Will Jeffrey Epstein's "friends" face justice?

Great Debates
342

The Internet needs to get over smoking guns. A million people are sent to jail every year based on ordinary evidence that builds, together, an overall portrait of the act. Smoking guns are not how you build cases. Requiring them would legalize more crime than California’s shoplifting decriminalization act.

Now, that said, the most likely discoveries would be that Trump knew what was going on - not that he participated - and that Epstein had him over the barrel, because he’d bailed Trump out of bankruptcy. Neither of these paint a flattering portrait of the President. But both do match current reporting.

In the case of Brunel, though, we know that he was connected to Casablancas. Casablancas was connected to Trump. And Epstein was connected to Brunel and, of course, to Trump.

Overall, that’s just a huge coincidence that Trump is friends with two separate people that both used Brunel to procure underaged girls for themselves. The recommendation appears to have come from Maxwell, so…did Maxwell know Casablancas? Who suggested Brunel to her?

If Epstein was, for example, paying people to look the other way, who did he know in the political world that had experience in paying off officials?

Or, going down another path, Trump was running casinos in New Jersey, the territory of Bob Menendez. Menendez took up with Gwendolyn Beck, a financier that wrote a book about using sex to get business deals. She also appears in Epstein’s black book and also visited the White House during Trump’s first term and posted photos of Trump with her baby in the White House.

Who connected this lady to Menendez? The common element of all these people is the current President.

I think we can expect that on any random Friday, he’ll pardon Menendez. Why should he? If Menendez has no connection to Trump, voted against him in Congress, and has no knowledge of impropriety by Trump, then there’s no reason to pardon him. He shouldn’t be pardoned

My money is on Menendez going free.

I’m not expecting a smoking gun. But I do expect that the more you shake the box, the more slime and ick that falls out. Over time, that does all add up. And, importantly, it keeps the pressure on Trump to do good things.

You note that as Epstein came up in the headlines again, he suddenly turned anti-Putin. Maybe if you bring Brunel in, he’ll stop trying to help BRICS dedollarize the globe.

343

Possible, but that wouldnt be what many people want to see.

344

I don’t control that. Reality will be what reality is, and playing up some fantasy variant where Trump was “spooging into the sinuses of babies”, or whatever extreme act of villainy, is liable to just come back to bite you on the day that is revealed that all Trump ever knew was that Epstein had underaged girls running around topless at his home.

Setting the line of misbehavior way off in the realm of serial killers and Quentin Tarantino villains just makes it very unlikely that you’re actually going to score, and absolves Trump from things that are completely criminal and/or unconscionable.

If Trump knew - for example - that the guy was paying 13 year olds to deliver drinks, topless, and he don’t inform the authorities about that, called him a terrific friend in interviews, and he covered up what he saw when talking to the lawyers who were making a case against Epstein, that would all be sufficient grounds for thinking that Trump was covering for his friend in the first instance and doing nothing more than covering his own ass in the second. He was helping to hide a pedo - the second one in his roster of buds.

Playing like that shouldn’t be sufficient to drop his ass onto the coals is dumb. That is enough. Trump doesn’t get some alternate world line in the sand where he’s innocent so long as he wasn’t personally fingering the toddlers.

If the dude saw stuff and he kept it under wraps, then he’s a motherfucker. That’s the line for everyone in the country, and it’s the line for Donald Trump as well.

345

He already is one. Being convicted of Multiple felonies just led to “I am voting for the Felon”.

His base wont believe a mere cover-up.

346

I dare them to make the case that it’s okay to be aware that a guy is molesting 13 year old girls, and that it’s okay to cover that up.

If they want to go there, don’t stop them. That’s the hill that they want to climb, strap that cross on their back and let them walk up it.

347

Here’s some interesting news:

I’m going to let my perpetual optimism out to play for a moment here. What if there were a few people at this meeting who decided that they were sick and tired of this? Say Vance for example, tired of being second fiddle and knowing that he’s a lot smarter than Trump. Maybe Kash Patel decides he doesn’t want to be known for defending a pedophile. Maybe Pam Bondi is sick of the way Trump leers at her and has some tiny spark of empathy for the women and girls that have been victimized by this disgusting man. Here’s hoping that the prevailing opinion is that they are tired of cleaning up Trump’s mess and this is as good of an opportunity as they will ever have to bury the son of a bitch.

Having said that, they’re probably not going to do any of this. But I can hope.

348

You sweet summer child…

349

I know but having said that, this is still a meeting of Trump’s “closest advisors” where they are going to talk about him behind his back. Even if they have the goal of helping him out, he’s going to be very uncomfortable knowing this is happening. I hope nobody left any long knives laying around…

350

We can hope that the wolves will fight among themselves, hoping for empathy from this crowd is out of the question.

351

The idea of a Vance presidency scares me worse than Trump.

352
  1. I note that Dan Bongino wasn’t invited.
  2. Anything short of the audio recording, straight from Blanche sitting down and introducing himself, to them saying goodbye, is liable to be missing any discussions of quid-pro-quo.
  3. There should be discussions of quid-pro-quo, whether underhanded or benign. That’s just how the process works, so any absence would be deeply suspicious.
353

That is assuming there is any solid evidence that could be used against trump, which I feel is unlikely.

As PJ O’Rourke once said about Hillary Clinton (I have paraphrased) “It’s the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, ,. He’s wrong about absolutely everything, but he’s wrong within normal parameters." Vance is at least- sane.

354

That, and I’m pretty sure Congress wouldn’t tolerate nearly the level of bullshit from Vance that they do from Trump. I have some suspicion that they’d actually move to reassert their authority in the wake of a removal of Trump.

355

The Maxwell interviews:

Rather questionable that it’s stored at the top level of the DOJ website, like it’s their main page. But, anyways, I’ll follow up after I’ve read.

356

It’s kind of unfair to judge people for associating with the world’s most famous pedophile before his assumption of that title. I’m sure lots of folks knew John Gacey before his secrets came out. But if someone, Bill Clinton or Donald trump (whom I despise) or fill in the blank hung out with Epstein because he seemed like a fun guy to socialize with, it happens. The question then is when did they learn of his behaviors and what did they do then.

357

I’m about 50 pages into day 1. Notes so far:

  1. It says that Maxwell reached out directly to Blanche (popularly known as the President’s personal lawyer). This wasn’t some DOJ organized initiative by Bondi nor FBI initiative by Patel to hunt down bad guys, it was an effort by Maxwell to improve her situation that she thought would be able to make its way to the President and which did in fact do so.
  2. Blanche says, on the record, that there’s nothing being traded and, effectively, no purpose to the meeting. She’s completely immune to any legal use of anything she admits. That said, he also mentions documents that went to her lawyer (Markus) that specifically describe the deal - so we haven’t seen that and, really, any deal could have the written part and the unwritten part. We’re in the dark on what all communications (i.e. official and unofficial quid-pro-quo) were had between Blanche and Markus, leading up to this point. All we know is that, after the meeting, she was moved to a cushier prison so someone seems to have thought that she did good.
  3. Maxwell is very insistent on the idea that she has never talked to anyone (e.g. she was never questioned by the FBI, she was never asked to testify in court, etc.) about anything to do with her life with Epstein, her life in general, or even what the weather is. This is all a fresh, untold story. (I see one thing that Blanche says that could call that to question, but I’ll need to read further to determine, I think.) Note that I wouldn’t take this as indicative of anything, on the side of law enforcement. If they’ve got all the witnesses that they need and a slam dunk case against her, there’s nothing to ask her, really.
  4. Blanche wants her to give a general overview of her life with Epstein, trying to keep her out of the weeds. But, pretty well as soon as she has a chance she brings Bill Clinton into it, makes clear that Clinton is her friend not Epstein’s - where the “she” in question is a relatively unremarkable property manager from England - and Blanche seems fully onboard to stay in the weeds to help her clear Trump’s old golf buddy, Bill Clinton.
  5. Likewise, Blanche seems to steer her into discussion of her financial situation when she started working with Epstein, giving her a good entry to making a case for just being a poor girl, dependent on Jeffrey, to put food on the table. If we presume that his goal is to track down baddies, it’s not clear why he’d be interested. And, going back to #3, it feels a bit like a question that’s the defense might have for their own witness, than something that came about accidentally. But… I’m not confident on that, yet.
358

Good point. Especially if he is offering free private jets flights.

359

Up to about page 200…

So, in general, I’d say that Maxwell is both great and horrible for pretty much anyone who would want to push any angle. Assuming that she didn’t testify on her own behalf during her trial (which seems to be the implication), I can see why her lawyer made that decision.

Specifically, she is amazing at casting doubt on her own statements. Like, you ask her, “Was Epstein working with Mossad?” And she’ll say something like, “No, of course not, that’s ridiculous!” But then you ask, “Have you met any Israeli intelligence agents?”

“I didn’t intend to meet any.”

Later, “Did Epstein have any contacts with foreign politicians?”

“Oh, yes, Ehud Barack, the former Prime Minister of Israel.”

“And that relationship was just, bumping into each other at social events? He never visited Epstein’s homes?”

“Oh, no, they were great friends. I saw them having secret conversations at several of the properties.”

…Right.

You ask her about “the list”. “No, no! There’s no list. False news!” And you ask about blackmail targets, but she says, “I never saw anyone but Jeffrey with any of the girls. All fake!”

And then she continues to explain a conspiracy theory of her own making about a law firm inventing fake evidence. At a quick glance, that could plausibly check out, but then she continues, “Well, no, really what the list was, was Brad Edwards received Epstein’s black book from Alfredo Rodriguez, and while Rodriguez went through circling and underlining, he put together a list of Epstein’s clients. Yes, so far as I can tell, the black book has all the correct names and addresses and is authentic, and the copy in the public is exactly what Rodriguez created.” (Note that Trump is circled in the book.)

“No, I never saw that particular man come out in a robe. Yes, him, I did see come out from one of the massage rooms in a robe.”

For almost anything that she rejects as lies and slander, at some point, she undercuts significantly, later.

360

Because she’s a liar, and she’s having trouble keeping her lies straight. I don’t believe anything that comes out of her mouth.

361

Black books are usually just phone numbers of people important to you. Do we know Epstein’s black book was directly related to his underage sex activities?

Good friends with a Politian does not mean that they work for their secret service.

However, I think you are right in not trusting her testimony, and anyway memories 5+ years old are untrustworthy. She is not telling the truth- deliberately lying or misremembering it doesnt really matter now.