Tag: Files

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Another Epstein Files Release Deadline Passes

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A segment on MSNOW’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell focused on yet another missed deadline for the release of the Epstein files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. O’Donnell noted that Friday, 01/16/26, was the date by which Trump’s Department of Justice was required either to release the documents or explain to a federal court why it could not do so. Even as he laid out the requirement, O’Donnell expressed skepticism that the administration would comply.

That skepticism proved well founded. The DOJ did not release the Epstein files by the deadline, nor did it offer a straightforward justification for continued secrecy. Instead, it submitted a filing advancing a far more provocative claim: that the federal court itself lacks the authority to impose disclosure deadlines on the DOJ under the transparency law. In effect, the department argued that judicial oversight does not extend to enforcing Congress’s mandate for public release.

The filing struck many observers as both evasive and revealing. The DOJ had no shortage of familiar excuses it could have relied upon. It could have requested additional time, citing the need to review millions of Epstein-related files it now claims to have “discovered” years after Epstein’s death—an explanation that few in the public find credible, but one that would have followed the well-worn script of bureaucratic delay. Instead, the department chose to challenge the court’s authority outright, a move that signaled a deeper resistance to transparency rather than a temporary logistical problem.

That posture stripped away any remaining doubt about the administration’s intentions. From the beginning, critics warned that Trump’s DOJ would engage in procedural gamesmanship—offering symbolic compliance while ensuring that the most consequential material never sees the light of day. The latest filing suggests those warnings were prescient. By disputing the court’s power to impose deadlines, the DOJ is effectively asserting the right to delay disclosure indefinitely, regardless of statutory language, judicial orders, or public demand.

At this point, what once sounded like cynical speculation is hardening into an unavoidable conclusion. Despite sustained public outcry, congressional action, and repeated court-imposed deadlines, less than one percent—one percent—of the Epstein files have been released. That figure alone tells the story. At this pace, full disclosure is not merely delayed; it is effectively being denied. The administration appears content to manage optics rather than deliver transparency, releasing token material while the core of the record remains sealed. With each missed deadline, the promise of accountability fades further, leaving the public with a grim realization: the dream of a full Epstein files release may never be realized, and the cynics may have been right from the very beginning.

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Is Trump’s Beef With Venezuela Just A Distraction From Epstein Files?

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On the December 3, 2025 edition of MSNOW’s Last Word, host Lawrence O’Donnell made a striking allegation: that President Trump’s recent moves toward a potential conflict with Venezuela are part of a deliberate effort to divert public attention from what has become the most politically explosive vulnerability of his administration—the Epstein files. As dramatic as that claim sounds, the idea that a president might reach for military action to overshadow damaging domestic troubles is far from unprecedented in American politics.

History offers several examples of presidents facing crises at home while initiating or escalating military operations abroad. In 1999, as the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment fight threatened his presidency, Bill Clinton authorized U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Kosovo. While the Kosovo intervention had legitimate humanitarian and geopolitical motivations, critics at the time argued that its timing conveniently shifted the national focus away from the turmoil engulfing Clinton in Washington. Similarly, George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq—authorized with congressional approval and publicly justified as a necessary step to eliminate weapons of mass destruction—has long been viewed by some political observers as a campaign that also helped neutralize criticism of the administration’s intelligence failures surrounding 9/11 and other mounting domestic issues. In both cases, military action absorbed media bandwidth, elevated presidential authority, and stirred a sense of national unity that could blunt domestic scrutiny.

The pattern, then, is an old one: foreign conflict can serve as a political reset button, even if the strategic and humanitarian stakes are genuinely complex. It is also a risky gamble, because wars rarely unfold according to plan. setbacks can deepen public dissatisfaction instead of alleviating it, and the use of military force for political cover remains one of the most controversial charges that can be leveled against any commander in chief.

Against this backdrop, if President Trump were to sidestep Congress and launch a military operation in Venezuela under the banner of fighting “narco-terrorists,” it would not emerge in a historical vacuum. It would more closely resemble a familiar—and troubling—pattern in presidential behavior. Yet recognizing a pattern does not mean the public should accept it as inevitable. Trump campaigned in 2024 on promises of “no more foreign wars” and “no more regime change,” commitments that resonated deeply with voters weary of costly, open-ended U.S. interventions. Many of his supporters viewed him as the candidate who would finally break the cycle of manufactured or opportunistic foreign entanglements that so often coincide with moments of domestic political stress.

That alone should give the president pause. If he truly intends to differentiate himself from past administrations, he must resist the temptation to use military force as a political distraction. The public—and especially the voters who backed him on the promise of a different foreign-policy era—deserve a leader who resists the cynical logic of war as domestic cover, not one who repeats it.

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Is Mike Johnson The Weakest Speaker Of All Time?

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) increasingly looks like a man who has surrendered not only the institutional muscle of the speakership but even the pretense of independence from the president of his own party. The speakership historically has been an office defined by its willingness to challenge the White House when necessary—Sam Rayburn, Tip O’Neill, Newt Gingrich, Nancy Pelosi, and even John Boehner all asserted the House’s prerogatives when they believed a president, Democrat or Republican, had crossed a line. The job demands that a Speaker defend the House as a coequal branch of government, not serve as an extension of the Oval Office. Johnson’s conduct has prompted growing skepticism that he understands, or even values, that obligation.

Lawrence O’Donnell seized on this erosion of authority during a blistering segment on The Last Word, calling Johnson “pathetic” for repeatedly lowering the speakership to the status of Trump’s legislative errand boy. O’Donnell’s critique did not rest on ideology but on the abandonment of basic separation-of-powers expectations—what he framed as Johnson’s refusal to act like the leader of an independent branch of government. When the Speaker of the House won’t defend the House’s own jurisdiction and moral authority, O’Donnell argued, the institution itself becomes weaker, and Johnson seems almost proud to preside over its diminishment.

The latest and clearest example came with Johnson’s handling of the Epstein files, a matter where moral clarity should have superseded political loyalty. Many House Republicans, echoing survivors and transparency advocates, pushed for the full release of the unredacted files. Yet, according to multiple reports, the Trump team made it clear that it did not want that transparency, and Johnson dutifully complied. Instead of defending the bipartisan House vote for disclosure, he attempted to pressure Senate Republicans into adding anti-transparency amendments—effectively rewriting a unanimously passed House measure to align with Trump’s wishes. This was precisely the moment when a strong Speaker would have demonstrated independence, asserting that the House’s overwhelming vote reflected a moral imperative that transcended the president’s concerns.

What happened next exposed the extent of Johnson’s weakness. Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, refused to go along. Thune brushed off Johnson’s push and let the bipartisan transparency bill stand as written. The moment was striking not only because Senate Republicans broke with Johnson, but because they did so with such ease. It showed how little weight Johnson’s requests carry even within his own party’s congressional leadership. It was the kind of public sidelining that previous Speakers would never have tolerated because they would never have allowed themselves to be put in that position to begin with.

Johnson, embarrassed by the rebuff, then claimed that Democrats—specifically Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—had somehow duped Thune into ignoring Johnson’s demands. It was an explanation that strained credibility. The idea that seasoned Senate Republicans were outmaneuvered by Schumer into doing the morally obvious thing, rather than following Johnson down the rabbit hole of suppressing sensitive documents, only underscored how deeply unserious Johnson’s defense was. This evasiveness was precisely what triggered O’Donnell’s sharpest criticism: that a Speaker reduced to blaming phantom Democratic trickery to justify his own impotence has forfeited the dignity of his office.

Seen in this light, Johnson’s speakership increasingly appears not merely weak but historically weak—a surrender of institutional power at exactly the moment when Congress should be asserting its independence. The Founders designed the legislative branch to check the executive, not to take instructions from it; the Speaker of the House, more than any other congressional figure, embodies that constitutional balance. By repeatedly deferring to Trump, even on issues where morality, transparency, and bipartisan consensus align against him, Johnson is not just weakening himself. He is weakening the House of Representatives. And that is why the charge that he may be the weakest Speaker of all time can no longer be dismissed as hyperbole. It is becoming a plausible assessment of a man who seems unwilling to use the authority of an office that demands far more than passive obedience to presidential preference.

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The Steve Bannon–Jeffrey Epstein Connection: What the Newly Released Emails Reveal

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A recent segment on the 11/19/25 edition of MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber examined a newly surfaced trove of emails that—according to the program’s reporting—suggest Steve Bannon’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was far deeper and more strategic than Bannon has publicly acknowledged. As Melber emphasized, the emails do not indicate that Bannon participated in Epstein’s criminal activities. But they do appear to show that Bannon was fully aware of Epstein’s widely reported misconduct and still worked behind the scenes to help rehabilitate Epstein’s public reputation. If accurate, the correspondence paints a picture of a political strategist engaging with a disgraced financier in ways that raise more questions than answers.

Why Bannon would want to rehabilitate Epstein remains unclear. Bannon’s brief tenure in the first Trump administration fuels speculation: was he attempting to minimize or contextualize Trump’s long-documented association with Epstein? Was he pursuing financial or strategic support from Epstein, who still wielded substantial wealth and elite connections? Or was Bannon trying to leverage Epstein’s deep ties to global power brokers for his own political aims? While none of this is conclusively established, the emails suggest Bannon saw a degree of utility in Epstein that extended well beyond casual acquaintance.

The timeline of Bannon’s public statements only complicates matters further. When the Epstein files controversy re-emerged earlier this year during Trump’s second term, Bannon became one of the loudest figures demanding the release of every Epstein document. He framed Epstein as central to the so-called “Deep State,” arguing that the files were the key to exposing elite corruption and dismantling entrenched power networks. Yet throughout this campaign for transparency, Bannon never disclosed that he had any prior personal or professional interactions with Epstein—let alone that he had reportedly discussed rehabilitating Epstein’s image. That omission now casts his rhetoric in a new light and raises questions about whether his public crusade was also an effort to get ahead of information that might implicate or embarrass him.

The dynamic becomes even more intriguing when considering Bannon’s public clash with Elon Musk over the handling and release of Epstein-related material. What initially looked like another loud, intra-movement skirmish now takes on new weight. If Bannon had undisclosed ties to Epstein, his aggressive posture toward Musk could be interpreted as an attempt to steer the narrative or deflect scrutiny.

If these emails are authentic, they suggest a pattern of engagement with Epstein that conflicts with Bannon’s public posture and demands a fuller explanation. The public deserves to know why Bannon was attempting to reshape Epstein’s image, what he hoped to gain from the relationship, why he hid these interactions while urging transparency from others, and how this impacts the credibility of his broader claims about the Epstein files. Until Steve Bannon provides a transparent and comprehensive accounting of his relationship with Epstein—its scope, its motives, and its implications—there is little reason to take his proclamations at face value. The questions raised by these revelations are serious, and they are not going away.

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VP Vance Pushes Back On The Gerald Ford Comparison

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On the 11/12/25 edition of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, host Lawrence O’Donnell made a striking observation: current Vice President J.D. Vance’s near-silence on the swirling Jeffrey Epstein files scandal mirrors the posture then-Vice President Gerald Ford assumed as Richard Nixon’s presidency was collapsing under the weight of Watergate. O’Donnell pointed out that Ford, sensing the sinking of Nixon’s Presidency, deliberately kept his head down—he knew the ghosts of Nixon would dog his tenure if he didn’t distance himself.

By the same logic, O’Donnell argued, Vance appears to be doing exactly that: he knows the Epstein files may blow up and run Donald Trump out of office, and thus is doing everything he can to not get sucked into the scandal, to avoid becoming the next Ford.

As expected, social media erupted following O’Donnell’s segment. I posted a clip of the show, and to my surprise the reaction came from none other than the Vice President himself. That’s how provocative the comparison proved.

In his response, Vance strongly objected to O’Donnell’s suggestion that he was intentionally silent about the Epstein scandal. Vance pointed out that he had addressed the issue in prior TV appearances—citing his interview on Hannity scheduled for 11/13/25, which coincided with the date I posted the segment.

Interestingly, in that very 11/13/25 show O’Donnell claimed Vance had in fact ignored the Epstein issue entirely—and reaffirmed: “He’s still Gerald Ford.”

Now that the “Gerald Ford” comparison has caught Vance’s attention—and by implication, the President’s—it will be fascinating to watch how it plays out going forward.