Scandal in the Morning, Merch by Noon

The Epstein law is broken, the economy is fictional, and citizenship is now for sale

Can you hear that? That is the sound of a coverup in progress. Friday began the way Trump Fridays so often do now: with a lie collapsing in real time, followed by a frantic attempt to shout so loud the criminality goes unnoticed.

The Department of Justice did something remarkable even by Trump-era standards. It admitted, on Fox News, no less, that it would not comply with a federal law Donald Trump himself signed just 30 days ago. The Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the release of all non-exempt Epstein-related DOJ records by today. Not some now and some later, all of them.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer and now Deputy Attorney General, confirmed that DOJ would instead release “several hundred thousand documents” today, with more dribbling out over the coming weeks or months. In other words: yes, we’re breaking the law, but please admire the volume.

Blanche said the quiet part out loud, and Capitol Hill, those still in attendance anyway, heard it.

Lawmakers across the spectrum immediately called it what it is: a violation of federal law. Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia announced they’re examining legal options. Thomas Massie reposted the statute itself, highlighting the words DOJ is now pretending are negotiable, “not later than 30 days” and “all.” Chuck Schumer accused the Trump administration and Attorney General Pam Bondi of being “hellbent on hiding the truth.”

Survivors’ attorneys were blunt too. Maria Farmer reported Epstein to the FBI in 1996. She has been waiting nearly thirty years for her files. DOJ, apparently, needs a few more weeks.

This is the moment where Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House and self-appointed moral authority, might normally be expected to appear. Funny thing: he was nowhere to be found. Johnson spent weeks dodging, delaying, and slow-walking the disclosure effort, then made sure he was offstage when enforcement arrived. He didn’t miss the deadline; he fled the scene.

Blanche tried to launder the admission by claiming Trump has “always wanted transparency,” which is a bold thing to say while announcing you’re ignoring the transparency law.

Blanche is not a neutral bureaucrat. He is Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer. He is the same official who conducted a private interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, without an FBI witness, before she was transferred from a high-security prison to a lower-security facility. If DOJ credibility were a stock, it would be trading in penny territory.

And that’s when the White House released the video. As the Epstein cover-up went overt, as lawmakers threatened legal action, as the administration publicly admitted it was breaking the law, Trump’s communications team rolled out a glossy promotional clip depicting an economy so prosperous it might as well be filmed on a soundstage in North Korea.

Gas is under $2, Trump says. Wages are soaring, and inflation is vanquished. Consumer confidence? Apparently irrelevant. Unemployment? Actually good news, according to his labor secretary. Mortgage costs have magically dropped. Sixteen hundred power plants will open within a year, an accomplishment that would require bending the laws of physics, zoning, labor, and time itself.

This wasn’t even new propaganda. It was Trump’s standard stump speech, reheated and redeployed on demand, the only variable being how far the hyperbole gets cranked from one telling to the next. The numbers inflate, the adjectives metastasize, and the miracles multiply, but the script never changes.

He boasts of $18 trillion in investment, tariffs as a miracle cure, and an economy so hot the rest of the world is allegedly jealous. “One year ago our country was dead,” he says, which is an odd way to describe a country whose economy he inherited and has since destabilized. The nation is always on the brink when he arrives and always reborn the moment he speaks. Reality is optional; repetition is the point.

In truth, it was a balm, a self-soothing ritual deployed on a day when the facts were especially hostile. The timing wasn’t subtle. DOJ admits it’s violating the Epstein law? Release a triumphalist video. Consumer sentiment hits the lowest level since the 1970s? Say wages are rising faster than inflation. Lawmakers threaten legal action? Announce a “warrior dividend” with no funding mechanism. Reality intrudes? Change the channel and watch Escape From Alcatraz again.

This Friday is different in one important way. The cover-up stopped being implied and started being stated. DOJ didn’t hide behind silence or process. It didn’t say “soon.” It said “not today,” in direct contradiction of the law.

That’s why this matters more than any single document drop. Once a government openly declares that statutory deadlines are optional, especially in a case involving child sex trafficking, elite impunity, and decades of institutional failure, the question is no longer what’s in the files, but does the law still applies to the people who wrote it.

And as if the farce required a closing act, Trump capped the day by unveiling his latest policy-as-product: the Trump Gold Card, an immigration scheme that replaces law, asylum, and human rights with a price tag. “Like a green card on steroids,” he boasted, announcing that anyone with a spare million dollars, two million if you’re a corporation, can now buy their way into the United States, with an even shinier platinum tier reportedly available for five million. The message was unmistakable: refugees get razor wire, but the wealthy get a fast pass. After months of demonizing immigrants as criminals, inmates, and threats to the nation, Trump pivoted effortlessly to welcoming “high-level” foreigners, as long as they can pay. It was a stark reminder that Trump’s immigration policy has never been about borders or security. It’s about hierarchy. The border is closed to desperation, but wide open to capital.

Trump was careful to specify that the Gold Card is for “productive people,” a phrase he delivered without irony, as if productivity only begins once a résumé clears a million-dollar cover charge. It was a neat bit of rhetorical laundering: farmworkers, caregivers, construction crews, warehouse workers, restaurant staff, the people who grow food, pick crops, clean hospitals, rebuild after disasters, and keep the country functioning, apparently don’t count. In Trump’s America, productivity isn’t measured by labor, necessity, or contribution. It’s measured by capital. If you harvest strawberries at dawn, you’re a burden. If you harvest returns on a portfolio, you’re a national asset. The border isn’t closed to “unproductive” people, it’s closed to the people whose work is indispensable but whose bank accounts aren’t.

On the same day his Justice Department admitted it would violate federal law to withhold Epstein files, Trump rolled out an immigration visa as a luxury good, then promptly waddled off to recover before emceeing another Christmas reception. This is governance in the Trump era: scandal in the morning, merch at midday, cocktails by evening. The law is optional, transparency is negotiable, but the branding pipeline never stops. If the republic is fraying, at least the price list is clear.

The White House can drown the airwaves in propaganda, but it cannot disguise what happened today: the United States Department of Justice admitted it is breaking the law to control the release of evidence tied to child sex trafficking. The DOJ is obstructing justice and trying to dress it up as prudence. The victims have already waited decades. The only people benefiting from more time are the perpetrators still being shielded.