Dem
47
GOP
53
In a development that will make nobody happy, and that will do nothing to put an end to this story, the Department of Justice "complied" with the law passed by Congress, and released a bunch of files related to Jeffrey Epstein yesterday. The total number of documents is about 120,000. If you are interested in perusing them, you can do so here.
The exact character of the release was as predictable as the exact character of Donald Trump's speech this week. Despite the fact that they've spent months and months going through the files, that they knew for at least 2 months that Congress' order was coming down the pike, and that the law was actually passed a month ago, "Attorney General" Pam Bondi and other Department of Justice leaders said they simply didn't have time to vet everything, and they'll try their darnedest to get to the rest later.
So, it's a very carefully curated set of documents, in other words. And they feature extensive redactions that clearly go way over and above what Congress allowed for. For example, there is a 119-page document, with grand jury testimony, that is 100% redacted (see for yourself, here). There IS a president who appears frequently throughout the collection, but that president is Bill Clinton. By contrast, very few of the released documents contain images of, or references to, Donald Trump. We guess that Clinton was MUCH closer with Epstein than Trump ever was. What other conclusion is there?
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was the driving force behind the bill requiring the release of the files, as well as the discharge petition that brought that bill to the floor of the House against the wishes of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), is livid, of course. He says the release "grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law," and he and co-sponsor Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) are "exploring all options." However, they forgot one little thing: To put any sort of enforcement mechanism into the legislation. Oops!
One possibility that is being bandied about is impeachment. Whether that is impeachment of Trump, or Bondi, or both is unclear. Surely, this is not the likeliest outcome. However, it's also not impossible. Massie is pretty angry, and it is plausible that he and the three other Republicans who signed the original discharge petition might be willing to sign a second one for a resolution of impeachment. If this did happen, it would be manna from heaven for the Democrats, who could say "How could this be a witch hunt if it happened when the Republicans controlled the House?"
All of this said, one of the four Republican signatories to the original discharge petition is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and she's outta there as of January 5. So, Massie would not only have to hold on to the other two women apostates (Nancy Mace, R-SC and Lauren Boebert, R-CO), he would also have to convince Greene to delay her resignation, or else he would have to find a new apostate. The impeachment resolution could be passed with fewer than 218 votes (since it requires a majority of voting members, and there are vacant seats right now), but the discharge petition itself requires a minimum of 218 signatures.
Meanwhile, we again remain a bit befuddled by the White House's thinking. This was arguably their one shot at a potential "Get Out of Jail Free" card. If they had dumped all the documents at once (and there are at least 150,000 more that have not been released), right before Christmas, the coverage would have been very muted, and would have escaped the notice of many people. But releasing part of them, and daring Massie to do something about it, just keeps the story alive. Also, to be so clumsy in downplaying Trump's participation in the whole thing is just going to give MORE juice to the notion that there's a coverup. They really should have included a few images or documents that were moderately embarrassing for him without being TOO bad. That, at least, would have made it a little harder to be certain that the DoJ was cooking the books.
Incidentally, The New York Times' David Brooks has a landing page on the Times website that proudly declares:
I've tried to present a reasonable voice in the midst of all the bitterness and strife of public life. I've tried to live out a philosophical tradition that has its roots in the thought of people like David Hume, Edmund Burke and Alexander Hamilton, a tradition of thought that sits in the tension between humility and audacity, fair-mindedness and compassion. Like all Times journalists I'm committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook.
As part of that "tradition," presumably, he wrote a piece about a month ago headlined "The Epstein Story? Count Me Out." He argues that Epsteinpot Dome is just a conspiracy theory, cooked up by kooky right wingers, that Democratic politicians have latched onto because their other messaging was not getting through. Brooks asserts that he, for one, does not see the value in pursuing this any further, and advises Democrats that they would be wise to follow suit.
What is driving Brooks' thinking here? Maybe he is just speaking truth to power, the way that David Hume, Edmund Burke and Alexander Hamilton did. Or—and we're just spitballing here—maybe it's because he is among the people who appear in the Epstein files. For example, here he is in one of the Epstein files photos that was released this week:
The point here is that there's a LOT of bad-faith rhetoric and a LOT of dishonesty surrounding this Epstein situation. And the worst of it appears, by all evidences, to be coming from the White House. (Z)