Trump needs Epstein story to die but won’t let it
Donald Trump’s rants now sound like someone toilet-reading a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap.
Except Dr. Bronner’s products are “cruelty-free,” so clearly not Dr. Bronner’s. That’s a relief.
Except Trump has the nuclear codes, so that’s not.
Daily Beast reports:
The latest civil war within the Trump administration broke out after the Justice Department and the FBI announced earlier this week that they had found no evidence to suggest convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was in possession of a list of powerful clients or was murdered in jail. Epstein’s death by suicide in August 2019 has become the subject of several conspiracy theories in the intervening years.
Among those who previously pushed Epstein conspiracy theories was current FBI director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who raised his theories on his podcast. Both changed their tune once they entered the Trump administration.
The MAGA fury over the Trump administration’s non-release of the rumored/reported Jeffrey Epstein “client list” as his base seriously peeved. And the Epstein pal whose name everyone expected to feature prominently in the document dump can’t stop throwing figurative lighter fluid on the swirling conspiracy theories. Now, it seems, MAGA types have moved to literal lighter fluid.
Trump tried on Saturday to distract MAGAs by threatening to strip comedian Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship. He figured reigniting “a decades-long feud” with O’Donnell would, like tossing a steak to a Rottweiler, get his cult to turn away from Epstein.
Apparently not.
It isn’t helping that Wired published a Friday story headlined: Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified
There is less there than meets the sensationalism. “There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death,” reads the subhead. The ambiguities may simply have resulted from processing the original video for public release. But the questions will be more appealing to conspiracists than a Rosie steak.
The administration’s own goal on the Epstein story has (to mix metaphors) cut Trump over the eye. His staff is in turmoil over the Department of Justice’s “nothing to see here” public statements. Time to work the eye.
Elon Musk is on it.
AOC is on it.
Sen. John Ossoff is on it:
For more social media fodder, see Tina Brown’s Fresh Hell post: Why MAGA is Right about Jeffrey Epstein
Make Trump’s head explode.
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