The Deep State is Alive and Well, Selling the Same Old Lie: "Sources and Methods" | Matt Taibbi

The Biden admins spent years doctoring those files the same way they doctored files re RussiaGate. What do you think is really left to look at in them? Are you hoping to smear a lot of innocent people who had nothing to do with underage girls just for the gossip mongering tabloid style thrills and titillation tingles? The Epstein Files were worthless the second the DNC's criminal syndicate got control of them. Get over it.
what if we don't feel like it?
 
Why Kennedy is dangerous

He’s withdrawn us from international health organizations leaving us vulnerable to contagious diseases because we don’t have the information these agencies shares.

He is grossly misinformed on autism
stating untruths like autistic people will never write poems or pay taxes, date or use a toilet unassisted. That is absolutely moronic. It’s grossly misinformed. He obviously doesn’t know any high functioning autistic people. My nephew is attending college right now. This was an insult to autistic people.

He is just so grossly misinformed on so many health issues that it will setback the United States and endanger us. It will slow our process on disease research. The measles outbreak is just one example.
 
I also think the Epstein files thing is important too.
Why do you believe this?

There's just so much evidence that it's a big deal. At this point, even the speaker of the house has broken with Trump on this:
 
a hoax the president also used to get into office?
Explain. No Presidential candidate ever used either the "Epstein file" or the "Epstein file hoax" as a campaign plank to get into office.

and all his people pumped on their podcasts for years?
Explain. It only very recently was raised as an issue, and not coincidentally by the DNC perpetrators of that very hoax.

it would be different if the president didn't also reference these issues.
Explain. He is trying to tell people like you that it is a hoax.

condescension is not an argument.
Revising history is not an argument.
 
There's just so much evidence that it's a big deal.
Yet you have no evidence at all.

At this point, even the speaker of the house has broken with Trump on this:
You prove my point. You talk about "evidence" for what is obviously a hoax, and then you point to someone who is helping perpetrate the hoax.

So, the answer is no, there is no reason any rational adult should be moved to irrationality over this hoax.
 
Explain. No Presidential candidate ever used either the "Epstein file" or the "Epstein file hoax" as a campaign plank to get into office.


Explain. It only very recently was raised as an issue, and not coincidentally by the DNC perpetrators of that very hoax.


Explain. He is trying to tell people like you that it is a hoax.


Revising history is not an argument.
trump was saying he was get to the bottom of the epstein stuff.

he sure as fuck was.
 
At this point, even the speaker of the house has broken with Trump on this:
You prove my point. You talk about "evidence" for what is obviously a hoax, and then you point to someone who is helping perpetrate the hoax.

If it's a hoax, why not release the files? Bloomberg came out with an article on Friday that brings up what actually disclosing the files would reveal:
 
If it's a hoax, why not release the files?
Among other things, the hoax file is packed full of kiddie porn, planted there as the "evidence" against Epstein. So, back to you, why are you insistent that kiddie porn be released to the public?

Bloomberg came out with an article on Friday that brings up what actually disclosing the files would reveal:
Ignored. Bondi announced definitively what actually disclosing the hoax file would reveal, and why she can't release (its kiddie porn) to the public, which should go without saying. Anyway, Pam Bondi has the file and has declared, after having reviewed it, that its contents will never be released to the public for obvious reasons.
 
If it's a hoax, why not release the files? Bloomberg came out with an article on Friday that brings up what actually disclosing the files would reveal:
Bloomberg hates Trump. Most of Wall Street does. They aren't credible sources, any more than DAily Kos is.

One can always say that a publication isn't credible, just as one can say that an individual isn't credible. Me, I try to focus on the evidence presented. Since you apparently don't want to click on the link, I'll excerpt some passages from the article that I thought were particularly interesting:
**
An index from an eight-year-old FOIA lawsuit shows that the bureau is withholding bank and phone records, photographs, communications with foreign government agencies and other revealing material related to its 2006 investigation.

Neither confirm nor deny? Really?​

The intense secrecy shrouding the Epstein files dates back to President Donald Trump’s first term. Back then, the FBI blocked the release of documents from its investigation into Epstein. Since then a pretty interesting—and infuriating—chain of events has unfolded.

It dates to April 20, 2017. That’s when James Robertson, an editor for The National Enquirer and RadarOnline, filed a FOIA request with the FBI seeking “all documents relating to the FBI’s investigation and prosecution of” Epstein. A week later, the FBI denied his request, saying that the bureau could neither confirm nor deny the Epstein records existed and, even if they did, Robertson’s request for records on third parties bumped up against two privacy exemptions. (They were the exact same exemptions the FBI used to justify redacting Trump’s name from the files, which I wrote about in last week’s edition of FOIA Files!)

However, in its response, the bureau held out an option that was untethered from reality: It included a privacy waiver, and explained that Robertson must first obtain permission from the subject of his request—Epstein—before the FBI would even consider releasing documents about him.

Ultimately, the FBI’s argument in denying the records boiled down to this: Epstein was never charged with a federal crime. Therefore the release of any FBI records revealing his name could “engender comment and speculation and carries a stigmatizing connotation,” according to the exemption cited by the FBI when it refused to release the documents.

Robertson, who later co-authored a book about Epstein, sued the FBI a month later, arguing that the bureau was wrong in its decision to withhold the records.

In October 2017, the FBI did start to release a sliver of its investigative files on Epstein. Ultimately, over the course of nearly three years, it processed a total of 11,571 pages that the FBI considered responsive to Robertson’s initial request. However, it released only about 1,200 pages, which were heavily redacted.

The FBI posted those 1,200 pages in the bureau’s online FOIA reading room, The Vault. To be clear, the FBI wasn’t acting particularly generous or proactively transparent when it released this narrow set of Epstein documents to the Vault. It was forced to do that. Under the 2016 FOIA amendments, if an agency gets three or more FOIA requests on the same subject it is required to release the records to everyone. If there’s any doubt that’s why the FBI released those files, there’s the telltale series of numbers at the bottom of each page, which corresponds with the federal docket number of Robertson’s FOIA case.

What’s surprising, though, is that the Epstein documents posted to the Vault are the very same documents that have been screenshotted and shared thousands of times on social media amid a torrent of renewed interest in the matter.


Withheld in full

So what happened to the remaining 10,371 pages of documents not released by the FBI? Well, here’s where the plot thickens. The processing of the Epstein files ground to a halt in July 2019 when Epstein was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

The FBI explained to Robertson and his attorney, Dan Novack, that it couldn’t release any further records on Epstein since the man was now being prosecuted. In particular, the department said that the remaining records would be withheld in their entirety due to ongoing law enforcement proceedings and because disclosure could impact Epstein’s ability to get a fair trial.

But wait. A month later, Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial. Wouldn’t the fact that the defendant was no longer alive mean that the documents could now, finally, be released? Not so fast. The FBI did release another 46 pages that it determined wouldn’t interfere with the ongoing proceedings (mainly news clippings), but it stopped there. The bureau’s FOIA team said that even though Epstein was dead and federal prosecutors dropped their case against him, records still needed to be withheld because of ongoing law enforcement proceedings.

Fast-forward to July 2, 2020, when it became clear what the FBI meant. That’s the day Epstein’s former girlfriend and close confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges. Now, the FBI said in a letter to Robertson’s lawyer, it was required to withhold all of the Epstein files because the further release of any documents could interfere with Maxwell’s ability to obtain a fair trial and could potentially prejudice a jury.

During the course of Robertson’s ongoing FOIA legal battle, Maxwell was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Novack argued once again that the documents should be released, this time since the case was resolved. But in a development that borders on the absurd, the FBI and the federal prosecutor on the case, Maureen Comey, argued against disclosure because Maxwell was appealing her conviction. (Last month, Trump fired Maureen Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.)

Also included in the docket was a declaration from Michael Seidel, the then-head of the FBI’s records office. He explained the bureau’s latest rationale for withholding Epstein files pertained to numerous sensitivities, such as the “surveillance operation conducted by the FBI...to obtain investigative intelligence” on Epstein.

**

Here's the conclusion to the article:
**
There’s one potentially interesting twist on the horizon. Last month, Trump administration officials visited Maxwell in the federal prison where she’d been serving out her sentence. After two days of questioning, Trump wouldn’t rule out the possibility of issuing her a pardon.

Last week she was moved to a minimum security prison in another state, raising further speculation about whether she might be freed. If Trump pardons her, RadarOnline’s FOIA case could become very interesting, yet again. But I wouldn’t hold your breath. It’s pretty clear by now that the FBI won’t part easily with those 10,000 pages.

**
 
One can always say that a publication isn't credible, just as one can say that an individual isn't credible. Me, I try to focus on the evidence presented. Since you apparently don't want to click on the link, I'll excerpt some passages from the article that I thought were particularly interesting:

Wasting time clicking on sources who are worthless isn't 'focus', its just parroting stuff that isn't credible, is all.
 
One can always say that a publication isn't credible, just as one can say that an individual isn't credible. Me, I try to focus on the evidence presented. Since you apparently don't want to click on the link, I'll excerpt some passages from the article that I thought were particularly interesting:
Wasting time clicking on sources who are worthless isn't 'focus', its just parroting stuff that isn't credible, is all.

I will say this- I can find a particular source worthless on a certain subject and quite valuable on another. In this case, I found Bloomberg's article on Trump's relationship with Epstein to be quite informative.
 
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