Joyce Vance is a former U.S. Attorney and, since the Mueller saga, MSNBC has sought her counsel on a near daily basis to confirm their left-wing narratives. So, naturally, she's continued on since the Mueller report, including the insistence on Wednesday's Deadline: White House comparing President Trump to alleged serial child sex abuser and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Vance was asked by host Nicolle Wallace to comment on the situation involving Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was the U.S. Attorney on Epstein's 2008 case and has been condemned for offering Epstein a plea deal that now seems far too lenient. Rather than talking about Acosta, Vance elected to compare Epstein and Trump:
You know, it is so hard I think to avoid the comparison between Epstein and Trump. Of course, one is under indictment. The other is not. But they are similar and credible allegations of this kind of conduct. And somehow Epstein becomes a little bit of a marker for Trump here. And Trump’s inability to fire Acosta in the face of the way he conducted this investigation is something that I think looked very personal to Trump. It's impossible to separate the two.
To his credit, the comparison clearly did not sit well with Axios's Jonathan Swan who immediately declared that "I think we should be clear one of them is an industrial scale pedophile and sex trafficker," sardonically adding that was, "just a small distinction."
Swan was still fairly critical of Acosta: "This was sex trafficking and pedophilia at an industrial scale." Wallace followed up by using similar language, accusing Trump of "covering for someone who, as you said, ran an industrial scale pedophilia ring." Swan agreed and correctly concluded that from Donald Trump to Bill Clinton, "this story has a long way to go."
Wallace then turned to The Bulwark's Charlie Sykes who also used very similar language, predicting that the White House will eventually let Acosta go because they don't want the bad press that reminds people of Trump's "worst moments of his campaign" and his association to Epstein and by extension Epstein's "industrial grade pedophilia."
After a commercial break, Sykes declared that this sex scandal is going to be different than previous ones, "I want to keep coming back to the point Jonathan made, you're dealing with industrial strength pedophilia. This cannot be just brushed off. It is not trivial. There's no possible case. There will be a lot what whataboutism, but, nobody's going to brush it off."
Here is a transcript for the July 10 show:
MSNBC's Deadline: White House
July 10, 2019
4:18 p.m. EasternNICOLLE WALLACE: Joyce, we're covering the world as it exists because everyone here covers Donald Trump. But the world as it should be, we should be covering a president or White House or secretary of labor who once served as a prosecutor who's saving all of their condemnation and fire for the monster in this story, and that's Jeffrey Epstein. Is it stunning to you as a former federal prosecutor no one is talking about Donald Trump being repulsed by Epstein's alleged conduct?
JOYCE VANCE: You know, it is so hard I think to avoid the comparison between Epstein and Trump. Of course, one is under indictment. The other is not. But they are similar and credible allegations of this kind of conduct. And somehow Epstein becomes a little bit of a marker for Trump here. And Trump’s inability to fire Acosta in the face of the way he conducted this investigation is something that I think looked very personal to Trump. It's impossible to separate the two.WALLACE: Go ahead.
JONATHAN SWAN: I think we should be clear one of them is an industrial scale pedophile and sex trafficker, just a small distinction. But with Acosta, the thing that really a lot of people will be horrified about today is sort of like the world has changed almost as if it was like trying to align this with the Me Too movement. This was sex trafficking and pedophilia at an industrial scale. I just feel like this is sort of being glossed over. The next step for this reporting, "The Miami Herald" did God's work here bringing this back, because there was a mischarge of justice under Acosta, and the next step for reporters is to carefully and methodically and meticulously unmask every last person who covered for him, who enabled Epstein, who allowed this to happen, who knew about it and there should be a lot of people around this country right now in the elite circles who are very scared right now.
WALLACE: Let's start right there. What Julie Brown does report on and something Acosta was asked about was Jay Lefkowitz who was one of Epstein's lawyers, who’s in my interest of disclosure, my former colleague in the Bush White House, he was an attorney at Kirkland and Ellis, he's the individual that Acosta described meeting with at a hotel 70 miles from the U.S. Attorney's office. He played it off as though he had a speech there. He may or may not have. If we're going back to Julie Brown's heroic reporting and prosecutors in New York cited Julie Brown's reporting. That's not us. Other people in the media landscape holding her up. Federal prosecutors have now held her up. Why should Acosta stand in that room and get any credit, even from Trump, for covering for someone who, as you said, ran an industrial scale pedophilia ring.
SWAN: Of course, he shouldn't.
WALLACE: What does the White House have to say today?
SWAN: They've been pretty quiet on this because, of course, there's a complication there because Donald Trump has a long history of being friends with Jeffrey Epstein, he’s on the record saying he's a terrific guy in an interview. Bill Clinton, these flights, I thought it was pretty curious Bill Clinton used the excuse of his staff being around as if that ever been a barrier. I mean this story has a long way to go. And it's now the concentric circles around Epstein that are going to be investigated.
WALLACE: And Annie Karni has something, well go ahead.
CHARLIE SYKES: Let me guess that would be a reason why this White House would want to distance itself from this story as quickly and decisively as possible. Does the White House want to have this be an ongoing story about their administration because as the blast radius of this story expands, Donald Trump is there, and this will bring back some of the worst moments of his campaign. It will track with a lot of the concerns about Donald Trump. As you point out, the Me Too movement was huge. When you're talking about industrial grade pedophilia, there's not going to be the kind of tribal divide over this.
WALLACE: You sure?
SYKES: Well, we haven't seen it so far
(....)
SYKES: Also we had to comment on the weird time warp we have fallen in, we are now back to this story that involves Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. And take away the optimism before the tribalism, what you're going to get from the pro-Trump media is why are we not talking about Bill Clinton, why are we talking about Donald Trump? But, here we are sort of entrapped in this twilight zone where it's going to be the character of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. But I think it's really important, think about the way some of those other sex scandals played out. That, you know Bill Clinton lied about consensual sex. Or Donald Trump’s behavior was just locker room talk. I want to keep coming back to the point Jonathan made, you're dealing with industrial strength pedophilia. This cannot be just brushed off. It is not trivial. There's no possible case. There will be a lot what whataboutism, but, nobody's going to brush it off.
