Donald Trump faces renewed Epstein scrutiny as Iran rhetoric resurfaces, raising fears of escalation used to drown out domestic fallout Right, so Donald Trump has been named again in Epstein-related material, and the important part isn’t shock, outrage, or whether anyone thinks this finally changes anything because it doesn’t. What’s changed is procedural. The material has come out through a formal process, his name is back on the live record, and he’s been forced to respond in public again just when he thought he’d buried it after the last lot of revelations. Well sorry not sorry Donnie, this is never going to go away and nor should it. And Trump’s response tells you everything you really need to know. He hasn’t denied the documents exist. He hasn’t challenged their release. He’s simply insisted that whenever his name appears, that part is distorted or malicious, while the rest of the record apparently stands. That kind of denial doesn’t close anything. It’s childish, arrogant and take the global public for fools, but above all else, it doesn’t make it go away either. It keeps the issue alive. But Trump has a disturbing track record whenever these kids of revelations come out for looking for a distraction to bury it in the news cycle and with his ships all lined up in a row right now, and all despite reports of ongoing talks, Iran must be looking awfully tempting right now. Right, so Donald Trump has been named again in newly released Epstein-related material, because of course he has, he’s been named more times than Epstein himself has and the important thing about that is not novelty, not shock, and not whether anyone thinks it changes the legal picture, because it doesn’t. The papers are out. Not leaked, not teased, not backgrounded. Out through a process that puts them on the record. Trump’s name is back in them, formally, and that matters because it raises the cost of the noise he has to generate in response. He was always going to speak out against it. The difference is that now, whatever cheap talk he chooses to chunter doesn’t work.