United States

The Epstein Files story is reaching a climax. Emails released by the estate of paedophile and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have mentioned Donald Trump’s name, but little more than that.

However, the pathway to the more extensive FBI files on Epstein is now clear. Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva was sworn in this week and immediately cast the deciding vote in favour of releasing the Epstein files. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson now has seven legislative days to “ripen” the issue. He then has an additional two days to schedule the vote.

The necessary legislation will have no problem passing the lower house. A simple majority is needed and it is reckoned that up to 100 Republican congressmen will vote in favour of release.

Many of them are facing constituents who voted for Trump in the belief that he would release the files as promised. They are angry that there appears to be a cover-up in the service of rich elites. Other representatives do not want to be seen as participating in a cover-up, especially with the threat of even more damaging information to come.

If it passes the House then it goes to the Senate. There may be a problem there as it needs 60 out of the 100 votes to pass. Senators are not as vulnerable to the whims of the electorate as they face re-election every six years whereas those in the House of Representatives go before the electorate every two.

The final hurdle is the president. He can veto the release of the files. But if he did it would be tantamount to an admission of guilt and would almost certainly be overturned by a two-thirds vote in Congress.

China

In the past six weeks Xi Jinping has purged China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of nine senior generals and admirals and several handfuls of lower officer ranks.

The stated reason is corruption. And there is no doubt that China has a problem with senior military figures on the take. It has had the problem for years with officers being purged after police raided their homes to discover refrigerators and microwaves stuffed with cash, jewels and valuable works of art.

But the quantity and quality of the latest purge victims indicates that at least in some cases the corruption charge could be a cover for political disloyalty.

General He Weidong, for instance, was not just a general. He was also vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission and a member of the ruling Politburo. The charges against him were corruption and “loss of chastity.”

The latter phrase has nothing to do with celibacy—or lack thereof—but political chastity or loyalty to the Party line.

In today’s China the interests of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are being increasingly conflated with the interests of Xi Jinping. Thus lack of loyalty to Xi is the same as disloyalty to the Party and disloyalty to the Party is disloyalty to the country.

The CCP has long operated on the principle that “the Party commands the gun”. Xi seems deeply concerned that the military remain absolutely loyal to him and the CCP, not just as an institution. Corruption purges within the PLA have been driven not just by efficiency concerns but by loyalty/political control.

To ensure that control XI restructured the PLO so that power is concentrated in his role as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, rather than spread through the general ranks. Then he set up a number of overlapping control mechanisms run by political commissars who constantly monitor the senior levels for ideological disloyalty as well as graft.

Xi personally influences key promotions; he attends military events, intervenes in appointments, and ensures that top leadership is aligned with his thinking. There is rotational deployment and pairing of commanders and political commissars to reduce local power bases.

Xi is using his control to grow the military at a phenomenal rate. The 2025 budget of $245 billion represents an increase of 7.2 percent over the previous year. China now has the world’s biggest navy: 360 vessels compared to America’s 296. Although the US has a significant advantage in tonnage, firepower and range.

COP30

Conspicuous by his presence at the COP30 was California Governor Gavin Newsom. His presence is noteworthy mainly because of the conspicuous absence of Donald Trump.

COP30 was Newsom’s chance of a global platform for his bid for the Democratic nomination for the 2028 presidential election. And he is taking full advantage of Trump’s absence to project himself as the green alternative to the “drill baby drill” Republican president.

He is casting himself in the role of the “stable and reliable” American partner to the world. He has attacked a White House proposal to open offshore drilling in California waters as “disgraceful” and urged fellow Democrats to recast climate change as a “cost of living issue.”

Trump refused to attend COP30. He maintains that concerns over climate change are a “Climate hoax.” Mind you, he is not the only world leader absent from Brazil. Most of the Arab oil producers have stayed away as has Russia’s Vladimir Putin. India’s Narendra Modi is also missing because he wants India to keep burning cheap coal and Russian oil.

Trump has also pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement. America is the only country to pull out of the deal in which 194 other countries pledged to keep global warming to relative safe levels. Newsom said Trump’s pull-out was an “abomination.”

Newsom also attacked Trump for allowing the Chinese to dominate green technology. “It’s not about electric power,” said the governor of California, “it’s about economic power. We in the state of California are not going to cede that race to China.”

As Gavin Newsom flew from meeting to conference hall to meeting with his supporting cast of advisers, he refused to acknowledge any presidential ambitions. But his presence spoke louder than any words

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”