Trump ‘was never inappropriate with anybody,’ Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell told DOJ

JosephZ said:

Like the words of a known liar and convicted child sex trafficker mean anything. Lol.

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Especially hoping for a pardon.

Valletta said:

Trump ‘was never inappropriate with anybody,’ Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell told DOJ

Audio and transcripts of the interviews were released Friday as the Trump administration seeks to quash rampant speculation about Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell.

nypost.com

Of course. Soon the Democrats will come up with yet another claim about something.

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The interview of Maxwell was conducted by Trump's former personal lawyer and subject to censorship by Trump supporters before being released - what could possibly be wrong with that when it comes to questioning its credibility?

Valletta said:

Trump ‘was never inappropriate with anybody,’ Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell told DOJ

Audio and transcripts of the interviews were released Friday as the Trump administration seeks to quash rampant speculation about Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell.

nypost.com

Of course. Soon the Democrats will come up with yet another claim about something.

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Lol.

Replace Trump with a Democratic politician, and tell me how you'd believe Maxwell's statement.

-CryptoLutheran

ozso said:

No it's just that if she said Trump was guilty of being inappropriate, then that would be fully accepted. It would be like "Ah ha even
Ghislaine Maxwell says Trump is guilty! Case closed".

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Generally speaking, I consider it to be more credible when a person says something that has potential serious negative consequences for themselves and no real upsides. That doesn't mean fully accepting what they say though.

I don't know that her proclamation here is what exonerates him, being that she's fibbed before, she's damaged goods in terms of witness credibility.

However, if there was even the slightest whiff of a possibility that Trump was engaging in "island stuff", certain media outlets would've locked onto it like a pit bull a few years ago and never let it go.

With regards to political figures, in more cases than not, deciding whether or not an allegation has merit isn't determined by who does or doesn't directly accuse them, but rather whether or not certain media outlets obsessively talk about it as if it's irrefutable fact.

ThatRobGuy said:

....With regards to political figures, in more cases than not, deciding whether or not an allegation has merit isn't determined by who does or doesn't directly accuse them, but rather whether or not certain media outlets obsessively talk about it as if it's irrefutable fact.

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I think you have to go with evidence over chatter.

For now there's zero evidence of Trump actually doing island stuff, though it certainly would not be shocking if he did. There's some quite interesting evidence of him knowing about it well before their supposed falling out.

Of course, Maxwells testimony is worth nothing, as her interests are completely conflicted and would bend her toward protecting Trump.

durangodawood said:

I think you have to go with evidence over chatter.

For now there's zero evidence of Trump actually doing island stuff, though it certainly would not be shocking if he did. There's some quite interesting evidence of him knowing about it well before their supposed falling out.

Of course, Maxwells testimony is worth nothing, as her interests are completely conflicted and would bend her toward protecting Trump.

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Obviously evidence trumps all...

What I meant was that if certain pundits aren't constantly talking about it as if it "for sure happened", chances are there's very little substance to the allegation.


For example:

If one random person claimed that Gavin Newsom committed sexual assault 8 years ago...

If Fox News wasn't constantly talking about it on a 24-hour loop, pretty safe to assume he's probably innocent because if they were able to find even the slightest thing that made the accusation seem like it "might" have a chance of being legit, they'd be off to the races with it.

JosephZ said:

Like the words of a known liar and convicted child sex trafficker mean anything. Lol.

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And I am sure if she had said the opposite, the liberal media would be all over it and their viewers would just gobble it up.

Suddenly everyone's a mind reader!

ThatRobGuy said:

I don't know that her proclamation here is what exonerates him, being that she's fibbed before, she's damaged goods in terms of witness credibility.

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I think you overestimate her credibility. She is literally claiming the things which she was convicted of are not true and that Epstein did nothing. We have numerous witnesses, including under oath in her own trial, to the contrary. I recall none that have "recanted" their statements against her or Epstein. She could never make those statements on the stand. She knows it, her lawyer knows it, Todd Blanche knows it. This doesn't mean that Trump *did* do something. It just means her statement is of zero value.

ThatRobGuy said:

However, if there was even the slightest whiff of a possibility that Trump was engaging in "island stuff", certain media outlets would've locked onto it like a pit bull a few years ago and never let it go.

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There are places for "absence of evidence" arguments, but frankly, this is not one of them. Once he became a politician, sure, I don't think he could have gotten away with any "island stuff". There certainly is plenty of evidence of his general sexual misbehavior in the 2000s with women in the 25-35 range, but (not surprisingly) nothing since he turned 65.

You seem to be overestimating how closely "Trump the celebrity" was monitored by the press and how much of his past behavior has been well reported. Reporters work on what they can find and the conclusions they can defend based on the evidence they have collected (including evidence that is not published). Think of all of those "Me Too" celebrity accusations that often went back decades, but were not reported, only to be revealed by public accusations.

There is reporting about Trump's misconduct (including felonious) with teens. The most well known has to do with the dressing room of the Miss Teen USA pageant. There is also reporting of Epstein throwing "model parties" for a couple of his friends and a couple dozen models (as I recall one former model attended such a party where other than teen models the only two guests present were Epstein and Trump and she got creeped out and avoid contact with the men), and the case of "Katie Johnson" who filed and then withdrew a federal lawsuit against Trump and Epstein in 2016 for assaulting her at Epstein's NYC home when she was a teen.

There is also Trump's (and Epstein's (and Maxwell's)) associations with John Casablancas and Jean-Luc Brunel, (FYI, you may not want to search them at work, but you should look into them) both of whom owned modeling agencies and had serious allegations regarding teen models. (Trump himself also created a modeling agency.)

I'm going to end with one more major thought. Epstein himself is spoken of having "up to 1000" victims in the press and they don't seem to have any qualms about using such a large number, but we have only a handful of fully open public testimonies given by the victims regarding their experiences. We also have some anonymous testimonies with details and a bunch of very partial statements. That is what the press has been able to report on a very large case. If Trump was involved it certainly wouldn't be at the level as Epstein and there would be even stronger incentives to stay hidden. Does this mean Trump was involved, no, but it makes it clear that the non-existence of reporting about direct ties between Trump and Epstein's crimes is not a demonstration that there are no connections.

This is definitely a case of "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" and no conclusions can be drawn.

ThatRobGuy said:

With regards to political figures, in more cases than not, deciding whether or not an allegation has merit isn't determined by who does or doesn't directly accuse them, but rather whether or not certain media outlets obsessively talk about it as if it's irrefutable fact.

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It really isn't.

ozso said:

No it's just that if she said Trump was guilty of being inappropriate, then that would be fully accepted. It would be like "Ah ha even
Ghislaine Maxwell says Trump is guilty! Case closed".

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We also have about 45 years of his very public life to go by.

Has Matt Gaetz or Speaker Hastert chimed in on this yet?

Internet roasts 'sketchy wrestling coach' Jim Jordan over abuse comment​

Jordan, a Republican lawmaker from Ohio and a staunch ally to Trump, used the government's release of edited transcripts of conversations with Epstein's partner as evidence that Trump is innocent.

In part, Jordan said, "This confirms what we all knew: President Trump didn’t do anything wrong. This transcript confirms that. There’s nothing there based on this interview with [Ghislaine] Maxwell."

ViaCrucis said:

Lol.

Replace Trump with a Democratic politician, and tell me how you'd believe Maxwell's statement.

-CryptoLutheran

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Would you believe her if she said Teump was with underage girls?

rjs330 said:

Would you believe her if she said Teump was with underage girls?

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On her testimony alone? Unlikely.

In collaboration with the testimony of the women who have come forward? And because she gains absolutely nothing in implicating Trump (whereas she stands to gain a lot by claiming he is blameless), then it would have some measurable value.

Surely you can recognize the distinction between testimony that corroborates the testimony of others; and which provides no personal benefit to oneself--and testimony that is that would be personally beneficial and contradictory to the testimony of others.

From a purely objective, rational, non-partisan and non-political perspective; context is absolutely meaningful.

The OP presented Maxwell's testimony as though it were case-closed gospel truth; as such I presented a hypothetical scenario where if this were a Democratic politician, no conservative, no Trump-supporter, no Republican would regard the kind of presentation in the OP as anything other than laughable.

Perhaps Maxwell is just telling the truth. But presenting her statement as iron-clad is patently absurd and no thinking person would--or should--accept that kind bad argumentation.

-CryptoLutheran

GoldenBoy89 said:

We also have about 45 years of his very public life to go by.

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Context is meaningful here. But because of the hyper partisanship of American politics, nuance has died.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

In collaboration with the testimony of the women who have come forward? And because she gains absolutely nothing in implicating Trump (whereas she stands to gain a lot by claiming he is blameless), then it would have some measurable value.

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Except there havent been any women who have come forward to say Trump was with them when they were under age. Therefore she is likely telling the truth that he wasnt.

ViaCrucis said:

Perhaps Maxwell is just telling the truth. But presenting her statement as iron-clad is patently absurd and no thinking person would--or should--accept that kind bad argumentation.

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Yeah, with any criminal of this type you have to take their statement with a very large helping of salt. No i am not going to just take her word for it and I wouldnt take her word for it is she said he was involved either. She's a completely untrustworthy witness. She'd do anything to help her case including throwing Teump under the bus it would help. Or making him a saint if it would help. I want a LOT more actual evidence before I trusted anything she said whichever way she went.

rjs330 said:

Except there havent been any women who have come forward to say Trump was with them when they were under age. Therefore she is likely telling the truth that he wasnt.

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None have made it to trial, and there may be some credibility issues with this one that got close, but....

A federal lawsuit filed in California in April 2016 against Trump and Jeffrey Epstein by a California woman alleged that the two men sexually assaulted her at a series of parties at Epstein's Manhattan residence in 1994 when she was 13 years old. The suit was dismissed by a federal judge in May 2016 because it did not raise valid claims under federal law. The woman filed another federal suit in New York in June 2016, but it was withdrawn three months later, apparently without being served on the defendants. A third federal suit was filed in New York in September 2016.[197][198]

The two latter suits included affidavits by an anonymous witness who attested to the accusations in the suits, asserting Epstein employed her to procure underage girls for him, and an anonymous person who declared the plaintiff had told him/her about the assaults at the time they occurred. The plaintiff, who had filed anonymously as Jane Doe, was scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles press conference six days before the 2016 election, but abruptly canceled the event; her lawyer Lisa Bloom asserted that the woman had received threats. The suit was dropped on November 4, 2016. Trump attorney Alan Garten denied the allegations, while Epstein declined to comment.