Lazy Caturday Reads: Just Another Crazy Day in the USA

Posted: September 27, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Sophia and her kitten, by Lena Revo

It’s just another crazy day in the USA. Our “president” is a madman who has surrounded himself with sycophants and assorted insane groupies. The news today is just as insane as it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that. What else can I say? Here’s what’s happening as of this morning.

The top story is still the Comey indictment.

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Overcame Internal Dissent to Get His Case Against Comey.

President Trump asked advisers directly last week: Where were the prosecutions that he wanted to see?

He had been hearing from allies that the Justice Department wasn’t moving aggressively against the people who had investigated and prosecuted him, according to people familiar with the matter. Chief among them was former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey.

Senior Justice Department officials told him the evidence against Comey wasn’t a slam dunk, and prosecutors in Virginia didn’t want to bring the case. Other White House officials worried that such a case could end badly.

Trump told the DOJ officials to make the best case they could, officials said. He said any lack of evidence was just like what he faced in his own criminal cases, the people said.

On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi delivered, extracting from a grand jury a two-count indictment against Comey related to five-year-old congressional testimony. Comey says he is innocent. The grand jury appeared to have some doubts, rejecting one additional count against Comey.

In the process, Bondi has effectively transformed the Justice Department in Trump’s second term, from an independent enforcer of the law into an extension of the White House that has pursued Trump’s foes and their associates with relish.

The Comey family is in Trump’s crosshairs.

Comey, who oversaw the initial 2016 investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia that dogged much of the president’s first term, has emerged as one of the Justice Department’s biggest targets for retribution along with his family.

In July, it fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, who had been a star federal prosecutor in Manhattan, with a supervisor telling her only that the decision “came from Washington.” On Thursday, Troy Edwards Jr., a son-in-law married to another daughter, resigned from the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, saying that he was doing so to uphold his oath to the Constitution.

“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said in a video after his indictment. The longtime Republican served as a senior Justice Department official in the administration of President George W. Bush and was nominated as the FBI director by President Barack Obama, before Trump fired him in 2017….

…Comey’s indictment thrust the Justice Department into uncharted territory, with Trump’s clearest breach yet of rules designed to insulate the agency from partisan pressure after the Watergate scandal roiled the agency more than five decades ago.

Tensions over the case came to a head last week after some administration officials, including Ed Martin, a Justice Department official pursuing cases of interest to Trump, privately told the president that the Justice Department was slow-walking cases against Trump critics, people familiar with the discussions said.

The Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, had told colleagues he didn’t see a case against Comey or Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, people familiar with the matter said.

Last Thursday, an administration official called Siebert and told him he would likely be fired.

Kat, Cat, by Katherine Ace

According to the WSJ, AG Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche defended Siebert, but to no avail. Trump replaced Sibert with Lindsey Halligan, an insurance lawyer who had never prosecuted a case. Halligan then presented the case to a grand jury by herself and obtained 2 indictment of Comey. Only 14 of 23 grand jurors voted to indict him on 2 of 3 counts. Apparently, Bondi is in the Trump’s dog house now, although he’s telling people he still likes her. Trump said yesterday he expected and hoped for more indictments of his political enemies.

CBS News: Judge who reviewed James Comey’s indictment was confused by prosecutor’s handling of case, transcript shows.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lindsey Vaala expressed confusion and surprise at some points during the seven-minute court session when a federal grand jury impaneled in Alexandria, Virginia,  returned the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey Thursday night.

According to a transcript of the proceedings obtained by CBS News, Judge Vaala asked the newly named interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan — a former Trump personal lawyer — why there were two versions of the indictment.

A majority of the grand jury that reviewed the Comey matter voted not to charge him with one of the three counts presented by prosecutors, according to a form that was signed by the grand jury’s foreperson and filed in court. He was indicted on two other counts — making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding — after 14 of 23 jurors voted in favor of them, the foreperson told the judge.

But two versions of the indictment were published on the case docket: one with the dropped third count, and one without. The transcript reveals why this occurred.

“So this has never happened before. I’ve been handed two documents that are in the Mr. Comey case that are inconsistent with one another,” Vaala said to Halligan. “There seems to be a discrepancy. They’re both signed by the (grand jury) foreperson.”

Halligan didn’t know why two versions had been published and claimed she had only seen the one with two indictments–which she had signed herself, presumably because no line prosecutor had been willing to do so. The questioning went on for awhile.

I wonder who Halligan will find to prosecute the case? Will she do it herself? Comey has a very good attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, remember him? He was the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case during the George W. Bush administration.

Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney at Politico: Why the case against James Comey may end in humiliation for Trump’s DOJ.

The indictment of James Comey, ordered up by President Donald Trump in a breathtaking breach of Justice Department independence, is being welcomed with glee in MAGA circles.

But the case against the former FBI director and longtime Trump nemesis may quickly end in disappointment — and even humiliation — for the prosecutor who was conscripted by the president to bring the charges.

Nataliya Bagatskaya, A Glass of Milk

The bare-bones indictment secured by that prosecutor, Trump loyalist Lindsey Halligan, is exceptionally weak, former prosecutors and legal experts say. Fundamental problems with the case itself — as well as the unusual events that preceded the indictment — will make it difficult to bring Comey to trial, let alone secure a conviction.

Former federal terrorism prosecutor Andy McCarthy called the charges “poorly done” and predicted they will be thrown out by a judge well before any trial.

“The whole thing is just bizarro,” McCarthy said. “This is the kind of thing that should never ever happen. … This case should never go to trial because it’s obvious from the four corners of the indictment that there’s no case.”

The issues that could doom the case include the overt political pressure by Trump to bring the indictment, Halligan’s own inexperience, peculiarities in the indictment itself and even a five-year-old technology issue.

Read all the details at Politico.

Alan Feuer at The New York Times (gift link): Trump’s Repeated Attacks May Undercut Case Against Comey.

Even before James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, was indicted this week, legal experts were already questioning whether the case might be vulnerable to an uncommon but powerful legal attack: allegations that President Trump, who has long called for Mr. Comey to be jailed, had pushed the Justice Department into opening an improper vindictive prosecution.

Such speculation gained at least a little steam this week after Mr. Trump weighed in on the charges, which center on whether Mr. Comey lied to Congress, in a manner that seemed to prejudge his guilt.

“Whether you like Corrupt James Comey or not, and I can’t imagine too many people liking him, HE LIED!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday morning. “It is not a complex lie, it’s a very simple, but IMPORTANT one. There is no way he can explain his way out of it.”

The remarks by Mr. Trump were not the first time he had shared — or over-shared — his opinions about whether Mr. Comey should be prosecuted, evincing what defense lawyers may seek to argue was a political animus by the Justice Department.

By Stu Morris

Last weekend, in an even more pointed social media post, Mr. Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to immediately get to work prosecuting Mr. Comey and two of his other enemies, Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, and Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California.

“They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” Mr. Trump wrote, adding, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

While vindictive prosecution motions are notoriously difficult to win, the president’s voluble vitriol and his incessant need to be on the attack could provide defense lawyers with an avenue to protect the very people he most wants to punish.

“Ironically, by demanding the prosecutions, Trump may have undercut any possibility of success by providing the people on his ‘enemies list’ with a built-in defense,” Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, wrote in a recent blog post on the subject.

Use the gift link to read the rest if you’re interested.

Trump has chosen the next city to get his fascist beatdown–Portland, Oregon.

AP: Trump says he’ll send troops to Portland, Oregon, in latest deployment to US cities.

President Donald Trump said Saturday he will send troops to Portland, Oregon, “authorizing Full Force, if necessary” to handle “domestic terrorists” as he expands his controversial deployments to more American cities.

He made the announcement on social media, writing that he was directing the Department of Defense to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland.”

Trump said the decision was necessary to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, which he described as “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for details on Trump’s announcement, such as a timeline for the deployment or what troops would be involved. He previously threatened to send the National Guard into Chicago without following through. A deployment in Memphis, Tennessee, is expected to include only about 150 troops, far less than were sent to the District of Columbia for Trump’s crackdown or in Los Angeles in response to immigration protests….

The ICE facility in Portland has been the target of frequent demonstrations, sometimes leading to violent clashes. Some federal agents have been injured and several protesters have been charged with assault. When protesters erected a guillotine earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security described it as “unhinged behavior.” [….]

“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland,” he said, describing them as “professional agitators and anarchists.”

The Washington Post: Trump deploys troops to Portland, authorizing ‘full force’ if necessary.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he will send troops to Portland, Oregon, and to immigration detention facilities around the country, authorizing “Full Force, if necessary” and escalating a campaign to use the U.S. military against Americans that has little modern precedent….

Portrait with Cat by Arsen Kurbanov

Portland has been a target of right-wing politicians for the way it has handled racial-justice protests as well as its homeless population, tolerating encampments in the central part of the city. But Trump will again encounter the dynamic he did when he deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles — a military deployment in a state run by a Democratic governor who objects to the decision and will have grounds to fight it in court.

It was not immediately clear whether Trump plans to deploy active-duty troops, National Guard members, or both, to Portland. As was the case in similar discussions in other cities, there are legal limits to how he can do so.

One official familiar with the discussion on Saturday said defense officials were seeking clarity on what Trump desires in this situation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about private planning.

wweek.com Portland: Federal Agents Amass in Portland, Local Officials Say.

President Donald Trump has dispatched federal agents to Portland, local elected officials said in a hastily scheduled press conference on Friday night. Those agents have amassed at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on the South Waterfront and have been observed in other locations across the city, officials said.

“We now have a sudden influx of federal agents in our city,” Mayor Keith Wilson said. “We did not ask for them to come. They are here without precedent or purpose.”

Over and over, officials described the agents’ arrival as an attempt to goad residents into a confrontation that would give the president a pretext for a military crackdown.

“This is the ‘Don’t take the bait’ press conference,” said U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). “Their goal is to create an engagement—an engagement that will lead to conflict. President Trump has one goal. His goal is to make Portland look like what he’s been describing it as. Let’s not grant him that wish.”

The phalanx of local officials assembled at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Northeast Portland—ranging from the majority of city councilors to two members of Congress—admitted they weren’t sure whether the federal ingress into Portland consisted of military officers or merely agents from the Federal Protective Service.

More details at the link.

We may soon learn how much damage Trump has done to the National Weather Service.

Hannah Natanson and Brady Dennis at The Washington Post (gift link): National Weather Service at ‘breaking point’ as storm approaches.

Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a “buddy system,” in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions. Still others are jettisoning services deemed not absolutely necessary, such as making presentations to schoolchildren.

The Trump administration’s cuts to the Weather Service — where nearly 600 workers,or about 1 in every 7, have left through firings, resignations or retirements — are pushing the agency to its limits, according to interviews with current and former staffers.

By Ramy Salah Hefny

The incoming head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has promised to prioritize filling those jobs, and the White House recently granted the Weather Service an exemption from a government-wide hiring freeze. But as the Atlantic hurricane season peaks and wildfires ramp up in the West, hundreds of positions remain vacant, staff said. Forecasters are currently watching two storms, including one that could pose a threat for the eastern United States by early next week.

So far, exhausted employees have maintained weather monitoring and forecasting almost without interruption, staff said. But many are wondering how much longer they can keep it up. If the government shuts down next week when funding runs out, many employees could also find themselves working without pay, at least temporarily.

“We have a strained and severely stretched situation,” said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, the union that represents the agency’s workers. The Weather Service has a famously dedicated workforce, he said, but workers can put in only so many long hours and extra shifts. “There’s a breaking point.”

Fahy said two offices — one in California’s Central Valley and another in western Kansas — no longer have enough staffing to operate around the clock. And, he added, “there are still a dozen offices across the country that are operating on reduced staffs.”

Use the gift link if you want to read more.

Pete Hegseth’s power play

I’m sure you’ve heard about the weird meeting Pete Hegseth has order hundreds of top military officers to attend in person.

Natasha Bertrand and Alayna Treen at CNN: Hegseth’s surprise gathering of top military brass is to deliver speech on ‘warrior ethos,’ sources say.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s surprise gathering of hundreds of generals and admirals in Virginia next week is being called so he can describe the administration’s reinvention of the Department of Defense as the “Department of War” and outline new standards for military personnel, according to half a dozen people familiar with the planning.

“It’s meant to be a show of force of what the new military now looks like under the president,” a White House official told CNN.

The meeting is expected to resemble “a pep rally” where Hegseth will underscore the importance of the “warrior ethos” and outline a new vision for the US military, said three of the sources. He is expected to discuss new readiness, fitness and grooming standards the officers are expected to adhere to and enforce.

“It’s about getting the horses into the stable and whipping them into shape,” said a defense official familiar with the planning. “And the guys with the stars on their shoulders make for a better audience from an optics standpoint. This is a showcase for Hegseth to tell them: get on board, or potentially have your career shortened.”

WTF?!

Hegseth’s team is planning on recording his speech and releasing it publicly later, three of the sources said, and the White House is planning to amplify it, the White House official said.

As of Friday, there were no plans for Hegseth to make a major national security-related announcement as part of the meeting, all of the sources said, making it even more surprising that he has ordered the officers to attend in person and leave their posts for what will essentially be a major speech.

By Ektarina Yastrebova

As of now, there isn’t expected to be a weapons showcase for the officers as President Donald Trump suggested, according to the White House official and one of the sources familiar with the planning. Trump is not currently planning to be involved or attend the meeting on Tuesday, two officials told CNN.

The original idea for the unprecedented gathering of generals and admirals was Hegseth’s, the White House official and one of the sources familiar with the planning said. Hegseth later let the White House know about the plans, but Trump himself knew very little about the details when he was asked about it in the Oval Office on Thursday, the White House official said.

I’m no military expert, but isn’t it kind of dangerous to have our enemies know that all those top generals and admirals will be in one room for an hour or so?

The Guardian: US military brass brace for firings as Pentagon chief orders top-level meeting.

US military officials are reportedly bracing for possible firings or demotions after the Trump administration’s Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, abruptly summoned hundreds of generals and admirals from around the world to attend a gathering in Virginia in the upcoming days.

The event, scheduled for Tuesday at Marine Corps University in Quantico, is expected to feature a short address by Hegseth focused on military standards and the “warrior ethos”, according to the Washington Post.

The order to attend the meeting, which has been described as unusual and unprecedented, was reportedly issued with little explanation – and prompted military personnel stationed overseas to have to make last-minute travel arrangements.

A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the upcoming gathering to the Guardian, saying that Hegseth “will meet with his senior military leaders”, but did not provide any further details.

According to the Times, the Pentagon informed congressional committees overseeing the military on Friday that Hegseth intends to use the gathering to share with “most senior service members his intent for the department”, including new guidance on “military fitness standards and several other areas of interest”.

Sources cited by the Post say that Tuesday’s address will be the first of three short lectures by Hegseth. The second, the Post reported, will reportedly focus on the defense industrial base, and the third on deterrence.

More stories of possible interest

The New York Times: Trump Fired a U.S. Attorney Who Insisted on Following a Court Order.

Shuyler Mitchell at Mother Jones: “Extremely Disturbing”: What Does Trump’s “Antifa” Executive Order Actually

Do?

Claire McCaskill at MSNBC: Hegseth’s mystery military meeting broadcasts a damaging message of U.S. instability.

The New York Times: F.B.I. Fires More Agents, Including Those Who Knelt During Racial Justice Protests.

CNN: ‘I’m absolutely terrified’: Federal workers brace for potential government shutdown, mass layoffs.

That’s it for me. What’s on your mind today?

Wednesday Reads: The Epstein Scandal and Other News

Posted: July 30, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Trump is keeping the Jeffrey Epstein scandal alive with his multiple explanations about his long-time relationship with the notorious pedophile and sex trafficker and how he supposedly ended it. He just can shut up about it.

and Trump’s Shifting Explanations Are Prolonging The Epstein Scandal He Wants To End.

The president has repeatedly professed a desire to move on from questions about whether he’s included in Department of Justice files outlining the investigation of Epstein’s sex trafficking charges. Yet Trump has provided seemingly conflicting information about his relationship with Epstein — helping sustain a scandal that has hounded him more than any other, even though his friendship with Epstein ended more than two decades ago and Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell six years ago.

The White House has long insisted Trump and Epstein’s friendship ended after the president kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago at some point for being a “creep,” although previous reports suggested their friendship ended years earlier, when Trump outbid Epstein for a piece of property in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump, when speaking with reporters who traveled with him to the United Kingdom on Monday and Tuesday, gave yet another explanation for their break.

“He stole people that worked for me,” Trump told reporters on Monday during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ And he did it again. And I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out and that was it.”

On Tuesday, aboard Air Force One, Trump suggested it was possible Virginia Giuffre, a prominent Epstein accuser who died of suicide last year, was among the employees Epstein “stole.” In 2000, Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell recruited Giuffre to be Epstein’s masseuse while Giuffre was working at Mar-a-Lago, leading to years of abuse.

“I think she worked at the spa,” Trump said. “I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her.” He added: “She had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.”

Every new comment Trump makes about Epstein leads to another series of stories illustrated by the many photos of the president with his former friend. The text often contains Trump’s creepy praise, from 2002, for the deceased sexual predator: “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.”

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on June 24, 2025 Photo by MANDEL NGAN, AFP via Getty Images

William Kristol at The Bulwark: Don’t Stop Now! You’re Doing Great!

Donald Trump likes to hear himself talk….He became president because of his talent as a demagogue. And what makes a con man and a demagogue successful is the ability to talk persuasively—even if untruthfully.

So talking has served Trump well. He has confidence in his ability to talk his way to money and power—and he has confidence in his ability to talk his way out of a jam. He’s done it often enough.

He now thinks that he can do it again. So he talks about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal virtually every day. That includes yesterday, on Air Force One, when he walked over to talk to the press.

Trump was asked about his comment the day before in which he said he had cut ties with Epstein not, as he had previously maintained, because of a real estate dispute, but because Epstein “stole people who worked for me.”

Reporter: You’re saying Epstein poached two of your staffers?

Trump: . . . Yeah, he took people and because he took people, I said don’t do it anymore—they work for me. Beyond that, he took some others and once he did that, that was the end of him.

So Trump knew that Epstein “took” multiple “people” from Mar-a-Lago.

A reporter asked the logical next question: “Were some of the workers taken from you, were some of them young women?”

Trump began by answering, “Well I don’t want to say.” Perhaps Trump had an instinct he was getting into deeper waters. But he couldn’t resist continuing to talk. “Everyone knows the people who were taken.” So, he went on, “the answer is yes, they were.” And Trump provided a little more detail as he continued talking: “People were taken out of the spa . . .’”

Of course, it’s well known that when Ghislaine Maxwell approached Virginia Giuffre at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, the then 16-year old Giuffre was working at the spa. So a reporter asked: “Was one of the stolen people Virginia Giuffre?”

Trump kept on talking. “I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her.”

So: Trump knew that Epstein (and Maxwell) had “taken” or “stolen” Virginia Giuffre and “some others” from Mar-a-Lago. And, of course, Trump knew about Epstein’s proclivities for younger women at the time. Two years after Giuffre was “stolen” from him, he infamously told New York magazine that Epstein liked “beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” Or as he reportedly wrote in his now-famous 50th birthday note to Epstein a year after that, in 2003, “Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?”

Trump knew what Epstein was up to. He was fine with it. He didn’t care.

Read more at The Bulwark link.

Rex Huppke at USA Today: Trump says Epstein ‘stole’ Virginia Giuffre, a heartless and revealing admission | Opinion.

President Donald Trump has a new explanation for why he ended his long friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The story now involves Epstein stealing away Mar-a-Lago spa employees in Palm Beach, Florida, an apparently unforgivable sin.

A young Virginia Giuffre with Prince Andrew. Ghislaine Maxwell is in the background.

On July 29, aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked more about this employee stealing, and he flashed his true colors, instantly making the spiraling Epstein scandal measurably worse. Without a hint of empathy or compassion, the president said Epstein “stole” a teenage Mar-a-Lago spa worker named Virginia Giuffre.

Trump used that word: stole. As if Giuffre, who would become one of the most public of Epstein’s accusers, was a piece of property wrongly poached by the notorious sex trafficker.

She was 17 at the time she was lured away from Mar-a-Lago by Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre would later say she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” to rich, powerful men in Epstein’s circles.

And this is how Trump spoke about her when asked if she was one of the Mar-a-Lago workers drawn away by Epstein: “I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us … none whatsoever.”

“He stole her.” And, of course, she never said anything bad about Trump or his precious resort. That’s how this soulless person speaks about a teenager who wound up in a life of hell, trafficked like a piece of property. Treated, just as Trump describes her, like a thing. A thing that can be stolen.

Virginia Giuffre with her attorneys

A bit more from Huppke:

At no point in the unfolding Epstein scandal has Trump focused on the young victims of these heinous criminals. Trump’s own Justice Department, in a statement, “confirmed that Epstein harmed over one thousand victims” and that each “suffered unique trauma.”

The president has shown no concern for anything other than protecting himself.

Right before making his comment about Giuffre, Trump created a new reason why he broke off his lengthy friendship with Epstein, saying it was all about employee poaching. This is how he described it: “People that worked in the spa – I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago – and people were taken out of the spa, hired by him, in other words, gone. And other people would come and complain, ‘This guy is taking people from the spa.’ ”

In talking about a convicted sex offender recruiting teenagers who would go on to be raped and abused, Trump is hailing the greatness of his resort’s spa. He is hanging his dislike of Epstein on the inconvenience it caused his company.

Of course Trump cares only about himself–that’s nothing new. Right now he and his thugs are working toward getting Epstein’s sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell out of jail so she can accuse Trump’s enemies of colluding with Epstein and claim that Trump had no role in her and Epstein’s horrific abuse of young girls.

Liz Dye at Public Notice: The conspiracy to free the world’s most notorious sex trafficker.

Ghislaine Maxwell has one card to play, and she’s playing it well. The convicted sex trafficker knows that there is just one way out of a cell in Tallahassee, and she is dancing hard for that golden key.

Maxwell needs a presidential pardon if she wants to see the outside of a prison before she’s 75, and so she’s hawking her wares all over DC, promising the White House and Congress that what she’s got will blow their minds.

Of course, this is the same person whose “willingness to brazenly lie under oath about her conduct, including some of the conduct charged in the Indictment, strongly suggest[s] her true motive has been and remains to avoid being held accountable for her crimes” — at least according to the Justice Department. So, YMMV….

Multiple women testified that they were groomed and exploited by Maxwell for Epstein’s gratification. And in 2022, a jury convicted her of sex trafficking a minor, transporting a minor across state lines for criminal sexual activity, and three conspiracy charges related to grooming and transporting minors. Maxwell has never shown an iota of remorse, and has consistently denied her role in the exploitation scheme.

All of which makes it exceptionally inappropriate, not to mention cruel, for the Justice Department to be cozying up to her and potentially rewarding her conduct.

Trump sent his former defense attorney to see what he could get from Maxwell.

On July 22, Deputy Attorney Todd Blanche tweeted that he was heading into the lion’s den: “Justice demands courage. For the first time, the Department of Justice is reaching out to Ghislaine Maxwell to ask: what do you know?”

It is not normal for prosecutors to keep the public updated on criminal investigations via social media. But Blanche’s boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, congratulated herself on the righteousness of their cause.

Former Trump defense Attorney and current Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche

“If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” she tweeted magnanimously. She did not explain why she and Blanche weren’t directing their inquiries to the victims themselves.

But posting through it was only the beginning of the wild impropriety.

Blanche reportedly spent nine hours huddled up with Maxwell and her lawyer David Oscar Markus and no one else. In normal circumstances, an experienced prosecutor would conduct a high-stakes interview in the presence of a law enforcement agent to act as a witness. If the interviewee later changes her story, someone needs to be able to testify about what was actually said during the proffer session — and that someone cannot be the lawyer.

Moreover, Blanche has minimal ability to assess Maxwell’s credibility in the context of the interview — something that’s critical when the subject is a prolific liar who was already indicted for perjury. The Maxwell and Epstein case files run to hundreds of thousands of pages, including hundreds of witness interviews. It’s not something he could familiarize himself with on the flight from Dulles to Tallahassee!

Read the rest of Dye’s post at Public Notice.

More evidence of Trump’s selfishness and total lack of empathy from Janna Brancolini at The Daily Beast: White House Officials Fear Epstein Fallout Will Slash Trump’s Crowd Sizes.

White House officials are worried about losing support from Trump’s MAGA base outraged about his handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s case—with an insider saying that the president’s all-important crowd sizes could be affected.

Americans give President Donald Trump low marks on his handling of the controversy, which has dominated headlines for weeks after the Department of Justice and FBI announced earlier this month that the evidence showed conclusively that the disgraced financier died by suicide and did not keep a “client list.”

The administration’s failure to produce new revelations in the case has infuriated many of the MAGA faithful, who have long believed Epstein was murdered in his cell while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking to protect his powerful associates.

A poll released this week by The Washington Post found just 43 percent of MAGA Republicans approved of how the administration has handled the issue, compared to 17 percent who disapproved and 39 percent who hadn’t formed an opinion.

White House officials are now worried that even a relatively smaller number of defectors could hurt Trump’s efforts to sell his equally unpopular budget bill to the public, The Washington Post reported. The president could begin holding rallies as soon as next month to tout the legislation, the newspaper reported.

Democrats are hoping to get their hands on the Epstein files from the DOJ.

Jordain Carney at Politico: Senate Democrats try to force DOJ’s hand on Epstein files.

Senate Democrats are using an obscure federal law in an attempt to force President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to hand over information related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in their friendly days

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi requesting that DOJ turn over the “full and complete Epstein files.”

Democrats are invoking a rarely used provision that requires an executive branch agency to hand over requested information when it’s requested by at least five members of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Schumer, top committee Democrat Gary Peters of Michigan and other panel Democrats are expected to hold a news conference Wednesday to discuss the letter and their latest effort to force the administration to release the files related to the late convicted sexual predator. The New York Times first reported the letter to Bondi.

Senate Democrats have been seeking to increase public pressure on the administration to try to release the files or hand over information to Congress. Schumer recently called for Trump officials to provide a closed-door briefing to senators on the Epstein files. This week he called for the FBI to conduct a counterintelligence threat assessment related to the files.

One more on the Epstein story from Dan Ruetenik at CBS News: CBS News investigation of Jeffrey Epstein jail video reveals new discrepancies.

In the weeks after Jeffrey Epstein died at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, in August 2019, then-Attorney General William Barr said his “personal review” of surveillance footage clearly showed that no one entered the area where Epstein was housed, leading him to agree with the conclusion of the medical examiner that Epstein had died by suicide.

It’s a claim that’s been repeated by other top federal officials, including FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” in May, “There’s video clear as day — he’s the only person in there and the only person coming out.”

But a CBS News analysis of the video the FBI made public earlier this month reveals that the recording doesn’t provide a clear view of the entrance to Epstein’s cell block — one of several contradictions between officials’ descriptions of the video and the video itself.

CBS News also digitally reconstructed the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, where Epstein was held, using diagrams and descriptions from the 2023 report on Epstein released by the Justice Department inspector general. The CBS News review found the video does little to provide evidence to support claims that were later made by federal officials. Additionally, CBS News has identified multiple inconsistencies between that report and the video that raise serious questions about the accuracy of witness statements and the thoroughness of the government’s investigation.

The review doesn’t refute the conclusion that Epstein died by suicide. But it raises questions about the strength and credibility of the government’s investigation, which appears to have drawn conclusions from the video that are not readily observable.

Read the whole article. It’s quite interesting.

Other News

Jennifer Bendery at HuffPost: Senate Confirms Emil Bove, Trump’s ‘Enforcer,’ To A Lifetime Federal Judgeship.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday confirmed Emil Bove to a lifetime federal judgeship, choosing to ignore credible allegations that Bove had told Justice Department attorneys to defy court orders and say “fuck you” to judges who ruled against them.

Bove was confirmed, 50-49. Every Democrat opposed him, along with two Republicans: Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine).

Emil Bove

Bove, 44, will now serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which has jurisdiction over cases in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and the Virgin Islands.

Given his age, he will potentially sit on this court for decades.

Bove is easily President Donald Trump’s most alarming court pick in his second term. He was previously Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney and, until now, has been Trump’s so-called “enforcer” at the Justice Department, where he’s spent months carrying out an apparent campaign of retribution against Trump’s perceived political enemies.

As a senior DOJ official, Bove ordered the firings of federal prosecutors who worked on criminal cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. He ordered career prosecutors to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in a clear quid pro quo deal. He also called for the firings of senior FBI officials who were involved in the Jan. 6 probes.

Bove has faced damning allegations from former senior DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, who claimed in a whistleblower disclosure that Bove had told DOJ attorneys to ignore court orders, mislead judges and tell them “fuck you” if they ruled against the department in a case involving the removal of hundreds of immigrants to a prison in El Salvador.

More awful stuff about Bove at the link.

Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian: It’s Not a Linguistic Debate, it’s Man-Made Starvation.

Horrific man-made starvation in Gaza afflicting everyone from civilian children, to doctors caring for the sick and dying, to journalists struggling to survive so they could cover the catastrophe could have been avoided.

Months ago, Donald Trump, who holds sway over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, could have demanded an end to a war that no longer serves any military purpose. (Over 70% of Israelis want the war to end.) Unbelievably, he did not insist on ceasefire as a condition for U.S. strikes on Iran—yet another cruel, mortifying failure to deploy our influence by a pathetically inept “dealmaker.”

Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Monday. Photograph by Khamis Al-Rifi, Reuters

Israel, which has moral and legal obligations to protect civilians under its occupation, could have refrained from imposing a blockade, which only worsened the food shortage, empowered Hamas, and caused more violence. Instead, Netanyahu (whose coalition partners still speak about ethnic-cleansing) insists that there is no starvation, a monstrous lie illustrative of a government that has lost its moral bearings.

Israel could have allowed the existing humanitarian infrastructure to continue feeding Gazans rather than insist Hamas was systematically stealing food (a charge debunked by the IDF) and erect an inexperienced, incompetent distribution entity that predictably was overwhelmed.

The results have been horrific and predictable. “Throughout that two-month period, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza steadily worsened, as international criticism grew in proportion,” the Times of Israel reported. “It reached a crescendo last week as 28 Western allies, including the UK, Australia, Canada, France, and Italy, said in a joint statement that the war in Gaza ‘must end now,’ arguing that civilian suffering had ‘reached new depths.’” In recent weeks, over 800 Palestinians were killed while desperately scrambling for food.

Read the rest at the link.

AP on the huge earthquake in Russia: Tsunami evacuations ordered in South America, but worst risk appears to pass for US after huge quake.

One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck off Russia’s sparsely populated Far East early Wednesday, sending tsunami waves into Japan, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast. Several people were injured, but none gravely, and no major damage has been reported so far.

Authorities warned the risk from the 8.8 magnitude quake could last for hours, and millions of people potentially in the path of the waves were initially told to move away from the shore or seek high ground.

The worst appeared to have passed for many areas, including the U.S., Japan and Russia. But along South America’s Pacific Coast, new warnings were forcing evacuations in Chile and Colombia.

In the immediate aftermath of the quake off Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, residents fled inland as ports flooded, and several were injured while rushing to leave buildings.

In Japan, people flocked to evacuation centers, hilltop parks and rooftops in towns on the Pacific coast with fresh memories of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused a nuclear disaster.

Cars jammed streets and highways in Honolulu, with standstill traffic even in areas away from the sea.

That’s all I have for you today. What’s on your mind?

Lazy Caturday Reads: Will The Epstein Scandal Be Trump’s Watergate?

Posted: July 26, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Good Morning!!

The Caturday illustrations today come from a children’s book: Space Cat and the Kittens, by Ruthven Todd. The illustrator is Paul Galdone. I know it’s a little incongruous to include cute kitten pictures in a depressing political post, but perhaps they will provide a bit of relief from the ongoing evil deeds of Donald Trump and his gang.

Here is the summary of the book from Amazon:

Flyball, the famous Space Cat, is a father now! He and Moofa, the last of the Martian fishing cats, are the proud parents of a pair of mischievous, fun-loving kittens, Marty and Tailspin. The whole family joins Colonel Fred Stone and a new friend, Bill, on a mission to Alpha Centauri to seek out places where humans can live. Along the way, the crew makes an amazing discovery — a planet abounding in iguanodons, pterodactyls, tyrannosauri, and a host of other prehistoric creatures.

Now for today’s news. I admit it. I’m obsessed with the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell story. And so is Donald Trump. He’s living in fear of the gory details of his close relationships with Epstein and Maxwell seeing the light of day. He ran away to play golf and open a new golf course in Scotland yesterday, but he can’t completely escape drip drip drip of revelations. Could this be the scandal that really damages him?

Jeff Zeleny and Adam Liptak at CNN: Trump flees Washington controversies for golf-heavy trip to Scotland.

Fleeing Washington’s oppressive humidity and nonstop questions over heated controversies, President Donald Trump is once again taking weekend refuge at his golf clubs — this time more than 3,000 miles away in Scotland.

While the White House has called his five-day trip a “working visit,” it’s fairly light on the formal itinerary. Trump is poised to hold trade talks Sunday with the chief of the European Union and is scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday.

But he’s expected to spend most of his trip out of public view at two of his golf resorts – Trump Turnberry in the west and Trump International about 200 miles away in the north, near his mother’s ancestral homeland….

Even as protesters demonstrated against Trump here on Saturday, the four nights in temperate Scotland come as a summertime respite after six months back in office. His administration is engulfed in a deepening political crisis over its handling of disclosures around the case of Jeffrey Epstein, accused sex trafficker and former friend of the president’s.

Nearly every time Trump has spoken with reporters in recent weeks, he’s been pressed with new questions about the Epstein scandal, many of which are fueled by deep suspicions that he and his followers have been stirring for years. New revelations about his personal ties to the disgraced financier have kept the matter alive.

Scottish folks do not like Trump, to put it mildly.

Authorities in Scotland have spent weeks preparing for Trump’s arrival. Assistant Chief Constable Emma Bond told reporters the security operation would be the largest the country has mounted since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, including local officers, national security divisions and special constables.

The overall tone toward Trump has been markedly less fond, however. The Friday edition of The National, a liberal-leaning newspaper that supports Scottish independence, rolled out a not-so-welcoming message to Trump with a blaring and bold front-page headline: “Convicted US Felon to Arrive in Scotland.”

A group called Stop Trump Scotland, a coalition of demonstrators, organized protests at Aberdeen and outside the US consulate in Edinburgh as part of a “Festival of Resistance.” A few hundred people turned out Saturday to raise their voices against the visiting American president, waving colorful signs and chanting slogans….

It’s the first visit Trump has made to the country since 2023, when he broke ground on the golf course dedicated to his mother. But returning this weekend as the sitting American president has roused critics, including Green Party leader and member of parliament, Patrick Harvie.

“Donald Trump is a convicted criminal and political extremist,” Harvie told reporters in Scotland this week. “There can be no excuses for trying to cozy up to his increasingly fascist political agenda.”

I hope they make him miserable.

William Kristol at The Bulwark: It’s Starting to Smell Like Trump’s Watergate.

On June 6, 2025, Donald Trump’s FBI Director, Kash Patel, discussed the Jeffrey Epstein files with podcaster Joe Rogan. “We’ve reviewed all the information,” Patel stressed, “and the American public is going to get as much as we can release.”

One month later, on July 6, a joint, unsigned statement from the FBI and the Department of Justice announced that nothing would be released—except for a prison video. The video turned out not to be, in fact, the “raw” video the statement promised. But it was in any case an attempt at misdirection—an effort to get people to focus on the question of Epstein’s death, rather than on the crimes he committed when alive.

Space cat find brontosaurus

Space cats and brontosaurus

For that is where the danger to Trump lies. And, naturally, that is what is now being covered up.

As a story in yesterday’s New York Times makes clear, the documents about Epstein’s crimes were pretty much ready for release three months ago. The FBI and Justice Department had conducted extensive reviews and re-reviews of the files. They had considered what should and shouldn’t be released due to legal and privacy concerns.

The Times explains:

After the F.B.I. finished its review of the files, the materials were handed over to a team of dozens of Justice Department lawyers who were given the job of double-checking the bureau’s redactions to ensure that neither too much nor too little information was disclosed, according to a person familiar with the process. The lawyers, drawn from multiple divisions from within the department, sat at their desks beginning in late March or early April reviewing documents for the better part of two weeks, the person said. . . . By mid-April, the department’s review had been largely completed.

So in mid-April, the Trump administration was, it seems, very close to being ready to go with the oft-promised release of the bulk of the Epstein files.

But then, in May, Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche briefed President Trump on the files. According to the Times, they told the president his name appeared multiple times.

Two months later, a decision: No files would be released….

But it is the safest of safe bets that Bondi and Patel didn’t simply sit and reflect and deliberate and come to a judicious determination not to release the files. We know Trump had been briefed on the files. We don’t know what subsequent conversations he had about them, or with whom. But we can safely conclude that the Justice Department and the FBI don’t make joint determinations on matters of great interest to the president without consulting him—indeed, without taking direction from him.

It is also the safest of safe bets that it was Trump’s determination that no further disclosure would be “appropriate or warranted.” And it is the safest of safe bets that Trump made that determination because he knew that no further disclosure would be in his interest. At this juncture, it’s impossible, indeed irresponsible, not to note that both Bondi and Blanche served as personal lawyers for Trump prior to taking on their government roles.

Epstein is President Trump’s coverup, as surely as Watergate was President Nixon’s.

And as we all know from Watergate, the cover-up is always worse than the crime. And the cover-up is moving in overdrive.

On his way out of town, Trump dangled a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, who spent hours Thursday and Friday being interviewed by Trump’s former defense attorney and now second in command at DOJ. It was likely a “queen for a day” interview, in which she was given limited immunity–a guarantee that she can’t be prosecuted for anything she says in the interview, as long as she tells the truth.

NBC News: DOJ granted Ghislaine Maxwell limited immunity during meetings with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

A senior administration official confirms to NBC News that Ghislaine Maxwell was granted limited immunity by the Justice Department in order to answer questions about the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Astronauts and Pterodactyls

This type of immunity allowed Maxwell to answer questions from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche without fear that the information she provided could later be used against her in any future cases or proceedings.

The immunity is “limited” because it only covers Maxwell if she tells the truth; if it’s later determined that she lied during the interviews then the deal is off the table.

An immunity agreement like this one, often called “a queen for a day” deal, is common in criminal cases when a defendant offers to cooperate with prosecutors and provide information on an investigation and potential codefendants.

As part of the agreement, that information generally cannot be used against the defendant down the road.

In exchange, prosecutors will commonly consider the defendant’s cooperation while recommending a lighter sentence for a plea deal, or in some cases outright immunity from prosecution.

Aaron Blake at CNN: Trump just made a problematic Ghislaine Maxwell situation look even worse.

Interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell is the Trump administration’s first big move to allay concerns about its hugely unpopular handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Friday wrapped up two days of interviews with Epstein’s convicted associate.

But there were already all kinds of reasons to be skeptical of this move and what it could produce, given the motivations of the two sides involved.

And President Donald Trump epitomized all of them in a major way on Friday.

While taking questions on his way to Scotland, Trump repeatedly held open the possibility of pardoning Maxwell for her crimes.

“Well, I don’t want to talk about that,” Trump said initially.

When pressed, he said, “It’s something I haven’t thought about,” while conspicuously adding, “I’m allowed to do it.”

I wonder if the MAGA crowd would be happy if Trump pardoned Maxwell? Anyone who actually cares about the victims would be outraged.

Sarah Ewall-Weiss at The Daily Beast: Ghislaine Handed DOJ 100 Names in Shameless Pardon Quid Pro Quo.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the partner of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, completed a second day of questioning Friday, sharing information on about 100 different people with the Department of Justice.

Maxwell, who was convicted of child sex trafficking in connection with the disgraced financier in 2021, met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for about three hours on Friday at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida.

Escaping by helicopter

She also sat down with Blanche to answer questions for about six hours on Thursday as the DOJ tries to control the fallout from its handling of the Epstein files….

The meeting between the top Trump official and Maxwell was announced by the Justice Department amid mounting pressure for the administration to release more information on the case after it said there was no Epstein client list and indicated there would be no further prosecutions in a recent memo….

A bombshell report this week by the Wall Street Journal alleged that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed Trump in May that his name was in the files multiple times, as were other names.

On Friday, the president would not rule out pardoning Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for facilitating and participating in the sex trafficking of teenage girls….

Maxwell’s lawyer said in Florida on Friday that his team has not spoken to Trump about a potential pardon but indicated they will push for one.

“We hope he exercises that power in a right and just way,” Markus said.

No kidding.

Sarah K. Burris at Raw Story: DOJ’s new move raises ‘huge red flags’ — and ‘could blow up in their face’: Legal expert.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met for a second day with Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, and a long-time prosecutor and former general counsel at the FBI is warning it could all “blow up in their face.”

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace noted on her Friday show that she can’t understand why Blanche would ignore the career prosecutors who have been steeped in the case for years and are aware of the details.

New York University Law School Professor Andrew Weissmann connected the dots from the cases involving Epstein and Maxwell to other Justice Department scandals, such as the one involving Mayor Eric Adams.

“Mayor Eric Adams, where this administration learned to shut out the career people,” said Weissmann. “If you are trying to get the defendant or in this case, Ghislaine Maxwell, to say something that will help Donald Trump, if that’s your goal and it’s not about sort of justice writ large, it is a continuation of your work for the president. In other words, you were his personal attorney, and you are still essentially operating as his personal attorney. If that’s your goal, you do not want the career prosecutors and agents in the room for the same reason you didn’t want them in the room for Eric Adams.” [….]

“You’re not engaging in what’s in the public interest. You’re engaging in what is in Donald Trump’s interest, and whether that is to exonerate Donald Trump, as Tim [Miller] suggested, or whether it’s to implicate other people. So, it’s sort of a distraction. Those are things that Todd Blanche can do and can do better when he doesn’t have career people in the room,” Weissmann clarified.

And, of course, Pam Bondi fired the lead prosecutor in the Epstein and Maxwell cases, Maurene Comey.

Kittens and T Rex

Glenn Thrush and Valerie Crowder at The New York Times: After Ghislaine Maxwell Interview, Concerns Mount Over Possibility of Pardon.

Ms. Maxwell has made it clear she wants her 20-year sentence thrown out or reduced or a pardon. President Trump, asked whether he would consider pardoning her, said, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about.” He made the remarks before he headed off to Scotland, wishing her well….

Mr. Blanche has described his trip as a neutral fact-finding mission, saying he would share details of the discussion “at the appropriate time” — yet he has also declared that the federal criminal investigation into targets beyond Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Epstein remains closed. By that standard, new interviews would appear to serve a function beyond the purposes of traditional law enforcement, unless new evidence of criminality has been discovered, current and former officials said….

Teresa Helm, who was abused by Mr. Epstein and testified against Ms. Maxwell, was blunt about the consequences of such a deal in an interview with MSNBC on Friday. “It would mean the complete crumbling of this justice system that should first and foremost stand for, fight for and protect survivors,” she said, adding that the government had accused Ms. Maxwell of perjury on top of other charges.

“She should stay in prison,” said Lisa Lloyd, 65, the lone protester at the courthouse. “This is wrong. Anyone who is concerned with justice should be appalled by this.” [….]

Some conservative news outlets friendly to Mr. Trump have begun to soften their tone about Ms. Maxwell — whom they previously described as a child sex predator — suggesting she might now be trusted to tell the truth about the case. This week, a host on Newsmax who has praised Mr. Trump went so far as to suggest that Ms. Maxwell “just might be a victim” who was not given a fair legal hearing.

That is outrageous. Maxwell is far from being a victim. She lured young girls and brought them to Epstein to be abused. He couldn’t have had access to as many victims without her help. She also participated in the abuse.

Former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori at Politico Magazine: The Epstein Files Timeline Raises Real Questions for Trump.

The revelation this week from The Wall Street Journal about Donald Trump and the so-called Epstein files was shocking — and, for those following the administration closely in recent weeks, not shocking at all.

According to the Journal, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Trump during a White House meeting in May that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files. The fallout continues as we speak, with the White House and Republicans in Congress facing that age-old Washington question: What did they know, and when did they know it?

We have gathered below some of the most significant statements that Trump and his senior officials have made on the topic, focusing in particular on what they have said since Trump returned to office.

Several key themes emerge. Head straight to the timeline here.

For starters, there is a conspicuous rhetorical shift that occurs after May, when Bondi and Blanche reportedly briefed Trump. The administration’s statements became more terse, and Trump in particular began pointing the finger at people — the Democratic Party and the mainstream media — that had little to nothing to do with the Epstein frenzy.

Even before May, Trump himself tended to add qualifiers to his statements that he does not typically use when he talks about investigations — like the probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation by special counsel John Durham — that are of interest to him.

In an interview with Fox News last June during the heat of the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said that he would release more information if reelected but hastened to add that he was concerned about the impact of revealing more material on third parties and the possibility that there might be “phony stuff” in the government’s investigative files. More recently, Trump has said that he supports the release of “credible” information and “pertinent” grand jury testimony while accusing the media of focusing on old news.

These are concerns that Trump does not typically invoke in other settings. Taken together, Trump’s comments suggest the possibility that he suspected that there may be politically damaging information about him in the files and wanted to preemptively discredit revelations about him. Following the reported briefing in May, Trump appears to have sought to narrow the government’s public disclosures to avoid releasing information. Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing linked to Epstein.

I’m sure he did. Read the rest at the Politico link.

Space kittens and small horse

One more from Arwa Mahdawi at The Guardian: Will the ghost of Epstein finally bring down King Trump?

Brrrr. Brrrr. Brrrrrrr. That’s the sound of Donald’s Trump’s distraction machine, which has been running at full power as the president tries his best to stop us all from talking about Jeffrey Epstein. Or, to be more specific, from talking about just how chummy he was with the dead paedophile.

Though he’s usually a master of controlling the narrative, none of Trump’s normal distraction techniques seem to be working now. Indeed, at this point we should probably rename the Streisand effect the Trump-Epstein effect because the president’s repeated insistence that there is NOTHING TO SEE HERE EXCEPT A VERY NASTY WITCH-HUNT only has people scrutinizing his dealings with Epstein more carefully. From South Park to Scotland to billboards in Times Square, Trump can’t escape his past association with Epstein.

Over the past couple of weeks, a lot of new information has come out about just how close Epstein and the president were. On 17 July, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported Trump allegedly sent Epstein a 50th birthday card in 2003 with a drawing of a naked woman and a message which said, in part, “may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump denied writing the card and filed a $10bn lawsuit against the rightwing paper and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, a day after the outlet published the story.

Trump’s lawsuit clearly didn’t scare off the Journal because, on Wednesday, it published a new report stating Trump’s name appears “multiple times” in justice department files about Epstein. On Wednesday CNN also published newly uncovered photos and video footage of the two men together, including one of Epstein at Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples at the Plaza hotel in New York in 1993 and footage from a 1999 Victoria’s Secret fashion event. Then, on Thursday, the New York Times confirmed that Trump’s name appeared on a contributor list for a book celebrating Epstein’s 50th birthday, as the Journal first reported, along with a number of other well-known Epstein associates including Leslie Wexner, then the owner of Victoria’s Secret. The Times further reported that in 1997 the president had written a note calling Epstein “the greatest!” in a copy of Trump: The Art of the Comeback.

While none of these new bits of information are evidence of criminal conduct on Trump’s part, the president’s furious reaction to anything Epstein-related, along with his administration’s sudden U-turn on its promise to release damning evidence related to possible Epstein clients, certainly makes Trump look like he’s got something to hide. And it’s not just Trump, of course. The sudden flurry of reporting about Epstein means that a lot of powerful men, including Bill Clinton, who the Journal says also sent a birthday letter to the disgraced financier, have been having a bad couple of weeks.

The big question now is this: will the renewed interest in Epstein blow over in a few more weeks or could this deal a serious political blow to Trump and his lackeys? Trump is nicknamed the “comeback kid” for good reason: the man has an uncanny ability to shake off scandal. Still, nobody is completely untouchable; could the ghost of Epstein be the thing that finally topples King Trump from his throne? While that’s obviously an impossible question to answer, there are a few ways this could all play out.

Again, read the rest at the link.

That’s it for me today. As I said, I can’t stop thinking about the Epstein story. What’s on your mind today?

Thursday Reads

Posted: June 6, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, SCOTUS | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Good Morning!!

The eyes of the world are upon you, Eisenhower speaking to troops before Normandy invasion

“The eyes of the world are upon you,” Eisenhower speaking to troops before Normandy invasion.

Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and President Biden is in France to mark the occasion. Some reports:

CBS News: Biden lauds WWII veterans on D-Day 80th anniversary, vows NATO solidarity in face of new threat to democracy.

President Biden and key U.S. allies were in Normandy Thursday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the U.S.-led allied forces’ D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France. The brazen air and sea invasion would mark the beginning of the end of World War II, leading to the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi German forces in Europe less than a year later. 

Mr. Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were together to mark the most significant victory of the Western allies in the war, as well as the largest seaborne invasion in history. Mr. Biden is in France through the weekend for D-Day anniversary commemorations and plans to meet with leaders of key allies during his visit.

“Seventy-three-thousand brave Americans landed at Utah and Omaha beaches in Normandy on June 6, 1944 and the president will greet American veterans and their family members while in France to honor their sacrifice,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in announcing the president’s trip. 

Mr. Biden and first lady Jill Biden met WWII veterans one by one ahead of a memorial ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery on Thursday, presenting each one with coins made to commemorate the D-Day anniversary. He chatted and joked with some of the men, asking about their hometowns, thanking them for their service and calling them the greatest generation ever.

The president delivered remarks later Thursday at a commemoration ceremony that was also attended by members of Congress from both parties, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi.

The Independent: D-Day – latest: Biden warns world ‘will not surrender to bullies’ as he commemorates 80th anniversary.

President Joe Biden has vowed to not “surrender to the bullies” as he praised D-Day veterans for their bravery at a commemorative event.

The US President addressed the crowd in Ver-sur-Mer, France, on the 80th anniversary of the landings as he promised the 50 countries standing with Ukraine “will not walk away”.

“Make no mistake the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine. To see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked,” he said.

“To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable.”

He added: “History tells us freedom is not free. You want to know the price of freedom come here to Normandy to look.”

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, greet a World War II veteran during ceremonies to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy. AP

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden greet a World War II veteran during ceremonies to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy. AP

Yahoo News: D-Day latest: Biden brands Putin ‘tyrant and bully’ in Normandy speech.

US President Joe Biden referred to Vladimir Putin as a ‘tyrant’ and a ‘bully’ in his D-Day commemoration speech, after hailing the ‘resolute’ Second World War troops who fought in Normandy 80 years ago today.

President Biden was among the speakers at an international gathering in northern France to commemorate the June 1944 conflict. Biden recognised the bravery of troops who stormed the beaches in Normandy, before going on to speak about the Ukraine war and how ‘the struggle between dictatorship and freedom is unending’.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had given France’s highest award, the Legion d’Honneur, to a number of US veterans, while the Danish prime minister said it is our generation’s “responsibility” to stand up to Vladimir Putin.

The New York Times’ Roger Cohen has a special report on D-Day with photos by Laetitia Vancon: D-Day at 80: Veterans of the pivotal battle of World War II are disappearing. Europe, facing new conflict, recalls what their comrades died for.

They were ordinary. The young men from afar who clambered ashore on June 6, 1944, into a hail of Nazi gunfire from the Normandy bluffs did not think of themselves as heroes.

No, said Gen. Darryl A. Williams, the commanding general of United States Army Europe and Africa, the allied soldiers “in this great battle were ordinary,” youths who “rose to this challenge with courage and a tremendous will to win, for freedom.”

In front of the general, during a ceremony this week at Deauville on the Normandy coast, were 48 American survivors of that day, the youngest of them 98, most of them 100 years old or more. The veterans sat in wheelchairs. They saluted, briskly enough. Eight decades have gone by, many of them passed in silence because memories of the war were too terrible to relate.

When the 90th anniversary of D-Day comes around in 2034, there may be no more vets. Living memory of the beaches of their sacrifice will be no more.

“Dark clouds of war in Europe are forming,” General Williams said, as he alluded to allied determination to defend Ukraine against Russian attack. This 80th anniversary of the landings is a celebration, but a somber one. Europe is troubled and apprehensive, extremism eating at its liberal democracies.

For more than 27 months now, there has been a war on the continent that has taken hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainian and Russian lives. Russia was not invited to the commemoration even though the role of the Soviet Red Army in the defeat of Hitler was critical. A decade ago, President Vladimir V. Putin attended. Now he speaks of nuclear war. It is a time of fissuring and uncertainty.

Remembering the fight against Hitler in WWII is so important today, when a criminal and conman has apparently hypnotizes a large portion of the U.S. population. We can’t allow him to end our democracy and turn Europe over to Putin.

Back in the USA, Senate Republicans showed their true colors yesterday in a vote to protect the right to contraception.

CNN: Senate GOP blocks bill to guarantee access to contraception.

Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to block a bill put forward by Democrats that would guarantee access to contraception nationwide, as Democrats seek to highlight the issue in the run up to November’s elections.

download (2)The bill – the Right to Contraception Act – would enshrine into federal law a right for individuals to buy and use contraceptives, as well as for health care providers to provide them. It would apply to birth control pills, the plan B pill, condoms and other forms of contraception.

The legislation failed to advance in a procedural vote by a tally of 51 to 39. Most Republicans dismissed the effort as a political messaging vote that is unnecessary and overly broad.

GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins crossed over to vote with Democrats in favor of advancing the bill. Schumer switched his vote to a no at the last minute in a procedural move that will allow Democrats to bring the bill back up in the future if they want.

“This is a show vote. It’s not serious,” GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said. “Plus, it’s a huge overreach. It doesn’t make any exceptions for conscience. … It’s a phony vote because contraception, to my knowledge, is not illegal. It’s not unavailable.”

The vote is part of a larger push by Senate Democrats to draw attention to how the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has affected all aspects of reproductive health – not just abortion – as the election draws closer. Democrats are highlighting the issue this month, which marks the two-year anniversary of the high court’s ruling.

“In the coming weeks, Senate Democrats will put reproductive freedoms front and center before this chamber, so that the American people can see for themselves who will stand up to defend their fundamental liberties,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said ahead of the vote.

Democratic senators have also introduced a legislative package to establish a nationwide right to in-vitro fertilization, which is expected to come up for a vote as soon as next week.

The Daily Beast: Biden Campaign Names and Shames Republicans Who Voted to Block Contraception Bill.

The Biden campaign posted a video on Wednesday night showing the faces of the 39 senators who voted against the legislation. (Seven Republican senators were not present for the vote.)

“These are the Trump-aligned Republicans who just blocked a bill to protect a woman’s right to contraception,” the campaign tweeted on X….

Ahead of the vote, Schumer said that Senate Democrats would “put reproductive freedoms front and center before this chamber, so that the American people can see for themselves who will stand up to defend their fundamental liberties,” according to the Associated Press.

Polling has consistently shown that there is broad bipartisan support among American voters for contraception, with 92 percent of respondents telling Gallup in 2022 that birth control was “morally acceptable.”

Republicans argued that legislation to enshrine the right to contraception is unnecessary, as it remains freely accessible and available across the country….

But Schumer said in a post-vote speech that “we are kidding ourselves if we think the hard-right is satisfied with overturning Roe,” warning that birth control could be next as reproductive rights continue to be threatened.

“So, make one thing clear: today was not a ‘show vote’ – this was a show-us-who-you-are vote,” he said. “And Senate Republicans showed the American people exactly who they are.”

Recall that after the Dobbs decision, Clarence Thomas stated his desire to overturn the decisions that made contraception, same sex marriage, and sex between same sex partners basic rights–all based on the right to privacy.

Speaking of the right wing SCOTUS justices, last night a former clerk of Samuel Alito appeared on Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC show.

HuffPost: Former Alito Law Clerk ‘Aghast’ After Seeing Jan. 6 Flag Outside His Home, Calls For Recusal.

A former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Wednesday she was shocked after learning two flags affiliated with rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection were flown outside his homes, saying she believed he should recuse himself from several cases before the court.

The AlitosSusan Sullivan, who worked as a clerk while Alito was a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, spoke to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell amid the controversy surrounding the flags.

“I was aghast when I saw those photographs because I’ve never known Justice Alito to be anything other than an honorable man, to be a man of integrity,” Sullivan, now a professor at Temple University, told O’Donnell. “It is irrelevant if Mrs. Alito flew it or not. The fact is that flag was there.”

“This is not an insignificant symbol,” she went on. “Irrespective of why it is there, who put it there, it shouldn’t have been there. The problem is that flag is incendiary and it cannot do anything other than raise a reasonable inference of bias.”

Alito has rejected the calls for him to recuse from January 6 related cases.

“I am confident that a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that the events … do not meet the applicable standard for recusal,” he wrote in a letter to lawmakers last month. “I am therefore required to reject your request.”

Sullivan rejected that claim in the Wednesday interview and an earlier opinion piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer, saying recusal was warranted especially because of the decision before the court.

“[It is] the symbol of these people who attacked the capitol. They support Trump unconditionally,” she said. “So if you have cases before the court that directly relates not just to the former president but to criminal cases that involve that election process…”

“The stakes have never been higher and recusal is, to me, it just defies logic that one would not recuse themselves from a case like this,” Sullivan added. “The stakes are too high.”

Why isn’t Senator Durbin, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee doing anything to rein in Alito? 

Noah Berlansky at Public Notice: Dick Durbin needs to step up and do his damn job.

The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday held a lengthy oversight hearing to badger Attorney General Merrick Garland and push the GOP’s false narrative about President Biden weaponizing the DOJ against Donald Trump.

Even though the hearing was conducted in obvious bad faith, it was in some ways successful, at least in the limited sense that Republicans grabbed a lot of headlines and forced Garland to spend a day on the defensive. Virtually every major news outlet it extensive coverage, ranging from the New York Times to MSNBC to Newsmax….

Congressional oversight hearings give Congress a chance to focus the national conversation on what members want to talk about. It gives them a chance to pressure executive branch officials to adopt congressional priorities, or to explain and potentially embarrass themselves.

Durbin AlitoIn contrast, Democrats in the Senate have been bizarrely reluctant to use hearings to advance their agenda. Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has refused to hold hearings to investigate egregious evidence of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas receiving gifts from far right billionaires, or to demand answers from Alito about his apparent embrace of the insurrection. Instead, he’s posting weak statements on social media meekly calling for right-wing members of the Court to do a better job policing themselves.

Republicans like Jim Jordan are ignorant about a lot of things. But they understand that the gavel is power, and they are not afraid to use it. Senate Democrats need to get over their qualms and, in this instance, behave more like their rivals across the aisle….

Hearings drive narratives. But they can do more than that. Congress has real power to pressure government officials, and hearings are a way to demonstrate and exercise that power.

Read more at Public Notice.

More odds and ends:

The Daily Beast: Hunter Biden Prosecutors Might’ve Already Lost the Jury.

The Hunter Biden trial starting in Wilmington, Delaware, is a poster-child case for potential jury nullification.

Biden, the only surviving son of President Joe Biden, is being tried for possessing a firearm while being a user of illegal drugs or drug addict and for lying about the same on a purchase form when he bought a gun. On the surface, the prosecution—a culmination of more than a half-decade of investigation by Special Counsel David Weiss—would appear to have a slam dunk case because there is no real dispute he bought the gun, or that he had a drug addiction around the time he bought the gun.

The strict definition of jury nullification is when a jury has determined that a defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt—but either rejects the evidence or refuses to apply the law because the jury “wants to send a message about some social issue that is larger than the case itself, or because the result dictated by law is contrary to the jury’s sense of justice, morality, or fairness.”

Mr. and Mrs. Hunter Biden

Mr. and Mrs. Hunter Biden

Let’s be clear. Juries are not supposed to do that. They are supposed to convict if the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and acquit if it doesn’t.

But while the definition of nullification conjures up images of a jury making a social justice-inspired speech in refusing to convict, the reality is quite different because the jury does not need to make such a blatant statement. Rather, the sense that jurors may have of unfairness can be evidenced in an acquittal—despite strong evidence of guilt. (There’s also, of course, the possibility of a hung jury.)

What that means is skilled defense counsel can bring out the factors of unfairness without having to specifically ask a jury to ignore evidence or the law, while skilled prosecutors need to guard against the kind of evidence and testimony that may lead to nullification.

Thus far, the trial is revealing an outmatched prosecution, which has already blundered into a couple of minefields. Defense counsel Abbe Lowell is a seasoned high-profile defense counsel who has defended Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and got former presidential candidate John Edwards acquitted on campaign finance charges (brought by then-DOJ lawyer Jack Smith).

In the opening by the Biden defense team, Lowell focused on the requirement that the false statements on the gun ownership form had to be “knowing”—a term that Lowell claimed the prosecution tried to avoid in its opening. The utility of this defense is that it works synergistically with the effects of Biden’s admitted drug addiction affecting his decision-making abilities, as well as necessitating a deep dive into the details of his addiction and the specific timeline of when he was using crack cocaine and his efforts to get clean.

The defense appears to be setting up a defense theory that, on the specific date Biden bought the gun, he genuinely believed he was not an addict because he had just finished an 11-day rehabilitation program.

More at the link.

Alan Feuer at The New York Times: Judge Reshuffles Hearings in Trump Documents Case.

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case abruptly changed the proceeding’s schedule on Wednesday, reshuffling the timing for hearings on an array of important legal issues.

The move by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, was unlikely to have much impact on the overall trajectory of the case, but it reflected the substantial number of unresolved legal motions she is juggling. Last month, Judge Cannon scrapped the case’s trial date, saying she could not yet pick a new one because of what she described at the time as “the myriad and interconnected” questions she had still not managed to consider.

Judge Cannon kept in place a hearing she had set for June 21 to discuss a motion by Mr. Trump’s lawyers to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that Jack Smith, the special counsel named to oversee the prosecutions of Mr. Trump, was illegally appointed to his job.

Similar motions have been rejected in cases involving other special counsels, including Robert S. Mueller III, who investigated connections between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, and David C. Weiss, who has brought two criminal cases against Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son.

The most important change Judge Cannon made to the schedule in a brief order was arguably the cancellation of a three-day hearing that had been set to take place starting June 24 in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla.

The hearing was originally meant to consider whether Mr. Trump’s lawyers should be permitted access to communications between prosecutors working for Mr. Smith and officials at the National Archives and several national security agencies.

download

Giddy up

The lawyers want those communications to bolster their claims that Mr. Smith worked hand in glove with the Biden administration and members of the so-called deep state to bring the documents case against Mr. Trump.

Prosecutors had objected to holding the proceeding at all, telling Judge Cannon in March that no similar hearings had ever been held in the Southern District of Florida, where she sits. In her order on Wednesday, she said she would place the hearing back on her calendar at some point in the future.

Instead of that hearing, Judge Cannon said there would now be a shorter one, on June 24 and 25, to consider different topics, including any lingering discussion about Mr. Smith’s appointment.

Judge Cannon also told the defense and the prosecution to be ready to debate Mr. Trump’s motion to exclude from the case any evidence — including more than 100 classified documents — that the F.B.I. discovered in August 2022 when agents searched Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.

The two sides will argue as well over Mr. Trump’s attempt to suppress the private audio notes that prosecutors obtained from one of his lawyers through a process that pierced the normal protections of attorney-client privilege. The notes by the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, were central to the government’s allegations that Mr. Trump had obstructed the government’s repeated efforts to reclaim the classified materials he took to Mar-a-Lago.

Finally, the parties are expected to discuss Mr. Smith’s request to Judge Cannon to alter Mr. Trump’s conditions of release by barring him from making public statements that could endanger F.B.I. agents working on the case.

Aileen Cannon is an expert at causing unnecessary delays without triggering an appeal to the 11th Circuit. If she rules that Jack Smith was illegally appointed, that would be cause for immediate appeal, so she will probably find some way to just waste more time.

Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: Trial Lawyer Lost 8 Lbs Skipping Trump’s McDonald’s Courthouse Lunches.

Donald Trump’s lead lawyer says the former president’s seven-week criminal trial in New York took a physical toll—but he still managed to lose weight by skipping Trump’s notoriously unhealthy meals.

Todd Blanche appeared on a podcast, For The Defense, hosted by the attorney David Oscar Markus.

“Was it McDonald’s for lunch every single day, or did you get something else?” Markus asked.

“Oh, no-no-no,” Blanche said. “Well, first of all, I didn’t have lunch one day. I ate in the morning and at night.”

McDonalds order for Trump's courthouse lunch

Delivery of McDonalds order for Trump’s courthouse lunch

“Look, President Trump’s team takes care of everybody. Like, everybody gets food. You know, there’s a lot of food. It’s not always McDonald’s. There’s a lot of… variety. There’s pizza, and there’s other non-healthy alternatives to McDonald’s.”

Blanche smiled, turning away from the camera and raising his eyebrows.

“Look, I loved it, because, you know, you come in from lunch, and as you know when you’re on trial, you’re trying to figure out what the heck you’re gonna stuff in your belly with the hour that you have. And we would walk in, and there would just be this, just, plethora of just food everywhere,” he said, gesturing with his hands.

The public got a peek last Thursday, when Donald Trump Jr. posted a TikTok video from what legal teams sometimes call the “war room,” where defendants strategize during breaks. The clip showed Trump Sr. sitting before a half-finished 20-ounce Diet Coca-Cola, an opened bag of Lay’s potato chips, a box of Milk Duds, a Milky Way bar, a theater-sized box of Whoppers malted milk balls, and what appeared to be four Hostess SnoBalls….

Trump’s go-to McDonald’s meal—two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a chocolate shake—was first described by close ally Corey R. Lewandowski in a 2017 book, Let Trump Be Trump.

How is it possible that Trump hasn’t had a heart attack by now? 

That’s all I have for you today. I hope you’re enjoying your Thursday.

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