Maxwell Smart?

 

     Ghislaine Maxwell is playing it smart. Even as Donald Trump is hemming and hawing about whether or not he'll give her a commutation or pardon (As he had before pardoning Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and others), one thing is clear- She's still very much in the running for either. 

     We'll likely never know what was discussed between Maxwell and Todd Blanche on July 24th and 25th (due to attorney-client privilege and the usual clannish Republican opacity) in Florida but, despite what her lawyer claimed, it's obvious that Maxwell didn't tell Blanche everything she knew and likely did not fully answer the questions during his fishing expedition. If she had, there's no way she'd be testifying before Congress.

     And perhaps the only thing keeping her alive right now is her caginess and that her sudden "suicide" would be a bit difficult to explain, given her recent media exposure and newfound relevance.

     But the timeline of this whole thing, going back to at least 2023, is one of the most damning things if you're Donald Trump.

     Let's go back to 2020, which was right after Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire. Trump was asked what he thought about Maxwell's arrest and he infamously said, "I just wish her well, frankly," a very odd thing to say about an old friend who was just arrested on suspicion of sex trafficking children.

     A couple of days later, during a coronavirus briefing, Maxwell's name suddenly popped up and trump asked, "She say anything about me?" Which is something an innocent man would totally say.

     A little over a year later, on September 4, 2021, then Senate candidate JD Vance said on Twitter, "Remember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail? And now we just don't talk about it."

     Two years later, podcaster and future Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino said, "Listen, that Jeffrey Epstein story is a big deal. Please do not let that story go. Keep your eye on this... [W]hat the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?” without specifying, of course, who “they” were. Shortly before joining the Trump administration, he added, “Who’s on those tapes? Who’s in those black books? Why have they been hiding it?”

     (Bonus: Just a couple of days ago, Bongino posted a series of very cryptic and ominous tweets as if he suddenly found his inner human.)

     In December that year, future FBI Director Kash Patel told right wing podcaster Bennie Johnson when asked why the government was blocking the Epstein client list, "Simple, because of who’s on that list — Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.”

     Last year on the campaign trail,  Trump said he'd declassify the Epstein files then added, "It’d be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn’t happen to be working, etc., etc. But yeah, I’d go a long way toward that one.”

     On a podcast last year, VP candidate JD Vance simply said, "We need to release the Epstein list."

     February this year, John Roberts of Fox asked Pam Bondi whether the DOJ would release the Epstein client list and Bondi said, "It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.”

     (Then, on July 7th, the DOJ said on their website that there was no Epstein client list.)

     On another right wing podcast last month,  Kash Patel said, "I’ve said it, Bongino has said it. We’ve reviewed all the information, and the American public is going to get as much as we can release … We’re going to give you every single thing we have and can.”

     So, Trump had his base primed and foaming at the mouth over a client list that was guaranteed to take down the whole Democrat Party and their sex trafficking empire, without once remembering they were conned over Pizzagate. And Trump now looks more like a juvenile delinquent playing with matches who's now alarmed that the house caught on fire and is now denying that there ever was a fire and that it was all the fault of the Democrats and "stupid Republicans".

      As I've stated before, these idiots who are all now high-ranking officials of this administration plainly had no idea who was on the list and never once suspected their Dear Leader could ever be on it. Then they got their hands on that client list and haven't shut their eyes since. Let's resume the timeline, in more granular detail::

      On July 17th, the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell article stating that Trump had written a letter to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday that was framed by a doodle of a naked woman and wishing that "every day (would be) a wonderful secret". Typically, Trump responded by suing the paper and Rupert Murdoch, forgetting once again that in every trial, there's a phase called "discovery".

      Later that evening, Trump ordered Bondi to seek the court's permission to release the grand jury testimony while he almost surely knew that the grand jury testimony contained only a small sliver of the information contained in the files and that judges very rarely unseal grand jury testimony. (Less than a week later, the court denied her petition.)

     On the 22nd, the day before the court said no, Mike Johnson sent House members home for an early recess, thereby kicking the can down the road for an inevitable showdown over the Epstein files.

     The next day, in a giant Fuck You to Johnson, a GOP-dominated House Oversight subcommittee voted 8-2 to subpoena the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.

     Also that day, the NY Times revealed that Blanche and Bondi briefed Trump last May that his name was on the Epstein files, which he's still lying about to this day. 

     Starting the next day, Trump's "former" defense attorney Todd Blanche, who moonlights as the number two guy at Justice, started a two day-long fishing expedition at a Jacksonville prison in which he questioned the aforementioned Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman who knows where all the bodies are buried (perhaps literally) in advance of her Congressional testimony.

      He also announced that all investigations into people beyond Epstein and Maxwell were closed, which leads one to wonder why, if that was true, he interviewed Maxwell in the first place?

     That same day, as Trump was taking off for Scotland and told the press when asked if he'd consider pardoning Maxwell, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about." When he landed he said, “I’m focused on making deals. I’m not focused on conspiracy theories.”

     This, coming from the fool who gleefully fanned the flames of conspiracy theories.

     And, finally, today it came out that Maxwell is demanding immunity for testifying before Congress because she eventually came to the conclusion that she can't incriminate anyone else without also incriminating herself. So, who will she incriminate that she hasn't already?

     I don't want to engage in risky speculation but I have a feeling it's a fat orange guy who cheats at golf and is screaming the loudest about the Epstein files.