Newsmax has long worked to distract people from the contents of Jeffrey Epstein’s files, lest he damage President Trump. It did this again in a Nov. 12 article:
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are facing severe backlash after releasing cherry-picked emails involving Jeffrey Epstein that mention President Donald Trump — despite no evidence of wrongdoing.
The release has been blasted by the White House and Republican lawmakers as a “fake narrative” aimed at smearing the president.
The emails, dated years before Trump’s presidency, show Epstein bragging in private exchanges about Trump allegedly telling Ghislaine Maxwell to stop recruiting young women from Mar-a-Lago’s spa.
But Trump never sent, received, or was copied on any of these messages.
[…]White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday condemned the Democrats’ release as a calculated hit job.
“The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump,” Leavitt said.
“The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and ‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited interactions.”
Newsmax called in a right-wing mouthpiece for a Nov. 16 article:
Former Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum told Newsmax on Sunday that he expects the House to move forward with a vote to release all documents tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case, arguing Democrats are using the issue to distract from their lack of policy proposals.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is planning a vote Tuesday on releasing the material, despite concerns that some documents remain sealed by federal judges, and Santorum, a senior policy analyst for Newsmax, said on “Sunday Report” that he expects the measure to pass.
“The Democrats believe this is really important for them to continue to deflect away from the fact that they have nothing really else to offer the American people,” Santorum said.
“So criticizing Donald Trump or somehow implicating Donald Trump and keeping this controversy alive is a good distraction for them,” he added.
Another Nov. 16 article by Jim Thomas also played the distraction card:
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday accused congressional Democrats of using the push to release documents connected to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as “their entire game plan,” asserting the effort is aimed at placing pressure on President Donald Trump and deflecting from other issues.
Johnson’s remarks came in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” in which he repeatedly emphasized what he described as Trump’s clean record.
“President Trump has clean hands. He’s not worried about it. I talk to him all the time. He has nothing to do with this. He’s frustrated that they’re turning it into a political issue,” Johnson said, referencing the document-release efforts.
More articles continued the distraction narrative:
- Rep. Burchett to Newsmax: Transparency? Dems Blocked Epstein File Release
- Bondi Names Prosecutor to Probe Epstein’s Alleged Dem Ties
- New York Post’s Gasparino: Trump Had No Link to Epstein Crimes
- White House: Democrats Hiding From Their Epstein Scandals
- Oversight: Dems Caught Red-Handed in Epstein Hoax
- Rep. Mark Harris to Newsmax: Congress Must Focus on Policy, Not Epstein
And because this is Epstein, Alan Dershowitz is apparently obligated to weigh in, and he did so in a Nov. 18 article by Jim Mishler:
Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School professor emeritus, told Newsmax that Americans deserve to see “both sides of the coin” surrounding any evidence of abuse that may be revealed in the files surrounding sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
[…]He said there is a credibility issue surrounding some who are making claims relating to the files.
He raised that question toward some of the speakers at a Tuesday media briefing.
“All these women were today at a press conference,” Dershowitz said.
“Why wasn’t one of them asked the following question: You say you were abused by people. Who were they?”
“Name them. You don’t have to have records,” he said, “You know who abused you.”
Dershowitz said he was victimized by a false accuser.
Mishler didn’t disclose that Newsmax made a documentary about Dershowitz’s attempts to clear his name.