Tiger Beat: In a scandal breaking just in time for salacious beach reading, federal investigators found a trove of lewd photographs featuring underage girls in the Manhattan mansion of billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein at the same time they arrested him two days ago.

  Epstein has been charged with trafficking young women for the purposes of sex.

  The feds busted open the gorgeous oak doors of Epstein’ s townhouse and found a trove of photos. Prosecutors say the images number in the hundreds and possibly the thousands.

  Epstein virtually skated on similar charges of using and abusing teenagers back in 2008, but he may be pinned to the wall this time. The indictment says Epstein and his employees brought dozens of vulnerable girls, some as young as 14, to his Upper East Side mansion and to his compound in Palm Beach, Florida, between 2002 and 2005. The routine started as a massage, the indictment says, but then turned to sex acts with Epstein paying the girls and asking them to recruit their friends.

  One woman told ABC News, “I was 14. I had braces on.” Epstein’s private jet is known as “the Lolita express.” 

  It appears to be a story about how the rich and powerful escape the gravitational forces of law. Epstein has been buddies with former President Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Britain’s Prince Andrew.

  In 2008 the state of Florida suspiciously buried a 53-page indictment of Epstein when he reached an agreement with the US Attorney’s office to plead guilty to two state charges of prostitution. He spent 13 months in jail, but was allowed to leave six days a week to work. Epstein’s lawyers worked unusually closely at the time with Alexander Acosta, then the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and now Secretary of Labor.

  That agreement was kept secret even from the victims until it was final.

  Too much daylight is on this case for that to happen again. This is one of those matters in which there may well be more revelations, and if there are, the names will be much more recognizable than Jeffrey Epstein.

Head Count: In a shockingly open disagreement with the Supreme Court, Attorney Gen. William Barr said the court was wrong to rule out a citizenship question on the 2020 census form.

  President Trump has been angry about the court’s decision and Barr told the Associated Press that, “I agree with him that the Supreme Court decision was wrong.”

  There’s some obvious turmoil in the Justice Department over this issue. Suddenly the legal team that has been representing Justice is being replaced. Barr admits that James Burnham, a top lawyer in the  civil division who had been leading the effort, told him that a number of Justice lawyers on the  case preferred “not to continue during this new phase.” That means they can’t think of a good argument in the government’s favor.

Bare Minimum:Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 would increase the income of at least 17 million people, but also put 1.3 million Americans out of work, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The ripple effect could be higher pay for another 10 million workers, according to the CBO. The current federal minimum wage — last raised 10 years ago —  is $7.25 an hour. That’s $15,000 a year.

An Unusual Suspect:The sexual groping case against actor Kevin Spacey appears to be falling apart as the now 21-year-old accuser invoked his right to avoid self-incrimination and refused to testify.

  The man, who was 18 at the time, accused Spacey of groping and sexually assaulting him in a Nantucket bar. The accuser says he lost a cellphone the defense claims includes evidence suggesting that Spacey is innocent.

  Pressed by Spacey’s lawyer about whether he knew that altering evidence is a crime, the man invoked his right against self-incrimination. The judge indicated that he is considering dismissing the case that has destroyed Spacey’s acting career. 

The Dwindling Crowd: California Rep. Eric Swalwell is the first of 25 Democratic candidates to withdraw from the race. Eric, we hardly knew ye.

The News Roundup:Handing a big win to thousands of protesters, the leadership of Hong Kong has dropped a proposed law that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial — The dramatic run of 15-year-old Coco Gauff at Wimbledon ended yesterday when she lost to Simona Halep of Romania.Gauff is the youngest player to reach the fourth round of the women’s singles at Wimbledon since Jennifer Capriati in 1991. — The Justice Department yesterday asked a federal appeals court to throw out a lawsuit by congressional Democrats that claims President Trump has illegally profited from his family business while in office.

Not Speaking:President Trump said yesterday that he will no longer deal with the British ambassador who wrote in internal messages leaked to the press that Trump is “inept” and “incompetent.” Note that Trump didn’t say the ambassador is wrong.

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