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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHeather Cox Richardson: '...there's big news--I mean, aside from all the other big news...'
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-18-2026My words: I don't think this has yet been posted. If it has, my apologies for the duplication.
Edit: I've been notified that I cannot post the entire article. So I have edited accordingly.
'...Back on February 23...CBS News reported on a newly uncovered document in the Epstein files showing that beginning in December 2010 under the Obama administration, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was running an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen other people for drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering....He noted that Epstein and the fourteen co-conspirators were never charged for drug trafficking or financial crimes, and wrote: I am concerned that the DEA and DOJ during the first Trump Administration moved to terminate this investigation in order to protect pedophiles. '...
Today Wyden sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trumps former personal lawyer, saying: ....Your alleged interference in this matter is highly disturbing, not just because it continues the DOJs long-running obstruction of my investigation, but also because of your bizarrely favorable treatment of Ghislaine Maxwell...Noting that the document in the files was clearly marked as unclassified at the top of every single page, Wyden noted: There is absolutely no reason to withhold an unredacted version of this document from the U.S. Congress. He added: In order to assist my investigation into this matter, I demand that you immediately authorize the release of this document.
Wyden also posted today on social media: HUGE: Deputy Attorney General Todd BlancheTrumps former personal lawyer who was also responsible for Ghislaine Maxwells transfer to a cushy club fedhas intervened to block the DEA from providing details of a mysterious Epstein investigation to my Finance Committee team . This is stunning interference. The document Im after literally says unclassified at the top. The investigation it details is closed. Given Blanches close personal ties to Donald Trump, this reeks of a continued coverup to protect key names in the Trump administration....
Ocelot II
(130,358 posts)PCIntern
(28,295 posts)Scrivener7
(59,378 posts)jmbar2
(7,959 posts)Thanks for posting this.
Farmer-Rick
(12,621 posts)Why were so many, so willing to cover up for Pedos Trump and Epstein? Why hide the sex and drug trafficking for such low lives? Where did everyone's sense of moral duty, shame and sense of justice disappear to?
Can money and power really buy so much protection and loyaly for such horrible crimes? Or is there another force at work to turn our government into a criminal operation?
mopinko
(73,656 posts)drugs explain A LOT.
we shd b drug testing congress and high officials in govt.
evolves
(5,834 posts)Consider lindsey graham. What horrors has he committed to turn him from trump is an unfit kook to having his head firmly up YamTits ass?
When horrible people do horrible things and are caught, they can be manipulated into doing anything.
This is a huge international blackmail racket that has been running the entire world at least since putin took power.
yardwork
(69,293 posts)Don't say "everyone." This is on Trump and the Republican Party.
Farmer-Rick
(12,621 posts)"Why were so many, so willing to cover up for Pedos Trump and Epstein? Why hide the sex and drug trafficking for such low lives? Where did everyone's sense of moral duty, shame and sense of justice disappear to?"
The "everyone" was specifically referring to the "so many, so willing" and the "low lives" mentioned directly before the mention of "everyone". Everyone can be used to describe a specific group. It doesn't always mean the universe of all people or all politicians.
For example: Everyone in the room was shocked. OR All your clothes are clean. I washed everyone's yesterday.
malaise
(295,594 posts)Rec
GiqueCee
(4,084 posts)"You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. Whats right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.
You cant trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country; you just cant. He will not change and you know it.
A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way.
The rest of the Republican Party is no different, and certainly no better. Trump is a raging psychopath. He said publicly that only his own morality guides him. Trouble is, he has no morality. And neither do the Republicans that support and defend him. They are ALL the scum of the Earth. They give rabid hyenas a bad name.
OMGWTF
(5,108 posts)It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
GiqueCee
(4,084 posts)... Catch-22 was my philosophical Bible when I first discovered it, a couple of years after its initial release. I remember the very first line of Chapter One: "It was love at first sight," referring to Yossarian's first glimpse of the Chaplain.
Now I wanna read it again!
yardwork
(69,293 posts)SergeStorms
(20,493 posts)It's been firmly established that the uber-wealthy can buy as much "justice" as they damned well please in our United States of America.
Some European countries seem to have retained a modicum of justice, but not the good ole' U.S. of A.
The oligarchs in Russia and the U.S. are interchangeable.
True democracy has died.
yardwork
(69,293 posts)That's when our democracy died.
SergeStorms
(20,493 posts)Our democracy was murdered. My mistake. Sorry. 😉
Amaryllis
(11,244 posts)OMGWTF
(5,108 posts)so he could start Fux News and brainwash Americans into thinking the Rethuglicans can do no wrong.
harumph
(3,235 posts)If this investigation died sometime after 2015. Just why the fuck wasn't it picked up by the DOJ after Biden was elected in 2020? Can we explain it with the initials "MG."?
yardwork
(69,293 posts)By the time Biden took office in January 2021 Ghislaine Maxwell's trial preparations were underway. She was convicted and then filed appeals. That made it impossible for DOJ to release documents publicly.
We don't know what Biden's DOJ was doing in their own investigation. We do know that as soon as Trump was elected again all that investigation was halted and the Biden DOJ attorneys were fired.
It looks like this is a huge global web of evil people trafficking in humans, drugs, and weapons. Those people - who include Trump, Putin, Musk, and many others - made sure that Trump was elected in 2016 and 2024, so that the DOJ investigations would stop.
BattleRow
(2,373 posts)If they dont already have the info.they have the "safecrackers" to get the goods,n'est ce pas?
SergeStorms
(20,493 posts)Eloon Muskrat, is most likely listed in those top secret files that Pam Bondi guards like the Ark of the Covenant.
Let's just say Bondi's retirement fund has probably been topped off to overflowing. 😉
harumph
(3,235 posts)"Back on February 23, Daniel Ruetenik, Pat Milton, and Cara Tabachnick of CBS News reported on a newly uncovered document in the Epstein files showing that beginning in December 2010 under the Obama administration, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was running an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen other people for drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering.
The document showed the investigation, called Chain Reaction, was still underway in 2015. But the investigation disappeared, although the document suggested that it was a significant investigation and that the government was on the verge of indictments."
Obviously people in the Obama admin knew about this. Just at what time did the investigation disappear??? We know Trump takes office 2016 - so of course maybe they deep sixed it. HOWEVER, Biden was VP under Obama AND one would reasonably think this disappeared investigation to be a hot topic to pick up for the Biden DOJ. Why are we only hearing about this now? I suspect we were played and not just by Republicans.
I am beginning to think the investigation uncovered such massive corruption, human trafficking, bribes, money laundering, spying and espionage even, that too many people important to both parties and maybe verging on such disgusting collusion between our billionaire puppet masters and willing "servants of the people" that if this were fully known to the people - i.e., you and me, we would burn DC to the ground.
FakeNoose
(41,381 posts)If Epstein was dealing drugs to the uber-wealthy crowd, it almost certainly must have included some D's even though it was mostly R's. So whoever is in power at the moment - whether it's Biden or Chump or whoever is next - they are under pressure to keep all this evidence hidden from the rest of us.
We need to subpoena the former FBI directors and the former Attorneys General, everyone involved since 2015. It may not ensnare Chump himself, but the people who got him elected both times are certainly suspect.
harumph
(3,235 posts)There are a number of reasons that might have been - but I don't think it was because the case lacked merit, QED.
FakeNoose
(41,381 posts)Garland wasn't the Attorney General until 2021, but the investigation was shut down in 2015. The evidence disappeared sometime after that, in 2015 or 2016. We have to go back further.
harumph
(3,235 posts)Where did they "disappear" it to? The cupboard? At this time, I'm not giving MG a pass even though he wasn't the one to kill it.
There is something called institutional knowledge.
yardwork
(69,293 posts)It's too easy to fall back on "both sides are at fault." Look at the timing of Trump's elections in 2016 and 2024. A lot of very wealthy people HAD to make this go away at exactly those points.
If Hillary Clinton had taken office in January 2017 I am certain that her DOJ would have continued to pursue this investigation that Obama began. That's why very wealthy people made sure she lost.
FakeNoose
(41,381 posts)harumph
(3,235 posts)In 2020 Garland would have at least known about it. So, why didn't the Biden DOJ revive it? They knew Trump was dirty and
even knew of Trump involvement with Epstein. I'm not pointing a finger at Biden because he from all appearances
was a hands off the DOJ kind of president. But seriously, nobody can tell me that Garland wasn't aware of the seriousness
of this past investigation. It didn't give him pause? The more I learn about the timeline, the less I trust him. We have enough
problems with republicans in general to have to worry about disingenuous appointees by democratic administrations.
yardwork
(69,293 posts)Nothing could be revealed publicly because of the Maxwell trial and appeals.
I don't believe that Biden was hiding or burying anything, but his DOJ couldn't say anything publicly while GM's trial and appeals were happening.
It's almost as if GM was arrested on purpose right before Biden was elected...
Wednesdays
(22,474 posts)As a former prosecutor, Harris would have taken no prisoners.
SergeStorms
(20,493 posts)so much for drug use, as it was for the immense profits made in the drug trade. I'm sure there was recreational use, but there are very few methods to double or triple your investment month after month.
These powerful people are in positions to make certain their "imported goods" aren't subject to inspection, either.
This type of operation goes past the first iteration we were aware of, Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, and the subsequent importation of cocaine into the U.S, that subsequently started the Crack epidemic, the privatized prison industry, and so forth.
These "leaders" in our government have always found ways to steal from our Treasury, not to mention our citizens, and everything in between. All illegal, at least to anyone not in the oligarchs community.
The ills of our society, against which they constantly rail, can be traced directly to their feet. Who'd ever think of looking there?
malthaussen
(18,556 posts)These days, code names aren't used to obfuscate, they're used to describe. Something called "Chain Reaction" points in the direction of an investigation so complex, and with so many ramifications, that it could destroy the Earth -- "Earth" meaning in this instance the cushy lives of the people the DOJ really work for. So I'm sure that it became a very high priority to destroy the DOJ's nuclear capability.
-- Mal
yardwork
(69,293 posts)Trump's campaign in 2016 spent billions of dollars to create a global conspiracy factory accusing Hillary and the Democratic Party of trafficking and killing children. That's exactly what Trump, Epstein, Putin, Musk and others were doing.
If hints of the case against Epstein and Trump came out, voters would be confused.
An enormous amount of money was spent to create QAnon, Russian troll farms, Cambridge Analytica, Facebook's algorithms pushing conspiracy theories, etc.
Who paid that money to ensure that Trump was installed in the White House to make the investigations go away? The perpetrators.
underpants
(196,272 posts)yardwork
(69,293 posts)Remember that movie?
FakeNoose
(41,381 posts)... other than abusing his prescription drugs that is....
However some very wealthy, powerful have learned how easy it is to influence him to do their bidding, and that's why he's in the White House. And most of what has happened in the last 10 years ... well it's falling into place now.
mjvpi
(1,929 posts)2naSalit
(102,310 posts)djtj gets his coke, I bet.
gfarber
(273 posts)There once was a senator named Wyden,
Whose probes kept on steadily widen.
He tracked money trails,
Through suspicious details,
Where big banks had quietly hidden.
He found that a billion or more
In transactions slipped past the door,
At JPMs gate,
Unchecked at great rate
A scandal too vast to ignore.
He pressed for the records with might,
Demanding the Treasury write,
But answers were stalled,
And requests simply walled,
Kept out of the Senates clear sight.
To Cole at the DEA he wrote,
Of crimes that seemed more than remote:
If evidence shows
Such trafficking grows,
Why werent there charges to note?
Fourteen names hidden away,
Redacted in shadows of gray,
No drugs charges laid,
No finances weighed
Just silence where justice should stay.
He asked for the files by mid-March,
For answers both thorough and stark:
What started the case?
Why did it erase?
Why leave such a trail in the dark?
But word came the DOJ blocked,
As if all transparency stopped,
A memo unsealed,
Yet truth was concealed
While oversight quietly dropped.
A deputy stepped in the way,
Preventing disclosure that day,
Though marked unclassified,
The truth was denied,
And questions kept drifting astray.
Wyden cried foul at the scene,
Saying something was clearly unclean,
With favors bizarre,
And justice ajar,
For allies within the machine.
He warned of a cover concealed,
Of secrets still tightly sealed,
Of power misused,
And facts long refused,
While names in the shadows were shielded.
It echoed a warning before,
From battles in Congress of yore,
When truth was suppressed,
And power was pressed,
To hide what the public should know.
And so through the halls it resounds,
Where silence and secrecy bounds,
That when truth is delayed,
And justice waylaid,
The questions grow louder than sounds.
Disclaimer: Yes, an AI helped write thisbecause if youre looking for pure, hand-crafted literary suffering, youre welcome to go produce some yourself. If you like my attempts, consider clicking the link.
https://buymeacoffee.com/gfarber
pwb
(12,634 posts)Look over here not over there.
yellow dahlia
(5,727 posts)FakeNoose
(41,381 posts)How are these people - connected to Chump and Epstein - also implicated in illegal drugs, sex trafficking or money laundering?

This little graphic is just the beginning, it certainly isn't the entirety. Lock them ALL up!