Our president isn’t completely obsessed with Jeffrey Epstein. Just last week, he reassured us that, “Christians and more, think of this, more than twice as likely foster care they’ll adopt the general population. They adopt to it so easily. When they get out, they adopt to it like it’s become second nature. It’s amazing.”
I may have missed a verb.
But you get the general message: We are invading Venezuela.
Or bombing the Epstein Files bunker.
I don’t know why Donald Trump sweated the release of the files. His Mar-a-Lago hideaway is much more than a gauche homage to fool’s gold secured by a sketchy tax deal and threats to block the ocean view if the town of Palm Beach didn’t give him what he wanted.
No, Mar-a-Lago is much more. It’s ensconced in a sanctuary city serving bad folk in a county nationally renowned as Corruption County for a slew of political scandals, convictions and a sprinkling of Bernie Madoff on the side.
Palm Beach County is a secure place for seamy characters.
True, we embraced ethics not long after the FBI swept through town in 2007, only to default to form this month. Among Trump, Epstein and a former mayor of Boca Raton, we’re officially back to being the Get-Out-of-Jail-Free County. The Pardon-My-Felonious-Assault-County. The Thank-You-Florida-Legislature-for-Bailing-Me-Out County.
The No-Consequences-For-Nuthin’ County.
So, of course, Trump is going to fly back to the comforting, non-judgmental arms of Mar-a-Lago and Palm Beach County every weekend he can.
We are a 1,971-square-mile safe house.
Unlike Trump, others never really leave.
In 2021, Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie escaped four felony charges by admitting to two public corruption misdemeanors: misuse of public office and failure to disclose voting conflicts. Those are the pleasant terms for snuggling up to commercial developers for money. They snuggled right back for votes.
Water under the bridge, until the Florida Legislature drained the creek and blew up the catwalk last year.
It took them one sentence: Under a new state law, ethics commissions cannot accept complaints unless the person complaining had personal knowledge or information of the unethical misdeeds.
Maybe you have an audit report, a seven-part newspaper series or a chorus line of people describing exactly the same thing, but what is that, weighed against the reputational risk to state Sen. Snowflake of one misplaced allegation?
Hearsay! Not allowed.
And if no people have personal, firsthand knowledge? Well. The Florida Commission on Ethics just dismissed a slew of pending ethics complaints against Haynie.
If you are a certain type of Palm Beach County politician, this is the most wonderful thing since sliced bread. If you are another type of Palm Beach County politician, it is still the most wonderful thing since sliced bread.
Let them eat bread! The rest of us can grab a bag of popcorn and watch how the leader of the free world is explaining the drip, drip, drip of fellow Palm Beacher Jeffrey Epstein’s from-the-grave salutations.
“Magnets,” explained the president. “Nobody knows what magnets are.”
Explaining a mystery with a mystery! A shrewd deflection.
But even if it were just another presidential brain burp, I don’t judge. After all, nobody knows why some White House staffers made a midnight trip to Michael’s for gold pens and craft paper, either, or why they hurriedly put up a big paper sign saying, “The Oval Office.”
Nobody knows who needed directions. Certain people wandering the Pentagon don’t know where Venezuela is, but as long as The Secretary of War can walk a straight-ish line to the right phone for the wrong reason, it won’t matter to the nice people in Caracas. And nobody knows where U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s immortal soul got off to, but there were sightings of something scampering south.
Of course it did. The Special-Treatment-for-Special-People County stands ready to welcome them all.
Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer. Contact her at beall.news@gmail.com.
