I may have been wrong.
I knew for a long time that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were associates and friends. I did not believe, however, that Trump took part in Epstein’s freakishly evil lifestyle. I’m starting to doubt that assumption.
If you have an attention span longer than a tribal partisan, you probably remember that back in July, the Trump DOJ announced that there was no client list and no other perpetrators were implicated in Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes. This was despite the fact that Attorney General Pam Bondi had pledged to release the list and other Epstein files, and FBI Director Kash Patel and other MAGA influencers had spent years building up the Epstein conspiracy to include pretty much anyone they didn’t like.
I wrote back then that the simple explanation was they were lying before, and the only reason they came clean was that they reached a point where they had to put up or shut up. The real scandal, I thought, was that they had made extravagant claims for years that were nothing but pure fantasy. They were rewarded for these fantasies with cushy federal jobs.
As a caveat, I said that the client list probably didn’t exist, and many of the claims made by MAGA were pure fiction, but the DOJ’s Epstein files definitely do exist. That’s what is still dogging Trump three months later.
Since June, we’ve learned that the DOJ briefed Trump in May that his name appeared in the Epstein files along with allegations about him that the DOJ did not find credible, per CNN. That briefing seemed to signal a shift in Trump’s gears from saying that Epstein conspiracies were the gospel truth to calling them a “Democrat hoax.”
We don’t know exactly what is in those files, but we do know that Donald Trump is willing to move heaven and earth to make sure we never find out.
The matter does not end there. Epstein’s victims held a press conference this week in Washington to tell their stories and to call for justice. The event was interrupted by a loud flyover of Air Force fighter jets, which drowned out some of the speakers.
Was this another attempt to silence the story? The Air Force says the jets were honoring the president of Poland, but others are saying it was a message from Trump. I don’t know, but they are saying it.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator, was interviewed by the DOJ after the furor in June and was promptly transferred to a minimum security prison. Maxwell’s cushy new home in Texas reportedly allows free movement and is nicknamed “Club Fed.” It’s an unusual destination for a human trafficker and sex criminal.
CNN reports that another inmate criticized Maxwell’s move to Texas to a newspaper. When the comment became public, the inmate was immediately pulled “out of a puppy-training class in the camp then transferred her out of the facility” to a higher security lockup in Houston. The anecdote says a lot about both the comforts of “Club Fed” and the government’s sensitivity to questions about Maxwell’s status. It’s apparently worse to speak ill of certain sex predators than it is to traffic underage girls.
The matter is causing cracks in the MAGA firewall. Trump-supporting loose canon, Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is gathering votes for a discharge petition to force a House vote on ordering the DOJ to release the files. Trump has used threats and intimidation to keep Republicans in line, but Massie claims to be only three votes from success. There is one Democrat who has not signed, potentially bringing the deficit down to two.
Among the Republicans who have signed on to support Massie’s petition are [wait for it] Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Nancy Mace (R-SC). Mace, who said she is a recent survivor of sexual crimes, tweeted that she had a “full blown panic attack” listening to Epstein’s victims.
I’m not going to question or ridicule Mace. I don’t know her story, but if she was truly sexually assaulted, she has my sympathy. My wife was raped and I’ve seen first hand how devastating a sexual assault can be and long it takes to recover. I have no use for people who engage in this sort of behavior.
Even with Greene and Mace breaking ranks, I’m not ready to say that Trump is a lame duck. We are starting to see gaps between the president and Republicans on some issues, however. That’s especially true when public opinion is as one sided as it is on the Epstein files. Only about 19 percent approve of Trump’s actions on the Epstein files while 67 percent disapprove. Republicans from competitive races or those contemplating higher office post-Trump can read the writing on the wall.
I generally subscribe to Dick Morris’s axiom that the coverup is worse than the scandal, but that may not be true in this case. A revelation or credible accusation that Donald Trump engaged in nonconsensual sex with underage girls (who legally could not consent) would be both embarrassing and devastating.
Well, not to Trump’s base, but to other voters and to other Republicans. Trump’s base would probably either deny it or charge off as a cost of Making America Great Again. You’ve got to break eggs to make an omelette and King Cyrus and King David weren’t perfect either so we didn’t elect a national pastor but he’s still God’s anointed.
No, but the revelations of a close relationship between Trump and Epstein would be deeply embarrassing to Trump, who craves respectability along with a Nobel Peace Prize and a ticket to Heaven (so send $15). Going down in history as the only twice-impeached president is bad enough. Being the only president to be confirmed as a sex predator would be worse.
Republican politicians should be worried. The worse the scandal, the worse it would be for Republicans in the midterms next year and the presidential elections not soon enough to suit most of us. The Republicans have hitched their wagon to Trump, for better or worse, and an Epstein scandal would add to the fallout from Trump’s failing economic agenda and the general atmosphere of chaos.
We don’t know what is in the Epstein files about Trump, but we do know it’s bad. How bad is it? It could be anywhere from embarrassing buddy anecdotes to incriminating evidence.
As noted earlier, the DOJ didn’t find the allegations credible, but some people would believe them, and once journalists and investigators started pulling at the threads, there’s no telling what would turn up. Plus, I’d be more comfortable about the DOJ’s apparent nonchalance if it wasn’t run by Trump sycophants to whom nothing bad about Trump is credible and if there wasn’t that pesky presidents-can’t-be-prosecuted-while-in-office policy. I have no faith that the current DOJ would tell us if there was incriminating evidence in the file.
On the flip side, to an even greater extent than the Clintons, Trump instinctively stonewalls and covers up anything that makes him look bad. The coverup could be nothing more than humiliating-but-not-incriminating details of his relationship with Epstein. This trait must be implanted in the DNA of rich, New York liberals (and Trump’s policies are more liberal than conservative, but he really doesn’t fit either mold).
It would not be out of character for Trump to quash the release of the Epstein files just because he can. It also would not be out of character for Old “Grab Them By the Kitty-cat” to have engaged in perverse and possibly illegal sexual acts. Don’t forget that a civil jury found Trump liable for rape and there is a long list of accusations of sexual assault against Trump.
At this point, we can’t know the truth, but if the world thought I was a sex criminal and I had evidence to exonerate myself, I would not keep it under lock and key. I think most of us would want to defend ourselves against such accusations.
Personally, I hope that Trump is not guilty of joining Epstein in his crimes. As much as I’d like see Trump marginalized and MAGA relegated to the trash can of history, I’d hate to think that our president was guilty of such a thing. I’d also hate to think that such a large part of the country would cover for such a person.
For now, the only thing that we can know for sure is that Trump will continue to be dogged by Epstein’s legacy. The files may not be coming to light, but they aren’t going away either.
If Trump has lost Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from QAnon, on the issue, he’s definitely lost America.
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