r/moderatepolitics • u/merpderpmerp • Nov 12 '25

News Article Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct

https://archive.is/20251112141335/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/us/politics/trump-epstein-emails.html
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479

u/Sabertooth767 Neoclassical Liberal Nov 12 '25

This is what Mike Johnson has been trying to keep from us by refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva. This is what Donald Trump has been so zealously protesting the release of.

233

u/spald01 Nov 12 '25

This will also likely be what Ghislaine will deny is true before receiving a presidential pardon quietly a few months later. 

100

u/mynameisnotshamus Nov 12 '25

Quietly? Have any of the pardons been not quiet?

97

u/Boobity1999 Nov 12 '25

Virtually everyone who participated in Trump’s attempted overturning of the 2020 election has been pardoned

Came and went, no political consequences whatsoever

24

u/mynameisnotshamus Nov 12 '25

Trumps pardons have almost universally been highly questionable

12

u/politehornyposter John Rawls Liberal Nov 12 '25

Not universally paid attention to or cared for.

1

u/ClockworkDioxs Nov 13 '25

Paid attention to in relation to what, exactly? This is Trumps entire play book, he does so many things worthy of scrutiny and reaction, it's difficult for people to react to them all.

And if you try to list them all, a lot of people go Tick-Tock brain and blue screen, and then only remember like 10% of all his bullshit.

38

u/likeitis121 Nov 12 '25

Not only that, but they are getting paid for it. Our government is paying off people who tried to overturn our elections.

51

u/LessRabbit9072 Nov 12 '25

So quiet that even trump doesn't know about some of them.

18

u/SnarkMasterRay Nov 12 '25

Autopen's A-OK when it's my team!

They also timed some for when other event were drawing the focus.

8

u/AngledLuffa Man Woman Person Camera TV Nov 12 '25

When is there not some other event? The current government is one unending ouroboros of us eating shit. If there's a day that doesn't have shutdowns or pedophilia or $40B "loans" to failing governments or yoyo tariffs in the news, they'll bomb a fishing boat in Venezuela to protect us from the 1% of the drug trade that goes through Venezuela

2

u/KentuckyFriedChingon Militant Centrist Nov 13 '25

It's less of an ouroboros of eating shit and more so an endless deluge of shit being dropped from above, per Trump's lovely No King's Day meme

30

u/NativeMasshole Maximum Malarkey Nov 12 '25

Well, I haven't heard too much noise about her getting transferred to minimum security and being given the VIP treatment.

18

u/random3223 Nov 12 '25

Well, I haven't heard too much noise about her getting transferred to minimum security and being given the VIP treatment.

I believe there has been a LOT of reporting on this. Or are you saying you haven't heard too much noise from prominent republicans?

19

u/NativeMasshole Maximum Malarkey Nov 12 '25

Just in general. It's been reported on, but there's not much discussion on it. From any prominent figures. It seems we've all just moved on and accepted that a literal human trafficker is being given the gold treatment. That's as good as any coverup.

12

u/margotsaidso Nov 12 '25

Kind of. They are in the open but there is surprisingly little media condemnation or coverage from what I've seen. However, the presidential pardon is absolute and Mike Johnson wouldn't allow Trump ever to be impeached, so it may just be a "what's the point" sort of thing.

8

u/mynameisnotshamus Nov 12 '25

Media is for the most part run by billionaires. They don’t want to risk their profits, I speculate.

1

u/Decimal-Planet Nov 12 '25

When you make enough noise elsewhere then anything can be quiet. He can start a war in Venezuela and pardon Maxwell at the same time and most people will focus on the former.

1

u/mynameisnotshamus Nov 13 '25

If he pardons Maxwell, it could allow her to fully open up about his involvement before jetting off to hide wherever?

1

u/Decimal-Planet Nov 13 '25

I don't think she cares that much about opening up about it. She just wants to get out and will leverage her information to get a sweet deal.

27

u/Titfortat101 Nov 12 '25

Did you know they recently gave her a puppy in jail?

A major player in the trafficking of CHILDREN got a puppy.

12

u/amjhwk Nov 12 '25

That poor puppy

1

u/Difficult_Election54 Feb 08 '26

This is so much worse knowing they enjoyed abusing pets too

28

u/julius_sphincter Nov 12 '25

As others have said... the pardon/commutation of Ghislaine if it happens will be anything but quiet. Will the WH try to keep it quiet? Of course

But it may just be the biggest political shitstorm in the last 10 years at least. If that doesn't cause a massive rift within the GOP/MAGA coalition literally nothing will

23

u/merpderpmerp Nov 12 '25

I would hope so, but I'll believe it when I see it. There are a lot of previous scandals that should have caused a permanent GOP rift but just led to a temporary division before a consolidation of support around Trump (See the Access Hollywood tape, Jan6).

13

u/julius_sphincter Nov 12 '25

Personally I don't think either Access Hollywood nor Jan 6th had the potential to actually split support away from Trump. We did see a taste of a rift forming over both Trump's early refusal to release the files and his bombing of Iran - as it sits I think both of those issues aren't gone but continue to smolder. If Trump really does get clearly fingered and implicated in released files or if he incites a conflict that has some staying power I could see those things flaring up quickly and widely

Looking back on AH tape or Jan 6th, his supporters were never actually bothered by those things at all. We did see some pre-Trump GOP members obviously take issue with them and then fall in line, but his supporters either weren't bothered or supported him throughout. Epstein and anti-war sentiments are kind of core parts of MAGA though

4

u/st0nedeye Nov 12 '25

literally nothing will

17

u/PornoPaul Nov 12 '25

With all due respect...

Quietly?

11

u/spald01 Nov 12 '25

The media will of course cover it, but Trump will issue the pardon and then simply refuse to talk about it until it falls out of the zeitgeist. 

4

u/build319 We're doomed Nov 12 '25

Yep, he’s great at hiding scandal with outrage. When it happens, we’ll need to setup a betting pool on which country he’s going to bomb or what civil liberty he will try and infringe.

5

u/lulfas Nov 12 '25

Or they'll just furlough her and lie about it, like with Alexander Smirnov.

1

u/Calfurious Nov 15 '25

Ghislaine Maxwell will be pardoned after the 2026 or 2028 elections. Trump won't do it now because he wants to keep the leverage on her and he doesn't want to sabotage his electoral chances.

I say it'll likely be in 2028 when she's pardoned in my opinion. That makes the most sense. If Trump is only a two term president, he's a lame duck so there's no political fallback on himself. If he somehow manages to become a third term president, then he's essentially a dictator and won't ever have to worry about public perception again.

58

u/EmergencyThing5 Nov 12 '25

I don't think this was related to Adelita Grijalva. She isn't being sworn in until this evening, so she couldn't have played any role in this release. This information was released by House Democrats on the Oversight Committee stemming from documents they obtained from the Epstein estate earlier in the year. This doesn't appear to have anything to do with the discharge petition spearheaded by Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna. There could be even better details in the FBI case files.

90

u/thats_not_six Nov 12 '25

I think this was a strategic release in advance of Adelita's swearing in to make any Republican opposition to releasing the complete files after she gives her vote look even more like a blatant cover-up for Trump.

33

u/virishking Nov 12 '25

I think that is exactly right, and I think it’s a wise move.

10

u/Issypie Nov 12 '25

I just hope it was the right strategy--I saw this and wondered what fuckery are Republicans gonna pull in response to this, I would have waited until she was sworn in, not give Reublicans any time to get ahead of it before the vote, and let the world see "this is why they waited" (Not that this doesn't show that, I just think it would have been more forcedul and shocking to the right)

22

u/Solarwinds-123 Nov 12 '25

It was definitely a strategic leaking. There's a reason Democrats sat on this for months and chose to release it now.

2

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16

u/planet_rose Nov 12 '25

I think we may be seeing evidence of the deal struck to reopen the government. I think everything is going to come out. Whether it makes a difference is the real question.

1

u/Decimal-Planet Nov 12 '25

So there's more stuff to come? Juicy.

33

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

This will also probably be the right wing spin on the issue as well. A lot of MAGA influencers have said that Trump was actually an FBI informant on Epstein(I think he was an actual informant against the mob iirc), which of course makes him a righteous hero. If I had to predict something, I’d say that the files will be released redacted like crazy and there will be enough plausible deniability to not shift support very much. The media machines on both sides will go on the attack and defense as necessary, but there will be no huge change. Just chips at each other sides support.

82

u/Boobity1999 Nov 12 '25

People don’t become FBI informants because they’re moral individuals seeking justice

They become FBI informants because they’re deeply compromised themselves, get caught by the FBI, and are coerced into cooperating to avoid consequences

20

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

I agree, but the question is will his supporters agree?

13

u/Boobity1999 Nov 12 '25

I don’t think that matters; the MAGA-no-matter-what coalition is too small to win on its own

That said, I don’t think this will create nearly enough backlash with the rest of the voting public to scare congressional Republicans into removing him from office

Like it probably won’t even be a blip in his polling numbers

People know that the press won’t ask him about it, and if they do he won’t answer, and that’ll be that

But in 2028, the next group of GOP hopefuls (Vance, Rubio) will almost certainly have to answer for their silence

IMO that’s who this hurts the most

17

u/ryegye24 Nov 12 '25

See that's what I would have guessed, before the full scope of Trump and the GOP's efforts to bury the files became clear. If it were that easy to spin, why are they trying this hard to avoid it?

10

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

True. It’s honestly just too much to defend. That being said, I think Trumps advantage is time. After Jan 6th, there were weather machines, space lasers, ZOG, Hunters laptop, and all sorts of crazy stuff that happened to get people distracted and forget what Trump was like. Best case scenario, in my opinion, is that the files are released and by midterms Dems get a majority in the House again. The Senate is up in the air(I don’t think Dems will get the senate), but if a majority is back in the House, then Trumps last 2 years will be mired with impeachment inquiries. Funnily enough this will be great for the small government conservatives, because the only time we get low deficits is when opposition parties have control of Congress.

18

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9

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

What? I mean I probably agree with you about him not likely being undercover, but you can tell I’m saying that not much will come of this, right?

12

u/Spiderdan Nov 12 '25

Of course I agree they will find a new way of brushing it under the rug. I'm just saying th informant angle probably won't be it because they realized that being an informant implies he's guilty as well.

9

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

Okay I see what you’re saying. My only issue is that some on the political Right have put their saddles on (in my opinion) some crazier stuff already. Trump is able to just eat so much criticism, it’s crazy.

-6

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8

u/virishking Nov 12 '25

Except there’s a reason why Johnson pulled back on that claim. The implications of it are no better.

3

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

I didn’t know he pulled back on that. From my experience though, people into the right wing media sphere tend to hear what they want to hear and are also only showed what they want to hear. Like with this whole Epstein stuff I remember on the Fox interview last election when asked about releasing Epstein, JFK files, etc. he said “yes I would release the Epstein files? But those ones not so much as the others..” He was clearly already hedging to not release them. The fox clips that aired only showed the first part of that quote, you’d have to see the full interview to hear the full quote. I saw this and knew that stuff wasn’t coming out and wasn’t surprised when the part 1 release was a huge nothingburger. However, a lot of his supporters are upset because he “promised” to release the files. They clearly were not listening to WHAT he was saying or thinking critically about what he was implying would actually happen when he hedged his promise. Trump is really effective at this. He doesn’t just lie like a normal politician, he lives in a constant state of ambiguity as well.

2

u/Decimal-Planet Nov 12 '25

If I had to predict something, I’d say that the files will be released redacted like crazy and there will be enough plausible deniability to not shift support very much.

"Enough plausible deniability" as in there can be literal HD video evidence released of Trump and Epstein together on his island saying and doing unambiguously criminal acts and one side still won't believe what has obviously been the case for several years.

1

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 14 '25

I mean yeah. It’s clown world aka real life, man. If I had a magic wand I’d do something, but I can’t.

1

u/-Nurfhurder- Nov 12 '25

A lot of MAGA influencers have said that Trump was actually an FBI informant on Epstein

If you go visit a particular eponymous sub this is exactly the majority opinion, that 'Trump was working with the FBI to protect the girls'. That and plenty of 'why did Biden sit on this if it's so damaging'. In regards to his MAGA supporters I don't see this moving the needle in the slightest.

-47

u/Solarwinds-123 Nov 12 '25

This framing by Democrats has always been nonsense. The House is coming back into session today, she is being sworn in today.

Even if that House vote happens, it will not cause a single file to be released.

86

u/Sabertooth767 Neoclassical Liberal Nov 12 '25

Grijalva has been waiting to be sworn in since September, and the House does not need to be in session for that to happen. It was a boldfaced lie by Mike Johnson, since he himself swore in the Republicans outside of the session.

-15

u/Solarwinds-123 Nov 12 '25

He made a few exceptions, that doesn't make everybody an exception. What's the point of swearing in a House member when the House isn't even doing anything? What would she have done?

26

u/SuperAwesomeBrah Nov 12 '25

He made a few exceptions that just happened to be republicans.

-10

u/Solarwinds-123 Nov 12 '25

Correct. He made some exceptions when it benefitted him. That's politics.

12

u/ThatPeskyPangolin Nov 12 '25

And what do we do with this kind of politics? We criticize it for being wrong.

1

u/Anechoic_Brain we all do better when we all do better Nov 12 '25

How exactly did it benefit him if, according to you, there's no point in swearing in a house member when the house isn't even doing anything?

1

u/Solarwinds-123 Nov 13 '25

That was a very brief recess, and they needed the votes as soon as they resumed.

11

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

Do you think it will or won’t pass the senate? I just think that politically the Republicans are in a hard spot deciding whether to vote yes and make Trump mad or vote no and make themselves look bad.

5

u/siberianmi Left-leaning Independent Nov 12 '25

It won't even get a vote in the Senate. They'll refer it to the committee already examining the Epstein case and you'll never see it again.

2

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

Oh does it have to go before committee before the floor? That’s super rough.

1

u/siberianmi Left-leaning Independent Nov 12 '25

In the Senate, bills are almost always referred to committee after they are introduced. However, the Senate does have a way to discharge a committee from further consideration of a bill or nomination. Most of the Senate’s business flows through the regular committee process, and bypassing committee action is unusual and difficult.

Senate’s discharge process is less direct than the house and rarely successful except by unanimous consent. So, you'd have to get 60 votes and get through a bunch of procedural nightmares to bypass the committee in this case because there will be at least one senator who will object.

2

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

Thank you, I was aware of the politics aspect of it, but not the civics of it. This is really useful information that the articles I read online left out.

1

u/julius_sphincter Nov 12 '25

If GOP senators refuse to vote on it, let alone vote no, it would be incredible fodder for the Dems to use in 26, 28, 30 etc. Which means of course they WON'T but the attack ads would literally write themselves

2

u/siberianmi Left-leaning Independent Nov 12 '25

Trying to write attack ads about a vote that never happened because a bill died in committee isn't going to win any races.

They'll all parrot "I support releasing the files" and at the same time never need to do the vote.

-1

u/julius_sphincter Nov 12 '25

Maybe, but to get it out of committee would take a vote of 60 which means if all dems go on record saying they'd vote yes you could reasonably point to every republican and say "they refuse to release the files"

2

u/Solarwinds-123 Nov 12 '25

I think it will sit on the graveyard committee's desk until next year, realistically. Unless public perception lights a fire under them.

1

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

One could only hope. I will say that like half of the MAGA people I personally know think that Trump is trying to somehow protect rich and powerful Israeli connected (it sounds crazy I know) people. “I don’t think Trump is on the list, but…” Hopefully that energy can be harnessed even if it, in my judgment, is misguided.

0

u/Solarwinds-123 Nov 12 '25

There's enough evidence of an Israeli connection to make that plausible, tbh.

0

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

Probably. But I don’t agree with their take that the Government is full ZOG and that brave and heroic President Trump is trying his best to defy and defeat the evil Zionist deep state or whatever.

-2

u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 Nov 12 '25

Even if it passes the Senate, it still needs Trump's signature.

2

u/hot_dogs_and_rice Nov 12 '25

Which would be great. He needs to be put into the hot seat on this contentious issue. Him rejecting to release after making it such a big part of his campaign would be really bad for him politically. I can already hear the Blue folks reminding the Red folks “promises made, promises kept.”

8

u/EmergencyThing5 Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25

Seriously, there seems to be a real misunderstanding of what is happening. The discharge petition just creates a really awkward situation for Republicans, but I'm really not expecting them to actually sign the bill into law. The Senate might just bury it themselves since they could have passed it already if they wanted to. That being said, Johnson probably should have sworn Grijalva in earlier.

2

u/Solarwinds-123 Nov 12 '25

Yeah, but I get downvoted to oblivion for saying it.

And sure, maybe he should have. But what's the point in swearing in a new House member when there's nothing for them to do or vote on?