There’s not a shred of inculpatory evidence that Donald Trump — or Bill Clinton, for that matter — knew of or participated in the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. That doesn’t change the fact that the president was buddies with both of them. Trump also had a Labor Secretary who brokered the sweetheart deal, getting both of them off scot-free, and oversees the Justice Department responsible for prosecuting the case against Maxwell and her notoriously evasive associates.
Given this, today’s appalling aside at Trump’s press briefing instilled absolutely no confidence in his ability and willingness to lay down the law against the accused pedophiles and sex traffickers.
In an otherwise excellent briefing, Trump took a swing and a miss at the question of the scope of the Maxwell investigation.
“I haven’t really been following it too much,” Trump said of a person accused by dozens of women of raping them as children and trafficking them for her famous friends. “I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well. Whatever it is. I don’t know the situation with Prince Andrew, just don’t know; not aware of it.”
Consider, Trump is willing to accuse his former best bud on television of murder without a shred of evidence, but he wishes the most notorious (accused) sex trafficker and pedophile on the planet “well.” It’s an unforced error of the highest proportions, one that will inevitably distract but a crucial pivot in tone on handling the novel coronavirus and one that baits both the president’s hater and the coalition of his QAnon-believing supporters into wondering why Trump would issue such flatteries toward the ammo-armed Maxwell unless he had something to hide.
Of course, Occam’s Razor and simple evidence tells us that Trump said what he said because, well, the president just says stuff, and because Maxwell has never uttered a bad word about him, his default is not to attack her. But that doesn’t change the fact that it makes Trump look either suspect or utterly ignorant of the magnitude of the Maxwell investigation.
Consider, his own administration has made a million times more progress on the Epstein investigation than the two presidencies before it, and under Bill Barr, the Justice Department has escalated its investigation into Prince Andrew, a fellow accused sex pest, to unprecedented heights.
But never one to pass up the opportunity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Trump had to publicize an epic brain fart on national television, inviting yet another news cycle questioning not only his culpability in a past life of partying and womanizing but his sheer competence as the unitary leader of the executive branch.
