Trump's Tsunami

By now most people realize Donald Trump is a dirtbag. Has been all his life. A grifter from a multi-generational family of grifters. A pathological liar who learned a very long time ago that the best way to cope with so many lies is to believe them yourself.

There have been a lot of tell-all books about Trump and his presidency that soared to the best-sellers lists. So many books that they've reached a saturation point. I bought several at the outset and then shifted to e-books - "Fire and Fury," "Fear," "A Very Stable Genius," "Crime in Progress," "A Warning," "Siege," and "The Room Where It Happened." Other titles include  Jeffrey Toobin's "True Crimes and Misdemeanors," Rick Wilson's "Running Against the Devil," plus "The Plot to Betray America," "Hiding in Plain Sight," "The Imposters: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics," "Front Row at the Trump Show" and others.

Trump's niece, Mary, had a hit with her family tell all, "Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."  Apparently it's good. I'll probably never know. Rachel Maddow has a book.

With Trump at real risk of being unemployed after the November elections there are several more titles being rushed to release.  James Comey is looking to cash in. Then there's Trump's partner in crime, Michael Cohen's book - that one I will read. I hear there are several others.

The Miami Herald crew have been sleuthing the Jeffrey Epstein scandal for years. MH has done more than anyone to keep that scandal alive.  Trump has worked hard to distance himself from Epstein. A new book, "The Grifters' Club," claims that, despite Trump's denials, Epstein was very much a member of Mar-a-Lardo and that friendship remained close until Epstein crossed the line by hitting on the young daughter of another member.

Another club member explained that Trump “kicked Epstein out after Epstein harassed the daughter of a member. The way this person described it, such an act could irreparably harm the Trump brand, leaving Donald no choice but to remove Epstein,” said Sarah Blaskey, a Miami Herald investigative reporter who co-wrote the book with Miami Herald journalists Nicholas Nehamas and Jay Weaver and Caitlin Ostroff of the Wall Street Journal. “The Trump Organization did not respond to our requests for comment on this or other matters.”

Several models who worked for Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel, who allegedly helped procure for him underage girls, tell of being taken to swank parties at Mar-a-Lago. Zoe Brock, a New Zealander who quit Brunel’s agency in Paris in 1991 after, she says, she was on the receiving end of his unwanted sexual advances at age 17, still has the wristband from when, while with another agency, she and other young girls and women were taken together on a bus from Miami to Mar-a-Lago in 1998.

Brock was represented by Next, a modeling agency that only last year was revealed by the Daily Beast to have been — unbeknownst to Brock — partially owned by Brunel. At 24, she was one of the eldest women on the bus to Mar-a-Lago; many she is sure were underage. Brock said she had been pressured by the agency to attend against her wishes and was paid to be there. Once they arrived, she and the other models were required to wear candy cane-striped wristbands, although it was not Christmas season.

“The only people wearing them were the models. A busload of girls, some of whom were underage, shipped to a party and made to look obvious. Clearly, we were meat. None of the other guests were forced to wear anything so tacky,” Brock said in an interview from New Zealand.

“It makes perfect sense to me that Jean-Luc owned the agency that was being paid to send girls there. That was his MO [modus operandi],” Brock said of Brunel. “Let me send pretty young things to grotesque, rich, old perverts and profit off it.”

The Grifters' Club is a tattler on the goings on and strange characters who frequent Mar-a-Lardo.

Donald Trump's opulent Palm Beach club Mar-a-Lago has thrummed with scandal since the earliest days of his presidency. Long known for its famous and wealthy clientele, the resort's guest list soon started filling with political operatives and power-seekers. Meanwhile, as Trump re-branded Mar-a-Lago "the Winter White House" and began spending weekends there, state business spilled out into full view of the club's members, and vast sums of taxpayer money and political donations began flowing into its coffers--and into the pockets of the president. 

The Grifters' Club is a breakthrough account of the corruption, intrigue, and absurdity that has been on display in the place where the president is at his most relaxed. In these pages, a team of prizewinning Miami Herald journalists reveal the activities and motivations of the strange array of charlatans and tycoons who populate its halls. Some peddle influence, some look to steal government secrets, and some just want to soak up the feeling of unfettered access to the world's most powerful leaders.

I'm not sure there were that many books written about Joe Stalin. Some of these titles may be worthwhile but I doubt that Trump has much to fear from them. People have already made up their minds. Those who'll vote for Trump won't be in any hurry to read them. Those planning to vote Democrat won't be swayed either.