When the Epstein Files are released...

[Free]

"Oh god... there are so many... I can't take it, I am deleting myself."

-- ChatGPT

Our first success from release of the Epstein files.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Financial Times: Epstein is not going away

The issue is Trump’s Achilles heel — and the US president knows it

Why should the rest of the world care? Epstein is Trump’s Achilles heel. Political risk assessors might also consult Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There is no law that says Maga will never turn on its creator. Steve Bannon, an ally of Greene’s, says Trump could lose 10 per cent of his base over Epstein. Assume that estimate is low. Then take into account Trump’s approval last week dropping below 40 per cent and his party’s across-the-board defeats in the off-year elections. In a country as polarised as America, a rating below 40 per cent is as bad as sub-30 per cent in pre-Trump America. The risk to Trump is that more Republicans see Greene’s point. Dimming electoral prospects have a way of concentrating minds.

 

[Free]

The emails House Democrats released today:

https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-oversight.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/3-emails_redacted.pdf

 

[Free]

Here's hoping this year's Thanksgiving is a bountiful one.

Mike Luckovich editorial cartoons

Mike Luckovich is the editorial cartoonist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Find his most recent cartoons on this page

www.ajc.com

 

[Free]

Trump seems a little bothered by the House's efforts.

Trump, allies reach out to Boebert, Mace ahead of Epstein discharge petition deadline

President Trump and other administration officials reached out to key Republicans who have signed on to an effort to force a vote on releasing files about Jeffrey Epstein in the hours before the push was set to succeed on Wednesday.

CNN reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel planned to meet with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).

Trump also called Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Wednesday morning, but she missed his call and had been playing phone tag with him as of early Wednesday afternoon, a source told The Hill, adding that there had not been outreach from White House staff.

Look's like there was a bit of a dogpile going on. No one tell Kristi Noem.

 

[Cristiano]

This covers not only the email reveal about Trump being with a victim for several hours at Epstein's house (which was bugged to high hell), but how this is all related to revelations about Epstein working for Mossad and his involvement with Israel in negotiating a surveillance deal with Côte d'Ivoire. This all points to why Trump is giving everything Netanyahu has ever wanted to him - he is completely compromised

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This all points to why Trump is giving everything Netanyahu has ever wanted to him - he is completely compromised

Does it though? Joe Biden also gave Netanyahu pretty much anything he wanted, too, and it's difficult to imagine him making Netanyahu apologise to Qatar about the attack on Doha.

I wouldn't necessarily jump to the conclusion this must have been because Mossad were blackmailing Biden, though.

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

Cue MAGA trying to say pedophilia and human trafficking must be okay since their lord and savior Donald Trump did it.

 

[Free]

Does it though?

No one should jump to conclusions, true. At the same time one can't rule it out, especially considering the breadcrumbs that lead one to believe such a thing is at least possible.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

No one should jump to conclusions, true. At the same time one can't rule it out, especially considering the breadcrumbs that lead one to believe such a thing is at least possible.

Sure, I am quite prepared to believe Epstein and Maxwell were involved with various intelligence services and the Russian mafia (Ghislaine's late father was almost certainly mobbed up) but it's quite a leap from "you can't rule it out" to "it must be the case," or even it's probably the case.

Trump's support for Israel hardly distinguishes him from other US presidents over the last 50 years, and given his white Evangelical supports for Israel and his closeness to wealthy and generous US donors, it doesn't really need anything else to explain it.

It's a bit like Humbert Woolf's epigram

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.

But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.

Similarly, I don't think Trump needed blackmailing to make him support Israel. Reassuring him that so doing would secure him votes and donations would be more than enough, to my mind.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Cue MAGA trying to say pedophilia and human trafficking must be okay since their lord and savior Donald Trump did it.

They never gave a shit about predatory behavior except when they could blame it on brown people, gay people, or their enemies. The hypocrisy is so blatant I don't know what else to say.

Today, going to lunch I saw a truck with one of those "Shoot your local pedophile" stickers and all I could think of is that they were likely projecting that on their political enemies, but just fine with their "favorite' pedophile.

 

[Free]

Another win for the New York Time's reputation.

A BlueSky thread by Jorge A. Caballero, MD on Skyview

Can we circle back to the part where the NY Times never disclosed that they have incriminating information on Donald Trump from sent by Epstein that's been sitting on their email servers for nearly a decade?

skyview.social

To recap: Jeffrey Epstein offered a NY Times reporter photos taken in Epstein's kitchen of Donald Trump and girls in bikinis *and* implored the NYT reporter to put this information in the public discourse in 2015

What did the NY Times editors know about this offer?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Epstein Birthday Book Is Even Worse Than You Might Realize

Reading the two-hundred-and-thirty-eight-page document from start to finish is like examining a crudely illustrated contract with the devil.

www.newyorker.com

Evernote Link

It’s therefore understandable why most of the media response to “The First Fifty Years” has focussed on a couple of pages of Trump-related content. But this framing may actually undersell the book’s hideous, maggot-crawling depravity. Reading it from start to finish—there are two hundred and thirty-eight pages, with redactions throughout, in the PDF that the House committee released—is to immiserate oneself in a uniquely cheap and idiotic genre of degeneracy.

That's a bit OTT, but the whole document -- there's a pdf link in the article -- is pretty sleazy. Looks to me as if his wealthy and powerful chums knew what was going on and, even if they didn't participate themselves, all thought it was quite a lark.

 

[Free]

Probably not for long, but.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Probably not for long, but.

In the context of the Dems recent smashing election wins, we may finally see the Trump teflon starting to shatter.

It's no secret that a fair number of Republican congress critters loathe Trump, but are way too frightened of him turning on them and unleashing his MAGA goons to harass/threaten them (and their families). The Epstein files release provides a safer off-ramp. If they vote in enough numbers, Trump won't have any one target to go after.

I can easily see Fox News cutting its losses if they suspect Trump is in real trouble.

The thing is, nobody LIKES Trump. If he's no longer in a position to provide them with a benefit, if his political power is spent, they will drop him without a second thought.

 

[Cristiano]

As people comb through the emails, more awful stuff is being found. One of those emails is in regards to Jeffrey Epstein negotiating with a Russian official to provide information on Donald Trump that they could use. This was one month before Trump's meeting with Putin in Helsinki in his first term, where Trump sided with Putin and attacked American intelligence officers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/12/jeffrey-epstein-donald-trump-russia-emails-00648919

 

[Free]

As people comb through the emails, more awful stuff is being found. One of those emails is in regards to Jeffrey Epstein negotiating with a Russian official to provide information on Donald Trump that they could use.

This is an excellent distillation of how "friends" behave in the world of the ultra rich. Which is helpful for the rest of us.

 

[Cristiano]

This has excellent coverage of the Russian revelations, among other things. I had forgotten Trump did not allow an interpreter at the meeting in Helsinki with Putin.

 

[Casey Pelous]

If I understand the process correctly, we are a considerable distance from the release of the files.

Assuming the House petition passes, it then goes to the Senate. IF it passes the Senate, it goes to POTUS to sign or veto. "Veto" seems like a pretty good bet, so then it is back to the Senate to override the veto.

If what I read about this is correct, we seem to need a John Dean or Daniel Ellsberg to rise up and short-circuit the system.

 

[Free]

If what I read about this is correct, we seem to need a John Dean or Daniel Ellsberg to rise up and short-circuit the system.

The information that's coming out - like Epstein's emails - only make their efforts to block the release look more and more like a cover-up. And as with so many cover-ups it can be said that, whatever their motivations, the existence of people like a John Dean or Daniel Ellsberg are inevitable.