The world’s largest honeytrap operation

My Sunday movie was Griffin in Summer. He’s 14 and a budding playwright. He wants to spend his summer producing a play that he’s writing and gathers friends together to make it happen. I was first concerned about the topic of his play – alcoholism and infidelity – but he writes about what he sees. Since Dad isn’t home Mom hires Brad, 25, to do some work around the house, like preparing the pool for the summer. Brad tends to use as few words as possible, but he was a performance artist in New York for a while. A friendship develops. And some of the things Brad talks about end up in Griffin’s play. Soon Griffin starts having feelings for Brad. Brad doesn’t respond. It’s an enjoyable little movie. Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community and an independent pundit discussed an investigative report by the British news outlet Daily Mail authored by Glen Owen, Dan Hodges, Mark Hookham, and Daisy Graham-Brown. It discusses how Putin owns the nasty guy, starting even before he ran for president in 2016.

Essentially, they’re arguing that Epstein was running an operation on behalf of the KGB/Putin that lured wealthy and powerful men to Epstein’s New York and Palm Beach mansions and his island where they were surreptitiously filmed having sex with underage girls. That material was then presumably passed along to Putin, who used it for leverage when he needed it.

Epstein ran “the world’s largest honeytrap operation” and doing it for the KGB. In exchange, Putin reportedly used Epstein to launder Russian money from theft, illicit drug and oil deals, sanctions evasions, and Russian organized crime oligarchs. Some of that money was laundered through real estate. The US has the most lax real estate transaction laws. These cash transactions would have been illegal in almost every other developed country. And some of that money was funneled through nasty guy real estate countries, to the point that the nasty sons preferred Russian banks (though part of that was American banks were tired of their bankruptcies). If Epstein gave Putin a video of the nasty guy having sex with underage girls, and the nasty guy has known about it for decades, how might that have changed his behavior? That is followed by a list of things the nasty guy has done that seem to benefit Putin. The list could be longer than it is by hundreds of items. Here are only some of them. + Compromised a US spy in Russia. + Told the world he trusts Putin over his own intelligence services. + Put a Putin fan in charge of US intelligence. + Damaged NATO and our relations with the EU that will take generations to restore. + Unleash ICE to turn Americans against each other. + Gut America’s soft power by shutting down USAID, prompting small countries to turn to Putin and Xi for help. + Outed an Israeli spy to the Russian Ambassador. The CIA became highly alarmed that the nasty guy would compromise their assets. And some were compromised. They listed the conversations between the nasty guy and Putin and the contacts between Russia and the nasty guy campaign. The discuss Paul Manafort, the 2016 campaign manager, and his ties to Russia, followed by his pardon by the nasty guy. They discussed the nasty guy’s habit of leaving top-secret info in hotel rooms in hostile nations. Were these documents to sell? Impress foreign leaders? Or because Putin told him to? The Mueller Report documented the ten instances the nasty guy obstructed the investigation.

These aren’t just “a few bad judgment calls” or a president with “strange foreign policy instincts.” These stories (and literally hundreds of others) point to a man who’s behaved, consistently and predictably, like someone under leverage, someone whose personal fear of exposure of some sort of major crime — like the ones we know Epstein was holding over other billionaires — outweighs his loyalty to the nation he swore to serve. ... This is not about politics or personality. It’s about whether a country can survive being led by someone who looks captured and compromised by a foreign power.

Scott Detrow of NPR talked to reporter Stephen Fowler about the three million pages from the Epstein files that were released last Friday. Said Fowler:

The way that they've done the release of the Epstein files has made it virtually impossible to tell a full story about anything. There's no rhyme or reason to how these pages are ordered. There's no context surrounding information released here or there. There are multiple copies of just about everything, and you have some cases where there's information redacted in one version and not redacted in another, so it's hard to know if you're looking at the most recent or most complete or most accurate version of anything. And so when you may see things on social media about XYZ person here, or file, or thing, it's taken a lot more time to try and connect all of these dots.

They then discussed some of the names that have appeared in these documents. Fowler said, “You can take a look at pretty much any industry or political ideology and they're in the files.” One of the prominent names was Elon Musk. Appearing in the files does not necessarily mean there was wrongdoing or knowledge of crimes. But see the way the files were released. Detrow also talked to Annie Farmer about the release. She testified in court against Epstein and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. She said about victims names in these documents.

There's just no explanation for how it could have been done so poorly. They've had victims' names for a very long time. I don't think this is just about rushing to get this information out.

Then NPR host Michel Martin talked to Elie Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and now a CNN legal analyst. A few things he said. There are three other codefendants who could have been indicted and were not, but their names were redacted. Epstein could have been indicted on more serious crimes than what he was charged with. The released documents were under-redacted, as in exposing victim identities, and over-redacted, things blacked out that the law said should not have been. There are documents (possibly 3 million more) that, contrary to the law, the DoJ says it will not release, and the only remedy to that is Congress. Jesse Duquette tweeted a cartoon. On one side are 15 boxes under the heading “Pictures of Trump in the Epstein Files.” Under the heading, “Pictures of Trans People in the Epstein files” is a blank space. Duquette added:

Every last one of the creepshows demonizing trans people has some dark s--- they don’t want anyone seeing on their hard drives

Walter Einenkel of Kos posted the song Bruce Springsteen created to protest ICE. It is titled “Streets of Minneapolis.” This isn’t my kind of music, I don’t think the song is all that musically good, and the video, showing ICE in action between shots of protests, is hard to watch (so I mostly didn’t). Even so, I’m glad a singer of Springsteen’s stature recorded a protest song. Because he did it there will be lots of people listening. Emily Singer of Kos reported on a special election in Tarrant County, Texas (Fort Worth) for a state Senate seat. The nasty guy had won that district by 17 points in 2024, so it’s bright red. This election gave the seat to a Democrat by 14 points, a 32 point (after rounding) swing. The winner, Taylor Rehmet, will serve only until the term ends at the end of the year. Republicans tried to brush off the loss, saying there was low turnout because it happened in an ice storm. But turnout wasn’t low. And numbers show a great number of independents and Republicans voted for the Democrat. Also Republicans spent $2 million more than Democrats. An important factor may have been the nasty guy strongly endorsed the Republican candidate. When she lost he claimed he “had nothing to do with” it. Max Burns of Kos reported a week ago on Abigail Spanberger settling into the governor’s chair in Virginia. The Gov and the Democrats in the legislature quickly passed four constitutional amendments to go before voters. One amendment protects access to abortion and states a fundamental right to reproductive rights. The issue played a role in flipping key districts to Democrats. The next amendment returns the right to vote to felons who complete their sentence. The third is for marriage equality. It would overturn the same-sex marriage ban approved by voters in 2006, which is overridden by the Supreme Court ruling permitting same-sex marriage – the ruling some on the high court would like to overturn. The fourth is more controversial, even for Democrats. It would redraw Congressional districts to give Democrats a 10-1 advantage. Yes, this is in response to Texas’ effort to redraw their maps. Spanberger and Democrats are also working on an “Affordable Virginia” agenda.

If Democrats nationwide want to replicate Virginia’s success, they’ll need to run statewide races not as a collection of individual candidates but as a governing coalition with a clear and unified plan for action. Spanberger is proving how quickly Democrats can move when they are focused. It’s time for Virginia’s strategy to go national.