Jeffrey Epstein Is about Trump’s Failing Ability to Command Attention

The bubbling Jeffrey Epstein scandal is about two things: the underlying scandal and any ties Trump has to it, and the way it has disrupted Trump’s normal super power ability to command and direct attention.

His attack on Rosie O’Donnell yesterday shows that his ability to direct the attention of the left remains undiminished and makes clear why this power is so important to Trump.

Trump’s attack on the comedian, just hours before his latest inept intervention in the Epstein matter, came in the wake of a number of stories — the NYT story describing that key National Weather Service positions were vacant when the flood hit,  the CNN report on a three day delay that Kristi Noem caused in the search and rescue, reports on Kerr County’s refusal to accept a Dem-funded early warning system that Rayne wrote up here, the NYT story describing how Noem cut off funding to a call center while it was fielding calls from survivors — holding Trump’s Administration or Republicans accountable for exacerbating the impact of the flood.

When Trump tweeted that Rosie O’Donnell “is a Threat to Humanity” and claimed to be considering stripping her citizenship (she lives in Dublin but as far as I know does not yet have Irish citizenship), that post circulated wildly among journalists and the left, sometimes with commentary about how grave a threat it was that Trump would even make such threats (which he has no legal power to carry out).

But the people who gaped at his unfiltered tweet did not explain, much less link, the background.

Trump attacked O’Donnell as predictions she made on TikTok last Sunday, which the right wing has been trying to dismiss by shaming her, were being confirmed by those press reports.

What a horror story in Texas — the flash floods in Texas. The Guadalupe River. 51 missing. 51 dead, more missing. Children … at a camp. And you know when the President guts all the warning systems and the, uh, weathering [sic] forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re going to start to see on a daily basis, because he’s put this country in so much danger by his horrible, horrible decisions and this ridiculously immoral bill that he just signed into law. As Republicans cheered. As Republicans cheered. People will die as a result and they’ve started already. Shame on him. Shame on every GOP sycophant who’s listening and following the disastrous decisions of this mentally incapacitated POTUS.

Rosie O’Donnell made a powerful moral critique of Trump, and as that critique was bearing out, he responded to it by asserting to have power over her, power he doesn’t have. And rather than focusing on or even mentioning that moral critique — or even continuing to focus on the many ways the Trump Administration did exacerbate the flood — those who disseminated his tweet gaped in horror at his spectacular display of power, without identifying it as an attempt to avoid being held accountable.

Whether or not the US can restore democracy depends heavily on the success that Trump’s critics have in tying his failures to disasters like Kerr County. It depends on their ability to remain laser-focused on holding him accountable for the disasters his actions predictably cause. And Trump squelched the words of one prescient critic with a tweet. He did so with the willful cooperation of data mules on the left.

Trump’s ability to command and direct attention — his ability to rupture context and redirect attention to his own claims of authority — is his super power. It is how he has attained and remained in government; it is how he has beat back scandals that would have doomed others.

And that super power has been failing him as his DOJ and FBI reversed course on past fevered promises to disclose everything about the Epstein scandal.

That’s what, I have tried to argue, has always been missing from reporting on this exchange: how badly Trump flubbed a role, suppressing coverage by bullying a journalist, that is second nature to him.

Pam Bondi sets out to answer two questions from a journalist about Epstein. She’s actually good at this performed competence and had Trump just let her answer he might have avoided all the backlash. But Trump interrupts. He stumbles over delivery of the name, Jeffrey Epstein, as if he is trying to perform disgust, but it sounds hollow. He asks a question — “are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein” — that feigns ignorance of both the importance of the Epstein scandal to his base, to say nothing about how much his chosen aides, Bondi, Dan Bongino, and Kash Patel, have themselves never shut up about Epstein. Trump almost regains his footing when he complains that the journalist isn’t focused on Texas or “this” (huh? what is “this”?); Trump almost regains his footing by bullying a journalist, an easy trope for him. But then he tries to perform disgust again — “this creep” — and like the earlier mention of his friend, Epstein’s name, “creep” sounds forced, a badly delivered performance. Trump tries a familiar stance again — “I can’t believe you’re asking a question about Epstein” — but this was a question about a release Bondi’s own DOJ orchestrated. He ends with feigned outrage, accusing the journalist of “desecration.” The whole performance lacked energy, exacerbated by the slurring Trump exhibited throughout the event.

What is a normal ploy from him — attacking journalists to bully them out of covering things — simply failed. The great Realty TV Show Star flubbed his part, as devastating as if his voice squeaked when declaring “You’re fired,” back in the day.

Both in content and performance, his bid to shut down this line of questioning made him look vulnerable, not strong. It raised questions rather than silencing them.

With each development since — the clash between Dan Bongino and Bondi over who would take the fall first revealed in reports of Bongino’s pouty refusal to go to work on Friday, the persistent backlash from some of the loudest voices among his Twitter mob, leading up to Trump’s lengthy tweet yesterday — Trump’s command of attention has slipped.

While folks finally recognized that something is failing in Trump’s normal ability to command attention, this time, by gaping at the length of this tweet, if you look closer, the tweet was even more delightfully ill-conceived.

Both right wingers and journalists have, I think correctly, conceived the purpose as an attempt to alleviate pressure on Pam Bondi.

What’s going on with my “boys” and, in some cases, “gals?” They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!

[snip]

LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT!

But even there, Trump starts pathetically, by claiming that “my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?'” are leading the attack on Bondi. This attack, on “Blondi,” is being led by Laura Loomer, and suggesting that she’s following Trump’s “boys” on this betrays a reluctance to go after Loomer directly.

The defense of Kash Patel (right wingers correctly noticed that Bongino gets no mention) is secondary.

Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein.

That mention builds on the drop dead stupidity of this post — one so stupid that even Benny Johnson noticed it.

For the first time ever, Trump claimed that the Epstein files were made up by Democrats — all Democrats, serially.

Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 “Intelligence” Agents, “THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,” and more? They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called “friends” are playing right into their hands.

To be fair, this is not an entirely new ploy. Last year, Trump explained his hesitation to release the Epstein files based on a claim that “it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world.”

I guess I would. I think that, less so, because, you know, you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world.

Even then, he was preparing a defense that if something in there implicated him, it was phony, fake, fraudulent.

Still, the claim that Democrats — Obama, Hillary, John Brennan, and Jim Comey (who is not a Democrat, or at least wasn’t when this all happened) — created the Epstein files would normally be a reasonable ploy, given the disinformation he has long used to sustain loyalty. He attempted to tie the Epstein files to things he has trained his rubes to believe were hoaxes — the legal adjudications that Trump’s top aides lied to cover up his ties to Russia and false claims about what 51 spooks said about the Hunter Biden laptop — as well as an actual hoax (the Steele dossier) that he has blamed on Democrats rather than the Russians who larded it with allegations that closely match real things only the Russians knew.

These things — Russia Russia Russia — are a foundational element of his tweets (and one of the things data mules disseminate without debunking, thereby reinforcing as unquestioned). This was an attempt to add one more element, as he added the spook letter and Hunter Biden laptop after Russia Russia Russia was already established as his foundational disinformation.

So this might have been a reasonable attempt to discredit the Epstein files, the things he anticipated claiming were “phony” last year. Except you don’t attempt this after years of treating it as credible.

Worse still, you don’t do that and then immediately ask the question that MAGAts have long used to reassure themselves that Trump wasn’t in the Epstein files.

Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it?

Why didn’t they, indeed?

Again, even Benny has seen the problem with this, and he is painfully stupid!

The reason Trump’s claims that the Russian investigation and the spook letter and the Steele dossier are hoaxes have succeeded is because they were made public, often with the involvement of Democrats. But if Democrats — even Hillary, whose spouse flew on his plane! — larded the Epstein files with things damaging Trump, right wingers’ biases dictate that the left would have released it.

Before Trump’s claims that these were fabricated, the logic made sense to right wingers: Democrats didn’t release the files because there’s nothing about Trump in them. But if the left allegedly fabricated them along with the Russian investigation and the spook letter, which Trump has falsely claimed were fabricated in an attempt to hurt Trump, then they would have released them.

Furthermore, he would order Kash to include the Epstein files among the witch hunts on which he wants FBI to focus. Instead, he’s arguing that Kash doesn’t have time to investigate this alleged hoax targeting him because he is too busy investigating other fabricated claims of a hoax, his desperate attempt to find some way to sustain the claim that he’s not a loser beaten by Joe Biden in 2020.

The entire post collapses in on itself. Even Benny sees this! 

And that’s before something else Trump attempted. Trump told his rubes — a huge cross-section of which is QAnon adjacent — that nobody cares about Jeffrey Epstein.

Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.

Crazier still, when he first attempted this complaint, he used a phrase that is bound to fuel conspiracists.

“selfish people” are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein never dies?!?! Did you really say that? About a guy whose circumstances of death are a key part of this conspiracy theory? Hell, the most unhinged Epstein conspiracists (including a good number of Trump supporters) question whether he did die. And you just wrote down that Jeffrey Epstein never dies?!?!

Trump’s supporters are in a cult. But many of them are also in the QAnon cult. And for those for whom the QAnon cult came first or remains predominant, telling them that “nobody cares about” Jeffrey Epstein ruptures the unity between Trump and them, because he is attacking one of their foundational beliefs. It’s like telling devout Christians that Jesus never walked the Earth. You have just assailed a foundational belief of those who believe — as proven by Epstein — that pedophiles control the powerful. So long as Trump flirted with QAnon conspiracies, he and his rubes shared that foundational belief; yesterday, he assailed it.

(Both Phil Bump and Mike Rothschild addressed what happens when you betray the trust of conspiracists back when Bongino first affirmed that Epstein killed himself; their descriptions really anticipated what we’re seeing this week.)

There certainly are questions about what aspects of Trump’s sustained fondness for Epstein remain in files that once might have been on Pam Bondi’s desk before they weren’t and never had been, according to Bondi. It’s certainly likely that something in them explains the failure of Trump’s super power here, his inability to deliver his long-practiced lines, first of bullying a journalist, then claiming Dems implicated him in a hoax.

But the reason why his super power is failing doesn’t matter so long as it does continue to fail, especially given that Epstein conspiracies were always non-falsifiable and Trump’s conflicting stories make them all the more so. Unless something drastically changes, every attempt Trump makes to squelch this focus will only exacerbate the growing cognitive dissonance his rubes have. And the underlying Epstein scandal is so spectacular — so unquestionably a case of injustice to the victims — that even feckless Dems have the means of keeping it at the forefront.

Trump survives based on that super power, on his ability (as he succeeded in doing with the Rosie O’Donnell tweet) to dodge accountability by distracting away from it.

If that super power starts to fail, though, so will his ability to avoid accountability.

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94 replies
  1. Capemaydave says:

    Leaving aside the reality that the Epstein files in full, even restricting them to just the civil and criminal filings would be many many GB (the investigative records upon which such are based might be interesting but such don’t get released) I wonder, Why block the release now.

    Trump’s sordid connection to Epstein has been known for decades and as you note, he is a master at deflecting attention.

    Did Trump fail to imagine MAGA would want to see something substantive, having been fed that view for years (Sarah Longwell’s recent talking point)?

    OR, has something changed?

    Do other parties want to keep Epstein fever quiet?

    Or is there another aspect of Epstein beyond the pedo that wishes to remain dark.

    Vicky Ward has been on this beat for many many years – his money.

    How did he get it? What did he do for it? Who facilitated it?

    Just recently, Jamie Dimon: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/02/dimon-says-jeffrey-epstein-lawsuits-have-impacted-jpmorgan-brand.html

    and Bill Gates blackmail, via Adam Klasfeld (also with JPM involved): https://youtu.be/rb4zd9eamwc?si=61eXhPP2vaEkkUw8

    A search for “Jeffrey Epstein”, JPMorgan in federal court filings produces a long list.

    I suspect the money/sex/blackmail nexus is at least an equal motivation to keeping a lid on this.

    Did Trump makes promises to Dimon?

    I don’t know but his unusual incompetence at deflection makes me think his reluctance is more than just being sex predator pals with Jeff.

    • Anhedonia says:

      Thank you. Pursuing that angle more widely could help expand the QAnon crowd’s worry from pedophiles to those billionaires who feel zero solidarity with the rest of us and entitled to do anything to the rest of us. (Was coincidentally reading Douglas Rushkoff’s Survival of the Richest, which raises a few billionaires’ links to Epstein in passing.)

    • Rugger_9 says:

      DKos has a post up about the extent of the data the feebs have, not just from Epstein’s case itself but Maxwell’s and another minion. There are pictures of the safe as well as boxes of materials marked as government exhibits and it is well known that Epstein was smart enough to have wired the island for his own leverage purposes with cameras everywhere.

      I have no doubt that the PRC, Vlad and MBS already have kompromat on Convict-, who keeps adding to the speculation by mentioning Epstein six times in a rant trying to get the press to move on. Good luck with that.

      For the mods: linking from my computer causes my posts to disappear. It’s a Bill Addis post.

        • Rugger_9 says:

          Indeed, and I did my part in my own small way (and helped Robert Paylor too along the way). It’s something that I mentioned to the management there – take away the university’s ability to shut down a damn good team. No need for kudos for me, but kids need a venting activity.

        • Molly Pitcher says:

          Could not agree more. And capping it off with the National Championship, what a year !!

    • globalguy says:

      “I suspect the money/sex/blackmail nexus is at least an equal motivation to keeping a lid on this.”

      And I’m starting to wonder if the Really Big Reveal in the Epstein Files is the sexual orientation of our Fair-haired President.

      (seriously)

      • Rayne says:

        I’m not comfortable with this vague allusion to nonbinary orientation without additional supporting evidence — especially when there is ample evidence the “Fair-haired President” prefers underage girls and women he can compromise.

  2. Error Prone says:

    The Aug 1 tariff “deadline” will come and the media’s short attention span will have moved on to that. When the Epstein death happened, that story rose and fell. Epstein is a distraction from the economy and what Trump is doing to ruin it. Great Again seems to be before the income tax amendment and while the Pinkertons were busting striker’s heads; now rewritten to ICE excesses. When patent medicines were sold with opiates in them because there was no FDA, all times where regulation of profit-seeking abuses were news and the nation felt it should fix things. Trump is undoing that, and likely wishes the FED had never been created since the banks blackalled him after he stiffed them in the casino fiascos. Nobody has pressed Trump on “Great Again” having to have some precedent times in mind, so when, in his mind, were things so great in the past? He gets away with a phrase he rings like a bell, and nobody calls him out – times now for regular people are better than they’d been before in history. Adults can buy toys like boats and motorcycles and ATVs and big flat panel TVs, so when were things greater? Epstein is a sidetrack, dead end Trump will weather. Pushing that story for now is okay, but somebody should call out the fact that the man wants Robber Baron days, with him and family as robber barons, a/k/a crypto mavens, profiteering off of Wizard of Oz crypto promotion garbage. That seems a sounder ground to attack him on, rather than the pics of him and Epstein. Who funded Epstein is a good question to keep alive, but beyond that Trump does run the news cycle much as G.W. Bush sold WMD. It goes with the office.

  3. Konny_2022 says:

    I wonder who has become the person to whom he dictates his rants. All (or at least the most recent ones I’ve seen) that are not all caps end with the sentence “Thank you for your attention to this matter.” This is, e.g., the case both for the one pictured above and his “letter” to Lula about the tariffs. Looks like a new formula of his, but I have no idea what he wants to tell be using that phrase.

    • Amateur Lawyer At Work says:

      I assume that the all-caps and other weird things in his old posts were because he’s typing them himself or using a dictation thing. Now, you may be right that’s he’s dictating to a person to type because he’s slurring too many words. That’s a story, again, that has legs because it gives journalists the ability to “both sides” endlessly and speculate without having to dig up facts. It leads into auto-pen as well because he’s done things without big signing ceremonies, a clear sign that he’s hiding relying upon the auto-pen or maybe Stephen Miller has it, yadda yadda yadda garbage garbage etc.
      Before long, Trump’s forced to take the mini-MOCA on camera and doesn’t score perfectly.

      Don’t know. Am I talking nonsense or does this have legs

        • Matt___B says:

          Believe it or not, the Initial Caps fetish of Trump’s is not unique. It’s a cult-leader thing that I’ve seen before. There was a particular spiritual cult leader that I followed in the mid-70s (now deceased) whose first several books were in normal prose, but a certain point in his rise to cult fame, he started to Capitalize Various Words in his books to indicate they had special “importance” or special “definitions” beyond the ordinary ones and he used Capital Letters to indicate that. It was ridiculous and just revealed a sense of grandiosity when I encountered that writing tactic.

          Then when Trump started doing that with his tweets in the first term, it raised an eyebrow for me, because I’d already seen that narcissistic tic displayed by someone else. Trump is pretty indiscriminate as to which words he capitalizes, but, as wa_rickf says, it is all for emphasis, to draw extra attention and to imbue extra importance onto otherwise ordinary topics: This is What I Think About That…

        • Troutwaxer says:

          I should note famous Tor editor Teresa Neilsen Hayden’s post, on the brilliant but now-dead blog Making Light, where she discusses her list of the fourteen reasons why manuscripts are rejected. (If you’re an aspiring fiction author it’s worth not just a read, but careful study.) Number three is “Author has a serious neurochemical disorder, puts all important words into capital letters, and would type out to the margins if MSWord would let him.” (B roken link below.)

          She goes on to say, in the comments:

          A number of comments have fretted over the whole “neurochemical disorder” thing. Don’t worry. We can tell a severe headcase from a relatively normal author who’s using all-caps for emphasis, and we can usually distinguish intentional stream-of-consciousness from the unintentional variety. If there’s anything slush teaches you to do, it’s to recognize those disorders. It was even easier before everyone got computers, when we could spot them by their formatting.

          and

          For some reason, many people with that class of disorders have an impulse to write books. We don’t know why this is, though naturally we speculate and theorize about it. What we do know is that they’re a recognizable and not uncommon subcategory of slush. Neurochemical disorders are not funny.

          A later reply, from someone named Pookel comments as follows:

          I’d like to hesitantly de-lurk to address the subject of neurochemical disorders (and, by the way, I’ve been following this thread since the beginning and find it fascinating). As a newspaper copy editor, I’ve had the opportunity to see many of the letters we get from readers. It’s not really equivalent to reading a slushpile, as our acceptance rate is astronomically higher (probably over 50 percent), but I believe there are some similiarities.

          If the neurochemical-disordered authors Teresa is talking about are anything like the mentally unbalanced letter writers I’ve seen, it’s not a case of her making fun of authors who use bad grammar or sound a little odd. There is a real, distinctive difference in the way people with certain disorders write (I suspect it’s schizophrenia, but I’m no expert).

          After seven years of working at newspapers, I can glance at a letter and tell in an instant if it’s one of those. If it’s about the government watching the person through their microwave, if it consistently uses inappropriate long words that sound like other long words but are completely wrong for the context, if its margins are full of diagrams that are obviously meaningful to the writer but not to us, if the subject matter changes with every sentence without the writer seeming to be aware of it, and if it conveys a general attitude of extreme, irrational paranoia, it’s probably one of those letters. Sometimes it’s even more obvious, as when the envelope has writing all over it in what seems to be blood (yes, we got one of those once).

          Suffice it to say that I’d love to get her opinion on Trump’s posts.

          https: //www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html

    • Savage Librarian says:

      “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

      When I was a manager I encountered this phrase in correspondence innumerable times. It was SOP. And, as I’ve mentioned before, I worked during the time that Susie Wiles was an administrator for two mayors. So, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Trump learned it from her.

      I’m not saying this is necessarily the case. But it is plausible, especially since she has a reputation for maintaining tight control over communications. And because she is a close Pam Bondi friend. It seems reasonable that she might offer some tips to Trump.

      • RitaRita says:

        ”Thank you for your attention to this matter.” Is something a CEO might write to a Senior VP if the CEO is trying to politely order the Senior VP to do something. It is jarring to see Trump write it to foreign heads of state. It speaks to his grandiosity.

        • Savage Librarian says:

          I agree. But I think he may have heard it in another context from someone else. I mention Wiles, not only because of how communications were relayed during my own experience, but because of what Michael Kruse reported about her:

          At the outset of the Delaney administration, she had positioned herself as its voice. Department heads, for instance, weren’t supposed to talk to reporters — reporters had to “direct that call to me,” she said at the time. “Staying ‘on message,’” she told a Times-Union reporter, “is critically important.”

          https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/26/susie-wiles-trump-desantis-profile-00149654

          And also keep in mind how Trump’s campaign staff and Cabinet nominees were reined in before the hearings with a threatening memo from Wiles and Chris LaCivita.

        • theartistvvv says:

          I see it where the writer is making a demand, referencing something above said either obliquely or overtly.

        • Snowdog of the North says:

          It sounds to me like something an assistant manager of a 7/11 would put on the end of an informal note to staff about keeping the bathrooms mopped.

        • P J Evans says:

          At some point he heard it was an appropriate close to a business letter, and never got the part about when to use it.

    • Nessnessess says:

      “Thank you for your attention to this matter” is his way of positioning the recipient as subordinate and subject to his command. A polite way of putting you in your place, reminding you who’s boss, and, by thanking you in advance for your compliance, emphasizes the coercion and humiliation of complying. It’s a pure dominance move.

  4. Bill McCann says:

    The loss of control is at the center of the action. Fog of war in the White House can’t hide the blood on the floor. Dear Leader has felt another kind of bullet brush his ear this week. It’s Epstein’s ghost come to taunt him.

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  5. Balifar the Lost says:

    Wow. I don’t think I’ve been happier to have been wrong in a long time.

    Point to emptywheel !

    Thank You.

  6. Ginevra diBenci says:

    Brilliant post.

    Donald Trump abandoned his signature accomplishment, the Covid vaccine, after hearing audiences boo it in 2021. His pardoning of the J6 rioters arguably never would have happened if his crowds hadn’t demanded it. He has long prided himself on his sense of what “Americans” want.

    Now he is trying to tell them what they want. Writing “no one cares about” Epstein is his attempt to dictate to the same crowds he has long spoiled by catering to their demands, no matter how irrational.

    It will work with some. The Trump cultists will obey. But those caught between cults, in the miasma where Trump and Q were one and the same, may confront an existential crisis. The administration could have finessed this cleavage. Instead they plowed right into it.

    • Rugger_9 says:

      Speaking of COVID, Pam Bondi pulled the plug on the case of the Utah doctor busted for almost 2000 saline shots marketed as COVID vaccines, for payment to him or his preferred ‘charity’. He also destroyed thousands of actual COVID vaccines during the height of the first wave pandemic.

      The violations of the Hippocratic Oath, his sworn obligations to the medical regulations and basic decency among other items are legion. The only reason Bondi did this is because Convict-1 asked her to for a friend. There is no ‘rule of law’ unless one considers the law to be whatever Convict-1 wants.

      LGM has the post: “Trump injustice”.

  7. zscoreUSA says:

    Really good catch here!!!

    This attack, on “Blondi,” is being led by Laura Loomer, and suggesting that she’s following Trump’s “boys” on this betrays a reluctance to go after Loomer directly.

    Excellent point on the reluctance, like there’s a magical force field around her, that his other critics like Tucker don’t have. Loomer has been the biggest critic of Bondi and only complains that Bondi botched the propaganda.

  8. zscoreUSA says:

    According to Michael Wolff, when Trump sat down for an interview at Mar-a-Lago (date not specified), Trump’s “aides” told Wolff if he brought up Epstein then Trump would “end the interview”.

    Wolff’s comments appear to be yesterday on a podcast called Legal AF.

    Here’s a tweet to the video:
    https://archive.is/E7cyJ

    • wa_rickf says:

      Additionally Wolff interviewed Epstein for over fifteen hours. No media wants to host the tapes saying the tapes are too hot to handle, as Wolff stated to Chief Creative and Content Officer for The Daily Beast, Joanna Coles

      Wolff states that Epstein said that he was Trump’s best friend for 15 years, and that even though Trump has friends, Trump really doesn’t have any friends.

      https://youtu.be/8rrwkB9DmEM

      • FiestyBlueBird says:

        Trump’s “friends.”

        Every last one is an “imaginary friend” is how Fintan O’Toole put it one year ago this month in his July 18 New York Review of Books “Like ‘Being Friends with a Hurricane’” piece.

        That’s is why he cycles through so many people.

        Though with Miller, it does seem he’s found his Roy Cohn.

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          Stephen Miller may be Trump’s Goebbels, but he’s no Roy Cohn–who, whatever you thought of his ethics, at least possessed a law degree and knew how to use it.

          Miller went to Duke undergrad, not law school. His takeover of DOJ is premised on “might makes right,” not skills or credentials.

        • FiestyBlueBird says:

          To Ginevra —

          Yeah, I knew that analogy wasn’t quite right.

          And I agree, Goebbels probably better, and no longer a mere Discount Goebbels, at that.

          Sometimes a different tool works as well as the one you’d asked for all your life — “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”

          That’s kinda where I was coming from.

  9. MW_13JUL2025_1154h says:

    Hmmm, interesting analysis of Trump’s failing ability to command attention bc he is treading into the thicket of foundational beliefs. At the meta level, I see this as a tactic anti Trump ppl should employ more often and at all levels of this shit show admin. Its a similar counter-intuitive tactic used with ICE in SoCal. Protest but no violence bc violence commands attention. Or the fact that Antifa (?) avoided J6 to disarm the Trump blame game. This is some real Art of War shit, know your enemy and what they want and don’t give it to them. We see these AOW tactics in Ukraine and with Putin and with Tariffs and TACO. Its like an emerging tactical playbook on how to defeat the Orange Godzilla.

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  10. rattlemullet says:

    What does anyone expect from a man convicted of sexual assault, credibly accused by many other women of unwanted sexual advances. Many photos of him with his daughter are just down right creepy. I would say that tRump is most likely a pedophile, he was very close friend to Epstein, many times referring too him a great man, most likely a frequent flyer on the Lolita express as well as probable island visitor. Pam Blondi said there is a list and tapes and photos which I fully believe. Why would a deviant like Epstein not secretly record the escapeds of so many “famous, infamous” people without being able to hold the crime of pedophilia over their heads to continue to finance his sexual predator operation? I would assume destruction of evidence is now the focus of his criminal DOJ. The entire process right now is criminals serving criminals. Does his base think that he is not part of the problem and prominent player in the great pedophile ring they have been crowing about for about a decade? Soon they will come to associate him with the hybrid lizard people controlling the world richest people feasting off the blood of children, after all they are that far down the rabbit hole. As long as it stays in the news cycle is another day he gets weaker. May I live long enough to see his glorious end and the beatdown of the GOP like after the 29 crash.

  11. RealAlexi says:

    They have finally f*cked themselves.

    There’s a chance that minus a wag-the-dog intervention that this will devour them from within.

    It’s the only way this will happen anyway. They’ve got the media and the judges and the legislature sewn up. No scientific, economic, or moral evidence of the damage of their sadistic policies will end this abomination of American leadership. They don’t care about the fascism. They don’t care about democracy or norms or laws or anything but power and vengeance. They don’t want to fix things they want to destroy things. It’s what makes them trill and thrill.

    BUT, their avaricious appetite for conspiracy theories may finally self-consume them.

  12. wa_rickf says:

    Over at Faux “News” comments, the MAGAts at Faux are beside themselves over this Epstein “nothing to see here, just move on” Trump declaration. There are still a few diehards who support Trump, but most of the MAGAts are very, VERY disappointed. (Mostly because no Dems will be prosecuted and imprisoned. After all, Dems are the party of sex trafficking of minors – so MAGAts truly believe.)

    They ALL blame #PamBlondie for this stand down by Trump. A few of the smarter MAGAts point out that #PamBlondie is being directed by Trump as that is what Trump wants in his AGs – to carry out his orders and directives.

    • Rugger_9 says:

      I always wonder just how much Rupert would allow Convict-1 to get away with because the way Faux has been acting they fear Epstein blowback themselves. Perhaps Rupert and/or Lachlan are also on the logs / lists.

      On a side note, apparently Convict-1 got booed a bit during the national anthem for the FIFA Club World Cup final, but I think a rolling chant of ‘Epstein, Epstein’ done like a good NJ fan group can do would have been comedy gold. At least he wasn’t wearing his MAGA hat (small victories, I guess).

  13. RitaRita says:

    The first part of Trump’s Truth Social text is instructive. Trump expects his followers to get in line at his command. My speculation is that Trump told Bondi not to release the Epstein files and to offer no real explanation for the non-release. As the first paragraph of his text suggests,Trump expected his followers to accept what Bondi said without question. Bondi could have come up with more fulsome explanation of the decision that might have short-circuited MAGA dissension.

    His text also will cast suspicion on any release by him of Epstein documents. If the documents show only Democratic names, people will question why Democrats would create files about Democrats instead of Republicans. If Bondi thought about doctoring the files, Trump just shut the door on credibility..

    • wa_rickf says:

      There really is no explanation for “I have the client list on my desk” as Bondi told Fox News in February 2025, then come out this week to say there is no client list.

      Not even the MAGAts at Faux are buying this.

      Some have speculated that Bibi’s visit to DC this week had something to do with this. That perhaps, maybe, Bibi is on the Epstein client list.

      After all, Bibi came and what was accomplished this week with the Gaza situation? Nothing. So why was Bibi in DC?

      • RitaRita says:

        Bondi may have been too glib on Fox in February. Or she may have thought that no friend of Trump would have dared question one of Trump’s trusted lieutenants. Even though she is not as seasoned as Bill Barr, I think she could have come up with something like, “there are more redactions and many references to look up . So it will take longer than thought.” MAGA world would have bought that more easily that her lame excuse. My thought is that Trump overruled Wiles and Bondi. And made matters worse. I have to wonder if Patel and Bongino were brought on board so that when nothing new was released MAGA world would trustBongino and Patel.

      • zscoreUSA says:

        It is highly coincidental that Bondi shut down the Epstein Sunday, possibly literally as Netanyahu landed, the night before Trump hosted Netanyahu for dinner.

        Then the Tuesday morning cabinet meeting with the Epstein tirade. During which Trump announced an unscheduled meeting “tonight” with Netanyahu to talk “about Gaza, mostly Gaza right now… I would say, almost exclusivelyGaza.”

  14. zscoreUSA says:

    I actually agree with Trump on this: Jeffrey Epstein never dies.

    Not in a physical sense. But as an intelligence operative Epstein continues to work. Including getting Trump re-elected in 2024, with promises and expectations so great of uncovering Epstein related crimes and corruption, that even Epstein’s most famous victim, Virginia Giuffre, rooted for Trump’s victory.

    Here’s a pre-election tweet by the Gateway Pundit, gloating about Giuffre supporting Trump: https://archive.is/YlLig

    Trump didn’t address Giuffre until after her death, which occurred 2 months after Bondi’s Epstein Binder stunt: “That whole situation is very sad – her and others. Certainly, that’s a horrible thing.”
    https://news.sky.com/story/trump-says-death-of-virginia-giuffre-who-accused-prince-andrew-of-sexual-assault-is-a-horrible-thing-13357433

    And who knows what false narratives right wing propagandists like Mike Benz and Laura Loomer will gin up regarding Epstein in order to support Trump.

    • zscoreUSA says:

      Epstein as a sexual blackmail operation, appears to have begun in the mid 90’s. His first visit to the White House was February 1993, ostensibly meeting as a Wexner connected financier, immediately after Clinton took office.
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10235499/amp/Epstein-Clinton.html

      Among dates known, are that Giuffre says she met Epstein in mid 2000 when she was 16 (she turned 17 on 8/9/2000) and escaped to Australia via Thailand in 2002. So, in the background of meeting Epstein, President Clinton was hosting the Camp David Summit with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat.

      Some of the names that Giuffre has alleged she was trafficked to include Governor Bill Richardson, (beloved in Ireland, disdained by Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens) Senator George Mitchell, and (still friends with Epstein thru 2017) PM Ehud Barak himself.

      https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/new-details-in-unsealed-jeffrey-epstein-documents

      Tweet from Julie Brown: https://archive.is/3xZYl

      The July 2000 Camp David Summit aimed at a 2 state solution to include Palestine. The Summit did not reach a result, and Clinton pressed for further negotiations, which occurred during the transition, December 2000 & January 2001, which obviously did not

      achieve the result.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit

      Bill Richardson and George Mitchell have been treated by conspiracy theorists as just another example of powerful politicians getting away with anything, including pedophilia. But they are not random politicians. They are well known, even in the 90’s as Democrats who succeed in international negotiations, so would be prime targets for a blackmail operation aimed to curtail Clinton’s negotiations over Palestine.

      Richardson and Mitchell have denied the sexual relationship with Giuffre, but that their names surface here suggest an operation aimed at them. And I suspect Epstein is currently being used now to cover up information in the files that would not reflect well regarding that summit, as Netanyahu is clearly pressing forward with a one-state solution.

      Credit to Zev Shalev at Narativ for the idea looking at the 2000 Summit in conjunction with Epstein’s activities.
      https://web.archive.org/web/20250713145204/https://www.narativ.org/p/special-report-the-secret-life-of

    • RealAlexi says:

      You said:

      “But as an intelligence operative Epstein continues to work”.

      “As an intelligence operative” is uttered with precisely zero evidence with the exception of half-baked conspiracy theories regards connections about which nor whom we have even jot of evidence. None.

      Take a step back. We know Epstein was a wealthy, well connected pedophile who we have been led to believe was blackmailing individuals he either set up with underage girls or who knew they were underage and didn’t care, or who were after that specifically.

      We are even told there are tapes. We have seen no tapes. We have heard no testimony of those that have supposedly seen the supposed tapes.

      I can believe that to all be true even though we haven’t seen even a SINGLE SOLITARY INDIVIDUAL INDICTMENT. From ANY administration. Not a one. Zero. Nothing at all.

      It follows, IMHO, that any and every intelligence agency who though they could get away with it would have been involved in shaking down Epstein for whatever he had on whomever he had it.
      Epstein was most likely a perverted blackmailer being blackmailed about his perversions. It further only implicates any States or agencies in question because they knew what was going on and both permitted it by not blowing the whistle and chose to benefit from it instead. (Bad bad agency behavior).

      It’s not that they were running it; nor that he was a spy, an agent, or even an asset. I would further venture that perhaps a number of them could have been blackmailing Epstein and that the likelihood of them being democracies remains dubious.

      Why would the likelihood of them being democracies be dubious? Because people end up in JAIL. Because democracies have functional judiciaries and a free press and free speech and people have consciences and publicly punish opposing parties; and drop the dime on them. It’s not impossible. It’s doubtful.

      I’ve seen your mentions of Mossad and of Bibi and I can tell you that if the Israeli public got wind of this type of behavior that the ones responsible wouldn’t see the light of day for a very long time.

      Check out former President of Israel Moshe Katzav jailed by an Arab judge when you get a minute.

      The most obvious thing, and bottom line, is that Trump was mixed up with his buddy Epstein and he’s fucked.

      IF this connects to intelligence gathering and dirty tricks we’ll likely never see anything close to proving that. Of course that won’t stop people from screaming at the sky. And blaming Mossad. Of course.

        • Rugger_9 says:

          Ha’aretz might have more on this, but it’s a situation similar to ours where the PM can spike all investigations until his government falls on a no-confidence vote. Bibi is aware that as long as he can keep things going in Gaza he is likely to be untouchable especially as long as Convict-1 backs him. Hamas for its part is willing to continue the bloodshed by tacking on conditions for cease-fires giving Bibi his out.

        • RealAlexi says:

          Hot off the press… ;-)
          https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/2025-07-14/live-updates-860955

          Netanyahu WILL be prosecuted. Whether he’s found guilty or not remains to be seen. It’s due process. And like all due process when it comes to national leadership it always always takes too damn long. But it does happen.

          Israel does actually send their corrupt politicians to jail.
          https://www.timesofisrael.com/10-israeli-public-figures-sentenced-to-jail-terms/

          As to public sentiment, one of the reasons Hamas attacked Israel when they did is that the Israeli public was in the midst of being outraged over Bibi & Co.’s “judicial reforms”.

          (Just “a short” vid. But I wish this is how Americans would protest. Take our flag BACK from the right wing loonies.
          https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8fzm-lzRYMk )

          Some of the Israeli spokespersons you might have seen at the start of the war were actually fired from their positions when it became known they supported the protests. I’m thinking of Eylon Levy in particular, but there are others too.

          While I’m a strong supporter of Zionism I’m not currently, nor have I been for a while, a fan of Bibi’s. It’s been time for new leadership for a while. He’s a toxic lightning rod who keeps failing.

      • zscoreUSA says:

        Can you point out my mentions of “Mossad”? I don’t recall mentioning “Mossad”.

        You said “any and every intelligence agency who though they could get away”.

        Are you saying Mossad would be the one agency that would not try to benefit from blackmail opportunities by the abuses of Jeffrey Epstein?

        • Rugger_9 says:

          Mossad would, but they wouldn’t advertise it. Recall how well they were able to strike the Iranian leadership earlier this year or the cell phone operation.

        • RealAlexi says:

          When you’re claiming intelligence agencies who work for/with Netanyahu I doubt you mean the CIA, SVR, DGSE, AISI, BND, or the Mukhabarat. I’m giving you credit for knowing the name of the Israeli intelligence service.

          I’m saying that with the exception of non-democracies I highly doubt anyone else would have been involved in this in any way. Is it possible? Of course. Anything is possible when an intel agency is faced with threats to counter. I have no knowledge, but I don’t see anyone Epstein might have been blackmailing as being in possession of State secrets.

      • earthworm says:

        The “I” words: Insinuation, innuendo, implication do not belong on EW. The one that does belong is Israel.

      • Troutwaxer says:

        I agree with you on most of that.

        However, once Epstein’s information reaches a certain mass, what can a single intelligence agency do to him? You’re imagining one of the most careful, conscientious bureaucratic life-forms in the world acting quickly-enough to get ahead of someone who already had blackmail material on some of Earth’s most powerful people. At that point they hit up Epstein for information and he says, ‘No, sorry, and if you keep pressing I’ll release my tapes on ________.”

        • RealAlexi says:

          One would imagine that if Epstein had half a brain, and he doesn’t appear stupid to me just sick, he’d have covered his bases. If he was murdered in jail (I’m unsure), it would obviously have been to shut him up.
          If he really killed himself? It stands to reason that whatever dirt he had wasn’t powerful enough to save his ass.

          If true, it reminds me of Assange in that respect. I can’t believe he hasn’t been whacked. By natural causes of course ;-). lol.

    • zscoreUSA says:

      Update

      In response to American discourse, former Israeli Prime minister Naftali Bennett (2021-2022) tweeted that Epstein was not an agent of Mossad.
      https://archive.is/ku4zz

      This is, seemingly intentionally, misleading. As Epstein is alleged to be associated with Israeli Military Intelligence known as Aman, not Mossad.

      Narativ reported in July 2019, with Ari Ben-Menashe as a source, whose reliability should be taken with a grain of salt.
      https://web.archive.org/web/20250713145204/https://www.narativ.org/p/special-report-the-secret-life-of

      And Epstein business partner Ehud Barak who was head of Aman 1983-1985. Barak founded then partnered with Epstein as investors in Carbyne, a surveillance contractor founded by members of Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200. Peter Thiel and Victor Vekselberg are also an investors. As reported by Narativ in July 2019.
      https://web.archive.org/web/20190731184115/http://narativ.org/2019/07/27/building-big-brother/

      Also note: In March 2025, Ben-Menashe was reported to have a lucrative contract to lobby the Trump admin how to develop Gaza.
      https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trump-like-hotel-developer-lobbies

      Which is interesting as Trump’s blowup Tuesday “are we still talking about Epstein?” was smack in the middle of Gaza negotiations with Netanyahu.

      Sunday: DOJ shuts down Epstein review
      Monday: formal dinner, Netanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel Peace
      Tuesday morning: flips out over Epstein narrative
      Tuesday evening: negotiations about “Gaza, mostly Gaza”

      If Epstein were somehow connected to the negotiation, the timing of the reporter’s question could not be times better. Which may factor to why Trump would lose his cool.

    • alfredlordbleep says:

      Recall the assassination attempts Hitler survived.
      (“proves” exactly what in trumpworld?)

  15. RitaRita says:

    Washington Post, and, perhaps to a lesser degree, other news media, are trying not to dwell on stories that don’t reflect well on Trump. They are cowed.

    Does anyone doubt that if Biden and his people had made promises to release stuff and then waffled, that the news media would run articles, analysis and op-eds?

  16. MsJennyMD says:

    E. Jean‬ ‪@ejeancarroll.bsky.social‬· 4d
    A key piece of evidence in the Carroll v. Trump trial:
    Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump run into one another a few days after Trump’s assault in the Bergdorf’s dressing room, and Trump “regales” Epstein with the “torrid details.”
    Chapter 34 of NOT MY TYPE.

    I read “Not My Type.” Bold and brilliant. Chapter 34, page 257: Jeffrey Epstein’s “Torrid Details”

    • RitaRita says:

      It is interesting to see the Epstein connection to Trump scandals or notorious stories.

      In one of the recent podcast interviews with Michael Wolff, Wolff says that the Trump-Epstein relationship frayed over a Florida real estate transaction. Epstein bid $36 million for a Palm Beach property. Trump swooped in and outbid Epstein for the property, paying $40 million. Epstein believed that someone was fronting the money for Trump. About 2 years later, Trump sold the same property (having done nothing to improve it) for $96 million to Dmitri Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch.

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      Thank you, MsJenny, for this recommendation. I will order E Jean’s book; I already follow her Substack. She is a hero for standing up to Trump when so many women could not.

      • MsJennyMD says:

        You’re welcome. Yes, she has been very bold standing up to the bully for years. Speaking up and speaking out against a felon, defamer and adjudicated sexual abuser is satisfaction.

  17. Ed Walker says:

    I think we should understand MAGA fury over the Epstein Files as a demand for elite accountability. They doubtless believe the entire thing is about Democrats, and that’s why Biden wouldn’t release the files. They may be in for a shock if the entire corpus is ever made public.

    I think we can all agree that if the evidence shows that a bunhch of Democrats and their donors were clients of the odious sex trafficer, they should be held accountable. I think elites of both parties have evaded accountability for decades if not forever, and it’s time to end that.

    We should all agree with the premise that all elites should be held to the same standards. This thought isn’t motivating the MAGAs yet, but we can and should point them in that direction.

    • Cheez Whiz says:

      Don’t put too much weight on the “elite” in elite accountability. They want accountability for imaginary crimes by a very specific “elite”. Framing this as some populist yearning for general “elite accountability” is a complete misreading of the forces at work and their purpose and aim. There is widespread hunger for accountability/justice however you define consequences for illegal and immoral behavior, but this is just the howl of a mob demanding reality bend to their feelings, nothing more.

    • Super Nintendo Chalmers says:

      It’s an, IMO, delusional, quixotic belief that Bill Clinton is on the “list”. The man is a letch….who has no documented history of being attracted to CHILDREN. Monica may have been young, BUT she could legally consent. OTOH, Drumpf has a long history of pederasty, starting with his own daughter! Once again, every accusation is always an admission.

  18. Savage Librarian says:

    As a reminder, Epstein’s associate, Jean-Luc Brunel, also was found dead in a jail cell (in France, allegedly by hanging.) Virginia Giuffre said that Epstein claimed to have slept with more than 1,000 girls from Brunel’s modeling agency.

    I don’t know why this makes me think of that Roger Stone pardon and reference to Macron found in Trump’s desk drawer at Mar-a-Lago when there was a search for documents. That’s probably something not related. But it did come to mind.

    Regardless, the Epstein case appears to be a very complex nightmare.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Brunel

    Jean-Luc Brunel – Wikipedia

  19. P J Evans says:

    What I’ve seen that needs more attention is not whatever theory people chase about Epstein working for a three-letter agency, but about the evidence that was collected in his residences: the computers and thumbdrives and hard drives that were found and tagged.

  20. Thaihome says:

    To me this is a natural progression of Trump’s ever escalating loyalty tests. He got the Supreme Court to say he had immunity, he got the Senate to confirm obviously unqualified cabinet nominations, he got the House of Representatives to pass the Senate version of the Bullshit Bill. Now he’s testing his base by getting them to give up on a cherished conspiracy theory.

  21. zirczirc says:

    Every time I see stories about MAGA disagreements over the Epstein files, I wonder how much cognitive dissonance anyone can take. I also wonder how many people can sanction pedophilia in the pursuit of power. This whole Bongino vs Bondi conflict is a case in point. Bondi is clearly withholding what she said she had not too long ago. She is one of the few cabinet members in the Trump II administration who could have served in a “regular” GOP cabinet, whatever that would be now. Is she really covering up evidence of hundreds of co-conspirators in a vast human trafficking ring to keep her career alive? Seems so. Bongino seems to be posturing as an advocate for releasing the files. Does he really believe those files only contain evidence of democrats participating in this human trafficking while ignoring all the publicly available pieces of evidence of Trump’s close connection to Epstein? Seems so. For me, there only two explanations for these stances: Bondi’s soul-damaging after-the-fact participation in Epstein’s operation, and Bongino’s soul-damaging self-delusion.

    • RitaRita says:

      Bongino was brought in to give credence to the whitewashing or whatever other skullduggery these folks have in mind re: Epstein.

      • Zirczirc says:

        So you’re saying Bongino isn’t so much deluded as dissatisfied with Bondi’s ability to successfully whitewash?

        • RitaRita says:

          Remains to be seen.

          Does he stay with the team, accept a position at a think tank or Fox, or go rogue?

        • P-villain says:

          Replying to RitaRita, Bongino had an extremely lucrative podcast grift going before this. I think he’ll soon return to that gig, heckling from the bleachers but still a fan of the team.

  22. Bohemienne says:

    Sadly I’m counting down the days until we get some embarrassingly bad doctored release called “MY CLIENT LIST (DO NOT READ!!!!!) by Hillary Cl Jeffrey Epstein”. File creation date: 2025-07-10. File creator: KASHP.

    Oh and page 2 includes the text “Absolutely! Here’s a rewritten version of your text, revised to sound more like it was written by your ‘Deep State’ enemies and remove all mentions of ‘Donald’:”

  23. Super Nintendo Chalmers says:

    The fact of the matter is Shitler hates RO’D because she called him out on his smoke and mirrors management; his history of grifting; and the fact he was a fake billionaire YEARS BEFORE he ran for the Oval Office (I will never use the P word because he’s shat all over that institution).

    One thing I love about her is that, after Michael Cohen personally apologized to her for his role as Drumpf’s consigliere, she went and performed at the correctional facility Cohen was being held at.

    If he get this unhinged over a senior citizen ex-pat, how’s he going to handle someone actually hostile. TACO.

  24. pdaly says:

    In a March 2025 interview on Ireland’s The Late Late Show on RTE One channel (youtube title “Rosie O’Donnell on Donald Trump & moving to Ireland – The Late Late Show”), Rosie O’Donnell states she has applied for Irish citizenship. It sounds like she qualifies for dual citizenship by descent (she mentions two of her grandparents are from Ireland and that Rosie’s brother already has an Irish passport). As long as she doesn’t choose Trump as one of her witnesses for the Foreign Birth Registration form, I think she’ll be fine.

    In the interview O’Donnell calls out Trump for his demeaning treatment of the Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin who was visiting Trump in the WH Oval Office in March 2025 (video included on the Late Late Show segment above). She emailed Martin an apology/explanation of Trump’s bizarre fascination with O’Donnell and O’Donnell received a response from Martin.

  25. MsJennyMD says:

    What We Don’t Know About the Epstein Case (w/ Julie K. Brown) | Bulwark on Sunday
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtWnaJdNO2k
    Bill Kristol and Julie K. Brown on this week’s livestream of Bulwark on Sunday. Brown is an investigative journalist and THE preeminent expert on Jeffrey Epstein. She was almost single-handedly responsible for the re-opening of the Jeffrey Epstein sexual abuse case with her 2018 reporting.

    Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story – by Julie K. Brown

    • RitaRita says:

      That was one of the podcasts I watched. Jim Acosta did one with her as well, which I think was a little better because he let her talk. She wonders why Bondi put out the video of the wrong cell to bolster DOJ’s position. The relevant video am was working but not recording.

  26. Thequickbrownfox says:

    I expect the bru-ha-ha will subside and MAGA will again genuflect to their Dear Leader. It’s a cult…..

  27. MsJennyMD says:

    Audio: Maria Farmer Speaks out about Maxwell, Epstein and Trump
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2174210/Audio-Maria-Farmer-speaks-Maxwell-Epstein-Trump.html?

    Victims’ Lawsuit Show FBI and DOJ’s Focus on Epstein Files Misses the Mark (June 2, 2025)
    https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/analysis/epstein-files-trump-doj-maga-victims-rcna210046

    Jeffrey Epstein Accuser Sues Federal Government for Failing to Protect Her and other Victims (May 30, 2025)
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-sues-federal-government-protect-victims-rcna209967

    • RitaRita says:

      These articles remind us that prosecution of sex traffickers can bring closure to victims and can act as deterrents.

      Epstein and Maxwell were not the only bad actors. The men who abused the girls are also. The Feds dropped the ball in successive Administrations. At this point, the Feds can and should do more than release the files. They can admit failures and explain how they will do better.

      Trump could have directed AG Bondi not only to release the files but also to direct her to report on law enforcement mistakes and plans for rectifying them. The tack he is taking is now nothing less than the cover up that the conspiracy theorists suspected. I wonder if they will notice.

  28. Error Prone says:

    Hat tip to Rayne for noting in a later post that this thread is still open. Elon and America Party, he’s filed with the FEC, he has yet to, and he’s not a citizen to run for Prez on his own party. Oh my! Tucker is back on the web, beating Epstein’s dead body and the Jews (Mossad, not the ones who have a US vote), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAJvmOjkTz8 –and– love for the people has grown cold — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYu9Mrl68K4

    Look where the speeches are given, and guess who America Party might run. To get its swing bloc. For Elon, and his politics. Messing with the happy bond market the Chinese, bankers and retirement fund managers looking for safe and prudent fund investments – and others love, by not doing debt financing – and by not taxing the rich. Figure where that’s going. And hail a self driving taxi.

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