Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein
Learning absolutely nothing from the huge election victories, Senate Democrats caved to Republicans and voted to reopen the government. Many pundits have already written about this so I’m not focusing on it but want to mention a few things.
The main “concession” Democrats got was a promise to vote on extending the ACA subsidies some time in December. It most likely will not PASS the Senate and there’s nothing binding them to hold a vote, but they’ve promised to do so. I, like millions of others, will likely not have health insurance next year because of the expanded subsidies expiring.
The other two concessions Senate Democrats arranged were back pay for federal employees and a rehiring of some of the employees laid off during the shut down. These are both good things but they were also both things already required by law.
So after more than a month, what the Democrats got in exchange for helping the Republicans are two things which are already law and a promise of a vote which they’ll lose.
Master strategists there.
But aside from the feckless pusillanimity from the Democrats in the Senate, things are still going disastrously for Donald Trump.
Congress has released another batch of documents from the Jeffrey Epstein estate. Cutting to the chase, there is no smoking gun involving Donald Trump in this batch. Larry Summers, a Democrat who served in Obama and Clinton’s cabinets in addition to being president of Harvard, was consulting Epstein about how he could have sex with a Harvard student he was mentoring. Notably here the response from Democrats is largely “launch Larry Summers into the sun.” Biographer Michael Wolff is in these emails frequently, acting as Epstein’s PR agent. A New York Times reporter tipped off Epstein that more legitimate reporters at the paper were looking into him. Epstein sent an email to now ambassador Tom Barrack saying “send photos of you and child. —make me smile.”
This is merely the tip of the iceberg. These emails point to horrendous crimes from the country’s rich and powerful. All of this should be investigated and these men held accountable.
But the headline here is Donald Trump.
Trump is mentioned in MORE THAN HALF of the Epstein documents released this week. Trump’s campaign manager and first term senior advisor Steve Bannon extensively consulted with Epstein about strategy and White House personnel issues. Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell discussed how there was one person who had dirt on them both who “hasn’t barked” to the media about their sex trafficking and rapes. That person is Donald Trump.
Immediately after the swearing in of Arizona Representative Adelita Grijalva, a discharge petition was signed to force a House vote over releasing the Epstein files held by the Department of Justice. (Discharge petitions do not do anything in of themselves. They allow members to bypass the Speaker of the House and vote on a bill the Speaker has refused to bring to the floor.) The House may vote this week on the bill which is nearly certain to pass. But it then needs to clear the Senate and be signed by the president. Even just a week ago, I’d have said there was little chance of this bill clearing the Senate, but now I feel it’s likely to.
Trump himself has reversed his position and said the Senate should pass the bill and he’ll sign it. Two glaring issues here:
Donald Trump is in charge of the executive branch. For all the powers he’s usurped from Congress this year, he IS in charge of the Department of Justice. The law Congress may pass requires the Justice Department to release the files. But Trump can order them to at any time. He could release them tonight if he wanted. He, of course, will not.
The second issue is that Trump has publicly ordered an investigation into Democrats mentioned in connection with Epstein. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she has obliged (this sort of direction of prosecutions would have been a massive political scandal before this year). Like most others on the left, I am 100% in favor of investigating any and all Democrats mentioned in these files, preferably resulting in the aforementioned launching them into the sun. However, there’s a strong chance these investigations will give Trump an excuse to release SOME files but not ALL of them. They could potentially say “we can’t release the files relevant to an ongoing investigation.” It’s nearly the same excuse Trump has used for a decade to avoid making his tax returns public. Even Republican Representative Thomas Massie has mentioned this as a possible strategy Trump may use, calling it a smokescreen.
I do not know how this ends. I have been wrong about the Epstein scandal more than I have been right. I do know that Trump is lying about his involvement. And I know a great reason to lie about your connections to a rapist pedophile would be if you were participating in his crimes.
In other news, Trump is fully committing to his efforts to make sure anyone involved in his attempt to overthrow the election face no accountability at all. Tina Peters was a county clerk in Colorado who bought into the conspiracy theory that Dominion had… done something… to voting machines to steal the election from Trump. To prove this, Peters had the security cameras shut down so she could bring in unauthorized conspiracy theorists to “examine” the voting machines she was tasked with protecting from such incursions. Data pulled from those machines, which showed no evidence of tampering prior to hers, was published. Peters was convicted of four felonies for these actions.
In August the president threatened the state of Colorado with “harsh measures” if Peters were not released from prison. His administration is now seeking her transfer to federal prison which is ludicrous as she was only convicted of state crimes.
Trump has begun pardoning 1/6 attackers not for their actions in attacking the Capitol, but for crimes they’ve been convicted of AFTER the attack. Suzanne Kaye was convicted of threatening to kill FBI agents investigating her role in the attack. Trump pardoned her for that. Daniel Wilson received a 5 year sentence for the capitol attack. Trump pardoned him for that his first week in office this year, but Wilson ALSO had multiple firearm felonies - which have been pardoned by the president.
Trump recently issued blanket pardons for SEVENTY SEVEN of his co-conspirators who worked to overturn the 2020 election. This includes his legal team and the dozens of people who fraudulently presented themselves as state electors. Notably here, with the federal cases against Trump obliterated by his re-election, almost none of these people were facing federal charges. Trump has no legal authority to intercede in state cases meaning these pardons are largely symbolic but that symbolism is extremely disconcerting - commit crimes in service to Donald Trump and he will do everything in his power to make sure you face no consequences.
There is plenty of blame to go around regarding why Trump and his army of liars were not held accountable for his attempted auto-coup. But regardless of who is most at fault, we are still dealing with the disastrous consequences of not imprisoning the first president in US history who tried to violently cling to power after losing an election. I do not know what, if any, consequences there will be from whatever sex crimes he may have committed with Jeffrey Epstein. But I do know he is desperate to keep us from knowing the truth.
This week is the time to contact your Representative, ESPECIALLY if they are a Republican, to support the bill compelling the release of the Epstein files. But you should also start contacting your Senators. As a Texan, I never have much faith in Ted Cruz and John Cornyn doing the right thing, but the public response to this issue has been so overwhelming, we might actually have a path forward.
Several of the women trafficked by Epstein have appeared in a PSA demanding the release of the files the government is keeping secret. While not graphic, it’s still a difficult watch. I leave you tonight with their words instead of mine:
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