The Trump-Epstein circular firing squad is just like an episode of ‘Seinfeld'
Donald Trump's decision not to release whatever is in the Epstein files has paralyzed the most MAGA of conservative media outlets. When I checked earlier today, The Federalist, The Daily Caller and Breitbart were all doing their best to ignore the story dividing Trumpists like never before. It is like the digital outlets are waiting for orders from on high, but the leading voices are a confused cacophony, not the usual Trumpy chorus.
Fox News and the Wall Street Journal opinion page are both promoting an op-ed by former Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz that is as confused as this Seinfeldian story about nothing. You see, Dershowitz says there's nothing to see here, Epstein committed suicide and was not murdered, but the jail staff may have helped him. Oh, also there's nothing incriminating about Trump.
Suicide is a fraught subject that must be handled delicately in all instances, but I am not so clear on how there can be help from the people who are supposed to be guarding you. I didn't know it was OK for the guards to deliver 'assisted' suicide services normally provided by medical personnel. Wouldn't that be a scandal?
Dershowitz blames the fact that you can't see the Justice Department files on court-ordered secrecy, as if suddenly the Trump administration has gotten all Emily Post about following judges' orders.
Meanwhile the formerly conservative Drudge Report, enemy of all things Emily Post and still frequented by many on the right who want a dose of the day's tabloid fare, is promoting rumors that a big Trump-Epstein story is about to appear in the pages of either The Washington Post, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.
Just as I am writing this, The Wall Street Journal breathlessly published a story marked 'exclusive' that, along with dozens of other people, Trump wrote a bawdy letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday. In this letter, Trump allegedly drew a naughty picture with breasts and pubic hair. Oh, my. The only thing worth being on the front page is that Trump called the Journal's top editor to try to stop the story with a lawsuit threat.
So it is no wonder the White House and Trump himself are livid at all this attention with the press secretary blasting people like me who keep covering this 'like it's the biggest story that the American people care about.' For once, Karoline Leavitt appears to be sticking to the facts. Conservative talk radio hosts who I listen to, such as Erick Erickson, report that while their 'very online' listeners are mad as hell, their ideological cousins who have touched grass more recently couldn't care less.
If it is not clear already, I am watching the whole kerfuffle and enjoying every minute. If a political movement born of nothing but Trump's grudges, conspiracy theories and self-interest deserves anything, it is to suffer a circular firing squad about Trump holding a grudge against his supporters who still believe a conspiracy theory that is suddenly no longer in Trump's self-interest.
This won't be the last time that Trump's imaginary hobgoblins will come back to haunt him. Wait until his handpicked Attorney General Pam Bondi fails to come up with anyone to indict for stealing the 2020 election, as all Trump's supporters have been promised. We'll think back on this week's Epstein blowup as a little family disagreement.
If we were watching a 'Seinfeld' episode, this is where Jerry would be told, 'No soup for you,' and we'd all have a good laugh. It isn't so funny when the job prospects of our top law enforcement officers depend on the outcome of a scandal about nothing and the president seems more engaged with the fate of a dead sex trafficker than the real lives of the people he is supposed to govern.
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