Dem
47
GOP
53
Ghislaine Maxwell, enabler of Jeffrey Epstein, and procurer of girls for sex-trafficking purposes, was scheduled to speak to the members of Congress yesterday (via video link, from the prison in which she is being held). And Maxwell did indeed speak to them, technically. But we put "testifies" in quotations, because she just pled the Fifth in response to every question, and so provided no new information or insight.
Maxwell and her lawyer DID have an idea for how to improve upon the situation, however. They said that if Donald Trump will grant her clemency, she will be happy to clear both Trump and Bill Clinton of any and all wrongdoing. We suppose Trump might possibly take that deal, particularly if Maxwell agreed to knock Bill Clinton off the list and to ONLY clear Trump. However, even if the offer is accepted, will it change anything? Anything at all? It's such an obvious quid pro quo, and she has such a clear-cut motivation to lie, that it's hard to imagine she would change any hearts or minds.
Truth be told, we are rather shocked that she put that out there. After she chatted with Assistant AG Todd Blanche last year, and then was moved (in contravention of regular practice) from a real prison to a Club Fed, anyone and everyone assumed that a clemency deal was already in place, and that it was just a matter of timing ("after the midterms," most likely). But negotiating in public like this just lessens the value of whatever she has to offer (which, let's be honest, isn't much since she is a convicted felon and a pathological liar). Maybe she's getting desperate, because there actually isn't a secret clemency agreement in place.
We're not sure what's going on with her; we're just trying to read the tea leaves as best we can. What we do know for sure is that this subject ebbs and flows in terms of how much attention it is getting, but it's not going away. After every ebb, there's eventually another flow. And that attention is certainly not working to the benefit of Trump. Democrats are of course enraged, but plenty of Republicans are enraged, too. Just yesterday, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) flipped sides, and joined Team Transparency. She told reporters that she had not seen Epstein Mobilier as a big deal before, but now that she knows there were victims as young as 9 years old, she wants answers. Lummis, not coincidentally, has announced her retirement from the Senate, and so is beyond Trump's reach in the same way as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).
Meanwhile, remember that for the better part of half a century, Republicans carped on Roe v. Wade, and used that to rally the troops and to peel off some voters from the other side (there are, of course, a sizable number of folks who are registered as Democrats, but who are also anti-abortion). When Roe was wiped out by Dobbs, Republican politicians cheered, but in private many of them were surely disappointed. We don't think it's a coincidence that the number and variety of wacky culture-war issues—Bud Light ads, Mr. Potato Head, drag shows, trans girls playing high school sports, Bad Bunny—seems to have exploded in the last few years. Part of that is Trump's love for this sort of thing, but we think part of it is that the GOP has largely been deprived of its very best wedge issue.
The reason we mention this is that Jeffrey Epstein is filling a similar gap for Democrats. Pretty much every member of the Party is demanding clarity on the whole situation, even if it ends up taking down Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and every other liberal named "Bill." To take a prominent example, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who needs to win reelection in a purple state this year, has been leaning into Epstein pretty hard. And he has taken to using the framing first put out there by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), referring to the "Epstein class." In other words, that the U.S. is currently being run by a cabal of people—Trump, Steve Bannon, Elon Musk, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick—who were apparently all chummy with Epstein. It's a version of the "deep state," except with actual evidence behind it, and involving sexual exploitation of children.
It could be very potent stuff. And it means that while Democrats will push for a final resolution to Epsteinpot Dome, and while they might be happy if that somehow comes to pass, the Party is likely better off if this lingers until, at very least, November 3 of this year. (Z)