Nancy's Notes

UPDATE: I need to stand corrected. Rumour now has it that this will pass the Senate. And if that’s true, it doesn’t reassure me. It confirms every darker suspicion I had. Because for the Senate to suddenly fall in line, something behind the scenes has shifted, and not toward justice. If anything, it tells me the machinery working in the background is even more insidious, more self-protective, and more calculated than I thought. Whatever deal has been made, whatever pressure has been applied, whatever narrative Trump has pre-scripted it’s worse than the version I was bracing for.

There is nothing I can say today about the Epstein file that hasn’t already been chewed up and spit out by every podcaster, blogger, Substack warrior, news anchor, and the never ending parade of self appointed truth tellers on social media. This story has been dissected, divided, incinerated, resurrected, and re-packaged more times than any of us can count. And yet here we are again, walking right into another so called “moment of reckoning” as Congress gets ready to vote this afternoon. So yes, I’m putting my thoughts down before the two o’clock gong sounds, not because my voice will change anything, but because the hypocrisy rolling through Washington today deserves to be stamped, labeled, and called out with full accuracy.

Let’s begin with the most predictable part: Donald Trump did not suddenly wake up and decide that transparency is good for democracy. The man has never acted out of moral clarity in his life. If he’s supporting the release of anything related to Epstein, it’s because he already knows exactly what he can protect, what he can bury, and what he can spin. He doesn’t do anything unless he can tighten his grip in the process. So the idea that he is suddenly on the side of “letting the truth out” is laughable. If he is allowing this door to open even a crack, it’s because he has already controlled the narrative.

I am not accusing him of having sexual relations with underage girls. I have no proof of that, and I don’t pretend to. What I can say, because it’s indisputable, is that he was there. He knew who Epstein was. He knew what Epstein was widely rumored to be. Trump was not some naive bystander wandering into the wrong circles. At absolute best, he was passive. At worst, he was complicit through silence, proximity, and willful ignorance. And that alone is enough to demand scrutiny. But apparently demand and receive are very different things when you’re dealing with a man who has trained an entire political party to kneel before his whims.

Which brings us to today’s vote in the House. Suddenly, Republicans have permission to support releasing these documents. Not because they grew spines. Not because they found moral purpose. Not because the victims deserve justice. No. They are supporting this because Donald Trump has told them it is safe to do so. Their king, their god, their idol, their living embodiment of whatever twisted movement they’ve built; well he said yes. So they obey. And with his blessing, they can now pretend they’ve been warriors for truth all along.

But don’t be fooled. Because once this leaves the House, it enters the building where accountability goes to be stalled, smothered, and diluted beyond recognition: the United States Senate.
This is the chamber where Trump’s influence runs deepest. This is where loyalty to him isn’t just encouraged; it’s required. Many of these Senators owe their careers, their fundraising machine, and their political safety to him. And the minute anything threatens his interests, they lock step like soldiers guarding a fortress. There is no scenario where a full, unfiltered release of Epstein files passes through that chamber while Trump still commands the Republican Party. None. Please prove me wrong.

I already knew this would hit a wall, until I made the mistake of listening this morning to Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, a man who manages to combine sanctimony, dishonesty, and self-righteous slime in a single breath. According to him, he has been in “discussions” with his Senate counterpart, and the Senate has “concerns.” Let’s translate that into plain language: this is going nowhere. The Senate will delay it, stall it, bury it in committee, or strangle it with amendments. Whatever the method, the goal is the same: make it look like they tried, without ever allowing anything real to surface.

And in all of this political maneuvering and reputation saving, what gets lost, what always gets lost, is the truth that there were victims. Real people. Real children. Young lives that were manipulated, coerced, abused, and then ignored by the very systems supposedly built to protect them. They were failed by prosecutors, by police, by powerful men with more money than conscience, and by every person who looked the other way because confronting the truth would have cost them something. These young women have carried the weight of this for years. Some were silenced and some were pushed into the spotlight to relive nightmares the world dismissed as gossip or scandal. They deserve more than selective transparency. They deserve more than curated disclosures crafted to protect the rich and powerful. If there is going to be a reckoning, it should centre them, not the men scrambling to shield themselves from consequences.

And yes, I’m saying this from Canada. We may be north of the border, but we’re not blind to the fallout. For decades, America was the example, the country that claimed to stand for law, truth, fairness. But this? This contortion of justice and loyalty? This is not the America we once measured ourselves against. And if any echo of that ideal was still hanging on, this behaviour snaps the last piece off. We care because what happens there never stays there, and because victims, on any side of any border, deserve better.

So yes, the House vote will happen today, and yes, it will pass. But the pass itself is hollow if it’s designed to go no further. What matters is whether the truth escapes the Senate, where Trump’s grip is tightest and where the incentives to protect him are strongest. And let’s be honest: he would never green light anything he feared. He is not suddenly embracing openness. He is repositioning. He is gaming the system. He is controlling the floodgates, not opening them.

This is not justice nor courage nor accountability. This is control, strategic, deliberate, and calculated. If anyone wants to celebrate today as some watershed moment, ask yourself who benefits. Ask who is still in control. Ask who gains when the public believes something meaningful has happened even when nothing has. Because Donald Trump has never once allowed truth to obstruct his own survival. And he isn’t about to start now.