More damaging information about President Donald Trump will continue leaking out of the Jeffrey Epstein case despite his efforts to contain the scandal — and even Vice President JD Vance is publicly acknowledging that.
The Department of Justice issued a statement July 6 declaring no further information about Epstein would be released, and new reporting shows that decision was made after Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche briefed Trump in May — and told him he was named in the case files.
The Bulwark's William Kristol said the president surely signed off on the statement, at the very least.
"It is the safest of safe bets that Bondi and Patel didn’t simply sit and reflect and deliberate and come to a judicious determination not to release the files," Kristol wrote. "We know Trump had been briefed on the files. We don’t know what subsequent conversations he had about them, or with whom. But we can safely conclude that the Justice Department and the FBI don’t make joint determinations on matters of great interest to the president without consulting him — indeed, without taking direction from him."
"It is also the safest of safe bets that it was Trump’s determination that no further disclosure would be 'appropriate or warranted,'" Kristol added. "And it is the safest of safe bets that Trump made that determination because he knew that no further disclosure would be in his interest. At this juncture, it’s impossible, indeed irresponsible, not to note that both Bondi and Blanche served as personal lawyers for Trump prior to taking on their government roles."
Blanche met privately this week with Epstein's co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who's serving a 20-year prison term for trafficking and sexually abusing underage girls with the disgraced financier, and Kristol said the president and his top law enforcement officials appeared to be engaged in a coverup with the help of a Republican Congress.
"This coverup could succeed," Kristol wrote. "But perhaps not. The fact that the Epstein-Maxwell crimes were so horrible will surely make the coverup more difficult to sustain. Trump was very close to Epstein and Maxwell during the years they were committing those crimes. I suspect more information will come out about their relationship."
"So does JD Vance," he added.
Kristol pointed to a tweet by the vice president complaining about reporting on Trump's relationship with Epstein, saying the Wall Street Journal and other publications were trying to hurt the president by trickling out toxic details about him.
"We all know what's going to happen," Vance tweeted. "They're going to dribble little details out for days or weeks in an effort to assassinate the president's character. They won't show us this book or allow us to refute it until they've wrung every bit of fake news out of the story. And everyone will just move on from the fact that the WSJ is acting like a Democrat SuperPAC. It's disgraceful, and it's why the president sued."
That comment was an admission of sorts, Kristol said.
"Consider what the vice president is acknowledging: That more is to come. More 'little details' like Trump’s incriminating birthday note," Kristol wrote. "More little revelations of hushed Oval Office meetings. More little cracks in the Trump stonewall. More and more until, perhaps, it all comes crashing down."