In an era when one political dumpster fire follows another, President Trump is striving to address a rekindled scandal that initially seemed more of a mattress fire.
As any firefighter can attest, a mattress fire might seem to be extinguished as easily as one in a dumpster, only for it to continue smoldering deep inside and then suddenly reignite.
But in recent days, the mess over Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and the supposed Epstein files has persisted despite Trump repeatedly dismissing it as “total bulls--t” and a “HOAX.”
The seemingly never ending Epstein saga is threatening to become more like a lithium-ion battery fire.
Despite all efforts to extinguish it, a smoldering lithium-ion battery can suddenly result in what is called a thermal runaway, resulting in intense fire that goes on for hours, even days. Think Tesla.
“You could throw that thing in the Hudson River and it could keep burning,” a New York firefighter told the Daily Beast. “It has to run its course.”
Similarly, the Epstein scandal has persisted in flaring up even after President Trump commanded everybody to douse it. Trump did not help matters by saying there was nothing unusual about Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—the number two in the Justice department and Trump’s onetime criminal defense lawyer—meeting with a sex offender for nine hours. Trump also pleaded ignorance about that same sex offender then becoming one of the very few, if not the only violent offender lodged in a minimum security prison “camp.”
“I didn’t know about it at all, no,” Trump told reporters. “I read about it just like you did.”
On Tuesday morning, CNN reported that Vice President JD Vance would be hosting a dinner the following evening where Blanche, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and others would hold a “strategy session” on whether to release a transcript of the nine hour chat with Maxwell.
But on Wednesday afternoon, Reuters reported the gathering had been called off. The Daily Beast received a statement from a Vance spokesperson saying the initial CNN report had been “pure fiction.”
“There was never a supposed meeting scheduled at the Vice President’s residence to discuss Epstein Strategy,” the statement read.
That does not mean there was not a meeting at the White House, without Vance.
The question of what to do with the transcript remained. ABC reported that Maxwell told Blanche she had never seen or heard anything that could be detrimental to Trump.
One problem is that Maxwell has been described in court as someone who is ready and willing to lie whenever and however it best suits her.
Anybody who doubts her continued willingness to lie need only read her August 5 court filing headed GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT’S MOTION TO UNSEAL GRAND JURY TRANSCRIPTS.
The nine-page document says that, after pedophile Jeffrey Epstein took his life in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, “prosecutors from the Southern District of New York pivoted and made Maxwell the face of his crimes. She became the scapegoat and the only person the government could put on trial.”
At the trial, four victims gave detailed testimony that Maxwell was not a scapegoat, but instead a predator who teamed with Epstein to target and groom vulnerable underaged girls.
The witnesses against her included a Palm Beach, Florida, girl identified only as “Jane” whose account was recently detailed by The Daily Beast. It began when she was 13 and had just lost her father to leukemia and her home to medical bills. An older sibling had arranged for her to attend a Michigan summer camp; Jane testified in court that she had been sitting at a picnic table, eating ice cream with friends when a tall woman approached with “a cute little dog.”
The dog was named Max. The woman was Ghislaine Maxwell. Jane was petting Max when a man approached whom Jane at first assumed was the woman’s husband. He was Jeffrey Epstein and he and Maxwell continued a routine that began with building trust and proceeded to soul-searing sexual assault. Jane testified that Epstein and Maxwell dropped Trump’s name in an apparent effort to impress her. Jane also said that Epstein introduced her to Trump at the Mar-a-Lago Club when she was 14.
Another victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre testified that she was 17 and working at Mar-a-Lago when Maxwell approached her. She was lured away and the Epstein/Maxwell routine again led to sexual assault. Giuffre ended up taking her life in April.
Her siblings issued a statement on Wednesday saying that victims’ voices are going unheard.
“Their voices must be heard, above all,” Sky and Amanda Roberts, and Danny and Lanette Wilson, said. “As Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s siblings, we offer to represent her in her stead and we hope the administration takes our call to action seriously.”
The statement also asked the House Oversight Committee to give victims and their families the opportunity to testify when it holds hearings on the case. The committee has subpoenaed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide it with whatever Epstein files it has. The committee also wants relevant communications between Biden officials and DOJ.
The siblings may well be asked to assist the committee, but there was no immediate word of an invitation to any meeting. What the Trump administration should do is release a transcript of his huddle along one of Blanche’s sessions with Maxwell. Some actual truth might emerge.
The core problem for Trump goes back to his friendship with Epstein and two particular moments. One is when Epstein introduced 13-year-old “Jane” to Trump. The other is when he learned that Epstein had lured 17-year-old Giuffre away from the Mar-Lago-Club,
Nobody has suggested Trump molested either girl. He has always denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
But, Trump was once quoted that along with being “a great guy,” Epstein liked girls “on the younger side.” And Jane has said under oath that Epstein was referring to her when she heard him tell Trump, “This is a good one, right?”
Trump had cause to at least suspect something was going on. And, if he did see something, he said nothing.
If Trump in fact saw nothing wrong in Jane being with Epstein, that speaks to moral blindness.
The fact of that encounter is set as deep in the Epstein tale as smoldering core of a Tesla fire in the making.
And because Trump built so much of his support with the inflammatory stuff of conspiracy theories, there is a chance his base could witness the equivalent of a thermal runaway.
