some valid points, nothing in the past has turned Trump’s supporters against him, so why would I expect anything different now? While I’m not going to get my hopes up, if the likes of MTG can turn against him I can’t help but feel a little hopeful.
The unredacted letter was released and it does indeed say “Virginia,” though I suppose it’s possible that there is another woman named Virginia that it’s referring to.
I think the “melted brain” hypothesis deserves a lot more credit than it gets, but I think it’s more to do with social media.
There is a broader trend where famous celebrities and rich people got on social media, and were suddenly faced with proof that they’re not nearly as loved as they thought, and in fact broadly despised. So they start down on whatever ideas soothe their egos and diminish their critics. And social media was right there to supply what they needed, in the form of nutjobs who reinforce those beliefs.
To be clear I don’t believe one goes full brain-melt racist without being a fundamental racist in the first place, but I think it should be better appreciated that a lot of these people have gone insane simply by 24/7 reinforcement of their own inner dialogue loops, which they mainline even harder when they’re criticized.
It would be much funnier if he just said “that depends on what your definition of the word ‘is’ is” with a wink
With Trump specifically I think there was something else at work, namely the Apprentice. The producers of the Apprentice effectively invented the persona that Trump ran on for president, as this callous but effective master business tycoon. It was written for him just as much as the character of Walter White was for Bryan Cranston, and has as much in common with the real Trump as Walter White does to Bryan Cranston.
But Trump believed it. He brought into the bit and that’s what got us here.
The Legal Eagle YouTube channel has an episode devoted to the Epstein emails.
I’d be curious to know more about November 10, 2018 if anyone can find emails that reference a trip to Paris, or meeting with Trump associates near that date.
E.g., I’ve found this mention of Steve (Bannon?), “Republicans”, and Turkey on November 16:
I’m trying to track down whether Bannon was in Paris that day.
Looks like it would have been a chunnel away:
Thanks. Of course, it could have made so little impression on her it didn’t seem worth mentioning in the book.
I’m not following…what’s the significance of this?
No idea, really. Epstein mentions meeting with Trump a few times but there’s no particular reason to believe that, at the moment.
I can see, within the dump, that he’s downloaded full books of information about Trump and various other topics. Likewise, he’s posting lots of links to new stories. He seems to have been researching and following information on a variety of topics - potentially to be able to con his way in as an “insider”. In general, we shouldn’t take Epstein’s statements that he was meeting with Trump at face value.
But in this one instance, we know that Trump, Tom Barrack, and Epstein all passed through Paris on the same day. We also know that Trump got into trouble that day for blowing off a scheduled run to the US military graveyard. We don’t know what the was doing instead.
Bear in mind that some of this correspondence was with author Michael Wolfe, who was asking for his take on various book drafts.
And Bannon was working on a documentary.
So, some of what Epstein was reviewing was probably related to that project, as well.
Interesting, though, that we aren’t seeing anything regarding financial advice.
Trump’s desperately trying to make it look like he still has control of Republicans in the House.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/16/jeffrey-epstein-vote-house-republicans-00652460
If he wants to stop the vote on Tuesday, all Trump has to do is tell his DOJ to release the files on Monday.
Well guess what?