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Can someone explain to this non-american why the Democrats are treating this as a successful upset when they could have released the Epstein files during Biden?
I don't see anyone saying this yet, but the Epstein files were sealed by a court order for Ghislaine Maxwell's trial. They weren't unsealed until January of 2025. Biden couldn't have released them without violating the court order that sealed them - and possibly giving Ghislaine's lawyers a slam dunk to get her off with a mistrial.
Here is seems to be at the discretion of the Attorney General. Why didn't Merrick Garland unseal them in September 2024 after her appeal failed?
Merrick Garland is a hard core libertarian centrist and Biden appreciated him for being status quo which means not rocking the boat or doing any effort to to hold anyone rich accountable as his previous bosses were BP and Amazon.
He also refused to prosecute Matt Gaetz.
Read his link. There's nothing in there to indicate that Garland could've released then in 2024.
That does nothing to change the reality of his character or negate his lack of action i pointed out above.
Why did he actually not do anything? Who can say?
Because Merrick Garland is incredibly lazy. He spent his entire tenure sitting around doing nothing.
Because Garland is a heritage foundation boot licker
Garland is a republikkkan and a member of the Federalist Society. He was Biden's greatest failure.
What exactly did you think that first link proved?
That the Attorney General can decide to declassify and publicly release the files.
Because they COULDN'T release them under Biden. They were sealed by court order until January 2025.
There is a lot of desperate "both sides" nonsense going on here but the fact remains, Democrats are voting to release them and Republicans are not. If Democrats wanted to cover them up, why would they be doing that?
It’s all bread and circuses until the 1% have extracted the last iota of capital from the rest of us and the country finally collapses.
Politik-brained Canadian here:
IIRC they didn't raid Epstein till 2019. In 2020 Democrats had a narrow majority in the house which they would lose in 2022.
Than January 6, 2021 happened, and I think everyone thought that would be the legal case that brought Trump down.
It kind of seemed inevitable that the Epstein files would get leaked or released eventually. That is until Trump officially ran again in 2023; creating the possibility that the evidence would be destroyed permanently if he won.
just to tie on to this, theres a none zero chance some prominent democrat "old guard" are also on the list, and their positions are too valuable to be lost (to the status quo). january 6th, if it was enough, would have been a great way to protect the old guard and get rid of trump. but thats evidently not what happened.
i dont care whos on the list, from what side, i want them all punished. anybody whos complicit in the current shit show, or is on that list, needs to be shot in the street like a rabid dog.
While I was still on Reddit, there was a list going around of politicians charged with child sex offences. Sure, there were a few Dems, curse them to hell, but by FAR the majority were Republikkklans. The list was up to page 57 last time I sighted it.
We just need the files. I'm sure there's gonna be plenty of "I was just on it because he was blackmailing me" or whatever, from everyone involved, innocent or not. Unless there's something that literally has itemized "X person, 2 kids, diddled both, camera footage timestamp x:xx:xx" I really doubt much legally will come from it.
Court of public opinion however, that's gonna cause some real shakedowns, if people actually listen.
maybe the video tapes that they took?
I wager the actual chances are in the double digits.
Triple digits?
Last I checked the chances had been reduced by 1000%
And it might have been if they didn't drag their feet so much.
They full on chickened out!
I have met chickens and they are braver than any politician I've seen.
Probably the spine.
Craven Republican “Trump is a threat to democracy.”
Proceeds to vote for acquittal
This is sort of where I keep going back to in my mind. Like, I've seen things about supposed redacting or whatnot. So, like, what is there to be released if supporters of the Current Admins had them for so long?
Some like original copy of something somewhere that somebody secreted away?
And, how does something like that get proven to be...legitimate? Especially to a point of actionable repercussions?
I honestly just don't understand how this all works. Hoping for the damn best though.
Because they couldn't, or at least not without potentially ruining the case while it was before the courts at the time?
The Dems have molesters/rapists on the list themselves. The difference is that we are not cultists and will gladly watch those perverts go to jail. Apparently MAGA just barely started caring about justice as it pertains to the files.
Why were the files not released under Biden? Hell .. Bill Clinton is on the list (shocking).
Is that proven?
Everything is still in the "reportedly" quote stage, but it looks like Clinton went there for Epsteins 50th birthday party. He is on the flight logs.
Remember that Epsteins "operation" supposedly worked by blackmail, so many people could have been invited and not taken the bait. If they went multiple times however .... like Trump.
The Attorney general under Biden, Merrick Garland, is a by the book liberal conservative. He assumed the treasonous actions of January 6 2021 would sink trump's political career. He also believed - correctly- that the attorney general is appointed by a president to lead the judicial branch independent of the executive branch. Merrick focused the AG office on the January 6th investigation and didn't publish the Epstein documents as they weren't part of any specific case.
There is also the theory that high ranking establishment Democrats are on the Epstein list. We also know that there are many pictures of epstein's clients with underage girls that haven't been published. Likely because American legal culture always seeks to punish the women involved in sex work and views the "johns" as victims who need to be protected
It makes their opponents look bad when they refuse
They were sealed by court order until January 2025.
Or you know, mindless nonsensical conspiracy theories.
I was under the impression that the president was above the law
Shhh! Don't ruin it for the rest of us! On tomorrow's episode of "As The Empire Crumbles", will the files lead to anything actionable?