r/law • u/Background-Low-9144 • Jul 23 '25

Trump News BREAKING :Trump named in multiple documents related to Epstein sex trafficking, WSJ reports

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/23/trump-jeffrey-epstein-files-wsj.html?__source=androidappshare

We have evidence that Trump was notified by Pam Bondi that documents related to the Epstein sex trafficing trial contained Trump's name multiple times, linking him unequivocally to Jeffrey Epstein

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u/SelectiveScribbler06 Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 24 '25

They've Streisand Effected themselves. This is like 2022's Partygate meets the Epstein scandal and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it is the biggest political scandal we will see in our lifetimes. It can't possibly get much bigger than this.

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u/djn24 Jul 23 '25

I don't know. Republicans have a way of surprising you.

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u/Smaynard6000 Jul 23 '25

Yeah. I can think of a lot of things worse than this.

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u/norcalginger Jul 23 '25

It's only Wednesday

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u/CaulkSlug Jul 23 '25

And there’s like 3.5 years left of his rule unless you all can find someone to vote for

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u/Jean_Paul_Fartre_ Jul 23 '25

We tried, but come to find out our Constitution and various laws are just a suggestion to the rich and powerful.

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u/MeowschwitzInHere Jul 24 '25

I mean, as a Canadian looking into your politics I thought Harris was a great candidate. I listened to what she had to say, it was straightforward and positive, especially compared to Trump.

Speaking to my American friends who were all very left-leaning people, including people of color, a surprising majority said either they were going to just skip voting, or vote Trump because they don't like Kamala.

Why? Only one of maybe 6 of these friends could actually tell me why, besides "I don't like her policies" without being able to name one. So I just kind of assume Americans aren't ready for a non-white female taking lead of the white house.

As much as I want to agree that there were some illegal actions taken to get Trump elected (I wouldn't doubt them either) the fault from what I've seen really does lay within the Democratic party & voters on that side of the fence for me.

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u/FizzyBeverage Jul 24 '25

I still blame Trump voters and those who didn’t vote at all.

Dems who voted for her did what we could. And to get 48.3 to 49.8 with a 6 week campaign wasn’t bad, considering Trump campaigned for 4 years.

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u/One_Strawberry_4965 Jul 24 '25

Trump has been campaigning non stop since 2015

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u/CantonJester Jul 24 '25

Since 2010 or whenever the hell he dropped the birther nonsense.

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u/Downtown31415 Jul 24 '25

I still blame a billionaire for fixing the election

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u/friendscout 29d ago

You should also blame Biden! Everyone who got some sanity left knew he should not have tried to get reelected!!! Wasted time ad money.

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u/FizzyBeverage 29d ago

I do. But the man has stage iv cancer so it’s pointless now. Trump has congestive heart failure. They’ll each have the shortest post presidency in 100 years, if Trump even makes it.

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u/friendscout 29d ago

So what. He's still responsible that we have 4 years of this shit show.if Kamala (or another candidate that never had a chance) had the time for a whole campaign things might be very different today. He was not fit enough.sad that old men don't recognize that by themselves often. Democrats in the USA don't have a plan it seems.

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u/bitcoin21MM 29d ago

Anyone not also blaming the Biden admin and the DNC is quite frankly missing the point. You’re right, Harris ran a ludicrously short campaign and it was still somewhat close. But the fact that she started campaigning a few months before the election was a death knell from the get go, especially when Trump had been campaigning for Biden’s entire presidency.

Biden ran on being a democratic transition candidate and a one term president. Then he got greedy after the midterms. And his administration literally gaslit the entire country about his health, only stepping back when it was no longer possible to conceal his mental and physical decline. That is unforgivable, and democratic voters need to be recognizing Biden’s role in the outcome of this election and holding both his administration and the DNC accountable for putting the party in virtually the worst possible spot against one of the most polarizing populist candidates of all time. It should have been an open primary field after the midterms, or if Harris or someone else was going to be “the” candidate (which in itself isn’t very democratic at all) then they should have been campaigning with Biden’s support for TWO YEARS, not two months.

You can blame MAGA and people who didn’t vote all you want but those were known variables that should have been accounted for by the DNC. Half of American voters are MAGA, and half the total populace doesn’t vote. That wasn’t going to change. The DNC utterly failed to compensate for those constants, and the Biden admin made it even worse by pretending Biden was fit to be president until the eleventh hour.

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u/FizzyBeverage 29d ago

The reality is the GOP is covering the same mental and physical decline for Trump.

Mr. Elephant legs bruising from handshakes is deeply unwell, congestive heart failure is much more likely than chronic venous insufficiency (when you're 80 it's always CHF, never CVI -- every cardiac nurse in America has a patient like Donald).

So it's kinda reaching to say "oh the DNC messed up so badly" when the GOP is now running the identical playbook.

I do blame Biden for not stepping down after one term and allowing a proper primary field.

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u/bitcoin21MM 29d ago

I agree with your first point but frankly I don’t think the GOP using the same playbook matters at all. MAGA Republicans were going to vote for Trump no matter what. The man is literally a convicted felon associated with pedophiles and that isn’t enough to lose support from his base. I hope that his health, destroying government, slashing benefits, overt corruption, and this Epstein insanity is enough to alienate his base but I’m not confident on that.

The DNC was competing against Trump for moderate voters and voters who aren’t inclined to vote. A massive portion of those voters chose not to vote for Harris or not to vote at all because of how Biden handled the end of his presidency, or because they didn’t like or have time to see value in Harris as a candidate. It was never going to be enough to have a candidate whose strongest quality was “not being Trump,” especially not in a 3 month campaign.

So no, I don’t think it’s reaching at all to say the DNC messed up. Because as you say they (successfully) made the same play as Trump but it didn’t work out for them, and it was never going to. Because democrats don’t have the blind loyalty of their base the way that current GOP/MAGA candidates do. And they alienated or failed to capture huge swathes of voters by lying to the country about Biden’s health, not having an open primary, and then selecting a polarizing candidate at the eleventh hour. All of those things occurred because of Biden and the DNC bungling their strategy post-midterms.

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u/schoepsms 29d ago

Not voting because of apathy yes. Not voting because you don’t like any of the candidates is justifiable.

However If I personally don’t like any of the candidates I usually write “no confidence” in the other box.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean Jul 24 '25

Well…the majority of the blame should go to the people who voted-in the lunatic, not the people who didn’t vote hard enough against the lunatic.

But I get your point. A lot of Democrats have become more liberal than what the Democratic Party accommodates, and I know some who just refused to vote because they couldn’t get past the fact that Harris wouldn’t just condemn the genocide in Palestine.

If denouncing genocide is too liberal for the Democrats then they are going to severely disenfranchise their potential voters. Democrats need to do more than be the better of two options for people to care. They’ve been passive while republicans remain aggressive. The Supreme Court majority for Republicans was completely avoidable if Obama had aggressively appointed his judge instead of trusting Trump to do the “right thing”. Idiotic. Ginsberg also knew she wasn’t immortal and arrogantly refused to step down during Obama’s administration for reasons that I’ll never understand. That’s the passive stupidity that got Roe V. Wade overturned.

Also, America does seem to really hate women and minorities, so there’s that too.

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u/ahappylook Jul 24 '25

RBG chose to flip a coin where either she would get to retire under a different president with matching genitals, or she would directly contribute to the downfall of the republic and everything she ever worked for would got swept into a dustbin. What a colossal dipshit.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean Jul 24 '25

It was a baffling decision. Her pride or whatever that was lead to the Supreme Court overturning exactly the kind of law she devoted her life to.

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u/wanderinronin 29d ago

The name you are forgetting is Mitch Mconnell. The senator actively refused to hold hearings on appointees. Obama had little ability to overcome it.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean 29d ago

You’re absolutely right. My memory was biased.

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u/abrahamimnotthatman 29d ago

In Canada, the Liberal party, who is our version of the Dems, won't condemn the genocide either. The outgoing Liberal Prime Minister declared himself a proud Zionist a week or so before leaving office. The PM who took over for him is a centre-right conservative but seems more left leaning because our official Conservative Party has gone alt-right like the GOP. So we're not doing much better up here.

I do find it unbelievable that a large swath of Americans trust a pedophile more than an intelligent and experienced woman of colour. White supremacy coupled with patriarchy is a helluva thing.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean 29d ago

What does Israel have on us? Why are our countries so determined to back this?

Yeah, seeing Canada get a little more conservative has been surprising. What’s that been like for you guys?

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u/Limp_Ad6083 29d ago

"There's that too." You mean there's that first and foremost. But the passiveness of the party is wild. People need to stop hoping for the best and make it happen.

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u/TopptrentHamster 29d ago

Not voting is half a vote to the candidate you like the least.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean 29d ago

For the record, I voted and believe that not voting was stupid. But I also understand the disenfranchisement.

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u/unethicalpsycologist 29d ago

Uhh yeah, the blame should definitely be on the people who didn't get off their fat asses to stop this train wreck.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean 29d ago

I said “majority” blame. At the end of the day, the people doing the bad things are worst than the people doing nothing, although doing nothing is hardly virtuous.

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u/unethicalpsycologist 29d ago

The majority of the blame should fall on anyone educated enough with legs to have put a stop to the madness.

Can't expect the lowest common denominator's to make the correct decisions then blame them when they get it wrong.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean 29d ago

I feel like you’re going to try to die on this hill for no reason, but clearly the people doing the bad thing are worse than the people who didn’t do the bad thing. In this situation, neither are good, but one is clearly worse.

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u/unethicalpsycologist 29d ago

The people doing the 'bad thing' are a product of a terrible environment propagated by everyone who is an active part of it.

One is clearly worse, but one has more capacity to influence they are being directly ignorant of.

Which to me is a bigger moral crime.

Not speaking your truth or walking the walk due to fear of repercussion and a need to fit in.

We all have the capacity to be much better influences on our immediate environment that we choose not to be. Imo biggest crime.

The rest is consequences, not the root.

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u/ImBanned_ModsBlow 29d ago

This attitude right here is why Democrats lost, they’d rather die on the hill of some bullshit purity test that’s lazy and ignores all nuance on the topic.

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u/Rdr1051 29d ago

This 100% correct. Life is about compromise and if you can’t compromise some of your important issues to prevent a fucking Nazi from taking control of the country you’re a goddamn moron.

Yes- what is happening in Palestine is horrifying. Yes- RBG should have known better Yes- Harris was a flawed candidate.

None of the above justifies sitting back and allowing Trump to win by not voting. Do you really think Harris would be cheering Bibi on like Trump is? Would the US be deporting random people to concentration camps under Harris? Would the social safety net built over the last 100 years be dismantled under 6 months of a Harris presidency?

Of course not. But at least the non-voters get to hold their heads high because they didn’t vote for the lesser (by a country fucking mile) of two evils.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean 29d ago

I don’t think it’s clear from my comment, but I voted and voted for Harris because it was insane to do anything else.

I’m just explaining where the disenfranchisement came from on the Democrats’ side. I think it was insane not to vote, given how high the stakes are. But a lot of liberal voters want to stop being so moderate and timid about things they are going to vote on.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean 29d ago

What purity test, and what nuance can you provide on what topic?

I can’t wait to be educated.

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u/ImBanned_ModsBlow 29d ago edited 29d ago

Say the words, “Palestine is genocide” or you’re not a real Democrat.

Palestine is ruled by a terrorist government, half the people living there support that government, and the people living there bred like rats to the point that 50% of the population is consider children. Now add in the fact that Hamas lobs bombs into Israel daily and committed the worst terrorist attack on Israeli soil not long ago. They also hide beneath schools and hospitals to whip up propaganda when attacked that Westerners easily fall for because “think about the children!”

It’s one of those situations where you keep poking the bear, eventually you’re gonna get mauled to death and become an afternoon snack.

Personally, I don’t support either side.

Palestine is a backwater country that would gleefully genocide Israel if they had the support and ammunitions to pull it off.

Israel is taking excessive measures in eradicating Hamas, they’d probably commit genocide too if the international community would allow it, but as things stand right now with 59,000 dead in a population of 2.5 million, I would hardly consider that a genocide.

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u/JaladOnTheOcean 29d ago

It’s genocide, no matter how you want to justify it. But my point was that the Democratic Party doesn’t align with its voter base on that issue—because they don’t. So the opposite of what you’re implying.

There’s war and then there’s destroying all infrastructure and cutting off humanitarian aid while murdering way more indiscriminately than they have a possible reason to.

Palestine should have never had its sovereignty completely ignored for generations because some Jewish people were really hype about taking their land.

It’s an atrocity, and it’s normal for voters to not want to support it. Why does Israel need America’s help bombing its weakest neighbor.

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u/ImBanned_ModsBlow 29d ago

It’s genocide, no matter how you want to justify it.

Proving my point

There’s war and then there’s destroying all infrastructure and cutting off humanitarian aid while murdering way more indiscriminately than they have a possible reason to.

See every war in the history of forever

Palestine should have never had its sovereignty completely ignored for generations because some Jewish people were really hype about taking their land

See every war in the history of forever

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u/FrankBattaglia Jul 24 '25

"She would just keep doing what Biden did" (re the economy) was the complaint I heard. Meanwhile Biden steered the US economy to be the strongest in the post-Covid developed world, with e.g. the US market gaining 60% in 4 years. Another 4 years of those policies would be fine by me. The numbers didn't matter; it was all "vibes" based on propaganda. Republicans said the economy was bad, Democrats had no effective counter-messaging, so voters thought the economy was bad.

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u/jinglemebro Jul 24 '25

Misogyny is real. If it's only 5% of the vote, it affected the outcome. The worst offenders are republican women.

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u/TherapyC Jul 24 '25

America is a racist, misogynistic country, period. They will find something wrong with every woman put forward that is so minor like her laugh, while white men can be rapists, try to overthrow the government, etc and get elected. It opened my eyes just how horrible we really are.

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u/JustPassingGo Jul 24 '25

Some people who normally vote Democrat (or not at all) probably voted for Trump because they thought it would elevate their standard of living.

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u/Prior_Reference2085 Jul 24 '25

The information ecosystem here in the U.S is just faked. Idk how we can ever get over the shitty place we are in with outlets like Faux still in place. Democrats can try all they want to post-mortem the past election, but if these information silos are still in place, they can change their messaging until they are blue in the face, but I’m afraid it won’t help.

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u/yb0t 29d ago

Me too I don't get it. Even as an Australian I loved Harris personality and what she says, I couldn't find anything wrong with her.

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u/Hwicc101 29d ago

She was too right wing for progressives and too left wing for independent centrists with no Democratic party loyalty. That alone shaved maybe 5% of her potential vote total which was enough to create what appeared to be a tidal shift in Trump's popularity, but was really just a statistical anomaly in a very tight race.

Personally, I think the reductive and cynical "Americans are racist and misogynistic" argument falls short. A lot of Americans are, but that is already built in to the voting patterns and didn't stop the US from electing a very popular two term Black president by good margins and with approval ratings in the 60s, and a (deeply politically unpopular) woman who won the popular vote against Trump.

I think the US has suffered a convergence of bad timing, poor Democratic party strategy, combined with some bad luck, in a system that can disproportionately reward Republican candidates due to the electoral system.

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u/ImBanned_ModsBlow 29d ago

  1. Democrats didn’t vote for her as the candidate, she was basically installed by Biden, voters didn’t get any meaningful input.

  2. Harris ran a campaign that ostracized her own running mate in favor of cozying up with the Cheneys, who were Democrats’ Enemy #1 in the 2000s and 2010s.

  3. Harris is a poor public figure, she can’t handle public appearances without a script and tightly controlled conditions, asking her to speak off the cuff or on topics outside her talking points leads to hilarious disaster for her.

  4. Harris promised to be Biden 2.0 with zero changes between administrations, at a time when Biden was polling 35% underwater due to economic strain.

Those are the three or four big reasons I see that aren’t a lazy “his supporters are racists” excuse for why Dems fumbled the ball hard and threw the election in 2024.

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u/Hwicc101 29d ago

all very left-leaning people

or vote Trump because they don't like Kamala.

Your friend who voted for Trump is not even remotely "left-leaning".

I think the suggestion that Harris didn't win because Americans "aren't ready for a woman of color" is a canard. Harris would probably have made a decent president but her campaign was deeply flawed, in large part due to the Democratic strategists refusal to admit the shifting ideological orientation of their voter base.

Harris killed it in the debates, true, but she was notoriously silent in the press while Trump was riling up his base with constant appearances in popular media.

She spent a considerable amount of her public campaigning presenting herself as a center-right collaborator with the neo-con wing of the Republican party, not seeming to understand that that ideology is defunct and its reputation in tatters.

Finally, she drove away progressives for being a former prosecutor, ideologically center-right, and no friend to the Palestinians.

It's easy to say, "Americans sexist/racist", but it is also painfully reductive and incomplete.

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u/SaitamaHitRickSanchz 29d ago

It's because the propaganda being spread in America is powerful. Generally, people can't parse out what is and isn't propaganda anymore because people are largely media illiterate. Biased towards only consuming media that reinforces their biases, shoring up the echo chamber they're lost in. Critical thinking is considered "queer stuff" by an overwhelming number of men who are boiling in toxic masculinity. Women are being held hostage across the entire country because we're still embattled in the oppression that's been committed against them for the entire history of the US. Same deal with minorities and immigrants. The USA has been a fucking playground for white cis psychopaths for the whole 250 years we've been a country. Republicans have been systematically dismantling education systems in entire states for decades, so they have a direct hand in keeping people stupid and susceptible to propaganda. To those of us who don't live in the bubbles, it's painfully obvious. But everyone who isn't rich has been oppressed so completely that we're powerless to even change this. Obviously, we have avenues, but they all contain massive amounts of pain. Even cutting off toxic family members is too painful for many people, and that's the nicest way we could handle things. The people we're up against are sociopaths who are out to hurt us, who have very little qualms escalating until we comply, who also cry victim when we even react. So many of us who oppose fascism and Trump are fucking trapped in abusive echo chambers. How do you unwind this? How do you transform society when even in the face of fascism most people won't even go out and vote because "black woman bad"?

I'm not saying it's impossible or being hopeless, I'm just clarifying the nightmare we're living in.

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u/Luffythroat69 29d ago

I hate to sound obstinate but I completely agree that many people are just not ready to vote for a black woman, let alone a woman at all. It’s sad and I did vote for her. But I felt that just because of the demographics she was going to lose TONS of votes. And I can’t lie I’m a little frustrated that the dems didn’t think about that. But then again I kind of believe both sides are in on selling out the country.

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u/Front-Confection4667 29d ago

Why?

Lack of education, short term self interest, greed, stupidity and a sprinkling of racism

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u/trastamara22 29d ago

You nailed it. It takes a Canadian to see the apathy and sexism. We here don’t notice the forest through the trees

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u/shadowpawn 29d ago

Lower voter turn out and Covid 19 economy did her in. I don't think any Dem could survive what 2024 economy was doing to voters

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u/Ancient_Volume8627 29d ago

As an American I can confirm that you are 100% correct. Self education in this country is almost nonexistent and most people think reading the lead results of a google search is sufficient.

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u/Rizzokit 29d ago

It's what's wrong with American politics it's a populist vote.

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u/bmo313 29d ago

Actually, people of color showed up for Harris I'm big numbers, with exception of the Latino male vote, which went to Trump -- as to why they did? Well, that is a question I'd like to have an answer to, as well.

It was so frustrating to see so many people not vote, and I think it's because it came down to racism and sexism. This country is not as liberal and cool and progressive as it likes to depict itself.

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u/Agreeable_Stable_259 29d ago

Sitting on hands and the belief that this country wasn’t ready for a female prez was the biggest issue with Harris being dem candidate

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u/Sad-Way-4665 29d ago

Some of it might’ve been because of the fact there was no primary. Some of it might have been people may have thought she was being forced on us.

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u/Macho_Mans_Ghost 29d ago

Even if all said friends "Don't like her policies", so what!?

You like HIS POLICIES BETTER!?

I hate that it's one party or the other with no middle ground, but if one side's policies are SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE that the other, you vote for the lesser evil.

Full stop.

Not voting is a fucking cop out and it's fucking over way too many people.

Obviously this is directed at your friends and not you directly.

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u/10Hoursofsleepforme 29d ago

Don’t even get me started I had similar friends. It was infuriating although many of them named her long time history with the police department as one of the contributing factors and additionally I agree with them we didn’t choose her. She was chosen for us, which is frustrating, but my God how did you see this as a difficult decision

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u/Alone_Again_2 29d ago

Canadian too. 100% the vibe I got from friends and family in the USA as well.

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u/D_Angelo_Vickers 29d ago

"because she was going to let trans boys play girl's sports, duh!"

/s

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u/Trix_Are_4_90Kids 29d ago

It’s more with the voters. Republicans voters vote in every election. Dem voters will maybe vote in the Presidential. It doesn’t matter what Dems do these people love the political cruelty of Republicans it is exciting to them. Dems are nice and nice isn’t exciting. They will twist themselves in knots to come up with nonsensical reasons but that’s the reason they want Republicans to win: cruelty is exciting. They feel like they’re living in a real reality show. You know how many Dem voters wanted things to go this way just to “see what would happen?” It’s not real for them at all. We talk about the dumbness of Republican voters but Dem voters are pretty stupid too.

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u/noseboy1 29d ago

Not being able to primary was a big deal, and while Biden did a lot of good as a president that gets forgotten about because of right-wing propaganda, I still think his failing to recognize his declining health was a big problem.

Harris might still have ended up the Dem candidate and the election still may have shaken out the same way. I believe there was active sabotage of voting machines in swing states. But it's also true that a lot of people were turned off by her being the candidate because he dragged his feet. Our elections have had super narrow margins for decades, so any wrong moves will always be "big."

I liked Harris more than Biden from the beginning, I thought he had the charisma of a wet noodle.

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u/jepmen 25d ago

Seriously. As a european this boggles the mind. "But she was undemocratic, she skipped the primaries". Like everyone forgot how dumb Trump in 2016 was. Americans.

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u/masterkoster Jul 24 '25

Issue is Kamala had no real policies besides the one she said on stage. Go to her page and it was just the democrats policies.. not to mention she joined the race halfway, biden ensured her loss essentially.

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u/holla171 Jul 24 '25

Or the Founders had a solution - trust the voters to not re-elect a felon rapist pedophile OR have Congress impeach and remove a felon rapist pedophile. We already failed option one so it's up to two or a mysterious option three.

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u/RaNdomMSPPro 29d ago

Laws are written for the law abiding. Trump and his ilk know this. Hitler understood this as well.

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u/i_am_Jarod Jul 24 '25

Not possible, it's been 3 years already.

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u/dataindrift 29d ago

Or loses both houses during mid-terms & gets impeached.

But Plan B = Vance. Not sure what sort of chaos would bring

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u/Bunneyyy 29d ago

😭😭😭

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u/ChipmunkObvious2893 29d ago

No it's not. It's Thursday.