No Stupid Questions

Legal Eagle just released a video about "the real Epstein files". The main point they covered in the video is victim impact. The victims could be threatened and harassed because of the info.

Another point not covered is that criminal case info is typically not disclosed. Releasing a list of accused perpetrators (i.e. pedophiles/child rapists) encourages vigilante justice. It also interferes with any ongoing investigations, which should (at least in theory) still be ongoing.

I don't want Trump to release the case info. I want his DOJ to announce charges against people like Les Wexner, based on that info. And I want it to not just be his political enemies and bullshit lies.

Because it could hurt rich people and both parties are on the side of rich people.

Because a bunch of them are also child rapists

I think it's important to remember that Biden was, perhaps more than any president in my lifetime (and I'm an old man), an institutionalist. He was a senator for just about forever, then the VP for 8 years. He was 78 years old when he became president. He is an old school liberal Catholic, a very nearly extinct person in the Catholic and Christian spheres.

I think he saw his presidency as a repudiation of right wing reactionary politics. His election, in his mind, was in large part a call to what he saw as the original intent and purpose of the executive branch. To put it plainly, he saw himself as elected because America rejected the politicization of government under Trump. Included under that umbrella of beliefs about the purpose of the executive was the unalienable requirement that the executive not direct the FBI to investigate the opposing political party. Remember, Joe Biden was a senator when Nixon resigned. He was there when Nixon was using the executive branch to attack Democrats.

Biden appointed Garland to the DOJ. Garland's record was perfectly fine and appeared well suited to the role, but his biggest strengths (in Biden's mind) was his nonpartisanship and his conservative view of government. By conservative I mean staying within the lines of what the DOJ should be doing, a cautious view of the use of DOJ power. Again, this was done in reaction to Trump and his... let's call it "expansive" view of government power. In Biden's mind, he was righting the ship.

And Garland was exactly as advertised, to a maddening degree. He was cautious to the point of being timid. He refused to throw the weight of the DOJ into investigations with political implications without reaching an imaginary bar of fairness that just isn't realistic. You saw it in the Jan 6th investigations. You saw it in the Kushner deals (and all of the Trump family deals which are obviously dirty). You saw it in Garland's unwillingness to take on wildly politicized federal prosecutor offices because doing so would be political interference (in his mind). You saw it when Robert Hur took unprofessionalism and partisanship to the absolute extreme when attacking Biden under the guise of a special counsel appointment and Garland did nothing because instiutionalism in his mind meant not interfering with the process.

And you saw it in the Epstein case.

Garland did everything by the book to an absurd degree that ended up paralyzing justice. Biden didn't touch Garland or any of it because he believes doing so was itself an injustice, even if Garland was wrong to handle it the way he did. In Biden's mind, the president should not have the power to demand the DOJ take action in a specific case like the Epstein case, especially if there's political implications.

Because you don't publish details of investigation. You publish indictments once investigation is done. That's essentially weaponization of DOJ.

Republicans were promising to release (and suggesting Democrats are on it). Now as they have the power, they refuse. Claim the files don't exist then that they are fake, then they are boring.

At this point it is very clear that trump is in them.

The give reason must be procedual, but the real reason is that the Epstein files undoubtedly also contain the names of democrats or democratic backers. They were more than happy doing nothing with those files.

Well specifically, it is still an ongoing investigation, so nobody has a "complete set of files to release."

In February Pam Bondi said she had the first phase of files in her office, made a big public announcement about having requested all remaining files, and said she was waiting on them to be delivered. She even wrote a letter to Kash Patel about it and publicly released the letter.

Then when she read whatever was in that second half of files that got delivered to her, she suddenly wasn't so eager to release it.

Even more than knowing what is in there about Trump, I would be most interested to know what banks knowingly financed what Epstein was doing. I would guess any bipartisan fears about information in there that could "destroy the country," is more likely related to banks and corporations that are considered "too big to fail," rather than any super scandalous information about individuals.

First, Bill Clinton is almost certainly all over them, and older Democrats still think of the Clintons as the epitome of Democratic success. Some of the old guard is still trying to push focus away from the Epstien files. Just two days ago, Nancy Pelosi was calling the Epstien files a distraction, which is a bat-shit crazy thing to say about evidence that could prove that your opponent was involved in a pedophile ring.

Second, Epstien probably has some sort of ties to the intelligence community. I don't know that I believe all these stories about him being a secret Mossad asset, but I think its very possible that the someone in the CIA was using him. Alex Acosta, who prosecuted Epstien in 2008, claimed that he was told to back off because he, "belonged to intelligence," and they're clearly withholding a lot of information, there's definitely something they don't want people to know. Anyway, since 9/11, the Democrats and Republicans have had basically the same position on the intelligence community (essentially, abject deference), so if the CIA says that it would be a national security risk to release the files, the Democrats aren't going to release the files.

They were sealed until Jan 2024 as part of Maxwells appeal process.

Here is Christine Pelosi, daughter of Nancy Pelosi, saying "It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated." Democrats and their billionaire owners are just as implicated by this as Republicans.

https://xcancel.com/sfpelosi/status/1147657745253855233?lang=en

I think one reason is that democrats wanted to do things by the book, and they didn't want to be accused of tampering with the 2024 election, more than trump already did.

Why didn't Republicans under Trump's first term release them? See reply by @Nollij@sopuli.xyz

Sample coverage from back then: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/trump-not-a-fan-of-jeffrey-epstein-accused-sex-trafficker.html

They did.

• Epstein black book & story on it.
• From USA v. Maxwell, Epstein flight logs & story on it.
• From Giuffre v. Dershowitz, case documents & story on unsealing those.
• The DOJ website lists some of those & others.

Not long ago, everyone was calling claims of secret, unreleased documents a right-wing conspiracy theory. Why popular opinion on that has turned from fringe to accepted is a mystery.

Sorry to answer with other questions, but as a foreigner I have to. Do investigations like this can just be published by the POTUS? In my country, it would be the sole decision of the AG, and they would probably won't publish anything because it could end up damaging the investigation. Or so they'd say.

It's really baffling the power of the current POTUS, having all the power of the state in his hands. To me, he just telling Pamela Bondi what to do in such a delicate matter feels just wrong, as in lacking the due seriousness on the matter, utterly sloppy and populist in a bad manner.

I think the real question is: why isn't anyone on the FBI or whatever agency is responsible for that, willing to just throw that shit onto the internet?

Because the files vaguely implicate a lot of influential oligarchs who donate to both sides.

We know Trump hung out with Epstein, there are pictures and testimony. It simply doesn't move the needle away from the right. He's just buying trouble.

gdamn thing should have been in the public from day one.

Because spineless Establishment Dems have some obsession with "playing nice," even with vicious MAGA Nazi enemies. I have a million questions, starting with:

Why didn't Biden have HitlerPig and his henchmen arrested within the first 60 seconds after his Inauguration?

When... When did they claim they were going to do that?

They are also on the list.

Because besides powerful Republicans, powerful Democrats are also implicated (e.g. the Clintons).

because democrats are on it.

Too many influential and very rich on there most likely. Among all the Republicans probably also a few democrats because we know there are quite a few assholes among those too.

Status quo protects the status quo.

The status is not... quo

Because people on all sides are probably listed.