Tuesday, October 21, 2025

The Snapshot

Tuesday, October 21, 2025.  Chump and his never ending lies.


Last night, at the top of her MSNBC show, Rachel Maddow reported on Saturday's NO KINGS protests.



Now let's move over to the Epstein-Maxwell scandal since it's been a couple of days since we covered it.  Both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were friends of Donald Chump.  Back then, the two were active pedophiles and sex traffickers.  Just Donald's type of people, right?  Epstein and Maxwell were both convicted of their crimes at separate times.  Epstein is said to have killed himself in prison.  Maxwell went on the run but was eventually caught, tried and sentenced to 20 years.   Amanda Marcotte (SALON) notes how Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson continues to run interference for Chump (at the expense of the country):

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is lying. Yes, I know. Writing that is like writing “cats are furry” or “it’s pumpkin spice season.” But the current purpose of the lie is even more depraved than we usually get from this self-proclaimed beacon of Christian morality. The purpose is silencing the victims of infamous child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged fellow abusers. Worse, it’s all done to protect President Donald Trump, a man who was already found by a civil jury in New York to have sexually abused journalist E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room.
The Louisiana Republican has already gone to great lengths to make sure FBI files chronicling the alleged misdeeds of Epstein and his associates never see the light of day. In July, Johnson started the House’s summer recess early to avoid Democrats bringing up a bill that would force the Justice Department to release the voluminous files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The reason for Johnson’s action wasn’t mysterious. Trump, whom Epstein called his “closest friend,” is reportedly in the files. According to a lewd birthday message attributed to Trump by the Wall Street Journal — that was leaked by House Democrats — Trump wrote to his longtime buddy, “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.”
There is allegedly more. During Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent Senate hearing, for instance, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked about “photos of President Trump with half-naked young women.” Bondi refused to answer.
Now Johnson has found another excuse to block a House vote to release the Epstein files: The government shutdown. The speaker has adjourned the House and refused to seat Rep.-Elect Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., blaming the shutdown — despite the fact that the Senate is still open and holding votes. Grijalva has pledged to be the deciding vote on a discharge petition to release the Epstein files. In comments to the Arizona Republic, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., was blunt in assessing the situation: “Speaker Johnson is protecting pedophiles. That’s what this is all about.”

Johnson has denied the charge, but his pattern of behavior is clear. He knows that if Trump turns against him, he would likely lose the speakership. Hiding the Epstein files appears to be Johnson’s first priority, even above reopening the government so federal employees can be paid.

The whole country knows that Johnson is covering for Chump.  He's never been interested in serving the people of his state, let alone the people of the country.  Katie Francis (DAILY BEAST) notes:

The House Speaker was grilled on This Week Sunday about why Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva has waited weeks to be sworn in—with some suggesting the delay is because the Democrat plans to force a vote on the Epstein files.
After first saying that Chuck Schumer and the government shutdown were responsible for the slowness, the House Speaker then blamed Nancy Pelosi.

“This is the way the institution works. I’m following the Pelosi precedent, by the way,” he said.

“When my dear friend from Louisiana, Julia Letlow, was elected to fill the seat of her deceased husband because of Covid, Nancy Pelosi took 25 days to swear her in.”

“Are you saying that Nancy Pelosi refused to swear her in earlier?” host Jonathan Karl asked, as Johnson insisted that the long wait was normal.
The ABC host added: “Because my understanding is that was the date that actually the representative-elect, Letlow at the time, requested—”

Johnson tried to divert the conversation to “some more examples” of delayed ceremonies, but Karl remained focused on logistics.

After Johnson doubled down on his claim that the so-called “Pelosi precedent” justified the delay, Karl pressed him on what some might see as a Republican double standard.
“And what about the Johnson precedent?” he asked. “You swore in two Republicans the day after their election—”

Johnson didn’t address GOP Reps. Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis, who were both sworn in while the House was out of session in April. Instead, he deflected back to Pelosi, citing his own examples.

“Pat Ryan, Joe Sempolinski. They were elected during an August recess, so 21 days later when the house returned to legislative session, they were administered the oath. That’s what we’re doing,” he said, adding that Grijalva would be sworn in “as the Democrats decide to turn the lights back on.”


MSNBC last night. found Jonathan Capehart sitting in for Lawrence O'Donnell on THE LAST WORD.



Though Chump has dismissed those people preyed upon by Epstein and Maxwell  (there's at least one man who is known to have been targeted but there are said to be at least 19 more) as a "hoax," they are not a hoax.  They are real.  In Virginia Giuffre's case, she was real.  And though she has passed away, her book is released in the US today.  Becca Longmire (PEOPLE) notes:

Virginia Giuffre said she believed she might "die a sex slave" as she opened up about her alleged sexual encounters with Jeffrey Epstein and his circle in her forthcoming posthumous memoir.
In an excerpt published by the BBC from her forthcoming memoir Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, Giuffre — who died by suicide on April 25 of this year at age 41 — spoke in detail about having sex with Epstein and his alleged sex trafficking.

Giuffre wrote that the girls were required to look "childlike," alleging that her childhood eating disorder was "only encouraged" under Epstein's roof, per the BBC.

"In my years with them, they lent me out to scores of wealthy, powerful people," she said, adding, "I was habitually used and humiliated - and in some instances, choked, beaten and bloodied."

"I believed that I might die a sex slave," Giuffre wrote.

Again, the book is out today in the US.  Covering it, Victoria Richards (INDEPENDENT) adds:

Giuffre, before her tragic suicide in April, had been trying to speak out for years about the horrors she’d experienced at the hands of the late paedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein, who “sold” her to powerful men when she was just a teenager. We witnessed her long, difficult fight for justice against the establishment – including the settling in 2022 of a sexual assault lawsuit against Prince Andrew, whom she said had had sex with her when she was just 17 (and on two other occasions), though he has always vehemently denied having done anything wrong.

We saw her fight for other women, too – for fellow survivors of sex trafficking. And we watched her get torn down, every single time. We heard the men who spoke about her with such contempt deny ever having met her, before dismissing her testimony out of hand; we read the painful details shared by her family, as they described how she’d faced financial ruin and received death threats for working with the authorities against Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who hired her as a masseuse when she was only 16. Giuffre later alleged in a lawsuit that she was first abused by Epstein and Maxwell together before being “lent out to other powerful men”, including Prince Andrew.



To get her to comply and never reveal these horrors, all Epstein had to do was let her know he knew where her little brother went to school. (And he showed her a photo proving it.) 

I find this claim believable because someone I know recounted a story from one of his attorneys in a business-related lawsuit against Epstein. He described how during a phone conversation, Epstein mentioned having seen the attorney’s children crossing the street, and warned him to be extra careful so nothing would happen to them.

Back to Giuffre’’s claims: Epstein also bragged that he “owned the Palm Beach police department.” (Manipulating Giuffre was easy: At the age of seven, she had already been molested by a family friend.) Giuffre sued Maxwell and Epstein and became an advocate for other survivors. She committed suicide in April, at the age of 41. 

Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice seems to be mentioned all over the place — The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, PBS, CBS, etc. — and it has got to be one of Donald Trump’s worst nightmares, assuming he can even fall asleep. 
Because it’s bound to make more and more people demand to see the Epstein files. And to see just how he — Trump — is mentioned

From the grave, Giuffre powerfully challenges the idea that all those famous people hanging out with Epstein had no inkling what he was up to:

Don’t be fooled by those in Epstein’s circle who say they didn’t know what he was doing. Epstein not only didn’t hide what was happening, he took a certain glee in making people watch. And people did watch — scientists, fundraisers from the Ivy League and other heralded institutions, titans of industry. They watched and they didn’t care.

Epstein and Maxwell are human trash (Epstein was, of course, thankfully dead now) and so are those around him including Chump, including Alex Acosta who created the original sweethear deal in 2007 along with human trash Matthew Menchel.  TAMPA BAY TIMES reports:

Jeffrey Epstein had multiple appointments, phone calls and dinners with Matthew Menchel — the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office chief criminal prosecutor who spearheaded Epstein’s sweetheart deal in 2007, newly released documents show.

A tranche of over 8,500 pages of records from Epstein’s estate — released by the House Oversight Committee Friday — show that Epstein’s calendars and emails reflect that Menchel, who left the DOJ in 2007, had multiple meetings or dinners with Epstein in 2011, 2013 and 2017. Lawmakers also referred to a photograph of Menchel on a ski trip with Epstein sometime in the 2000s, but didn’t produce the photo.


Seems like Matthew Menchel needs to lose his license.  Disagree? Here's another detail from the report:
 

In its coverage of the case, the Herald raised questions about Menchel’s role in negotiating the deal. Besides Acosta and Menchel, the case was overseen by prosecutors Jeffrey Sloman, Andrew Lourie and Ann Marie Villafaña.

The Herald found that Villafaña, the lead line prosecutor, drafted an 82-page prosecution memo directed to Acosta, his deputy, Sloman, and Menchel, who was then head of the criminal division. In the memo, she proposed a 60-count indictment of Epstein on sex trafficking charges.

A subsequent probe by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) later found that its child exploitation division in Washington reviewed Villafana’s materials, offered to work with her and called the memo “exhaustive” and “well done.”

Acosta would later tell federal investigators he could not recall ever reading her memo, and that he relied on Menchel and others to know the details of the case. Acosta testified that he never met Epstein or his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking and abuse. In his comments before the committee, Acosta also reiterated that he trusted Menchel, who proposed the plea deal with Epstein’s lawyers.

An OPR report issued in 2020 describes how Villafaña became angry in July 2007, when Menchel explained to her in an email that he had offered the deal to Epstein lawyer Lilly Sanchez, the only woman involved in Epstein’s defense. Villafaña felt it was an end-run around her, the report said.

The report also noted that Menchel had dated Sanchez, should have informed his bosses about it and probably should have been recused from the case.

Acosta was asked about Menchel at least 17 times during his testimony before the House Oversight Committee. He indicated that he had not been aware that Menchel had a prior romantic relationship with one of Epstein’s lawyers and that Menchel should have told him so that they could have discussed whether there was a conflict of interest.


They cover up for their own.  Just like Mike Johnson and Donald Chump are doing today.

 


 
 

 


 

 

Let's move on to another topic.  We know Chump lies, the entire administration is, in fact, incapable of telling the truth.  Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart (REUTERS) write, "The U.S. last month started a campaign of attacks in the Caribbean that the Trump administration has described as 'a non-international armed conflict' against narco-terrorism. Yet legal experts aren't surprised that the U.S. government opted against using the term 'prisoners of war' to describe the two survivors of a Thursday attack by the U.S. military on a semi-submersible vessel. Rather than holding them, the United States sent them back to their home countries, U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday. The move, which was first reported by Reuters, suggests that for now U.S. officials don't want to grapple with legal issues surrounding military detention for any alleged drug traffickers captured during the Caribbean operations, legal experts said."

That should raise real suspicion. If they are drug runners, why let them go?  If they are.  Most likely?  They're not. Terrence McCoy, Ana Herrero and Samantha Schmidt (WASHINGTON POST) report:

Two family members of the 11 men killed in September in the first attack acknowledged by Trump did not deny that the men aboard had been taking marijuana and cocaine from Venezuela to Trinidad. But they said Trump’s allegation in his announcement was inaccurate that they’d worked for the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

The Trump administration’s justification for blowing up suspected drug traffickers off the Venezuelan coast has been clear and consistent: These people aren’t just criminals; they’re “narco-terrorists” smuggling a “deadly weapon poisoning Americans” at the behest of terrorist organizations.
“We take them out,” Trump told the nation’s three- and four-star generals and admirals last month. “Every boat kills 25,000 on average — some people say more. You see these boats, they’re stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentanyl and other drugs, too.”

Claiming the power to summarily kill traffickers as though they’re enemy troops, Trump has authorized the U.S. military to strike at least six speedboats the administration has deemed suspicious, killing dozens of people since the beginning of September. At least half of the strikes and 21 of the killings, locals say, have transpired in the waters between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago — nations so close that on clear days they’re within eyesight of each other.

But records and interviews with 20 people familiar with the route or the strikes, including current and former U.S. and international officials, contradict the administration’s claims. The passage, they said, is not ordinarily used to traffic synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, present in 69 percent of drug overdose deaths last year. Nor are the drugs typically headed for the United States.

Lies is all Chump ever serves up.  Back to the article:

“I knew them all,” said one of the family members, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “None of them had anything to do with Tren de Aragua. They were fishermen who were looking for a better life” by smuggling contraband.

On Tuesday, Trump said, a new strike had killed “six male narco-terrorists” off the Venezuelan coast. That afternoon, one mother in the Trinidadian community of Las Cuevas received a call from her brother, a fisherman. Her son Chad Joseph, the second of her six children, had been killed in the explosion.

Speaking by phone Thursday morning, Leonore Burnley was furious. Her son had been deprived a trial. And she’d been deprived of any chance of closure.

“You can’t get the body to bury it,” she said.

Joseph had spent the last three months in Venezuela working odd jobs, Burnley said. He had written her recently to say he would be returning home.

She called Trump’s claim he had been involved in trafficking drugs a lie.





Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday questioned the wisdom and legality of President Donald Trump's policies toward Venezuela and suspected drug dealers coming from its coast.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," the Kentucky Republican again raised concerns about the legality of the Trump administration's strikes on boats that it claims are carrying drug traffickers, as well as the president's statement that the United States might conduct direct attacks on Venezuela's territory.

"When you kill someone, you should know, if you're not at war, not in a declared war, you really need to know someone's name at least," Paul said. "You have to accuse them of something. You have to present evidence. So all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime."

He said that given the distance these boats are from the United States, it's more likely that if there are indeed drug smugglers, they are bringing them to nearby islands such as Trinidad and Tobago, instead of the U.S.

Paul added: "For decades, if not centuries, when you stop people at sea in international waters or in your own waters, you announce that you're going to board the ship and you're looking for contraband, smuggling, or drugs. This happens every day off of Miami. But we know from Coast Guard statistics that about 25 percent of the time the Coast Guard boards a ship there are no drugs. So if our policy now is to blow up every ship we suspect or accuse of drug running, that would be a bizarre world in which 25 percent of the people might be innocent."


Last week, Senator Adam Schiff's office issued the following:

Washington, D.C. —  U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to introduce a War Powers Resolution that would block the use of U.S. Armed Forces to engage in hostilities within or against Venezuela, following reporting that the Trump administration is considering land strikes inside that country.  

“The Trump administration has made it clear they may launch military action inside Venezuela’s borders, and won’t stop at boat strikes in the Caribbean,”said Senator Schiff. “In recent weeks we have seen increasingly concerning movements and reporting that undermine claims that this is merely about stopping drug smugglers. Congress has not authorized military force against Venezuela. And we must assert our authority to stop the United States from being dragged—intentionally or accidentally—into full-fledged war in South America.” 

“I’m extremely troubled that the Trump administration is considering launching illegal military strikes inside Venezuela without a specific authorization by Congress. Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars—especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere,” said Senator Kaine. “If my colleagues disagree and think a war with Venezuela is a good idea, they need to meet their constitutional obligations by making their case to the American people and passing an Authorization for Use of Military Force. I urge every senator to join us in stopping this administration from dragging our country into an unauthorized and escalating military conflict.” 

“The American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or a vote. We ought to defend what the Constitution demands: deliberation before war,” said Senator Paul. 

War Powers Resolutions are privileged, meaning that the Senate will be required to promptly consider and vote upon the resolution. 

Today’s resolution comes shortly after Schiff and Kaine introduced a similar measure focused on repeated and ongoing strikes in the southern Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration has carried out without congressional authorization, killing dozens of unknown individuals. That measure gained bipartisan support but fell two votes short of passage. 

Full text of the legislation is available here

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Chump's lying.  He's so desperate to lie as Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes in the video above, he's pimping photos of another drug bust from over a year ago as photos of a ship attacked in the last weeks.  He's a liar.

 







The following sites updated: