“The Cat Is Out Of the Bag” Jamie Raskin Blows the Whistle On Trump/Bondi’s Latest Evasions

Things are going to get comical from here on out. The side stepping and feinting that is going on right now in the Trump administration is truly worthy of a vaudeville dance routine. Charlie Chaplin, where are you now? Not since you were in the world, you and the Keystone Kops, have we seen such a terrific example of clowns tripping over one another. Except in this instance, it’s not for entertainment, but to keep a corrupt *president* with an authoritarian bent on his throne, maybe for keeps.

This clip of Jamie Raskin is a good encapsulation of this entire issue. The main obfuscation being done is that Pam Bondi immediately replied to all the turmoil caused by the Wall Street Journal bombshell by saying that she would ask the court for “grand jury transcripts.” So what? Nobody cares about the grand jury transcripts and Raskin says so. What the issue is here, is that Raskin and everybody elise — MAGA included — wants the jeffrey Epstein FILES that the Department of Justice has. You know, the ones that Trump says either don’t exist or if they do, there’s nothing in them? Those files. And talking to the court about grand jury transcripts is just a stall and that’s obvious on its face.

What I find curious here is Raskin’s comment that the “owner of the Wall Street Journal tried to ‘take care of it’ but was unable to,” and then he segued into a story of Epstein getting away with his felonious activities in Florida due to a former Trump administration official.

I maintain that Murdoch chose not to interfere. Either that, or there are more facts here that we simply do not know about. Maybe Murdoch did say, “don’t run it,” and maybe the rejoinder to that was, “Fine, we’ll take the entire story and give it to the New York Times,” (or the Guardian or the Toronto Star or Washington Post, take your pick.) We don’t have any proof that any conversation like that took place. Then again, we don’t have any proof that it didn’t take place. And surely the reporters assembling the story knew what was at stake and probably made contingency plans. I think that’s a reasonable assumption to make without spinning off the deep end into conspiracy theory.

In fact, we don’t have any proof that Murdoch even told Trump that he would “take care of it” other than Trump’s word and that’s not even worth the electricity needed to illuminate the pixels on the tweet.

This is a key element of this story and it’s being glossed over, at least as of yet. Not that I blame Raskin for not jumping in with both feet and speculating. He had enough other points he wanted to make and did make.

But I still maintain that this is the most interesting question of all. Because some interesting adversarial positions are forming here. Trump v. MAGA, who would have ever thought that day would dawn? And Trump v. Murdoch and News Corp. — at least according to Trump. That’s who he intends to sue, if we are to believe his outraged Truth Social post of the past hour.

Maybe Trump will calm down by the morning. I think it is a stupid idea for him to take on Rupert Murdoch because there is no way that this Journal story rises to the threshold of the standard in New York Times v. Sullivan of actual malice, meaning knowing falsity or reckless disregard for the truth is necessary to prevail in a libel case.

Trump would be insane to bring a defamation lawsuit on these facts. Unless Murdoch wants to settle. I suppose that there is a possibility that something truly deranged is going on behind the scenes and for some reason Murdoch would like to give Trump $16 million and let him believe he “beat” the Wall Street Journal. Again, we don’t have all the facts. But on the ones we do have — Trump would be batshit to sue Murdoch.

This madness is only just beginning.

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