"Quiet Piggy!"

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That’s how the President of the United States addressed a journalist who was just doing her job on Air Force One. Catherine Lucey, the White House correspondent for Bloomberg, asked Donald Trump about releasing the Epstein files. In response, Trump leaned forward, slashing an accusatory finger her direction and barked, “Quiet! Quiet Piggy,” at her.

It happened just days before Trump’s abrupt about-face on the issue of releasing the files. As president, he could have ordered the release of those files at any time after he took office, like he did with those involving the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But instead, he stonewalled when it came to Epstein, despite campaigning on a promise to release the files. In July, his Justice Department announced that they had reviewed the Epstein files, that there was nothing new in them, and no additional people beyond Ghislaine Maxwell would be prosecuted. Four months ago, we were discussing dissent from FBI Director Kash Patel and his number two, Don Bongino, over this decision. There was a congressional shutdown that many suspected was an effort to keep the House from voting to release the Epstein files.

But shutdowns don’t last forever and as it began to seem inevitable that the House would pass a measure directing the Justice Department to release the files, Trump changed course. Immediately before that happened, he directed the Justice Department to open a new investigation—on Democrats only, of course. Despite his oversized presence in newly released Epstein communications, Trump didn’t mention himself—you’d think if he had no exposure, he’d let the Justice Department he controls investigate. But Trump characterized Epstein as a “Democrat problem,” and told the Attorney General, who has been quick to do his bidding in other egregiously political matters, to open a case.

The New York Times’ Glenn Thrush noted that, “Just 217 minutes elapsed between Mr. Trump’s command on Friday morning that she [Bondi] investigate prominent Democrats like Bill Clinton who were named in documents Congress obtained from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate and Ms. Bondi’s announcement that she had referred the matter to the U.S. attorney in Manhattan.” Why open a case after the July announcement that there was nothing left to investigate, which came in the wake of a thorough investigation by the SDNY, the successful prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, and the announcement that the investigation was closed? Why indeed.

It’s a dodge, of course. Trump is safe in the knowledge that he could take the publicly popular position on release of the files, watch it pass the House and Senate, as it did tonight, and count on his lawyers at the Justice Department, with their newly refreshed investigation open, to decline to release files, or at least parts of them he wants withheld. The basis for withholding them from Congress will be avoiding any interference with the investigation.

That’s a legitimate position for DOJ to take when it’s true—that there is an ongoing investigation whose integrity must be protected and that releasing evidence before decisions are made about indictments and a case is prosecuted would not be in the best interests of justice. Congress frequently defers to DOJ in these situations, but this one is different. Bondi had already closed the investigation. Now, without any explanation of what has changed, it’s back—just in time to protect Trump and pals.

But neither Trump nor anyone else involved in perpetrating crimes against the survivors should be protected. The survivors deserve at least that measure of justice. It has already happened to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who was forced to beat a hasty retreat from public engagements as news of his too-cozy communications with Epstein spread. Justice doesn’t always come in the form of court proceedings. It can take the shape of public exposure and condemnation, especially when it acknowledges the courage of the survivors.

So it’s particularly galling that the president’s response to a legitimate question about the matter is “Quiet Piggy.” It tells you all you need to know about this president’s attitude toward women. Of course, that hasn’t been in doubt since we saw him on tape saying, “Grab them by the p*ssy.” He’s called a stream of women who stood up to him, like Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Kamala Harris, “nasty women.” In 2014, Trump called New York Times columnist Gail Collins “frumpy and very dumb, We could be here all night listing the misogyny, but the sad truth is, MAGA doesn’t care. The men like it and the women, inexplicably, are willing to tolerate it.

I keep coming back to the Joseph McCarthy moment where the red-baiting senator was finally asked, “Have you no decency,” and his cult of personality burst. “Quiet, Piggy.” We shouldn’t forget that the president of the United States uttered those words in this moment. At a time when women were fighting for justice, the man who cut himself out of the investigation into wrongdoing had that to say about a woman who was simply trying to do her job.

Portland has reclaimed the frog as a symbol of its resistance to Trump’s efforts to militarize the city. Perhaps women should claim the glamorous, sassy Muppet Miss Piggy, a known diva with a fierce karate chop, as their own symbol. Call a woman a piggy, and see how that goes for you, Mr. President. Enough demeaning of women. Signing the Epstein Files bill when it hits his desk, which Trump has promised to do, won’t be enough. The files have to be released, no excuses. It’s time to emulate the great Miss Piggy, who has never stayed quiet in the face of those who don’t respect her.

We’re in this together,

Joyce