Dem
47
GOP
53
We're back to the good old days—when we led with an Epstein-themed item every day. The House is going to vote tomorrow on H.R. 4405, the "Epstein Files Transparency Act" to force the DoJ to release all the "Epstein files." While the discharge petition forcing the vote got only 218 signatures, it is expected that the actual bill will have at least 250 votes, maybe even 300 votes for it. Republican representatives are caught between a rock and a hard place on this. If they vote for the bill, Donald Trump could come after them and arrange a primary opponent. If they vote against the bill, Democrats will campaign against them using the slogan: "Congressman [X] tried to protect pedophiles." It's bad either way, which is why Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) didn't want to bring the bill up for a vote until his hand was forced.
Assuming the bill passes, it will go to the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has the same problem as Johnson, only the Senate doesn't have a discharge procedure, so he can simply refuse to hold a vote. However, then he will take the flak for "protecting pedophiles," when in truth, he is simply protecting Donald Trump. If the public outcry gets loud enough, Thune could possibly cave, fearing the Democrats using this issue as a cudgel in 2026 to capture the Senate. It is worth noting that the larger the number of Republicans who "betray" Trump, the harder it is for him to make any one of them feel the pain.
A group of Epstein survivors is now calling on Congress to pass the House bill. They wrote an open letter, signed by two dozen victims, reminding the members of the unimaginable suffering of over 1,000 other victims of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking operation.
On Friday, Donald Trump responded to their call by calling any connection between himself and Epstein a hoax, despite dozens of photos and videos of them together and his card in Epstein's 50th birthday book. On Friday, he urged the DoJ to investigate any connections between Epstein and Bill Clinton and JP Morgan Chase. Trump should be very careful about the latter, though. Chase earlier warned the FBI about 4,700 suspicious transactions in and out of Epstein's account at Chase. If the Democrats win either chamber of Congress in 2026, they are likely to subpoena Chase for the records of all those transactions, to see where the money came from and where it went.
Once again, we note that many media outlets refer to Epstein as a "financier," for example, here, here, and here. What exactly did he finance? Inquiring minds want to know. We know of no factories, shopping malls, condo towers, start-ups, movies, hostile takeovers or other projects he financed. The Chase records could shed a lot of light on this question.
Also in the news is the way Ghislaine Maxwell is being pampered in the minimum-security Club-Fed-type prison she was sent to after talking to deputy AG Todd Blanche. Normally sex offenders are not treated lightly, but Maxwell has special privileges there. She gets custom meals, snacks and refreshments. Visitors are allowed to bring computers into her cell, so she has unauthorized contact with the outside world. She can use the prison exercise room alone, after hours. She can use certain staff-only areas of the prison. She even has access to a puppy to play with. Even prisoners in for minor crimes—for example, anyone actually convicted of throwing a sandwich at a federal agent—don't get their own puppy. What did Maxwell tell Blanche, and is any of it true?
Last week, the lawyers for Epstein's estate gave the House Oversight Committee 23,000 pages of documents, some of which are at least moderately incriminating for Trump, and there could well be more. How have right-wing media outlets covered this (if at all)? Jon Herald on Badlands Media's Rumble said: "To me, these are nothingburgers. If they are even real." So, knowing about Epstein's "girls" and not even bothering to alert the FBI is fine with him? Mike Rothschild, a journalist who has written extensively about conspiracy theories, says that the right is claiming that Trump did no wrong. He also said that many outlets are simply ignoring the document dump. The only story we could find on foxnews.com is about how Democrats cherry-picked which documents to release. Which is true; they did cherry-pick. That doesn't make Trump not guilty however.
As time goes on, more reporters will be going through the document dump and finding choice nuggets to report. Politico has made a start at it, with these revelations.
At the very least, Epstein had contact with a large number of famous people, many of whom probably agree with a quote (falsely) attributed to Mark Twain: "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." No doubt many more prominent people will have their interactions with Epstein exposed before this is over.
After Watergate, it was said that the coverup is worse than the crime. That was probably true of Watergate but is not true of Epsteingate. Clearly there is something so damaging in the Epstein files that Trump has to tolerate this drip drip drip of leaks every day, with no end in sight. Well, unless the Democrats win the House or Senate, followed by everything coming out at once. It is very doubtful that Trump's strategy is deny, deny, deny just to protect Bill Clinton, or anyone except Donald J. Trump. The well-known fact that Trump cares only about himself is strong evidence that there is something in there very damaging to him in some way. If releasing everything (including the thousand DVDs Epstein secretly recorded on his private island) implicated a lot of famous Republicans but not himself, Trump would throw them all under the bus in a flash and make this story go away. But there is clearly something in there that he does not want coming out, ever.
Trump is clearly worried about the vote in the House tomorrow. He lashed out at Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) for getting married again 16 months after his wife died. But he also recognized that the House bill could pass with 300 votes so he made a gigantic U turn late yesterday and urged Republicans to vote to compel him to release the Epstein files. He posted this: "House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it's time to move on from this Democrat Hoax." WTF? He wants the House to force him to release the files when all he has to do is call AG Pam Bondi and say: "Release all the Epstein files except those that are damaging to me, other Republicans, and my cronies." Switching sides just before the vote might also give him some cover if 100 or more Republicans vote for the bill. Then he can say they did it on his orders. Needless to say, everything released will have been vetted in advance and anything that incriminates him personally will either not be released or edited to remove the bad stuff. (V)