Seriosly, why?

  • specialseaweed@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    I think it’s important to remember that Biden was, perhaps more than any president in my lifetime (and I’m an old man), an institutionalist. He was a senator for just about forever, then the VP for 8 years. He was 78 years old when he became president. He is an old school liberal Catholic, a very nearly extinct person in the Catholic and Christian spheres.

    I think he saw his presidency as a repudiation of right wing reactionary politics. His election, in his mind, was in large part a call to what he saw as the original intent and purpose of the executive branch. To put it plainly, he saw himself as elected because America rejected the politicization of government under Trump. Included under that umbrella of beliefs about the purpose of the executive was the unalienable requirement that the executive not direct the FBI to investigate the opposing political party. Remember, Joe Biden was a senator when Nixon resigned. He was there when Nixon was using the executive branch to attack Democrats.

    Biden appointed Garland to the DOJ. Garland’s record was perfectly fine and appeared well suited to the role, but his biggest strengths (in Biden’s mind) was his nonpartisanship and his conservative view of government. By conservative I mean staying within the lines of what the DOJ should be doing, a cautious view of the use of DOJ power. Again, this was done in reaction to Trump and his… let’s call it “expansive” view of government power. In Biden’s mind, he was righting the ship.

    And Garland was exactly as advertised, to a maddening degree. He was cautious to the point of being timid. He refused to throw the weight of the DOJ into investigations with political implications without reaching an imaginary bar of fairness that just isn’t realistic. You saw it in the Jan 6th investigations. You saw it in the Kushner deals (and all of the Trump family deals which are obviously dirty). You saw it in Garland’s unwillingness to take on wildly politicized federal prosecutor offices because doing so would be political interference (in his mind). You saw it when Robert Hur took unprofessionalism and partisanship to the absolute extreme when attacking Biden under the guise of a special counsel appointment and Garland did nothing because instiutionalism in his mind meant not interfering with the process.

    And you saw it in the Epstein case.

    Garland did everything by the book to an absurd degree that ended up paralyzing justice. Biden didn’t touch Garland or any of it because he believes doing so was itself an injustice, even if Garland was wrong to handle it the way he did. In Biden’s mind, the president should not have the power to demand the DOJ take action in a specific case like the Epstein case, especially if there’s political implications.

  • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    Because it could hurt rich people and both parties are on the side of rich people.

    • Binturong@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      This is the actual answer, cutting right through the smoke and mirrors and bullshit. Anyone who had the displeasure of reading through the flight logs that were available in their entirety online almost a year ago and probably still are: saw just what names pop up, often multiple times. This is the most bipartisan issue there ever was, so NOBODY in power wants to touch it.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    Well specifically, it is still an ongoing investigation, so nobody has a “complete set of files to release.”

    In February Pam Bondi said she had the first phase of files in her office, made a big public announcement about having requested all remaining files, and said she was waiting on them to be delivered. She even wrote a letter to Kash Patel about it and publicly released the letter.

    Then when she read whatever was in that second half of files that got delivered to her, she suddenly wasn’t so eager to release it.

    Even more than knowing what is in there about Trump, I would be most interested to know what banks knowingly financed what Epstein was doing. I would guess any bipartisan fears about information in there that could “destroy the country,” is more likely related to banks and corporations that are considered “too big to fail,” rather than any super scandalous information about individuals.

    • wildcardology@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      She released that first phase to MAGA influencers and made a big show out of it. She was asked about releasing the Epstein list and she said it’s on her desk along with mlk and jfk files and would release it

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    Because the files vaguely implicate a lot of influential oligarchs who donate to both sides.

    We know Trump hung out with Epstein, there are pictures and testimony. It simply doesn’t move the needle away from the right. He’s just buying trouble.

    gdamn thing should have been in the public from day one.

  • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    The give reason must be procedual, but the real reason is that the Epstein files undoubtedly also contain the names of democrats or democratic backers. They were more than happy doing nothing with those files.

    • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      So, no hiring hackers to actually change votes to Biden/Harris votes, but anything short of that? I dunno, if that were their standard they would have released the Epstein stuff. My real guess is that some Democratic politicians are also on the list. Even if it’s only a couple, they might have figured running against a convicted felon gave them such good odds there was no need to throw any of their own under the bus. And apparently none of them said, “Well but what if he hires hackers to change votes to Trump votes?”

      • 4am@lemmy.zip
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        7 days ago

        Musk and Eaton had the means to change votes, not sure what your first statement is about.

        • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          I’m convinced that Trump won because his team changed Harris votes to Trump votes, plain and simple. The differences between their totals were statistically anomalous compared to all the downballot candidates, the variations were just below thresholds that would have triggered automatic recounts, and these anomalies were present in the 7 swing states only. Those facts alone should justify formal audits, which I hope will happen. But it all kind of depends on the fate of the one lawsuit filed so far.

          • 4am@lemmy.zip
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            6 days ago

            Then we are in agreement on that. It’s just weird how you lead in on your first sentence.

  • SunshineJogger@feddit.org
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    5 days ago

    Too many influential and very rich on there most likely. Among all the Republicans probably also a few democrats because we know there are quite a few assholes among those too.

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    First, Bill Clinton is almost certainly all over them, and older Democrats still think of the Clintons as the epitome of Democratic success. Some of the old guard is still trying to push focus away from the Epstien files. Just two days ago, Nancy Pelosi was calling the Epstien files a distraction, which is a bat-shit crazy thing to say about evidence that could prove that your opponent was involved in a pedophile ring.

    Second, Epstien probably has some sort of ties to the intelligence community. I don’t know that I believe all these stories about him being a secret Mossad asset, but I think its very possible that the someone in the CIA was using him. Alex Acosta, who prosecuted Epstien in 2008, claimed that he was told to back off because he, “belonged to intelligence,” and they’re clearly withholding a lot of information, there’s definitely something they don’t want people to know. Anyway, since 9/11, the Democrats and Republicans have had basically the same position on the intelligence community (essentially, abject deference), so if the CIA says that it would be a national security risk to release the files, the Democrats aren’t going to release the files.

      • auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        The investigation was still ongoing, which Trump ended. And the DOJ is supposed to operate independently from the president.

          • auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 days ago

            ?? Yes which Trump ended. Investigation was ongoing which meant info couldn’t be released, Trump ended it. What aren’t you getting?

            • Hawke@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              Well, assuming “They were sealed until Jan 2024” is true, then from that point forward they could have been released but weren’t.

              • auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                6 days ago

                The investigation was still ongoing so they couldn’t have. There was thousands of people involved. It didn’t stop until Trump stopped it the other week.

                • Hawke@lemmy.world
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                  6 days ago

                  And why would “investigation is still ongoing” stop them from releasing it? My opinion: either a convenient excuse, or yet another self-own from the Democratic Party.

                  They chose not to release it, despite being under no true obligation.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    6 days ago

    Because spineless Establishment Dems have some obsession with “playing nice,” even with vicious MAGA Nazi enemies. I have a million questions, starting with:

    Why didn’t Biden have HitlerPig and his henchmen arrested within the first 60 seconds after his Inauguration?

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Because spineless Establishment Dems have some obsession with "playing nice insider trading

      Ftfy.

      The Dem party is known as the party of insider trading after all!

    • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      No you see Joe Biden just loves institutions so much!

      Almost as much as he loves weirdly sniffing women’s heads

      • iridebikes@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Obsessed with the hair sniffing bullshit but is fine with Trump being the wingman of one of the planets most prolific pedophiles.

        • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          Certainly, there is more evidence in the public record of trump being the worst sort of sex pest, and with Epstein specifically.

          Nevertheless “both sides” across at least three administrations chose to protect the elite pedophiles at the expense of the truth and the victims.

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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    5 days ago

    too much powerful people on the list: Hollywood moguls/execs, World leaders(people like belerscuni, eventhough hes been caught already), DEM/GOP mega donors, plus the politicians themselves. RFK jr too, since theres a photo out there him interacting with epstein in 1994, plus the epstein/maxwell had ties to israeli’s intelligence so its prudent for them to develop a blackmail list that will force the west to divert resources to israel.

    • LikeableLime@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      They apparently had video (obviously doctored and they couldn’t even hide that) after saying for years that all of the cameras malfunctioned. That video was released very recently so that leads me to believe there’s more stuff that never got released.

  • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    I think one reason is that democrats wanted to do things by the book, and they didn’t want to be accused of tampering with the 2024 election, more than trump already did.

    • CannedYeet@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Reminder, when you don’t do things by the book, the perp wins in court on technicalities or wins on appeal. For example, see Harvey Weinstein.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago
    1. Donors - some donors are implicated - eg Bill Gates
    2. Bill Clinton - Bill Clinton is a known associate, former president
    3. Celebrities/Press - Steven Pinker and a lot of the other idiots that dems like to pretend are smart and exceptional are implicated.
    4. if Dems released it it would probably be easier for trump etc to dismiss allegations as a smear
    5. Dems did prosecute Maxwell but its not clear anyone else can be charged.

    Its clearly stupid to not have released a list of epstein’s friends and been like “these people are wanted for questioning”