Covid, the Constitution, Trump-Russia Again and Epstein — Four Stories Unhinging Our World

Donald Trump announcing executive orders to provide Covid economic relief

by Thomas Neuburger

There's so much going on right now that it's hard to focus in just one place. At least four stories are simultaneously shaking our world.

Covid is taking us all down the garden path, us Americans of course, thanks to our failed-state government, a government that simply cannot govern, at least with respect to the virus. Bottom line: Absent a miracle, we will never be free of the Covid emergency until we are free of the current government. That means next year at the earliest.

Is this the Republicans' fault? Of course it is; they're monsters, at least at the leadership level, beasts who worship no god but power and control. Modern Republican leaders are the exact analog to the old Southerners against whom Lincoln railed in his Cooper Union speech: "Your purpose, then ... is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please.... You will rule or ruin in all events."

Rule or ruin.

But Democrats share a good share of the blame for not sweeping the Republican pieces from the board at every opportunity given them — and Republicans gave them many opportunities.

The 2000 election result, a constitutional coup by the Republican-corrupted Supreme Court, should have rejected by Congress, yet not a single Democratic senator would stand with House members to challenge it. All it would have taken was one. Had they had in their hearts courage instead of the illusion of comity, Bush and Cheney — our own mass murders — would not have been president, and Iraq would not have been ravaged raped for years by our wars, our governors and our mercenaries.

Later, when Bush left office, he should have been tried for war crimes, not the least for his torture regime, yet Barack Obama and Democratic leaders like Pelosi chose to "look forward, not backward" and in effect, sanction his criminality.

The list goes on. Republicans have been enabled at every turn by Democratic leaders — against the strong wishes of much of the Democratic base — the most recent instance by allowing Trump to keep American troops in Afghanistan instead of committing to a withdrawal schedule. They give him more power every time he asks for it.

As for the current Post Office flap, which Democrats are so rightly exercised about, recall that it was Democrats like Henry Waxman who co-sponsored and enacted the 2006 "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act," the lawthat's killing it. That bill passed the House 410-20 and the Senate by unanimous consent. Even Bernie Sanders, then a House member, voted yes on that bill.

The list of Democrats enabling Republicans' evil deed would fill many pages, perhaps a dozen a year. Remember when Chuck Schumer gave Trump the gift of expediting "a whole much of ... lifetime judicial appointments" in the middle of the Brett Kavanaugh fight?

But that's just one mess we're in. A paper that's circulating lately outlines the hell we're headed for if Trump and the Republicans decide to play "constitutional hardball" at the end of the current election — which all on its own, thanks to Covid and Republican tactics, is a guaranteed three-ring circus of horrors, an E-ticket ride to the devil's ninth ring. Claims of "invalid election" are sure to come from whichever side seems to lose (unless Trump seems to win by theft and Democrats acquiesce, again).

Will Trump and Republican leaders play hardball with this election? They obviously have in the past, though it's unclear to me what today's Republican leaders want most — to support Trump to the greatest extent, or be rid of him for good and return their party to "rule by the Chamber of Commerce." 

If Trump goes hard to the end though, will Democrats go hard against him? Al Gore surrendered to Bush and the Supreme Court in 2000; Bernie Sanders (bless him for all his good work) surrendered to Barack Obama in 2020; and even today, Democrats seem about to surrender on Trump's "Covid" executive orders instead of taking him straight to court as they ought to do, and as the Constitution demands.

And that doesn't begin to touch on the other two massive stories of recent note.

Consider Matt Taibbi's publication of, and comment on, the revelations of Steven Schrage, who casts much light on the Trump-Russia origin story (Taibbi's subscriber-only piece is here; Schrage's public piece is here). These are must-read pieces for anyone who thinks that a political tale can have more than one villain, and that the U.S. security state can be one of them.

Finally, the Trump-Russia narrative starts to make sense for those who try to ground their sense in the facts. Schrage's story and on-tape conversations with Trump-Russia originator Stephan Halper may play a deciding role in the August 11 rehearing on the Justice Department's decision to drop the case against Michael Flynn.

No mainstream outlet will cover it honestly though, or cover it at all, so be prepared for partisan silence and spin. Read Taibbi only if you want the Jack Webb ("just the facts") version of this nightmare tale. As I said, any story can have more than one villain.

Finally, recall the release of the latest Epstein documents, which come ever so close to unveiling in full what looks for all the world like a monumental, global, sex-and-blackmail scheme — one involving the wealthy, the powerful, and several foreign security shops — a story that no one of consequence in the world wants to see revealed. We may yet see more accidental suicides come from that one, rather than be allowed by our betters to face head on what all of us know without really wanting to know.

If each of these tales were a novel, they would fill together the summer with great delight. We could stack them on top of each other and work though the pile, reading each in turn, the next treat following the last in serial pleasure. Unfortunately, this is like reading all four novel at once, each played out simultaneously in front of us, a cacophony of complex stories that bump and rub against each other, all claiming attention, each hard to accept and difficult to hear ... and none of them fiction.
 

The Seduction of Virginia Giuffre

Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein, center, pauses while speaking with members of the media outside of federal court in New York. That appears to be lawyer David Boies, one of her lawyers, looking on over her right shoulder. Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg

by Thomas Neuburger

I've been reading through the Jeffrey Epstein–Ghislaine Maxwell–Virginia Giuffre documents released last week and have to say, they make fascinating if confusing (to non-lawyers) reading.

The document I want to feature below struck me particularly, though. It's an early phone interview (2011) between Brad Edwards, a lawyer who appears to have been involved in a lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein (Edwards later appears to represent Ms. Giuffre), his own lawyer Jack Scarola, and Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein and Maxwell's alleged victims.

A PDF of this document is here. It's both clear and mind-blowing in the stories it tells.

The purpose of this piece is to encourage you to read it in full. It's only 24 pages, and the lawyer who leads the interview, Mr. Scarola, walks Giuffre through the history of her relationship with Epstein in a straightforward way. He covers other matters as well, but in that respect, the document is simple storytelling, and the story that's told is stunning.

I'll provide just a few excerpts here, and again, encourage you to read it for yourself. My main focus will be on the origin of Giuffre's relationship with Maxwell and Epstein — the initial seduction and its aftermath.

(Note: The original PDF is a series of images, not text. I've passed it though an OCR reader to make the text paste-able, but the process isn't perfect, so forgive any glitches in the "translation.")

The Initial Seduction

Here's how Giuffre (whose maiden name was Roberts) was introduced to Epstein by Maxwell. Maxwell basically "picked her up" while Giuffre was working at Mar-a-Lago as a women's bathroom attendant. (Except where noted, Giuffre is the speaker. I've added paragraphing to the original for readability. Underscores are in the original.)

I was introduced to Mr. Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell. I was working at Donald Trump's spa in Mar-a-Lago and I was prompted by Ghislaine to come to Jeffrey's mansion in Palm Beach that afternoon after work to make some extra money and to learn about massage. She met me at the spa, and I was reading a book about anatomy, so I was already interested in massage therapy as it was and not having any of the education or you know anything behind me, I thought this was a great opportunity to work for her and go.

So, I went to Jeffrey's mansion about 5 or 6 in the afternoon. My dad drove me there. My dad worked at Mar-a-Lago with me, and he met Ghislaine and she seemed like a nice, proper English lady, and she knows, I mean, you know, one time then _once before I left to travel overseas, she just seemed really nice and like she would like to help me out. So my dad left, and I had no problem getting home that night, one of her drivers would take me back after my trial.

So she led me upstairs, and into Jeffrey's bedroom, and past that is Jeffrey's massage room, which has got his steam room and a shower and a massage table, and there is actually an extra room that has, that nobody knows about it, it's kinda like a secret room and it's got a whole bunch of decorative pictures of pornographic literature and sex toys and I can _ ?_ [sic] what happened in there.

After discussion of this private room (which is also brought up later in the interview), Giuffre continues:

So anyways, that was getting there, and I was introduced to Jeffrey, he was laying naked on top of the massage table, and obviously for one, I'm a 15 year old girl [in later interviews Giuffre is presented with documents that cause her to revise the year in which this occurred] and seeing him on the table was weird but, also learning about anatomy and massage, I thought this would be part of it. So obviously, I thought it was part of the massage program, so I said ok, this is fine.

And, he then instructed me on how to touch the body, Jeffrey's body, how to massage him, and for the first hour, it was actually a real massage, maybe not an hour, maybe like 40 minutes or something, but of something like that _and that's when he turned over on the other side and to expose himself fully.

So then Ghislaine told me that she wanted me to undress and began to take off my shirt and skirt, my white uniform from Mar-A-Lago, she also took off her shirt and got undressed, and so I was there with just my undies on, and she was completely bare, and made some kind of little flake [sic] about the underwear that I was wearing because it wasn't my normal sexy girl underwear and just like, I don't know, had red hearts on it or something like that; just your normal, you know, real cute underwear.

Anyways, so during all of this I'm kind of like what's going on, how do I act, what do I say, I was so afraid of, not afraid or fearful for my life but _unsure of how all this started and wanting to obtain a profession_ I was so afraid thinking about upsetting and disappointing them, I don't know, it's a weird situation by far and I was expected to _Lick his nipples, instructed on how to do so by J.E_ and give him oral sex while he wanted to fondle me, and then at the end, I was told by Ghislaine to get on top and straddle Jeffrey sexually, and when we were done, we went and had a shower in the room and Jeffrey told me to wash him up and down, you know with a bar of soap and make sure he was all cleaned up.

And then he took me downstairs and took me to two of the guards and told John to bring me home. John was the butler at the time.

[...]

Q: You've told us about the first visit. Was there any discussion on the occasion of that first visit about your returning?

Yes, they were very pleased with me and after the encounter was finished, the sexual encounter, he went and told me I did well and I have a lot of potential to become a massage therapist and if I'd like I could return tomorrow, you know, and do the same thing and get paid $200/hr, so Jeffrey insisted that I come after work, and over the next few days, I guess the relationship grew into more, and within a couple of weeks, not even a couple of weeks, maybe a week, I had quit Mar-a-Lago and I was working for Jeffrey full time.

When she's asked about whether they were aware of her age, she replies:

During the entire hour of what I call the legitimate massage I was giving him, it was cat and mouse games getting information from me to find out who I am, am I a willing participant in these kind of things, and how would I react if they were about to take the next step.

But they got information off of me, they got my age, they got my, a little bit of my history so they knew I was, you know, not very stable at home, and they knew that, you know, I was actually interested in making my life better by studying so what they were offering me was a chance to become a legitimate masseuse but it was getting trained.

They would have people show me how to work the body and be called a massage therapist and get me books on it, and you know, keep me interested, and every time, you know, I was with Jeffrey, literally was about massages, I don't mean just going in and have sex with him. I mean massage, because it would always start out with massage and then it would lead into sometimes other things.

Taken together, this is a straight-up, nearly clichéd pick-up and seduction — Maxwell, a wealthy posh-accented British woman ("nice, proper English lady") and member of an elite resort, spots a pretty, inexperienced, hoping-for-better-things girl working a menial job and uses the girl's interest in massage therapy as a hook to bring her to Epstein. The two of them proceed to walk her through from a massage to sex, then to a repeated pattern of massage-and-sex with promises of job training as a professional masseuse and (later) clients of her own from among Epstein wealthy friends.

It's short road from that initial seduction to a regular well recompensed life, as a member of Epstein and Maxwell's harem. Soon after she started with the pair, she was sent traveling regularly to service other of Epstein's friends, about eight in number, whom she declined to name. ("[S]ome of these people are really influential in power, and I don't want to start another shitstorm with a few of them.")

This tale could have been taken from a Victorian novel, but I don't think the non-rape method of wealthy men seducing girls — her poverty, their money and false promises — has changed at all since then. I don't think it has changed at all in millennia.

Note, by the way, that Maxwell is a semi-participant in the sex. From other documents it appears that Maxwell herself had sex with some of the girls, both in conjunction with Epstein and perhaps alone. In other words, Epstein is not the only pedophile in the relationship, though I don't think Maxwell herself has been charged as such.

About the Ages of Epstein's Underage Girls 

At one point Mr. Scarola starts to question Giuffre about the ages of some of the other girls. Here's one such exchange:

Q: Did Jeffrey ever brag to you about the age of any of the girls with whom he had relationships?

Yes, he did. He did all the time. The worst one that I heard from his own mouth was this [sic] pretty 12 year old girls he had flown in for his birthday. It was a surprise birthday gift from one of his friends and they were from France.

I did see them, I did meet them. Jeffrey bragged afterwards after he met them that they were 12 year olds and flown over from France because they're really poor over there, and their parents needed the money or whatever the case is and they were absolutely free to stay and flew out.

Those were the worst ones. He was constantly bragging about girls' ages or where he got them from or their past and how terrible their past was and good he is making it for them.

A "birthday gift" of poor 12-year-old girls.

Lives of the Rich and Famous

Bill Clinton is discussed on pages 22 and 23 of the transcript. Because that section has been so widely reported — yes, Clinton was on the island; yes, in the company of two of Epstein's girls, though no allegation is made of sexual conduct; and yes, "sexual orgies" did occur on the island — I'll skip that section.

Near the end of the interview, Scarola asks a fascinating and well-worded question. He knows Giuffre doesn't want to "name names" with respect to sexual conduct, so he phrases a question to her this way:

Q: If we were to take sworn testimony from the people I am going to name, and if those people were to tell the truth about what they knew, do you believe that any of the following people would have relevant information about Jeffrey's taking advantage of underage girls? 

So I'll just name a name, and you tell me yes if they told the truth, I think they'd have relevant information or no, I don' t think they would, or I don't know whether they would or not. Ok? You understand?

She does understand, and the following exchange takes place:

Q: Ok. Les Wexner.

I think he has relevant information, but I don't think he'll tell you the truth.

Q: Ok. Alan Dershowitz.

Yes.

Q: David Copperfield.

Don't know.

Q: Tommy Matola. [sic]

Don't know.

Q: Prince Andrew.

Yes, he would know a lot of the truth. Again, I don't know how much he would be able to help you with, but seeing he's in a lot of trouble himself these days, I think he might, so I think he may be valuable. I'm not too sure of him.

As I said, the interview is fascinating — straightforward, lacking in legalese, storylike in its simplicity, and stunning in its content.

Keep in mind, this interview took place in 2011, early in the game — after Giuffre had left Epstein (that part of the story is interesting in itself) to marry, live and raise a family in Australia and after Epstein began to have legal trouble — but not long after. It's from early interviews like these that the real wrangling begins.

All in all, if you read only one Epstein document, this is one you should turn your attention to.
 

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Ghislaine Maxwell, the one in the photo standing next to Jeffrey Epstein while emulating Michael Jackson for some reason, has been transferred to a dodgy prison in New York from her temporary quarters in New Hampshire where she was finally arrested. Not to worry, her new digs aren't the same as the one where Jeffrey Epstein breathed his last. She has been moved to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a facility that, although new by appearance has been rife with environmental problems and now has an unusually high rate of COVID-19 cases. Maxwell is scheduled for a July 14th court date, emphasis scheduled. She faces charges of procuring girls as young as 14 for Epstein to abuse and we've all heard that he wasn't the only one. Gee, I'd love to see the contacts list on her personal pedo-phone! How many $enators and CEOs in that little treasure? Maxwell reportedly literally hung around outside middle schools scouting "talent." The court proceedings will be via video, not in person. That's a video that, depending on how events transpire, could be a number one seller! The Bureau Of Prisons has declined further comment. Prosecutors have said Maxwell, with her three passports, "poses an extreme flight risk."

Will she last until Monday? Numerous betting houses will quote you the latest odds. Currently, the odds of Maxwell being murdered are generally listed at 4 to 1 but I bet a lot of people of various corporate and political persuasions are hoping that the coronavirus floating around the Brooklyn MDC will find its target quickly. Until then, I'm sure her new cell has been provided with a noose or at least a few extra belts, a Make America Great Again smallpox blanket, or maybe a set of keys and a fully gassed up 1971 Ford Pinto getaway car waiting outside.

Many People Think That It's Likely Trump Had Jeffrey Epstein Murdered

Even in the friendliest of environments-- say the radio show and podcast I do weekly with David Feldman-- people scoff when I express certainty that the Trump Regime had Jeffrey Epstein murdered while he was in federal custody awaiting trial. Just last week, Feldman asked me, with a degree of incredulity if I really believed that Trump had Epstein murdered? I can't believe that anyone rational doesn't!

Epstein's brother hired famed forensic pathologist Michael Baden, a former NYC medical examiner, to investigate the death. He came to the conclusion that Epstein probably didn't kill himself as was more likely to have been murdered. The video above is Baden's appearance on Fox & Friends yesterday. He said "I think the evidence points to a homicide rather than a suicide... Because there are three fractures in the hyoid bone, the thyroid cartilage that are very unusual for suicide and more indicative of strangulation-- homicidal strangulation... I’ve never seen in 50 years of investigating all deaths that occur in prisons in New York state never have two guards fall asleep at the same time, while the video doesn’t work."

The Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown interviewed Baden as well and he told her that "The autopsy did not support suicide. That’s what [the medical examiner, Barbara Sampson] put down. Then Dr. Sampson changed it a week later to manner of death to suicide. The brother has been trying to find out why that changed…what was the evidence?"

The death of Epstein, 66, launched a series of conspiracy theories, mostly centered on whether Epstein was murdered to keep him from revealing information about the rich and powerful men in his social circle who may have been involved in crimes, including sex trafficking.

Sampson, however, ruled out foul play, but her findings did little to quell speculation.

The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office said it would shortly release a statement on the issues Baden had raised.

Following the autopsy, it was revealed there were major security lapses at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and two prison officers were suspended and the warden was reassigned.

A federal investigation, ordered by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, is ongoing.

Barr, a fanatic protector of Trump's own crime wave, is himself a likely suspect. Unless Epstein was a Mossad agent looking for komprmat on prominent Americans from the very start.

Do The Two Political Parties Make You Want To Throw Up?

Feel the love?

In 2006, I started interacting with other progressive bloggers nationally through some e-mail groups. I freely shot off my mouth pretty regularly and often attacked Rahm Emanuel, than head of the DCCC. I assumed the 600 or so people on the list knew what I knew about Emanuel and his record as a neoliberal, self-serving and corrupt shit head. Bad assumption. I was attacked for being a Republican-plant. There were many people on the list who saw Emanuel as a stalwart hero of the Democratic Party... and who the hell was I? Most of the list of progressives saw the DCCC and Rahm Emanuel as our allies and even if they didn't all buy into the assertion that I was working for the GOP, the sentiment was to kick me off the list.

At the time, Matt Stoller was a respected and admired blogger. He told the people attacking to STFU and was the only person to defend my position on the merits. Stoller understood what Emanuel was back then. Of course, now almost everyone does but back in 2005-6 it was definitely a minority position among progressives. Yesterday, Stoller, who has since then worked for Alan Grayson and Bernie Sanders in Capitol Hill and now works for the anti-monopoly Open Markets Institute and writes here, created a tweet storm work looking at and considering. This is it in narrative list version-- Matt Stoller:

1. Starting 2006 or so, I've become somewhat disillusioned with the Democratic Party. I'm going to explain why. It has to do with the relationship most Democrats have with corporate power, or really, power. Now first, to explain, I'm a liberal Democrat.

2. What I saw in 2006 was the allegiance Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had to lobbying power. They both backed Joe Lieberman against a Democrat. Obama then lied about NAFTA in 2008, and retroactive immunity for telecoms. He lied about a lot in 2008. Dems didn't notice or care.

3. In 2009, I began working in Congress for a member of the financial services committee. Tim Geithner sought a foreclosure wave and to help the banks. Rahm Emanuel Larry Summers ran around protecting monopolies. My friends at Moveon, etc didn't notice, cheerleading Obamacare.

4. The day Obamacare passed, a friend was sitting on my couch. He was tearing up with joy, and I've never felt so much contempt. We got calls from people with cancer. When do I get my free Obamacare? Try explaining to someone with cancer they get it in four years.

5. People in the Obama White House would scoff and laugh behind the scenes at who they perceived as deadbeats in foreclosure. Meanwhile we took calls from people desperately trying to show they paid the bank what they owed but were losing their home anyway.

6. I was reminded of the stupidity and venality of the Obama administration day after day by their actions, big and small. They were mean, petty, dumb, greedy, and dishonest. And Democratic voters refused to believe their own leaders were doing what they were doing.

7. Obama snuck in a provision to the stimulus mandating that AIG execs would get their bonuses. Obama then blamed that provision on Chris Dodd and held a press conference on how he would do everything he could to get those bonuses back, after they had already gone out.

8. Obama's first FCC Chairman, Julius Janikowski, was a buddy from law school. He refused to actually do net neutrality. He's now at the Carlyle Group in private equity. Tim Geithner is also in private equity. Obama takes massive speaking fees from powerful financiers. Rancid.

9. The thing is, Obama didn't do any of this without permission. He got permission from every single Democratic voter who supported and loved him. Every time his people threatened members with primary challenges (and he did), he was doing it with Democratic voters' endorsement.

10. No one was honest. Not the centrists or the left. Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, 350.org and various spinoff movements refused to admit that Obama was hostile to their values. And gradually I realized it's because they just don't see power.

11. Most Dems think injustice is what lives in the heart. It isn't. It's what lives in our institutions. Corporate power is autocracy, but to know the autocracy, you have to learn about trade, finance, law. Liberal democracy is all about equality.

12. Our political order is oriented around legitimizing only those who can claim some form of victimization. It's why the woke stuff/white supremacy is so powerful. It's a fundamentally anti-enlightenment model of politics.

13. You can see how the Chinese government, which is a truly fascist power, uses illiberal arguments to advance its agenda. The idea that Chinese people's feelings are hurt, the claims to racial grievance, attacks on liberal democratic forms of government, the CIA in Hong Kong.

14. Tim Geithner was not a racist. But Tim Geithner did this. "According to a 2013 study of TARP investments, black-owned banks were ten times less likely to receive bailout money than nonminority-owned banks."

15. Democrats do not see corporate power where racism and autocracy is institutionalized, because it conflicts with the left-libertarian narrative that only victims have a right to be heard.

16. It's improving, rapidly. @BernieSanders in 2016 gave voice to frustrated Democrats, and in 2020, the last debate was basically a rejection of Obama. But even so. We have a lot of work to do. Here's an example. National security.

17. A lot of the energy on the left is focused on sustainability, resiliency, localism. Good. Yay! And a lot of the energy on the right is focused on nationalism, making things in the U.S., protecting our supply chains.

Hey everyone, this is the same thing.

18. At any rate, we have very serious problems. We can't make anything. That knowledge and experience was ripped out by Bill Clinton and it never came back. How are we going to do a Green New Deal? Who is going to do it? We can't build high speed rail in California.

19. Most of our think tanks are corrupted by Chinese and Wall Street money. Our elite class has been trained to be a bunch of useless McKinsey-trained fools.

20. We need a social movement to fix our corporate structures. A real movement. A movement of engineers and farmers and business people and bankers and programmers and students who hate corruption and love liberal democracy.

21. None of us have ever seen liberal democracy work the way it should. This is an accident of history. It's just weird we turned away from liberal democracy in the late 1970s. So we'll have to take it on faith and on archival evidence that it can work.

22. And the Republicans are in worse shape. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were our cult of personality leaders who corrupted us. But Reagan, Bush, Trump is yours. You will have to dig yourselves out, the way us Democrats are slowly doing it. It's possible. It's necessary.

The only thing I'd like to see more than Trump rotting in prison for child rape would be to see Bill Clinton in there with him as a cell-mate. I was on the phone with an old friend today, the guy who first ran against then-Speaker Denny Hastert and who set in motion his eventual downfall. Topic: AOC, who beat Joe "the next Speaker" Crowley, one of the most awesome electoral outcome of 2018. We agreed that Democratic Party elected officials never learn anything substantive. None of them will change any policy-oriented or corruption-oriented behavior to avoid Crowley's fate. Instead, like Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL), Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA), Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ), David Scott (Blue Dog-GA) and Eliot Engel (New Dem-NY), they are leading a counter-revolution against AOC, against "the Squad," against the Green New Deal, against Medicare-for-All and against any semblance of a progressive agenda. That thermometer on the right is how you can contribute to the progressive candidates fighting those 9 reactionary corporate whores.

Yesterday, Caleb Howe, reporting for Mediaite, roasted MSNBC's worst prime time host, Chris Matthews for his defense of all his pals who were raping underage girls under the auspices of Jeffrey Epstein. "Matthews," he wrote, "offered a rather unusual defense of rich politicians like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump who socialized with dead probable human trafficker and rapist Jeffrey Epstein: they like private planes."

The long Hardball segment on Epstein’s suicide covered his death, the theories about how it could have happened, the “chutzpah” of Trump to talk about Clinton’s association, given his own, and the attendant issues with MSNBC legal analyst Paul Butler and Vanity Fair’s Vanessa Grigoriadis. They decried Trump’s theorizing about Clinton, and also theorized that Trump and Attorney General William Barr “facilitated” Epstein’s suicide.

But one take offered by Matthews was particularly unusual.

“One thing culturally that goes on in politics that I find really dismaying: politicians need money. A lot of them aren’t that wealthy. They live on their salaries. A hundred and a half a year, they’re not crying, but they love travel and private planes. They to get around for their professional and political reasons,” said Matthews. “They’ve become friends with the wrong frickin’ people. And these people are frightening and they want something, they want the prestige of hanging around a politician.”

“These relationships are awful, the names that have come out. I don’t want to use their names tonight. Why do these guys know a guy like this guy Epstein? Why do you want to know him?” he asked Butler.

It’s more than just the implied absolution, it’s the fact that he declines to say names, he paints them almost as victims. The poor politician is so poor he needs to hang around with pedophiles just to get a few private plane rides. Woe is us!

Liberal writer Naomi LaChance noticed:

It’s extremely embarrassing for MSNBC that Matthews likes politicians so much he didn’t even want to report on the ones who are reportedly linked to an accused child rapist. It seems as though he’s in complete denial that some people in this world are violent abusers. Welcome to 2019, buttercup, that’s the world most of us are living in.

Besides, all three of these men-- Trump, Clinton, and Gore-- have been accused of inappropriate sexual conduct outside of the context of Jeffrey Epstein. (All three men denied the cumulative array of charges leveled against them.)

Amazed that Matthews couldn’t posit another theory as to why these men were acquainted with Epstein, LaChance said he “clearly knows one very clear possible answer and does not want to speak its name aloud.”

Ouch.

How does that fit in with Stoller's theories about Democratic politicians and the direction of the Democratic Party? Maybe a random tweet will help:

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Good satire has more than a ring of truth to it. So, if William Barr's "Justice" Department really did release a picture of the incompetent and buffoonish Sgt. "I Know Nothing!" Schultz and claim that he was Jeffrey Epstein's guard, would it differ at all from our expectations?

If ever there was a time when Barr, Trump's Attorney General/Personal Consigliere, could use some credibility, it's now that Jeffrey Epstein is wandering on his way down to Hell. It remains to be seen that if Hell will even admit Epstein but meanwhile we are stuck with the sick farce that is Jeffrey Epstein's mysterious death. It is a death on Barr's watch since the Metropolitan Correctional Center is within his domain and nothing Barr ever has to say about Epstein's death will ever hold a drop of credibility. At this point, it would be best if William Barr found out exactly how Epstein killed himself (if that, in fact, really is how Epstein's death came about) and took the same route for himself. It this was Japan and Barr had even a trace of honor, he'd have hari-kari'd himself by Saturday night.

It could be seen as too bad for Barr that his role in the whole thing or any of his explanations will always be under a cloud of suspicion but he brought it all upon himself when he sold his soul and made the choice to be Trump's personal lawyer and not the chief lawyer for the United States Of American. He also sold out America and he sold out his credibility. He then made it even worse with his lies about the Mueller Report. All that said, there's absolutely no indication that Barr gives a damn what people with morals and a sense of justice think, as long as he gets paid what he wants. The man is a sleazebag of the first order.

So now, Epstein, the man who could have been the worst threat Barr's pal and mobster-like boss would ever have to face is dead and Barr is left facing derision, plus suspicions and accusations that somehow he was involved. He'll laugh at it all and he'll laugh at the country. Some are now even calling Barr Trump's cleaner, as if consigliere wasn't bad (and accurate) enough. This is what the nation gets when it votes for a complete nutjob for president. Trump knows the "best people."

Did Trump Have His Best Friend Jeffrey Epstein Brutally Murdered? Or Did Barr Just Assume Trump Wanted It Done?

This one is going to be the subject of conspiracy theories For decades. I'm stickin' with the Mossad agent one, for now. The CBS headline yesterday Shrieking Heard From Jeffrey Epstein's Jail Cell The Morning He Died was enticing... but I thought the dirty deed was done Friday night. Barr investigating this is like having Al Capone investigate the Mafia. Why does this not instill me with confidence? "We will get to the bottom of what happened and there will be accountability. I was appalled and frankly angry to learn of the MCC's failure to adequately secure this prisoner... Let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with Epstein. Any co-conspirators should not rest easy. The victims deserve justice and they will get it." (Unless you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.)

And Congress? The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee will say one thing and the Committee Republicans-- and remember, they have a virtual 5-ring circus there between Gym Jordan (R-OH), Matt Gaetz (R-Trump's Ass), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), John Ratcliffe (R-TX) and Doug Collins (R-GA)-- will blame the Clintons. (Now that they may have something, I bet they wish they haven't been crying wolf for over two decades.)

Has anyone found ex-girlfriend turned procurer Ghislaine Maxwell yet? Or her body? Antonia Noori Farzan, reporting for the Washington Post yesterday, introduced a new character in the drama: octogenarian and "celebrity pathologist" (JFK, Martin Luther King, Tsar Nicholas II, Josef Mengele, John Belushi...) Michael Baden, a Fox News personality hired by Epstein’s representatives to independently watch the autopsy.

“The famous and infamous, the celebrated and notorious, do not bleed and die as the rest of us do,” Baden wrote in the first chapter of his 1989 memoir, Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner. “They have scenarios, intricately plotted dramas. Buried villains still stalk the earth, hidden in other guises, and news of their obscure ends in faraway villages only brings disbelief.”

Perhaps proving his point, when New York City Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson announced on Sunday night that Baden had witnessed Epstein’s autopsy at the request of the deceased financier’s legal team-- a routine precaution in high-profile cases-- the news further inflamed some online conspiracy theorists. After all, how was it possible that one doctor could be linked to so many high-stakes trials and controversial deaths?

...“Michael never saw a camera he didn’t like,” Lowell Levine, who served alongside Baden as co-director of pathology for the New York State Police, told NBC News in 2014. “He used to yell at me about the press: ‘They’re just trying to make a living-- why don’t you help them?’”

It was O.J. Simpson’s 1995 trial, and subsequent acquittal, that ultimately cemented Baden’s reputation as a “celebrity pathologist.” Hired by the defense team, Baden challenged prosecutors’ narratives about the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, and questioned the accuracy of the Los Angeles County coroner’s findings.

As the conspiracy-minded were quick to point out this week, Simpson’s legal team also included Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor and defense attorney who once defended Epstein in court. It wasn’t the only time that Baden and Dershowitz ended up on the same side of a high-profile trial: Dershowitz defended Claus von Bülow, the socialite accused but ultimately acquitted of trying to murder his millionaire wife by injecting her with insulin. Baden, who testified on behalf of the defense in two subsequent trials that gripped the country during the 1980s, later wrote in his memoir that he had concluded that Sunny von Bülow had wound up in a coma because of her own drug and alcohol use.

Baden met with some controversy in 2007, when he testified as a defense witness during the trial of record producer Phil Spector, who was accused of murdering actress Lana Clarkson. As prosecutors revealed on cross-examination, Baden’s wife, Linda Kenney Baden, was an attorney on Spector’s defense team, presenting a potential conflict of interest. Baden adamantly rejected the suggestion that his wife’s role could have influenced his testimony, saying that he had come to his own conclusions before she was hired, the Pasadena Star-News reported. (The case ended in a mistrial, and Spector was later found guilty of second-degree murder.)

When he wasn’t testifying in highly publicized trials, Baden’s willingness to go on television and talk about gruesome murder investigations-- especially those involving celebrities-- proved to be a highly marketable asset. He hosted the HBO documentary series Autopsy for nine seasons, and became a contributor to Fox News, where he still regularly discusses prominent cases. He also worked as a consultant for the NBC crime drama series “Crossing Jordan” and co-wrote two novels, both forensic thrillers, with his wife.

In 2005, Baden left the New York State Police and went into full-time private practice, according to NBC. About a decade later, the Black Lives Matter movement resulted in a slew of new, controversial cases, as activists began questioning official narratives about the deaths of black men at the hands of the police. Baden was hired to conduct independent autopsies in the 2014 deaths of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a chokehold by a New York City police officer, and Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by an officer in Ferguson, Mo. In both cases, his findings were largely consistent with the local authorities, and neither of the police officers was criminally charged.

Meanwhile Trump is still pushing the Clinton connection to Epstein's death. Asked if he really believes Clinton was involved with the death, Trumpanzee told a media gaggle, "I have no idea. I know he was on his plane 27 times and he said he was on the plane 4 times. But when they checked the plane logs, Bill Clinton, who was a very good friend of Epstein's , he was on the plane about 27 or 28 times. So why did he say 4 times? And then the question you have to ask is 'did Bill Clinton go to the island?' because Epstein had an island that was not a good place, as I understand it and I was never there. So you have to ask 'did Bill Clinton go to the island?' That's the question. If you find that out, you're gonna know a lot. Thanks you very much, everybody."

Trump, a germaphobe, used Epstein's to procure underage virgin girls but only in Epstein's U.S. party houses. Here's one of the former virgins talking about how Trump raped her at Epstein's place in NYC when she was 15.





Let's close the Epstein Case today with the explosive testimony-- in the New York Times-- from reporter James Stewart, who visited Epstein at his cavernous Manhattan mansion on August 16, 2018, a year ago. "The overriding impression I took away from our roughly 90-minute conversation," he wrote yesterday, "was that Mr. Epstein knew an astonishing number of rich, famous and powerful people, and had photos to prove it. He also claimed to know a great deal about these people, some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use."

So one of my first thoughts on hearing of Mr. Epstein’s suicide was that many prominent men and at least a few women must be breathing sighs of relief that whatever Mr. Epstein knew, he has taken it with him.

During our conversation, Mr. Epstein made no secret of his own scandalous past-- he’d pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from underage girls and was a registered sex offender-- and acknowledged to me that he was a pariah in polite society. At the same time, he seemed unapologetic. His very notoriety, he said, was what made so many people willing to confide in him. Everyone, he suggested, has secrets and, he added, compared with his own, they seemed innocuous. People confided in him without feeling awkward or embarrassed, he claimed.

... I initially walked past the building, on East 71st Street, because it looked more like an embassy or museum than a private home. Next to the imposing double doors was a polished brass plaque with the initials “J.E.” and a bell. After I rang, the door was opened by a young woman, her blond hair pulled back in a chignon, who greeted me with what sounded like an Eastern European accent.

I can’t say how old she was, but my guess would be late teens or perhaps 20. Given Mr. Epstein’s past, this struck me as far too close to the line. Why would Mr. Epstein want a reporter’s first impression to be that of a young woman opening his door?

The woman led me up a monumental staircase to a room on the second floor overlooking the Frick museum across the street. It was quiet, the lighting dim, and the air-conditioning was set very low. After a few minutes, Mr. Epstein bounded in, dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt, shook my hand and said he was a big fan of my work. He had a big smile and warm manner. He was trim and energetic, perhaps from all the yoga he said he was practicing. He was undeniably charismatic.

Before we left the room he took me to a wall covered with framed photographs. He pointed to a full-length shot of a man in traditional Arab dress. “That’s M.B.S.,” he said, referring to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. The crown prince had visited him many times, and they spoke often, Mr. Epstein said.

He led me to a large room at the rear of the house. There was an expansive table with about 20 chairs. Mr. Epstein took a seat at the head, and I sat to his left. He had a computer, a small blackboard and a phone to his right. He said he was doing some foreign-currency trading.

Behind him was a table covered with more photographs. I noticed one of Mr. Epstein with former President Bill Clinton, and another of him with the director Woody Allen. Displaying photos of celebrities who had been caught up in sex scandals of their own also struck me as odd.

Mr. Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend.

He said this was something he’d become used to, even though it didn’t stop people from visiting him, coming to his dinner parties or asking him for money. (That was why, Mr. Epstein told me without any trace of irony, he was considering becoming a minister so that his acquaintances would be confident that their conversations would be kept confidential.)

If he was reticent about Tesla, he was more at ease discussing his interest in young women. He said that criminalizing sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration and that at times in history it was perfectly acceptable. He pointed out that homosexuality had long been considered a crime and was still punishable by death in some parts of the world.

Mr. Epstein then meandered into a discussion of other prominent names in technology circles. He said people in Silicon Valley had a reputation for being geeky workaholics, but that was far from the truth: They were hedonistic and regular users of recreational drugs. He said he’d witnessed prominent tech figures taking drugs and arranging for sex (Mr. Epstein stressed that he never drank or used drugs of any kind).

I kept trying to steer the conversation back to Tesla, but Mr. Epstein remained evasive. He said he’d spoken to the Saudis about possibly investing in Tesla, but he wouldn’t provide any specifics or names. When I pressed him on the purported email from Mr. Musk, he said the email wasn’t from Mr. Musk himself, but from someone very close to him. He wouldn’t say who that person was. I asked him if that person would talk to me, and he said he’d ask. He later said the person declined; I doubt he asked.

When I later reflected on our interview, I was struck by how little information Mr. Epstein had actually provided. While I can’t say anything he said was an explicit lie, much of what he said was vague or speculative and couldn’t be proved or disproved. He did have at least some ties to Mr. Musk — a widely circulated photo shows Mr. Musk with Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s confidante and former companion, at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscars party.

“Ghislaine simply inserted herself behind him in a photo he was posing for without his knowledge,” Ms. Sulprizio, the spokeswoman for Mr. Musk, said.

It seemed clear Mr. Epstein had embellished his role in the Tesla situation to enhance his own importance and gain attention-- something that now seems to have been a pattern.

About a week after that interview, Mr. Epstein called and asked if I’d like to have dinner that Saturday with him and Woody Allen. I said I’d be out of town. A few weeks after that, he asked me to join him for dinner with the author Michael Wolff and Donald J. Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon. I declined. (I don’t know if these dinners actually happened. Mr. Bannon has said he didn’t attend. Mr. Wolff and a spokeswoman for Mr. Allen didn’t respond to requests for comment on Monday.)

Several months passed. Then early this year Mr. Epstein called to ask if I’d be interested in writing his biography. He sounded almost plaintive. I sensed that what he really wanted was companionship. As his biographer, I’d have no choice but to spend hours listening to his saga. Already leery of any further ties to him, I was relieved I could say that I was already busy with another book.

That was the last I heard from him. After his arrest and suicide, I’m left to wonder: What might he have told me?

Oh, what an idiot!

Did Barr Even Need To Hear Trump Screech "Will No One Rid Me Of This Turbulent Pedofile?"

I bet Señor Trumpanzee wishes he had never retweeted black wing-nut comedian Terrence K. Williams. Williams is a conspiracy-theorist-for-pay and Trump is... well, many things, but more than anything else, a projectionist. The retweet was a huge discussion on the Sunday talking heads shows this morning. The White House sent Kellyanne Conway to Fox News Sunday to try to defend Trump's latest gaffes. She told Bill Hemmer, "I think the president just wants everything to be investigate." Yeah, by Roy Cohn stand-in, Bill Barr... but wait 'til Elijah Cunnings and Jerry Nadler start poking around! "Everybody should be at least relieved when an attorney general takes action as quickly as Attorney General Barr did yesterday," said Conway, without a trace of irony and downplaying Trump's once close relationship with Epstein and the accusations that Trump was a customer for young virgins back when they were palling around and Trump was asserting Epstein was "a terrific guy" and making snide public remarks like "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." Kellyanne's husband got right to the point:

I wonder how many people think Barr and/or Trump had Epstein offed in his prison cell over the weekend. This instant 24 hour Twitter poll shows that over half the respondents do and that only 14% think it is a "crazy conspiracy theory." Trump retweeting the nonsense from Williams just adds fuel to the speculation fire about Trump's own involvement since he can't control his own tendency to project, especially to hide his own guilt when he's feeling cornered.

This morning, Jake Tapper kicked off State of the Union by raging at Trump for promoting a "deranged" and "insane" conspiracy theory about the death of his old friend Epstein, the man who knew too much too be allowed to live and testify. "The state of our union is appalled," said Tapper. "We begin this morning with a retweet from the president of the United States. Not a message about healing or uniting the country one week after two horrifying massacres, not about the victims of those tragedies. Instead President Trump using his massive Twitter platform to spread a deranged conspiracy theory tying the death of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in prison to the president's former political rivals, the Clintons... The president often uses it to amplify that which is the worst of us: personal attacks, bigotry and insane conspiracy theories."

Junior has a grievance

If you watch MSNBC with any frequency at all, you are probably familiar with former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Barbara McQuade. This morning New York Magazine published an interview Matt Stieb did with her about what happens to the Epstein case now that he's dead.

MS: How much information about Epstein and his co-conspirators will never be known because the criminal case against him closes with his death?

BM: It could be quite a bit. His case will no doubt be dismissed: You can’t have a prosecution without a defendant. So it will probably be dismissed Monday morning. But I do think that it is likely that investigators will continue to investigate any co-conspirators who are involved in this case. We know the names of some of the women who were assisting him. And then there’s also the interesting and unusual language in the plea agreement out of the Southern District of Florida about granting immunity to any potential co-conspirators. So my guess is, they will continue to investigate whether there are co-conspirators. It may be that never pans out into any charges, for lots of reasons: a lack of evidence, evidence that’s unavailable because you needed Epstein. So it could be that we never hear anything more about it. But I think they’ll continue to investigate, and if they find evidence of a crime, that will become publicly known.

MS: What about Epstein’s knowledge, now lost, of his own alleged crimes? I’m thinking about passwords, knowing where records are, information like that.

BM: If he had wanted to provide truthful information, he likely could have implicated any others involved by providing testimony or photos or documents. Though I think a search warrant was already executed at his home, so investigators likely already have at least some of that.

MS: Does his death make it less likely that charges will be brought against other people?

BM: There was a possibility of him as a cooperator. He obviously had a strong incentive to share information-- to reduce his own prison sentence. That possibility of him sharing important information that could have exposed co-conspirators-- that’s gone with his death. But I think there’s still an incentive to investigate the reasons for his lenient guilty plea, and anyone who might have been assisting in or sharing in the sex trafficking. I think that investigation will continue, there’s plenty of incentive for it to continue. [On Saturday, the Miami Herald reported that with Epstein’s death, “prosecutors in the Southern District of New York will likely refocus their probe on Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen Vickers, Adriana Ross, and Lesley Groff-- all of whom allegedly helped run Epstein’s operation in the mid- to late-2000s.]

MS: How might this affect the civil cases by his victims against his estate, or the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General investigation into the plea deal?

BM: I think you can still maintain the civil cases, the defamation cases, those should continue. It makes it difficult: Because you don’t have him, you can’t continue to take those depositions or do the things you might want to do with the case. But those cases will continue. The inspector general maintains the ability to look into misconduct, because there was possible institutional misconduct-- the idea that the apparatus has problems that needs to be corrected. So I think the inspector general could continue to investigate.

MS: So there are no confirmed reports of a cooperation agreement between the government and any Epstein co-conspirators, but if one was theoretically in place to help prosecute Epstein, could it be thrown away to prosecute that cooperating co-conspirator?

BM: I don’t know if it’d be thrown out. If there’s still potential investigative information that person had that would still be valuable for others, it might stay. If they were solely cooperating against Epstein, that’s an interesting question. Typically, to get credit you have to provide information that assists in the investigation or prosecution of others. If he’s dead, it’s hard to imagine that it could still amount to substantial assistance. They might lose their ability to provide something of value. I would think that there may still be value in their cooperation if they are sharing information about of others. If it’s solely about Epstein and he’s dead, that theoretical person might be out of luck. If I were involved in the case, I’d still want to talk to them to find out what they know about others.

MS: Regarding his suicide in jail after a reported suicide attempt in July, it seems like the prosecutor may have miscalculated, seeing his first attempt as an effort to get out of jail. Where does the responsibility for his death fall? With the prosecutor? The Metropolitan Correctional Center?

BM: I think it’s the Bureau of Prisons, which takes care of inmates and detainees. Somebody makes a decision on whether or not an inmate goes on suicide watch. It’s hard to imagine why he wouldn’t still be on suicide watch. [On July 23, Epstein had been found semiconscious in his cell with marks on his neck. He was taken off suicide watch on July 29.] It seems like someone facing these kind of charges, for that reason alone they should be on suicide watch. The fact that he attempted and failed previously seems like he would have qualified, although I don’t know what the BOP criteria is and whether it was met.

MS: What sort of things might we learn from the FBI investigation into Epstein’s death, and the DOJ Inspector General investigation into Epstein’s death, both of which were announced today?

BM: If no charges are filed, we may not find out anything. If the FBI is involved, they’re looking into it as a possible crime, not negligence by BOP. Was he murdered? That could be one thing they’d be looking at. Did a fellow inmate or a guard kill him? That would be one thing. The other would be a civil-rights violation, that he was beaten by guards or something like that.

When Katie Johnson was a 13 year old virgin, Trump raped her at one of Epstein's New York parties.





"Considering Epstein’s extensive links to the rich and powerful-- including presidents Trump and Clinton-- Epstein’s death by post-suicide-watch suicide quickly led to suspicion and conspiracy theories from across the political spectrum... [Epstein's] death came less than a day after a trove of disturbing court documents was made public offering details about his alleged abuse of dozens of mostly underage girls, as well who assisted him with or participated in the abuse-- documents which implicate many rich and powerful men from the elite circles Epstein was once a member of." Supposedly, Epstein hanged himself Friday night. The official Department of Justice statement:

This is an odd case because the head of the Department of Justice, William Barr, is the most likely suspect to have initiated a fake suicide and who certainly OK-ed, if not odered, Epstein to be taken off suicide watch even though the DOJ had claimed he tried to kill himself July 23, when he "had been found semiconscious in his cell with marks on his neck-- though it was not clear if he had tried to harm himself or had been attacked. Prison officials investigated the injury as a possible suicide attempt and put Epstein on suicide watch, which would entail being placed in a special cell where he could be constantly monitored by prison personnel and prevented from having access to any means by which he could take his own life. Epstein was also subject to a daily psychiatric evaluation during this time... At the time of [that] attempt, he shared a cell with Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer charged with kidnapping and murdering four people in 2016."

Philip Giraldi was writing about the possibility of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell being Mossad operatives a month before Epstein's suicide or murder. The photo above is Trump, Melania, Epstein and Ghislaine at Mar-A-Lago. "The extent of Israel spying directed against the United States," wrote Giraldi, "is a huge story that is only rarely addressed in the mainstream media. The Jewish state regularly tops the list for ostensibly friendly countries that aggressively conduct espionage against the U.S. and Jewish American Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1987 for spying for Israel, is now regarded as the most damaging spy in the history of the United States."

Epstein’s crimes were carried out in his $56 million Manhattan mansion and in his oceanside villa in Palm Beach Florida. Both residences were equipped with hidden cameras and microphones in the bedrooms, which Epstein reportedly used to record sexual encounters between his high-profile guests and his underage girls, many of whom came from poor backgrounds, who were recruited by procurers to engage in what was euphemistically described as “massages” for money. Epstein apparently hardly made any effort to conceal what he was up to: his airplane was called the “Lolita Express.”

The Democrats are calling for an investigation of the Epstein affair, as well as the resignation of Acosta, but they might well wind up regretting their demands. Trump, the real target of the Acosta fury, apparently did not know about the details of the plea bargain that ended the Epstein court case. Bill and Hillary Clinton were, however, very close associates of Epstein. Bill, who flew on the “Lolita Express” at least 26 times, could plausibly be implicated in the pedophilia given his track record and relative lack of conventional morals. On many of the trips, Bill refused Secret Service escorts, who would have been witnesses of any misbehavior. On one lengthy trip to Africa in 2002, Bill and Jeffrey were accompanied by accused pedophile actor Kevin Spacey and a number of young girls, scantily clad “employees” identified only as “massage.” Epstein was also a major contributor to the Clinton Foundation and was present at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in 2010.

With an election year coming up, the Democrats would hardly want the public to be reminded of Bill’s exploits, but one has to wonder where and how deep the investigation might go. There is also a possible Donald Trump angle. Though Donald may not have been a frequent flyer on the “Lolita Express,” he certainly moved in the same circles as the Clintons and Epstein in New York and Palm Beach, plus he is by his own words roughly as amoral as Bill Clinton. In June 2016, one Katie Johnson filed lawsuit in New York claiming she had been repeatedly raped by Trump at an Epstein gathering in 1993 when she was 13 years old. In a 2002 New York Magazine interview Trump said “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy… he’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it-- Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Selective inquiries into wrongdoing to include intense finger pointing are the name of the game in Washington, and the affaire Epstein also has all the hallmarks of a major espionage case, possibly tied to Israel. Unless Epstein is an extremely sick pedophile who enjoys watching films of other men screwing twelve-year-old girls the whole filming procedure smacks of a sophisticated intelligence service compiling material to blackmail prominent politicians and other public figures. Those blackmailed would undoubtedly in most cases cooperate with the foreign government involved to avoid a major scandal. It is called recruiting “agents of influence.” That is how intelligence agencies work and it is what they do.

That Epstein was perceived as being intelligence-linked was made clear in Acosta’s comments when being cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” … “Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”

Questions about Epstein’s wealth also suggest a connection with a secretive government agency with deep pockets. The New York Times reports that “Exactly what his money management operation did was cloaked in secrecy, as were most of the names of whomever he did it for. He claimed to work for a number of billionaires, but the only known major client was Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of several retail chains, including The Limited.”

...Epstein’s contact with the Israeli intelligence service may have plausibly come through his associations with Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly served as his key procurer of young girls. Ghislaine is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, who died or possibly was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 1991. Maxwell was an Anglo-Jewish businessman, very cosmopolitan in profile, like Epstein, a multi-millionaire who was very controversial with what were regarded as ongoing ties to Mossad. After his death, he was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.”

Epstein kept a black book identifying many of his social contacts, which is now in the hands of investigators. It included fourteen personal phone numbers belonging to Donald Trump, including ex-wife Ivana, daughter Ivanka and current wife Melania. It also included Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, Tony Blair, Jon Huntsman, Senator Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, David Koch, Ehud Barak, Alan Dershowitz, John Kerry, George Mitchell, David Rockefeller, Richard Branson, Michael Bloomfield, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Elizabeth, Saudi King Salman and Edward de Rothschild. Mossad would have exploited Epstein’s contacts, arranging their cooperation by having Epstein wining and dining them while flying them off to exotic locations, providing them with women and entertainment. If they refused to cooperate, it would be time for blackmail, photos and videos of the sex with underage women.

It will be very interesting to see just how far and how deep the investigation into Epstein and his activities goes. One can expect that efforts will be made to protect top politicians like Clinton and Trump and to avoid any examination of a possible Israeli role. That is the normal practice, witness the 9/11 Report and the Mueller investigation, both of which eschewed any inquiry into what Israel might have been up to. But this time, if it was indeed an Israeli operation, it might prove difficult to cover up the story since the pedophile aspect of it has unleashed considerable public anger from all across the political spectrum. Senator Chuck Schumer, self-described as Israel’s “protector” in the Senate, is loudly calling for the resignation of Acosta. He just might change his tune if it turns out that Israel is a major part of the story.