Thread by @SethAbramson

CORRECTIONS:

(1) Trump and Epstein became friends in 1987, not 1990. The New York Times inexplicably cuts 3 years off their 17-plus-year friendship.

(2) Their friendship did *not* end because Epstein was a creep. It ended over a Florida real estate deal. nytimes.com/2025/07/19/us/…

To the credit of the NYT, it does eventually clarify Point #2 in the report.

I do wish it spent more time on the fact that an anonymous person dimed out Epstein after Trump got angry at Epstein over the real estate deal in 2004—and that Trump has a history of diming people out.

That question alone could change everything.

If in fact Trump extended his long history of being a disgusting snitch only when it personally benefits him by reporting Epstein to the police in 2004—or having an agent do it—it would confirm he knew exactly what Epstein was up to.

(3) The Epstein binder compiled by Trump's personal lawyer was titled Phase 1—not Part 1. It matters. It's possible to have a Part 1 without anticipating subsequent parts. It's not possible to represent a thing as "Phase 1" without indicating future phases are *already planned*.

(4) A known lie shouldn't appear in a report before the truth. It's known the future Rybolovlev property was the subject of the falling out. It's *known* Trump came up with a lie about deciding Epstein was a creep after the fact—at a time he didn't want to talk about Rybolovlev.

(5) The 2008 Rybolovlev deal was deemed suspicious and inexplicable from the start. So Trump lying to a lawyer in 2009 about his falling out with Epstein was self-evidently an attempt to avoid discussing that particular property. No media outlet should credit what Trump said then.

(5) Moreover, now that we know Epstein had secret Russian bank accounts and was connected to powerful Russian nationals, and now that we know the Rybolovlev deal is deemed a crooked Kremlin joint, Trump and Epstein fighting over that property in 2004 takes on a new cast entirely.

(5) I cannot imagine a journalist having *any* level of comfort repeating the self-serving Trump claim about why and when his relationship with Epstein ended. That is simply too important a historical fact to repeatedly—in a single article—attribute to a self-serving Trump claim.

Just because Trump said something doesn't mean it need ever be repeated in media. Lies are newsworthy only if covered as such; a lie covered as the truth is definitionally the *opposite* of newsworthy. And the weight of the evidence is that Trump's "Mar-a-Lago ban" tale is a lie.