Epstein client list, does it exist or not?

Elrond

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I'm a bit confused over the "outrage" or reporting that Bondi showed up with a list of the files that particular members of Congress on committee had viewed. Given they were going to ask her questions and expect her to answer, that would provide context for what they might be asking and what she'd need to know to answer them.

Bondi is terrible and should resign or be removed, but I feel like that part was just reasonable preparation.
She's basically showing up to an Eminem 8mile rap battle with notes so that when someone asks her a question, rather than answer it, she can use one of her premanufactured zingers. We all know how effective insults are when read off the page.
 
I never thought it would get like this. How do people get a chance to act this way? Are we not supposed to be acting like adults? She sounded like some spoiled 3 year old not getting her way.
I am still constantly amazed at this behavior. I am amazed some of the stories they must believe, because the alternate is unreal. They don't believe but yet support to the fake story is unwavering.

The other thing is why is the rest of the world taking care of business and yet the US acts like this is some shoplifting charge. Even if false (highly unlikely) I cannot believe the seriousness of the accusations don't warrant something more.

I am so tired of saying we have now reached a new low I never though possible. All this does is make me believe even more in the far fetched stuff, cannibalism, murder, torture, and that is now coming to light it starts to over shadow damn pedo behavior. And didn't we used to think that was the lowest of the lows?

I guess I never expected murdering, torturers that are cannibals that are also pedos.....
 

Shavano

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I never thought it would get like this. How do people get a chance to act this way? Are we not supposed to be acting like adults? She sounded like some spoiled 3 year old not getting her way.
I am still constantly amazed at this behavior. I am amazed some of the stories they must believe, because the alternate is unreal. They don't believe but yet support to the fake story is unwavering.

The other thing is why is the rest of the world taking care of business and yet the US acts like this is some shoplifting charge. Even if false (highly unlikely) I cannot believe the seriousness of the accusations don't warrant something more.

I am so tired of saying we have now reached a new low I never though possible. All this does is make me believe even more in the far fetched stuff, cannibalism, murder, torture, and that is now coming to light it starts to over shadow damn pedo behavior. And didn't we used to think that was the lowest of the lows?

I guess I never expected murdering, torturers that are cannibals that are also pedos.....
I figure most of the corruption had nothing to do with pedos. Money laundering, trading of insider stock tips, influencing government officials with money. (You know, bribery.)
 
Amazingly enough I just never thought this would go to the levels and amounts. millions of documented cases, paper trail out the wazoo, the sheer amount is just staggering. Even more staggering is the levels they are going to cover Trump and the underlings.

I would have thought by now someone would have flipped for immunity, or maybe this is just too big for too many people or maybe just too many people are involved.

The new lows are so low almost goes beyond belief.
 
Regardless of the current shitshow, as a European I don‘t get why this happens now and not years ago.

I mean it seems there is a lot of damning evidence in those files, why was there no widespread prosecution? The Biden Administration/Democrat Congress also slept on this, it seems. Was this intentional or has this sth. to do with Florida handling the case?

Am I missing something?
 

DarthSlack

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Regardless of the current shitshow, as a European I don‘t get why this happens now and not years ago.

I mean it seems there is a lot of damning evidence in those files, why was there no widespread prosecution? The Biden Administration/Democrat Congress also slept on this, it seems. Was this intentional or has this sth. to do with Florida handling the case?

Am I missing something?

Nope, you're not missing anything. This is a case where money talked loudly enough that the prosecutors involved backed away. Really, the only reason this is coming out now is that MAGA thought they had a bunch of Democrats nailed to the wall, this never would have seen the light of day if they realized the extent of Trump's involvement.
 

RaceBannon

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Really, the only reason this is coming out now is that MAGA thought they had a bunch of Democrats nailed to the wall, this never would have seen the light of day if they realized the extent of Trump's involvement.

And they expected the Democrats to resist the documents release so Republicans could use the "Democrats protect pedos" line of attack.

Now they're boxed into a corner and don't know what to do.
 
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linnen

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And they expected the Democrats to resist the documents release so Republicans could use the "Democrats protect pedos" line of attack.

Now they're boxed into a corner and don't know what to do.
Republicans expected to hang everything on the Clintons to resurrect the whole 'Pizzagate' conspiracy as popularized by Q-anon.

They did not expect the Democrats NOT to fall in line and worship at the feet of the Clintons. And they did not expect the Clintons to call the Republican's bluff about testifying and certainly not to raise the stakes by insisting on all of it be made public.
 

DarthSlack

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Republicans expected to hang everything on the Clintons to resurrect the whole 'Pizzagate' conspiracy as popularized by Q-anon.

They did not expect the Democrats NOT to fall in line and worship at the feet of the Clintons. And they did not expect the Clintons to call the Republican's bluff about testifying and certainly not to raise the stakes by insisting on all of it be made public.

Not only did they not expect it, they can't conceive of the fact that Democrats would be just fine BBQing the Clintons if they are actually guilty of something. Republicans are so into their mindless leader worship that they can't understand that the rest of the world doesn't function that way.
 

Ecmaster76

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And they did not expect the Clintons to call the Republican's bluff about testifying and certainly not to raise the stakes by insisting on all of it be made public.
Maybe? Its all talk at this point. It actually happening will be another thing altogether.
 

karolus

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Regardless of the current shitshow, as a European I don‘t get why this happens now and not years ago.

I mean it seems there is a lot of damning evidence in those files, why was there no widespread prosecution? The Biden Administration/Democrat Congress also slept on this, it seems. Was this intentional or has this sth. to do with Florida handling the case?

Am I missing something?
You know that there are some very powerful people implicated who were using their influence to stymie investigations and obfuscate involvement. Much was hiding in plain sight, for those who bothered to look.

As far as prosecution—look at the response to January 6 and the election interference by Trump. In a serious democracy, there would have been swift reaction. That's a big sign the fish is rotten from the head.
 

Stern

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Kathryn Ruemmler, Goldman Sachs' top lawyer and head of their reputational risk committee has resigned over her connection to Epstein. She claims she "had no knowledge of any ongoing criminal conduct on his part, and I did not know him as the monster he has been revealed to be", while also advising him on how to whitewash his 2008 conviction.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the head of DP World, has also resigned, for much the same reasons. He was the one talking about a "torture video", which was probably referring to a video of a member of the UAE royal family torturing someone, which had made the news a couple of days before the email.
 

DarthSlack

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That's rich. The head of the reputational risk committee had to resign due to reputation issues.

Makes one wonder about her social IQ. Seemed like a ticking time bomb on her career.

It seems to me she's more a complete liar. I mean, how do you help Epstein try to recover his reputation after a conviction for procuring a child for prostitution and not have any inkling that they're a monster?
 

karolus

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It seems to me she's more a complete liar. I mean, how do you help Epstein try to recover his reputation after a conviction for procuring a child for prostitution and not have any inkling that they're a monster?
There are firms that specialize in reputation management. Of course, this isn't branding/PR/advocacy—it's working to rehabilitate and/or shape dodgy reputations of companies, nation states, or influential people who have complicated histories, to put it mildly.
 
There are firms that specialize in reputation management. Of course, this isn't branding/PR/advocacy—it's working to rehabilitate and/or shape dodgy reputations of companies, nation states, or influential people who have complicated histories, to put it mildly.
They're also suspected to be the largest operators of social media bots behind nation states and marketers.

Lotta the content you see on any major social media platform is marketing and "perception correction" services from Reputation Management and monitoring.

Dead Internet is here.
 

wallinbl

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Regardless of the current shitshow, as a European I don‘t get why this happens now and not years ago.

I mean it seems there is a lot of damning evidence in those files, why was there no widespread prosecution? The Biden Administration/Democrat Congress also slept on this, it seems. Was this intentional or has this sth. to do with Florida handling the case?

Am I missing something?
When you watch TV shows and movies where high level criminals have moles inside all forms of law enforcement and government and at all levels, you generally just suspend disbelief that they could manage to have that much access.

As we're learning, it's very real.
 

Lt_Storm

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The new lows are so low almost goes beyond belief.
That's because the new lows are insufficiently corroborated to be worth believing. Extraordinary claims and all that: nobody should be believing the cannibalism claims until there is corroboration from multiple reliable sources.

That said, the old lows are low enough. I mean we are talking about kidnapping, underage sex slavery, and likely murder here, not to mention the cover-up of said yikes. There's no need to pay attention to the most ridiculous claims, there's plenty of corroborated horribleness here to stagger our belief and demand a thorough investigation of, complete with consequences.
 

Lt_Storm

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There are firms that specialize in reputation management. Of course, this isn't branding/PR/advocacy—it's working to rehabilitate and/or shape dodgy reputations of companies, nation states, or influential people who have complicated histories, to put it mildly.
Ya, Goldman Sachs' reputational risk committee likely involves dealing with enough sketchy people that this kind of reputational issue is probably par for the course, perhaps it's even a necessary qualification. I mean, Goldman Sachs is known for their work with rich and powerful people, and most common ways to become rich involve doing extremely dodgy things. Rich oligarchs typically don't rise on the basis of their honorable deeds.
 
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acefsw

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Ya, Goldman Sachs' reputational risk committee likely involves dealing with enough sketchy people that this kind of reputational issue is probably par for the course, perhaps it's even a necessary qualification. I mean, Goldman Sacks is known for their work with rich and powerful people, and most common ways to become rich involve doing extremely dodgy things. Rich oligarchs typically don't ride on the basis of their honorable deeds.
Yep.

JP Morgan is under fire right now for their ties to Epstein. Whether Dimon actually knew the guy is another thing. Justice Dept is likely going after them just because Trump isn't fond of Dimon, who has been pushing back on Trump's maneuvering to take over the Fed. But the fact is, all the banks were happy to handle Epstein's money. If they were involved beyond that, take em down.

I'm really interested in all of Epstein's large cash transfers to Russia.
 

wco81

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If these materials are unreleased and must be viewed in a SCIF, isn't all of that logged and recorded? Isn't that mandatory?
DOJ and Court records aren't classified with the National Security classification system. SCIFs are for the NatSec system.

I do not know the details, but I do not think they are only viewable in a SCIF. And generally Congress runs its own SCIFs because of that separation of powers thing.

Raskin said this setup with 4 computers for all of Congress is meant to slow them down reviewing the files.

He's not surprised that they logged all their viewing and search histories to use against them.
 

wco81

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Amazingly enough I just never thought this would go to the levels and amounts. millions of documented cases, paper trail out the wazoo, the sheer amount is just staggering. Even more staggering is the levels they are going to cover Trump and the underlings.

I would have thought by now someone would have flipped for immunity, or maybe this is just too big for too many people or maybe just too many people are involved.

The new lows are so low almost goes beyond belief.

She's performing for Trump and certain MAGA.

They don't care about civility or decorum, they just want to talk shit at their enemies, which is any Democrat.

She's hoping her rants and put downs end up on MAGA TikTok and social media.
 

BrangdonJ

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Regardless of the current shitshow, as a European I don‘t get why this happens now and not years ago.

I mean it seems there is a lot of damning evidence in those files, why was there no widespread prosecution? The Biden Administration/Democrat Congress also slept on this, it seems. Was this intentional or has this sth. to do with Florida handling the case?

Am I missing something?
I'm not American, but my understanding is that this is at least partly about the doctrine of unitary executive power. Trump believes in it, Biden didn't. Trump thinks every part of the executive should be under his personal control. Biden thinks some departments, including the Federal Reserve, whoever overseers elections, and the Department of Justice, should be free from political interference. So the way it worked under Biden is that he appointed the best people he could to the various positions, and then left them alone to do the right thing. He did not put pressure on the DoJ to urgently prosecute Trump or the Epstein files because of this philosophy. Where-as Trump thinks it's fine for him to interfere, campaigned on releasing the files, and now had to follow through. Trump can be held to a different standard because of this difference in philosophy.

This doesn't explain why "doing the right thing" under Biden did not include more timely prosecutions — they could have happened without pressure from the President. I understand some of the timing of the releases was about not wanting to compromise Maxwell's trial or appeals, which have now ended. However, that doesn't explain why more wasn't done to advance other prosecutions. On this I tend to go with the conspiracy theories. The DoJ didn't want to rock the boat to the extent that would be necessary.
 

wallinbl

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I'm not American, but my understanding is that this is at least partly about the doctrine of unitary executive power.
Generally, this. It's unfortunate that our "strict constitutionalists" are obsessed with limiting Congress' ability to delegate rule making to actual experts, which would be the point of these various other organizations created over time.

It would never happen, but I'd advocate for changing the constitution to ensure that we could have some independent rule making in a number of areas that was free of both political BS and from being made up by lawyers and people that conned the public into voting for them despite having no qualifications (Boebert, MTG, Luna, etc).
 

wrylachlan

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Generally, this. It's unfortunate that our "strict constitutionalists" are obsessed with limiting Congress' ability to delegate rule making to actual experts, which would be the point of these various other organizations created over time.

It would never happen, but I'd advocate for changing the constitution to ensure that we could have some independent rule making in a number of areas that was free of both political BS and from being made up by lawyers and people that conned the public into voting for them despite having no qualifications (Boebert, MTG, Luna, etc).
That just takes pressure off the democracy to elect reasonable representatives. I see no problem with limiting Congresses ability to delegate their power, but I also don’t think that it’s at odds with experts - we just need to adjust the logistics of it all.

Make the experts drafting rules part of the legislative, not executive, branch. Congress selects the expert rule-makers for a given department just like they select all the legislative aids who help them write legislation. And they get an up or down vote on the rules those experts choose. Those rule-making experts would have to collegiately work with the operational experts in the executive branch to get a good idea of what’s feasible, but they would fundamentally NOT be beholden to the bureaucracy whose rules they’re setting - they serve the people in the form of elected representatives.

The divide would be clear - any policy that’s purely internal to the agency falls under “how we execute our mission” and is handled by the executive branch. Any policy that impacts what ordinary Americans are allowed to do or how they interact with the agency is considered a form of regulatory law and should be handled by the legislative branch.

If congress wants to give themselves a Ulysses contract and protect rulemaking from themselves, they can - in law - provide reasonable levels of independence to those rule making experts WITHOUT needing to seat them in the executive branch. That might look like long terms, removal only for cause clause, etc. But it’s important that at the end of the day congress approves of all laws that impact the American people, so no matter how much independence rulemakers get in their process, at the end of that process the rules they’re make must have an up or down vote in congress.
 
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karolus

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I'm not American, but my understanding is that this is at least partly about the doctrine of unitary executive power. Trump believes in it, Biden didn't. Trump thinks every part of the executive should be under his personal control. Biden thinks some departments, including the Federal Reserve, whoever overseers elections, and the Department of Justice, should be free from political interference. So the way it worked under Biden is that he appointed the best people he could to the various positions, and then left them alone to do the right thing. He did not put pressure on the DoJ to urgently prosecute Trump or the Epstein files because of this philosophy. Where-as Trump thinks it's fine for him to interfere, campaigned on releasing the files, and now had to follow through. Trump can be held to a different standard because of this difference in philosophy.

This doesn't explain why "doing the right thing" under Biden did not include more timely prosecutions — they could have happened without pressure from the President. I understand some of the timing of the releases was about not wanting to compromise Maxwell's trial or appeals, which have now ended. However, that doesn't explain why more wasn't done to advance other prosecutions. On this I tend to go with the conspiracy theories. The DoJ didn't want to rock the boat to the extent that would be necessary.
The Federal Reserve was designed to be independent of any political arm of the federal government in order to maintain monetary stability unfettered by political interference.

Unitary Executive Theory discussions aside, the Biden Administration dropped the ball on doing anything about Trump’s malfeasance. They were slow walking responding to grave threats to democracy—which ask some serious questions about their views of the lay of the land.

The results of the impeachment trials for the events of 1/6 clearly demonstrated that the legislative branch wasn’t going to do their constitutional duty, leaving the executive branch as the final backstop.

Biden is a staunch institutionalist. Historically, the US has been loath to prosecute presidents, either sitting or former. The conventional argument is that doing so would bring shame to the office. That’s small potatoes compared to preserving democracy. It’s essentially moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

Per the subject of this thread—many implicated in the Epstein scandal—including Trump—were probably banking on little happening during Biden’s tenure so that the problems could be swept under the rug when Trump had regained the White House. As history shows, they were right in this assessment.
 

DarthSlack

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The Federal Reserve was designed to be independent of any political arm of the federal government in order to maintain monetary stability unfettered by political interference.

Unitary Executive Theory discussions aside, the Biden Administration dropped the ball on doing anything about Trump’s malfeasance. They were slow walking responding to grave threats to democracy—which ask some serious questions about their views of the lay of the land.

The results of the impeachment trials for the events of 1/6 clearly demonstrated that the legislative branch wasn’t going to do their constitutional duty, leaving the executive branch as the final backstop.

Biden is a staunch institutionalist. Historically, the US has been loath to prosecute presidents, either sitting or former. The conventional argument is that doing so would bring shame to the office. That’s small potatoes compared to preserving democracy. It’s essentially moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

Per the subject of this thread—many implicated in the Epstein scandal—including Trump—were probably banking on little happening during Biden’s tenure so that the problems could be swept under the rug when Trump had regained the White House. As history shows, they were right in this assessment.

Gonna pick on the bolded part here. It's not correct to say that the legislative branch failed, it's much more accurate to say that Republicans failed. Mitch McConnell in particular. Every single Republican in Congress put party over country, that's why Trump walked away without a scratch. Republicans in general, and McConnell in particular, know that Trump is awful for the country, but they're such a pack of spineless weasels that they couldn't bring themselves to do the right thing.

We need to focus on the right problem. Democrats are nothing to write home about, but getting rid of Republicans across the board is cutting out the cancer.
 

karolus

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Gonna pick on the bolded part here. It's not correct to say that the legislative branch failed, it's much more accurate to say that Republicans failed. Mitch McConnell in particular. Every single Republican in Congress put party over country, that's why Trump walked away without a scratch. Republicans in general, and McConnell in particular, know that Trump is awful for the country, but they're such a pack of spineless weasels that they couldn't bring themselves to do the right thing.

We need to focus on the right problem. Democrats are nothing to write home about, but getting rid of Republicans across the board is cutting out the cancer.
In aggregate, party affiliation does not matter. The end result stands.

McConnell—even though he has great antipathy for Trump—chose the Faustian bargain over his constitutional duty because he felt it got his people closer to advancing their illiberal agenda. Which is turning the country into a neo-feudalist autocracy. There was no spinelessness here. The outcome was calculated. They, like the co-opted Supreme Court, actively chose this outcome over maintaining their independence and control.
 

Shavano

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It doesn't help that they have been lying to Congress and the public all the way through this cavalcade of stupidity, AFTER building up child sex traffickign as the crime of the century for years.
And they've still got MAGAites like Nancy Mace carrying water for Trump, by saying she thinks it exonerates him.
 

Shavano

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When you watch TV shows and movies where high level criminals have moles inside all forms of law enforcement and government and at all levels, you generally just suspend disbelief that they could manage to have that much access.

As we're learning, it's very real.
The thing about that is that there were people blowing the whistle as hard as they could the whole time.
 
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Shavano

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Raskin said this setup with 4 computers for all of Congress is meant to slow them down reviewing the files.

He's not surprised that they logged all their viewing and search histories to use against them.
Of course it is. Congress needs daily reminders that they have the power to fix this situation on their own.
 
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Lt_Storm

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This doesn't explain why "doing the right thing" under Biden did not include more timely prosecutions — they could have happened without pressure from the President. I understand some of the timing of the releases was about not wanting to compromise Maxwell's trial or appeals, which have now ended. However, that doesn't explain why more wasn't done to advance other prosecutions. On this I tend to go with the conspiracy theories. The DoJ didn't want to rock the boat to the extent that would be necessary.
The explanation to this is "Merrik Garland". He might have been an excellent lawyer, but he wasn't a good prosecutor. He was too worried about avoiding the appearance of being political.
 

m0nckywrench

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Are we not supposed to be acting like adults?
The propaganda version of adulthood or real, chronological adulthood? They are not the same.

People who associate with capable, smart people often make the earnestly well-meant but tragically naive mistake of respecting humanity in general as if "humanity" were naturally virtuous, kind and good. Some even find realistic appraisal of humanity offensive because they prefer their pitiful dreams to reality where apathy and evil are more common than virtue.

Trump is a quintessential American. He speaks to the masses in language they find comfortingly familiar because they think, speak, and when they can get away with it, act like him. Most can barely read and take no interest in self-improvement. Their concept of civic duty is team ball.

Trump is living their dream. He viscerally understands humanity as it is. That's key to winning the popularity contests we call "elections".

Americans are not collectively intelligent enough to competently run a modern society. That renders their prideful ignorance incurable. Their desires exclude ethical leadership so anyone with sense sticks to business leaving politics for demagogues.

Thanks to Trump the world sees America naked in all its glory. He broke the propaganda machine by ending deniability. Trump and Epstein are far from anomalies. They gave their supporters exactly what they asked for and got power in return.
 
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Shavano

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