97 Comments
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Jessica's avatar

Fantastic interview, Bill. I didn’t care about this issue until I listened to your POV and this interview. Thank you!

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HOWARD LEBAN's avatar

Ken Starr is the devil.

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Roger M. Moery's avatar

Just saying this again. Bill is incoherent most of the time. He can’t be in a speaking part. He also is just like most of the poor interviewers. He talks on and on and on about his thoughts. Good interviewers (and there are almost none) do their homework ask short open ended questions and STFU!

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ABT's avatar

Is this how they set the stage to exit Trump and install JD? They’ve planned all this and will use Trump up to the point they don’t need him. There will be some pretense to make the switch.

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ABT's avatar

But now nothing that this administration releases can ever be trusted. Nor could anything released in the future. They’ve tainted it all too badly.

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Ann K's avatar

This was excellent. Kudos to Julie for excellent reporting and for reminding us that the outrage should be on behalf of the victims!

Mishandling a case of this scale, possibly due to influence, is a big deal. As she says, that is not a conspiracy theory! Also: the coroner did not think it was a suicide?!?! Buried the lead there!

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Sheila Montoya's avatar

Victims have named Trump

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severn's avatar

i've sort of been ignoring this story ... why?

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Elizabeth Caran's avatar

I'm sure there's a lot of financial crimes committed by Epstein and his friends. As Julie Brown says 'follow the money.....I believe Trump knew Epstein trafficked young girls and he thought it was okay. What Trump doesn't want the public to know is how many rich and powerful men knew about the sex trafficking of young women & did not report his criminality to the police. Many of these men did not engage in sex with young girls but they are complicit by remaining silent.

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Corissa Mattis's avatar

At best

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Richard Yoast's avatar

Really fine interview. What the handling of the case by the Trump puppets shows is that in the end they don't give a damn about the truth, about people who have been hurt and about holding those who do harm accountable. It fits with their over all cynicism about their MAGA supporters who they see as suckers who give them votes and money but should get nothing in return (PT Barnum's " a sucker is born every minute"). Fits right in with the new Republican budget that screws everyone in sight except the billionaire donors. 'There is a list. there is no list. Case closed.' Just believe everything we say and don't worry your heads about the inconsistencies.

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Lynda Roy's avatar

Appreciate this interview. Specifics about the Trump-Epstein relationship will come to light, eventually. With any luck, MAGA chokes on the revelations. But here we are also with the likelihood that the predatory preferences of men across business, politics, and entertainment also come to light. Despicable. Hopefully, this makes a difference. But will it? I am seeing little concern for the girls, young girls, apparently hundreds. What has happened to them? Did they suddenly heal? Did they vanish? Quite a bit of personal, unrecoverable damage was done here. Virginia (Roberts) Giuffre (of Prince Andrew fame) killed herself this year. Maybe the pushback for Dems is to advocate for the victims (even though heroes among them are on the flight logs to Pedo Island). Thanks, Bill. Kudos Julie Brown.

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Catherine Carroll's avatar

Excellent interview! As Bill Kristol's summarizes, Julie Brown deserves amazing credit for the work she did on this case. I'm definitely going to read her book. The odd thing is, and sad thing too because there were so many victims, is that until this latest uproar, most people had probably forgotten all about Epstein. I know I did. I did not know, as Julie Brown points out, that many victims committed suicide. Sexual exploitation and violence against women is so misunderstood and diminished by our legal system (and all legal systems). In Epstein's case, the "women" were often children. A true gut punch if ever there was one. I'm always struck by how inadequate the English language is when discussing this topic.

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Catherine Carroll's avatar

I like this conversation and Julie Brown is clearly an expert on the Epstein case. Many good points have. been made. But, for the Bulwark and Bill Kristal, he is doing a lot of hypothesizing with Julie Brown. Is this the right approach? When you hypothesize like this - does this give new air to the conspiracists? We know Trump is not going to fire Bondi. We also know he should fire her. We know also that Patel and Bongino should take a nose dive. They won't. I like that Julie Brown continues to bring our attention to the injustice the victims have gone through. At the end they are focusing on the victims and the grotesque injustice they have experienced.

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Richard Courtney's avatar

MAGA is overblowing their narrative of why the handling of the events were so conspiratorially corrupt, while missing the point that their revered cult leader is crotch deep in it.

So now all the angry Chihuahuas are chasing the train. Let's hope they catch it.

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Sean's avatar

So, if there's something there, why did Biden's DOJ not act on it?

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James F.'s avatar

Yeah, this is why the right answer is probably "there's nothing there". Plus, you'd think one of the many people involved in the case would start leaking details if there was some grand cover-up. I'm amused by MAGA going insane over all this, but the simplest answer is probably the right one - there was no client list.

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Different drummer's avatar

I made a similar point a few days ago. None of it adds up.

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Robert J Danolfo's avatar

Maybe they had their hands full with the J6 insurrectionists....you think?

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hrlngrv's avatar

Most likely there are several important Republicans AND Democrats in the files/on the list, and no one in power wants the files/list to become public.

Thus bipartisanship in its truest I'LL COVER YOUR ASS, YOU COVER MINE form.

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