Fox News Apologizes for ‘Mistakenly’ Cropping Trump Out of Epstein Photo

The mission of Fox News from its inception has been to unreservedly promote right-wing propaganda and the agenda of the arch-conservative Republican Party. When Donald Trump was elected, Fox News saddled up and transformed itself into Trump’s official Ministry of Disinformation. The network’s programming unabashedly reflects and defends Trump’s hostility, dishonesty, and pompous ignorance.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

In pursuit of their mission, Fox News occasionally crosses a line that even they regard as over the top. When that occurs their standard reaction is to pretend it never happened and decline to comment. Any contrition, or even deference to journalistic integrity, is viewed, in the Trump mold, as weakness.

However, on Sunday Fox News aired a segment about the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. The video that played during the segment included a photo of Maxwell, Epstein, and the future Melania Trump. Missing from the picture was Donald Trump himself, who was standing next to Melania. This deliberately deceptive edit could only have been done to protect Trump from being connected to Epstein and Maxwell. It was a brazenly deceitful action on the part of Fox News who know all too well that Trump and Epstein were pals.

The fraudulently edited picture was quickly exposed by online observers who were familiar with the famous photograph in its original form. This was apparently embarrassing enough that Fox News issued a rare apology:

“On Sunday, July 5, a report on Ghislaine Maxwell during FOX News Channel’s America’s News HQ mistakenly eliminated President Donald Trump from a photo alongside then Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell. We regret the error.”

There are two blatant misrepresentations in that rather disingenuous apology. First of all, there is precisely zero chance that Trump was edited out of this photo “mistakenly.” The cropping is so precise and focused on only the excision of Trump that it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that it was deliberate. And the segment ran this altered photo three times.

Secondly, Fox’s expression of regret is the least they could do – the very least. If they had any real regrets they would put them on the air with the same priority that the fake photo was given. But of course, to do that would mean giving the story about Trump’s long and unsavory friendship with Epstein more exposure. And that would go against the mission of Fox News and their Trump-fluffing hosts, editors, and executives. So, don’t hold your breath.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Reality TV Law: Trump Recruits His Impeachment Defense Team from Fox News

Donald Trump famously boasted that he “knows all the best people.” It turns out that that’s only true if what he meant by “best” was the foremost crooks, liars, and bootlickers. His administration has witnessed a parade of moral slackers and incompetents. He has fired more of his own appointees than any president in history. These are people that he lauded as “brilliant” until their termination, when he castigated them as “idiots.”

Fox News, Impeach Trump

A troubling hallmark of the Trump White House has been its reliance on staffers that Trump plucked from Fox News. They include Larry Kudlow, K.T. McFarland, Ben Carson, Sebastian Gorka, Richard Grennell, Jonathan Wachtel, Heather Nauert, and more. The truth is that Trump doesn’t really know anybody with any experience or record of accomplishment. He’s a former reality TV game show host who does nothing but golf, tweet, and watch Fox News.

So it comes as no surprise that as his impeachment looms before him, he resorts to the only source for personnel he’s familiar with to recruit his legal team. That team is already led by a frequent Fox News talking head, Jay Sekulow. And now Trump has announced that he’s filling up the roster with more of the same flunkies he’s seen over and over again on Fox.

The new members of Trump’s impeachment defense team are Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Ray, and Pam Bondi. All of them have been regular fixtures on Fox News as the network strives to host only those who will shamelessly suck up to the President by unflinchingly defending him and ruthlessly maligning his critics. And it’s from these televised auditions that Trump selects his closest associates and most trusted allies. This is a president who only values appearances. It is more important to him that his advocates perform well on television than that they exhibit intelligence, integrity, or fealty to facts. So let’s take a closer look at the stuffed suits Trump has hired to defend him:

Ken Starr…
…is best known as the independent counsel who couldn’t find any wrongdoing on the part of Bill Clinton, so he settled for a smarmy, albeit consensual, sex scandal as the basis for impeachment. Starr himself was later fired from his post as the president of Baylor University amid allegations of sexual misconduct on the football team. And another item on his resume is having worked for Trump pal and pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

Alan Dershowitz…
…is remembered as a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team. Trump likely appreciates his ability to get acquittals for people who are obviously guilty. He also must appreciate Dershowitz’s slobbering displays of affection and total faith in Trump’s purity and innocence. Dershowitz also worked for Epstein. Is this a pattern forming?

Robert Ray…
…took over the independent counsel office when Ken Starr left. Other than his frequent Trump-fluffing appearances on Fox and Friends, he isn’t particularly well known for anything significant.

Pam Bondi…
…is the former Attorney General for the state of Florida. She was caught in a campaign finance scandal wherein she accepted an illegal $25,000 donation from a Trump charity and then promptly dropped a case against his bogus Trump University that was later found to be guilty of fraud.

So the reality TV presidency is now being extended to the legal team that he’s relying on to absolve him of the high crimes and misdemeanors that led to his impeachment. It’s not much more than a cast of made-for-TV characters who will be preaching to the cameras and viewers at home, rather than to the assembled “jurors” in the Senate chamber. From Trump’s perspective this might seem like a smart move since the majority Republicans in the Senate have pretty much already declared their intentions to acquit him regardless of the evidence.

However, the American people are not going to be as forgiving as Trump’s GOP sycophants in Washington. They already believe that Trump is guilty, and a majority support his impeachment and removal from office. So it isn’t likely that Trump will find success in the melodramatic soap opera stunts deployed by this team of Fox News litigators. Team trump may have the system rigged for an acquittal, but the voters are going to hear all the evidence and make their own judgment come November.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Daft Trump: Comedians and Conspiracy Nuts are More Credible than the New York Times

The wild speculation surrounding the death of pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein continues to unravel. Unfortunately, most of the unraveling is occurring in the tangled mash of broken synapses in what remains of Donald Trump’s scattered and paranoia-racked brain. The fact that an American president has sunk into such an abyss of madness is both embarrassing and frightening.

Donald Trump

The latest evidence that Trump has stepped off the sanity train is his defense for having retweeted a preposterous rant by a lunatic conspiracy crackpot. The tweet alleged that Bill and/or Hillary Clinton were conspirators in the death of Epstein. To add fuel to that fire, Fox News embraced this lunacy in an effort to provide cover for Trump. But on Tuesday Trump rushed to his own defense with a bizarre tirade that was littered with lies and appalling foolishness (video below). Speaking of the original tweeter, Terrence K. Williams,Trump said:

“He’s a very highly respected conservative pundit. He’s a big Trump fan. And that was a retweet. That wasn’t from me. That was from him. He’s a man who has half a million followers and he’s respected. And as you know, Bill Barr wants to do an entire investigation of the whole Epstein Matter.”

First of all, Williams is neither highly respected, nor a conservative pundit. He’s an aspiring comedian and devoted Trump cultist. So he is indeed a “big Trump fan,” which speaks to his poor judgment. Secondly, Trump seems to think that having retweeted Williams’ idiocy relieves him of any responsibility for it. But Trump himself affirms his agreement with the tweet, so whether he wants to admit it or not, he owns it. Trump then goes on to suggest that Williams’ 500,000 Twitter followers is some sort of validation for his blather. If that’s true, then Stephen Colbert – with 18.6 million followers – should be the next Secretary of State. This just shows that our reality TV president is still obsessed with ratings.

Finally, Trump says that his disreputable Attorney General, William Barr, is investigating all of this. Really? Barr is investigating the Clinton murder allegations? That would be a troubling signal that our justice system has completely collapsed. To be fair, at least, Barr would also need to probe the possibility that Trump was the mastermind behind Epstein’s death. After all, Trump had much greater access and opportunity, as well as far more to lose if Epstein talked.

Also on Tuesday morning, Trump was asked outright if he thinks the Clintons were involved in Epstein’s death. He replied, “I have no idea.” Let that sink in. The President of the United States is allowing for conjecture that a former president, and political foe, committed murder. He went on to implicate Clinton with allegations about trips on Epstein’s plane. What Trump isn’t saying is that those trips were often to attend charitable events, and there is no evidence of any hanky panky. Unlike what we know about Trump’s pussy-grabbing, porn star chasing, and Miss Teen America dressing room invading.

Trump also isn’t saying how many times he flew on Epstein’s plane and partied with Epstein in New York and Florida. There may not be as many plane rides because Trump has his own plane. But their relationship is well documented and much of it revolved around affairs with young women.

While the President regards Trump-fluffing comedians as “highly respected” pundits, he continues to malign professional news enterprises. He quote-tweeted a notorious wingnut from Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post saying that the New York Times is “no longer a news organization. It is now an agenda driven organization out to change the Country (for the worse!).” What’s more, Trump retweeted several posts from Breitbart, felon Dinesh D’Souza, and the disgraced and pathetic hack, James O’Keefe. So what we have residing in the White House is a psychotic conspiracy theorist who values cheesy comics and propagandists over experienced journalists. Is it any wonder why the nation is so ashamed of Trump?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox ‘News’ Embraces Trump’s Disgusting Lie that the Clintons Murdered Jeffrey Epstein

On Saturday the United States of America entered a new era of political shame and disgrace. Donald Trump, whose embarrassing behavior has humiliated the nation from the day he was inaugurated, dived into an ever deeper abyss of debasement. He lowered himself to depths never before imagined for a U.S. president by blasting out to his 62 million Twitter followers a reckless accusation, with zero evidence, that a former president, and political foe, was guilty of murder.

Jeanine Pirro Fox News

Trump’s unconscionably grotesque charge that Bill and/or Hillary Clinton had somehow managed to kill pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in his prison cell is not only slanderous and unethical, it makes no sense whatsoever. After all, if anyone had the motive and opportunity to off Epstein it was his former pal, Donald Trump. The Clintons have been out of power for years, but Trump’s presidency, and freedom, would be on the line if Epstein talked.

That said, this wouldn’t be a good time to be casting aspersions on anyone without some documentation or testimony, even though that’s precisely what Trump has already done. And to make matters worse, his State TV affiliate, Fox News, has now joined Trump in spewing the very same ridiculous accusations. Jeanine Pirro, a Fox host and unabashed Trump-fluffer, brought up the subject on her primetime Saturday night program. And she made sure that her allegations were as explicit as they were unfounded (video below):

“We already know that Jeffrey Epstein had very high profile people like Bill Clinton flying on his “Lolita Express” airplane to his private island. Other people mentioned, there’s Prince Andrew, Sen. George Mitchell, Bill Richardson. A lot of people mentioned. So this is a guy who, to a lot of people I guess, would have been better off dead. So a federal criminal investigation might be looking at that aspect of it, might it not?”

Pirro asked this question of her guest, former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik. It should also be noted that Kerik is a felon who served time in prison for tax fraud and perjury committed while employed by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Kerik affirmed Pirro’s implied charges by speculating about the motives of whoever took Epstein off of suicide watch.

To be sure, there are unanswered questions regarding how a prisoner who authorities already claimed had attempted suicide was able to hang himself in his cell. But by wrapping these questions in ludicrous and baseless conjecture about the Clintons, Fox News is sinking to new lows. Of course, they have never been a credible news enterprise, having been founded by a foreign, right-wing media mogul (Rupert Murdoch) and a Republican campaign consultant (Roger Ailes). But they are now crossing the line from a disreputable conservative propaganda outlet to a crackpot conspiracy theory dispensary that is willing to abandon reality – and sanity – in order to suck up to the lying, loathsome, abomination occupying the White House.

The names that Pirro rattled off were predictably partisan. And it was surely not an oversight that she deliberately left out Trump’s name, although it has been documented to have appeared on the passenger list for Epstein’s flights. What’s more, Pirro never even bothered to mention that the two had been friends, and abusers of young women, for years. These days Trump is pretending that he and Epstein had a falling out, but he offers no proof of that. And if anything, it was probably over a girl they both had designs on.

So now Both Trump and Fox News have shamelessly peddled some of the most asinine conspiracy theories ever dredged up from the bowels of the Internet. And they have forever stained what was left of their already tattered reputations. The time when they are removed from the national stage cannot come too soon. And hopefully the country can heal the wounds they’ve so callously opened. Unfortunately, we’ll still be stuck with the idiot jerkwads who have been lapping up that slime.

[UPDATE:] The White House Senior Director of Alternative Facts, KellyAnne Conway, went on Fox News and shamelessly defended Trump’s retweeting the conspiracy theory BS. She claimed he just wanted to have everything investigated, including all the people who had connections to Epstein. For some reason she left out Trump’s name among those people. And while she was at it, she made a preposterous argument that the Epstein matter was a hoax and, therefore, so was the matter of Russia interfering with the election. Sweet Jeebus, make it stop!

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

HOLY CRAPOLY: Trump Retweets Deranged ClintonBodyCount Epstein Murder Conspiracy BS

Just when you think that it couldn’t get any worse, Donald Trump proves that there is no bottom to the abyss of his loathsome cretinism. On a day that has been consumed by reports of the “suicide” of Trump’s long-time pal and pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, the president sinks lower than even his staunchest critics might have imaged.

Donald Trump

The Twitter feed of the President of the United States of America currently features a posting that promotes a disgusting conspiracy theory about Bill and Hillary Clinton that accuses them – without any evidence – of multiple murders. The post goes on to baselessly suggest that the Clintons are also responsible for the alleged suicide of Trump’s wingman, Epstein. The tweet that Trump has blasted out to his 62 million glassy-eyed followers was composed an alleged “comedian” named Terrence K. Williams, and asserts that “#JefferyEpstein had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead. I see #TrumpBodyCount trending but we know who did this!” It also features the hashtags “#ClintonBodyCount” and “#ClintonCrimeFamily.”

This would be horrendous if it were a posting on the account of Alex Jones’ Infowars (which has been banned from Twitter for advocating violence and other violations of the site’s terms and conditions), or some other crackpot who regularly spews ludicrous and imaginary bullshit. But it’s unbelievably nauseating that the President is so lacking in integrity, decorum, and decency. It’s further evidence (as if any more were needed) that Trump is unfit to serve in this office, or to even clean its toilets.

It’s also notable that Trump is not the only person to sink to these noxious depths in his administration. Lynne Patton is a regional administrator at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (and former wedding planner for Melania). She posted on Instagram that Epstein had been “Hillary’d,” with a hashtag that read “#VinceFosterPartTwo.” So apparently this is a coordinated effort on Trump’s part.

For the record, Epstein has had relationships with numerous prominent people, including politicians and business moguls. But the nutcases who are trying to smear the Clintons and others on the Democratic side are having to reach back decades for those angles. Yet they ignore that the person who is currently occupying the White House was close to Epstein for years and partied with him frequently. So while there is plenty of slime to spread around, only Trump is currently in a position of power that could have had both motive and opportunity to commit some foul deed.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Nevertheless, I’m not accusing him of anything other than being a slime bucket who gives credence to the nastiest unproven allegations. And as president he is not only demonstrating his own repulsive character (or lack thereof), he is staining the office that he was never fit to hold. There simply aren’t words strong enough to convey what an odious waste of flesh he is and how urgent it is that he be removed from office and sent to prison. And fortunately, there is a cell that just became available.

Trump in a Panic Sweat Posts 13 Lie-Riddled Tweets About – Get This – Hillary’s Emails

There is nothing more telling than a Donald Trump Tweetstorm. It reveals what he’s most afraid of and what is consuming his fevered and demented imagination. So it shouldn’t be dismissed when he posts a flurry of thirteen tweets by the disreputable and dishonest StormTrumpers at Judicial Watch. Particularly when the content of those tweets are predominantly the ancient right-wing obsessions over Hillary Clinton’s emails. Are these people serious?

Donald Trump Sweating

Unfortunately, the conservative junkies who are still addicted to fables about Clinton’s emails are deadly serious. They are feeding a fetish that borders on being a psychotic compulsion. And they bring it up whenever they feel threatened by the onslaught of inconvenient facts that challenge their demented world view. And Trump is among those suffering from this manic neurosis.

The symptoms of Trump’s mental disorder were on full display Saturday morning. The thirteen retweets of Judicial Watch propaganda must have seemed like the perfect antidote to the realities in the news that were so unpleasant for him. He just lost another one of his unethical cabinet flunkies (a record breaking achievement), Alexander Acosta, due to his relationship with pedophile rapist Jeffrey Epstein. Of course, Trump had his own relationship with Epstein who he said was a terrific guy.

Trump is also weathering a storm of criticism due his policy of caging children in inhumane conditions. And he is dreading the upcoming congressional testimony of special counsel Robert Mueller. All of this is taking place as the 2020 presidential campaign is beginning with Trump losing in the polls to all of the top Democrats. Consequently, Trump, in a fit of sheer desperation, completes his re-tweetstorm with a comment of his own:

We are sadly witnessing the shameful spectacle of a president making explicit accusations of criminality about an honorable, lifelong public servant in law enforcement. Even worse, this is a charge that has been debunked repeatedly when Trump has made it in the past. Most recently Trump attacked Mueller on this during an “interview” (more of a tongue bath) with Fox News Trump-fluffer Maria Bartiromo in June:

“Mueller terminated them illegally. He terminated the emails, he terminated all of the stuff between Strzok and Page. Robert Mueller terminated their text messages together. He terminated them. They’re gone. And that’s illegal. That’s a crime.”

Setting aside the cognitive dysfunction that Trump thinks texts can be “terminated,” everything else in that comment is provably false. And Trump surely knew that his charges were false because they were refuted when he made the very same remarks last december:

In fact, this lie was shot down by the Inspector General of Trump’s own Justice Department. It was reviewed by fact checkers who unanimously concluded that it was false. And it was rated as Pants on Fire by PolitiFact, who wrote that:

“First, a new report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog suggests the roughly 19,000 messages slipped through the cracks due to technical glitches with the FBI’s data-collection tool on Samsung devices, not because Strzok and Page went around the system.

“Second, perhaps most importantly, while the messages were initially not captured, they have since been recovered. Trump’s claim gives the false impression the texts are still unaccounted.”

Trump’s fear is obviously getting the better of him. It shows in his rambling, disoriented speeches, his glassy-eyed engagement with the press while his helicopter whirs in the background, and these rabid outbursts on Twitter.

In addition to the Mueller-related tweets, and the Hillary bashing, Trump also posted three tweets that comprised nearly half of Sean Hannity’s Hour of Lies on Friday night. His Twitter feed is becoming the Internet’s channel for Fox News reruns. Which Fox surely appreciates since they stopped posting on Twitter entirely last November. Trump is, in effect, the PR executive for Fox News. And Fox pays him handsomely for that with nauseatingly fawning tributes 24/7. It’s a mutually beneficial, albeit sick and dishonest, arrangement.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump’s Cowardly Scheme to Upstage the Mueller Hearing is Stymied by House Democrats

For more than two years Donald Trump has exhibited signs of mortal fear whenever the subject of his unsavory connections to Russia were brought up. That’s especially true with regard to mentions of special counsel Robert Mueller and his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Donald Trump Robert Mueller

Most of the time Trump has endeavored to lie about and malign Mueller in the harshest terms, calling him corrupt, conflicted, dishonest, and even treasonous. He tried to prevent Congress from ever seeing the Mueller report (and the public as well). Although on a few peculiar occasions Trump tried to butter up Mueller with faint praise in order to validate his delusional assertion that the final report exonerated him. Never mind that even Fox News’ Senior Legal Analyst and Chief Political Anchor didn’t buy that delusion.

A few weeks ago the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees scheduled hearings to get Mueller’s testimony on the record. It was a necessary step to inform the public, most of whom have not read the Mueller report in full (like many members of Congress) and are not familiar with its conclusions that identify criminal activity on Trump’s part and multiple instances of obstruction of justice. The hearings were set of July 17.

Shortly after that announcement, Trump announced that he would be holding another one of his Deplorable Cult Rallies in North Carolina on the same date. That was surely no coincidence. Trump was plotting to steal the media’s attention from the congressional hearings that he obviously feared. This is a tactic that he has used before. When he refused to participate in a Republican primary debate on Fox News because he was afraid of Megyn Kelly, he held a phony “charitable” event on the same day. And he often tries to manipulate the press with releases intended to distract from coverage of other news that he fears.

Now the Democrats in Congress are discussing delaying the Mueller hearing for one week. That would mean that Trump’s deliberately competing rally would not interfere with the Mueller hearing after all. Trump would either have to reschedule his rally also, or schedule an additional rally a week later. Either way it would make him look brazenly opportunistic and self-serving.

Still, we can’t rule out Trump changing his calendar in order to thwart the congressional testimony of Mueller. His fear is a powerful motivation for much of his behavior as president. He proved that again just yesterday with this trembling tweet:

And last week Trump unleashed this desperate and frightened tweet:

One thing we’ve learned from Trump is that there is no bottom to the barrel of his sleazy behavior. He will pull out all the stops to sabotage the public’s right to know about his criminal activities. If it isn’t a competing rally, it could be an escalation of his abhorrent deportation crusade, or an attack on Iran, or a pardon for Jeffrey Epstein, or an executive order remanding all immigrant children to Epstein’s Palm Beach Detention Center and Spa. Don’t laugh. With Trump anything is possible.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Hmm: Trump is Tweeting Way Less Since His Pal Jeffrey Epstein’s Arrest for Sex Trafficking

From the start of his presidency, Donald Trump has made Twitter his preferred platform for communicating with the American people. He has often unleashed rabid tweetstorms that exceeded forty posts in a single day. The vast majority of these posts are shamelessly self-serving tributes to himself – by himself – along with messages by his devoted sycophants in Congress and on Fox News who offer unquestioning praise for Trump and vicious assaults on his critics.

Donald Trump

Trump regards Twitter as his only means of speaking directly to his Deplorable followers since the media is, in his warped mind, “the enemy of the people.” It’s a position that he frequently brings up when questioned about his oppressive Twaddiction. He even believes that criticisms of his Twitter habit are plots to silence him:

So it’s rather peculiar that Trump has been muzzling himself on Twitter lately. The frequency of his posts has significantly declined in the past few days. Here is an accounting of Trump’s Twitter feed since the beginning of July (Only posts by Trump, no retweets):

  • July 1: 14 tweets.
  • July 2: 19 tweets.
  • July 3: 14 tweets.
  • July 4: 14 tweets.
  • July 5: 6 tweets.
  • July 6: 5 tweets.
  • July 7: 6 tweets

[UPDATE: Trump posted five more times on the night of July 7. They are all curiously attacking the weekend programs on Fox News. Something is clearly rattling him. His ordinary psychoses are flashing neon red. Trump is not comfortable with anyone on Fox who isn’t a Trump-fluffing toady, and Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends are all off until Monday]

Trump’s conspicuous decline from his favorite social media raises some awkward questions. What could possibly drive him away from a medium that he has been so attached to as a critical component of his propaganda machine? Ordinarily, even bad news would result in an increase in his tweet activity as he defends himself.

Well, there was some disturbing news this weekend that might have the scrubbing power to shut him up. It concerns a longtime friend of Trump’s who has been embroiled in a stomach-turning scandal involving the sexual exploitation and assault of underage girls:

“Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. Saturday’s arrest by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.”

Epstein’s arrest was on July 6. Trump’s Twitter output took a dive on July 5. Assuming Trump got a heads up from either his lackey in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, or someone in Epstein’s camp, that would coincide with his reduced Twitter activity. And not because Trump is worried about the fate of his buddy. Trump himself could be implicated in the scandal. After all, his association with Epstein included an appreciation for his perverse sexcapades:

This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention to Trump’s enjoyment of his own “social life.” He has had dozens of women come forward with charges of sexual harassment and/or assault. The latest one occurring just two weeks ago. What’s more, Trump has some exposure to Epstein’s previous legal affairs. Alex Acosta is Trump’s Secretary of Labor, a department which, among other things, has jurisdiction over sex trafficking crimes. Acosta’s connection to Epstein is noteworthy:

“Epstein’s bust comes mere months after a federal judge ruled his 2007 non-prosecution agreement (NPA)—secretly inked under former U.S. Attorney and current Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta—violated federal law by keeping Epstein’s victims in the dark. Under the sweetheart deal, Epstein dodged federal charges that might have sent him to prison for life.”

So Trump is pals with Epstein, an alleged sex trafficker, and he placed the corrupt U.S. Attorney, who gave Epstein a slap on the wrist, in his cabinet. Could Trump be worried about what might come out revealing his participation in Epstein’s cabal of pedophiles? Granted, this is speculation at this point. But it’s not unreasonable to suspect Trump, a known sexual predator, to be among those who engaged in unlawful activities with an alleged trafficker of underage girls. And that’s just the sort of legal jeopardy that could zip Trump’s relentlessly flapping lips shut.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.