SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called for Acosta to resign, but also immediately ruled out impeaching him. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Democrats Are Failing the Country by Letting Trump Off the Hook
Democrats have essentially been shouting, "Do whatever you want, Mr. Trump! We are terrified of our own shadow and will let you get away with anything!"
Jul 11, 2019
The political media has been glued to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal of late. Federal officials arrested him in New Jersey Monday, and raided his New York home where they found a veritable cornucopia of incriminating evidence, allegedly including lots of child porn. Then on Wednesday another accuser came forward, saying that Epstein had raped her when she was 15 years old.
The Trump administration, naturally, is up to its elbows in the Epstein story. Trump himself was friends with the guy for years, but Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta personally arranged an outrageous sweetheart plea bargain with Epstein in 2008 when Acosta was a U.S. Attorney in Florida.
So what is the opposition party going to do about it? Nothing of substance. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called for Acosta to resign, but also immediately ruled out impeaching him. "It's up to the president, it's his cabinet. We have a great deal of work to do here for the good of the American people and we have to focus on that," she said. (Trump, of course, will do no such thing.) Senate Democrats who voted for Acosta and are still in office didn't even call for him to step down.
This failure to use their power to confront Trump and his administration is making Democrats an accessory to his crimes.
Acosta claimed that this new prosecution was based on "new evidence," but that is utterly preposterous. Epstein was known for decades as a notorious creep who had a thing for young girls. Trump himself said about him in 2002: "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown, who has been doggedly reporting this story for years, says they have identified about 60 victims -- including several willing to speak with reporters on the record, which is quite rare for a sex crime story involving a powerful billionaire. In terms of evidence, this would have been an open-and-shut case putting Epstein away for decades.
Read the full article at The Week.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 The Week
Ryan Cooper
Ryan Cooper is the Managing Editor of The American Prospect. Formerly, he was a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
The political media has been glued to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal of late. Federal officials arrested him in New Jersey Monday, and raided his New York home where they found a veritable cornucopia of incriminating evidence, allegedly including lots of child porn. Then on Wednesday another accuser came forward, saying that Epstein had raped her when she was 15 years old.
The Trump administration, naturally, is up to its elbows in the Epstein story. Trump himself was friends with the guy for years, but Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta personally arranged an outrageous sweetheart plea bargain with Epstein in 2008 when Acosta was a U.S. Attorney in Florida.
So what is the opposition party going to do about it? Nothing of substance. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called for Acosta to resign, but also immediately ruled out impeaching him. "It's up to the president, it's his cabinet. We have a great deal of work to do here for the good of the American people and we have to focus on that," she said. (Trump, of course, will do no such thing.) Senate Democrats who voted for Acosta and are still in office didn't even call for him to step down.
This failure to use their power to confront Trump and his administration is making Democrats an accessory to his crimes.
Acosta claimed that this new prosecution was based on "new evidence," but that is utterly preposterous. Epstein was known for decades as a notorious creep who had a thing for young girls. Trump himself said about him in 2002: "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown, who has been doggedly reporting this story for years, says they have identified about 60 victims -- including several willing to speak with reporters on the record, which is quite rare for a sex crime story involving a powerful billionaire. In terms of evidence, this would have been an open-and-shut case putting Epstein away for decades.
Read the full article at The Week.
Ryan Cooper
Ryan Cooper is the Managing Editor of The American Prospect. Formerly, he was a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
The political media has been glued to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal of late. Federal officials arrested him in New Jersey Monday, and raided his New York home where they found a veritable cornucopia of incriminating evidence, allegedly including lots of child porn. Then on Wednesday another accuser came forward, saying that Epstein had raped her when she was 15 years old.
The Trump administration, naturally, is up to its elbows in the Epstein story. Trump himself was friends with the guy for years, but Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta personally arranged an outrageous sweetheart plea bargain with Epstein in 2008 when Acosta was a U.S. Attorney in Florida.
So what is the opposition party going to do about it? Nothing of substance. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called for Acosta to resign, but also immediately ruled out impeaching him. "It's up to the president, it's his cabinet. We have a great deal of work to do here for the good of the American people and we have to focus on that," she said. (Trump, of course, will do no such thing.) Senate Democrats who voted for Acosta and are still in office didn't even call for him to step down.
This failure to use their power to confront Trump and his administration is making Democrats an accessory to his crimes.
Acosta claimed that this new prosecution was based on "new evidence," but that is utterly preposterous. Epstein was known for decades as a notorious creep who had a thing for young girls. Trump himself said about him in 2002: "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown, who has been doggedly reporting this story for years, says they have identified about 60 victims -- including several willing to speak with reporters on the record, which is quite rare for a sex crime story involving a powerful billionaire. In terms of evidence, this would have been an open-and-shut case putting Epstein away for decades.
Read the full article at The Week.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.