“Tell Us What We Want To Hear, And Maybe We’ll Go Easy On You”

Tim Burchett admits that House Republicans may agree to ask DOJ to reduce the sentence of sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her testimony, if they like what she has to say. pic.twitter.com/BE2sy3dqEL

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 24, 2025

Then she has no incentive to tell House Republicans what they want to hear, does she?

Does Maxwell get a deal from DOJ if she implicates Trump? Not a chance in hell.

Does Maxwell get a deal from DOJ if she exonerates Trump? Probably.

She knows both things very well. She’s a criminal & a liar given incentive by DOJ to lie to benefit herself.

Release the files.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 24, 2025

I’m not interested in the lies that Trump’s corrupt DOJ bribes Ghislaine Maxwell into telling. I’m interested in the truths that the victims and witnesses told investigators years ago, which are in the files that Trump’s DOJ refuses to release.

Release the files.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 24, 2025

Burchett also says she’ll go back to her original sentence if they find she’s lying.  Uh-huh. What does she know that the documents don’t reveal? She also face two counts of perjury for lying in a deposition about Epstein. She wasn’t tried, because she was convicted and sentenced on the sex trafficking charges. But it still raises questions about her veracity.

Bill Kristol thinks there’s a coverup at work:

"We do know that after this meeting, all talk from the administration about making the Epstein files available ended," Kristol wrote. "It was in interviews in mid-May that FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, started publicly walking back their earlier promises to reveal new facts about the Epstein matter."

Justice Department officials told the president at that meeting the files couldn't be released because they contained Child sexual abuse material and victims' personal information, all of which Kristol said could have easily been redacted, but he said the most worrisome element of the report for Trump must be the final two paragraphs, which dramatically depicts a shouting match between Bondi and Bongino.

"So the attorney general and the deputy director of the FBI are screaming at each other," Kristol wrote. "A 'senior administration official' is telling the Wall Street Journal all about it. And the president is personally involved in decisions not to release information containing reports about his own behavior."

"Meanwhile, the public is paying attention," he added. "This is how coverups unravel."

Now, the problem is, all coverups are conspiracy theories. “I don’t think they’re telling the truth. I think there’s a coverup.” Based on what? Based on that simple assertion: “I don’t think he’s telling the truth.” The line between valid skepticism and conspiracy theories is a thin one. The whole “Epstein files” conspiracy is based on that simple assertion. Of course, that conspiracy theory is posited on the belief Trump would reveal the files, arrest the Democrats (they’re all pedos!), expose the international ring of child molesters, and make the world safe for MAGA and white children everywhere. But any allegation of a coverup, any adherence to the idea of a coverup, is a conspiracy theory. Until it’s proven true.

The coverup isn’t worse than the crime; it is a crime. And ironically, it’s usually more convincing than the crime. What do you remember most about Watergate? The abuses of power that were exposed? Nixon using the FBI and the IRS against his “enemies”? Or the increasingly ridiculous attempts to prove there was nothing to see here? My favorite was the photo if Nixon’s secretary reaching across her office for the telephone while punching the button on her dictaphone while strenuously pressing the foot control on the same device, to show how she “accidentally” erased 18 minutes from the White House tapes. That convinced a lot of people Nixon had something to hide, even if they weren’t sure what he was hiding.

Coverups don’t unravel the crime, they unravel the hiding. Trump is desperately hiding whatever information Jeffrey Epstein documented. I don’t think Trump even knows what’s there. He just knows what he did, and he thinks that’s there. He doesn’t know whether to shit, or go blind. He hasn’t read the files because he wouldn’t read a matchbook cover to cover. He’s just assuming the worst, and he’s freaking out. And probably for good reason; Trump used to brag that he likes ‘em young. He sponsored the Miss Teen USA pageant so he could wander freely through the dressing room. It’s not evidence based to say he fucked some of the young girls Epstein had around (Epstein almost certainly trafficked them). But it’s reasonable speculation, at least. And Trump’s fear of those files only fuels speculation.

So one conspiracy theory is consuming another conspiracy theory, both are now consuming Trump, at least.

Is Ghislaine Maxwell really going to save us all from this?

😈🍿