It was pretty damn smart of David Oscar Markus to strike while the iron was hot and get his client, Ghislaine Maxwell, moved into Club Fed while the second in command of the Department of Justice, Trump criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche, was still scared to death that a certain part of his patron’s anatomy was exposed.

Why? Because the public, in general, and the MAGA faithful, in particular, have the attention span of a gnat. But then, even if they were capable of holding a thought in their head for longer than 8 second, they would manufacture an excuse to save their beloved overlord.

But Southern District of New York Judge Richard Berman, in denying the release of the grand jury transcript, hadn’t forgotten.

The Government is the party seeking disclosure-however unusual it is for the Government to seek to unseal grand jury material…. A significant and compelling reason to reject the Government’s position in this litigation is that the Government has already undertaken a comprehensive investigation into the Epstein case and, not surprisingly, has assembled a “trove” of Epstein documents, interviews, and exhibits. And, the Government committed that it would share its Epstein investigation materials with the public. The Government’s 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury material.

The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein Files. By comparison, the instant grand jury motion appears to be a “diversion” from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government’s possession. The grand jury testimony is merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged conduct.

When the government initiated this motion to release the grand jury minutes, it was well aware of two critical things. First, it would be denied, as the government had no statutory basis to make its request.

The Government concedes that no Rule 6(e)(3) “exceptions” to grand jury secrecy apply in this case.

The public wouldn’t be aware of this, so they would have no clue that the exercise was pointless ab initio. But more importantly, even if a judge decided that “we want to” or “pleeeeaaaase” by the government constituted a special circumstance that would justify the disclosure of the grand jury minutes, it would reveal nothing. It might, to the unduly passionate, serve as a plausible substitute upon which they could rely to proclaim, “See, our Lord and Savior is pure as the driven snow, sex with porn stars notwithstanding.”

At any moment, since 12:01 pm on January 20th, 2025, Trump could have kept his repeated promise to release the files of the person who went from “a terrific guy” to a bum when it served his interests. He could have done so a month ago, a week ago, yesterday or today. Any damn moment he pleases. He just doesn’t please.

But the Conniver-in-Chief understood something that many others do not. His MAGA faithful are obsessed only as long as he commands them to be obsessed. Without his harping on it, the Epstein files have been forgotten. Trump called them boring, not because they were boring at all but because he wanted to fabricate a justification to spin in a circle and order his minions to turn from “I have the Epstein client list on my desk” to “Epstein who?” And it worked. Do you hear the MAGA influencers calling for Pam Bondi to release the file right this very minute? Do you have the MAGA faithful demanding that the files be released at all?

Sorry if it bores you to hear about Epstein, even if that’s how Trump ordered you to feel, but like Judge Berman, my attention span is longer than 8 seconds and despite whatever bizarre action might be taken today, I haven’t forgotten about the lies one needs to believe (or forget) in order to continue to adore the president.