So ... who is Bubba?

I just wanted to go on vacation in Mexico. Then do some more traveling for work in Atlanta, then Portugal.

In that time, I made a silent vow to only cover international stories. To take a step back and cover some broader, big picture topics like climate change, AI and the economy. Our name is Local News International, after all.

But here I am, not 24 hours back in the U.S. of A., googling “is Bubba a horse or Bill Clinton?” and “did Trump really have sexual relations with a horse and/or another U.S. president?”

I’m not proud of myself, but at least I’m not alone. Millions of people are posting, sharing and reading with varying degrees of alarm, disgust and delight after 20,000 emails between Jeffrey Epstein and his various associates were released into the Internet last week, seemingly destined to disrupt anything else interesting happening online.

On Monday, I’ll post my first video breaking down everything we’ve learned. But today, I’m putting on my Columbo jacket, pulling out my magnifying glass and examining the weirdest email discovered so far:

This was written to Jeffrey Epstein by his brother, Mark. He’s asking if Russian President Vladimir Putin has a photo of Trump “blowing Bubba.” This email would have been sent around the time that many people were speculating Putin had compromising videos of Trump in the so-called “pee tapes.”

Pee tapes aside, let’s focus on one insane and gross accusation at a time. Here’s what we know about that Bubba email.

The shocking lack of spelling, periods, or just general acknowledgement towards the basic rules of grammar are present in basically all of these emails between Epstein, notable figures like Deepak Chopra (!), and otherwise well-edited journalists like Michael Wolff.

I noted on Bluesky that this may not be important …

… but I think maybe it is slightly important when we consider the following information: if these people can’t spell, perhaps not all of their emails are entirely truthful or accurate. In other words, while it may delight Trump-detractors to assume everything here is true, we simply cannot rely on these emails alone as definitive evidence.

Now, that all said, let’s explore a very important piece of the puzzle:

Other important figures, like President Barack Obama, are also mentioned. But in those cases, it’s never accusations. In fact, it’s usually just news articles talking about his administration. Clinton, on the other hand, has long been mentioned as a potential client of Epstein’s. And, of equal importance …

In the 20,000 emails, which you can search here, Bubba comes up often, sometimes directly referring to Bubba Clinton.

In the same batch of emails released last week, Jeffrey Epstein insisted that Clinton “never, EVER” went to the island. There’s also no evidence, at this point, that Trump himself went. Though Epstein specifically emailed that Trump “knew about the girls.”

It’s just … locker room talk? Mark Epstein has emerged recently to say that they were not referring to Bill Clinton.

So, it wasn’t serious, and it wasn’t, apparently, Bill Clinton. If not Bubba Clinton, then whomst is the Bubba to which they speak, if that Bubba is even a real being?

According to far too many mainstream corners of the internet: a horse.

Many have speculated that Bubba was not Clinton but, in fact, a horse owned by Epstein’s fellow trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell.

If Google AI overview is to be believed, then she did own a horse named Bubba. But, as we mentioned in last week’s video, AI is entirely unreliable. In this case, it’s just pulling from posts on Facebook. And those posts have no evidence.

Maxwell did have horses. But as of today, we do not know their names. On a personal note, as the journalist working hard to gather this information for you, I am relieved the horse thing seems to be fabricated from nothing.

If this is starting to feel ridiculous and exhaustive, then my work is finally done here. While some of this is fun and fun to write about, when you get down to the actual information and facts we have, there’s almost nothing we can cling to.

President Trump, a supposedly innocent man, continues to attack his now former allies (like Marjorie Taylor-Greene!) who want to release the actual Epstein Files. It seems this will only become a bigger story. Every move he makes to stop the release of the files runs counter to his own campaign promises and assertions that he wasn’t involved. Put simply, innocent people don’t act this way.

Meanwhile, Megyn Kelly has killed the last part of herself and her credibility to frame adults having sex with 15-year-olds as unproblematic. I assume she’s making horcruxes because I cannot imagine saying something this depraved.

All this to say - we shouldn’t lose focus on the victims here. With or without Trump’s involvement, there are many, many powerful people mentioned in these emails, often in direct and disgusting ways. I hope, that no matter what, Americans continue to speak out against these crimes and speak up for the victims.

Anyway, I will be writing more about the new Vine app later this week, as promised in Friday’s newsletter. I’m sorry it was bumped for Bubba.

For now, I think we can safely say, we live in the worst timeline.