There are enough gasp-worthy moments in the latest tranche of documents from infamous, still-dead child predator Jeffrey Epstein that reporters will be attempting to be piecing together newly discovered subthreads for some time. Probably the biggest revelation, however, is that in the last decade of his life Epstein seems to have come to truly despise Donald Trumpâto the point where he appeared to repeatedly contemplate how and when to turn on Trump.
That would have led us into an alternative timeline in which the nation's most notorious predator became the most consequential leaker of Trump's political career, probably dooming the crooked fascist's presidential bids and quite possibly landing him in prison where he ought to have been. But it didn't happen, and as of the moment it's unclear why.
Epstein and Trump had been "best friends" who had a later falling out, according to Trump. And that falling out was severe enough that Epstein appears to have contemplated squealing about Trump's involvement as far back as 2011. In an April 2011 email to accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, he wrote "i want you to realize that that dog that hasnât barked is trump.. [VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him â he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there."
Republicans name that victim as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide after Trump was reelected to the presidency.
Epstein's "im 75 % there" phrase is ambiguous. It's possible he meant he was 75% of the way towards exposing Trump's involvement. It's also possible that he meant he was 75% ready to believe Trump had cut some sort of deal with investigators to keep his name out of the scandal.
For whatever reason, Epstein continued to keep his silence on Trump. By 2015, though, it appears Epstein was seriously contemplating exposing him.
A major player in prodding Epstein into taking action appears to have been author Michael Wolff, the author of a 2018 tell-all about Trump's first administrations, who was in contact with Epstein for years. On December 12th of 2015, Wolff wrote Epstein to pre-warn him that "I hear CNN is planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with youâeither on air or in scrum afterwards."
That was the date of CNN's presidential debate, suggesting that someone had leaked to Wolff what the network was planning to ask the candidates that evening. Epstein responded: "if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?"
And that is where the relationship between convicted child predator and tell-all author gets a bit odd, as Wolff appears to have recommended Epstein let Trump say whatever Trump would say, thus creating a potential situation in which Epstein could either "hang" him or "save" him.
I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasnât been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, heâll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.
Confronted over the emails, Wolff called the emails "embarrassing" but said he was "nice" to Epstein solely for the purposes of getting information about Trump. He wrote "obviously what Epstein wanted to hear."
âOne of the things that I was focused on is trying to get Epstein to come forward. âWhy donât you go public with these pictures? Why donât you go public? Let me help you go public in telling your story about Donald Trump.ââ
Wolff prodded Epstein again in October 2016, during the last days of that years' presidential election:
There's an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him. Interested?
Again, Epstein didn't follow through. Wolff's own explanation is blunt: "The point was how afraid Epstein was of Donald Trump. Epstein was fearful about what would happen to him if Donald Trump became president of the United States."
As for what Epstein might uncover about Trump, Epstein wrote other emails in which he suggested Trump knew of his predatory actsâand may have had even more involvement than that. "[W]ould you like photos of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?" he asked then-New York Times reporter Landon Thomas Jr in 2015. (Wolff has previously claimed Epstein showed him pictures of Trump posing with "topless girls" of unknown ages on his lap.)
"[O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop," he wrote Wolff in January of 2019.
As that message shows, the threat of Epstein turning on Trump remained real even after Trump became president. Epstein in fact appears to have used his knowledge of Trump as a business opportunity, speaking with at least one Russian government figure on how best to deal with Trump.
"I think you might suggest to putin that lavrov can get insight on talking to me. [Putin UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin] used to. but he died. ?" Epstein wrote to former Norwegian prime minister Thorbjorn Jagland.
"I'll meet Lavrovs assistant on Monday and will suggest," Jagland replied.
"churkin was great. he understood Trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something it's that simple" Epstein wrote back.
There's no evidence so far that Epstein shared (potentially very, very lucrative) blackmail material against Trump with the Russian government. We will have to imagine, for ourselves, whether the nation's most notorious sex predator, one whose "business" involved powerful figures handing him money for reasons nobody has ever been able to fully rationalize, would have been open to doing such a thing.
The threat that Jeffrey Epstein would turn on Trump, and the real possibility that Epstein had photos, videotapes, or other concrete evidence proving Trump engaged in criminal acts similar to his own, remained very real until Epstein's 2019 death in prison.
That death was ruled a suicide, but Epstein's connections not just to Trump, but to a Russian government that had already engaged in a massive espionage campaign to boost Trump's 2016 presidency and to enormously wealthy figures around the world continues to fuel speculation and conspiracy theories.
There's more we can learn from the latest Epstein document dump, as well. Even after his 2008 Florida conviction on child prostitution charges, Epstein continued to have regular exchanges with a who's who of the rich and politically powerful. Ken Starr, Larry Summers were among his many, many correspondents.
And Epstein truly despised Trump, calling him "borderline insane" and warning correspondents of his "dirty" nature. Epstein also appears to have been closely following Trump's actions and finances even as investigators again closed in on Epstein himself, in 2018.
But what's perhaps most important to clarify here is that none of these messages appear to be what has Donald Trump, his cabinet members, and Republican lawmakers in wholesale panic over the potential release of the so-called "Epstein files" collected by the Department of Justice. There is nothing in here that condemns Trump any more than the information already publicly known, and no reason for Trump's top officials to go to these extraordinary lengths to hide these messages.
Donald Trump, at least, seems quite confident that there is something that was in Epstein's possession that must absolutely never be found. And he's the one who would know best what that "something" is.
To give a sense of how dire Trump's White House deems the situation to be, top Department of Justice officials met with Rep. Lauren Boebert on Monday in an attempt to convince Boebert to retract her support for releasing Justice Department files on Epstein. That meeting was held in the White House Situation Room, a highly secured room typically used for discussing top secret information and monitoring clandestine operations.
Why use a secure facility to meet with Boebert? The most likely reason is that electronic devices are strictly prohibited in the secure spaceâmeaning Boebert would have had to give up her smartphone or other recording devices before the meeting.
Whatever arguments the assembled officials wanted to use to convince Boebert, they appear to have considered it very important to keep Boebert from walking away with a record of what was said. And that is ... interesting.
Boebert, for her part, says her support for releasing the files haven't wavered. And it is all especially odd given the rank criminality we've already seen from Justice officials like Pam Bondi: it seems hard to believe Trump's team wouldn't tamper with the files and hide the most damning ones no matter what Congress ordered them to disgorge.
It's bizarre to contemplate how world history would have changed if Epstein had agreed to publicize everything he knew about Trump. Either in 2011, or 2015, or before his 2019 prison death. All we know is that whatever Epstein knew, Donald Trump remains convinced he knew enough to bury Trump completely.
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