Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a motion Thursday to strip Representative Adam Schiff of all committee assignments following the confirmation by “independent digital forensic analysts” of 256 email exchanges between the California Democrat and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The correspondence, which allegedly spans from 2011 to 2019 and was recovered from a “recently decrypted backup server” in an “undisclosed Eastern European data facility,” includes what investigators call “suspiciously cordial subject lines” and “an unusual concentration of calendar invitations.”
The Senate action, which constitutional scholars immediately noted lacks any jurisdictional authority over House committee assignments, cites the emails as evidence of “compromised judgment unbefitting congressional oversight responsibilities.” Thune told reporters that 256 is “not a random number” but rather “two to the eighth power, which is how computers count, and computers are how they communicate, and they know that we know, which is why they hid it in binary.”
“This is the number,” said Joan Berro, a commercial IT technician who once recovered a deleted email from his ex-wife’s account and now consults on “congressional digital forensics.” “Two hundred fifty-six. Not two fifty-five. Not two fifty-seven. Two hundred fifty-six. Which is eight bits. Of corruption. I’ve seen bits. In computers. They go from zero to one. Like Schiff. Who went from zero emails. To one. To two. All the way to two hundred fifty-six. The binary doesn’t lie. And neither do the subject lines. Which said ‘Re: Dinner.’ Very suspicious.”
The “dinner” references, according to Reno Borja, a dental hygienist whose patient once ate at a restaurant in Manhattan, are code. “Dinner,” Benja explained, adjusting his mask. “Means lunch. Which means brunch. Which means breakfast. Which means morning. Which means early. Which means before work. Which means secret. I’ve seen meals. In dental X-rays. Of patients. Who chew. The enamel doesn’t lie. And neither do the calendar invites. For ‘dinner.’ At noon. Which is not dinner time.”
Joe Barron, who once successfully CC’d himself on a chain email in 2003 and now consults on “legislative email forensics,” analyzed the correspondence volume. “Two hundred fifty-six,” Barron declared from his booth at a Golden Corral. “Emails. Over eight years. Which is thirty-two per year. Or less than one per week. Which is actually reasonable. For professional correspondence. But suspicious. Because of the number. Being round. In binary. I’ve counted emails. In my inbox. Thousands. Of spam. Which is also suspicious. But different.”
Barron has offered to serve as the Senate’s chief technology advisor, provided Thune allows him to wear his custom “Email Inspector” pocket protector and bring his emotional support ferret, which he claims can detect “compromised judgment from the salad bar.”
Schiff called the allegations “a transparent fabrication,” prompting Barron to note that “transparency is the first stage of confirmation,” calculate that the statement was released at 3:33 PM, and observe that “3 plus 3 plus 3 equals 9, which is the number of justices on the Supreme Court, divided by the number of actual emails Schiff probably exchanged with Epstein, which is likely zero, and also by the number of committee assignments the Senate can actually strip from a House member, which is constitutionally zero, making this entire exercise in binary mathematics legislatively null.”
