“He was accompanied by a beautiful date”

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.

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90 replies
  1. bgThenNow says:

    One aspect of the drawing unmentioned by anything I have seen is the lack of arms. As a child rape survivor I imagined myself without arms. The psychology of this is that arms give one power to fight back. It is symbolic of being defenseless. At some point in therapy I regained my power. The recovery process was not pleasant. But it was transformative.

    Sorry if OT on this. Thank you for your excellent work as always.

    • emptywheel says:

      No. Thanks for sharing. A lot of the discussion has focused on the immature boobs. But I didn’t know that’s a common psychology.

    • BRUCE F COLE says:

      Thank you for that difficult insight, and congratulations for doing the long, hard work it took for you to understand it. I know rape survivors and that process is as difficult as literally anything a person can undertake.

      I also noted not just the lack of arms, but of head and legs as well. It’s a rapist’s template of a young victim, showing just the parts of her body that a rapist would focus on.

    • -mamake- says:

      Thank you, bgThenNow, for articulating this. As many times as I’ve seen that image, I couldn’t bring to consciousness what troubled me the most. You have.
      Fifty years later (and w/ excellent trauma work) I still have moments of freeze. Naming the powerlessness and being acutely aware of the depth of penetration (sorry) of trauma into the body, multiplies the horror that so many remain in the thrall of these toxic entities (this regime and all its’ tentacles). I appreciate the work you have done.
      Thank you Marcy, Rayne and all on this site to have made it a safe space.

    • zscoreUSA says:

      A lot of people, including Allison Gill, have pointed out how odd it would be for Donald Trump to draw a naked woman who is not well-endowed. The implication being the age of the naked figure being much younger, hinting at Trump’s fuller knowledge on the nature of Epstein’s activities.

      Sorry about your experience, thanks for sharing your insight into the symbolism.

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      To say nothing of the lack of head or legs–any means by which a victim might fight back. That was the *first* thing that struck me, but as a survivor of childhood rape myself I discounted my response as the same old paranoia.

      Now as a student of true crime I find it impossible to miss the similarity to certain killers’ attempts to conceal their victims’ identities by decapitating bodies and removing hands and feet. Some victimology transcends the boundaries of life and death.

      Essentially Trump has sketched what he and “Jeff” might consider the perfect woman: no voice to challenge, no legs to run away, no means of resistance at all. The only discordant element? That scribble of pubic hair, which the most extreme pedophiles (see: Lewis Carroll) find a disgusting sign of maturity. Maybe that was just part of the “joke.”

      • mospeckx says:

        oh God, GdB you got the troubles back when you were a young girl. What a curse it is to be a temporary beauty. Thank God I was a nerd.
        Right now fighting with my Republican brothers. One has 3 v pretty young daughters:
        trump and Epstein and Pashcow and hundreds of other powerful rich old men chasing young girls, you and Mike make no sense at all. These are abominations before God.
        Me, I have 2 daughters, one a lucky marry to a good guy and the other one just avoids men (smart). I was a stunted boy and never asked a chick out until I was 28, and they both turned me down (smart), but that was my age of consent. My Naval Academy buds thought I was crazy. She’s v pretty, she’s 18, she’s legal, you are out of your fucking mind – Dawson told me. This age of consent is one v complicated thing, since people grow up under v different circumstances. Matt, think about your daughters meeting up with the wrong guy and ending up in big trouble.
        Anyway our modern civilization needs for a dividing line. 18 is v artificial, but it’s the established age of consent (not 12, like back in Gaugin’s time). I cannot imagine being a young girl, like 15, and getting gamed and drawn into this thing.
        Which of you two thinks trump is good with women?
        I root for the survivors to end these monstrous old men taking advantage of the clueless little girls. I also root for the Patriots to win 10, but then that’s hopeless.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px8laM6lwzw

    • gmokegmoke says:

      Makes me think of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale “The Armless Maiden.” We never get away from the deep psychological archetypes.

    • MsJennyMD says:

      Thank you for sharing . As a survivor I feel it is vital to speak out about sexual abuse. In doing so, it allows others to share their experiences knowing they are not alone. Therapy transformed my life too.

    • Palli Davis Holubar says:

      No legs either. No head. No agency. Not a scribble, drawing is thinking & he is drawing what he is thinking… just like Joel Pashcow drawing. Clumsy, unskilled, effective communication to the viewer…yes. Can’t you just hear the sophomoric hooting as the gang looks over Epstein’s shoulder at each page.

    • Savage Librarian says:

      Another thing that I’d like to add to this excellent thread is a word about the signature. Although it is implicit in its composition and location, I think it’s important to state that it is explicitly a symbol of ownership. So it’s not only repulsive for how it looks and whose name it is, it is also representative of supremacy, jurisdiction, power, authority, and control. Autocratic.

  2. rosalind says:

    there are some reports that Barron is back living at the White House, and given all of the above i’m wondering if Melania has a specific need to be more visible in her official role.

  3. zscoreUSA says:

    The NY Times for some reason omits Trump’s relationship with Epstein in the 80’s, only mentioning their friendship during the 90’s and early 2000’s.

    The original New Yorker 2002 Trump comment states 15 years, pointing to 1987.

    Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury refers to Barrack, Trump, and Epstein as nightlife Musketeers, partying in the late 80’s.

    Trump met Robert Maxwell (British mogul/Israeli spy implicated in 1980’s arms sales) in the late 80’s, and socialized with Ghislaine in the late 80’s.

    This late 80’s time period is also when Epstein joined Towers Financial with Steve Hoffenberg, at the insistence of British arms dealer Douglas Leese. Clients would include one-time worlds richest man/Trump friend/arms dealer who participated in Iran-Contra Adnan Khashoggi. During this late 80’s time period, Giuliani would at some point serve as a counsel to Towers Financial. Epstein set up a Ponzi scheme, likely to launder money from arms trading, which led to Steve Hoffenberg serving 18 years in prison.

    • zscoreUSA says:

      Just for reference, in linked Maxwell trial transcript, the assistant mentioned by NY Times stated she worked for Epstein/Maxwell from 1996-2002.

      She first worked as a legal assistant for long time Epstein lawyers Jeff Schatz and Darren Indyke [going off memory, I think they may be involved with the Epstein Estate and involved with setting up accounts and real estate transactions. I’m not 100% there but their names have come up frequently].

      She then switched to Maxwell’s office and worked mostly for her from late 1996-2002.

      She says it looked like Epstein and Maxwell were a couple until roughly the last 2 years of employment, so 2000-2002. The exact time period Ghislaine dated Prince Andrew, recruited Virginia Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago, brought Virginia to Epstein, and then trafficked her to Prince Andrew in England, allegedly without Trump knowing about it, even though he was very close with Maxwell and Epstein, and during the time period socialized with Prince Andrew [who also happens to have been involved with 1980’s arms trading to the Middle East].

      • zscoreUSA says:

        And I should add, 2002, same time period as Trump commented to New York Magazine, about Epstein liking women “on the younger side”.

        “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

    • Reader 21 says:

      Great points—I’d add only, what also gets omitted—Maxwell’s original affiliation was working as a KGB cutout, via the Russian mafia, in particular with the feared semyon Mogilovech — euphemistically called Maxwell’s “business partner” and who Robert Mueller’s FBI dubbed “the most dangerous man in the world”, credibly alleged by the poisoned KGB whistleblower Alexander Litvenenko to be the source behind Putin’s mysterious rise (over much more accomplished KGB officials, but whom Mogi may not have had as damning kompromat over).

      • zscoreUSA says:

        Yes, the book Robert Maxwell Israeli Superspy detailed his cozy relationship with the KGB chief, gaining access behind the Iron Curtain where others could not.

        But at the end of the day, Robert Maxwell was not buried in London or Moscow. He was buried where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and his funeral attended by several former and currently heads of intelligence agencies.

        That investigative book detailed Maxwell extracting wealth through that criminal network, stealing from the pension funds of his newspaper employees, and setting up Swiss bank accounts, among many other things.

        Zev Shalev has put together a series of articles called The Greatest Heist to examine where Epstein got his wealth. Describing Epstein, and those around him, using methods of extracting wealth, while other people suffer the consequences. Chapter 2 details the extraction of wealth from behind the Iron Curtain.

        https://www.narativ.org/s/the-greatest-heist/archive

        • e.a. foster says:

          Thank you for the information. Now I can go read that. When reading things regarding Epstein, its as if he came onto the scene full formed. Not that I looked that hard but there doesn’t appear to be much on who his parents were, did he have any siblings or other relatives, where did he go to school, and of course where did the money come from. Recently it has been reported what/who the sources of the money might have been.
          It is doubtful anything will come of this. As far back as the 1970s I can recall there being a “ring” of pedophiles in Europe who according to the article involved men of wealth, position, etc. After the initial few articles, that is all that was written. Aprrox. 15 or 20 years later an other European article about the same subject. Nothing happened. No names released, etc. For all the crimes police and other entitles have unraveled sex with children just seems to go on and on. If it is made public its usually “by accident”. The rich and powerful have methods of avoiding repercussions of their crimes.
          The sex trade, as in buying and selling women and children, continues unabated. It is doubtful anything will be done in the future.
          The men involved in this activity feel so entitled to their activities they don’t care and never will. Their families if they are aware of their activities keep quiet frightened to loose their money, power, “position in society”. It would be wonderful if all these freaks were exposed, put on trial and sent to jail.

        • xyxyxyxy says:

          Speaking of newspaper publishers’ fraud, etc, let’s not forget Conrad Black, who Trump pardoned. He Until being bought out, Black partnered with Mr. Trump in building Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago.wrote biographies of some statesmen, including Donald, which CBS called “his glowing biography, “Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other.”” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-conrad-black-meet-the-man-pardoned-by-president-trump/

  4. Mike from Delaware says:

    “Which is the kind of thing that depraved men might make jokes about when they believed no one was watching.”
    Euphonically referred to as locker room talk.

    Trump’s campaign reaped in record fundraising in the hours after he was convicted on 34 felony counts. I believe there was a sentiment among those depraved men that if Trump could be convicted, then they too might be subject to the same laws that were previously only applicable to the common folk. They knew that Trump would protect the status quo.

  5. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Since the truth is not often part of what the Trumps say, their denial of any Epstein involvement in their pairing up would be consistent with their knowledge – at the time – of Epstein’s child rape/sex business.

    Having chosen to marry Melania, her association with Epstein would not be great for her introduction to the world as his partner. Or for Trump. He’s supposed to be a he-man, who doesn’t need any such help, despite that the rich often use intermediaries to help vet and pair them up with a correct partner.

  6. john paul jones says:

    Re: the yellow (?) text in the Vera Wang entry. I took a screenshot, selected the white background, reversed the selection and then used Photoshop to change brightness and colour (to red). A simple trick and it makes the text much easier to read. So far, it’s joking about poor clothing choices.

    • John_31JAN2025_0731h says:

      https://bsky.app/profile/john.muccigrosso.org/post/3lyhvromo722c

      For a cleaned up version of all three

      [Welcome back to emptywheel. FOURTH AND FINAL REQUEST: Please choose and use a unique username with a minimum of 8 letters. We have adopted this minimum standard to support community security. Because your username is too short and common it will be temporarily changed to match the date/time of your first known comment until you have a new compliant username. **You are at risk of banning from commenting for failing to comply with the site’s username standard and for ignoring moderator requests.** /~Rayne]

      • John_31JAN2025_0731h says:

        Rayne,

        No worries. I don’t check in here more than once a day, so it takes some time to see your notes. Also the site doesn’t enforce any username rules.

        [Welcome back to emptywheel. FINAL REQUEST: Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “JohnnyD” triggering auto-moderation. Because “JohnnyD” doesn’t comply with the site’s username standard of uniqueness and 8-letters minimum, your username has been temporarily changed once again to match the date/time of your first known comment until you have a new compliant username.Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne]

        • Rayne says:

          If you attempt to comment again under a username that’s not at least 8 letters long and unique, you can test the username enforcement here.

          You’re getting cut some slack this once because you changed your name even if you didn’t comply with the naming standard.

  7. Molly Pitcher says:

    Charlie Kirk has been shot in the neck in Orem, Utah, at a Turning Point event on a college campus. The suspect has been apprehended.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Reportedly single shot fired. I don’t think we know yet the motivation for this particular shooting, though Donald Trump has expressed more grief for this assault on Kirk than I recall him expressing for a host of prior mass shooting victims.

    • Matt___B says:

      The Times of Israel mentions that he was hit “in the neck”. No other media outlet reports that, so his actual condition at the moment, is unknown. I’ll give it another hour…

    • harpie says:

      CNN: At least 3 injured after shooting at a Denver-area high school, officials say

      At least three students are in critical condition after a shooting at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado, where more than 100 law enforcement officers are working to clear the school “room by room” as it remains on lockdown, officials said.

      No suspects are in custody and and authorities are working to determine whether there was one or multiple shooters involved, said Jacki Kelley, public information officer for the sheriff’s department.
      […]
      The first 911 call reporting an active shooter came in at 12:24 p.m. local time […]

    • Matt Foley says:

      Thank God for the Second Amendment, eh MAGA? Time for Ted Cruz to express outrage at Charlie Kirk for failing to provide adequate security.

      Charlie Kirk was a loser just like his hero Jerry Falwell.

    • Estragon says:

      I hate contributing to an OT thread. But I can’t resist.

      1) one wonders if his past statements about the inevitably of gun violence flashed through his head at the end.

      2) this is a classic Horst wessel moment. I am extremely apprehensive of this development at a time when we are gaining traction. Cassidy scheduled a hearing with the fired CDC lady. We are close to mounting something of a roadblock to the rolling nightmare.

      I’m really sorry for Kirk’s kids and loved ones. It’s horrendous on many levels.

      • HikaakiH says:

        At one of his TPUSA events (April 5 ’23) Kirk is reported to have said (amongst other things):
        “… I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. …”
        [ https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-its-worth-have-cost-unfortunately-some-gun-deaths-every-single-year-so-we ]
        .
        He then went on to argue that you reduce gun deaths by having armed guards at all sorts of events and argued for armed guards at schools. So, by his own logic, he was negligent in not having enough armed guards to deter whoever shot him, but having been shot, he is an acceptable loss to the republic because the freedom to shoot people for political reasons remains the whole point of the Second Amendment. (Edit – Just to reiterate that this is Kirk’s logic, not my beliefs.)
        .
        The violence of his death is deplorable.
        But his political activism was itself deplorable.
        I won’t mourn the passing of Charlie Kirk.
        I will continue to be aggrieved at what has befallen the USA, of which his assassination is a part.

    • Rayne says:

      Please offer some context when sharing links. Yes, the link includes the words “matt-gaetz-hanging-out-with-high-school-girls” but with all the other possible tracking content in the link, it’s not clear what you intended to share.

      Seems like there’s a better way to share this.

  8. xyxyxyxy says:

    The NYTimes also had a story a few days ago of Chase being a beneficiary of Epstein’s money and contacts while the bank’s executives, including most likely Dimon, knew of what was happening.
    Some of the executives attended parties where people were talking it up, no different than the bravado of the birthday book.
    Similar to Chase executives hiding their knowledge of the Madoff criminality.

    • harpie says:

      Links to:
      UK Ambassador Told Epstein ‘I Think the World of You,’ Emails Reveal
      Peter Mandelson, the prominent Labour politician who was named British ambassador to the US this year, expressed steadfast support and
      offered to discuss Epstein’s now-infamous 2008 case with his contacts.

      Harry Wilson, Jason Leopold, Jeff Kao, Ava Benny-Morrison,
      Surya Mattu, Max Abelson and Dhruv Mehrotra
      Bloomberg September 10, 2025 at 3:45 PM EDT

    • zscoreUSA says:

      Nice catch. Per the article, that guy has 10 pages in the 2003 bday book, and emailed Epstein the day before he reported to jail, what an injustice Epstein has endured and must keep fighting.

      The Bloomberg also links to this NY Post article.

      8/1/06: MYSTERY MOGUL’S TEEN-SEX SECRET BARED IN PROBE

      Points to the local police as the initial investigation, starting 3/15/05 with the allegations from a 14 year old girl. No hint of a 2005 federal grand jury. FBI considering investigating, presently in August 2006, as local police pissed of local DA prostitution charge didn’t mention minors. Names Nadia Marcinkova as an Epstein accomplice, who is one of 4 people named in the NDA, and a candidate for being one of the mystery recipients in the sealed court records.

      https://nypost.com/2006/08/14/mystery-moguls-teen-sex-secret-bared-in-probe/

      Oddly, this article has not been going around social media. My first time seeing it. It wasn’t linked in the NY Times article about JP Morgan. It was only first archived on Wayback in May 2019, despite Epstein by early 2016 a major subject of researchers and authors.

    • harpie says:

      MORE NEW

      https://bsky.app/profile/dmehro.bsky.social/post/3lykkh55d2k2q
      September 11, 2025 at 6:36 AM

      NEW: We got access to Jeffrey Epstein’s personal Yahoo inbox — more than 18,000 emails.

      It shows Epstein’s world in his own words: an unfiltered look at how his operation worked, who enabled it, and how Ghislaine Maxwell stayed at the center of it all.
      [Bloomberg Link with access token]

      He and Maxwell tried to have a baby in secret.

      She helped distribute $1.8 million in gifts and wire transfers to underage girls and powerful men.

      They coordinated efforts to discredit women who came forward.

      And she nurtured Epstein’s ties to the world’s elite.

      [THREAD with LOTS of INFO]

      This inbox isn’t just about Epstein and Maxwell.

      It’s a window into how money, access, and loyalty helped protect a serial abuser

      This is just one story in a series based on the cache. More to come

      • Rayne says:

        I hope to gods they got the *entire* mailbox and not an edited one in which GOP and their donors have been erased.

      • zscoreUSA says:

        There were only 3 mentions of Trump in the set.

        One of the emails’ few references to Trump came on Sept. 14, 2006, two months after Epstein was charged in Florida with solicitation of prostitution. It includes a list of 51 politicians, business executives and Wall Street powerbrokers. The list includes people who’ve previously been linked to Epstein, including Jimmy Cayne, former chief executive of Bear Stearns; Jes Staley, who would later be named the CEO of Barclays; and Trump. Cayne died in 2021. Staley did not respond to a request for comment.
        “Plse review list and add or remove peeps,” Maxwell wrote.
        “Remove trump,” Epstein responded. The pair discussed additions to the list and at least one other deletion.
        Bloomberg was unable to determine the meaning of this list. The email has no subject line or additional commentary, so it’s impossible to know whether they were planning an event, preparing a holiday card list or something else.

        Trump’s name surfaced again around the time Epstein was making an intense backchannel lobbying effort to get federal prosecutors to drop their case against him. It was in an email dated Aug. 23, 2007, a month before Epstein signed the non-prosecution agreement with the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida that ended the federal component of the Epstein investigation.

        • zscoreUSA says:

          Another instance which potentially connects to Trump.

          Roughly September 2006, Maxwell and Epstein discuss who they can distribute materials to in their social network, no specific names mentioned.

          A month later, Epstein sent an email directing Maxwell to distribute an enclosed, 11-page letter to their social network. The letter, a draft of which appears over Dershowitz’s name, characterized the sexual abuse allegations as “highly fictionalized” and described the Palm Beach Police investigation as “raw sewage.”

  9. MsJennyMD says:

    A connection with Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein.

    Mark Epstein wants Steve Bannon’s 15 Hours of Unseen Footage of his Brother
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/mark-epstein-steve-bannon-15-hours-brother-jeffrey-epstein-rcna219630

    The Daily Beast – Top Dem Addresses Going After Bannon’s Secret Epstein Tapes
    https://robertgarcia.house.gov/media/in-the-news/daily-beast-top-dem-addresses-going-after-bannons-secret-epstein-tapes

  10. Error Prone says:

    Marcy, if you know, could you post about the surfacing and history of that book and the Trump item.

    I remember the WSJ first posted about it, but there were vagaries.

    It seems the thing the Maxwell people might have had and held and then shopped, it being ambiguous enough to give notice there might be more, and more direct. For now, sourcing, if known, is relevant. Somebody must have shopped it around, with WSJ saying they’d run with it.

    It seems an item like that, and the shortly-thereafter Maxwell visit by the Trump/DOJ lawyer suggest there could be more and if Maxwell gets a pardon with that alone released, might we the public be getting shortchanged?

    Has anybody put a timeline on that image/book showing up, the who, how, when detail?

    • xyxyxyxy says:

      She was around Trump for a long time and knows everything about him, even how to steal his help.
      If Putin would have been in this position, he would have Blanche put her down as soon as he had wind of the WSJ story, and they knew as the WSJ asked them to comment, instead of letting her roam her mouth freely in Camp Runamuck Your Mouth, TX near college campus where everybody wants a scoup.

  11. dadidoc1 says:

    From now on, whenever I see Donald Trump’s signature, I see a mound of female pubic hair. Some things can’t be unseen.

  12. maybemayi says:

    off topic again

    considering the increase of attention given to the above subject,

    the first thing that entered my nasty suspicious mind on hearing of the

    shooting-to-death of a political ally of your prez was:

    they need a distraction and he makes a good looking martyr.

    i won’t be surprised if this is deleted.
    but i’m probably not the only one .

    • e.a. foster says:

      You weren’t the only one with that thought. Mine included this was also a way to remove him from the political scene. He might have become too powerful and able to defeat others in elections.

    • P J Evans says:

      Sending thoughts and prayers to his associates, family, and whatever friends he may have had.
      (It’s what they’d do.)

    • Reader 21 says:

      When the Wall Street Journal first broke the story, he had publicly called for the full release of the Epstein files, including on Meghan Kelly’s show. Then he said he’d gotten a call, after which he said he wasn’t going to talk about Epstein anymore.

  13. BRUCE F COLE says:

    You’re not. And the perp needed to be a competent shot, especially if the distance was 200 yards as some reports have it. Someone with training.

    Patel called it a left-sponsored political hit right off (narrative control), which indicates the opposite, just as his initial announcement of a suspect in custody had to be almost immediately retracted.
    https://people.com/charlie-kirk-shooter-person-interest-custody-political-assassination-11807632

    Another thought that crossed my mind was that we should be calling for the CA national guard to interdict Utah’s public safety regime in order to rectify this situation. It’s Big Balls X about 2,000, after all. Or X 2,000,000.

    The Mormon Tabernacle surrounded by humvees. That should fix it.

    • e.a. foster says:

      200 yards is an easy shot. A mile is over 1700 yards and in England each year there is a competition, the Bisley. They shoot close to a mile out without scopes. they come from all over the world. they also come from all walks of life. the event is part of the Commonwealth games.

      • Rayne says:

        It may be easy if you’re a trained shooter. A standard NFL football field is 120 yards; a Canadian football field is 150 yards. Could most people hit something the size of a football at that distance? Now multiple that length by a factor of 1.5-2.

        It’s not just training but the gun itself. Assuming Kirk was the target, the gun and sight had to be pretty accurate.

        As for the Bisley competition: they’re highly-trained individuals who’ve practiced considerably, with extremely accurate weapons. Not really an appropriate comparison considering they’ve trained for a distance 8-9X greater than 200 yards.

        • paulpfixion says:

          There are approximately 11 million deer hunters in the US, according to the National Deer Association. In the North Woods of WI/MN the range is rarely 200 yards because of the forest environment. But, in the western US, or in places like North Dakota, this would be a shot that proficient hunter would take–they would have the correct caliber bullet and rifle for distance hunting in open spaces.

          Here is a link to a hunting website that discusses the nerdy aspects of the sport: https://realtree.com/big-game-hunting/articles/what-kill-shot-statistics-teach-you-about-hunting

          The author of the article took an average shot of 150 yards, while his friends averaged 100 yards.

        • Rayne says:

          I live in a family of deer hunters whose freezers have a considerable selection of venison, from roasts to sausages. That said, I know damned well it takes a little more training to nail a human in the neck at 200 yards than to hit a deer at 50-150 yards from a tree stand hitting any part of the deer’s body — and more training and/or effort yet to leave little to no trace afterward.

          Really, what’s the percentage of deer hunters who actually get a deer each season? In MI during the 2023 season, the ratio was 347 deer to 549 hunters. Some of the hunters bagged more than one so less than half of the hunters are successful at any range regardless of weapon (firearm, muzzleloader, bow). (https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/-/media/Project/Websites/dnr/Documents/Boards/NRC/2024/May-2024/Deer_Survey.pdf) Not exactly a determined bunch of cervidae assassins.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      There are a lot of trained shooters who could hit a soccer ball at 200 yds with a good rifle, even with a cold bore shot.

      In basic training, the rifle range is 300 yds. Limit the pool to those who’ve taken at least advanced infantry training, competitive shooters, and skilled hunters, and you have thousands of people.

      But an assassination takes a lot more than hitting a target or a game animal. It requires the mindset to take the shot, and the experience to plan for things like siting your target, ingress and egress routes, the caliber and choice of weapon, weeks or more of training, the disciplined reactions to get in and get out, and the time and money to do all that without drawing attention. That narrows the field considerably.

      That doesn’t necessarily require sniper training, but military training or equivalent seems essential. Possible backgrounds include expert hunter, competitive shooter, SWAT, the equivalent of Army ranger or more elite training. That further narrows the number of candidates.

  14. maybemayi says:

    yup.
    this morning
    12/09/2025 (12 September)

    the West Australian newspaper called the politician a “martyr”.

    not the online one,the actual paper.

  15. John_31JAN2025_0731h says:

    The other man in the photo is Trump, I think. It looks like him and it makes sense of the note which refers to four people (including the writer). All four are in the photo, if you include Trump, and no one else.

    [Moderator’s notes: IMPORTANT – see your comment at 2:38 AM ET. /~Rayne]

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