Jailhouse Blues

Tulsi Gabbard didn’t assume the role of Director of National Intelligence to play ceremonial dress-up." —Toresays.com on "X"

You must suspect there’s some game afoot in this Epstein business. Only days ago, it was “fuggeddabowdit . . . nuthin’ there . . . get over it.” But then, only days later, the second-in-command at DOJ, Todd Blanche, formerly the president’s personal lawyer, was down in Tallahassee deposing Jeffrey Epstein’s second-in-command, Ghislaine Maxwell. (Note: a deposition is testimony outside of court, recorded under oath.) The Deputy Attorney General deposed her for two days, Friday and Saturday, a total of nine hours. You can do a lot of talking in nine hours.

And were you shocked to learn — as has been broadly reported — that through all these years of EpsteinEpsteinEpstein, Ms. Maxwell has never been interviewed by any state or federal law enforcement official or government lawyer? How was that possible? By the way, no government official has interviewed billionaire Les Wexner, Epstein’s chief benefactor, over all these years, either? How is that possible? (Follow the money, as they say.)

Meanwhile, down in Florida, as reported by Brian O’Shea of The Daily Clout, it turns out that the federal district judge, Robin Rosenberg, who just ruled against Mr. Trump’s request to unseal the 2005 — 2007 Florida Epstein grand jury transcripts, is married to one Michael McCauliffe, former Palm Beach County State’s Attorney (equivalent of district attorney, DA), who helped negotiate the special 2008 “sweetheart” plea deal that allowed Epstein significant freedoms, such as frequent travel, including to his Little St. James Island, despite being under house arrest. Are you going, “Hmmmmmm. . . ? Any conflict of interest in that ruling? (Note: Current US AG Pam Bondi did not become Florida AG until 2011.)

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So, it appears that there will now be two sets of “Epstein files” to sort out: 1) the DOJ’s file curated under AG Merrick Garland, and 2) whatever follows from never-before asked questions put to Ghislaine Maxwell in late July 2025. One thing you might infer: if the Merrick Garland files contained any defamatory “kompromat” about Donald Trump, wouldn’t it have been used during the election of 2024? Mr. Garland went along with every other ploy used to defame and convict Mr. Trump under color of law. But not that? Ergo, fuggeddabowdit.

Where the Epstein business goes now is anybody’s guess, but you have to doubt that it will go nowhere. Ms. Maxwell’s attorney, David O. Markus, stated to reporters that she “answered every single question asked of her” over the two days, emphasizing that she responded “honestly, truthfully, and to the best of her ability” without invoking any privileges or declining to answer. There is chatter on the Internet that Ms. Maxwell’s testimony affords an opportunity for the FBI / DOJ to open an entirely fresh Epstein investigation, untainted by whatever Merrick Garland was sitting on.

Okay, I reckon that’s enough for you to chew on about EpsteinEpsteinEpstein for today. Let’s turn to the other giant stinking dead carp wafting its miasma over Washington DC: RussiaRussiaRussia. CIA chief John Ratcliffe promised on Sunday to disclose the so-called “annex” files to John Durham’s special counsel report. Mr. Ratcliffe implied that the material is rather serious. He also emphasized that the statute of limitations will not apply in any forthcoming RussiaGate cases because the matter represents an ongoing (until even now) conspiracy. Mr. Ratcliffe, you may recall, before getting elected to Congress, was a US Attorney for the eastern district of Texas (as Chief of Anti-Terrorism and National Security), so he knows quite a bit about prosecuting federal cases.

Dunno about you, but I would like to know a little bit more about Christopher Wray’s activities regarding both Epstein and RussiaGate during his long tenure, seven years and five months (2017 – 2025) as FBI Director. In previous testimony before various committees of Congress, Mr. Wray, uniformly invoked “ongoing investigations” as the reason for not answering any germane questions about, well, anything and everything. Does he not deserve a session or two of interrogation with Kash Patel’s FBI agents, or depositions under oath with lawyers from the DOJ now, without the shield of protecting investigations of an agency he no longer runs? He has a lot to answer for, including the J-6 business and associated pipe-bomb matter — both of which might be construed as part of an ongoing conspiracy against a sitting president (and three-time candidate).

Is all this some “conspiracy theory”? No, an actual conspiracy as spelled out in the federal statutes: Conspiracy under Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, Conspiracy to defraud the United States. . . 18 U.S. Code § 241, Conspiracy against rights. . . and 18 U.S. Code § 242, Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law.

Add to that: perjury under oath, obstruction of justice, lying to the FBI. It’s a pretty rich menu. Someone, maybe more than a few someones, will be going to jail.

Gallery 16 is UP! Paintings from the 2024 season

Kayakers on the Battenkill River, Shushan, New York

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JHK’s World Made By Hand four-book novel cycle. A small town in the remnant of the USA in the not-distant future. The community struggles to carry on. . . .

"I started my blog, Clusterfuck Nation, almost twenty years ago to chronicle the week-by-week process of our collapsing civilization… What I had not anticipated in The Long Emergency was how badly the process of collapse would disorder the minds of the whole American population and, with that, the consensus about reality." —James Howard Kunstler, CrazyLand