It can always get worse

 

Isn't that interesting?  

In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files. [...] Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told. Being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing.

  Wall Street Journal

But the panicky rants and threats are.

We talked to media strategist Tara McGowan, the publisher of the pro-democracy Courier Newsroom. We discuss why this scandal is dispelling the myth of Trump’s superhuman control over media narratives, how Democrats must seize this moment, and why they should treat this scandal as a genuinely important story that really matters to many Americans.

  New Republic

Don't hold your breath counting on Democrats.

Transcript

A senior White House official told POLITICO the president is frustrated with his staff’s inability to tamp down conspiracy theories they once spread and by the wall of media coverage that started when Attorney General Pam Bondi released information from the Epstein case that was already in the public domain.

  Politico

Key phrase: "they once spread"

“He feels there are way bigger stories that deserve attention,” the senior White House official said.

That's true. But he couldn't lay low and keep his mouth shut.  He painted himself into this corner.

Beware: a cornered beast is a dangerous animal.

So begins the earnest coverup...

It could work.

She did a lot more than hang out with Epstein. Greg just might not have read the trial transcripts.

Here's the headline...

UPDATE 11:36 am:

Yesterday, Fox News published a new poll of American voters.

[...]

The fact that 80 percent of American voters say they have been following the case is remarkable. There aren’t many issues that 80 percent of Americans follow.

[...]

As for the poll’s cross-tabs (provided by Fox in a PDF), what’s striking is the relative uniformity of voters’ judgments as to whether the federal government has been open and transparent. Democrats are predictably the most disappointed, by 74 percent to 9 percent. Independents break 64 percent to 10 percent. But even among Republicans the split is 60 percent to 18 percent.

[...]

Keep in mind, this survey was conducted before yesterday’s Wall Street Journal story revealing that Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, told Trump in May that his name appears “multiple times” in the Epstein files. Trump claimed to reporters just a week ago that he hadn’t been told that very thing.

  The Bulwark

Somebody's going to get fired.

The Journal also reports that the Justice Department officials informed Trump “that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein.” The fact that the “senior administration officials” recounting this meeting to the Journal wanted to emphasize that some of these references were “unverified hearsay” is an attempt to minimize the significance of the report. But it of course raises the question of why the Justice Department apparently didn’t try to verify or falsify some of this hearsay.

And also why, if that were true, they didn't just admit it and minimize it rather than lying about it.

Of course, Trump’s own knowledge of his interactions with Epstein doesn’t depend on unverified hearsay. He knows about what he did and didn’t do with Epstein. One has to assume this report set off alarm bells. We do know that after this meeting, all talk from the administration about making the Epstein files available ended.

[...]

The Journal report also claims that Justice Department officials told Trump in their meeting that they “didn’t plan to release any documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material contained child pornography and victims’ personal information.” But this doesn’t pass the smell test. Justice and the FBI could easily withhold all the child pornography. Justice and the FBI could redact victims’ personal information. And then they could release the Epstein documents.

[...]

So the attorney general and the deputy director of the FBI are screaming at each other. A “senior administration official” is telling the Wall Street Journal all about it. And the president is personally involved in decisions not to release information containing reports about his own behavior.

[...]

This is how coverups unravel.

I'm not holding my breath.

He doesn't say exactly that.  He implies it's Congress who would make a deal.  And yes, that's witness tampering.

I don't think Maxwell's testimony will satisfy people who want to see the files.  I think it will only make them more determined.  

UPDATE 06:13 pm:

If they do eventually release the files, they will be heavily redacted.  The only unredacted mentions of Trump will be perfectly benign.