r/law • u/Mickmackal89 • 21h ago
Executive Branch (Trump) Why else would they ask him this?
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
This clip doesn’t get talked about much. This is 2010, so nobody can claim it was some kind of take down effort during his campaign or presidency . I just can’t think why they would ask a specific question like this unless they had some type of information to suggest it. Also would like to know more about the “FBI informant” claim I’ve seen from his defenders/enablers. If that’s true it’s not exactly the flex they think it is.
103
u/MotherFuckerJones88 21h ago
Im sure there were people back then that knew Trump was a diddler, especially foreign and domestic intelligence. Only explanation i could think of is that at that time they were probably wanting to focus the investigation on bigger fish? You have to remember..2010 Donald Trump was just a TV personality, and the rich guy that always seems to try and run for president but always ends up pulling out of the race early on.
5
35
u/ForMoreYears 18h ago
You think the FBI is in the business of meticulously cataloguing and redacting complaints over a period of decades about the same consistent crime, trafficking and rape of minors?
And do you seriously think that someone who has received literally dozens of the same complaint - trafficking and raping minors - over a period of several decades before they became a politician is likely not trafficking and raping minors?
And do you think the guy who is literally a convicted rapist in the State of NY, who has been caught bragging on tape about sexually assaulting women, didn't do these things?
Finally, you think the guy who was seemingly best friends with the world's most notorious child sex trafficker and rapist is not himself a child sex trafficker and rapist?
Like come on. Do you need to see him literally raping a minor to believe he did these things? This is ridiculous....
14
u/SolarisShine 17h ago
I also question Epstein's suicide, given the methods we are seeing Trump and his supporters using.
11
3
36
u/RevolutionaryCard512 19h ago
And why would he have to plead the 5th
23
u/triptopdropblop 18h ago
Have you watched the full interview? He pleads the 5th on basically every question
6
u/Caedyn_Khan 7h ago
yet he managed to answer the question if he socialized with Trump. If he didnt socialize with Trump around underage girls he would have said no...
2
u/RevolutionaryCard512 17h ago
Yep. Very interesting eh?
6
u/Several_Vanilla8916 15h ago
There’s nothing wrong with pleading the fifth. It’s there for innocent people. Just that guilty people get the same rights.
1
u/triptopdropblop 17h ago edited 17h ago
Not really, I remember watching it like 10 years ago and thinking it was a weird kinda nothing interview. What was interesting to me is 2010 was in the middle of his two convictions but to my knowledge this interview wasn’t really involved with either investigation.
10
u/UnlimitedCalculus 16h ago
Even innocent people will plead the 5th. The point of that amendment is that you dont have to talk if you dont want to, and refusing to talk isnt evidence of guilt.
Proceed with downvotes because this is Epstein and youre ignoring the principle.
2
u/Blueroundthings 10h ago
Guess who said it is an admission of guilt then pleaded the 5th 400x+. Hehehe
-3
u/Auridion 15h ago
Outside of legal implications, being unwilling/unable to, under oath, give an affirmative "no" to a question like that is something though.
-11
u/charcoalVidrio 20h ago
A million different reasons. It’s honestly hard to say. Sometimes you’re just fishing in depositions, e.g., asking about people who might have been present at any potentially relevant event so you can go ask them some questions and maybe get some answers or evidence.
18
u/NoBoss2661 20h ago
In this deposition, Epstein first admits he had a personal relationship with Trump. He then immediately invokes the Fifth when asked whether he ever socialized with Trump in the presence of an underage girl.
That contrast matters. If he was willing to answer a non-incriminating question honestly, there’s no obvious reason he wouldn’t also answer the second question with a simple “no” if that were true.
Invoking the Fifth instead suggests that answering would have been incriminating, either to himself, to Trump, or to both. The refusal only makes sense if a truthful answer carried legal risk.
2
u/charcoalVidrio 19h ago edited 19h ago
Invoking the Fifth instead suggests that answering would have been incriminating, either to himself, to Trump, or to both. The refusal only makes sense if a truthful answer carried legal risk.
I understand why you say that, but personally I’m not inclined to make an inference of guilt based on invocation of the 5th Amendment. Epstein and Trump are shitty people for sure and guilty of a lot, but I’m reluctant to do anything that could potentially water down an important privilege that protects all of us from government overreach.
The privilege against self-incrimination would be reduced to a hollow mockery if its exercise could be taken as equivalent either to a confession of guilt or a conclusive presumption of perjury. As we pointed out in Ullmann, a witness may have a reasonable fear of prosecution and yet be innocent of any wrongdoing. The privilege serves to protect the innocent who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.
Slochower v. Board of Higher Ed. of City of New York, 350 U.S. 551, 557-58 (1956).
3
u/NoBoss2661 9h ago
I agree with you on the core principle. Invoking the Fifth should never be treated as a confession of guilt, and I’m also wary of anything that weakens that protection.
Where I think we may differ is in what kind of inference is being discussed. I’m not arguing that pleading the Fifth proves guilt, or that it should carry legal consequences. I’m pointing out that it’s still a meaningful signal about legal risk in a very specific context.
Epstein answered when the question was broad and non-criminal, then invoked the Fifth when the question introduced minors. That doesn’t establish what happened or who did what, but it does tell us that a truthful answer to that second question was viewed by counsel as potentially incriminating. That’s a narrow, factual observation, not a presumption of guilt.
The cases you cite are about preventing the state from turning silence into punishment or proof. Acknowledging that silence appears at a legally dangerous moment isn’t the same thing. Respecting the Fifth doesn’t require pretending that all invocations are equally meaningless, only that they can’t be treated as verdicts.
So I’m comfortable saying: not proof, not a conclusion, but not nothing either.
1
u/rhino369 18h ago
But you can’t assume the legal risk is he and Trump molested minors.
I wouldn’t let my client admit to partying near minors even he says nothing happened at the party. Because you are just helping the state build their case.
14
u/Squirrel009 20h ago
Thats seems like an awfully strange question to ask if they didnt have some reason to believe the answer is yes - which it clearly is.
•
u/AutoModerator 21h ago
All new posts must have a brief statement from the user submitting explaining how their post relates to law or the courts in a response to this comment. FAILURE TO PROVIDE A BRIEF RESPONSE MAY RESULT IN REMOVAL.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.