Mikey couldn’t keep it from happening…
From the (digital) front page of the New York Times
It will be interesting to see Donnie tap dance all around this.
There must be a tipping point where his political supporters will see that he is ultimately going to become a liability and they are better off not being remembered as the politician who defended a paedophile.
And what are the staff at the White House thinking of all this? It can’t be comfortable helping to cover up and deflect the crimes of someone that you know, deep in your heart, is guilty of sexually abusing children. At what point do we see resignations?
The simple fact that Trump is so publicly scrambling to prevent the release of the files would be seen by any sane person as the ultimate red flag that he is explicitly incriminated in that files. He has proven time and time again that he cares about nobody but himself, so why would he care about releasing the files unless they damage him. He is calling congress folk to his office to browbeat them out of it.
How is this motherfucker not impeached right now?
ETA: Its pretty crazy to think that there was wild QAnon conspiracies about a Dem pedo ring and now it seems to be coming true but with a GOP slant.
The next question is: Does the stink of all this rub onto Vance, or is he thinking about measuring for curtains, popping the champagne and getting ready to prop Erika Kirk up as the next vice president right about now?
I suppose those aren’t mutually exclusive prospects.
Terminology nitpick: impeachment alone isn’t enough… it needs to be “impeached and removed from office.”
To “impeach” him would just be to accuse him and then to bring him to trial. After all, Bill Clinton was impeached but acquitted.
AI definition:
To “impeach” means to formally charge a public official with a crime or misconduct, or to question the credibility of a witness. For a public official, impeachment is the process of bringing charges against them, which can lead to a trial to determine if they should be removed from office.
Trump needs to be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.
I’m one of the Dopers who seriously believe this is a waste of time.
Even if Ghislaine Maxwell releases statements, photos, videos, proving Trump was a regular guest and recruiter to the island, witnessed him having sex with many underage girls, more witnesses turn up, etc., it’ll be worthless.
BUT expensive. Imagine all the money spent (OUR money) defending any allegations against his Epstein connections. They MAGA cries about “how could you do this to him after he’s helped us SO MUCH with the big, beautiful tariffs!” or “Wasn’t he married to Marla then?” 
The dumbest thing would be a THIRD attempt at an impeachment with Epstein blurbs after we win back House and Senate. There’s no getting rid of him. This is a nothingburger.
I hope to hell I’m wrong though.
Vance will surely be thinking about this. If this all blows up quickly in Trump’s face, Vance will not get away cleanly. So he will want to distance himself early. It’s dominos like this that could topple Trump. However it could be that the wish is the father of the thought.
I can’t believe we are at the point where we are counting on Lauren Handjob Boebert to come through for us.
In this case, “smoking gun” means “the thing that turns everything, the watershed”.
Before the smoking gun appears, Republicans in Congress and the Senate fear publicly opposing Trump because they’ll get primaried in their next election.
After the smoking gun appears, Republicans in Congress and the Senate fully support Trump’s impeachment and conviction, respectively. Vance’s swearing-in would be just a matter of time.
We’ve seen this show before, people. The consequences for Trump, no matter what’s in the files that may be made public, will be zero.
Never, I think. Many of those working in Trump’s White House are conscious of violations of US laws they’ve committed. I doubt they believe Vance will be free with pardons, given that he will want to distance himself from Trump as far as possible. They will cling to their sinking ship as long as they can.
I don’t see any of those people turning on Trump. The Cabinet is another thing, of course—they have enough distance to, possibly, survive, particularly if they are seen as acting responsibly by 25th-ing Donald ASAP.
Congressional Republicans may be making similar calculations.
I don’t think most of MAGA sees today’s revelations as damning, by the way. It’s more a matter of the big-money boys. The captains of industry. If they decide Donald is a liability, then he’s toast.
And that’s made easier if everyone’s imagining that they’re going to get a video of Trump getting pegged by a 12 year old with a binky.
But that’s not where unpardonable criminality begins.
Don’t raise your standards of misbehavior any higher than you would for any ordinary joe.
Sure, but I have seen with my own eyes that it simply doesn’t work that way for Trump. It is not my own standards that are at issue here.
The problem is that our standards – those of the assembled mass of the SDMB – aren’t of account here.
That said, I have long thought that whatever it is that eventually fells Trump, it (1) won’t be seen coming, and (2) would seem inconsequential when it first appeared. So we’ll see.
Question that I can’t figure out with my own simple thought process: Why did Republican members of the House release thousands of juicy pages today after the Dems released a few? These oodles of potentially-damning emails have come by way of the Pubs.
And what’s with the need for discharge petitions and House debates and votes and Senate debates and votes if a House committee could just release 20000+ pages on its own?
If he experiences a downfall 
it won’t be the MAGAts who turn on him, it will be these folks.
Hey guys, Lucy is holding that football right there for you to kick!
Again, we know that overt, undeniable evidence that Trump is a pedophile won’t be enough to sink him. Because it didn’t. Evidence of that has existed since before his first election. It didn’t matter.
FWIW, Politico is reporting that “possibly 100 or more” Republicans might vote for the release, so with any luck we’re not dealing with a razor-thin margin of error.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/11/12/congress/house-epstein-vote-gop-defections-00649624
I imagine they have some idea of what’s in there. So, interesting, if true.
On one hand, I agree with those that say “nothing will hurt Trump with his supporters.” On the other hand, I also agree that things can change quickly and in unexpected ways.