(Dobbs) He "knew about the girls."It is hardly a legal standard but sometimes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
The headlines that broke yesterday, that the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein wrote in private emails to two friends that the man who is now our president had “spent hours at my house” and “knew about the girls”— and this one’s interesting: that “the dog that hasn’t barked is Trump”— might not hang Donald Trump, but surely must give him heartburn. Many of Epstein’s girls, Epstein’s victims, were underage. Could this be the start of something big? In one of his emails about Trump, sent to his partner-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein even said that Virginia Giuffre, his victim who committed suicide just six months ago, “spent hours at my house with him.” Maxwell responded above his message, “I have been thinking about that…” That’s what she said in a private email. But this is the same Maxwell who is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for sex trafficking herself, and for public consumption, which obviously means Donald Trump’s consumption, earlier this year she told Todd Blanche, the president’s own former criminal defense lawyer and now the justice department’s number two man, that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way.” That raised questions of course when, just a few days after her glowing report about the man who holds her fate in his hands, she was mysteriously transferred from a tougher Florida prison…. …. to a more lenient minimum security prison in Texas. Now this week, it is reported that she is preparing to ask the president to commute her sentence. The new incriminating emails came into the hands of the House Oversight Committee but were only released by Democrats on the committee, not by Republicans, either because the Republicans live in fear or in thrall of Donald Trump. The top Democrat, California Representative Robert Garcia, explained in a statement what the implications of this newest information might be: “These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president.” Can anybody deny that? Can anybody argue that if Epstein was pointing fingers at Trump, the White House might be hiding something? Can anybody argue that it doesn’t add a whole new layer to the nature of the two mens’ relationship? Maybe it doesn’t, maybe it’s all just a misunderstanding, maybe if Donald Trump “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with Virginia Giuffre, who wrote in a tragic memoir before she died that she feared she might “die a sex slave,” they just sat around talking about their favorite books. That’s the kind of thing the White House would have us believe. The message yesterday from press secretary Karoline Leavitt was, there’s nothing to see here. She said these were “selectively released emails” that the Democrats put out to “smear” the president. Selectively released? Maybe, even probably. But they were selected for a reason: they appear to bring Jeffrey Epstein’s unsavory sex ring closer to Donald Trump. However, the president’s mouthpiece took a page from her boss’s playbook: she attacked the messenger but didn’t actually address the message. To the contrary, she said with a straight face to reporters, “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.” And how is that? Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls.” At best, if true, that would mean he knew that Epstein was trafficking in underage girls, but didn’t tell anyone. At worst, it would mean he knew because he was involved with them. Either way, the president of the United States doesn’t come out smelling like a saint. Then again, he never has. Remember the Access Hollywood tape? He is the “grab ‘em by the pussy” president. He paid hush money to a porn star. He was convicted of sexual abuse against the author E. Jean Carroll, which the case judge likened to rape. And although he denies it, handwriting experts insist that in a book for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, it is Trump who signed his signature under a sketch of a naked woman with the words, “May every day be another wonderful secret.” It is hardly a legal standard but sometimes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. So no, these emails that just came to light might not hang Donald Trump but they’ll surely give him heartburn. And maybe chip away a little more at what looks like the president’s already dwindling support. Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 39-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame. You can learn more at GregDobbs.net |