KaiBear said:
Trump is arrogant but not stupid.
If Trump had something personally to hide on the client list he wouldn't have allowed his staff to constantly promise to release it.
This is more and more appearing to be coercion from the Israeli intelligence services.
And the blackmail extends to both our political parties and some of our richest power brokers.
This could easily be the biggest scandal in American history.
maybe, but more likely not.
Odds are, there is a long list of people who have interacted with Epstein in some way, a few of them bad actors for whom there is insufficient evidence for prosecution but most of them who did nothing wrong other than happening to run in the same circles of the small club that is the uber-wealthy. In such a situation, we would normally expect a prosecutor to withhold the information to protect the innocent (of a crime) from guilt by association (having interacted in some trivial way with a terrible guy). The problem is, given the realities of the moment, not releasing everything gives rise to exactly the sentiments you posted, ironically positioning Trump as a defender of Epstein....a guy he banned from Mar-a-Lago. Expect Trump opponents to press the burning cigarette as deeply into his flesh as it will go.
Trump should dump the files and let the feeding frenzy begin. He will not lose many votes. Just a donor or two. Since he's not running for re-election, that's not much of a loss. And while the press focuses on the feeding frenzy, Trump will have less PR working against him on deportations, fighting wokeness in Higher Ed., etc..... But I'm not sure he's going to do that. And it would be an error, at least politically.
There is zero evidence that Epstein was an intelligence asset of anyone. But he would fit several different profiles of one. Not sure that aspect will be an accelerant, unless it is a US intel agency.