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“May Every Day Be Another Wonderful Secret,” Donald Trump Once Wished

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Deep inside the story describing the letter hinting about sexual secrets that Trump wrote Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 — 26 paragraphs in — WSJ includes a seeming no comment from Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maxwell, a British socialite, was convicted in 2021 of helping Epstein’s sex-trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Maxwell didn’t respond to a letter requesting an interview sent to her in prison. Arthur Aidala, an attorney who represented Maxwell, said, “At this point, she is focused on her case before the Supreme Court of the United States.”

The reporters either had time to write Maxwell a posted letter or they are among the contacts Maxwell has listed to contact her via the prison email system (in any case, Trump would have no compunctions about tracking her communications in prison). Whichever means they used to contact her, they got got no response.

They also asked Arthur Aidala, who represented Maxwell — past tense — for comment. His response wasn’t so much a no comment, but was, instead, a claim that Maxwell is focused on her Supreme Court appeal — the appeal which she delayed until Trump was inaugurated, the appeal response to which John Sauer twice delayed, first from May until June, then from June until July, before finally submitting the response last Monday, July 14, just one day before WSJ interviewed Trump about the story. Aidala is not the attorney on that appeal; David Markus and Sara Kropf are the listed attorneys on her SCOTUS appeal. In fact, after Sauer submitted the response — indicating Trump’s DOJ would defend the prosecution after twice leaving open the possibility it might not — Markus told ABC that Trump probably didn’t know that Sauer — Trump’s one-time defense attorney — had done that, because Trump is the ultimate dealmaker.

In a statement Monday, an attorney for Maxwell hinted at the swirling controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s decision not to release any further records related to investigations of Epstein.

“I’d be surprised if President Trump knew his lawyers were asking the Supreme Court to let the government break a deal. He’s the ultimate dealmaker—and I’m sure he’d agree that when the United States gives its word, it should keep it. With all the talk about who’s being prosecuted and who isn’t, it’s especially unfair that Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise the government made and broke,” wrote David Oscar Markus.

The ultimate dealmaker wouldn’t break a promise, Markus said on Monday.

And then on Tuesday, the WSJ interviewed Trump for a story revealing that Trump had sent Epstein a letter boasting that “A pal is a wonderful thing” and referencing daily secrets and enigmas.

Aidala represented Maxwell in her Second Circuit Appeal but not her criminal case, which means that, like Markus, he’s not covered by the protective order in the case which, by the way, permits witnesses to use discovery for purposes other than their testimony, but not Maxwell’s own attorneys, and of course only covers Government attorneys (or former Government attorneys) if discovery is actually turned over to the defendants.

With all that in mind, let’s look closer at what WSJ — which doesn’t say whether it spoke with Markus or any of Maxwell’s attorneys from the criminal case — says about that letter and in the process, their sources for the story.

The first reference to the album — a bound book — describes documents that show Maxwell collected letters.

Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein’s other associates for a 2003 birthday album, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

This is important: If Maxwell “collected” those letters, she might have not just the letters, but letters about the letters — the kind of thing that would provide further authentication for the chain of custody. Just as one example, during the Russian investigation, we learned some of what the Agalarovs and other well-connected Russians sent to Trump not from the Agalarovs themselves, but via the communications to Trump’s then Executive Assistant, Rhona Graff, passing them on.

There’s even an example of Rob Goldstone asking Graff to get Trump to contribute a note for a birthday book, precisely the same ask Maxwell would have made in 2003.

If Maxwell solicited a letter from Trump, she would have asked Trump’s assistant to get one for her, and Trump would have passed on the letter via the same assistant.

WSJ seems to have seen letters about letters. Which might explain why they’re not clear “how the letter with Trump’s signature was prepared,” but are sure that it came from him.

It isn’t clear how the letter with Trump’s signature was prepared.

Mind you, they’ve also seen the letters themselves — not just the Trump one, but letters from other famous people from whom WSJ solicited comment: Leslie Wexner and Alan Dershowitz.

The album had poems, photos and greetings from businesspeople, academics, Epstein’s former girlfriends and childhood pals, according to the documents reviewed by the Journal and people familiar with them. Among those who submitted letters were billionaire Leslie Wexner and attorney Alan Dershowitz.

[snip]

The longtime leader of Victoria’s Secret wrote a short message that said: “I wanted to get you what you want… so here it is….” After the text was a line drawing of what appeared to be a woman’s breasts. Wexner declined to comment through a spokesman. Wexner’s spokesman previously told the Journal that the retail mogul “severed all ties with Epstein in 2007 and never spoke with him again.”

Dershowitz’s letter included a mock-up of a “Vanity Unfair” magazine cover with mock headlines such as “Who was Jack the Ripper? Was it Jeffrey Epstein?” He joked that he had convinced the magazine to change the focus of an article from Epstein to Bill Clinton. Dershowitz, who represented Epstein after his first arrest, said, “It’s been a long time and I don’t recall the content of what I may have written.”

Wexner doesn’t want to talk about what documents might have once been in Epstein’s possession or might still be in Maxwell’s possession showing him joking about women with a sexual predator. Dershowitz, however, didn’t deny he sent a letter to Epstein laughing about framing Bill Clinton for something Epstein did, several years before Dershowitz would denigrate Epstein’s victims in a successful bid for a get out of jail free card for the abuser. He just claims not to remember that he was thinking of doing so before he actually had to help Epstein out of a terrible criminal jam.

I’ve read the WSJ article a bunch of times, and while they claim to have seen the letters (and possibly letters about letters), they don’t appear to claim they’ve seen the leather bound album itself. They are reporting on the existence of the album and the contents of the letters.

The existence of the album and the contents of the birthday letters haven’t previously been reported.

They know it was bound because several people involved in the process of getting it bound (this could be people both on Maxwell’s side and on Herbert Weitz’s team — he’s dead but his team might not be) told them who bound it.

The book was put together by a New York City bookbinder, Herbert Weitz, according to people who were involved in the process.

There’s one more thing about the album, something absolutely critical for understanding what is going on. Pages from the album were examined by DOJ officials back in 2019 and 2020, but WSJ has no idea whether they were part of the review Pam Bondi just did.

Pages from the leather-bound album—assembled before Epstein was first arrested in 2006—are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages. It’s unclear if any of the pages are part of the Trump administration’s recent review.

WSJ is certain they were in DOJ custody during the first Trump term. WSJ is not certain that those documents were among the ones Pam Bondi had 1,000 people review in 24-hour shifts before John Sauer kept delaying the decision about what to do about Maxwell’s appeal.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that WSJ has DOJ sources — or rather, former DOJ sources. It could be that witnesses were asked about the letters, which is how WSJ discovered they were in DOJ custody. But it’s worth noting that one of the prosecutors on both the Epstein and Maxwell prosecutions, Andrew Rohrbach, was among the people Emil Bove got fired for refusing to take part in Trump’s quid pro quo. Rohrbach isn’t the only one who’d be covered by that asymmetric protective order. Obviously, Maurene Comey, whom Trump fired the day after the interview with WSJ, would be too. But Rohrbach is one person who would know what prosecutors did in 2019, but probably not the review done in March. But then, so would a bunch of other people at SDNY if the Maxwell prosecution was one of the reasons Trump fired Geoffrey Berman.

With all that in mind, let me lay out something else.

This binder does not obviously show up in the inventory of things obtained in searches of Epstein’s various properties. Most of the binders included in the inventory contain CDs or photos, though item 1819 describes 10 binders, some of which may contain other things, and item 18140 is a bankers box with miscellaneous things. Nothing in the WSJ story says that DOJ had the binder itself.

It’s possible that DOJ obtained “pages from the leather-bound album” via email warrants targeting either Epstein or Maxwell, letters about letters.

But if those pages were obtained with a search warrant, they would not be covered by grand jury secrecy.

Moreover, nothing in either Epstein’s or Maxwell’s indictments would reflect testimony about the album. They rely on victim testimony, travel records, and phone records. And while Epstein’s indictment spans the same period — 2002 to 2005 — as the binder (which explains why DOJ would have obtained it), Maxwell’s indictment focuses on 1994 to 1997. If she got copies of the binder in discovery (and it’s not clear she would have), it would not have been central to her case.

The only other way this album would be covered by grand jury secrecy would be if it were subpoenaed. But wherever the album itself ended up by the time SDNY was investigating in 2018, it is extremely unlikely it was obtained via subpoena.

All of which is to say that it is virtually certain that Donald Trump instructed his defense attorney turned Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche (because Blanche has not updated his NY bar membership, he shows up in the docket under his firm identity, as if he’s a defense attorney who happens to represent the government in this issue), to go look for this letter in one place he’s pretty sure it never appeared, the grand jury.

When JD Vance tried to dispute the WSJ story by crying that WSJ hadn’t shown “us” the letter, there’s a decent chance he said that knowing that the signed copy of the letter remains safely in DOJ custody — precisely where Trump knows his attorneys won’t look for it.

Update: Added screencap of Rob Goldstone email.

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Pam Bondi Reportedly Created 1,000 Witnesses to the Jeffrey Epstein File

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Dick Durbin wrote another of a slew of letters Democrats have sent to Pam Bondi and others about Jeffrey Epstein this year. This one provides details of the review of the Epstein file Bondi ordered:

According to information my office received, you then pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD), including the Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), which handles all requests submitted by the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act, on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could be released on an arbitrarily short deadline. This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests.

My office was told that these personnel were instructed to “flag” any records in which President Trump was mentioned.

[snip]

5. Aside from the negative backlash you received over the February 27 record release, what was the purpose of placing almost 1,000 FBI IMD personnel on 24-hour shifts to review Epstein-related records over the course of a two-week period in March?

6. Who made the decision to reassign hundreds of New York Field Office personnel to this March review of Epstein-related records?

7. Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?

a. Please list all political appointees and senior DOJ officials involved in the decision to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned.

b. What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?

c. Is there a log of the records mentioning President Trump? If yes, please transmit a copy of the log to the Committee and the OIG.

Remember: Trump’s appointees have fired two people who would know details of this: the head of the NY Field Office, James Dennehy, who was forced to retire amid allegations the NYFO was sitting on the files, and Maurene Comey, who has been involved in FOIA responses regarding these files.

Either could now give protected whistleblower statements to Durbin.

But they’re not the only ones.

In her bid to review these files, Bondi created one thousand witnesses to what is in the Epstein file — and Bondi’s attempt to politicize the search for Epstein files.

One thousand.

Update: Durbin’s staff has now posted the letter, plus letters he wrote to Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. Of both FBI men, Durbin asked why they said the video was “raw” when it had actually been altered.

13. Why does the July 7 memorandum describe the surveillance footage as “full raw” when it was modified?

a) Please describe in detail all of the modifications made to the “full raw” surveillance footage before its publication.

And of Kash, he asks what conspiracy theories Kash was chasing.

15. What are the conspiracy theories you are referring to in your July 12 tweet that “were never true?” If there are more than one, please explain each in detail.

He also asked why Bongino had to take a day for his fee fees.

15. Is this dispute between you and White House and DOJ officials the reason behind your July 11 absence from work?

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NYT Falls for Trump’s Limited Hangout

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Charlie Kirk and the President’s failson are very impressed with President Trump’s order that Pam Bondi seek to release grand jury transcripts.

 

Trump gave the order in response to a WSJ report describing a birthday letter, signed by Trump, included in a book that Ghislaine Maxwell made for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003.

It isn’t clear how the letter with Trump’s signature was prepared. Inside the outline of the naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein, written in the third person.

“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is. 

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it. 

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? 

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. 

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.

WSJ describes that this book was examined by Epstein and Maxwell investigators.

Pages from the leather-bound album—assembled before Epstein was first arrested in 2006—are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages. It’s unclear if any of the pages are part of the Trump administration’s recent review.

But while there are titillating allusions in the letter, such as the reference to a new secret every day, there’s is not any conceivable reason why this letter would be presented as evidence against either Epstein or Maxwell. It does not overtly describe trafficking minor women at all.

The order that Bondi unseal grand jury materials will do nothing but impress people like Kirk and Don Jr, designed to create a likely unsuccessful drawn out legal fight in which, even if the transcripts were released, would not include this book.

SQUIRREL! Trump yelled, when cornered.

And it worked not just for Charlie Kirk, but also for NYT’s Glenn Thrush, a politics reporter who survived a Me Too scandal repurposed to cover DOJ. It took him 11¶¶ before he explained that a judge was unlikely to release any transcripts, and another paragraph before he explained that the vast bulk of the evidence is in FBI custody.

Mr. Trump’s stated desire to address the “ridiculous” publicity around the case may not be enough to convince the judge to release the transcripts. Grand jury transcripts are, under federal guidelines, kept secret to protect crime victims and witnesses. They are typically released only under narrowly defined circumstances.

Even if the transcripts are made public, which might involve months of legal wrangling, the evidence represents a fraction of material collected in the investigation. Over the past several months, dozens of F.B.I. agents and prosecutors with the Justice Department’s national security division were diverted from other assignments to review thousands of documents and a vast trove of video evidence, including footage from video cameras in the prison. [my emphasis]

If the grand jury evidence is a subset of the larger FBI stash, Glenn, then Bondi could release the letter herself, on her own authority, today. At least tell your readers that, Glenn, even if you don’t make the entire story, “Cornered by WSJ story, Donald Trump attempts a limited hangout.”

Thrush quotes Goldman making a point that there’s more in FBI custody, but doesn’t explain the import of it–that Bondi could release whatever copy of this letter the FBI has immediately.

Donald Trump is sufficiently concerned about this that he’s attempting to distract dim-witted people.

Including, apparently, NYT reporters.

Update: On Xitter, Thrush claimed this, in the third paragraph, alerted readers that Trump was affirmatively chasing data that would not have the letter.

The president cited “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein” for his directive, which falls far short of demands from some congressional Republicans to make public all investigative files collected by the department and the F.B.I., not just testimony presented in federal court.

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Anatomy of a Self-Imagined Journalist Who Fancies That Trump Tells the Truth in His Tweets

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There was a delightful moment on Xitter today (and by “delightful … on Xitter” I mean yet another stunning shitshow at Elon’s Nazi Bar), when Jonathan Martin presumed to fact check just one element of Trump’s latest tweet attempting to enforce loyalty around Epstein.

It’s as if Martin genuinely believes that the things included in Trump’s tweet are factual assertions. It’s as if Martin has no fucking clue that this tweet — virtually all Trump tweets — are an attempt to reinforce polarization pivoting around himself as the center of all power: In group, out group, create your very own reality by tweet to which your in group must adhere and the out group reinforces by posing in opposition to it. This is, they always are, about reinforcing his cult.

Let’s lay out all the things that lefties and journalists like Martin are disseminating today, as if they were transparent statements of truth, clinging to their blind faith that language is transparent, even when wielded by a guy who doesn’t hide his authoritarian aspirations.

The Radical Left Democrats have hit pay dirt, again! Just like with the FAKE and fully discredited Steele[*] Dossier, the lying 51 “Intelligence” Agents, the Laptop from Hell, which the Dems swore had come from Russia (No, it came from Hunter Biden’s bathroom!), and even the Russia, Russia, Russia Scam itself, a totally fake and made up story used in order to hide Crooked Hillary Clinton’s big loss in the 2016 Presidential Election, these Scams and Hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at – It’s all they have – They are no good at governing, no good at policy, and no good at picking winning candidates. Also, unlike Republicans, they stick together like glue. Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “bullshit,” hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years. I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore! Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! [my emphasis]

Here’s what Trump’s latest post looks like as a series of truth claims, with my assessment of the truth — or, more often, the utility — of each.

Democrats have hit pay dirt. There’s a great deal that is not said in this sentence, perhaps to avoid the logical conflict of his past screed about Epstein, where in sequential sentences Trump said, repeatedly, that Democrats created the “Epstein files,” but then asked, “Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files?” Perhaps Trump is assuming familiarity with that earlier screed. Nevertheless, he starts by claiming that Democrats are succeeding at … he doesn’t say what, with the Epstein story. That’s actually true though: the Democrats’ focus on Epstein is undermining Trump’s coalition, but they’re able to do so largely thanks to Trump’s own reliance on conspiracy and the ineptitude of his own Deep State.

The Steele dossier is fake. Note, Trump actually issued two versions of this tweet, the second one just to correct the spelling of “Steel.” I think Trump is justified in claiming that some — but not all — of the allegations in the Steele dossier are fake. That’s why he has spent years building his polarization around it.

The Steele dossier is fully discredited. Again, I think it’s fair that the dossier itself has not stood up to scrutiny.

Dems created that story. While it is true that, after Oleg Deripaska first paid Christopher Steele (indirectly) to hunt down dirt on Paul Manafort, the dossier itself was funded (indirectly) by Democrats. But there’s abundant reason to believe that Deripaska, who learned about it in real time, was able to fill it with disinformation (though Steele denies this). And the most inflammatory allegation — that Michael Cohen colluded with Russia to address the Russian scandal — likely involved Dmitry Peskov’s office, the one guy who definitely knew that Cohen and Trump were both lying to hide that they had been in direct communication with the Kremlin, with Peskov’s office, during the election, in pursuit of an impossibly lucrative real estate deal. So while Democrats paid Steele (again, indirectly), they didn’t create the false stories. There’s very good reason to believe Russia created at least some of them.

The 51 people who signed a letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop looked like a Russian information operation were analysts. Here’s where Trump starts telling a series of lies about the letter that 51 former spooks wrote raising questions about the Hunter Biden laptop. By calling them “Intelligence” analysts, Trump attempts to denigrate them in two ways. He is attacking the very idea of intelligence. And he is minimizing the qualifications of many of those — including John Brennan and James Clapper — who signed the letter. Plus, while some of the signatories were analysts, some had other intelligence functions, including operational roles.

The 51 former spooks lied. The former spooks did not lie in real time — they expressed an opinion that the emails published by Rudy Giuliani had the earmarks of a Russian information operation and substantiated the reasons for that opinion with a number of true reasons. And some of the people who signed the letter say they still believe the Hunter Biden laptop — the packaging up of all the records on one laptop — could be an information operation. Nothing in the Hunter Biden prosecutions disproves that — the FBI never digitally validated the laptop, never did an index of what was on it and when it got added. Indeed records prosecutors themselves submitted suggest that the copy of a laptop that John Paul Mac Isaac shared with Rudy did not match the laptop as it was earlier shared with the FBI.

The 51 former spooks “swore” the laptop came from Russia. The 51 spooks did not swear the laptop came from Russia. They wrote an unsworn letter asserting that it had the earmarks of Russian involvement, even stating “we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.”

Dems created that story. Again, Trump is misstating the Democrats’ role here. Dems definitely were behind the writing of the letter (though with the involvement of non-partisan spooks). But Rudy was the guy who — after soliciting help from alleged Russian intelligence agents over the course of a year — released the files in such a way that they could not be verified.

The laptop came from Hunter Biden’s bathroom. This allegation, like a recent claim Trump has made that the laptop came from Hunter’s bedside, doesn’t match the known facts but is very interesting nonetheless. The stated provenance of the laptop shared with John Paul Mac Isaac is that Hunter Biden dropped it off and JPMI offered it up to the FBI. But there is another laptop — the one Keith Ablow sat on for a year — that did come from inside a cottage Biden was renting that directly abuts on Ablow’s office. This claim the laptop came from Hunter’s personal space doesn’t make sense, but it seems to envision the possibility that Ablow (who is friends with Roger Stone) had a role in the Rudy laptop caper.

Russia, Russia, Russia is a “totally fake and made up story.” Trump’s Coffee Boy, Campaign Manager, National Security Adviser, personal attorney, and rat-fucker were all legally adjudged to have lied to cover up details of Trump’s ties to Russia in the 2016 election. They lied about:

  • An impossibly lucrative business deal that Michael Cohen and Trump were chasing during the election
  • When and how the Trump campaign learned that Russia planned to release stolen emails to hurt Hillary
  • What Manafort said during an August 2, 2016 meeting with alleged Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik, at which they discussed:
    • The campaign strategy to beat Hillary in swing states
    • A plan to carve up Ukraine
    • How Manafort would get paid, including by Deripaska, whom the FBI also alleges has ties to Russian intelligence
  • Whether and how Roger Stone got advanced notice of the stolen files WikiLeaks would later drop, starting around the same time his lifelong buddy Manafort had that meeting with Kilimnik
  • Trump’s plans to undercut President Obama’s efforts to punish Russia for the election interference

Russia is not a totally fake story in the least: It’s true that those lies — and Trump’s rewarding of them with pardons — prevented Robert Mueller from ever explaining what the men were lying about. But that doesn’t make it fake; it makes the truth unexplained. Data mules who disseminate such claims without correction are complicit in disinformation.

Dems created that story. While Democrats supported the investigation into Trump’s aides, they didn’t contribute in any way to the lies told by his Coffee Boy, Campaign Manager, National Security Adviser, personal attorney, or rat-fucker. Indeed, Trump’s own actions — his attempts to dismiss the import of Mike Flynn’s lies — caused the FBI to keep digging.

Hillary Clinton is crooked. Trump’s DOJ conducted two extended investigations into Hillary Clinton, first the Clinton Foundation, and then her concerns about Trump’s Russia ties. Very motivated prosecutors never managed to implicate her in any crime. Meanwhile, much of what Trump claims implicates Hillary — like a corrupt foundation or making false public claims about an opponent or weaponizing the FBI to fabricate a case against one’s political adversaries — are things he himself does, on top of the open financial corruption.

Hillary Clinton had a big loss in the 2016 Presidential Election. In 2016, Hillary had the exact same electoral loss that Trump had in 2020: 232 Electoral Votes to 306. But Hillary won the popular vote.

The Russia story was used to “hide” Clinton’s loss in the 2016 Presidential Election. Hillary Clinton freely conceded the election. And while she has said Russia had a factor in the loss (a claim that has never been tested), most Democrats, including Hillary, point to Jim Comey’s shenanigans as the proximate cause for her loss, a claim Trump himself reinforced when he fired Comey.

Democrats are only good at hoaxes. This section begins Trump’s attempted jujitsu at creating polarization around political success or failure. Democrats actually suck at hoaxes, as the spectacular backfiring of the Steele dossier shows.

Democrats are no good at governing, policy, or picking winning candidates. Trump’s attempts to reverse Biden’s policies are already resulting in inflation and economic decline. And Democrats certainly picked the winning Presidential candidate in 2020!

Democrats stick together like glue. That Jonathan Martin even imagined Trump meant this as a serious fact claim is farcical. The Dems are squabbling right now over how much support to give their rising new star, Zohran Mamdani! But Trump is using this statement to set up artificial conflict in an attempt to regain the loyalty of his followers. That is, he’s attempting to contrast non-existing Democratic unity with alleged disunity on the right.

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal is new. The sweetheart plea deal that Alex Acosta signed with Jeffrey Epstein was in 2008. Acosta joined Trump’s cabinet in 2017. Trump’s hand-picked US Attorney Geoffrey Berman charged Epstein anew in 2019, the same year Epstein killed himself. Ghislaine Maxwell was charged under Trump, too, shortly after Trump’s AG fired Berman to stop various investigations implicating people close to him. Maxwell’s prosecution and conviction took place under the Joe Biden Administration — but Trump’s own DOJ just declined to intervene in Maxwell’s appeal to the SCOTUS. The scandal has rolled out over years, during many of which Trump himself was President and Trump’s own people, from his chosen FBI leads to his own family members to key pro-Trump trolls to his Vice President, have sustained Epstein as a current issue.

We will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein scandal “the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.” Trump is, here, attempting to slot in the Epstein scandal as a hoax besides the other true things (plus the Steele dossier) that Trump has convinced his followers are not true. Trump is exceedingly good at repetition of his chosen labels so this one is likely to stick.

Those who “buy this ‘bullshit” are Trump’s “PAST” supporters. Trump here is playing a loyalty game, effectively pushing those who continue to chase the Epstein scandal into his out group.

Those past supporters have been “conned … for 8 long years.” After trying to push those adhering to the Epstein scandal to an out group, Trump falsely claims they’ve believed anything but what he has told them in the last eight years. Heck, Trump’s own FBI Director, Deputy Director, and Attorney General were very recently chasing this scandal, and Trump isn’t pushing them into an out group.

Trump has had more success in six months than perhaps any President in history. Trump has had political success, sure, with Republicans in Congress backing his policies largely unquestioningly. But his chosen policies are beginning to destroy America.

Trump’s past supporters “want to do the Democrats [sic] work.” Again, this is an attempt to push those adhering to the Epstein scandal into the off group, accusing them of disloyalty.

Trump’s past supporters should not “even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success.” This is yet more attempt to push those adhering to the Epstein scandal into an out group, a group he is attempting to prohibit from sharing in his claimed success.

Trump doesn’t want the support of those past supporters anymore. Trump of course wants the support of the 30% of his base that adheres to the Epstein scandal — as both a formal study and Harry Enten’s polling make clear, “Donald Trump would not have won the Presidency in 2024 if it were not for the backing of QAnon believers.” This is yet another attempt to lure people away from the Epstein scandal by pushing them into an out group.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. This is a new standard element to Trump’s tweets. Perhaps someone (Susie Wiles?) believes it gives Trump gravitas. Still, it’s nice that Trump is thanking us for doing what so many can’t withstand, paying attention to his every tweet.

Trump wants to make America like it was in some idyllic past. The slogan “make America great again,” mobilizes an every-moving sense of nostalgia (and, for many, racism) that works especially well with disaffected people. Repeating it as Trump does reinforces his in-group that believes the past was some kind of idyllic time.

This post is, at current count, almost 2,200 words, 1,900 if you exclude the actual tweet. This is the kind of fact checking and context that journalists should do every time before they disseminate Trump’s tweets. Doing anything less — disseminating a 200th tweet that claims “Russia Russia Russia is a hoax” without rebuttal is simply cooperating in the disinformation (to say nothing about how critical comments reinforce the out group dynamic).

These are not truth claims, poor naive Politico “Senior political columnist,” Jonathan Martin. I’m sorry I need to explain this to you, eight years into Trump’s regime by tweet. I’m sorry you haven’t thought about how much disinformation you helped to repeat unquestioned over those years. But these were never truth claims.

This tweet, like most of Trump’s tweets, is an attempt to reinforce via repetition — especially repetition of Trump’s false claims of victimization — the polarization and tribalism that leads his followers to adhere to him so unquestionably. It is true that Epstein is posing unprecedented challenges for this operation. But journalists would do well to use this moment to think about how Trump’s tweets work, and have always worked.

* In a rare move, Trump issued a second version of this post, correcting an initial misspelling, “Steel.”

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

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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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“Are You Still Talking about Jeffrey Epstein?”

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There was a remarkable moment in Trump’s cabinet meeting. A journalist asked, first, if it was true that Jeffrey Epstein had worked for a foreign intelligence service. Then he asked why there was a minute missing in the video released to show no one entered in cell.

Trump blew up.

Trump: Are you still talking about Jeffrey EPstein? This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking — we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things that, people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is UNbelieveable. You want to waste the time [points to Bondi] you feel like answering?

Bondi: I don’t mind answering.

Trump: I mean, I can’t believe you’re asking a question about Epstein at a time like this, where we’re having some of the greatest success, and also tragedy, with what happened in Texas. It just seems like … a desecration.

I can think of no moment in his ten year political career where Trump so obviously lost his cool because he was helpless to direct attention where he wanted it.

And it’s likely to only keep Epstein at the center of attention.

Update: Mike Cernovich has already posted that, “We will continue asking about Epstein.” Elon asks, “How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?”

Update: Liz Wheeler (no relation–but one of the propagandists originally promised Epstein files) wrote a long screed about how Trump is misreading his base. This is just part of it!

President Trump snaps at reporter who asks him Epstein question.

Trump is massively misreading his base on this one.

It could cost him the midterms.

People CARE about Epstein. Not only because of the grisly crimes against children, but because there’s evidence of a government cover up.

Evidence like Epstein’s autopsy showing injuries incongruent with suicide. Evidence like the British Palace’s response to ABC’s nuked report on Epstein & Prince Andrew & Bill Clinton. Evidence like former U.S. Atty Alex Acosta saying he was told to back off because Epstein was an intel asset & then finding his DOJ emails mysteriously disappeared, etc.

And now government officials are telling us to ignore the evidence in front of our eyes & believe them—without evidence. Nope. Not gonna do it. We voted for radical transparency & JUSTICE.

President Trump should not underestimate how much goodwill he’s lost among his base due to Pam Bondi’s mishandling of the Epstein files. People are furious. I would know, I was the collateral damage in Bondi’s infernal Epstein binder debacle. She should’ve been fired on the spot.

[snip]

Epstein is foundational. That’s why Trump’s base has a visceral reaction to being told we’ll get the Epstein files… and now being told actually we’re getting nothing.

Pam Bondi didn’t tell us the truth. She seems more interested in being a Fox News star than keeping promises. Something is fishy about the Epstein stuff. His racket. His death. His friends. His intel connections. Patting us on the head & telling us “nothing to see here” is infuriating.

President Trump should not underestimate the significance of this moment. He’s losing goodwill by the day—thanks to Pam Bondi. Trump is smart. He cares about his base. He listens.

He should listen now, so it doesn’t cost him the midterms.

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Pam Bondi Admits She Must Fire Kash Patel and Dan Bongino

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Even before Trump was inaugurated, I had great fun boosting expectations that Trump would release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

I didn’t do so because I believed there would be a massive Epstein release (partly because some of the conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein are not true and partly because what is true is that Trump is among the powerful men who are implicated). I didn’t do so because I believed any files would ever come out.

I did so because beliefs about Epstein are non-falsifiable. I did so because even if there were no damning materials tying Trump to Epstein, the President would still never be able to satisfy the expectations of his mob.

I did so because the promise (from Kash Patel, long before he was confirmed, and then from Pam Bondi) and expectation that Trump would release the files was an expectation that Trump’s supporters should expect to have fulfilled — after all he ordered DOJ to do just that, with the JFK, RFK, and MLK files.

But there’s no chance their expectations can ever been fulfilled. It was a way, I knew, where Trump was going to disappoint some of his most rabid fans.

Trump promised to release the secret files the continued secrecy of which have fueled decades of conspiracy theories, so why wouldn’t he release files about pedophilia, the legitimate concern that has fueled the Trump-supporting QAnoners?

I fueled such expectations on Xitter because if the demand to see the Epstein files ever took hold, Bondi would be stuck.

Then Bondi made things worse when she told Fox News that Epstein’s client file was on her desk for review. She made things worse when she orchestrated the re-release of the already-released files to a select group of right wing propagandists, all packaged up to look special, a spectacle that stoked divisions among MAGAts but also raised concerns that she was covering stuff up. She made things still worse when — responding to James Comer’s role in making things worse, when he claimed the Epstein files had been disappeared — she said there were tens of thousands of videos involving Epstein.

Kash Patel, who promised to release the files, and Dan Bongino, who begged his readers never to let go of this scandal? They fed the fever too with their years of spreading conspiracy theories about the Epstein files. And when FBI’s conspiracy theorists in chief tried to reverse course a month ago, it only further fueled suspicions.

Then Elon joined the fun, accusing Trump of being in the Epstein files as part of his tantrum against Trump (but then deleting that file). As someone who was also close to Ghislaine Maxwell, Elon might know!

Dan Goldman joined in, expressing, “grave concern about what appears to be a concerted effort by you to delay and even prevent the release of the Jeffrey Epstein Files,” and asking whether Trump’s identity was being redacted from any of the files. Robert Garcia and Stephen Lynch joined in, writing Pam Bondi a letter, asking Bondi to formally answer whether the Epstein files are being withheld — as Elon Musk alleged — because Trump is in them, and further asking (among other questions) whether Trump had a role in the delay of their release.

Bondi’s stonewalling, after both she and Kash promised everything would come quickly, was becoming the story.

So yesterday, DOJ and FBI released (or rather, made available to Axios without yet, apparently, releasing it via normal channels) a two-page unsigned notice (which may be on letterhead created for the purpose).

It included two main, credible conclusions:

  • Much of the material that FBI has depicts victims and any release of that material would retraumatize the victims.
  • FBI concluded (and Trump’s flunkies agree) that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. DOJ released two files (one unaltered, one enhanced, both with titles that do not even mention Epstein) showing that no one entered his cell the night he killed himself.

But there’s also a short, broader conclusion that is less sound.

This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.” There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties. [my emphasis]

Emphasis on credible?

Of course there’s a client list; one version of it was already released. There are also the names or descriptions shared by victims of the men who abused them. And while there may be no evidence in the FBI files that Epstein did blackmail Trump or anyone else, he had blackmail material on them. There’s certainly credible reason to believe that information is one of the reasons he was allowed to persist so long; it was useful for other powerful people, possibly even spooks in one or another country. That FBI didn’t uncover evidence confirming that others were involved in trafficking young people is dramatically different from saying that there’s no damning information implicating Epstein’s Johns.

But let’s assume for the moment that these conclusions are impeccable (and as I said, the decision not to release videos showing victims and the conclusion about the suicide are sound), that means that the people who’ve been claiming to have inside knowledge who promised to release the files — starting with FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Direct Dan Bongino — are braying conspiracy theorists who cannot be trusted in any position of authority.

If it’s true that all this was a conspiracy theory, Kash and Bongino must leave the FBI, because they’ve just confessed they will endorse any kind of conspiracy theory to spin up Trump’s rubes. Pam Bondi must call for their resignations immediately, and while she’s at it, she should leave herself, because her original stunt release created the very expectations that she’s now trying to squelch.

They all promised to fulfill conspiracy theories and are now claiming they were lying about their certainty there was some there there.

Honestly, they’d be doing themselves a favor by doing so. But that won’t happen, and because these conspiracy theories are non-falsifiable, this attempt to make the entire promised reveal go away will simply fuel further conspiracy theories. Indeed, it already is.

Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Pam Bondi have now confirmed they are raging conspiracy theorists. And yet even that will not be enough to tamp down further conspiracy theories.

Update: I’m laughing my ass off. Doocy quoted Pam Bondi’s claim from an old interview, stating she had the client list on her desk. Karoline Leavitt spun it, with Doocy making big faces.

In addition, Unusual Whale notes that the last minute of the day (these may be PT time), from 11:58:59 to 11:59:59, missing from the video. Oh, and it turns out it’s not even the right cell.

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DOJ Reaches a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the MCC Guards Bill Barr Used as Scapegoats for Jeffrey Epstein’s Death

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Back when DOJ rolled out a draconian prosecution against two of the prison guards — Michael Thomas and Tova Noel — whose negligence created the opportunity for Jeffrey Epstein to kill himself, I noted all the ways they were being made scapegoats so Billy Barr could avoid admitting that his own system-wide failures to address staff shortages in the prison system played a far more important role in Epstein’s death.

That he calls these “screw-ups” didn’t prevent his DOJ from filing a six count indictment this week against the guards on duty the night Epstein died, Michael Thomas and Tova Noel, an overarching conspiracy charge along with false records charges for each of five prisoner checks one or both of them had claimed to have done that night, but did not.

It’s an odd indictment.

It shows that in addition to Thomas and Noel, two other guards filed false records, one — along with Noel, for a 4PM prisoner check during which Epstein wasn’t even on the floor — and another –again with Noel, for a 10PM check.

Furthermore, there’s no evidence that they failed to complete the checks because they were trying to facilitate suicide. Indeed, Thomas is described as one of the guards who had found Epstein before his earlier suicide attempt succeeded on July 23. More importantly, when Epstein was found dead (the indictment is very unclear about who first found him, though the implication is Thomas was), both defendants immediately admitted they hadn’t done their job.

NOEL told Supervisor-1 “we did not complete the 3 a.m. nor 5 a.m. rounds.” THOMAS stated, “we messed up,” and “I messed up, she’s not to blame, we didn’t do any rounds.”

Additionally, there’s no time of death in the indictment, leaving open the possibility that Epstein died before Thomas came on shift at midnight, meaning one of the other guards would be the other responsible party.

While the conspiracy charge relies, in part, on a ConFraudUs argument — effectively arguing that by making false records claiming they had done their rounds, they impaired the lawful function of the government, the indictment also alleges they intended to impair “the investigation or proper administration” of government.

Sure, they impaired their supervisor’s ability to bust them for slacking (and, for two hours, literally sleeping) on the job. Sure, they impaired an escalating bed check system that was unnecessary in any case to find Epstein.

It’s certainly possible that the government suspects there’s more to this, that Thomas, having been involved in thwarting Epstein’s first suicide, he got recruited to facilitate his second one. It’s possible the government is suspicious about the fact that Noel walked up to the door of Epstein’s unit around 10:30PM. Certainly, by larding on six charges, they’re holding an axe over the guards’ heads to make them plead out quickly. Though there’s no reason to believe either one of them was involved in the more important failure, to make sure Epstein had a cellmate who could have called guards right away.

But as presented, the evidence presented in this indictment suggests not so much a conspiracy to make it easier for Epstein to kill himself, but instead, a conspiracy — one involving other guards on the SHU that night — to cut corners to make their thankless job easier. Part of that seems driven the pay and understaffing leading guards to take taxing overtime shifts; both defendants were working an overtime shift that night, with Noel working 16 hours straight that day.

I don’t mean to apologize for the defendants for behavior that, with several other factors, created the opportunity for Epstein to kill himself.

Rather, I mean to highlight how the grunts in this story are being threatened with long prison sentences, while the guy (once again) watching videos himself rather than fixing the systemic problems gets away with calling it “a perfect storm of screw-ups.”

The government was pushing to take the two guards to trial last year.

Before COVID scotched that plan, Thomas’ lawyer, Montell Figgins, unsuccessfully tried to obtain documents that would show the guards’ misconduct was not only known to Bureau of Prisons management before Epstein’s death, but also required because of how badly prisons were understaffed.

The requested documents in this motion are essential to Mr. Thomas’ ability to prepare a defense. Mr. Thomas contends that the conduct with which he is being charged is: 1) rampant throughout the BOP; 2) made with knowledge and acquiescence by the leadership of the BOP; and 3) is the direct result ofBOP policies and mismanagement that forced the defendant to engage in conduct for which he is now being charged criminally.

Figgins also argued that there were necessarily other people — other guards and supervisors — who had to be complicit in their actions.

Additionally, Michael Thomas is charged with making false statements for signing certain count slips and round sheets. However, what the government has deliberately failed to clarifiy [sic] is that those documents have to be approved by supervisors and are signed and/or initialed by other BOP employees. If this is the case, why is Michael Thomas and Tova Noel the only two employees charged with making false statements.

The judge denied that request, accepting the government’s representation that, among other things, the prosecution had investigated this thoroughly and any IG Report showing a systemic problem at the Metropolitan Corrections Center and Bureau of Prisons more generally was far from completed and therefore anything that existed would be deliberative.

Since then, the trial has been delayed over and over because of COVID, and would not have taken place until sometime in October or later.

But now it’s almost certainly not going to happen at all.

Yesterday, the government moved to enter non-prosecution agreements against the two defendants, arguing that the investigation they had already said merited prosecution now merits no prosecution.

After a thorough investigation, and based on the facts of this case and the personal circumstances of the defendants, the Government has determined that the interests of justice will best be served by deferring prosecution in this District.

In addition to 100 hours of community service, Thomas and Noel are required to cooperate with the Inspector General’s investigation the drafts of which they had been denied in discovery last year.

The defendants will cooperate with a pending Department of Justice Office of Inspector General review by providing truthful information related to their employment by the Bureau of Prisons, including about the events and circumstances described in the Indictment;

This indicates that the IG Report still is nowhere near done. It may also indicate that the IG requires their cooperation to lay out an accurate chain of authority for the circumstances behind Epstein’s suicide, cooperation they would have been legally entitled to withhold under a Fifth Amendment claim pending trial.

Their prosecution, had it succeeded, would have made a full report by the IG impossible; now their punishment is to cooperate with the IG.

All this strongly suggests that Figgins was absolutely right, a year ago, when he argued that a full investigation of the events would show that Thomas and Noel were, in the least worst case scenario, just bit players in a larger system of incompetence and neglect that allowed Epstein to take his secrets to the grave. The evidence still strongly suggests that Epstein was allowed to kill himself by that neglect.

But given the seeming confirmation that Thomas and Noel were being scapegoated to short-circuit a larger investigation and given that DOJ IG did not complete its investigation while Bill Barr retained some ability to influence the investigation, there may be more to it.

It remains unclear whether Bill Barr’s refusal to staff prisons adequately led to Epstein’s death or something more malign happened. Whichever it is, these two prison guards very nearly became sacrifices in Barr’s effort to hide his own complicity.

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