Now that everyone knows Jeffrey Epstein said he could take Trump down before he committed suicide in a federal cell, am I a conspiracist for pivoting backward, wondering how Epstein really died? And what does it say that I care more about atrocities Trump will commit to change national headlines than I care about how Epstein died?

Trump has already demonstrated his capacity for murder. Military analysts have written extensively about Trump’s summary execution of people in fishing boats. The proper term, under the US Code of Military Justice, the UN Charter, and the International Criminal Court, is “murder.”

So I guess that reality—Trump’s extrajudicial killings, aka murder— was already top of mind when I learned that Epstein was getting ready to spill the beans on Trump, and Trump likely knew it, before Epstein died under suspicious circumstances.

. . .

Whatever new atrocities Trump has planned for Americans, he is obviously pre-selling his ‘domestic terrorist’ narrative, getting his Proud Boys riled up against the ‘enemies within.’ Whatever he’s dreamed up will be miles away from due process and the rule of law, just like Epstein’s crimes and death and 66 people buried at sea.