- 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:
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.
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.
Biden should have domed that motherfucker the very instant the supreme court released the decision about anything the president does being legal as long as it’s an official act. Fuck appearances, show them how bad it can be when an executive gets unhinged. Clean house and then get legislation written to plug the holes so he can sign off on it before a corrupt candidate gets the reins again. But no, let’s let Trump back in instead. That’s WAY better.
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.
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.
Official act. No insurrectionists can run for president.
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.