Featured image created with edits. Trump image credit: Michael Vadon/Flickr; Maxwell image credit: Ghislaine Maxwell (profile picture)/Wikimedia
If you’re upset about a controversial news story to the point that you lash out at your own supporters who dare to ask simple questions about it, it’s probably not the best idea to exacerbate their own anger in any way, shape or form.
Enter Donald Trump, who seems to have lost the memo on that tidbit of basic knowledge.
Trump is still dealing with the political fallout from his Department of Justice (DOJ) issuing just a short, two-page “report” on the Epstein files, relating to disgraced financier and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The report came after several months of the administration claiming that there would be more transparency on the matter — including AG Pam Bondi telling Fox News viewers in February that an “Epstein list” was sitting on her desk (her final report denied the existence of such a list at all, so what exactly was sitting there?).
The issue is having the rare effect of splintering Trump’s base of MAGA supporters, who are dismayed that their president isn’t releasing more information. As more reporting has come about — including renewed interest in Trump’s past friendship with Epstein, and his alleged drawing of a nude female figure as part of a birthday card to him — the president has lashed out more, at anything and anyone he can think of (the press, Barack Obama, Jerome Powell, The Washington Commanders, and so on).
It hasn’t worked. People are still wondering: what’s he afraid of releasing?
What definitely won’t work for Trump, however, is to talk about Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s right-hand-woman who aided in his sex trafficking. When asked about Maxwell, and the possibility of pardoning her, Trump could have said, “no way, no how,” but instead left open the door to doing so.
“It’s something I haven’t thought about. I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about,” Trump said, before departing for Scotland on Friday.
It’s not an outright “yes” answer, to be sure, but it’s also not one where Trump is definitively closing the door on the matter, either. And he’s supposedly the “tough on crime” guy?
The statement begs the question: Is Trump thinking of pardoning Maxwell? The question came up because his DOJ is interviewing her, to see if they can get more information about Epstein (presumably to share publicly? probably not…) while she serves out a 20-year prison sentence. Maxwell is not exatly a trustworthy person, however, so the promise of a commutation of her sentence should only be given if she provides really important stuff, with evidence to back it up.
So why would Trump even entertain the idea as a reality? It’s really a perplexing matter, since he wants the issue of Epstein to disappear.
Let me put it this way: I don’t want my insurance company to think I’m going to drive my car into the river. If I go into my agent’s office and say, “I can drive it into the river if I want,” that’s technically a correct statement, but it’s got my agent thinking that I might be driving my car into the river soon — something he’s surely going to document in my file.
This is all incredibly telling, too, given how Trump has treated Maxwell in the past. As president, he said he “wished her well” after he was charged with her crimes in connection to Epstein.
Why is he like this?
This latest statement from him just makes people want to know what’s in the Epstein files more and more, compounding his attempts to make the matter go away — and likely makes more people want to know what his name’s doing in the files.
It sure as hell makes me want to know more.
thewalkthrough.blog 
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