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so, Jeffrey Epstein


Gil Bang

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21 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

That court transcript is glorious.  Nice lawyering there. 

"Hey, what we're really talking about here is prostitution -- OK, a shitload of prostitution -- but prostitution nonetheless." 

"Sure, maybe it was statutory rape NO WAIT THERE WAS NO PENETRATION OOPS."

(On a side note, are we really to believe that Epstein did nothing more but get hand jobs from dozens if not hundreds of underaged girls?  Really?  That's the angle?)

 

About 25 years ago, a (former) (retired) school superintendent I know was fucking one of the kindergarten teachers (both had spouses).  One fine evening, while the two  were entangled at the work place, they were caught by a janitor who promptly told everyone what he saw.

At the termination hearing for the superintendent, the attorney for the school board was conducting the hearing.  One of the board members brought up the sexual activity, whereupon the superintendent raised his voice, pointed a finger,  said it was a lie, and screamed "did you see penetration?"

He still lost his job, but a noble defensive effort on his part.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/epstein-indictment-renews-questions-about-earlier-case-handled-by-trump-cabinet-official/2019/07/08/95e6996a-a1a2-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html?utm_term=.88641f2c7426

Quote

The indictment Monday of Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges has reignited questions about the way Alexander Acosta — now President Trump’s labor secretary — handled an earlier case against Epstein that resulted in a minimal sentence.

As U.S. attorney in Florida in 2007, Acosta negotiated a plea deal that led to two felony solicitation charges and 13 months in county jail for Epstein, with the billionaire financier allowed to work from his office six days a week. Epstein had been facing the possibility of life in prison. His alleged victims were not told about the deal.

 

Quote

On Monday, in the indictment issued in federal court in New York, Epstein faced charges resulting from allegations like those in the Florida case. The indictment says that “in both New York and Florida,” Epstein “perpetuated this abuse in similar ways.”

Acosta, through a spokesman, declined to comment. Labor Department spokesman Robert Bozzuto referred questions about Acosta’s role in the plea deal to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

 

Quote

Officials at the White House, which has not made any public statements about the Epstein indictment, are nervous that Democrats will encourage women allegedly abused by Epstein to testify publicly before Congress, drawing attention to Acosta’s work on the plea deal, according to current and former administration officials.

Trump has no immediate plan to force out or fire Acosta, two White House officials said. Like others, the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay internal discussions. A senior White House official said the administration would like to learn the contents of a Justice Department inquiry into Acosta before making any decision.

Spoiler

There was no substantial vetting done on Acosta until after Trump decided to nominate him, according to current and former administration officials.

Despite the scrutiny of the plea deal he negotiated with Epstein and calls from several Democrats for him to resign, Acosta has not been summoned to testify before Congress specifically on this matter.

At his 2017 confirmation hearing, the only senator to ask him about the plea deal was Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).

Acosta told Kaine that “professionals within a prosecutor’s office” decided on the deal, taking himself out of the negotiations. On Monday, Kaine called for Acosta’s ouster.

The secretary was also grilled during an April budget hearing by two Democrats about his role in the case.

On Monday, two House Democrats said the party now has more leverage to demand that Acosta testify.

“In the wake of the New York charges, there is resurgent interest in hearing from him about the dual system of justice in Florida,” said Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), who chairs a panel on civil rights and civil liberties on the House Oversight and Reform Committee. “Alex Acosta has some major reckoning to do.”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), who joined other Florida Democrats earlier this year in calling on Acosta to resign, renewed that call Monday.

“You would hope we would have a president that would care about making sure his secretary of labor didn’t have a terrible smudge like this on his record,” Wasserman Schultz said in an interview.

Several Republican members of Congress, however, said Monday that they supported Acosta or were reserving judgment about the labor secretary pending the Justice Department inquiry.

“At this point, I’m satisfied with his explanation,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said.

“If there’s more that comes out, I’ll be glad to look at it,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). “But at this point I think it’s been looked at repeatedly, and I think everybody has reached the same conclusion.”

The House Judiciary and Oversight committees have seemed the most likely venues for any hearing. But none has been scheduled. Congressional Democrats have said privately that the committees are consumed by the Russia investigation and that having Epstein’s victims testify would be politically risky.

The Justice Department’s office of professional responsibility, which investigates misconduct of department employees, opened an ethics investigation in February into whether its attorneys — including Acosta — committed “professional misconduct” in pursuing the plea deal.

But the result has not been made public, and the status of the investigation is unclear. Regardless, since Acosta is no longer a Justice Department employee, any determination from the investigation may not affect him.

On policy matters, Democrats have been less critical of Acosta than other members of Trump’s Cabinet who have more forcefully implemented the president’s agenda, according to former Labor Department officials.

The 14-page federal indictment issued Monday in New York accuses Epstein of sex trafficking and abusing dozens of underage girls at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., between 2002 and 2005.

Acosta’s handling of the initial case has been widely criticized. He signed off on a deal in which, in exchange for guilty pleas in state court to solicitation, Epstein served the 13-month sentence, registered as a sex offender and paid restitution to certain victims. The deal was initially sealed, keeping it secret until it was released as part of a 2015 lawsuit.

In addition, while the Florida investigation initially came to the attention of authorities because of a 14-year-old alleged victim, the only minor Epstein was convicted of soliciting was 16 years old, The Post reported in March. The age difference eased his obligations to register as a sex offender.

Acosta in 2011 wrote a letter seeking to explain his reasoning, saying that he faced “a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors” by “an army of legal superstars.” He also wrote that defense lawyers “investigated individual prosecutors and their families, looking for personal peccadilloes that may provide a basis for disqualification.”

Acosta, who was Trump’s second choice for Labor secretary and is the only Latino member of his Cabinet, is said by White House and Labor Department aides to enjoy a good relationship with the president, even though the agency typically has a low profile in Republican administrations.

But Acosta has nonetheless had a fraught relationship in recent months with two power centers in the White House whose influence has grown this year: acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and the Domestic Policy Council.

Mulvaney has demanded faster action from Cabinet secretaries on the lengthy process of reversing and relaxing Obama-era rules and regulations. He believes that Acosta has dragged his feet on rule rollbacks vital to the business community, according to several White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

 

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2 hours ago, Zavala said:

https://gawker.com/5021581/teen-loving-epsteins-own-client

Bullshit. Epstein's wealth is built on a "bizarre relationship" with single acknowledged client, Abercrombie & Fitch creator Leslie Wexner, one of America's most successful retailers.

A little leading mentioning A&F and not; Bath and Body Works, Lane  Bryant, The Limited, Express, and Victoria Secrets. 

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18 minutes ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

A little leading mentioning A&F and not; Bath and Body Works, Lane  Bryant, The Limited, Express, and Victoria Secrets. 

technically he didn't create it, he bought the brand from Oshmans

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If I find half a dozen other sources making the same observation, will you make me laugh some moar ?

Bill Barr’s Dad has a more questionable  association with Jeff Epstein than Bill’s former law firm.  

And evidently AG Barr played the public again yesterday - he’s recusing from matters related to examining Acosta and his handling of Epstein’s plea deal, but not recusing from the SDNY case against Epstein.  May mean nothing other than Barr misleading the public again.

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Looking around at the sites that love them some Trump, they want Epstein to go down hard, in the hopes that the Clintons will follow.  But they want Epstein put away for good either way.  And some are questioning Acosta’s role and whether he was compromised, or because he’s a Harvard grad.  

Basically, they finally got their Pizzagate.  Some are making the case that Trump tried to warn the world with his comments years back, and that he is ultimately the reason Epstein was nailed again   

If Barr gets involved, I don’t think it would play well among quite a few. For whatever reason, pedophilia is some kind of line for them.   

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5 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Looking around at the sites that love them some Trump, they want Epstein to go down hard, in the hopes that the Clintons will follow.

Yea, you can see the amateur operatives around here including Clinton in just about every post. The base (double entendre) will eat it up and be swayed by the projective argument that the Clintons are trying to frame Trump rather than the Trumpists trying to distract us all with Clinton.

The non-base are fine with Clinton going down if he actually did something wrong. The base are already convinced that the Clintons are murderous rapers.

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23 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

I went to CNN's site to see what's up. Beside the Epstein story was a piece about a Navy admiral, Vice Admiral William Moran, who was set to become the Navy's top uniformed officer, whose career has ended for merely maintaining a professional relationship with a disgraced fellow officer.

General Petraeus, a very promising American military man and maybe elected official, had his career ended because of an affair where he revealed classified information. I don't believe any actual harm came from his actions.

These two stories illustrate a high standard for behavior in the armed forces. It's a standard that is likely too stringent for civilian politicians, but the standards should not be light years apart.

Look at what is accepted behavior in the entire Trump administration. Nepotism, pathological dishonesty, fraternization with enemies, murderers, and international outlaws.

Now throw in sexual harassment, assault, and, at least, an ongoing relationship with a convicted pedophile and likely child sex trafficker.

At the very least, a naval ensign would be drummed out of the service for such behavior if not put in the brig.

What does it do to morale to have such a repulsive, dishonorable miscreant as Commander in Chief?

Maybe child rape will cost Trump a few percentage points of his base. It's more likely that they just get more furious at fake news.

If anyone in politics had to even approach the military code of conduct, we'd have a pretty empty Capitol Hill.

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15 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

 

 

As if the existing evidence hadn't been horrific enough ....

Doesn't he mean "alleged" crimes?  Or is he talking about the two counts of soliciting a minor to which Epstein pled guilty many years ago and for which he received minimal punishment because of Acosta himself? 

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1 minute ago, RomaVicta said:

It's shocking still that so many people applaud the US AG shutting down testimony and lying to Congress while the President raises up the man who sacrificed any claim to integrity when he opted to help Epstein in Florida.

How can you swim in that muck?

It's because he has no moral compass.  Plenty of people on this forum are afflicted with the same disease.  Fuck 'em.

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Guest Lobo

Bill's a helluva nice guy and was an above-average President, but it would be so much fun to see Bill Clinton & Donald Trump rot in prison.  

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1 minute ago, RomaVicta said:

That was Bill Clinton's worst moment. It's deplorable. 

That you chose an unnecessarily partisan production of that moment is a nice insight as to where you spend your time gathering information and strategy.

It's also deplorable that someone, a citizen of the US, would invoke the name of Clinton hoping to get a piece of shit like Donald Trump and his pal Epstein out of the spotlight. What does that devotion do for you? How can that make a person feel good?

 Nobody here would raise a finger to help Clinton avoid punishment for an actual crime with evidence and prosecution and stuff. 

It's shocking still that so many people applaud the US AG shutting down testimony and lying to Congress while the President raises up the man who sacrificed any claim to integrity when he opted to help Epstein in Florida.

How can you swim in that muck?

lulz this is about ORANGE MAN anyone else implicated is a distraction!

There are so many people going to be brought into the spotlight by this it's insane. Clinton is just one of the big, obvious names, also funny he put out a statement that is doing the same legal limbo from the last lie about sexual misconduct. 

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1 minute ago, Zavala said:

lulz this is about ORANGE MAN anyone else implicated is a distraction!

There are so many people going to be brought into the spotlight by this it's insane. Clinton is just one of the big, obvious names, also funny he put out a statement that is doing the same legal limbo from the last lie about sexual misconduct. 

Is trump one of those big names? 

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13 hours ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Lane  Bryant

I for one appreciate him not mentioning Lane Bryant...I don't need those visuals.

 

31 minutes ago, SmokeyTheBear said:

"Happened a long time ago" - Trump

"All those kids are well above the legal age of consent now.  It's just another witch hunt by 13 angry democrats.  No collusion." - Trump continued. 

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20 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

It's because he has no moral compass.  Plenty of people on this forum are afflicted with the same disease.  Fuck 'em.

Yeah man, the left ALWAYS has the moral high ground.

It's just a matter of linguistics to you guys, pretty pathetic. You aren't killing unborn children, you are keeping OLD MEN from making WOMEN HEALTHCARE DECISIONS. It goes on and on like this until you are where you are right now - normal people who don't care about politics at all are disgusted by the left's insanity.  

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1 minute ago, Zavala said:

Yeah man, the left ALWAYS has the moral high ground.

It's just a matter of linguistics to you guys, pretty pathetic. You aren't killing unborn children, you are keeping OLD MEN from making WOMEN HEALTHCARE DECISIONS. It goes on and on like this until you are where you are right now - normal people who don't care about politics at all are disgusted by the left's insanity.  

Wait, I thought you were all about topical posts.

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1 minute ago, Zavala said:

Yeah man, the left ALWAYS has the moral high ground.

It's just a matter of linguistics to you guys, pretty pathetic. You aren't killing unborn children, you are keeping OLD MEN from making WOMEN HEALTHCARE DECISIONS. It goes on and on like this until you are where you are right now - normal people who don't care about politics at all are disgusted by the left's insanity.  

What the hell are unborn children?  

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4 minutes ago, Zavala said:

It's just a matter of linguistics to you guys, pretty pathetic. You aren't killing unborn children, you are keeping OLD MEN from making WOMEN HEALTHCARE DECISIONS. It goes on and on like this until you are where you are right now - normal people who don't care about politics at all are disgusted by the left's insanity.  

You're projecting.   The actual word is "fetus," and you're the one using linguistics to create an alternative reality for partisan political purposes. 

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Just now, Mojo Hand said:

You're projecting.   The actual word is "fetus," and you're the one using linguistics to create an alternative reality for partisan political purposes. 

I guess we can also assume he thinks an egg is a chicken.

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On 7/8/2019 at 9:00 AM, RomaVicta said:

I went to CNN's site to see what's up. Beside the Epstein story was a piece about a Navy admiral, Vice Admiral William Moran, who was set to become the Navy's top uniformed officer, whose career has ended for merely maintaining a professional relationship with a disgraced fellow officer.

General Petraeus, a very promising American military man and maybe elected official, had his career ended because of an affair where he revealed classified information. I don't believe any actual harm came from his actions.

These two stories illustrate a high standard for behavior in the armed forces. It's a standard that is likely too stringent for civilian politicians, but the standards should not be light years apart.

Look at what is accepted behavior in the entire Trump administration. Nepotism, pathological dishonesty, fraternization with enemies, murderers, and international outlaws.

Now throw in sexual harassment, assault, and, at least, an ongoing relationship with a convicted pedophile and likely child sex trafficker.

At the very least, a naval ensign would be drummed out of the service for such behavior if not put in the brig.

What does it do to morale to have such a repulsive, dishonorable miscreant as Commander in Chief?

Maybe child rape will cost Trump a few percentage points of his base. It's more likely that they just get more furious at fake news.

Shit. You don't even have to make the comparison to the military. Billy Bush couldn't get a job for 3 years just because he was in the bus with Trump. How the guy who said the things can be president - while the guy who heard said things became unemployable - is one of the most absurd outcomes I could ever imagine.

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11 minutes ago, Zavala said:

Yeah man, the left ALWAYS has the moral high ground.

It's just a matter of linguistics to you guys, pretty pathetic. You aren't killing unborn children, you are keeping OLD MEN from making WOMEN HEALTHCARE DECISIONS. It goes on and on like this until you are where you are right now - normal people who don't care about politics at all are disgusted by the left's insanity.  

This answers my question about why you swim in the muck.

You're a political Aggie. You don't know who you are without the imaginary leftist libs to ridicule to make you feel good about yourself. Anything is better than those illusory libs I read about on on the real news sites! Any tactic worthwhile to thwart them! No self-debasement is unheroic!

Disappointing. 

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4 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

You're projecting.   The actual word is "fetus," and you're the one using linguistics to create an alternative reality for partisan political purposes. 

Well, I don't want to dive into this debate, but yes, killing a fetus. Thing is, a viable fetus that can survive as a baby outside of the womb keeps getting earlier and earlier, and abortions keep getting pushed later and later. Either way, my point is that the "moral high ground" is a silly concept, but that is exactly what those on the left think they have. 

The people on the left think those on the right are evil. The people on the right think those on the left are ignorant. Problem is, there is no progress made because people on the left are unwilling to engage in an argument. 

Anyway, back to normal ORANGE MAN BAD every thread. Can't wait! It's so different from all the other ORANGE MAN BAD threads!

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Just now, RomaVicta said:

 This answers my question about why you swim in the muck.

You're a political Aggie. You don't know who you are without the imaginary leftist libs to ridicule to make you feel good about yourself. Anything is better than those illusory libs I read about on on the real news sites! Any tactic worthwhile to thwart them! No self-debasement is unheroic!

Disappointing. 

Name calling, now I'm convinced. Are you an imaginary leftist lib? 

Can't wait for the promises CNN MSNBC FOX has made to finally come out, Mueller is going to release the proof that Trump committed treason any day now!

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