President Donald Trump’s fury over a report on a letter he allegedly sent Jeffrey Epstein is largely motivated by his knowledge that the letter is already in possession of the Justice Department, former Palm Beach state attorney Dave Aronberg argued Saturday.
Add to that, top officials in the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been oddly silent over the existence of the contested letter.
“Trump doesn't want the smoke, and the way that he's fighting so fiercely about this letter tells you why they don't want the files released,” Aronberg said, speaking on MSNBC. “In the end, these are his decisions, and he could end this controversy by just releasing all the files with certain redactions for victims, but he doesn't want to do that.”
Trump is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for its bombshell report that revealed new details about his relationship with Epstein, the convicted sex offender alleged to have maintained a “client list” of powerful figures for blackmail purposes. In the report, the WSJ describes a letter allegedly sent to Epstein from Trump that included a drawing of a naked woman, and the message “may every day be another wonderful secret.”
While Trump has denied the authenticity of the letter, claiming to have never written it, Aronberg pointed out the holes in that denial as nonsensical.
“If that letter did not exist, if the letter does not appear in the Jeffrey Epstein files, then wouldn't the attorney general have come out and said that?” he said. “Wouldn't (FBI Director) Kash Patel, (FBI Deputy Director) Dan Bongino, who have access to the Epstein files, wouldn't they come out and say this letter doesn't exist? They haven't said that because the letter is in the file.”
Trump has moved to calm his supporters, many of whom are furious at his handling of the Epstein affair, by pledging to release grand jury transcripts from cases related to Epstein.
Aronberg effectively called Trump’s pledge a red herring, however, noting that the majority of the material sought after would have no reason to be included in grand jury transcripts.
“There's nothing stopping the Trump administration from saying 'anything not subject to victim protections, we're going to release,' so I think that's what we all want to know at this point,” he said. “And getting to the grand jury transcripts relating to Epstein or (Epstein’s accomplice) Ghislaine Maxwell is not going to get you there, it doesn't pertain to the third parties. That's what everybody's interested in, and yet, I don't think we're going to see it.”
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