Trump's Walking Dead problem
Another angry outburst and a jarring WIRED report indicate the Epstein story won't stay buried
By Sam Bellamy
Is Donald Trump’s name in the Epstein files? Was Jeffrey Epstein murdered?
Six years after the man’s death, both scenarios seemed increasingly unlikely to me – until Trump started running his mouth full speed last week.
Now I wonder.
Before I discuss an especially unhinged rant by Trump today – and a WIRED magazine report that might have helped touch it off – let’s quickly review events of the past few days.
The ever-busy internal bullshit detector blared loudly last week when Trump responded angrily to a reporter asking Attorney General Pam Bondi about her decision not to release more from the Epstein files, despite saying she would do so – and Trump himself pledging on the campaign trail that he’d share the files right away.
“Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?” Trump snapped before Bondi could respond to the question. “That is unbelievable.”
On Saturday, Trump posted a long screed telling his MAGA “boys” and “gals” to “not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.” And, for the first time, he made a curious claim that the files were “written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.”
Remember, Epstein’s arrest and death occurred on Trump’s watch, in the summer 2019, about 2 ½ years after CIA director John Brennan left his post and full two years after Trump fired James Comey as FBI director.
Yes, a Justice Department Office of Inspector General report on Epstein’s death was released in 2023, under the Biden administration. But Trump’s own FBI leaders Kash Patel and Dan Bongino indicated in May that the basics of that report – Epstein killed himself – were accurate.
Today, Trump followed up with another furious post, blasting “weaklings” in the MAGA movement who are buying into a “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” perpetrated by Democrats. Astonishingly, he cast out those supporters, saying “I don’t want their support anymore!”
Remember, in previous conspiracy theories spread by Trump and others in his orbit, it was the Democrats who were trying to hide the files to protect Bill Clinton and his notoriously murderous wife Hillary. Now Democrats are pushing for release of the files to frame Trump? Which is it?
Fellow serial groper Bill O’Reilly recently claimed that Trump told him that releasing the files was problematic because some names in the files might be mentioned without context and could hurt innocent people.
Is Donald one of those “innocent” people?
Although he says he had a falling out with Epstein decades ago – reportedly over Epstein hitting on the teenage daughter of a Mar-a-Lago member – Trump was quite good friends with him at least as recently as 2002.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine that year. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Epstein, who’d also been a member of Mar-a-Lago, was reportedly banned from the property by Trump.
Incidentally, the late Virginia Giuffre – one of a group of woman who alleged Epstein sexually abused and exploited her as a teenager – said she was recruited while working at Mar-a-Lago by Epstein’s now-imprisoned associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Earlier this year, Giuffre’s family reported that she too had killed herself.
A jarring report from WIRED magazine
For me, the most jarring development in this saga so far is a Tuesday afternoon story from WIRED magazine’s Dhruv Mehrotra about independent expert analysis of the “raw” video footage outside Epstein’s prison cell. Bondi released the video to the public last week.
You may recall that Bondi said a minute is missing from the footage because the surveillance system underwent a daily reboot the night before Epstein’s was found dead in his cell.
But, WIRED reports, “Newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation described as ‘full raw’ surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead.”
According to WIRED, forensics analysis shows the footage wasn’t raw and that two separate recordings had been edited and stitched together using an Adobe editing tool. At one point, the aspect ratio — the width and depth of the image — was manipulated.
Mehrotra adds, “The cut to the first clip doesn’t necessarily mean that there is additional time unaccounted for—the second clip picks up at midnight, which suggests the two would overlap—nor does it prove that the missing minute was cut from the video.”
But the footage clearly isn’t what Bondi presented it to be. Why the tinkering?
Further down in this story, there’s another interesting detail: The video released by Bondi – in a supposedly raw version and an enhanced version for clarity – show 15 markers in a section where there is visible movement near a door leading to Epstein’s cell block. (No one is seen in the video.)
There were comments on those markers – presumably by FBI analysts – but all were erased, WIRED reported.
Professor Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at UC Berkeley, told WIRED, “If a lawyer brought me this file and asked if it was suitable for court, I'd say no. Go back to the source. Do it right. Do a direct export from the original system — no monkey business.”
Congressional Democrats and Republicans such as recent Trump bully victims Rep. Thomas Massie and retiring Sen. Thom Tillis – who both sound fed up with Trump’s nonsense – need to press for further investigation of the Trump Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files.
Even House Speaker Mike Johnson, as loyal a toady as Trump has had since pre-Jan. 6 Mike Pence, said on a podcast this week that the files should be released.
Trump’s claim that innocent people would be hurt doesn’t pass the laugh test. Certainly, no names of victims or tapes of their abuse should be publicly released. And the names of people who were, with certainty, just clients of his financial advisory firm can easily be redacted.
To prepare the files for release — and to remove doubts about further tinkering — it’s time for Congress to establish an independent commission to review the documents and release what should be public.
Below is the text of Trump’s Truth Social post today, followed by a short video of Trump and Epstein during the better days of their friendship.
The Radical Left Democrats have hit pay dirt, again! Just like with the FAKE and fully discredited Steele Dossier, the lying 51 “Intelligence” Agents, the Laptop from Hell, which the Dems swore had come from Russia (No, it came from Hunter Biden’s bathroom!), and even the Russia, Russia, Russia Scam itself, a totally fake and made up story used in order to hide Crooked Hillary Clinton’s big loss in the 2016 Presidential Election, these Scams and Hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at - It’s all they have - They are no good at governing, no good at policy, and no good at picking winning candidates. Also, unlike Republicans, they stick together like glue. Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “bullshit,” hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years. I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore! Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!