The Clintons knew Team Trump was coming — and – Latest News
At first look, the choice by Bill and Hillary Clinton to drop their long resistance and comply with testify earlier than a GOP-controlled House panel about Jeffrey Epstein appears like a big defeat for them.
And it’s, for the reason that Clintons’ separate appearances, scheduled to happen in public later this month, are sure to show into circus-like spectacles that may heap embarrassment and scorn on the previous first couple.
Yet it’s value noting that it wasn’t the goodness of their hearts that led the Clintons to offer into the congressional demand to testify below oath about Epstein.
They did it solely as a result of the choice would have been a lot more painful.
Had they not agreed to reply questions within the probe of the wicked actions of Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell, the Clintons nearly actually would have confronted prosecution by the Department of Justice on prison expenses of contempt of Congress.
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Prison risk
A guilty verdict in a trial might have led to a doable jail sentence, because it did for former Trump aides Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon in comparable circumstances.
After they refused to testify earlier than the Democrat-controlled congressional probe of the Jan. 6 capital riot, their refusal was despatched to Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, which promptly prosecuted them.
Both had been convicted and served 4 months in jail.
Imagine the joyful response on the Trump White House if the Clintons tempted destiny by going down the identical path.
Generations of Americans have come of age believing the Clintons had been untouchable and that the same old guidelines of the highway don’t apply to them.
The Clintons themselves actually subscribed to that view, and it’s labored for them till now.
They nearly pulled off an escape this time, too, by waging a lawyerly and decided resistance for six months towards the demand for testimony.
They gave a little ground right here and there, however simply a little as a result of they believed fellow Dems within the House would rescue them.
They most likely additionally assumed Republicans would grow drained of getting nowhere and give up, so all they needed to do was have their attorneys keep saying no.
But this time, the Clintons’ legendary political sense deserted them.
Their refusal to budge was working till they bought a impolite wake-up call final month, which is why they’re now waving the white flag.
The turning level got here when a handful of Dems broke ranks and joined the GOP in demanding that the duo testify about Epstein.
One of these Dems is Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who instructed reporters “I simply centered on survivors, as a survivor of sexual violence myself, and that’s what informs my work.
“We want to hear from anyone that has information absolutely. And that should not be limited to party lines.”
‘No one above law’
A vote of the complete House was scheduled for this week and passage would have forwarded the obstruction case to prosecutors.
Suffice to say, the Trump crew would have spared no effort to win a conviction.
That and that situation alone is why the Clintons gave up the ghost Monday evening and surrendered to actuality.
It was the second Rep. James Comer, the fired-up Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight panel, had been preventing for.
“No one is above the law — and that includes the Clintons,” he mentioned in triumph Tuesday.
“Once it became clear that the House would hold them in contempt, the Clintons completely caved and will appear for transcribed, filmed depositions this month.”
In hindsight, the result now appears inevitable as a result of of the Epstein Files Transparency Act President Trump signed in November.
In a Congress that usually can’t agree on what day of the week it’s, the Epstein act obtained practically unanimous assist in each chambers.
The landslide displays the widespread disgust over Epstein’s crimes, and the bipartisan zeal to clean the stables.
That sentiment is mirrored within the act’s sweeping provisions.
They require the Department of Justice to release within 30 days all unclassified paperwork associated to Epstein, and put them in searchable databases.
The law additionally mandates shielding the identities of victims of pedophilia and intercourse trafficking however bans withholding paperwork for the aim of avoiding embarrassment or injury to public figures.
That language explains how paperwork involving Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Larry Summers and others have been disclosed.
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Although Justice didn’t meet the 30-day deadline, it has launched tens of millions of pages of particulars, some of which had been already identified.
Still, every release fuels a want for more paperwork, names and more images, which is why the Clintons’ refusal to testify was doomed.
That was very true as soon as images emerged exhibiting the previous president floating in a scorching tub with Maxwell and one other lady.
That ended any doable protection that the Clintons had nothing to offer.
Even CNN stopped shielding them, by reporting that paperwork confirmed that “Bill Clinton traveled with his staffers on Epstein’s private plane at least 16 times.”
It mentioned flight logs confirmed the previous president was “often accompanied by both Epstein and Maxwell.”
Some flights had been half of worldwide journeys with a number of stops, however there may be no file of any public occasions for Clinton tied to the journey.
CNN additionally reported that Maxwell was “sometimes flirtatious in her emails” to Clinton’s workplace.
It cited one the place she wrote to a Clinton staffer that she had instructed somebody what a “super stud you are and how I have a crush on you and how you are hung like a horse and — well you get the picture. Hope you don’t mind!”
‘Need to stop drinking’
CNN additionally mentioned that in one other 2002 exchange, an unidentified particular person “wrote to Maxwell from a Clinton email address: “Went home with someone I have before, a 40 year old blonde big boobby widow if you can believe that. I really need to stop drinking.”
Although Maxwell was publicly accused of recruiting and sexually abusing women with Epstein in 2009, that didn’t make her radioactive to Clinton’s circle.
CNN mentioned she was a visitor on the Clinton Global Initiative convention in 2013, and was honored for an ocean conservation nonprofit she based in 2012.
No doubt it was funded by Epstein.
Curiously, the launched paperwork included a 2002 e mail exchange between Melania Trump and Maxwell, the place they mentioned getting collectively.
In it, Maxwell referred to the longer term first girl as “sweet pea.”
Maxwell, of course, was convicted in 2021 of recruiting underage women for Epstein and others, some of whom had been as younger as 14.
She was sentenced to twenty years in federal jail, and is now in a Texas minimal security facility.
She is interesting her conviction, and reportedly plans to file a commutation software to Trump.
Although the president mentioned at one level he would speak to Justice officers about a pardon for her, the White House later mentioned there are no plans for that.
Nor ought to there be.
Let her rot.
