Jul.16

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

The Epstein Story Isn't Going Away

Do readers remember Andrew Cunanan? He's the jilted lover who killed Gianni Versace and four other people over a weeklong span in 1997, before finally turning the gun on himself. We mention it because it was that story that first caused (Z) to notice that mainstream media loves, loves, loves to cover National Enquirer-type stories (Gay lovers! Murder! Accused is on the lam! Suicide!), and searches for any opportunity to do so, under the guise of newsworthiness.

We would imagine that there are some outlets, possibly many, that are thrilled that the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is big news right now, because it's salacious and attracts eyeballs and clicks the way that, say, "Congress debates debt ceiling again" does not. We are most certainly not one of those outlets, but we also cannot ignore that this is the dominant political story of the day, yet again. And while that is partly for salacious reasons, it's also for legitimate reasons, as well, as MAGA world remains at war with itself, with the very real possibility of implications for the midterms.

When Joe Biden had his disastrous debate performance, we took the view that he wasn't really in trouble until certain key people came out against his continued candidacy, specifically Jill Biden, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. The First Lady remained steadfast (as we expected she would), but everyone knows what happened with the other two, and the ultimate result of their only-sorta-behind-the-scenes machinations.

We would say that, with the Epstein situation, there are similar "bellwether" people. Not the First Lady, in this case, since she is almost entirely out of the loop. No, when it comes to Epstein Mobilier, we would say that the three canaries in a coal mine are Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The former two make the list because, of course, they set the agenda for Congress, including votes on things like subpoenaing the Epstein files. And all three, but particularly Johnson and Graham, make the list because they have generally been sycophants who tell Trump what he wants to hear, and who do not dare to push back against him. If one (or more) of them flips, it's a pretty good sign that the heat from the base, from other Republicans, etc. has been turned up to 11.

As readers can probably guess, if they do not know already, we are writing this because one of that trio showed some cracks in the armor yesterday. That would be Johnson, who sat for an interview with one of the endless number of right-wing podcasters, and said that he'd like to see "transparency" and that "We should put everything out there and let the people decide it." The Speaker endeavored to make clear that he still "has confidence" in Trump and in AG Pam Bondi, but you can be sure that the part that everyone (including Trump) heard was that Johnson is breaking ranks on "nothing to see, here."

The problem, as noted, is that Johnson runs the lower chamber of Congress. He can (mostly) decide what does, and does not, get a vote in that chamber. He can whip votes in support of Trump's position, or he can take a hands-off approach. He can also vote against Trump's position. Yesterday, the House voted on whether or not to commence debate on Rep. Ro Khanna's (D-CA) amendment to a cryptocurrency bill, requiring the administration to release all the Epstein files. You can see how it went:

As you can see, it was close. If the motion were to come from a Republican, rather than a progressive Democrat, things might turn out differently. And whaddya know? Trump antagonist Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) just so happens to be preparing his own resolution on the matter. It's a discharge petition, so if Massie can get 218 members to sign on (e.g., the 212 Democrats, himself, and just five Republicans), then the resolution will get a floor vote, whether or not Johnson wants it to.

The basic dynamic here is very clear. The same exact voters who do what Trump tells them to do are also the ones who are deeply invested in the conspiracy theory. And so, every time a Republican votes against making the files public, they open themselves up to brutal attacks during next year's election cycles. Primary challengers will say "You're a part of the deep state conspiracy" and then general-election challengers will say "I guess you want to protect Donald Trump at the expense of justice for the victims of sex trafficking." Put another way, we may finally have a situation where "the political harm done by defying Trump" is actually less than "the political harm done by sticking with Trump." For what it is worth, Steve Bannon estimated yesterday that if this is not handled properly, 10% of Republican voters will stay home on Election Day next year, which will cost the GOP 40+ seats in the House.

Trump is not exactly the most literate fellow to have occupied the Oval Office, but even he can read the writing on the wall. And so, there are discussions going on in the White House about what to do, and whether or not to release some documents. The problem is that if the QAnon/MAGA/conspiracy types don't get the exact documents they expect to get (e.g., a list entitled "Here are the 24 Democratic officeholders for whom Jeffrey and Ghislaine procured 13-year-old girls"), then they are just going to stick to their guns and declare that the REAL documents are still being kept under wraps.

Assuming Trump's current approach—ignore it, and hope it goes away—does not work, and it certainly is NOT working so far, then what can he do? Again, releasing a bunch of non-incriminating documents, even if those are THE documents, and all of THE documents, is not going to get it done. We've spent some time considering the matter, and—treating this as a thought exercise, or a creative writing assignment—here are the potential options we came up with:

• Give the Base What It Wants, Part I: Keeping in mind that this is an administration where honesty is not a virtue, and where criminal acts are not a problem, Trump could find a trusted lieutenant to create documents that contain exactly the information the conspiracists desire—a client list, or receipts, or whatever, that implicate the Clintons, and maybe Anthony Weiner, and maybe a few other left-leaning politicians and/or celebrities. This would be defamatory, of course, but if the documents were done right, it would be hard to prove they are fake, and any person who tried to do it would have the pleasure of seeing their name and "sex trafficking" in headlines for the next few years. Very dirty pool, but certainly conceivable for this administration.
  
  One problem with putting someone like Bill Clinton on the list is that it probably would take him less than 10 minutes to call Roberta Kaplan and say: "I hear you are pretty good at handling defamation cases. If memory serves me correctly, you won $5 million for E. Jean Carroll in round 1 and another $83 million in round 2. Are you taking on new clients? I am prepared to pay your normal hourly rate, win or lose, plus 30% of any award you win." Trump probably remembers Kaplan as well and knows she understands subpoenas, depositions, and the whole discovery process. He really does not want Clinton or anyone to sue him for defamation.
  
  If the White House were to draw up a fake list, it would also be necessary to give some plausible explanation for why it initially refused to release the documents. One possibility would be to lean into the existing conspiracy theory that Epstein was an intelligence asset, and to say that the administration needed time to decide if national security would be compromised. A second possibility would be to implicate, in the fake documents, one or more prominent Republicans. The ideal target, we think, would be someone who is deceased, since a dead person isn't around to answer questions, and since Trump could believably say "Well, we didn't want to drag the good name of a dead person through the dirt." To us, the most obvious choice for something like this is... Rush Limbaugh. He's definitely dead, he was a friend of Trump's (which would make the reluctance to smear Rushbo's name plausible), he was certainly into various forms of shady behavior (illegal drug use) while he was alive, and if he could be asked, he'd probably say he was willing to take a posthumous bullet for Team Trump.
  
  
• Give the Base What It Wants, Part II: Keeping in mind that the base really wants to believe the Democrats are bad people, but also wants to believe Trump is a hero, he could try to feed them something vague and somewhat conspiratorial in order to keep the wolves at bay. He could go on one of the nuttier shows or podcasts (Tucker Carlson?) and deliver a carefully worded "explanation," along the lines of: "Look, I wanted to release the files, and I still do. But I've learned that keeping that information in my back pocket affords certain... opportunities when it comes to getting things done in Washington. I'm sure you understand exactly what I mean." Ideally, this would be punctuated with a wink, assuming Trump is capable of that, after all of his many facelifts.
  
  In any case, if executed properly, this approach would allow the base to continue believing that the Democrats are evil, that Trump is a political wizard playing 4-D chess, and that they (the base) are part of the inner circle with "special" knowledge that others don't have.
  
  
• Bury 'em in Paperwork: Trump could also try the old white-shoe-law-firm strategy of producing so much paperwork (millions of pages) that it's nearly impossible to go through it all. There probably aren't millions of pages of Epstein documents but, as we note, this is an administration that has no problem with acts of dishonesty, including fraud. They could easily pad the release out with just about anything. And not only might this sate the hunger, at least for now, it might also provide "answers," inasmuch as conspiratorial thinkers are very good at finding hidden "meaning" (e.g., "If you take the first letter of every paragraph in Box 3, folder 6, document 03-006-232A, it spells out 'V-I-N-C-E-F-O-S-T-E-R'... that's VERY significant.")
  
  
• Find a Scapegoat: If left to his own devices, this is probably where Trump's thoughts go. He is more than willing to sacrifice anyone, assuming he can tar and feather them with all the responsibility as they exit. The obvious choice here is Pam Bondi. Although Trump is delighted to have such a pliant lackey running the Department of Justice, and although he's already given her a vote of confidence, the MAGA base loathes Bondi. First, by virtue of her service in Florida, she's linked to the GOP establishment (especially Jeb!). Second, she has been fairly muted in defending the 1/6 insurrectionists. Third, she once worked as a lawyer for Pfizer, which made one of the main COVID-19 vaccines.
  
  The problem with this "solution" is that it will be very difficult to come up with an explanation that not only assigns all the blame to Bondi, but that explains why the files STILL can't be released. If Richard Nixon was still alive, he could share some thoughts about how well this basic maneuver tends to work out, long term.
  
  
• Appoint a Special Counsel: The possibility of appointing someone as Special Counsel, so as to get to "the bottom" of the Epstein matter, is already being bandied about in Republican circles. Perhaps the loudest proponent is one of the loudest members of the House, namely Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). And the person she wants to see appointed is, of all people... former representative Matt Gaetz. Undoubtedly, Boebert favors Gaetz because he's a MAGA fanatic and is someone unlikely to throw Trump under the bus. She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so it presumably did not occur to her that the optics of having an accused sex trafficker conduct an investigation into an accused sex trafficker are not great, to say the least.
  
  If Trump acceded to this, it would probably buy him some time, and maybe the MAGA faithful would eventually lose interest. But we doubt it. Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are MAGA fanatics, and when they came out in support of the DoJ memo that said there is no conspiracy, the MAGA base turned against them and said they have been co-opted by the Deep State. We can't see why it would be any different if Gaetz said the same thing after conducting an "investigation." This is another area where Richard Nixon, if he was still alive, would have some thoughts about how well this basic maneuver tends to work out.

What it amounts to is that Trump and his administration have now dug themselves into a hole, a hole that seems to be getting deeper by the day, and a hole that has a decidedly Nixonian feel to it. Again, maybe this will eventually go away—that's usually how it works out for Trump. But things also went away for Nixon, too... right until they didn't. If this is the exception, the one time where Trump cannot just bury his head in the sand until the storm passes, then he's going to have to do something that's either risky (and possibly illegal), or else that runs the risk of just kicking the can into the future. (Z)