But documents released on Tuesday show a January 7, 2020, email from a New York prosecutor saying that flight logs show that Trump “traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware), including during the period we would expect to charge in a [Ghislaine] Maxwell case. In particular, he is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including at least four flights on which Maxwell was also present…. On one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers; on another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then-20-year-old [redacted]. On two other flights, two of the passengers… were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case.”
Emails from before Epstein’s 2019 arrest show investigators talking about “10 co-conspirators,” while a 2020 email suggests prosecutors had amassed considerable material to charge “co-conspirators,” but never did so. The document discussing those charges is redacted.
Trump was mentioned more than 100 times in the documents released on December 23.
And there is pressure on Trump coming from a different direction as well. On December 17, Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo of the Wall Street Journal reported that senators led by Ron Wyden (D-OR), the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to the Justice Department and asked officials to explain why law enforcement officials never interviewed Epstein’s longtime attorney Darren Indyke or his accountant Richard Kahn when the officers were investigating Epstein’s sex trafficking.
The same Wall Street Journal reporters recently noted that the two men arranged fake marriages to keep women in the U.S., withdrew cash for Epstein in ways that avoided scrutiny, and sent payments to women who later claimed they had been sexually abused. As co-executors of Epstein’s estate, the men have control over the evidence in that estate and over Epstein’s more than $100 million in assets.
Representatives and staffers from the House Oversight Committee told journalist Fitzpatrick they are drafting subpoenas to learn more about the alleged co-conspirators. They are also drafting a resolution to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt for her failure to make sure that the Department of Justice complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and are moving ahead with articles of impeachment against her.
Axios reported on December 23 that the White House has taken over the X account of the Justice Department, and on the same day, that account tried to undercut the new information by claiming that accusations in it are “unfounded and false.” But Trump’s behavior on December 25, Christmas, suggested otherwise.
Trump’s social media account posted: “Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his Island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth, only to ‘drop him like a dog’ when things got too HOT, falsely claimed they had nothing to do with him, didn’t know him, said he was a disgusting person, and then blame, of course, President Donald J. Trump, who was actually the only one who did drop Epstein, and long before it became fashionable to do so. When their names get brought out in the ongoing Radical Left Witch Hunt (plus one lowlife ‘Republican,’ Massie!), and it is revealed that they are Democrats all, there will be a lot of explaining to do, much like there was when it was made public that the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax was a fictitious story—a total Scam—and had nothing to do with ‘TRUMP.’”
After misrepresenting the New York Times, he went on: “Now the same losers are at it again, only this time so many of their friends, mostly innocent, will be badly hurt and reputationally tarnished. But, sadly, that’s the way it is in the World of Corrupt Democrat Politics!!! Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas! President Donald J. Trump.”
Bill Kristol of The Bulwark wrote: “Donald Trump, basically acknowledging that so far at least he’s losing the fight over Epstein.” MeidasTouch noted: “This is what’s known as “consciousness of guilt.”
This evening, Trump posted: “Now 1,000,000 more pages on Epstein are found. DOJ is being forced to spend all of its time on this Democrat inspired Hoax. When do they say NO MORE, and work on Election Fraud etc. The Dem[ocrat]s are the ones who worked with Epstein, not the Republicans. Release all of their names, embarrass them, and get back to helping our Country! The Radical Left doesn’t want people talking about TRUMP & REPUBLICAN SUCCESS, only a long ago dead Jeffrey Epstein—Just another Witch Hunt!!!”
“I love the smell of panic in the evening,” former representative and Trump critic Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) posted over Trump’s screed. “Smells like… victory.”
Even before Trump’s evening post, in Meditations in an Emergency, Rebecca Solnit noted that it seems “clear that there is likely something in the files that further incriminates” Trump, an observation with which scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder agreed. He added: “Horrible as the facts at hand are, there must be something else, something verging on the unimaginable.”
The slow drip of the Epstein files, Solnit writes, is “undermining loyalty to Trump as nothing else has, and it is an important part of how the Trump regime and the Republican Party are falling apart before our eyes. This does not mean that the Trumpists are powerless,” she continues, “they are flailing and grabbing for all the kinds of power that they can.”
But “Trump appears to be disintegrating, rotting, collapsing before our eyes, mentally and physically, and Republicans in Congress—first of all with the vote to release the Epstein files—are breaking from him.”