Trump fires Epstein prosecutor Maurene Comey, which sure looks desperate

We can all see why despite his a large number of promises at his countless trials to take the stand in his own defense Donald Trump s lawyers would not allow it The former reality TV host s increasingly frantic efforts to talk his way out of the ballooning outrage over his flagrant cover-up of the Jeffrey Epstein situation are backfiring making him look like nothing more than a man who has a whole lot to hide After a decade in which his supporters have exhibited nothing but blind faith in him and his promises Trump cannot believe they are now demanding that the Justice Department make population the voluminous documents and evidence about the deceased sex offender s dealings The president is unable to control his contempt for them In the last couple of days on his Truth Social platform and on camera he s called them weaklings stupid and foolish Trump is trying to rebrand the furor as the Jeffrey Epstein hoax After all the word has served him well in the past hoax has been his go-to description for dismissing true stories that he finds unfavorable Trump is trying to rebrand the furor as the Jeffrey Epstein hoax The word has served him well in the past hoax has been his go-to description for dismissing true stories he wants to deflect From a certain vantage he s got a point Trump is doing everything in his power to signal he is terrified of what those files might say about him personally Thursday night saw him continue his erratic behavior Posting on his Truth Social architecture Trump explained he was authorizing Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek to produce any and all Grand Jury Testimony subject to Court approval a move that will likely do little to satisfy his MAGA critics This followed the publication of a Wall Street Journal review alleging Trump had once sent Epstein a sexually graphic birthday card Hours after it was published Trump admitted he had tried to block the article and revealed he would sue the newspaper and its parent company News Corp as well as owner Rupert Murdoch President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos ABC Minutes CBS and others and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal he posted on Truth Social oddly referring to himself in third person But MAGA influencers keep talking as if they have faith he will be exonerated On Wednesday Charlie Kirk of Turning Points USA addressed Trump directly It s not that people are saying you know they wanna learn about Epstein because they have any suspicion of President Trump No We don t think no one thinks you re involved in any way of that stuff whatsoever The word stupid comes to mind upon hearing that so one can see why Trump went there Because the president believes with good reason that if he were implicated in Epstein s crimes Kirk would cover for him After all by repeatedly voting against the release of the Epstein files House Republicans are acting like they think Trump is guilty and necessities them to protect him from consequences Kirk s reluctance to join the cover-up suggests he genuinely believes that none of this could backfire on Trump which is well stupid Related Haunted by Epstein Trump spirals further out of control The current congressional Republican strategy for simultaneously placating the MAGA base while shielding Trump is telling reporters they want further inspection while quietly blocking all efforts to make that happen GOP Speaker of the House Mike Johnson of Louisiana called for transparency from Bondi yet he voted against a bill that would force her to release the files Sen Josh Hawley R-Mo called on Epstein co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell to testify before Congress no doubt knowing full well that she s appealing her federal conviction and would not want to jeopardize her chances by speaking publicly about the situation Multiple Republicans have called for the appointment of a special counsel to reinvestigate the situation but on Thursday afternoon White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reported despite the growing outcry within the the party Trump would not be making that recommendation On Wednesday night the Washington Post stated that the White House fired Maurene Comey a seasoned prosecutor for the Southern District of New York Comey has worked on various high-profile cases bulk of late helping secure a conviction for Sean Combs But more crucially she prosecuted Maxwell and Epstein Or would have if he hadn t died in jail More than anyone else on the planet Comey perhaps knows what s in the unreleased Epstein documents If there were any interest from Republicans or the White House in learning more they would be talking to her not showing her the door Ironically Comey is behind the only apparent legitimate reason to hold back several of the documents She has been fighting Maxwell s efforts to get her conviction overturned and Comey successfully convinced a federal judge that releasing more of the Epstein evidence could damage the incident She was especially concerned about keeping the casualties safe both on humanitarian grounds and because if they re re-traumatized they may not be as cooperative Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics Sign up for her free newsletter Standing Room Only now also on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts One would think that Trump would keep someone on board whose reasons for holding back the Epstein files are unassailable which would be very convenient for him Instead the president is listening to people like his traveling companion Laura Loomer a conspiracy theorist who has been pushing to use Comey as a scapegoat to blame for withholding the Epstein files It s another sign that in his panic Trump is not thinking clearly If he longed to claim Comey was standing in the way of full transparency well he fired her Now that excuse has been forfeited leaving him with sparse options other than to keep shouting at his supporters and hope they ultimately start to understand why he requirements them to shut up about Epstein I hesitate to be optimistic because Trump has escaped being held accountable so a large number of times in part because his base has shown they will sacrifice anything including family relationships economic stability and even their own lives to avoid admitting it was wrong to vote for him It s entirely likely that the only reason so a great number of MAGA folks are speaking out about the Epstein files now is their foolish faith that Trump isn t in them Their history of supporting him even in the face of proof that he s a sexual predator suggests that most of will find a way back to him even if perhaps especially if presented with solid evidence that he was implicated in Epstein s crimes We need your help to stay independent Subscribe the present day to advocacy Amanda Marcotte s journalism But it s also true that Trump is shortsighted and has the narcissist s compulsion to say whatever he requirements to in the moment to get approval Older interviews where he promises to release the files show both tendencies on full display It s clear that Trump didn t want to be talking about Epstein but he will constantly say whatever he feels will sell well So he promised to release the files no doubt believing that he could break that promise like he breaks every promise In a sense that wasn t even a bad bet Trump lies to his supporters constantly and they never seem to mind often because they feel like they re in on the con This is truly the first time I ve seen a great number of of them even the wealthy influencers who should know better express genuine confusion over why their beloved leader has obviously lied to them This a conundrum that Trump may not be able to wriggle away from Much to his surprise and frankly mine it seems like his supporters have fully deluded themselves into thinking he can t be in the Epstein files so much so that Trump can t seem to get them to understand what s scaring him even with signaling so obvious it reads as a near-confession to everyone outside the MAGA cult They won t lay off calls for him to release the files unless he offers a reason that makes sense to them And he can t tell them why he demands them to shut up at least not without spelling out what he s worried about is in there That impasse is driving the conflict and there doesn t seem to be a satisfying resolution And that is a condition in which coalitions no matter how previously durable start to fracture Read more about this topic Why House Republicans voted for the Epstein cover-up Trump doesn t realize why MAGA demands the Epstein files MAGA melts down Dems exult as Epstein files evaporate The post Trump fires Epstein prosecutor Maurene Comey which sure looks desperate appeared first on Salon com