Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell taken when charges against Maxwell were announced. USA Today.
The DOJ has closed the Jeffrey Epstein case saying that he did not kill himself and there was no "client list" causing major confusion and anger. USA Today. Attorney General Pam Bondi released a final memo that said that Epstein didn't kill himself and was not using blackmailing people. Bondi also said that there was no client list despite saying that there was just a few months ago. Video was also released that showed nobody entered Epstein's cell in 2019 when he killed himself, greatly damaging claims that he was assassinated. The handling of the Epstein issue has been a black eye for the Trump administration, given the circumstances of the release.
My Comment:
This is a fairly big scandal for the Trump administration and, most notably, Attorney General Pam Bondi. Very few people are going to be satisfied with this and I am pretty much in disbelief how poorly she has handled this entire case since she took over the Attorney General position. I haven't been a fan of her from the start and I am again said that Matt Gatz was unable to be confirmed for the position.
However, I do disagree with the importance of a so called "client list". We already know from his flight logs who the major players were and there isn't much that could be released that wouldn't just be a rehash of previous investigations.
To recap, we know that both Bill and Hillary Clinton spent considerable time with Epstein. The late governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson was also mentioned, and, perhaps most notable of all, Prince Andrew was implicated directly. There were other people mentioned as well, including lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Fashion Designer Leslie Wexner and the late Jean Luc Brunel, another model agent.
This is the closest thing we have to a "client list" and it would have behooved the DOJ to release these names as they are clearly related to the case. Instead they said there was no real client list, thus raising the question as to why Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of trafficking if she didn't traffic anyone to anyone (of course she was convicted of trafficking people to Epstein himself).
About half of the anger here is the boneheaded way that Bondi handled this. She hyped the client list for months and now says it doesn't exist. I think this is just her being stupid, she cares a lot more about looks than results and she wanted media attention. I don't watch cable news but I'm told she is a regular figure on Fox News, giving to the criticism that she cares more about media appearances than doing her actual job.
Indeed, she handled this so poorly that it is going to lead to screams of a cover up. Indeed, it already has. I don't think there really is any real recent coverup here, but folks are not going to be willing to give the benefit of the doubt, largely because of the dumb way Bondi handled this. And it's very possible that the reason evidence is lacking is that it got destroyed during the Biden Administration.
What do I think actually happened? Much of this is due to the collapse and death of Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre killed herself this April, probably because she was in an abusive relationship with her husband. She had kind of spiraled after her husband beat her and even if she hadn't killed herself, her usefulness as a witness was likely at an end given her erratic behavior near the end.
Giuffre was a key witness against Prince Andrew, Bill Richardson and Alan Dershowitz, but with her death it would have been extremely difficult to make any charges against those folks stick. And even then, it appears that it would have been a case of "he said she said" given the apparent lack of physical evidence. Some of those folks are also dead, like Bill Richardson and Jean Luc Brunel, which obviously means they can't be charged.
There are obvious political considerations as well. Even if there was rock solid evidence against Bill Clinton or Prince Andrew, it would be extremely dangerous to try and charge either of them with the level of evidence provided. And, given that we just had a witch hunt against an US president based on flimsy evidence, doing it again would not be a good look, especially since the Clintons are political foes of the Trump administration. And Prince Andrew? He's a prince, enough said. You don't come at a prince unless the evidence is rock solid, and it just seems like it isn't.
Folks are obviously not going to be satisfied with this. Despite the fact that the accusations against some of these folks are pretty obviously true, I don't think it reaches the level of criminal prosecution. And again, the death of Virginia Giuffre, one of the most high profile and cooperative witnesses, means that in a court of law, the charges can't be proven. I know what people wanted was to see Bill Clinton or Prince Andrew in a perp walk (or maybe even Alan Dershowitz or Les Wexner) but without physical proof or a witness that is actually willing to testify, what can be done?
The biggest failure here is the fact that Pam Bondi and other figures in the Trump Justice Department, like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, didn't actually explain any of this. Had they said, "yes, we know there are a lot of folks that were associated with Epstein, but with out main witness dead, we just can't prosecute anymore" I think there wouldn't be anywhere near the outrage we are seeing today.
Is it worth firing Pam Bondi over this? I think Trump should consider it. I am absolutely not a fan of Bondi even before this happened and the way she has handled this has been a stain on the Trump Administration. This was an absolute own-goal for the Trump Administration and I think at least her head should roll for it. There was zero need to give Trump's enemies this ammunition.
What I do know is that this will do nothing to quell the idea that Epstein was running an extortion scheme, perhaps at the behest of the American or Israeli government. And folks won't really believe that he killed himself, even with the video showing nobody entering his cell. Video can be doctored of course and supposedly a minute is missing. Far from tamping down on these theories, I think the handling of this case will just make those theories even more popular, even if none of them can be proven in a court of law now.
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