It’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Donald. After Trump’s comedic query, “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” at the cabinet meeting Tuesday, both right-wing media and the rest of the world guffawed out loud. Yes, Donald, you made this bed for yourself, now lie in it. Whether it was Pam Bondi or Trump himself who thought that the simple announcement of there being no client list was going to make interest in the topic go away, is not known.
But it was a massive miscalculation, whomever made it. Marcy Wheeler elaborates on how Pam Bondi kept compounding her errors. I know you’re curious about the title. Here’s my best explanation. Marcy Wheeler knows how to play up to Twitter’s “worse instincts” as she calls them. Bondi, Bongino and Patel are not universally loved by MAGA. They are all three divisive forces. And that’s what we’re watching in play now, is MAGA turning on itself and imploding. And Bondi may have to decide to throw them under the bus to save herself and won’t that be a spectacle to behold? On one thing you may depend: Trump doesn’t care who goes under the bus as long as he can protect himself.
Trump promised to release the secret files the continued secrecy of which have fueled decades of conspiracy theories, so why wouldn’t he release files about pedophilia, the legitimate concern that has fueled the Trump-supporting QAnoners?
I fueled such expectations on Xitter because if the demand to see the Epstein files ever took hold, Bondi would be stuck.
Then Bondi made things worse when she told Fox News that Epstein’s client file was on her desk for review. She made things worse when she orchestrated the re-release of the already-released files to a select group of right wing propagandists, all packaged up to look special, a spectacle that stoked divisions among MAGAts but also raised concerns that she was covering stuff up. She made things still worse when — responding to James Comer’s role in making things worse, when he claimed the Epstein files had been disappeared — she said there were tens of thousands of videos involving Epstein.
Kash Patel, who promised to release the files, and Dan Bongino, who begged his readers never to let go of this scandal? They fed the fever too with their years of spreading conspiracy theories about the Epstein files. And when FBI’s conspiracy theorists in chief tried to reverse course a month ago, it only further fueled suspicions.
Then Elon joined the fun, accusing Trump of being in the Epstein files as part of his tantrum against Trump (but then deleting that file). As someone who was also close to Ghislaine Maxwell, Elon might know!
Dan Goldman joined in, expressing, “grave concern about what appears to be a concerted effort by you to delay and even prevent the release of the Jeffrey Epstein Files,” and asking whether Trump’s identity was being redacted from any of the files. Robert Garcia and Stephen Lynch joined in, writing Pam Bondi a letter, asking Bondi to formally answer whether the Epstein files are being withheld — as Elon Musk alleged — because Trump is in them, and further asking (among other questions) whether Trump had a role in the delay of their release.
Bondi’s stonewalling, after both she and Kash promised everything would come quickly, was becoming the story.
So yesterday, DOJ and FBI released (or rather, made available to Axios without yet, apparently, releasing it via normal channels) a two-page unsigned notice (which may be on letterhead created for the purpose).
It included two main, credible conclusions:
- Much of the material that FBI has depicts victims and any release of that material would retraumatize the victims.
- FBI concluded (and Trump’s flunkies agree) that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. DOJ released two files (one unaltered, one enhanced, both with titles that do not even mention Epstein) showing that no one entered his cell the night he killed himself.
But there’s also a short, broader conclusion that is less sound.
This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.” There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties. [my emphasis]
Emphasis on credible?
Of course there’s a client list; one version of it was already released. There are also the names or descriptions shared by victims of the men who abused them. And while there may be no evidence in the FBI files that Epstein did blackmail Trump or anyone else, he had blackmail material on them.
And that is the reason that a lot of people — Donald Trump, included — had reason to want Epstein dead. So motive is not a big issue here. Weapon is a bigger issue, although not by much, and opportunity is the issue that Bondi tried to whitewash the other day with that defective tape that she played, that Glenn Beck went batshit over, demanding that she be fired.
This issue is hilariously not going to get away. And that’s because Trump and MAGA built it up to the extent that they did. Now only Trump can defuse this bomb and it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
There’s a lovely phrase from a few hundred years ago.
Hoist by his own petard.
Apt.
Every time Bongino’s name comes up in the news, because of who he is and the stupid sh*t he’s done/does I flash back four decades to the old Dire Straights song Money For Nothin. Specifically the line about “banging on the bongos like a chim-pan-zee. Think about it and tell me when you see this asshat’s picture it’s easy to imagine him as a chip in a zoo with a bongo drum!