FBI INFORMANT, LIQUOR IS FEAR, CURRENCY IS LOYALTY

A recent report from Drop Site News detailing Jeffrey Epstein’s international influence in assisting to broker a defense agreement between Israel and Côte d’Ivoire led Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to suggest that the bombshell news might keep the House of Representatives out of session throughout next year. Drop Site had previously reported on Epstein’s brokering of a security cooperation agreement between Israel and Mongolia, as well as helping to establish a backchannel for Israel to communicate with Russia during the Syrian Civil War. Of course, we know that the extended recess will not be in the cards, with the end of the government shutdown, also coinciding with release of Epstein emails, and forcing Speaker Johnson to throw in the towel on the prolonged vacation he gave the governing body. The Speaker had the ability to reconvene the House, even with the shutdown, with critics arguing that he was following the president’s directive to avoid a vote on an Epstein-related piece of legislation. The legislation in question was a discharge petition filed by Representative Thomas Massie which would compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on Epstein, and requiring 218 signatures, being one short with Johnson’s refusal to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva from Arizona.

Johnson’s efforts to protect the MAGA cult leader led him to lie that Trump was once an FBI informant given the duty of gathering incriminating evidence on Epstein, but he later had to walk that one back, wearing his boyish grin. The New Republic’s reporting has senior Republicans privately admitting that the Epstein files are potentially worse for Trump than previously thought, and former insiders now allege that the photos and documents held by the FBI will expose the president’s deep ties to the convicted sex trafficker. The fight about transparency, accountability, and truth terrifies the MAGA gang, who can see what’s left of Trump’s credibility being destroyed among the faithful. Speaker Johnson is holding relatively steady, accusing Democrats of zero accomplishments, adding that Jeffrey Epstein is their “entire game plan.” “President Trump has clean hands. He’s not worried about it. I talk to him all the time. He has nothing to do with this. He’s frustrated that they’re turning this into a political issue,” Johnson told Fox News.

David Shuster writes on Blue Amp Media that Trump and his enablers have converted the Situation Room, a chamber of national vigilance for the often grave business of safeguarding the nation, into a sleazy coordination center against the Epstein scandal. Last week, AG Pam Bondi, Deputy AG Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel packed themselves into that secure vault in an attempt to coerce Congresswoman Lauren Boebert into withdrawing her name from Thomas Massie’s petition demanding that the FBI and DOJ release all the Epstein files. “It was Trumpism on full display: the art of turning every instrument of the federal government into a personal weapon. Cell phones won’t work in a SCIF and must be kept outside to prevent recordings. And everything said in the Situation Room is shielded not just from the outside world, but from the rest of the White House. The ambiance is deadly serious and stately. A contrast, of course, with the self-absorbed and tacky Trump. He cannot tell the difference between national security and his own political security; between classified secrets and personal embarrassments; between the power of the President and the extended and ongoing act of vandalism.”

Shuster asks us to picture the scene beneath the buzzing fluorescents, and beside the hum of surveillance screens, the three top law enforcement officers together not tracking an enemy or manage a national crisis, but to cajole a “Congressional backbencher into conformity and silence.” He calls the Situation Room a “holy bunker of national security turned into an immoral brew pub, where the liquor is fear and the currency is loyalty.” The documents from Epstein’s estate chronicle Trump’s name repeatedly, establishing that Trump and Epstein were best friends for over a decade, with contacts advising that those materials being withheld by the administration are even more graphic and disturbing than those seen publicly. The materials include grand jury testimony, witness statements, victim interviews, photographs, and videos, indicating that Trump’s denials and accusations about a “democratic hoax” are merely a ploy to prevent the swamp from being drained.

In conclusion, Shuster writes: “In any halfway decent America, this would provoke a constitutional crisis. In ours, among far too many republicans, it provokes a shrug…Our nation’s founders warned of tyranny, not anticipating a farce. They imagined a Caesar, not a demented carnival barker with a spray tan and social media addiction…a grotesque sideshow…Trump’s lobbying antics did nothing except underscore his weakness…Lauren Boebert wasn’t intimidated…and now, more republicans are joining the jail break.” Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said that President Trump, despite his best efforts, has exhausted his efforts to block the “Epstein Train,” as it is characterized by CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield. Representative Melanie Stansbury, sitting on the House committee actively investigating Jefferey Epstein and potential co-conspirators, predicted that the fallout from an impending vote would be as “explosive as Watergate. We know that the White House is engaged in a cover-up. I think we can see the cracks in his strategy…the president went full-bore attack on Marjorie Taylor Greene… trying to make an example of her.”

Stansbury says that the Trump administration has already failed to comply with lawful requests of her committee’s subpoena powers, calling the non-compliance by the White House and the DOJ another stalling tactic. Trump’s response has been an announcement that the Attorney General will be asked to launch an investigation into Epstein’s ties with former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and other Democratic Party figures. “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats. Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island.’ Stay tuned!!!”

“Trump is completely panicked,” said Representative Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. “He is desperate. He knows the American public is all now lining up to fight to ensure that the release of the files actually happens, and he’s doing everything that he can to intimidate, to politicize and weaponize the government to stop the files from being released.” Garcia predicts that the discharge petition will sail through the House without an issue. Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch points out that “Trump is crashing out, erupting online, unleashing tirade after tirade at members of his own party and spiraling into increasingly erratic behavior, all in the wake of the 23,000 Epstein emails whose release has shattered what remains of Trump’s political equilibrium.” Meiselas says it is an extraordinary and deeply disturbing fact that Trump’s name appears on more than half to the Epstein email threads, and that the president’s reaction is somehow even more revealing…”this is not strategy. This is collapse.”

“Trump is soft on pedophiles!” wrote Dede Watson, a social media consultant and strategtist, when she heard that Jeffrey Epstein’s partner-in-crime, Ghislaine Maxwell might be privileged to leave her minimum security prison for ‘work assignments.’ Maxwell has been the subject of countless reports in recent weeks after the Trump administration transferred the British socialite to her low security prison in Texas, and which recently resulted in the firing of some staff members after they provided information about her special treatment. She is clearly angling for a presidential pardon to assist Trump in making the Epstein problem go away, but it appears the scandal is only escalating because the red-hatted horde wants names — and the heads that go with them.

The fired whistleblower revealed that Maxwell has customized meals prepared by federal prison camp employees and then personally delivered to her cell, and is also provided snacks and refreshments for her guests who meet with her in a special cordoned-off area. She is allowed to go alone after hours to the exercise area, and has a special proviso to contact people outside the jail with the help of the prison warden or other personnel. Ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Jaimie Raskin, has written to the president about ‘Documents and information received…indicating that Dr. Tanisha Hall, the warden at the Bryan, Texas facility, has federal law enforcement staff waiting on Ms. Maxwell hand and foot. The deference and servility to Ms. Maxwell have reached such preposterous levels that one of the top officials at the facility has complained that he is ‘sick of having to be Maxwell’s bitch.’ Raskin is demanding that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche be made available for a public hearing before the committee “to answer for the corrupt misuse of law enforcement resources and potential exchange of favors for false testimony exonerating you and other Epstein accomplices.”

To top it all off, Maxwell has been given a puppy as part of her preferential treatment says the whistleblower, an inmate who trains puppies to become service dogs. The sex offender is allowed to play with the animal for a specified period of time, a favor not granted to other inmates or staff who are not allowed to touch them as part of the training regime. Animal lovers need to speak out on this issue! Who knows how she might corrupt a poor defenseless puppy into becoming a total failure at serving mankind!

Conservative attorney George Conway suggests that Trump would be toying with fate should he offer Maxwell a pardon after she was convicted of child sex trafficking and felony conspiracy along with other charges. Conway says that we may not remember what Roger Stone and Paul Manafort were charged with, and were convicted, but who can forget what Maxwell’s conviction was about? “It’s very simple. It’s like it’s worse than just the abstract. You know, this went on for years. This is what, a thousand victims? Ghislaine Maxwell was right there telling them what to do, how to do it, taking their passports away so they couldn’t get off Epstein Island, okay? This is not going to work for Donald Trump, okay? He does this, he’s pushing a big bomb to blow himself up,” says Conway. Back in July, Speaker Johnson told Kristen Welker on ‘Meet the Press‘ that Maxwell’s 20-year sentence was “a pittance…it should be a life sentence, at least.” Trump’s former White House press secretary Sean ‘Spicey’ Spicer warned his old boss that unprecedented fallout would ensue should he issue a pardon to the notorious sex trafficker, “Outrage like never before — this will transcend partisan lines…I hope to God nobody in the White House has led him to believe that that’s the case, that it would be a smart move.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz brings his take on The Borowitz Report: “In what experts are calling one of the most remarkable comebacks for a convicted sex offender in recent memory, on Friday Donald J. Trump announced that he was replacing Attorney General Pam Bondi with Ghislaine Maxwell. Explaining his decision, Trump said, ‘Pam said there was a client list, and Ghislaine said there isn’t. So I have decided Ghislaine would be better at this job than Pam.’ In another stunning reversal of fortune, Trump announced that Bondi would be taking Maxwell’s place in prison, adding, ‘I wish her well.’ He said he was confident that Maxwell would receive speedy confirmation by Senate Republicans, noting, ‘If they confirmed Hegseth they’ll confirm anyone.'”

In a startling reversal, late on Sunday, Trump reversed his stand on release of the Epstein files, writing on social media, “We have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party.” He now says House Republicans should vote to release the files after previously fighting the proposal, even as a growing number of the MAGA base supported doing so. The president’s change of heart is an acknowledgment that supporters of the measure have enough votes to pass it in the House, although a possible verdict in the Senate is still unclear. So, why the big arm-twisting meeting in the Situation Room? As Marjorie Taylor Greene has been saying, “I have no idea what’s in the files. I can’t even guess. But that is the question everyone is asking, ‘Why fight this so hard?‘” To be continued…strategy or collapse?