'Smoking Gun'? Files Contradict Trump's Version Of His Break With Epstein
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at a party in 1992
Rep. Dave Min (D-CA) said on Monday that new revelations expose some conflicts in President Donald Trump's timeline about his relationship with trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Members of Congress have been working their way through the unredacted investigation files released by the Justice Department, which one senator said mentions Trump's name at least 38,000 times.
Speaking to CNN, Min brought up recent reports from the Miami Herald that exposed conflicting stories from Trump concerning what he knew about Epstein and when he knew it.
The report cites a conversation the Palm Beach Police chief told investigators he had with Trump in 2006.
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him. Everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump said to then-Chief Michael Reiter, who told the FBI in 2019. The interview documents are included in the case files released to date.
This "tells me Donald Trump was caught lying because he said that he did not know about Epstein until like 2019," said Min. "He said he'd quit affiliations with Epstein at some point. So the fact that, as early as 2005 or 2006, Donald Trump clearly and apparently knew something about what was going on with Epstein and that he was continuing to send girls from Mar-a-Lago to Epstein's employment. That tells us a lot about what Donald Trump knew and when. And I think that's a smoking gun."
Min said that Trump is desperately trying to distract from the Epstein files. He said that it appears the Justice Department made a lot of " unnecessary redaction of names, including, it looks like, Donald Trump's name quite a lot." Trump, the administration and Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell all maintain that Trump did nothing wrong throughout his relationship with the convicted trafficker.
The other problem Min sees is that 15 percent of the Epstein files still remain hidden by the Justice Department.
"We don't have any good reason for that. I'll take Rep. [Tom] Massie (R-KY) on his word that he saw some documents, and that fits in with the larger narrative that they're covering this up," Min said.
He recalled this time last year, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel were saying publicly that they would do whatever it took to release all of the files and get to the bottom of the trafficking ring.
"And yet, sometime in May, reportedly, Pam Bondi told President Trump he was in the Epstein files. That launched this whole cover-up. We saw them then deny that the Epstein files existed. Ghislaine Maxwell had a weird visit, a private visit from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who used to be Donald Trump's personal attorney," Min recalled.
It wasn't long after that that Maxwell was sent to a minimum security prison camp that typically doesn't allow sex offenders. Maxwell told the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Monday that she would reveal everything if she were granted a pardon.
"So this all reeks of a cover-up right now. And we need to release the entire Epstein files. The DOJ needs to explain why they seem to be redacting certain names of people who were implicated in the Epstein files," Min added.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet
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