BREAKING: A White House meeting took place last night to discuss the Jeffrey Epstein case, sources tell NBC News.
It's unclear if the president attended, but AG Bondi and FBI Director Patel were present. The president and vice president had previously denied reports of a planned meeting.— MSNBC (@msnbc.com) August 7, 2025 at 2:50 PM
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Per the Daily Beast, “White House Did Have Secret Talks on Epstein Crisis”:
… The meeting was reportedly relocated from Vance’s D.C. home to the White House. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel were also in attendance, according to MSNBC.
It’s unclear whether the talks included Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who were initially reported to be joining the dinner at the vice president’s Naval Observatory mansion.
Vance’s supposed involvement in the talks had drawn criticism. Ever since Watergate, the Justice Department has kept criminal investigations separate from White House influence, to prevent any appearance of political interference.
The meeting’s last-minute relocation, MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin suggested, was designed to throw off watchful eyes…
The administration appears to be seeking ways to quell MAGA outrage over its handling of the Epstein files, and to redirect attention from the growing spotlight on Trump’s past friendship with the disgraced financier…
One tactic the administration has considered, as it looks for ways to deflect scrutiny, is releasing an audio recording and transcript from Blanche’s interview with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, CNN previously reported, citing two administration officials. Another involved getting Blanche into an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, according to the report…
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Russia, India, semi-conductors, Mamdani…I don’t think any of it is Trump trying to distract us from the Epstein files. I think it’s his staff giving him crazy shit to do to distract Trump from the Epstein files.
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) August 6, 2025 at 6:00 PM
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William Kristol, at the Bulwark — “Dinner Is Off. The Scheming Continues”:
… I don’t think we ever had, at one time, the White House chief of staff, the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
That was to be the A-list dinner Vance hosted last night, with Susie Wiles, Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, Kash Patel, and others assembled to decide how to handle Donald Trump’s Jeffrey Epstein problem. Multiple outlets reported that the event was scheduled to happen…
But if the files are harmless or meaningless, why not just release them (obviously with survivors’ names and personally identifiable information redacted)?
Well, because, as Trump explained earlier in the week, he’s concerned about not embarrassing people who haven’t done anything wrong. He doesn’t mean the victims, of course; he’s never expressed any concern about them. Trump’’s worried, he said, about those people who might be mentioned but “aren’t involved” and who could “be hurt by something that would be very, very unfortunate, very unfair to a lot of people.”
This excuse is, to quote the president of the United States, “total bullshit.” The names of many of the big shots who associated with Epstein, but who claim not to have been involved in or aware of his sex trafficking, are already out there. If the files mention those people once again, and they were simply innocent guests, associates, or bystanders on the fringes of Epstein’s dark world, they’ll have no problem explaining that. They’ve done it before.
It won’t be so easy for the ones who weren’t simply innocent bystanders…
It’s worth recalling that after reviewing the files, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel ordered FBI agents to black out every mention of Trump, according to Bloomberg News. Why did they do that? After all, if Trump only pops up occasionally in the files as an innocent bystander, or as a subject of third-party hearsay with no supporting or corroborating evidence, why the need to blackout the mentions? If Trump did nothing “concerning” while spending time with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein—as Ghislaine Maxwell is reported to have told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche before being moved to a far nicer federal prison facility—then what’s the problem? Why not just release the files, let Trump debunk whatever unverified suggestions may be in there, and avoid accusations of a coverup?
Perhaps because the files tell us more about the Trump-Epstein relationship? Perhaps because they suggest Trump has something to hide?…
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…”There is the implicit threat that if you go at the Epstein issue too aggressively, you could lose access or not have your calls returned.” www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol…
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 9:11 AM
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Parnas filed a report ahead of the weekend called, "Trump’s Team Scrambles to muzzle Dan Bongino." In the essay, he argues, "It wasn’t just about Epstein. It was about stopping Bongino from going rogue."
— Landry Corkery 💙🌈 🇩🇰 🇵🇦 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 🇺🇲 🇺🇦 (@landry76.bsky.social) August 8, 2025 at 6:03 PM
For what it’s worth, Lev Parnas, at his SubStack, Lev Remembers:
… They talk about the dinner. They talk about the people who were supposed to be there. They talk about what was likely discussed. But not a single outlet, not one reporter, is talking about the name that wasn’t there. The name that matters most.
Dan Bongino.
Because what I’m telling you now, is that this dinner—this meeting Todd Blanche was supposed to lead at J.D. Vance’s residence—was never just about Epstein. It was about Dan. About bringing him to heel. About getting him in line. And when that dinner got exposed and canceled, the conversation didn’t go away. It just moved behind closed doors.
According to my sources, that conversation happened yesterday at the White House. Kash Patel sat down with Pam Bondi in private. The topic? Bongino. The rift. The refusal. The threat.
Because since July 6th—when Bondi’s now-infamous memo claimed there was no Epstein “client list,” and that no further prosecutions would take place—Bongino hasn’t been on board. He’s stayed quiet. No statements. No tweets. No Fox hits. Just silence.
What they’ve done is try to paper over the cracks. Just like Trump always does. He put a band-aid on it. He called Bongino. We don’t know if he begged him, threatened him, promised him something—but whatever he said, Bongino stayed. Physically. On paper. But not in spirit. Not on the train…
You have to understand who Bongino is and why he’s dangerous to them now.
He built his name on Epstein. His podcast empire, his MAGA loyalty badge, his entire right-wing career was staked on exposing Epstein’s global sex trafficking, and claiming to speak hard truths that the media was afraid to touch. He made Epstein his brand. And now, standing inside the halls of power as the Deputy Director of the FBI, he’s being told to shut up. To forget what he said. To fall in line with a story he knows is a lie.
He didn’t come from the Bureau. He came from right-wing media. From Infowars to Rumble to Fox, Bongino was Trump’s mouthpiece long before he wore a badge. But that also means he’s built a platform outside of Trump’s control. He doesn’t need Trump anymore to stay relevant. And that makes him a threat.
The one man with the files, the reach, and the voice to blow it wide open… is sitting inside the FBI, silent.
That’s why they’re panicking. That’s why the dinner mattered. That’s why Bondi and Patel sat down behind closed doors yesterday and talked about how to rein Bongino in.
But let me be very clear: Bongino is not in line. He never was. Trump may have patched things up on the surface, but what’s simmering underneath is real. And it’s dangerous. Not for us—but for them.
Because if Dan Bongino breaks ranks, if he walks, if he decides to go public, this won’t just be a scandal—it’ll be the collapse of the entire Epstein cover-up. And they know it…
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So, just like Russia in 2016, he’s guilty as hell.
— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) August 6, 2025 at 7:01 PM
J. Arthur Crank
Out all of the things I hate about Trump, it is breaking of the Laws of Nature like “Bill Kristol is always wrong”, etc. It is hard to go about your day-to-day life when the Laws of Nature keep shifting beneath your feet.
SpaceUnit
Christ, you could hand over a whole giant box of VHS tapes of trump gooning on four year old girls and our national media would be like we just can’t be certain of what we’re seeing here.
Martin
I always had the sense that Bongino was more of a true believer, where Kash is more of a grifter. Not too comfortable with Parnas as a conduit on these things though. How in a nation of 300 million people we keep getting the same assholes showing up over and over.
But the nations walls are getting a particularly large amount of ketchup these days.
eclare
Reposted from below: my power is back on! I was sitting in my car, charging my phone and watching TV on it, and I noticed that my backyard lights were on. I don’t even think I lost anything in the fridge because even though the power was out for five and one half hours, I am going grocery shopping tomorrow, so I didn’t have much.
Ishiyama
They are going to try the modified limited hang-out route.
Shalimar
@eclare: Excellent news. An extended power outage is my nightmare, and I live in Florida so hurricane season always makes it a possibility. I buy a lot of food from grocery store bogo sales and freeze it in the big freezer for later, so a long outage could potentially cost a lot.
eclare
@Shalimar:
Same for me with buying on sale and freezing. We don’t get hurricanes, of course, but I live in a neighborhood with a lot of huge, old trees. When my power was out for four days a few years ago, I lost well over $100 in food. Once it’s out that long, everything has to be thrown out.
Oh, I just noticed you have one of those big freezers, yeah, that would be a lot more than my couple hundred.
Fingers crossed for you this season!
Aussie Sheila
@Martin:
It will take some extra glue applied with the help of Dem partisans, but this thing can be made to stick another three weeks until people are back from Summer vac. Once autumn hits, a whole lot more can be added.
I’m smelling ‘deep in the muddy’ here.
Here’s hoping.
Aussie Sheila
youtu.be/pjnnEevVihY?si=VKox2XNEo8cjoLT_
Here is what the actual base of the NSW ALP thinks of Premier Minns and his disgraceful performance re the Gaza protests. He risks not just his Premiership, but a real hammering at the polls as people shift their vote to the left.
He is execrable.
p.a.
The Dems and alt media (and, weirdly, the Qanon/MAGA nexus) are going to have to carry the ball on this. Unlike Watergate, the MSM is way more a lapdog today than it was- and it never really was what their self-image as noble-seekers-of-truth-outers-of-corruption was.
Aussie sheila
@p.a.:
You are right about this. I’m old enough to remember Watergate. The difference between then and now is amazing.
Central Planning
Good morning, redis.
Geminid
@Martin: One thing going on here is: Kash Patel is not that smart. Neither is Pam Bondi. I’m not saying they’re stupid, but I think they have second-rate intellects. They made it into this administration because they are sycophants, and that may come come back to bite Trump. In Bondi’s case, it already has.
Ed. Bondi’s ham-handed treatment of the Epstein matter at a public appearance a few weeks ago gave this story “legs.”
As for Lev Parnas, his qualificatiin as a conduit for news on these machinations is that he used to be part of that crowd. But I don’t think Parnas is relied upon so much. There are plenty of other people reporting and analyzing on these matters. But it seems to me that Parnas’s analysis has a relative value.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: This affair had developed momentum of its own. Old stories are being rediscovered, and new ones from the period in question are coming out almost everyday.
I have a “normie” friend who would rather watch the most mediocre sportsball show than the best political panel one could devise. But she follows this story on the radio and TV network news and takes it very seriously. She is angry.
I think that in general, Democrats just need to give this ball a kick from time to time to help keep it rolling, their theme being the evergreen: “What are they trying hide?” And there are more specific lines of inquiry Congressional Democrats like Senator Wyden can pursue to good effect.
lowtechcyclist
Brings back memories, that does. :-)
@Aussie sheila:
There was a particular antipathy between Nixon and the media going back well before his Presidency that made it easy for them to jump on the Watergate train. I have to wonder how things would have played out absent that, whether the networks and the newspapers would have downplayed it a lot more.
geg6
@Geminid:
I agree. I saw his young adult son on several podcasts, most notably with Cameron Kasky on the Bullwark. Wow! He’s very smart and very unlike his dad. I think that he is the catalyst for turning his dad into the person he is today. I also watched the doc Rachel Maddow did about his involvement with Trump that ended with his apologizing to Hunter Biden. I don’t think he’s the sleazy guy we all thought he was (and may have been) when Giuliani sent him to try to bring Biden down by making Hunter look like a crook and Biden like some kind of criminal mastermind. He knows all these administration dunderheads and, from what I’ve seen, is pretty up front about what he did when he was a part of their machinations and what he knows about them. I tend to believe what he says.
MagdaInBlack
@Geminid: I’ve been watching Parnas a little but wasn’t sure how to take him. It’s been “with a grain of salt” so far, but he is interesting, and as you say, he does know all the players and their game.
They Call Me Noni
@geg6: From watching that RM interview I think his wife had a lot to do with his political transformation as well. I agree that he does come across as very believable and sincere.
Chief Oshkosh
@Shalimar: Have you considered a back-up generator? We had one for my mom when she lived in Florida. There’s a large price range. If you go that route, be sure to test whether you’re physically capable of starting it (some are started by battery-powered starters, like a car; others are pull-start like a lawnmower). We also found that it’s important to immediately test it yourself, alone (or at least without anyone else helping) right after it’s delivered and connected. We also ran it every few times we visited to keep everything tip-top.
RevRick
@MagdaInBlack: @They Call Me Noni:
Parnas got royally screwed by Trump and his merry band of thugs, so he’s motivated to get even. And as you say, he knows the players.
Would his testimony hold up in court? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s the court of public opinion that counts here, and he is more than willing to stir that pot.
linnen
@J. Arthur Crank: The deal with Bill Kristol, like many Never-Trumper’s, the more they can shout about Trump and the external stuff he does, the less they have to confess to how Bill and the rest of his group enabled and boosted Trump’s policies like breaking social and political norms, or othering brown and gay people, or cheering KKK-Xtian-nationalism.
artem1s
The media did hate Nixon mostly because he wasn’t JFK. He wasn’t fun to hang out with and didn’t hobnob with east coast money. Pat was no Jackie. But they mostly loved ragging on Nixon and Watergate because he made them scads of money. With TCF the true believers are the ones who are most shocked. The grifters who love him, especially in the media, aren’t at all shocked. But for some odd reason they are hesitant to give any of these scandals real legs. I’ve never understood why the media that only cares about the clicks hasn’t woken up to the reality that they are going to make far more money tearing him down than they are making now from the same old tired stories. His freaky antics hardly even register with those who hate him the most. And the general public has white washed him to the point they wouldn’t notice if he danced naked on Truman balcony. Nothing is going to register with them until some thing he has done actually hits them square in their
facespocketbooks.But sooner or later the blood bath is going to start and then media won’t be able to help themselves. Mark my word, Faux News is gonna be the most ardent hit men once it really gets rolling.
Moondoggus
@Martin:
This is why Patel is firing FBI agents. To intimidate those remaining from thinking about telling the truth about Trump and Epstein
Trivia Man
@Shalimar: I freeze gallon milk jugs of water and keep them in the chest freezer. Next to the most delicate frozen stuff like fish it should extend the frozen time with an outage.
brendancalling
I do not care for Don Bangino or whatever his name is. I think he’s an unpleasant person.
That said, if he vengefully decided to out TrumpCo it would go a long way toward… well, if not forgiveness than something similar.
Kayla Rudbek
@eclare: as long as you kept your refrigerator and freezer shut, you should be fine
geg6
@Moondoggus:
Seems a bad strategy to me. Now they have all the incentive in the world to leak anything they saw or participated in.
WTFGhost
@p.a.: Well, there’s no longer any real onus on broadcasters to show they’re using the airwaves in he public interest – especially when there are so many ways to broadcast without using the public airwaves.
I do think there’s been a shift in… something. There was a time when, even a human skidmark like Tom Cotton wouldn’t write a too-aggressive “send in the troops!” essay, because “everyone knew” you wouldn’t ever get something like that published, both because it’s obviously bad faith, and obviously authoritarian.
And that’s just it – it’s the loss of presumption of even “good faith”. I mean, in this respect, there is no “neutral faith” – there’s bad faith, and good faith, *no* overlap.
Within the boundaries of good faith, “The UK thinks Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake,” must be accompanied by “but we know that’s a load of crap,” because, we did, at that time. There’s no room for “well, I didn’t say *we* thought the purchase had happened; we debunked it!”
I guess journos think “well, the Democrats can act in bad faith too!” as if the world is better when everyone lies.
Anyway: Cotton was allowed to speak as if he were a reckless, aggressive, fascist, because it wasn’t *real*, it was just, you know, red meat for the base, not something we were supposed to think he really meant, even though he’s saying it, precisely as if he meant it. Ah, we’re just not sophisticated enough, to realize, Cotton would never allow secret police to disappear someone on, e.g., a Trumpian say-so.
ruckus
@Martin:
We keep getting the same assholes showing up because they haven’t seen the bill come due. Now I’m not holding my breath that the bill might ever get paid, especially by the actual folks who bought the shit show and put it on for everyone to see. And that’s because of money and some power.
But what really burns me up is that I was, for 3 1/2 years an employee of the federal government. Now this was over a half a century ago so those involved in this shit show didn’t work there, screw it up or benefit from being a part of OUR government, but still this is OUR government, ALL of OURS. And their leader is in charge, currently as an aged out old fart who can’t seem to understand even breathing in and out. Maybe that’s because of where he’s parked his entire head. I’ll leave it to everyone else, that concept of where he’s parked it. And where it’s been for decades.
ruckus
@Aussie Sheila:
He’s deep in something. It’s not mud though. And it does stink to – as the old saying goes – high heaven. More likely he’ll be very deep in hell though, once all the evidence is in. He’s certainly paying for a ticket straight there, no do overs, make ups, hiding anywhere……