Watch The Donut 🍩

 I just refuse to assume:

A pretty basic FBI rule of thumb is to always go into an interview knowing more than they think you know. No way Blanche digested the whole Epstein/Maxwell case. Original prosecutor fired. No FBI agents. Victims left out. How did he know how to test her credibility? What follow up questions to ask?

...anything about those reported 9 hours (and was even that reported time independently confirmed?) had anything to do with a legitimate or even good faith investigation.

We cannot independently verify:

What questions were asked.

What answers were given.

What the two parties said to each other.

Todd Blanche cannot be assumed to be a reliable narrator, based on everything pointed out in the quote, as well as his history as Trump’s defense lawyer, and the unethical, unprofessional, and wholly improper way this matter was handled. To put it concretely: Maxwell could accuse Blanche of spending 9 hours making sexual overtures to her (arguendo), and how would he contradict her? You take witnesses (other attorneys; paralegals; a stenographer at least) with you to these interviews to verify what the witness said. Jeffrey Epstein was videotaped when he gave a deposition in a civil case (I’ve seen excerpts in a documentary. I’m not recounting third hand information.). For this reported 9 hours, nobody was in the room except Maxwell and Blanche and perhaps Maxwell’s attorney (I don’t know, but her attorney cheerleads her like he was at her elbow the whole time. He should have been, because even partial immunity can leave room for self-incrimination.).

Blanche wasn’t there to test Maxwell’s credibility. He was there to craft a story that would make MAGA decide they weren’t interested in the documents after all. I think, in fact, he was there to negotiate a deal, one in which she agrees she answered all his “questions,” and she gets something for her cooperation . Treating this as other than that is giving it far more credence than it deserves.

Keep it simple: we can’t verify what Blanche ultimately reports, or what is said by officials based on his purported report. That’s all we know, and all we will ever know. We should keep the story on that. 

Everything else really is just a distraction.

(That business about leaving the victims out underscores the only offer from DOJ is an extra-judicial, but wholly constitutional (and that’s a separate, but crucial, discussion. Like the post-Civil War era, the post-Trump era should prompt a number of constitutional amendments. Repealing Presidential immunity is one; amending the pardon power another; putting teeth back into the 15th would be a third. And maybe we need to strength Art. I and make clear many a recent shadow docket ruling on Presidential authority is in conflict with the will of the people.) one: a pardon. Though I still don’t understand what a pardon buys. Maxwell undoubtedly wants one, but the nation gets nothing for it, and Trump gets even less. Maybe Trump won’t pardon her until he sees how Blanche’s report plays. If he doesn’t like it, he can always leave her in jail. I mean, she can try to “expose” Trump through her lawyers, but I honestly don’t think anything happens. Trump is afraid of what those files said he did, but MAGA wants those files released so they can lock up all the Democrats (and international pedophiles running the “Deep State.”). Will they really care about Trump’s name, unless Epstein has video of Trump humping a minor?

(Let me put the odds of anyone else, besides Maxwell, being prosecuted, this way. Alan Dershowitz has been publicly accused, by an Epstein victim, of rape, if not statutory rape (sex with a minor). I don’t believe there’s been so much as a criminal investigation of that charge. Lack of evidence? I guess. Dershowitz’ name is almost certainly in the documents. But Epstein bragged about having powerful friends who would keep him out of jail (one more reason I believe the suicide story). I don’t think Dershowitz was high on that “list,” except as a lawyer. More powerful people are even less likely to face prosecution. Epstein walked in 2008 because Acosta blinked rather than charge a rich man with serious crimes based on the testimony of poor minors whom Epstein admitted he paid for sex, and argued that made them prostitutes.  Which was the charge he pled guilty to: one count of prostitution. Acosta probably thought he couldn’t make a good case against a rich man when the witnesses were all poor, desperate girls. I’m not saying he was right, but the DOJ has had those documents for 6 years, and no one else has been charged. I don’t think that’s a conspiracy. I think it’s a problem with the evidence.

(But Trump doesn’t. Which doesn’t mean Al Capone’s vault isn’t empty. Democrats just need to be careful not to catch that car. Just because Trump thinks that vault has dangerous things in it, doesn’t mean he’s right.

(But it doesn’t mean he gets away with twisting the criminal justice system, and the DOJ, and even the constitution, just to serve his purposes. Eyes on the donut, not the hole.) 🍩 

Adding:

I think where we are at the point where it's objective reporting to describe Trump as acting like a person who is very strongly guilty of sex crimes.

And:

I kind of think the focus on whether Trump is "in the files" is probably a mistake given his level of desperation and the corruption in the DOJ probably means whatever we finally see will have been thoroughly expurgated of all incriminating mentions. Better to give weight to the survivor's stories.

That’s the donut here. 🍩