Newsmax’s distraction efforts regarding Donald Trump’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein turned to emphasizing a former president. John Gizzi speculated in an Aug. 6 article:
Hours after former President Bill Clinton received a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday morning regarding his history with the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, speculation mounted in the press and among Clinton watchers that he would decline to comply and not testify before the committee.
Were the 42nd president to do so, he would follow in the path of two of four former presidents who were subpoenaed and rejected an order to testify before a congressional committee.
On Nov. 14, 2022, Donald Trump defied a subpoena from the House committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
An Aug. 10 article by Brian Freeman hyped:
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer is insistent on making Bill and Hillary Clinton testify before the panel after it voted to subpoena the couple concerning the Jeffrey Epstein saga, the Kentucky Republican told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
The congressman said “if the Clintons try to fight this subpoena, which we presume they will,” the committee’s efforts will be helped tremendously in court by the fact that the vote was bipartisan.
Comer said that “the American people want to know what went on at Epstein island … we know that Bill Clinton went there many times. We just want to ask him what he saw when he was there and who all was involved.”
Freeman did not question why Comer did not subpoena Trump — which would seem to contradict his assertion on Newsmax TV a few days earlier that he’s “serious” about the investigation.
Newsmax then fixated on another side issue in an Aug. 13 article by Michael Katz:
First lady Melania Trump has threatened to sue Hunter Biden for more than $1 billion after he suggested that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to President Donald Trump.
[…]Melania Trump’s Florida-based attorney Alejandro Brito wrote a scathing letter to Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell demanding that Biden “immediately retract the false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” he made about the first lady, the New York Post reported Wednesday.
“Failure to comply will leave Mrs. Trump with no choice but to pursue any and all legal rights and remedies available to her to recover the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that you have caused her to suffer,” wrote the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Fox News.
The next day, the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy followed by noting that “Hunter Biden offered a blunt expletive in saying he will not apologize to first lady Melania Trump over comments involving disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,” and Nicole Weatherholtz stated that Trump said “that he supports first lady Melania Trump’s moving ahead with her threat to sue former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden over comments that she is linked to deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”
Katz returned for an Aug. 22 article trying to further distance Trump from Epstein:
Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell has told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that she never witnessed anything untoward in President Donald Trump’s friendship with the convicted sex offender and never heard of any allegations that Trump acted inappropriately — “absolutely never, in any context.”
Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in federal prison in Texas and is actively seeking a pardon, also said she didn’t see Trump in any massage setting at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida or at Epstein’s house.
Given that Blanche used to be Trump’s personal attorney — something Katz didn’t disclose — it’s unclear how much weight that claim holds.
This got emphasized in an Aug. 22 TV appearance by this guy:
Roger Stone, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, told Newsmax Friday that newly released documents related to Jeffrey Epstein confirm his long-standing position that the president had no improper ties to the late financier and sex offender.
“It’s an absurdity,” Stone told “Finnerty.” “Look, we had all this information in 2015. I had Epstein’s phone book. Not everyone in the phone book is guilty of inappropriate or illegal behavior. But his butler did circle the names of those he said were involved in pedophilia or were witnesses.”
He said Trump “has nothing to fear from full disclosure,” adding that unsealed transcripts from Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for her role in his activities, showed that she denied Trump was involved in inappropriate conduct during her questioning by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Given Stone’s legacy of sleazy politics (not to mention his affinity for swinging), he may not be the best person to defend Trump on this.