Nothing but the truth. Even if against me.

Nothing but the truth. Even if against me.

Saturday, August 9, 2025

The Plot Thickens: No Way Epstein Killed Himself, says his Former Butler

As he might be deposed in the Epstein case, I think Bill Cinton should spill the beans on Trump and go down with him like Samson.  This will erase all of Clinton's previous sins, including Monica Lewinsky's that almost got him booted out of the White House.

======================================================= 


‘I was Epstein’s butler for 18 years. There’s no way he killed himself’
Henry Samuel
Fri, August 8, 2025 



Valdson Vieira Cotrin with Jeffrey Epstein on his private jet in 2019. This photo, given exclusively to The Telegraph, may be one of the last taken of the financier and shows him wearing an Israel Defense Forces sweatshirt - The Telegraph

Jeffrey Epstein “loved life too much” to kill himself and was confident of securing bail before he died, his butler for 18 years has told The Telegraph.

In an interview that will heap renewed pressure on the Trump administration to make the Epstein files public, one of his closest aides said he had spoken to the paedophile financier before he died and insisted he had been in good spirits.

Valdson Vieira Cotrin, who ran Epstein’s Paris home, told The Telegraph he could not accept the official verdict of suicide and feared that his own life was in danger.

He also said he believed that Virginia Giuffre, the Epstein victim who accused Prince Andrew of rape and died by suicide in April, was a victim of foul play.

Mr Cotrin also made the extraordinary claim to The Telegraph that Epstein told him he had been offered a job by Donald Trump in his first administration in 2016 – but had turned it down.

There is no evidence that the allegation is true, and Mr Trump has maintained that he stopped speaking to Epstein in 2004 after they fell out over a business deal.

But Mr Cotrin’s recollection of a conversation with his boss will fuel a growing demand for the full Epstein files – the trove of documents from the criminal investigations into the financier that allegedly name high-profile celebrities and politicians, possibly including Mr Trump – to be released.

In his exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Mr Cotrin, speaking on the record for the first time, also alleged that:

Prince Andrew visited Epstein in Saint Tropez along with a British photographer famous for taking pictures of naked girls and accused of having sex with a 13-year-old

Prince Andrew was a frequent guest at Epstein’s Paris town house, with Royal protection bodyguards paid for by the British taxpayer

Ghislaine Maxwell was the “authoritarian boss” who gave the orders in the Epstein household

Epstein gave money to Woody Allen to finance one of his movies

Mr Cotrin remains in possession of a number of photographs taken with friends of Epstein, including a photo of himself with Bill Clinton on the so-called Lolita Express, Epstein’s private plane that he used to traffic underage girls and women for sex.

Bill Clinton on board Epstein’s private jet in a new picture obtained exclusively by The Telegraph - The Telegraph

The existence of the photo showing Mr Clinton on board Epstein’s jet will also fuel demands for the former president to reveal his full dealings with Epstein.

Mr Clinton was issued with a subpoena on Tuesday, demanding he give evidence to a congressional committee investigating the financier.

Mr Cotrin also shared a photograph of himself with Epstein, taken on his private jet in January 2019, which may be one of the last taken of the financier.

Epstein looks puffy, but is smiling and relaxed, and is notably wearing an Israel Defense Forces sweatshirt. Epstein has long been accused of being an operative for Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, although last month his former lawyer told The Telegraph that Epstein used to laugh off the claim.

Mr Cotrin, who acted as Epstein’s butler, chauffeur and cook in Paris, recalled driving his boss to Le Bourget airport in Paris to catch a flight to New York, where he was arrested upon landing on July 6 2019.

Epstein, who was 66, was charged with sex trafficking underage girls and remanded in custody. He was found hanged in his cell on Aug 10 that year.

But Mr Cotrin is insistent that Epstein would never have killed himself. Epstein had told him he was planning to negotiate with the judge in the case to secure bail, having been held in custody as a possible flight risk.

“I am like his brother [Mark Epstein]. I don’t believe this was suicide. He loved life too much,” said Mr Cotrin.

Mr Cotrin recalled seeing Epstein for the last time. Epstein, he said, was relaxed and had been talking about making more investments in his islands – he had discreetly bought a second, which Mr Cotrin visited – as well as spending more time in Paris.

“I drove him to Le Bourget airport. It was a Saturday, because on Monday he was supposed to appear before the judge regarding all these accusations,” he said.

“When I got home, two young women rang, his main girlfriend who had been with him officially for several years, Karyna [Shuliak] and another who worked for him. And then they told me, ‘Mr Epstein has gone to prison. He arrived in New York. The police were waiting for him’.”

Mr Cotrin’s partner, Maria Gomes de Melo, who also knew Epstein well, recalled that in Paris, Epstein had said goodbye to her and added: “I’ll be back next week”. Ms de Melo told him: “Sir, don’t go.”

She also questioned the official conclusion that he had killed himself. Mark Epstein has suggested the financier may have been murdered, ordering a second autopsy that tended to back up that assertion.

“On the Saturday late, we got the news that he had hanged himself, and honestly, he loved life too much to float away like that,” she said.

The Department of Justice has released nearly 11 hours of surveillance video from outside Epstein’s cell in the Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center, but a crucial minute from 11:58:58pm to midnight was missing. That has further fuelled conspiracy theories that Epstein was murdered to silence him.

Mr Cotrin remains fiercely loyal to Epstein and insists he never saw his boss cavorting, let alone having sex, with underage girls.

He said young women were hired to give Epstein massages and to cut his nails, adding: “The girls did that to him, but it stopped there.”

Mr Cotrin gave an extraordinary insight into Epstein’s world, and the rich and famous who would stop by for his guidance and hospitality.

Mr Cotrin, who has joint French and Brazilian nationalities, worked for Epstein for 18 years, managing his sumptuous eight-bedroom Paris apartment on Avenue Foch, overlooking the Arc de Triomphe. He lived in a garret flat on the sixth floor.

Jeffrey Epstein’s eight-bedroom Paris apartment, on Avenue Foch

But he also worked dozens of times at Epstein’s properties in New York, Palm Beach, Florida and on Little St James, Epstein’s private Caribbean island – dubbed ‘“paedophile island” – where he is said to have trapped and raped often underage victims.

“He trusted me completely,” said Mr Cotrin, who has not worked since his boss’s death six years ago.

“I was his chauffeur, his cook, his housekeeper. I did everything in Paris, I was his only full-time, paid-up employee and worked for him from 2001 until his death. If someone could have seen something, it’s Valdson, there’s no one else,” he said.

His interview with The Telegraph took place in his French home over a beer and Brazilian bread and cheese balls, which he says were a hit with Bill Gates. Upstairs, a large photo of Mr Cotrin and Epstein taken on the “Lolita Express” hung on one wall, alongside another with the butler and Mr Clinton.

Mr Cotrin reeled off a list of dignitaries who came to visit Epstein over two decades, including Prince Andrew, who he cooked for and chauffeured “five or six times” in Paris and New York; Mr Clinton, whom he met once in Epstein’s jet during a stopover in Paris; Lord Mandelson, now the UK’s ambassador to Washington DC; Woody Allen; and Israeli ex-prime minister Ehud Barak, along with other Middle Eastern dignitaries.

A photograph of Lord Mandelson with Epstein and Mr Cotrin, taken at the Paris apartment on Epstein’s birthday, has been widely circulated, causing Lord Mandelson, the former Labour cabinet minister, huge embarrassment.

Peter Mandelson (left) and Epstein, celebrating a birthday at Epstein’s Paris apartment in January 2007. Mr Cotrin is holding the cake

Mr Cotrin has refused countless requests for interviews since Epstein was found hanged in his prison cell, but told The Telegraph he was breaking his silence to “tell my truth” about Epstein, to whom he refers as “Monsieur” or “Patron”.

Mr Cotrin and Ms Gomes de Melo, 65, who often accompanied him to Epstein’s properties, both insist they never saw any evidence of the sexual abuse multiple young women have said they suffered.

“I want to say with all my heart from the life I lived with him, Monsieur is not the man they say he was,” insisted Mr Cotrin.

One reason the couple had declined to talk publicly was concern for their own safety. They pointed to what they consider Epstein’s mysterious death and also the suicides of Ms Giuffre, who had accused Prince Andrew of rape (he denied it but paid her millions of pounds to settle a civil case) and Jean-Luc Brunel, who ran a modelling agency that procured girls for Epstein.

Giuffre took her own life at her home in Australia in April, aged 41. Brunel was found dead in his prison cell in Paris in February 2022, after apparently hanging himself. He was awaiting trial on charges of raping a 17-year-old girl.

“And what about Virginia [Giuffre] Roberts?” said Mr Cotrin, adding: “I’m scared because after what happened to them, poor Valdson, who knows?”


Mr Cotrin’s interview with the Telegraph took place in his French home over a beer and Brazilian bread and cheese balls, which he says were a hit with Bill Gates

Mr Cotrin never met Mr Trump – Mr Trump and Epstein had fallen out over the sale of a property in Palm Beach in 2004.

However, Mr Cotrin said that Epstein had boasted of being offered a job by Mr Trump after his surprise first presidential election win in November 2016.

The claim – if true – would be dynamite, although there is no evidence to back it up. Sources inside Mr Trump’s first administration told The Telegraph that Mr Cotrin’s recollection appeared fanciful.

Mr Cotrin said: “I can tell you one thing [regarding Mr Trump]. A few days after Trump’s [2016] election, Mr Epstein arrived in Paris on Monday or Tuesday, and I went to pick him up at the airport.

“He said: ‘Valdson, you saw that Trump is the new US president?’

“‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I saw it on the news in Paris.’

“‘Well, Trump asked me to work for him in the new government’.

“I said: ‘Congratulations. I’m happy for you,’ in my bad English. He said: ‘No, I didn’t accept.’”

Mr Cotrin insisted Epstein was not in the habit of trumpeting false claims in such a confidential setting. He said his boss made no mention of what position that might be.

“I was surprised, because I would have thought such a position could be interesting, but I asked no more questions as it wasn’t my place,” said Mr Cotrin. “In my job, one waits to be spoken to.

“But in my opinion, if he did turn it down, it was because he liked his freedom. I think he didn’t want to be controlled by anyone, because once you accept a position, a job of any kind in a government, the president is going to give you orders and you have to listen to him.

“That’s how it is. Just look at Elon Musk and all his financial power, and see what happened in his life today.”

Donald Trump with Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in 1992 - NBC News

Epstein would visit his Paris home “for a week roughly every two months” but periodically Mr Cotrin was flown abroad to cook for famous friends. “It could be a dinner with Ehud Barak, Bill Gates. Epstein hired top chefs in New York or Paris and then he asked me to show them what I did because he liked it,” he recalled.

There is no suggestion that any of the dignitaries were involved with the women hired by Epstein, and Mr Cotrin said he saw nothing inappropriate.

But Mr Trump’s MAGA movement has long contended that “Deep State” elites continue to protect Epstein’s most powerful associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.

After the 2024 election win, the Trump administration acknowledged that it was reviewing tens of thousands of documents and videos related to Epstein.

But in a memo made public last month, the Justice Department and FBI said there was no evidence that the disgraced financier kept a “client list” or was blackmailing powerful figures. The memo also dismissed the claim that Epstein was murdered in jail, confirming his death by suicide, and said the agencies would not be releasing any more information on the investigation.

Mr Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case.

Mr Cotrin continued to work for Epstein even after he was first convicted of sex crimes in 2008. Three years earlier, in 2005, the FBI and Florida police began an investigation into Epstein for the alleged sex trafficking of more than 30 young women, mostly minors.

He pleaded guilty in state court to just two felony charges, including soliciting a minor, as part of a plea deal that avoided far tougher federal charges. In the end, Epstein served just 13 months in prison and was obliged to register as a sex offender.

The deal, described by victims’ lawyers as “extraordinarily lenient”, protected Epstein and unnamed co-conspirators from future prosecution.

Mr Cotrin said: “I remember the first time he went to prison. It was in Florida and I accompanied him to Palm Beach airport. The boss called me and said, ‘I’m going to jail. To prison.’

“I said, ‘Why, Monsieur?’ He said: ‘Because of these ladies.’”

Mr Cotrin has no recollection of Epstein ever meeting Mr Trump – either in Paris or in Florida – but did recall Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s one-time girlfriend, driving to Mr Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.

“She used to pop over there very often in her Mercedes shortly after I was taken on in the early 2000s,” he said. He added that he had no idea who she visited.

Epstein with Ghislaine Maxwell, his one-time girlfriend who was jailed for 20 years after conspiring with him to recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls

In 2021, Maxwell, the daughter of the disgraced British newspaper proprietor Robert Maxwell, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring with Epstein to recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls.

Maxwell, 63, has been moved to a minimum security jail in Texas after giving two days of testimony in July to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is also Mr Trump’s former personal attorney.

Maxwell was well aware of the goings-on inside Epstein’s households, and Mr Cotrin is certain she holds the key if any other celebrities or politicians are to be dragged into the scandal.

Mr Cotrin said: “If anyone knows things, it’s Ms Maxwell. She was the boss and the lady of the house. She was harder and more authoritarian because [she was] more bourgeois. She didn’t give massages, but she was in charge. For a long time, she ran everything in the house.”

Mr Cotrin said that, in every home, there were notepads to jot down messages. He had a photograph of two – one with Epstein’s name on it and the other headed Lady Ghislaine.

Lady Ghislaine was the name of the luxury yacht from which her father was presumed to have fallen overboard to his death in November 1991.

Mr Cotrin had a photograph of two notepads, one with Epstein’s name on it and the other headed Lady Ghislaine

“We wrote in either depending on who the message was for,” said Mr Cotrin. “I also kept the boss’s professional American Express card, which no longer works, of course, as a memento. I told myself it might bring me luck for later.”

He remembered being hired by Epstein in 2001, but said that Maxwell had been instrumental in sorting out the details, suggesting she controlled the day-to-day running of the Epstein homes.

“The first time I met him, he came out of his jet with a beautiful woman aged around 25 to 30. and he was in a tatty sweatsuit. He often looked like a tramp in cheap clothes. I had my CV. He looked at me and said: ‘How old are you?’ Forty. ‘How long have you been working for?’ I said 20 years. He said: ‘You’ve got the job.’

“Then he said: ‘Where’s Ms Maxwell?’ My English is bad and she speaks perfect French, so he handed me the phone. She said, ‘Don’t worry, he wants you to work for us, come to Avenue Foch tomorrow.’ He said, ‘Is it ok now?’ And that was it.”

Asked whether he saw Maxwell bring back girls for Epstein, he said: “I never saw Madame leave the house, go anywhere and come back with a new girl, never. It was more people who came to see her – whether they were contacts she had before or other people, I can’t tell you.

“But to say, ‘Oh yes, Ms Maxwell was here, she went to Trocadero and came back with two women I didn’t know,’ that’s not true. Never.”

Maxwell introduced Epstein to Prince Andrew, and Mr Cotrin recalled first serving the Duke of York along with the late, disgraced British photographer David Hamilton at a property in Saint-Tropez in the early 2000s. The pair “came for tea”.

David Hamilton at a property in Saint-Tropez in 1999. He died by suicide in 2016 following allegations he had abused underage models as young as 13

The presence of Hamilton is ironic given that he died by suicide in 2016 following allegations that he had abused underage models as young as 13. The accusations came after decades in which he was feted for his semi-erotic, soft-focus shots of mostly nude girls in their early teens, which he said depicted “a lost paradise”.

“It was my first year working for Monsieur, so it was 2002,” said Mr Cotrin. “There were many girls. At that time, he was at the height of his powers, both financially and as a young man. In terms of women, it was a merry-go-round. Two arrived and two left every day.”

But there were no big parties. “Monsieur was not a socialite,” he insisted.

He said he also served the Duke in Paris when Epstein lent him his flat. He was not sure of the dates.

“I remember him coming twice to Paris. Once for two or three nights, and the second time for two nights. And when he came to Paris, he came alone with his bodyguards. Monsieur told me to look after him. I picked him up in the boss’s Mercedes. It was a V12 600, very luxurious.

“He was a very nice man, very polite. He taught me how to make a proper cup of tea. He told me: ‘Valdson, it’s not strong enough.’

“One time, I drove him to a soirĂ©e at the Eiffel Tower. I left him at the foot of a building and came back a few hours later.

“Once, a woman aged between 25-30 came to Monsieur’s flat in Avenue Foch to serve him tea. They talked together, but I never saw them touch each other. It lasted about an hour, and then she left. I also met him in New York, maybe once or twice.”
‘He told me to cook for the Prince’

Epstein’s servant also cooked for his boss, who was not a big eater. “Monsieur didn’t eat much – he grazed. But he told me to cook for the Prince, who had an appetite. Upon Monsieur’s instructions, in New York I prepared fresh mushrooms, a nice steak filet French-style – seared on both sides, rare in the middle – with sauce au poivre.”

The Duke clearly approved. “He asked me: ‘Who taught you to cook like that?’ I told him I taught myself,” he recalled. “He said: ‘I never had better’ and yet he had all that staff and good cooks.” Mr Cotrin took it as a compliment, coming from a royal.

Rattling through the globally known figures he came across, the ex-butler mentioned Mr Clinton, whom he met just once in the autumn of 2002 when the former US president passed through Paris at the end of a nine-day trip with Epstein.

Flight logs indicate that Mr Clinton was on Epstein’s private jet at least 26 times between 2001 and 2003.

“When Monsieur went on tour to Africa in 2002, when I got to Le Bourget to fetch the boss, he asked me whether I wanted to meet ‘the president’. I thought it was George W Bush, but no, it was Clinton. I was trembling as it’s not every day you meet someone of that stature,” he said.

Mr Clinton had been travelling with Kevin Spacey, Maxwell and Epstein himself. Also present was a 21-year-old masseuse, Chauntae Davies, who later testified that she was repeatedly raped and abused by Epstein, whose “little black book” contained 14 phone numbers for Mr Trump, and 21 for Mr Clinton.

Mr Clinton then joined in a tour the Duke of York led around Buckingham Palace, in which Maxwell and Spacey were pictured sitting side-by-side in thrones reserved for the late Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

The extraordinary photograph of Maxwell and Spacey on the thrones was first made public by The Telegraph. Another obtained by The Telegraph showed Mr Clinton, Prince Andrew and Maxwell in Buckingham Palace.

Ghislaine Maxwell and Kevin Spacey sitting on thrones belonging to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace

Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in Buckingham Palace

The former US president has always denied having had any knowledge of the “terrible crimes” committed by Epstein.

However, he has come under fresh scrutiny since July, when it was reported that he praised Epstein’s “childlike curiosity” in a birthday message to the paedophile in 2003.

Mr Cotrin remembers that Epstein often laughed in front of a painting he bought of Mr Clinton in red high heels and a blue dress – just like the one Monica Lewinsky reportedly wore for their Oval Office encounter – that hung in his Manhattan mansion.


A painting Epstein bought of Mr Clinton in red high heels and a blue dress

The butler then brandished a photo of himself alongside the Democrat ex-president, now 78, in Epstein’s luxury Boeing 727. “Monsieur said: ‘You’re not going to sell that photo, are you?’” He never did.

Mr Cotrin had no recollection of another notorious photograph – the one taken in 2007 of himself presenting a birthday cake to Epstein, in which Lord Mandelson is also present.

Lord Mandelson has always insisted he “regretted ever meeting” Epstein or “being introduced to him by his partner Ghislaine Maxwell”.

Mr Cotrin struggled to recall the birthday in 2007. “I saw so many important people, it’s hard,” he said. “But I remember his [Mandelson’s] face and do recall travelling with that man in Mr Epstein’s private jet with him from his island. We flew from Saint Thomas to New York.

“It was soon after I started working for Monsieur, in the early 2000s. I remember he had a trade position at the time.”

Lord Mandelson was the European Commissioner for Trade from November 2004 to October 2008.

“I have no recollection of any of their conversations, as my job was to make myself scarce,” he said. “All I can say is that I got the impression that nobody came to see Epstein to bring him something but to ask for something, whether it be money, although some like Bill Gates clearly didn’t need it – business advice or investment tips.”

He met the Microsoft billionaire a couple of times in Paris and New York, he recalled, and drove Woody Allen around at the request of his boss. Mr Cotrin and his partner alleged that Epstein gave Allen money for a film, though they didn’t know the details. The Telegraph reached out to Allen’s representative for comment.

Allen has likened Epstein to Dracula, with “young female vampires who service the place”.

Epstein is photographed walking with Woody Allen on Madison Avenue in New York in 2013

Mr Cotrin said the Paris home, which has been sold in the aftermath of Epstein’s death, contained “a large gym, a massage room, a dining room, there was a nice kitchen, [eight] bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and around 820 square metres”.

“New York was much bigger. Three or four times that. So it was seven floors, also with a sauna and steam room. He had to have a massage and sauna every day – it was a need with him”.

Despite scores of testimonies by alleged victims and other evidence, Mr Cotrin and his partner refuse to believe Epstein had sex with underage girls.

“I would like to tell the truth that I knew. It’s not the truth the world is talking about,” said the butler. He was aware that young women were coming and going from the Paris home, but was not aware of wrongdoing.

“If something abnormal that was scary and someone screamed or was abused, I would have phoned the police – but I saw nothing,” he said. “I can’t understand everything that’s being said, because I really lived almost his private life, not everything, but almost.

“I can’t rule out foul play. But you can’t live with someone for 18 years and not see the good or the bad. I did everything, I took care of the house, was his chauffeur, his cook. I even changed his sheets.

“In 18 years, how many times do you think I would have seen the signs of someone who had done sexual acts? If you ask me, he just liked to surround himself with girls without necessarily having sex with them. It was mostly for show.”

But he added: “It’s true [Epstein] wasn’t into older women. He preferred the company of younger women and liked to change those around him. But that doesn’t mean they were underage – they certainly didn’t look it to me. Some would stay for 10 minutes and leave if not comfortable, others would stay.”

Mr Cotrin painted a picture of Epstein as anything but an unbridled hedonist. “He didn’t like food, alcohol, he wasn’t a socialite.

“And I can tell you that in 80 per cent of cases, nothing happened with women to the extent I told some young women, ‘I’m not like him, at least I go all the way. All he does is have massages and nothing else’. I said it loud so he could hear me when he annoyed me.

“He rarely did anything with these young women. All they did was say ‘I’ll rub your back, I’ll cut your nails’. The girls did that to him, but it stopped there.”

Mr Cotrin’s partner, Ms Gomes de Melo, backed him up. “Never did we see anything untoward with any underage women in 20 or so years, neither in New York, nor on the island or in Paris,” she said.

“They nicknamed his plane the ‘Lolita Express’. It flew from New York to the island. I took that plane with him, my husband. But there were no young girls. There was the pilot, the co-pilot, him, an assistant, and just me. That’s it.”

Epstein standing in front of his private jet

She said that a police search of the Paris home by French police had also yielded nothing, bar some nude photos on the walls, along with photographs on the mantelpiece of Epstein with a host of famous people, from Fidel Castro to Pope Jean-Paul II, as well as Mr Trump, Mr Clinton and Allen.

“There was one of I think a Sultan of Dubai and a wealthy Saudi,” recalled Mr Cotrin. He said French police “took them all and never gave them back”.

Ms Gomes de Melo said: “The police came in with machines. They said they were for scanning the walls and floors in case there were hidden cameras or rooms with hidden children and torture devices. They did a thorough job. They arrived at 2pm and they left at 4am. There were 16 of them. They found nothing.”

But she did say the house also contained numerous pictures of Ms Giuffre, whose allegations against Epstein – and later Prince Andrew – effectively sparked the FBI investigation that led to Epstein’s downfall.


The Duke of York, Virginia Giuffre, and Ghislaine Maxwell in Maxwell’s London home. The photograph is said to have been taken on March 10 2001

“There were lots of photos of Virginia, who accused Prince Andrew, in the Paris flat. And at one point, when I was there with my husband, I said to Epstein: ‘Sir, are you going to throw the photos away?’ since we knew it was she who had started all [the lawsuits]. And he said: ‘Why, Maria? She was part of my life. I have nothing to hide.’”

The photographs of Ms Giuffre were taken away by the French police.

Prince Andrew has denied any wrongdoing and suggested the infamous photograph of himself with Ms Giuffre taken in Maxwell’s London home may have been a fake. Ms Gomes de Melo agreed. “For me, it’s a photo montage. Because if you look closely at the girl’s hand, it’s not around Andrew’s arm,” she said.

In the aftermath of Epstein’s death, Mr Cotrin has struggled to find work – tainted, presumably, by association with Epstein.

There was an apparent lump in his throat as he recalled driving Epstein that one last time to the airport in Paris, a month before his death.

“I often tell myself, I should have had an accident with him on the way to the airport, not a fatal one, just one that prevented him from leaving. Sometimes chance can change everything,” he said.

“We could have been hospitalised, I could have broken an arm, but the next day everything would have been different. I don’t know if I’m right or wrong, but that’s what I would have wanted.”

It is an astonishing wish, but an intriguing one too. For if Epstein hadn’t died in custody, perhaps the full truth of what happened in those homes in Paris and elsewhere might have come out.

“You can write this too,” said Mr Cotrin. “The day I die, I would like to continue serving him up there – his tea, coffee, his sandwiches, his bread and cheese buns.”

Backward Georgia's Republicans Fleeing the GOP-MAGA to be Democrats

Like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the numskull MAGA imbeciles of the backward state of Georgia are suddenly metamorphosing into Democrats. They already smell blood from the upcoming 2026 elections.

But caution to Democrats: Do not accept them in your ranks. They could be an early Trojan Horse strategy of the Republicans in anticipation of the 2026 elections. Like Joe Manchin and other fence-sitters who can't make a commitment, they will run as hermaphroditic Democrats who once were "moderate" Republicans and win. And when the time comes for voting in Congress, they'll vote Republican. It's a setup. Don't fall for it.

Even Trump's lashing out at them is part of the plot. 

Traitor once, traitor always.
======================================================


Trump lashes out after (another) Republican joins Democratic Party: ‘Total loser!’
Lauren Sforza

Updated Fri, August 8, 2025 


Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan speaks during the Democratic National Convention, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President Donald Trump lashed out at former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan after he joined the Democratic Party earlier this week.

Duncan, who served as the GOP lieutenant governor of Georgia from 2019 to 2023, revealed in an op-ed for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he will be leaving the Republican Party and joining the Democrats. Duncan has been a fierce critic of the president since Trump falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election.

Trump criticized Duncan in a scathing Truth Social post at about 1 a.m. on Friday.

“Failed former Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan, of Georgia, is a total loser. Was never able to get anything done, all he ever did was complain. We didn’t want him in the Republican Party any longer, so I’m told he became a Democrat. Good riddance Geoff. You don’t even have a chance!!!” Trump wrote.

Duncan, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in support of then-Vice President Kamala Harris last year, said in the op-ed that his “journey to becoming a Democrat started well before Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election in Georgia.”

“There’s no date on a calendar or line in the sand that points to the exact moment in time my political heart changed, but it has,” he wrote. “My decision was centered around my daily struggle to love my neighbor, as a Republican.”

My journey to becoming a Democrat started well before Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election in Georgia.

My decision was centered around my daily struggle to love my neighbor, as a Republican.https://t.co/1SPSRzUlYo

— Geoff Duncan (@GeoffDuncanGA) August 5, 2025

He criticized the Republican Party for voting to slash Medicaid and implement more tax cuts as part of Trump’s “big beautiful bill” signed into law last month. He said that GOP is ignoring Americans’ “pleas for change” and also criticized his former party for making cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Duncan also took aim at Republicans’ lack of support for commonsense gun laws and Trump’s “heartless” immigration raids.

“The list of reasons why I’m now a Democrat continues to grow. Most importantly, my decision puts me in the best possible position each day to love my neighbor,” he concluded.

Alcoholic Womanizing Jesus-Freak Pete Hegseth Really Doesn't Want Women to Vote

Illegal Lebanese Trump Ass-Kisser Migrant Faces Deportation

Unless Trump pardons him and grants him to stay in the US, the Lebanese illegal immigrant who overstayed his tourist visa stands to be deported. In a typically mercantile move - the Lebanese would sell their principles and their mother if they can make money out of it -  the man started an obviously self-serving business marketed as pro-Trump in the hope of not being arrested and deported. 

But here he is arrested and waiting deportation. In a similarly mercantile and cheap move, Trump is likely to grant him a pardon just like an absolute king would do, any laws nothwithstanding.

 ======================================================

Owner of Trump-themed burger chain arrested by ICE, facing deportation

Roland Mehrez Beainy, a co-owner of Trump Burger in Texas, is facing deportation.

Beainy, a 28-year-old originally from Lebanon, entered the U.S. in 2019 with a non-immigrant visitor visa and overstayed, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The restaurateur was arrested by ICE on May 16 and placed in detention. He was then granted bond by an immigration attorney on June 13 as his case goes through the courts, the agency stated.

“Roland Mehrez Beainy does not have any immigration benefits that prevented his arrest or removal from the United States,” an ICE spokesperson told The Hill.

Trump Burger opened its third restaurant in the Houston area in April, where they sell burgers with the buns branded with “Trump.” A fourth franchise opened in Bay City this summer.

The two other restaurants are in Bellville and Flatonia, Texas. Earlier this year, Beainy told Eater that high demand for the branded burger led him to open more locations.

The White House declined to comment about the deportation.

 

MAGA Mockery of Justice: Cronyism Anyone in the Trump Kingdom?

Pam Bondage is a bonded justiciares in the Court of King Donald the First, otherwise known as "Donald the Moron". She serves at the pleasure of the King and considers her main job to be the top retributor against the King's enemies. But she also benefits from wearing the leash of the King around her neck.

She just canceled fraud charges against a Republican - another criminal moron like the King himself to be sure - because that moronic GOP hired her brother while she was being investigated for stealing COVID-19 relief funds. So Bondi rewards her by dropping the fraud charges against her. 

The same thread runs through all of the fraudulent MAGA universe: They cheat, and when caught, they blame politicization, conspiracies against them, and hoaxes.  

How convenient, would the Church Lady say, adding, "It must be Satan!" It's all in the "Christian family values" that these felons uphold. In simple terms, it's called disgusting CRONYISM.
====================================================

Bondi’s DOJ Wipes Fraud Charges for Republican Who Hired Her Brother
Emell Derra Adolphus
Fri, August 8, 2025


Getty Images/Paul Hastings

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice has dropped fraud charges against a former Republican lawmaker being represented by her brother, Brad Bondi.

Former Florida House Rep. Carolina Amesty was facing up to 20 years in prison for two counts of theft of government property related to COVID-19 relief funds, ABC News reported.

The charges were filed under the Biden administration’s Justice Department in a criminal complaint in mid-January. However, Brad—co-chair of the Investigations and White Collar Defense practice at Paul Hastings—claimed in a Wednesday court filing that the investigation has been dropped.

Carolina Amesty arrives at the federal court in downtown Orlando, Florida, with her attorney Brad Bondi. / Orlando Sentinel / TNS

Brad wrote that he learned last month that “the government had ceased its criminal investigation ... and withdrew its outstanding subpoenas.”

He added, “We understand that the government no longer plans to seek an indictment.” ABC News reported that prosecutors with Bondi’s Justice Department followed in court papers asking the judge to dismiss the previous criminal complaint without prejudice.

On the heels of the charges against her, Amesty, who served as a member of the Florida House of Representatives for Florida’s 45th District from November 2022 to November 2024, accused the Biden administration of making her a political target. In the Biden administration’s complaint, Amesty was accused of stealing or embezzling $122,000 of COVID-19 relief loans, WKMG reported.

In a statement to ABC News, a Justice Department spokesperson insisted that Bondi’s relationship with her brother had no influence on the case’s outcome. “This decision was made through proper channels and the Attorney General had no role in it,” they wrote.

The Justice Department denied that Bondi had any role in the decision. / Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images

DOJ spokesperson Gates McGavick echoed that sentiment in a statement to the Daily Beast.

Adding in a statement to ABC News, Jim Tobin, a spokesperson for Amesty, said that “neither Carolina Amesty nor her counsel had any communications with the Attorney General regarding the matter.”

Tobin added, “Experienced defense attorney Brad Bondi, who has been representing Ms. Amesty since 2024 and is widely regarded as one of the best attorneys in the country, and his excellent team presented overwhelming evidence of Carolina Amesty’s innocence to prosecutors.”

“The government’s decision today to ask the court to dismiss the criminal complaint was the right and just result on the merits,” the statement concluded.

The Daily Beast has contacted White House representatives on how the case could trigger potential ethics investigations.

Marjorie Taylor Greene's Budding Metamorphosis: A Sign of Things to Come?

Marjorie Taylor Greene may be a nutcase imbecile from a backward southern state, but sometimes you have to hear the truth from the mouth of nutcases. Her metamorphosis from a radical extremist MAGA moron to a more moderate stance could be one of two things: Either she feels that the MAGA movement has gone too far that it threatens a GOP victory in 2026, or she is fundamentally and honestly reassessing the general platform of the extreme right wing Republican party subsidiary of Trump Inc. She may even be considering her own run for office, and is slithering herself to the center.

She opposed the Big Beautiful Bill, she has denounced Israel’s war in Gaza, opposed Trump’s recent artificial intelligence executive order, and called for the Trump administration to release the Epstein Files, and now she realizes that the MAGA movement is essentially composed of living cadavers known as seniors who wax nostalgic of the 1700s, or the 1800s, or the 1950s America, and she can simply calculates that as time goes by the "base" of MAGA is likely to shrivel. The younger generation is moving forward with the times, and MTG knows that MAGA is stuck in a fossilized mindset that cannot be resurrected by the morons of the Republican Party.

Regardless of her intentions, which we hope are sincere, this is a good sign going forward. And if indeed she maintains a critical view of her own camp, she deserves credit for daring to stand up for the facts. Donald Dumb may soon have her in his crosshairs.

Here she is describing the viewership of FOX News.

=====================================================



Marjorie Taylor Greene took a jab at Fox News for its older viewership, claiming the network is appealing to an audience that’s “not the future of America.”

Amid her recent rift with the GOP, the Georgia Republican has also struck up a feud with Fox News host Mark Levin. He called her a “lunatic” during an appearance on Fox News Tuesday. “The Republican Party isn’t going the way of Marjorie Taylor Greene or her ilk. No way!” Levin said.

Greene responded to Levin during an interview with Eric Bolling on Real America’s Voice News Wednesday, and took a dig at Fox News’ audience.

“Mark has never called me or talked to me in person,” Greene said. “When he goes on Fox News, the network where he hosts his show, and calls me ‘crazy’ and refers to ‘Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk,’ he’s insulting my entire district.”

She continued: "Fox News better start paying attention, but their problem is most of the people that watch Fox News are very much up in age, the Baby Boomer generation, who I love, those are my parents, but that’s their biggest audience. That’s not the future of America."

Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene blasted Fox News for its older audience in a new interview (AP)

Nearly half of older Americans — 47 percent of those 65 and older, and 45 percent aged 50-64 — say they regularly get news from Fox News, according to Pew. That’s compared to 32 percent aged 30-49, and 28 percent of those under 30. Older adults are more likely to get their news from watching TV compared to younger adults in general.

From April through June, Fox News saw a 31 percent uptick in viewers aged 25- 54, according to a press release. Overall, the network had a 25 percent increase in total viewers for that period, the company said.

Greene, a longtime loyal supporter of President Donald Trump, has publicly disagreed with the president and her own party in recent weeks. She has denounced Israel’s war in Gaza, opposed Trump’s recent artificial intelligence executive order, and called for the Trump administration to release the Epstein Files.

“I don't know if the Republican Party is leaving me, or if I'm kind of not relating to the Republican Party as much anymore,” Greene told the Daily Mail last week. “I don't know which one it is.”

Levin and Greene got into another spat in June over foreign policy. After U.S. airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, Greene criticized the move, saying she wanted to focus on issues at home rather than abroad.

Fox News host Mark Levin called the Georgia Congresswoman a 'lunatic' amid her recent rift with the Republican party (Fox News)

“I don’t know anyone in America who has been the victim of a crime or killed by Iran, but I know many people who have been victims of crime committed by criminal illegal aliens or MURDERED by Cartel and Chinese fentanyl/drugs,” the Congresswoman wrote on X.

Greene added that she still supported Trump while disagreeing with the Iran airstrikes “and getting involved in a hot war that Israel started.”

Levin responded to her remarks, calling her a “shameless nitwit” — and misspelled her name.

“Marjorie Taylor Green, shameless nitwit,” he wrote. “How incredibly dumb is this Marjorie Taylor Green? She doesn't know anyone in America who has been a victim of crime or killed by Iran? You mean the thousands of Americans, especially military personnel, killed and maimed by the Iranian terrorist regime?”

Friday, August 8, 2025

Hegseth Planning a Second American Civil War

Can you still not guess why Donald Dumb picked Pete Hegseth, a shallow ignorant presenter at the pedestrian media organization of Fox News, who is also an adulterous drunkard womanizer who claims that he was saved by his lord Jesus Christ. [https://americanreformer.org/2025/01/can-he-say-that/]?

Donald Dumb is a white racist Christian supremacist who is determined to "return" the US to its long-gone white Christian past, especially its puritanical barbaric version of Christianity that ironically, truth be told, claims to have fled intolerant Europe to seek liberty. And look at them now, the white Christian republicans of the GOP and MAGA: They are themselves intolerant barbarians who want to turn the US into the Potomacistan Taliban: Xeonophobes, mysogynists (who want women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen while their white Christian husbands run free to bed any woman they like, married, virgins, underage, children, slaves, prostitutes, etc.) That is apparently what the garbage Jewish and Christian bible from the Bronze Age tells them. 

And it is this unity in beliefs that brings Hegseth to become the Defense Secretary, not any specific skills, achievements, education or talent. He is the faithful servant of his lord Donald Dumb, both embarking on truning back two centuries of history. The bottomlessness of their stupidity is so staggering that they are setting the country backward decades, and the climb back from the filth they are inflicting on this country will be very difficult.

Remember that since Ronald Reagan the white Christian supremacists have been planning their scheme carefully. They did not fight the white Christian terrorist organizations that mushroomed across the country in the form of survivalists, backwoods renegades, etc. and they encouraged the NRA because they wanted it to be the armed faction of the Republican Party (under the cover of the Second Amendment).

I truly believe that Donald Dumb is leading the country to another civil war because he and his collaborators know that a "normal" America will spit them out like the disgusting loogie that they are. They are pathetically tragic, as they run against the march of history. Have you seen any signs that the French monarchy is returning? Have you heard that the Russian Empire of the Romanovs is being reinstated? The problem for the southern imbeciles of the United States is that they are heirs to the British Empire that they evicted from their plantations because of greed, yet unconsciously they wish they hadn't. But the fact is that there is no British Empire anymore, so what these white barbarian descendants of English peasants are chasing is an absolute form of historical and cultural cretinism.

They couldn't find a smart intellectual or thinker in their ranks to lead the revision of history. They had to fall back on an illiterate imbecile like Donald Dumb, and now it is the blind leading the blind to the abyss. 

=========================================================  

Hegseth Threatens Another Civil War to Defend ‘Proud’ Confederate History
Liam Archacki
Fri, August 8, 2025 at 1:24 AM GMT+3·2 min read



Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has vowed not to back down from celebrating America’s “proud” Confederate history.

“We recognize our history,” Hegseth told Fox News host Will Cain on Thursday. “We don’t erase it. We don’t follow the woke lemmings off the cliff that want to tear down statues… We’re proud of our history.”

Hegseth was defending the decision to restore a Confederate monument in Arlington National Cemetery that critics say whitewashes the history of slavery in America.

Shortly after rebuking those who want to remove Confederate symbols, Hegseth made it clear that he is willing to do whatever it takes to defeat his opposition.


“Our job is to ensure our enemies know exactly what we will do to them if they threaten us up to and including total war,” he said.

The monument in question is Moses Ezekiel’s Confederate Memorial. It features an inscription in Latin that describes the Civil War as a “lost cause” that was honorable for its noble principles and resistance to tyranny.

An image of the memorial taken between 1914 and 1920. It was unveiled in 1914. / HUM Images/Universal Images Grou

The sculpture also depicts Black people as supporting the Confederate soldiers, implying that they wished to remain enslaved.

The 32-foot-tall monument offers “a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery,” according to an archived version of the National Cemetery website.

It was erected in 1914 and taken down under former President Joe Biden in 2023.

The monument’s restoration is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to bring back Confederate symbols. / Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The move to restore the sculpture is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to restore references to the Confederacy across the government.

The National Park Service announced earlier this week that it is bringing back a statue of Confederate Army Gen. Albert Pike, who once wrote that the “white race, and that race alone, shall govern this country. It is the only one that is fit to govern, and it is the only one that shall.”

The administration has also restored the names of a number of army bases named for Confederate leaders.

MAGA Star Cory Mills Sinking in His Own Christian Puritanical Filth

Bottom line: They are all like Donald Trump: Adulterous womanizing criminal thugs who think their whiteness and fake Christianity entitles them to break all laws, human laws and their so-called divine laws. 

Cory Mills's Floridian GOP mongrels are "concerned". They have no idea what tsunami is going to hit them in November 2026. Americans may be collectively dumb, but they eventually can tell a liar.
========================================================



Republicans Freak Over MAGA Star’s Alleged Nude Leak Threats
Ewan Palmer
Thu, August 7, 2025


CORY MILLS - Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Colleagues of Florida Rep. Cory Mills are concerned for his future after the latest “disturbing” allegations surrounding the MAGA lawmaker, according to Politico.

The Republican is grappling with another scandal after his former girlfriend accused him of harassment in the wake of their breakup, including threats to leak sexual videos he had of her.

Mills has been hit with a slew of controversies, including claims he owed tens of thousands in rent at his D.C. apartment, allegations he assaulted a woman he was dating there in February 2025, and questions about whether he should have been awarded a Bronze Star for bravery during the Iraq war in 2023.

Cory mills has been a stanch supporter of Donald Trump during his two years in office. / Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Mills has denied the allegations as “false,” with a spokesperson for the lawmaker telling the Daily Beast they are “just another sorry attempt to smear Mills.”

But three GOP lawmakers have told Politico they are wondering if the latest scandal surrounding the under-fire Mills could be his undoing, with one unnamed Republican saying, “This whole other issue is disturbing.”

Others are wondering if Mills’ seat in Florida’s 7th Congressional District, which is up for grabs in next year’s midterm elections, is in danger of being flipped by the Democrats and asking if the GOP should be looking for a replacement Republican candidate.

Lindsey Langston said she was in a relationship with Cory Mills from November 2021 until February. / Miss United States

“What if he is arrested for real?” another unnamed Republican told Politico.

Lindsey Langston, the reigning Miss United States beauty pageant winner, filed a police report against Mills, accusing him of threatening behavior after their three-year relationship ended in February.

The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to the Daily Beast that they received a report and sent it on to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for review.

Langston included screenshots of messages from Mills to back up her claims while making the report, including ones in which he threatens to go after future boyfriends and warning he could send them recorded videos of them “engaging in sexual acts,” Drop Site News reported.

“I can send him a few videos of you as well,” one of the messages Mills sent to Langston allegedly said, via Blaze Media, “Oh, I still have them.”

Langston said she broke up with Mills after reading reports that police were called to his D.C. apartment to investigate an alleged assault against another woman he was dating. The woman in question, Sarah Raviani, later withdrew her allegations against Mills.

Cory Mills has been renting a penthouse apartment in the D.C. area. / Google Maps

Mills said he is unaware of any police report being filed against him in the Langston case.

“These claims are false and misrepresent the nature of my interactions. I have always conducted myself with integrity, both personally and in service to Florida’s 7th District,” Mills said in a statement. “My team and I will fully cooperate to ensure the truth is made clear.”

The lawmaker also hit out at Anthony Sabatini, Langston’s lawyer, who ran against Mills in the 2022 GOP congressional primary. Mills accused Sabatini of “weaponizing the legal system to launch a political attack” against him and of “using his corporate legal office to push a narrative built on lies and flawed legal arguments.”

Mills did not immediately respond to a request for further comment from the Daily Beast.

Sorry, but Southern MAGA Pedophiles Keep Popping in the News

Another US-born white American female teacher is AGAIN in the news for having sex with her students. She's from the pro-slavery secessionist backward state of South Carolina, one of whos two senators is a right wing conservative Christian closeted homosexual by the cutsy name of Lindsey Graham.

Yet these are the people who keep yelling to high heavens about their family values, Christian faith, and demonizing the "pedophile" Democrats. I suppose we can safely reach the conclusion that THEY THEMSELVES, GOP, MAGA, and other racist white supremacists ARE THE PEDOPHILES. And Trump has been a master at his strategy of turning the correct accusations about him and his followers against his enemies.

Take my word and do this simple exercise: Every time Trump hurls an insult or accusation at any of the Democrats or his opponents, take that insult or accusation and test it on him, and see if the glove fits the hand. He learned this tactic from his mentor Roy Cohn who was a prominent lawyer and political fixer who mentored him during his rise as the supreme con man in the New York business scene. Cohn taught Trump tactics such as aggressive confrontation and manipulation of the media, which have been influential in Trump's career.

===================================================== 
Saluda (South Carolina) High School teacher arrested for alleged inappropriate relationship with students
Rakiyah Lenon
Thu, August 7, 2025

Melissa Groleau, the southern sex maniac teacher who sleeps with her students. Her "beautiful white skin" that makes her one of God's chosen people, is somehow a license to demonize innocent people while engaging in illegal and unethical conduct. To the MAGA morons: These are your representatives, from this unknown teacher in backward South Carolina to the big fish Donald Dumb in Washington DC.

SALUDA, S.C. (WJBF) – A Saluda High School teacher was arrested after allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a student, the Saluda County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.

In a statement posted to Facebook on Aug. 7, the sheriff’s office said Melissa Groleau was taken into custody by deputies at the the High School Complex and transported to the Saluda County Detention Center. She faces multiple charges, including two counts of Criminal Sexual Conduct with a Minor 2nd degree, Assault and Battery 2nd degree, and Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.

According to police, the investigation began on Aug. 7 after “serious allegations” were brought to the attention of school resource officers. The matter was referred to the sheriff’s office, and evidence was obtained, leading to Groleau’s arrest.

Saluda County Schools Superintendent Harvey Livingston said Groleau is being placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

“The Saluda School District has been in full cooperation with the Sheriff’s Office to ensure a thorough and transparent investigation is completed,” the statement reads in part.

This is an ongoing investigation, and no further details have been released.

Anyone with additional information is asked to contact the Saluda County Sheriff’s Office.

Pete Hegseth is the Chief Mullah of the United States Taliban

Women should not vote

Women should not work (while their Christian men fornicate with other women and children)

US should be a theocracy led by pedophile, adulterous womanizing pastors and other "men of God".

Pete Hegseth is a drunkard womanizer Christian with lots of "Family Values".

======================================================


Hegseth attended service at church of ‘Christian nationalist’ pastor who doesn’t think women should vote and wants US to be theocracy
Josh Marcus
Thu, August 7, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly attended a service at Christ Church Washington D.C., a church affiliated with self-identified Christian nationalist Doug Wilson, an influential right-wing leader who seeks to turn the U.S. and other nations into Christian-led theocracies.

Hegseth and his family were in attendance at the church’s inaugural service in Washington in July, CNN reports.

“The Secretary is a proud member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which was founded by Pastor Doug Wilson,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to The Independent. “The Secretary very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”

The Defense Secretary has attended services at other venues around Washington, including the Washington National Cathedral and the Pentagon.

“We’re not planting the church so that we can get to meet senators and important people,” Wilson told CNN. “What we’re doing is planting a church so that the important people in D.C. will be reminded that God is the important one. What matters is His favor.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly attended inaugural July church service of Christ Church Washington D.C., which is affiliated with controversial Christian nationalist leader Doug Wilson (AP)

Wilson, whose international network of churches, religious publishing, and education ventures began in Idaho in the 1970s, wrote in May that Christ Church’s presence in Washington seeks to benefit from the “many strategic opportunities with numerous evangelicals who will be present both in and around the Trump administration.”

The reported attendance is not the first time Hegseth has been linked to Wilson and his movement, which has occupied positions including that the U.S. should repeal the 19th Amendment, which grants women the right to vote, that the Supreme Court should strike down gay marriage, that slavery produced “genuine affection between the races,” and that women should submit to their husbands.

Before joining the Trump administration, Hegseth reportedly moved to Tennessee in part to send his children to a school affiliated with a network Wilson co-founded. Hegseth is also a member of a church affiliated with Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, and has praised Wilson’s writings and Christ Church’s college in Idaho, New Saint Andrews.

The Secretary and Wilson met in May, as the pastor visited his Tennessee church.

That same month, the Justice Department intervened in a legal battle between Christ Church and Troy, Idaho, which it accuses of religious discrimination for blocking church plans to operate in a town building over zoning issues.

Hegseth, whose church and children’s school is affiliated with Wilson, has embraced public displays of faith since taking office, including by leading a prayer service at the Pentagon (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Wilson, whose views were once considered fringe within the evangelical wing of the Republican party, rose to a new level of national prominence in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, in which church members protested event restrictions with an outdoor service and some were arrested, attracting attention from Donald Trump.

“DEMS WANT TO SHUT YOUR CHURCHES DOWN, PERMANENTLY. HOPE YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING,” Trump wrote on X at the time. “VOTE NOW!”

Since then, Wilson has appeared on the Tucker Carlson podcast, as well as spoken at events in Washington attended by future Trump officials like Russell Vought, head of the White House’s influential Office of Management and Budget.

Hegseth has embraced public displays of faith in office, including leading a religious service at the Pentagon.

During his confirmation process, his religious identity became a topic of controversy.

Hegseth faced criticism during confirmation process over religious tattoos that critics said were white nationalist dog whistles (Pete Hegseth/ Instagram)

Critics accused Hegseth of having a tattoo featuring a white nationalist dog whistle.

Hegseth has the words “Deus Vult” tattooed on his bicep, which has been associated with white supremacist groups. "Deus Vult" is a Latin phrase meaning "God Wills It," and was a rallying cry for Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages.

The National Guard veteran was reportedly stopped from joining a 2021 assignment securing the Biden inauguration over concerns about his tattoos.

Hegseth has denied these associations, saying the tattoos are non-hateful testaments to his religious beliefs.

Thursday, August 7, 2025

Let the Children Come to Me, Said the Trump-Epstein Conglomerate to Utah Sen. Stuart Adams

It must be Jesus working his mysterious ways behind the numskull Utahn GOP who interprets Jesus's "Let the children come to me" as a license from the Trump-Epstein underage girl rape conglomerate. He's a Christian (mormon, evangelical, or some other shit of that nature) who abides by the laws of God and not the laws of humans.

====================================================== 

 

GOP Senator Changed Utah’s Consent Law After Family Member Raped 13-Year-Old

The Republican is taking the party’s obsession with “family values” to a whole new level of hypocrisy.
Danielle Han
Wed, August 6, 2025 



Yep, you read that headline right. A Utah Republican has taken the party’s obsession with “family values” to a whole new level of hypocrisy.

In 2024, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Senator Stuart Adams changed the state’s consent laws after his 18-year-old relative was charged with four first-degree felonies for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. The age of consent in Utah is 18, but 14- and 15-year-olds can consent to sex with someone less than four years their age. Of course, the girl was neither 14 nor 15, and was more than four years younger than the 18-year-old. 

The teen was arrested in 2023 and charged with two counts of child sodomy and two counts of child rape. Adams said he was “surprised by the severity of the charges” (uhhh) against his family member. Under his revisions to S.B. 213, the law now states that if “the defendant is 18 years old and enrolled in high school at the time the sexual activity occurred,” they’ll no longer be tried as an adult—but charged as a minor.

The senator claims that because the new legislation was not enforced retroactively, he did not intend for it to help his family member. But people who helped him draft the law sing a different tune. According to the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney in the case, the relative’s situation was a “pivotal” part of the decision to amend the policy.

And retroactive or not, the change inspired court negotiations to end in a plea deal last week. The 18-year-old could have received a 25-year sentence and been required to register as a sex offender, had Adams not tipped the scale in his favor. Instead, in exchange for pleading guilty, he doesn’t have to serve any additional jail time (he only served once, for one week right after his arrest) and doesn’t have to register as a sex offender. Incredible.

The 13-year-old’s mother found out about the incident through “random conversation,” according to the newspaper, and reported it to the police with permission from the child. Court records later showed that a friend of the 18-year-old also contacted the police. The mother told the outlet that she felt “punched in the gut” when the law changed. “It was out of nowhere.”

“I feel like a law is the law, regardless of who you are,” she said. “But that wasn’t what was going on here.” 

The Shaman RFK Leads the MAGA Tribal Chief DJT into an Anti-Science Campaign

Ten, twenty years from now, when the US is no longer the leader in advanced biological and medical research, let it be known that primitive illiterate crooks were the ones who guillotined and castrated American science with stupid decisions like this one.

I can't help but compare the MAGA movement in the US to the Taliban in Afghanistan: Reject modernity, embrace backward religion and use it to deny other people their rights.

By the way, I have taken the Pfizer mRNA vaccine 6 times and I have never felt better. Remember too that ALL DRUGS AND VACCINES, whether mRNA-based or otherwise, CAUSE ADVERSE REACTIONS AND SIDE EFFECTS. But that has never been a reason to mount stupid conspiracy theories. Every drug and vaccine will eventually cause sickness and occasionally death in some people, but these are extremely rare. Read the leaflet inside your next Aspirin purchase and see what it can do in some people. Yet imbeciles like RFK without a speck of scientific training don't go on a rampage trying to ban Aspirin.

Non-scientific, "lay", people should understand that nothing in the world of biology is ever 100%. Everything is governed by the laws of statistics - the bell-shaped curve - whereby the most successful drug still kills and harms a tiny fraction of people that take it.

As of October 2023, over 13 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally. Of these, 700 million (Pfizer and Moderna) mRNA vaccines were administered in the US alone. Adding all the mRNA vaccines administered worldwide (for which I could not find a tally), we're probably close to 1 billion. The frequency of adverse effects, which may or may not be directly linked to the vaccine itself but to the health status of the patients, is so tiny relative to the large number administered that it is foolish to doubt the efficacy of the vaccine, like this idiot RFK and his voodoo pseudo-science universe, are doing.

If his "thinking" is correct, then ALL DRUGS, including puny Aspirin, should be banned.

Remember finally the race between the two polio vaccines, Sabin's and Salk's, both of which were controversial for their time, just as the mRNA vaccines are controversial for our time. 

Two things stand out of that race: 1- Everybody dreaded the vaccines because they were untested (like mRNA vaccines in our time), and 2- Vaccinated children died or contracted the disease anyway. In the end, the Sabin vaccine was adopted, and despite an outlier fraction of children hurt by either vaccine, the Sabin vaccine saved millions and millions of children from being paralyzed and maimed for life by polio.
========================================================= 


How RFK Jr.’s mRNA crackdown affects vaccine making and future pandemics
Carolyn Y. Johnson and Lauren Weber
Updated Thu, August 7, 2025


UNITED STATES - AUGUST 4: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaks at an event where Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins signed SNAP food choice waivers at the USDA Whitten Building on Monday, August 4, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) (Tom Williams via Getty Images)

The Trump administration’s decision to terminate hundreds of millions of dollars to develop mRNA vaccines and treatments imperils the country’s ability to fight future pandemics and is built on false or misleading claims about the technology, public health experts said.

Vaccine development is typically a years-long process, but mRNA technology paired with massive injections of federal funding during the coronavirus pandemic drastically slashed the timeline. The first covid shots, based on mRNA, were in people’s arms less than a year after the United States recorded its first coronavirus case - a signature achievement of the first Trump administration. The flexible technology provided a road map for how to quickly respond to pathogens that are constantly evolving, including H5N1 avian bird flu, a candidate to spark the next pandemic.

But research into H5N1 mRNA vaccines were among nearly two dozen mRNA projects supported by the government’s biodefense agency that were terminated or altered, according to a Department of Health and Human Services statement released Tuesday. The moves affect $500 million in projects, according to HHS, including covid and flu therapeutics and vaccines.

“This represents a significant setback for our preparedness efforts in responding to infectious-disease outbreaks,” said Dawn O’Connell, the former assistant secretary of preparedness and response at HHS during the Biden administration. If viruses change, mRNA can be quickly rebooted and manufactured.

But HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has criticized mRNA vaccines, arguing that they are ineffective at fighting upper respiratory infections and keeping up with the mutations of a virus.

Kennedy has a history of disparaging the mRNA coronavirus vaccines, in 2021 falsely calling them the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” He has also said there was a “poison” in it - claims refuted by medical experts. He has also been under pressure from anti-vaccine activists who say he has not done enough to remove mRNA vaccines from the market.

The full scope of mRNA projects terminated was not immediately clear. Multiple companies mentioned by HHS did not immediately respond to questions. A spokesman for Moderna, which previously lost funding to develop an mRNA bird flu vaccine, said the company was not aware of new contract cancellations.

The AstraZeneca program that HHS is restructuring is an RNA-based pandemic influenza vaccine that is in early stages of development. The company is exploring options for next steps, a spokeswoman said.

An inhaled mRNA treatment for flu and covid being developed at Emory University was terminated. Some late-stage projects are proceeding, such as early human testing of an mRNA-based H5N1 candidate being developed by Arcturus Therapeutics “to preserve prior taxpayer investment,” according to HHS.

Gritstone Bio, which HHS said had a project proposal rejected, already ceased operating earlier this year after declaring bankruptcy.

A terminated contract to Tiba Biotech was for a H1N1 flu treatment that was not based on mRNA, but a different RNA technology. The company received a stop work order late Tuesday afternoon.

“This comes as a surprise given the Department’s stated goal of winding down mRNA vaccine development,” Jasdave Chahal, Tiba’s chief scientific officer, said in an email. “Our project does not involve the development of an mRNA product and is a therapeutic rather than a vaccine.”

“It’s going to deter innovations,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California College of the Law at San Francisco, whose research focuses on vaccine law and policy. “Why invest in new technologies if the government can not only refuse to fund them, but if it’s going to cancel already promised contracts?”


HHS said in its statement that “other uses of mRNA technology,” such as cancer treatments, are not affected by the announcement. But researchers worried that the Trump administration’s criticism of the mRNA technology would have a chilling effect on one of the most promising fields in medicine. In 2023, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for fundamental work on mRNA that enabled the development of coronavirus vaccines.

“It’s absolutely perplexing why this is happening,” said Jeff Coller, a professor of RNA biology and therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University who has studied mRNA for more than three decades. “You have to sort of scratch your head to wonder why the secretary is directing these sort of actions against probably one of the most powerful platforms in medicine that has come along in the last 20 years.”

Six scientific and medical experts said Kennedy and HHS offered misleading assessments of mRNA technology as they announced the termination of research.

Here are the issues they flagged with some of the statements:

- - -

“The data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu,” Kennedy said in a statement.

It’s true that mRNA vaccines can be ineffective at preventing coronavirus infections, although data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows they still offer some protection. But several scientific experts noted the primary purpose of vaccination is to prevent hospitalizations and death, which the mRNA vaccines have effectively done, according to CDC data.

The FDA has not approved an mRNA flu vaccine, so experts said it was premature to make sweeping claims about its potential efficacy.

- - -
“One mutation and the vaccine becomes ineffective,” Kennedy said in a video.

The coronavirus keeps evolving in a way that makes it easier to infect people who have some immunity from vaccination or prior infection. But medical experts said the mRNA vaccines have been resilient in maintaining protection against severe outcomes. Manufacturers have also been able to update formulas annually to better target new variants.

“That is actually one of the most powerful aspects of mRNA vaccines: that you can, in real time, develop new mRNAs against the virus as the virus changes,” Coller said. “I’m not sure why that would be considered a bad thing.”

- - -

“We’ve seen now these epidemics of myocarditis,” Kennedy said at a news conference.

Coronavirus vaccines designed using mRNA carry a very small risk of myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart, from the coronavirus vaccine, particularly in young men. However, medical experts said the data shows there is not an “epidemic” of the condition; in fact, the rates of myocarditis and other heart illness are much higher from the virus instead of the vaccine.

Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious-disease epidemiologist, said this rhetoric was part of the pandemic revisionist “revenge tour.”

“Calling it an epidemic is absolutely misleading,” she said.

- - -

“Technologies that were funded during the emergency phase but failed to meet current scientific standards will be phased out in favor of evidence-based, ethically grounded solutions – like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms” - HHS statement

Scientific experts said a variety of vaccine types are often required to fight emerging infectious diseases. In some cases, whole-virus vaccines have been known to have serious side effects.

Peter Hotez, a physician and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said he was surprised to hear HHS tout whole-virus vaccines because China had used a whole-virus vaccine for coronavirus that was “pretty mediocre,” Hotez said.

Kennedy is “pushing a technology that is actually probably the most problematic of all vaccines we could pick,” Hotez said.

- - -

Rachel Roubein, Sabrina Malhi and Daniel Gilbert contributed to this
report

MAGA Nostalgics of Slavery

Like that racist KKK thug Ann Coulter, who recently declared that the white settlers of America didn't kill enough Indians (perhaps subconsciously trying to rid themselves of the genocide guilt weighing on their consciences), Pete Hegseth - the other drunkard, womanizer, racist in Trump's court - is rehabilitating the secessionist separatist pro-slavery southern traitors to the Union.

MAGA's anger at native Americans and at Black African descendants of slaves stems from their criminal minds as heirs to the English colonial crooks who founded this country. Yet, they proclaim that they rebelled against the English crookdom crown to gain their freedom when in fact, it wasn't freedom they were after. They just didn't want to pay taxes to their own government, so they turned into terrorists. The American Revolution was all about money. Then, the quest for greed continued when the southern barbarians wanted to keep millions of Africans enslaved to work as free labor on their fucking plantations.

America was fashioned by greed. All the accoutrements of liberty, civilization, democracy were just cosmetics slapped on top of everything to mask their guilt. Like lipstick on a pig. Which is why, unlike any other country in the world, giant corporations lead the show in the US and dictate policy on subservient politicians whose campaigns they fund.

Hard as some decent Americans try to restore truth, the southerners and other mindless imbecile peasants from backwoods America continue to wax nostalgic of a time when they ran amok with every basic norm of human decency and their own self-declared Christianity. They still believe, as one of the monument Hegseth wants to restore says, that the southern secession, civil war and abject slavery were from their point of view "a noble cause". 

Hegseth's revisionism of American history is not because he is fond of maintaining the historical record, bad as it may be. His revisionism is similar to neo-Nazis's nostalgia for Hitler. Trump and Hegseth are not that far from Hitler: Their base consists of all the neo-Nazi and white supremacist, supposedly "Christian", mongrels.

The hilariously sad aspect of all this is that the white supremacist movement in the US, long before there were other religions in the country, targeted Jews as their main enemy. Just like the German Nazis. Yet, they blindly support the state of Israel which is currently led by equally bad neo-Nazi Jews called Zionists. How do they reconcile their "love" for Israel and their own antisemitism is anybody's guess!
--------------------

Opinion

Pete Hegseth Unveils Return of Pro-Slavery Monument
Rachel Kahn
Wed, August 6, 2025


The Trump administration is on a pro-Confederacy roll, with two monuments brought back in 24 hours.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that a Confederate memorial would be reinstalled in Arlington Cemetery after the statue’s removal in 2023 by Hegseth’s predecessor, Lloyd Austin, the country’s first Black defense secretary.

“Moses Ezekiel’s beautiful and historic sculpture—often referred to as ‘The Reconciliation Monument’—will be rightfully be returned to Arlington National Cemetery near his burial site,” Hegseth wrote on X.

The statue is likely more often referred to by the name it’s had since its construction in 1914: the Confederate Memorial.

“It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history—we honor it,” Hegseth continued.

The memorial featured a “nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy” and included “highly sanitized depictions of slavery,” according to Arlington Cemetery’s website. The statue also had a Latin inscription that characterizes the South’s secession as a “noble ‘Lost Cause.’”

The Confederate Memorial is the second monument honoring the pro-slavery South that the Trump administration has recently resurrected. The National Park Service announced Monday that it would restore and reinstall the statue of Confederate General Albert Pike that was toppled during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

NPS describes the statue as a tribute to “Pike’s leadership in Freemasonry,” leaving out his Confederate background. The move is part of Trump’s “Executive Order on Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

It’s yet another instance in which the Trump administration is actively revising the past. Whether scrubbing mentions of queer and transgender Americans from the Stonewall website or quietly removing references to Trump’s impeachments from a Smithsonian exhibit (which the museum now says will be restored “in the coming weeks”), it’s clear that the administration is committed to promoting its version of the nation’s history—“truth” and “sanity” notwithstanding.