|
 |
Thank you for subscribing to Off Message. This is a public post, available to all so please share it widely. If you enjoy this newsletter, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription, for access to everything we do.
Alternatively, if you don’t want a Substack account, you can keep Off Message going with a donation. All support is appreciated, but donations of $75 or larger come with a comped annual subscription—all content unlocked and emailed to the address provided.
You make Off Message possible. Thanks again.
The Trump-Epstein Emergency Isn't in the Files
Trump has distorted the political landscape so badly that it's warping the moral intuitions of people and institutions of account.
|
| |||||||||||||||
 |
Donald Trump repeatedly skates past wrongdoing and scandal that would debilitate—if not destroy—any other public person. Pardoning violent rioters who assaulted police for him; granting trade concessions to countries when their officials send him billions; launching an openly racist diatribe against an entire community of Americans.
Any one of these examples…and there are many, many more…make those of us with normal moral impulses feel outrage. But taken together, the sprawling and relentless onslaught of Trump’s behavior is disorienting people and institutions in a funhouse of ethical distortion and collective blindness.
This surreal effect is maddeningly apparent in how the press is covering the Epstein files. Look at this week’s warning about Trump and the files from the New York Times editorial board. They rightly caution that Trump has manipulated the public at every step of the process, and that his manipulations will continue. You shouldn’t trust any information Trump clears for release, according to the Times, given:
Trump’s long friendship with Epstein and his jokey statements about Epstein’s perversions
The creepy cartoon birthday card Trump drew for his pal
Trump’s use of Epstein file conspiracy theories for campaign advantage, only to pretend the whole thing was a hoax once he was responsible for disclosure
Pam Bondi’s gleeful displays of fake transparency to MAGA podcasters, followed by her ham-fisted stonewalling after informing Trump that he’s in the files
And finally, Trumps machinations, intimidation and threats to (unsuccessfully) block a Congressional vote, and, thus, to keep the files secret
All of that, but not a single word about Ghislaine Maxwell. How is this possible?
Trump’s treatment of Maxwell—a convicted sex trafficker— is by far the most glaring, brazen, and openly corrupt part of the current moment involving the president. It should be a show-stopper. It should be sending reporters into the faces of every Trump ally and causing them to fall over each other with incredulity at every Oval Office press availability. But in the warped reality surrounding Trump, it’s being taken, by all of us, as some strange, lower-priority, given.
Ah Maxwell, What Can You Do?
When the politics of the Epstein fiasco began to tighten on Trump over the summer, he dispatched the Deputy Attorney General to Florida to privately interview Maxwell. We now know, thanks to Epstein’s emails, that Maxwell lied about how much Trump knew about Epstein’s and her own abuse. DAG Todd Blanche, formerly Trump’s personal attorney, left the receipts from the Epstein estate out of the chat.
Whether by intention or error, he failed to get the truth out of Maxwell.
(“Mr. President, when will you order Todd Blanche to re-interview Maxwell given the evidence contained in Jeffrey Epstein’s emails, and why haven’t your ordered it already? Don’t you want to know the truth?”)
Immediately after her jailhouse interview, someone in the Trump Administration moved Maxwell from a high-security federal prison in Florida to a much more comfortable one in Texas. Maxwell is a sex offender and under Bureau of Prison rules not eligible for minimum security incarceration. But she’s also getting special meals, private access to the gym, visit time with a dog, and other privileges like unlimited toilet paper, according to a whistleblower. According to experts, the only people authorized to issue the special waiver allowing Maxwell to be treated unlike virtually any other sex offender are the BOP director and the Deputy Attorney General.
(“Mr. President, you claim you didn’t know about Maxwell’s transfer. But now that you know, why haven’t your ordered the Bureau of Prisons to return her to maximum security?”)
(“If you won’t order her return, why not? Why should she stay in a prison the rules say isn’t fit for a sex offender?”)
(“Maxwell was your friend for many years. Sir, why is your Administration giving her special treatment?”)
In July, 2020, Maxwell was arrested and charged with six felony counts including conspiracy, perjury, and sex trafficking minors as young as 14. In the face of these alleged abominations, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, would only say of Maxwell, “I wish her well.”
(“Mr. President, in 2020 you said repeatedly that you wish Ghislaine Maxwell well. Why would you wish someone charged with trafficking 14-year-old girls well?”)