Dem
47
GOP
53
Yesterday Donald Trump signed H.R. 4405, which orders the DoJ to release the Epstein files. The new law has so many giant holes in it you could fly a gifted and gilded 747 through it with ease. It means nothing.
But there is something else so obvious that we can hardly ignore it. Our supposition is too iffy to warrant writing it up on that alone, but now we have a decent source who said it in public. The question is: "Why did Donald Trump flip on the Epstein files, ultimately urging the House to pass H.R. 4405 (after opposing the release for months), then signing the bill yesterday?" The answer couldn't be more obvious: The files will be scrubbed of any mention of Republicans before being (partially) released. Out will come a lot of dirt on various Democrats, Democratic donors, Democratic hangers-on, and the like, but nary a word about any Republican. Then the base will be happy and no damage will be done to any Republicans or any of Trump's cronies. Only to Democrats. Case closed, successfully! Why didn't we think of this outcome before? Silly us.
Actually we did think of this outcome before. See our item on July 21, for example, which is based on a report from the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin (D-IL). (Search our page for "Bondi" to find the reference to the FBI.) If you follow both links, you will see that Durbin reported that AG Pam Bondi assigned about 1,000 FBI agents the job of going through over 100,000 Epstein-related documents, finding all those that mentioned Trump and flagging them for delivery to the department paper and pixel shredder (presumably different devices). Durbin didn't reveal his source, but one of the things he mentioned was Trump's bawdy birthday card to Epstein, which turned out to be true. Apparently Durbin's source probably knew what he or she was talking about.
Now as the poop is about to reach the ventilator, there is more reporting. This time from Epstein. No, not that Epstein. He's dead, under very mysterious circumstances with an 18½-minute gap. Oh wait, the 18½-minute gap was on the Watergate tape. Sorry. It was a 2-minute gap in the surveillance video of Epstein's cell the night he was found dead in it. You remember, the "original" video that had metadata in it that showed it had been edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, a professional video editing program that was apparently a bit too complicated for whoever did the editing and didn't know about the metadata included in the output file.
Well, Mark Epstein, Jeffrey's brother, said his brother "definitely had dirt" on Trump. Mark also said that "everything [Trump] says is a lie." He also said he heard from a pretty good source that the Epstein files are being scrubbed of Republican names. He added that the reason they will be released is that they are sabotaging the files in advance. Could Mark Epstein have been Durbin's source back in July? So far, no one is saying.
Mark also said that back in 2016, Jeffrey told him that he had information on the candidates that was so damning that the election would have to be canceled. Jeffrey didn't tell Mark everything he knew (or so Mark says). Maybe Vladimir Putin gave Jeffrey a tape of Trump being "entertained" by a lovely Russian lady. We don't know, but Mark probably knows more than he has let on so far.
When asked why he is coming forward now about a certain e-mail, Mark replied: "I'm not discussing that e-mail. This is a private e-mail between Jeffrey and myself, it's two brothers talking. It's nobody's business what we wrote." If the Democrats capture either the House or Senate next year, they might just want to have a little chat with Mark—under oath and with a video recording.
Also, if the Democrats get subpoena power in Jan. 2027 and decide they want to get the truth out, there are additional avenues to investigate besides Mark. JP Morgan Chase has already flagged 4,700 transactions in and out of Jeffrey's account there as suspicious. Democrats could issue a subpoena for all those transactions and then invite the folks on the other end of them for a little talk. The lawyers for Epstein's estate probably have all kinds of interesting goodies that they would easily surrender to a subpoena. Ghislaine Maxwell knows more than she has admitted so far, and might be interested in a deal. The FBI confiscated hundreds of DVDs from Epstein. They might not have been destroyed, for certain reasons. They might be quite enlightening. Finally, Epstein's many victims might be willing to spill the beans and name names to the House Oversight Committee in camera and in some cases maybe even on camera. It all hinges on Democrats capturing at least one chamber of Congress in 2026. (V)