By J.C. Bruce
Donald Trump is urging Republicans to focus on him this election. “Pretend I’m on the ballot,” he keeps telling supporters.
That’s actually the last thing Republicans need at the moment, as Trump’s efforts to bury the Epstein Files have blown up with the release of a scathing report from Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.
The 53-page document alleges that five women have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault while Trump was accompanied by now-deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein or shortly after meeting the men together.
An analysis of the report by the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown and Clare Healy notes that the committee “presented at least one new allegation against Trump: a former Miss Switzerland who says she was raped by him at the Plaza Hotel in New York during a beauty pageant in 1993, leaving her bleeding and bruised.”
The Democrats issuing the report are calling for a criminal investigation into the president.
That report relies heavily on information that was released from the heavily redacted version of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein.
The Justice Department, now led by Trump’s former personal attorney Todd Blanche, has tried to discredit the women who have testified that they were victimized:
“Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
This is from the same Justice Department that transferred Epstein’s sidekick, Ghislaine Maxwell, from a Florida prison to a Club Fed in Texas with yoga and puppy therapy after a conversation with Blanche in which, the Committee report says, Blanche told her to keep her mouth shut about a survivor who had implicated Trump.
From the Herald report:
The report mentions 11 women, five of whom said in interviews with newspapers, a lawsuit, or directly to the Committee that Trump either raped or sexually assaulted them. Three additional women told the FBI of interactions with Trump in Epstein’s presence, which the Committee says indicates a pattern of Epstein introducing Trump to young women. Another three women have not come forward publicly; instead the Committee points to statements in the files tying them to Trump and Epstein.
Two women have claimed they were 13 or 14 when Trump assaulted them; they met him through Epstein, they say in the report. One said the assault took place in the 1980s. One, known by the pseudonym Katie Johnson, filed a lawsuit against Trump and Epstein in 2016 detailing an alleged rape in 1994. She later withdrew the suit.
A second woman, Jane Doe, told the FBI in an interview that Epstein introduced her to Trump in the 1980s – and that Trump forced her head “down to his penis” and she bit him. She lived in South Carolina at the time. Neither of the women’s stories have been corroborated.
Trump has denied the allegations.
But the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are calling on Blanche to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump and other potential co-conspirators, and they are accusing the Department of Justice of withholding evidence and covering up the scandal.
“The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard,” the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said. “Congress must have the complete files required by law, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and DOJ’s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice.”
You can read the report yourself here:
"‘We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey’: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ’s Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up".
You can also check out this summary of the report’s findings in this press release from the Judiciary Committee Democrats:
Among the allegations:
DOJ and FBI Shut Down Investigations and Withheld Evidence While Claiming No Basis to Prosecute or Even Investigate Any Additional Epstein Co-Conspirators.
In Two-Day Interview, Attorney General Todd Blanche Instructed Maxwell Not to Discuss a Specific Survivor Whose Account Implicated Trump.
Five Women Accuse Trump of Rape or Sexual Assault in Epstein’s Company or Presence; Others Describe Apparent Attempts by Epstein or Maxwell to Traffic Them to Trump.
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