#simon rosenberg

[Minneapolis last night 1/8/2026]

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 7, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 08, 2026

This morning, a federal agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good as she was driving away from ICE agents on a residential street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to Minneapolis leaders, Good was a legal observer: a volunteer trained to observe police conduct in case of future legal action.

Three videos taken at the scene show a maroon SUV perpendicular on a snowy street. A silver SUV driving up the street stops. Two officers wearing badges that say “police” and body armor get out of the vehicle and walk toward the maroon car.

One of them says, “Get out of the f*cking car,” and the other reaches through the open driver’s side window while trying to open the door. The driver backs up the vehicle, and straightens the wheel as if making a three-point turn. Then she starts slowly to accelerate along the street.

A third officer who has been standing on the side of the road pulls out a gun as the car is turning away. He shoots three times. The maroon car does not hit anyone as it rolls up the street, hitting another vehicle and then a utility pole. The shooter walks briskly away, apparently uninjured.

Seen in slow motion, a video shows the wheels of the maroon vehicle were fully turned away from the shooting officer, who made no effort to jump away, clearly suggesting he did not feel as if he were in danger. His first shot went through the windshield; the next two went through the driver’s side window as the car moved past him. An onlooker shouted “What the f*ck?!”

Video taken by another eyewitness shows ICE agents refusing to allow a self-identified physician to tend to the victim and telling him to back up. Although there is no one tending the clearly visible woman in the car, an agent says: “We have medics on scene. We have our own medics.” When another bystander screams: “Where are they? WHERE ARE THEY?!” an agent tells her, “Relax.” “How can I relax?” she shouts. “You just killed my f*cking neighbor.”

Yesterday the Trump administration deployed federal agents and officers to Minneapolis for what they called the largest federal immigration operation ever carried out, eventually planning to deploy 2,000 agents. The administration has been attacking Minnesota’s Somali community, and Homeland Security Kristi Noem was present at an ICE arrest yesterday, telling a man in handcuffs, who Homeland Security later said was from Ecuador, “You will be held accountable for your crimes.”

Rebecca Santana and Michael Balsamo of the Associated Press reported that Minnesota governor Tim Walz called the deployment “a war that’s being waged against Minnesota.” “You’re seeing that we have a ridiculous surge of apparently 2,000 people not coordinating with us, that are for a show of cameras,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) insists that its actions are protecting American citizens from “the worst of the worst” criminal immigrants, so the shooting of a young white woman, the mother of a young child, and how that would look, made it appear eager to smear Good.

It immediately put out a statement that looked much like what it said after officers shot 30-year-old Chicago teaching assistant Marimar Martinez in October when it claimed she had “ambushed” agents, ramming their vehicle before an agent shot her five times. Footage showed that, in fact, the agents had rammed her car, and after the shooting one had sent a text message bragging: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” The Department of Justice dropped the charges it had filed against her, asking a judge to “dismiss the indictment and exonerate” Martinez and her passenger.

Today, DHS posted on social media that “ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism. An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers. The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased. The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries. This is the direct consequence of constant attacks and demonization of our officers by sanctuary politicians who fuel and encourage rampant assaults on our law enforcement who are facing 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats.”

Trump jumped in with his own fact-free post lying that the shooter had been run over: “I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot at her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe that he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”

That both DHS and Trump posted false accounts of the shooting even as there are four videos circulating that reveal those accounts to be lies shows they no longer are making any attempt to justify their actions. Instead, they are demanding Americans abandon reality in favor of whatever the administration says. If this works, it would be a demonstration of totalitarian power, the ability to control how people think. Accepting that lie is a loyalty test.

But it is not working.

First of all, Sarah Jeong of The Verge noted that the reason there are so many videos is because “people cared enough to show up where ICE was and record them. It wasn’t just one or two legal observers, and when Good was shot, they didn’t abandon her.”

Second, elected Democrats are pushing back. “I’ve seen the video,” Governor Walz wrote. “Don’t believe this propaganda machine. The state will ensure there is a full, fair, and expeditious investigation to ensure accountability and justice.” To reporters, he said: “We’ve been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety, that someone was going to get hurt. Just yesterday I said exactly that. What we’re seeing is the consequences of governance designed to generate fear, headlines, and conflict. It’s governing by reality TV and today that recklessness cost someone their life. I’ve reached out to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and I’m waiting to hear back.”

He told Minnesotans that, like them, he was angry, but “they want a show. We can’t give it to them. We cannot. If you protest and express your First Amendment rights, please do so peacefully as you always do. We can’t give them what they want…. To Americans, I ask you this. Please stand with Minneapolis.”

Walz prepared to call out the Minnesota National Guard if necessary, demonstrating that there would be no need for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in troops. He reminded Minnesotans that the Minnesota National Guard does not wear masks and that it is theirs, not Trump’s.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey told reporters that the DHS statement was “bullsh*t. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.” “To the family, I’m so deeply sorry,” Frey said. “There’s nothing that I can say right now that’s going to make you or your relatives, friends of the victim feel any better.” To ICE and other federal agents deployed in Minnesota, he added: “Get the f*ck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite. People are being hurt. Families are being ripped apart…and now somebody is dead.”

But something else was also going on today. At the same time the administration was pouring gasoline on the domestic fire ICE had sparked and the international fire it had set with its attacks on Venezuela and threats against Greenland, it was quietly making a number of major financial moves.

The smallest of those moves was that today Trump asked Fulton County, Georgia, for a $6.2 million payout in attorneys’ fees and costs after the criminal charges against him in Georgia were dismissed. Trump had been indicted for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia by pressuring Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensberger to “find” 11,780 votes to give him a victory in the state of Georgia. In November 2025 a new special prosecutor dropped the charges, citing the difficulty of prosecuting a case against a sitting president. Trump boasted on social media of his victory over an “illegal, unconstitutional, and unAmerican hoax,” and continued to push the lie that Democrats stole the election.

Vicky Ge Huang of the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial today applied for a national banking license from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, part of the Treasury Department. A banking license would integrate the Trump family’s cryptocurrency more fully into mainstream finance.

If the Treasury Department issues the license—a potential outcome that critics say reveals a major conflict of interest for the president—the president and chair of the new company would be Zach Witkoff, whose father is the son of Trump’s envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff, who the Wall Street Journal recently reported had been handpicked for his role by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The younger Witkoff started World Liberty Financial in 2024 with Trump’s sons Don Jr., Eric, and Barron.

Today, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told an audience at a Goldman Sachs energy industry event in Miami, Florida, that the United States will take control of all oil from Venezuela for the foreseeable future. Lisa Desjardins and Nick Schifrin of PBS NewsHour reported this afternoon that Trump administration officials have told lawmakers that they plan to put the money raised from their seizure of Venezuelan oil into bank accounts outside the U.S. Treasury. Desjardins clarified that “[s]ources said they understood these as similar [to] or decidedly ‘off-shore’ accounts.”

Yesterday, Trump announced that, as president of the United States, he would control the money from the sale of Venezuelan oil.

And then, this afternoon, Trump’s social media account first threatened the defense contractor Raytheon, saying that “[e]ither Raytheon steps up, and starts investing in more upfront Investment like Plants and Equipment, or they will no longer be doing business with Department of War.”

Then, the same account posted: “After long and difficult negotiations with Senators, Congressmen, Secretaries, and other Political Representatives, I have determined that, for the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars. This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe. If it weren’t for the tremendous numbers being produced by Tariffs from other Countries, many of which, in the past, have ‘ripped off’ the United States at levels never seen before, I would stay at the $1 Trillion Dollar number but, because of Tariffs, and the tremendous income they bring, amounts being generated, that would have been unthinkable in the past (especially just one year ago during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, the Worst President in the History of our Country!), we are able to easily hit the $1.5 Trillion Dollar number while, at the same time, producing an unparalleled Military Force, and having the ability to, at the same time, pay down Debt, and likewise, pay a substantial Dividend to moderate income Patriots within our Country!”

Simon Rosenberg of The Hopium Chronicles wrote: “Trump has gone completely mad.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

In a remarkable rebuke The Indiana Senate rejected his strong-arming and voted down a mid-decade redistricting plan that would have netted Republicans two seats.

A judge ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be released, immediately, and he was released!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DOJ failed for a THIRD time to indict Letitia James.

For the first time, in a shocking and powerful rebuke, the House voted to overturn one of Trump’s executive orders.

Trump got the worst poll of his Presidency today that among things found him 22 points underwater on immigration!!!!!!

And today, in a House hearing, the venal Kristi Noem was so roughed up by Committee Democrats that she literally fled the hearing."

Greg Sargent and Michael Tomasky at TNR:

Last month, a GOP-friendly polling firm presented itself, and its data, in a highly unusual way. Rather than maintain a nominally neutral public-facing profile, this pollster acted more like a cavalry brigade for Donald Trump’s campaign. And the firm did so explicitly, openly, and proudly.  It all went down in mid-September, at a time when the FiveThirtyEight polling averages showed the slightest of leads for Kamala Harris in North Carolina, a must-win state for Trump. Her edge was short-lived: The averages moved back to favoring Trump. And Quantus Insights, a GOP-friendly polling firm, took credit for this development. When a MAGA influencer celebrated the pro-Trump shift on X (formerly Twitter), Quantus’s account responded: “You’re welcome.”  The implication was clear. A Quantus poll had not only pushed the averages back to Trump; this was nakedly the whole point of releasing the poll in the first place.

To proponents of what might be called the “Red Wave Theory” of polling, this was a blatant example of a phenomenon that they see as widespread: A flood of GOP-aligned polls has been released for the precise purpose of influencing the polling averages, and thus the election forecasts, in Trump’s favor. In the view of these critics, the Quantus example (the firm subsequently denied any such intent) only made all this more overt: Dozens of such polls have been released since then, and they are in no small part responsible for tipping the averages—and the forecasts—toward Trump. Coming at a time when right-wing disinformation is soaring—and Trump’s most feverish ally, Elon Musk, is converting X into a bottomless sewer pit of MAGA-pilled electoral propaganda—these critics see all this as a hyper-emboldened version of what happened in 2022, when GOP polls flooded the polling averages and arguably helped make GOP Senate candidates appear stronger than they were, leading to much-vaunted predictions of a “red wave.” Most prominently, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg and data analyst Tom Bonier, who were skeptical of such predictions in 2022 and ultimately proved correct, are now warning that all this is happening again. 

In their telling, GOP data is serving an essential end of pro-Trump propaganda, which is heavily geared toward painting him as a formidable, “strong” figure whose triumph over the “weak” Kamala Harris is inevitable. This illusion is essential to Trump’s electoral strategy, goes this reading, and GOP-aligned data firms are concertedly attempting to build up that impression, both in the polling averages and in media coverage that is gravitationally influenced by it. They are also engaged in a data-driven psyop designed to spread a sense of doom among Democrats that the election is slipping away from them.

[...] The 2022 cycle also arguably saw a new phenomenon really come to the fore: the rise of openly right-leaning pollsters that consistently showed better results for Republican candidates. Now these questions have once again arisen: Should these pollsters be included in aggregators’ averages or not? And what should you think of the case for their inclusion made by the aggregators, which is that they weight polls in a way that reflects their comparative credibility? [...] Some of the pollsters that got those races wrong are the same ones pumping out polls right now on the presidential race. One notable example is Trafalgar, which released polls in 2022 that showed five Republican Senate candidates either ahead or much closer than they ended up finishing. The most notable of these was in Washington state, where a Trafalgar poll in late October showed Democratic incumbent Patty Murray up by just 1.7 points over GOP challenger Tiffany Smiley. That poll generated a raft of “Is Patty Murray in trouble?” stories, the idea being that if even Murray was sinking in very blue Washington, then maybe a huge red wave really was gathering force. (Murray won by 15 points.)  We’re seeing a similar bombardment in the presidential race this time around. So what is it doing to the averages?  The keepers of the averages insist that the impact is very minimal. Outfits like FiveThirtyEight; Split Ticket, the Times’ in-house polling tracker; and Nate Silver’s forecast all take methodological steps ostensibly to ensure that “garbage-in” polls don’t lead to “garbage-out” results. These include downgrading the “weight” of polls thought to be systematically biased so they have less influence on the averages than high-quality polls do. (FiveThirtyEight has detailed criteria for determining whether pollsters are high quality, including empirical accuracy and methodological transparency.) Another step is adjusting for a particular pollster’s “house effects” to downplay biases.

[...] In the real world of media spin wars, that sort of difference does matter. In the last week or so, when the averages edged toward Trump, both TV commentators and Twitter accounts cited the tiniest of leads for Trump as evidence that he’s currently winning the state. Even more irresponsibly, some outlets assign candidates electoral votes based on such narrow leads. The GOP polls nudged the averages by less than a point, but they also arguably moved them in a way that prompted people to declare that Trump is now winning—not even just leading, but winning—the election.  The aggregators argue that these tiny shifts aren’t really a problem. In their view, a lead of 0.4 points isn’t actually a lead: They view it as statistically insignificant, as pretty much the same as a lead of 0.4 points in the other direction. 

But the perception this creates of a shift is indeed a problem. To illustrate the point, Bonier says that he sometimes gets calls from journalists who, prompted by such tiny movements to Trump, are looking to write stories about a momentum shift his way. “I had multiple reporters reaching out to me asking what’s wrong with the Harris campaign when the polling averages moved half a point toward Trump,” Bonier told us. Rosenberg believes that this small nudging of polls, for the express purpose of shifting the averages just enough to put Trump ahead, is the primary goal of GOP pollsters flooding the averages in the first place. In this understanding, it does not matter if the shift is negligible (as the aggregators claim), as long as it accomplishes the goal of putting Trump narrowly in front and giving spinners grist to proclaim the race is moving his way. “The only reason the Republicans would be doing this,” Rosenberg says, “is if their own internal data was telling them they are not winning the election.” Jain, of Split Ticket, allows that this can create a perception problem. “A shift from Harris up 0.5 to Trump up 0.5 is a lot less significant than people believe,” Jain says. “Aggregators should be clearer on this point. Republicans since 2016 have been obsessed with projecting strength. I do think that some of the lower-quality Republican-aligned pollsters try to create effects that show Trump surging or leading.”

The New Republic’s Michael Tomasky and Greg Sargent wrote a solid piece on why GOP-affiliated polling firms are releasing polls with the intent to game the polling averages in Donald Trump’s favor.

'Friends, on this Election Day, 2024, I am optimistic we will win. Late deciders have broken to us. The campaign has seen it in their data, and we’ve seen it both in public polling and in the early vote. We are outworking them. Our ads have reached more people. Our field operations have reached more people. Our extraordinary campaign has reached more people, and will doing so today, all day. We are closing strong and winning. They are closing as ugly as it gets and losing.' 'Look at this data Gallup just released. The Harris campaign reached more voters than even Obama 2008. Extraordinary work all. Very, very proud of this, and all of you.'

'Let’s get to work now peeps. More from me, later. And good luck everyone. So proud to have been in this fight with all of you. Let’s make this day another good day, perhaps the very best day of all.'

Mike Luckovich

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Both the cover-up and the crime are depraved.

July 21, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

Much of the US domestic news focused on the unfolding Epstein scandal, which is currently the subject of a massive cover-up by the Trump administration. Ever since the Watergate scandal, it has been accepted political wisdom that “The cover-up is (usually) worse than the crime.” Not so here. Both the cover-up and the crime are depraved.

As we discuss the political ramifications of the Epstein scandal, we must never forget that the underlying crimes are horrific—both in their nature (sex crimes against young girls) and the fact that the crimes persisted for a decade despite widespread knowledge (or suspicion) that sex trafficking of minors was occurring on a large scale.

The Epstein scandal has vaulted to the top of the news over the last two weeks because the Trump administration is attempting a cartoonish cover-up that is fooling no one. And if there is anything that whets the journalistic instincts of otherwise lethargic reporters, it is the possibility of becoming the next “Woodward and Bernstein.”

Moreover, the cover-up here is amateurish and easily disprovable by publicly known facts. Much of the reporting attempting to pierce through the cover-up involves republishing articles and interviews that have been “memory-holed” by a press that grew bored of the scandal.

Determining how best to correct the injustice and break through the cover-up while ensuring that both remain political liabilities for Trump (rather than Democrats) is the tricky bit. More on that in the second part of the newsletter.

Before turning to the Epstein scandal and cover-up, I would like to emphasize the remarks I made in my Substack livestream on Saturday morning. We are about to enter the congressional “summer recess,” when the political news cycle will slow. After fevered efforts to stop the reconciliation bill, it may prove difficult for some to maintain the same level of passion and engagement witnessed during the first six months of Trump's second term.

It is natural to experience ebbs and flows in the political dynamic. The important point is not to confuse a temporary moment of stasis with surrender or defeat. Maintaining peak intensity is simply not possible. We are human, after all. We need rest and renewal to be effective over the long term.

To fight the false sense of a “let down” after the reconciliation bill fight, it is worth noting that our resistance has negatively affected Trump's favorability ratings overall and with respect to his keynote issues in the 2024 campaign.

Simon Rosenberg does an excellent job of summarizing and analyzing the recent spate of polling that shows significant negative shifts in Trump's personal favorability rating and on issues such as immigration and the economy. If you are a person motivated by polls (and not everyone is), I highly recommend Simon Rosenberg’s analysis in Hopium Chronicles, Sunday Hopium - Six Months In The Country Is Not Buying What Trump Is Selling

I frequently urge people to “ignore the polls,” and I continue to believe that is good advice, except in two respects.

First, the strong negative shifts in Trump's polling are seen across the board, i.e., in polling by right-wing organizations and neutral outlets like major media organizations. While we can debate the magnitude of the shift among various cohorts, everyone agrees that Trump and his policies have lost significant public support since November 2024.

Second, the negative shifts in Trump's polling validate our experience. We see Trump as an anti-democratic autocrat threatening the Constitution. So, too, do most Americans. We see Trump's immigration policy as cruel and inhumane. So, too, do most Americans. We see the reconciliation bill as a betrayal of the American people that flies in the face of his campaign promises. So, too, do most Americans.

Third, the efforts by the right wing to counter Trump's negative polling by saying, “Democrats are historically unpopular” is a category mistake that should concern us but not dispirit us. Simon Rosenberg’s analysis doesn’t address the dismal polling regarding favorability ratings for Democrats. For a bracing reminder of the negative polling for Democrats, see The Hill, Mixed Polling Results for Democrats After Trump's Victory. As noted in The Hill, public perception of the “Democratic brand” is lower than at any time since 1992.

As I note above, it is a “category mistake” to compare negative polling for a person (Trump) or his policies to public perception of a party’s “brand.” Asking voters about a real person or real policy and then comparing those responses to views about “Democrats” is an invalid comparison. It’s like comparing the number 3 and the color blue. It is meaningless.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned about the low approval ratings for generic “Democrats.” But we must also be realistic and smart in our analysis. The notion that Democrats are massively out of touch is belied by the narrow margins in the presidential and congressional elections in 2024—which indicated an evenly divided electorate in which the president failed to garner a majority among those who voted.

Digging into the results of the polling in The Hill article, above, shows that some of the unfavorable ratings come from Democrats who believe that their leaders are not being aggressive enough in resisting Trump! That dissatisfaction gets reported as “unhappiness with Democrats,” but (in reality) reflects the feeling that Democratic leaders (like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries) should be doing more to advance the Democratic agenda, not less!

The Hill’s analysis of polling also criticizes Democrats because they have not “coalesced” around a candidate for 2028. That metric is both silly and misleading. Comparing support for a “to be announced” candidate for Democrats against a sitting president is like comparing waffles and nickels. They are not the same thing—as the writers at The Hill know. But The Hill wanted to write a story about Democrats in disarray, so it resorted to comparing waffles and nickels to support its thesis. So far as I know, the Republicans have likewise failed to “coalesce” around a candidate for 2028—a fact not mentioned in The Hill’s analysis.

I address the polling regarding the “Democratic brand” to help readers understand that many of the analyses being written are unfair and misleading. Every political institution in the US is at or near historic levels of unpopularity—including Democrats, Republicans, Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court.

What we must do is to exploit specific weaknesses revealed in polling regarding Trump and his policies. Democratic candidates will offer a competing, positive vision in 2026 while Republicans will be forced to defend every cruel, inhumane, greedy, racist, misogynistic, and antidemocratic initiative by Trump during his first two years in office.

The relevant comparison in 2026 will be how voters think about those issues and the candidates who support or oppose them. If you are still with me and are feeling anxious because of the above discussion, I again highly recommend Simon Rosenberg’s analysis.

Developments in the Epstein scandal over the weekend

After considering reader feedback about reporting on the Epstein scandal, I have concluded that it would be wrong to stop discussing the scandal, as some readers have urged. The underlying crimes against women should not be swept under the rug. Trump was, for a time, a friend and frequent social companion of someone who ran a significant sex trafficking operation involving minor girls. That is a newsworthy story that deserves comment.

Refusing to discuss relevant developments because the scandal does not involve government policies or actions is wrong. We must not compound the injustice of a decade’s worth of callous disregard for the victims by saying that it is not politically convenient to discuss those issues.

Fresh attention has been brought to the crimes because of the cover-up by Trump, AG Pam Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel. Indeed, the cover-up is likely a new crime! As noted below, it appears that the FBI is being used to identify and conceal Trump's involvement in Epstein’s activities.

We learned on Friday and over the weekend that the administration employed over a thousand FBI staff to scour approximately 100,000 documents for references to Donald Trump in Epstein’s files. Those references were collated into a spreadsheet that was widely available to many of the reviewers. The spreadsheet was not secure (hosted and available on Microsoft SharePoint). The review operation has all of the hallmarks of being run by someone with zero experience in conducting major document reviews.

For an excellent summary of the amateurish document review and related cover-up, I highly recommend an article by Allison Gill on her Substack, Mueller She Wrote, The Epstein Cover-Up at the FBI.

Gill makes a strong case that (a) a summary of Trump's involvement with Epstein exists; (b) the summary was not secure and multiple people had access to the document (or were able to view its contents; and (c) someone with access could have copied the document.

Gill invited people involved in the review to contact her on a confidential basis. At least two people did. Based on information from those people, Gill writes:

But here’s what caught my attention: the files were stored on a shared drive that anyone in the division could access. Normally, access is only granted to those working on a project, but because of the hurried nature of the exercise, the usual permission restrictions were not in place. Additionally, the internal SharePoint site the bureau ended up using to distribute the files toward the end did not have the usual restricted permissions. This left the Epstein and Maxwell files open to viewing by a much larger group of people than previously thought.

So, this is a “cover-up” where many people had access to the “smoking gun” summary of Trump's involvement.

Will the “summary” be released? At one level, it doesn’t matter. If it is leaked, Trump will claim it is a fraud, but he will be dogged by its revelations for the remainder of his presidency. If it isn’t released—the likely outcome—Trump will spend the rest of his time in office defending his refusal to release the document, in much the same way that Nixon resisted the release of the Watergate tapes.

As I wrote on Friday, the Epstein scandal is not a political advantage for Democrats, but it is a huge political liability for Trump and his supporters. Democrats must act responsibly and ethically in seeking to pierce the cover-up and in attempting to bring the perpetrators of sex crimes against minor girls to justice.

A good start is being made in the House, where Reps. Ro Khanna (D) and Thomas Massie (R) are collecting signatures for a discharge petition that would force a floor vote on releasing the Epstein files. It appears likely that Khanna and Massie will be able to force the vote. Reps. Massie, Khanna Seek House Vote on Public Release of Jeffrey Epstein Files | U.S. Representative Thomas Massie

The Epstein scandal appears to be rattling Trump. He spent Sunday in a frenzy, posting bizarre statements and memes on Truth Social, including, for example, a long-ago debunked video of a woman in a bikini catching a cobra as she was sunbathing and “a deranged AI-generated video depicting Barack Obama’s arrest and imprisonment.” See Daily Beast, Trump Posts Frenzied Truth Social Rampage on Six-Month Anniversary in Office.

While I would prefer not to cite The Daily Beast for news items, the New York Times failed to mention that Trump posted a fake video of Barack Obama being forced to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested in the Oval Office (not to mention the woman in the bikini catching a cobra). Let’s all say it together, “What if Joe Biden had done the same thing?” Would the Times have ignored it? Or would the Editorial Board of the Times call for the invocation of the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office?

But I digress. Trump was more unhinged than usual on Sunday, likely because he is ramping up his performative craziness in anticipation of more harmful revelations about his relationship with Epstein.

While the political dimensions of the cover-up cannot be ignored, remember that Epstein’s sex trafficking operation victimized over a thousand young girls. He didn’t do it alone. It is time to open the Epstein files to ensure that the perpetrators are held accountable and brought to justice.

Which is why the Administration keeps losing in court, and why so many judges have written some form “what the fuck are you guys trying to do here?” For what Trump is trying to do here is on its face so unimaginable, so outside any understanding of the rule or law or how a democracy could work, that judges are windmill dunking on these guys, and as we saw yesterday with senior Trump appointees resigning in protest from the DOJ over the Administration’s lawlessness. Trump and Musk are acting lawlessly, as if laws in the United States and our entire Constitutional order does not exist.

Musk is just burning everything down without any kind of strategic review. Hundreds of millions of dollars of food aid is rotting. People are dying across the world. We are burning relations with 100 governments who were dependent on USAID. People in charge of aviation security are forced out and we immediately suffer a deadly plane collision. Farmers are stiffed. People are forced back to work without space for them to work from while Musk is selling US government real estate to make back to work impossible. Senior staff with incredible expertise running complex departments and agencies are being fired with no one to replace them. They are breaking collective bargaining agreements. Terrorizing patriotic Americans with families, lives, careers who are serving their country. They are “moving fast and breaking things” but in this case what they are breaking, the US government, isn’t theirs. It is ours, and we should expect the President and his team to make these changes in a responsible and effective manner. Instead we get flame throwers burning everything down, ensuring that what is left behind is a broken, dysfunctional mess - the very opposite of efficiency."