What failed as a too-late October surprise last election year has been infused with new life by Elon posting and scrubbing a Trump-Epstein tweet allegation. James Carville is trying to get it to grow legs this time. Might it give Kash Patal a cred headache?
Setting things up, Daily Beast, as noted on election's eve, plus or minus mere days published:
Epstein Showed Me Photos of Trump with Topless Young Women Sitting in His Lap, Claims Author
Jeffrey Epstein showed off photos of Donald Trump with “topless young women” sitting in his lap, the controversial author Michael Wolff has alleged.
[...] They were taken in the “late ’90s” at Epstein’s Palm Beach home, where he victimized dozens of underage girls along with his procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, Wolff said.
Wolff alleged that they were in Epstein’s safe, which the FBI seized when they raided his homes in New York and Palm Beach in July 2019. The massive haul of evidence taken by the feds has never been made public—and while prosecutors disclosed after the raid that they had “hundreds of photos of girls and young women,” they have never offered any more details of them.
“And in some of the pictures, they’re sitting in his lap. I mean, and, and then there’s one I especially remember where there’s a stain, a telltale stain and on the front of Trump’s pants, and the girls are pointing at him and laughing.” Trump separated from his second wife Marla Maples in 1997 and began dating his third wife, Melania, in 1998.
Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump were friends in the 1990s. Now Michael Wolff says that at the time, Trump partied with "topless young women" at Epstein's home.
The Trump campaign hit back at Wolff for the claims, calling him “disgraced.” A campaign spokesperson said in a statement to the Beast, “Michael Wolff is a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics.
“He waited until days before the election to make outlandish false smears all in an effort to engage in blatant election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris. He’s a failed journalist that is resorting to lying for attention
Sources in the Trump camp claimed that he had severed his relationship with Epstein when he learned of allegations that he was a sex trafficker and pointed to his quote: “I was not a fan of Jeffrey Epstein. And you watched people yesterday saying that I threw him out of a club. I didn’t want anything to do with him. That was many, many years ago.”
That's the story. Trump's sued others for defamation and Trump has not sued Wolff.
Carville, here. Days ago. After Elon's tweet show. In that video, Carville references a video of Wolff on camera making the claim, here, mere days before Carville published. Carville seemed careful to phrase the story as allegations, and then some "if true" future guesswork. Etc. View the videos.
None of this is a Crabgrass breaking story. It is a recount of publishing by others.
If true: The FBI might have seized the photos, or they might have been placed elsewhere by Epstein before his latest apprehension and unusual death. Or they might never have been if Wolff is misrecollecting. Being dead, Jeffrey is unavailable to testify should litigation arise, and the law has rules applicable for such situations.
So, a swearing contest between Wolff and Trump, unless the FBI has the goods and if subpoenaed in litigation Patel gives honest disclosure. Who knows? Unless Trump sues.
What does Elon know, and when did he know it?
UPDATE: Somewhere in the video Carville referenced "Polaroid or something" is recalled to have been mentioned by Wolff. If Polaroid, and not deteriorated, they could be proven as not recent AI doctored things, and dated, or so it would be hoped. It could be a point of contention - NOT ME, or DOCTORED IMAGE allegations would be less credible, should Patal's FBI produce something, if it comes to that.
Trump has the option of denial without litigating it. Lame? Sure, but Donald's done and said things before. Or the whole thing blows over.
FURTHER: It seems Wolff is placed to try, should he choose to, a suit claiming he was defamed by the Trump team's denial language, if claiming it is untrue. In the course of any such litigation, the underlying truth of what Wolff has alleged and repeated might be at issue, with the FBI conceivably holding and producing by subpoena evidence, or not. The statute of limitations for defamation tort, wherever, a case could be filed, should not have run since November 2024. The ball's in Wolff's court.
