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It's not about Trump actually having sex with 16 or 17 year olds, it's about spreading the message of guilt by association. He and Epstein were best buds. Epstein arranged underage sex slaves for his rich friends and contacts. Lurid claims of "I was raped by both of them when I was thirteen" just help that along. Nobody (except the dwindling number of people who do care about distinctions like "underage means under 18, not 12 years old" and "did this really happen?") cares if it's true or not, it's just convenient mud to throw.
He's a racist. He's a transphobe. He's a sexist. He's a rapist. He's a paedophile. He's a Nazi. He's a convicted felon (36 FELONIES!!!)
"Knew Epstein was a pedophile and still palled around with him" is pretty bad in and of itself, making him an accessory through inaction. Conversely, "somehow missed all the red flags about Epstein being a pedophile despite palling around with him" would be pretty damning for Trump's intelligence even if it's ethically exculpatory. So if you establish a sufficient degree of regular association between the two that it has to be one of the two, you have a pretty tight case for Trump either being complicit, or incredibly dumb. Your only way out is to argue that Epstein was so good at covering up his sins that an intelligent man could genuinely hang out with him repeatedly without ever suspecting a thing; and does anyone seriously believe that?
No, that is not how being an accessory works in the slightest.
Not in the legal sense, but absolutely in the reputational sense.
Only if you accept the basic guilt-by-contagion premise of the left side of the Culture War.
Are you really saying that there is no such thing as a moral duty to report or otherwise act upon knowledge of evil deeds committed by others? If you're a passive witness to a murder or rape, and could identify the culprit, it's not at all immoral of you to move on with your life and keep the secret? Really?
None of what you said is about "Knew Epstein was a pedophile and still palled around with him".
Perhaps I should have specified "was an active pedophile", but I should have thought context and common sense made it obvious that I was not speaking about hypothetical preferences on Epstein's part. Granting the implicit "active", active pedophilia is a type of rape and so the post you're replying to does in fact cover this case.
Okay, let's say you know your buddy Bill likes seventeen year olds and has dated a few and slept with them. So far as you know, those have been consensual relationships. Technically, though, that's statutory rape.
Do you:
(1) "Gosh Bill, you're thirty-five years old, you're way too old for those girls and besides they're legally underage. I wish you'd stop, man, it's not good" and quietly distance yourself from the friendship
(2) "Hello, police officer? I wish to report a serial rapist, name of William Jones, address 63 Greenwood Lane, 85th Street, Middletown"
I think a lot of people would go for (1) and if that makes the majority of humans immoral, well duh man, this is the Fall and Original Sin.
We're making assumptions there that Trump knew Epstein was having sex with way too young girls and that this sex was coerced and was indeed rape, not just the murky area of "paying for sex with sex workers". He knew all about it, and there was no way he could not have known, and because he never called the cops then all the rest of it.
Do we know for sure all parts of the above follow? Did he know Epstein liked them age fourteen not seventeen? Did he agree that seventeen is not 'old and mature enough to know own mind' and so statutory rape, or agree that "what is the difference between seventeen years and three hundred and sixty four days as opposed to eighteen years"? I've seen the arguments over 'if a thirteen year old is mature enough, they can indeed decide to be sexually active', so let's not get too precious there over "but he should have known that girl was not eighteen!"
I don't know what anybody knew for sure, and the waters are now so muddied I don't think anyone will know unless we get someone's diary with "Today my good buddy Jeff got me a fresh little fourteen year old high schooler to rape, heh-heh-heh" entries.
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