What did Donald Trump do today?

He convened a political meeting to tell the Justice Department how to shield him from the Epstein scandal—and then canceled it when he got caught.

Tonight, senior officials from the FBI, the DOJ, and the White House are meeting with Vice-President JD Vance to coordinate their political strategy over the scandal that has resulted from Trump's refusal to make good on a campaign promise to release details of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring. Trump and Epstein were close friends for many years, and Trump has steadfastly refused to offer anything but kind words towards Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's convicted co-conspirator in their child sex trafficking operation. He's also repeatedly refused to rule out a pardon or commutation of her sentence.

UPDATE: As of 8 P.M., the meeting has reportedly been canceled, because of the leak that it was happening. The official White House statement is that no such meeting was ever planned, but at the same time sources inside the administration are confirming that it had been set up and then canceled for fear of negative publicity.

Maxwell met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last week, and—incredibly—was upgraded to a comparatively luxurious minimum-security "honor dorm" prison in Texas, after her lawyer made clear that she expected to be rewarded for what she said in the interview.

Maxwell was also charged with perjury over lies she told under oath to protect Epstein during a 2016 civil trial. But today, there are reports that Trump is angling for ways to officially reveal Maxwell's assertions to Blanche that she never directly observed Trump engaging in wrongdoing. That appears to be a main part of the agenda for the executive branch summit at the VP's residence tonight.

Outside of a Trump presidency, it is extremely unusual for Justice Department officials to have any contact with the White House about ongoing cases, much less to get their stories straight in order to benefit a sitting president. When former president Bill Clinton had a chance meeting at an airport with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch in 2016, it was an enormous political scandal, because of the implication that Clinton might have been trying to lobby Lynch on behalf of Hillary Clinton, who was running for president. 

Trump himself went nuclear on the campaign trail over that brief encounter, hyping it as an unprecedented scandal and evidence of a shadowy conspiracy against him.

Even in Trump's first term, there were lines that the attorneys general he handpicked for personal loyalty to him wouldn't cross. Jefferson Sessions recused himself when evidence of Trump's connections to Russian election interference on his behalf became impossible to ignore, allowing a deputy to appoint a special prosecutor. Bill Barr, who was willing to creatively edit that special prosecutor's report to soften its assessment of Trump's complicity, nevertheless quit rather than be involved in Trump's increasingly desperate and unlawful attempts to cling to power after the 2020 election.

But with Blanche and Bondi—both of whom served as Trump's personal defense attorneys in his criminal trials and impeachments—there has been no such reluctance. They and FBI Director Kash Patel have openly embraced Trump's philosophy that the government's law enforcement power is his personal sword and shield, to protect him from any accusations of wrongdoing and punish his enemies. 

Virginia Giuffre was employed as a 16-year-old "masseuse" at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in 2000, and in one of Trump's most recent versions of the story of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, it was Epstein's "stealing" Giuffre that soured their relationship. (In reality, Trump continued to associate with Epstein at least through 2007.) Epstein and Maxwell raped and trafficked Giuffre, who took her own life earlier this year. Her family released this statement today:

We understand that Vice President JD Vance will hold a strategy session this evening at his residence with administration officials. Missing from this group is, of course, any survivor of the vicious crimes of convicted perjurer and sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.

Their voices must be heard, above all. We also call upon the House subcommittee to invite survivors to testify. As Virginia Roberts Giuffre's siblings, we offer to represent her in her stead and we hope the administration takes our call to action seriously.

Why does this matter?

• The only "strategy" that the DOJ should care about where child sex trafficking rings are concerned is bringing everyone associated with them to justice.  

• The law does not exist to serve and protect Donald Trump exclusively.  

• At this point, it's pretty much impossible to think of an innocent explanation for Trump's actions over the Epstein scandal.