Oversight

The last couple of days, there have been two off-handed comments that got lost among much bigger news on the surface, yet which I think are not without meaning.  The first, its meaning small, except for showing a matter of bombastic stupidity showing the emptiness underneath.  The other, a matter that should be far more disturbing to the White House.

We’ll start with the most recent.  What made the news yesterday in Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appearance at the Senate Oversight Hearing of the Judiciary Commentary was her refusal to answer any question from Democrats, her off-topic deflections and her attacks on whatever Democrat was asking her a question.  But there was one attack response she gave that fell through the cracks which I think was significantly more problematic for her than the lack of attention it got.

There was a very weird thing that AG Bondi didn’t seem to realize when she was trying to slam Democratic senators for campaign donations from people who she said "knew" Jeffrey Epstein.  This, as far as I can tell, was (in her mind) a great coup-de-grace, never mind that there’s nothing remotely problematic with such a donation.  After all, the people who “knew” Jeffrey Epstein included renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, MAGOP financier Peter Thiel, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, former President Bill Clinton, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, and George Lucas, among a great many others.  But putting that aside, what Ms. Bondi totally misses when attempting to slam the Democratic senators for accepting political campaign donations from people who knew Jeffrey Epstein is that her boss Trump said he was “best friends” with Epstein!!   

I mean, man, if just taking campaign money from someone who merely “knew” Jeffrey Epstein is so damning to Pam Bondi that she’d attack U.S. senators with it at a Congressional hearing… just imagine how disgustingly malignant she must think Trump is!

And the moment passed by, unnoted, a bit of unexpected oversight at the Oversight Hearing.

And second, something caught my eye on Monday after watching video of Trump being asked if he would pardon Ghislaine Maxwell.  He reply got attention – but only for a non-answer he gave.  I think a far larger got overlooked for how he responded.  In fact – and I say this as a total amateur without any medical experience, except as a patient – but I think that Trump  he had a dementia moment.  I think Trump had no idea who Ghislaine Maxwell was. 

Now, to be clear, I know he does know who Ghislaine Maxwell is.  And I’m certain of that because he’s told us that on the record.  After all, in an interview on camera with Jonathan Swan of Axios, repeated several times that he wished well and was quoted as saying “I met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach.”  So, of course he knows who Maxwell is.  But I think that on Monday he forgot who she was. 

When asked if he would pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, there was a lot of deflecting ways he could have answered that would have been disingenuous, but thinly supportable without being able to contradict.  Instead, though, after being asked, he had sort of a blank stare, and then replied, "I haven't heard the name in so long. I can say this, that I'd have to take a look at it. I would have to take a look. I will speak to the DOJ."

Um, er…what??  There is no    way on earth could he not have heard Ghislaine Maxwell’s name “in so long”??  That is not possible.  The only way it is even in the realm of possibility is if, to Trump, “two days" is considered “long.”   It’s all the more unbelievable since just two weeks ago, her interview with Deputy AG Todd Blanch was made public.  And when Blanche went to question her in prison, there is no way on earth that his boss AG Pam Bondi would have sent him without getting approval from Trump.  And Trump would have had to more surely give his approval – if not order – to move Maxwell to a minimum security prison against all protocol.

Further, when then asked on Monday specifically about Maxwell being a convicted sex predator, it had no impact on him, and he just repeated, “I’ll have to talk to my DOJ advisors.”

Is it possible that that was Trump’s way of deflecting an answer?  Sure, most things are “possible.”  But is it probable or likely that that’s what he was doing?  No.  It’s too stupid and unbelievable by even Trump’s standards.  And those are standards for which he said there were airports in the Revolutionary War and that windmills cause cancer.  Trump sued the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion over them publishing a drawing he made an Epstein birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell put together.  It is improbable that Trump was intentionally deflecting by his answer because he didn’t say his standard, “I barely knew him” response when trying to avoid a connection.  He didn’t deny knowing her.  Instead, he said he (impossibly) hadn’t heard her name “in so long” – a long enough time to suggest he hadn’t given any thought to pardoning her (despite having previously been asked the same question, and actually answering it, saying it was too early to know).  He just looked and sounded confused and didn’t seem to want to acknowledge he didn’t know who the reporter was talking about.  And kept repeating that “I’ll have to talk to my DOJ advisors.”

I think, based on no medical experience and purely guessing, that from how he answered the question and how blank he looked and how he kept repeating that he had to ask his advisors, and never once said “Ghislaine Maxwell” (because I don’t think the name registered with him) that when Trump replied, “I haven’t heard her name in so long,” Trump was having a dementia moment.  And not even just a senior moment, forgetting a name, but dementia, not knowing who a person is, unable to place perhaps the most famous, deeply-concerning, angst-related name to him for the past two months, someone who was likely on his mind daily and repeatedly each day, over whom Speaker Mike Johnson is keeping the House closed during a government shutdown so as to not have to swear in a new Democratic member which would force the release of the Epstein files.

Yes, of course, I could be wrong.  But Trump too often gets a pass and the benefit of the doubt for just “glitching,” when expert psychologists and psychologists have been saying for almost six years that Trump shows signs of early dementia, which is degenerative.  I don’t think Trump – a man who danced for half an hour during a campaign Town Hall and who recently took a walk on the White House roof and shouted answers to reporters far below on the ground -- gets the benefit of the doubt any more.  And I think – for all the reasons stated – that when Trump said, “I haven’t heard her name in so long,” and kept repeating over and over “I’ll have to ask my DOJ advisors,” he was having a dementia moment and didn’t have any idea who perhaps the most-important person haunting his life today was.

And the moment, too, slipped through not just Trump’s cracks, but the news, as well.  Unnoted in its oversight.