The Epstein Scandal Comes for Trump
Plus, four stories you should not miss.
This is the story that Donald Trump cannot shake off.
His distractions have failed to distract. His cover-ups keep cracking. And now the whole sordid mess is coming for him with the relentless inevitability of Nemesis.
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Drip, Drip Drip
Trump has boasted (not without reason) that he could shoot someone and not lose any votes. He attempted a coup and was re-elected; was convicted of felonies and was returned to power; was found liable for sexually abusing a woman and won a second term.
But there’s something about the Epstein Files that has spooked him. And we may be about to find out why. As the House of Representatives returns from its months-long stupor, Speaker Mike Johnson will swear in Arizona Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (50 days after she won a special election). She will immediately become the 218th signature on the discharge petition that will force the vote on releasing the Epstein Files.
Meanwhile, the BFD story of the day: “Jeffrey Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct” - The New York Times
In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure…
….In one email from April 2011, Mr. Epstein told Ms. Maxwell, who was later convicted on charges related to facilitating his crimes, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.” He added that an unnamed victim “spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
As Ryan Lizza notes over at Telos News, the timing of the email is important:
At the time of the email, Epstein was out of jail but facing new questions. He had recently been branded a Level‑3 sex offender in New York. He was under new scrutiny in the UK because of his continued association with Prince Andrew. The previous month, Maxwell had put out a public statement denying any wrongdoing. In Florida, civil litigation over his past conduct was ratcheting up, and his controversial non-prosecution agreement was about to be made public.
The 2011 correspondence between Epstein and Maxwell is part of 23,000 documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee from the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein. Telos News obtained three of the emails. More are likely to be publicly released later today.
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There will be more emails. More files. And Trump knows it. This morning Lizza is sharing other tidbits:
A second never-before-seen email between Epstein and author Michael Wolff also raises new questions about what Trump knew about Epstein’s crimes.
“Of course [Trump] knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop,” Epstein wrote to Wolff, who has interviewed Epstein extensively, on January 31, 2019.
Lizza reminds us that Trump and Epstein go waaaaay back.
Epstein and Trump had known each other since the late 1980s and the pair socialized in New York and Palm Beach through the early 2000s. A 1992 video shows them partying at Mar-a-Lago. Trump and Epstein were also photographed together in 1997 in New York at a Victoria’s Secret “Angels” party and in Palm Beach at Mar-a-Lago. In 2000, Trump and his wife, Melania, posed for pictures with Epstein and Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago. Trump took at least seven flights on Epstein’s planes between 1993 and 1997.
This is also a good time to re-up some of the conversations I’ve had with Tara Palmeri who has been digging into the Epstein story for years:
Four other stories you shouldn’t miss
(1) Shocked at Groyperism.
Rod Dreher is a man who, Nick Catoggio reminds us, is “a man so enamored of Orbánist authoritarianism that he moved to Hungary to be closer to it.” But, now he has become the latest post-liberal rightist to be staggered and shocked by what the flirtation with fascism has wrought.
Given his own willingness to flirt with the fringes, Dreher’s discomfiture at the rise of antisemitism is ironic, but his account is worth reading, if only because it comes from someone as wooly as Rod Dreher: “Groyperism’s Spread Among Generation Z Conservative Apparatchiks Is Real,” he writes.
The claim that I first floated in this space last week, quoting a DC insider who said that in his estimation, “between 30 and 40 percent” of the Zoomers who work in official Republican Washington are fans of Nick Fuentes — that’s true. Was confirmed multiple times by Zoomers who live in that world.
If you think being Christian is some kind of vaccination against anti-Semitism, you’re wrong. Even young Christians — especially trad Catholics, I learned — are neck-deep in anti-Semitism. They even use it as a litmus test of who can and can’t join their informal social groups.
Not every DC Zoomercon who identifies with Fuentes agrees with everything he says, or the way he says it. What they like most of all is his rage, and willingness to violate taboos. I asked one astute Zoomer what the Groypers actually wanted (meaning, what were their demands). He said, “They don’t have any. They just want to tear everything down.”
“The time to find your courage, fellow conservatives and Christians, and speak out against this stuff, is NOW.”
Now?
How about a decade ago?
(2) CNN: UK suspends some intelligence sharing with US over boat strike concerns in major break
The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The UK’s decision marks a significant break from its closest ally and intelligence sharing partner and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America.
(3) Trump flails on “affordability”.
Asked by Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday if affordability was a “voter perception issue” or if more needed to be done to address costs, Trump replied that it was a “con job by the Democrats.”
He later cast doubt on the idea that many Americans are anxious about the economy.
“I don’t know that they are saying that,” Trump said. “I think polls are fake. We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.”
(4) Sad. “‘Sold POTUS a bill of goods’: White House furious with Pulte over 50-year mortgage.”
On Saturday evening, [Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director] arrived at President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach Golf Club with a roughly 3-by-5 posterboard in hand. A graphic of former President Franklin Roosevelt appeared below “30-year mortgage” and one of Trump below “50-year mortgage.” The headline was “Great American Presidents.”
Roughly 10 minutes later, Trump posted the image to Truth Social, according to one of the people familiar, who was with the president at the time.
Almost immediately, aides were fielding angry phone calls from those who thought the idea – which would endorse a 50 year payback period for a mortgage – was both bad politics and bad policy, a move that could raise housing costs in the long run, the person said.
“He just sold POTUS a bill of goods that wasn’t necessarily accurate,” the person said. “He said ‘FDR did it, you can do it, it’s gonna be a big thing.’ But he didn’t tell him about all the unintended consequences.”
The episode underscores the haphazard ways consequential policies are sometimes brought before the president, and how Trump’s govern-by-whim nature can backfire.
Wednesday dogs
Flashback. Pete living his best life.
He will declare war to try to divert attention. Venezuela will be the target.
Did he want his pedo friend Epstein to “stop with the girls”because it was wrong or because given their long relationship it would come back on him?
I really hope he can’t get the stench of this off. I am betting he pardons Maxwell right before Christmas when people aren’t paying attention. I hope I’m wrong. Look for the “vote” on the subsidies to be done late into the night the day before they all leave for the holiday break. Better than a Friday night news dump.