Steven Harper, Common Dreams

This timeline of Trump's Epstein cover-up reveals so much

Drip, drip, drip…

For months, Donald Trump has tried to divert public attention from the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell files. But he can’t shake the story, and it keeps getting worse.

Reversal

Trump campaigned on the promise to release all of the files relating to Epstein’s sex trafficking in minors. To supercharge his MAGA base, he fueled conspiracy theories that the files contained something sinister involving prominent Democrats.

February 2025: Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, told a Fox News interviewer that Epstein’s client list was sitting on her desk, awaiting her review before its release.

May: Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche informed Trump that his name appeared in the Epstein files, the New York Times later reported.

July 7: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel — who pushed conspiracy theories about the files during Trump’s campaign — issued a two-page memo stating that there was no Epstein client list and that the Justice Department would not release any additional materials relating to the matter.

July 16: Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Maurene Comey was fired. Comey was a lead prosecutor in the investigation and prosecution of Epstein and his coconspirator, Maxwell. She was also the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey and chief of the Violent and Organized Crime Unit. The memo gave no reason for Comey’s abrupt termination.

July 17: The Wall Street Journal published Trump’s alleged birthday note to Epstein that included his sketch of a naked woman.

Blowback

Trump’s MAGA base erupted in anger over his refusal to release the Epstein files. Trying to appease his followers, Trump directed Bondi to ask that the courts release grand jury transcripts. This was disingenuous because: 1) the courts were not likely to release the material; and 2) even if they did, the transcripts would constitute a small fraction of the Epstein-Maxwell files.

July 23: A Florida judge denied Bondi’s motion to release the files relating to Epstein investigations in 2005 and 2007 that resulted in a non-prosecution agreement. Trump’s first-term Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, negotiated the agreement with Epstein’s high-powered lawyers while serving as US attorney for the Southern District of Florida during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Blunder

July 24: Deputy Attorney General (and former Trump attorney) Todd Blanche flew to Tallahassee and met with Maxwell for two days — an unprecedented visit for a No. 2 official in the Justice Department. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

July 31: Contrary to prison assignment policies for sex offenders, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons transferred Maxwell from a Tallahassee prison to a “Club Fed” camp in Texas.

Boomerang

August 11: A federal judge in New York denied Bondi’s motion to unseal Maxwell’s grand jury files. The court observed that anyone “who reviewed these materials expecting, based on the Government’s representations, to learn new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling disappointed and misled. There is no ‘there’ there.”

The entire exercise was a farce — another Trump con job:

The one colorable argument under that doctrine for unsealing in this case, in fact, is that doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal. A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at “transparency” but at diversion — aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.

August 20: A different federal judge in New York blasted Bondi’s motion to unseal the grand jury transcripts. Describing the “trove” of materials that the Justice Department had assembled but withheld from the public, the court observed:

The Government’s 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70-odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials.

Trump’s directive that Bondi seek the release of the grand jury materials was always a ruse. As the court continued:

The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein files. By comparison, the instant grand jury motion appears to be a “diversion” from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government’s possession.

The court specifically called out Trump’s about-face on releasing the files:

In February 2025, the Government, as noted, was prepared to release the “Epstein Files” to the public. See DOJ Press Release. But then, on July 6, 2025, the Government announced that it would not make the files available to the public.

And the judge concluded: “The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice.”

New scam

On August 5, several Republicans voted with Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to force chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to subpoena the Justice Department for Epstein-Maxwell materials. Comer also issued subpoenas to former Attorneys General William Barr, Merrick Garland, Jeff Sessions, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, and Alberto Gonzales; former FBI Director James Comey; former special counsel and FBI Director Robert Mueller III; former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and former President Bill Clinton.

That’s superficially impressive, but purely performative. Notably missing are the frontline prosecutors and investigators who actually know something meaningful about the Epstein-Maxwell cases.

One is Maurene Comey.

August 22: The FBI’s surprise search of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s home and office dominated the media. The Justice Department also released a transcript of Blanche’s interview with Maxwell during which she asserted that no one connected with Epstein’s alleged crimes had done anything wrong — including her and, of course, Trump, upon whom she lavished praise.

Sharing the news cycle was the Justice Department’s production of documents to the House Oversight Committee. It provided a fraction of the DOJ’s Epstein file, and only 3 percent was new.

August 25: The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed materials from Epstein’s estate and announced that it will depose Alex Acosta on September 19.

Drip, drip, drip…

Ghislaine Maxwell seems to have new friends in high places

On July 24 and 25, convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — the number two official in the Department of Justice. At the time, Maxwell was three years into her 20-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institute in Tallahassee, Florida (FCI Tallahassee). A week later, the Bureau of Prisons — an agency of the Department of Justice — confirmed that she’d been transferred to the Federal Prison Camp at Bryan, Texas (FPC Bryan).

It’s not a pardon, but it’s a big improvement in her quality of life.

On the outside, it’s the difference between double-fenced barbed wire and a wrought iron fence akin to that of a gated community. On the inside, the differences are more dramatic.

FCI Tallahassee

After Maxwell’s conviction in 2021, her legal team requested that she serve her sentence at FCI Danbury — known as a “Club Fed” for its reputation as one of the more hospitable penitentiaries. But the Bureau of Prisons sent her to the low-security prison in Florida. Her incarceration began in July 2022.

Maxwell’s quarters were in an area of the facility known as the “snake pit” where “violence wasn't just common, but expected.” According to news reports, she was “living in fear of experiencing it first hand after she tattled on two other inmates.” In November 2024, Maxwell was promoted to the “honor dorm” — the prison's supposedly “cushier living quarters” reserved for 30 to 40 of the best-behaved inmates.

But “cushier” has little meaning at FCI Tallahassee. Two years ago, it was the subject of a damning inspector general’s report: The facility had “several serious operational deficiencies … Among the most concerning were the alarming conditions of its food service and storage operations … ”

In particular:

Contaminated food: A food preparation refrigerator contained “moldy bread” along with “discolored and rotting vegetables.” In the food storage warehouses, the inspection revealed “likely evidence of rodent droppings, as well as bags of cereal with insects in them….”

Decaying infrastructure: “Many female inmates live in housing units in which water frequently leaks from ceilings and windows on or near their living spaces. Additionally, we observed worn bedding, rusted inmate storage lockers, issues with showers and toilets, and black substances on walls and ceilings.”

Inadequate Health Services: Staffing shortages “have negatively affected healthcare treatment and caused staff to modify the time of day it distributes insulin and drugs to female inmates, which may limit the therapeutic benefit of these drugs for certain inmates.”

At age 60 and not eligible for parole until 2037, Maxwell’s future was bleak.

FPC Bryan

After Maxwell’s meeting with Blanche, the Bureau of Prisons moved her from the Florida low-security prison to an all-female minimum-security camp in Texas. Her experience there will be dramatically different.

Fellow inmates are mostly non-violent and white-collar criminals considered low-risk, including former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" star Jennifer Shah. Violence in FPCs is rare. Inmates can walk the grounds, work out in the gym, and generally have greater freedom of movement in a camp than in any other federal correctional institution.

Wait, what?

But here’s the kicker: Sex offenders typically aren’t eligible for federal prison camps. According to Forbes, “The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) classifies individuals with sex offense convictions using a Public Safety Factor (PSF) designation, which automatically excludes them from placement in minimum-security camps — the lowest custody level. While the BOP employs a point-based system to determine appropriate placement, sex offenders are assigned a PSF regardless of their score.”

In Federal Prison Guidebook – Sentencing and Post-Conviction Remedies (Revision 5), noted criminal defense attorney Alan Ellis and former high-level Bureau of Prisons official J. Michael Henderson explain:

SEX OFFENDER PUBLIC SAFETY FACTOR

Regardless of what a person is incarcerated for, if their history indicates sexual misconduct (in the pre-sentence report or other official documentation), they will receive a “sex offender” Public Safety Factor (PSF).

[1] Sexual misconduct includes evidence of non-consensual sexual contact, child pornography offenses, any sexual conduct with a minor, or any aggressive or abusive sexual acts.

This PSF means that the person is disqualified from placement in a minimum-security placement, and will thus be placed in at least a low-security institution. They will most likely be housed in standard general prison populations…

Perks of power

With power comes the ability to reward friends — and punish enemies. Maxwell’s transfer could be the inverse of what the Bureau of Prisons did to Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen. As Trump completed his first term in July 2020, Cohen arrived at a Manhattan courthouse to complete routine paperwork. It allowed him to finish his prison sentence at home because of the pandemic.

But probation officers asked Cohen to sign a document barring him from speaking to reporters or publishing a book for the remainder of his three-year sentence. With his tell-all book nearing publication, he refused on First Amendment grounds. Federal marshals took him into custody and back to prison.

Two weeks later, a federal judge ruled that the government’s actions were retaliation and ordered Cohen’s return to home confinement. On September 8, 2020, he published Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump. Cohen completed his sentence in November 2021.

The Bureau of Prisons hasn’t provided a reason for Maxwell’s transfer. Maybe that’s because there isn’t a good one.

Steven J. Harper is an attorney, adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School, and author of several books, including Crossing Hoffa -- A Teamster's Story and The Lawyer Bubble -- A Profession in Crisis. He has been a regular columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather's News and Guts, and The American Lawyer. Follow him at https://thelawyerbubble.com.

This Epstein timeline reveals so much about Trump

On August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein — accused of sex trafficking in minor girls — killed himself in his jail cell while awaiting trial, and a new conspiracy theory was born: Powerful forces silenced him. Releasing the Justice Department’s files on Epstein would reveal a “client list” of high-profile individuals, including prominent Democrats, who had a motive to kill him.

Then-President Donald Trump jumped aboard the conspiracy bandwagon. Six years later, he’s trying desperately to stop it.

Setting the stage

Hours after Epstein’s death, Trump retweeted a post alleging that former U.S. President Bill Clinton was connected to Epstein’s death. Trump’s supporters dutifully followed his lead:

When he was a Senate candidate in 2021, JD Vance posted on Twitter: “Remember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail? And now we just don’t talk about it.”

In 2023, before Dan Bongino became Trump’s deputy director of the FBI, he told his podcast audience, “Listen, that Jeffrey Epstein story is a big deal. Please do not let that story go. Keep your eye on this... [W]hat the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?” — without specifying who “they” were. Shortly before joining the Trump administration, he added, “Who’s on those tapes? Who’s in those black books? Why have they been hiding it?”

In December 2023, a right-wing podcaster asked Kash Patel — a fierce Trump loyalist who is now FBI director—why the government was blocking the Epstein client list. Patel answered, “Simple, because of who’s on that list — Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.”

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said that he would declassify the Epstein files: “It’d be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn’t happen to be working, etc., etc. But yeah, I’d go a long way toward that one.”

On a podcast during the 2024 campaign, Vice-Presidential candidate Vance asserted, "We need to release the Epstein list."

In February 2025, Fox News reporter John Roberts asked Attorney General Pam Bondi whether the Justice Department would release Epstein’s list of clients: “Will that really happen?” Bondi responded: “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.”

During a podcast in June, Patel said repeatedly that the administration would be forthcoming in its review of documents related to Epstein: “I’ve said it, Bongino has said it. We’ve reviewed all the information, and the American public is going to get as much as we can release … We’re going to give you every single thing we have and can.”

Trump set the stage. With his loyalists now running the FBI and the Justice Department, the public would finally see the Epstein files.

Oops – nothing to see here

The conspiracy flames that Trump fanned are now blowing back on him:

On July 7, the FBI released an unsigned, two-page memo stating that its “systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list’,” “investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell,” and “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”

Bondi now says that when she said that the client list was sitting on her desk, she wasn’t actually referring to a client list.

Vance has assumed his familiar role — reversing a fervently held position to defend anything Trump does.

Blowback

Some of Trump’s most dedicated allies were outraged at Trump’s stonewalling. He lashed out with diversions, distractions, and attacks. He accused former President Barack Obama of treason. He derided followers who “bought into this ‘bullshit’” as “PAST supporters.” And he blamed Democrats for starting the conspiracy theory in the first place:

“It was a hoax. It’s all been a big hoax. It’s perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net. And so they try and do the Democrats work. The Democrats are good for nothing other than these hoaxes.”

But then:

July 17: The Wall Street Journal reported Trump’s alleged birthday note to Epstein that included his sketch of a naked woman. Trump sued the paper and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for defamation. He asserted that he doesn’t draw pictures, but copies of his earlier sketches soon swamped the internet. Some were auctioned for charity.

Later that evening, Trump tried to quell the continuing uproar by ordering Bondi to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to Epstein. But that was a head fake toward transparency because: 1) grand jury materials are a tiny slice of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein; and 2) the courts might not agree to release anything. In fact, on July 23 a federal judge in Florida denied the DOJ’s request. Another request is pending in New York.

July 22: To avoid a House vote on a resolution urging the release of the Epstein files, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sent lawmakers home early for the August recess.

July 23: In a surprise show of defiance against Speaker Johnson, a Republican-controlled House Oversight subcommittee voted 8-to-2 to subpoena the Justice Department’s Epstein files.

The unraveling

Also on July 23: The New York Times reported that in May, Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche informed Trump that his name appeared in the Epstein files. The bureau had gone through more than 100,000 pages of materials four times — including once to flag any references to Trump and other prominent figures.

July 24: Blanche — who was Trump’s personal lawyer in the Stormy Daniels “hush money” trial that culminated in his conviction on 34 felony counts — began a mission that was extraordinary for the Justice Department’s number two official. He went to Tallahassee and interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking as Epstein’s procurer.

July 25: After questioning Maxwell for two days, Blanche declared that the federal criminal investigation into targets beyond Maxwell and Epstein remained closed.

If the investigation into targets was closed, why was Blanche interviewing Maxwell?

The next act

On his way to Europe on July 25, Trump was asked whether he would consider pardoning Maxwell. Trump responded, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about.”

After landing in Scotland, he denied that Bondi had briefed him on the Epstein matter in May: “No, I was never, never briefed, no.” He added, “I’m focused on making deals. I’m not focused on conspiracy theories.”

Ghislaine Maxwell is focused on making a deal too. Trump is her ticket out of prison. The question is what she can offer that will prompt him to punch it.

Paramount and CBS must answer one simple question

Timing is everything.

The news that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end in May 2026 has focused on whether his termination was part of a “deal” (implicit or explicit) to get Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval of the pending merger between CBS parent company Paramount and Skydance Media. If so, it was another “bend-the-knee” moment in the media’s ongoing capitulation to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attack on democracy’s foundational institutions.

But the timing of the announcement itself is raises a critical unanswered question: Why now? It was either pandering to Trump, management’s incompetence, or both.

The cast of characters

Skydance owner David Ellison is the son of Oracle billionaire founder Larry Ellison, Trump’s friend and supporter.

Through her family’s holding company National Amusements, Sheri Redstone owns a controlling interest in Paramount and is a member of its board of directors.

If the FCC approves the Skydance-Paramount merger announced in July 2024, Skydance will pay National Amusements $2.4 billion.

Colbert has become one of Trump’s fiercest TV critics. Beginning in 2016 and continuing for nine consecutive seasons, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been the highest-rated program in its time slot.

The timeline

In September 2024, Trump urged CBS to fire Colbert.

Days before the 2024 election, Trump filed a frivolous lawsuit accusing CBS of bias in broadcasting a 60 Minutes interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The complaint alleged that the edited interview and associated programming were “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference” intended to “mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales” in Harris’ favor.

Prominent First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said that “the First Amendment was drafted to protect the press from just such litigation.” Harvard Law School Professor Rebecca Tushnet called it “ridiculous junk and should be mocked.” Attorney Charles Tobin warned, “This is a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.”

February 6, 2025: Redstone told the Paramount board she wanted to settle Trump’s lawsuit.

April 13: Trump said CBS “should lose their license” and he hoped that his appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr “will impose the maximum fine and punishment.”

April 22: Bill Owens, the producer of 60 Minutes — a 30-year veteran of CBS — resigned with this warning: “[O]ver the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.”

April 27: 60 Minutes co-anchor Scott Pelley praised Owens and offered an unprecedented on-air rebuke of Paramount: “Stories we’ve pursued for 57 years are often controversial — lately, the Israel-Gaza war and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair — he was tough that way. But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

May 4: 60 Minutes aired a segment quoting prominent attorneys criticizing Trump for unlawfully targeting Big Law firms. In response, Trump threatened to sue CBS for defamation again, but he never did.

July 1: CBS settled Trump’s frivolous 60 Minutes lawsuit regarding the Harris interview by contributing $16 million toward Trump’s future presidential library.

July 14: In Colbert’s first appearance after a two-week vacation, he returned to The Late Show and joked that Paramount’s settlement with Trump was “a big fat bribe.”

July 15: Skydance’s David Ellison was in Washington to meet with FCC chairman Carr and other FCC officials. Later the company said Ellison “discussed Skydance’s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’ editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.”

July 17: During the taping of The Late Show, Colbert informed his audience that CBS had informed him the prior evening that he and his program had been terminated, effective May 2026.

July 18: Trump wrote on Truth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings…”

The other possibility

Already swirling in controversy over the departure of 60 Minutes producer and settling the Trump case, Paramount and CBS anticipated the outrage and skepticism that terminating Colbert and The Late Show would generate.

Contemporaneously with Colbert’s firing, George Cheeks (co-CEO of Paramount Global and president and CEO of CBS), Amy Reisenbach (president of CBS Entertainment), and David Stapf (president of CBS Studios) issued a statement declaring: “This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount.”

Following the announcement, “leaked” reports from anonymous CBS sources and “sources close to the network” suggested that The Late Show was losing millions of dollars yearly.

Maybe it was. But that argument proves too much.

“[T]wo people familiar with the show’s finances” told The New York Times anonymously that the show “was racking up losses of tens of millions of dollars a year.”

If true, the losses weren’t a new problem. And there’s no evidence that CBS gave Colbert, who produces the top-rated show, an opportunity to explore less expensive production possibilities.

So why announce cancellation of the program 10 months before it would leave the air in mid-2026?

It’s possible — but unlikely — that Colbert’s contract required 10-months’ advance notice of termination. But if so, CBS’ failure to include such context to blunt the otherwise apparent connection to the merger was a profound management failure.

On the other hand, if Colbert’s contract did not require 10 months advance notice prior to termination, the announcement was either: 1) one more effort to grease the Paramount-Skydance merger skids by “bending the knee” to Trump; or 2) a different management failure that intensified the preexisting cloud over CBS’ integrity.

Either way, Paramount and CBS owe shareholders and viewers an answer to a simple question: Why now?

Their first press release was an exercise in obfuscation.

Steven J. Harper is an attorney, adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School, and author of several books, including Crossing Hoffa — A Teamster's Story and The Lawyer Bubble — A Profession in Crisis. He has been a regular columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather's News and Guts, and The American Lawyer. Follow him at https://thelawyerbubble.com.

Thom Tillis had a chance to serve his country – he blew it

The incompetence of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense is painfully obvious. Former Fox & Friends weekend host Pete Hegseth was never qualified for the job.

Belatedly, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — who became the key vote to confirm the nominee — admits it.

Tillis squandered a unique opportunity to protect the nation from Hegseth. The country is now paying the price for his cowardice.

Tillis’ reversal

In a phone call with Trump just before Christmas, Tillis promised to support all of Trump’s cabinet picks. But he developed strong reservations about Hegseth — strong enough to participate in a secret effort to kill the nomination. Serious issues about character, statements about barring women in combat, and allegations of sexual misconduct dogged Hegseth. He had none of the qualifications necessary to run the defense department of more than 2 million military and civilian personnel.

Other Republicans — including Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — had similar concerns. And to confirm Hegseth, Trump could afford to lose only three Republican senators. Ernst, a combat veteran who survived a sexual assault, capitulated to pressure from Trump’s supporters who threatened a primary challenge in her upcoming reelection. The other three — Murkowski, Collins, and McConnell — held firm.

That left Tillis. After weeks of coordinating with fellow senators to oppose the nomination, he caved. As with Ernst, the threat of a Trump-endorsed primary challenger lurked. But Tillis attributed his earlier resistance to “vetting” and said that he decided to support Hegseth after conducting “due diligence.”

Even so, his abrupt, 11th-hour reversal from “no” to “yes” surprised Murkowski and Collins. And it positioned Vice President JD Vance to cast a tie-breaking vote that put Hegseth in charge at the Pentagon by one of the narrowest margins of any defense secretary in modern history: 51 to 50.

Hegseth’s scandals

Before long, Hegseth’s incompetence revealed itself.

In his first major overseas appearance on Feb. 12, he “made a rookie mistake,” according to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Hegseth told NATO and Ukrainian ministers that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was “an unrealistic objective” and ruled out NATO membership for Kyiv. Hegseth’s comments gave away Ukraine’s negotiating leverage before cease-fire negotiations with Russia had even begun.

“I don’t know who wrote the speech,” Wicker continued. “[I]t is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool.”

Then came the “Signalgate” scandal. Hegseth was on a group chat from March 13-15 that inadvertently included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. The chat detailed sensitive information describing the United States’ imminent attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Shortly after that scandal became public came Signalgate II. The New York Times reported that Hegseth himself had shared detailed information about the forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.

According to the Times, “Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.”

“Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, who continues to serve as his personal lawyer, both have jobs in the Pentagon, but it is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.”

There’s more. Recently, the public learned that Hegseth paused U.S. weapons shipments to Ukraine without informing Trump. A week later, Trump resumed the shipments.

Tillis’s lamentations

At long last, Tillis found his spine — but only after announcing that he would not seek reelection in 2026. In a July 9 interview on CNN, he admitted the truth about Hegseth: “With the passing of time, I think it’s clear he’s out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization.”

As for Hegseth’s unilateral pause on weapons to Ukraine without informing Trump, Tillis said, “That’s just amateurish. That’s from somebody who doesn’t understand large organization dynamics.”

Would Tillis vote to confirm Hegseth today? “Now, I have the information of him being a manager, and I don’t think his probationary period has been very positive.”

In the same interview, Tillis also commented on his affirmative vote for another Trump cabinet member whose incompetence is likewise becoming clear and deadly: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Quite honestly, the main reason I supported Kennedy was because [Sen.] Bill Cassidy [R-La.] thought that we should see how it plays out,” Tillis said.

That cabinet pick is not playing out very well either. Just ask Sen. Cassidy.

Steven J. Harper is an attorney, adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School, and author of several books, including Crossing Hoffa -- A Teamster's Story and The Lawyer Bubble -- A Profession in Crisis. He has been a regular columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather's News and Guts, and The American Lawyer. Follow him at https://thelawyerbubble.com