After fighting tooth and nail to prevent the so-called Epstein files from being released, last night Trump reversed course and issued a statement reversing course asking his party members in Congress to vote to do so. The House vote to release the files was scheduled for this evening or tomorrow.
Late on Sunday, Trump wrote on his social media platform: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because 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 added.
Why the switch? Here’s the conventional wisdom:
Trump spent last week aggressively squeezing allies in the US House, including Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, to back off in their support of releasing the files. Those efforts were unsuccessful, and when it became apparent the measure was going to pass, Trump backed it in an effort to salvage an embarrassing political loss. “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide,” he posted on his Truth Social network on Sunday evening.
Trump viciously went after GOP congressperson Thomas Massie who had led the move to have the files released. But Massie merely mocked him.
“He got tired of me winning,” Massie said of Trump’s U-turn in an interview Monday morning.
…The campaign to avoid the vote got remarkably ugly in the days before Trump finally conceded, with the president personally attacking Massie for recently remarrying after the sudden death last summer of his wife of more than 30 years. Just hours before Trump’s reversal, one of his top political advisers called him “garbage” in an X post.
That adviser, Chris LaCivita, is carrying out a Trump-ordered effort to unseat Massie from the rural northern Kentucky seat he has held since 2012. Trump recently endorsed a challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, in the GOP primary.
Massie has not flinched from the threats. Politically, he has seen the best fundraising of his congressional career, entering October with more than $2 million in his campaign coffers. As for the personal attacks, Massie said Monday he and his wife were laughing them off.
“She said, ‘I told you we should have invited him to the wedding!’” Massie said.
It is not like Trump to cave like this. His typical style is to fight ferociously all the way, attacking all the people who vote against him, then vetoing the measure, and then if the veto is over-ridden, to file a lawsuit saying that only he has the power to order the release of the files and that the congressional action is an encroachment of presidential powers. That legal fight could drag on for months and end up in the Supreme Court and who knows how they will rule. At the worst, he could order the files be destroyed if they contained some things that are really damaging. That would cause an uproar, similar to when during Watergate, 18 1/2 minutes of the White House tape recordings during a tense conversation got mysteriously erased. That fueled the drive to impeach Richard Nixon and maybe even Trump does not want to risk going that far.
So why give in now? It may be that he has been told that the vote against him will be quite large, with many GOP members voting with the Democrats in both chambers. While that would be embarrassing, it would not be fatal. But perhaps he thinks that once his party members have successfully defied him on one issue, they might be more willing to do so on other issues. This may be a Rubicon that he does not want to force them to cross.
It should be noted that Trump already does have the power to immediately order the release of the files. So if he really felt that he had nothing to hide, he could have done so long ago. So why not order the release now?
As I said in yesterday’s post, there are many things about this that puzzle me. My feeling is that if and when the files are released, the matter will still not be settled. Things like this take on a life of their own.
You are a very smart man Mano. I believe your scenario more than the ones presented.
He has finally figured out how to personally get ahold some of the ones he doesn’t like, and has flushed them down a gold toilet?
At least some of the other ‘conventional wisdom’ is basically that Trump is hoping a partial release and getting Pam Bondi to go after Bill Clinton and Larry Summers and other Democrats mentioned in the files will be able to distract attention away from his own involvement. (And while Clinton seems to have been a comparatively casual Epstein acquaintance, Summers was definitely deeply involved and chatting about what he wanted to do to some of his students right up until Epstein’s second arrest.)
Well I shall wait till he implores the senate too, to release the files and then doesnt veto the whole thing.
It is not like Trump to cave like this.
But on the other hand: TACO. Granted, his MO is to delay, delay, delay, but when it hits the fan, he will do the equivalent of the schoolyard taunt, “I know you are, but what am I?”, claiming he is above it all and was demanding the release all along.
My thought is that tRump’s hand servants have already purged a bunch of the really damning material regarding him, and he will use info he has gained on other GOP members as a form of extortion. Literally, I put nothing as being beneath him. The man is an ethical void.
it’s a bad sign but no reason to stop
The House is required to take a vote, but the Senate isn’t required to do anything.
“At the worst, he could order the files be destroyed if they contained some things that are really damaging.”
I’m pretty sure that’s already happened. See also edited video of entrance to E.’s cell. Also in addition plus besides, he’s ordered Blondi to start investigating things, so nothing damaging they might’ve missed can be released because “ongoing investigation.” Once he dies, or things calm down, the investigations will quietly end with no result.
I seriously doubt we shall ever see the full, unscrubbed, Epstein files. As others have suggested, either the evidence incriminating the malignant narcissist has been removed or Pam Bondi will pop up to say that the files cannot be released because of the new investigation into Dem involvement.
Whatever the reason(s) I doubt we shall see them. I hope I am wrong but I have stopped trying to hope that the MN has a bottom.
If I had to convince Trump to release the files I’d tell him the only one who could beat him is himself. And unfortunately he put a lot of effort into making the base obsess over Epstein.
I think his changing stance is less political strategy than ego stroking though. He’ll pretend he’s for it and choose some enemies from the list of people who vote to release. Then he’ll be the petty narcissist he’s always been and attack them later. Ego stroking, not political strategy.
It’s almost as though the last person in the Oval Office had been Bannon Wormtongue, who had said “Flood the zone. The files are coming out under their control at the moment, so you release them all and flood the zone. I think you’re right to drown out the stuff they want to make a stink about: flood the zone with your own stink. Just like that time when you were so skilfully flying your plane over the traitors and protestors; you told me about that great day didn’t you, Mr President! And you have the souvenir video! So it’s a wise decision you’re just about to make today, Mr President.”
I’ve seen other commenters, including somebody at CBC News, suggesting that another possible reason for Trump to get behind the release was simple, and actually plays right to Trump’s known psychology. The idea is that his primary driver here was that everybody was talking about the Epstein files and what they contained, and nobody was talking about Trump’s claims to have fixed the economy. By saying he was in favour of releasing the files, the entire point was just to get people talking about him again.
More on The Orange One:
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“Trump’s Georgia Prosecution Is Finally Back On Track”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=b4HG_rwvNGc
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The prosecution under Georgia jurisdiction concerns Trump, Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and many others.
It’s practically certain Trump will have ordered Bondi to hold back anything mentioning him, on the grounds of the investigations he’s suddently told her to do on Bill Clinton, Summers, etc, andor other spurious issues. But most people -- including a significant chunk of the MAGA base -- will not be satisfied with that: unless and until something seriously bad for Trump is revealed, people will (rightly) believe he’s still hiding something. He’s caught in the very conspiracy hunt he did so much to inflame -- and admittedly, it’s increasingly clear that there was indeed an “establishment pedophile ring” (If not quite of the form Qanon babbled of), centred on Epstein, including people from both establishment parties and from multiple walks of well-off, privileged life (I’m including in that “ring” anyone who knew or clearly should have known of Epstein’s crimes, as well as actual participants in them), and of which Donald J. Trump was a prominent and longtime member.