This week, right-wing media and influencers, including, ridiculously, Donald Trump, Jr., have responded to the release of some names from the "Epstein Client List" by attempting to focus attention on Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, and their known relationships with Epstein.
The right-wing theory of the case seems to be that these two Bills are secretly running the world and getting people killed and having evidence destroyed, even during periods when Republicans—including known sex predator Donald Trump—have controlled the White House. Of course, I don't know what the Bills did or didn't do when palling around with Epstein. But they can speak for themselves.
Meanwhile, at least one Trump wasn't buying the attempts at distraction.
As Mary L. Trump tweeted:
"Trump flew on Epstein's plane 7 times. That's just the start of it."
I've written in the past about Epstein's suspicious death and the evidence Bill Barr ignored while rushing to shut down four separate investigations into Epstein's alleged suicide.
For today, here's a quick recap of some of the key elements in the timeline of what we know about Trump and Epstein:
1990s
Trump lived just a few blocks away from Epstein in NYC and was known to be a frequent attendee at the child trafficker's sex parties in NY in the 1990s.
Epstein and Trump also partied openly together in Florida.
A 1992 tape from NBC News shows Trump and Epstein partying with a group of Buffalo Bills cheerleaders at Mar-a-Lago.
Also in 1992, Trump arranged for a "calendar girl" competition in which 28 young girls were flown into Mar-a-Lago. When they arrived, the girls realized they had been tricked into putting on a private show exclusively for Trump and Epstein.
Epstein allegedly introduced Trump to a 14-year-old girl at Mar-a-Lago in the 1990s.
Trump allegedly raped a 13-year-old girl at Epstein's NY mansion in 1995.
Trump continued to be photographed with Epstein and/or Ghislaine Maxwell on numerous occasions throughout the 1990s.
In 2000, a porter who worked next to the Epstein mansion in NY told a UK newspaper, “I often see Donald Trump and there are loads of models coming and going, mostly at night. It’s amazing.”
2000s
In 2002, Trump told New York magazine: “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. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
In 2008, while George W. Bush was President, Jeffrey Epstein was given a sweetheart deal—behind the backs of victims—by Florida prosecutor Alex Acosta.
The plea deal was negotiated by alleged pedophile Alan Dershowitz, who later transformed himself into such a stalwart Trump defender he was even hired by Trump as a lawyer during his first Senate impeachment trial.
As part of the deal, Epstein's famous clients and friends—including Trump and Dershowitz—all became immune from prosecution.
2010s
Epstein told his brother in 2016 he had dirt that could destroy Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump used his connection with the National Enquirer to downplay his association with Epstein, while suggesting to others he had knowledge of future stories tying Epstein to Bill Clinton.
After Trump was elected, convicted sex trafficker Epstein claimed he was the person who had introduced Trump to the Slovenian-born glamour model Melania Knauss.
In 2017, Trump inexplicably named former Epstein prosecutor Alex Acosta his Labor Secretary. Acosta then attempted to slash funding for sex trafficking victims by 79%.
In 2017, Trump fired the highly respected Preet Bharara as US Attorney for the SDNY. In his place, he installed Rudy Giuliani's former law partner Geoffrey Berman.
In November 2018, a blockbuster Miami Herald report raised questions about the "sweetheart deal" Jeffrey Epstein received in 2007 from Florida prosecutor Alex Acosta? Why were all of Epstein’s co-conspirators let off the hook? Why did Trump later reward Acosta with a plum job as Labor Secretary?
Also in November 2018, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replaced him with Bill Barr, a man whose own father had been given the college dropout Epstein an elite job teaching privileged teens at Dalton in the 1970s—providing Epstein with his initial entrée into New York society.
In February 2019, a federal judge ruled that Acosta and federal prosecutors "broke the law when they concealed a plea agreement from more than 30 underage victims who had been sexually abused" by Epstein.
The revelations about Epstein's sex crimes forced Labor Secretary Acosta to resign and Berman, Giuliani's former law partner, to make a highly public arrest of Epstein in NY in July 2019.
Epstein became the world's highest profile prisoner, in the ultimate care of Bill Barr. Five weeks later he was dead.
When Epstein was arrested, the New York Times reported, "A trove of lewd photographs of girls" was "discovered in a safe inside the financier Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion." Despite this and much other evidence being seized at other properties, no further arrests were made.
As the NY Times wrote, Epstein was known to have dirt on an “astonishing number of rich, famous and powerful people"—with the photos to prove it. It was widely assumed that many of those rich, famous and powerful people—including then-President Donald Trump—wanted him dead.
Five weeks later, Jeffrey Epstein, the world's highest profile prisoner, despite being held in a facility that the New York Post reported had not seen a single suicide in 20 years, was dead.
What about all the evidence the Trump DOJ seized? Astonishingly, Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray somehow allowed that crucial "trove of evidence" found in Epstein's safe to disappear.
2020s
In the new documents unsealed this week, Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort features 13 times.
The papers state that Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's alleged victims, worked "as a locker room attendant for the spa area" at Mar-a-Lago in the year 2000.
In addition, according to TIME: "The documents say that Epstein forced a minor to have sex with the former Harvard law professor (Alan Dershowitz) multiple times. The documents also say that Dershowitz 'was an eye-witness to the sexual abuse of many other minors by Epstein and several of Epstein’s co-conspirators.'"
Dead men tell no tales
Will the full truth about Trump and Epstein ever be revealed?
Ghislaine Maxwell isn't saying anything.
"Family values" Republicans have no interest in looking under the rock where all the pedophiles and groomers in their party lurk.
What we do know for sure is that Trump has spent most of his adult life exploiting young women, actively preying on teenagers, openly assaulting women.
We know it because it's not only on tape. But he's the one bragging about it.
We know that Epstein isn't the only child rapist and convicted sex trafficker Trump has partied with or done business with. Ivanka's former manager John Casablancas is just one example. Here's a more extensive list of: Trump's pedophile associates.
We know that sources claim to have "attended shindigs" at the Plaza Hotel in the late 1980s and early 1990s where Trump "was getting laid like crazy." Trump allegedly filled the parties with models as young as 15 and told them that being nice to his affluent friends would help their careers.
We know that a 2023 jury found Trump criminally liable for raping E. Jean Carroll in NY in the mid-1990s, around the same time he was alleged to have raped a 13-year-old at Epstein's NY mansion.
We know that after he was first arrested in Florida in 2006, Jeffrey Epstein was offered a plea deal that was later deemed illegal that, coincidentally, shielded Trump and others from prosecution.
We also know that Jeffrey Epstein, the world's most high-profile prisoner, arrested by a Trump appointee, somehow died in the care of Trump-appointed AG Bill Barr after a "perfect storm of screwups" at a facility where suicide is near-impossible. After Epstein's death, crucial evidence—including CDs and hard drives—that could have led to further prosecutions somehow got "lost" by an FBI led by another Trump-appointee, Christopher Wray.
And somehow Fox News doesn't think that's the story.
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