Earl Ofari Hutchinson
No one could have been more elated than Trump at the release of millions more pages of documents by the Justice Department on documented pedophile, sex trafficker, business dealing con artist Jeffrey Epstein. The new mound of documents released seem to confirm what Trump has long and loud shouted. That’s that he had no knowledge of any of Epstein’s voluminous criminal acts. And that he had at best a passing acquaintance with him decades back.
The name of the game with Epstein, though, has always been-Trump. Legions of Trump loathers, many top Democrats, much of the media and a big swatch of the public have been in a non-stop desperate hunt for a scintilla of a smoking gun finger point at Trump for some damning maybe even criminal wrongdoing. So far there is nothing remotely close to that cherished and much sought after smoking gun to nail Trump. And there probably won’t be. Millions of publicly disclosed documents show nothing to indicate that Trump had any part in Epstein’s criminal activities.
Trump, in what is an extreme rarity for him, told the truth when he said he had no dealing with the guy in years. The record showed that most of the Trump-Epstein cavort was in the 1990s. That was long before Trump dreamed he would or could ever land in the White House.
Still Epstein is a priceless chance for Democrats that have been desperately searching for something, anything to smear Trump with and allow them to even the political playing field with the crucial midterms around the corner. It’ a chance for the millions of Trump loathers to finally rock Trump back on his heels, watch him squirm, and sweat over an issue that he for once can’t sleaze his way out of. It’s a chance for the many inveterate conspiracy theorists, a big share of whom are Trumps’s MAGA backers, to have a field day concocting yet another conspiracy theory about assassins, cover ups, and deep state shenanigans.
But the brutal reality for now anyway is that Epstein remains nothing more than a long dead convicted felon that Trump some years back had a partying, and lecherous good time with and maybe attempted a few dubious money grab business deals with. In that sense, the Epstein-Trump connect is much ado about nothing—for now.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book The Epstein Distraction (Middle Passage Press and Amazon) He is the host of the weekly The Hutchinson Report Facebook Livestream His political affairs commentaries can be found weekly on thehutchinsonreport.net.