The Epstein files are off the front page, but far from yesterday's news - Los Angeles Times

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I’m not saying definitively that going to war against Iran when there was no imminent threat is President Trump’s way of distracting attention from the case of Jeffrey Epstein and his voluminous, sordid, incriminating files.

Then again, I’m not not saying it.

We certainly know that Trump has mused in the past about invading Iran as a plausible response by an American president to his own domestic troubles.

“Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin,” Trump tweeted on Oct. 9, 2012, during President Obama’s hard-fought re-election campaign, “watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.”

“Remember what I previously said,” Trump tweeted Sept. 25, 2013, “Obama will someday attack Iran in order to show how tough he is.”

As different members of the administration and their allies give shifting versions of why Trump moved against Iran now, the question arises: Has the president achieved his presumed objective of knocking the Epstein files off the front page?

Not exactly.

They may have moved below the fold, as we say in the newspaper biz, but the Epstein scandal is alive and well, jamming the courts, occupying Congressional committees, sparking investigations in at least eight countries and toppling various “important” people.

The Epstein case has spawned an entire journalistic genre of angles: How he paid elite doctors to provide VIP medical services to his victims, how university officials and scientists have been stung by their associations with him, the various bankers who enabled him, the renowned summer music camp where he preyed on victims.

Last week, U.S District Judge Arun Subramanian tentatively approved a $35 million settlement for a lawsuit that was brought by survivors against Epstein’s lawyer Darren Indyke and his accountant Richard Kahn, co-executors of Epstein’s estate. According to the lawsuit, the pair “helped structure Epstein’s bank accounts and cash withdrawals to give Epstein and his associates access to large amounts of cash in furtherance of sex trafficking.”

While only two people were ever charged criminally in America — Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell — dozens of civil cases have been brought in connection with the financier’s decades-long exploitation of young women and girls. The total of various settlements is so far estimated at a whopping $500 million.

On Feb. 24, NPR reported that 65,000 pages of Epstein files, originally released as part of the 6 million-page dump by the Justice Department, had somehow disappeared from the publicly available documents.

Information in some of those files related to unverified allegations reported by a woman to the FBI that Trump sexually abused her and physically assaulted her in 1983 when she was a minor. Trump has vigorously disputed the claims. Some of those files were re-released last week, but NPR reported Friday that 37 pages of records are still missing, including interview notes and a law enforcement report.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the couple Republicans love to hate, were dragged before the House Oversight Committee for hours-long depositions on separate days. They had asked for public hearings and were refused. Both denied knowing anything about Epstein’s crimes prior to his 2008 conviction in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Hillary Clinton didn’t recall ever encountering Epstein.

“I do think you should be talking to me,” Bill Clinton told the committee. “I think you should have called me. I did take those plane trips with him and you have a right to ask those questions.”

Summoning his wife was specious, he said. The next day, Hillary Clinton accused the committee of performing “partisan political theater.” No kidding.

South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace asked Hillary how she felt when she saw a photo of her husband, fully clothed sitting down, being given a shoulder massage by an unidentified woman.

“I’m not going to speculate,” was Hillary’s clearly exasperated response.

If someone so clearly irrelevant to the investigation was hauled in by the committee, why has it not subpoenaed First Lady Melania Trump, a onetime model from Eastern Europe who knew Epstein and was friendly with Maxwell?

On Wednesday, the Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, a motion brought by the aforementioned Mace, who is a strong supporter of sex trafficking victims. Bondi will testify (or menacingly point her well-manicured finger — we’ll have to see) about why it has taken so long to release the Epstein files.

The committee also passed a second motion brought by Mace demanding the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights release information about all settlements of taxpayer money paid to victims of sexual misconduct by members of Congress prior to Dec. 12, 2018, after which the settlements became public. (You can thank the #MeToo movement for that.) Members who behaved badly prior to that do not deserve anonymity.

Then on Thursday, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse gave a 48-minute speech on the Senate floor examining Epstein’s tangled webs of connection to Russian government officials and oligarchs, his friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father Robert was believed to be a political and intelligence asset for the Soviet Union, and of course with Trump.

Could this all have some bearing, Whitehouse wondered, on what he described as Trump’s incomprehensibly accommodating relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose name appears nearly 1,000 times in the Epstein files?

Whitehouse recalled that the Mueller Report concluded that Trump knew about and welcomed Russian interference in his 2016 campaign, despite its appalling mischaracterization by then-Atty. Gen. Bill Barr and Trump’s continuing insistence it was a “hoax,” a word, noted Whitehouse, that Trump only uses “to describe things that are true — like climate change.”

A 2017 FBI report “based on a confidential human source” claims that Epstein was Putin’s “wealth manager,” Whitehouse said. In an email to Thorbjorn Jagland, the former prime minister of Norway who was then head of the Council of Europe, Epstein wrote, Whitehouse recounted, that he wanted to help Putin and Russia “reinvent the financial system.”

Last month, Jagland was charged with “aggravated corruption” in connection with his Epstein ties.

As with our many Middle East misadventures, for the Epstein files there really is no end in sight.

Bluesky: *@rabcarian*Threads: *@rabcarian*

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Ideas expressed in the piece

The article suggests that President Trump may be using military action against Iran as a distraction from the Epstein scandal and related investigations, noting that Trump has previously mused about invading Iran as a response to domestic troubles during other administrations.

While the Epstein files have moved to lower media prominence following the Iran strikes, the scandal remains significantly active, with ongoing civil cases, investigations in at least eight countries, and a tentative $35 million settlement recently approved for survivors suing Epstein’s estate executors.

The article highlights concerns about the disappearance and delayed release of Epstein-related documents, particularly 37 pages of records that remain missing, including information related to allegations against Trump.

The author criticizes the House Oversight Committee’s selective investigation approach, noting that while the committee summoned former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for depositions, it has not subpoenaed First Lady Melania Trump despite her documented acquaintance with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

The article references Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s concerns about connections between Epstein, Russian officials and oligarchs, and Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin, suggesting these connections warrant investigation in light of Trump’s accommodating stance toward Russia.

Different views on the topic

Trump administration officials justify the military action by citing Iran’s nuclear threat, with the president stating the operation was necessary because Iran was “very close to a nuclear weapon” and describing it as providing a service to the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed the campaign as removing “the threat of Iran’s ballistic and nuclear capabilities.”[1][1]Trump has characterized the military operation as highly successful, stating he would rate it “12 to 15” and claiming that Iranian military capabilities have been significantly degraded, with the nation’s army, navy, air force, and communications damaged.

[1]Some regional and international voices have raised concerns about escalation and called for diplomatic resolution, with Qatar’s emir emphasizing “the importance of containing the crisis and intensifying diplomacy to end it,” and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warning against an “endless war.”

However, these perspectives focus on the conduct of the war rather than its justification.[1]Military analysts cited in reports suggest the operation presents a genuine opportunity for change, with former U.S. intelligence officers noting that anti-government protests within Iran create potential for regime change and that the greater strategic risk would be ceasing military operations too early, allowing the regime to reestablish power.

[2]