US Justice Dept. asks Epstein associate Maxwell to speak to prosecutors
(This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Ghislaine in paragraph 1)
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The real reason Trump doesn't want to talk about Epstein
One of the many ways in which Donald Trump has defied the laws of political gravity has been by retaining the support of Americans who normally deplore sexual profligacy, while having a rich track record of such behaviour himself. Shortly before the 2016 election, when the notorious 'grab 'em by the pussy' tape emerged – tellingly, it is all but forgotten now – many commentators assumed that this would be the end of Trump's presidential ambitions. After all, his coalition of backers included not just evangelicals and conservative Christians, both of whom would ordinarily be appalled by such misogyny, but also wild devotees of the 'QAnon' conspiracy theory, which holds that Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles headquartered in a pizza parlour, including Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks and the Dalai Lama. It is true that on the tape, Trump didn't mention the age of the women that he felt entitled to 'grab' in such a way; but you'd have thought that a tribe of fanatics obsessed with the fictional sexual indiscretions of the rich and famous might raise an eyebrow when their hero admitted to sexual indiscretions himself. The revelations made little difference. Trump entered the White House and history was made, reinforcing his belief that he could 'stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody' and he 'wouldn't lose voters'. Today's polls make that look pretty hubristic. After almost a decade of living by his own rules, it seems that the Donald is discovering the elastic limit of his followers the hard way. I speak, of course, of his alleged association with Jeffrey Epstein. Rumours had been swirling for months, exacerbated by Elon Musk, who in a moment of pique, suggested last month that the president was named in the FBI files concerning the disgraced financier. Trump has been on the defensive, stating: 'I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff.' That represented a crack in the surface of Planet Trump, as the tectonic plates upon which his dominance rested started to pull apart. This week, after the administration suddenly abandoned its promises to reveal details of the investigation into Epstein, the chasm has become wider still. Figures connected to the Trump administration had long suggested that the files included a 'client list', while many of those involved in the case insisted that it was nothing but a rumour. In the turbulent wake of the government U-turn, as they absorbed the fact that the files, if they existed, would likely never see the light of day, some of Trump's most vocal cheerleaders branded it a cover-up. On Wednesday, Trump hit back, announcing on social media that his own 'PAST supporters' had fallen for the Epstein conspiracy theories 'hook, line, and sinker'. Everyone should move on, he insisted. The case is 'boring'. Not to the American public it isn't. According to a recent poll, 69 per cent of respondents now believe that the federal government is hiding details about Epstein's clients. Trump's personal approval ratings have fallen off a cliff. To the armies of the president's detractors, the schadenfreude is exquisitely sweet. For the many mainstream Republicans and moderate Trump supporters, however, it is a case of a big, fat 'I told you so'. Although the president has never openly endorsed conspiracy theories, segments of his Maga base live by these poisonous creeds and their idol has never fully disavowed them, to the chagrin of 'normies' in the party. QAnon devotees, for instance, believe in a 'coming storm', code for Trump's final victory, when his opponents will be tried and even executed live on television. According to some polls, about one in five Republicans now take this stuff seriously. Trump's attitude towards these eccentrics can be best described as flirtatious. On social media, he has posted a picture of himself wearing a 'Q' lapel pin with the slogan 'the storm is coming', and republished dozens of Q-related posts. One of his rallies in Pennsylvania ended with a QAnon song entitled 'WWG1WGA', or 'where we go one, we go all'. In a press briefing in 2022, when asked whether he was 'secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of paedophiles and cannibals',
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
JAN MOIR: Ghislaine's no angel, but why do the men who colluded with Epstein still walk free?
Donald Trump has reached a truly perilous moment in his second term as an American president. And the key to his future might be in the hands of a British woman who is incarcerated in a Tallahassee jail, serving out a 20-year sentence for the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls in collusion with Jeffrey Epstein.
The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
DOJ sues Mayor Eric Adams and New York City officials for being a ‘sanctuary city'
The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against New York City Mayor Eric Adams and top city officials, alleging that the city's so-called sanctuary policies reflect an 'intentional' attempt to obstruct federal immigration law. The 37-page complaint filed in Brooklyn claims New York has 'long been at the vanguard of interfering with enforcing this country's immigration laws' with decades-long policies to 'thwart federal immigration enforcement.' 'New York City has released thousands of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes against law-abiding citizens due to sanctuary city policies,' Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. 'If New York City won't stand up for the safety of its citizens, we will.' The Justice Department has filed similar lawsuits in Los Angeles, Chicago and other jurisdictions it accuses of obstructing Trump's anti-immigration agenda with local policies designed to prevent unjust arrests, detentions and removals by limiting cooperation between local and federal law enforcement. Several city administrations over the past four decades have supported policies limiting how New York Police Department officers interact with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with exceptions for people suspected of terrorism or convicted of violent crimes. The Trump administration has filed litigation in Democratic-led jurisdictions across the country to override what it considers 'unconstitutional' policies that 'obstruct' the president's attempts to arrest and remove tens of thousands of people living within them. Following Trump's election, Adams has publicly aligned himself with elements of the Trump administration's immigration agenda and has appeared to curry the president's favor in what critics have suggested is a quid pro quo arrangement to ensure a federal corruption case against him disappears. In February, then-acting deputy Attorney General Emil Bove instructed federal prosecutors in New York to drop the case against Adams, with a memo that explicitly stated that the Justice Department made its decision without assessing the strength of the evidence against the mayor. Adams gave ICE permission to operate inside Rikers Island's jail complex earlier this year, drawing lawsuits from city officials accusing Adams of crafting a 'corrupt bargain' with the president. That alleged partnership appeared to fray this week, as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other top Trump administration officials appeared in New York City to criticize the mayor after an off-duty customs officer was shot by an undocumented immigrant in Manhattan. The mayor's office has denied that Thursday's lawsuit marks any kind of turning point between Adams and the president, noting that the mayor has joined more than a dozen legal challenges against the administration since Trump took office. 'The job of a mayor is to protect the safety of every single person in their city — and that's exactly what Mayor Adams has worked to do every day for nearly four years,' the mayor's press secretary Kayla Mamelak said in a statement to The Independent. Mamelak said the mayor supports the 'essence' of sanctuary measures supported by the City Council, 'but he has also been clear they go too far when it comes to dealing with those violent criminals on our streets and has urged the Council to reexamine them to ensure we can effectively work with the federal government to make our city safer.' The lawsuit is under review of the city's law department. Bondi's lawsuit also follows a string of courthouse arrests inside a federal building in Manhattan, where immigration advocates this week revealed footage from inside what appears to be a makeshift, clandestine detention center. 'Pam Bondi may want to distract from reality, but the facts are clear: the evidence consistently shows that cities with sanctuary laws are safer than those without them,' said New York City council spokesperson Rendy Desamours. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is among the defendants. 'When residents feel comfortable reporting crime and cooperating with local law enforcement, we are all safer, something both Republican and Democratic mayors of New York City have recognized,' Desamours said in a statement to The Independent. 'It is the Trump administration indiscriminately targeting people at civil court hearings, detaining high schoolers, and separating families that make our city and nation less safe.' Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, called the lawsuit "frivolous at best, and an attack on New York's ability to govern itself at worst.' 'New York must reject Trump's continued assaults to its Constitutional right to pass local laws that serve our communities best,' Awawdeh said. 'Mayor Adams must fight back against this federal overreach and defend the well-being of all New Yorkers.'
