DL Open Thread: Friday, February 13, 2026
The Conspiracy Theorists Were Right:
Journalists and researchers will spend the next months ferreting through the Epstein files in search of further criminal conduct or a new conspiratorial wrinkle. But one truth has already emerged.
In unsparing detail, the documents lay bare the once-furtive activities of an unaccountable elite, largely made up of rich and powerful men from business, politics, academia and show business. The pages tell a story of a heinous criminal given a free ride by the ruling class in which he dwelled, all because he had things to offer them: money, connections, sumptuous dinner parties, a private plane, a secluded island and, in some cases, sex.
If Mr. Epstein’s goal was to build a wall of protection around his abuse by surrounding himself with the well connected, he failed in the end. But both before and after he was first prosecuted for abusing girls, his correspondence described a network of people whose high-flying lives belied the struggles of ordinary Americans. And at the center of that network was a sexual predator seemingly on top of the world.
Don’t Sleep On The Ohio Senate Race. Especially after this:
Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) has a lengthy history of accepting donations from the former CEO of Victoria Secret parent-company, L Brands, Leslie Wexner. Wexner is also a former Jeffrey Epstein associate whose name appears repeatedly in FBI files on the disgraced financier. Wexner’s most recent $3,500 donation to Husted came in July 2025.
Husted’s campaign committees have directly received a total of $79,900 from Wexner dating back to 2001. Wexner also donated $10,000 to Husted and Ohio GOP Gov. Mike DeWine’s transition fund, in addition to $27,000 to DeWine’s campaign after Husted was named his lieutenant governor.
An FBI documentfrom 2019, recently released as part of the Epstein files, listed Wexner as a co-conspirator for Epstein. Wexner’s legal team has insisted Wexner was “neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect” to the Epstein probe. Wexner hired Epstein to manage his personal finances in the 1980s. Wexner cut ties with Epstein following Epstein’s 2007 Florida indictment.
Wexner is a prominent GOP megadonor who’s given to scores of Ohio pols over the years. Husted’s team didn’t respond to a request for comment and hasn’t previously commented on the Wexner donations.
Billionaire Leslie Wexner has been ordered to testify in a lawsuit brought by a group of former Ohio State University students who say they were sexually assaulted decades ago by campus doctor Richard Strauss and their alma mater did nothing to stop him.
The ruling, which was handed down Tuesday in the Southern District of Ohio, was a victory for the ex-students, who have been trying since September to compel Wexner, a former member of the OSU board of trustees, to testify.
The Strauss survivors held noisy protests at the end of last year after they alleged Wexner’s security and lawyer had repeatedly thwarted their process servers’ attempts to deliver a subpoena to Wexner. At the protests, they repeatedly brought up his past friendship and business relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. They also publicly demanded that Wexner’s name be removed from a football facility that was built with his money.
It took the intervention of U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson in January to finally serve Wexner with a subpoena by using alternative means, prompting the billionaire’s lawyers to file a motion last month to quash that subpoena.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Watson acknowledged Wexner’s complaints about being subjected to a “publicity campaign” but denied the motion to quash the subpoena.
“Plaintiffs are entitled to discover what Mr. Wexner knew about Dr. Strauss and when he knew it,” the order states.
Pretty sure that this is the same scandal that Jim Jordan has run away from for decades. Why, yes it is:
Survivors of Dr. Richard Strauss say Ohio Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan knew about the sexual abuse the student-athletes suffered, according to HBO’s new documentary, “Surviving Ohio State.”Jordan declined to be interviewed for the documentary, but his name is frequently brought up by former Ohio State wrestlers and a referee. The documentary came out last month. Over the years, Jordan has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the abuse.
“To say that (Jordan) knew nothing, that nothing ever happened, it’s a flat out lie,” former Ohio State Wrestler Dan Ritchie said in the documentary.
Strauss sexually abused at least 177 male victims between 1979 and 1996 during his time as a physician for Ohio State’s Athletics Department and at the university’s Student Health Center, according to an independent investigation commissioned by Ohio State University.
Strauss retired from Ohio State University in 1998 and died by suicide in 2005 when he was 67. Jordan was an Ohio State assistant wrestling coach from 1987 to 1995.
You do the math, then use your common sense.
Look, I know that Sherrod Brown is long in the tooth. But he was one of our most progressive senators and he still has a lot of popularity in Ohio. We’ll see if the Epstein stain, along with Trump’s derangement, will help send him back to DC. Not outside the realm of possibility.
More Epstein Resignations: Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. Kathy Ruemmler. There will be more. Plenty more.
ChristianaCare To Build Healthcare Campus In Georgetown:
The health system has submitted a note of intent to the Delaware Health Resources Board to develop a new health campus in Georgetown as part of $865 million in planned investments across the state.
The proposed campus would include a health center offering primary care, specialty care, behavioral health and other outpatient services, along with a neighborhood hospital featuring eight emergency beds and eight inpatient beds.
Sussex County’s growing and aging population makes it critical to expand local access to care, ChristianaCare President and CEO Janice E. Nevin said in a statement.
“This new campus will help close gaps in access by bringing high-quality, equitable and more convenient care directly into the community that needs it most,” Nevin said. “Our goal is simple: ensure that every Delawarean can access the care they need, in the right place at the right time.”
I can only hope that this facility will serve Suxco’s immigrant population with the same dedication that it will serve its wealthy retirees.
What do you want to talk about?
