The Felon: The Epstein Scandal Continues

In light of the totally bundled Department of Justice rollout of the release of the Epstein files - the DOJ reportedly just "found" a million more documents - several possible conclusions are possible: (i) the Felon's DOJ is utterly incompetent, (ii) the Felon's DOJ is deliberately trying to protect him, or (iii) the debacle is a combination of (i) and (ii).  One thing that is clear is that despite his past denials, the Felon is up to his eyeballs in the Epstein sex trafficking scandal and that his prior denials on numerous Epstein questions were lies (what a surprise, not).  The other thing that seems increasingly clear is that the Felon's DOJ has as it main objective is to protect the Felon at all costs and with little if any regard for the Epstein victims. The positive news is that perhaps some congressional Republicans may be poised to join Democrats in pushing for full disclosure regardless where it may lead vis-a-vis the Felon, an individual who has made it clear that he sees women as objects for his use.  One can only hope that the new year will bring intensified efforts to bring full disclosure and revelations of the names of the men who participated in the sexual abuse of underaged girls.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the increasingly obvious reason the Felon resisted having the file released. Here are excerpts:

Nearly two years ago, [the Felon] Donald Trump kicked off the presidential-campaign season with a declaration: “I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island,” he posted on Truth Social in January 2024. Reports to the contrary, he insisted, were the fault of AI—and of his political rivals: “This is what the Democrats do to their Republican Opponent, who is leading them, by a lot, in the Polls.”

But this week, the documents released by Trump’s own Justice Department—including flight logs and emails—told a different story. Federal prosecutors determined in January 2020 that Trump had been a passenger on the notorious private jet owned by Jeffrey Epstein—who would later be charged with sex trafficking—far more often than they had realized.

Many of the flights on what came to be known as the Lolita Express took place “during the period we would expect to charge in a Maxwell case,” a federal prosecutor in New York told colleagues. Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was subsequently convicted and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in the sex-trafficking operation, including using the plane for “transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts.”

There are many other mentions of Trump. The president’s name appears more than 100 times in files released yesterday as part of the DOJ’s compliance with legislation requiring it to disclose everything it has on the Epstein case. Trump fought Congress’s demand for transparency for months before abruptly pivoting and endorsing the bill once he realized he had lost. . . . . one conclusion from the files is that Trump’s relationship with Epstein, a former friend, was of interest to federal law enforcement for years.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, declined to answer questions about the discrepancy between the president’s prior statements and the material released by the DOJ but said in a statement, “The truth remains: Donald Trump did nothing wrong.”

Trump has also insisted that he knew nothing of Epstein’s criminal activity—though his critics have questioned how that could be true given their close relationship and history of chasing women together. Members of Congress from both parties have said they will continue to probe the issue in the upcoming year. Representatives I spoke with told me their takeaway from reading the files is that top officials in the Trump administration have not been honest about what was in them, and that they intend to press Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel for more information.

“Although the files are overly redacted, they’ve already demonstrated that the narrative painted by Patel in hearings, Bondi in press statements, and Trump himself on social media wasn’t accurate,” Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who co-authored the Epstein legislation, told me. “A complete disclosure consistent with the law will show there are more men implicated in the files in possession of the government.”

Representatives and staff on the House Oversight Committee told me they were drafting subpoenas in response to the documents released yesterday, seeking more information related to law enforcement’s identification of 10 alleged “co-conspirators” shortly after Epstein’s arrest in July 2019. The case that prosecutors were building related to those unnamed co-conspirators appears to have been substantial.

Oversight Committee members are also drafting a contempt resolution to penalize Bondi for not ensuring that the DOJ fully complied with the law. The resolution, spearheaded by Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna, will give Bondi 30 days to fully release all of the remaining Epstein materials, then fine her $10,000 each day that she doesn’t release them after that. They told me they expected to introduce the resolution when Congress returns in January. They are also moving ahead on articles of impeachment for Bondi, and said they were optimistic that they could get them passed in the House.

Khanna told me that there was an emerging “coalition of the right and left to fight for justice.” That alliance, he added, “has proven to be the kryptonite that marks the beginning of the end of the Trump era.”

The files released yesterday—and Trump’s prominence in them—appear to have changed the calculation for senior Democratic Party leaders as they prepare for the midterm elections. Party leadership had previously sought to convince junior members not to focus on Epstein. But this week Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he will push for the Senate to hold the DOJ accountable for not fully complying with the legislation, citing a missed 30-day deadline for all files to be released and excessive redactions in those that have been. . . . . Protecting possible co-conspirators is not the transparency the American people and Congress are demanding,” Schumer said in a statement.

The Justice Department has acknowledged there are still many more files to be released—and the known backlog grew longer today when the DOJ announced that the FBI and New York prosecutors had uncovered “over a million more documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case” and that the process of reviewing them could take “a few more weeks.”

Sigrid McCawley, an attorney who represents several of Epstein’s victims, said it would take time to know the true impact of the “avalanche” of new documents released yesterday. But she told me that one thing is clear: “These brave survivors were absolutely correct that the government was withholding critical information from the public.”