Yesterday, Todd Blanche, the number two political appointee at the DoJ, and the President’s fixer and former criminal defense attorney (who unsuccessfully defended him in the porn star Stormy Daniel’s hush money case that resulted in 34 felony convictions for the President), rushed to a prison in Florida where Ghislaine Maxwell is serving her 20-year sentence for her role as a co-conspirator to Jeffrey Epstein in his minor sex trafficking case. The goal was likely to talk to Maxwell before a highly anticipated testimony in front of the Congress. Despite the administration’s and some right-wing pundits’ attempts at portraying this move as an indication of how much importance the administration is placing on transparency, there is nothing here that can remotely help with transparency in this case.

What is Blanche supposed to tell Maxwell that could help with ensuring an honest and truthful testimony by Maxwell? Is he going to use threats and intimidation? Is he going to offer her some relief, e.g., in the form of reduced prison time, commutation, or even a presidential pardon? And what motivation does he have to do such things in the interest of honesty and transparency? After all, he is not a career prosecutor and has not been, in any way, involved in the prosecution of Maxwell. He is a political appointee by a president who has been close friends with Epstein for over a decade, during the time Epstein was operating his minor sex trafficking operation, and had given numerous interviews to various media hosts including one with Howard Stern in which he had bragged about his openness to have sex with very young women, with his age limit being like 12 years-old or so! If anything, Blanche would be on the defense team of Mr. Trump, had he not been elected as president last year, and if the prosecution of the Epstein’s case was expanded to include his potential clients.

It is likely, and in all honesty I sincerely hope that it is the case, that the President was not involved in any criminal activity involving sex with minors as part of Epstein’s operation. At this point, however, every sign and indication is pointing in the opposite direction. There are almost daily breaking news, such as revealing some profanity-laden communication between the President and Epstein, or the fact that AG Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche had informed the President in May that his name appeared in the Epstein’s files.

And then there are all the distractions, from the President posting on social media that he was contemplating revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship or demanding that Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians to be renamed back to their original names of Redskins and Indians, or the sudden release of MLK files despite the objections of Dr. King’s family, and more recently DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s allegations of treason against the former president Obama based on the same intelligence data that were investigated, thoroughly, at least twice, by special counsel Durham and Senate Intelligence Committee headed by the current Secretary of State Marco Rubio. All of these attempts at distraction, and their magnitude (a treason allegation against a former president is not a small matter) makes one wonder how damning the Epstein files are for this administration and specifically President Trump, that his administration is willing to go to such lengths to protect him.

But I digress. The point of this post was not to review the recent developments around Epstein’s case. What I wanted to point out is the level of hypocrisy that has plagued the current GOP. In 2016, former President Clinton and then AG Loretta Lynch had a brief meeting at the Phoenix airport. Clinton was out of office for 16 years at that time and had no official authority over Lynch. He could not instruct or request her to do anything, not did he have any controlling power to retaliate, e.g., fire her, if she did not. Nevertheless, due to the ongoing case about Hillary Clinton’s private email server, that meeting was viewed as being inappropriate, and rightfully so. I am not defending either of them, or trying to whitewash or dismiss that meeting as being unimportant or insignificant. It was inappropriate, period! And Fox News did an excellent job highlighting the inappropriateness of that meeting by talking about it around the clock for days. In the Congress too, many taxpayer funded hours of representatives’ time was spent on expressing disgust and condemning that meeting by members of both parties. Although it seemed a bit overdone, the outrage was certainly not unjustified.

But now, Blanche, the sitting president’s fixer and former criminal attorney and current political appointee, meets with a prisoner who is about to give testimony that could potentially be unfavorable or even incriminating to the President, and no Republican politician seems to be taking any issue with that. As if it is perfectly normal, ethical, and lawful, if Blanche either threatens Maxwell or entices her by offering relief, e.g., in the form of sentence commutation or a presidential pardon, in return for her omitting, in her testimony to the Congress, any references to the President and his potential involvement in the criminal activities of Epstein’s operation. Such pardon, of course, would not happen anytime soon, but only after a few years, maybe right before the President leaves office, if at all, in 2019, to make sure that people have already forgotten about such a potential deal by then. This level of hypocrisy, and the blind obedience of prominent Republican politicians towards the President, is just appalling and outrageous. Even ignoring the ethical and legal aspects, these politicians seem to be willing to sacrifice their own political career only to protect a convicted felon and a potential participant in a pedophilia ring.