PLEAD THE FILTH

Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator is publicly begging Donald Trump to let her out of prison. If he agrees, she’ll tell the world that Trump did nothing wrong.

• Ghislaine Maxwell refused to tell Congress a single word about what really happened over the years she spent with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, pleading the Fifth during a video appearance today. But that didn’t mean she had nothing to say: She came with a plea for President Donald Trump, Epstein’s longtime party pal, to release her from her 20 year prison sentence for sex trafficking. If he does, her lawyer said, she’ll publicly explain why Trump is such an awesome guy.

• “Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump,” Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, her attorney, said in a statement. “Both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation.”

• Maxwell is making her play for a get-out-of-jail-free card just as the release of three million new documents have made the Epstein drama broader, weirder and more intense than ever before. Trump is losing his months-long battle to make this scandal go away, and the new files mention Trump, or key words associated with him, more than 38,000 times. The question now: Is Trump willing to unlock the prison doors for Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, just to hear her try to clear his name?

• Trump hasn’t ruled out pardoning Maxwell. His administration already moved her to a nicer, minimum security prison where she allegedly has access to a puppy and meals catered to her preferences, after she told an envoy from Trump that she never saw the president do anything wrong.

• Another reason Trump might want to make a deal: Members of Congress are now digging through the files and raising fresh questions. Epstein’s lawyers “quoted Trump as saying that Jeffrey Epstein was not a member of his club at Mar-a-Lago, but he was a guest at Mar-a-Lago, and he had never been asked to leave,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told reporters, which contradicts Trump’s account of his relationship with the financier. “That was redacted for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason.”

Trump isn’t the only one who might want a helping hand.

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is facing calls to resign from members of both parties. He previously claimed that he cut ties with the late financier in 2005. The newly unearthed files, however, prove that the two were in touch much later. Documents show that the pair signed a contract together to acquire stakes in a tech company in 2012. What’s more, Lutnick appeared to have planned a family trip to Epstein’s island that same year.

• “We are landing in St Thomas early Saturday afternoon and planning to head over to St Bart’s/Anguilla on Monday at some point” Lutnick wrote. “Where are you located (what is exact location for my captain)?? Does Sunday evening for dinner sound good?”

• Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Democratic lawmakers are calling for Lutnick’s ouster. “He’s got a lot to answer for, but really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign,” Massie told CNN. For his part, Lutnick still insists he cut ties with Epstein. “I spent zero time with him,” the Trump aide told the New York Times.

• I asked the White House if Trump would support Lutnick’s resignation. “The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai responded. That doesn’t really answer the question!

Amid this tumultuous news cycle, let’s not forget that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went “dinosaur bone hunting” with Epstein and Maxwell.

WHAT ELSE? 👀

Less than 14 percent of people arrested by ICE since last January had violent criminal records, CBS News reports. That’s fewer than 56,000 of the 400,000 people arrested, as outlined in an internal DHS document. What’s more, 40 percent didn’t have any criminal record!

HHS Secretary RFK Jr. encouraged Americans to use AI to seek medical advice, while bashing professionals. “Trusting the experts is not a feature of democracy, and it’s not a feature of science. It’s a feature of religion and totalitarianism, not of democracy,” he said at a Heritage Foundation event today. Wait a minute, isn’t RFK Jr. claiming to be… an expert?

RFK’s nonsensical statement bashing scientific authority in general came shortly after Dr. Mehmet Oz called on Americans to “take the [measles] vaccine, please.” Okay, surely we can trust the TV doctor, right?!

Would YOU like to speak in Washington, D.C. on July 4 for America’s 250th birthday? All you have to do is pay Freedom 250, a new Trump-aligned group, $2.5 million, according to the New York Times. If that’s too pricey, access to Trump himself costs only $1 million! Nothing fishy to see here… this is definitely, surely, very not corrupt.

“Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie appealed to the public for help finding her mother, hours before a reported ransom deadline for $6 million in Bitcoin set by abductors. In a new video, Guthrie said: “If you see anything, if you hear anything, if there’s anything at all that seems strange to you … report to law enforcement. We are at an hour of desperation. We need your help.”

This story broke a few days ago, but it’s so insane that I thought we’d recap: FBI agents who received a warrant to inspect Renee Good’s car for blood and bullet holes were ordered to stop their collection, the New York Times reports. Why? Trump officials worried that pursuing a civil rights investigation into her killing (and, y’know, collecting evidence) would contradict the president’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” who shot her.

LIGHT AT THE END… ☀️

The Ford worker who heckled Donald Trump during a visit to an auto factory last month is back in his job and “has no discipline on his record,” according to a union official.

The reviews are in: MAGA’s halftime show was a magnificent, hilarious failure. Kid Rock (very obviously!) lipsynced much of his set, X banned the show from streaming on the social media platform minutes before it started, and the performance was reportedly pre-taped in Atlanta. “The lengths that conservatives will go to in order to avoid mild discomfort never cease to amaze me,” the Dallas Observer writes.

Pop star Bad Bunny’s real Super Bowl halftime show, however, slapped. Aside from actually singing his music, Bunny celebrated Latin culture, made political statements about Puerto Rico’s electricity crisis and colonialism, brought out Lady Gaga, handed a young boy his Grammy, and even allowed a couple to get legally married at the performance. And over it all, a billboard read: “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.”

Olympic ice skating’s rhythm competition kicked off today, introducing a flare to the sport that draws from queer culture. The Canadian team chose to skate to “Supermodel,” a song by legendary drag queen RuPaul, “because they inspired people to access their ‘inner fabulosity,’” the Washington Post writes. “And given that the song is sung by a drag queen, they tried to incorporate elements of drag culture while weaving in five required elements in about 2 minutes 40 seconds.”

The U.S. men’s figure skating team took home gold last night thanks to Ilia Malinin, the best figure skater in the world, who landed a dizzying number of quadruple jumps. The 21-year-old’s backflip, landing on one skate, left even tennis legend Novak Djokovic in awe: “I’ve heard from everyone that after I landed my backflip he was standing there, hands on his head, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s incredible,’” Malinin said.

Humans aren’t the only ones who can play pretend, according to a new study. A bonobo named Kanzi surprised researchers when he successfully took part in pretend tea parties, during which he understood “the difference between real and imaginary juice” and identified “the location of imaginary food and drink when sitting across a table from a person,” the Wall Street Journal writes. Did my imaginary invite get lost in the mail???