|
In a January 2020 email, a federal prosecutor told a colleague that
Trump had flown on Epstein's private jet far more than anyone
knew. Flight records in the files showed at least eight trips between
1993 and 1996, sometimes with his second wife, Marla Maples,
sometimes with his children. In January 2024, Trump declared that
he had never been on the plane.
One of many remarkable revelations in this Maggie Haberman/Jonathan Swan book excerpt./2
A paragraph that starts with JD Vance's attempt at spinning himself as an advocate of transparency (as least in regard to "nipple related documents) and concludes with an indication of his powerlessness in the White House hierarchy-- "the president would not, in fact, be OK with it."/3
On Feb. 27, the White House Communications Office scheduled a
lineup of cabinet officials to brief popular right-wing influencers in
the Roosevelt Room. The session began with Vice President Vance,
followed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, walking the
influencers through the administration's agenda. In attendance
was a who's who of online MAGA: Mike Cernovich, Liz Wheeler,
Collin Rugg, DC Draino. The president himself brought them to the
Oval Office and gave them custom-designed challenge coins as a
token of his appreciation. Before everything went wrong, one of
them would remark, "It was the best day of my life."
Then the attorney general and her team walked into the Roosevelt
Room carrying boxes. Bondi had brought binders as handouts for
the influencers; her aides would later tell colleagues that the F.B.I.
had prepared them, with the assurance that they contained
revelatory details. Someone on her staff said: "Watch this. This is
cool. This is going to be epic."
In the days before publication, Trump, in the effort to quash the
story, had called News Corp's chief executive, Robert Thomson;
News Corp's owner, Rupert Murdoch; and The Journal's editor in
chief, Emma Tucker. Practically shouting, the president told Tucker,
who is British, that she must "hate America" He told her he would
file a lawsuit.
Privately, he seethed. In conversations with confidants, he
lamented what the job had cost him: millions of dollars in podcast
revenue, family time, his audience. He was getting torn apart over
a strategy he had opposed from the start.
The vice president appeared panicked to others in the room about
the way the subject of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA
coalition. Some senior officials had the impression that Vance had
bought into the darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of
predators hidden within the country's ruling class. Wiles would tell
others that the vice president had proved himself to be a major
conspiracy theorist. Another top official said later that Vance had
been pounding on the Epstein issue since the release of the memo.
He was privately pressing for the administration to release all the
Epstein files, everything in the Justice Department's possession,
even encouraging a congressional investigation.
https://bsky.app/profile/larryglickman.bsky.social/post/3mnxbwsygyc2g
https://bsky.app/profile/larryglickman.bsky.social/post/3mnxbspwos22g
|
Oh: Inside the WH freakout Over the Epstein files