Oops

And BTW - Unanimous Consent on NO PARDON FOR GHISLAINE MAXWELL.

Todd Blanche won’t get Thursday vote in Senate Judiciary Committee

The panel postponed a planned meeting as key GOP holdouts press for concessions.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has abandoned plans to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general Thursday, a significant speed bump that will make it difficult for Republicans to confirm him before the chamber begins its August recess next week.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) held firm Wednesday in his demand that Blanche revise a controversial settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and the IRS.

Cornyn, who was defeated for renomination earlier this year by a Trump-backed primary challenger, was explicit on the legal language he needed from Blanche — even providing the Justice Department with a revision to the agreement that would address his concerns — but an agreement could not be reached in time to have the Thursday morning vote.

“We actually sent them a red-line strikeout of what we need, and they just need to make a decision,” Cornyn said earlier Wednesday, adding that he was “trying to make it easy for them.”

Just one GOP “no” vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee would effectively sink Blanche’s nomination. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another member of the panel with concerns about the settlement, said he would follow Cornyn’s lead.

Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), along with Tillis, met late afternoon in Cornyn’s office to hammer out the issues on Blanche, but with no resolution.

“We made it clear that we need the language to move forward with the markup,” Tillis said of the meeting.

The vote could still be rescheduled if Cornyn and Tillis are satisfied, though it might not happen in time to get Blanche across the floor before the recess begins at the end of next week.

A DOJ official granted anonymity to describe the negotiations said the department sent “new language” to the two senators and remains “in discussion” with them.

A spokesperson for Grassley, who declined to be named, also said the discussions continue.

“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure,” the person said. “Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report [Blanche], who is highly qualified for the job.”

Not Too Deep, Now

FBI Director killed Epstein case after review of less than 7% of investigation files

Internal communications from the Department of Justice reveal that the decision to close the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein was made after a narrowly focused review of less than 7% of the case files, centered entirely on photo and video evidence.

FBI Director Kash Patel tasked agents in March 2025 to “determine if there are any images of individuals on any videos which should be considered for prosecution,” according to emails published as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The resulting review examined an estimated 400,000 of the 6 million files compiled against Epstein and did not include financial documents, personal communications, or a majority of witness testimony.

The review was conducted by an agent working out of the DOJ’s Southern District of New York office and completed within a few hours of the request. It supposedly found no evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and his now-convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

“All videos and images from the case file and from Epstein’s residences and devices were reviewed for evidence of a crime,” the agent wrote in their analysis. “Those reviews revealed no evidence from any of the searches we conducted or any of the files we reviewed that any videos or other images exist of any victims in this case being sexually abused. Nor did those reviews reveal any evidence that anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell participated in the sexual abuse of victims in this case.”

The internal memo sheds new light on the agency’s abrupt decision to end its investigation into Epstein’s multi-billion dollar sex trafficking operation, and adds context to the public memo on the matter that many derided as woefully insufficient. In the analysis, the agent emphasized that their determinations were made exclusively based on visual evidence, and even that was limited to include investigations specific to the SDNY.

The review omitted all surveillance footage, for example, as the 2019 search warrant executed at Epstein’s properties only authorized confiscation of evidence related to crimes committed within the preceding 20 years. Witness testimony was also severely limited: anything other than on-camera interviews with the Palm Beach Police department was not considered.

The language in Patel’s official FBI memo announcing the closure of the investigation mirrors the internal analysis almost identically, and a reexamination of the text suggests the video and image elements were the only determining factors.

“The files relating to Epstein include a large volume of images of Epstein, images and videos of victims who are either minors or appear to be minors, and over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography. Teams of agents, analysts, attorneys, and privacy and civil liberties experts combed through the digital and documentary evidence” the memo stated. “This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The DOJ and FBI did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

The decision to close the investigation into Epstein’s criminal enterprise without pursuing additional inquiries into potential accomplices or co-conspirators was seen as a miscarriage of justice by survivors, witnesses, and members of Congress, particularly after the DOJ acknowledged that there were “over one thousand victims” connected to the case.

Two weeks after the investigation was closed, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee forced a vote to open an inquiry into the government’s handling of the files. Patel’s decision not to pursue charges based on a small, selective portion of evidence reinforces committee members’ assertion that the DOJ has been involved in a cover-up to protect those implicated from harm.

“This is obviously really concerning. We have a lot of questions about this,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), ranking member of the Oversight Committee. “We have some other information as it relates to the FBI director and the way he’s mismanaged the redaction process, so there are a lot of questions for Kash Patel, including the really serious ones that you raised. And so this is why Kash Patel has got to be in front of the committee, and he’s got to answer our questions.”

On Tuesday, Garcia sent a letter to committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) requesting that Patel and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche be brought in for questioning.

Patel and Blanche were repeatedly referenced by former Attorney General Pam Bondi during her recent interview with the committee, during which she redirected nearly all criticism to her subordinates. According to Bondi, Blanche handled the day-to-day affairs of the Epstein investigation — including transferring convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to a more desirable prison with low security and luxurious amenities — while Patel oversaw the consolidation of the files and redaction process.

“Pam Bondi deflected to Todd Blanche over 30 times. I mean, it was crazy how often she would put the blame on Blanche. So, if that’s going to be the case, we want to talk to Blanche. We want to understand why Bondi was saying that Blanche was the one in charge of the redactions, in charge of the investigation. He has questions to answer,” said Garcia. “She did mention Patel numerous times on the FBI redaction side. And so we have questions obviously for Kash Patel. These are people that we want to talk to as soon as possible.”

Survivors of Epstein’s abuse have also come forward in support of Garcia’s request, demanding answers as to why they were never contacted by the DOJ as part of its investigation and why the FBI failed to redact personal and identifying information about them while adding redactions to the names of those implicated in criminal activity.

Probably Nothing

But somebody has to chronicle this shit.

And I'm not volunteering, BTW. I'm just putting up a few posts now and again, so there's a chance that the story thread isn't completely lost.

Model Recruiter Daniel Siad, Who Provided Young Women to Jeffrey Epstein, Found Dead

A model recruiter accused of procuring girls for convicted child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead in his home in France.

Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court, confirmed in public statements on Wednesday that Daniel Siad’s body was found earlier this week in his home in Colombes.

An autopsy will now be conducted to determine the cause of death.

“An investigation to determine the cause of death was opened on Monday evening following the discovery,” the Nanterre office said.

Siad recently spoke with CNN’s Katie Polglase and denied ever having knowledge of Epstein’s crimes despite introducing him to two girls who later accused Epstein of sexual abuse.

“I trusted him and believed this guy was a professional person,” Siad said. “I never heard anything from anyone I introduced to him who came back to me that they had a bad situation. I believed this guy is a professional person.”

Siad’s name appears thousands of times in Department of Justice files related to Epstein’s case. Siad continued working with Epstein even after the billionaire was first convicted in Florida and forced to register as a sex offender.

Epstein died of an apparent suicide in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.

Siad’s exchanges with Epstein were often Siad sending Epstein photos and details about young girls he’d met and recruited as a potential assistants or other workers for Epstein.

In a 2015 email, Siad sent Epstein a photo of a 16-year-old girl and her friend, and Epstein replied that the girls were “too old.”

Siad was facing his own abuse allegations, including rape, from multiple models. Siad denied the accusations.

“I have never raped anyone in my life,” he told BFMTV in May.

A former model, who gave a deposition in June as part of the investigation, told the BBC that Siad’s death represents a major piece of the Epstein mystery disappearing.

“An important link in the chain has just vanished into thin air, without there even having been a chance to recover the information Daniel Siad might have possessed — given that he was never questioned,” she said.

The Epstein Regime

Hawk

The Bond villain always reveals his dastardly plan, and is destroyed, not so much by his hubris (altho that's part of it), but by his self-loathing, and his subconscious need to be punished.

The Leak

Yes, it's a big deal that there was a meeting in the White House Situation Room to talk about keeping the lid on the Epstein Files.

And yes, it's just as big a deal that reporters were able to get details of that very secret discussion.

Nobody likes the secrecy - though governments do have to do some things out of sight of public scrutiny. 

But we have the right to know what our government is up to in most cases, and when the government is actually plotting to go on breaking the law by not releasing the files, that's a big fuckin' deal.

I want answers, and I want heads on pikes at the city gate.

Top White House officials believe New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan obtained audio recordings of Situation Room meetings for their forthcoming book, "Regime Change."

Why it matters:

Such a taped leak would be a shocking breach of one of the most secure settings on Earth. Independent recording devices in the Situation Room are forbidden.

• "We're afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded," an administration source told us. "And we have no idea which ones."

Verbatim accounts of several Situation Room meetings were included in excerpts about the Iran war and the Epstein files that The Times posted ahead of the book's June 23 publication.

The authors conducted more than 1,000 interviews for "Regime Change," which covers Trump's second term.

• Tellingly, White House officials haven't disputed verbatim dialogue from the top-secret Sit Room talks, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying about Bibi's regime-change scenarios for Iran: "In other words, it's bullshit."

We hear President Trump is furious about the blow-by-blow accounts.

• Haberman and Swan refused to comment.

Reality check:

Haberman and Swan didn't need audio recordings. Bob Woodward pioneered contemporary historical political journalism by including dialogue in his books that was reconstructed from the memories of people in the rooms where things happened.

The big picture:

Audio recordings or not, the speculation about them, and the extensive coverage of the book's juicy excerpts, mean more buzz, more book sales ... and the making of a classic.

Katie Phang

It doesn't apply to everybody in all circumstances. But it always applies to public servants who are not engaged in actual secret government stuff.

If you've done nothing wrong - if you're doing nothing wrong - stop trying to hide what you're doing.

Aaron Parnas

Robert Arnold

Sometimes, you have to stop and consider a full blown purge.

There Most Certainly Is Evidence

Pam Bondi lied under oath.

I think we've all known that, but this is the first time I've heard anybody state it so clearly, putting it directly into the Congressional Record.

Dan Goldman may be a rich legacy puke, but he's doing the lord's work right now.

New Mexico Steps Up

First off, what the fuck is it with Deutsche Bank? They've been cited in connection with practically every shady/shitty deal since forever.

Rick tells the Deutsche Bank guy to fuck off:

New Mexico lawmakers issue first subpoenas in Epstein investigation

A bipartisan special committee of New Mexico lawmakers, which was created to probe the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch near Santa Fe, announced Monday that it will send out its first round of subpoenas.

The New Mexico Truth Commission is slated to send subpoenas to 14 entities, including agencies that have investigated Epstein in the past, such as the FBI and the New Mexico Department of Justice.

Subpoenas will also be issued to several entities that have been affiliated with Epstein, including Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase, as well as the Santa Fe Institute, a nonprofit scientific research institute that Epstein supported.

JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank declined comment. Santa Fe Institute did not immediately respond to The Hill’s requests for comment.

Any evidence showing someone committed a crime will be sent to the appropriate law enforcement agency, either in New Mexico or elsewhere, according to the commission.

Commission members said they are aiming to build “a complete documented record” examining allegations of sex trafficking and other misconduct connected to Epstein’s operations in New Mexico, as well as any institutional failures that allowed him to continue any misconduct in the state for years.

“We will name what happened, we will name who was responsible and we will do so with the evidentiary regard that survivors deserve and that the law requires,” state Rep. Andrea Reeb (R) said at a meeting at the New Mexico State Capitol. She is one of four lawmakers on the commission.

Earlier this year, authorities in New Mexico reopened their probe into alleged illegal activity that took place at the ranch previously owned by Epstein, located 30 miles from Santa Fe. Law enforcement also investigated allegations that two bodies were buried in the hills near the ranch.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) has encouraged victims of Epstein to come forward as part of his office’s investigation into the ranch.

Stansbury Brings The Fire

The system has not, and is not failing. It's working exactly the way is was designed to work.

Her Name Was Virginia

Aaron and Katie

Letting Katie Phang get away showed me just how venal and outright chickenshit MSNBC had become.

If you want the truth, ask people whose integrity isn't tied to a paycheck.

Unconfirmed

... but what is there that says this is not the way it is?

Say What Now?

Interesting that shortly after Melania made her public statement about Epstein and Maxwell, Trump posted a video of a woman being murdered.

Make of that what you will.

Rich Man's War

... poor man's fight.

Let the Epstein Class fight the Epstein War.

Distraction

Half of Americans believe Trump bombed Iran because of Epstein files

Speculation US president started conflict as a distraction spreads across political spectrum

Another sign shows a picture of an American serviceman killed in the conflict, standing in front of the Stars and Stripes. “Cody Khork did not have to die fighting Iran for the Epstein class”, it reads.

Four days before the bombing of Iran on Feb 28, a report revealed that the Department of Justice (DoJ) removed more than 50 pages of interviews about Mr Trump from the files, including one victim who claimed the now president abused her when she was a child decades ago.

Was it a coincidence that Mr Trump decided to bomb Iran when the Epstein files threatened to expose him?

It sounds like pure conspiracy theory, but the idea that Mr Trump began the war — hitting Tehran from the skies — to distract from Epstein has also circulated among respected pillars of American society: from Republicans to Democrats, and influential podcasters.

“PSA: bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away, any more than the Dow going above 50,000 will,” wrote Thomas Massie, a Republican who has clashed repeatedly with Mr Trump over his demands to release the documents.

He is not alone.

“For years we demanded to release the Epstein files... not a single person has been arrested and likely won’t be: no accountability, no justice,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally and House representative, said on the day the bombing started. She added: “Instead, we get a war with Iran on behalf of Israel that will succeed in regime change in Iran”.

Graham Platner, a Maine Democrat, felt much the same, telling a crowd in Brewer the day after the strikes that “this war is also being pushed because Donald Trump is in the Epstein files, and other people in the White House, and other people connected with the Epstein class,” he said, “they are terrified that we have noticed what they are doing”.

In June 2025, Joe Rogan, the American podcaster with 11 million monthly listeners, voiced similar thoughts after Mr Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. “Just bomb Iran and everybody forgets. Everybody forgets about it,” he said.

It is not just politicians who think there may be a link.

A recent poll for Zeteo, a Left-wing website, and other outlets found that 52 per cent of people in the US believe the president attacked Iran because of the headlines about Epstein.

It found that 81 per cent of Democrats thought the war was a deliberate distraction, compared with 52 per cent of independent voters and 26 per cent of Republicans.

Chris Edelson, a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said it was “certainly possible” that the war could have been to distract from Epstein. “What we have seen in the files is shocking stuff related to Trump,” he said.

“They passed a law to make the Epstein files public and they didn’t and kept back some of the most damning stuff,” he added. “If that was the calculation then it’s trademark Trump but it’s been a disaster... what’s followed isn’t better, it’s just a different kind of terrible situation.”

On March 6, six days after the war began, the US justice department released more files pertaining to the president’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, including interviews with the alleged child victim.

The anonymous accuser said that she met Mr Trump through Epstein around 1983, when she was between 13 and 15 years old.

The Trump administration dismissed the woman’s claims as “baseless allegations”, and they have failed to have significantly affected public consciousness, or newspaper headlines, since the beginning of the war.

In a statement, the White House said the idea that Mr Trump began the war to stop the Epstein headlines was “such a ridiculous take that it could only be concocted by true morons, such as Thomas Massie and the Democrats”.

But the “Operation Epstein Fury” posters remain, as does the public speculation.

“When confronted with a faltering economy and the persistent political radiation of the Epstein matter, a war with Iran looked like a perfect narrative reset,” said Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican strategist.

“For Trump, war is the ultimate political reset, no matter its cost.”

Erika Jordan

Pointing out the cynical use of something like the "non-apology apology" is not cynicism. It's truth.

Epstein In New Mexico

Melanie Stansbury is a champion.