“In a 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein wrote that “Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. [O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
The message appears to reference Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted Epstein co-conspirator currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for crimes connected to Epstein.
The following year, Epstein and several associates received word that Reuters was readying a story about a lawsuit filed against the disgraced financier and Trump over an alleged sexual assault from 1994.
“Well, I guess if there’s anybody who can wave thus [sic] away, it’s Donald,” Wolff wrote. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
These quotes seem too vague to draw strong conclusions from.
“President Donald Trump has sought to justify the summary execution of suspected drug smugglers by arguing that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with criminal organizations that supply prohibited intoxicants. Yet the Trump administration also insists that U.S. forces are not engaging in “hostilities” when they blow up boats believed to be carrying illegal drugs.
Those positions are consistent with Trump’s disregard for legal limits on his use of the military to prosecute a literalized war on drugs. But they are otherwise hard to reconcile with each other, and their implications underline the immorality and lawlessness of his bloodthirsty antidrug tactics.”
“To convict Comey, prosecutors would have to persuade a jury that there is no reasonable doubt about either of those propositions. It is therefore not surprising that Erik Siebert, Halligan’s predecessor, was not keen to pursue this case, or that Trump managed to get what he wanted only by intervening at the last minute. He replaced Siebert with Halligan, a neophyte prosecutor whose main qualification was her willingness to overlook the weaknesses that had deterred her predecessor, and he publicly ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey before it was too late.
“We can’t delay any longer,” Trump told Bondi. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Five days later, Siebert delivered the indictment that Trump had demanded, although it was such a hasty job that the details of the allegations against Comey are only now coming into focus. Those details reinforce the impression that Trump was determined to get Comey one way or another, regardless of the law or the evidence.”
“Despite Trump promising to stand “with the good people of Cuba and Venezuela,” his administration has fast-tracked deportations for victims of communism.”
“While speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, President Donald Trump claimed that “every price is down,” including those paid at the pump. Gas is now “almost $2,” he added.
Gas is not $2 a gallon. The national average is a little over $3 a gallon, about the same as it was a year ago, according to AAA. Even if you’re giving Trump wide leeway for that “almost,” this is what would have been called a gaffe in more normal political times. Remember when President George H.W. Bush didn’t know the price of a gallon of milk?
When you zoom out to Trump’s larger point, things get even more confused. Despite Trump’s claim, prices as a whole continue to rise at politically inconvenient rates. Annualized inflation was 3 percent in September, the most recent month for which data is available. Prices for food and housing are rising faster than overall inflation. Most Americans say they are spending more on groceries now than a year ago.
…
This is the point where I’d normally point out that presidents don’t really exert much influence over prices. There is no “lower gas prices” button in the Oval Office. Yet while it’s true that market forces are the primary reason any price is what it is, this administration has taken a number of actions that directly and deliberately put upwards pressure on prices.”
“Trump has championed coal, oil and gas and sought to squash clean energy efforts in the U.S. and abroad. He has removed the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, for the second time, and has used the threat of tariffs to try to bolster sales of American fossil fuels.
The speeches from a handful of leaders displayed, at times, the anger and dismay that countries feel about the U.S. breaking its promises and attempting to undermine the global effort to tackle global warming.”