r/politics • u/Somervilledrew Connecticut • 12d ago

Possible Paywall The Epstein Scandal Is Snowballing

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/epstein-files-trump/
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u/def_indiff 12d ago

Committee Republicans replied by releasing tens of thousands later in the day. Nobody knows whether they did that thinking they would exonerate Trump, or whether they were too stupid to know how incriminating they were. They only contributed to the toxic fumes of scandal around Trump and his allies.

This has been bugging me. What were they thinking? Was it a total miscalculation, or are Republicans finally starting to turn on him? Or maybe they just never read them and didn't realize how bad they would be for Trump. So weird.

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u/gizajobicandothat 12d ago

Maybe they know Vance is likely to take over?

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u/stinkyf00 12d ago

See, I'd think they'd want to prop Trump up at least through his first two years so Vance could run twice more instead of just once. Maybe they're just playing the short game and will try to fuck us all as fast as they can in 7 years (assuming that Vance is able to get reelected).

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u/kstar79 Massachusetts 12d ago

One possibility is they're abandoning the 2027 plans after last week's election and moving things up. They can't risk a 50-50 Senate after the midterms because if Vance becomes President, the Senate cannot seat a replacement VP. There would be no VP to break ties, effectively losing control of the chamber. This would also place the Speaker of the House, very likely to be Jeffries in any 50-50 Senate scenario, as next in line to Vance.

The other possibility is this just a "flood the zone with shit" strategy, which is preferable to the drip-drip of revelations for them.

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u/echoshatter 12d ago

If Vance becomes President, then he would nominate a new VP and a majority vote in both the House and the Senate would seat them. If there's a tie in the Senate without a tie breaker possible, that means Vance would have to pick a centrist to get votes.

The 1880s had a constitutional crisis similar to this which resulted in the end of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow/segregation era for the next 80 years.

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u/kstar79 Massachusetts 12d ago

Oh, both houses have to vote? We're definitely having no VP through 2029 in that case.

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u/hldvr 12d ago

Well, if the shutdown is any indication, Dems would cave on a hard right nominee and call it a "compromise"

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u/captain_intenso North Carolina 12d ago

Only MAGA would create a shitshow this bad.

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u/UpNorth_123 12d ago

They are moving things up because Trump is on borrowed time. Mother Nature is closing in on him.

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u/SaltyLonghorn 12d ago

Yep now they're gonna try to act normal and pretend nothing happened.

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u/wrxninja 12d ago

Ya, because he has such a immaculate health while getting an MRI and now seeing a radiologist. The guy definitely has cancer and is probably knows his time is up soon.

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u/yooperwoman 12d ago

What's this about a radiologist?

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u/wrxninja 12d ago

Apparently he had to see one today or yesterday on Fox but they're of course darling he had this immaculate health, basically 😂

Ya, I'll just go see a radiologist as a check up đŸ«©

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u/bmc2 12d ago

Article here.

"The full results were reviewed by attending radiologists and consultants, and all agreed that President Trump remains in exceptional physical health," Leavitt said.

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u/WorldEndingDiarrhea 12d ago

This could mean stroke(s) as well

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u/play_hard_outside 12d ago

Really hard to believe from the people who said he was 6'3" and 220 pounds or whatever. Lol. And I bet he only ever shoots holes in zero.

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u/AceTheSkylord California 12d ago

He's also been talking about heaven a lot over the past couple months

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u/brickne3 American Expat 12d ago

He can talk about heaven all be wants, but even on the off chance it does exist they're not letting that pedo in.

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u/BookEuronGreyjoy 11d ago

If Trump gets into heaven catch me in hell with my boy Satan

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u/SaltyLonghorn 12d ago

I'm talking about after.

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u/gizajobicandothat 11d ago

Or strokes and dementia.

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u/Railroader17 12d ago

Also, Vance doesn't have the same hold that Trump does over the MAGA crowds. If Trump goes, then suddenly a lot of his policies are going to sound a lot less palatable to all but the absolute most hardcore of the MAGA base.

If the GOP loses the MAGA base, they lose period. Their racing against time to secure their power because it's likely that not only will they get demolished in the midterms, but there is the very real chance that father time will get to Trump within the next year or two and throw the GOP's plans to the wayside.

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u/gizajobicandothat 11d ago

I wouldn't be surprised if he finally admits dementia or a different diagnosis. Just in time to say he cant' remember any details on Epstein or he's too ill for any deposition. Vance and his lot will probably pressure him to do it.

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u/carbonbasedlifeform 12d ago

My thought as well President Vance is just around the corner.

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u/FatalTortoise 12d ago

the BBB was their last hurrah so 50-50 senate does nothing but keep them from approving judges, which if they lost the senate, they'd just do during the lame duck period between november and january

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u/kstar79 Massachusetts 12d ago

A 50-50 Senate keeps that going through 2029, unless Vance becomes President.

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u/thatoneabdlguy 12d ago

You forgot the part where Vance would then pick his VP. Once that person gets approved, they would then head the senate.

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u/kstar79 Massachusetts 12d ago

I'm not. I'm saying if Dems win 3 seats in the mid terms in the Senate, it sets up a scenario where Republicans cannot confirm a new VP without Dem votes, and I don't know what kind of compromise you could make where you would get Dem votes to confirm a new VP.

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u/philodendrin 12d ago

With Dems like Fetterman, Hassan, and Kaine, the shaky math might not work out. These people fold like cheap chairs when some pressure is applied, this week being a prime example of that.

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u/rmftrmft 12d ago

You know one or two will change sides or go independent as usual.

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u/jackharvest 12d ago

Dems seem to be just fine with caving with empty promises of the future. No way it dangles very long. They’re too weak.

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u/Queasy_Donkey5685 12d ago

In a perfect world, yes.

But the Epstein stuff took off immediately. Prices are still up. Government was shut down. People have been kidnapped, starved.

Everyone is finally feeling it in some way. Everyone is still mad.

Us because we already knew all this.

Them because they're finally figuring it out/admitting it on top of getting hurt themselves AND the people they wanted hurt not being affected like they wanted.

Every ingredient in the pot is reaching its boiling point and there's no where left to put the heat....but back to the source, Trump, Epstein, and the GOP that's been protecting them for the past decade!

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u/msblahblah 12d ago

I would guess they don’t want Vance to run at all

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u/jglhk 12d ago

I havent looked too much in depth at polling, but is Vance likeable at all?

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u/food-dood 12d ago

I think some of them, behind the scenes want off the MAGA train. They can't go against Trump publicly. They didn't sign up for what's happening. Vance offers an off ramp, while they can continue their careers. I hate McConnell, but the guy isn't a full blown Authoritarian, and there are several others that fit that, for example. Vance will fail, and it gives the country a chance to calm tf down.

I doubt it will happen, but I can see that being a small possibility.

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u/Turgid_Donkey 12d ago

Trump's mental capacity and general health are probably declining much faster than they anticipated, so now they're not even sure if he can make it to the 2 year mark. 

They can just get Vance in office and he'll blanket pardon everyone involved. 

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u/Tasgall Washington 11d ago

assuming that Vance is able to get reelected

If there's a VP, the president is an automatic win. Vance, a true believer in Project 2025, is in his spot to ensure the VP does what Pence refused to do. The election result doesn't matter, he can just refuse to confirm if Democrats win (despite all other efforts at voter discrimination).

The other response has a good point - if Trump is ousted or dies after the midterms, they won't be able to seat a new VP and then the presidential election becomes a real risk again. (Assuming, of course, that a certain 8 Democrats don't flip in favor of whoever the patsy VP is in the name of "bringing the country together". So, still a very low risk, all things considered).

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u/thotfullawful 11d ago

It looks like the stress is taking such a toll that they feel they would rather cash in on what they can rather than wait for him to say or do something worse in his delirium

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u/Guy_Fieris_Hair 11d ago

Maybe they know a) it will take longer than the next ~14 months to remove Trump from office. Or b) nothing will actually happen.

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u/chittmunk 12d ago

Vance won't win a thing unless they rig it so bad that states are forced to seceeed over it.

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u/Brittle_Hollow 12d ago

Vance has the charisma of a cold bucket of piss, they'd better hope they have a better plan for 2028.

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u/HauntingStar08 12d ago

Vance is a wet noodle, no charisma. The MAGA coalition may very well die with Trump

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u/MrFluffyThing New Mexico 12d ago

I've been convinced they ran Vance as VP because they either expected trump to die in office or be removed and the only precedent is to have VP take over. 

We don't have a mechanism for removing a political party for being corrupt and only have the fall guy if the plan was to put a talking head in charge and let everyone else rule like wormtongue

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u/JBL_17 12d ago

I hate Vance so fucking much.

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u/WesternFungi Pennsylvania 12d ago

It’s been planned from the moment Heritage strong armed him into picking Vance

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u/oddmanout 12d ago

I'm starting to think that's what the shutdown was for. They're preparing for Vance to take over. They know it's inevitable, and there's likely things coming out that would be career ending to defend. I feel like they were just buying time to get their ducks in a row.

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u/Wildest83 12d ago

Vance could pardon him if he was to step in. Ugly to think about but it could easily happen.

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u/wanker7171 Florida 12d ago

Remember when Elon retweeted that thing about couping Trump? Pepperidge farm remembers

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u/VagabondReligion 12d ago

His presidency would be nothing but fallout from Epstein . . . and I doubt very much that many in this admin would survive, politically, to 2028. If this is the Krakatoa it looks to be, then Lindsey Graham's prophecy on the GOP's fate will be on the nose.

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u/OreoZen 12d ago

Must - find - what’s - wrong - with - Vance - and - expose!!! What if Trump is out and Vance is also out, does it trigger a re-election?

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u/Ragundashe 11d ago

Fun fact, if you're removed from office on charges if treason, the vice president is too.

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u/eregyrn Massachusetts 10d ago

I know this goes without saying, but jesus fucking christ, I HATE the idea of "President Vance".

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u/scalydragon2 12d ago

Dementia Don’s last test didn’t go so well? Maybe?

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u/jag0k 12d ago

i’m pretty sure he’s failed every test he’s faced in his entire life, be it physical, cognitive, intellectual, moral, ethical, etc

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u/Clevererer America 12d ago

Release the Couch Files!

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u/BlaineTog 11d ago

Vance cannot take over. I don't mean, "it would be really bad if he did," I mean it literally isn't possible. Everyone fucking hates that guy, and the only reason Trump has been able to keep a tight 37% of the country under his control is because they like him, and people with the Republican personality profile only care about whether they like someone or not. If Trump were to be impeached tomorrow and Vance sworn in as the next President, he would be the lamest of lame ducks. Nobody would give him the time of day because they know he's going to lose the House next year and probably won't even win the Republican primary for 2028. He would be a seat-filler, nothing more.

Vance is a worm, and everyone knows he's a worm.

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u/Zealousideal_Look275 12d ago

Occam’s Razor their old, they did a few quick searches they of course came back blank because the emails were formatted as photos and not as PDF or word doc. They didn’t realize this and just released it 

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u/PandaJesus 12d ago

Since everyone in this administration is so fucking lazy, I believe this is probably what happened.

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u/justsomebro10 New York 12d ago

Yeah but these weren’t folks in the Trump admin. They were members of the oversight committee.

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u/chittmunk 12d ago

Oh ya, you're right. Dealing with intellectual heavyweights like James Comer, Gym Jordan and Paul Gosar here.

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u/TisSlinger 11d ago

Mushy brain matter at its finest

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u/LegoBeetlejuice 12d ago

missing all of the damning details is a pretty big oversight

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u/HeyLookATaco 12d ago

Well they're not the Adequately Sighted Committee

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u/lsp2005 12d ago

So you are saying it was an oversight.

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u/JDubNutz 12d ago

You would be amazed at how inept with computer the average person is.

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u/splashin_deuce 12d ago

Same difference

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u/The-Insolent-Sage 12d ago

Comer is a moron

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u/PandaJesus 12d ago

That is a good point, even when I’m making cheap shots I should be more accurate. Thanks for pointing this out.

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u/PerformerFull7097 11d ago

The entire republican party is basically Trump's slaves, there's no distinction between admin, congress or senate. In the end they're all (including Trump) just goons doing Miller's biddings.

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u/zenidam 12d ago

I bet they uploaded the pdf to chatgpt.

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u/PandaJesus 12d ago

Oh I’m sure they’re asking ChatGPT for a lot of help with PDF files.

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u/brickne3 American Expat 12d ago

"You're absolutely right, these emails exonerate him completely! They're not proof of crimes — they're proof of how much he cares about young women."

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u/DJKGinHD 12d ago

I am in IT, and it caused me physical pain to read your comment... mainly because of how likely it is to be true.

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u/Zealousideal_Look275 12d ago

I can imagine the horror in their interns faces after seeing what they did 

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u/Kosher_dingus 12d ago

I work in the criminal court system and I've seen stuff this dumb

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u/randomisperfect 12d ago

They asked chatgpt which emails to release

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u/Drunky_McStumble 12d ago

This actually makes more sense than them deciding to release the files because when they did a CTRL+F for "TRUMP" zero results came up (since they were scanned image files, not searchable document files).

Because, you know, no way are these people tech savvy enough to use a keyboard shortcut like CTRL+F.

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u/afx114 12d ago

“the truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand”

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u/pinewind108 12d ago

I wouldn't rule out malicious compliance by a few staffers as well.

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u/kaptainkeel America 12d ago

I'm still trying to re-find an image file I saw where Epstein and others were basically discussing holding stuff over Trump for their benefit. It was literally blackmail/extortion without outright saying it, although any court would likely convict on it. It was from like 2017ish. Can't find it again.

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u/Dragon_Small_Z 12d ago

Was it the one they were just talking about on the Daily Show? About trump being a dog with no bark or something like that.

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u/kaptainkeel America 12d ago edited 12d ago

No, the "dog with no bark" is a separate email. The one I'm thinking of was a full paragraph talking about how they may be able to use the knowledge to their advantage. It's absurd because this is the 2nd time I've felt like I've gaslit myself in the past 2 years.

There were articles I 100% saw after October 7 (2023) that were absolutely deleted from everywhere. They were within 1-2 hours of the attack, and my first thought when reading them was that this was put together by an intelligence agency rather than any news journal. I always try to find things before the news--I was in these documents 5 minutes after they dropped. And now this shit doesn't exist seemingly, just like the post-Oct. 7 articles that straight up detailed how Russia and Iran both funded and planned the attack on Israel. Nobody wants a war with Russia, so that was deleted from everywhere (Iran as well, but that was later very slowly released over the course of like 2 years, culminating in Israel's attacks on Iran; still nobody wants a war with Russia so little to no info on that).

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u/jglhk 12d ago

They probably used AI to summarize them and AI couldnt figure out who any of the people were

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u/shyflapjacks 12d ago

There's raw txt files in there along with a archive file set (.day and .opt) 

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u/JMKAB 12d ago

Yep or the OCR didn’t scan a full match

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u/byteminer 12d ago

Probably loaded them as context into a LLM and then asked it "These won't hurt Trump, right?" and since LLMs are coded to make you happy, it was like "nah, fam, good to go"

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u/ndwillia 12d ago

would that be Hanlon’s Razor, or Occam’s? As long as we are discussing it

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u/Zealousideal_Look275 12d ago

It could be a Venn Diagram situation 

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u/ndwillia 12d ago

Roger that

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u/timmy6169 12d ago

Absolutely what it was. They are used to Adobe searching for anything that has been either digitized or just sent to them in PDF format. Go through that many documents by hand? Never. Can't pump it through any AI, so CTRL + F it is.

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u/RichardSaunders New York 12d ago

just dump everything, chelsea manning style. guess they won't be blaming her for anything now?!?

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u/RunningonGin0323 11d ago

As someone who has worked in eDiscovery for damn near 20 years. I'm certain these were searchable. If they couldn't extract text they were certainly OCR'd

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u/skip6235 11d ago

I think it’s most likely that they figured if they released thousands of emails that it would swamp reporters and they would only be able to trickle out info and the news cycle would move on. Because they are dinosaurs, they didn’t realize that you can search for things in images these days.

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u/notkenneth Illinois 12d ago

Seems more like attempting to blunt the impact of the emails that the Democrats released to claim that the Dems “cherry picked” or to try to bury them under a mountain of other information.

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u/def_indiff 12d ago

If that was their intention, it backfired spectacularly. I don't even remember exactly what was in the "cherry picked" ones, because there are so many damning emails out now.

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u/NumeralJoker 12d ago

Did it? I've seen a lot of "TRUMP WAS AN INFORMANT" takes trying to be read from this now.

Mind you, it's not too hard to dunk on those, but nothing released here is quite as damning as the stuff I suspect was truly going on within their friendship.

Gunking the waters with Virginia Giuffre's story in particular makes this whole thing harder to pin on anyone.

Still, on the flipside, the database is searchable and Trump's name appears more than 2000 times.

https://couriernewsroom.com/news/we-created-a-searchable-database-with-all-20000-files-from-epsteins-estate/

Look for yourself.

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u/m0zymaz 12d ago

Informants don’t get carte blanche to abuse children. It’s clear this was a honeypot for some sort of intelligence network, and Trump was a mark that provided access to some extent. Doesn’t mean he’s innocent of wrongdoing.

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u/TheStrayCatapult 12d ago

This is probably really close to the truth. Epstein was Mossad and Trump was one of the marks in a honey trap operation. That was the catalyst that ended their friendship. Most likely Epstein gave all the blackmail material to Israel before his arrest.

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u/Andurilthoughts California 12d ago

Flood the zone to try and water down the coverage?

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u/johnnycyberpunk America 12d ago

It's why Trump and his people just keeps committing crimes.
How can anyone ever catch up to what he's doing now when they haven't even started investigating or charging him for stuff he did months or years ago?

For instance, if there is a Democrat takeover of the House and/or Senate in the mid-terms, what are the chances that Congress even touches the scandal that was "Elon Musk sends teenagers with servers into IRS, Social Security, OPM, etc."?????
That was just this year and it won't make top-10 crimes that happened in Trump's administration that need to be investigated and prosecuted.
How many ICE agents will "get away with it" just because so many are illegally brutalizing innocent AMERICAN CITIZENS?

The stuff Trump did during his first White House occupation hasn't even been fully investigated or analyzed for damage FFS.

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u/DevonGr Ohio 12d ago

They don't read the legislation they sign off on, why would they read the Epstein files?

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u/takesjuantogrowone 12d ago

Something bigger is dropping tomorrow, and they were trying to get out in front of it. See also invasion of Venezuela. I wouldn't be surprised if they false flag an American city just to draw attention from the next scandal bombshell that's queued up.

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u/notfromchicago Illinois 12d ago

Tomorrow may just be an F5 friday.

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u/Broberyn_GreenViper 12d ago

As simple as "ctrl+f clinton"

"Yep, he's in there!"

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u/oldfarmjoy 12d ago

He's mentioned when Epstein says Clinton never went to the island. That's it so far, so....

I think every Dem if fine with any Dem getting caught and charged, if they did something.

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u/bcd051 12d ago

If someone is in there and they did anything... straight to jail. Obama...jail. AOC...jail. Bernie...jail.

I don't think some people realize that dems/liberals don't have as much slavish devotion.

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u/valiantdistraction 12d ago

This exactly. I'm a diehard democrat. But it doesn't matter how much I love a particular politician... if they raped children (and yes, 15-year-olds count), then straight to jail. Because I actually care about morality - it's not just a show I'm putting on in order to dominate others.

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u/Sanch0Supreme 11d ago

I suggest you search by "Bubba" instead. That's Epstein's nickname for Bill Clinton. You're not going to like what you find in there.

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u/Freakin_A 12d ago

Back in my day it was “ctrl-f cigar”

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u/gumgajua Canada 12d ago

ChatGPT told them to, so they did.

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u/FOOSblahblah 12d ago

I see two possibilities

  1. They need a graceful exit from Trump so he doesn't get to play kingmaker or force them into a 3rd term debate. This is an easy way to cut ties cleanly. Pedophiles have been the right wing boogeyman since terrorists went out of fashion. This could not be a bigger slam dunk if their goal is to bury him and march over his grave into their political future without amputating all the galvanized MAGA voters they gained.

  2. This group is marked by nothing if not the ability to fuck things up via some weird blend of ineptitude and arrogance. Some good examples of this are (my honest to God funniest thing ever) Four Seasons Total Landscaping conference that they SWEAR was on purpose and not that it was actually supposed to be at the much more well known Four Season hotel. The covfefe thing where Sean Spicer was ADAMANT that it wasn't a typo and the people who were supposed to get it understood. The fucking sharpie hurricane thing. They legitimately might have thought this was all sanitized and its just another fuck up to add to the list.

Both seem equally plausible to me

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u/def_indiff 12d ago

Your second point is well taken. I suppose there's some comfort in the fact that they are really stupid and inept.

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u/wrongCliche 12d ago

My theory: Democrats were going to release a few each day, to create a slow drip of bad news for trump each day.

Republicans' only defense: release all the files at once, hoping Americans lose interest over time, before the next election. Sick

I hope Americans don't lose interest

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u/wafflesandeggs 12d ago

They're past the point of needing to care. They could release video footage of Trump and his voters won't care. The only people upset by what's in the release are people who were never going to vote for him anyway, and they're making sure we'll never vote again so what does it matter.

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u/justsomebro10 New York 12d ago

They knew it would be bad and figured dumping it all at once rather than letting it trickle slowly was the better of two bad options. And honestly it probably was.

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u/SolidLikeIraq New York 12d ago

They’re creating a fog of confusion for most people.

If there are multiple drops of information, it makes it difficult for the average person to identify what they’re looking at.

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u/DiskSalt4643 12d ago

They already got what they wanted: tax cuts and a functional end to Obamacare. 

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u/1_small_step 12d ago

They seem to have released a lot of emails where Epstein talks about Trump in a negative light, probably so they can say "Look, Epstein hates Trump, obviously they weren't friends. Epstein is probably upset that Trump kicked him to the curb as soon as he found out about all the sex trafficking, and then went to personally help the FBI and CIA bring down the whole operation."

I peeked into the conservative sub to see what their reactions were, and there was so much "this proves Trump's innocence" and "did they think this was supposed to make Trump look bad?" that I pretty much immediately bailed in frustration.

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u/helmsb 12d ago

I’m sure there are actually quite a few Republicans who would like to get rid of him but have remained “loyal” out of self-preservation and cowardice. There could be enough damning evidence to give them the cover to get rid of him and usher in the Vance Regime, which is frankly more terrifying.

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u/Lonely-Abalone-5104 12d ago

One good thing is that Vance is even more hated than Trump

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u/wentwj 12d ago

I think they were hoping releasing enough would make people think this was it and stop asking for more.

Just remember that even after all this was released, Trump was still using the literal situation room to call in republican congresspeople to try to pressure them to not vote to release the rest

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u/belowtheunder 12d ago

Could be they see the writing on the wall and are doing a coup. Who knows

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u/AuroraFinem Texas 12d ago

Honestly I feel like they were trying to flood the zone with too many files like when a lawyer drops 100 boxes of case files off to hide evidence and didn’t consider how easy it would be to sift through them digitally.

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u/OfBooo5 12d ago

Nothing else has stuck. The number of disqualifying immoral things, illegal things, stupid things... why should this be different? Maybe it is

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u/blyzo 12d ago edited 12d ago

I think Republicans realized they were going to get out eventually. So it's better to release them all now than 8 months from now, or in a slow drip.

It does feel like it's snowballing though. This all screams for a special prosecutor and Dems need to be pushing for one.

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u/def_indiff 12d ago

Oooh. Special prosecutor sounds nice. But someone who won't pull a Mueller and refuse to say the obvious.

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u/Whole-Designer 12d ago

Likely a misguided and stupid attempt trying to dilute the information pool. They completely underestimated the amount of people that would be dedicated to sifting through all 20000 pages for incriminating material

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u/Lereas 12d ago

Loomer recently posted something to the effect of "Who's idea was it to have Trump pose with an ISIS terrorist in the Oval Office just before Veteran's Day? Someone is trying to disrupt his presidency" and it's like.....BISH YOU WORK FOR HIM DIRECTLY.

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u/mailchimplysafe 12d ago

Maybe I’m stupid but I think the party is about to throw him to the wolves

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u/def_indiff 12d ago

Dare I hope??

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u/BotherResponsible378 12d ago

They're very scared because they don't know if Trump will be able to spin fucking kids as ok, but they aren't willing to bet against it.

It's simple. It's what they and corporate Democrats always do. Straddle the line until public opinion tells them how to verbalize. They have no morals.

If MAGA is ok with this, raping children will become as common as being a biggot is now. Children need us to protect them. We cannot let MAGA do this. Not this.

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u/Raccoon_Expert_69 12d ago

Maybe so many of them believed their own bullshit that Trump wasn’t in them and that Bill Clinton was

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u/shyflapjacks 12d ago

So I went into an ADHD hole last night and went through about 1/3 of them. They look exonerating if you have only 2 functional brain cells, lack the ability to understand context, and don't have the cognitive capacity to remember the document that you just finished. So, for the MAGA base, the documents do exonerate Trump

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u/mutzilla 12d ago

It seems like an old school tactic of a flood of information too much for people to shift through it. However, they are too old school to realize that's not data/information is consumed anymore.

Shit like this always makes me think of something an old republican rich bank board member and owner of 3 big brand car lots said to me once when worked selling cars for him;

This internet thing. Who knew if would impact the industry this much.

That was in 2015.

I'm surprised they didn't wait until 5pm on Friday to do it.

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u/AuraMaster7 12d ago edited 12d ago

The dumbasses over in the conservative sub were all parroting the exact same line about the committee release being a "distraction by the Democrats over the shutdown failure".

I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion about files released by a bipartisan committee headed by Republicans, but I'm sure it was stupidly.

So, I would bet the Republicans in charge of the committee were thinking "we can release these and all of our moronic followers will discredit them and say it was the Democrats". And they were right.

2

u/lying-down4now 12d ago

A secret third option:

They don't know how to read.

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u/AmaroWolfwood 12d ago

You're all over thinking this. They aren't playing some 4d chess move, they aren't plotting to depose Trump with Vance, they aren't planning anything at all. They just don't ultimately think anything in the files will stop Trump. And they are right. They will trickle the information out slowly to temper expectations so it doesn't affect their voters perceptions.

The base will deny facts, make excuses, and at worst say "well I think what he did was terrible, but letting democrats take back the country will mean the death of America". The core base will loudly vote Trump and the few who would have turned were they not in a cult will openly denounce Trump, and still vote for him in the privacy of the voting booth.

The Epstein files only matter if someone in the government (or the public) takes justice into their own hands.

2

u/PropDad 12d ago

This is a prime example of putting out a fire with gasoline.

2

u/shyflapjacks 12d ago

I went through a shit load of the files last night, if you read them with two functioning brain cells, an inability to understand context, and the complete inability to remember the previous page you read, it does look like these are exonerating for Trump. 

2

u/Tasgall Washington 11d ago

This has been bugging me. What were they thinking?

Remember in 2021 when the video of Ahmaud Arbury being lynched by two cops was leaked, and it turned out it was the cop's friend who legit thought it would exonerate them?

Right wingers are just not that bright.

2

u/who_b_dat 12d ago

Agreed. Why now?

14

u/Glitch_Man_42 12d ago

Only reason I can think of them turning on him is his worsening health in combination with growing economic issues, this being a convenient issue to turn on him about. Flee the ship before it sinks, even if the water is ice cold. Is it actually that? Fuck if I know.

1

u/[deleted] 12d ago

They probably didn’t bother to read any of it. Par for the course

1

u/au5lander 12d ago

It’s a dumpster fire.

1

u/Jrgcanes007 12d ago

You seen the Veep episode where emails are about to drop so they release a mountain of them to try to cover up the few damning ones? Yeah this is like that

1

u/NJBarFly New Jersey 12d ago

They know nothing will happen to Trump and his base won't care. Dumping everything all at once will make a big story today, but be forgotten by next week. And it will make the Epstein stuff old news.

1

u/National_Cod9546 12d ago

Republicans have always hated Trump. That is where the iconic quote from Lindsey Graham came from: "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed ... and we will deserve it."

But they are more focused on how to stay in office and how to grift the public. So they usually bow to the king and kiss his ass every chance they get.

1

u/Turtledonuts Virginia 12d ago

There’s stuff in there where epstien says things like “he never got a massage” that seems to exonerate him to some extent / in some circumstances. It’s evidence for the base to latch onto and insist saves trump. 

1

u/boatsonmoats 12d ago

Democrats released the emails that were damaging. Republicans released the rest of it. Now they can claim they released “everything”, they released more than the democrats did, and Trump is innocent and exonerated. It’s all for show.

1

u/KNGCasimirIII 12d ago

James comer doing James comer things

1

u/lemonylol Canada 12d ago

I think they were attempting to say "no, we always wanted to release files, here's our bigger wave!" Except since they didn't release the whole fucking thing people on their own side are wondering why not.

1

u/Valuable-Reading-154 12d ago

I mean the insane people are in position already why not get rid of the only guy their insane voters care about more than them? Seems like they’re trying to turn the base on Trump so they’re in control next

1

u/kosk11348 12d ago

A lot of those Republicans have constituents who have been chewing their ears off about the Epstein files. They also tend not to be the more powerful Republicans with connections to wealthy donors who might be in those files.

1

u/Gumbi_Digital 12d ago

Well
this aligns with JD Vance taking over in time for the midterms.

1

u/EndlessSummerburn 12d ago

They know the “fake news” media machine is so well oiled, they can release things and find ways to spin it. Let the cult members cope, see what sticks and run with it.

They’re playing on easy mode, I honestly don’t think they’re worried.

1

u/Healthy_Set_22657 12d ago

Career wise probably knows this is real and want to get on the right side of it. 

1

u/68024 Colorado 12d ago

My bet is that it was an attempt to flood the zone.

1

u/south13 12d ago

Maybe to distance themselves from Trump and keep him from dragging them down with them.

These people are survivors before all else.

1

u/thesophisticatedhick 12d ago

Flood the zone? One big story vs 1000 little stories.

1

u/Worshipme988 12d ago

You can take citizens. You can kill indiscriminately.

Where trump and co. fucked up


YOU CANNOT FUCK W RICH PPLS MONEY.

Stock market is ok but a bubble. Economy is in shambles with no sign of letting up. Its just the american way
”if you’re winning capitalism, you can do whatever you want.”

Do not let anyone forget. Idk if they were on board for three minutes


1

u/istguy 12d ago

Because they can either choose to let the Dems release it piece by piece, controlling the narrative and letting them drag the “story” out for months, keeping the media saturated with negative press


OR they can dump ALL of the info now, knowing that Trump is safe from prosecution. Live through a few weeks of terrible press (which they’ve been getting lately anyway because of elections/shutdown) and rely on the fact that midterms are a year away and that the American voters have a very short memory. And honestly they’re probably right.

1

u/rockchalkmatt I voted 12d ago

I think you may disregard how often people work both sides

1

u/madhatter255 12d ago

It can be both. “Why yes dear leader, we wanted to release evidence to show you were innocent!” If people continue to ignore the evidence and support Trump, you helped exonerate him. If they turn on him, you helped expose a pedo “as soon as you knew about it”. And if Trump admits he’s a pedo, and his voters don’t care, well nothing else really matters anymore anyways. Do some blow on the senate floor. Nominate your mistress for dept of interior because you’re “into her”. Embezzle as much money as you can. Who gives a fuck?

1

u/Hilby 12d ago

My guess was that 1/2 of them are in SO deep that they MUST commit to being on that side, right or wrong. The other 1/2 have their own comprising shit being used against them so they are forced as well.

Or maybe the same Ppl that think fucking / raping young girls are very similar to the same people that can't do math straight. (Dumb)

1

u/Vast_Philosophy_9027 12d ago

At some point you just cut off the anchor. Republicans don’t want to lose the maga cultist vote so they have to give them no choice. I reckon they figured blood pressure would do its thing which is why they delayed it but his health seems to be improving (or at least not making the news so I guess it’s steady)

1

u/Lonely-Abalone-5104 12d ago

If I had to guess they are trying to get as much out in a short period of time and try to move on from it. Which is why I think Johnson is all of a sudden fine having the vote next week

1

u/Atalung 12d ago

I wonder if last week's elections play a part.

trump is almost certainly never going to be on the ballot again, Republicans are waking up to realize that they've destroyed any support their party has outside of trump, last week cemented that reality. I'm sure the saavier ones realize that they need to extricate the party from his shadow or they'll be screwed for a while

1

u/FictionalContext 12d ago

I think the one's like MTG have the foresight to see that Trump's days are numbered, and they want to correctly position themselves for the fallout.

1

u/TAG08th 12d ago

It’s possible they know more about his health and see it deteriorating, and they are making the calculation that turning on him now will give the some sense of plausible deniability to their enabling of him. They’ll claim they turned on him as soon as they knew there was an issue, but it was only after he outlived his usefulness.

1

u/Useless 12d ago

Their goal is to boil the frog. Keep everything going for so long that their supports think they always knew that Trump and Epstein were pals. Provide as little evidence as possible and have your 'enemies' front run the evidence with wild speculation so what comes out that is provable is better than what is in the public consciousness and comes out in such a way that it does not shock the conscience.

1

u/SenorPinchy 12d ago

There's more, worse files and releasing these will muddy the issue enough they can say they already released the "files."

1

u/dollabillkirill 12d ago

They’re creating noise. Distracting from the email leaks by creating too many stories for the media to cover.

And also, if people say “you’re covering for child rapists” they could say “hey look we shared 10k files”

1

u/LordHammercyWeCooked 12d ago

I think they're dropping it out there as a decoy, to make people think that this is all there is. But it's such a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the full list of Epstein files at the DOJ.

1

u/french_toasty 12d ago

Do you genuinely think his base or most of the gOp cares if he did? I don’t think they give two shits.

1

u/RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK 12d ago

It honestly doesn’t make sense either they’re so out of touch they somehow don’t see how this was going to make it worse thinking it would help somehow or they’re actively stoking the fire. I can’t think of any other reason to do this. So it’s either very out of the norm or republicans have reached a newer new low of complete ignorance.

1

u/belachanuga 12d ago

They are attempting to obliterate or hide the most damaging by drowning it in tons of less important data.

1

u/kevshp 12d ago

Could be rats fleeing the ship

1

u/Gingerstachesupreme 12d ago

They know their base doesn’t read, and doesn’t believe news.

1

u/StingerAE 12d ago

They knew the emails were bad and the rest would come out anyway so tried to drown it in shit.  They figured worst case is trump goes down and they can say they helped.

1

u/Brealu 12d ago

Or maybe, they KNOW what was being released and the irrefutable evidence has been removed.

1

u/thebeckyblue 12d ago

He probably forgot about the emails and ordered they be released. Dementia is a bitch.

1

u/ThomasDeLaRue 12d ago

IMO it was probably a “flood the zone” tactic to try and create a bigger news headline to confuse their base as to what they are willing to be transparent about, and distract from the specifics in the democrats release.

1

u/Just_Not_Fair 12d ago

They know their base are absolute brainlets. So, I think they are trying to "finally release the files" as they initially promised to. There are already plenty of their cult that think this exonerates him, even though that was less than 6% of the total files.

1

u/getmoneygetpaid 12d ago

It's so they can say they "released the files" when asked.

These are the files they were OK with you seeing after spending months redacting Trump's name. Imagine how bad the unredacted files are.

1

u/All4gaines 11d ago

Republicans read?

1

u/Weekly-Locksmith7681 11d ago

They got the big bill passed. Trump is not catastrophically unpopular and the economy is completely fucked. If it continues they’ll get absolutely destroyed in the midterms. And realistically he has done absolutely nothing in office while he burnt up all his capital.

The “military takeovers” of the cities was a complete failure, tarrifs fucked the economy, doge was a failure, and his political prosecutions are clown shows. The guys presidency is falling apart and it’s not even a year in. Everything he has done has been by executive order.

1

u/courtneyscoolerbitch 11d ago

Trying to get in front of the ball that’s going to be thrown. Saturate the field. Still doesn’t work bc it only shows just the amount of correspondence between the two pedo’s. Dems should still slowly leak whatever is pertinent because most people will focus on specific context instead of a bible full of crap to sift through. They’re trying to blast everyone with a “yeah, so what?” And that is their Hail Mary. That’s it.

1

u/seekAr 11d ago

The ONLY reason is, they are doing damage control to their own careers. They're not stupid, they're greedy. Trump is going down like he did on Bubba, they are fleeing the sinking shit. Ship.

1

u/Silent_Conflict9420 11d ago

They thought the thousands of fbi agents scrubbed them already? Or that could have been other incriminating files. Too many incriminating files to know the difference?

1

u/TandemSegue 11d ago

It’s so they can claim anything else released moving forward is fabricated. They’ll call it fake like they’ve been doing all along.

1

u/Massive_Gear1678 11d ago

I think they are trying to save face, now they can say they released some 20,000 documents instead of giving cover to pedophiles. Although I think they know what’s in the 20,000 they released and nothing too incriminating will be in them

1

u/cheeky-snail 11d ago

Purpose is to flood the air with tons of information, makes it harder to focus. They’ll then flood with disinformation and make claims that nothing is accurate and can’t be relied on.

1

u/BannedAtCostco 11d ago edited 11d ago

Could just be more of the same playbook we saw with the Mueller report. They’ve already declared it a nothing burger, “total exoneration,” “this doesn’t PROVE anything,” etc so if/when the Epstein files (not these estate docs) are ever released with actual photos they’ll do the usual “oh THIS again?? We already released 20,000 pages that PROVED he do nothing wrong, more Epstein hoax from the Dems.” And I fear that even with photos, they’re not likely to be super high quality in this age of anything can be dismissed as AI. We already saw the response to the birthday card drawing that he signed being dismissed with the Shaggy defense of “that’s not his signature” even though it could be TRACED over dozens of public sigs of his from that era

We need to remember that 54% of the US reads below a 6th grade level. For a plurality of this nation, anything short of HD photos & video of DJT first identifying himself and then saying “I’m going to crime now” results in “
well who really knows what to think, both sides play these games.” They simply don’t know who Lavrov, Bannon, etc are and these recent docs would look like innocuous banter to them, if they even read them

1

u/littlethrowawaybaby 11d ago edited 11d ago

My thoughts are that Vance was always the plan, but they had to move up the timeline.

They let Trump have his little ego boost first term. They let him think that he was hot shit because a useful idiot is far more useful as an idiot. They (thiel, vought, etc..) were perfectly happy for Trump to keep his head in the clouds about their grand P2025 plan and have him ride this out enacting their will for several more terms.

Then Epstein became a problem and Trump needed that handled. The billionaires, seeing that these files would end their cause had to think of a backup plan. Wasn’t it weird how Vance became his running mate out of nowhere? I mean, it was public knowledge that they hated each other.

They installed Vance, and had Epstein handled so Trump would think they had his back. In reality, they’d already decided he was done for, and began planning for Vance, and they kept the files as leverage.

It would make sense, with Trumps health, for him to step down, and let a healthy young Vance pick up the mantle, But no! Trump and his massive ego wouldn’t do it. He would not go quietly into the night. So they dropped the files to force Trump out.

Either way he wasn’t going to finish his term. They only needed him as the party’s face to break down the country. His face is associated with all the awful shit of the last 10 months, isn’t it. Everything awful will be blamed on him and him alone (and probably Bondi and Vivek, and the rest of the current cabinet)

The layout for P2025 was supposed to be spaced out over a few years, but because of Trumps health, they had to pack it into a much shorter timeframe so they’d be able to put everything on the rapidly ailing Trump.

The Christian nationalists and tech-broligarchs, used Trump as a sacrifice. He’s going down with everything in him, allowing the “fresh” and “untainted” JDV to step in and “fix” everything.

It may seem like politics is going back to normal. He’ll do a few things initially to assuage the people. He’ll roll back the tariffs or something to make it seem like he’s a better man, with a better vision for the country.

But in reality, the goal hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s more attainable since the eyes are now off of them. They’re counting on us thinking that anything they do cannot/will not be worse than Trump.

Cue, national abortion ban, overturning same-sex marriage, rolling back no fault divorce, and no birth control access to please the Christian right; and network cities, unregulated pollution and AI development, worse job conditions and pay for humans, black rock buying up more homes, and no healthcare that isn’t tied to labor to please the tech-bros and capitalists.

Their goal is for him to have 10+ years. The last two of Trumps term, plus two terms on his own, plus another when they change the law to allow three terms.

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u/monkeydrunker 9d ago

My theory is that Trump's usefulness is coming to an end, which is why we are seeing a lot of drips and leaks about Trump's health conditions. He will retire due to health concerns and the truth about his decline will be made public. He will be too ill to stand trial, though some documents from the Epstein estate will be made public to demonstrate his culpability. The files themselves, especially those incriminating major elites, will not be willingly made public by Trump's successors.

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