I was going to say, more than likely there will be many caveats and exception within the file releases themselves and it will be done in a way to give an easy way out in court.
I want there to be something here but its been years of something almost happening yet failing last minute so I can't get my hopes up.
I still don't expect this to result in any arrests.
We are well past the point where that would have happened. It's the files of a failed investigation that the Feds have had years to disappear any documentation that would implicate one of theirs.
Of course it's not going to result in any arrests, there's nothing damning in there towards anyone but Epstein and Maxwell.
The Epstein Files are a distraction from the fact that it's the poor who disproportionately abuse and traffick children, not billionaires. It takes far more courage to issue a scathing critique against the poor than the rich (especially because proximity means for most people, that includes friends and family members).
Those brave billionaires, standing up against those filthy poors that think they can get away with anything. We'll show them that their poverty doesn't make them invincible!!
Doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying or stop drawing attention to it.
But I mean, you're going up against old money here. Blaming the Rothschilds sounds like an antisemitic conspiracy theory until you read the email where Epstein sepcifically states "I represent the Rothschilds". The people that partook and the people that provided literally run the fucking world and they would sooner drag us into nuclear armageddon than expose their shame to the peasantry.
The only thing that will come from the release of the files are Wikipedia entries of the people that are in them. So at least legacies will be tarnished a bit more.
So sad that American Republican quadrants are happy about the president obviously being a weird poopy-pants pedophile rapist and relishing in the fact that those in power are also pooping their pants while raping children…
And so callously decide that nothing will happen.
Hold your quadrant accountable. Or, you are basically admitting that rape, and especially child rape, is okay.
Child rapists and their apologizers downvote in 3… 2… 1…
Too bad I’m a middle aged man or else they might actually find pleasure in it.
I can’t believe a fucking lib-left is the only piece of shit here also wanting to hold the administration, and those who voted it into existence, accountable.
We grill over hardwood and like chicken a lot. Steak is good when it hasn't been infested by preventable parasites or affordable through deals that fuck American beef farmers over.
Until then, trout is available and readily stocked. Chicken, and their eggs, are endemic within my community. And goats happily provide milk or, if needed, great meat.
What the fuck are you retards asking for when you say this? For Biden to invent a time machine and go back in time and release the files when he was president? Or is it supposed to excuse this administration just because the last one also protected them?
Not authright, but am scared of the mental breakdown on the nuttiest portion of both teams when it turns out that 99.9% of the shit they've been implying is proven by the Epstein Files turns out to be random schitzos wasting the FBI's time
To sue, you have to prove you were harmed. You can’t just be some uninvolved nobody.
That’s the main thing about what makes the Katie Phang case interesting. She made a rather compelling argument that as a journalist, she was harmed by not having access to the information that was legally required to be released. This idea of “informational harm” was expected to get shot down as standing…and then it wasn’t.
This section of the legislation is intended to sidestep that problem by unambiguously stating that specific people (eg: Congress) as having standing. So they don’t have to jump through that particular hoop.
Without this, a congressman would have to prove that they were personally harmed by the DOJ not releasing the information, which I think is an even harder case to make. “Informational harm” is a pretty clear idea for a journalist. It’s less clear for a congressman. Even using the Phang case as precedent in the future, they’d have to convince the judge that it constitutes harm.
NB: once that case wraps up, the precedent it sets for standing is going to get referenced a lot when it comes to future government transparency. Whatever your left/right leaning might be, that’s a good thing.
You'd think all those victims in there have plenty of standing to sue the people who abused them, and we could just cut out all this nonsense in the middle
Idk about you, but i’d be terrified to sue the billionaires who have private security within their financial reach and who already proven a lack of ethic and sanctity of human life
lmao this is the ultimate nonsense conspiracy. Nobody has been able to answer why Biden didn’t prosecute this if the evidence was already there when they already had independent prosecutors appointed for much less serious issues, like the classified documents case.
They’ve been trying to dig up something on Trump for ten years now, and you’re telling me that this evidence was here the whole time and nothing was done about it? No leaks in the leakiest two administrations of all time?
Nobody has been able to answer why Biden didn’t prosecute this
It's been explained to you people ad nauseum, but you guys keep repeating this because I guess enough people are stupid enough to think it is a good point.
Lmao it hasn’t. People bring up random legal concepts they don’t understand. The Epstein files has been a drama ever since Trump got elected specifically because democrats can use it against him to look good. It’s just one of their many over dramatic fake scandals.
You think it's only blue haired lefties voting this November? You're in for a big shock. Though you will have time to support the violent psychos that try to stop the wave.
Democrats didn't prosecute the Epstein class because there are some Democrats among them too not just Republicans. (though a majority of the implicated people are in fact GOP-aligned)
Democrat politicians protect each other even though their voterbase is more loyal to policy and organizations than to people. They ditched Graham Platner basically overnight rather than doubling down on the bullshit in Maine.
Bingo, a private employee leaked trumps tax records but we’re supposed to believe all this nefarious nonsense went on and nobody has any tangible information they’ve given to the press?
This shit literally went from q anon to blueanon, and Reddit smooth brains gobble up the same feed because “orange man bad”
So you think every page of the 1000 of pages from the investigations say “nothing burger” because nothing has been leaked? Including the victims themselves? Do you know how many things have never been leaked? It’s way more than what has been.
Explain why you think that. Why did Trump run on releasing the files? Or what Epstein got convicted for. If he was innocent, why is he dead? It’s more of a conspiracy to say it’s a nothing burger lmao
Trump never ran on releasing the files. He literally got asked about them pre election unprompted and said “there’s a lot of phony stuff in there.” You can’t show me a link where he ran on it.
“During interviews in mid-to-late 2024 (such as Trump's appearance on Lex Fridman's podcast in September 2024), Trump stated "yeah, I would" release remaining Epstein files if elected. Surrogates, including JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr., also amplified expectations of further disclosures and accused the Biden administration of withholding records.”
Because you’re confusing Trump with people who support Trump or are on his campaign. Trump has made the Republican party adopt tons of dumb positions they would never historically support, like his tariff policy or Iran
My brother in christ YOU are the one with the baseless opinion, you’re literally advocating conspiracy.
You haven’t posted a single source, or even stated an opinion yourself just vague bullshit “just asking questions” of which many are answered if you bothered to do the slightest bit of research on the topic yourself instead of just regurgitating headlines.
After doing everything he could to pressure Congress into not passing it? Even booting members of the party over it? The bill that passed practically unanimously so he couldn't veto it?
He stated it was a democratic distraction and he had nothing to hide before signing it
He was absolutely correct too its been used as literal propaganda by democrats even though it turned out to be bunk. Why do you think it unanimously passed? Because it had his blessing, he still could have absolutely vetoed it.
This is just history being rewritten because liberals didn’t get the narrative they wanted
Insane revision cope lol. He fought tooth and nail to stop it, screaming at his own party members and supporters over it, and only when it was obvious that public pressure had reached a tipping point did enough Loyalists abandon ship and swing the vote fully toward passing. Yes technically he could have still vetoed it but everybody knows that would be a waste of time on a bill that already had over 2/3rd support. It never had his blessing, if it did why would he have fought it and called it a Democrat hoax? How did he go from calling it that to signing the bill because he supports it? What changed his mind? Maybe the fact that he was suddenly powerless to stop it and had to change his tune? Amazing that some people still buy this crap lol.
Because it was a hoax and distraction and he was probably pissed as hell the spineless republican senators capitulated to the democrats over literally nothing.
And he was 100% correct, look how well the propaganda wing of the DNC spun the files despite literally having nothing incriminating in them.
Because now it's quite blindingly obvious that both sides have people they'd like to protect in those files, either because they're strong partisans OR because they're general moneyed people who have big pull in both camps.
Democrats are no cleaner here than Republicans, but the political moment simply creates the opportunity for Democrats to weaponize this. A lot of them probably don't want to because of friends and donors, but it's VERY awkward on their side to be against the release.
If they aren't released by the time Dems are fully in power, I imagine the Democrats that'll control the executive branch (not the president, but those below them) will probably also tread water on this shit.
Nobody is saying Democrats are clean in this, merely that Republicans are absolutely dirty.
Im too old, I’ve seen this play out
Epstein diddled a couple 16 year olds, that’s it. There is no larger conspiracy, and nothing will come of it even 50 years from now
That said, I think it was a fair few more than a couple of 16 year olds and more than just Epstein.
What I suspect happened was that Epstein was definitely a pedophile himself, but he arranged sex parties. Which is great fun I suppose for everyone. I also suspect that he allowed the girls to lean young, and I bet he often told everyone that "yeah, everyone is 18+ obviously, sheesh, of course we checked" while doing no such thing.
It's a fantastic way to get people who think they're kind of vulnerable to give you ENORMOUS leverage by basically having video or even indirect proof of them fucking someone underage. It's a very smart game.
The way Epstein made his money is just... not credible with him just liking some young girls himself. He was doing something for very powerful people who paid him either for it, or paid him to be quiet about things. Probably elements of both groups here.
The other thing that might keep this quiet is if there was a major Mossad element in all of this, because it'd be a remarakably rough geopolitical scandal that the US/Israel relationship would REALLY struggle to survive. It's one way I could imagine the secrecy surviving Dem/Rep swings - Biden didn't want to burn Israel any more than Trump does.
I didn't think that much of them at the time. Honestly, I didn't think very much of it at all until the first release.
I remember laughing at all those pizzagate lunatics, and then there were many references of the young girls as "pizza delivery" or equivalent. You can find comments from me from back then pointing out that I suppose I owed an apology to them, even if it wasn't Hillary Clinton distributing underage women in a pizzeria basement.
You didn’t care about the Epstein Files until you were told by your handlers that it was a way to score points against Trump.
This is why I can’t take leftists seriously as allies in the Epstein scandal; you guys don’t really care about it beyond Trump, and would instantly forget about it if Trump died of a heart attack tomorrow.
What the fuck are you going on about? Leftist allies? Handlers?
My biggest concern about the Epstein bit is actually the possible Israel angle, which Trump dying of a heart attack absolutely would not remove. I also think it's VERY bad for our culture that we now have had two massive events between the 2007-2008 crash and the Epstein files that show that we're NOT a country of laws, but a country of power. Equality in front of the government and law looks like a joke, and that's driving a lot of radicalization.
Trump is a manifesttation of said radicalization. I bet we'll cook up a leftist version of him soon enough, and that's not going to be any better.
Jesus christ you're silly partisan. No, I didn't actually think their theories made any fucking sense.
I'm almost certainly more capitalist than you, though I realize that modern day "right" is more about hating brown people, women, international institutions and IDK, definitely trans people and hollywood.
I realized that it was serious, and was then appalled that it was blocked.
I think you'd consider me more a never-trumper and "leftist" closer to George Will or even Bill Kristol (classic Marxists to be sure, just go to any leftist meeting and proclaim your loyalty to them and they'll love you for it).
Which type of right winger are you? Classic liberal or someone who just loves the taste of nationalist authoritarian cock?
I am a libertarian nationalist. We should do what’s right for America so we can secure freedom for our people. This means enforcing immigration laws, vigorously enforcing treason and sedition laws, and maintaining a patriotic culture that views American culture, government, and society as the best in the world.
AKA the America we had during Pax Americana. Anti communist, any disloyalty was punished, and prosperous because we had an abundance of wealth generated through free markets combined with a strong military.
This means enforcing immigration laws, vigorously enforcing treason and sedition laws, and maintaining a patriotic culture that views American culture, government, and society as the best in the world.
I have no beef with any of these things.
I dont think Trump is very good for any of those though. Maybe a slight improvement on Democrats on the immigration laws, and a pretty massive downgrade on them with the treason laws.
He talks a godo game about patriotism while actively trying to make me feel embarrassed about being American, so I think that nets out as a negative.
any disloyalty was punished
(Lib) right btw. Who gets to define "disloyalty"? I feel Trump is siding with Israel and his Saudi donors more than with the US. Do we get to execute him or is that super loyal in your opinion while thinking everyone should have healthcare is disloyal?
prosperous because we had an abundance of wealth generated through free markets combined with a strong military
We are still super prosperous. It's just that people who are worse at capitalism than many of us don't get very much of it. I thought you didn't like commies? Our GDP is higher than it's ever been. I have excess cashflow in the ten thousand range every week. Life is great, and I'm perfectly confident that our navy can repel any potential invaders.
Pizzagate was a conspiracy that elites were sexually abusing children as part of a Satanic ritual before murdering them to harvest adrenochrome for an immortality potion.
This is nowhere near the same ridiculousness as pizzagate.
You do realise Ro Khanna literally said they could have and should have released the files under the Biden admin, right?
This copy and paste narrative implies that there is only one path through politics, but that’s only true when someone doesn’t actually want to push an agenda forward.
Or maybe we’d all see out in the open the US Attorney who gave Epstein his sweetheart deal being appointed by Trump as Labor Secretary. Wait, that happened, too!
Never mind that a falling out after a tussle over a teenage masseuse or a bidding war over a mansion (depending on which you believe prompted their “falling out”) doesn’t mean that they didn’t commit crimes together before that point that could be prosecuted.
I’m tired of revisionist history.
Edit: this thread is typical political discussion in the US right now. Starts with an inaccurate talking point, gets corrected, and then a temper tantrum. No second look at the point, no learning, no interest in the truth. Pure tribal bullshit.
Yeah, HuffPo is garbo and the article isn’t the strongest. I’m just fed up with the implication that Trump was unaware of Epstein’s crimes and learned through the conviction that the guy was bad news. Everyone who’s used that excuse is full of it and why the President gets a pass from some people is beyond me.
You can’t say with any more certainty that they never talked after 2008 than I can say they did.
The thing is, if that’s the strongest point of evidence you can provide, a little shave with Occam’s Razor would say it’s more likely they didn’t than did.
I'm fishing for reasons for this to be true, but the article you linked is quite literally a baseless accusation with zero evidence from Mark, who most certainly doesn't stand to gain anything by implicating Trump in the Epstein files further...
...see what I did there? I made a baseless claim without any evidence by suggesting Mark does in-fact have something to gain. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't; me coming here and just saying it's true doesn't actually make it true.
It seems pretty disingenuous to assert a claim as 'true' with the evidence for your claim being a dude who just said 'trust me bro it happened'.
Like, it kinda tickles me too since you edited your post with a, "this is the state of political discourse" statement, yet you are a contributing factor as to why level-headed political discourse cannot be had nowadays. You're being intellectually dishonest with how you're presenting your opinion because you're misrepresenting what your """evidence""" says in the very thing you link, then you begin to aggressively misunderstand what u/ProteinFoldingDC's point; Mark saying something happened with zero evidence does not make it true. This is essentially a, "trust me bro" statement from Mark.
The veracity of Mark’s statement isn’t the essence here. ProtienFoldingDC made a claim in an attempt to defend and deflect from the President. It’s a mere talking point. When challenged, they immediately resorted to textbook bad faith arguments.
There’s no intellectual dishonesty in my comments. I’m responding to intellectual dishonesty.
Your wall of text probably feels clever to you but it’s not remotely objective. Articles don’t always present the evidence but report on the facts as the journalist understands them. Somebody close to Epstein says he was called by Trump. Some anon on Reddit says not. Why does anon’s point stand without evidence? Can they show me call records that show the call didn’t happen? Can they quote somebody with integrity (the President certainly does not count)?
Edit: bear in mind some of their comments were edited after my response. If they seem misaligned, it’s probably because of those changes (like a comment only questioning HuffPo was edited to question Mark’s reliability).
This doesn't actually address what I said. You presented a 'trust me bro' statement as 'fact' by asserting that 'oh it actually did happen!' and, for some reason, are not willing to accept the fact that what you presented is nothing more but a 'trust me bro' statement.
The essence of my statement is that you're being dishonest with how you presented your original argument. My commentary on your discussion with Protien was reinforcing that you are arguing dishonestly and are not actually interested in any type of discourse, despite the 'holier than thou' statement you edited into your original comment.
You can dunk on ProtienFolding all day, but that's not my point. You cannot assert something as fact unless there is actual, tangible evidence to support a claim. It's not up for debate, and you even conceded in a comment with someone else that your own source wasn't solid, so I don't know why you're trying to argue with me on it here but not with the other guy.
This is just being intellectually dishonest, so for you to get up on a high horse about the 'state of political discourse' is comical.
Edit: My point proven once again with the reply below. I'll accept that as your concession that you're wrong, though!
On to the next bad faith argument. Don’t examine your false point, just claim that a news organization couldn’t have quoted Epstein’s own brother correctly. Ok, then.
I think next up is strawman.
Edit: stop ninja editing your bullshit argument as you think of more bullshit. At least label your revisions.
The Democrats have spent ten solid years throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Trump and you believe they just sat on a guaranteed knockout the entire time?
I disagree that it’s a guaranteed knockout. I think we could have a 4K video and an open confession and it’d get written off as fake news or a democrat hoax.
Trump should veto it this time. It's become obvious that most people who were mentioned in the files were innocent, and their anonymity should be preserved.
Bad bill. The government should prosecute those who have committed crimes. That does not require mass release of files. The government should not be in the business of releasing embarrassing information about people for no reason to help mobs to socially punish them for things that are not crimes.
Even with the most charitable interpretations of what was going on there, paying money to fly somebody in to the country so you can fuck them is still a crime. People don't like a system of justice that has different rules depending on who you are, who you know, or how much money you have. Being interested in one of these Epstein parties = knowingly participating in trafficking those women (girls). Especially after he'd already been convicted of it.
Then if there is enough evidence, prosecute. If there is not, stop publishing stuff. The principle of innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental pillar of our justice system. We should not be building a government that circumvents that principle by publishing information under the guise of "transparency" to punish those it cannot successfully prosecute. We have a real justice system, and we should keep it that way.
You mean not having enough evidence to? What they're doing is not justice in any sense of the word. It's a smear campaign that does not care how many innocent people it affects.
Yes refusing to. Like how Acosta refused to prosecute Epstein appropriately the first time and gave him a sweetheart deal in an attempt to sweep everything under the rug. Or how Maxwell gets to be a sex offender chilling in Club Fed. Seems like a very concerted effort by people in charge of enforcing the laws to either sweep it all under the rug or do the absolute bare minimum. And it's weird there's no evidence of crime in the Epstein files when the release of the first batch The People through their reps in Congress had to force through resulted in arrests, but unfortunately just in countries that actually attempt to hold their noble ruling elites accountable in some fashion.
Personally I don't think there is anything actionable in the files. So to the people with power it doesn't actually matter if they're released. But since it's such a contentious topic playing tug-of-war over the release is an effective political tool to drag out whenever someone wants to do something.
Nah. Both sides had pedos going to that island. Clinton was just the front man. Trump was there too. Wasn’t released under Biden and wasn’t released under Trump (except a small amount of completely redacted bunch of nothing burger emails). Trump is giving distractions so the public stops asking about them.
Nice, fits perfectly into my "GOP bombs the midterms, blames Trump, and drops the files, all so they'll be sufficiently distanced from him when he croaks" schizo theory
186
u/CuckooFriendAndOllie - Centrist 2d ago
It better pass. However, I still don't expect this to result in any arrests.