- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Donald Trump is accused of raping a former Miss Switzerland in a report probing the president’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein released by House of Representatives Democrats this week.
Beatrice Keul, a retired model and beauty pageant contestant, told the House Judiciary Committee about an incident alleged to have taken place at New York’s Plaza Hotel in 1993. The report, released a week ahead of the midterm elections, also summarizes previously reported allegations from four other women against Trump.
The White House has strongly denied all of the reports’ claims, accusing “crazed” Democrats of “a desperate attempt to distract Americans” and insisting that the president has been “fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein.”
Keul previously claimed in October 2024 that Trump had sexually assaulted her at a beauty pageant staged at the Plaza Hotel, which Trump then owned.
“The president may have raped someone, but we need to double down on the made up rape threat that transgender people pose to women!”
-Republicans, demonstrably.
*Edit:
What do you want them to do? The DOJ works for the pedophiles.
We decided that Democrats don’t deserve votes and should be the minority party. They have no power to do anything but write memos. Why are we suddenly pissed they’re not doing more after we stopped then from being able to do more?
Democrats controlled the DoJ when Biden was in office for four years.
Did they do anything? No. They insisted that the investigation of a man dead for 10 years was ongoing.
Translation: Fuck you voters, we love Epstein, too
The Biden administration slow-rolled the prosecution of Trump because they wanted to avoid any semblance of it being a political prosecution. That was a mistake, because there was no way for them to avoid the accusation of politicization, and failing to act quickly allowed Trump to retake the White House and overtly politicize the justice department.
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Official act. No insurrectionists can run for president.
Cooler heads will remember that SCOTUS carved out the exclusive right to determine what actually qualifies as “official”
TLDR assassinating Trump would have only given magats a martyr.
Fighting that out in court wouldn’t bring back the dead and Biden is so old that there’d have been few consequences to him regardless.
But it was never in him. By letting the prosecution play out, and trusting the public he promised to represent, he acted as a faithful democratic leader. Wartime leaders like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln deliberately stepped aside to allow boring democratic leaders like Biden to facilitate reconciliation after conflict.
In this case, the tactical error was letting the public re-take the wheel, assuming they had learned their lesson and were now smart enough to not be fooled by the same fascist conman.
Making that decision for them might have thwarted the carnage, but more likely would have only postponed it allowing a significantly more competent and disciplined fascist administration to be granted power 4 years later.
Lincoln got shot. He did not step aside, because his asshole VP immediately wrecked the postwar restoration and allowed Jim Crow to rule for the next 100 years.
That’s where the “legislation to plug the holes” part comes into it. Had he played it right he would have had congress united against him which he could just let them “win” by signing their fixes. When the next fascist comes around there would be mechanisms in place to thwart them. Instead we’re in the situation we’re in now where only half of congress is interested in fixing the problem because the fascist in power is the other half’s guy.
Though it pains me, and this opinion will undoubtedly be unpopular, I disagree that it was a mistake for Biden to avoid making Trump’s prosecution a priority.
Obviously in hindsight it was a tactical error to allow American voters to re-take the wheel, but in principle the decision to not expedite a trial in order to conclude before the election expressed faith in the public to not screw up.
In technical terms he was acting as a jus post bellum democratic leader, not a responsible-government technocrat, pragmatic tactician, or revolutionary.
So it’s easy to say in hindsight “it’s a pity that he did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!” But trust in others you claim to represent is never a mistake, even when that trust turns out to be misplaced.
Truth. When you’re the only ones playing by the supposed rules of decorum, are there really any rules of decorum?
The DOJ was not under political control until Trump decided it should be. Again, I get that Republican brainrot has convinced you that open corruption is normal and good, but Democrats generally follow the laws.
What did they do about trump and the Epstein files before they lost all seats of power?
Hmmmm
Checks notes, ahh, I see, wrote memos.
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He got a promotion.
…Harris’ Zionism…Hillary’s emails…Obama’s drones…Clinton’s philandering…Carter’s malaise…
All totally accurate and proportionate. Obviously we should let the fascists fix everything.
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I’m not trying to attack you. Having read your history, I’m pretty sure you are well-meaning. But everyone, including you, would benefit tremendously if you would learn to consider the impact of the ideas you repeat based on when, where, and around whom you repeat them. If you need to vent frustration with other activists, there are more fitting places than public forums.
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Girl the situation demands it. Do you think I like this two party system? No progressive does. But these are the tools we have right now in the face of an extinction-level event. You know it. I don’t want their fucked up new gilead dystopia for me or anyone I love. I’m motivated by the new Dems they call “radicals” who are like AOC. In my city we worked very hard to get a DSA mayor elected who would work for us, and he actually has, so I know it’s not all bullshit because I’m living it now.
Yes, and also prosecuted the surviving accomplice.
Now I understand that you’d prefer Democrats to be just as openly corrupt and criminal as Republicans, but unfortunately for you the Democrats still do follow laws, even when those laws mean that the Epstein files remain sealed by court order.
Of course, that court order was lifted in 2025 and a law was passed specifying their release. Republicans, being much more willing to openly break the law, chose to not release them.
The only woman? Yeah, she was always going to be the scapegoat. A woman in a crime ring or a poc in a white man’s ring, is a pressure release valve.
There are dozens and dozens of people they could have also been prosecuting. If not hundreds. But all they needed for their little legitimacy play is one. single. solitary. woman. For decades and decades and thousands of rapes and billions in money laundering and god knows what else.
Follow the law? I guess the law doesn’t say anything about being one of the actual hundreds of rapists or facilitating money laundering or anything. Jfc you’re drunk on their bullshit.
Many people have been prosecuted, not just maxwell.
Of course none of those prosecutions have been advertised on Fox News, so I’m guessing you haven’t heard of them. And, of course, since enough people bought into your bOtH sIdEs bullshit, most of those prosecutions have been quietly pardoned or dropped by Republicans.
Congratulations! If I genuinely thought you gave a fuck about the pedophilia, I’d say you played yourself. But I’m guessing you don’t really give a fuck about that, and just want to blame Democrats and defend trump.
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Yeah that’s about the level of “reasoned argument” I’d expect out of you.
You started screeching like a loon immediately. You can’t take the pretend, pretentious academic stance now, booger eater.Edit: Sorry, got you confused by the other one.
For you, I will say “why use many words when one do”, but if you want to pretend like you need more words to comprehend my statement:
Your black and white thinking, immediately attacking anyone not blindly carrying the party banner with feaux righteousness, is the fascist mindset.
Do you need academic links that specifically call this out as a sign, or are you at least educated on the topic of fascism enough to understand that it’s basic level information?
Yeah, except I’m not attacking you for “not carrying the party banner”. I’m telling you that what you want the Democrats to do was either (a) illegal or (b) impossible. And you’re pissed at them for failing to break the laws or man or the laws of reality. And yes, the reasoning behind what the Democrats did was laid out in those memos you so decry.
It’s not righteousness, it’s incredulity.
Give me an alternative then.
There isn’t one. That’s why we vote Democrat, duh
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