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The Trump-Epstein connection above the fold, WSJ hangs Trump out to dry... [1]
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Date: 2025-07-19
Let the schadenfreude begin. The two major stories regarding his administration’s connection to the Jeffrey Epstein cover-up and Trump’s swollen ankles have shaken the White House and have left right-wing supporters reeling. This cold dish was seasoned by a late-breaking Wall Street Journal report that links Trump to Epstein. Ironically, it was served to his MAGA base by Trump himself.
The Epstein saga was turned into a vicious conspiracy theory. The added twists and turns by right-wing fanatics led to dangerous and deadly subplots like PizzaGate and the more preposterous QAnon theories. Now, years after Epstein’s death, the tables have turned on Trump. The Epstein conspiracy used to tar Democrats has taken a turn and now threatens him. The nation is being treated to a presidential meltdown and a conspiracy that may have been spun too far-- an unforced error caused by Icarian overreach and a fateful underestimation of his base. In a fit of rage, the president disavowed followers who were demanding the release of the Epstein pedo-files, calling them stupid and weaklings while pretending he didn’t need them in his camp. The truth is that Trump could never have been Trump without them.
Now, one wonders if the medical diagnosis of “common venous insufficiency” is simply a matter of piling on misfortune or (cue in another conspiracy theory) a subtle attempt to curry sympathy and change the messaging. In either case, the week’s news has caught Democrats and Republicans off guard. For Democratic leadership, often characterized as stumbling in the dark, looking for a winning message that could impact the mid-terms, the Epstein Files offer a tantalizing gift. The more Trump rails about them and sputters incoherent excuses for releasing evidence he insists doesn’t exist, the more he ticks off a base of followers who were led on to believe that the files would expose high-ranking Democrats and the rich and famous who support them as an anti-Christ cabal of child molesters. Epstein, being Jewish, even sweetened the pot for some anti-Semites among the MAGA rabble.
Trump’s protestations this week and his manic social messaging blaming the previous administration for L'affaire Epstein have caused MAGA hardliners to break with their master. The conspiracy he helped create was simply too delicious to cover up. Their calls to release the files have begun to sound more like the now-infamous call by Sydney Powell in 2020 to “release the kraken” that was featured in one of Trump’s earlier conspiracy theories about election fraud.
Swollen ankles aside, Trump is beginning to sound like the boy who cried wolf being bitten by his imaginary confection. The MAGA conspiracists wonder just who the files implicate? And they ask, just who were among those closest to Epstein when the files were being created? Who were Epstein’s closest friends? Who did he hang around with when he wasn’t procuring and raping adolescent girls? Their leader insists that there is no “there,” there, while suggesting that, if a “there” does exist, Biden and the Democrats are responsible. His followers scratch their heads because the answer was being written about in the Murdochs’ right-wing paper of record.
The shocking report in the Wall Street Journal oddly clouds the issue for them while clarifying it for everyone else. The relationship between Trump and Epstein has been revealed on tape, where Trump admitted that Epstein was a friend and “a terrific guy” who shared a love of beautiful women. Then Trump went further, suggesting that his good friend had a proclivity for younger women. “He likes them young,” he offered.
The Journal article goes on to describe an album of birthday wishes from the Ghislaine Maxwell trial that includes a troublesome entry signed by Trump:
Trump’s reaction to the article was swift and revealing:
“I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women, It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”
Grammar and word choice aside, the denial was most troublesome for its lack of self-reflection. Trump mindlessly employs his language and vocabulary in his rant. But an analysis of presidential language using the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Scale lists Trump’s use of language at the lowest grade level (4.6) of any president since Herbert Hoover:
"By every metric and methodology tested, Donald Trump's vocabulary and grammatical structure is significantly more simple, and less diverse, than any President since Herbert Hoover, when measuring "off-script" words, that is, words far less likely to have been written in advance for the speaker," Factba.se CEO Bill Frischling wrote. "The gap between Trump and the next closest president ... is larger than any other gap using Flesch-Kincaid. Statistically speaking, there is a significant gap." — Newsweek, “Trump Speaks At Fourth-Grade Level, Lowest Of Last 15 U.S. Presidents, New Analysis Finds,” by Nina Burleigh
Just for kicks and giggles, I inserted Trump’s denial (above) and the text of his threat to sue Rupert Murdoch for refusing to kill the story into the Flesch-Kincaid readability calculator. Both were registered at about a 5th-grade level. Next, I compared the full text of the “birthday gram” as reported by WSJ using the same scale. It was rated at the 4.9 grade level:
“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note started. Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is. Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is. Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it. Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.
So, yes, at least the language and word choices cited in the WSJ article do match the president’s speech patterns, even using samples that are separated by more than 20 years!
Donald Trump has written the verses of the poetic justice that is driving him crazier than the invitation list for a Trump family reunion. He has used the grammar school excuse that all accusations against him are scams and hoaxes. Ten years on, the excuse seems tired and transparently false. Rupert Murdoch and his media holdings are right-wing mouthpieces that have helped Trump with favorable news coverage for years. Trump must see the article as a betrayal by Murdoch’s conservative paper. For him, the extent of the treachery can best be measured by the size of the bus the WSJ has thrown Trump under.
Without a single document or tape released from the Epstein File, Murdoch has managed to tie Trump and Epstein together as close friends with a similar penchant for young women. Let’s not forget the ties that bind the birds of a feather. In a sweetheart deal offered by U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta in 2008, the FBI had corroborated 40 cases of procurement of underage children that was reduced to a single count. Epstein was sentenced to 18 months with an unbelievably lenient work release program. Later, in 2019, just before his death, he was charged with Federal sex-trafficking charges.
Trump was charged with sexual battery by E. Jean Carroll and was found liable in two cases for an $88 million settlement in a jury trial. Since 1970, 25 women, including Trump’s first wife Ivana, have accused him of various forms of sexual misconduct. Other cases of sexual misconduct have been filed and withdrawn or dismissed during this period, along with suggestions of NDA’s and payoffs to silence victims. Trump has even been heard on tape boasting about his sexual prowess and the behaviors allowed him by women for “being a star.”
Birds of a feather, indeed.
In an obvious case of the man protesting too much, Trump denies there is a file and then blames Biden and Democrats for creating one. He can’t have it both ways. What is even more apparent is that the overwhelming evidence suggests that the two men are connected— if not by shared experience, then by implication. The proof may be in the files now in the control of the Trump DOJ.
It has been reported that Trump is filing suit against Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal for libel, slander, and assault. Let him. The truth is that Trump holds the evidence that could clear him and win his case. He can also withhold the truth, or worse, destroy it.
His followers are divided on the issue. For them, this has little to do with truth, less to do with reality. For them, even more than a conspiracy of evil men who are endangering children, men who hold high places in government, and wealthy donors who evade justice by buying off their victims, this is about the validity of their trust in a movement that has engulfed them.
Maybe they aren’t that far off. Maybe they are just caught up in the collision of intersecting conspiracies— one about two men joined by their desire for forbidden sex, the other, about the inevitable coming of an end of days and the communal rapture that is sure to follow.
Conspiracies die hard, that is, until they die out.
[END]
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