Friday, September 19, 2025. The Epstien-Maxwell abuse remains a story and applause and credit to Lawrence O'Donnell and PEOPLE magazine even if we can't credit a lot of other people and outlets, the Republicans have made clear to America that they do not side with the survivors and they made that clear in public if anyone was paying attention, Chump's attack on Jimmy Kimmel exposes everything that's wrong with media consolidation, government abuse and Chump The Tyrant himself.
Let's start with Lawrence O'Donnell from last night on MSNBC.
A few comments on the video. When he arrived in England, Donald Chump was sporting natural skin on his face. Yes, his heavily made up hands were to be noted -- and as Marcia's pointed out probably hideous to shake hands with him. But his face was pretty much natural. At some point, Chump needed his make up so it's good he packed it. I always do. Most women do. Good to see Chump's just like most women. How does MAGA handle that, by the way? Their hero in face make up, their vice president in eye liner? And eye MAGA pretends the two wimps are manly.
Donald Chump can't escape his friends Ghislaine Maxwell
and Jeffrey Epstein and this despite one of them being dead (Epstein)
and the other being in prison (Maxwell). Both, like Donald, are
convicted felons and possibly, back in the day, when the three were
fooling so many, they laughed about what they were getting away with?
Now Epstein and Maxwell are forever attached to Donald as though he
stepped on them and can't rub them off the bottom of his shoe.
Wednesday night Lawrence continued to shine a light on the survivors. He did so again last night. In the video above, he highlights a new statement from the survivors and let's put it in text form as well:
Survivors of the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Mawell
We are struggling to understand what this means. Even the limited information that has been made public includes accounts such as Virginia Giuffre's report that Epstein trafficked her to other individuals besides himself.
We are shocked by the testimony of FBI Director Kash Patel before the United States Senate and the House Oversight Committee. Director Patel said that in the FBI's Jeffrey Epstein case fil there is "no credible information, none . . . that he trafficked to other individuals."
We are struggling to understand what this means. Even the limited information that has been made public includes accounts such as Virginia Giuffre's report that Epstein trafficked her to other individuals beside himself. We also understand, as Representative Thomas Massie pointed out during the House Oversight hearing, that the are FBI reports documenting witness interviews in which victims of Epstein and Maxwell named at least 20 other men they were trafficked to.
Director Patel's testimony raises more questions than answers. For years he has railed bout the incompleteness of previous investigations. He is right about that: previous investigations were indeed incomplete. So what is his plan to make sure that a thorough and unbiased investigation is conducted at last?
He seems to acknowledge that the FBI FD-302 reports, naming other men to whom Epstein-Maxwell victims were trafficked, are real. So will he release those reports to the House Oversight Committee and to the public? He seems to imply that officials in previous administrations deemed those reports not to be credible. He has not read the reports himself; he has not spoken to the victims himself; and yet he plans to defer to unnamed officials from prior administrations who treated the reports as not credible? How can this be? Those previous administrations are the ones that Kash Patel spent years accusing of a cover-up. Now he will pass the buck to them to decide that information about other men in the Epstein-Maxwell trafficking ring is not even worth following up on? There are victims and witnesses who to this day, have still not been interviewed. Will they continue to be ignored? Survivors deserve better, and so does the public. We deserve answers to questions like these:
*Do the FBI and the Justice Department have a plan to conduct a proper investigation at last? What is that plan?
*Will you release the FD-302 forms containing witness accounts of men to whom Epstein and Maxwell trafficked women and girls?
*Who were the officials in previous administrations who deemed the FD-302 reports not credible? Why are you deferring to that decision without reading the reports or interviewing the witnesses yourself?
*Given the number of times that survivors of Epstein-Maxwell abuse have been betrayed by the justice system, how will you ensure an unbiased and truth-seeking process that survivors can trust?
Director Patel testified that the "original sin" of the Epstein case was the unconscionable non-prosecution deal that US Attorney Alex Acosta gave Epstein, and the "limited" investigation Acosta conducted.
As head of the FBI, Director Patel can work now to remedy that, in a way that finally centers survivor voices and finally pursues the whole truth. The public demands it; the victims deserve it; and our system of justice without fear or favor requires it. Survivors are waiting.
That's a powerful statement and an important one. We're going to comment on it in a few seconds more but our main comment for right now is that Lawrence highlighted it. In full.
That statements is news. It's news even if the news media ignores it.
Which, for the record, they have. Look for any outlet that covered it.
Did any other print or online outlets cover it. We know Lawrence covered it. But where's THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORK TIMES, DAILY BEAST, go down the list. Jake Tapper did post it to his Instagram
But Chump and FCC chose Wednesday to remind the American people of how government can be weaponized and crimes can be committed as long as you have people to serve you, people like NEXSTAR who have benefitted from media consolidation and want to benefit even more. It's a cautionary tale of how corruption and greed does not benefit democracy. We all saw what a threat they are to the American way.
And the good news there is that Chump's overplaying his hand and accelerating his own political demise.
My problem was Friday morning. How do I cover the Wednesday hearing?
Ari did a great job on MSNBC covering the hearing.
Republicans
on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted against four
efforts from Democrats to subpoena records related to the late convicted
sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Note: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was the only Republican on the House Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of the motions.
One
of the four efforts was made by Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine
Crockett (D-TX), who filed a motion to subpoena the director of Bureau
of Prisons to testify and answer questions regarding the recent transfer
of Epstein’s former partner, convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell,
from a prison in Florida to a lower security facility in Texas.
[NOTE:
Maxwell was transferred after being interviewed by President Donald
Trump‘s deputy attorney general Todd Blanche (Trump’s former personal
criminal defense attorney). The Department of Justice has not opened a
new investigation into the Epstein case or Maxwell, who is currently
serving a 20-year sentence.]
The House
Republicans who voted to table Crockett’s motion to subpoena the Bureau
of Prisons director, also voted against Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlan‘s
(D-PA) motion to subpoena “suspicious activity reports related to
Epstein and Maxwell.”
Chump can't pull free of them but Republicans in Congress can certainly run interference for him. Why is that?
Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Jim Jordan Has More Free Time." US House Rep Jim Jordan sits in the locker room
looking off in the distance while declaring, "Eye on the prize. Eye on
the prize." One man by the lockers points out, "Jim Jordan is staring
right into the boys' showers." The second man explains, "At this point,
with his Alexander Smirnov embarrassment, he figures what does he have to lose?" Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS.
If I'm covering it and especially if I'm covering it late, I need to pick up something no one's noting about the hearing.
And fortunately, there is so much corruption in the Republican Party that I'm able to do that.
The American people and the survivors need to understand that the Republicans in Congress -- with few exceptions -- are trying to trick them, trying to deceive them.
It's happening right in front of our eyes and no one's noting it.
Wednesday's hearing was a sham.
Right before our eyes.
I'm really
not sure why someone who is currently and actively accused of covering
up the sexual abuse of young men is allowed to preside over a hearing
about the sexual abuse of girls and young women. Can someone explain
that to me?
What Jim Jordan has
done is say that the survivors are lying. I'm referring to the
survivors, the college males, who say he covered up and enabled their
abuse. I'm referring to the brother of a survivor that Jordan called
and begged him -- to the point of crying on the phone -- to publicly say
that his own brother was lying.
These are serious accusations and they have not been dismissed. So why the hell is he allowed to preside over this.
I
would argue it's a conflict of interest. But you can give him the
benefit of the doubt and pretend that all the male survivors are lying.
You can do that. Even if you do, though? It's still the appearance of
a conflict of interest.
MAGA,
you clung to Chump because he and the Republican Party was going to
ensure justice for children and young adults who were the victims of
sexual abuse.
But
Republicans in the House are letting this Committee be chaired by a man
accused of enabling the abuse of young men -- of enabling it for years
and of denying his enabling.
He shouldn't be on this Committee, let alone serving as Chair. It is a clear conflict of interest.
And
it's a lot worse -- Jordan's alleged involvement -- than what you've
heard of in the press.
Fortunately, HBO started airing a strong, new documentary last week
SURVIVING OHIO STATE. The documentary about the assault and abuse of
male athletes at Ohio State for several decades is produced by Eva
Orner (who also directed), David Glasser, George Clooney, Grant Heslov,
Joshua Rofe and Steven J. Berger.
Survivors talk on
camera about how they were abused and assaulted by Dr Richard Strauss.
They talk about it and they talk about how wrestling coach Russ
Hellickson and assistant coach Jim Jordan knew about the abuse and
laughed at it and looked the other way. Multiple players discuss how
they went to Hellickson and asked him to stand with them as they went
public and he said he would. But Jim wouldn't. Jim was now US House
Rep Jim Jordan. Suddenly, Russ wanted nothing to do with the men that
he had hailed as his sons and Jim was too busy doing things like calling
one of the accusers brothers up on the phone and begging him -- in
tears -- to come forward and accuse his brother of lying in order to
save Jim's reputation.
Watching, we were reminded of a
man who was the envy of a huge number of straight men at one point
because of whom he was married to. The man who is still alive was a
college athlete in another state in an earlier time and he was pimped
out to men. He even managed to turn it into a career starter. And he
was happy to do it because he says he's bi (he's gay). He'll be dead
soon and he'll die a disgrace (he's already disgraced himself once this
year).
He was able to get away with his act because of
attitudes about gay people. He didn't seem gay, right? And athletes
are big and strong.
Male.
Male athletes are
meat. That's the attitude. They can endure anything. They can take
being ripped off by universities that basically own their bodies for
four years. They can take this and that. And nobody better ever
complain because you're not supposed to think, you're supposed to be an
animal -- on the field and off.
"Our coaches knew," one survivor
explains in the new documentary. Another explains, "We had guys
complaining about Dr. Strauss to Jim Jordan."
A female coach did take it seriously and did lodge complaints and concerns about what Strauss was doing with the young men.
What was he doing?
"One of the wrestlers said, 'Dude, why does this guy have to constantly check our nuts, check our dicks."
Another
explains how Jim Jordan at one point says, "If he ever did that to me,
I'd snap his neck like a stick of dry balsa wood."
At other times, the future member of Congress downplayed it. He told one wrestler, "It's Strauss. You know what he does."
And
this came in reply to the wrestler complaining that the team doctor was
now in the locker room with the team, taking showers with the team,
masturbating in the showers.
He was allowed a locker in every
male team's locker room. He took several showers a day. When he would
shower, he wouldn't turn to the wall where the nozzle was, he'd put his
back to the wall so he could study the young males. As one survivor
explains, "He's showering three times a day. He's sporting erections.
He's masturbating."
And Jim Jordan and Russ Hellickson looked the
other way. They were supposed to protect the students. They were
legally obligated to protect them -- in loco parentis. They failed.
And, years later, they won't grow the hell up and admit that they failed
these men.
They always knew and they looked the other way.
A
survivor explains he goes to Strauss and tells the doctor, "'My foot is
sore. My foot is sore.' And the first thing he says to me is 'Drop
your trousers'." Another explains, "I got in there and showed him my
bleeding ear and the first thing Dr Strauss said was, 'Drop your
shorts'."
Documentaries, when they're truthful, can make a
difference. The Ohio State athletes never really had their day in the
court of public opinion because this was the first case that really
addressed how colleges and universities prey on young men. They make
millions off them but will dump them in a minute due to a sports'
injury. The survivors of Strauss talk about being on scholarships and
how Strauss and his 'physicals' decided whether or not they played.
We're not used to seeing the college 'beasts' as potential victims.
They had that wall to break through with this scandal.
Their stories are consistent and address what they witnessed and what they experienced.
That's
the great thing about truth -- it usually comes out. Sometimes it
comes out too late. Sometimes, it's dismissed initially. But it does
usually come out and it slowly leaks into our national consciousness and
national conversation.
That piece struck a chord with a lot of readers. Among those who responded? Several survivors of that college abuse scandal. We followed up some of those e-mails with phone calls. The allegations are much worse
against Jim Jordan than what the press has covered.
But
grasp that even with what has been covered, Jordan is accused of
breaking the law. It was his duty to protect these young males and he
knew about the abuse and refused to protect them. That makes him an
accomplice. Per the law, he is an accomplice to the abuse.
And Republicans in the House are letting him not only sit on this Committee but also chair it?
The survivors, in fact the entire American public, needs to grasp what is going down.
A hearing asking question about sexual abuse is being chaired by someone accused of covering sexual abuse. Reminder, in July, Corky Siemaszko (NBC NEWS) reported:
Rep.
Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the Republican Party’s top inquisitors in
Congress, is expected to be deposed Friday about allegations that he
failed to protect the wrestlers he once coached at Ohio State University
from a sexual predator, four plaintiffs in lawsuits against the
university told NBC News.
Jordan, who was the
assistant wrestling coach at the university from 1986 to 1994 before he
got into politics, has repeatedly and publicly denied any knowledge that
the team’s doctor, Richard Strauss, was preying on the athletes.
It
will be the first time Jordan has be questioned under oath by lawyers
representing hundreds of former OSU students, both athletes and
nonathletes, who are suing the school for damages in federal court in
the Southern District of Ohio. Jordan is not a defendant, but he is
referred to in some of the lawsuits alleging he was aware of the abuse.
If you want the answers in a hearing, you don't put someone accused of covering up the same sort of crimes.
You only do that, if you want a cover up.
He should not be allowed to chair these hearings nor, for that matter, even sit in on them. It's a clear ethical violation.
Here's
another reminder. Coaches can't hide behind "horseplay." If they
physically touch a player in an inappropriate way, they can't hide
behind "horseplay." If a player were to have told Jordan specifically
what the doctor was doing and Jordan had laughed and ran his hands along
the male's crotch saying "Like this?," "horseplay" wouldn't excuse
that.
I'm sure Jim never let it go that far, right? That he didn't
just observe but also participated? Because Jim laying his hands on a
boy's crotch would have been participating. We all get that, right?
And surely the answer to that would be no, right?
He
needs to be kicked off the Committee immediately. It's already an
insult to the survivors of Epstein and Maxwell that he's been on the
Committee so far but a line needs to be drawn in the sand immediately
that, going forward, he doesn't chair any committee on Epstein, Maxwell
or sexual abuse.
Failure to draw that line is the GOP making clear that they don't really care about going after abusers and pedophiles.
The Jimmy Kimmel story remains an important one. Chump's actions are illegal and an abuse of the office. This is a story of how media consolidation hurts us all (NEXSTAR already has too many stations -- so many that announcing it won't carry a program can get the program cancelled). It's a story of reality -- the 'cancellers' are almost always right-wingers. Ask Morgan Fairchild if the left was screaming for FLAMINGO ROAD to be pulled from the airwaves? (No, it wasn't it was the right-wing 'Moral' Majority.) And, again, Chump's overreach is exposing him for the tyrant he truly is.
