Readers Write: The Epstein files, University of Minnesota/Fairview deal

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Great magicians are masters of focusing the audience’s attention someplace other than where the magician does not want them to look. Our president is a media-manipulating magician. For a year now, he has done everything he could to prevent release of the Epstein files. Now, he says he wants Congress to release the files (“Trump bows to reality in reversing Epstein stance,” Nov. 18). At the same time, he is preparing for war — or something that looks, feels and smells like war — against Venezuela. He is also moving federal troops around the country and threatening the country’s health care and research systems.

For the moment, I am assuming Congress actually will release all of the Epstein files. When that happens, the great magician will forcefully direct our attention to everywhere else but the files. If some of the files are withheld or altered, that misdirection will increase. Unfortunately, when a magician says, “Look over there,” it is only a harmless ring of fire or a lovely assistant supposedly in peril. With the magician-in-chief, people will suffer.

Gary Brisbin, Fridley

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I am looking forward to seeing Republicans respond to Trump’s latest flip-flop on the Epstein files. He promised to release them when he was running for president; when elected, he opposed it; now he is for it again.

Rebecca Carpenter, Minneapolis

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In 2017, newly elected president Trump appointed Alex Acosta, the prosecutor behind Jeffrey Epstein’s “sweetheart deal” in Florida, as his secretary of labor. At the time, those two things could be seen as unrelated. But now, nearly a year into Trump’s second term, we see the pattern clearly. Trump uses his power as president to reward allies and punish critics, all part of the great corruption that makes up the Trump regime.

After Ghislaine Maxwell said the “right” things in the softball interview by Trump’s right-hand lawyer Todd Blanche, she has been moved to a “Club Fed”-style prison and given special treatment, like puppy play time and preferred meals. Her lawyer is preparing a request for a full pardon.

Those who raise questions about Jeffrey Epstein or tariffs or corruption, on the other hand, are sued by Trump’s Department of Justice, or their businesses are threatened.

Ellen Thomas, St. Louis Park

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Trump has a short memory regarding the Epstein files.

After repeatedly promising in the campaign to release them all, he forgot that pledge and retreated when he was informed of the more than one thousand times his name appears in them.

Then, he repeatedly called the claims of sexual improprieties by his former friend a “hoax.”

Meanwhile, he has continuously urged Republicans in Congress to oppose ordering the files to be released, saying he would disown them if they didn’t.

After recently announcing that he had passed an MRI exam on an unspecified portion of his anatomy, last week he summoned one of the handful of Republican members of Congress supporting disclosure to a tongue-lashing at the White House.

On Friday, he wailed on MAGA maven Marjorie Taylor Greene on his Truth Social platform with his usual stream of insults and stripped her of his endorsement because she insisted on the disclosure of those materials.

But that slipped his mind by Sunday night, when he forgot all of that and reverted to his campaign promise, instructing his Republican minions to approve release of the entire Epstein files.

There’s no need for an MRI to determine if this man has a cognitive problem.

Please, please please stop the flow of inane, tired essays about the longstanding M Health Fairview difficulties. The Nov. 18 regents’ essay, “Minnesota health care deserves a better deal” (from Samuel Heins, Ellen Goldberg Luger and Penny Wheeler), and the Matt Dean essay (“Health care dispute demonstrates a bigger problem at the U,” Strib Voices, Nov. 18) were off the mark and unfocused. As a 1974 University of Minnesota Medical School graduate and recently retired Essentia internal medicine physician, I would like to encourage the Board of Regents and U President Rebecca Cunningham to roll up their sleeves and get an agreement done. Plenty of time has passed.

Yes, we know the Legislature has starved the university for a very long time, and that needs to be called out. Yes, political appointees have baggage. Yes, our country’s health care system is crazy in a lot of ways. Attorney General Keith Ellison’s prominent insertion of himself into the negotiations hasn’t accomplished much other than showing the dysfunction has continued so long that something just had to get done — so good for him in getting the University of Minnesota Physicians and Fairview to come to an agreement. Now it’s time for Cunningham to quit whining about being left out, and the regents to quit crying about supposed illegalities, and realize the U needs to meaningfully participate. Take a bold step and quit talking about unobtainable, perfect ways for the U to get control of its hospital and med school again.

Ernest Peaslee, Duluth

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For the past three years, more than 1,200 of my University of Minnesota Medical School faculty colleagues and I have grown exhausted by the constant uncertainty surrounding how we will deliver care. Our patients have felt that strain as well.

The agreement now before us is not a “hostile takeover.” It is a lifeline. It restores the stability that has been lost during three years of conflict over who controls our clinical work — stability we urgently need to rebuild programs, expand access for patients and address problems that have only worsened during this period of uncertainty.

This agreement brings renewed investment to our hospital and protects what matters most: patient care, research innovation and medical education. It is time for everyone across the university to stop fighting, support the care we provide and secure a stable future for Minnesotans.

This agreement does exactly that.

Demetris Yannopoulos, Minneapolis