Listen on spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Congress needs to investigate the cover-up of the president’s health.

No, not Biden’s health, which has become an excuse for avoiding the obvious problems with Trump’s health.

Biden’s no longer the president. He’s no longer making decisions affecting the nation’s security.

This guy, though, is:

Link to original post including the video.

This kind of confabulation is familiar to me, having a parent with dementia. They fake reality to fill in gaps in what they actually recall, and as long as they’re not called out on it they continue to roll with it. They may even believe their fabrication because they can draw on nothing that undermines it.

Depending on the time of day and who corrects them, they may back off or they may become petulant and act out if they are sundowning.

Nobody confronts him. They just let him spew that garbage and replay it to the public without context to call it into question, cementing it as alternative reality.

This is dangerous as fuck, a threat to national security.

The video in the post above was recorded August 26 in a close cabinet meeting. The meeting was held during a period when Trump wasn’t seen by the public, between August 24 and September 2, sparking questions across social media platforms asking if Trump was dead.

Photos taken of him on August 30 preparing to get into a vehicle did not assure the public of his health. He looked pale, pasty, and not very energetic.

Trump’s slack jaw open mouth appearance in several photos that day caused many to ask if he’d had a stroke.

Yesterday there was more evidence yet that Trump may have had a recent neurological event. Lauren Esposito at The Daily Beast offered several perspectives in her report:

President Donald Trump was sporting a doozy of a droopy face as he ventured outside the White House Thursday amid mounting questions about his health.

The 79-year-old president appeared at a Pentagon event commemorating the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, where the right side of his face sparked a wave of online speculation.

Matt Binder of Substack newsletter Disruptionist asked if this may be an AI avatar of Trump:

Link to original tweet on Xitter including video clips.

It’s not just the glitch Binder noted which is concerning; Trump’s right hand is covered by his left. It could be an attempt to hide the bruising frequently noted on his hand, or it could be an effort to hide both a spasm like dystonia or tardive dyskenia, or a decreasing ability to freely using his right hand and fingers. Whatever it is looks awkward and unnatural because Trump talks with his hands.

How would the average American know whether they’re looking at a sick man faking it through his duties, or an artificial construct created to replace him, operated by unelected handlers?

Some have speculated Trump has had Bell’s palsy which frequently manifests as paralysis of one side of the face – but not paralysis or weakening of one half of the body. There’s been no deeper speculation about the underlying cause of the palsy.

Has Trump one or more major neurological events which could affect his ability to fulfill his duties as president?

Has he already subordinated his duties to others around him — outside of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment — including whomever may have made an AI avatar of him used yesterday?

Why aren’t any of the White House staff speaking with media to address Trump’s obvious health problems, instead of covering it up by ignoring it?

When is Congress going to investigate this immediate concern rather than wasting time on a political witch hunt focusing on a former president?

And when is the GOP caucus in Congress going to grasp the reality they are under the thumb of a guy who’s health is clearly compromised? What happens to the GOP both in Congress and the party machine if Trump becomes further debilitated?

~ ~ ~

There is one more huge problem Congress won’t address, regardless of the party helming either house.

That’s the failure of U.S. media outlets. It’s clear based on the complete lack of coverage of Trump’s health that the largest and most influential newspapers conducted a partisan hit job on Joe Biden during his last year in office.

There has been little coverage of Trump’s disappearance for four days by The New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Los Angeles Times.

There has been limited coverage of Trump’s obvious hand bruises and his edema, but not a daily report on his health — not like that NYT and WaPo published day after day.

Biden’s health problems were far less obvious and yet they drew magnitude more coverage.

Trump’s latest health problem was picked up in The Daily Beast. Not a single story in any of the major newspapers or cable outlets over the last 20 hours.

It’s rather sad to see multiple Indian news outlets — Hindustan Times, Times of India, Times Now, for example — are doing a far better job of covering Trump’s health on a timely basis.

We’re going to have to build a better media ecosystem if we’re going to get the news we need because the major U.S. outlets prove repeatedly they are not capable of meeting this moment in history.

Their wall-to-wall coverage of a political pundit’s death avoiding altogether coverage of the seated president’s health is yet more evidence of the problem we need to fix and quickly.

The other thread on the Charlie Kirk killing has gotten really long, so I thought I’d post another.

The investigation into Tyler Robinson’s ideology is still quite early. What’s clear is he was raised in conservative Republican culture, around guns.

What’s unclear is whether the cultural references that AFT initially misrepresented as “trans ideology” is sincerely, or only ironically, tied to further right culture than Kirk himself.

Here’s a good explanation of the known gamer references in the things he scratched onto bullet casings (though the song Bella Ciao has been appropriated by Groypers).

But the full arrow sequence was quickly recognized as something else: a combo from Helldivers 2 for calling the Eagle 500kg Bomb stratagem. The world of Helldivers — which evokes Robert Heinlein’s book Starship Troopers and the subsequent movie — concerns fascism thematically; developer Arrowhead has characterized it as a satire where players fight for a fascist state.

[snip]

Fans of the game immediately noticed. Shortly after the press conference on Friday morning, the Helldivers subreddit was flooded with players who had picked up on what may be references to the game. A thread, now deleted, was titled: “Hey Facist Catch!” with the poster asking, “Did anyone else hear/notice?!” A commenter, responding to the thread, said, “The moment I heard [the arrows] my eyes widened.”

Another thread, also apparently deleted by moderators, referenced the arrows that authorities say were on one of the unfired bullet casings recovered at the scene. “It sickens me having people like this playing this game and using it to real violence to tarnish this awesome game and community,” the poster wrote. Other posts implored the subreddit moderators to lock down the forum. Moderators for the subreddit didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A thread in the separate r/Helldivers2 subreddit remains active, with people discussing the apparent parallels.

And this is a worthwhile reflection — originally written about the suspect in the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting — about how muddled this online ideology can be.

As incoherent, unhinged, or even cringey as the Minneapolis shooter’s videos might seem, they are part of a familiar template of terroristic behavior—one that continues to spread in online communities dedicated to mass shootings and other forms of brutality. In these morbid spaces, killers are viewed as martyrs, and they’re dubbed “saints.” Really, they’re influencers.

These disaffected communities live on social networks, message boards, and private Discords. They are populated by trolls, gore addicts, and, of course, aspiring shooters, who study, debate, and praise mass-shooting tactics and manifestos. Frequently, these groups adopt the aesthetics of neo-Nazis and white supremacists—sometimes because they are earnestly neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and sometimes because it’s the look and language that they’re cribbing from elsewhere. It’s always blurry, but it usually amounts to the same thing. In an article published by this magazine last year, Dave Cullen, author of the book Columbine, summed it all up: “As you read this, a distraught, lonely kid somewhere is contemplating an attack—and the one community they trust is screaming, Do it!”

There’s no reason to rush to pin this down. What matters is the right wing launched a cultural war against the left…

… Only to discover that the culprit was one of theirs.

H/T Alejandra Caraballo for the Nancy Mace screengrabs.

There’ll be a lot of good articles on this lawsuit that three recently fired senior FBI agents — Brian Driscoll, Steven Jensen, and Spencer Evans — have filed against Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and the agencies that fired them. For example, NYT focuses on disclosures about Stephen Miller’s role in running DOJ. NPR focuses on Dan Bongino’s obsession with social media.

The complaint retells stories already reported in the press, such as how the Trump Administration intended to hire Robert Kissane as interim FBI Director but fucked up the announcement, so Driscoll served instead. There are descriptions designed to be embarrassing — if not debilitating to Kash’s ability to lead the agency — such as the revelation that Kash has a collection of whiskey and cigars in his office and  that Kash’s challenge coin that is unusually large. The audience for such disclosures goes beyond Judge Jia Cobb, who’ll preside over the case, to members of Congress who’ll hold hearings with Kash just days from now.

These details discrediting Kash’s leadership are matched by details describing how these men, especially Driscoll, were fired because of their efforts to treat FBI agents with respect and dignity, intervening to prevent firings or mitigate the impact of them. A long passage describes Driscoll’s efforts to undercut Emil Bove’s jihad against agents who–like Bove and Driscoll themselves–had participated in the January 6 investigation. This includes an anecdote about how Bove bolloxed an attempt to send an email to the entire FBI workforce to complain about Driscoll.

This is a speaking complaint written by people who’ve helped write their share of speaking indictments in their careers.

Which is why my favorite line is the one describing Kash acknowledging that these firings could lead to his deposition: “[Kash] again commented that he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed.” [my emphasis]

The deposition comment, as it pertains to Kash, appears twice in the lawsuit: once at the beginning, to substantiate that Kash knew these firings were unlawful, which the complaint immediately contrasts with the sworn promises Kash made to the Senate not to politicize firings.

4. Patel openly acknowledged the unlawfulness of his actions. On or about August 5, 2025, in a conversation with Driscoll, Patel plainly stated the reasoning behind his firing of FBI employees that Mr. Driscoll sought to defend. In sum and substance, Patel admitted that his superiors, who he referred to as “they” and who Driscoll understood to include Defendant Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the White House (which encompasses Defendant Executive Office of the President (“EOP”)), had directed him to fire anyone who they identified as having worked on a criminal investigation against President Donald J. Trump. Patel explained that he had to fire the people his superiors told him to fire, because his ability to keep his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the President. Patel explained that there was nothing he or Driscoll could do to stop these or any other firings, because “the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.” Driscoll indicated his belief that Patel’s reference to his superiors meant DOJ and the White House, and Patel did not deny it.

5. When Driscoll explained that firing employees based on case assignments would be in direct violation of internal FBI processes meant to adjudicate adverse actions and prevent retaliation based on case assignments, Patel said that he understood that and he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed.

6. Patel’s actions stood in stark contrast to his sworn testimony during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. There, he assured the Committee and the country that “all FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.” An exchange with Senator Richard Blumenthal on the topic of firing agents who worked on criminal investigations involving President Trump proceeded as follows:

Sen. Blumenthal: You’ve committed that the FBI will not be politicized. So here’s your first test. Will you commit that you will not tolerate the firing of the FBI agents who worked with the Special Counsel’s Office on these investigations? . . .

Patel: Senator. Every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard, and no one will be terminated for case assignments.

7. Likewise in his written responses to a Senate Questionnaire, Patel repeatedly emphasized his commitment that “personnel decisions should be based on performance and adherence to the law” and that “every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard, and no one will be terminated for case assignments.” He also asserted that he would “ensure that the appropriate processes are always followed” with respect to adverse actions against FBI personnel.

The lawsuit repeats the deposition comment twice in a longer passage where Driscoll describes how he was fired because he attempted to prevent the firing of another agent, Christopher Meyer, who had been assigned to pilot Kash’s frequent flights back to Las Vegas.

169. On or around August 1, 2025, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Chris Meyer became the subject of intense social media activity. Specifically, various social media posts claimed incorrectly that Meyer had been the signatory to the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit and was now Patel’s personal pilot.

170. In fact, Meyer was not the signatory to the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit. He was not the case agent for the investigation concerning President Trump’s handling of classified documents, nor did he participate in the search of Mar-a-Lago.

[snip]

173. On Saturday, August 2, 2025, the FBI’s Associate Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Will Rivers called Driscoll to ask him for details about Meyer. Meyer is a military veteran and a qualified pilot. As part of his duties with the FBI, he flew the FBI’s private jet, a Gulfstream G550, which means he served as the FBI Director’s pilot while on duty. Along with those duties, Meyer—and all of the G550 pilots—also flew HRT personnel to overseas missions and other mission-critical assignments. HRT is also responsible for flying “Foreign Transfer of Custody” missions, which detains and transports terrorists and criminals from overseas to the United States to face criminal prosecution. In short, each pilot in CIRG plays an essential role in critical FBI missions.

174. Rivers wanted to know Meyer’s current location and whether he was flying the Director on his current trip. He also asked Driscoll about Meyer’s tenure with the FBI, which was approximately 13 years. Rivers told Driscoll that Meyer was no longer permitted to fly the Director’s plane.

[snip]

179. At this point, Driscoll demanded an opportunity to speak with Patel in person, to which Rivers agreed. Driscoll scheduled a meeting with Patel for Tuesday, August 5, 2025.

180. Driscoll later spoke with Meyer over the phone and informed him that he would no longer be allowed to pilot Patel’s aircraft. Driscoll also told Meyer that he would be raising the issue with the Director and would challenge the decision.

181. On Monday, August 4, 2024, Driscoll received a call from Bongino. Bongino asked Driscoll if anybody would be able to “find anything” in his emails from the time he (Driscoll) was serving as Acting Director. Driscoll replied that there would be nothing incriminating to find in his emails during this time and took Bongino’s question to mean that somebody besides Bongino and Patel would be searching through his old emails in an attempt to find a basis for firing him. Bongino said that he would attempt to keep Driscoll in place.

182. On Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at 9:00 a.m., Driscoll again met with Rivers. This meeting included a status update on Meyer.

183. At 10:00 a.m. on August 5, 2025, Driscoll met directly with Patel to discuss Meyer. Specifically, Driscoll stated that summarily firing Meyer would be illegal based on his military veteran status and would also violate all established FBI policies for adverse actions against personnel.

184. Patel responded that Meyer would be fired by Friday, August 8, 2025, and that there was nothing either Patel or Driscoll could say or do that would stop it. Driscoll pointed out that Meyer had not committed any misconduct and that being assigned to cases could not be grounds for termination. Patel said he understood this, but that as Driscoll should know from “sitting in this seat,” meaning serving as the Director, that “you can’t save everyone.”

185. When Driscoll explained it, Patel acknowledged that the FBI would be sued and would lose in court. He also acknowledged that he would likely be deposed concerning his knowledge of the reasons for Meyer’s termination. He also acknowledged that the FBI workforce would likely respond negatively to Meyer’s termination.

186. Patel stated that all FBI employees who they identified who had worked on the cases against President Trump would be removed from their jobs, regardless of their retirement eligibility status. He then stated that Driscoll needed to understand that “the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.” Patel then stated that his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on the cases against the President, regardless of whether the agents chose to work on those cases or not. Patel acknowledged that this would be in direct violation of internal FBI processes meant to adjudicate adverse actions and prevent retaliation based on case assignments. He again commented that he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed. [my emphasis]

There’s even the equivalent passage where Steven Jensen staved off Walter Giardina’s firing for some months by warning Dan Bongino that he might face a deposition.

130. At some point in May 2025, Jensen received a phone call from Bongino, who was audibly upset. He asked Jensen whether he knew who SA Walter Giardina was and told Jensen that he has “got to go.” Giardina was an agent assigned to WFO. Jensen asked him to elaborate, but Bongino explained that he could not do so over the phone. Jensen met him at FBI Headquarters to continue the discussion. Jensen knew Giardina to be a dedicated and hardworking FBI agent who was assigned to high-profile investigations into members of both political parties because of these qualities.

131. Upon arriving at FBI Headquarters, Jensen found Bongino in his Chief of Staff’s office. Bongino looked as if he had not slept for several days. He seemed extremely anxious and agitated. Jensen asked him what was wrong. Bongino explained that he had found a room filled with classified documents and “burn bags” related to the now-closed Crossfire Hurricane investigation. He expressed shock at the existence of these burn bags.

132. By his comments, it seemed to Jensen that Bongino might not have been fully aware that the use of “burn bags” is a standard method across multiple federal agencies for preparing classified material for destruction when an investigation is deemed closed, or when physical copies of the materials are no longer necessary. He also appeared unaware that the FBI also stored digital copies of materials on the FBI’s classified computer system, and that this was likely the case with these materials. At the meeting, Bongino also made an unfounded additional allegation about Giardina’s handling of data, claiming that the allegation was “just out there.”

133. Bongino insisted that Jensen summarily fire Giardina. Jensen explained that Giardina was a military veteran and was entitled to certain rights which did not allow such a firing. He explained that if Bongino forced him to summarily fire Giardina, he would document in a report that the firing was at the direction of Bongino and had occurred after Jensen explained why the firing violated FBI procedures and Giardina’s rights. He explained that Bongino would likely be deposed in a lawsuit should Giardina choose to challenge his unlawful firing. Bongino did not pursue further his demand that Giardina be summarily fired in that meeting. In fact, Giardina was never assigned to work on Crossfire Hurricane. [my emphasis]

Note the similarity between these two conversations: in both, FBI’s top officials ordered their subordinates to fire someone based — at least partly — on false premises, shit floating around on social media (involvement in the Mar-a-Lago search in Meyer’s case, involvement in Crossfire Hurricane and mishandling data in Giardina’s case, both marked in blue). Both involve military veterans whose status prohibits certain kinds of firing (marked in red). In both, the subordinate gave warnings that such firings would be illegal (marked in green); Kash repeatedly acknowledged he knew those firings would be illegal.

Both of these exchanges, as described, were set up like witness interviews, where FBI agents know how to repeatedly get the core admission from the subject.

There’s some question whether Jensen and Driscoll documented these exchanges and if so how. Jensen said he would document the conversation if Bongino went ahead and fired Giardina in May, which he did not do. A footnote explains,

3 The facts alleged in this section are based primarily on the firsthand knowledge, best recollections, and/or communications of and involving Plaintiffs. Unless otherwise indicated with quotation marks, descriptions of conversations and other oral statements are reflected in sum and substance and to the best recollections of Plaintiffs.

That doesn’t explain what kind of documentation each man made of the conversations or when. Both men know well the lesson of Jim Comey, whose attempt to take official notes with him after he was fired was criminalized over the course of years. But both men were also trained, over decades, to write 302 reports after the fact that would be deemed reliable in court.

In any case, Driscoll makes sure to name the witnesses to various parts of this progression: The conversations with Will Rivers on August 2 and — just before the conversation with Kash — on August 5. The phone conversation with Bongino on August 4. Details of timing that would show up in phone records and official calendars.

These are men who know how to substantiate a case, and in the case of these crucial conversations, did so.

Which is why the warnings about the depositions are so delicious.

It actually is hard to demand that FBI Directors and their Deputies sit for a deposition. There’s a whole body of precedent that requires plaintiffs to work their way up to more senior officials. For example, Peter Strzok (the circumstances of whose firing and subsequent lawsuit, which made some of the very same First Amendment and Due Process claims, Driscoll and Jensen presumably also know well) had to fight hard to get Chris Wray to sit for a deposition, and even harder to get Trump to sit for one.

But here, the plaintiffs have the defendants on the record noting that they would have to sit for depositions.

The depositions themselves would be worse than embarrassing. They would record:

• Both men’s rank ignorance of FBI processes
• The erroneous social media conspiracies that dictated firings of highly qualified FBI agents
• Acknowledgment — laid out elsewhere in the complaint — by both Bongino and Kash that these men were doing their jobs competently
• As noted, the knowledge of all the reasons why the firings of Giardina and Meyer, as well as those of the plaintiffs, were illegal (note, at least per the biographies in the complaint, none of the plaintiffs are veterans entitled to special treatment on firings)

In that first instance, the warning about the deposition does something else.

The White House is a defendant in this lawsuit. The basis for that rests in part on Emil Bove’s repeated explanations that Stephen Miller was ordering up the FBI firings and specific references to White House involvement that both Bongino and Kash relayed to Jensen. But it also rests in that question — again, from a trained FBI agent — about who Kash meant by “they.” “Driscoll indicated his belief that Patel’s reference to his superiors meant DOJ and the White House, and Patel did not deny it.”

Again, this may help plaintiffs clear a hurdle that also proved onerous for Strzok and Andrew McCabe when they tried to pierce the orders the White House gave to politicize the FBI. Effectively, Driscoll already got the concession that he would have had to get in a deposition to start asking for details on — say — Stephen Miller’s role in all this, to say nothing of Kash’s understanding (and this is one of the few things put in quotation marks) that, “the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.”

Kash, because he ran his mouth, may have made it easier to demand a deposition of President Trump in this case.

And finally, there’s the contrast between the concession that he might have to sit for a deposition with the sworn promises that Kash made to get confirmed. Kash already has a history of false claims that got him in legal trouble, with the grand jury testimony that he succeeded in burying during his confirmation. But here, the plaintiffs have dangled the threat of posing one set of sworn statements — that no agents would be fired for the cases they worked — with the admissions Kash already admitted he might have to make in a deposition.

To be sure, this case still faces the same hurdles and delays that both McCabe and Strzok faced (Strzok is still waiting to hear whether his case will go to trial). But because neither Bongino nor Kash could acquit themselves competently when interacting with men who had spent years doing certain FBI agent things, they’ve already backed themselves, and the people — “they” — who ordered these firings, into certain corners.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Discussion of the shooting and death of right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk has taken over other threads. I’m putting up an open thread so that the other discussions can remain on topic.

Kirk believed in widely-distributed gun ownership and exhorted their use to put down violence (link):

Kirk said gun violence was necessary in America (link).

Kirk also believed empathy was some new age thing, evidence of “wokeness.” (link)

“I can’t stand the word empathy actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that — it does a lot of damage, but it is very effective when it comes to politics,” he added.

Heidi Li Feldman published a thread on Mastodon to remind us of who Charlie Kirk was.

I have nothing to add which hasn’t been said.

This is an open thread. As always, please avoid any rhetoric advocating, glorifying, or normalizing violence.

The NYT has now provided backstory to a part of the Epstein birthday book even more obscene than Trump’s own letter: the picture, submitted by Joel Pashcow, of Epstein holding a check doctored after the fact to look like it was signed by Trump.

The photo is captioned,

Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! sells “fully depreciated” [redacted] to Donald Trump for $22,500. Showed early “people skills” too. Even though I handled the deal, I didn’t get any of the money or the girl!

The photo is actually the third page of Pashcow’s submission. After a page full of images of girls in suggestive positions, Pashcow included a clear allusion to Epstein’s predation, a progression from offering balloons to prepubescent girls in 1983 to him receiving massages from topless young women in 2003, the year of the birthday book. (It’s unclear whether the 2003 image is meant to be Mar-a-Lago or Epstein’s private island.)

The NYT offers this explanation for the photo:

It shows a photograph of Mr. Pashcow at the resort with Mr. Epstein, another man and a woman whose face is redacted. Mr. Pashcow is holding an oversize check that appears to have been doctored, with a seemingly phony “DJ TRUMP” signature.

A handwritten note under the photo, which was taken in the 1990s, joked that Mr. Epstein showed “early talents with money + women,” and had sold a “fully depreciated” woman to Mr. Trump for $22,500.

The woman, whose name is also redacted in the files released by the House Oversight Committee, was a European socialite then in her 20s, according to two people familiar with the original photo. She had briefly dated both Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump around that time, according to court transcripts and a person close to Mr. Epstein. The birthday book entry appears to be a reference to the competition between the two men for the woman’s affections.

The nature of the woman’s relationship with Mr. Epstein is murky. The New York Times is not naming her because she may have been one of his victims.

A lawyer for the woman said she knew Mr. Epstein in “a professional capacity” when she was a student but severed ties with him in 1997. She did not know anything about the letter or its “derogatory content,” the lawyer added.

Between the comment from the woman’s lawyer — who said she severed ties with Epstein in 1997 — and NYT’s photo analysis, they date the photo to a narrow period of time in 1996 to 1997.

A visual analysis by The Times found that the photo was taken at Mar-a-Lago after the resort opened as a club in 1996 and was landscaped with palm trees and other features. In the background of the photo, a thatched hut is visible in front of a line of palm trees. The area is bordered by a white picket fence and what appears to be the white band of a tennis net is visible in front of the hut. The features match what was captured at the club by the renowned tennis photographer Art Seitz in February 1997.

That’s the news report.

The trick is that many of these submissions are full of inside jokes, peddling the kind of masculine bravado often divorced from facts. Why did Pashcow show a progression from 1983 to 2003 in the earlier drawing depicting grooming, for example, when the earlier date shown, 1983, postdated his time — from 1974 to 1976 — at Dalton School, the most obvious explanation for depicting Epstein with younger girls?

More interestingly, why did Pashcow include a seven year-old picture from Mar-a-Lago in a 2003 birthday book? Perhaps that was just the most expressive picture Pashcow had in his possession with Epstein. Or perhaps he was trying to make a more subtle double entendre, one that like everything else could just be masculine bravado.

Per the NYT, the woman “was a European socialite then in her 20s” when the picture was taken in 1996 or 1997. Per her lawyer, the association with Epstein was professional, not romantic. But there is a reference in testimony from Epstein’s assistant at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial to Epstein sending a woman flowers — a woman known to have been on at least one date with Trump. According to Epstein’s assistant, she “felt like they” — Epstein and this particular woman mentioned at trial, who may or may not be the woman in the photo — “were a couple.” (The testimony was presented to show that by the time of the trafficking for which Maxwell was tried, Maxwell and Epstein were no longer themselves a couple.)

The reason Trump is believed to have dated this woman at least once is because she reportedly was the woman whom Trump was with on the night in 1998 — per the official story — that Trump first met Melania. Melania’s book described,

I noticed a man and an attractive blonde approaching us.

[snip]

He was accompanied by a beautiful date, so I initially dismissed our conversation as mere pleasantries exchanged at an industry event.

The picture was taken in 1996 or 1997. At the time Pashcow included this photo in Epstein’s book, Melania had moved in with Trump, but he had not yet proposed.

Since DOJ assigned 1,000 FBI agents in March to review all the Epstein files, since July 7, when DOJ announced it would not release any more files, Melania has aggressively tried to tamp down Michael Wolff’s claims that Epstein had a larger role in her introduction to Trump than the official story claims. She posted the excerpt of their meeting on July 18. She got Daily Beast to issue a retraction on July 31. She got James Carville to issue a retraction about a week later. She attempted — but thus far has failed — to get Hunter Biden to retract a reference to Michael Wolff’s public claims another week later.

A week after that, she got Harper Collins to remove a reference to a Michael Wolff claim in digital copies of a new book on Prince Andrew.

In recent days, such claims have all been sourced to Wolff, but as Hunter said to Channel 5, in an article responding to Epstein’s arrest in 2019 the NYT sourced the very same claim to Epstein himself.

But while Mr. Trump has dismissed the relationship, Mr. Epstein, since the election, has played it up, claiming to people that he was the one who introduced Mr. Trump to his third wife, Melania Trump, though neither of the Trumps has ever mentioned Mr. Epstein playing a role in their meeting. Mrs. Trump has said that her future husband simply asked for her phone number at a party at the Kit Kat Club during Fashion Week in 1998.

Whatever the truth of the story, Epstein certainly boasted when he was alive there was more to it.

Which is the kind of thing that depraved men might make jokes about when they believed no one was watching.

As I said in this post, I believe Ezra Klein’s column on a possible shutdown, which many lefties have celebrated, is rambling and often confused.

It looks something like this:

• 19¶¶ comparing the upcoming funding fight with the March one
• 10¶¶ describing that now, unlike March, Trump is consolidating his authoritarian power
• 9¶¶ describing a shutdown as “attentional”
• 6¶¶ describing Democrats’ powerlessness
• 5¶¶ on power

Within the column, Ezra has laid out a somewhat facile description of fascism, without discussion of how we got here or how to fight it. Having not done that work, Ezra is left, “hop[ing] somebody has better ideas than I do,” which is precisely the same kind of fecklessness of which he accuses Dems.

That fecklessness stems in significant part from Ezra’s inattention, in his description of Trump’s fascism, to Trump’s usurpation of Congress’ power of the purse, which is at the core of this funding fight.

Without explicitly doing so, Ezra describes Trump’s fascism in terms of a mafia state, as opposed to one of several other possible terms (including fascism) you might use to describe Trump.

You could still, under Mafia rule, get the trash picked up or buy construction materials. But the point of those industries had become the preservation and expansion of the Mafia’s power and wealth. This is what Trump is doing to the government.

The rest of this section describing fascism is muddled, down to repeatedly changing topics within paragraphs (which may be the fault of editors). Three paragraphs focus on Trump’s efforts to fire experts who provide Trump bad news and the ways he is using government to punish his enemies. One paragraph describes his bribery in plain sight. Half a paragraph describes ICE and Guard invasions without mentioning the racist animus of both. One paragraph describes the gold lamé vandalism Trump has done to the Oval Office. Another describes Steve Witkoff’s sycophancy. Half a paragraph describes stuff that happened before March.

We’ve watched Trump systematically purge the government of inspectors general, of military JAGs and officers, of federal prosecutors — anyone who might stand in the way of his corruption or his accumulation or exercise of power. It is astonishing that the Jan. 6 rioters have been pardoned and that dozens of the Justice Department lawyers who prosecuted them have been fired.

If the pardon of Jan6ers was so astonishing (and Ezra focuses on it in his video, too), then it should have raised the same alarm in March.

This passage reads, to me, like a centrist trying to persuade others that this really is authoritarianism. But the description is silent about a number of things, including both white nationalism and spectacle, that are key to Trump’s power. Ezra is particularly blind to the latter.

More importantly, nothing in the section where Ezra describes Trump’s fascism addresses Trump’s unconstitutional abuse of the power of the purse. Even when he discusses those things in the earlier shutdown section — describing how government grants were “being choked off and reworked into tools of political power,” imposing “shocking tariffs on Mexico and Canada,” and (quoting a law prof he interviewed) SCOTUS’ rubber stamp for Trump “Refus[ing] to spend money appropriated by Congress” — Ezra does not mention that all of these actions usurp Congress’ power of the purse, precisely the task before them this month. Ezra mentions neither the Republican approval of $9 billion in rescissions of spending on foreign aid and public broadcasting, nor Russ Vought’s attempt to carry out pocket rescissions of appropriated spending, both of which animate Democratic thinking on this shutdown.

In other words, amid a somewhat facile but very earnest description of Trump’s fascism, Ezra never gets around to describing how this funding fight plays into Trump’s efforts to domesticate Republicans in Congress — in part — by stripping Congress of the power of the purse. No wonder Ezra can’t come up with a message that works. He has ignored one of the fundamental issues behind this shutdown that didn’t exist in March: serial Congressional Republican capitulation to Trump’s demands that they cede him their constitutional power of the purse.

Meanwhile, Ezra (the guy who wrote the most influential piece on why Joe Biden had to step down last year) misunderstands the attention environment. He describes that a shutdown is an opportunity to focus attention on what he describes as an “argument.”

A shutdown is an attentional event. It’s an effort to turn the diffuse crisis of Trump’s corrupting of the government into an acute crisis that the media, that the public, will actually pay attention to.

Right now, Democrats have no power, so no one cares what they have to say. A shutdown would make people listen. But then Democrats would have to actually win the argument. They would need to have an argument. They would need a clear set of demands that kept them on the right side of public opinion and dramatized what is happening to the country right now.

He correctly observes that Dems had not prepared for the “attentional” aspects of a shutdown in March.

And I thought there was a fourth argument: Democrats had not prepared for a shutdown. They had not explained why they were shutting the government down or what they wanted to achieve. They had no strategy. They had no message. The demand I was hearing them make was that the spending bill needed more bipartisan negotiation. It was unbearably lame.

But then, in a shocking passage, he claims to believe Trump’s attentional hold — his spectacle — stems instead from his presidential power even while he ignores some of what Dems have done to fight back.

Power is a coordination problem. Trump can’t do much on his own. The advantage he has is the power to create coordination — he can send clearer signals, he has a louder megaphone, he can wield stronger punishments and rewards.

People do what others do. Each law firm that bent the knee to Trump made it harder for the next firm to say no. The universities that fell to Trump created the same problem — that’s why it mattered when Harvard fought back. Everyone in society — every person, every institution — is a node of coordination. And if you look at Democrats in Congress right now, the signal they’re sending is not to take any risks. Everything is normal. Just wait for the election. I think sending that signal is a mistake.

Ezra, like a lot of lefty pundits, has not seen — has not paid “attention” to — some of the things that Democrats have done to weigh in here. Like Brian Beutler did recently in a post structured, like Ezra’s, as a scold to Democrats, Ezra seems to have no fucking clue that sixteen Dems got the attention of law firms that had or might consider capitulating to Trump by raising bribery concerns. When I called out Beutler for falsely claiming Dems had not done such a thing, Sean Casten, who signed the letter, told me he still hears from law firms about the effort. It’s as if these pundits haven’t thought about the multiple things (the efforts of law firm associates and law school students were critically important as well, not to mention lawsuits that a shutdown would significantly slow) that did halt the flood of capitulation and so might stop other capitulation, including that of Republicans in Congress.

Ezra, the longtime wonk who chose not to use his platform to talk about all Biden’s policy successes last year, opting instead to kick off an intra-party squabble, appears not to understand that Trump exercised that attentional power without holding the White House. Like the Democrats Ezra criticizes, he is failing attentional basics.

You have to understand Trump’s attentional power — the power that explains why Democrats failed to claim credit for what Biden did, the power that (along with lazy lefty punditry) exacerbates real and perceived inaction that results in Dems’ shitty polling  — to understand why Republicans in Congress have capitulated just like law firms and a few universities did.

As a Democratic Senator hinted to Ezra, many pundits are seeking emotional catharsis, without imagining what tactical efficacy would be.

I was talking with a Democratic senator I respect, and he asked me a good question: Everything you say about what Trump is doing might be true. Everything you say about the kind of emergency this is might be right. But is a government shutdown the answer? Or is it a desire for emotional catharsis that might be self-defeating? Sometimes the best strategy is restraint.

This entire discussion should start from a theory of how to fight fascism.

As I laid out here, members of Congress have a unique role in such a fight, but it’s not the cathartic leadership lefty pundits want, leadership that is coming from other places (most recently from governors facing invasions). There are two — probably three — ways they can try to undercut Trump’s power, all based on a kind of political accountability that does not lend itself to catharsis, as well as a willingness to negotiate that Dems have decided equates to capitulation.

The first — the one Ezra nods to — is the 2026 election, winning one or both houses of Congress and with them to start halting Trump’s power grab. But, as Ezra correctly notes, Trump’s consolidation threatens what would otherwise be an easy House win.

The 2026 midterms are 14 months away. The machinery of the state is being organized to entrench Republican power through redistricting, to control information, to punish and harass enemies, to create a masked paramilitary force roaming the streets and carrying out Trump’s commands. Do you just let that roll forward and hope for the best?

Ezra ignores the second, more immediate possibility, one on which Dems have almost entirely failed but which are precisely at issue here: to peel off four Senators (after Trump successfully killed an effort to defeat Pete Hegseth, Democrats won four Senate supporters on a single bill opposing tariffs, but on little else) or up to eight House Republicans. That kind of Republican opposition to Trump policies exists on discrete issues: In addition to tariffs, Ukraine, war in Iran, various funding priorities (most terrible), Medicaid. It actually did exist on March’s spending bill, but Trump killed it, which is one reason no Democrats, in or outside Congress, were prepared in March.

As I noted on Nicole Sandler’s show on Friday, not only are at least five Republican Senators opposed to RFK Jr’s recent efforts to change vaccine recommendations, those five include Majority Whip John Barrasso.

Republicans in sufficient numbers oppose Trump policies, they’re all just terrified to act on their opposition. Like it or not, Dems have not given up on persuading them to do so. That may be the right decision. If they ever succeed, it would be the quickest way to slow or maybe reverse Trump’s fascism. Lefty pundits loathe that effort because it looks like capitulation, but if Democrats actually believe they might do this, it is sound tactically.

This leads me to the third, hypothetical role that Dems in Congress might play in reversing Trump’s fascism: the possibility that one or several predictable catastrophes — be it epidemic, supply chain failures, financial collapse, extreme weather events, or something else — will lead Republicans to beg Democrats to bail them out again, as happened in 2008 and 2020.

That’s one of two reasons that explains the Democratic focus on healthcare: because Republicans know they were wrong to cut Medicaid and rural healthcare like they did. Hate that relentless focus, done in the face of Democratic attentional failures, all you want, but Trump just attempted to rebrand the Big Ugly Bill because he knows it is a political disaster. The relentless Democratic attention has succeeded, thus far, in explaining the problems with the Big Ugly Bill.

And that’s a useful lesson, because whatever else, Democrats need to do the groundwork to hold Trump — and Republicans in Congress — accountable for the predictable catastrophes they cause, because otherwise Republicans will blame trans people (as they’re trying to do on gun violence) or migrants (as they’re trying to do on RFK’s measles epidemic), a classic fascist dynamic. The focus on the coming Republican-caused healthcare disaster is tedious, but also necessary to ensure accountability, most immediately in rural communities that are losing their hospitals.

But the more aspirational goal — to peel off Republicans in Congress — is one of several reasons why Jeffrey Epstein matters, and why Democrats claiming more important things, like invasions of blue cities, are just a distraction from Epstein is justifiable, even if doomsters can no longer understand that politics sometimes involves cynical posturing. In Congress, Epstein is an unprecedented opportunity, as already demonstrated in July, when House Dems, in partnership with Tom Massie (the kind of partnership lefties condemn across the board) and with the full support of Hakeem Jeffries, chased Republicans away a week early — literally deprived them of the tools of their majority — rather than face a dangerous vote on Epstein. Epstein is literally the first thing in a decade that has thwarted Trump’s efforts to control and redirect attention. If, as expected, James Walkinshaw and Adelita Grijalva win special elections today and two weeks from today, respectively, there should be enough votes to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files, almost perfectly coinciding with this funding fight. Trump whipped hard against the Khanna-Massie discharge petition, and he’ll surely whip just as hard against a vote to release the files (possibly with more success in the Senate than the House). But as the release of the Epstein birthday book exposing Trump’s lies attests, not even James Comer is fully in control of what will happen in the coming weeks. And Republicans have to know that their unwavering obedience to Trump demands could soon make them look like pedophiles in the eyes of a base violently opposed to such.

Which brings us, finally, back to Dem strategy (if you can call it that) on government funding. Much of the critical and doomerist discussion of the fight focuses on Democrats’ offer to negotiate a short term funding bill with health care funding, but they ignore that the beat reporting which they sometimes cite describes a two-part offer: Healthcare, plus a reversal on Trump’s attack on funding. They’re ignoring details like this:

Party leaders have signaled that they plan to use the looming funding showdown to press for reversals of Medicaid cuts, extensions of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, and limits on President Donald Trump’s spending authority—even if it means shouldering the political risk if negotiations collapse.

[snip]

Coons added that Democrats also want assurances that Trump cannot simply claw back funding after Congress approves it. “We need to trust you so that when we reach an appropriations deal it sticks, and reverses the damage that’s been done,” Coons said, pointing to the President’s repeated use of rescissions to cancel spending. [my emphasis]

The healthcare funding is important. But if it is yoked with a demand that Republicans reclaim their constitutional power of the purse, it would be a far more important stand against Trump. It would be the appropriate, minimal ask. And if Democrats make that clear in the next two weeks, it would also be the message that Ezra can’t discern in a post ignoring the centrality of rescissions to this fight.

Notably, Politico describes how this battle is creating fissures within Republican ranks, as well as between the parties.

Battle lines are emerging on Capitol Hill in the fight to avert a government shutdown in three weeks — and it’s not just Republicans vs. Democrats.

On one side, fiscal hawks are joining with the White House to keep federal agencies running on static funding levels, ideally into January or longer. On the other, Democrats and some top Republicans want to punt no further than November to buy congressional negotiators more time to cut a cross-party compromise on fresh funding totals for federal programs.

In the end, the standoff could hinge on Speaker Mike Johnson’s appetite for trying to pass a funding package backed by President Donald Trump but not Democrats, as he did in the spring — and whether Senate Democrats once again capitulate rather than see government operations grind to a halt Oct. 1.

“They jammed us last time,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top appropriator, said in an interview. “And I am encouraging my Republican friends who want to do appropriations to understand that that won’t work this time.”

Even more irate after Trump’s latest move to unilaterally cancel almost $5 billion in foreign aid through a so-called pocket rescission, Democrats are warning there will be a funding lapse if Republicans don’t negotiate with them. And while they’re being cautious not to box themselves in with ultimatums on funding totals or specific policy demands, they’re starting to flex their muscles by floating concessions Republicans could make in exchange for support across the aisle.

That includes making a deal by the end of the year to head off the expiration of enhanced health insurance subsidies that would result in premium hikes come January for millions of Americans.

Appropriators Tom Cole and Susan Collins have worked hard to accrue power that Trump has usurped. Neither, alone, can convince their colleagues to start acting like a co-equal branch of government again.

Those are quite literally the stakes — the stakes that barely got mentioned in wonky Ezra’s 3,200-word post talking about failures of messaging, even though those stakes have been reported in the beat press for weeks.

Trump has told Congress he doesn’t want Congress and its co-equal constitutional role to exist anymore. Such a stance provides Dems in Congress an opportunity to convince their colleagues they should defy their liege. It also ought to guide messaging, especially for people with a platform like Ezra’s.

But it’s really no more than an opportunity, similar to opportunities Republicans have declined to avail themselves of in recent weeks.

I certainly think it likely that fewer than four Republican Senators will assert their own prerogatives, and in that case, I think Dems have little choice but to refuse to participate in the willful capitulation of constitutional authority. The message, though, would be simple — or should be if one-time wonks like Ezra can figure it out before then. Republicans are refusing to perform the role that the Constitution reserves for them.

That is, quite literally, what this is about.

I’d say that’s an easy message. It ought to be a message that would hold not just Trump, but individual members of Congress who’ll be accountable to all the constituents who’ll suffer in a shutdown, necessary leverage to ensure that government ever reopens (one of Schumer’s points in March that Ezra simply ignores). But thus far, the push for feckless catharsis seems far stronger than the search for tools to fight fascism.

Update: Matt Glassman and Jonathan Bernstein both think a shutdown won’t work the way Dems want it to, which are both worth a read. Like Ezra, neither presents a plan to fight fascism.

The upcoming deadline for government funding at the end of September has renewed the debate over whether Democrats should help keep the government open or not.

I’ll come back to the debate itself — I think lefty pundits are misconstruing the key issues before Democrats in Congress, and therefore making the debate more contentious than it needs to be. I think they’re also misunderstanding how best to fight fascism.

But I want to examine one part of the debate: whether Schumer was right to let the GOP keep the government open in March, in part, to keep the courts open.

In a rambling and often confused post, Ezra Klein described that keeping the courts open was one of Schumer’s justifications for allowing Republicans to fund government back in March.

The argument Schumer made was threefold. First, Trump was being stopped in the courts. There were dozens of cases playing out against him, and he was losing again and again and again. Shut down the government, and you might shut down the courts.

But, Klein opined, that argument no longer holds because Trump is not losing at the Supreme Court.

Not a single argument Schumer made then is valid now. First, Trump is not losing in the Supreme Court, which has weighed in again and again on his behalf. Instead of reprimanding Trump for his executive order unilaterally erasing the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to all born here, it reprimanded the lower courts for imposing a national freeze on his order in the way they did. It has shown him extraordinary deference to the way he is exercising power.

[snip]

Schumer’s argument in March was that the courts were stopping Trump; let them do their work. What we can say in September is that no, John Roberts is not going to stop Donald Trump.

I’ve never argued the Supreme Court was going to save us and don’t think Schumer did either. It is certainly true that SCOTUS has used its shadow docket to override lower court orders upholding the plain letter of the law, perhaps most egregiously by endorsing suspicionless searches of Latinos today. Though there are still cases — most notably the tariff challenge — where SCOTUS may treat Trump more skeptically.

But even with SCOTUS’ repeated interventions to overrule lower courts since March, it remains a significantly different question whether keeping the courts open has value.

That is best shown, in my opinion, by the JGG immigration case, a case filed just hours after Democrats let Republicans pass a continuing resolution funding government.

Stephen Miller had schemed for years to use the Alien Enemies Act as a way to carry out deportations with no due process; he saw it as a way to bypass habeas corpus, the very foundation of Anglo-American law enshrined in the Magna Carta. On March 15, Trump invoked AEA with the gang Tren de Aragua, based on claims his spooks told him before and would tell him again afterwards were false. Then DHS started packing hundreds of Venezuelan men onto planes based on little more than their tattoos, sending them to Nayib Bukele’s concentration camp as part of a quid pro quo designed to hide Bukele’s own ties to gangs.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who continues to fight to vindicate his legal rights almost six months later, was also on one of those planes.

We would learn, months later, that at a meeting on March 14 — the same day Democrats let Republicans fund government — Emil Bove demanded that those flights “needed to take off, no matter what.” Bove even stated that if a court tried to enjoin the flights, DOJ would have to tell the court, “fuck you.”

ACLU filed that lawsuit and asked for a Temporary Restraining Order overnight after the CR passed the Senate. DC Chief Judge James Boasberg moved quickly, scheduling first a Sunday hearing then rescheduling it for Saturday at 5PM. At the hearing, Boasberg certified a class — including all Venezuelans covered by the AEA declaration — and halted the hearing to find out whether more detainees were being sent to CECOT. After DOJ dodged in response (and, according to Erez Reuveni, lied), Boasberg ordered that, “any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, but those people need to be returned to the United States.”

Emil Bove ordered the men to be unloaded from the planes anyway.

This was not an instance of the courts working. Trump blew off the courts, and when Boasberg later tried to hold DOJ in contempt for ignoring his order, two Trump appointees stalled, then overturned that effort, though a motion for an en banc review remains pending.

Bove has since been rewarded for illegally sending men to a concentration camp with a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit.

But the courts did have an effect, with SCOTUS reaffirming detainees’ right to challenge their deportation, then intervening on an Easter Saturday to stop another effort to ship men away under the AEA with no due process. Both Trump judges and (this week) the Fifth Circuit have since ruled against Trump’s use of the AEA in this context.

SCOTUS may well intervene again on the Fifth Circuit order, but at the very least this entire set of cases has delayed the use of AEA by six months.

Meanwhile, Boasberg’s order almost certainly created the political problem for Trump that led Trump, ultimately, to have the Venezuelans shipped back to Venezuela, after months of enduring Bukele’s concentration camp. Other detainees who’ve been shipped off to third countries have largely disappeared from consciousness. Not those men, most of whom are free to tell their stories right now.

Just as importantly, having a court available on a weekend to enjoin those flights has created a bunch of political and legal problems for Trump, problems that could have ramifications down the road (and could also be the basis for accountability if we ever get beyond fascism). Donald Trump shipped a bunch of mostly innocent men to a concentration camp, where they were tortured, in defiance of a court order. That could be actionable in the future in a way that merely shipping people to a third country would not, especially because Trump did it in defiance of an order.

Even as SCOTUS continues to override lower courts, those lower courts do continue to rule in favor of plaintiffs. Just last week, in a showdown similar to the one in March (with DOJ lawyer Drew Ensign in a key role again), Judge Sparkle Sooknanan temporarily prevented the government from deporting a bunch of Guatemalan kids, and like the Venezuelan precedent, the aftermath has led to further visibility about what happened, which can be a tool for political pressure.

We don’t know how many of the judicial interventions that have slowed Trump down since March DOJ would have been able to thwart with Executive decisions about personnel covered by shutdowns. Even before the CR, Trump had done two things that tested his ability to shut down courts via secondary means — first, having GSA shut down an actual federal building housing courts, and politicizing the deployment of US Marshals. If the government shuts down this month, I would be unsurprised if he repeats both tactics as a means to shut down access to courts.

And while DOJ wouldn’t have been able to shut down court rooms immediately, they can pick and choose which of their own employees are deemed non-essential. What DOJ can do — has already been able to do, in the wake of purges at DOJ — is to ask for delays in scheduling due to the fact they’re short-handed. We know from Erez Reuvani that DOJ was counting on just such a delay with the JGG case, just 48 hours so they could get their innocent men into Bukele’s concentration camp without legal review first.

That didn’t happen in March. It may well happen in September during a shutdown.

We’re not in the same place we were in March, for a variety of reasons (again, I plan a follow-up). The question before both parties in Congress is whether Congress will reaffirm the power of the purse at all in the wake of Trump’s rescissions. That makes this decision far different than the one Congress faced in March.

But what the last six months have shown may well be the opposite of what Klein argues on the courts. Yes, SCOTUS has repeatedly intervened to help Trump. Even in the face of that, though, the courts remain one tool that people are using to fight fascism. There are people alive and free today who bear witness to that.

And that tool may get a lot more scarce if the government shuts down at the end of the month.

When Manu Raju challenged Mike Johnson on Trump’s claim that the Jeffrey Epstein scandal was a hoax, Mike Johnson didn’t deny knowing that Trump had said that (even during the survivors’ press conference), the tactic he almost always uses when asked to condemn Trump’s atrocities. Instead, he claimed that, “when [Trump] first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mare-a-Lago, he was an FBI informant to try to … take this stuff down.”

This adopts a favorite tactic right wingers used during the Russian investigation, to claim that Carter Page’s explicit willingness to share non-public information with known Russian spies and his pursuit of money from Russia to support a pro-Russian think tank was no big deal because he was an “informant” for CIA, when in reality he was just an American that the CIA was permitted to talk to learn what Russian spies had done, not someone who was cooperating with intelligence collection.

Indeed, according to Rolling Stone, Johnson’s comment set off a frenzy at the White House as people tried to figure out WTF Johnson was saying.

According to five Trump administration officials and others close to the president, Johnson’s “informant” claim on Thursday sparked widespread confusion within the ranks of Trump’s government, with several senior officials blindsided or just completely perplexed by what the Trump-aligned House speaker could have possibly meant.

For some in the administration, the confusion spilled over into Saturday, with some officials still unsure about whether Johnson was citing some explosive, unheard-of insider information, or if he misspoke or was freelancing extemporaneously.

“What the hell is he doing?” one senior Trump administration appointee told Rolling Stone, after being asked about the Johnson “informant” comment.

Other Trump advisers say it’s their understanding that Johnson was referencing past claims made in the media about Trump; however, these claims did not amount to the idea he was a federal “informant.”

This could even have been a reference to a recent comment: At the presser on Wednesday, survivors’ lawyer Brad Edwards described that when he was first seeking information about Epstein in 2009, Trump was one of the few people who cooperated, though tellingly, Trump appears to have done so without deposition.

Bradley Edwards (01:04:44):

I’ll go first and then I’ll let them. They’re much more important than me, but I don’t understand why it’s a hostile act. I can tell you that I talked to President Trump back in 2009 and several times after that. He didn’t think that it was a hoax Then. In fact, he helped me. He got on the phone, he told me things that were helping our investigation. Now, our investigation wasn’t looking into him, but he was helping us then. He didn’t treat this as a hoax.

(01:05:07)
So at this point in time, I would hope that he would revert back to what he was saying to get elected, which is, “I want transparency.” This about face that occurred, none of us understand it. In fact, I don’t understand how this is an issue that’s even up for debate. How do you not stand behind these women after you’ve heard their stories and know that hundreds of them were abused and it was only because files are being kept in secrecy. The world should know who he is, who protected him, and the other people that are out there to be investigated need to be investigated.

So Trump was willing to cooperate, but only in a way in which he managed the information provided (and avoided attesting to his claims under oath).

Josh Marshall contemplates why Trump might have been willing to share information about Epstein after their clash over a West Palm Beach estate. Relying in part on comments from Michael Wolff, who said that Epstein believed Trump narced him out, Marshall adopted the theory that Trump narced out Epstein to undercut Epstein’s threats to expose Trump’s own money laundering efforts.

Epstein was trying to buy a South Florida estate. He brought Trump along to see it one time. A short time later Epstein found out that Trump had gone behind his back and placed a higher and ultimately successful bid on the property. He’d snatched it out from under him with a much higher bid. The problem was that Trump’s entire empire in 2004 was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It made no sense that Trump was coming up with $41 million to buy this property. Epstein suspected that Trump was acting as a front for a Russian oligarch as a money-laundering scheme. And in fact Trump did purchase and flip the estate two years later to a Russian oligarch named Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, or a profit of over $50 million dollars.

Epstein was pissed for his own reasons (he wanted the estate). But he also suspected the money laundering scheme. So he threatened Trump that he would bring the whole thing out into the open through a series of lawsuits. Right about this same time authorities got a tip about Epstein’s activities which started the investigation that led to his eventual 2008 plea deal.

That certainly might explain the seeming coincidence of the two conflicting explanations Trump has given for the split. But Marshall misses several known parts of this timeline.

First, remember there were two grand juries in WPB: one, (05-02), convened in what must have been early 2005, and a second, (07-103), convened later in 2007. The significance of this remains unclear. None of the Epstein experts I’ve asked has any insight on whether the earlier grand jury simply reflects the earlier known investigative steps, stemming from a 14-year old girl’s complaint that year, or whether there was an earlier, separate, investigation, in which case the second grand jury might just reflect one read into the evidence of the first one. But the earlier one would more closely coincide with Trump’s split with Epstein (and the real estate deal).

And almost everyone keeps missing the timing of what Trump (as well as a Page Six source from Mar-a-Lago that could be Trump) has already confessed to.

First, Trump explained that Epstein stole a spa girl from him, Trump told him “don’t ever do that again,” and then Epstein did it again.

What caused the breach with him? Very easy to explain. But I don’t want to waste your time by explaining it. But for years I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn’t talk. Because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help. And I said, don’t ever do that again. He stole people that worked for me. I said, don’t ever do that again. He did it again. And I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out. And that was it.

Trump didn’t confess, here, that he knew Epstein stole his girls to recruit into sex slavery.

But he alluded to as much the next day, when he confessed one of the girls Epstein “stole” was Virginia Giuffre.

Reporter 1: I’m just curious. Were some of the workers that were taken from you — were some of them young women?

Trump: Were some of them?

Reporter 1: Were some of them young women?

Trump: Well, I don’t wanna say, but everyone knows the people that were taken. It was, the concept of taking people that work for me is bad. But that story’s been pretty well out there. And the answer is, yes, they were.

[inaudible]

Trump: In the spa. People that work in the spa. I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago. And people were taken out of the spa. Hired. By him. In other words, gone. And um, other people would come and complain. This guy is taking people from the spa. I didn’t know that. And then when I heard about it I told him, I said, listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether they were spa or not spa. I don’t want him taking people. And he was fine and then not too long after that he did it again and I said Out of here.

Reporter 2: Mr. President, did one of those stolen persons, did that include Virginia Giuffre?

Trump: Uh, I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.

Trump doesn’t confess he knew Epstein was stealing girls for sex, but he does say, “that story’s been pretty well out there,” conceding it is what we think it is.

And in 2007 — in the period when Trump would have been cooperating with the FBI if he did do so — “the Mar-a-Lago” said the following to Page Six even before Epstein had signed the sweetheart non-prosecution agreement.

Meanwhile, the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach last night confirmed a Web site report that Epstein has been banned there. “He would use the spa to try to procure girls. But one of them, a masseuse about 18 years old, he tried to get her to do things,” a source told us. “Her father found out about it and went absolutely ape-[bleep]. Epstein’s not allowed back.” Epstein denies he is banned from Mar-a-Lago and says, in fact, he was recently invited to an event there.

Before the full extent of Epstein’s abuse was public, someone at Mar-a-Lago wanted to make it clear that when Epstein did “procure girls … he tried to get [] to do things.”

We know of two girls Epstein “stole” from Mar-a-Lago. Giuffre in 2000, and this other girl whose father was a member sometime later. And even in 2007, someone who worked for Trump (if not Trump himself, who loved to source Page Six stories) admitted that Epstein “tried to get” this girl “to do things.”

Trump has already all but confessed he learned about Giuffre, did not report it, then learned about another girl, to which he now attributes his break with Epstein in the same period as the real estate deal.

And here’s the thing about Trump and Epstein, which I think helps explain why he continues to flail now.

I tried to imply in this post that Todd Blanche purposely stopped short of getting cooperation from Ghislaine Maxwell. Even if Blanche didn’t know she was lying through her teeth, within days of her proffer, someone, who could even be Blanche, dealt photos to NYT that made it clear her claim there were no video cameras at any of Epstein’s properties was false.

Blanche didn’t get truth from Maxwell. He got leverage over her, fresh lies he could prosecute her for anytime until 2030. He has locked her into the claim (which is carefully caveated so might actually be true) that she was never present when Trump did anything inappropriate with Epstein, which falls far short of her knowing that he (or Melania) did.

DOJ is treating two other Epstein co-conspirators similarly. They were mentioned in a July 16, 2019 letter supporting Epstein’s detention.

In a July 12, 2019 letter, the Government informed the Court that the Government had recently obtained records from a financial institution (“Institution-1”) that appeared to show the defendant had made suspicious payments shortly after the Miami Herald began publishing, on approximately November 28, 2018, a series of articles relating to the defendant, his alleged sexual misconduct, and the circumstances under which he entered into a non-prosecution agreement (“NPA”) with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida in 2007. The same series highlighted the involvement of several of Epstein’s former employees and associates in the alleged sexual abuse. At the Detention Hearing, the Court asked the Government to provide additional information about the individuals to whom these payments appear to have been made.

First, records from Institution-1 show that on or about November 30, 2018, or two days after the series in the Miami Herald began, the defendant wired $100,000 from a trust account he controlled to [redacted], an individual named as a potential co-conspirator—and for whom Epstein obtained protection in—the NPA. This individual was also named and featured prominently in the Herald series.

Second, the same records show that just three days later, on or about December 3, 2018, the defendant wired $250,000 from the same trust account to [redacted], who was also named as a potential co-conspirator—and for whom Epstein also obtained protection in—the NPA. This individual is also one of the employees identified in the Indictment, which alleges that she and two other identified employees facilitated the defendant’s trafficking of minors by, among other things, contacting victims and scheduling their sexual encounters with the defendant at his residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. This individual was also named and featured prominently in the Herald series. [my emphasis]

These are the assistants — not Maxwell — who played a similar role as Maxwell earlier in the scheme, one of whom was suspected of threatening a victim back in 2006.

NBC’s Tom Winter wrote a letter asking that the names — sealed in 2019 to protect potential trial witnesses — be unsealed. But rather than just giving notice to them and asking them to make their own declarations to the court (which would need to be true), DOJ instead informed them, and provided a response on their behalf, opposing unsealing.

Pursuant to the Order, on August 26, 2025, the Government notified Individual-1 and Individual-2 of the Motion and the Order.

On August 29, 2025, the Government received a letter from counsel for Individual-1. The letter, which is attached hereto as Exhibit A, expressed Individual-1’s opposition to the Motion.

On September 5, 2025, the Government received an email from counsel for Individual-2. The email, which is attached as Exhibit B, expressed Individual-2’s opposition to the Motion.1

1 Because Exhibits A and B both contain personal identifying information for Individual-1 or Individual-2 and describe certain matters that are highly personal and sensitive, the Government respectfully submits that sealing of both exhibits is appropriate. See, e.g., United States v. Amodeo, 71 F.3d 1044, 1051 (2d Cir. 1995) (The “privacy interests of innocent third parties” should “weigh heavily in a court’s balancing equation” and can be the kind of “compelling interest” that may justify sealing or closure, and “[i]n determining the weight to be accorded an assertion of a right of privacy,” courts must “consider the degree to which the subject matter is traditionally considered private rather than public,” such as “family affairs, . . . embarrassing conduct with no public ramifications, and similar matters.”); cf., e.g., United States v. Silver, No. 15 Cr. 93 (VEC), 2016 WL 1572993, *7 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 14, 2016) (considering “personal and embarrassing conduct [with] public ramifications”).

At least one of these is necessarily (because she was named in the Epstein indictment) one of the people named in Epstein’s grand jury transcript to whom DOJ gave notice of the grand jury request before giving the victims any notice.

That is, both before and after pretending Maxwell provided truthful information and using that as an excuse to move her to comfier digs, DOJ has been solicitous of the other women who helped enslave these girls. And remains so.

Within a month, after two special elections are expected to send two more Dems to Congress, the Khanna-Massie dispatch petition will almost certainly get the required 218 votes.

And Mike Johnson will have to invent yet more false claims to excuse Republican efforts, from the very top of the party, to help Trump keep all these people silent.

Index to posts in this series. Please read this first; at least the section on de Beauvoir’s definition of ambiguity.

I’m on the road, and reading The Ethics of Ambiguity  by Simone de Beauvoir. She was an Existentialist, as one would expect from a person in a long-term relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. In Chapter 1 she gives an explanation of parts of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, the leading book on Existentialism. She distinguishes it from Stoicism and Marxism, but I won’t address that.

I think she opens with this because any systematic approach to ethics should begin with a statement of the writer’s understanding of human nature. De Beauvoir defines a specific ambiguity which I discussed in the introduction to this series. Her views are also informed by another ambiguity, the absurd. We want certainty. We want a foundation. But there isn’t one. We have to proceed, we have to live, without that certainty we want.

I read Being and Nothingness in College, but I didn’t, and don’t, care much for it. I agree with the Existentialists, including Sartre, that the universe is indifferent to its parts, from planets to mountains, flowers, insects, animals and human beings. I think there is no meaning to existence apart from our experience of it. Sartre explains that this lack of meaning gives us humans a radical degree of freedom, which we cannot avoid. Sartre’s explanation seemed to me to be wrapped up in silly little epigrams, like “Man’s being is not to be.” They did and do annoy me no end.

De Beauvoir gives a more sympathetic reading to Sartre’s tome, and for anyone interested, her explication in Chapter 1 of the wordy and needlessly obscure Sartre is worth reading. The point is to ground her discussion of ethics as a part of the human response to the meaninglessness of life and the freedom and responsibility it entails.

De Beauvoir discusses parts of Sartre’s book

Sartre’s statement that man is the being whose being is not to be begins with the notion of being. That seems to mean a fixed being, as an animal or a tree. People do not necessarily have a fixed nature. We might act like we do, we might aspire to have such a fixed being. But by nature, people live in a present filled with possibility, and want to participate in that possibility. We want to live in that wild freedom.

Freedom gives us the space in which we exist. We interact with others seeking to know them and in the process to know ourselves. We pursue our personal projects. We experience the savors and ugliness and all that come with existence. We want to be like gods in our existence, but this is an impossible and stupid goal.

I can not appropriate the snow field where I slide. It remains foreign, forbidden, but I take delight in this very effort toward an impossible possession. I experience it as a triumph, not as a defeat. This means that man, in his vain attempt to be God, makes himself exist as man, and if he is satisfied with this existence, he coincides exactly with himself. P 12-3.

By appropriate, I think she means merge myself, take possession of in my being, as a god would do. I think the idea of “coinciding” here means that we become fully human, our full selves, all we can be or aspire to be. We can and should aspire to be fully human, but we cannot be gods.

De Beauvoir says that for Sartre, one implication of embracing this freedom is that a fully human person will not accept any outside justification for their actions. People want to justify themselves, and we have to choose standards for justification we learn from others or create ourselves. Our ethics, then, come from the collective or from ourselves. We cannot have standards that emanate from some non-human place. I think this means that we must reject the absolute authority claimed by some religions.

The second implication is that we bear responsibility for the results of our actions. We can’t claim that some external being is responsible for bad consequences. We act, we bear responsibility for the consequences. I think Fear and Trembling by the early Existentialist Sören Kierkegaard gives us a good example in the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham believes that the Almighty wants a human sacrifice, namely his only son Isaac. He acts on that belief. Whether he was right or wrong, he bears the consequences: a lost precious child, or a child tortured by the awareness that his father would kill him.

De Beauvoir says that we cannot escape our freedom, and we cannot avoid our responsibility. But we can simply refuse to will ourselves to exercise that freedom, out of “laziness, heedlessness, capriciousness, cowardice, [or] impatience” P. 25.

De Beauvoir says that responsibility only exists in our minds, in contemplation of the consequences of our actions. Feeling that responsibility happens over time, as those consequences become clear. This is a recognition that only grown-ups have these concerns.

The fact that we do not accept a justification outside ourselves is not a bar to an ethics.

An ethics of ambiguity will be one which will refuse to deny a priori that separate existants can, at the same time, be bound to each other, that their individual freedoms can forge laws valid for all. P. 18.

I think this is the source of ethics for de Beauvoir. We cooperate with other people to decide for ourselves what constitutes a justification for actions and projects. We choose to work together because we are part of the collective and our actions affects the collective directly. We share some of the burden of responsibility with others.

Discussion

1. I hope it’s clear which parts of this are mine and which are de Beauvoir’s. But it seems less important with this book. This book asks us to participate in the process of creating ethics, and therefore to think about the foundation of her ethics.

I think this book is useful because de Beauvoir is writing after horrors of the Third Reich and to a lesser extent those of Stalin were known and seen up close. That leads me to think her ethics addresses people of her day. Perhaps she intended to interrogate the behavior of the German people who enthusiastically welcomed and followed the Nazis. Certainly that’s an issue Camus addressed directly in The Plague.

Whether or not this was her purpose, we should ask ourselves what this foundation means for our understanding of the MAGAts, the people who enthusiastically follow Trump and his enablers and the filthy rich bastards who put him back in power.

2. I think we are formed by the collective in a deep way. For more, see my posts on The Evolution of Agency by Michael Tomasello, and other posts. It seems to me that this is the major contribution de Beauvoir makes to Existentialism. She describes Being and Nothingness as focused on the individual, who thrusts himself into the world. The foundation of her book is the ambiguity of being both an individual and being part of the collective.

I think we are formed by the people around us, parents, siblings, other relatives, friends, and institutions. I was raised Catholic, first in a traditional environment and then in a liberal environment. That has a profound influence on my sense of ethics,

I think we have to face our history directly and exercise our freedom to question what we were taught. We have to see ourselves clearly apart from the group in order to assess what we truly believe based on our own experience. Only then are we able to contribute something of our own to the ethics project.

3. I hate this translation: collective has an ugly Stalinist connotation.

4. De Beauvoir writes “… the ends toward which my transcendence thrusts itself …” on p. 14. The word thrust is used three times in Chapter 1, each time apparently quoting Sartre. In each case the connotation seems aggressively phallic. We don’t thrust ourselves into anything. I used the words “find” and “inject” above, trying to suggest that we will to act, but not in any aggressive sense.

I haven’t read The Second Sex, and I wonder if contemplation of this aspect of Being and Nothingness coupled with her sense of the importance of society had an influence on her thinking after writing this book.