Trump and Epstein

Why is Trump so afraid of the revelations from Epstein?

It's taken a little while to connect the dots on this for me, but consider the following. Trump and Epstein have been friends and neighbors for at least the last twenty years, but it's taken me a bit to figure that they were likely business partners.

Epstein and Maxwell ran a prostitution and human trafficking ring, quite possibly with external funding from foreign nationals. The purpose of this ring was only incidentally about sex trafficking (as well as drugs and other activities), it was about intelligence gathering. Why use "underage prostitutes" when there were ample numbers of women (and men) who were at least quasi-legal? Because solicitation of underage prostitutes is statutory rape - it can get you thrown into federal prison, and often the only way that you can tell someone is not at least 18 years of age is to take them at their word (you don't ask an attractive person at a party whether they are jailbait, especially if you are drunk or on drugs). Epstein and Maxwell ran a honey pot - put prominent people into positions where they could then be blackmailed, not just for money but for political favors.

I think that Epstein likely started this with a few key people. Trump was likely one of the earliest marks that he captured, but Trump turned around and said "Let me get a cut of this, give me part of this blackmail infomation, and I'll make it worth your while."

It's been evident to me for years that Trump was blackmailing others. The sudden conversions of political enemies into allies became a running theme throughout his political career. Trump is not that charismatic - he's basically a mob boss, when you get right down to it, but one that could suborn not only politicians but wealthy businesspeople, journalists, and others. His agreement with Epstein was simple - the latter would run Trump's "intelligence gathering" while Trump stayed (very relatively) clean - the popular front man.

Eventually Trump turned on Epstein, because he had become too much of a danger to Trump, but that would happen after he became president. Epstein had the most damaging evidence of all against Trump - that he was using sex trafficking and blackmail as a way to fuel his rise to the presidency.

Trump has been declining cognitively for a while. He's let slip hints of this inadvertently. It's also something that his political enemies are finally beginning to leverage against him (those who he's been blackmailing) but those same people have to move very carefully around as well, because they don't want to have their own secrets spilled. They also have their own self-interests to look after, which is part of why those same people have been using this as an opportunity to leverage power because the hen house is basically now unguarded. It will eventually be closed, of course, but in the turmoil following these revelations, they hope to profit then fade back into the shadows.

My guess is that all of this seemingly buried information is now surfacing now because those same people feel threatened. Trump has done his job - he got elected, he pushed through the Heritage Foundation's list, but now he's superfluous, and his actions are threatening the stability of the wealthy and powerful. All of a sudden, people are talking about Epstein, they're talking about how unhealthy Trump is looking, they're actively speculating that maybe Trump should retire. This didn't come out of the blue. They (both the opportunists and those snared in Epstein/Trump's web) are still afraid of the MAGA base - I think the attack on the UHG executive last year rattled them - but at the same time, this feels orchestrated to me. Trump needs to go away, whether in a jet to a country without extradition (on a flightpath over deep water, mind you) or in a pine box, is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

I'm not sure what happens with the "afterward". Power vacuums are inevitably messy, and I suspect strongly that as Trump's network collapses, it will lead to both a lot of revelations and perhaps the likelihood of a more overt power-grab. These things normally do. However, I really do believe Trump will not be President by Christmas.