This crisp late-fall day has the last of the stubborn geese circling overhead, honking like they’re still debating whether they should go south this year. And honestly, given the state of things, who can blame them for hesitating? So many stayed last year. Maybe the ones still lingering on the canal took one look at the southern border and said, “No thanks, we’ll risk the frostbite.” They’re out there bobbing on the water, perfectly content, not looking the least bit anxious about moving on.
And yes, I hear you. “Nancy, what on earth does this have to do with anything?” Well, apparently more than I realized, because my brain seems to be looping back to the United States whether I mean to or not. And today, what I keep circling around is the moral cesspool that is the Epstein file situation.
Let me start with something I’ve said before and I will not soften here: I’m not sure there is a more repugnant human being walking this planet than Donald Trump. Inside politics, outside politics, take your pick. The man is rot.
But here’s where we weaken ourselves: when we focus solely on trying to label him a pedophile. I don’t know what he did or didn’t do sexually, and I don’t pretend to. What I do know, and what any thinking adult can see is that Donald Trump knew exactly who Jeffrey Epstein was, and exactly what he was doing.
You cannot orbit that world and be oblivious. You cannot spend years around the man and be unaware. Epstein did not become wealthy through brilliance or talent. He didn’t finish school. He was a mediocre Wall Street guy who somehow ascended into extreme wealth and extreme access.
And there is only one explanation that makes sense: his business model was procuring young girls for powerful men. That was his commodity, his leverage and his power. And that is why “follow the money” matters here in a way that truly exemplifies that phrase.
Because is not only about sex crimes, as monstrous as they are. This is about power, money, leverage, and protecting wealthy men whose reputations, careers, and political futures rest on keeping those files sealed. Some of those wealthy men are allies of Donald Trump. Some are donors. Some are defenders. Some are simply adjacent in ways that make everyone very, very nervous.
Now Trump has announced he wants an “investigation” but only into a small, cherry-picked group of Democrats he personally despises. He wants the process sliced to his convenience, weaponized for his grudges, and stripped of its full truth.
And how anyone sees that as fair, moral, or acceptable is beyond me.
If we are serious about justice, then every single person in those files must be investigated. Every billionaire, every celebrity, every politician and every hanger-on. I don’t care if they’re 97 years old and bedbound, if they hurt children, they answer for it.
And yes, Donald, that includes you. If you’re innocent, fling open the vault and prove it. People who are innocent don’t limit investigations. People who are innocent don’t curate lists. People who are innocent don’t fear daylight.
After the last U.S. election, the one that devastated me, I said something I’ll repeat again: Senators, congresspeople, look at your daughters and granddaughters when you vote. Because you have already failed them once. Do not fail them again. Two things matter now: Every Epstein file must be released. Every document, every ledger, every associate. Not some. Not the convenient ones.
All of them. AND Donald Trump must say he will NOT pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker. If he refuses to do that, then he is telling the world exactly what, and who, he is protecting.
And let me sharpen the line that needs no misinterpretation: This request to open the files will pass Congress, and will hopefully pass the senate. But if this reaches Trump’s desk and he blocks transparency, that is not confusion. That is not bureaucracy. That is not “procedure.” It is a choice, a deliberate act to protect himself, his allies, and any powerful man whose name appears where he doesn’t want it to.
He is not shielding America from scandal. He is shielding himself from accountability. There is no other story.
And that brings me back to the geese. They’re still out there on the canal, doing what geese do: watching the water, watching the temperature, responding to the world exactly as it is. They don’t only fly south out of tradition or habit. Actually they move when nature tells them it’s time, when the freeze takes hold, when the signals become impossible to ignore. They survive because they read the conditions honestly.
Americans are standing in that same moment. The water is cooling. The ice is forming. The warning signs are right in front of them. The geese will lift off when the freeze becomes undeniable.
The question is whether Americans will finally do the same, not by fleeing, but by refusing to let lies, secrecy, and power bury the truth any deeper.
Nancy's Notes 