Since Bill and Hillary are no longer in office, nor will ever be in office again, no.

Had Hillary won instead of Trump, I wonder if Epstein would not have been prosecuted today. I don't know how rank and file liberals and progressives would have felt about it. One has to wonder if the Bush administration and the Obama administration protected Epstein for any number of reasons.

Need I remind you that Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) actually killed a woman in a drunk driving accident where he failed to report the accident for almost 12 hours later. And Yet, he was a beloved member of the Senate for decades.

Hell... the entire Kennedy family are Saints to the left.

The Top Seven Kennedy Sex Scandals

Your points are well taken Lapi, but I would also like to remind people that there is another guy who's infatuated with 14 year old girls.
He plans on running for the Senate again and the people of Alabama are probably going to vote him in this time.
As president Trump once said, "there are good people in both sides" .

There's another guy who's currently president of the united states.

I agree with this to a point.
Some of the things he did should have been disqualifying.
He was accused by over twenty woman of sexual harassment.
He was accused of barging into a miss Teen beauty pageant locker room. Creepy.
But, to be fair, he was never accused of anything egregious with minors.

Who knows maybe this Epstein thing will be turning point for both sides. You'd at least hope.

Not over twenty accusations of sexual harassment. Sexual assault and rape
And you listed something egregious with minors.

Well, like I said.
It should have been disqualifying.

It's funny how people who blindly support Trump all of a sudden become the moral police when something like this happens.
It's pretty egregious in itself. This double standard.

Yeah... and there's a strong possibility that SDNY is going to try to pull a Trump rabbit out of the Epstein hat.

Though, since one of the victim's counsel spoke publicly that Trump was helpful to the victims counsel, you have to think that Trump probably doesn't have much to worry about here.

The GOP is on record that he shouldn't run.

The Kennedys are not heroes to people who identify as leftists.

Maybe Bobby.

The only way in which John Kennedy stood out as a quote leftist in his time was for civil rights, and that is why the right hates him so much. It's not that he taxed and spent anymore or differently the Nixon or Eisenhower. It's not that he was a pacifist, he wasn't. The right hates him still because he advanced civil rights. And he still did that with a great deal of caution and moderation. I Ithink Bobby was a great deal more passionate about it.

Really? The tiny minority that are the never Trumpers we know about.

Stop it Lapi. If you don't like Trump personally, then I have all the respect in the world for you. But don't try to convince us that the GOP doesn't want Trump to run. Maybe your target audience is on Redit for that, but not here.

See my post above. Bradley Edwards ended up apologizing to Dershowitz after Edwards accused Dershowitz of sexual misconduct; Dershowitz called Edwards a liar; and Edwards sued Dershowitz for defamation. As I understand that record, one of Edwards's clients claimed Dershowitz molested here at a specific time and place, and Dershowitz provided travel records showing he wasn't where she claimed he was when she claimed he was there. Edwards withdrew the allegation, settled the claim, and apologized. Anything is possible, but there's no reason to think Dershowitz is at risk here -- he's had a clean reputation for 70+ years, unlike e.g. Clinton and Trump.

smh...

Roy Moore not Trump.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/2...ich-in-matchup

Hmmm?
You thought you s get away with it, didn't yaah!!


Oooooops, just noticed this article is all the way back from 2017. My bag.

Perhaps I'm missing your point. I'd contend that every defendant deserves a vigorous defense, even people who are almost inarguably guilty -- like Weinstein, Cosby, and Epstein. The interesting thing about Epstein's case -- unlike the other two -- is that he was politically connected and appears to have been putting pressure on Acosta both through political channels and by investigating line prosecutors. I don't have a good feel for the relationships by United States Attorneys out in the field (which Acosta was for southern Florida) and main justice.

I believe Lapidator is talking about the GOP not wanting Roy Moore to run, not President Trump.

Ok. I stand corrected.
That is true.
When I said someone wants to run for the Senate, and Alabama will probably vote him in, that's who I meant, Moore, not Trump!

This is probably a giant derail, but I was referring more to how partisan subjects with objectively low stakes, both morally and IRL, produce such visceral emotional reactions; compared to topics where the partisan boundary lines are not as easily discerned, but objectively the transgressions are so much higher.

I mean if an alien that didn’t have any cultural context saw this thread and the Antifa one; they might assume Ngo committed a larger moral transgression than Epstein or any of his accomplices. I also suspect if Epstein wasn’t so politically promiscuous and had clearly allied with one side of the aisle in his cover up, if this conversation would be a lot more emotionally charged.

The emotional charge is so much lower (or at least it was until I came around)

I do wonder if this dynamic would be a lot different in less politically polarized times.

I mean, I am sure I am as guilty as this as anyone. It is a little perverse I seemingly am more worked up by college kids getting professors fired over dubious claims of racism than what appears to be a giant conspiracy to facilitate child rape.

I cannot believe I'm going to quote Jim Cramer here, but it is what it is and if nothing else tells you what kind of lawyering this guy is capable of.

Sure, guilty people need representation too, and that's why they call this guy it seems. Doesn't look good for Trump having him being a vocal supporter either. Better call Al

President Trump said about Roy Moore, the guy from Alabama accused by multiple teen girls of sexual harassment, "I have NOTHING against Roy Moore, unlike other Republican leaders, I wanted him to win".

This is America's moral compass.

What's happening in the antifa thread is that some people are extremely worked up over one person in the United States getting beaten up. Not a particularly vicious beating but he was beaten up. That happens lots of times to lots of people all over the country every day and for all kinds of bad reasons. And then those people are upset that some other people aren't super upset about it.

Has anyone suggested that Andy go to prison for the rest of his life? Because I think that's what most people think should happen to Epstein or something close to it. Do you know that going to prison for the rest of your life is worse than getting punched?

FYI, it is not clear to me that Epstein is clearly allied with one side of the political aisle in the sense you're talking about. He donated a fair amount of money to President Clinton; but at the same time, his counsel in the Florida criminal proceedings (Jay Lefkowitz and Ken Starr) were both allied with the political right.

That isn’t fair. No one thinks Trump is a moral compass. There is a lot of cynical ideologically/tribally possessed support for him right now, and I suspect the second he is out of office there is going to be A LOT of “born again” former Trumpkins trying to walk it back.

For good or bad I think he is such a blatantly horrible human being that the moral compass of America may actually swing hard back the other direction once he is gone and enough conservative Americans wake up from the fever dream.

Dershowitz is very definitely a civil libertarian and a first-rate criminal lawyer. He defended OJ, Claus von Bulow, Patty Hearst, Mike Tyson, and Michael Milken, among others. He also supported Obama in the '08 and '12 elections and has long characterized himself as a Democrat. Dershowitz is outspoken, but seems to call it like he sees it most of the time. He can be very very aggressive and likewise effective. The fact that he supports President Trump now says nothing at all about the President's involvement with Epstein. And it's pretty clear, again from Brad Edwards, that President Trump was the only witness who helped Edwards when Edwards was trying to gather evidence.

Kelhuss, I think you make a good point. Hey, we don't live in a perfect world. I don't want to, and shouldn't, claim that everyone that supports Trump doesn't have morals. Ironically, some of the people who support him, like Billy Graham jr for example, believe it in their own puzzling way, that it's morally right. So what do I know.

I think that the more public this Epstein story becomes, it will have maybe some positive shifting of moral tolerance for this type of repulsive behavior in this country. Maybe.

From a sociological perspective I am less interested in Epstein and more interesting how we morally and legally judge all his accomplices. I think this is going to say a lot more about our society, and maybe humanity in general, than focusing on Epstein himself.

I also am curious how this is going to be processed in a culture war context, which we are starting to see play out some.