Epstein Scandal Just Keeps Going, and Going, and Going

Yesterday, a couple more people paid at least some sort of price for their dalliances with Jeffrey Epstein.

The first of those is the former U.K. Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson. He had already lost his job and now, he has joined his buddy Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in being arrested. And while the Brits tend to play things very close to the vest (the Barbour jacket?) while criminal matters are pending, it appears that Mandelson faces the same charges that the former Prince does, namely misconduct in public office, due to having shared privileged financial information with Epstein. It's the old Al Capone story, we suppose—financial crimes are easier to prove because they leave a paper trail.

Also receiving at least some small measure of justice yesterday was now-former CBS contributor Dr. Peter Attia. Attia was a high-profile hire for CBS News' newly installed Minister of Information Bari Weiss, and she tried very hard to hold on to him as he was enmeshed in scandal. However, the e-mails that Attia exchanged with Epstein were just too problematic for him to continue (think "jokes" like "Pu**y is, indeed, low-carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content..."), and so he resigned yesterday. He's not headed to prison (at least, not yet), and he'll still have his medical career. But he won't be showing up as a medical expert on TV again anytime this millennium (except maybe on LindellTV).

There is also a race, of sorts, to see who will be the next person to pay the piper. The quack self-help guru Deepak Chopra was yet another correspondent of Epstein's (how did this guy have time to keep up SO MANY e-mail relationships?), and though he has claimed the relationship was innocent, CNN published e-mails yesterday in which Chopra told Epstein, on several occasions, to "bring your girls" while also encouraging the sex trafficker to use an alias if necessary. Doesn't sound so innocent to us, or to anyone else who did not fall off the turnip truck in the last 24 hours.

The only thing that may save Chopra is that he doesn't really have a job to be fired from, or to "voluntarily" resign from. He's not too likely to be invited onto these various cable channels as a guest anymore, and he may see his book sales decline, but he's almost 80 and he's made his money, so he might just be able to go gentle into that good night and escape any sort of meaningful consequences (beyond the de facto end of his career).

The other guy who is currently feeling the heat is Casey Wasserman. He is pretty famous in Los Angeles, and his offices are just half a mile from (Z)'s residence, so (Z) has had a front-row seat for his career for a very long time. And (Z)'s impression, now validated, was always that Wasserman is shady as hell. Anyhow, Wasserman's sexually loaded e-mails, which he exchanged with Ghislaine Maxwell, have already compelled him to announce he will sell the talent agency that bears his name. He had little choice in that, as many clients and many agents were on the verge of defecting. And now, pressure is mounting for him to resign as chair of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Frankly, it's hard to see how he can possibly hold on to that job. The Olympics are supposed to be an opportunity for a city to put its very best foot forward, and it's not so easy to do that if the face of the city's efforts is a creep with close ties to the most notorious sex trafficker in recent memory.

There remains, of course, one place that is an Epstein-consequence-free zone, a fortress of solitude against any and all repercussions for having palled around with, and probably aided and abetted, a sexual predator. That, of course, would be the White House. Donald Trump is all over the Epstein files, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick makes more than a few appearances (and in both cases, the evidence in the files makes clear that the two men lied about the length and depth of their relationships with the dead man).

We wrote last week that we are now convinced, based just on the information that is publicly available, that Donald Trump is guilty of felonious sexual acts as part of his association with Epstein. What we specifically meant by that is that if we were on a jury, and we were asked to vote, we would vote "guilty." There is, first of all, a pattern of behavior over and above the Epstein stuff. That's absolutely admissible in a court of law. And then, there is ample eyewitness testimony as to specific crimes committed as part of the Epstein "hive." From where we sit, it's beyond reasonable doubt, at this point.

That said, we do not believe Trump will ever face a jury. And we tend to doubt he'll face any other consequences, unless something comes out that is so bad, the Republicans in Congress simply cannot let it pass. What we do think is that a huge percentage of the voting public has reached the same conclusions we have, namely that Trump is hiding/guilty of something. And keep in mind that when people cast their ballots, there is no "reasonable doubt" standard.

A look at the recent polling on the Epstein fiasco tells the tale. Pollsters ask slightly different questions, but here's a rundown:

• Quinnipiac: 63% of voters (and 36% of Republicans) disapprove of the administration's handling of the files, versus 17% (40% of Republicans) who approve.
  
  
• Reuters/Ipsos: 69% of respondents, including 81% of Democrats and 58% of Republicans, think that the Epstein story shows that rich and powerful people are rarely held accountable for their misdeeds.
  
  
• YouGov: 53% of Americans, including 91% of Democrats, 58% of independents, and 13% of Republicans, think Trump is covering up Epstein's crimes. 50% of Americans, including 86% of Democrats, 53% of independents, and 13% of Republicans, think Trump participated in Epstein's crimes.
  
  
• CNN/SSRS: 89% of Democrats, 72% of independents and 42% of Republicans think the White House is deliberately withholding critical information from the Epstein files.
  
  
• Data for Progress: 55% of all voters—86% of Democrats, 60% of independents, and 19% of Republicans—think the administration has been "mostly dishonest" about the Epstein files.

This presents the Democrats with at least three obvious things to harp on, over and over: (1) There is a cover-up going on, (2) rich people rarely face justice, and (3) victimized women rarely get justice. All three of those are potentially very powerful. And in case you doubt that the blue team is thinking this way, a bunch of representatives will each bring an Epstein victim as their guest to the State of the Union tonight.

The White House was obviously hoping this would go away, but there's no reason to think that will happen. As non-Trump administration personnel suffer various consequences, Epstein will be in the headlines over and over and over. It also doesn't help that the Department of Justice, in pretty apparent defiance of the law passed by Congress, has released as little as 2% of the total bulk of the files. Eventually, there are going to be angry members of Congress demanding more, or filing lawsuits to force compliance, or both.

Trump himself is not at all that much risk, of course, unless this really gets out of hand. He doesn't have to get elected again. But the 450 or so Republicans running for Congress this year are in something of a bind. If they don't speak out against Trump, they get tarred with a very unpleasant brush as an apologist or an enabler. If they do speak out, then they aggravate the President, and risk his wrath. We guess that the GOP politicians will try to focus on non-Trump-administration miscreants ("Damn that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor!"), at least until primary season is over. At that point, it could get very interesting. (Z)

The Sports Report, Part I: Trump on College Football

Josh Pate is a longtime local TV sports guy who eventually got into the podcasting business. And, after some amount of time, he was able to build Josh Pate's College Football Show into a moderate-sized player in the sports podcasting game. That's pretty good, given how much competition there is in that space.

Pate is one of those "stick to sports" guys, and his brand is that he doesn't allow politics to intrude on his show. But then, the White House reached out to arrange an interview with Donald Trump, and Pate took the offer. Recognizing that some might have viewed this as hypocritical, Pate got on eX-Twitter to make this declaration:

1.) When the President of the United States offers to discuss College Football it's an auto-yes 1000% of the time

2.) Those expecting political discussion will be sorely disappointed

In the actual "Trump episode," Pate did an intro in which he reiterated again that Trump's appearance would be politics-free, before cutting to the pre-recorded interview.

If you would like to see it for yourself, here it is:

It's about 10 minutes, and it's characteristically rambling. The breakdown goes something like this:

• How much Trump hates the new NFL kickoff rules (keeping in mind this is a COLLEGE football show): 5%
• College football, particularly Georgia football (the interview was recorded in Georgia): 10%
• What amazing people Trump has surrounded himself with (especially his Cabinet): 35%
• Amazing people + college football (specifically, Herschel Walker): 5%
• How impressive that Trump won election twice/three times: 20%
• Melania Trump's "successful" movie career: 5%
• The White House: 10%
• Trump's enemies: 10%

Pate must have a different definition of "politics-free" than we do. The one thing that did not show up very much, on this college football show, was college football. It really only came up twice.

We pass this story along for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's a preview of where Trump's at, mentally, heading into the State of the Union. And we'll add that yesterday, he spent a whole bunch of time ranting and raving about tariffs, the Supreme Court, etc. on his ritalin-for-presidents social media platform. So, if you're trying to guess how the SOTU will go, this is the last-minute scouting report, as it were.

The other reason we make mention of this is that both online, and in the actual episode, after the Trump interview portion was over, Pate defended himself over and over by saying "If you get a chance to interview a president, of COURSE you take it!" We understand why that's his instinctive response, but we wonder if other media figures are going to start making a different calculation. Consider the downsides to interviewing Trump:

• You betray your brand (as "no mixing sports and politics" Pate did), or at very least you open yourself to criticism that you are platforming a fascist/racist/rapist/pedophile. Anyone who counts on fans for subscriptions/ratings risks losing some (or a lot) of them. Pate, for his part, said that he got a lot of messages from people who said they were now done with his show. He also said that 90% of those were bots. How he calculated this figure went unexplained.
  
  
• Because Trump does not answer questions, and because he says whatever he wants to say, and because he meanders, it may not be possible to do an interview with him without looking like a fool. Even veteran political journalists get eaten up, to say nothing of rookies like Pate.
  
  
• Since Trump is basically a broken record, he rarely says anything that is especially new or newsworthy. So, an interviewer is unlikely to get credit for "breaking" some important news.
  
  
• As a bonus, if the interview displeases Trump, he might sue you for $10 million... or $10 billion.

Trump prefers softball Fox interviews anyhow, where they're happy to let him prattle on, and where there's no embarrassment to the interviewer, since everyone already knows they're in the bag for him. And the day may soon come when Fox is just about the only place he can get booked. (Z)

The Sports Report, Part II: The Hockey News

This is the kind of story that only this administration could plausibly produce.

As nearly all readers will know, the Winter Olympics concluded Sunday night. Everybody knows that FBI "Director" Kash Patel loves hockey, loves rah-rah patriotism, and loves to be seen at high-profile events. That, plus some information about his whereabouts, allowed roughly everyone to conclude that he would travel to Italy to see the gold-medal game between Canada and the United States. For example, reporter Ken Dilianian of MS NOW put the pieces together, and wrote that Americans should probably expect to see Patel at the game. Patel's spokesman went ballistic over this, and tweeted:

Your rag outlet wrote that he went to hang out at the Olympics on the taxpayer dime—even when provided information that your theory was false. When you're ready to correct that let me know. Won't hold my breath.

And during the game, who was in the stands, perfectly visible in his luxury box? You guessed it. And when the U.S. won, and there was a massive celebration in the locker room, who was there, dancing and chugging beers? You guessed it again.

Now, we appreciate and accept that people who are in high-profile, high-pressure jobs need to get some rest and relaxation on occasion. If a person needs to do some golfing, or some sailing, or wants to watch a movie, or catch a baseball game to let off some steam, then so be it.

Where we get into a gray area is the question of why Patel needs quite so much R&R, especially given that he reportedly does not do all that much actual work. Also a gray area is how much of the taxpayers' money is appropriate to spend on leisure activities for government officials. This is far from the first time that Patel has jetted around (not cheap) on the government's dime, either to attend sporting events or his girlfriend's concerts. For the Olympics, Patel arranged some meetings with Italian police, so that he could claim he's really traveling on business, and he just happened to catch the hockey game while he was in town. But does anyone really buy that?

Meanwhile, there is also a black and white area, and that is: How dare Patel's spokesman not only lie about the trip, but then abuse a reporter who dared to be correct in his reporting. What on earth is the point of that, if Patel is going to go to the game and parade around like a stallion out to stud? How does that achieve anything beyond making Patel and the administration look bad?

And that is not the only storyline in this soap opera. It is not a secret that most of the U.S. men's hockey team is MAGA, and basically shares Trump's anti-Canadian feelings. This came up during the NHL's Four Nations tournament, and it came up again during the Olympics. And while the U.S. players were celebrating, and Patel was drinking his umpteenth beer, Donald Trump called in to the locker room to speak to everyone. He invited the men's team to attend the State of the Union address tonight, and to the White House, and then added, in a snarky tone of voice: "And we have to, I must tell you, we're gonna have to bring the women's team. [If I don't] do that, I do believe I would probably be impeached." At that point, Trump, Patel and the men's players all had a good laugh at the expense of the women.

This, of course, is the same president who has regularly expressed his deep and abiding commitment to high school girls sports, and to preserving the sanctity of that competition by making sure a couple dozen trans girls across the country can't participate. And yet, he's clearly disdainful of world-class women athletes. Hmm, hard to figure out what's going on there. In any case, Trump, Patel and the U.S. men got lambasted on social media and on various non-right-wing programs for their pretty clear-cut sexism.

The women on the U.S. team, meanwhile, are definitely not MAGA. In fact, they are basically woke. Several of them are lesbians, and nearly all of them have hinted at unhappiness about how they've been treated by the White House during this Olympics, or over the Epstein files, or over other issues. They have no particular interest in attending the SOTU or going to the Trump White House, especially when they know they're not actually welcome. And so, while the men have yet to commit to anything, one way or another, the women have already issued a statement:

We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal-winning U.S. Women's Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement. Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate.

In case you need help translating, here you go: "We've double-checked, and learned that pigs are still land-bound, while the temperature in the infernal regions has not yet dropped below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so we're not going to be able to be there."

Between Epstein, and the MAHA stuff we wrote about yesterday, and the lecherous behavior of some Republicans (keep reading), and the ongoing fight over abortion access, and the possibility of the SAVE Act denying some women the right to vote (since the name on their DL doesn't match their birth certificate), we suspect the GOP is going to have trouble with women voters this cycle. And unforced errors like pissing on the gold-medal-winning women's hockey team do not help. (Z)

Houston, We Have a Problem

Well, actually, the problem affects Rep. Tony Gonzales' (R-TX) enormous district, TX-23, which stretches across the majority of Texas' border with Mexico, includes a part of San Antonio, and not part of Houston. Still, close enough for government work.

Gonzales has been enmeshed in a pretty ugly sex scandal for the last several months. Allegedly, the married Gonzales was carrying on an affair with his aide, the married Regina Santos-Aviles. That's not great, given that the Republicans are ostensibly the "family values" party, and that a member of Congress sleeping with one of their underlings is pretty clearly into sexual misconduct territory, given the power imbalance involved. But the whole thing got immeasurably worse when an apparently jilted Santos-Aviles took her own life last September, and in a particularly brutal way: self-immolation.

Gonzales has endeavored to deny everything, but yesterday, his hometown newspaper got ahold of and published some very racy texts that Gonzales and Santos-Aviles exchanged. The messages cover only 6 hours or so and technically, they don't confirm the extramarital affair, since none of them specifically confirms the pair actually had intercourse. However, they are very explicit about what Gonzales would like to do to Santos-Aviles in bed, and in what position. Certainly it strongly suggests an affair. And, at very least, it makes clear that Gonzales was abusing his power, and that he was lying when he said there was nothing going on.

On a moral and ethical level, it's clear what needs to happen here: Gonzales needs to resign, and immediately. Quite a few of his Republican colleagues agree. Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) all said yesterday that Gonzales should quit, and implied that he should be expelled if he doesn't step down.

On a political level, things are a little more complicated. The first issue, of course, is that the GOP margin in the House is razor-thin, and the loss of another member would put the balance at 217R, 214D. Then it would be 218R, 214D once a replacement for Marge Greene is elected, and then 218R, 215D once a replacement for Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) is elected. That not only allows Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) just one defector (possibly Thomas Massie, R-KY) on votes, it's also getting VERY close for comfort. There are some Republicans concerned that, in this climate, Greene's seat might just flip. There are also rumors that Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL) is in ill health, and may not make it to the end of his term. And then, Doug LaMalfa's replacement has to be chosen in the R+12 CA-01. The upshot is that a change in partisan control of the House starts to become, at very least, a mathematical possibility if Gonzales steps down.

On the other hand, if Gonzales hangs around, he is not going to help the image of the party that is also actively trying to bury Epsteinpot Dome. We suspect every Democrat in Texas will make him the face of the Republican Party. Maybe some Democrats outside of Texas, too.

And finally, there is the matter of Gonzales' district. It is R+7, which is less red than it used to be because of Texas' redistricting. The mapmakers were counting on R+7 being more than enough for an incumbent Latino in a heavily Latino district. But with the current political climate, and now with the sex scandal, maybe not so much. Would the Republicans be better off with a sleazy incumbent, or with an unknown who is not enmeshed in an ugly scandal? In 2 weeks, GOP voters in that district are going to cast their votes, and make a decision. (Z)

Three Dot Journalism

The feedback on our proposed weekly humor item was about 90% positive, 10% negative. There will be some negative voters who don't write in, for various reasons, so support is likely not quite as overwhelming as it seems. However, even accounting for that, the consensus is pretty broadly in favor of keeping it. Hopefully, we will win over the doubters with the actual content. We'll run the second entry, and a list of potential names, later this week, or early next week.

Meanwhile, the feedback on Three Dot Journalism was something like 99.5% positive and 0.5% negative. And even then, there really weren't any outright negatives, just some "Maybe, maybe not, I don't know for sure." Anyhow, it's definitely clear that this should stay. But, of course, we need a name. We got many, many suggestions, and we've narrowed it down to these:

Suggestion	Explanation
Odds and Ends	Self-evident
And Now for Something Completely Different	Monty Python
In Other News...	General reference to network news broadcasts
News Flashes	Tribute to Staff Dachshund Flash
Political Bites/Bytes	It's a website... with pixels... and data
Reality Bites/Bytes	Pun, plus... it's still a website... with pixels... and data

We'd like to hear from readers; you can rank (up to) your top three here. Also, since the positive feedback was instantaneous, we began setting aside items for this feature immediately. That folder already has 27 stories in it, which leads to this question: Should we do this once a week, or twice a week? If we did it twice, it would be on Tuesdays and Fridays, working out (roughly) to a roundup of weekend news, and a roundup of regular-week news. It's not going to be more than twice, it will either be one or two, and that's it. Anyhow, you can also vote on that question at the link.

Please get your votes in by 10:00 p.m. PT. Tomorrow, we'll have a proper entry, under the permanent name. (Z)

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