It is a tried-and-tested aphorism in Washington that it isn’t the crime that gets you, but it’s often the cover-up. That principle, established after the Watergate burglary saw President Richard Nixon leave the White House in disgrace, has largely held up in the decades since August 1974.
Now, President Donald Trump is rolling the dice with his own future, after the Department of Justice spent the weekend being repeatedly accused of concealing the extent of his relationship with the deceased, sex-trafficking financier Jeffrey Epstein.
A photo released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee before the release of files on Friday (Photo: House Oversight Committee via AP)Few should have been surprised by the fact that the Trump administration breached both the spirit and the letter of the law requiring the public release of all documents relating to Epstein in the government’s possession. From the moment the President signed the law into force last month requiring disclosure by the end of last Friday, his top lieutenants immediately signalled that some documentation would have to be held back.
Attorney General Pam Bondi talked of unexplained “new information” reaching prosecutors that would suddenly require urgent investigation. Along with her deputy, Todd Blanche, she portrayed herself as a woman itching to comply with the law, but held back by the need to protect victims, witnesses, and the allegedly re-ignited investigative process.
So on Friday night, we got a partial release of files so heavily redacted that, in many cases, they make a complete mockery of the process. A 119-page document relating to Grand Jury investigations of Epstein in New York was released, without a single word visible to the public. Black ink was also deployed to conceal a contact list of 36 “Masseuses” available to Epstein. Again, nothing is visible on the document.
Pictures of Bill Clinton, ubiquitously released by Bondi’s team, showed no criminal activity, but the redaction of women pictured alongside him seemed deliberately designed to fuel suspicion that misconduct might have been the aim of the former president’s game. His spokesman, Angel Ureña, accused the White House of trying to divert attention away from Trump, saying “they’ll try and hide forever”.
One photo released by the US Department of Justice shows a desk, documented on 6 July 2019, during a search of Jeffrey Epstein’s home in New York. A photo featuring Donald and Melania Trump and Epstein can be seen on the right of the desk (Photo: US Department of Justice via AP)If the jiggery-pokery had ended there, the White House might have got away with it. But on Saturday, it became apparent that in Bondi’s clumsy attempts to conceal files containing any evidence of Trump’s friendship with Epstein, she had left digital footprints that an army of online sleuths immediately uncovered. Trump has not been accused of any criminal activity in relation to Epstein’s activities, so the reason for Bondi’s efforts are unclear.
At least 16 files listed on the Department of Justice website disappeared from view, hours after they were uploaded. Available among the thousands of documents released on Friday night, they were gone by Saturday afternoon. The Associated Press reported that the files included at least one image of Trump alongside Epstein, one picture of Melania Trump with Ghislaine Maxwell, plus paintings depicting nude women. Again, no evidence of criminal activity was reportedly contained in the images, but the Department of Justice failed to explain why the files had been removed from view.
On Capitol Hill, there is fury, and a determination to hold Bondi to account. Two prominent lawmakers – Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, and Congressman Thomas Massey, a disaffected Republican from Kentucky – say they are drafting articles of impeachment accusing the Attorney General of contempt. “The issue for her is how many Republicans and Maga Republicans would support it,” Khanna told CNN, predicting that Bondi could haemorrhage enough support from within her own party to advance the impeachment process.
Grassroots members of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement have long expressed an urgent desire to see every document pertaining to Epstein’s crimes. Trump must now contend with the fact that Bondi’s alleged cover-up is adding fresh fuel to the fire.
“People are raging and walking away”, said Maga Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on Saturday. Now considered a traitor by Trump for turning against him on a variety of issues, she said the government’s partial release is “NOT MAGA” behaviour. On social media, she objected to “the heavily redacted Epstein files, failure to release them all by today’s lawful deadline, and redacting ‘politically exposed individuals and government officials’”.
A search for Trump shows no results on the US Department of Justice online library of new documents from disgraced late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/ Reuters)While many of Trump’s Maga faithful are dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorists, you don’t have be one to conclude that at every stage, the White House is going to extraordinary lengths to protect the President against any incriminating evidence contained in the files. Even the White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, has admitted the Epstein issue has been botched all year by Bondi. In February, she claimed the Epstein files were “sitting on my desk right now to review”. In July, the Department of Justice suddenly claimed the files did not exist, and nothing would be released to the public.
In an interview published last week, Wiles told Vanity Fair that the Attorney General had “completely whiffed on appreciating” the level of Maga determination to get to the bottom of the issue. “First, she gave them binders full of nothingness. Then she said…the client list was on her desk. There is no client list, it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk”, Wiles said, fuelling suggestions that Bondi’s service as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer may soon come to a premature end.
Trump, playing for time, may have no alternative but to place new leadership atop the Department of Justice. But where he will find someone as pliant and willing as Bondi to bury information about his friendship with Epstein, may prove to be a knotty question for him to contemplate this Christmas.
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