For a Dead Man, Jeffrey Epstein Keeps Making a Lot of News

EpsteinGate is the gift that keeps on giving. In today's installment, Donald Trump sued The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch, and several others for $10 billion for libel on account of the blockbuster news story that, for his 50th birthday, Trump sent Jeffrey Epstein a letter with the line: "Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret." It included a sketch of a naked woman with Trump's iconic signature decorating the figure's nether regions. Here is the original link (paywall).

When the story came out, Trump exploded. He said: "I never wrote a picture in my life." That is literally true. No one writes pictures. People draw pictures. And yes, Trump does draw pictures... well, more like sketches. Several of them have been published in the past few days. Here are two of them:

Rembrandt he is not, but it is not hard to imagine that he could sketch a naked woman.

Many people in MAGAworld—even those who opposed him recently—have come to Trump's defense saying the letter is fake. How could they possibly know? They didn't even know the letter existed until last week. Discount all of these statements as attempts to curry Trump's favor.

Since the letter connects Trump, Epstein, and naked women, it clearly is very explosive, so Trump decided to do what he always does when he gets upset: sue someone, in this case the WSJ, Murdoch, and others. Our first question is: Why? Is this a shakedown? Will Trump try to get Murdoch to apologize, promise to ban all stories about Epstein from all his media properties forever, and pay him $50 million for hurting his fee-fees? It could work.

But maybe not. Trump needs Murdoch's media properties as much as Murdoch needs Trump. What happens if Murdoch does not go gentle into that good night? What if he fights back? One of the defenses against libel is that what the publication reported is true. Murdoch's lawyers might tell the judge they want to prove the story is true, so they want to subpoena people who knew Epstein when he was 50 and get their sworn testimony about whether he ever showed them the drawing. They might want to get handwriting experts to testify whether the signature on the drawing matches Trump's known signature from 2003. They might even want to ask Ghislaine Maxwell what she knows about Trump and Epstein. That could be extremely explosive. The discovery process preceding the trial could bring up all kinds of stuff Trump would rather not have in the news. At the very least, it will keep the story on the front pages for months—the Streisand effect on steroids. Trump does not want this. Oh, and Trump doesn't have much leverage over Murdoch, since there are no pending mergers to derail. In short, Murdoch has cards to play, and Trump really doesn't.

Could the lawsuit deflect attention from the underlying problem: Trump refusing to release the "Epstein files," if they exist? Will the base forget Epstein and suddenly realize the WSJ is the real enemy? Possible, but it seems unlikely to us.

Another danger for Trump is that Murdoch gets really angry about this and instructs Fox News hosts to start taking potshots at Trump—for example, demanding that he release all the Epstein files right now. Some viewers would probably eat that up. Others might take offense at the attacks on their hero, and jump ship to OAN or Newsmax, costing Fox some viewers (and advertisers and money). It is definitely a game of chicken. It is a symbiotic relationship, like a fungus and its host.

But there is more Epstein news now. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) has reported that he has been informed that AG Pam Bondi ordered 1,000 FBI personnel to comb through thousands of pages of documents relating to Epstein and flag any references to Trump. They were put on 24-hour shifts to go through 100,000 Epstein-related documents. This could be in preparation of her releasing tens of thousands of documents with nary a mention of Trump because those documents have all been surgically removed. Durbin did not explain his source, but it could easily have been one of the agents assigned to flag the mentions of Trump. Needless to say, there is also some potential here of some agent who doesn't like this way of massaging the facts leaking more information to Durbin.

It is interesting that the leaker went to Durbin rather than a reporter. It is possible that the leaker was afraid Trump would put so much pressure on a reporter that the reporter would cave and reveal the source. The source may have felt that even Trump couldn't force the ranking member of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee to sing like a canary.

Durbin also wants to know why the surveillance video of Epstein's prison cell had a 1-minute gap in it. He also wants to know why the metadata in the video showed that it had been edited using Adobe Premiere Pro, a powerful professional video editing program. It appears that the so-called raw surveillance video is actually a composite of multiple clips joined together in Premiere Pro, with pieces missing, and not the raw video at all.

There is another little problem, as well. Chris Truax, a Republican attorney who was the Southern California chair for John McCain's 2008 primary campaign, has written a column noting that when the FBI raided Epstein's New York mansion, they seized a vast amount of material. This included stacks of CDs [probably actually DVDs], each labeled with the name of a man and a young woman. In other words, Epstein may have secretly recorded wealthy men having sex with underage women Ghislaine Maxwell may have procured for him. Epstein may not have actively blackmailed them, but at least these were insurance policies that the men wouldn't turn on him.

Also, Epstein was a billionaire. Where did the money come from? Most billionaires either founded a successful company or were at least CEO of one. Epstein was neither. Inquiring minds want to know why Epstein maintained such a carefully curated CD library labeled with specific names. If he just wanted porn, he could have downloaded gigabytes from the Internet for free. Odd.

Is Truax making this up? We think not. When Epstein was arrested in 2019, the SDNY didn't want Judge Henry Pitman to grant Epstein bail because he was a flight risk. In the SDNY court filing of July 8, 2019, the prosecutors wrote this on page 9:

Finally, despite having been previously convicted of a sex offense involving an underage victim, the defendant has continued to maintain a vast trove of lewd photographs of young-looking women or girls in his Manhattan mansion. In a search of the New York Residence on the night of his arrest, on July 6-7, 2019, pursuant to judicially-authorized warrants, law enforcement officers discovered not only specific evidence consistent with victim recollections of the inside of the mansion, further strengthening the evidence of the conduct charged in the Indictment, but also at least hundreds--and perhaps thousands--of sexually suggestive photographs of fully- or partially nude females. While these items were only seized this weekend and are still being reviewed, some of the nude or partially-nude photographs appear to be of underage girls, including at least one girl who, according to her counsel, was underage at the time the relevant photographs were taken. Additionally, some of the photographs referenced herein were discovered in a locked safe, in which law enforcement officers also found compact discs with hand-written labels including the following: "Young [Name]+ [Name]," "Misc nudes 1," and "Girl pics nude." The defendant, a registered sex offender, is not reformed, he is not chastened, he is not repentant; rather, he is a continuing danger to the community and an individual who faces devastating evidence supporting deeply serious charges. (Our emphasis.)

If the libel lawsuit against Murdoch goes forward, we imagine that Murdoch's attorneys will subpoena the "compact discs." Will the judge allow them to be played in open court? We doubt it, but the judge might be willing to hire a special master to view some of them privately and then summarize them for the jury. Of course, AG Pam Bondi might reply to the subpoena with "I am so sorry, your honor, but we are unable to locate the CDs you have subpoenaed." That might lead to subpoenas for FBI agents who took part in the raid. Trump will obviously do everything humanly possible to make sure those CDs are destroyed before the case gets to court.

Oh. Coincidences do happen. Weird. One of the three assistant U.S. attorneys who filed the letter to Judge Pitman requesting that bail be denied was Maurene Comey. You might have read about her recently. Also, if you look at the court filing linked to above and scroll down below Comey's name, you will find links to many PDFs. For example, one is entitled: "UNSEALED Epstein Docs - 2000 pages." Another is called "Jeffrey Epstein's Little Black Book." There are many more.

Yesterday, The New York Times had a long article detailing the 15-year friendship between Trump and Epstein. Even if you aren't a subscriber, everyone gets 10 free articles a month. Here are some of the high points. Around 1990, Epstein bought a property about 2 miles north of Mar-a-Lago and joined the moneyed jetsetters in Palm Beach, where he met Trump. They were both outer-borough New Yorkers who were determined to show the world how impressive they were. Both of them very much enjoyed the company of women, especially young women. Here is a newly surfaced NBC News video of Trump and Epstein at a party, dancing with young women.

Trump and Epstein met many times either in Palm Beach or Manhattan, often in the company of young women. One time it was the Buffalo Bills cheerleaders. Another time it was a so-called calendar-girl competition where Trump and Epstein were the only men present. One woman present there filed a lawsuit against Trump claiming he kissed her, fondled her, and crawled into her bed that night uninvited. The case was settled out of court.

In 1993, a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, Stacey Williams, was taking a walk on Fifth Avenue with her then-boyfriend Epstein when he suggested they pop in and see Trump. She agreed. Trump greeted her and pulled her toward him and began groping her. She said he was like an octopus.

Trump and Epstein jetted back and forth between Manhattan and Palm Beach for years. Court records show at least seven trips together on Epstein's private Boeing 727. One time in 1997, they were photographed together at a Victoria's Secret "Angels" party in Manhattan.

In 2002, Trump was quoted in New York magazine saying: "I've known Jeffrey for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

From all the reporting, it is clear that Epstein and Trump were good "friends" for years until they broke up in 2004 over a real estate deal (both wanted the same property and they bid against each other). Epstein had access to an unlimited supply of young women and being a good friend, often shared them with Trump. One of them said that she had been "passed around like a platter of fruit." There are so many people involved and so many potential witnesses that Trump will have to use all his powers of intimidation to keep the lid on the pot. (V)

Trump Has Never Met a Scam He Didn't Like

Fundamentally all crypto is a scam, a Ponzi scheme. A buyer of any crypto coin has to hope that more people will want it later and the price will go up. The only "problem" it solves is how to get paid in an untraceable way, something criminals collecting ransom care about a lot, but that isn't so important in most other situations. Very few merchants accept crypto as payment for goods, and it offers no advantages over cash, credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, and other electronic payment methods. For payment, in some ways crypto coins are worse than other payment methods due to transaction fees or gas fees that consumers don't pay with other schemes (although merchants often do).

Unlike, say, stock, real estate, and other investments, there is no direct return on the investment in terms of dividends, rent, etc. It is purely speculation that people will continue to want the crypto in the future, despite it having no inherent value. Gold also doesn't pay dividends or rent, but it has many commercial uses from electronics to dentistry (which means it has some inherent value) and has been around as a store of value for over 2,500 years. It is also heavy and difficult to steal.

One of the claimed attractions of crypto coins is that payments can happen instantly and for free (except for those nasty "transaction fees" in some cases). This is because the U.S. banking system is archaic. Wire transfers in the U.S. take about 10-20 minutes to complete, but banks often charge $15-25 dollars per wire. Within the 20-country eurozone, wire transfers are the main way of paying all bills. Checks were abolished in 2002 as inefficient and obsolete. Now, to pay a bill you go to your computer, log into your bank, enter the IBAN (International Bank Account Number) of the payee and the amount and the transfer is completed in 5 seconds and is free. What does crypto have to offer that beats this (other than secrecy for criminal activities)? But even in the U.S., many instantaneous electronic payment systems exist.

The value of a crypto coin can be extremely volatile. On Nov. 12, 2021, one bitcoin was selling for $65,006. A year later, on Nov. 10, 2022, it was worth $15,742. Now it is almost $120,000, but if speculators lose faith in it for some reason, it could be worthless tomorrow.

One attempt to rein in this volatility is the use of stablecoins. A stablecoin is pegged to some external store of value. However, in tough times it can be depegged. For example, a tether coin is supposed to always be worth $1. The issuing company says it has a reserve fund equal to the total value of the coins in circulation, so it is always possible to trade in a coin for the cash equivalent, eliminating all risk (which also eliminates the possibility to profit from gains in the value, so what is it good for?). In reality, the reserve often is not equal to the value of the coins in circulation. Tether, for example, was fined $41 million for deceiving customers during 2016-2018, when it had enough reserves only a quarter of the time. Some stablecoins use other currencies, gold, oil, real estate, or even other crypto coins as their reserves, which exposes coin owners to risks if too many of them want to cash in at the same time due to some bad news and there aren't enough reserves to pay everyone.

Could that happen to a stablecoin? In the immortal words of Sarah Palin, "You betcha!" In May 2022, terra, a stablecoin, was the third-largest crypto coin (after bitcoin and ethereum) by value in circulation. In the space of 5 days, terra went from $1.00 to 13 cents. Within 2 weeks the total value of all the terra coins went from $60 billion to $0, despite it being a stablecoin. The meltdown happened because the underlying reserves were in another crypto coin that crashed and burned. People who held onto their terra coins lost everything, despite it being pitched as a stablecoin.

Crypto-like assets have been around for a while. In 17th century Holland there was tulip mania when a single tulip bulb was worth more than what a skilled craftsman earned in a year, until it was suddenly worth nothing.

So, does crypto sound kind of scammy to you? Well, cue the scam-master. On Friday, Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act, which sets guidelines for trading stablecoins. Did the $200 million the crypto industry plowed into political campaigns in 2024 influence any votes? Beats us. But we know the crypto industry spent more on campaign donations in 2024 than the oil, tech, pharmaceutical and every other industry. Payday! Needless to say, Trump, who in 2021 called crypto a scam, is now enthusiastic about the "industry." After all, his sons run the World Liberty Financial company, which issues a stablecoin, and he himself has the $TRUMP coin. Getting rubes small investors to pay real money to buy, er... nothing, seems to run in the family.

Now onto the GENIUS Act. Here is the text if you want to know all the details. It establishes rules for who may issue a stablecoin, who may audit them, and who may take action against issuers if needed. There are also rules about commingling and who can commingle and how. It also authorizes the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish standards so people can exchange one stablecoin for a different one.

Sec. 11 is interesting—if your interests run to endogenously collateralized stablecoins. It orders the secretary of the treasury to determine what can be in the reserve fund. This is a real sleeper. Can the promoter of a stablecoin deposit his grandma's old artwork in the reserve fund and say it is worth $10 million, even if she is not Grandma Moses?

The touchy subject of "insolvency" is also briefly mentioned. Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), who wrote the bill, may have heard about terra. Hagerty cofounded a private equity firm before running for the Senate, so he does know something about finance. If the actual Act is incomprehensible to you, but you still want to know more about it, here is a slightly more comprehensible explanation.

It is expected that banks and other companies like Amazon and Walmart will now issue their own stablecoins and millions of people will jump on the bandwagon. As is always the case with new products, there will be many competing coins initially. There could easily be thousands of different coins before long.

Some of the smaller companies backing them will fail simply due to competition. Will coin holders lose their investments? If terra (and tether) are a guide, probably many will, as many companies are sure to be "creative" about what is in their reserves, no matter what the treasury secretary reports back. There will also be consolidation. That always happens, with bigger companies gobbling up smaller ones. It will be a cutthroat business. Since no government agency will guarantee any coins, there will invariably someday be some bad news (e.g., stablecoin X is in trouble) and that will start a "bank run," like in the 1930s. The coin will collapse, leading people to start worrying about the stability of other coins. Given the speed of trading and the lack of any circuit breakers, the entire industry could collapse within 24 hours.

Another issue is that coins are held in wallets in exchanges. They can be hacked. In Feb. 2025, the second-largest crypto exchange, Bybit, was hacked. The hackers emptied all the wallets and moved all the coins elsewhere. It is believed that the hackers were working for the North Korean government. They made out like bandits. The losses were about $1.5 billion. Is hacking still a thing? Yup. Just this morning it was reported that tens of thousands of Microsoft servers have been hacked worldwide, and Microsoft is vastly more technologically competent and security conscious than the folks who run crypto exchanges.

A hack on a major crypto exchange could be the trigger to start a bank run on stablecoins, when millions of people want to get out fast and the reserves can't cover the withdrawals, even if there is theoretically value there. For example, if a stablecoin is covered by actual, valuable real estate, it could fail when the issuer cannot pay buyers trying to redeem their stablecoins because real estate cannot be sold on a dime. As companies compete for business, many will try to gain a competitive edge by using increasingly iffy assets in the reserve. Somali shillings, anyone? Pork bellies? Guest tickets to dinner with Donald Trump? Boy, those are worth a lot.

It is also possible that bugs in the crypto software, defects in the complex math used to maintain the blockchains (which keep track of transactions), or malafide players maintaining the blockchains, could also cause catastrophic failures. In the short run, the GENIUS Act will give the crypto industry a giant boost and many people will make a lot of money for a while. But it is entirely possible that some unforeseen event in the future will cause sudden bank runs and bring the entire worldwide financial system down, starting a worldwide depression or worse. Future historians may well mark Friday as the day the risk of this shot up enormously, similar to June 17, 1930, the date Herbert Hoover signed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act.

Interestingly, the GENIUS Act bans members of Congress and their families from issuing stablecoins, but the Act specifically exempts the president and his family from the ban. Cabinet and other high officials are also exempt. One analysis shows that 20% of high-level administration officials own some crypto.

The possibilities for corruption opened by the Act are legion. For example, in March, World Liberty Financial issued a stablecoin, USD1. Earlier this month, an investment firm in Abu Dhabi used it to make a $2 billion investment in the crypto exchange Binance, putting WLF in a position to profit handsomely off the transaction. The Constitution's emoluments clause is now officially dead. (V)

Trump Creates a Class of Easily Fireable Civil Servants

Donald Trump has long wanted to be able to fire any civil servant he deems insufficiently loyal to him. The problem has always been the Pendleton Act, which establishes a complicated process for firing civil servants, and then only for malfeasance. For Trump, when a civil servant refuses to carry out his (illegal) order, that is malfeasance. Unfortunately for him, the courts tend not to see refusal to carry out an illegal order as grounds for dismissal.

On the other hand, political appointees serve at the pleasure of the president and can be fired for any reason or no reason (except for being a member of a protected class, so being Black is not grounds for being fired but being a redhead could be). At the end of 2020, Trump created something called "Schedule F," which listed civil service employees who had some policy-making authority. He claimed these people were exempt from civil service protections and could be fired at will by the president. The list included 50,000 positions. Just imagine what would happen if 50,000 people all started making policy decisions. Schedule F was short lived because Joe Biden canceled it immediately upon taking office in Jan. 2021.

Now Trump is back at work. This time he signed an XO creating "Schedule G," a new class of federal workers the president can hire and fire at will. These are not career workers and their jobs end when the president who appointed them leaves office. Trump believes that having short term workers with no future prospects in their job will motivate them to work harder and be more efficient. That is arguable, but it will undoubtedly motivate them to obey his orders. The largest federal employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees, is deeply concerned about this. Maybe they contacted Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). They didn't say. There will likely be legal challenges to the new schedule. (V)

Democrats Are Also Out There Talking about the BBB

When J.D. Vance went off to West Pittston, PA, last week to talk to 250 workers, that was the starting gun for the administration's attempt to sell the BBB to the public. Vance talked about the tax cuts (no taxes on tips or overtime). Well, Democrats are also going out there to talk about the new law. They will also talk about tax cuts—the big ones for millionaires and billionaires. They will also talk about how the bill is going to cause an estimated 12 million people to lose their health care.

There will be a strong focus on rural areas, since many of them will be hardest hit—for example, when the only hospital in the county is forced to close. Democrats rarely venture into rural areas because they are full of Trump voters who have been trained to despise Democrats. But now the Democrats have a concrete message: Republicans don't care about you; look what they did to you.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has already been doing this for months. He has been traveling all over the country telling people that their health care, nutrition, and education will be sacrificed to allow billionaires to get a big tax cut. He has held big rallies in Idaho, Lousiana, Montana, Oklahoma and Texas, among other red states. The other Democrats are carefully noting what he has been doing and how well it has been received.

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) said he wasn't sure how much traction Sanders would get in red states. Now he is sold on Sanders. He said: "My hat's off to [Sanders], just because I think the frustrations people have in not just rural areas, but in red states, even in the cities in red states, is real. The most important thing we can make sure to provide is realistic hope." Bernie, who is not even a Democrat, is teaching the Democrats what they need to do.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) has been touring the rural counties included in her Albuquerque-based district. She said people were crying when she explained what the bill meant for them. Congress usually takes off August and many Democrats are going to be spending a lot of that time talking to people in rural areas in or close to their districts. Not all representatives have rural constituents, but every senator does. (V)

Sen. Warner Says Tulsi Gabbard Is Not Competent

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was on a panel at the Aspen Security Forum last week. He said: "Tulsi Gabbard is not competent to be the director of national intelligence. I believe she is trying to politicize the workforce and work product, and that makes America less safe." He noted that allies are now scaling back intelligence they share with the U.S. He also said Gabbard should resign or be fired.

He went into some specifics, as well. She fired intelligence officials who refused to cook the books on an intelligence assessment tying the Venezuelan government to MS-13. He blamed her for Donald Trump unexpectedly firing two top NSA officials. He noted that she has been on Fox News constantly trashing her own workforce. He also brought up the Signal chats where confidential information was sent to people not authorized to receive it.

As if to prove that Warner was right, just after he spoke, Gabbard released a report claiming that Obama-era officials engaged in a "treasonous conspiracy" to alter intelligence concerning the 2016 election. She said: "Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people." (English translation: Intelligence officers had concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump.) Every single member of the Intelligence Committee supported that conclusion, incidentally.

Gabbard's Deputy Chief of Staff Alexa Henning wasn't happy with Warner. She called him a "loser" and tweeted: "Since he's dumb enough to fall for politicized intelligence like the debunked Russia Hoax, I think we're good not taking advice from him." (V)

Jeffries Declines to Endorse Mamdani for Now

Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani very much wants the endorsement of Democratic leaders. While he is the favorite in the November election, Mayor Eric Adams and former NY governor Andrew Cuomo will be on the ballot, and Cuomo is expected to get tens of millions of dollars from Bill Ackman, who thinks Mamdani would be a disaster for the city. Cuomo will have far more money than Mamdani, so Mamdani thinks it is critical that he gets the entire Democratic establishment behind him. After all, Democratic leaders could yet endorse Cuomo. The election is first past the post, so in a multiway race, if Cuomo can get to 40%, that might be enough.

On Friday, Mamdani met House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) in Brooklyn. Mamdani was desperately hoping to get Jeffries' endorsement. It didn't happen. An hour after the meeting began, Mamdani left, and all he had to show for it was a promise of a future meeting with Jeffries. For his part, Jeffries said he didn't know Mamdani that well and was interested in knowing him better in the future. He also wanted to know what Mamdani meant when he said he will not condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada." Many people interpret that to mean the destruction of the state of Israel. Jeffries is not going anywhere near there.

Jeffries is fully aware that the Republicans are already trying to turn Mamdani into the face of the Democratic Party. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) isn't the leader anymore and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) is pretty, extremely politically astute, very articulate, and not very scary. She does not make nearly as good a boogeyman as a guy with a beard, a strange name, and who is an avowed socialist. She isn't the foil the Republicans hoped she would be. Enter Mamdani. Jeffries does not want to be tied too closely to him. Besides, he probably is afraid Mamdani is not capable of governing New York City and would make a mess of it whereas Cuomo, although personally a sleazebag and a mean old b*stard, is a competent administrator who got a lot done as governor. So Jeffries is keeping his powder dry for the moment. He might end up not endorsing at all and letting the chips fall where they may. (V)

Minnesota State Senator Convicted of Burglary

On Friday, Minnesota state Sen. Nicole Mitchell (DFL), a Lt. Colonel in the Air National Guard, was convicted of first-degree burglary. No, she didn't do it to supplement her $51,750 annual salary. She entered the house of her estranged stepmother via a window. She claimed she did it to get some of her father's things, since her stepmother is not talking to her. Mitchell hasn't been sentenced yet. Since Mitchell hasn't been accused of taking anything belonging to the stepmother and didn't damage anything, she might get off with a modest fine or even probation.

Normally, this story would be small ball. However, Republicans in the state Senate want her to resign from the Senate, where the DFL holds a 34-33 majority. If she does, the Senate would be tied at 33-33 until a special election can be held. Mitchell's district, SD-47, is fairly blue, so the DFL candidate would be favored if there is a special election. Still, her resignation could bring the state Senate to a grinding halt until the special election is held.

Republicans control the Minnesota state House 67-66 with one vacancy (in HD-34B). The vacancy occurred on June 14, 2025, when Vance Boelter assassinated Melissa Hortman (DFL), who represented HD-34B. It appeared to be a political assassination.

HD-34B is in Hennepin County 10 miles northwest of Minneapolis and is very blue, so when the special election is held, it is very likely that a DFLer will win. Then the state House will be tied at 67-67. In case of ties, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (DFL-MN) gets to play tiebreaker. Consequently, the question of whether Mitchell resigns is quite important. Until Hortman was murdered, the DFL had de facto control of the state legislature. After the assassination, the state Senate could block anything coming over from the House. If Mitchell resigns, it will be kind of dicey what happens next. (V)

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