One year ago, thanks to legislation passed in FL, over 150 pages of grand jury transcripts and videos of witness interviews regarding the 2008 state investigation of Jeffrey Epstein were made public.
In June of that same year, Epstein pleaded guilty to the state charges: one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. He is sentenced to register as a sex offender, pay restitution, and serve 18 months in jail... but was allowed to go to his office during the day.
Around the same time that the state grand jury indicted Epstein, a federal grand jury in Florida had been impaneled and heard testimony.
There was a proposed indictment against him for conspiracy and sex trafficking.
That indictment was dropped when the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida inked a secret non-prosecution agreement with Epstein that resolved those possible charges against him and gave immunity to four female co-conspirators.
Maxwell was NOT one of those four female co-conspirators, but she is currently attempting to get her conviction overturned at SCOTUS by arguing that the NPA does in fact apply to her.
Also, if you want to penalize people burning flags, any flag, just enforce laws and ordinances already on the books against burning anything on public property without a permit.
🧵Update on DOJ's efforts to unseal Epstein and Maxwell grand jury material:
Judge Berman has DENIED DOJ's motion to unseal the grand jury materials in the Epstein case.
The reasons for the denial are the same as in Maxwell—no exceptions to Rule 6e and not a "special circumstance" case.
A judge CANNOT unseal grand jury materials UNLESS an exception under Rule 6e is met OR the case can be qualified as a "special circumstance" case.
In my thread on the denial to unseal grand jury materials in Maxwell I broke down the reasons for that denial and they are largely the same in this case.
According to an HPSCI whistleblower 302, and my own sleuthing, the "system" for leaking classified information to media was "established" by Minority Staff Director Michael Bahar.
**That's if I am correct on what's under the redaction block.**
In February of 2023 I wrote an article about Durham being assigned a media leak investigation.
Thanks to recent declassified docs, we now know that investigation was called "Tropic Vortex."
My article traced several subjects: the leaks investigations, the NYT engaging in a court battle against DOJ, Renteria memo, and Special Counsel Durham's efforts to investigate the Russian memoranda.
Thanks to recently declassified pages of the Durham Report and the declassified documents the FBI just turned over to the House, we now know a lot more about these efforts.
And the future shock I mentioned in the title of the article—it's here.