Mike Johnson exploits the shutdown to hide the Epstein files

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is lying Yes I know Writing that is like writing cats are furry or it s pumpkin spice season But the current purpose of the lie is even more depraved than we usually get from this self-proclaimed beacon of Christian morality The purpose is silencing the casualties of infamous child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged fellow abusers Worse it s all done to protect President Donald Trump a man who was already revealed by a civil jury in New York to have sexually abused journalist E Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room The Louisiana Republican has already gone to great lengths to make sure FBI files chronicling the alleged misdeeds of Epstein and his associates never see the light of day In July Johnson started the House s summer recess early to avoid Democrats bringing up a bill that would force the Justice Department to release the voluminous files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who died by suicide in jail in while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges The reason for Johnson s action wasn t mysterious Trump whom Epstein called his closest friend is reportedly in the files According to a lewd birthday message attributed to Trump by the Wall Street Journal that was leaked by House Democrats Trump wrote to his longtime buddy We have certain things in common Jeffrey There is allegedly more During Attorney General Pam Bondi s latest Senate hearing for instance Sen Sheldon Whitehouse D-R I inquired about photos of President Trump with half-naked young women Bondi refused to answer Related Pam Bondi is Trump s mean girl Now Johnson has identified another excuse to block a House vote to release the Epstein files The administration shutdown The speaker has adjourned the House and refused to seat Rep -Elect Adelita Grijalva D-Ariz blaming the shutdown despite the fact that the Senate is still open and holding votes Grijalva has pledged to be the deciding vote on a discharge petition to release the Epstein files In comments to the Arizona Republic Sen Ruben Gallego D-Ariz was blunt in assessing the situation Speaker Johnson is protecting pedophiles That s what this is all about Johnson has denied the charge but his pattern of behavior is clear He knows that if Trump turns against him he would likely lose the speakership Hiding the Epstein files appears to be Johnson s first priority even above reopening the administration so federal employees can be paid All this and especially Trump s reelection in should remove all doubt that there is a backlash to the MeToo movement which peaked in and amid a sea of sexual abuses being publicly outed For years there has been a wave of whiny manosphere influencers and right-wing pundits telling men that they are the real casualties that feminism has gone too far and masculinity is under attack This anti-feminist reaction has been wrapped in a misleading moral justification regarding innocence Women we re notified got so revenge-minded about sexual abuse that they went overboard sweeping up blameless men in the cancel society dragnet This narrative is false and distressing but Johnson s actions tell the uglier truth The backlash to MeToo was never about male innocence It was about protecting those who are likely guilty and reasserting male privilege to abuse women and even children without consequence This narrative is false and distressing but Johnson s actions tell the uglier truth The backlash to MeToo was never about male innocence It was about protecting those who are likely guilty and reasserting male privilege to abuse women and even children without consequence While we still don t know the full extent of the information the FBI collected on Epstein and his buddies Trump s determination to bury the evidence shows he s deeply worried about the truth getting out There can be little doubt that Johnson knows he s covering for a sexual abuser This has been adjudicated twice by civil courts with juries finding that Carroll reported the truth when she explained Trump sexually abused her in a department store dressing room There is also a tape of Trump bragging about grabbing women by the genitals in a way that directly echoes Carroll s experience The backlash against MeToo is also geared toward silencing casualties of sexual assault It s worth remembering that Epstein was charged in because of the MeToo movement Epstein had been prosecuted years before ending up with an infamous sweetheart deal from Trump ally Alexander Acosta who was serving as U S attorney and later became labor secretary during Trump s first term Under his plea agreement Epstein barely served any time he was able to return to his playboy lifestyle without missing a beat But because of dogged investigative reporting by the Miami Herald s Julie K Brown and the determination and willingness of casualties to speak out Epstein faced federal prosecution in New York Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics Sign up for her free newsletter Standing Room Only now also on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts There is no doubt of the message being sent to abuse casualties by Johnson Trump Bondi and everyone else involved in the cover-up There s no use in speaking out because you will never see justice The GOP s shameful actions are just the the greater part blatant example of how the MeToo backlash has nothing to do with innocence and everything to do with shielding men from the consequences of bad behavior For all the endless chatter about false claims in the past scarce years the reality of such incidents has been anemic to non-existent The men dangled out as casualties of MeToo are rarely if ever targets of false accusations There have been situations such as with the actor Kevin Spacey when there wasn t enough evidence for prosecutor to obtain a conviction in court But the sheer number of Spacey s accusers suggests that his acquittal was hardly an exoneration In other cases such as those involving the comedians Louis CK and Aziz Ansari there has been debate over whether their aggression toward women crossed specific ill-defined line to justify community opprobrium but there was little dispute that the women who spoke out against them were telling the truth The closest example I could find was Tara Reade s accusation of sexual assault against former president and then-Delaware Sen Joe Biden But her story swiftly fell apart and Biden was unscathed making this an example less of the danger of false assertions and more an example of why such accusations don t survive scrutiny We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in contemporary times to help Salon s progressive journalism The MeToo backlash has even made it to the big screen After the Hunt is a film now playing in theaters that tells an entirely fictional story about a marriage ruined by a sexual assault allegation Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times has dismissed it as a silly anachronism But i s worse than that After the Hunt is an attempt to use fiction to conjure what reality kept failing to provide critics of MeToo A genuine example of a male victim of overzealous feminists Despite having a loaded cast the movie s premise is reminiscent of a film like God s Not Dead a self-pitying Christian right propaganda film based on a flat-out false urban legend shared in email chains When you re so bereft of real examples of your imaginary oppression that you re forced to literally make it all up it s time for introspection in a therapist s office not manifesting your persecution fantasy into a feature film This struggle encapsulates why E Jean Carroll has become such an icon especially for those who clearly see that the MeToo movement s main flaw was in not going far enough as evidenced by Trump s current political standing Carroll wasn t just a victim of sexual violence She also faced the primary backlash tactic Falsely accusing sufferers of lying She didn t just sue Trump for sexually assaulting her but for repeatedly defaming her by accusing her of lying Even after she won million he continued to defame her So she sued him again this time winning million in damages Those two cases laid bare the ugly truth about the backlash to MeToo Carroll s critics didn t think she was lying They were mad she advised the truth and they want casualties to shut up and let men get away with abuse It was never about anything else Read more about this topic Barack Obama tries to rally Americans to defend their democracy Trump aims for one-party rule and puts despotism at our doorstep How the left can win on cable news The post Mike Johnson exploits the shutdown to hide the Epstein files appeared first on Salon com