Donald Trump had successfully pushed the Jeffrey Epstein scandal out of front-page coverage in the mainstream media through his signature strategy of doing a dozen insane and/or illegal things per day—though it’s not exactly hard to do, given the fact that right-wing billionaires are rapidly consolidating control over formerly independent outlets like CBS News, and the egregious pro-Trump slant at The New York Times.
But yet again the scandal has come roaring back, thanks once more to The Wall Street Journal—one of the few papers, remarkably, that has consistently stood up to Trump. He already sued the Journal and Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion for reporting that he had written a grotesque birthday note to Epstein (as part of a 50th birthday compilation book) back in 2003. Now the Epstein estate has turned over a copy of the book to the House Oversight Committee, and the Journal was first to publish the note, along with other parts of it. The committee subsequently published the entire thing.
There is an effort afoot in the House, led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), to pass a measure forcing the Department of Justice to release the full Epstein files. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), a shameless Trump toady, has blocked the measure from coming to the House floor, but if supporters can get 218 votes for a discharge petition, they can go around Johnson. So far, they have 216 votes—every Democrat, and four Republicans: Massie, plus Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and Nancy Mace (R-SC).
There are two special elections coming up soon at time of writing, replacing elderly Democrats who keeled over dead in office. One was in Virginia yesterday to replace Gerry Connolly; another is in Arizona on September 23 to replace Raúl Grijalva. Democrats James Walkinshaw and Adelita Grijalva (Grijalva’s daughter) are both certain to win and vote for the petition. (In fact, Walkinshaw was named the winner rather quickly on Tuesday.) So unless Trump can pressure at least one of the Republicans to reverse course, in two weeks the petition will go through, as will a floor vote rebuking the president.
That doesn’t mean that the files will be released, of course: The Senate would have to pass the same bill and Trump would have to sign it, or Congress would have to override a veto. But it would put the House on the record for full transparency and defiance of Trump, and Republicans would have to choose between thumbing their nose at the king and an extremely unpopular vote to cover up a gruesome series of sex crimes.
QAnon was right: There is an elite pedophile conspiracy in this country.
The odd thing about the focus on this petition is that we already have a truckload of evidence about Trump’s sexual depravities. His alleged note is, unbelievably, worse than the Journal’s original article suggested. The outline of a female shape has no arms or head, and notably small breasts. The idea that the note’s text—“Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey … Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? … Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”—written, again, to the most notorious pedophile in history, could refer to anything but the obvious is just impossible to believe.
Parts of the rest of the book are worse still. One page has a crude drawing of Epstein handing balloons to little girls labeled “1983,” then a scene of him being massaged and fellated by young women on an island labeled “2003,” with his infamous private jet in the background. Another page has a note apparently from Alan Dershowitz boasting that he convinced Vanity Fair to focus its coverage on Bill Clinton rather than Epstein, as a birthday gift. Another picture has Epstein holding a fake check apparently signed by Trump, together with a woman whose face has been redacted, and a caption reading, “Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! Sells ‘fully depreciated’ [redacted] to Donald Trump for $22,500.”
The level of depravity displayed by a large cross section of elite society is practically indescribable. These people knew exactly what Epstein was doing.
Trump apologists are scrambling to find ways to dismiss the note. So far, they have settled on disputing the signature, arguing it’s fake because it doesn’t look like his current one. It’s preposterous. Signatures change over time, and sure enough, other confirmed Trump signatures from the same period look exactly like the one on the birthday note. One reported by the Times is on another note to Epstein. In a signed copy of Trump: The Art of the Comeback, dated October 1997, Trump wrote: “To Jeff—You are the greatest!”
Also, this book was in the possession of the Epstein estate for 22 years. What possible rationale would there be for a forgery in 2003, more than a decade before Trump became a political figure and years before Epstein faced any accountability for his crimes?
Trump’s proclivities regarding women are well known. In 1999, Trump told Howard Stern that his daughter, then aged 17, made him swear not to date anyone younger than her. “As she grows older, the field is getting very limited,” he said. “The nerve of her,” Stern responded. “Now you can’t go out with 16-year-olds.” Trump laughed. In another appearance, in 2002, Trump said that when a woman he’s dating turns 35, “It’s called check-out time.” When Stern asked if he had an age limit, Trump replied: “No, I have no age—I mean, I have age limit. I don’t want to be like Congressman Foley, with, you know, 12-year-olds.” Also in 2002, he told New York: “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.”
And that’s just a sample of Trump’s mile-long record of appalling sexual behavior. Just this week, an appeals court upheld an $83 million judgment against him for defaming E. Jean Carroll, who had accused him of sexual assault, sued when he denied it, won, and then sued again and won when he kept denying it, as well as insulting and threatening her. The court agreed with the trial judge’s “determination that ‘the degree of reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented.”
It seems QAnon was right: There is an elite pedophile conspiracy in this country. It’s just that overwhelming evidence suggests Donald Trump was at the very center of it.