“This is a real understanding of what scares him,” said Wilson — co-founder of The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political action committee — in an MSNBC appearance.
“Donald Trump is not a brilliant man, but he has a certain degree of feral cunning about things that endanger him personally or legally or politically.”
Critics have slammed the president and accused him of trying to distract from his administration’s handling of files tied to the disgraced financier.
Wilson explained that Trump has a “keen sense” that the Epstein matter is “so devastating,” citing Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) claim that roughly 1,000 FBI agents were asked to flag Epstein-related records that mentioned the president.
“This is a guy who acts guilty, sounds guilty, looks guilty, smells guilty,” Wilson told MSNBC’s Katy Tur.
He later continued, “Epstein has become the thing that’s consuming his brain, it is wearing him down, he looks and sounds — as you point out correctly — much different about this. It’s not swagger, it’s not good different, it is scared.”
Wilson went on to refer to Trump offering his well-wishes to Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell after she was arrested and charged with sex trafficking in July 2020.
20 Years OfFreeJournalism
Your Support Fuels Our Mission
Your Support Fuels Our Mission
Support HuffPost
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
“Who says that about a notorious sex trafficker? Who says that about a person that got sentenced for 20 years in prison for trafficking underage girls?” Wilson asked.
“There’s a missing point here, there’s a missing gear in this machine with Donald Trump’s relationship with Epstein. It has thrown his administration completely off course and it’s thrown him completely off his game.”