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The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Listen up, weaklings: there's no Epstein client list. Why are you so obsessed? Yours, Donald J Trump
You have to feel for Donald Trump's Maga base. The one huge secret they didn't want disclosed was that he actually really hates them. All populists despise their people, obviously – but please, Mr President, respect the playbook! You're supposed to do it quietly. Regrettably, no one could accuse Trump of hiding his spite under a bushel after a week in which he described those of his supporters who want him to simply do what he repeatedly promised, and release the so-called Epstein files, as 'weaklings' and 'stupid people'. This is quite the (public) volte face from the guy who originally swept to office declaring 'I love the poorly educated'. Most of you are unlikely to need a recap at this stage, but Jeffrey Epstein is the sex-trafficking financier and socialite, who conveniently died in jail while awaiting trial, apparently by suicide. A woman, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of conspiring with him to sexually abuse minors, and is currently serving 20 years in a low-security Florida prison. But no big-hitting or even small-hitting male associate in the US has so much as been arrested for participating in what I believe the dead paedophile would have encouraged us to call his 'lifestyle'. This second Trump administration didn't just sweep to power while repeatedly screaming about the 'cover-up' of this story, but it spent a good portion of its early months assuring its ravenous base that Epstein's supposed 'client list' was on a desk waiting for release approval. Yet now, Trump and his associates say there is no list. Nope. Never even was a list. Where did these weakling idiots get that idea? To summarise his administration's position: 'We took a look at the deep state and it turns out to be very shallow. Seriously, I'm standing in it right now and it doesn't even come up to my knees.' Understandably, a significant proportion of the Maga crowd are not taking this well at all. One of the key takeouts of Trump's rise has been that as long as you tell people that up is down or black is white in an engaging or sufficiently discombobulating fashion, truth is an extremely low-status commodity in contemporary politics. But, contrary to perceived trends, it seems that there do still exist some subjects on which you can only push even your own people so far. Maybe the ancient political adage still holds true: live by the paedo conspiracy, die by the paedo conspiracy. Late on Thursday, as footage of people burning Maga hats spread online, a palpably frustrated Trump announced that he was instructing the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to seek release of the Epstein grand jury testimony, 'based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein'. Though you'll note the president failed to add the two key words: 'by me'. Still, it's good to hear Trump characterising what's currently happening as 'publicity', confirming that he sees even the desire to see justice served on a suspected paedophile sex-trafficker and his associates as a form of limelight – which, like all limelight, should by rights be his. It feels harder to sustain the idea that there is nothing to see here, especially when leading wingnuts such as the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, far-right activist Laura Loomer, Fox host Laura Ingraham, talkshow queen Megyn Kelly, Maga whisperer Steve Bannon and even the US House speaker, Mike Johnson, are out there pushing the base conviction that, actually, there might well be something to see here. 'It's definitely a full reversal on what was all said beforehand,' observed Marjorie in a once-in-a-career alignment with fact, 'and people are just not willing to accept it.' We have to take our laughs where we can, meanwhile, so do please consider the cavalcade of podcasters and Maga influencers who got jobs like 'director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation' and 'deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation' and are now discovering that life comes at you fast. FBI chief Kash Patel spent the election campaign pushing Epstein conspiracies, and is now believed to be hiding under his big important desk wetting his pants. 'Listen,' his deputy, Dan Bongino, used to instruct his podcast listeners. 'That Jeffrey Epstein story is a big deal, please do not let that story go. Keep your eye on this.' Will do, Dan. Incidentally, a lot of people spent the weekend speculating feverishly that Bongino would sensationally quit his job – but in the end, he just came into work a bit late on Monday. What a tough guy. Make America Deep State Again! Other developments? That are perhaps not unrelated? The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump had served as a contributor to some kind of cursed 50th birthday scrapbook for Epstein, compiled by Maxwell, for which he'd sent a 'bawdy' letter. This missive was reportedly typed inside a drawing of a naked woman's silhouette, in which the famous Trump signature served as a kind of scribble of pubic hair. So far, so FDR. Unfortunately, particularly in the circumstances, the letter itself is said to conclude: 'Happy birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.' Alas, the current president is not thrilled by this report, denying it completely, adding that he has never in his life 'wrote a picture'. (It goes without saying that all Donald Trump statements, always, are very much [sic].) Much more promisingly, Trump is furious with the WSJ owner, Rupert Murdoch, and threatening to 'sue his ass off'. Oh please don't, Mr President! His ass is 94 years old and incredibly wrinkled. Also, half of Britain's political class still lives up it. Then again, perhaps Trump v Murdoch is very much the desiccated-dick-waving contest the world … wants? Needs? Will have to endure? Unclear which of those applies at this stage, but let's hold out for the possibility that both men are wholly – and indeed literally – consumed by it. Angles-wise, however, there are already signs that the Wall Street Journal might just be the common enemy the Magas need as an off-ramp for their civil war, allowing people who are obsessed with paedophiles to find common cause both with people who don't care about paedophiles, and also with people who may actually have been close personal friends with paedophiles. There'll probably only be one casualty, and it'll probably be Pam Bondi. Women are great at taking these falls. Furthermore, the whole conflagration would once more pit a billionaire president against one of his billionaire buddies – exactly the kind of better world his supporters voted for, and a true testament to how truly, truly deeply he values them. Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
John Healey and MPs bask in nauseating non-mea culpas over secret Afghan relocation scheme
I suppose we might have guessed something like this. In August 2021, the then foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, had moaned about the 'sea being closed' while on holiday in Crete. The fate of thousands of Afghans who had helped the UK and whose lives were in danger as the Taliban homed in on Kabul came a distant second. For Psycho Dom, it was a simple matter of priorities. So no wonder a government official and/or a soldier had been less than diligent with the names of Afghans at risk. Following by example. Which one of us hasn't accidentally emailed an entire spreadsheet of more than 18,000 endangered people to someone who might pass on their names to the Taliban? Such an easy mistake to make. Why bother to check a confidential file when you can just press send and go and grab yourself a coffee? Shortly after 12.30 and the lifting of the superinjunction, the defence secretary, John Healey, came to the Commons to give a statement on the data leak, the subsequent cover-up, and the news that a secret relocation scheme costing at least £800m, the Afghan Recovery Route (ARR), was being wound up. He might as well have been talking about the, by now familiar, Arse Covering Scheme (ACS). Time and again, Healey would commend MPs from both sides of the house for the tone they were taking. The sombre, measured sentences. No surprise there. The fuck ups all originated and were set in motion under the Tories. So they were hardly going to complain. But the self-congratulatory non-mea culpas all became nauseatingly cloying. This was not a time to not rock the boat. This was a time for righteous anger. How dare our government – not the government – be so cavalier with data? Put allies at risk. And then try to cover up the entire shambles. And get us to pay for it. Thanks for that. At the very moment Rishi Sunak was shouting 'Stop the Boats', he was running his own private relocation and immigration scheme to mop after his government's own failings. Someone should hang their head in shame at the hypocrisy. Time and again Healey would insist that it caused governments great pain to keep things secret from the public. That would have come as news to most of us. More frequently, it feels like getting blood from a stone. A desperate attempt either to conceal or, when that's no longer an option, to spin the truth to their best advantage. Tuesday's statement felt like no exception. There was no avoiding this one for Healey once the superinjunction was lifted. If he hadn't given a statement he would soon have been playing catchup, as the journalists who had known about the story for years but had been prevented from writing about it would have got to work. Best to get the government version out first. Time for the ACS. Healey began by apologising for having kept parliament in the dark about the data leak and the ARR. This broke his heart, he said. He sounded almost sincere. But what could he have done? He too was bound by the superinjunction. What we had to remember was that it was all in a good cause. So top secret, that even those whose data had been breached were not allowed to be informed. That way, if the Taliban had wanted to send in a death squad then at least it would come as a surprise. So much better than spending months worrying about it. Or trying to flee the country. Anyway, Healey concluded, everything was fine now. The Taliban had promised to be a lot nicer. So it was OK for the superinjunction to be lifted and it was just fine to end the ARR. Everyone who needed to be in the UK was now accounted for. Or thereabouts. And anyone who wasn't could just take their chances. The UK had done its bit. Paid all its debts. You couldn't go around feeling sorry for Afghans you'd let down indefinitely. Part of the healing process was the moving on. In reply, the shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge, was keen to absolve both the Tories and Labour. And especially himself. He had been a very – ever so humble – junior minister in August 2023 and his involvement had been minimal. So minimal that he might as well not have been there. So let's just say he wasn't there. Or anywhere. It was all down to Ben Wallace or Grant Shapps. One of the two. But they too had been doing their best. So it was probably right for all concerned to just reflect quietly and look to the future. This pretty set the tone for the next hour and a quarter. Everyone was very sorry but none of them had done anything wrong. And it was important to remember that. They were the real victims in this, not the Afghans. The Lib Dem's Helen Maguire went on to wonder just how many other superinjunctions the government might have in place. Er … That's the whole point. We'll never get to find out unless they are lifted. For all his rhetoric about the value of transparency in the cradle of democracy – yuk – Healey was relatively opaque with his answers. He ignored requests to identify the leaker as either a government official, a civil servant or a soldier and refused to say if the person had been sacked or forced to resign. Above all of our pay grades. He also threw his hands in the air. Much of the detail was in the papers of the former government. And luckily he didn't have access to them. Long may it stay that way. Some of the dimmer MPs from both parties sought assurance that this could never happen again. A question that always gets asked at such moments. As if you could stop idiots from being idiots. You can't foolproof the system. Especially when Psycho and the Shappster are setting the mood. The most interesting contributions came from Tories Edward Leigh and Mark Pritchard. Leigh suggested that one useful takeaway was we should think twice before committing to any more liberal imperialist urges to send British troops into unstable countries. Pritchard reckoned it was time to rock the boat. Shake the Commons out of its complacency and for people to feel a genuine sense of outrage. Healey shook his head. This was the wrong tone. That would never do.
