Trump document dumps raise questions of distraction
Last week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released 114 pages of documents related to the investigation into Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 election — something President Trump raised again this week when he said former President Obama was guilty of treason in connection with the matter.
Then on Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi released an Office of Inspector General review into Hillary Clinton's private email server, sharing it with Congress.
Hours later, Bondi and Gabbard released 230,000 pages related to the investigation into the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination.
'It doesn't take a whole lot of guesswork to say, 'Gee, do you think they kind of, maybe, sort of want to change the subject?'' said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has called for the release of financial records related to Jeffrey Epstein, given his numerous wire transfers.
'I'm just saying — just saying — maybe. Possibly. Conceivably. That could be it.'
The flood of information has not gone unnoticed.
'They're not dumping documents. They're making up lies,' said Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
'The Trump administration is constantly promising conspiracy and then failing to deliver, which is what they did with Epstein, which is now why we're creating a whole new conspiracy, which is that President Obama is guilty of treason. It's a Ponzi scheme of conspiracy theories.'
When asked about Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump pivoted to talking about his predecessor.
'I don't really follow that too much. It's sort of a witch hunt. Just a continuation of the witch hunt. The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold.'
In a rare public statement, Obama called the accusations against him an effort at distraction.
'Our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,' an Obama spokesperson said.
'But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.'
It was Gabbard's Wednesday release of an additional classified report on the 2016 election put together by the House Intelligence Committee that most alarmed Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
'The only thing not being released is the Epstein files. But today, today's action sets a new low for a DNI,' Warner said, using an abbreviation for director of national intelligence.
'Of course it's a distraction. But this one is so grossly over the top, that it will put people in harm's way,' he added, noting that the House report references intelligence sources and methods.
Release of the documents gave MAGA influencers who were angry over the lack of Epstein disclosures for weeks a new topic — and grievance — to push. After Gabbard's first release, MAGA personalities called to arrest Obama administration officials and even the former president himself.
A study by Media Matters found that Fox News had mentioned Obama three times more than Epstein since Gabbard released her report Friday. Conversations about the former president spiked overall — more than doubling in the days after the Friday release.
But despite some conservative voices elevating Gabbard's releases, they have gotten mixed results.
While some have called the releases an important form of transparency and a delivery on a campaign promise, that has not negated their interest in Epstein.
House GOP leaders, for instance, moved to send members home for August recess a day early after disputes about the Epstein matter — and an unwillingness to face Democratic votes trying to squeeze Republicans on the Epstein issue — stymied the House. And the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday voted to subpoena Epstein's convicted ex-girlfriend Maxwell, following a motion from Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.).
In a separate vote late Wednesday, another Oversight panel moved to subpoena the files, as well as information on other figures.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who has called for the release of numerous classified files and is leading an investigation into the JFK assassination, disputed that the timing had anything to do with Epstein.
'I know for a fact that the MLK documents were in the queue and scheduled for release, and so the timing was not obviously related,' Luna said.
'The MLK stuff was slated for release. … And then the Russia collusion evidence — documents of the hoax, actually, I also heard was scheduled for release. So I think that they're just trying to show that they're very transparent.'
Luna said it was proper to subpoena Maxwell, though she added that it would be improper for the Epstein associate to receive a pardon.
'I maintain my same position — haven't changed. We should see the documents,' Luna said.
For his part, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) swiftly released the Clinton documents shared with him by Bondi.
'When you've been waiting eight years to get documents, you release them as soon as you get them,' he said.
Still, others see the issue as a problem of the administration's own making after years of embracing and promoting conspiracy theories, including those about Epstein.
'They've got a problem,' a source close to the White House said on the sentiment inside the Trump team.
'It's a little bit of the chickens coming home to roost. When you populate your administration [full] of people who propagated this and then all of a sudden, they hold the keys to the kingdom, now the true believers who aren't in government want to say, 'OK, open it up.' At some point this is where the ideal of the campaign, the promises made in the campaign, actually come home to roost. There may be nothing there, but they created a cloud in expectations that there was something there,' the source close to the White House said.
'Whenever Trump is truly in trouble, he changes the story by whatever means necessary,' added one longtime GOP lobbyist.
It's not clear that the strategy is working.
'They are releasing these other files, but they're refusing to release the files they promised their base, the Epstein files. I think they're digging their hole deeper,' said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a former House Intelligence Chair amid the GOP investigation into the 2016 election.
He noted that the latest information implies intelligence leaders mishandled the investigation by noting that Russia never accessed vote totals — something that was never in dispute.
'They're damned by the implication that they're pushing out all this other stuff, and they're still refusing to release the Epstein files.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
27 minutes ago
- The Hill
Samples before space suits: America must be smart about its mission to Mars
On day one of this administration, the president included his ambitions for Mars in his inaugural address, and again several weeks later to a joint session of Congress: 'We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars, and even far beyond.' President Trump's vision for Mars is correct, and now there is a plan for the next steps in how he achieves it. The U.S. has led the world in the exploration of Mars since Vikings I and II landed in 1976. We now stand on the precipice of two ultimate achievements: the return of samples from Mars to Earth, and sending the first humans — Americans — to the Martian surface. The fiscal 2026 presidential budget request proposed 'to terminate the Mars Sample Return Program given that current architecture options remain unaffordable.' But, it adds: 'It is anticipated that future missions to Mars will return samples for study on Earth.' We need those samples robotically returned for study on Earth. Delaying Mars Sample Return or waiting for astronauts to pick them up will make the human exploration of Mars significantly more expensive and dangerous — and for the first time ever, almost certainly cede decades of U.S. space exploration leadership to China. A lower-cost robotic Mars Sample Return would more than pay for itself from savings realized by simplified human missions. Martian soil has substances known to be toxic, as well as uncharacterized biological potential. Without Mars Sample Return, human mission designs must account for the full range of possibilities and the most demanding scenarios. Laboratory tests are needed to make direct measurements of the Mars samples to determine concentrations and forms of toxic materials to understand threats and develop solutions. This will be needed to design spacesuits and protect astronauts from the fine martian dust. It allows risk mitigation to shift from large and expensive requirements to quantifiable ones with reduced uncertainties. While no martian life has been detected yet, our exploration has shown that much of Mars would previously have been habitable, and parts of Mars may currently still be habitable. In advance of humans to Mars, we need to robotically return samples in a highly controlled manner to satisfy planetary protection back-contamination requirements to ensure that Mars does not have organisms that might impact human health or have adverse effects on Earth's biosphere. Mars Sample Return will accelerate U.S. leadership in space. Mars is several hundred times farther from Earth than the Moon. Using current propulsion technologies, a Mars round trip will take up to three years, with minimal abort opportunities, as compared to Apollo's round trip of days. Even then, there were three uncrewed and four crewed missions before Apollo 11, the first Moon landing. Completing Mars Sample Return supports technology demos needed for human missions, such as advancing from the current precision landing (7-10 km) to pinpoint landing (~100 m) to put astronauts in proximity to safe sites and pre-positioned supplies. Mars Sample Return also achieves a profound international first: the first samples — with potential for evidence of life — returned from Mars. These samples might once and for all answer the fundamental question of 'Are we alone in the universe,' and that is a question we most certainly want the United States to answer first. Lockheed Martin, my former employer, has been studying Mars Sample Return missions for more than 50 years, and is confident it can deliver an end-to-end architecture for under $3 billion — less than half of previous estimates — by leveraging heritage components, reducing design complexity, and streamlining the program structure. They have built and flown four highly successful Mars landers and four highly successful Mars orbiters, as well as pioneered all three of NASA's previous sample return missions (returning material from a comet, the solar wind and an asteroid), and have established credibility and mission success across a wide variety of additional deep space missions, from Venus to Saturn. NASA's Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance or 'Percy,' at Jezero Crater has been caching an unparalleled set of samples that will shed more light on the history of Mars than all previous Mars missions combined. China has announced it plans to launch a sample return mission to Mars in 2028, with an Earth return likely in 2031. If we forgo the timely return of Percy's superior set of samples, it will be China that leaps ahead. Mars soil and dust are uniquely different, and potentially dangerous — returning samples should precede astronauts going to Mars, while also maintaining our nation's pre-eminence in Mars exploration as NASA lays the groundwork for the next giant leap. Ben Clark has been a member of the science teams of every NASA mission to explore the surface of Mars, and designed the instrument on Viking that made the first analysis of martian soil. He was chief scientist for deep space exploration at Lockheed Martin. Currently, he helps analyze chemical compositions of the diverse samples the Perseverance rover has been acquiring during its multi-year trek on Mars.
Boston Globe
27 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
European leaders to join Ukraine's Zelensky for White House meeting with Trump
Advertisement 'It's a power struggle and a position of strength that might work with Trump,' he said in a phone interview. The European leaders' presence at Zelenskyy's side, demonstrating Europe's support for Ukraine, could potentially help ease concerns in Kyiv and in other European capitals that Ukraine risks being railroaded into a peace deal that Trump says he wants to broker with Russia. It wasn't immediately clear whether all or just some of them would be taking part in the actual meeting with Trump. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on X that she will take part in the talks, 'at the request of President Zelenskyy.' The secretary-general of the NATO military alliance, Mark Rutte, will also take part in the meeting, his press service said. Advertisement The office of President Emmanuel Macron announced that the French leader will travel on Monday to Washington 'at the side of President Zelenskyy' although it didn't immediately specify that he'll be in the meeting. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will also be part of the European group, but the statement from his office likewise didn't specify that he will be in the talks with Trump. The grouped trip underscored European leaders' determination to ensure that Europe has a voice in Trump's attempted peace-making, after the U.S. president's summit on Friday with Putin — to which Zelenskyy wasn't invited.
American Military News
27 minutes ago
- American Military News
No Ukraine Cease-Fire For Trump, And A Red-Carpet Welcome For Putin
Vladimir Putin wanted a world stage. Donald Trump wanted a peace deal. The Russian leader got his. The US president did not. At least not yet. The August 15 face-to-face summit between Trump and Putin was shaping up to be one of the most consequential in years: for US-Russian relations, for international security, for the largest land war in Europe since World War II. Confident in his deal-making prowess, Trump wanted to halt Russia's 42-month-old war on Ukraine, which has killed or wounded well over 1 million Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, and thousands of civilians, mainly Ukrainian. Confident of his military's ability to grind down Ukraine, Putin wanted to appear before global TV cameras, on US soil, shaking Trump's hand, free of international isolation, and negotiating as a peer. In the end, there was no deal to halt Russia's bloodletting in Ukraine. There was no deal announced for a new arms control agreement, as Putin had suggested ahead of time, nor new business investments, as Trump had suggested. 'Nothing Good Happened, But Nothing Bad Happened Either' It's possible there are deals in the works, not yet announced. In interviews and remarks afterward, Trump signaled some agreement could be forthcoming in the near future. 'Had there been even a small item to announce, you can bet Trump would have done so,' said Luke Coffey, a Russian analyst and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank. 'So the fact that there was nothing even minor [announced]… tells me that the talks truly got nowhere.' 'To look in a positive light, Trump didn't give anything away, at least from what we can know publicly,' Coffey said. 'He admitted from the podium that he's going to be taking time to consult with and update European leaders, including Zelenskyy, and he said that there's no deal until there's a deal.' Early on August 16, hours after the summit, Trump and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke by phone for an hour, along with European leaders. There were 'positive signals' regarding possible US participation in security guarantees for Ukraine, Zelenskyy said. He also said he would travel to Washington on August 18. 'The Kremlin is touting this as a major reset in relations with the United States, given the red-carpet treatment Putin received and the possibility of another summit in Moscow,' said Stephen Flanagan, who twice served on the White House National Security Council. 'Putin's comment that to achieve a 'settlement, lasting and long-term, we need to eliminate all of the primary causes of the conflict,' suggests that Russia retains its hardline position on Ukraine,' he said. 'Putin would like to see a more compliant government in Kyiv and recognition of its territorial conquests.' Going into the summit, Trump had mentioned 'land swaps' as a possibility: recognizing Russia's claim to occupied Ukrainian territory in exchange for a cease-fire or other conditions. Zelenskyy professed that was a red line. Some in Europe, whose role in the Ukraine conflict has frequently been downplayed by the Trump administration, feared another 'Munich' – shorthand for when Western allies acquiesced to Hitler in 1938. Or another 'Yalta,' when Soviet leader Josef Stalin, US President Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill divided up post-WWII Europe. No land swaps were announced. Neither were any new punitive US sanctions on Russia announced, something Trump had threatened. 'Nothing good happened, but nothing bad happened either,' William Taylor, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, told the BBC. 'There was no Munich, and there was no Yalta, where Ukraine would have been sold.' 'The Welcome, The Red Carpet, The Handshakes' 'For Kyiv, it could obviously be worse,' said Stefan Meister, director of the Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia, at the German Council on Foreign Relations. 'Maybe they agreed on something. But if they had, it would have been announced,' he said. 'Trump is not ready to be the bad guy and force a terrible deal down the Ukrainians' throats,' said Eric Ciaramella, a former White House National Security Council adviser, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'Nor is Putin willing to make any major compromises merely to give Trump a win.' Since launching the all-out invasion in February 2022, Putin has been deemed a pariah in the West, and in other places around the world, isolated, under US sanctions and under threat of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, refused to meet with him. The 'optics' of the summit – on US soil, red-carpet welcome, personal greeting by the US president – were a victory in itself for the Kremlin. 'Putin certainly got what he wanted out of this meeting,' said Mikhail Alexseev, a political scientist at San Diego State University and expert on Ukraine's governance. 'He got the welcome, the red carpet. He got the handshakes. He even got applause from Trump when he walked from the airplane. In essence, it normalizes his position as [a] world leader.' Senior International Correspondent Mike Eckel reported from Prague; North American correspondent Todd Prince reported from Washington.
