Tag: thomas massie
'Smoking Gun'? Files Contradict Trump's Version Of His Break With Epstein

'Smoking Gun'? Files Contradict Trump's Version Of His Break With Epstein

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

Bondi's Delay In Epstein Files Disclosure Irritates Bipartisan Congressional Group

Bondi's Delay In Epstein Files Disclosure Irritates Bipartisan Congressional Group

A bipartisan group of congressional leaders has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi for a briefing on when, exactly, she’s going to get around to releasing the Epstein files.

They picked a good day to send a letter to Bondi, as the House Oversight Committee Democrats just released a trove of pictures and videos from Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, including an incredibly creepy photo of a room with what appears to be a dentist’s chair and multiple deeply weird wall hangings.

They also reportedly plan to release records from J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank soon.

The administration is no doubt incandescent with rage that two Republicans—Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky— signed onto this letter. But it’s not surprising, given that they were two lead sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The letter was also signed by several Democrats—including Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California—who might be particularly interested in a new investigation focused solely on Democrats.

All of these Democrats need to be investigated, you see, because of “information [that] has come forward, new information, additional information,” according to Bondi.

But it’s far more likely that this so-called investigation is just Bondi doing President Donald Trump’s bidding.

Trump very much wants to target Democrats, but he also very, very, very much wants to hide any potential mention of him in the Epstein files. After being battered with bad headlines, Trump went on Truth Social to demand Bondi investigate Epstein’s connections to “Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.”

Still, Bondi claims that she’s not doing this at the behest of Trump, but because of all that new information. That’s basically an invitation for members of Congress to say, “Well, do tell!” But since it’s highly likely that Bondi doesn’t actually have anything, she’ll probably refuse to respond by December 5, as the letter requests.

It’s also quite possible that this brand-new investigation is just an attempt to stall. The law mandating the release of the Epstein files has a giant loophole, allowing the DOJ to withhold anything that might jeopardize an active federal investigation. So it’s pretty convenient that there’s suddenly an active federal investigation.

It was never a question of whether the administration would try to dodge the 30-day deadline to release the files, but rather a question of how it would go about it. Looks like we’ve found out.

However, with both parties keeping the pressure on and Democrats’ steady drip, drip, drip of files, Bondi is going to have to work really hard to protect her boss—and she can’t keep “investigating” forever.

It’s clear she knows that a reckoning is coming. She can delay it, but she can’t stop it.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Will Epstein Files Vote Become 'Crack In The Dam' That Splits MAGA Apart?

Will Epstein Files Vote Become 'Crack In The Dam' That Splits MAGA Apart?

President Donald Trump's ironclad grip on the Republican Party may be weaker than it's ever been due to the ongoing fallout over deceased child predator Jeffrey Epstein.

That's according to commentator Scott Morefield, who writes for the conservative website Townhall. Morefield told New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg that Trump's handling of the Justice Department's unreleased evidence pertaining to its two Epstein-related investigations has caused widespread disillusionment among the MAGA movement. He particularly focused on Trump's attacks on Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), who have both pressured him to release all of the DOJ's remaining evidence on Epstein.

Trump called Greene a "ranting lunatic" on his Truth Social platform last week, and called Massie a "loser" and remarked that his recent marriage was "quick" (Massie's first wife, Rhonda, died last June). Massie shrugged off Trump's attacks and shared a joke that he and his new wife made at Trump's expense.

"She said, 'I told you we should have invited him to the wedding!'" Massie told reporters on Monday.

"Trump’s denunciations of MTG and especially Thomas Massie last night were unnecessary, over the top, and cruel in a way that should make any human with basic empathy question what kind of human he is," Moreland posted to X. "If anyone is responsible for the fracturing of MAGA, it’s the top dog himself. The buck stops there."

In her Monday essay, Goldberg marveled at how Trump used to dispatch his political opponents within the GOP with relative ease. She pointed to past examples like former Vice President Mike Pence, former Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). However, she observed that Trump's failure to cow Greene and Massie into submission suggested that "something has changed." When Goldberg asked Moreland how much Trump's movement had split, the conservative writer didn't mince words.

“I think it’s pretty serious,” he said. “Epstein really started it. It was like the crack in the dam, I think.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet


Report: FBI Told House Republicans About 'Worse' Trump Photos In Epstein Files

Report: FBI Told House Republicans About 'Worse' Trump Photos In Epstein Files

Several House Republicans have reportedly heard from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that the unreleased Jeffrey Epstein documents are especially compromising for President Donald Trump.

That's according to reporting from former MSNBC, CNN and Fox News reporter David Shuster, who posted to his X account on Wednesday that there is "speculation/rumors sweeping through [the] GOP caucus" about the details of the Epstein files.

"A few GOP house members say they’ve heard from FBI/DOJ contacts that the Epstein files (with copies in different agencies) are worse than Michael Wolff’s description of Epstein photos showing Trump with half naked teenage girls," Shuster wrote.

Shuster is likely referring to an October interview in which Trump biographer Michael Wolff told the Daily Beast that he had personally seen "about a dozen Polaroid snapshots" of Trump and Epstein, in which Trump was photographed with several topless young women on his lap. Wolff said Epstein pulled the photos out of a safe and spread them out "like a deck of cards" on his dining room table. The author told the Beast he saw the photos while visiting Epstein's home at the convicted sex offender's invitation, as Epstein wanted Wolff to write a book about him.

Veteran journalist Shuster further reported that Republicans were "spooked" by Attorney General Pam Bondi's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, after she refused to answer a question from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about whether she had personally seen the photos after the contents of Epstein's safe were confiscated. After Whitehouse asked her about the photos, Bondi then questioned him about receiving campaign donations from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who was associated with Epstein.

"She didn’t give a denial," Shuster wrote.

According to Shuster, Republicans' anxiety about the contents of the Epstein files is compounded by "more than 100+ Republicans" who are reportedly planning to vote for the bipartisan discharge petition by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), which only needs one more signature in order to force a floor vote. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), who won a late September special election to fill the seat vacated by her late father, promised to be the 218th and final signature on the discharge petition, though she has yet to be sworn in.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet


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