Axios can usually be counted on to convey the DC conventional wisdom at any given moment. Here’s their take on the Epstein emails:
Four months ago, President Trump blocked the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Wednesday’s disclosure of thousands of Epstein emails showed why.
The emails contained no real smoking gun. But they shed new light on the relationship between the two men, with gossipy, unflattering descriptions of Trump by Epstein.
- Trump was put into a defensive crouch as the news dominated conversation on Capitol Hill, television and social media.
The tranche of emails released by the House Oversight Committee all but ensured the GOP-run chamber would bend to public pressure and vote for a measure to release the investigative records Trump has tried to keep hidden.
- The White House lobbied two key Republicans on Wednesday to drop their support for the effort, to no avail.
Trump’s reaction to the Epstein scandal is a window into how he handles major controversies that invite criticism about his leadership.
- Whether it’s a question about the current affordability crisis, COVID in 2020 or the Russia probe in 2017, he has a penchant for pushing back against attacks by calling them Democratic hoaxes or con jobs.
- He then tries to kill the controversy with such a heavy hand that it helps keep the story alive.
Trump has started calling the recent attacks “the Epstein hoax.” He sued The Wall Street Journal for publishing a story in July about a racy drawing and poem he allegedly wrote to Epstein for his birthday in 2003. Trump said the drawing and message weren’t his.
- “The minute he thinks it’s unfair to him and it’s a personal attack, he just goes into fight mode,” said one confidant. “No one wants to ask him what’s going on here [with Epstein] because he just gets angry.”
They point out that Trump had promised to release the files but in July he “abruptly reversed course” and forbade it. “‘He told Pam [Bondi] not to release the files. We don’t exactly know why,’ said another Trump insider.”
Axios continues:
Trump, a former friend of Epstein’s, is frequently mentioned in the files but has never been linked to any crimes. Even so, just being mentioned in the files has appeared to aggravate Trump.
Of course he is linked to crimes. There are women associated with Epstein who say he groped them and the top accuser was an employee at Mar-a-lago. They all go to such great lengths to exonerate him when it’s obvious that he has been lying about this stuff all along.
As Dan Pfeiffer wrote this morning:
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released incredibly damning emails from the Epstein files. Here’s how the New York Times described the revelations:
House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged.
And just so you have it, here’s the email itself:
Let me be crystal clear, we now have an email from Jeffrey Epstein that says Trump knew about what Epstein was up to and that he spent time with one of the victims.
This isn’t a smoking gun; it’s the gun still in his hand.
There are many more emails that show how close the president was to Epstein and how deeply entrenched he had been in Epstein’s life. And everybody knows it:
Trump doesn’t understand much but he does have a lizard brain instinct about what his cult cares about. That’s why he is “angry” and wanted to shut this scandal down. He knows this is something his followers are interested in — because if he were one of them he would be all over it.
The DC establishment can try to cover for him all they want but it won’t work. People know a cover up when they see one — and there are years and years and years of footage of him talking trash about being a player.
This alone has a totally different sound one you put him in the context of his sex trafficking buddy — who he was still hanging around with at the time of this recording: