On Tuesday afternoon, the full House voted to seek and release the files currently held by the Department of Justice concerning sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The bill passed by a vote of 427 to 1. Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana was the only member who voted against the bill.
The vote was forced after Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was finally allowed Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva to take her seat following a special election held in September. Grijalva provided the decisive vote on a rare discharge petition, allowing those seeking the release to overcome Johnson's roadblocks.
The bill will now move to the Senate, where Republican leadership has been very, very quiet on the subject of Epstein. Whether, and how quickly, Senate Republicans will take up the bill is still an open question.
Also on Tuesday, ProPublica revealed that the Trump White House stepped in to protect accused sex trafficker and abusive misogynist Andrew Tate, handing back electronic devices that had been seized by law enforcement. And in Texas, a nurse from the "camp" where Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell now resides gave some of the details of her sweetheart deal.
Update: This evening, the Senate deemed the House bill as passed without objection. This result can be viewed as a snub of Johnson, who made it clear he wanted Changes in the bill that made it past him in the House. The bill now moves to Trump’s desk.
Stay tuned.
Piggy
Meanwhile, Donald Trump continued to show how unconcerned he is about the files of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein by wagging a finger in the face of a female reporter and saying threateningly, "Quiet. Quiet, piggy."
The journalist at the other end of Trump's menacing digit was reportedly from Bloomberg. As The Guardian points out, this is far from the first time Trump has leveled "pig" at a woman who was in his way. Trump frequently calls people "dogs" as an insult, especially when talking about people of color. But "piggy" seems to be a word that Trump reserves especially for women who don't praise him sufficiently.
Elisa Lees Muñoz, the IWMF’s executive director, told the Guardian that Trump’s “piggy” remark is more of the same. “President Trump’s targeting of women journalists is nothing new,” she said. “His appearance-based insults are gendered attacks meant to shut women journalists up.
Almost as disgusting as Trump's statement, is the calm with which other reporters in the White House pool accepted this hateful insult and went right on asking Trump softball questions.
Tate
In another big-name sex trafficking case, the ProPublica report shows that the White House stepped in after accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate and his brother were stopped after getting off a private plane in Florida.
Interviews and records reviewed by ProPublica show a White House official told senior Department of Homeland Security officials to return the devices to the brothers several days after they were seized. The official who delivered the message, Paul Ingrassia, is a lawyer who previously represented the Tate brothers before joining the White House, where he was working as its DHS liaison.
Ingrassia blasted law enforcement for wasting time searching for evidence of Tate's crimes and emphasized that this direction "was coming from the White House." When questioned, experienced border security operatives could think of no other instance in which the White House had stepped in to interfere in an investigation or return evidence to the suspects.
This incident comes on top of increased scrutiny of the sweetheart deal given to Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell after she spoke with former Trump attorney, Todd Blanche. Days after providing Blanche with a statement saying she had not observed Trump engaging in sex with children, Maxwell, who is currently serving 20 years for her part in the long-running conspiracy to sexually traffic minors, was given an extraordinary move from a federal prison in Florida to "Prison Camp Bryan."
Maxwell
On Monday, a former nurse at that facility made it clear that Maxwell didn't just get upgraded to a nicer address; she's getting special privileges.
Turnage described private, catered-style visitation arrangements for Maxwell, which she says other high-profile inmates like Elizabeth Holmes never received, even though Bureau of Prisons policy explicitly prohibits even the appearance of favoritism toward inmates.
Even more critically, all inmate communications are supposed to be subject to monitoring, with mail and emails reviewed by guards before being sent or received. But, according to Turnage, Warden Tanisha Hall is "personally handling" mail addressed to Maxwell. That's pretty handy when Maxwell is reportedly seeking a pardon and Trump hasn't ruled it out.
Whatever the outcome of Tuesday's vote, two things are still clear: Trump denigrates women and defends sex traffickers.
What comes next
The House vote followed days in which Trump tried, and failed, to pressure Republican women into removing their names from the discharge petition, and Trump ordered the DOJ to begin an investigation into only Democrats named in letters released by the House – an investigation that could interfere with the release of the files.
It also follows a moving PSA from survivors of Epstein's abuse.
A common Republican talking point on Tuesday has been that the Democratic release of some Epstein emails shows that they have the information and could release it all if they wanted. However, as Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown made clear in a social media post, nothing we've seen so far is from the criminal files now held by the DOJ.
This is a complicated case, with a LOT of files, so I know it's easy to confuse what's what … the emails released Wednesday are from Epstein's estate. They were obtained from Epstein's lawyers pursuant to a subpoena that was issued by the House Oversight Committee (lawmakers). These documents are separate from the criminal case files held by the DOJ and the FBI that Trump and Bondi promised to release after the election.
On Monday, when not calling a woman "piggy," Trump exuded smugness when talking about the files. “Let the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it," said Trump. "But don’t talk about it too much because honestly, I don’t want to take it away from us. It’s really a Democrat problem.”
And maybe it will be just a problem for Democrats after Bondi is done. After eleven months, it's hard to believe that Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Don Bongino, and the army of lawyers they brought in to find and redact any mention of Trump in the files have not used scissors and Sharpies to reduce any remaining evidence to black confetti.
Even if the bill moves ahead, and Bondi does not pop up to say that, sadly, the files can't be released because she's busy investigating everyone not wearing a red hat, it's always going to be impossible to know if what gets released is complete or accurate.
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