From the NY Times who keeps the story going……
One that ain’t gonna go away Donald….
Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” He and Donald J. Trump also had “no formal relationship.” They went to a lot of the same parties. But they “did not socialize together.” They were never really friends, just business acquaintances. Or “there was no relationship” at all. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
For nearly a quarter-century, Mr. Trump and his representatives have offered shifting, often contradictory accounts of his relationship with Mr. Epstein, one sporadically captured by society photographers and in news clips before they fell out sometime in the mid-2000s. Closely scrutinized since Mr. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell during Mr. Trump’s first term, their friendship — and questions about what the president knew of Mr. Epstein’s abuses — now threatens to consume his second one.
The controversy has shaken Mr. Trump’s iron hold on his base like no other. Loyal supporters have demanded to know why the administration has not moved more quickly to unearth the convicted sex offender’s remaining secrets. In November, after resisting months of pressure to release more Epstein-related documents held by the federal government — and facing an almost unheard-of revolt among Republican lawmakers — Mr. Trump reversed himself, signing legislation that requires their release beginning this week.
Mr. Epstein had a talent for acquiring powerful friends, some of whom have become ensnared in the continuing scrutiny of his crimes. For months, Mr. Trump has labored furiously to shift himself out of the frame, dismissing questions about his relationship with Mr. Epstein as a “Democrat hoax” and imploring his supporters to ignore the matter entirely. An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minors.
But the two men’s relationship was both far closer and far more complex than the president now admits.
Beginning in the late 1980s, the two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other’s closest friend, The Times found. Mr. Epstein was then a little-known financier who cultivated mystery around the scope and source of his self-made wealth. Mr. Trump, six years older, was a real estate scion who relished publicity and exaggerated his successes. Neither man drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency….
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With other men, Mr. Epstein might discuss tax shelters, international affairs or neuroscience. With Mr. Trump, he talked about sex.
“I just think it was trophy hunting,” Stacey Williams, who rose to fame as a star of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions during the 1990s, said in an interview with The Times. In social media posts and interviews with news outlets in recent years, Ms. Williams has described how Mr. Trump groped her in 1993 at Trump Tower while Mr. Epstein — whom she was then dating — watched. “I think Jeffrey liked that he had this Sports Illustrated model who had this name, and that Trump was pursuing me,” she said. Mr. Trump has denied her account…
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Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.
One of the women, who has never before spoken publicly about the experience, told The Times that Mr. Epstein had coerced her into attending four parties at Mr. Epstein’s home. Mr. Trump attended all four, the woman said. At two of them, she said, Mr. Epstein directed her to have sex with other male guests….
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Mr. Trump does not stand accused of sexually abusing a minor. But over the course of his friendship with Mr. Epstein and beyond, he left a trail of alleged abuse and assault, many details of which began to surface publicly during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.
Close to 20 women have publicly accused Mr. Trump of groping, forcibly kissing or sexually assaulting them — behavior that he once bragged he could get away with because of his celebrity but later denied ever engaging in. In 2023, the writer E. Jean Carroll won a $5 million civil judgment against Mr. Trump for sexual abuse and defamation….
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Each man cultivated relationships that in turn put them in proximity to young women in the industry. Mr. Epstein exploited his close relationship with Les Wexner, the owner of Victoria’s Secret, sometimes telling women he could get them meetings or bookings. Photographers or camera crews captured Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump together at Victoria’s Secret events in 1997 and 1999….
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But sometime in the subsequent years, their friendship soured. Exactly when, and why, is unclear. After the allegations against Mr. Epstein slowly began emerging into view in the mid-2000s, accounts Mr. Trump and his representatives gave of their relationship — and its end — began to molt and morph. Mr. Epstein was kicked out of Mar-a-Lago for being inappropriate with a masseuse, or with the daughter of a member. Mr. Trump had banned him for poaching employees, or for being a creep….
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He resented Mr. Trump’s efforts to distance himself, the emails show. His older, smoother former friend seemed untouchable, while he was enveloped in scandal once again, as more and more victims came forward with their accounts of abuse. In an interview taped by Mr. Wolff in 2017 and published by The Daily Beast last year, Mr. Epstein described what he said was Mr. Trump’s technique for trying to bed the wives of friends. Mr. Wolff asked how he had such intimate knowledge of Mr. Trump. “I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years,” Mr. Epstein replied.
In emails, he hinted to friends that he could take Mr. Trump down.
He didn’t say how….
image…Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York in 1997.
Credit…House Oversight Democrats
I find this entire brouhaha over the “Epstein Files” much ado about nothing.
Of course Trump and Epstein were big buddies.It was publicized in various news media back in the day when they were running around together.
Besides,does anybody really believe that this expose or whatever you want to call it will affect MAGA in any way?
Horse manure!They will justify Trumps carousing just like they always have .Oh and they will be “ praying “ about it in their “ churches.” Indeed probably some of their ministers will absolve the old rapist of his “ sins.”
The only question is when and how are they going to blame the Democrats for the whole thing!
One big yawn!
I think there is more to it than that. There is definitely a part of Trump’s base that has been convinced for years that the world and America is run by a cabal of (PDF Files). MAGA certainly spent years stoking their paranoia.
Clearly, there is a reason why the Trump Admin, after having done that for years, fought so hard to keep these things private. This has very much confused and upset many of his voters. Is there going to be anything in there that is going to prove Trump himself did anything illegal? Almost certainly not, but they are definitely trying to cover for someone(s). Democrats obviously have little choice but to try to exploit this politically.
They’re kind of stuck, since they thought that much-milder hanky-panky by horny, unfaithful Bill Clinton warranted impeachment.
(Remember that Whitewater wasn’t originally about sex — Paula Broaddrick notwithstanding — but about financial fraud.)
The people who were obsessed with the Epstein Files and conspiracy theories are not the social conservatives of the 1990s.
I HOPE the Epstain stuff KEEPS Going ON!
Twisting ole Donald in the wind…..