On July 17, the Wall Street Journal published an exposé by Khadeeja Safdar and Sadie Gurman, detailing a racy — and, in context, rather damning — 2003 birthday message from real estate developer Donald Trump to financier Jeffrey Epstein, who later allegedly killed himself while awaiting trial on charges of sexually trafficking minor girls.

Trump followed his usual crybully playbook: Deny everything, scream “fake news!,” issue clearly false statements (“I never wrote a picture in my life”) to make the story sound implausible, sue for some ridiculous amount of money ($10 billion).

While I tend to distrust “scandal” stories in “mainstream media” outlets, those very predilections on Trump’s part make this particular story more, rather than less, credible.

Would the Journal have called those predictable consequences down on its own head without ensuring it could justify every comma in the story? I doubt it.

Would the Journal‘s owner, Rupert Murdoch, have allowed publication if he wasn’t convinced himself? Murdoch’s Fox News has already paid out nearly $800 million for making false PRO-Trump claims about the 2020 presidential election, with another $3 billion still on the line. He’s a very rich man,  but he’s been burnt on this kind of thing before and likely learned his lesson.

So: The story’s claim that Trump gifted Epstein a doodle of a naked woman, accompanied by a note averring that “we have certain things in common,” to the “age” of “enigmas,” and to shared “secrets,” will likely stand up in court, if it ever gets there. And the Journal and Murdoch probably wouldn’t have published the story if they weren’t willing to go there.

“What did the president know,” US Senator Howard Baker (R-TN) asked during the Senate’s hearings on the Watergate affair,  “and when did he know it?” He’s also reported to have informally mused that “it is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.” We know how that all came out, of course.

One big difference between Watergate and this affair is that Nixon went down over, basically, refusing to let his underlings take the fall for the initial burglary.

There’s no one Trump won’t throw under the bus without a second thought, and there probably wouldn’t BE a scandal if Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino hadn’t busked for their administration jobs on, partially, claims that they’d bring out the whole truth on Epstein.

Would a few ritual human sacrifices adequately propitiate the gods of public opinion and legal process this time? Well, maybe. How many “ladies and gentlemen … we got him” moments has Trump already preempted or survived?

On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if the naked lady in the doodle is Brünnhilde, and whether she’s about to sing.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In 2024, the US Internal Revenue Service piloted its “Direct File” program, through which its victims — American taxpayers — in some states could complete tax returns online directly with the IRS rather than through third party tax preparation services. In 2025, the program expanded to 50 states and millions of Americans saved themselves a little money.

Spare taxpayers the cost of paying private sector professionals to navigate complicated government paperwork? Seems like the least the government can do, right?

Enter the “Department of Government Efficiency” and lobbyists for the “Free File Alliance,” a tax preparation industry group that provides supposedly free tax services in  “public-private partnerships” with the government.

While Direct File hasn’t actually been eliminated yet, the “Big Beautiful Bill” signed by president Donald Trump on July 4 directs the IRS (per DOGE recommendation) to find a replacement for it by returning to those aforementioned “public-private partnerships.”

Why do commercial tax preparers want to do your taxes for free? They don’t, as many taxpayers quickly learn. If your tax return is more complicated than the old “1040-EZ,” chances are you’ll have to cough up. The “free” claim is just clickbait to get you in the door.

According to the National Taxpayers Union, Americans will spend nearly $150 billion dollars on tax preparation this year — not counting the value of the 7.1 billion hours they’ll put into the affair even with that professional help (your bit of that money and time is already gone unless you own a business and/or do quarterly filing).

If you have to ask why, the answer is usually “money.” And that’s the answer here. Direct File threatens to derail a $150 billion gravy train. “Tax professionals” are more than willing to spend a little  on lobbying (let’s speak plain English: “Bribing politicians”) to keep said train on the rails and moving at full speed.

So, I have an alternative proposal to offer, because of course I do.

Two alternative proposals, actually.

The first one is “eliminate the federal income tax.”

No dice? OK, how about this:

A 100%, “refundable,” tax credit for all payments to tax preparation services, plus $94.25 (the federal minimum wage of $7.50 per hour for the 13 hours the average American spends on the process).

No, not a deduction from your “gross adjusted income,” especially not a deduction that only applies if your TOTAL deductions exceed the “standard deduction” amount.

A direct deduction from your tax BILL, with payment to you if your costs exceed the amount the IRS pretends you “owe.”

Tax preparation costs are really taxes themselves — government just has you pay them to its “public-private partners” instead of to the IRS. Therefore they should be deducted from the total bill, right?

Implement that and see how quickly “Direct File” returns.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On July 14, Roman Storm’s trial  — on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and violating US sanctions — began in a Manhattan courtroom. The allegations sound pretty serious, but they all boil down to one real action: Developing, in cooperation with others, a computer program.

That program is Tornado Cash, an “open source, non-custodial, fully decentralized cryptocurrency tumbler.”

In English, it’s a program that anyone can use, that no one controls, and that can be used to keep prying eyes off cryptocurrency transactions. It obscures who’s sending  how much to whom. It’s a useful tool, whether you’re just a regular guy who likes his privacy or a group of North Korean hackers looking to “launder” your take.

Tornado Cash is “legal” in the US, at least for the moment. In 2022, the US Treasury banned US citizens from using it, citing “national security,” but withdrew the ban earlier this year after Tornado Cash users sued.

But its developers remain in legal jeopardy.

Alexey Pertsev languishes in a Netherlands prison, sentenced to five years.  Roman Semenov is wanted by the FBI. And Roman Storm is in the dock in New York.

For writing a computer program.

This case was settled — or at least should have been settled — nearly three decades ago in Bernstein vs. US Department of Justice.  One Daniel J. Bernstein sued over the US government’s “export controls” on encryption software, controls based on the fiction that such software constitutes “munitions.”

In 1996, The US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that  “code is speech,” and therefore protected by the First Amendment. In 1999, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling.

That PARTICULAR code COULD be used by PARTICULAR people to do PARTICULAR things is irrelevant to our absolute right to create such code.

That would be true even if code wasn’t speech. A lock pick can be used by a burglar or by a locksmith; a gun can be used to defend your home or to murder your spouse; an airplane can be used to transport passengers or to kill thousands in a terror attack. None of those things are, or should, be illegal just because they can all be used to do illegal things.

Roman Storm’s lawyers should file, and the court should grant, a motion to dismiss the charges — and the US government should stop attacking our speech and our financial privacy.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY