Trump, or at least someone like Susie Wiles had a backup plan. Hey, it’s worked plenty of times before for Trump, especially with MAGA. “FAKE NEWS”, “HOAX” and “WITCH HUNT” have gotten Trump through an awful lot. We can get into speculation about why Trump has reversed course and said the House should vote to release the Epstein files but I think we can count on two things. First they will be redacted to the point of ridiculousness and will fight tooth and nail against UN-redacting a whole lot that doesn’t need to be redacted. Second is that Trump will ratchet up those three terms I mentioned to a whole new level.
I’m not sure the worn out, physically and mentally deteriorating before our very eyes Trump has it in him to summon up the level of energy needed to sell his usual line of b.s., at least not this time and on this issue. Still, an animal is most dangerous when injured and cornered and we’ve thought Trump was done before only to see him escape. However we’ll have to first wait and see if things get to the point where he has to at least try. The House vote will say a lot. To Senators in particular.
Trump may have cooked up a plan with Thune to bottle up the the matter in the Senate since the GOP can lose a couple of votes and still block the release. Trump might think the House doing the right thing will somehow guarantee they again eke out a bare majority in the midterms. However even he has to know that’s unlikely. While Trump goes batshit insane over the notion of a Democratically controlled House doing actual oversight again what he really needs is to hang onto the Senate to rubber stamp his appointments. Especially judges and Justices. However political experts say the Senate is in play.
Thune can give a couple of Senators in tough races permission to break ranks but if the House votes by a huge margin, especially a veto-proof one to release the files Thune could face a more genteel revolt but still a revolt just like Johnson has. If the legislation actually gets to his desk would Trump sign it? Even if the House vote is veto-proof I have strong doubts about the Senate being the same. Or even close. I hope I’m wrong about that and will dutifully eat a plate of crow if I am. It would be interesting to see what Trump does (or does not do) however. I’m not placing any bets and you shouldn’t either.
Let’s for the sake of hope assume the legislation passes and if not be veto-proof majorities at least enough that Trump feels compelled to sign it. What then? It’s been well over eight months since Bondi had the matter ‘on her desk’ and she ordered a small army (hundreds as I recall) to drop what they were doing and start combing through all the files for any mention of Trump. I fear more than redactions were ordered. No, with THIS Trump administration destroying evidence is exactly the kind of thing they’d do. Of course, while there had to be FBI agents who wouldn’t do more than redactions Bondi had to worry those who were willing to destroy evidence might not have gotten it all.
Then there’s the matter of how well Bill Barr preserved but BURIED the Epstein evidence. He did a masterful job shielding Bush 41 from Iran Contra. That’s why Trump hired him during the first term. To bury ‘RUSSIS RUSSIA RUSSIA’ and other stuff. When Epstein and then Maxwell finally had to face the music Barr no doubt went to work burying all that too. Well, at least anything that reflected badly on Trump or worse implicated him. However at the end Barr turned out to be old-school and I say that because he refused to go along with The Big Lie – Trump’s claim the election had been stolen, massive voter fraud etc.
I have zero doubt Barr and Trump discussed Epstein (and Maxwell). More than once. Given how Barr had gotten him out of the Russia mess I’m quite sure Felt reassured when Barr told him not to worry, that while the the association was too well known that anything that was truly damaging had been ‘taken care of.’ To paraphrase a famous line from Cool Hand Luke what they had was ‘A failure of communication.’ To Barr the term ‘taken care of’ (or ‘handled’) meant as with Bush 41’s Iran Contra ties things were split up and buried in separate locations to the point where serious effort would be needed to locate them, and even more to put it all back together. Doable of course but Barr knew if Trump lost a new AG would have plenty of other messes to clean up. Epstein was literally dead, and Maxwell would wind up in prison. Case closed.
To Trump however the words ‘taken care of’ meant something else entirely. HE assumed those words meant evidence had been destroyed, and with a guy like Barr overseeing said destruction even the evidence of the destruction would be destroyed. THAT is why Trump felt so confident about SCREAMING for the release of the Epstein files. Trumpty Dumpty assumed Barr had ‘protected’ HIM and that was all that mattered. Even better Trump assumed, plenty of Democrats but especially Bill Clinton would get their names dragged through the mud.
I’m guessing Bondi ordered up a deep dive as soon as she got settled in, but shot off her mouth before she actually read through summaries of what the FBI actually had. I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall when she had to tell Trump he was in deep sh*t. He went so pale even his caked on orange grease paint couldn’t hide it! Naturally, he ordered Bondi to start ‘taking care of it’ only it was a more frank conversation than he’d had with Barr. As noted earlier she’s been working furiously to cover Trump’s fat butt ever since.
Still, even Bondi who is still young knows things that scare her. For starters Barr is smarter and more capable than she could dream of being. She can never be sure any attempts at evidence destruction ‘got it all.’ Hell, Barr might have secreted away a copy of everything somewhere and there are instructions squirrelled away on how to access it. Bondi knows damn well that if she promises Trump he’s in the clear and it turns out he’s not, she can forget about a pardon for Obstruction of Justice charges. Trump she knows is vindictive as hell and if he goes down he’s going to take down as many people as he can with him. Starting with HER.
So months of work by hundreds of FBI agents and trusted Trumpies has gone into “sanitizing” the Epstein files with redactions, misleading summaries of what’s there and allegations of ‘wrongdoing’ by various rich and powerful men. Just not Trump. It was hoped things would never get to where they now are. The thing is, MAGA is a cult and their leader convinced them there was plenty of “there” there against Democrats (Bill Clinton in particular) and various ‘RINOs’ who ‘betrayed’ Trump. They swallowed his ‘I saw the guy socially but had NO idea what he was actually like’ bullshit hook, line and sinker.
That friends is what Trump is counting on. I’m sure the backup plan of screaming Fake News, Hoax, and even ‘Democrats are replacing Russia Russia Russia with Epstein Epstein Epstein. It’s another Witch Hunt of Fake News. A big Hoax.’ Talking points with (vague) allegations of the DOJ under Garland ‘planting’ stuff on Trump are ready for distribution.
Will it work? Yet again? I honestly don’t know. It feels like maybe this time might be different. MAGAs are awfully upset with Trump about the files not having been released in late winter/early spring. While not a critical mass, a startling number have begun to wonder if their Trumpty had been lying to them! Polling shows that. As for Bondi and her team, plus the WH crew that’s in on the action the fact is as I’ve said Bondi is no Bill Barr. There’s an awful lot of incompetence in this second Trump administration and even the few like Bondi who at least had credentials for her job are nowhere near the level of their predecessors.
At this point I think we can count on:
- Trump will resist a meaningful release of files as in with minimal redactions as long as he can
- There will be false flag/information in them to distract people, to lead them away from Trump
- Trump will trot out the oldies I’ve mentioned. FAKE NEWS! HOAX. WITCH HUNT! and hope MAGA at least will buy it one more time.
We’ll see. In the meantime Bill Barr seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. His name hasn’t come up in news I’ve seen in ages. He’s clearly taken great pains to distance himself from Trump as much as he can. If I were him, I’d already have developed (and be implementing) a plan for him and his loved ones to go into complete hiding somewhere. He’s got family still working at DOJ but I’d say it’s time they accepted that life is over and console themselves with getting rich as a partner in a top law firm when the dust settles.
One last thought on Barr: He doesn’t actually have to have a personal copy of a bunch of DOJ files that ruin Trump, just convince the increasingly paranoid Trump he does. However if Trump goes after him or his family all bets are off. Even if Barr didn’t break rules/laws and take copies of files, I’d be willing to bet he’s got some hidden away at DOJ and can direct people who will get them out how to find them.
Well, it’s going to be some week ahead. And it’s only going to be the proverbial beginning of the beginning.
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veto proof only applies to the senate but it would be nice to see a large number of republican representatives vote for release. a veto proof majority in the senate would then have to stand firm and override a trump veto if that’s what he does.
Actually the veto override process is spelled out in Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution which holds that a two-thirds majority is required in BOTH chambers of Congress to override a veto.