The focus in political, media and legal circles now is on either securing or preventing the release of any and all documents establishing who numbered among the clients, pals, accomplices, enablers—pick the nomenclature that pleases you—of the late child sexual predator.
Access to the list, broadly defined, has been a political football ever since Epstein allegedly killed himself in his cell in 2019.
But the skirmishing has grown more intense in recent weeks.
Both political parties and their partisans have had reasons at different times to fight for disclosure and to battle to suppress the information.
In the early days of this political and cultural trench war, Democrats were the ones on the defensive. Records demonstrated that former President Bill Clinton had flown on Epstein’s private plane at least 20 times.
That was before Epstein was arrested for the first time.
Clinton has denied knowing about or participating in any of Epstein’s trafficking activities.
More recently, though, the attention has turned to President Donald Trump.
The Wall Street Journal, hardly an adversary of Republicans in general or the president in particular, has reported that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files. The Journal also reported that the president had sent Epstein a risqué birthday greeting that featured a sketch of a nude woman in which Trump’s signature emerged from the figure’s uncovered groin.
Trump responded to the birthday greeting story by filing suit against the Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch. The president may be in for a rude awakening with that nuisance suit. Discovery—the process by which both sides must produce all legitimate evidence in their possession—could be painful for Trump, who has much to hide regarding matters sexual.
And Murdoch, whose Fox News not long ago had to cough up a $787 million settlement in another suit, wouldn’t have allowed the story to move forward if the documentation weren’t solid. Worse for the president, the media mogul may be looking for ways to demonstrate he and his new organizations can tell the truth when they report.
Trump’s panic over everything Epstein is so great that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, sent the nation’s representatives home two weeks early. Johnson did so to keep Republicans in the chamber from having to vote yay or nay on a question of whether to compel release of Epstein records.
Other Republicans have started saying publicly that their efforts have shifted from demanding the publication of any Epstein files—it was a fun activity when the target was Bill Clinton and Democrats, but not so much now—to providing cover for Trump.
Much of this would be standard political gamesmanship—Republicans and Democrats maneuvering to leave each other holding the bag—except for one thing.
There were real girls and young women snared in Epstein’s trap and trafficked as if they were little more than slabs of meat rather than human beings.
We know that at least one of the now grown women Epstein and his network preyed upon killed herself. Others, no doubt, carry with them psychological scars and other remnants they endured at the hands of the predators who exploited them.
So, here’s a thought.
Maybe we could devote just a little bit of the time now being devoted to exploring whether Democrats or Republicans have more reason to be ashamed to seeing that these women receive the help and support they deserve.
I’ll be honest. It wouldn’t bother me a bit if Bill Clinton, Donald Trump or both faced shame and punishment because of their connections to Jeffrey Epstein.
If either man or both of them aided or abetted Epstein’s despicable activities in any way, he or they deserve such shame and punishment. Anyone who argues differently on political grounds just tells me that he or she has elevated partisan ambitions above common decency.
What would bother me a great deal, though, would be turning away from the women who had their lives damaged or ruined by Jeffrey Epstein.
All who helped Epstein prey on women have earned what’s coming to them.
But—in an entirely different way—so do the women who lived through those horrible experiences.
They deserve some of our attention, too.
