It Sure Would Be a Shame if She Talked

      Yesterday's release of the new Epstein photos and videos from his island rape resort was really nothing special. In fact, one could call it a big nothing burger. They didn't reveal anything about Trump nor add anything to our store f knowledge about Epstein except to reiterate that Epstein was a bizarre creep with questionable taste in home decor. It gave off a James Bond villain lair vibe and to see something even creepier, you'd have to recall Buffalo Bill's basement in Silence of the Lambs.

     Perhaps the one picture attracting the most attention was the lead image above of what appears to be a dentist's office with at least three of the four walls festooned with masks of old, bald men. Maybe they're masks commissioned by Epstein of actual child predators that Epstein had by the short curlies.

     But they did give us another glimpse into the strange world within a world that Epstein had set up in the Virgin Islands. It was a world in which people like Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell easily moved for decades until Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and Maxwell a year later. It was eerily consistent with the guy who'd hung mannequins from the ceiling of his Manhattan townhouse.

     And its Maxwell's conduct that started when she was the subject of a fishing expedition by Todd Blanche, the number two guy at Justice, that's been getting at least as much attention as the tranche of documents mysteriously getting released by Epstein's estate to the House Oversight Committee. After lying her ass off to Blanche about Donald Trump's role in Epstein's predations, the Bureau of Prisons just as mysteriously broke its own protocols and gave the convicted child sex trafficker a break by moving her from the maximum security prison in Florida in which she was incarcerated to a cushy minimum security prison in southeast Texas.

     It had all the earmarks of a reward for a job well done. Even though Maxwell was at the very epicenter of Epstein's criminal enterprise and that Trump was friends with Epstein for at least 15, perhaps 20 years, her claims that she never saw Trump do anything untoward comes off as disingenuous. Let's not forget she was also convicted for perjury.

     The problem is, Epstein's emails to various people put the lie to whatever Trump and Maxwell have said about his involvement in Epstein's crimes. Despite Maxwell claiming she never saw Trump with any of the victims, Epstein had written that Trump had been at his house for hours with one of the victims (the name was redacted but Republicans on the Oversight Committee revealed it was the late Virginia Guiffre). Epstein also said that Trump "certainly knew about the girls". 

     Meanwhile, Maxwell's been living the life of Riley in Texas. Unlike the other inmates, she gets to play with puppies and has special meals catered in. The other inmates aren't allowed to touch her food and prison officials are even pressuring the female inmates to not talk about Maxwell to the press.

     Now, she's got the nerve to petition a judge to let her out of her country club-style prison on the grounds that if the rest of the Epstein files were released, her life would be in danger.

     It's difficult to believe, even considering what scumbags lawyers can be, an attorney actually putting their name to such a ridiculous petition. For one, Maxwell is separated from Gen Pop, therefore has little if any contact with the rest of the prisoners. Secondly, it's a fallacy that's based on no case law that a prisoner should be released and have their sentence truncated by that much because of a fear for their lives. If Maxwell was anyone else, even if they faced such danger, the easy answer would be to lock them up in solitary confinement.

     And thirdly, what is Maxwell afraid of? If more damaging information on Maxwell comes out, then, if anything, it would make a stronger case for why she should stay in prison and be kept away from underage girls. She's already contributed to the death of one woman that we know of.

     But what's interesting about this strange, muted dance between Trump and Maxwell is they both have each other by the short hairs. Trump is dangling a pardon or commutation before Maxwell and Maxwell is staying silent... for now. The pardon possibility is Trump's only leverage over Maxwell and the minute he gives it to her, he loses that and there's nothing to stop her from talking. Maxwell, meanwhile, is keeping the incriminating shit from being revealed and that's her leverage over him. They're both predators. This is how they think and act.

     I don't see Maxwell getting that pardon until Trump's about to waddle out of the Oval Office. But she wants to get out, like all shiftless scumbags who never think they should pay for their heinous actions. She's using every trick in the book to that end. And eventually, she'll pull a Roger Stone and publicly say, "Gee, it sure would be a shame if they made me talk."

     It worked for Roger Stone and it would work for her.