Heather Cox Richardson, as most of you know, is perhaps America’s best current interpreter of the historic value of America’s daily events. In this excerpt from her daily video, HCR confronts the two questions that everyone has: What happens when the administration hides behind the shield that “information cannot be revealed about an on-going investigation” and the shield of redacted information that will make the investigation as useless as the Mueller files were after Bill Barr go ahold of them.

HCR answers these questions by pointing to other sources of information. Perhaps the biggest source will be Epstein’s brother, Mark, who  appears to have a deep knowledge of his brother’s workings and schemes. Other sources will be records such as banking transactions and flight recordings.

Trump ordered the DOJ to investigate specific Democrats in a move that he hoped would do two things. the first was to scare current Democratic leaders away from the investigation because they would fear that exposing Democrats as Epstein customers would tarnish the party. When asked about such a possibility on CNN Sen. Chris Murphy said “So what” thus blunting that Trump weapon.

We have already seen some prominent names emerge early on – Noam Chomsky and Larry Summers for instance. As of right now the it appears the list will be long. The second and main purpose of Trump’s ploy in ordering the DOJ to investigate Democrats is to use the “can’t comment on an ongoing investigation” shield when questioned. As HCR notes and Anonymous discusses below, that shield can be circumvented by using other sources.

Another question that is implied is whether the Epstein Files have already been illegally tampered with and scrubbed by the Trump administration and the current AG Pam Bondi and the DOJ including Kash Patel and the FBI. Once again, we will have other sources. Remember that if a case can be made to prove that the files had been tampered with, Bondi, Patel and others may be looking at long prison stretches. I doubt any future president would even consider a pardon in those cases.

At this juncture I might add that we must expect that Trump’s deflection machine to keep any and all Epstein news out of the corporate media headlines will be whirring at full tilt. What will that mean? Probably more invasions of cities, possibly New York where much media makes its home. Maybe that war against Venezuela, maybe even an invasion of Greenland. There will be little limit to what Trump will do to keep himself out of jail and in power.

Finally just a quick comment on the role of the Iowa delegation in this ongoing drama. First I will remind you that all Iowa federal seats in congress except for Grassley’s are up for a vote next year. Iowa’s four congressional representatives have acted shamefully in this ongoing saga. The petition to force a vote on requiring the Epstein Files to congress to be investigated was open for signatures for a long time. The fact that no Iowa congress member signed the petitions says a lot about Iowa’s congressional delegation.

The most important thing such inaction states loudly is that not one of the Iowa delegation – Feenstra, Miller-Meeks, Nunn or Hinson – had the moral compass to sign a petition calling for an investigation about the raping of children, for gawd’s sake. What kind of a moral compass do they have if they couldn’t sign such a petition?

Then they voted to demand the files only after Trump gave them a signal that he had in his mind constructed a shield to blunt any investigation. Each member of the Iowa delegation displayed a level of cowardice seldom seen. Do you honestly feel they can represent our best interests when they can’t even stand up in such a clear cut moral case?

Have no doubt in the future that before they make any move on any issue they will look to Trump for a signal before uttering a peep. Whether it be starving kids on SNAP, ending Medicaid, ending Social Security or Medicare, Iowa’s delegation will do what Trump wants, not what is good for Iowa. You don’t have to search very far to see Hinson, Miller-Meeks or Nunn calling themselves Trump’s favorite.

While they look for Trump’s favor they do not care about you or me or morality.