What’s Worse – That Trump Knew or That He Worked So Hard to Cover It Up?

What’s Worse – That Trump Knew or That He Worked So Hard to Cover It Up?

"He feels alone and is nuts!!! I told everyone from day one. Evil beyond belief. Mad, and most thought I was speaking metaphorically. It's obvious he could crack. Stormy Daniels? Lies after lies after lies." Jeffrey Epstein’s response to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers’ inquiry about Trump (2018)

After many unprecedented delays orchestrated by Trump-lockstep-loyalist House Speaker Mike Johnson (R/LA), Representative Adelita Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona who won a special election back in September, was finally sworn in to her House seat, and did precisely what Johnson did not want her to do: become the 218th representative to sign the bi-partisan “discharge petition’, passing a House effort to force the DOJ to release their treasure-trove of Epstein files.

Let me start with my basic assumptions, based on the Epstein materials that I have seen or which have been reported by credible sources who have reviewed those materials in depth, even in anticipation of the files that will be released by that discharge petition. First, so far at least, I do not believe that Donald Trump personally participated in any direct, unlawful contacts with any of the Epstein victims. Second, I do not believe he procured women for Epstein’s sexual trafficking network. That said, those who have trapsed through the recently released files from the Epstein estate, tell us that Trump’s name is mentioned more frequently than anyone else other than Jeffrey Epstein himself. More even than convicted co-trafficker, Ghislane Maxwell.

Where’s smoke, there’s fire, and there are very few GOP members of Congress who truly believe in the accuracy of Trump’s repeated statements that the Epstein scandal is merely a side show (a “distraction,” he claims, from the “Democrat’s shutdown”), at best a Democratic hoax aimed at discrediting the President with total lies. But by so desperately trying to stop the dissemination of the very documents he pledged to release if elected again, Trump seems to have failed to convince a majority of Republicans, even as many stand by his censorship efforts, and an increasing number of MAGA members, who particularly hate pedophiles and those who hide them.

The evidence is mounting, and VP JD Vance, normally a very loud Trump supporter, seems to have fallen into a silent phase, evocative of VP Gerald Ford’s silence just before rising evidence forced Richard Nixon to resign under an equally dark cloud. Sam Sifton for The Morning, 11/13/25 (NY Times news feed) sprinkles some reminders of this nasty unfolding of events: “Every now and then, nuggets of news emerge. In July, the Justice Department put out a report saying there was no Epstein ‘client list.’ The Times reported this past summer about his Manhattan lair and this fall about the bankers who served him after he’d been convicted of a sex crime.

“And yesterday [11/12], Democrats released three emails in which Epstein talked with others about Trump, suggesting the president may know more about the sex trafficking than he has acknowledged. Hours later, Republicans dropped 23,000 more pages of documents from Epstein’s estate. It led to a mad scramble in our newsroom… ‘We still have a lot to look at and don’t totally know how much of the universe we have seen,’ [NY Times journalist Kirsten Davis] said. But here’s some of what the emails have revealed so far. Please note: The documents are riddled with typos, which we have preserved when we quote from them.

“Epstein’s emails suggest he was close with Trump.

• In 2011, in an email to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, he wrote: “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Redacted victim name] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
• People repeatedly emailed Epstein asking for advice in dealing with Trump, but he wasn’t always forthcoming. In one email, Epstein advised: “donald is close to no one. . he talks to many people. he tells each one something differnt.”
• In an email to the author Michael Wolff in 2019, Epstein wrote of Trump, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”

2. But Epstein also frequently disparaged Trump.

• In 2018, during Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, Epstein wrote, “you see, i know how dirty donald is.”
• When a former Obama administration official emailed Epstein and called Trump “so gross,” Epstein replied, “worse in real life and upclose.”

3. Wolff seems to have served as an adviser to Epstein.

• Some of Wolff’s emails suggest that Epstein could have contradicted Trump’s claims — or held back in exchange for a favor. In 2015, before a presidential debate on CNN, Epstein asked what they would want Trump to say about his relationship with the financier. Wolff wrote: “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.”
• Wolff also said Epstein could use information about Trump to shift attention off himself. In 2016, before a book about Epstein was released, Wolff told him: “You do need an immediate counter narrative to the book. I believe Trump offers an ideal opportunity.”

4. Epstein chatted casually with a wide network of powerful people.

• He gave Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary, advice about his interactions with a woman: “no whining showed strentgh,” Epstein wrote.
• He talked politics with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser. In 2018, after Epstein invited Bannon to Europe, Bannon replied, “their is a crazed jihad against u — ive never seen anything like it — and I’ve seen a lot.” ”

In the end, this saga will play out. If it gets serious enough, and Trump is unable to stop the expected Democratic landslide by election rigging (gerrymandering, partisans in election offices messing with the results, troop seizing ballot and election machines, etc.), a Democratic House is highly likely to impeach Trump again… and the disclosures to impeach could be pretty juicy. Who knows if this time the Senate without enough Senators to block a conviction… just might force Trump to resign or face an embarrassing conviction? But then, we get President JD Vance.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as lurid as this story gets, remember that this is as much as a description of contemporary America as it a tale of a governmental leader gone … possibly… terribly wrong.