If Trump could release the documents without it causing him major harm, he would have done so by now just to make the story go away!

Exactly. If it's all a "Democrat hoax" as Trump is now suddenly claiming, then why not release the files and blame the Democrats for what is in them? However, Trump refuses to release the files, and his administration insists there's "nothing to see here."

Trump is too deep down this rabbit hole to escape damaging his image.

Poor Donald, the needy praise-seeking grifting manwhore whose cult of personality rube following seems to (finally) be "cluing in" to the fact that Trump and the conspiracy nutjobs he personally chose to run his administration have been playing them for idiots for years. Having said that, how far up one's ass does their head have to be to see all those multitude of pictures of Trump and Epstein, Trump and Maxwell, Trump and Epstein and Maxwell... and the videos and the statements by Trump and Epstein that are already public regarding said issue and somehow come to the conclusion that Trump wasn't somehow involved?

Besides all that, the Trump administration did indeed just move a known convicted pedophile and sex trafficker of children to a nicer prison. Reminds me of that time Trump sat idly by and refused to call the National Guard while a group of persons he called to DC were assaulting police officers and then he pardoned multiple felons convicted of assaulting and injuring said LEOs; it's part and parcel of Trump proving how "tough on criminals" he is. However, it does seem Trump will call out the National Guard to distract from the news coverage of his association with criminals. It won't stop what's coming.

Donald may know what he did with Epstein, and be guilty of even more than we suspect.

Of course he knows, and he was also informed by DOJ that his name is in the files that the right-wingnuts (including Trump) have been discussing ad nauseam they would release for multiple years now. Suddenly, the administration (full of conspiracy theory performance artists) puts out a "nothing to see here" memo on a Friday news dump and expects the right-wingnut-o-sphere to just forget about the entire issue. *laughs*

or he may just be pissed that it's out of his control

Poor Donald has lost control of the right-wingnut bullshit echo chamber news cycle, but he has full control over releasing those files in the manner the wingnuts have been prattling on and on about to the QAnon nuts and gullible Righty rubes for a very long time. The fact that they are now claiming there's "nothing to see here" means there's definitely something Donald doesn't want seen. The fact Trump is now claiming that it's a "Democrat hoax" is equally telling.

This one is not rocket science, is it? Based on what is already known by the public via photographs, videos and Trump's own statements and multiple depositions and hearings from courtrooms across America, Trump is correct to want to hide evidence from the public and claim it's all a hoax, which Trump has spent a large portion of his pathetic life doing... same spit, different day.

Does this “Trump speak” come naturally to you (after a decade)? I think that you really nailed it and I wonder how naturally it came to you. Or not.

Er, besides Putin shooting it off in Trump’s [fill in the blank].

But you're not the first to joke that the Alaska summit might lead to an effort to trade Alaska back to Russia in return for support in seizing Greenland, not to even mention selling Ukraine down the river, wholesale.

Absurd, in the context of U.S. foreign policy principles and the idea of national independence? Yes. Absurd, in the context of this president's lack of intelligence, sense, and patriotism? Not so much.

Not sure what will come out of Friday's summit. Probably not your comical fantasy. But, and I admit it, how the hell can we be really sure at this point?