Why democrats under Biden administration didn't release Epstein files?

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• OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Because it could hurt rich people and both parties are on the side of rich people.

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• Nollij@sopuli.xyz ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Legal Eagle just released a video about “the real Epstein files”. The main point they covered in the video is victim impact. The victims could be threatened and harassed because of the info.

  Another point not covered is that criminal case info is typically not disclosed. Releasing a list of accused perpetrators (i.e. pedophiles/child rapists) encourages vigilante justice. It also interferes with any ongoing investigations, which should (at least in theory) still be ongoing.

  I don’t want Trump to release the case info. I want his DOJ to announce charges against people like Les Wexner, based on that info. And I want it to not just be his political enemies and bullshit lies.

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  • Nanook@lemmy.zip ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Virginia Giuffre would argue otherwise. BTW, she just died. By “suicide”. After being struck with a bus at 110km/h, which would’ve killed most. (Fun fact, police didn’t want to send help).

    independent.co.uk/…/virginia-giuffre-father-death…

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    • meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Fucking hell. I didn’t even know that.

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  • grue@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Did they cover the part about how Biden’s DOJ had absolutely no fucking excuse to take that long to prosecute?

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    • spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      We can’t seem like we are making it political because he’s running for office or some bullshit was always the excuse.

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    • socsa@piefed.social ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      There probably just isn't the kind of direct evidence people imagine. You can't prosecute people just for associating with a creep.

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  • danc4498@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I very much get the first point. Victims need to be protected at all costs. Even if it means the public doesn’t get to know things.

    To the second point, the way Trump handled it felt very much like “case closed, nothing to see here”. This does not feel like justice is going to be served.

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• pjwestin@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  First, Bill Clinton is almost certainly all over them, and older Democrats still think of the Clintons as the epitome of Democratic success. Some of the old guard is still trying to push focus away from the Epstien files. Just two days ago, Nancy Pelosi was calling the Epstien files a distraction, which is a bat-shit crazy thing to say about evidence that could prove that your opponent was involved in a pedophile ring.

  Second, Epstien probably has some sort of ties to the intelligence community. I don’t know that I believe all these stories about him being a secret Mossad asset, but I think its very possible that the someone in the CIA was using him. Alex Acosta, who prosecuted Epstien in 2008, claimed that he was told to back off because he, “belonged to intelligence,” and they’re clearly withholding a lot of information, there’s definitely something they don’t want people to know. Anyway, since 9/11, the Democrats and Republicans have had basically the same position on the intelligence community (essentially, abject deference), so if the CIA says that it would be a national security risk to release the files, the Democrats aren’t going to release the files.

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• Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The give reason must be procedual, but the real reason is that the Epstein files undoubtedly also contain the names of democrats or democratic backers. They were more than happy doing nothing with those files.

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  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    So, no hiring hackers to actually change votes to Trump votes, but anything up to that. I dunno, I think they woulda released the Epstein stuff. My real guess is that some Democratic politicians are also on the list. Even if it’s only a couple, they might have figured running against a convicted felon gave them such good odds there was no need to throw any of their own under the bus. And apparently none of them said, “Well but what if he hires hackers to change votes to Trump votes?”

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    • 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Musk and Eaton had the means to change votes, not sure what your first statement is about.

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• Snailpope@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Because a bunch of them are also child rapists

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yup.

    Clintons were very good friends with Biden but also trump.

    Neoliberals poisoned the party so much that during Epstein’s hey day the letter by a name didn’t matter, trump himself was a big donor to the Dem party back then.

    Neither Biden or trump could release just the names of people they don’t like, because they’d snitch on the people they liked and then you’re on the hook for protecting the ones you liked.

    Someone like AOC is the only shot at a president that would actually release it. We need more politicians who have a loyalty to voters over a party.

    Party leadership changes, and we got a rare window right now the party won’t block someone like AOC. We can’t count on that being true in 2032 if she doesn’t feel ready in 2028.

    Ready or not, it’s time.

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    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Someone like AOC is the only shot at a president that would actually release it.

      You act like Bernie doesn’t exist. I’m 100% confident that he’s not assosiated with that hot mess in any way.

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  • itisileclerk@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That’s my thinking, US citizens are prisoners of the immorality of the richest regardless of their political contributions. Trump has masterfully exploited this with the “devide and empire” maxime.

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  • tired_n_bored@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Note how normal people have no issue saying that Democrats may be (or likely are) in the Epstein files, but MAGAs are like “The files are a hoax but if they exist he is not in them but if he’s in them it’s just a juvenile mistake, who cares”

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  • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    A lot of their donors as well.

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• AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Well specifically, it is still an ongoing investigation. What happened was Pam Bondi had the first half of files in her office, made a big public announcement about having requested all remaining files and waiting on them to be delivered, wrote a letter to Kash Patel about it and publicly released it.

  Then when she read whatever was in that second half of files that got delivered to her, she suddenly wasn’t so eager to release it. Image

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• takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Because you don’t publish details of investigation. You publish indictments once investigation is done. That’s essentially weaponization of DOJ.

  Republicans were promising to release (and suggesting Democrats are on it). Now as they have the power, they refuse. Claim the files don’t exist then that they are fake, then they are boring.

  At this point it is very clear that trump is in them.

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• auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  They were sealed until Jan 2024 as part of Maxwells appeal process.

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  • Hawke@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That gives a year, not a valid reason.

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    • auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The investigation was still ongoing, which Trump ended. And the DOJ is supposed to operate independently from the president.

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• lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  They did.

  • Epstein black book & story on it.
  • From USA v. Maxwell, Epstein flight logs & story on it.
  • From Giuffre v. Dershowitz, case documents & story on unsealing those.
  • The DOJ website lists some of those & others.

  Not long ago, everyone was calling claims of secret, unreleased documents a right-wing conspiracy theory. Why popular opinion on that has turned from fringe to accepted is a mystery.

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  • LikeableLime@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They apparently had video (obviously doctored and they couldn’t even hide that) after saying for years that all of the cameras malfunctioned. That video was released very recently so that leads me to believe there’s more stuff that never got released.

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• BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think one reason is that democrats wanted to do things by the book, and they didn’t want to be accused of tampering with the 2024 election, more than trump already did.

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  • krashmo@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That’s a decidedly generous interpretation of events

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• ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think the real question is: why isn’t anyone on the FBI or whatever agency is responsible for that, willing to just throw that shit onto the internet?

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  • arin@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They do on 4chan but no one believes them 🤷‍♂️

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    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Just the people that own ten bridges in NYC.

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• nthavoc@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Because “High Road” and “Moral Victories” were their focus and always pretend to act surprised when the goal posts are moved by the republicans. At least that’s one reason.

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  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Before Trump, the office had an image to uphold.

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    • nthavoc@lemmy.today ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I agree. But that whole honor system and gentleman’s agreements went right out the window in 2016. They had 4 years to see that coming and really didn’t do much to stop it; not even a slick behind the scenes move. Just sat there and let it happen. Had an ace in their sleeve and decided to keep it in a locked up safe for the Donvict to crack right open.

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• aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Here is Christine Pelosi, daughter of Nancy Pelosi, saying “It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated.” Democrats and their billionaire owners are just as implicated by this as Republicans.

  xcancel.com/sfpelosi/status/1147657745253855233?l…

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  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    If you have ‘faves’ you are a weirdo .

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    • aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      100%

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• gleb@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  because democrats are on it.

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• memfree@lemmy.ml ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Why didn’t Republicans under Trump’s first term release them? See reply by @Nollij@sopuli.xyz

  Sample coverage from back then: cnbc.com/…/trump-not-a-fan-of-jeffrey-epstein-acc…

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• selokichtli@lemmy.ml ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Sorry to answer with other questions, but as a foreigner I have to. Do investigations like this can just be published by the POTUS? I’m my country, it works be the sole decision of the AG, and they would probably won’t publish anything because it could end up damaging the investigation. Or so they’d say.

  It’s really baffling the power of the current POTUS, having all the power of the state in his hands. To me, him just telling Pamela Bondi what to do in such a delicate matter feels just wrong, as in lacking the due seriousness on the matter, utterly sloppy and populist in a bad manner.

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  • wjrii@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    One of the recurring themes I keep coming back to in all this is that the US has a uniquely bad situation with regard to its Constitution. We worship it as an infallible and complete guide to running a democratic republic, but really it’s extremely old, extremely vague, and depends on goodwill and sensible interpretation to function. We have neither the explicit understanding that everything is old AF and cobbled together and dependent upon custom and moderating tyrannical sensibilities like the British, nor the unwieldy but straightforward comprehensiveness of EU treaties and certain other lengthy modern written constitutions.

    To me, him just telling Pamela Bondi what to do in such a delicate matter feels just wrong, as in lacking the due seriousness on the matter, utterly sloppy and populist in a bad manner.

    This feeling you have is exactly how presidents of either party would have felt for the last 80-100 years. The idea of a largely independent Department of Justice was considered eminently sensible and moral and even to the realpolitik set it provided outer bounds of what was politically possible and so they would nudge and tug at the edges, but never blow right past it, lest they suffer Nixon’s fate. I think we make a mistake to say that Trump is stupid in a binary yes/no sense, but he is deeply uncurious about things that donm’t interest him, so when people tell him “The Constitution doesn’t actually say that,” his eyes gleam and he just does whatever he might get away with. And because we have a Supreme Court dominated by the idea that the US Constitution is more akin to a piece of computer code than a framework for sensible governance, they simply throw up their hands and say, “whelp, it didn’t SAY that the administration of justice should be handled with integrity, so guess we makin’ a fascism now.” Better vote them out, except oh wait the Constitution also doesn’t say you can’t fuck with the elections either.

    One of my anxious worries lately is that at the end of this term, Trump will look at our term limits amendment and parse the verbiage with a simple literalism and Clarence Thomas et al will back him up. It says you can’t be elected president more than twice, so why not simply run for VP and then have your patsy resign five minutes after swearing in? After all, we’re mindless textualists now. We didn’t want an FDR type getting overly entrenched in the machinery of power, but we clearly meant to allow loopholes that are significantly less democratic!

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  • Battle_Masker@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    the president of the US doesn’t have as much power as our current one thinks he has. It’s just that no one involved in the checks and balances procedure has the balls to stand up to him and say “no,” or they don’t have the power to do so in a way that would impact anything. And the ones that do decided just before the 2024 election that a sitting president can’t be charged with any illegal shit he did as president, so even the ones that CAN say no to him just get brushed off or outright told “fuck you”

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    • 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      They don’t have the power to say “No” because they probably have a big shitty laundry list of their own they want to hide.

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  • TheFogan@programming.dev ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m my country, it works be the sole decision of the AG

    It works like that… but the problem is effectively we give the president the power to fire and replace the AG. So… in short, the AG is hand picked by the president and then approved by congress.

    With a crazy president like this that effectively has 100% of his party members in congress intimidated to back every one of his picks, the AG is basically his hand picked employee.

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  • dave881@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yes and no.

    In the US the Judicial branch is responsible for the the courts and interpretation of the law / constitution, but the Executive branch is responsible for the execution / enforcement of the law. I think that in other parts of the world it is common for the AG to be part of the Judicial branch, but here they are part of the Executive branch.

    As I understand it, there are parts of these investigations/prosecutions that the AG can release under their own authority (or by direction of the President) but other parts that are under seal and require authorization from the courts.

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• tisktisk@piefed.social ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  When... When did they claim they were going to do that?

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• PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Because besides powerful Republicans, powerful Democrats are also implicated (e.g. the Clintons).

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• troglodytis@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Status quo protects the status quo.

  The status is not… quo

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  • Xaphanos@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    But it is quid pro quo.

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• Schwim@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Your question leads me to believe that you think pedophilia is a Republican construct.

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• sundaymidnight@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Possibilities:

  1. Donald Trump is a pedo, then he wont release it

  2. Donald Trump is a pedo, but he will release a modified version

  3. Donald Trump is a pedo and Biden covered him in trade-off to silence his son’s crimes (drugs)

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  • Deestan@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Or 4. none of this is up to any of those people it is not their job or within their right.

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• danc4498@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’s possible they were protecting their own. You don’t release only the parts that implicate your opponents and leave out the parts that implicate your friends.

  I think it’s also possible there wasn’t any smoking gun that directly implicated anybody. Only loose associations to Epstein that we already were aware of.

  So if they did release it, Republicans wouldn’t believe anything in it that made them look bad, and Democrats wouldn’t care as they want a real smoking gun before they react. So it wouldn’t help in the election, and the release would have zero impact.

  Instead, let the next administration deal with it. With Trump now in charge, it really is a rock and a hard place. If there are “loose associations” that make him or his people look bad, and they are the ones to release it, Republicans would not be able to question its authenticity.

  Notice how Trump is now claiming Obama and Biden were manipulating the documents, which is why he won’t release it. This is giving his people a reason to be skeptical even if he does release something that looks bad.

  TLDR, either Democrats are implicated and Biden was protecting, or Biden felt it was better to let the next administration deal with it, especially if the next administration was Trump.

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• WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Because the CIA and FBI is throwing a coup and people on the left still believe in the government.

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• ABetterTomorrow@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/…/id1346207297?i=10…

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• 60d@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Image

  69 checking in. Include me in screencap.

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