Democrats should call them the “Trump-Epstein” files from now on.
Release the Trump-Epstein files! The American public deserves to know what’s in the Trump-Epstein files!
No, it won’t. Two minutes of Googling will give you speculation, not facts. From the Times article:
At the time of Mr. Epstein’s death in 2019, his estate was worth an estimated $600 million. He worked briefly on Wall Street and built his wealth with the help of several billionaires, including the L Brands founder Leslie Wexner and the Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black, for whom Mr. Epstein provided consulting, tax advice and other financial services. But it’s still not clear how Mr. Epstein amassed such a large fortune — or how he was able to fund such a complex trafficking scheme.
Also, Epstein trafficked women and girls internationally:
In addition to trafficking underage victims within the United States, Mr. Epstein imported young women and children from Russia, Belarus, Turkey and Turkmenistan, according to an investigation conducted by the office of Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. This trafficking was presumably expensive. Treasury Department files reviewed by Mr. Wyden’s staff members detail, among other things, 4,725 wire transfers adding up to nearly $1.1 billion associated with just one of Mr. Epstein’s bank accounts.
Just one of his accounts.
Unless Bob Barr’s name shows up…
Trump-Clinton-Epstein.
Democrats should just sit back and enjoy their popcorn. The best seats for mudwrestling aren’t those closest to the action.
No, no more “sitting back”. It’s more than clear voters want fighters, not ass-sitters.
When the opposition are fighting among themselves, don’t get in their way.
I don’t accept that, not when Trump is continuing to do so much damage.
Are there?
And the Epstein case is but one specific example within the broad range of “gross rich elites of all political stripes doing whatever they want to little people”. But yeah, QAnon in their nutbar disorder are locked on that it’s all about liberal pedos ruling the world.
Epstein preying on vulnerable minors had himself a seller’s market, given the demand among many power elite men of all factions for teenage fun.
Sure, respectable pimps and Johns will play safe and rather deal with the “college co-ed”, “barely legal” type, but Epstein & Maxwell were not like that.
Though it can tell who rode it or not to within that range, but OTOH it won’t tell who flew some other way to within that range.
One should note, for example, Trump’s other friends:
Trump’s approval and strong approval ratings continue to slide, but not collapse. Why is this, given that Trump is covering up the release of the Epstein files, breaking past promises to his core base?
A: Trump’s supporters never gave a shit about child trafficking to begin with. That wasn’t the point of Pizzagate, QAnon et al. Josh Marshall of the invaluable journalistic organization TPM, with added emphasis:
One of the most telling aspects of this MAGA obsession is the focus on the punishment of the “elites” who are behind it. At a basic level, the victims never really take center stage. And that is the heart of it. In the MAGA world, pedophilia isn’t a crime or abuse that needs to be stopped. It is more a legitimating tool which provides a license for cleansing acts of retributive violence and revenge. This is what’s at the end of the story in every far-right/MAGA conspiracy: a wave of eliminationist, cleansing violence led by someone like Trump in which the bad guys, the liberals, the Democrats, the globalist elites, etc etc are wiped out. And that’s why whether it’s Pizzagate, QAnon or the more outlandish versions of the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories, they always keep coming back to pedophilia. Because pedophilia summons a level of disgust, anger and revulsion that makes the perpetrators seem uniquely inhuman, less than human, people against whom total violence is acceptable and necessary. In other words, these conspiracy theories are systems of thought that provide sanction and legitimation for what you want to do to your enemies. They’re about the enemies. The role of pedophilia in these stories is just a means to an end, making what you want to do with your enemies okay.
Gifted link:
Over at Bulwark, a columnist recommends tying the Epstein coverup to Trump’s consistent efforts to protect the elite. Trump is defending Epstein’s living associates as he delivers them tax cuts on the backs of those on Medicaid and Medicare and enriches coal barons at the cost of filthy air. Every attack on Trump’s policies ties back to Epstein; every attack on Epstein can be tied back to Trump’s policies. It’s all one piece.
Trump won’t release all the files because they’re too many elites he needs to protect, including himself.
Another LegalEagle video related to the Epstein Files:
Specifically, it’s talking about Trump’s attempt to sue the WSJ over its claims that he wrote a suggestive birthday card to Epstein over 20 years ago.
As the video title says, the lawsuit is crap.
Trump is claiming “pro se” defamation. Which means that the defamation is so egregious that it can fundamentally harm his reputation and livelihood. But the WSJ is just saying Trump drew a dirty picture and said some off-color things, which is no worse than anything Trump has admitted to or even bragged about in public. Drawing vague cartoon boobs is nothing for a guy who signed women’s actual breasts on camera with a marker on the campaign trail.
He is also claiming “actual malice” by saying that the reporters knew it was false because his lawyers told them it was. That’s not how that works. It’s an absolutely absurd claim that has no legal weight.
Really, his lawsuit doesn’t actually even try to make a real case at all. There doesn’t seem to be any real effort made, probably because the lawyers know there is nothing to base anything on, and they know they won’t win. They just want a lawsuit for the sake of having a lawsuit.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being dismissed and costs Trump and his legal team (particularly requiring him to pay the WSJ’s fees if there are no other fines or sanctions). That’s how many of his lawsuits end up, especially when he goes after media groups.
When Trump sued Michael Cohen for saying bad things about him, he ultimately backed down and didn’t actually go through with it. I expect that will happen here, definitely before they get to the discovery phase.
Two thoughts spring to mind-Democrats should be careful how they go after Trump on the Epstein issue, because if it looks like you’re being “unfair” to him any fractures that might exist will be patched. Encourage the infighting, certainly.
Second: I truly don’t think Epstein was murdered in prison. Helped to end himself? Sure. But there’s just too much risk and complexity in trying to get him in prison.
I agree that Epstein probably killed himself - and I don’t know that it really matters all that much, either way, since he’s the definition of an untrustworthy witness against any particular person you might want to use him against. It’s whatever physical documentation and digital records that he might have maintained that would matter and, on his death, that all becomes more accessible. During his life, he could contest the release of materials.
That all said…
I don’t know that there’s so much risk or complexity when you control the prison and you control every person in the prison.
For example, it’s difficult for you to break into my home and take the things in my hidden safe. It’s far less difficult for me, because it’s my home, my safe, my key, and my combo.
Now if it wasn’t Trump’s appointees that took out Epstein then, sure, it’s a tall order. But all Trump would need to do is order up a patriotic psycho from some agency and tell Bill Barr to move people and cameras around to make it happen. With full control over the staffing, equipment, and network, it’s really just a matter of having people qualified to generate misleading digital evidence plan out the op, and then issue the command.
What I see a lot on Facebook are MAGAssholes asking “Why didn’t Biden release the files? He had them for four years!” I’m not sure how to counter that. Is it:
- Biden didn’t give two shits about a case that was over
- It isn’t in Democrats’ nature to weaponize law enforcement records
- He didn’t think DJT would ever come back to power so there was no point to expose him
I suspect that a guy who talked about wanting to pork his daughter would have no problems with banging captive teens on an offshore island. Remember this is the guy who bought the Miss Teen USA pageant so that he had an excuse to barge in the contestants’ dressing room using the excuse that he was “inspecting” it. If he’s in there, why didn’t someone bring it in the open earlier?
Regarding the recommendation to, “Follow the money”, this is standard investigative advice. Building a 9 figure fortune based upon managing the money of two men sounds… unusual. Though to be clear the expert opinion writer in the NYT properly notes that, “Neither Mr. Wexner nor Mr. Black has been accused of wrongdoing by law enforcement in connection with Mr. Epstein’s crimes, and both men have said that they did not know about his criminal behavior.”
Mr. Wexner, now 87, is a highly successful businessman. He got his start managing clothing retailers, eventually owning Victoria’s Secret (increasing its value a thousand fold), but also other concerns. As a New York based businessman, it’s unsurprising that there have been allegations of mob ties on the internet. That his money manager Arthur Schapiro was brutally gunned down in what was described as a mob-style murder in broad daylight in 1985 only fueled the internet rumors, along with his contracting out logistics to Walsh Trucking. (An executive at that company, Frank Walsh, “was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty in 1990 to making illegal payments to Teamster leaders as part of a sweetheart deal with a warehouse company,” according to the NYT (sub req)). Wexner’s next financial manager was Jeffrey Epstein, who worked for him in 1987-2007, eventually being granted power of attorney in 1991.
Senator Ron Wyden has been digging into Epstein’s finances for 3 years. Between 4 banks there totaled $1.5 billion of transactions associated with Mr. Epstein. I think this warrants investigation, though I can’t say beyond a reasonable doubt where such an investigation might lead. I have no opinion on that.
- It’s generally illegal to release information that pertains to private parties on sensitive subjects. That can probably be worked through but you’d have to figure out how to carefully redact 100s of thousands of pages of materials, plus figure out how to censor and blur thousands of videos that might contain child porn, so they can be released to the general public.
- The information probably makes Trump look real bad but not like a pedophile. Why bother to go through all of that above effort if the guy has already been convicted of rape and fraud, was outed by half of his own appointees for trying to fraudulently replace the electoral college to invalidate the vote of the people, and hasn’t lost support from his followers through any of that? Functionally, we already can be fairly confident that Trump knew that Epstein was diddling kids and, from that timeline, we know that he didn’t do anything about it until the Feds started to poke and Mar-a-Lago. And, functionally, we already know that Epstein isn’t the only friend of Trump that had a kid diddling issue. If those are both known, and all of the above, what do the materials really add?
- If all of this is being done for campaign purposes, then it’s a misuse of Federal resources. Biden shouldn’t have (and hopefully didn’t) ask for it of Garland and, if he did Garland should have refused.
Trump promised to do it, despite the difficulty. Biden didn’t.
It’s on the guy who promised to do a thing to do the thing.
Outstanding answer, Sage_Rat. Many thanks.