Attorney drops SHOCK DISCOVERY amid Trump-Epstein fallout

Attorney drops SHOCK DISCOVERY amid Trump-Epstein fallout

This is Democracy Watch, Mark. By now, I think most people have seen the unhinged screed that Donald Trump posted about Jeffrey Epste. I’m going to read a quick uh a quick sentence from it, and then I want to get into a more insidious rationale that he might have for posting this. He wrote, “For years, it’s Epstein over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to files written by Obama, crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the losers and criminals of the Biden administration who conned the world with the Russia Russia Russia hoax, 51 intelligence agents, the laptop from hell, and more. They created the Epstein files just like they created the fake Hillary Clinton Christopher Steel dossier that they used on me. And now my so-called friends are playing right into their hands. And so there are some obvious reasons I think that we can all imagine as to why Donald Trump might not want to talk about Jeffrey Epstein, the guy who called Donald Trump his closest friend for 10 years. But you and I have spoken about a more insidious rationale that Trump might have for bringing this up specifically. Can you explain what that is? Yeah. So look, we don’t know, but I, you know, my first reaction upon reading this is how odd he has now confirmed the existence of the Epstein files, right? Like the Trump administration’s position up until the posting of this uh of this social media post was nothing to see. There are no files. There are no client lists. The videotape we’ve released like every you know we’ve done full transparency and and there’s just no they’re there. here. What he seems to be saying is actually there are something called the Epstein files, but that they’re forgeries that were written by, as you just read, you know, former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Brennan, and uh assorted losers and criminals of the Biden administration. I will leave that to you to to sort out who those are, but it’s quite a group that got together, I guess, with pen and pad and and and wrote this out. But but in all seriousness, he he seems to be preparing for there to be some release or some insinuation or some, you know, uh uh belief that there are actual files. And so rather than saying they don’t exist, he seems to now have pivoted to all right, when you see them or when you hear about them, they are forgeries. So, it’s it’s possible that he could just be setting the stage knowing full well that this thing that he’s not going to be able to get out from under this thing that we have the prospect of Dan Bonino quitting over this thing. We have the prospect of Pam Bondi leaving the DOJ over this thing. And so, it might very well be an inevitability that it’s going to get out. So, in anticipation of that, knowing that he may very well be exposed on this thing or some close donors or advisers or friends, whoever it may be, may be exposed on this thing, he’s just setting the stage to be able to say that this is all fake. Is that is that uh does that basically cover it? Yeah. I mean, so so here’s the thing, Brian. I started, you know, with being quite skeptical that this was that there was any there there. You know, I I myself have been the victim of right-wing conspiracy theories. I’ve had clients who have been the victim of Donald Trump’s, you know, fevered right-wing conspiracy theories. So, I I try to really not traffic in them. Then, you know, earlier this week, there was kind of like a leperate my face kind of component to this. It was like, you know, here it is. He trafficked in conspiracy theories and now it’s coming back to bite them as his supporters don’t uh believe him uh that believe his administration. But but this puts a really different cast on and I have to say it has moved my own thinking about this because it does seem that he is preparing that there will be an assertion of there being files. Now I don’t know what those files are. I don’t know what what he thinks is in them or whether he actually does think they are but he’s just afraid does think they exist but or just afraid of it. You know, you mentioned some of the things that he could be concerned about involving senior people at the Department of Justice, but remember, they have also purged a lot of people from the FBI. They have purged a lot of people from the Department of Justice. Like, this is not exactly an administration that is airtight when it comes to people comingings and goings in um uh in the Department of Justice. So again, I don’t know what he is thinking and God help us trying to put ourselves in his brain. But this does seem to me as I read it as a lawyer more of a confirmation of there being files than a denial of there being files. And then you have to ask yourself, well, why would he do that? uh particularly where he is, you know, laying it at the feet of I mean the the the the idea that somehow, you know, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and James Kobe wrote files about uh about, you know, a a a sex trafficker in New York. It just is just implausible. I mean, beyond implausible. It’s ridiculous. But he is laying that out because he wants to, it sounds to me like replace one conspiracy theory with another. Well, we have seen the extent to which he will go to the mat to perpetuate the existence of a bogus conspiracy theory. Look what he’s done with with the rigged 2020 election claims. I mean, he went so far as to claim that we need we need prosecutions of people that that did not do anything because he is so focused on on on manifesting to into reality his fever dreams. And so, what could that look like in this situation? I mean, he’s already laid out some names right here in these tweets. And so, we do do you think there’s a world in which he does the same thing that he did with the 2020 election that he goes to the mat that he tries to um carry out these political persecutions of people so that he can convince himself, but more importantly his supporters that in fact uh he had nothing to do with it. This was all some big conspiracy that that Brennan and Comey and Obama and Biden were involved in. Look, we we end up with the John Durham investigation, which was a, you know, a witch hunt to try to go after the FBI and others associated with the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton. Um, uh, go after the people who were the victims of the Russian interference in the 2016 election and also the FBI that investigated it. And part of the impetus for that that people forget was Donald Trump waking up one day and I think it was posting on social media, but correct me if I’m misremembering this that Barack Obama had wiretapped him. Yeah. Right. And so like what happens is he he he thinks he has a vulnerability on this thing, right? 2016 election. He then asserts this crazy theory uh that you know Barack Obama or the White House was somehow spying on him in Trump Towers. And the next thing you know it, there is actually now a criminal investigation looking into that. It is important to note that that as you read down, you know, you read a short portion of a really unhinged social media post. But but as you read down that social media post, he he doubles back to saying that essentially instead of spending time on the Epstein investigation, he directs the FBI. And by the way, like when the president of United States directs the FBI to do something that’s that’s quite, you know, chilling, right? and he directs them to quote be focused on investigating voter fraud, political corruption, act blue, and the rigged and stolen election of 2020. And then he goes on to say that that essentially Democrats tried to do it again in 2024 and Pam Bonnie’s looking into that. So whether he is going to d whether the reaction here is going to be to investigate a forged file, I suspect will depend on whether or not he thinks that that is necessary. But at a minimum he is d he is diverting attention here to say look I’m going to investigate my political opponents who happen to overlap with you know in large measure with the people he’s now saying um uh forged these files. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence this also comes on the same day that he announced that he’s going to try to strip the citizenship of a native nativeborn um uh American Rosie O’Donnell. Something that he has absolutely no power to do. he doesn’t Congress doesn’t have the power to do. But I don’t think that that was an effort now that I’ve seen this to divert attention. I think it’s actually his his idea here is that he’s going to weaponize the Department of Justice in as many extreme fashions as possible so that he has that sort of machine, that war machine against his enemies going so that if these files come out, you know, people be warned, you know, they that that he will then turn it on them. I I think you’re exactly right about the fact that he is laying the groundwork now to do this. And we have seen we have seen these instances where he starts to introduce kind of an ember of an idea and how quickly that that explodes into a full-blown inferno. We saw it with the Obama wiretapping. We’ve saw we’ve seen it with everything as it relates to the 2020 election. And so this is I mean it’s it’s smart to see it right away because we usually don’t see it until it’s it’s ballooned into something bigger. But this is it. I mean this is the very first instance where he is going to focus he’s going to fixate on Comey and Brennan Obama and Biden and pretend and convince his supporters more importantly that they were involved in some in some whole you know forgery scheme so that he doesn’t have to take responsibility for whatever you know may very well be on those documents itself and so you know I do think it’s important that we recognize what he’s trying to do as he’s trying to do it so that so that you know when it happens when he goes on and repeats it over over and over and over again. It’s not, you know, people will recognize the whole point of it and that is really just to serve as some distraction from the reality of what those files might hold. Yeah. And look, again, to be clear, like you and I don’t know, this is we’re we’re piecing we’re piecing this all together. But that said, I I I can’t help but but pick up on something you just said, which is normally he does embers and the embers burn and like we’re not really paying all that much attention to the to to to those embers burning until they’re burning really hot. And what’s interesting in the last week is how uh clumsy he has been, right? Like it has not been subtly placing embers. First, you had the situation on Tuesday, which I know you covered uh extensively on your channel, um where he kind of like jumps into in the middle of a cabinet meeting, jumps into an answer that that of a question that was asked of Pam Bondi about Epstein and and and and that struck a lot of people at the time at as quite clumsy for him. You know, this is someone who’s usually pretty stage craft about this stuff. And then this social media post today also feels very very panicked. I mean, like it feels very, you know, I mean, it’s it’s the truth. You you and I had spoken off camerara when we first when we first uh, you know, logged on here about how this is actually very out of character for someone who has a pretty tight grip on what the narrative usually is. And this is so overtly panicked, so obviously panicked that that it is way out of character for somebody who’s able to, you know, he’s got he’s got the right-wing media ecosystem wrapped around his finger. This does not seem like a very characteristic um post that he would that he would make, especially if he’s trying to divert your attention away from something else. I mean, he literally comes out and says, “Why are we talking about this? We have it’s always Epstein, Epstein, Epste.” I mean, this is somebody who’s really lost the plot and and it does seem completely unhinged. Yeah. And it seems unhinged in a different way than he is usually unhinged. He is usually unhinged in leading a parade. Yeah. And here it feels like he’s unhinged trying to stop a parade. Correct. And it’s like the parade is like walking down the street and there are people there are marching bands and people people crowded on the sidewalk and he’s like there’s no parade here. Nobody see a parade. And that is why I say it just feels very out of character because normally even on even when he was at odds with some in his coalition around the Iran bombing, it felt very much like he was leading. You know, it felt very much like he was the man setting the tempo. And this feels like someone who has totally lost the tune. I mean, like he’s he is not just not setting the tempo, like he’s he’s he’s talking off he’s playing off one song sheet and they’re they’re they’re screaming on another one. Yeah. Well, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next. I I I share your opinion here that, you know, I came into this very skeptical. I I mostly was focusing on the irony of the fact that, you know, this is an administration composed of people who really predicated so much of their identity, so much of their brand on releasing these files and and how they got conned by, you know, Alina Haba and and Pam Bandi, Cash Patel, Dan Bangino, and even Trump himself because really they were lied to. But but now given the fact that they have protested that that Trump is protesting so loudly, I I’ve switched over from just being, you know, um uh interested in the fact that that, you know, this is a very overt lie that it’s very clearly um splintering the the MAGA base, but now that you know, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? And if you have Donald Trump protesting so loudly against this stuff, whereas I wasn’t that whereas I was pretty skeptical before about the existence of anything, now legitimately speaking, I I I have to only imagine that there must be something worth hiding if Donald Trump is so upset about the prospect of something getting out, right? And to me, you know, the the biggest tell of how panicked he is is that he has actually now set up his attorney general and FBI director because remember where we were just a few days ago is they said there are no files. There is no list, right? We went from from Pam Bondi saying there are files and a list and they’re on my desk. Yeah. to them having to walk that all the way back and her saying, “Look, you know, there were files, but there’s nothing in them, blah blah blah blah blah.” And now the question is that some reporter has to ask Pam Bondi is what are the forged files? Like, can you can you release the documents that Barack Obama wrote, can you release the the files created by James Comey and Brennan? Right? And so he has in some ways undercut you know the the strategy as it had been up until now of basically saying there is no there there there’s nothing there is nothing there and now they are stuck in this place. So I mean you know your job is usually ask me questions but I’ll ask you one like what what does Pam Bondi do now? I mean at this point I I truly don’t know because she went from saying the Epstein client list is on my desk. I’m going to go check it out in a few minutes to saying just kidding. it doesn’t exist to now just kidding again. It exists but it’s clearly a forgery that was made in some back room where James Comey, John Brennan, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden were all scribbling down some fake names to get us off the trail. So, I have no clue what Pam Bondi does from here. But my only hope is that is that even those folks who are acting in good faith on the right who are who are rightly concerned about what we’re seeing that they don’t allow themselves to be, you know, to be conned by the very obvious deflections that Donald Trump is making here. Already we had, you know, Charlie Kirk come out and and offer some very uncritical um amplification of Trump’s own tweet. And like there are going to be these these sickopants um who are going to be who are going to be willing to do that. But I hope that there’s enough people on the right. I hope that even the the Laura Loomers who who seem to really care about this, the the Andrew Schultzes who seem to care about this, the um the the Dave Smiths who seem to care about this that they don’t allow Donald Trump to throw them off the scent with these very like bargain basement tactics that we’re about to see. But um with that said, you know, it’s moving pretty quickly and it seems to be a fire that’s g gotten a little bit out of control as far as Trump is concerned. So uh we will I’m Mark Elias. This is Democracy Watch.

Democracy Watch episode 341: Marc Elias reacts to Trump’s Epstein file denial.

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