Gov. Ron DeSantis just launched an unexpected attack against former President Trump after being questioned about pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and a shortage of judges.
The presidential candidate appeared to suggest that Trump might be at fault for somehow not appointing enough judges as president. That came about after he was grilled by Gordon Ackley, Chairman of the Virgin Islands Republican Party, about a shortage of attorneys and judges there potentially facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes according to the St. Thomas Source.
“As president, you get to appoint U.S. Attorneys, U.S. Marshals, and federal judges that oversee the territories. These appointments are very important to us because this is the only check and balance we have against our Democrat-controlled legislature and we need these checks and balances in place,” Ackley told DeSantis.
“I feel that if we had those checks and balances in place, some of this negative publicity we’ve had through three governorships here through the Epstein fiasco might have been headed off earlier,” he claimed.
Meanwhile Virgin Islands can’t even vote for the US President smh pic.twitter.com/3YyZk6gLNQ
— Lanks (@MrLankee) October 17, 2023
“I mean, it’s malpractice not to fill all available positions as the president. When you don’t do that then the bureaucrats run the show, and that means basically the Democrats are running the show,” the Florida Republican asserted in response.
If elected president, DeSantis said he would be more aggressive in filling judge and prosecutor slots than Trump. It’s important to note that Trump appointed more judges than most presidents in history.
Epstein came up earlier this month for DeSantis during an event that was held by the Never Back Down super PAC. While the Florida governor was in Iowa, he told a crowd that he would release everything he could on Jeffrey Epstein involving his crimes as well as his death.
“I don’t know why they didn’t make all that stuff public. You have a right to know what happened with all of that and we will declassify or put out whatever we can on that,” DeSantis said at his appearance in Le Mars, Iowa.
(Video Credit: Never Back Down)
“DeSantis was never close to Epstein, but the financier’s issues have intersected with the state and its officials to such a degree that the Governor, in his first term, ordered an investigation of Palm Beach County officials in the wake of Epstein’s 2019 death in a jail cell to ensure that the criminal did not get ‘special treatment,'” Florida Politics reported.
The media is highlighting the fact that DeSantis reappointed an attorney who had negotiated a “sweetheart” plea deal for the Palm Beach billionaire 15 years ago. She was appointed to a commission responsible for nominating judges in the Sunshine State.
“DeSantis again named Miami Beach lawyer Lilly Ann Sanchez, a shareholder at LS Law Firm, to the Judicial Nominating Commission of the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami-Dade County. He first appointed her to the group July 2, 2019,” Florida Politics wrote.
We must go back to 2008, & the so-called “sweetheart deal” negotiated for Jeffrey Epstein. His team included:
-Ken Starr, of The 1998 Starr Report
-Alan Dershowitz, known for his TV-based commentary
-Jay Lefkowitz, special envoy to North Korea, 2005-9
-Lilly Ann Sanchez
(2/12) pic.twitter.com/samtP5GjUP— Epstein, Epstein! Read all about it! (@TasteSubjective) July 17, 2023
“Sanchez was part of a quartet of lawyers that included Ken Starr, author of the Starr Report that led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, who defended Epstein against charges of the statutory rape of numerous underage high school girls,” the news outlet added.
Epstein would go on to plead guilty in 2008 to charges of soliciting and trafficking underage girls. He wound up serving only 13 months on “work release in a private wing of a Palm Beach jail,” Florida Politics stated.
“Eleven years later, in March 2019, Sanchez and Starr co-wrote a letter to The New York Times defending Epstein’s light sentence. They contended the ‘number of young women involved in the investigation has been vastly exaggerated’ and that Epstein’s time in prison and ‘enormous monetary settlements relying on his negotiated agreement’ entitled him to ‘finality like every other defendant,'” the outlet concluded.