HINDSIGHT - WRITE SOMETHING WORTH READING ABOUT OR DO SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
ROBERTS HELPED TO KILL DEMOCRACY
How
John Roberts Created the Anti-constitutional Monster Devouring Washington
From ushering in Citizens United to
granting presidents broad immunity, no one in the capital is more responsible
for Donald Trump’s destructive second term than the Supreme Court’s chief
justice.
June 16,
2025
Forgotten in the arc of John Roberts’s nearly two decades
as chief justice of the United States is his role, behind the scenes, to herald
the result in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. No,
he didn’t write the ruling that ushered in our current era of corporations and
billionaires buying the presidency of the United States and other offices. But
he can be credited with moving the chess pieces that made that sweeping
landmark, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, possible.
One version of the story finds Roberts so spooked by an
unpublished dissenting opinion by outgoing justice David Souter that the chief
moved heaven and earth so that that document would never see the light of day.
In it, Souter, a Republican and a big defender of
campaign finance laws, called out Roberts for twisting the Supreme Court’s own
internal rules to arrive at a far-reaching outcome in an otherwise small-bore
dispute—in this case, a decree that the First Amendment places no limits on
so-called “independent” corporate and union expenditures in our elections.
That’s not the legal question the Supreme Court had been
asked to decide. And so other versions of this palace intrigue find Souter
pleading with Roberts, and the rest of the court, to not overrule prior
precedents curbing the influence of money in politics—and to rehear the case so
that those precedents could get a second look and a fresh round of briefing and
argument. Souter got his parting gift: On the final day before the Supreme
Court broke for its summer break in June 2009, Roberts announced that the case
would be reargued at a later hearing. Immediately thereafter, as his last order
of business that day, the chief also announced “with sadness that this is the
last session in which our friend and colleague, Justice David Souter, will be
on the bench with us.” Problem solved. By the next January, Citizens
United would become the law of the land.
“One
element Roberts didn’t foresee was that Trump wouldn’t be the only one with
pitchforks out against judges.”
This is but one data point for how Roberts, more than any
other politician in the United States, has set the stage for Donald Trump’s
disruptive second presidency—one far more destructive than the first, and yet
distinct in kind from any other in modern history in that the president truly
feels unbound. And in advancing an extreme vision of presidential authority,
he’s no longer ruling over Washington and the nation as a lone head of state.
Instead, the executive power, which Article II of the Constitution vests in one president of the United
States, has been freely shared with billionaire and mega-millionaire ruling
partners, Elon Musk chief among them.
Trump’s Cabinet, the wealthiest in history, at least holds
legitimacy in that its members, like Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick, were
approved by the Senate, as the founding document instructs. Not so Musk. The
Tesla and SpaceX chief, who donated a quarter-billion dollars to Trump’s
reelection effort and over time has received tens of billions in government
contracts from a multitude of agencies, operated in a constitutional vacuum,
largely unconstrained by law or rules of ethics. As the leader of the inaptly
named Department of Government Efficiency, which is neither a congressionally
approved department nor efficient by established metrics, Musk—who recently split with the
president—was allowed to wield a breathtaking level of authority over the
executive departments and other agencies he’s beholden to, above and beyond
that of the Cabinet itself.
Much of this unchecked lawlessness is water under the
bridge by now, as judges, save some exceptions, have been too slow to stop the
bleeding or police abuses, whether that be funding cuts Congress never approved
or shocks to the federal workforce. Sensing early on how this unholy alliance
of money and power flew in the face of rules Roberts and his court have erected
for “officers of the United States,” as spelled out in the constitutional text,
a group of Democratic attorneys general cried foul in federal court: “Although
our constitutional system was designed to prevent the abuses of an 18th-century
monarch, the instruments of unchecked power are no less dangerous in the hands
of a 21st-century tech baron.”
One can only wonder what Roberts thinks of a duly elected
chief executive and an unelected de facto prime minister leading the charge on
mass firings across federal agencies, dismantling decades-old departments, and
impounding appropriations that by definition are already the law. Roberts’s own
branch of government is not exempt from DOGE’s intrusions; judges, law clerks,
and court employees have all been put on high alert over the Trump
administration’s documented encroachment even
on day-to-day court operations.
These breaches of the separation of powers, both real and
imagined, and the anti-constitutional monster spreading its tentacles across
Washington, would’ve horrified the
Founders. But that’s yet another consequence of unlimited wealth corrupting our
politics. Democracy gives way to an oligarchy; that, in turn, may buy you a
quasi-monarchy with few guardrails. Roberts and the other justices responsible
for Citizens United may well believe that “independent
expenditures do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,”
as they insisted at the time. The Trump-Musk reign of chaos has put that idea,
fanciful then and now, to rest.
This corrupt bargain should haunt Roberts in other ways.
During the presidential transition, as if anticipating the legal resistance to
the incoming Trump administration, the chief saw the future when he dedicated
his year-end report on
the federal judiciary to the threats to their independence judges face
day-to-day. The report, which doesn’t mention Trump by name, is nonetheless
replete with not-so-veiled allusions to what the president and his supporters
have visited upon judges since he took office—including threats of violence,
intimidation, and disinformation about what individual court rulings mean or
require. “These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic,” he wrote, “must be
soundly rejected.”
Defiance, which has been a theme of the past six months,
hasn’t abated. And that’s because one element Roberts didn’t foresee was that
Trump wouldn’t be the only one with pitchforks out against judges. Musk, other
administration officials, and far-right figures who have grown in influence on
X and in the president’s circle have also joined this high-tech lynching, to
borrow from Clarence Thomas. When an incensed Stephen Miller grossly misrepresented a
Supreme Court ruling that urged the Trump administration to “facilitate” the
release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who had been unlawfully sent
back to a prison in his native El Salvador, that only set the stage for more
defiance by the White House.
In that
case, as in other politically charged cases, Trump has been on the losing side
in the courts. And the more he loses, the fiercer his and his supporters’
attacks on judges get. Indeed, a Reuters investigation in May found that John J.
McConnell Jr. and James Boasberg, chief judges of their respective federal
districts in Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, are top of the list
among federal judges “whose families have faced threats of violence or
harassment after they ruled against the new Trump administration.”
Roberts has tried to turn down the heat to little effect.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not
an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,”
Roberts wrote in a statement in March as Boasberg phobia reached a fever pitch.
“The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” The attacks
didn’t relent. At a portrait unveiling in May
for John D. Bates, a George W. Bush appointee and yet another veteran judge
MAGA has viciously targeted for ruling against Trump, Roberts could be seen
sitting next to Boasberg and other members of the judiciary in
Washington—lending his presence and offering pleasantries in a roomful of
judges at a moment many of them feel under siege.
As it happens, many of these same judges, collectively,
presided over more than 1,000 prosecutions related to the January 6
insurrection at the Capitol. Then, as now, they’ve had to contend with an
emboldened right-wing fever swamp, led by the president of the United States,
that casts the rioters as political prisoners. The nation has Roberts to thank,
in part, for this attempt to rewrite the history of the assault on our
democracy: The chief led the way not only in granting Trump broad immunity over
his actions and inactions on that day; he also shielded him from the
insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment by blocking a bid by Colorado voters
to bar him from the ballot. Had Roberts not maneuvered to defang that
centerpiece of the post–Civil War amendments in this latter case, Trump might
have been ousted from public life for good.
In the face of all this aiding and abetting, Roberts’s
gestures and public comments in defense of judges come across as woefully
insufficient. Worse, they mask his hand in paving the way for Trump’s worst
excesses in just about every area of law and policy that matters to his
administration.
Fresh on the public’s mind is the Supreme Court’s
indefensible immunity decision, which effectively shut down a criminal trial
accusing Trump of masterminding his disruption of the transfer of power.
Roberts’s florid language in that ruling makes it plain that he believes the
president deserves special treatment as the head of one branch of government,
beyond the reach of the casual cruelty that everyone else faces in the criminal
system.
Yet the longer-term import of Trump v. United
States, as longtime scholars of executive power have observed, may be
how the Trump administration is embracing it today. In Trump’s
hands, the ruling isn’t just a shield from prosecution; it’s a weapon to
decimate the federal workforce, to dismantle agencies Republicans and business
interests have long disliked, and to fire independent watchdogs and regulators
Congress has seen fit to protect from White House interference.
Indeed, the idea that Article II of the Constitution gives
the president authority over every corner of the executive branch has long been
a Roberts hobbyhorse, and the Trump administration is riding it everywhere it
goes. When Trump unlawfully fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne
Wilcox, the first time in the history of the labor board that had happened, the
Justice Department relied on the immunity decision and others by Roberts to
justify the dismissal. The president’s firing authority is “untouchable by
Congress,” D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, told the Supreme Court in a
legal brief. And so the chief went right along and, acting on his own, quickly
allowed Wilcox’s firing to proceed. More than a month later, without bothering
to hear oral arguments, his majority ignored nearly a century of precedent and
gave Trump complete control over the NLRB’s leadership. “Today’s order,”
Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent,
“favors the president over our precedent.”
Carried
to its logical end, Roberts’s jurisprudence bolstering an all-powerful and
“energetic” president to do as he pleases spares no one: not the beloved
Librarian of Congress (fired), not the transformative Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau (fighting for its life), and certainly not the unlawfully
renditioned migrants disappeared to a notorious El Salvador prison (still
disappeared). In all these instances, the Trump administration can point to a
constitutional ruling by Roberts for justification. Even the Trump-led purge of
a government that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive, or part of its all-out
war against Harvard University, can be traced back to Roberts’s blinkered
thinking on race: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of
it.”
Trump’s Washington is Roberts’s Washington. And the
greatest feat of the Supreme Court that bears their names may yet be the
wholesale destruction of government as we know it. In one executive order that
garnered little attention, Trump directed his
agencies on a “review-and-repeal” rampage to get rid of rules of governance
that have long been on the books. The source for this directive? Ten
cherry-picked decisions, all but one of them issued by Roberts’s majority or
supermajority—covering everything from affirmative action policies to
environmental law to religion in public life—that the administration thinks
should carry the day. It’s too early to tell where this slash-and-burn campaign
will end up. But if nearly 20 years of Roberts have taught us anything, it is
that once he rules, the nation is left to figure out how to fix what he has
broken. If it can be fixed at all.
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN
The 1 Crucial Innovation Lesson
Every Business Owner Should Learn From eBay
The
company I first encountered as a Pez dispenser trading post serves as a
fascinating case study for what businesses need to do to retain
users.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
Jul 15,
2025
Having collected Pez
dispensers since I was a kid and having an embarrassingly large collection at
the age of 50 (which my daughters and granddaughters had no interest in), I was
excited to learn in 1995 about what came to be called eBay—an online auction platform where you could buy,
sell, and swap Pez dispensers relatively securely with total
strangers from anywhere in the country. I became one of its earliest and most
enthusiastic participants, bought and sold plenty of Pez, and made some new
friends along the way. I also had dozens of classic lunchboxes, but that’s
another story.
The eBay founders thought they were building a
marketplace for their friends and family. What they also created was an amazing
discovery tool whereby passionate collectors could find similar souls who
were just as crazy about these little plastic devices (and zillions of other
collectibles) as they were. Entrepreneurs are constantly trying to develop new
businesses and to create, exploit, and sustain demand and desires for their
products and services. The beauty of dealing with collectors of any kind is
that there’s already a built-in passion for the objects which the exchange
experience merely needs to facilitate, channel, and monetize. It’s always
easier to ride the horse in the direction it’s already headed.
Most people know some
version of the eBay origin story—founded by Pierre Omidyar as a side project to
help his girlfriend trade Pez dispensers online—and everyone knows that it grew
rapidly from an auction site into a global e-commerce marketplace because it
tapped into an underserved analog population and pulled those folks into the
digital age. The speed and scale of the immediate nationwide adoption was
amazing.
What far fewer people
appreciate is that eBay is yesterday’s news—cluttered, dated, and slow. It’s
afflicted with the same disease as one of Yogi Berra’s favorite restaurants:
It’s “so crowded that nobody goes there.” In an age where time is everything and
patience is scarce, eBay looks, operates, and feels like molasses. It turns out
that trying to be all things to everybody, fulfilling at best by FedEx, and
making its connections to its users a mile wide and an inch deep might have
been a great formula for volume and growth metrics, but over time, it made the
site cumbersome and unfocused.
These days, everyone
wants just what they’re looking for, right when they want it, and instantly
deliverable. EBay opted to go wide instead of deep and never really owned its
customers in a world where alternatives were only a click away. Without constant
change, innovation, and site improvements, eBay was never going to build
lasting connections, a committed community, or loyal long-term
users.
EBay opened the digital
marketplace but didn’t keep pace with the nature and needs of the new breed of
collectors—especially passionate sports fans who were searching for community
and interactivity as avidly as they were for commerce, and just as interested
in buying something scarce and brand new as they were in owning decades-old
hats, helmets, jerseys, shoes, and uniforms. It turns out that nostalgia is
totally pliable—collectors can long for products created in their youth just as
fervently as for goods unpacked and shipped yesterday.
These newbies weren’t
the hermits, housewives, cat ladies, and hoarders of old. They were millions of
solitary kids, DIY techies, and fanatical sports fans (often all three rolled
into one) who were looking to be a part of something that played to their passions,
connected them to their peers, and encouraged them to engage and participate.
Not surprisingly, the opportunity to create new venues and marketplaces to
serve today’s hordes of hyped-up young collectors and dramatically speed up and
streamline the buy-sell process was far too good a prospect to be overlooked
for long.
First eBay, then
e-sports
An early instance of the
demand for new experiences was the explosion of e-sports as a spectator event.
Although I never understood why watching others play a video game could be a
contagious and addictive experience, it’s clear that the next several generations
don’t agree. Starting in 2017, we saw whole stadiums like the Bird’s Nest in
China or the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn converted into viewing venues where
players sat on a stage in front of computers while the gameplay was projected
on huge video screens throughout the entire space. Fans bought tickets,
merchandise, and gaming equipment, while millions of additional fans watched
the competitions at home online through Twitch or YouTube. These players and
viewers were ripe for the digitization and gamification of collecting and
online retail.
EBay created static
stores, but not stirring streams; illustrative images, but not live videos; and
collector interest, but not real-time excitement and interactivity. Text-based
auctions simply made no sense for the Twitch generation. The need for speed,
sound, and action was clear, so into the void stepped Fanatics Live, a
dedicated, live-streamed collectibles and trading card platform which moved
online retail to the next level and made it a gamified, community-based,
compelling experience. In some ways, Fanatics Live is just the newest
instance of the web’s ability to smash together context, connection, community,
and commerce.
Cameo was an
early case of connecting fans and followers (especially in sports) with their
favorite athletes, performers, and celebrities and monetizing the experience. Bemyfriends was
a platform provider offering bands and other acts the ability to build, own,
and control their own platforms, finances, and destiny by
owning the IP and also directly connecting with their fans.
And now, Fanatics Live
will enable the most entrepreneurial fans and fanatics alike to build their own
online mini businesses. The formula is simple—virtually no barriers to entry,
modest production costs, all underlying technology provided by third-party
platforms, immediate action and gratification, and a chance to make a decent
living on their own as well.
Fanatics Live reports
that there are already mini-merchants like Stephanie from MamaBreaks and
Joel from Soccercrds who are allegedly making six-figure
incomes while working from home. This is one impressive side of their
multi-channel marketplace. And to be very clear, the success of the overall
Fanatics Live venture will have a lot to do with the performance, professionalism,
integrity, and customer service provided by these micro-merchants.
But the most critical
metric—and the real path to the long-term success of this venture—is the
degree, depth, and scale of the engagement of the participants. Connecting
passionate peers to other peers thru real-time video events like card reveals
and pack openings; enabling direct chats between and among buyers, sellers and
traders; and facilitating swift and easy transactions create exceptional levels
of cost-effective engagement.
On a global basis,
Fanatics Live users spend more than an hour a day on the site, which is 25-30
percent longer than Instagram’s comparable numbers. More than 70 percent of the
Fanatics Live users take advantage of the chat feature, and this consistently
leads to sales. On a monthly basis, loyal and committed users make an average
of more than 15 transactions a month.
Letting the fans drive
the majority of the action and the transactions, relying on substantial amounts
of user generated content, turning motivated users into platform advocates, and
building positive word-of-mouth are all critical to inexpensive global expansion
and to consistent user retention. But all of this activity and goodwill is
predicated on a foundation of authenticity and trust which, like it or not, the
team at Fanatics Live will need to assure, adjudicate, and otherwise backstop,
just like Amazon regulates and manages its third-party vendors. It’s not an
easy undertaking, and I’m not sure that the guys running the Fanatics Live shop
understand that becoming referees is an inevitable part of the deal.
They’re focused at the
moment on generating buzz, growth, excitement, and millions of happy fans. But
in the long run, to stay in business, it’s far more important to be trusted than to be
loved—and much harder.
Monday, July 14, 2025
Trump’s Fans Forgive Him Everything. Why Not Epstein?
Michelle Goldberg
Trump’s Fans Forgive
Him Everything. Why Not Epstein?
July 14, 2025, 7:01 p.m. ET
Opinion Columnist
Over the last squalid
decade, many of us have let go of the hope that Donald Trump could do or say
anything to shake the faith of his ardent base. They’ve been largely unfazed by
boasts of sexual assault and porn star payoffs, an attempted coup and obscenely
self-enriching crypto schemes. They cheered wildly at his promises to build a
wall paid for by Mexico, then shrugged when it didn’t happen. The BBC reported on a 39-year-old Iranian immigrant whose
devotion to Trump endured even when she was put in ICE detention. “I will
support him until the day I die,” she said from lockup. “He’s making America
great again.”
So it’s been fascinating
to watch a vocal part of Trump’s movement revolt over his administration’s
handling of files from the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the sex-trafficking
financier who died in jail in 2019 in what was ruled a suicide. Running for
president, Trump promised to release the Epstein files, which some thought
would contain evidence of murder. “Yet another good reason to vote for Trump,”
Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a Republican, wrote on social media. “Americans
deserve to know why Epstein didn’t kill himself.”
Some of the influencers
who now staff Trump’s administration built their followings by spinning wild
stories about the case, promising revelations that would lay their enemies low.
Epstein’s client list “is going to rock the political world,” Dan Bongino, now
deputy director of the F.B.I., said in September. Appearing on Fox News in
February, Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked whether her department would
release “a list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients.” She responded, “It’s sitting on
my desk right now to review.”
Now she says there was no such client
list. Last week, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. released a memo saying
that Epstein killed himself and no more information would be forthcoming: “It
is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”
Trump has implored his followers to forget about Epstein, writing, in a
petulant Truth Social post, that the files were “written by Obama, Crooked
Hillary” and various other deep state foes. Let’s “not waste Time and Energy on
Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about,” he wrote.
But he was wrong: Lots
of people care. Trump’s followers responded to his attempt to wave Epstein away
with uncharacteristic fury and disappointment. Bongino has reportedly
threatened to resign over Bondi’s handling of the case. Epstein was a major
subject at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit, a conservative conference
that began on Friday. Speaking from the stage in Tampa, Fla., the comedian Dave
Smith accused Trump of actively covering up “a giant child rapist ring.” The
audience cheered and applauded.
Having nurtured
conspiracy theories for his entire political career, Trump suddenly seems in
danger of being consumed by one. In many ways it’s delicious to watch, but
there’s also reason for anxiety, because for some in Trump’s movement, this
setback is simply proof that they’re up against a conspiracy more powerful than
they’d ever imagined. “What we just learned is that dealing with the Epstein
Operation is above the President’s pay grade,” posted Bret Weinstein, an
evolutionary biologist and podcaster. An important question, going forward, is
who they decide is pulling the strings.
Epstein obsessives are
right to be suspicious about the weird turns the case has taken. So much about
it feels inexplicable, including the sweetheart plea deal Epstein got in 2008,
and the fact that he was apparently able to kill himself despite being one of
the most monitored inmates in the country. Even if it turns out that a review
of the case doesn’t implicate anyone who hasn’t already been charged, it should
be a scandal that Bondi misled the public about the existence of a client list.
But the administration
lies all the time — that alone doesn’t explain why this issue has so tested the
MAGA coalition. To understand why it’s such a crisis, you need to understand
the crucial role that Epstein plays in the mythologies buttressing MAGA. The
case is of equal interest to QAnon types, who see in Epstein’s crimes proof of
their conviction that networks of elite pedophiles have hijacked America, and
of right-wing critics of Israel, who are convinced that Epstein worked for the
Mossad, the country’s spy service.
Trumpism has always been premised on
the idea that he’s warring against dark, even satanic globalist forces, and
within the movement there’s a fierce yearning for the cathartic moment when
those forces will be exposed and vanquished. The Epstein files were supposed to
show the world, once and for all, the scale of the evil system that Trump’s
voters believe he is fighting. “Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many
things,” Steve Bannon said at the Turning Point conference.
The way Trumpists have
made this case a cause célèbre can seem bizarre to outsiders. After all,
Trump’s friendship with the sex-trafficking financier has been widely
documented. Epstein’s best-known victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said she was
recruited at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club. And Trump has his own history of
alleged creepiness around underage girls; several teenage contestants in one of
his beauty pageants accused him of deliberately walking in on them when they
were undressed. As Senator Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, said at a rally
this weekend, “Did anyone really think the sexual predator president who used
to party with Jeffrey Epstein was going to release the Epstein files?”
But I’ve always seen the
fantasy of Trump as a warrior against sex trafficking as a way for his
followers to manage their cognitive dissonance about his obvious personal
degeneracy. To believe that they are on the side of light while championing a
man of such low character, Trump’s acolytes have had to conjure an enemy of
vast and titanic evil, and invent a version of Trump that never existed.
Among those on the right
who believe there’s an Epstein coverup, few seem to be entertaining the idea
that Trump is protecting himself. That, after all, would require a
re-evaluation of his integrity and their judgment. But they still take for
granted that Epstein was trafficking girls to powerful men and then
blackmailing them, and that he was killed so he couldn’t talk. Now they have to
figure out why Trump won’t give them the information they long for. The most
logical explanation, said Tucker Carlson on his podcast last week, is “that
intel services are at the very center of this story, U.S. and Israeli, and
they’re being protected.”
This notion has become
so widespread that Israel’s government tried to address it. “There is no
evidence — none — that Epstein was acting on behalf of the State of
Israel,” wrote the
Israeli minister Amichai Chikli in an open letter addressed to Turning Point’s
head, Charlie Kirk. But Chikli couldn’t resist using the case against his more
centrist political enemies, saying he wants to understand Epstein’s connection
to “former Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, who both appear
in previously published Epstein-related documents.”
This will not, I suspect, put theories
about Epstein as a Zionist operative to bed. Without them, Trump’s followers
would have to admit they were duped, that MAGA has never been a Manichaean
battle against sex criminals, and Trump glommed onto the Epstein story only to
help him win an election.
The entanglement of the
Epstein drama with American debates about the Jewish state portends some dark
developments. I won’t pretend to know whether Epstein ever worked for the
Israelis, though I can’t imagine Trump covering for them at any cost to himself.
I’m worried, however, about people blaming Jews for the strange and
unresolvable parts of his sordid story. Scroll through X, and you’ll see they
already are.
It’s worth recalling the origin of the
phrase “cognitive dissonance,” which was coined in the 1950s by Leon Festinger,
an author of the book “When Prophecy Fails.” Festinger and his co-authors
studied an apocalyptic U.F.O. cult, with an eye to what happened when the
spaceship didn’t appear as predicted. Some members, disillusioned, left the
group. Most, however, maintained or redoubled their commitment. The problem for
Trump is that some of his followers need to choose between their commitment to
him, and to the narrative that justified his rise.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Donny T. and Jeffrey E. - A Series of Unfortunate Events
Donny T. and Jeffrey E. - A Series of Unfortunate Events
The following is a detailed timeline of the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, including court documents, flight logs, little black books, masseuse lists, mugshots, and everything in between.
December 1985 - Donald Trump purchases Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
1990 - Jeffrey Epstein purchases 358 El Brillo Way, 1.4 miles away.
This is the property where allegations against Epstein began, when the stepmother of a young teenager called the police after the girl came home with $300 in cash, claiming to have given Epstein a massage.
1990s - Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump develop a relationship that is all friendship, no business, but inevitably based on wealth.
1992 - Donald Trump hosts an exclusive party at Mar-a-Lago with more than two-dozen women flown in to "provide entertainment." The only guest is Jeffrey Epstein, who wasn't a paying member of the club.
“I arranged to have some contestants fly in. At the very first party, I said, ‘Who’s coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming.’ It was him and Epstein. I said, ‘Donald, this is supposed to be a party with V.I.P.s. You’re telling me it’s you and Epstein?’” - George Houraney, American Dream Enterprise
Early 1990s - Donald Trump reaches under Kristin Anderson's skirt at a Manhattan nightspot, touching her vagina through her underwear.
1993 - Donald Trump gropes former Miss Switzerland, Beatrice Keul, in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Jeffrey Epstein later invites her to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
1993 - Donald Trump gropes former Sports Illustrated model, Stacy Williams, in the presence of Jeffrey Epstein.
1993 - 1997 - Donald Trump's name appears seven times in the passenger logs of Epstein's private jet, according to House.gov.
1994 - Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly rape a 13-year-old girl (pseudonym "Jane Doe" aka "Katie Johnson") at Epstein's NYC apartment. Read full court documents here.
1995 - Donald Trump rapes E. Jean Carroll in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in NYC. She later won a civil suit against him for $83.3 million.
1998 - Melania Knauss (b. “Melanija Knavs”) meets Donald Trump while working as a model in Manhattan.
"The first time he slept with her was on my plane." - Jeffrey Epstein
October 28, 2002 - Donald Trump gives an interview for New York Magazine, claiming to be a longtime friend of Jeffrey Epstein
"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it, Jeffrey enjoys his social life." - Donald Trump, 2002
2004 - Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein fight over the coveted "Maison de l'Amitie" property in Palm Beach, each claiming that the other didn't have any money.
"It was something like Donald saying, 'You don’t want to do a deal with him, he doesn’t have the money,' while Epstein was saying, 'Donald is all talk. He doesn’t have the money.' They both really wanted it." - Joseph Luzinski, trustee
In the end Trump won, buying the property for $41.35 million. Four years later he'd sell it to Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev for more than double.
October 20, 2005 - Palm Beach Police search Jeffrey Epstein’s residence after a report that he had sexually abused a minor. They seize several message pads from his kitchen that included two messages from Donald Trump. You can watch the walkthrough of Jeffrey Epstein’s house here.
July 27, 2006 - Jeffrey Epstein is first arrested by Palm Beach Police Department on charges of soliciting a prostitute.
2007/'08 - Donald Trump claims falling out with Epstein, banning him from Mar-a-Lago because Epstein allegedly harassed another member's teenage daughter.
"I had a falling out with him. I haven't spoken to him in 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you." - Donald Trump, 2019
October 26, 2016 - Donald Trump pays adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money.
March 28, 2017 - Jeffrey Epstein poses for the New York State Sex Offender Registry
August 2017 - Jeffrey Epstein sits down with journalist and author Michael Wolff for over 100 hours of interviews, in which Epstein claims that Trump was his "closest friend." In the interviews Epstein says Trump was "charming" and "always fun," a great salesman, but a "serial cheat" and loved to "fuck the wives of his best friends." He goes on to say that Trump had friends but "was at heart a friendless man incapable of kindness." He also claims Trump had scalp-reduction surgery for baldness. When asked how Epstein knew all this he said, "I was Donald's closest friend for 10 years." The audio has never been released.
"I was Donald's closest friend for 10 years." - Jeffrey Epstein
July 8, 2019 - Jeffrey Epstein is arrested at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on federal sex trafficking charges.
August 10, 2019 - Jeffrey Epstein kills himself in prison by hanging.
July 1, 2020 - Gawker publishes (2015) what is claimed to be Jeffrey Epstein's "Little Black Book," dated October 1, 1997 - 2004. Business Insider later publishes (2020) a searchable database with 1,749 names of public figures, celebrities, royalty and nobility, and statesmen. These are not necessarily people associated with criminal acts. The database includes Donald Trump.
April 2021 - Jeffrey Epstein’s 358 El Brillo Way mansion in Palm Beach is demolished.
February 21, 2025 - Attorney General Pam Bondi is interviewed on Fox News.
John Roberts: "The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients? Will that really happen?"
Bondi: "It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that."
February 27, 2025 - Attorney General Pam Bondi releases first phase of declassified Epstein files, including an evidence list, flight logs, a contact book, and masseuse list. Donald Trump is in the flight logs seven times, as well as the contact book. No second phase was ever released.
“Before you came into office, I requested the full and complete files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In response to this request, I received approximately 200 pages of documents, which consisted primarily of flight logs, Epstein's list of contacts, and a list of victims' names and phone numbers.” - Pam Bondi to Kash Patel
April 25, 2025 - Virginia Giuffre, who was allegedly trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Prince Andrew, Duke of York, takes her life.
June 5, 2025 - Elon Musk tweets that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files.
July 6, 2025 - The DOJ and FBI conclude Jeffrey Epstein had no client list and died by suicide. This was further evidenced by jail security footage.
July 9, 2025 - Trump lashes out at a reporter for asking questions about Jeffrey Epstein, further distancing himself from the investigation.
Court documents:
Jeffrey Epstein v. the United States of America
Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein
E. Jean Carrol v. Donald J. Trump
The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump
United States of America v. Ghislaine Maxwell
Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City.
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