-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
"How do you spell ICE in German? GESTAPO."
"First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me."
Pastor Martin Niemoeller (c. 1946)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Periodically, I have been publishing columns on what I call "Trump's Magic Tricks" (first there were six, then seven) since 2020. Given what has been happening as Trump tries to deal with (wriggle out of is a better way to put it) the Jeffrey Epstein, shall we politely call it, situation, most of them have come back into play for him. Thus, it would seem to be a good time to review them. But, before we delve into that matter, there are just a few observations to be made on the current situation.
A. Trumps name is obviously in the Epstein files, for if it were not, a) they (whatever they is) would have been released a long time ago, just as the Attorney General had promised.
B. It has been publicly announced that numerous FBI agents had been assigned to the task of going through them (and man, they must be extensive) redacting Trumps name along with others. (Which others and for what purpose, who knows?) For some reason this apparently had to be done by hand. A search engine, even a sophisticated one, couldnt be assigned to the task.
C. C. Then there is The Wall Street Journal, of all institutions, saying that they have in hand an apparently juicy letter from Trump to Jeffrey Epstein that was included in a collection of them (apparently organized by none other than Ghislaine Maxwell) that was presented to Epstein on his 50th birthday. Trump promptly sued (see Magic Trick No. 3, below). Within a couple of days, Larry O'Donnell, the very astute 10 O'clock Commentator on MSNBC, was noting that there was no chance that Trump would, or could, ever pursue the suit for right up front he would have to submit to being interviewed by the parties being sued (that is The Journal and Rupert Murdoch, personally), under oath (oops). Since Trump obviously has something(s) to hide, that is of something that he could never do, for obvious reasons. And lo and behold, just now, on August 6th, the date for Trumps deposition was postponed (apparently indefinitely). It was stated that the request for the postponement was made by the Murdoch side, but one can safely assume that that was Murdoch just offering Trump a courtesy.
D. In my view, release of Trump/Epstein information has a significance beyond what Trump did or did not do over the years with Jeffrey Epstein et al. Rupert Murdoch is a very prominent member of the U.S. ruling class, and the Journal is a very prominent spokes-institution for it. Remember, Murdoch, and in particular FOX News, played a major role in getting Trump elected in 2016. It would seem then that the ruling-class wing to which Murdoch belongs is now turning against Trump, for a variety of reasons, beginning with The Tariffs, with which Trump plays with like a personal toy.
E. Then there are the actions that either don't make any sense in the real world, like firing the Director of the Bureau Labor Statistics because a jobs report came out wrong, for Trump, or his ongoing attempt to replace the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board because under his leadership the Board will not lower interest rates. (Of course, if the economy were in the shape that Trump would like it to be in [and paradoxically repeatedly claims that it is in], Trump would not be going after lowering the rates.)
F. And then there is the "Putin Problem." For quite some time, I, and many others to be sure, have been writing on What Putin has on Trump plus other, shall we say, embarrassing issues that are out on pubic.
Here is a brief review of five of the most prominent matters:
1. There is Trump's very long, very secretive relationship with Deutsche Bank, which ended abruptly, and his personal banker there was fired by the Bank. There are many public suspicions of, shall we say, impropriety, but apparently no full investigation of what Trump undertook over the years with the Bank has ever been done. But again, one can be sure that if there were "Improprieties," Putin has evidence of them.
2. Then of course, there is the matter of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, details of which are spelled out in the "Mueller Report." Although the Mueller team was never able to get to Trump, they did get to numbers of his election-campaign-associates, some of whom went to prison for various offenses. Those materials are in the U.S. records, but surely Putin has copies. (Trump is trying to make this a case against Obama and his administration. It has no factual basis, but that has never stopped Trump in the past. Why he would go after Jim Comey, who gave him the 2016 election on a silver platter (see my OpEdNews column for November 2, 2016), is another matter.)
3. Next there is what happened, or not, at the famous 2018 "Helsinki meeting."
Trump made no bones about having the notes of the interpreter for him at that meeting destroyed. But surely Putin had his own interpreter-made notes too, and he has those. (That's the meeting where, in answer to a question by MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire, Trump said that he trusted Russian Intelligence more than US.)
4. Then there are Julian Assange, Roger Stone and the "DNC tapes" (which purported to show how the DNC at least attempted to rig the primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton).
5. Of the financial crimes for which Trump already has been convicted, Putin could have evidence of other similar events (and why should one think that Trump committed onlythe particular one for which he was convicted).
For quite some time, I and many others have assumed that Trump would not go after Putin, or even mildly confront him, over, say, the Invasion of Ukraine. But all of a sudden Trump has changed his tune on that one. One has to wonder why. Does Trump now have something on Putin, or does Trump feel that in his second term he doesn't have to worry about such matters. Time will tell on this one.
And now we turn to a brief review of the Seven Magic Tricks.
1. He has always had one or more protectors and enablers, either personal, or financial or both.
2. For decades he has had a standard operating procedure when he faces an adversary of any kind. He learned it from Roy Cohn (who learned it from Joe McCarthy): "Always attack; Never defend." A more recent variant is: "Look. Over there."
3. Also learned from Roy Cohn is the mantra: "when you run into a problem,just sue." You may not win, and it may cost you some money. But a) you might win, and b) with the endlessness with which civil litigation can be drawn out in the U.S. legal system, the other side may just get worn out (or run out of money for lawyers' fees [which Trump, for one reason or another, never seemed to do]).
4. In the whole of his business life, Trump has never been responsible to anyone else, either above him (except for Dad, of course) or even alongside. Making the strategic decisions himself, he has still been able to escape from one legal (and other) scrape after another, if he has had a protector/enabler (see 1. above), also known as the "fixer," on his own.
5. Trump has lived his life surrounded by enemies, whether in business, in his personal life, in his banking and financial life (except for a select few, like Deutsche Bank), certainly in politics, and not just at this time. He has thrived on that state-of-being. In dealing with his enemies/adversaries, as he told us in the "Art of the Deal," the key to winning for him has never been the actual deal-making, but rather attempted opponent-crushing. Real negotiation is just not his thing.
6. Trump is history's greatest con man(a subject to which I have devoted a previous column).
7. To which list I more recently added a Seventh: "Oh woe is me; everyone's againstme, and it's so unfair[!]"
Very briefly, for now, here is a collection of some of the tricks that are still working for him, but perhaps less effectively.
He is using Always attack; Never defend just about every day now. Is the steam starting to go out of that one?
Certainly, he is using just sue to a fare-thee-well. But again, as illustrated by the fact that his suit against Murdoch can go nowhere because of the he [Trump] cant testify at the required deposition problem, over time that one will become less useful.
He still is responsible to no-one else, but this seems to be beginning to wear thin on some of his major business-class supporters (again see Murdoch and those in the ruling class with whom he is allied).
He certainly is surrounded by enemies, a state of being in which he thrives.
More and more, he is using No. 7, woe is me. But that one has a limited shelf-life.
Of course, there's the History's Greatest Con Man thing. He hasn't lost that title yet. But Con Men need cons that work. He still has some, like "the 2020 election was stolen from me" But many of his most vocal supporters have been riding the Epstein Files con for years now. And all of a sudden Trump can't use it because he is so obviously in it (them). The "con" list is getting shorter, and it is the Epstein (who?) con that might in the end bring him down.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post-note on a thought on the 25th Amendment and a noted high-level meeting
Clause Four of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution says:
Whenever the Vice-President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice-President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
The Vice-President does have an office on the Senate side of the Capitol. Was it simply the size of the guest list that caused the August 6, 2025 meeting of the V-P with certain Cabinet secretaries to be held at the Vice-Presidents official residence? Or was there another possible reason why an attempt would be made to keep such a meeting, with the Vice-President but without the President, out of the public eye. Time, as they say, will tell.
(Article changed on Aug 08, 2025 at 9:56 AM EDT)
Post Article Comment and Rate This Article
