r/centrist • u/memphisjones • 1d ago
Epstein update: 106 lawmakers sign petition to make DOJ release more files
https://www.newsweek.com/epstein-update-106-lawmakers-sign-petition-to-make-doj-release-more-files-12406192•
u/ceddya 1d ago
Nancy Mace is the only other Republican out of the 106 lawmakers who have signed it.
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u/RunThenBeer 23h ago
Pretty good indicator of how ridiculous the whole charade is. If Nancy Mace is the only individual without partisan motive engaging, you can pretty much guarantee that it's about attention.
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u/Lurkingandsearching 23h ago
It is ridiculous, but not in the way your trying to reframe it to. From what I can best tell, there is the need protect pedophiles who exploited children based on some sort of partisan views based on a cult of personality and a complex structure of funding and political influence over the United States and other world powers.
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u/RunThenBeer 23h ago
I'm not sure you're really trying your best to understand the situation then? There aren't any pedophiles in the story at all. The perpetrators of the actual crimes were indicted and are either dead or in prison for a long time. No one is in favor of protecting "pedophiles" and nothing in the current arguments has anything to do with "pedophiles".
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u/Lurkingandsearching 22h ago
Yeah all those victims saying otherwise were “just making it up” then and there is no two tier justice system. Now tell us about Santa and the tooth fairy.
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22h ago
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u/MattWalshStuntDouble 22h ago
only individual without partisan motive engaging, you can pretty much guarantee that it's about attention.
This is a ridiculous standard that you would never apply if it was Democrats withholding their votes. Classic conservative move: pretending you have standards when the only standard is supporting the party.
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u/indoninja 20h ago
What is ridiculous is republicans circling the wagonss to protect sec traffickers and people like you supporting it.
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u/memphisjones 1d ago
SC: RepThomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, is leading a bipartisan legislative effort to force the Department of Justice to release additional unredacted documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. Massie introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, along with a discharge petition to force a floor vote on the measure, which has gained momentum in the House of Representatives with over 100 lawmakers signing on. The initiative builds on earlier legislative attempts and ongoing judicial oversight demanding full transparency and public accountability regarding government records and investigations into Epstein's sex-trafficking network.
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u/SonofHondoBelmondo 22h ago
Good, this is good, and it being bipartisan makes it even more gooder.
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u/ceddya 12h ago
It's 2 Republicans (both of whom lost their primaries) and 104 Dems.
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u/SonofHondoBelmondo 12h ago
I know, but beggars can't be choosers. I guess I'd rather praise the behavior I'd like to see than yell at the behavior I don't wanna see. What I'd like to see is more republicans acting like Massie is here.
I'm sure a lot of people are expecting or hoping for a blue wave in the midterms, and maybe that will happen, and sure I think some good things could come from that. But I'd be plenty satisfied with just more republicans finding ways to move away from trump's whole deal and somehow save face for themselves within the context of their own ideology.
This rebuke of the handling of the epstein files from these two republicans is most definitely an example of republicans acting in defiance of trump, I think that's awesome.
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u/WeridThinker 23h ago edited 22h ago
Trump Administration created a hole for itself with the Epstein Files. They are stuck with the scandal regardless of what they do now. They did not think about their approach prudently with "releasing the files" as one of the key campaign promises. They spent years constructing the "deep state" and "liberal elites" narrative as enemies to be purged, and the Epstein Files was supposedly this beautiful honeypot that will lead to the downfall of the people they don't like.
But just like with everything else from this administration, there is no consistency, foresight, or honesty. Once it becomes obvious releasing the Files would further damage Trump's own reputation, and the actual elites, the calculus had to change, because it is no longer about campaign wins, it is damage control. But it is too late because more transparency means damaging the powerful people they want to protect, but less transparency makes people think about the Streisand Effect.
I personally don't think there is a secret cabal that engages witn cannibalism and satanic rituals, but the more "normative" crimes, such as financial crimes, mishandling of official documents, and corruption are way more likely to lead to actual prosecution of people. The sexual crimes need more investigation, and the survivors themselves have made it clear not all those who are responsible have faced justice.
Below is a list of people who faced consequences other than Epstein and Maxwell, but they are all "officially" responsible for non sex related crimes or misconducts. And do note not all of these are criminal allegations. My point is not releasing more files is indeed protecting some people, but the more accurate question is for what, and what are the rightful consequences they should face.
Arrests and Legal Charges:
1) Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (Former Prince Andrew)
2) Peter Mandelson
3) Thorbjørn Jagland
Resignations and Corporate Exits
1) Thomas Pritzker
2) Brad Karp
3) Leon Black
4) Jes Staley
5) Alexander Acosta
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u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 18h ago
None of them were charged with any sex crimes.
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u/WeridThinker 18h ago
I didn't say they were. My original words made it clear those who faced consequences have not been accused or charged with sex crimes. The point is about making a distinction between lack of sex crime and actual innocence, and legal consequences from professional or personal consequences.
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u/RunThenBeer 22h ago
They did not think about their approach prudently with "releasing the files" as one of the key campaign promises.
I'm not sure where people got the idea that this was a key campaign promise. The reality is that when Trump was asked about it, he was visibly hesitant and said that you wouldn't want to release things that would hurt innocent people. I can see how some people would view that position as a problem, but it is very different from a campaign promise.
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u/NeuroMrNiceGuy 22h ago
Bro what? Get out of here with that revisionist garbage.
https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1797720117737865557 - This is his war room campaign account.
https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-jeffrey-epstein-years-including-2024-campaign-trail/story?id=123778541 - This is all the other receipts since 2019.
In September 2024, Trump made a more firm pledge to release Epstein files during a podcast with Lex Fridman.
Fridman, in conversation with Trump, said "it's just very strange for a lot of people that the list of clients that went to the island has not been made public."
"It's very interesting, isn't it? It probably will be, by the way, probably," Trump said.
"If you're able to, you'll be --" Fridman started before Trump jumped in.
"Yeah, I'd certainly take a look at it. Now, Kennedy's interesting because it's so many years ago," Trump said. "They do that for danger too, because it endangers certain people, et cetera, et cetera, so Kennedy is very different from the Epstein thing but I'd be inclined to do the Epstein. I'd have no problem with it."
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u/RunThenBeer 22h ago
This is the exact quote I'm referring to. I think it's pretty weird to describe "I'd certainly take a look at it" as a promise. Perhaps you interpret those words differently, but saying things like "I'd take a look" and "I'd be inclined" are not framings that I would typically describe as key promises.
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u/NeuroMrNiceGuy 22h ago
Y'all are so lost that you can play these mental gymnastics with yourself to literally redefine the reality of what happened. And for what? To defend fucking Epstein and Trump?
Its wild.
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u/Lurkingandsearching 21h ago
There are some people out there that are even paid to do this. Turning Point USA was doing this back in 2020, and before that you had Cambridge Analytica. Now most of the time they use bots. And sometimes it's just "true believers" who do all in their power to make a false narrative their reality. Just call it out for what it is and walk away. It's clear no one here is buying it.
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u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 17h ago
If I told you "I'd be inclined to do X" you would take that as a promise?
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u/NeuroMrNiceGuy 17h ago edited 14h ago
What world do you live in where you separate intent from reality? I swear people like you are what usher in the project 2025 playbook based on the shallow lies of politician billionaires.
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u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 16h ago
It seems more you believed his lies. I mean, I'm not the one who thinks he promised to release the files. To me, his answer sounds more like, "Maybe I will".
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u/Anima6778 19h ago
Innocent people like, say.. the victims? The ones who seem to be very, very disappointed in what's been released so far, who are specifically calling for more releases to be done?
I suspect they don't mind too much if files talking about what happened to them got released. Do you have any thoughts on why that hasn't occurred, as the victims claim hasn't?
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u/Queasy_Task7015 4h ago
But the magas said, "all the files have been released. Also if they were so damning, why didn't O'Bummer or BraNdOn release them?"
When they are met with the response of, "fuck those guys for not releasing them, donny and the magas are in charge now. Why don't they release them?"
With a straight face, "because it is a liberal hoax created to hurt our lord and savior." Amongst a myriad of other excuses.
I went up to my local representative's booth at a Labor Day weekend celebration. Surprise surprise, she was not there because unless it is a controlled environment like a virtual town hall or a dog-n-pony show that she can quickly escape from, she does not do in person. So I asked her staff why she has not held a single in person town hall. "We have made several attempts at holding one but a suitable venue has not been found." When pressed on why she has been a holdout on releasing the donny-epstien files, "please move along sir."
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u/lqIpI 23h ago
Heck, its already one of the largest declassifications in history, and certainly BY FAR the most expansive relative to scope.
Other large declassifications include the totality of Nazi and Imperial Japanese war crimes.
The average age a person enters prostitution in the US is 13. There are Epsteins in every neighborhood.
We outted Bill Gates, Larry Summers etc. Now have law enforcement get the pieces of shit that live down the street from us, who affect our communities today.
Epstein is a headline grab. John J. John down the street is treating young females worse, but won't get your name in the paper.
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u/Ebscriptwalker 23h ago
We want them all, the problem is if John j gets caught he is likely to face consequences(this is a good thing, follow me here dont get lost.), however the dastardly in the epstien files are very likely to be caught dead to rights, but all walk among us. Hell there is no reason to believe that they are not currently still committing the say crimes as John j.
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u/stealthybutthole 23h ago
you know we can do both, right? especially since we have already spent millions gathering evidence on epstein and his friends.
defending the epstein folks is a crazy bad look.
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u/baxtyre 23h ago
“ The average age a person enters prostitution in the US is 13”
This is a made up statistic. But even if it were real, it’s gross (but totally on brand) that you’re using it to deflect attention away from the sex offender in the White House.
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u/Lurkingandsearching 14h ago
It's a fallacy used in bad faith arguments called Bandwagoning. It's just another form of deflection typically used to subtly say "Well a lot of people are doing it, so don't worry about this one."
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u/lqIpI 3m ago
Yall just completely ignore reality, and all the thousands of daily victims. Epstein is dead, move on to the real shit going on everywhere.
The U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section reports 12 is the average age of entry into pornography and prostitution in the U.S.
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u/lqIpI 13m ago
The average age at which girls first become victims of prostitution is 12 to 14. It is not only the girls on the streets who are affected; boys and transgender youth enter into prostitution between the ages of 11 and 13 on average.
https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/human-sex-trafficking
You think the Obama-era FBI or the pay-walled reporters at WAPO have more insight into this?
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u/baxtyre 0m ago
Addressed in the WaPo article.
“ The data in the report, which was not peer-reviewed, is almost two decades old. The primary author no longer supports it, saying it is outdated. ‘The world of the 1990s … was quite a different one from that in which we live today,’ Estes told The Fact Checker.
In any case, there is just a brief mention of the ‘average age’ in the 260-page report, and the number was derived from only 107 interviews with girls, found either in the street or in the care of human service agencies. So it’s pretty slim research for such a widely cited statistic.”
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u/Irishfafnir 23h ago
Administration should stop stalling and withholding documents. Especially because some of those withheld documents are damaging to Trump
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u/lqIpI 23h ago
Trump called the Palm Beach Police Chief to affirm the arrest of Epstein in 2006.
Epstein was being invited to fundraisers with Obama and actively expanding Epstein island (by purchasing Great St James) through the 2016 election, when Hillary was a shoe-in.
Epstein was actively feeding questions to democrat rep Stacey Plaskett in 2019.
No matter how many times yall repeat yourselves. The scandal isn't Trump's. Epstein was convicted of soliciting teenage prostitution. Yet still embraced by the top tiers of the democratic party for a decade, before Trump threw him in jail.
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u/froz3nt 23h ago
Hypothetically, if someone was accused of having sex with goats by over 30 different people and regularly denied it, but also dropped very public hints about how much he liked to have sex with goats for decades, and ran a goat pageant to find the best looking goats, and was best friends with someone who got convicted of fucking goats and trafficking goats to friends all over the world who also liked to fuck goats, and his name was in the classified goat fucker chronicles 80,000 times, and he sent 4,700 money transfers to the master goat fucker, and he wished other goat fuckers well in prison, what do you think the odds are that this person is also a goat fucker?
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u/Irishfafnir 23h ago
Then Trump should probably stop looking like he wants to cover things up
/Shrug
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u/muffchucker 23h ago
Trump should release the complete, unaltered, unredacted files then. He said he would. He didn't. Vance said they would. He didn't. Trump controls the DoJ. Trump can end this and is choosing not to. You keep taking sides, partisan. I just want Trump to do what he said he would do. He's covering up.
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u/indoninja 20h ago
Why did Trump appoint the guy who gave Epstein a sweetheart deal to his cabinet?
Why did Trump write a birthday card to Epstein? Acknowledging some secret between them that implies stuff about underage girls?
Which politician is on video acknowledging they like young girls and Epstein likes even younger girls?
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u/lqIpI 19m ago
So Acosta and Trump are two guys who actually put Epstein in JAIL, yet they are guilty.
Folks like Obama, who had many of the Epstein files, and Acosta's teenage prostitution conviction, yet still invited Epstein to intimate fundraisers, are fine?
Maybe Epstein should have done more than a year in 2008, but Acosta did get a conviction that SHOULD have broke him. Trump broke off ties with Esptein years earlier, yet the upper-echelon on the democratic party maintained ties for a decade after.
As far as birthday cards etc. It isn't a secret Donald Trump liked 20-something supermodels. Epstein was after mid-teens. One is kind of corny, the other is criminal.
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u/indoninja 15m ago
So Acosta and Trump are two guys who actually put Epstein in JAIL,
They put him in work release where he could leave during the day. They gave him immunity from other charges along with co-conspirators. And Epstein went on to assault other girls. Not auorised you support that.
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u/lqIpI 11m ago
Who put Epstein away and who didn't?
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u/indoninja 5m ago
Short jail term for trafficking kids where you can leave for “work” during the day and getting immunity for federal charges for you and your buddies is not what I would call “putting away”.
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u/NeuroMrNiceGuy 23h ago
It will go down as one of life's mysteries I think, what this billionaire rapist scumbag did to garner such strong support from randoms on the internet.
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u/ubermence 23h ago
Yeah I’m gonna guess that one of the difference with declassifications today is that in general with the advent of digital communications, there’s just going to be far more documents related to anything, and using total documents released is a flawed metric
Especially when people are concerned with all the documents that were hidden because they had the name of a certain president. Wake me up when conservatives are willing to get the piece of shit that lives “down the street” on Pennsylvania Avenue
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u/XzibitABC 17h ago
All of that would be more persuasive if there wasn't an order from Congress compelling full declassification that this administration is ignoring in bad faith.
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u/RunThenBeer 23h ago
We outted Bill Gates, Larry Summers etc.
Not for any actual criminal wrongdoing, of course, which is what makes this whole performance absurd.
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u/therosx 22h ago
DOJ won’t release any more files because it would purger themselves. They try and run out the clock to save their own skins when the public is distracted.
Hopefully the Democrats don’t let these degenerate parasites get away with it and RICO all their wealth while they prosecute the entire criminal conspiracy.