What did Donald Trump do today?
He had a very, very bad day on the Epstein front.
For Trump, one of the fringe benefits to shutting the federal government down for a record 43 days was that he was able to pressure Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) to keep the House adjourned, and therefore to refuse to seat duly elected Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-NM). Grijalva, who was finally sworn in today, promptly became the last signature needed on a petition to force the House to take up a bill that would require the release of the Justice Department's massive troves of information on the sex trafficking ring run by Trump's friend and confidant Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump responded by launching a furious pressure campaign against the few Republicans who have signed the petition, including dragging Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) into the White House Situation Room. Most Americans are more familiar with the Situation Room as the place where then-President Obama and his cabinet observed the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, but there was one obvious advantage for Trump to try to force Boebert to withdraw her signature there: in that high-security environment, it would have been impossible for her to record what he said.
The other major development was the release of 20,000 Epstein e-mails and text messages obtained by the House Oversight Committee. These documents are not organized, and analysis has been ongoing all day, but they are shockingly damning for Trump. In the messages—many of which predate Trump's political career—Epstein discusses, among other things:
- how Trump "knew about the girls"
- Epstein's involvement in a complex real estate transaction in 2008 that amounted to a money laundering operation in which the Russian government sent about $100M to Trump
- Trump spending "hours" at Epstein's house with one of his trafficking victims in particular
- his admiration for Trump's ability to weather scandals, but also his concern over Trump's mental stability
- how he helped the Putin regime manipulate Trump
It will probably be weeks before the full picture of Trump's involvement in Epstein's life and activities that emerges from these documents is clear.
Virtually all of the White House's comment came from press secretary Karolina Leavitt, who gamely insisted that e-mails in which Epstein and Maxwell discussed the fact of Trump's knowledge of their operation showed only that he "did nothing wrong."
Trump himself did wade into the fray, but only on social media, safely away from reporters who might shout questions. He once again called Epstein and Maxwell's massive sex trafficking ring, for which both were criminally convicted, a "hoax." Trump also demanded that everyone stop talking about it—or, in his words, that there be "no deflections to Epstein."
In related news, Epstein's co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell is reportedly planning to ask Trump to commute her sentence. After Trump sent his former defense lawyer to "interview" her about the extent of his relationship with Epstein, Maxwell was moved to a resort-style minimum security prison where she has been getting, among other perks, custom meals and access to puppies in training to become service dogs.
Trump has repeatedly refused all invitations to condemn Maxwell, who may be the only living witness who can testify to whether or how much he was involved in Epstein's trafficking ring. Instead, he has only said that he "wishes her well."
Why does this matter?
- Victims have died because of the horrible things Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell did to them.
- It is hard to imagine how Trump could act any guiltier.