Trump Labor Secretary under fire for his previous handling of Jeffrey Epstein case in Florida

In a characteristically brilliant essay, historian, activist and writer Rebecca Solnit connects the dots between the sexual abuses of Jeffrey Epstein, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Brett Kavanaugh, Harvey Weinstein, and the unnamed 16-year-old boy whose admitted rape was excused because the judge said that This young man comes from a good family who put him into an excellent school where he was doing extremely well: in each case, there was an elaborate scheme to silence and discredit the survivors of sexual violence, abetted by networks of (mostly) men who treat the disclosure of sexual assaults as a worse offense than committing the assaults themselves. Read the rest

Oddly, convicted sex offender didn't ask feds to return his child porn stash

This is not a riddle, but two questions inspired by two very weird stories circulating about financier Jeffrey Epstein, who is in federal custody over charges of trafficking and sexual abuse of young girls. Read the rest

Jennifer Araoz says a recruiter brought her to Jeffrey Epstein when she was 14. Read the rest

“Sam Nunberg and Michael Cohen recalled David Pecker meeting with Trump in 2015 in Trump Tower, where they talked about what the Enquirer/Epstein may have had on Prince Andrew and President Clinton,” writes Emily Jane Fox. Read the rest

Trump and his fan base became upset when a man at a June 2018 rally held up a photo of a smiling Donald Trump with his old friend, sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump ordered the man to be removed, delivering a scorching witticism as the protester was being hauled away by security: "Was that a man or a woman? Because he needs a haircut more than I do"

A protester was kicked out of this Trump rally in June of last year for holding a photo of the president and Jeffrey Epstein pic.twitter.com/wXdpSrA816

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 9, 2019

Image: Twitter Read the rest

Days after an appeals court panel ordered the unsealing of thousands of pages of documents from one of the civil suits arising from billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's secret sweetheart plea bargain that allowed him to escape any serious penalties for years of alleged trafficking and raping of young teens, he has been arrested by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force and now faces charges related to dozens of sex offenses against young girls. Read the rest

More than a decade ago, a federal prosecutor named Alexander Acosta set up a secret sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy, Trump-connected admitted multiple rapist of underaged teen girls who was thought to be running a trafficking ring for wealthy, well-connected sexual predators, that saw Epstein serving only 13 months in a minimum security facility, on a work-release program that let him spend most of that time out of a cell. Read the rest

📸 Li Yang, aka Cindy Yang, 45, with Donald Trump at the Super Bowl, rooting for the Patriots. Just 2 weeks later, authorities charged team owner Robert Kraft with soliciting prostitution at a spa in Jupiter, Florida that was founded by Yang.

The Miami Herald headline reads, “Trump cheered Patriots to Super Bowl victory with founder of spa where Kraft was busted,” but the alterate headline suggested by @joshrogin gets straight to the point: “Alleged human trafficker gave thousands to Trump campaign and hung out with Don Jr. at Mar-a-Lago.” Read the rest

In 2007, Florida multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to two felony prostitution counts in a sweetheart deal that sent him to a private wing of a minimum security prison, with a work-release program that let him go to an off-site office for 12 hours a day, six days a week, for just over a year. Prosecutors knew of at least 36 underage survivors of sex crimes committed by Epstein, but none of them were notified of the deal (this silence is a breach of federal law), and they were subsequently smeared by Epstein's lawyers who accused them of being "gold diggers." Read the rest