When the Justice Department released a first batch of Jeffrey Epstein files on Friday that included photographs of Bill Clinton, White House officials raced to amplify the importance of the new documents. But days later, amid a second trove that contains several references to Donald Trump, the White House is pushing a different view: Don’t believe everything you see.

Trump officials on Tuesday downplayed the latest disclosure of more than 30,000 files related to Epstein, dismissing the significance of the materials and suggesting that some that mentioned Trump were unverified or even outright fabricated. Even as the rest of Washington pored over records showing Trump repeatedly flew on Epstein’s plane, White House aides sought to highlight other matters the president is more eager to talk about.

The messaging shift — the latest in a largely unsuccessful effort by the administration to seize control of the story — has spawned frustration in Trump’s orbit and parts of the White House, where some saw the scrambled response over the last few days as just the latest stumble in a year of Epstein-related blunders and baffling communications mishaps.

  • kewjo@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right.

    George Orwell - 1984

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    There’s an important lessons to be had from the way the president, his administration, and the assortment of corrupt media supporters are flailing around right now. That lesson is the absolute lie that is “meritocracy” that they all are so desperate to have you believe in. These people aren’t smart, talented or deserving of the powers they’ve managed to seize. They’re largely dumbfucks that have slid down tracks of privilege into these positions. I don’t mean to downplay the danger that they pose. They have means for incredible amounts of destruction.

    • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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      Something else to consider is that even if people did all get the top through talent and individual initiative, would that justify having a winner-takes-all society?

  • altphoto@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    Just so we are clear, here’s what I read so far.

    He was in Epstein’s plane. He raped a 13 or 14 year old while she was pregnant, and murdered or witnessed the murder of her baby and dumped the body in a lake.

    Don’t know what part of that seems like someone shouldn’t be arresting him right now so they can figure things out.

    I don’t know if I should fear saying things I literally just read on here. So for the record, not my ideas and I not something I came up with.

    • fodor@lemmy.zip
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      So we aren’t a jury. We aren’t the lead detectives. The best we can do is look at the evidence and listen to what Trump and others have publicly said… My conclusion is that he would do those things, based on his words and actions. And if he didn’t do those specific things, he did other things that are equally fucked up.

      He admitted to sexual assault. He admitted to peeping on teens in his pageants. He was busted for what now would qualify as rape. He’s told us time after time how horrible he is. So if there is circumstantial evidence, wait for the jury, but probably there’s some guilty verdicts waiting to be found.

      Of course he’s sick and old and he won’t be tried until after he’s out of office, if ever, so he’ll probably die before that goes anywhere.

      • zarniwoop@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Truth is…difficult to ascertain at the moment regarding this. He is implicated in the files, there is a witness statement.

        A generous reading would say something along the lines of, there isn’t hard evidence and he hasn’t been convicted.

        A realistic reading would say something along the lines of, yep - he did it.

        Take your pick. I’m more inclined towards the later.

      • altphoto@lemmy.today
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        I don’t think anyone knows at this point but wow. Like I haven’t run over a squirrel yet but if someone told me that I ran over one I would feel pretty embarrassed. If like a few hundred people said that I did I would issue a public apology and give it proper burial.

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        The most damning part is that this question is actually being asked at all.
        I mean, I can’t fully believe this happened, but I’m also open to it. His reputation is so bad that it’s actually a possibility.

        I don’t think it happened but the orange imbecile is such a horrible disgusting thing that I wouldn’t put it past him.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          He has long ago lost any benefit of the doubt. I believe anything I hear about him now, no matter how bad it is. It’s always turned out to be true in the past, why wouldn’t this be true as well?

          • D_C@sh.itjust.works
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            1 day ago

            That is ludicrous…usually. But in this case you are absolutely spot on.
            If I had to bet on it then I’d choose that it was possible than not.

  • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    This isn’t going away. The smart republicans, yes there are a few, have started to distance themselves from this. There is way too much coverage of this horror show for them to ignore. What will happen is some democrat will get outed even if it isn’t the POS clinton and the media will try to replace trump with them.

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      There are no “smart Republicans” anymore. There no Republicans at all. That was their larval stage, before they fully morphed into their final form - MAGA.

      ALL Republicans are now MAGA, whose prime beliefs are corruption, treason, racism, pedophilia, misogyny, rape, violence, murder, ignorance, and incompetence. The traditional Republican party is dead as the Whigs, and should only be referred to in an historic or scholarly context.

      • Archer@lemmy.world
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        It’s funny because some of the popular support on the right for the President right now means there never was a moderate or traditional Republican Party. They were just waiting for the right moment to take the white hoods out again. Maybe a bunch of highly paid DC consultants gaslit themselves and everyone else into thinking the GOP was fundamentally about “conservative principles”, but the mask is off now

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    2 days ago

    Oh fuck off.

    The asshole has been acting like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar everytime the files were mentioned and desperately tried to bury them. He did something horrible that is recorded in those files and he knows it.

    Meanwhile his circle of sycophants are frustrated because they can’t get the news to talk about something else but don’t care that the guy is a rapist?

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      They’re not frustrated because the news is talking about it, it’s because they’re talking about it too quickly for them to normalise the horrific acts he’s committed before the next one comes out.

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    These dumbfuck assholes arrest and send immigrants to concentration camps like they’re trash… I think we should arrest and send all these pedophiles rapist pieces of shits to deepspace…

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    They’re upset that they’re losing control of the narrative. I welcome anything that tends towards justice being done, and I hope that none of those simebags escapes.