Republicans and Democrats have been playing the blame game
for weeks now over who is responsible for the shutdown, with Republicans
falsely claiming that Democrats refused to vote for a stopgap funding bill as a
way to protect health care services for immigrants who lack legal status.
“Speaker Johnson may be blocking my swearing-in, but he
can’t stop me from showing up for the people of Southern Arizona,” Grijalva
said in a statement on Wednesday. “Every day that goes by without
representation is another day our veterans, seniors, and working families are
left without a voice in Congress.”
Because Johnson has refused to seat Grijalva, she now holds
the record for the longest delay in seating a member of Congress following a
special election, a distinction previously held by Rep. Jimmy Gomez, of
California. But there’s a huge difference: Gomez requested the delay due to
family issues, while Grijalva and other Democrats have repeatedly demanded that
Johnson swear in Grijalva.
Grijalva and her state's chief law enforcement officer are not sitting this out as
Last week, Grijalva and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes
sued Johnson for the delay, arguing that his stall-tactics have denied the more
than 800,000 Arizonans in the 7th Congressional District their constitutional
right to representation. Johnson’s obligation to deliver the oath of office to
elected members of Congress is not discretionary, they said in the lawsuit.
Grijalva, along with other Democrats, claim that Johnson is
blocking her from taking office because she would be the 218th vote needed to
force the release of the FBI’s case files concerning pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Republicans have largely opposed doing so because President Donald Trump is
reportedly featured in those files, as he and Epstein were close friends in the
1990s before they had a falling out.
Johnson has denied those allegations.
Well, of course he has. His handler, Donald Trump, would expect nothing less. However, the Epstein files are sufficiently dangerous to the President that the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin of Illinoi wrote separate letters to Attorney General Bondi, FBI director Patel, and Assistant FBI director Bongino upon a Wall Street Journal report that 1,000 FBI agents were asked to peruse the files. Durbin asked
My office was told that these personnel were instructed to 'flag' any records in which President Trump was mentioned.... Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned? What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?
If I were an adviser to the Administration, I would have recommended that Bondi maintain no personnel was told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned. The records pertained to a period well before Donald Trump ever was elected.
Nonetheless, there appears to have been no response from the regime. And according to NBC News, "Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche informed President Donald Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein that the Department of Justice and the FBI reviewed." Surprise! They have not been released.
There was a curious discussion between an MSNBC host and U.S. Representative Seth Moulton about that very same deceased child predator, with a portion of the video transcribed beneath the tweet.
S.M. ... from this White House, you know, if you're a criminal, you're going to buy your way to freedom with Trump. If you are one of the people, like him, who took advantage of young girls with Jeffrey Epstein, then we're just going to make that go away. Fortunately-
J.S.: We don't have evidence that he took advantage of young girls with Jeffrey Epstein.
S.M.: Right, well, common sense be damned.
J.M.: I'm not saying common sense be damned. I'm saying facts. Let's look at the facts.
S.M.: He's obviously in the Epstein files. And the reason that, fundamentally, Speaker Johnson has us on vacation is because he doesn't want to seat the newly-elected Democratic Representative.
J.S.: But you said he took advantage of young girls. You have absolutely no evidence of that.
S.M.:I think it's pretty obvious that that's what is going on.
J.S.: You think it's pretty obvious?
S.M. And I think it's pretty obvious that a-
At that point, Scarborough cut Moulton off in order to ask print journalist and sometime co-host Jonathan Lemire his opinion.
Neither I nor Rupar knows a great deal about the corporate culture of MSNBC, nor what is recommended to its hosts by management, nor what discretion the hosts have. Although Scarborough was somewhat bizarrely defensive of the President, he may have been required, accurately, that there is no hard evidence that Donald Trump "took advantage of young girls."
So Scarborough may have played the role too infrequently played by news hosts when Republicans claim as facts items which are definitively false. (See "Russia Hoax.")
There is no such evidence that we know of. There is no evidence because the Epstein files have not been released. It's lacking because Speaker Mike Johnson, a fully-owned subsidiary of Donald J. Trump, has called the House of Representatives into recess to avoid passage of a discharge petition which would force out of committee a bill calling for release of the files.
Does that justify Representative Moulton claiming of the President what has not been proven? Absolutely.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has the perfect platform to deny this allegation but has not directly addressed it. President Trump himself could specifically deny the allegation. Pam Bondi has had the opportunity, being asked at a committee hearing by Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse
about reporting from author Michael Wolff, who alleged
Epstein had shown him a photo of Trump with topless young women. Whitehouse
questioned Bondi whether she was aware if the FBI had found those photographs
in its search of Epstein’s estate.
Bondi shot back, accusing the senator of making “salacious
remarks” and “trying to slander” Trump. The attorney general also alleged
Whitehouse took money from “one of Epstein’s closest confidants,” Reid Hoffman.
The Attorney General thereby attacked the Senator and avoided specifically denying that Trump had engaged in such behavior.
But even if Bondi had uttered the simple, yet definitive, words "Mr. Trump never engaged in sexual activity of any sort at any time with anyone under the age of consent," it would matter little. The boss lies not often, but continually, and members of his Administration know they are expected to do the same, though not quite as frequently lest Donald not be #1 at something.
To be fair, the boss' lackeys have little reason to dwell on the topic of Trump's intimate involvement with the most famed, and possibly most active, pedophiles in American history. They are not pressed on the issue.
Democrats should be all over the airwaves and social media remarking about Epstein. Their goal should be to thwart the media's determination to ignore the issue, now that other matters are more pressing, more topical.
Most of us (warning: cliche ahead) weren't born yesterday. Trump and Epstein were close. There are photographs of them together and lewd birthday letter sent from Donald to Jeffrey including the line "may every day be another wonderful secret." The A.G. had perhaps 1,000 FBI employees flagging the files for Trump's name, she informed the President that his name was in them, and they've resisted with the power
The possibility of disclosure of those files justifiably frightens, though far less than it would if the media and Democrats hadn't decided they constitute yesterday's news. Those files aren't going to release themselves, after all, and Republicans will not oblige Democrats by drawing attention to them.
That's why members of Congress such as Adelita Grijalva and Seth Moulton are critical. The former is suing House Speaker Johnson. The latter, speculating, is what, oh, probably around half of Americans believe- that Donald Trump has been involved, directly or indirectly, with underage females. If it's not true, everything Epstein can be released by Congress, if Johnson doesn't continue to run interference for the President. He can prove Moulton a liar. Challenge him to do so.
Johnson is not going to budge without application of pressure, by Democrats. Leaving it to the media to explore whether a President was involved in multiple and heinous felonies will be fruitless. Moulton lacks hard-core proof but the evidence is all around us, in front of our noses, and as likely as the Arizona sun on a July afternoon. (Cliche alert.) We weren't born yesterday, though Johnson, Trump, and Bondi wish we were.
And by all means, Democrats, do not allow the "White House ballroom" or the "Trump Ballroom" to gain currency with the public. It's the Epstein Ballroom.
