President Donald Trump did one thing Tuesday that he nearly by no means does: He no-commented.
Asked concerning the newly launched picture of a lewd birthday letter signed in Trump’s name for Jeffrey Epstein’s fiftieth birthday in 2003 – a letter Trump denied was official – the president mentioned he’s finished speaking about it.
“I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue,” Trump informed NBC News in a quick cellphone interview. “I gave all comments to the staff. It’s a dead issue.”
He may be finished speaking about this situation. But that doesn’t imply this situation is completed with him.
And that’s largely Trump’s personal doing. Over and over once more, he and his administration have extended the controversy by saying issues that don’t add up, reversing themselves and in any other case seeding official questions on their dealing with of the matter.
It nearly appears at occasions like they’ve been attempting to maintain it going.
Below are some of the most curious aspects of the administration’s response, and the questions they engender.
It can be troublesome to show with absolute certainty that Trump wrote the birthday letter. But what we do know is his denials haven’t added up.
The Wall Steet Journal first reported in July on the birthday letter, which contains a unusual imagined dialog between Trump and Epstein typed contained in the define of a feminine physique.
Immediately after the story revealed, Trump mentioned, “I never wrote a picture in my life” and “I don’t draw pictures.” Except he clearly did draw footage across the interval in query. He mentioned later that month that “somebody could have written a letter and used my name.”
But then his lawsuit in opposition to the Journal’s mum or dad firm claimed the letter didn’t even exist, calling it the “nonexistent letter.” We now know the letter not solely existed, however it was in Epstein’s property. That would certain recommend this wasn’t only a pretend created not too long ago to make Trump look dangerous; it was one thing that had been in Epstein’s possession.
And lastly, shortly after the picture of the letter was launched Monday, the White House claimed the signature was so completely different from Trump’s that it was clearly not his. Except it closely matched his signatures on private letters from the identical time interval.
Trump doesn’t face any accusations of wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. But he’s repeatedly made false claims concerning the convicted intercourse offender and his relationship with him that make it more and more onerous to take his strained denials concerning the letter significantly.
It has been 40 days since we realized Epstein’s confederate Ghislaine Maxwell had been transferred to a minimum-security prison camp.
That was beautiful for a pair causes. One is that the information dropped across the time she granted an interview to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (one of the administration’s early efforts to quell the backlash over its reversal on releasing all of the Epstein information). The different is that, as a intercourse offender, she didn’t seem eligible for such a switch, until somebody granted her a waiver.
But regardless of releasing transcripts from that interview, the administration nonetheless hasn’t defined how and why the switch occurred. The White House said in July that Trump wasn’t contemplating clemency for Maxwell, however Trump for weeks repeatedly left the door open to it.
Appearing on NCS on Monday night time, an lawyer who has represented Maxwell, Arthur Aidala, didn’t precisely downplay the concept Maxwell bought a concession for speaking to Blanche.
“Anybody who’s represented by a lawyer who knows what they’re doing, goes in and meets with the government, there’s always a quid pro quo,” Aidala told NCS’s Abby Phillip.
Aidala mentioned he didn’t know the main points of how the switch went down and didn’t set up the assembly. But he mentioned getting “a benefit” is a component of the method.
That doesn’t put the problem to mattress. But if this jail switch was harmless and never linked to Maxwell’s interview with Blanche, why hasn’t the administration defined that?
The title of the sport in disaster communications is mostly to get something doubtlessly dangerous out as quickly as doable.
That is decidedly not the method Trump took to Virginia Giuffre.
Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this yr, is maybe Epstein’s most well-known sufferer. She’s additionally the most important nexus between Epstein’s victims and Trump. That’s as a result of she testified that Maxwell recruited her whereas she labored as a minor at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump in the end acknowledged final month that he was conscious in actual time that Maxwell had recruited Giuffre from his property; he even recommended it was a supply of his and Epstein’s falling out a long time in the past.
But that admission didn’t come earlier than he spent days – years, actually – falling brief of full disclosure.
Asked in 2019 about why he and Epstein had a falling out, Trump mentioned, “The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly.”
By July, the White House was tracing their falling out to Epstein being a “creep,” with out saying exactly how so.
On July 28, Trump cited how Epstein had “hired help” and “stole people that work for me,” however with out going into element about who.
That led to hypothesis that he was speaking about Giuffre, given her account matched Trump’s description. And certain sufficient, the subsequent day, Trump acknowledged the workers had been young women who worked in the spa – and that Giuffre was one of them.
Even in acknowledging that, Trump appeared reluctant to utterly admit it.
“I don’t know,” he mentioned at first when requested if he had been referring to Giuffre. “I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people. Yeah, he stole her.”
It’s not onerous to surmise why the president won’t have needed to admit realizing about Maxwell recruiting Giuffre on the time. It would possibly recommend he knew one thing untoward was taking place, particularly given different evidence he was aware of Epstein’s affinity for younger girls.
Giuffre’s household mentioned Trump’s feedback raised questions on whether or not he was “aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions.”
The administration nonetheless hasn’t finished job explaining exactly why it all of the sudden reversed course on releasing the Epstein information.
Trump and his allies constructed this up as a serious initiative and promised full transparency, proper earlier than the Justice Department mentioned in early July that it wouldn’t launch something additional.
The said motive was that the administration needed to shield victims and harmless individuals whose names may be within the information. But it shouldn’t have been any secret that the information would include data on victims and the harmless.
And maybe the most conspicuous side of that reversal is the timeline.
In truth, the administration started downplaying the Epstein information proper across the time Attorney General Pam Bondi informed Trump his title was within the information, in May. (You can see the whole timeline here.)
Trump was told that sometime in May, and on May 18, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino went on Fox News and all of the sudden disowned conspiracy theories about Epstein that they had each as soon as promoted. They mentioned Epstein had indeed died by suicide.
There’s additionally the truth that Trump initially denied having been informed his title was within the information – one other instance of his denials later being contradicted.
All of which has contributed to some Epstein victims and allies suggesting there’s a cover-up afoot.
Many Americans seem to agree that there is. And to the extent they do, Trump and his staff have themselves to blame.