‘Pretty substantial distraction': Trump annoyed Epstein is dominating agenda but won't create ‘spectacle' with firings
Trump is said to be 'exasperated' by the scandal and is growing 'increasingly frustrated' with how his administration has handled the Epstein files saga and media attention on the president's ties to the sex offender, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting a federal sex trafficking trial.
'This is a pretty substantial distraction,' one person close to the situation told The Washington Post. 'While many are trying to keep the unity, in many ways, the DOJ and the FBI are breaking at the seams. Many are wondering how sustainable this is going to be for all the parties involved — be it the FBI director or attorney general.'
Trump is reportedly hesitant to fire anyone over the scandal. 'He does not want to create a bigger spectacle by firing anyone,' a person close to the president told the Post.
The president's exasperation was evident this weekend in Scotland after Trump was asked about Epstein at a press conference touting his latest trade deal with the European Union.
A reporter asked the president whether 'part of the rush to get this deal done was to knock Jeffrey Epstein's story out.'
'Oh, you've got to be kidding with that,' said Trump. 'No, it had nothing to do with it.'
Attorney General Pam Bondi for months pledged to release the Epstein files and claimed they were sitting on her desk. On July 6, the Justice Department and FBI issued a memo that poured cold water on the theory that Epstein kept a 'client list' and the departments would not be sharing any further documents in the case.
The memo ignited outrage among Trump's MAGA base and shows few signs of abating.
Bondi was not directly involved in writing the memo, according to the Post, but officials told the outlet that she did participate in conversations that led to its publication.
Trump, who has regularly indulged in conspiracy theories, also complained over the weekend that Democrats are too focused on conspiracy theories.
'All they know how to do is talk and think about conspiracy theories and nonsense,' Trump said during the meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 'If they'd waste their time talking about America being great again, it would be so much nicer.'
Critics said the fallout is one of the administration's own making. 'They completely miscalculated the fever pitch to which they built this up,' said Stephen A. Salzburg, a former Justice Department official who teaches at George Washington University's law school. 'Now, they seem to be in full-bore panic mode, trying to change the subject and flailing in an effort to make sense of what makes no sense.'
The Trump administration has tried to distract with other conspiracy theories. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been pushing claims that top Obama administration officials should be prosecuted for leading a 'coup' against the president in 2016 by investigating Russian efforts to help his campaign.
'She has turned herself into a weapon of mass distraction, is what I've been calling it,' Democratic Rep. Jason Crow told Fox News on Sunday.
The controversy has refused to die down after a Wall Street Journal report revealed the alleged existence of a 'bawdy' 50th birthday card from Trump to Epstein.
The president has denied the validity of the letter and has filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the Journal's parent company Dow Jones and the two journalists whose bylines appear on the story.
Trump encouraged the media Friday to 'talk about Clinton, not Trump,' after the former president was also mentioned in the birthday book.
A Clinton spokesman declined to comment to the Journal and instead referred to a previous statement saying the former president's association with Epstein ended more than a decade before he was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. The statement also said Clinton didn't know about Epstein's crimes, the Journal reports.
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Reuters
21 minutes ago
- Reuters
EU's $250 billion-per-year spending on US energy is unrealistic
BRUSSELS/HOUSTON, July 28 (Reuters) - The European Union's pledge to buy $250 billion of U.S. energy supplies per year is unrealistic because it would require the redirection of most U.S. energy exports towards Europe and the EU has little control over the energy its companies import. The U.S. and EU struck a framework trade deal on Sunday, which will impose 15% U.S. tariffs on most EU goods. The deal included a pledge for the EU to spend $250 billion annually on U.S. energy - imports of oil, liquefied natural gas and nuclear technology - for the next three years. Total U.S. energy exports to all buyers worldwide in 2024 amounted to $318 billion, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed. Of that, the EU imported a combined $76 billion of U.S. petroleum, LNG and solid fuels such as coal in 2024, according to Reuters' calculations based on Eurostat data. More than tripling those imports was unrealistic, analysts said. Arturo Regalado, senior LNG analyst at Kpler, said the scope of the energy trade envisioned in the deal "exceeds market realities." "U.S. oil flows would need to fully redirect towards the EU to reach the target, or the value of LNG imports from the US would need to increase sixfold," Regalado said. There is strong competition for U.S. energy exports as other countries need the supplies - and have themselves pledged to buy more in trade deals. Japan agreed to a "major expansion of U.S. energy exports" in its U.S. trade deal last week, the White House said in a statement. South Korea has also indicated interest in investing and purchasing fuel from an Alaskan LNG project as it seeks a trade deal. Competition for U.S. energy could drive up benchmark U.S. oil and gas prices and encourage U.S. producers to favour exports over domestic supply. That could make fuel and power costs more expensive, which would be a political and economic headache for U.S. and EU leaders. Neither side has detailed what was included in the energy deal - or whether it covered items such as energy services or parts for power grids and plants. The EU estimates its member countries' plans to expand nuclear energy would require hundreds of billions of euros in investments by 2050. Its nuclear reactor-related imports, however, totalled just 53.3 billion euros in 2024, trade data shows. The energy pledge reflected the EU's analysis of how much U.S. energy supply it could accommodate, a senior EU official said, but that would depend on investments in U.S. oil and LNG infrastructure, European import infrastructure, and shipping capacity. "These figures, again, are not taken out of thin air. So yes, they require investments," said the senior official, who declined to be named. "Yes, it will vary according to the energy sources. But these are figures which are reachable." There was no public commitment to the delivery, the official added, because the EU would not buy the energy - its companies would. Private companies import most of Europe's oil, while a mix of private and state-run companies import gas. The European Commission can aggregate demand for LNG to negotiate better terms, but cannot force companies to buy fuel. That is a commercial decision. "It's just unrealistic," ICIS analysts Andreas Schröder and Ajay Parmar said in written comments to Reuters. "Either Europe pays a super high non-market reflective price for U.S. LNG or it takes way too much LNG volumes, more than it can cope with." The United States is already the EU's top supplier of LNG and oil, shipping 44% of EU LNG needs and 15.4% of its oil in 2024, according to EU data. Raising imports to the target would require a U.S. LNG expansion way beyond what is planned through 2030, said Jacob Mandel, research lead at Aurora Energy Research. "You can add on capacity," Mandel said. "But if you're talking about the scale that would be necessary to meet these targets, the $250 billion, then it's not really feasible." Europe could buy $50 billion more of U.S. LNG annually as supply increases, he said. The EU has said it could import more U.S. energy as its plan advances to end Russian oil and gas imports by 2028. The EU imported around 94 million barrels of Russian oil last year - 3% of the bloc's crude purchases - and 52 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian LNG and gas, according to EU data. For comparison, the EU imported 45 bcm of U.S. LNG last year. Higher EU fuel purchases would, however, run counter to forecasts for EU demand to decline as it shifts to clean energy, analysts said. "There is no major need for the EU to import more oil from the U.S., in fact, its oil demand peaked a number of years ago," Schröder and Parmar said. ($1 = 0.8571 euro)
Daily Mail
21 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trump warns against second independence vote for 75 years
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When asked about the SNP's plan to demand another independence referendum if it wins a majority at next year's Holyrood elections, Mr Trump said he had predicted the No vote the day before the 2014 referendum when he was visiting his first golf course at the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire. He added: 'I do say that when they made that deal (to hold a referendum) somebody said that it was - and I remember this very distinctly, I said 'could they do this all the time?'. 'There was a little bit of a restriction, like 50 or 75 years before you could take another vote because, you know, a country can't go through that too much.' SNP figures including Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon had said at the time the vote was a 'once in a generation opportunity'. Mr Trump made the comments ahead of Mr Swinney attending a dinner with him in Aberdeenshire last night and the opening of his second course at Menie today (TUE). Sir Keir said: 'I believe in a stronger Scotland in a better United Kingdom and I think that at a time like this when it is quite clear there is uncertainty and volatility around the world, the strength of the United Kingdom together is very important for all four nations, very important for Scotland. 'That should be our priority, that should be our focus - not on the politics which feels like the politics of yesteryear now at a time like this. 'I think that the First Minister should probably focus more on his delivery in Scotland than on his constitutional issues, and we might have a better health service in Scotland. 'At a time like this, I think the United Kingdom is always stronger as four nations, I think that is better for all four nations.' It comes as Mr Swinney was condemned for an 'absurd' assertion that a generation has passed since Scots rejected independence. In a desperate attempt to relaunch the SNP's failing bid to break up the UK, he has claimed a majority for the party in next year's Holyrood elections would be a mandate for another referendum. He was accused of trying to silence SNP critics and was mocked for the claim that a generation has passed less than 11 years since Scots voted decisively to stay in the UK. Then First Minister Alex Salmond and his successor Nicola Sturgeon previously described the 2014 referendum as a 'once in a generation opportunity'. After unveiling the latest bid to secure independence, Mr Swinney yesterday said: 'There is fundamentally a democratic issue here that people in Scotland in a voluntary union must be able to choose their own democratic future, and that was accepted after the SNP won a majority in the Scottish Parliament, on our own, in 2011. 'I am making the point that, having established that precedent, we must be in a position to be able to give the people of Scotland the choice about their constitutional future. 'There is now, by the time we get to 2030, going to be a million people who were not eligible to vote in the last referendum in 2014. 'A generation has now passed and I want to make sure that people in Scotland who want our country to have a choice about independence are able to do so in a democratic and legitimate fashion that can enable the establishment of an independent country as a consequence of a Yes vote. 'And the way to do that is the way we did it in 2011, which is to elect a majority of SNP MSPs to the Scottish Parliament.' In the 2014 vote, 55 per cent of Scots voted No and 45 per cent Yes. Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: 'It's patently absurd - and John Swinney knows it - to claim that 11 years constitutes 'a generation'. 'John Swinney is like a broken record. In a bid to silence internal critics of his weak leadership, he has thrown diehard nationalists some more red meat on the one issue they all agree on: independence. 'Ordinary Scots are sick and tired of the SNP's obsession with breaking up the UK. The public want John Swinney to focus on fixing the damage his government has done in decimating essential services such as schools and the NHS at the same time as making Scotland the highest taxed part of the UK.' Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: 'This SNP government has lost its way and ran out of ideas - while one in six Scots suffer on an NHS waiting list.
The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
What to know about the trial of a Colorado dentist accused of poisoning his wife
The trial of James Craig, a Colorado dentist accused of killing his wife Angela Craig by gradually poisoning her, is winding down. Jurors have heard from some of her relatives and also women James Craig had been having affairs with, all called by prosecutors. Closing arguments are expected this week. Who was Angela Craig? Angela Craig, 43, was a mother of six children who friends and family say was devoted to her family. She was the youngest of 10 siblings herself and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Described as organized and dependable, she had taken over her mother's role as the genealogist for her birth family, an important role in their faith. Her older brother Mark Pray said she had been 'happy and positive' since she was a child. But her sister Toni Kofoed testified that her sister had confided in her about struggles she was having in her marriage. However, pushing back against defense suggestions that her sister may have killed herself, Kofoed said her sister had a 'broken heart' but not a 'broken mind.' What killed Angela Craig and how? Angela Craig died in 2023 during her third trip to the hospital in a little over a week. Toxicology tests later determined she died of poisoning from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient found in over-the-counter eye drops. Early on, James Craig had purchased a variety of poisons before his wife's death and had put some in the protein shakes he made for her, according to police. During the trial, prosecutors alleged that he also gave her a dose of cyanide as she lay in her hospital bed on March 15, 2023, as doctors tried to figure out what was ailing her. She was declared brain dead soon afterward and never recovered. What does James Craig say? In a notes file later found on James Craig's phone by police, he said Angela Craig had asked him to help kill her with poison when he asked for a divorce after having affairs. In the document, which was labeled 'timeline,' Craig said that he had eventually agreed to purchase and prepare poisons for her to take, but not administer them. Craig said that he had put cyanide in some of the antibiotic capsules she had been taking and also prepared a syringe containing cyanide. According to his timeline, Craig wrote that just before she had to go to the hospital on March 15, 2023, she must have ingested a mixture containing the tetrahydrozoline, the eye drop ingredient, because she became lethargic and weak, before then taking the antibiotic laced with cyanide that he said he prepared for her. Mark Pray, who was visiting to help the Craig family because of his sister's mysterious illness, testified that he gave Angela Craig the capsules after being instructed to do so by James Craig, who was not at home. Pray said his sister bent over and couldn't hold herself up after taking the medicine. He and his wife then took her to the hospital. What do investigators and the defense say? The lead investigator, Detective Bobbi Olson, testified that James Craig's timeline account differed from statements he had made to others about what had happened, including accusing Angela Craig of setting him up to make it look like he had killed her. Craig is also charged with trying to hire a fellow jail inmate to kill Olson. The defense argues that the evidence doesn't show that James Craig poisoned and killed his wife and have seemed to suggest that Angela Craig may have taken her own life. They introduced into evidence Angela Craig's journal from the years before she died, in which she talks about the struggles in their marriage and her husband's infidelity. In one entry she wrote, 'He doesn't love me and I don't blame him.' In opening statements, one of Craig's attorneys, Ashley Whitham, repeatedly described Angela Craig as 'broken,' partly by Craig's infidelity and her desire to stay married, since they were part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
