Most things Donald Trump says are ridiculous, and a great many of them are deliberately misleading or just plain wrong.
It's no great surprise, then, that Trump's latest flip-flip, on a vote to release more files from the investigation into notorious sex-traffficker Jeffrey Epstein - files that are widely believed to include some incriminating evidence against Trump himself - came with more unsupported claims, distractions and sleight of hand, in an attempt to get ahead of what is widely seen to be an unavoidable development.
"It is really a Democrat problem", he blustered, "The Democrats were Epstein's friends, all of them. And it is a hoax, the whole thing is a hoax."
Wow. "ALL of them"? What a ridiculous man.
And, in case you have your suspicions that Trump is finally coming to his senses over publicly releasing the Epstein files, you should remember that Trump never does anything without an ulterior motive. If he is now, all of a sudden, encouraging Republicans to vote to release the files, after months of doing the opposite, then you should know that there is a plan in place to shield him in some way.
Yes, Trump's apparent change of heart is partly so that he doesn't have to admit that at least half of his party was going against his express instructions (and he does like to appear in control). But more likely, there is a plan to stop most of the incriminating parts of the files being publicly released anyway, despite the vote.
The most likely candidate for this is a plan to use the files to incriminate Democrat politicians and supporters (as he has already hinted at). If the files are evidence in an ongoing investigation, they cannot be made public. If that investigation goes on long enough, they may NEVER be released (or at least not until Trump is safely out of the presidency). In fact, the "transparency" bill just voted on explicitly specifies that the Justice Department can hold back any files "that jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, providing that such witholding is narrowly tailored and temporary".
Also, even those files that ARE released could be subject to redactions. Again, the bill specifies that the attorney general can "withold or redact" records that "would consitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy". Like Trump's name, for example? Those files that have already been released have had many names and phone numbers blacked out, supposedly to protect privacy. Which makes a bit of a mockery of the "transparency" that the bill is supposed to ensure.
Either way, you can bet that Trump and his tame Justice Department will make sure that there is nothing released that could possibly incriminate Trump.
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