'Before marrying Melania in 2005': What new documents claim about Trump-Epstein

Flying Squid@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 681 points –
'Before marrying Melania in 2005': What new documents claim about Trump-Epstein - Times of India
timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Archive link: https://archive.is/PCpMN

This is not being reported in the U.S. news media. Maybe you can argue it's because it's July 4th, but if this doesn't come out in a major way tomorrow, I guess the fix is in.

"Trump’s name appears over and over again on Jeffrey Epstein’s message logs in the grand jury docs released this week. It is also undisputed: Trump’s name appears 7 times on Epstein’s private jet flight logs, that Epstein flew on Trump’s jet with a young girl of indeterminate age, girls who Epstein trafficked worked at Mar-A-Lago, a girl Epstein trafficked mentioned visiting Trump’s casino in a recently released deposition transcript. Trump said Epstein is a great guy who likes girls on the younger side, Trump frequently “partied” with Epstein, Trump wished Ghislaine Maxwell well at her criminal trial, and someone who testified under the pseudonym JANE DOE at the Ghislaine Maxwell criminal trial stated that she was introduced to Trump by Epstein when she was 14 years old," a user posted on X.

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Since the Heritage Foundation just overtly declared war on American democracy, complete with a thinly veiled threat of violence and bloodshed, it's just that much more important that news like this is spread as widely as possible.

The fascists riding Trump's coattails aren't even hiding their intentions any more. We must not let them succeed in destroying the few remaining vestiges of American democracy, and the first step in that is keeping that loathsome lunatic Trump out of office.

Watch the major news orgs glaze past it so they can report that a geriatric man is geriatric. At this point they're all complicit in what is about to happen in November.

Yep. Corporate news made their choice in 2016. The resulting chaos, dysfunction, and humiliation to the country did nothing to change their minds.

"Corporate" is the key word there.

Major corporations, including but by no means limited to those that have bought up all of the major news outlets, are, along with a number of destructively insane billionaires, the main financiers of this attempted fascist takeover. They're the real driving force behind it.

They see this, and accurately, as a significant moment in human history - the point at which modern civilization might just come to broadly recognize the significant harm done by the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few and much more to the point, might take steps to prevent it. And that's a direct threat to their entirely unearned, undeserved and grotesquely destructive privilege, and in their literally insane lust for wealth and power and the privilege they bring, they're going to stop at nothing to prevent that.

People talk about a class war - the class war is already well under way. The oligarchs have been actively fighting it for years now. Most of the people just haven't realized that yet.

No war but a class war.

Yeah. Not that we haven’t been saying it for forty years, just that we forgot to build a propaganda empire based on corrupt politicians and lies to promote it.

At this point they’re all complicit in what is about to happen in November.

Truer than you might think. Here's the FACT based analysis to back up your statement.

There was no thin veil. It was a clear statement.

complete with a thinly veiled threat of violence and bloodshed

There wont be any bloodshed if we stop resisting!!!!

Exactly.

Entirely on brand, it's the classic abusive asshole position - "just do as I say - I don't want to have to hurt you, but I will."

There's literally nothing Donald Trump could do that would make his worshipping voters change their minds about him. They believe anything critical of him is a lie and made up to hurt him politically. I can't believe how dumb the electorate has become. Must be a general lack of education.

Must be a general lack of education.

Republican politicians have long used language targeted at a 5th grade level of comprehension. Trump's big innovation in politics was targeting a 4th grade level.

I often hear conservative family members complain about the public school system and calling for it to be dismantled. To them, the public school system is the reason for every evil the US faces, both on economic issues and social issues. They all listen to a lot of conservative talk radio and happily mix bible quotes and Rush Limbaugh quotes into the same sentence.

Just like testing for covid, if you never learn about something it never existed.

Yes, it's the same family members who refused to do their part by getting vaccinated and were convinced that the rest of us would be dead by now from the "government poison vaccine."

The outrage-machine of culture war has become so fervent that it's the only thing they care about. I watch police bodycam videos because they're genuinely unscripted (unlike reality tv). The frequency with which arrestees cite their poor living conditions as motivations for their actions always has me wondering how much they attribute their circumstance to oligarchs fucking us all over vs anger that's turned outward towards groups that don't affect them at all. Obviously, I'm projecting, but it's something that drives my curiosity.

More education generally means richer.

Rich people generally pay for better education.

Children generally vote the same as their parents.

Richer generally means more likely to vote republican.

More education generally means richer.

Very US-centric take. College education should be part of the general public education system like it is in Europe. It should not be connected to a person's net worth. In Europe, you go to college based on merits, not wealth.

I also think it's a very questionable conclusion to say that the more educated people are, the more they vote Republican. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Hence, Republicans have incentive to keep people as dumb as possible.

Very US-centric take.

The republican part, certainly

In Europe, you go to college based on merits, not wealth.

In Europe the rich also pay for additional education to maximise their offsprings merits. Maybe not to the same degree, but it is there.

I also think it's a very questionable conclusion to say that the more educated people are, the more they vote Republican

Agreed. I specifically avoided drawing that conclusion.

In Europe the rich also pay for additional education to maximise their offsprings merits. Maybe not to the same degree, but it is there.

Maybe in a few countries like the UK, but expensive private education is not common in continental Europe. The best public universities are tuition free and provide some of the best education in the world. Rich and poor side by side in the auditorium.

Music lessons, sports training, after school clubs, as well as top up tuition for traditional subjects all cost money.

https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/private-spending-on-education.html?oecdcontrol-6d88dc639b-var6=PRY_NTRY

You're splitting hairs. Fact of the matter is that Europe is doing a much better job at making higher education available to all.

Compare the point you want to make

Europe is doing a much better job at making higher education available to all.

To my original statement

Rich people generally pay for better education.

The hairs you think we are splitting are on completely different heads.

This is just new evidence to support what has already been known. I would be surprised if this made the news considering it never made the news before.

Yes, Trump is a rapist and a pedophile and not just an acquaintance of Epstein.

“Massage appointments” are in every conservative’s calendar.

CSA is very much bipartisan, and occurs from every demographic. It's not helpful to victims to pretend it's not.

Go ahead and compare the list of guilty Ds vs Rs, you will find that it is VERY far from 50/50. D's actually kick out members that do horrible shit like this, R's circle the wagons.

I'll help you out, go ahead and take a look at this list: https://www.dailykos.com/history/user/CajsaLilliehook

I beg you, please, show me an equatable list for Ds. I'll wait.

That's not helpful to CSA victims whose abusers are D/d, but I guess since not as many are known/convicted, those victims don't matter to some people.

Edit: because Bill Gates and Bill Clinton were never on those flights or call logs or island.

Two names, only one of whom is even relevant doesn't prove your "bipartisan" claim when weighed against a list of 1300.

And before you get any dumb ideas, no one here is defending child abusers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/sexual-misconduct/here-s-list-political-figures-accused-sexual-misconduct-n827821

That's a brief search, and I'm not going to invest too much time, because something else that of bipartisan, "NUH UH!, MY FAVORED POL WOULD NEVER!”

At a workshop once, the leader told participants to write down the name of the person they loved and trusted most, one of upstanding moral character. Then said, "They've just been accused legally accused of CSA. What is the first thing you think?” After an uncomfortable long pause, that leader said, "This is how abusers remain free to victimize others."

Do with it what you want.

I wonder what the wealthy "liberal media" moguls think this guy will have done with them and their money, when he's in office again? McDonald's parties with underage masseuses?

For that matter, I wonder how many wealthy media moguls were on the Lolita Express with this guy?

Is this the file?

That's not a link ... it's a download.

Blocked.

It's a PDF of a court document.

Thanks. It would have been nice if they would have said that in their post.

Came up just displayed in the embedded PDF reader in my browser.

They also said "file".

That’s not a link … it’s a download.

Any link is a download... I mean that's what happens even when the link target is displayed in the browser, the browser downloads a file (actually a collection of files usually) that is then interpreted and displayed in the browser. A download of data still happens though.

The article doesn't really say anything other than phone records and flights. If the implication is that trump participated in sex trafficking, they need to say that and show proof. If they're just trying to show guilt by association, it's going to look like a smear job.

it's going to look like a smear job.

He said, ignoring that conservative "news" is exclusively smear jobs dressed up as news. If Republicans don't have to care about decorum then neither do Democrats. If only we could actually learn this lesson.

Even if he didn't directly participate, did he witness it? Turn a blind eye? I hope future reporting is clear what it is and is not evidence of, but I also hope people ask the very reasonable questions that follow from what we do know now.

epstein was a tax man helping wealthy people to exploit loopholes using complicated offshoring schemes. rich people hung out with him.

also, trump supporters do not care about this.

"trump supporters" are not a monobloc. And different people value different information in different ways, for their own reasons. We need to peel off as many trump voters as possible. Discouraging statements like "trump supporters do not care about this" help to get trump elected. If you want fascism, u/nutsack, that's how we get fascism.

Do independents? Because they're who this election will rest on.

If an Independent can look at how the Republican party conducts itself and still be undecided on who to vote for then they aren't an Independent, they're simply a Republican that's socially aware enough to understand that calling themselves a Republican comes with more baggage than they want to take on.

I agree, but there are a lot of people with their heads (willfully or not) in the sand. All the wild stuff we're all terribly aware of they have ignored or passed on because they didn't have the time or motivation to dig into it and find the truth.

Stories like this one, the SC immunity nightmare etc. are still useful because they act as a hook to pull people into the discourse from the sidelines and at the same time keep these things relevant amidst Trump's unending firehose of falsehoods and projections

I understand what you're saying and I think it's a reasonable take, I just can't fathom how there could be anyone left in America who hasn't seen enough of Trump to make up their mind one way or the other. There's just so much evidence of him being a piece of shit everywhere you look that even intentional avoidance can't work for 8 years.

Hmm yes, just like all the "libertarians" who started showing up toward the end of W's time in office.