“Handling” Trump’s Epstein problem
Donald Trump hasn’t shot anyone in the middle of Fifth Avenue yet. But he has no bottom. He’s conspiring to release convicted sex offender, Ghislaine Maxwell, from prison while he’s parked behind a desk on Pennsylvania Avenue. If it serves his purposes — in this case, getting the Wall Street Journal to stop publishing Trump-Epstein stories — nothing is beneath Donald Trump.
Marcy Wheeler has been studying this gambit, and constructed a timeline. Trump has dispatched his former(?) personal attorney, Todd Blanche, under color of his government position as Deputy AG and on the pretext of “uncovering the truth,” to cut a deal with Epstein’s “girl moll.” Blanche clearly wants Maxwell to exonerate Trump from involvement with Epstein’s sex crimes. Trump wants that stink Servproed like it never happened.
Wheeler wrote on Tuesday:
And today, Trump’s Defense Attorney Todd Blanche announces he will meet with Maxwell soon to make the kind of deal that could excuse releasing her early. Probably, he’ll ask her to implicate someone like Bill Clinton.
Absent that deal, it seems clear, the WSJ will continue to publish stories implicating the President in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking.
Blanche met with Maxwell for about five hours on Thursday and expects to continue the interview today. NBC reported on Thursday’s meeting:
David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s attorney and a friend of Blanche, said Maxwell had a “productive day” with Blanche and “answered every single question” asked of her, declining to invoke privilege at any time.
“Ghislaine honestly answered every question that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche asked,” Markus told reporters.
The two attorneys are personal friends? That’s mighty cozy. And exactly what questions about whom did Maxwell answer “honestly” and decline “to invoke privilege at any time”? About whom did Blanche not ask questions? Is there video of the questioning?
Trump is looking for a twofer from Maxwell in exchange for a pardon or commutation. He wants to hand his slavering MAGA-QAnon base details to prove that, yes, as they always believed, DEMONCRATS were involved in Epstein’s sex trafficking of young girls while their savior was just an innocent bystander. They want to see Bill Clinton implicated, and who knows who else.
As if Democrats care.
Josh Marshall is amazed at Trump’s transparent attempt to kill the Epstein stories:
Team Trump’s frenzied attempts to change the subject from Epstein have become comical. His attempt on Thursday to smear Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with cost overruns in renovations to two of the reserve’s buildings fizzled spectacularly. And on camera.
View on Threads
Lawrence O’Donnell spent a long segment on the Trump-Epstein coverup on Thursday night that includes Blache and Markus yucking it up in a podcast about Blanche losing the Trump felony trial.
This circus isn’t leaving town anytime soon.
Update: To review.
* * * * *
Have you fought dicktatorship today?
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense