Epstein 3
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some neglect 10 26
I WAS TRYING TO USE THIS NODE FOR FINANCIAL NETWORk
SEE LUTNICK LIED, LUNCH ON ISLAND; BIZ PARTNER WEXNER?
MBS MBZ?
RUSSIA ALFA BANK OLEG DERIPASKALAVROR DMITRIEV PUTIN
THIEL FUNDED BY EPSTEIN ; SECRET SOC DIALOG ;BRIN GGL
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TOOL Epstein Graph - Searchable Epstein Document Archive
A research archive of Epstein documents - built for journalists, researchers, and the public record.
Every audio and video file fully transcribed and searchable.
1,331,615 documents indexed • 50,390 people identified
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LOMBORG ASKED EPSTEIN FOR $ CLIMATE ADAM
KRAUSE ASU
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AN 10 26
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AN 10 26
Top Utah Republican blasts Trump's 'despicable' DOJ
FBI's last-minute plot to hide Trump-Epstein videos claimed in lawsuit
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epstein Incendiary new 50-page report revives Trump's worst nightmare
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SEDER 6 22 26
The Tech Billionaire Plan To Destroy Democracy | Gil Duran | TMR - YouTube
18 minutes, 59 seconds
Epstein files and he was so concerned how so many wealthy powerful people were close to Epstein, which was an insane thing for JD Vance to say given that
he's the vice president to Jeffrey Epstein's best friend, Donald Trump. But not only that, Vance is entirely a creation of Peter Teal, who was also in
deep with Epstein. In fact, Epstein gave $40 million to one of Peter Thiel's funds, an investment that has now ballooned to 170 million and according
to the New York Times, I believe, is the major chunk of his remaining estate. So, here's a guy who's basically JD Vance is a guy who's in a in a Epstein teal Trump
19:35
19 minutes, 35 seconds
sandwich here. So, it's not clear to me how he's going to be able to thread that needle convincingly when we can just get a real Republican to uh run who's
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AN 4 26
Dems accuse GOP of using sneaky tactic to block Epstein investigation - Alternet.org
GOP leaders accused of 'quietly' supressing Epstein case with new tactic - Alternet.org
COMER
Democrats are sounding the alarm on a new tactic that GOP leadership in the House is using to "quietly" suppress further inquiries into the Jeffrey Epstein case, according to a new report from Politico.
Speaking with the outlet for the Tuesday report, Democrats accused House Oversight Chair James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, of using "a new strategy" to "contain" the ability of lawmakers to issue subpoenas against "high-profile figures in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation." Before this, Politico noted that "Members of both parties have for months been hijacking House Oversight Committee business to call votes" on such subpoenas.
As the Epstein story escalated over the last year, a handful of Republicans broke with President Donald Trump to join Democrats in voting for these subpoenas, including one that led to testimony from former Attorney General Pam Bondi. This process was also used for "a surprise motion to release the full Epstein files when top congressional Republicans were dragging their feet."
"The Kentucky Republican’s workaround, they allege, is to hold 'roundtables' on various issues within the panel’s jurisdiction rather than hearings," the report explained. "Roundtables are more informal and don’t permit members to offer motions to subpoena witnesses during unrelated committee business, as is allowed during hearings."
Politico obtained a new memo prepared by Democratic Oversight staffers, outlining the complaints in detail and alleging that Republicans "are avoiding the only forum where Democrats can force votes, demand documents, and hold the majority accountable."
“We’ve heard from committee members, both Republicans and Democrats, that they are frustrated,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said in an interview Monday. “We have important investigative work, and they want to do this right as we are in the middle of this single, largest government cover-up in the modern history of the Congress. And they want to neuter the Oversight Committee. Give me a break.”
A representative for the GOP staff on the Oversight committee did not give an answer when pressed as to whether or not these roundtables were being used to decrease the number of subpoena votes.
“Roundtables provide opportunities to have more substantive and direct conversations with ordinary Americans about issues facing communities across the U.S.,” the spokesperson said.
"But the members’ subpoena free-for-all over the past nine months has undoubtedly created a complicated political dynamic for Comer," Politico detailed. "He has become the de facto leader of the congressional Epstein probe, forcing him to balance calls for transparency with the political fallout of Trump’s onetime relationship with the late, convicted sex offender.Republicans have noticed the connection between the spike in subpoenas and the subsequent increase in roundtables in lieu of hearings."
Rep. Glenn Grothman, a Wisconsin Republican, made an oblique reference to this trend and its purpose during a March roundtable meeting on mental health.
“It’s no secret why we are not doing a formal hearing today," the lawmaker said. "We’d like this hearing to be solely focused on the issue before you, and there is some concern that — both parties are guilty of this — that they make motions in the middle of the hearing and try to bring up unrelated topics.”
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What The Epstein Files Reveal About America’s Elites - YouTube
...
8:33
8 minutes, 33 seconds
And the less well-known people behind them maybe hold the real power now. Why did Peter Thiel want Epstein as one of his investors?
8:40
8 minutes, 40 seconds
Perhaps due to Thiel's many investments in defense and surveillance tech. Epstein had government connections and even introduced Thiel to William Burns, the onetime head of the CIA.
8:50
8 minutes, 50 seconds
Epstein also took the liberty of recommending Palantir to foreign officials in Israel and across the Middle East.
8:56
8 minutes, 56 seconds
One of Epstein's favorite tech investments was the Israeli tech company Carbyne 911. Epstein helped connect the founders of Carbyne with Trae Stephens,
9:05
9 minutes, 5 seconds
also of Palantir, who ended up on Carbyne's advisory board.
9:09
9 minutes, 9 seconds
Carbyne works to replace the 911 system with artificial intelligence. [Advertisement] Live video. Precise location.
9:16
9 minutes, 16 seconds
Complete situational intelligence. With little to no oversight over how the calls are handled privacy wise.
9:22
9 minutes, 22 seconds
They were purchased by Axon, the makers of tasers and body cameras, and have begun getting contracts across the United States.
9:29
9 minutes, 29 seconds
So, next time you call 911, you could be directed to an AI, stemming from Jeffrey Epstein and Israel.
9:35
9 minutes, 35 seconds
Lesser known tech investors and CEOs like Epstein's publicist-turned-venture-capitalist, Masha Drokova,
9:41
9 minutes, 41 seconds
communicated with him up until his arrest. Drokova's VC firm Day One Ventures,
9:46
9 minutes, 46 seconds
which she built with the influence, input, and advice of Epstein owns parts of dozens of tech companies, including Sam Altman's surveillance and crypto tech company,
9:53
9 minutes, 53 seconds
world, and Calypso AI, whose founder, Neil Serebryany, Drokova introduced to Epstein.
10:00
10 minutes
Serebryany particularly seemed to have no issue with Epstein's proclivities.
10:05
10 minutes, 5 seconds
Emails show multiple mentions of girls and Serebryany brags about going to the porn convention in the context of he and Epstein's shared interests.
10:14
10 minutes, 14 seconds
Calypso AI is an AI surveillance company that has contracts with the United States government. Some of these people must have faced consequences, right?
10:23
10 minutes, 23 seconds
Well, yeah. Our buddy Leon Black left Apollo in shame. But the new CEO, Marc Rowan, also communicated heavily with Epstein.
...
ike Epstein's publicist-turned-venture-capitalist, Masha Drokova,
9:41
9 minutes, 41 seconds
communicated with him up until his arrest. Drokova's VC firm Day One Ventures,
9:46
9 minutes, 46 seconds
which she built with the influence, input, and advice of Epstein owns parts of dozens of tech companies, including Sam Altman's surveillance and crypto tech company,
9:53
9 minutes, 53 seconds
world, and Calypso AI, whose founder, Neil Serebryany, Drokova introduced to Epstein.
10:00
10 minutes
Serebryany particularly seemed to have no issue with Epstein's proclivities.
10:05
10 minutes, 5 seconds
Emails show multiple mentions of girls and Serebryany brags about going to the porn convention in the context of he and Epstein's shared interests.
10:14
10 minutes, 14 seconds
Calypso AI is an AI surveillance company that has contracts with the United States government. Some of these people must have faced consequences, right?
10:23
10 minutes, 23 seconds
Well, yeah. Our buddy Leon Black left Apollo in shame. But the new CEO, Marc Rowan, also communicated heavily with Epstein.
10:31
10 minutes, 31 seconds
Today, he's in the executive leadership of President Trump's Board of Peace,
10:35
10 minutes, 35 seconds
the organization responsible for continuing to annihilate the Palestinian people and replace their homes with private construction projects intended to enrich others in the Epstein network.
10:47
10 minutes, 47 seconds
The power of this network, what Epstein and the rest of them could do for the people in the network, is why you rarely see anyone emailing him like,
IOU
AN 4 26
Michael Wolff, one of the biographers of President Donald Trump, revealed that he will begin telling his long tale of trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the relationships he had and the stories he told.
In a kind of introduction, Wolff likened the "fog of war" to a similar "fog" in the ongoing Epstein scandal.
"The Fog of Epstein" is similar in that his story can be "shaped to fit almost everybody’s view, right-wing or left, of what has gone wrong with our time, and to confirm the depravity of virtually anybody you don’t like," wrote Wolff on his Substack Friday.
The problem, he explained, is that anyone who had an up-close view of Epstein's life had every reason to want to hide it because by sharing it, they were making a confession, Wolff said. They risked becoming part of the cover-up or the conspiracy. It means the majority of the stories come from the accusers.
"So," he explained. "What I am going to try to do is tell the story as I have been privy to it. All battles for truth seem to end up creating even greater fog. My intention is not to engage with the battle, but to offer a personal version of the story—I will tell it only according to what I have seen."
He prefaced it by saying, "This is a story I inadvertently walked into. In the beginning, it did not appear much different from other stories of grandiosity, wealth, and opportunity that seemed to regularly present themselves in Manhattan. I stayed, in part, because the story seemed to unfold as a heightened, purer version of that tale of life in the city during the years of its greatest avarice."
The story Wolff had, he explained, was never told by journalists, survivors or prosecutors, much less Epstein's friends, in large part because he controlled the story. To Epstein, his story wasn't all that interesting or unique, and there were others he could tell.
They seem to all be about "greed and aggrandizement and entitlement; what’s more, Epstein, like his friend Trump, was too vulgar, excessive, and not of our class, to take seriously," said Wolff.
All of these stories, he teased, will unfold on Monday, April 23.
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4 10 26
oddly? surprise presser, prz seal, trump said no warning
called for congr to let surv testify?
//
an 4 26
President Donald Trump’s first lady, Melania Trump, issued an unexpected public statement on Thursday about her relationship with the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — and one journalist has a theory to why.
“A new book was published yesterday in the US and UK, entitled ‘The Rise and Fall of The House of York,’” journalist Michael Wolff posted on the social media X on Thursday. “It's by a British journalist by the name of Andrew Loney, and it's about the life of Prince Andrew. But it is also about his connection to Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Melania Trump.”
Wolff added, “In fact, it contains a passage in which Epstein is quoted — apparently from a 2007 interview — where he says that he had sex with Melania a full year before Donald Trump commenced his relationship with her.”
New York Times writer Wajahat Ali offered a similar theory regarding Melania Trump’s surprise press conference.
“My speculation: Michael Wolff has said Epstein told him the first time Trump and Melania had sex was on Epstein's Lolita Express Jet,” Ali wrote on X. “He might release the audio of their interview or a similar story might confirm some of the sordid details. Melania is trying to get ahead of it.”
Trump, who was friends with Epstein from the 1980s until they had a falling out over a business transaction in the 2000s, is alleged to have sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl in the 1980s. In 2019, a woman who claimed to have been trafficked by Epstein as a teenager alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Trump on one of those trips. The White House denies the allegations, even though the Post and Courier later found additional details about the claim that did not make it into the formally-released files, including the names of four young teenage girls who were at a pool party attended by Epstein.
Even though they could verify the accuser’s claim through eyewitness accounts, one of them told the Post and Courier that the FBI never contacted her. They allege that Epstein “drove her and flew her” to New York and New Jersey to meet Trump, which is true would constitute sex trafficking as well as sexual assault.
Earlier this week, in his weekly Lincoln Project podcast, Rick Wilson mocked Trump’s failure to distract from the Epstein scandal, despite launching two wars since the start of 2026. He also alluded to a document that had been released pertaining to Epstein despite Trump’s increasingly-desperate efforts to keep the news out of the headlines.
"In it, Trump's attorney at the time, Alan Garten, I believe, is the name, revealed a few small things," Wilson said. "One of which is that Trump never threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago."
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an 3 26
The world has been shocked by the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his connections to powerful elites, but while it can be tempting to think of him as an "isolated aberration," the truth is that he represents a type of figure who is troublingly common in high society: that of the "dark connector," according to New York Times Opinion columnist Jacob Weisberg.
According to Weisberg, the dark connector is "a kind of predator" who "cultivates an aura of special access" to win the favor of elites by providing services and contacts "outside ordinary morality." This is someone who "offers solutions that do not officially exist," and has the ability to "make it easier for people of standing to move between their public obligations and their private desires without too much friction."
There are many examples across history, but Weisberg points to two in particular.
During the Cold War, Roy Cohn became feared for his role as chief counsel for the Red Scare trials, wielding backroom gossip to destroy the lives of his enemies through accusations of communist sympathies. Cohn cultivated such gossip through his many high-profile connections, from journalist Barbara Walters to industrialist S.I. Newhouse to mobster Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno. Later in the 1970s, incidentally, Cohn became mentor to future President Donald Trump.
Further back in history, Grigori Rasputin played a similar role in the Russian court of the Romanovs. While Rasputin held no official role in the Russian empire, he found favor with the Romanovs thanks to his purported healing abilities, and he became a vastly powerful figure operating in the shadows of the court. His influence on the Romanovs helped to ruin their credibility, and played no small part in driving the dissatisfaction that ultimately brought down the government
As Weisberg points out, if Cohn spoke to a set of elites obsessed with communism, and Rasputin found favor with those drawn to his spiritual extremism, “Epstein had a similar kind of appeal for an elite culture preoccupied with money and sex.” He excelled as an “enabler for the men in his orbit, a master of the informal workaround who could help reconcile their private desires with public appearances.”
Professionally speaking, he served as a “financial guru” who “purported to know tricks unavailable to ordinary professionals.” At the same time, he was notoriously known as a “wingman and sex scout,” a “roguish pickup artist living in a transactional world where everything was for sale.” Epstein’s sexual escapades were not a secret among the elites, but part of the attraction. As Trump said of Epstein, “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
From there, Epstein forged his connections by playing the role of the “all-purpose benefactor.” He was the kind of person who could introduce you to anyone, get you a job, or help secure donations for your philanthropy. Or maybe he “invited you to his Caribbean island” or “gave you a ride on his plane.”
Ultimately, dark connectors like Epstein achieve their positions because they speak to powerful people’s desire for “hedonism without concern for respectability.” As Bill Gates once wrote suggestively of Epstein, “His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing, although it would not work for me.”
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epstein russia 3 26
Sen. Whitehouse on the Trump / Russia / Epstein Triangle | The Frank Figliuzzi Show
trump submissive only to putin; bondi turned off corrupt/crypto cyber alarms/agy
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AN 3 26
KATES MODEL AGY PAID OFF HSE
Bombshell: Major modeling exec accused of connecting Epstein with young women - Alternet.org
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AN 3 26
Democrats are getting the hard drives of trafficker Jeffrey Epstein after the bombshell news that the FBI never had them to begin with.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Cal.) announced on Friday that all of Jeffrey Epstein's private computers and hard drives were "in the possession of Epstein's private investigators and may never have been seen by any law enforcement agency."
"This information, discovered by Oversight Democrats during the deposition of Epstein's personal attorney Darren Indyke, is critical as we continue our search for the truth. Oversight democrats are working to access these hard drives and items and speak directly with the private investigators. We will identify ever co-conspirator who shielded Epstein and hold them accountable," Garcia said.
According to the letter obtained by ABC News and sent to three private investigators, Garcia wrote, "[T]he Committee requests that you make yourself available for a transcribed interview to provide insight into the contents, removal, storage and location of the materials removed from Mr. Epstein's Palm Beach home."
"The Committee also seeks information regarding the reason for the removal of these materials, the potential withholding of these materials from law enforcement and any other information regarding the activities and crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and any of his co-conspirators," Garcia wrote.
Last month, ABC reported that Epstein hid all of the hard drives and computers from investigators when the Palm Beach Police Department raided his home. The PI, Roy Black, a criminal defense lawyer for Epstein, took all of the evidence from the home, which included all of the computers and more than two dozen phone directories and explicit material, the documents released by the DOJ said.
A 2020 investigation by the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) found that former Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who was the top DOJ prosecutor in Miami at the time, agreed to a plea deal before he could obtain the video footage from Epstein's surveillance cameras.
Acosta later told the House in an interview that during his investigation, "no one from the intelligence community reached out to the office about Epstein and that he had no reason to believe Epstein was an asset to a foreign or domestic intelligence agency," ABC News reported.
“If there was any secure information, procedures would have been triggered that were never triggered,” Acosta said.
"There was good reason to believe the computers contained relevant — and potentially critical — information; and it was clear Epstein did not want the contents of his computers disclosed," the OPR report said.
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an 3 26
Former prosecutor and legal analyst Kristy Greenberg sounded the alarm about an investigation in the Virgin Islands into trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The probe was shuttered, however, by the governor personally, and there is no record of the information uncovered in any of the Epstein files released by the Justice Department.
In her video, Greenberg makes it clear, "The DOJ says there's no credible evidence to investigate Epstein's associates. As a former SDNY criminal division deputy chief who prosecuted sex trafficking cases, I disagree."
Greenberg explained that in 2023, former Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George went to the FBI with what Greenberg said were "explosive claims." It all began in January of 2020 when George began her lawsuit against the Epstein estate.
"She alleged that Epstein's lawyer and accountant were participants in Epstein's human trafficking operation," she continued. George alleges that the governor tried to shut her down.
"She told the FBI that she had the goods in her case files. She even told the FBI where it was and how to get it. So, here's the question," Greenberg continued, "did the FBI follow up on George's complaint or ignore it?"
As an attorney general, even a U.S. territory, she would be taken seriously as a source of information about a crime. But according to Greenberg, there's no document in the Epstein files that even mentions George.
Among the evidence she found was trafficking activity over 140 bank accounts connected to Epstein. She went after billionaire Leon Black, JPMorganChase and the Epstein estate, scoring $200 million+ in settlements.
"She fought the rich and powerful all while facing intense pressure to back down," Greenberg went on. "Days after George filed the lawsuit against JPMorgan, the U.S. Virgin Islands governor fired her."
That's when George began speaking out. She was threatened with a cease and desist letter. A strange man showed up at her home, but she still went to the FBI.
When George began, she faced off against an Epstein lawyer who said that all staff were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs).
"Epstein was dead at this point, so why was his U.S. Virgin Islands-based lawyer snooping around about George's investigation?" Greenberg asked.
Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. went from telling George that Epstein was dead and she could "go for it" on the investigations. Once her investigation began, however, that shifted. He started calling her with questions about why she was looking into specific things and interviewing certain people.
"I can't get you to let this go?" Gov. Bryan asked George.
Greenberg said Bryan's questions didn't make sense until you follow the money. Darren Indyke— a former executor for Jeffrey Epstein's estate — testified to Congress behind closed doors that Epstein convinced him that the abuse was a "one-time thing" and that he never knew she was underage. Richard Kahn — Epstein's longtime accountant — also testified before Congress in early March and swore he never saw anything.
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) said Epstein’s trafficking operation “would not have been possible without Richard Kahn.” Walkinshaw told reporters he didn't find Kahn's claims credible, wondering if he was “willfully ignorant," NBC News reported.
"Indyke and Kahn signed trust checks for combined value of over $1,000,000 made out personally to young women or their associated entities," the court cases say.
One account, the two men doled out over $2.5 million to women with Eastern European surnames. They claimed it was "hotel expenses, tuition and rent, and to, again, the immigration lawyer in New York who was involved in one or more forced marriages arranged among Epstein's victims to secure victims' immigration status," court documents of George's allegations show.
"When it comes to the allegations around the money being moved," George said "Defendants Indyke and Kahn participated with Epstein in coercing his sex trafficking victims, in at least three cases, to enter into arranged and forced marriages in order to obtain immigration status for the foreign women so that they could continue to be available to Epstein for his abuse," the documents continue.
Kahn personally gave a letter of reference for at least one immigration application and tax services to the spouses. "And Defendant Indyke paid the immigration lawyer who applied for citizenship for the women and threatened at least one who indicated that she would seek a divorce."
But when Indyke testified before Congress, he maintained he knew nothing. VID]
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REF 2 OMG FBI
Age Verification | United States Department of Justice
10 2020
LA
OCASTA TOLD EPS IS ALLIED INTEL AGY; DERS AND EPS TALK --> MOSSAD WD CALL FOR DEBRIEF; EPS CLOSE TO BARAK AND TRAINED AS SPY UNDER HIM; BARAK THOT BB CRIM; EPS CO-OPTED MOSSAD AGENT;
DRUKOVA DAY ONE VENTURES STEAL TECH
CHABAD PUTIN JEW OLIG; RABBI SCHEERSOM; KSH STAKE IN CADRE NOT DISCL; JK MOVED RUSS $; CHABAD LAUNDER
CRAIG HOROWITZ ARTL 2004; KEN KURSON KNOWS;
KISSENGER CHS KUSH INTRO TO CUI TUANAKAI CHIN AMB; ANBANG NEGOT 666 5TH AVE
M COHEN BEV HILL HSE UNDER MKT
RENDA REX TILLERSON NY POST SMEARS // STATE DEPT
LEON BLACK BWTR ARMS HU TRFFICK; CEO APOLLO 50M TO EPS 184M LOAN TO JK // 666
ELLIOT BROIDY PLED LANDER; PLAYBOY MODEL; JOEL MOWBRAY --> JEW; REP ED ROYCE, WIFE LOBBYIST;
GAWKER DISINFO 2016? --> ZERO HEDGE
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an 3 26
The chief executive of a corporate consultancy firm claimed in a Wednesday editorial for The Washington Post that she “courted” the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein
“Writer Michael Wolff asked me during the 2016 presidential primary season if I could spur reporters to ask Donald Trump about his relationship with Epstein,” wrote Juleanna Glover, the CEO of Ridgely Walsh, a corporate consultancy. “I was well aware that Epstein had been convicted in 2008 in Florida for soliciting prostitution, including from someone underage, amid allegations that he had sexually abused teenage girls.”
Glover added, “Wolff intimated that Epstein might say something in response that would seriously complicate Trump’s election prospects.”
The CEO went on to describe several attempts to both elicit information from Epstein on her own and to connect him with a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, James B. Stewart, in the hope of learning about his connection to Trump.
“I never actually connected Epstein to Stewart, but Stewart recently told me that he had heard Epstein had asked to talk to him (the Justice Department files show another Times reporter communicating with Epstein at the same time),” Glover wrote. “In Stewart’s Times article, he wrote that, after the initial meeting, Epstein tried to recruit him to write his biography, an assignment the journalist declined. Then came Epstein’s arrest and suicide. ‘I’m left to wonder,’ Stewart wrote. ‘What might he have told me?’”
She added, ruefully, “I almost got it done. I almost got Epstein to tell his story to a formidable reporter, one not likely to let Epstein slither away from revealing what he knew about ‘powerful people.’ My efforts, episodic but serious, over the course of more than a year, foreshadowed what has become a national obsession: What did Jeffrey Epstein know about Donald Trump?”
Despite attempting to suppress national attention into his connection with Epstein, Trump has faced pushback from some congressional Republicans as well as most Democrats because of those ties. In a seeming attempt to distract from the war, Trump has engaged in a number of high profile military engagements in Venezuela and Iran, but these have only served to fracture his MAGA base. Meanwhile Trump has said he is “saddened” by the fates of Epstein associates like the former UK prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, raising more questions about his ties.
“Trump is saddened by any embarrassment to the royal family,” wrote William Kristol of the conservative publication The Bulwark last month. “And there is no evidence the Trump administration has any interest in seeing justice done, or any intention of having the truth come out. We have an executive branch that is on the side of the Epstein class, not the Epstein survivors.”
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Whitehouse Speech on Trump-Epstein-Russia Triangle Goes Viral - Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
3 26
PRESS REL
March 10, 2026
Whitehouse Speech on Trump-Epstein-Russia Triangle Goes Viral
*Forty-eight-minute speech tops 2.2 million views on Whitehouse’s YouTube channel
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) on Thursday delivered a 48-minute speech on the Senate floor laying out a timeline of documented connections between President Donald Trump, deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and Russia. The speech, which cites many dozens of news articles published over decades and emails released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, has been viewed a total of more than 2.2 million times on the Senator’s
, and clips of the speech have racked up millions more views on other platforms and accounts.
Whitehouse, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opened with an overview of former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr’s scheme to obscure the message of the Mueller report and downplay the beneficial relationship between President Trump and Russia. Whitehouse detailed ten actions President Trump has taken during his current term that advantage Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, often at the expense of American interests.
“It doesn’t make sense that the President of the United States, who insists – insists – on being dominant in essentially every relationship, is so submissive to one person, and that one person is Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin,” said Whitehouse. “So, what is it about Trump and Russia? And could it have something to do with Trump’s close friendship with deceased pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein?”
From there, Whitehouse traced Epstein’s shady early career track and the formation of his close friendship with now-President Trump in the 1980’s as they chased the same women and unscrupulously sought to grow their wealth. Whitehouse went on to describe Epstein’s many connections with Russia, including through regular contacts with Russian nationals that had Kremlin and intelligence ties, the trafficking of women and girls from Russia and Eastern Europe, and a massive number of suspicious wire transfers that totaled over $1 billion from just one of the banks he used. Whitehouse stressed that we don’t know what all these connections mean.
“What we do know is that a significant number of powerful men – our current President, some of his cabinet secretaries, tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others – were very mixed up with Epstein at different times. And Epstein seems to have been very mixed up with Russia,” said Whitehouse. “We also know that there is a coverup afoot at the Department of Justice. The MAGA Department of Justice is trying to shield Trump from something in the Epstein files. We know that documents in the files about President Trump that should be released have not been released. The missing files, first discovered by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger, are alleged to detail claims by an Epstein accuser who said she was also sexually assaulted by President Trump when she was a young teenager.”
“As a lawyer, I know that you can prove cases with circumstantial evidence. You don’t always need the smoking gun,” continued Whitehouse, a former Rhode Island Attorney General and U.S. Attorney. “Here, we have links with Russia, girls from Russia, money from Russia, people from Russia, deals and transactions with Russia, contacts with people with Russian intelligence, news reports exploring contacts with Russia, and an official investigation from the government of Poland into an Epstein-Russia connection.”
Whitehouse submitted a lengthy bibliography of his sources for the Senate record at the close of the speech.
The full speech is below and video is available
.
It was the spring of 2019. Public and media interest in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russia’s election interference operation reached a fever pitch. There had been a steady drip, drip, drip of reporting on the Trump team’s cozy and peculiar relationship with Russia since his surprise election victory in 2016.
Ahead of the Mueller report’s release, Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr issued a letter to Congress purporting to summarize the report’s findings. The letter declared that Russia and the Trump campaign did not collude to steal the election.
The press, ravenous for any news of the long-anticipated Mueller report’s conclusion, largely accepted Attorney General Barr’s narrow, carefully worded conclusion, and – not yet having access to the full report – blasted the Attorney General’s summary around the world. Trump himself declared, “NO COLLUSION!” He said he had been cleared of the Russia “hoax” – a term he reserves only to describe things that are true, like climate change.
Frustrated, Mueller wrote to Barr that the Attorney General’s letter “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation. But by the time the dense, voluminous Mueller report was issued the month after Barr’s letter, its message had been obscured. The Mueller report actually concluded that the Trump campaign knew of and welcomed Russian interference, and expected to benefit from it. That conclusion was later echoed and reinforced by an investigation led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio’s Senate Intelligence Committee – a bipartisan report.
But Barr’s scheme largely worked. Many in the media and in the Democratic Party seemed to internalize that the Russia speculation had perhaps gotten out of control, and that perhaps we had been wrong to believe there was a troubling connection between Trump and Russia after all. But were we?
Let’s take a look at a sampling of what Trump has done for Russia just lately, and usually at the expense of American interests. There are many, but here’s a top 10:
- After Trump and Vice President Vance theatrically chastised the heroic Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in front of tv cameras in the Oval Office last year, Trump paused our weapons shipments to Ukraine.
- In July, during the worst Russian bombing campaign of the war until that point, Trump paused an already-funded weapons shipment for Ukraine, including the Patriot interceptors that protect civilians from Putin’s savage attacks.
- Also that month, Trump’s Treasury Department stopped imposing new sanctions and closing sanctions loopholes, effectively allowing dummy corporations to send funds, chips, and military equipment to Russia.
- Leaked phone calls show that White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev have worked together closely behind the scenes on a peace deal favorable to Russia.
- Last summer, Trump rolled out the presidential red carpet for the Russian dictator on American soil, with a summit in Alaska that yielded, unsurprisingly, no gains toward ending the war in Ukraine.
- Trump’s Vice President traveled to the Munich Security Conference last year to parrot anti-Western talking points pushed by right-wing groups that Putin has long funded and used to create political strife in Europe.
- Trump installed Russia apologist Tulsi Gabbard as his Director of National Intelligence, much to the glee of Russian state media.
- Upon the confirmation of Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice shuttered its anti-kleptocracy work that had successfully targeted Putin’s Russian oligarchs.
- Late last year, Trump unveiled a new so-called “National Security Strategy,” which abandoned traditional alliances in Europe and favored a transactional foreign policy that the Kremlin praised as “largely consistent” with Moscow’s vision and desires.
- The Trump administration is even paving the way for Russia’s return to global sports competition, ending its isolation in those arenas in the wake of the hostile Ukraine invasion and state-backed systemic doping programs.
That’s a top ten, but the list goes on.
If Trump were purposefully doing Russia’s bidding, it is hard to see what he would be doing differently. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world. Russia is a weak, corrupt regime. My old friend Senator John McCain used to say that Russia is a gas station, run by gangsters, with an army. It doesn’t make sense that the President of the United States, who insists – insists – on being dominant in essentially every relationship, is so submissive to one person, and that one person is Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin.
So, what is it about Trump and Russia? And could it have something to do with Trump’s close friendship with deceased pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein? Much about Epstein remains unknown, but the survivors who have come forward and the millions of emails released through the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act have shed some light on the operation of the late financier’s global pedophile ring. And over and over, it touches Russia.
When recently asked by a reporter about the Epstein files, Trump said in part: “It’s just a Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax.” Again, “hoax.” The word he uses for when something is true. But the most telling part is that Trump’s mind, asked about Epstein, immediately went to Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia.
I should start by pointing out that Epstein’s ties to foreign intelligence may never be fully known. It’s a murky world. He had links to officials in the United States, Russian and Israeli governments, and many others. But it’s worth looking at those ties to Russia, a nation so hostile to the United States.
Epstein’s career began in the mid 1970’s at the prestigious Dalton School in New York City where, despite dropping out of college, twenty-one-year-old Jeffrey Epstein was given a position teaching high school mathematics to the children of some of New York’s wealthiest families. Perhaps of note, the outgoing headmaster at the time of Epstein’s hire was Donald Barr – father of future Attorney General Bill Barr and a former intelligence officer during World War II. The elder Barr was known for making unconventional hires at Dalton.
After a couple of years, Epstein was able to leverage the elite connections he made at Dalton to a job at Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns, where he rose quickly through the company. After getting caught fabricating his resume, using the company credit card on expensive gifts for his girlfriend, and ultimately, providing privileged stock information to a girlfriend, among other unscrupulous behaviors, he called it quits and started his own financial firm. Those early scams were just the start.
Shortly thereafter, Epstein fell in with a wealthy man named Douglas Leese, a British defense contractor with connections in the arms industry and the British government. During this period, Epstein would tell people he was a “bounty hunter” who tracked down hidden money. According to Steven Hoffenberg, a former business mentor of Epstein’s who went to prison for a massive Ponzi scheme that he later said Epstein designed,
. Ghislaine Maxwell, who became Epstein’s girlfriend and sex trafficking accomplice after her father’s death, was Robert’s favorite daughter and he involved her deeply in his work.
An opportunist in pursuit of wealth, the Czechoslovak-born Robert Maxwell had complex, shifting ties to British, Soviet, and Israeli intelligence. Initially bankrolled by MI-6, he accepted secret payments from the KGB through his Soviet-friendly publishing company and was the rare individual who traversed both sides of the Iron Curtain. In 1992, the British newspaper The Sunday Express wrote that a secret document signed by the head of the KGB months before Maxwell’s death at sea showed that he was a political and intelligence asset for the Soviet Union. The newspaper claimed that the document indicated Soviet leadership had instructed the KGB to protect Maxwell’s reputation and business activities. Maxwell’s UK Foreign Office file, released more than a decade after his death, described him as a “a thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia.”
Journalist Vicky Ward wrote the following in Rolling Stone in 2021:
“Hoffenberg told me that Epstein had said he’d worked on several projects with Robert Maxwell, including solving Maxwell’s ‘debt’ issues. (Maxwell died in 1991, under very strange circumstances, apparently having fallen off his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, in the middle of the night and it was discovered in the aftermath that he’d stolen 100s of millions of dollars from the pensions of his employees.)
“Epstein had also told Hoffenberg that via Maxwell and Leese he was involved in something that Hoffenberg described as ‘national security issues,’ which he says involved ‘blackmail, influence trading, trading information at a level that is very serious and dangerous.’
“Four separate sources told me — on the record — that Epstein’s dealings in the arms world in the 1980s had led him to work for multiple governments, including the Israelis.” End quote.
Epstein’s strategies for making money and working intelligence contacts seem to have some similarities to Robert Maxwell’s. For the record, Epstein – a profligate liar – once told Ward that he never met Robert Maxwell or Leese.
Also at some point in the 1980’s, Epstein struck up a friendship with a fellow brash New York businessman by the name of Donald Trump. Author Michael Wolff has said of Trump and Epstein, “They shared everything. They shared their airplanes. They shared women between them. They shared constantly business and financial advice.” There are many photos of the two men together on the New York and Palm Beach party circuits throughout the 1990’s. Trump now-famously said in 2002, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Alan Dershowitz told The New York Times in 2019 that, “In those days, if you didn’t know Trump and you didn’t know Epstein, you were a nobody.” Dershowitz is the well-known lawyer who served both on Epstein’s defense team when he was charged with having sex with minors back in 2006 and on Trump’s impeachment defense team in 2020.
The President of Trump’s Atlantic City Trump Plaza Hotel in the late 1980’s said he saw Trump and Epstein together so frequently that he believed Epstein was Trump’s “best friend.” The same man described an incident where Trump brought Epstein and a 19-year-old girl to the casino gaming floor.
Epstein once took a model to Trump Tower, where she says Trump groped her while laughing with Epstein. She remarked that it seemed like a “a twisted game” between the two men.
One survivor says Epstein summoned her to his offices late one night. Trump soon arrived, and according to the New York Times, “[she] recalled feeling scared as Mr. Trump stared at her bare legs. Then Mr. Epstein entered the room, and she recalled him saying to Mr. Trump: ‘No, no. She’s not here for you.’” After the men left the room, she said she overheard Trump commenting that he thought she was 16 years old.
In 1992, Trump hosted a “calendar girls competition” at Mar-a-Lago for dozens of young women. The event organizer was appalled to learn that Trump and Epstein would be the only men present. A private showing.
During Maxwell’s trial, one of Epstein’s victims said he took her to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was fourteen.
Maxwell recruited 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre from the spa at Mar-a-Lago. Giuffre was abused by Epstein and trafficked to other men in his orbit. Trump said in 2025, “I think [Giuffre] worked at the spa. He [Epstein] stole her.”
In 1997, the UK tabloid The Daily Mirror – formerly owned by Robert Maxwell – claimed that Trump was dating a 20-year-old British model, and that Ghislaine Maxwell had introduced them at a party. The tabloid notes, “(Trump) met [the model] at a party in Manhattan. Several American millionaires already had their eyes on [the model]. But she was there with Robert Maxwell’s daughter Ghislaine, who has introduced several of her attractive friends to the property developer.” According to the Mirror, “after their meeting, Trump flew Madam Maxwell and the model south to the sunshine state, where they enjoyed a happy weekend together. When they returned to New York, [the model] was installed in one of Donald’s many apartments there.”
In an interview with BBC Newsnight, the model stated, “Ghislaine Maxwell did introduce me to him [Trump] and she introduced me to him with a clear message of my being with him in the same way that she had trafficked me and brought me to Jeffrey Epstein.” She also said, “I can only speak for myself, and this is in no way to negate any other experiences that anyone else might have had with him, but, at no time did President Trump behave with any impropriety with me.”
The same woman accused Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager in a 2019 interview with NBC. From NBC: “The abuse, […] spanned several years and locales. In addition to the estate on his private island, [she] said Epstein preyed on her at his homes in New York and Paris.”
According to Craig Unger’s book *American Kompromat*:
“Trump was often the center of Maxwell’s attention, and women who entered Trump’s orbit sometimes ended up being associated with both Trump and Epstein, spending part of their time living in a Trump Tower condo and part in Florida, at Mar-a-Lago or one of Epstein’s homes.
“Among them was Russian model and beauty-pageant contestant […], whose journey from the world of beauty pageants and modeling to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and Epstein’s island retreat is highly suggestive in terms of how Epstein and his associates began manipulating young women.
“In the early ’90s, before coming to the United States, [the woman] had placed well in a number of beauty pageants—coming in second in Miss Russia 1993 and winning the 1994 Miss Baltic Sea title later that year. In 1995 she left Moscow, spent six weeks learning English in St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia), and was profiled in The Tampa Tribune as ‘reigning Miss Russia.’ And before long, she met Donald Trump. “Notwithstanding the fact that Trump was still married to his second wife, Marla Maples, [the woman] moved into a 30th-floor condo in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
“There, according to an item in the New York Post, her lavish accommodations were taken care of ‘courtesy of an unidentified sugar daddy.’
“[…] she spent time with both Trump and Epstein. Flight logs released by a federal judge in New York in 2019 showed that in February 1999, [the woman], then 27, flew on board Epstein’s Gulfstream, the so-called Lolita Express, with Maxwell and Prince Andrew, from Epstein’s Little St. James (a.k.a. ‘Pedophile Island’) back to Florida.”
In recent years, Trump has tried to distance himself from his former friend, the monstrous pedophile who is believed to have abused at least one thousand women and girls. It is worth taking a look at the how the friendship between Trump and Epstein allegedly soured. There are varying accounts as to whether Trump ever banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago over his recruitment of spa workers from the resort.
But we know the falling out was at least in part related to a bidding war between Trump and Epstein over a Palm Beach mansion in 2004. Trump won and purchased the property for $41.3 million. Just four years later and after modest renovations, Trump sold the mansion to billionaire Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million. At the time, it was reported to be the most expensive residential property sale in United States history. Pretty stellar investment for Mr. Trump. The oligarch, for his part, after paying the $95 million, never even moved in.
That brings us back to Russia.
Epstein claimed to have given at least some insight on Trump to the Russians. Epstein met on many occasions with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s representative to the United Nations from 2006 until Churkin’s death in 2017. Epstein wrote in an email, “Churkin was great. He understood trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something its that simple.”
Epstein wrote in 2018 to Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway who was then head of the Council of Europe: “I think you might suggest to putin, that lavrov, can get insight on talking to me.” That appears to be a reference to Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. The email was sent prior to the Helsinki summit between Trump and Putin.
In another email to Jagland, Epstein wrote that he wanted to help Putin and Russia “reinvent the financial system.” A 2017 FBI report based on a confidential human source claims that Epstein was “President Vladimir Putin’s wealth manager.” Epstein tried several times to meet with Putin, often via Jagland, although it is unclear if any such meeting took place. But Putin is named almost 1,000 times in the latest tranche of documents, and there are almost 10,000 references to Moscow.
Epstein roped many Russian and Eastern European girls and women into his trafficking operation. The New York Magazine profile of Epstein published all the way back in 2002 reads: “Indeed, at a party at Maxwell’s house, her friends say, one is just as apt to see Russian ladies of the night as one is to see Prince Andrew.” In Ward’s 2003 profile of Epstein, a guest described a “cocktail party thrown by Maxwell that Prince Andrew attended, which was filled, she says, with young Russian models.”
In a 2010 email, Epstein suggested a young woman as a dinner companion to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, assuring him that she was “Russian, beautiful and trustworthy.” The Daily Beast recently reported on an alleged classified U.S. intelligence document claiming that, “Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (AMW) was drawn into Moscow’s orbit thanks to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which the Kremlin allegedly used as a route into the British establishment.”
In another 2010 email to a person whose name has been redacted, Epstein wrote: “Tomorrow I’m organising a dinner for some new Russian girls … see you at 10.” He received an email from a redacted sender in 2012 that read: “I have 2 Russian girls for you to meet, one 21, another 24.”
A message left for Epstein by one of his employees in 2005 claims that French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel had found a “teacher” who could give Epstein “free lessons.” “He has a teacher for you to teach how to speak Russian. She is two times eight years old. Not blond.” Two times eight years old.
According to American Kompromat: “In addition to whatever legitimate careers Brunel may have fostered, as a ‘model scout’ he also allegedly hired ‘scouters’ to identify, procure, and transport underage girls, many 15 years of age and under, hire them to give ‘massages’” and traffic them. Brunel was found hanged in his French jail cell in 2022 after being arrested on rape and sex trafficking charges.
Bill Gates has said he had affairs with two Russian women, which Epstein later discovered.
Somewhere along the way, Epstein struck up a relationship with Sergei Belyakov, Russia’s former deputy minister of economic development and a graduate of the FSB – Russian intelligence – academy. Epstein introduced him to contacts like Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who would go on to give $10 million to the super PAC that helped elect now-Vice President JD Vance to the Senate in 2022.
In 2015, Epstein warned Belyakov that “a Russian girl from Moscow … is attempting to blackmail a group of powerful biznessmen [sic] in New York.” It was, Epstein said, “bad for business for everyone involved.” Belyakov responded back with information about the woman who he said worked in the “sex and escort” business. The FSB academy graduate said he would meet with someone who knows her.
The following year, Belyakov told Epstein that he had a new position at the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Russian sovereign wealth fund, headed by current Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev – the same guy who was caught in those friendly leaked phone calls with Steve Witkoff that I mentioned.
Masha Drokova, a former spokesperson for Nashi, the pro-Kremlin youth movement, was in regular touch with Epstein in the last couple of years before his death in prison, ostensibly helping Epstein with his public relations. According to the Washington Post, she was “the subject of the 2011 documentary ‘Putin’s Kiss,’ whose title refers to a widely publicized awards ceremony in which she received a medal from Putin and spontaneously kissed him on the cheek.” In a 2017 email, Drokova asked Epstein to connect her with “adequate Russian oligarchs.” The Post reported in 2022 that her fundraising pitches highlighted her ties to wealthy Russians, although Drokova denied writing those emails and said she did not receive Russian funding. Epstein advised Drokova as she launched her Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and she introduced Epstein to the contacts she had made in the tech world.
In one emailed interaction in 2017, Drokova, after claiming to meet billionaire Jeff Bezos, tells Epstein she is “trying to understand what she is not understanding about him.” Epstein writes back that Bezos is “smart, fun, and visionary. He is a very nice person. Probalty [sic] the best in the valley among the Bs.”
The files also indicate that Epstein had dealings with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who the Treasury Department has identified as a money launderer for Putin. Deripaska also cultivated a friendship with Peter Mandelson, a senior figure in Britain’s Labour Party. It appears that Mandelson tried to use Deripaska’s contacts to acquire a last-minute Russian visa for Epstein in 2010. Correspondence also shows Epstein’s assistant trying to set up a meeting for Epstein and Deripaska in Moscow or Paris.
There’s also audio of Epstein advising then-Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak to have dinner with Putin to line up work after he leaves government.
There is at least one itinerary for a lengthy trip across Russia, and photos of Epstein and Ghislaine in what is believed to be Russia, including with people who appear to be Russian soldiers. Umar Dzhabrailov, a former Russian senator who committed suicide in recent days, described Maxwell as “a soulmate.” Epstein had a series of Russian visas between 2011 and his death in 2019.
Epstein’s crimes left a long money trail, and that trail winds back to Russia. Ranking Member of the Finance Committee Ron Wyden has doggedly sought the truth about Epstein’s transactions with Russian banks and eastern European entities. One Suspicious Activity Report filed by JP Morgan Chase after Epstein’s death shows that between 2003 and 2019, Epstein conducted 4,725 wire transactions totaling over $1 billion. And that’s just one bank. Epstein used multiple banks.
According to JP Morgan Chase, the wire activity was flagged for being “consistent with […] alleged sex trafficking of minors” and for involving “the high risk jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.” CNN notes that two accounts included in the Suspicious Activity Report were linked to now-sanctioned Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank. Also named in the Suspicious Activity Reports: Maxwell, associated entities like Brunel’s MC2 Model Management, and various women and girls.
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One month afterJeffrey Epstein died in a jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, JPMorgan Chase reported to US authorities of more than one billion dollars in transactions it viewed as suspicious, according to newly unsealed court records.
The notification was made on September 26, 2019, in a suspicious activity report, which is a kind of confidential report financial institutions file with the Treasury Department to flag potentially nefarious activity.
JPMorgan’s report highlights over $1 billion in transactions Epstein engaged in from October 2003 until July 2019 with numerous related companies, Wall Street titans, his former lawyer and others. Two accounts included in the report were linked to Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank.
The bank wrote in the SAR it was flagging the transactions because of negative media about Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors, media reports of allegations Epstein misappropriating money as an investment adviser, his use of multiple accounts, the Russian banks, and his relationships with two US presidents.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking underaged girls. He died weeks later by suicide in the Metropolitan Correctional Center while awaiting trial.
Judge Jed Rakoff ordered the unsealing of the records, which were part of a lawsuit between the US Virgin Islands and JPMorgan Chase, following requests by The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $290 million to settle a class action lawsuit from survivors of Epstein and an additional $75 million to settle with USVI, where Epstein owned an island. There was no admission of wrongdoing in these settlements.
The documents are the latest in a slow release of materials tied to Epstein as public demand for accountability and transparency about Epstein has gone global. Thursday, Britain’s King Charles took the extraordinary step of stripping his brother Andrew of his prince title. The Justice Department remains under pressure to release more information about its investigation into Epstein, and House lawmakers are taking depositions for their investigation.
Included in the hundreds of pages of unsealed documents are emails between Epstein and Jes Staley, a former top official at JPMorgan bank, who in 2021 resigned as head of Barclays bank following media scrutiny over his long relationship with Epstein. This year, Staley said he didn’t know about Epstein’s involvement with underaged girls but admitted in court that he had sex with one of Epstein’s assistants.
Among the pages are emails between Epstein and Staley, with Epstein suggesting he could set up meetings for Staley to recruit new clients including the co-founders of Google and heads of nations. None of the individuals were accused of any wrongdoing.
Prior to Epstein’s death in 2019, JPMorgan filed a number of SARs involving the disgraced financier’s accounts, and the documents show banking officials shared news articles about Epstein’s alleged activities. JPMorgan closed its accounts with Epstein in 2013, five years after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges and reached a non-prosecution agreement with the US attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida.
The newly unsealed records include the SARs, including one dating as far back as 2002, as well as the last one filed in September 2019.
“Generally, the only new material here is the SARs themselves. Those basically summarize financial information produced in litigation, much of which has been public for years. The SARs do confirm what’s been inferred all along: the bank filed SARs about Epstein early on, and specifically when it exited Epstein from the bank in 2013 – and repeatedly between 2013 and 2019, as required,” said Patricia Wexler, a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase. “It does not appear that anyone in the government or law enforcement acted on those SARs for years.”
In the batch of documents, there’s a letter from the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida which in 2007 sought records from Bear Stearns, one of Epstein’s banks that was later acquired by JPMorgan, as part of its then investigation into Epstein that resulted in the non-prosecution agreement.
One of the biggest Wall Street names mentioned on the list of transactions on the 2019 SAR is Leon Black, a long-time associate of Epstein, who has maintained that Epstein gave him financial advice.
“After an exhaustive investigation more than four years ago, the Dechert law firm concluded that Mr. Black paid Epstein only for tax and estate planning advice that saved him and his family billions of dollars. To imply that Epstein somehow had influence over Mr. Black is false and patently absurd,” Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, said in a statement. “Indeed, it was Mr. Black who fired Epstein because he was disruptive and believed the fees for his services were excessive. The Dechert Report also found that Mr. Black had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.”
The unsealed records include emails between Staley and Epstein about meeting in 2010 with then Prince Andrew. The then-Prince emailed Staley, “Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, has asked JPMorgan for banking records and suggested officials turned a blind eye to Epstein’s conduct to make millions of dollars in fees from his accounts.
In a recent response, the bank denied knowledge of Epstein’s activities, writing, “with the exception of former JPMC executive Jes Staley, the bank’s executives (current and former) are respected professionals who acted with integrity and would never have allowed Epstein to remain a client if they knew of his ongoing crimes.”
“The Firm deeply regrets having had Epstein as a client and would never have continued doing business with him if it believed he engaged in ongoing criminal conduct,” the bank also said.
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Let’s go back to the journalist Vicky Ward:
“[…] sources, who range from former arms dealers to former spies — and also Hoffenberg — suggest that Epstein, who lacked any sort of moral compass, decided to […] compromise influential people by recording them doing things they wouldn’t want made public.
“[…] And once he got out of jail, in the last 10 years of his life, Epstein bragged to various people, including journalists, that he was advising a whole assortment of foreign leaders who included Vladimir Putin, Mohammed bin Zayed, Mohammed Bin Salman, various African dictators, Israel, the British — and, of course, the Americans.
“He also told several of the same people that he was making a fortune out of arms, drugs, and diamonds.
“He was known in the intelligence world as a ‘hyper-fixer,’ somebody who can go between different cultures and networks.”
Epstein was known for his parties, which he insisted on hosting in his various mansions where he could completely control the environment. Many of Epstein’s victims have said they believe they were recorded. Virginia Giuffre wrote in her posthumous memoir that Epstein had a “huge library of videotapes” and a room in his New York home where monitors displayed real-time surveillance footage from his properties. “He explicitly talked about using me and what I’d been forced to do with certain men as a form of blackmail, so these men would owe him favors,” she wrote.
Another survivor said Epstein once walked her through his mansion, pointing out pin-sized cameras. He boasted that they were in every room.
According to Epstein’s emails, in 2014 he directed a staffer to procure hidden cameras, which were installed in tissue boxes. The New York Times obtained photos of the interior of Epstein’s New York mansion, which show a camera installed near the ceiling of the master bedroom and another along the molding of an adjoining room. The Times also spotted cameras near a suite of bathrooms on the same floor as Epstein’s bedroom. When police searched his Palm Beach home in 2005, they “located two covert (hidden) cameras.” Both cameras were located inside clocks, one by a desk and the other in the garage. It’s worth noting that Epstein often seemed to get tipped off in advance as to when the Palm Beach Police would be dropping by.
Epstein is said to have once told an ex-girlfriend, “I collect people, I own people, I can damage people.”
The disgraced financier Hoffenberg allegedly claimed to the National Enquirer in a final account before his death that, “Wherever Epstein was entertaining he [and Ghislaine] were taping.” That report was only released last summer, as Hoffenberg had asked the Enquirer not to publish his comments until three years after his death.
According to The Daily Beast, the former US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta, is once said to have claimed Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and that the decision to let him off easy in 2008 was made above his “pay grade.”
The Prime Minister of Poland, a country that has extensive experience with Russian intelligence operations, has opened an investigation into potential links between Epstein and Russian intelligence. Prime Minister Tusk said, “More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services.”
According to alleged anonymous intelligence sources published in the British tabloid The Daily Mail last month, some believe “Jeffrey Epstein was running ‘the world’s largest honeytrap operation’ on behalf of the KGB when he procured women for his network of associates.”
I want to stress that we don’t have the answers. Epstein was an inveterate liar and criminal who often sought to exaggerate his power and influence, and the files need to be viewed through that lens. He could have been working with an intelligence agency, or several intelligence agencies. He could have just been what the Russians call a “useful idiot.” We may never know.
What we do know is that a significant number of powerful men – our current President, some of his cabinet secretaries, tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others – were very mixed up with Epstein at different times. And Epstein seems to have been very mixed up with Russia.
We also know that there is a coverup afoot at the Department of Justice. The MAGA Department of Justice is trying to shield Trump from something in the Epstein files. We know that documents in the files about President Trump that should be released have not been released. The missing files, first discovered by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger, are alleged to detail claims by an Epstein accuser who said she was also sexually assaulted by President Trump when she was a young teenager.
One of the great forces that Washington runs on is normalcy bias. It’s often in the interest of the bureaucratic establishment to look skeptically towards outlandish or extreme stories, because in most cases, the truth is more ordinary than what may first appear. What I’ve done here today is lay out the facts as documented by the many brave survivors, who have come forward, at great personal risk, as well as by the many journalists who have tried, and continue to try, to get to the truth.
As a lawyer, I know that you can prove cases with circumstantial evidence. You don’t always need the smoking gun.
Here, we have links with Russia, girls from Russia, money from Russia, people from Russia, deals and transactions with Russia, contacts with people with Russian intelligence, news reports exploring contacts with Russia, and an official investigation from the government of Poland into an Epstein-Russia connection.
Sometimes, with a little imagination, you have the chance to see what’s right in front of your face.
Press Contact
Meaghan McCabe, (202) 224-2921
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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) walked through all of the details that connect trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence. Those connections also link President Donald Trump.
According to Whitehouse, the pathway goes through Ghislaine Maxwell's father, which the senator read from his MI6 file that Robert Maxwell was "a thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia."
Whitehouse walked through all of the relationships that Epstein had with international assets, including Israeli and U.S. intelligence. Recently released files prompted Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to announce they would do a wide-ranging investigation into Epstein's possible links to Russian intelligence.
One of those was Epstein's relationship with Oleg Deripaska, who also had a close relationship with Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
The Senator walked through a number of documents and emails in the Epstein files showing that Russian girls were part of his recruitment for the men that he sought to manipulate.
Whitehouse cited one communication from French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel to Epstein saying he found "a teacher" to help Epstein with his Russian. "She is 2 times 8 years old and not blond," he said.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. identified more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions that it flagged to the U.S. government. The big bank identified about 4,700 transactions, saying that "they were potentially related to reports of human trafficking involving Mr. Epstein," reported The New York Times.
It also mentioned Epstein’s wire transfers to Russian banks, even referencing “his relationships with two U.S. presidents.”
Epstein also maintained connections with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), a close friend of Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
"After Epstein's arrest in 2019, officials also discovered that he held an expired Austrian passport from the 1980s with his picture and a false name, which listed his residence as Saudi Arabia," CBS News and the New York Times reported.
Whitehouse cited one ex-girlfriend who recalled Epstein telling her, "I collect people. I own people. I can damage people."
Virginia Giuffre wrote in her book that Epstein had a "huge library of videotapes and a room in his home where monitors displayed in real time surveillance footage from his properties."
"He explicitly talked about using me and what I'd been forced to do with certain men as a form of blackmail so these men would owe him favors," she wrote.
She also recalled one instance in which he walked through his mansion and pointed out where all of the pinhole-sized cameras were. Epstein boasted that they recorded everything.
Florida police found two small cameras in clocks in his Palm Beach home, Whitehouse said.
He also said that former prosecutor Alex Acosta was quoted as saying that Epstein "belonged to intelligence" and that the decision to let him off easy in 2008 was made "above his pay grade."
Epstein's mentor, Steven Hoffenberg, told The National Enquirerin an account published three years after his death, "Wherever Epstein was entertaining, he and Ghislaine were taping." The report was released in the summer of 2025, alleging that more than two dozen people connected to Epstein have died under mysterious circumstances.
The Enquirer said that Epstein was running a honey-trap, taping videos of sleazy VIPs with underage girls for blackmailing them.
The same assessment came from an intelligence source who spoke to the Daily Mail, saying the operation was "the world's largest honeytrap operation" run for the KGB. Epstein would "procure" young women for his associates and then film their interactions.
He added that Epstein was a liar and a criminal who would exaggerate his own power and influence.
"The Epstein files need to be viewed through that lens," said Whitehouse.
There are still many unanswered questions, he said, but there are many very powerful men who were "very mixed up with Epstein at various times, and Epstein was very mixed up with Russia."
He closed by blasting the Justice Department and its ongoing efforts to conceal connections between these powerful men and Epstein.
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hcr npr picked up 13 yo trump rape missing docs
HILLARY EPSTEIN DEPOS ASKED ABOUT UFO AND PIZZAGATE
CALLS VILE; her written st rips new one; comer told up front this will not go well, we are better at it; see hcr 
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btb pt 3
something awful --> 4 chan chris pool moot; took down nazi page/news --> pol = polit incorrect; day before met w je in person; 47 min 2017 je sends 4chan lnx;
putin crypto
paid joi ito mit to hire 3 engr
thiel 2024 15 sergei belnekov fsb musk zuck
BREXIT START OF BIG THINGS; LOOT// USSR OLIGARCH BARGAINS
ADDICT KIDS TO GAMING?
alex dugin 59 min
Досье
https://dossier.center › jeffreyepsteinrusconnect-en
Jeffrey Epstein's Russian Connection: - Досье
Belyakov is a graduate of the FSB Academy which prepares Russian intelligence officers. As the Dossier Center discovered, he helped Epstein to deal with a Russian model who was blackmailing American businessmen, as well as proposing to arrange meetings with Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak and Central Bank Deputy Chairman Alexei Simanovsky.
factually.co
Which Russian businessmen have been publicly linked to...
Feb 3, 2026A small number of Russia n figures are explicitly named in the newly released Epstein documents and subsequent reporting, most prominently Sergei Belyakov and, in materials connected to outreach efforts, Russian deputy finance and central bank officials identified by name in investigative
...
Feb 6, 2026The document cache, released by the US Department of Justice, shows how Epstein regarded Sergei Belyakov, the deputy minister of economic development and graduate of the FSB intelligence service academy, as a "very good friend". After their initial encounter in May 2014, Belyakov wrote to Epstein: "Our meeting was really interesting for me!
Aljazeera
Epstein sought help of ex-Russian official linked to FSB, files show
Feb 12, 2026Epstein also sought to arrange meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, according to the documents, though there is no indication he was successful.
KyivPost
https://www.kyivpost.com › post › 65602
Emerging Details About Epstein, Russia, and Trump - KyivPost
Dec 4, 2025New information has emerged shedding light on Epstein's Russian connections, with potential implications for US President Donald Trump's ties to Russia.
Le Monde
Epstein files unveil sex offender's ties with Kremlin insiders
Feb 10, 2026In addition to his interest in young Russian women, sex offender Jeffrey Epstein maintained close relationships with Kremlin insiders, according to documents released by the US Department of ...
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Among the documents being slowly sorted from Jeffrey Epstein's investigation are email and text exchanges in which the trafficker expresses his heartfelt sympathies for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as he was forced to reckon with allegations of assault, The Guardian reported. It also showed a close relationship between Epstein and one of Kavanaugh's mentors.
On Sept. 22, 2018, Epstein told one person with a redacted name, “Ive sat in Kavanaugh chair. Im thinking of November.”
It isn't clear what the reference to November was, but it could be about the midterm elections. While Epstein appeared to be photographed with some Democratic officials, it's growing increasingly clear that he had long-standing policy agreements with MAGA. While coordinating with former Trump campaign manager and advisor Steve Bannon, the two men plotted the overthrow of several European countries and dreamed about the "take down" of the late Pope Francis.
While the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from one of Kavanaugh's accusers, who alleged he assaulted her in high school while visibly drunk, Epstein called it "a trap!"
“Iye [sic] been through many of these. MANY!! She will cry, make sordid allegations. Say she feels bullied, fearful, traumatized. Every thing bad in her life was s result of the rape attempt. Suffered anxiety! Her relationships with men etc. this is a very special skill set needed," Epstein said.
Epstein has been accused of trafficking many underage girls to the rich and powerful.
At one point after watching the hearing, Epstein attacked the GOP's choice of a female prosecutor, rather than the all-male Judiciary Committee questioning Kavanaugh's accuser.
In a message to another redacted name, Epstein wrote on Sept. 27, 2018: “horrible choice of prosecutor woman. critical and maybe lethal mistake. . prosecutors don’t cross examine. they prosecute.. power on their side . she should have been a criminal defense attorney.”
He had his own questions that he thought the Kavanaugh accuser should have been asked. He wanted to know if there was a history of anxiety in her family or whether the lights were on in the bedroom. He wanted to know if she'd seen Kavanaugh again and wanted to know more about how she got away, The Guardian summarized.
"In another message, Epstein said she should have been asked about how 'therapist notes' allegedly differed from her account," the report said.
Lisa Graves, who previously served as chief counsel for nominations in the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Epstein's messages disgraceful.
She told The Guardian it was “appalling to see a sexual predator weighing in this way against a woman who courageously testified about a man at the precipice of one of the most powerful posts in the country."
“It is shocking in part because you have this person who was at the center of efforts to abuse young women and girls and you have an adult woman testifying how she was allegedly treated by Kavanaugh and his friend, at an age when she was still a girl,” Graves added.
The report said that they haven't uncovered any evidence that Kavanaugh had a relationship with Epstein. Former special counsel and U.S. solicitor general Ken Starr, however, knew him quite well.
Starr was the independent investigator appointed by Republicans to probe into former President Bill Clinton's relationship with then-intern Monica Lewinsky. Kavanaugh was a key part of Starr's investigation team. Starr was a "close personal friend and professional contact of Epstein," the Guardian said, up until his death in prison in 2019.
"On 23 August 2018, Epstein appeared to ask Starr about a report that was to be released about Kavanaugh and the Starr investigation," said The Guardian. However, Starr told Epstein, “No writing for now. The release should be a non-event for Brett. I get criticized in one portion of the report, but no finding of illegality.”
Epstein gushed to his friend a few days later over the "disclosure" document, saying that it reminded him of "what a genius" Starr was as a lawyer.
The National Archives and Records Administration released documents showing details about Kavanaugh's role in the Clinton probe. Kavanaugh's aim was to “make [Clinton’s] pattern of revolting behavior clear." There was a list of graphic and explicit questions that he wanted Clinton to be asked.
The Guardian reported, "Earlier emails seem to also indicate that Kavanaugh was Epstein’s favorite to be nominated by Donald Trump. Epstein and Starr traded messages about it on 4 July 2018, days before the news was official, and Epstein called Kavanaugh his 'first choice.'"
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an tc 2 26
For obvious reasons, the secretive world of intelligence agencies and the people who revolve in its orbit remains opaque. So much so, that some of those people may not even be aware of any involvement in the secret world.
The Epstein papers have thrown up speculation about whether the late financier and sex offender might have performed services for one or another of the big intelligence agencies. And in the wake of that speculation, it has been noted that the father of Epstein’s one-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was the late Robert Maxwell, well-known as a larger than life publisher and newspaper proprietor in the UK from the 1950s to the early 90s. He, too, was the subject of much speculation that he might have been involved in intelligence work.
Epstein is now better known for his sex trafficking network and Maxwell for stealing from his employees’ pension funds. But their examples point to how intelligence, high finance and influence work.
Generally speaking there are three main classes of people involved in state intelligence gathering. “Officers” are full-time employees of state intelligence agencies such as MI6. They run their groups of “agents”, who are not formally employed by the state but who deliberately and knowingly gather intelligence and perform tasks for intelligence officers. And there are what is known as “intelligencers” (or sometimes assets) who may not even know they are providing information to a spy agency.
The currency of human intelligence is access, knowledge and often the ability to compromise officials and influential people.
We often think that intelligence agencies and their agent runners seek to directly recruit people with the access and motivation to pass on state secrets. While this is undeniably the case – and the examples of the American Aldrich Ames and the Briton Melita Norwood provide good evidence of this – intelligence agencies are equally interested in recruiting what’s known as “access agents”.
Access agents
The value of an access agent is not the secrets they have access to, but the social and professional access they provide to people who do. People in high-end society, scientific research, banking, politics and culture make excellent targets for access agents. And from an agency’s point of view, the best thing is that these agents are deniable and under the radar.
Intelligence officers and their operatives require funding, mobility and a credible back story (known as a legend). Businessmen like Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein had plenty of all three, making them excellent candidates to theoretically serve the needs of intelligence agencies.
But rather than indulging in speculation about Epstein and Maxwell, which is unlikely ever to be conclusively confirmed or denied, it’s more instructive to look at what we know about access agents. They are often business people, sometimes academics or journalists with a reason to travel and the opportunity to meet people in influential circles in the course of their legitimate business.
It’s worth remembering that Kim Philby, the most notorious of the Cambridge spy ring, cut his teeth as a reporter in Spain during the civil war, before embarking on a career as an MI6 officer (and Soviet double agent). Australian journalist, Richard Hughes – who appeared lightly disguised in novels by Ian Fleming and John le Carre – was believed by many to be an agent for British intelligence, working in southeast Asia during the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s.
Perhaps the most famous businessman-agent was Cyril Bertram Mills who combined being the director of the Bertram Mills Circus with a four-decade career spanning the years before and after the second world war with British intelligence. Travelling widely in Europe, ostensibly to seek out circus acts, he provided his spymasters with evidence of German rearmament in the 1930s. He also recruited Garbo, one of the most successful double agents, who was instrumental in convincing Germany that the D-Day landings would be in Calais, not Normandy.
An access agent is trained “to be the friend the informant doesn’t have”. They can provide what their contact needs and cannot get hold of: whether that’s useful inside information of some kind, an introduction to someone important, a sexual partner or finance for one of their ventures.
MI5 is quite open about this on its website: “Agents operate by exploiting trusted relationships and positions to obtain sensitive information. They may also look for vulnerabilities among those handling secrets.
Secrets and lies
Determining truth in intelligence is complicated. Very rarely do we see a single piece of incontrovertible evidence that proves someone’s intelligence status or the ethics or efficacy of their actions. But then as we know, all of this is shrouded in secrecy and supposition.
In Maxwell’s case, historical scholarship and TV documentaries have provided unverified hints. In Epstein’s we have indicators such as the claim by former US attorney, Alexander Acosta that he was told Epstein "belonged to intelligence”, when he negotiated his plea deal. But it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the truth about either.
Robert Dover, Professor of Intelligence and National Security & Dean of Faculty, *University of Hull
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Ghislaine Maxwell refuses to cooperate with House Oversight unless Trump grants her clemency an 2 26
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02/03/26
Steve Bannon's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Weekend
As his extensive and friendly communications with Epstein were revealed, Steve Bannon's candidate lost a “vitally important” election
Written by Sophie Lawton
Published 02/03/26
Over the weekend, Steve Bannon watched his endorsed candidate and friend Leigh Wambsganss lose what he called a “vitally important” special election in Texas and faced backlash from the media and MAGA supporters for his involvement in the newest drop of Epstein files. This is certainly not the first time Bannon has lost in elections he heavily endorsed.
Bannon’s Monday morning edition of War Room was a bland attempt to avoid the embarrassments consisting mostly of talk on immigration, the economy, and Chinese politics.
The newly released Epstein files include almost 3,000 documents with Bannon in them
On Friday, War Room went live to a Department of Justice press conference announcing the release of 3 million more pages of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The newly released files included thousands of text messages between Bannon and Epstein that show a close and very friendly relationship between the two men. As Politico notes, “the new tranche of files suggests the relationship between the two men was deeper, chummier and more expansive than previously known.” Among the files is a two-hour interview Bannon conducted with Epstein as part of his work on a public image rehabilitation documentary in 2019; there are reportedly hours more unreleased.
Similarly to his response to the release of the first batch of Epstein documents, Bannon is choosing to ignore his extensive inclusion in the files with no public comments to press or on War Room. But some on the right are speaking out about the connection between the two men.
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro said on his Monday show: “It's kind of shocking to me that Bannon basically was doing PR rehab on Jeffrey Epstein and continues to go out there and be one of the main progenitors of the sort of Epstein scandal. Dude, you should know better than anyone. You hung out with the guy.” Former Trump adviser Roger Stone also voiced his disapproval in a post on Gettr, writing, “Stinky Steve Bannon Busted as Epstein Buttboi."
Fox host Mark Levin, who has longstanding conflict with Bannon, posted to Gettr, “Bloated Bannon and Epstein. Exactly what was the full extent of their relationship?” On his radio show, Levin also went on a rantabout Bannon's connections to Epstein, asking “How much did he get paid by Epstein? Was it a philanthropic activity? Everybody knows Bannon is very philanthropic. Not.”
On Newsmax’s The Right Stuff guest Jason Nichols said “no one wants to admit the unpopular thing to say is, in terms of like the tiers of badness of associating with Epstein, you have Steve Bannon who was staying BFFs with Jeffrey Epstein up until the very end."
And Bannon is again facing questions from viewers, as well. In the comment section of his Rumble videos, some are asking Bannon to explain his relationship with Epstein.
MAGA-connected accounts on Gettr shared similar concerns, saying, “Shame on you Steve Bannon,” and calling the newly released information about Bannon’s relationship with Epstein "very disturbing."
Bannon’s heavily endorsed candidate lost her state Senate race by historic margins
On Sunday, Democrat Taylor Rehmet pulled a historic upset over Wambsganss, the Bannon- and Donald Trump-endorsed GOP nominee in a Texas state Senate special election. Where “Trump won the district by about 17 points in 2024, the Democrat held a 14-point lead with nearly all of the vote counted as of Sunday morning,” CNN reported, calling the “roughly 31-point difference … one of the party’s strongest recent special election performances."
Wambsganss has been a longtime guest of War Room, appearing as early as 2023 to talk about Moms for Liberty and turning school boards conservative during her time as chief communications officer for Patriot Mobile, “America's ONLY Christian Conservative Wireless Provider.” (Patriot Mobile is a longtime sponsor of War Room.) Bannon and Wambsganss were both leaders in the conservative movement to take over school boards across the country in an effort to remove supposed “critical race theory” and LGBTQ topics from classrooms.
In October 2025, Wambsganss appeared on War Room to announce her campaign. Bannon claimed she was “very bravely” trying to “clean things up starting in the Texas Senate,” calling her “one of the most moral, decent people I’ve ever met.” Wambsganss made another guest appearance a few days later, when Bannon claimed her race “is going to be a barn burner, this is going to go all the way. You’re going to have to run through the tape, you know that. It’s going to be incredible.”
The day of the special election, on January 31, Bannon interviewed Wambsganss again to push Republicans to get out and vote. Bannon claimed Democrats had “poured millions of dollars of dark money, out-of-state money into this race because they understand how important Texas is," calling the campaign “a real dog fight right now,” then implied Democrats would use ineligible voters to win the election at all costs. (Wambsganss raised over $2 million more than the Democratic candidate.) Bannon also praised Wambsganss for being “a firebrand” and “the only Trump endorsee, I think, of all the state senators running.”
Wambsganss made at least threeother appearances on War Room in January, one of which Wambsganss promoted on her campaign Facebook page, saying she “went on Steve Bannon’s War Room to talk about the special election because this race matters.”
After the loss, local newspaper the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ran an opinion piece that listed Bannon as a “loser” of the election, adding that “If you’ve got MAGA voters, Bannon adds nothing, and this is one of many Wambsganss mistakes other Republicans will learn to avoid.”
On his Monday morning shows, Bannon conceded that Texas Republicans aren’t as energized as Democrats and did not name Wambsganss at all.
Video
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From the February 2, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
Bannon had one reason to smile on Monday though when Trump shared an image of him and Peter Navarro on Truth Social, writing: “Two very good guys who were treated so unfairly by Sleepy Joe Biden. But now, they are bigger than ever!!!"
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an 12 25
President Donald Trump has hinted about the falling out he had with Jeffrey Epstein after their years-long friendship, but the Wall Street Journal revealed specifics about the story in an exclusive report late Tuesday evening.
According to the report, Mar-a-Lago wasn't merely a frequent hangout for Epstein; the country club would also send Epstein young women to handle his "massages, manicures and other spa services."
A former Mar-a-Lago employee told the Journal that the "services" went on for years. Trump's staff warned each other about the kind of person Epstein was, according to former Epstein employees.
The spa employees would frequently warn each other about Epstein's sexual suggestions, reporting that he would expose himself during appointments.
Epstein was never a dues-paying member of Mar-a-Lago, but Trump still gave his close friends the perks. He even went so far as to tell the spa staff to treat Epstein as if he was a dues-paying member. Epstein's longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, would frequently book the appointments on his behalf.
Everything stopped when an 18-year-old beautician returned from a "house call" to Epstein and said that he had pressured her for sex, the ex-employees told the Journal.
"A manager sent Trump a fax relaying the employee's allegations and urged him to ban Epstein, some of the former employees said. Trump told the manager it was a good letter and said to kick him out," the report said.
The woman gave details to human resources, but the incident was never reported to the police.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged the report was false.
"No matter how many times this story is told and retold, the truth remains: President Trump did nothing wrong and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep," Leavitt said after claiming the Journal was "writing up fallacies and innuendo."
Trump is currently in a lawsuit against the Journal for a report that Trump submitted a note for Epstein's birthday book that included the outline of a woman's body. Trump denied the report even as the birthday book entries were published.
CNBC's Carl Quintanilla highlighted an excerpt of the report that talked about Trump's ex-wife, Marla Maples, being so "uneasy" about Epstein's presence that she didn't want to spend time with him or Trump when they were together. Still, Epstein continued to party at Mar-a-Lago with Trump.
Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffrey cited the ongoing lawsuit between Trump and the Journal. The paper, she said, "continues to break news about their relationship..."
Washington Monthly's politics editor Bill Schersaid he was speechless reading that Trump was willing to send young women to Epstein's mansion.
Linguist Luke Steuber remarked, "WSJ just blew this all up by carrying Trump's water. On a lot of people, I think it's going to work."
National security analyst Marcy Wheeler added, "What's interesting abt this story is 18-yo who returned to MAL saying Epstein had pressured her for sex is not clearly IDed as girl whose father was MAL member who really let Trump have it. She could still be, but if not, it would be THREE (known) MAL girls Epstein assaulted before he was reported."
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Mainstream news coverage almost totally ignored Bannon’s extensive ties to Epstein
Bannon and Epstein exchanged hundreds of emails and texts. Most leading newspaper articles didn’t mention their history, and broadcast news ignored it entirely.
Written by John Knefel & Sophie Lawton
Research contributions from Rob Savillo, Tyler Monroe & Harrison Ray
:{:{Published 12/11/25}:
In the month since the House Oversight Committee released the most recent batch of files concerning late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, most leading newspapers and all broadcast news ignored his extensive connections with MAGA podcaster and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
- Media Matters reviewed print and online articles from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, as well as weekday episodes of ABC's Good Morning Americaand World News Tonight, CBS' Morningsand Evening News, and NBC's Todayand Nightly News and the networks' Sunday morning political talk shows (ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, and NBC's Meet the Press) from November 12 through December 8 for articles and segments about Jeffery Epstein.
Out of 102 print and 194 online articles, we found that just 8% and 6%, respectively, mentioned any connection between Epstein and Bannon. For broadcast news, not a single segment out of 67 covering Epstein (amounting to just over 3 hours) mentioned his connection to Bannon at all.
No shortage of material exists for these news outlets to draw from, though. Bannon and Epstein exchanged hundreds of emails and text messages, including a text exchange on the day of Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges in 2019. Just 2 articles mentioned that Bannon and Epstein had been in regular communication in the months leading up to Epstein’s detainment. Bannon also recorded 15 hours of unaired interview footage of Epstein that year, reportedly to provide Epstein with media training and to help rehabilitate his image, which only a single New York Times article mentioned. (Bannon has denied that characterization and claimed he “never media-trained anyone.”)
According to the released files, Bannon requested to film Epstein at his private island, which Epstein agreed to. Epstein also invited Bannon to his other residences, which was mentioned in just 3 articles. Epstein appears to have offered to arrange a charter flight for Bannon, leading him to joke that he was Bannon’s “travel agent.” Just 2 articles mentioned that Epstein had arranged travel for Bannon. Epstein apparently also helped connect Bannon with far-right European politicians, which was alluded to in a single Washington Post article that discussed Epstein’s advice to Bannon for engaging with foreign leaders. Additionally, Bannon told Epstein that MAGA could help shield him for a “decade” from the social movements demanding accountability for sexual harassment and assaults committed by powerful men.
In short, Bannon is all over the released Epstein files. Once a leading voice for their release, he has gone quiet on the topic since the files were made public in November.
- ## Bannon’s show is a nexus of MAGA’s top political figures
- Though Bannon is not currently serving in the administration, his War Room podcast still wields heavy influence over the MAGA media sphere and Republican members of Congress. For years War Room has been used to promote far-right, conspiracy theory loving congressional candidates. Earlier this year Bannon apparently helped pick Trump’s new candidate to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, though his nomination was later withdrawn for lack of qualifications.
Since the release of Epstein’s communications, Bannon's War Room show has continued to serve as a landing spot for Trump administration officials, GOP members of Congress, and GOP congressional candidates.
Eight days after the files dropped, Bannon hosted longtimecollaborator and Trump senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro. The two casually discussed trade and economic policy.
- Video file
:{:{Video}:
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From the November 20, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
- Treasury staffer Joseph Lavorgna also appeared on the show shortly after the files were released to discuss the labor market. He appeared again less than two weeks later to discuss no tax on tips and overtime legislation.
In the days leading up to the special election for Tennessee's 7th Congressional District, Bannon hosted GOP candidate Matt Van Epps to campaign. When previously asked about the release of the Epstein files, Van Epps had answered, “They are taking a deliberative approach with subpoena power so they can fully investigate the situation and hold those accountable that need to be held accountable for the heinous crimes that happened.” On December 2, Van Epps told Bannon, “I’m so grateful to be on with you today.”
Texas GOP hopeful Brett Jensen also stopped by War Room to campaign for his congressional race, telling Bannon that he was “a long time War Room posse member.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appeared on War Room in December to celebrate the state’s Supreme Court win on the GOP’s redistricting maps. Paxton also spent time campaigning for his Senate race, declaring to Bannon, “We’re going to win.” Bannon has also hosted Senate hopefuls Royce White and Nate Morris in the month since the House Oversight Committee’s release of Epstein’s communications.
Also in December, Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) made guest appearances on the show. Lee, who previously called for the release of the Epstein files before baselessly suggesting that Epstein may have been a government asset, took time to argue that Trump should have the executive power to fire any executive branch employee at will.
Tuberville had dismissed the Epstein files over the summer, saying of Congress, “We’ve got a lot more problems than that,” and, in a July interview, “That’s been talked about so much that’s kind of made it a huge issue and it is to a lot of people because, you know, child predators and all those things.” Tuberville, who is currently campaigning for Alabama governor, appeared on War Room on December 9 to spread Islamophobic rhetoric about the shutdown of an Islamic education center in his state.
- ## Bannon continues to serve as a source for mainstream media
- Despite the revelations about Bannon and Epstein’s relationship, plenty of media outlets continue to use Bannon as a source. Axios, ABC News, and NBC News have all used quotes from Bannon in recent pieces about MAGA’s response to the rise of AI due to his outspoken dislike of the technology.
ABC News included quotes from both War Room and an interview with Bannon, who told them, “[The MAGA base] see all these tech oligarchs that tried to suppress their voices ... and then all of a sudden being the President's new best friends. They just don't buy it.” ABC then noted that Bannon “plans to make combating AI his main focus in the coming months and years ahead” with no mention of any other topics that might be relevant in the MAGA space.
NBC News quoted Bannon and said he “advocated for sensible AI regulations.” In another piece on the fight for AI regulation, Axios called War Room “one of the most influential MAGA podcasts” and quoted Bannon saying, “The tech bros will be the first to jump ship when the midterm fight turns ugly, as surely it will.”
The New York Times, which has acknowledged Bannon and Epstein's ties in at least some of its content, published a review on December 3 of Bannon’s newest film release, “The Last 600 Meters,” an Iraq war documentary produced 17 years ago that recently aired on PBS.
Politico, which mentioned Bannon in a larger piece about the Epstein documents, reached out to Bannon via text for a quote on New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s win. In a recently published piece about MAGA’s relationship with Israel, Politico included lengthy interviews with Bannon on the topic and referenced conspiracy theories about Epstein’s alleged connections to Israel — but failed to note the connection between the two men.
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Journalist Murtaza Hussain, who covers national security and foreign affairs for Drop Site News, joins the show to discuss his four-part series on Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence. Check out Murtaza’s incredible reporting here.
https://substack.com/@mazmhussain
https://substack.com/home/post/p-177588780
Hacked emails show how Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak tried to engineer a Russian-led solution to remove Bashar al-Assad.
and
Oct 30, 2025
Jeffrey Epstein Pursued Swiss Rothschild Bank to Finance Israeli Cyberweapons Empire
Epstein to Ehud Barak: “[Ariane de Rothschild] said to me, if Ehud wants to make serious money, he will have to build a relationship with me. take time so that we can truly understand one another.”
https://substack.com/home/post/p-179284911
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https://substack.com/home/post/p-177659066
Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Sell a Surveillance State to Côte d’Ivoire
Leaked emails show the details behind talks between Cote d’Ivoire and Israel shepherded by Ehud Barak and Jeffrey Epstein
and
Nov 07, 2025
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https://substack.com/home/post/p-174625476
Jeffrey Epstein Helped Broker Israeli Security Agreement With Mongolia
and
Sep 28, 2025
Jeffrey Epstein used his political network and financial resources to help broker a security cooperation agreement between the governments of Israel and Mongolia, according to a trove of leaked emails from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. This new set of emails between Barak and Epstein has largely been ignored by the mainstream press, but includes crucial new context on Epstein’s operation.
It’s well known that Epstein had personal ties to Israel, including to...
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Before he was accused of sex trafficking of minors, disgraced billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein interacted with a long list of prominent figures — from now-President Donald Trump to former President Bill Clinton to economist and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
That isn't to say that all the politicians, bankers and economists who knew Epstein were actually involved in his crimes in any way. Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer and now a scathing critic of the president, told MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) that when he was working for the Trump Organization, he "never heard Jeffrey Epstein on the phone or even call into the office."
But as pressure for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its Epstein files rages on, questions remain on who knew what and when.
In an article published by The Bulwark on November 30, Never Trump conservative Mona Charen — a veteran columnist who worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House during the 1980s — examines Epstein's connection to Steve Bannon, host of the "War Room" vodcast and former White House chief strategist in the first Trump Administration.
"If you followed the twists and turns of the Jeffrey Epstein saga over the last few weeks," Charen explains, "you already know that several prominent names emerged from the tranche of e-mails that the Epstein estate released…. It's important to stress that Summers is not accused of any immoral or illegal conduct with underage girls, but he did betray a callous indifference to immoral and illegal conduct. Summers maintained a chummy relationship with Epstein years after Epstein had been convicted of soliciting underage prostitution, which is mind-boggling."
Charen adds, "I hate snap judgments, but in this case, I find it impossible to imagine what the innocent explanation could be. Nor has Summers offered one…. And the consequences have been swift. Summers has withdrawn from the Center for American Progress, the Yale Budget Lab, the board of directors of Open AI, the Center for Global Development, the Brookings Institution, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and has taken a leave of absence from Harvard."
The Never Trumper notes that "there is one big name that has so far received very little attention" for his connection to Epstein: Bannon.
"Trump's consigliere, strategist, propagandist, and former senior counselor at the White House was on very friendly terms with Jeffrey Epstein," Charen observes. "He exchanged hundreds of e-mails with the convicted felon and conspired to whitewash his public image. Do you have friends who can send a private jet to retrieve you when your flight has been delayed? Epstein apparently did that for Bannon in 2018. On a trip to Great Britain, Bannon was greeted by protests. He e-mailed Epstein: 'Protesters slowed down speech don't think I can make the flight we r enroute to heathrow.' Epstein replied that he could fix it."
Charen notes that e-mails "suggest that Bannon and Epstein often met in person, though, as Epstein's case drew more attention in 2018 and 2019, they took precautions."
Released e-mails, the former Reagan White House speechwriter observes, "show that one of those who was working most closely with Epstein, up to and including attempting to scrub his public image, was Bannon himself."
"Steve Bannon, the man millions of MAGA fans trust to tell it like it is, stands revealed as one of the most cynical liars ever to mar this country. Where are the firings and denunciations? Where is Turning Point USA, the White House, Speaker Johnson? Where are all the MAGA faithful who claimed to believe or did believe in the vast conspiracy among elites to abuse children? And where, finally, is Bannon's acknowledgment of wrongdoing? Where is his shame? Of these two men, the less guilty has acknowledged wrongdoing and been harshly punished while the more guilty man sails on without a backward glance. It's a travesty."
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POLITICO
Kyle Cheney and Erica Orden11/12/2025
A week before Donald Trump prevailed in the 2016 election, an email landed in Jeffrey Epstein’s inbox encouraging him to change the fate of the world.
“There’s an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him,” the sender, journalist Michael Wolff, wrote to Epstein. “Interested?”
It’s unclear what Wolff specifically expected Epstein to say to damage Trump’s candidacy, though Trump’s adversaries have long highlighted the relationship between the president and Epstein amid revelations about Epstein’s purportedly prolific sex trafficking of minors. Trump has long denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s misdeeds.
The emails also show Wolff, despite his work as a journalist, taking on a role as an unofficial Epstein image consultant of sorts, offering him messaging and PR strategies as Epstein’s legal and criminal exposure began to mount.
It’s unclear if the late convicted sex offender ever replied to Wolff’s Oct. 29, 2016 email, but he stayed silent in the final days of Trump’s campaign and watched as his longtime acquaintance — with whom he’d had a falling-out a decade earlier — prevailed over Democrat Hillary Clinton. The exchange with Wolff — one of several in which Wolff pushed Epstein to help tear down Trump — was among hundreds released Wednesday by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee.
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff wrote of Trump to Epstein in a Dec. 16, 2015, email.
A lawyer for Wolff didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Wolff on Wednesday released a video statement on Instagram. “I have been trying to talk about this story for a very long time now,” he said. Epstein and Trump “had the closest of relationships for more than a decade,” Wolff said, adding: “Perhaps we’re getting close to the smoking gun.”
Wolff said the emails released by the Oversight committee included some “between Epstein and me, with Epstein discussing his relationship with Donald Trump,” but he didn’t elaborate on the contents or his relationship with Epstein.
The White House downplayed the newly released emails, saying they “prove nothing” and are a Democratic-driven distraction from the recent shutdown. Trump leaned on Republicans — who released the tranche of emails Wednesday — to stop talking about the files, which he described as a “hoax.”
But House Democrats are predictingthat dozens of their Republican counterparts will join an effort to force a vote for the release of even more Epstein documents against the wishes of GOP congressional leadership and the White House. Senior Republicans privately believe that possibly 100 or more Republicans will vote for it, according to five people granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Wolff gained notoriety during Trump’s first term for explosive books about the president that the White House at the time claimed were inaccurate and unethical — even though he had gained access to figures close to Trump, including the president himself, during the course of his reporting. White House officials pointed to those assessments again Wednesday when asked about Wolff’s email exchanges with Epstein.
In October, Wolff sued first lady Melania Trump, claiming she threatened to sue him for $1 billion over Epstein-related comments Wolff made about her. A spokesperson for Melania Trump said at the time that she “is proud to continue standing up to those who spread malicious and defamatory falsehoods.”
The broader tranche of emails reveal Epstein’s vast web of connections to power centers around the world: He bantered with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and invited billionaire Peter Thiel to visit him in the Caribbean. He connected far-flung associates such as Wolff with Trump ally Tom Barrack and attorney Ken Starr. And he gabbed about current events with Soon-Yi Previn, Woody Allen’s wife.
Summers and Barrack didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A person close to Thiel who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations said Thiel didn’t visit Epstein’s island in the Caribbean. Previn couldn’t be reached for comment.
Watch: The Conversation
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34:26
Seth Moulton on his Senate bid, Venezuela and the Epstein files | The Conversation
A review of hundreds of emails Epstein exchanged — with lawyers, foreign dignitaries, prominent business executives and political power players — underscores his dim view of Trump, whom he repeatedly disparaged as shallow, unintelligent, needy and, in one exchange, “borderline insane.”
“You might want to tell your dem friends that treating trump like a mafia don ignore[s] the fact that he has great dangerous power,” Epstein wrote in a Dec. 20, 2018, email to Reid Weingarten, a prominent white-collar attorney who represented Epstein during his federal prosecution. “Tightening the noose too slowly risks a very bad situation. Gambino was never the commander in chief … not so with this maniac.” Weingarten declined to comment.
However, Epstein often stopped short of endorsing the most heated invective of Trump that his associates lobbed in their correspondence.
Many of Epstein’s cozy friendships with influential figures have been exposed in recent years, sometimes with disastrous consequences for them. But the tranche of emails released Wednesday shed new light on the late financier’s relationship with Wolff. In them, Wolff appears to operate as a sort of image consultant, advising Epstein on how to respond to damaging storylines, how to weave Trump into his PR pushback and how to use his relationship with Trump to his benefit amid his legal travails.
The two exchanged scores of messages, gossiping about politics and at one point even bonding over the realization that the son of the doctor performing Epstein’s upcoming colonoscopy attended an elite Manhattan private school with Wolff’s son.
In early December 2018, days after the Miami Herald published a series of stories exposing Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, his exploitation of vulnerable women and girls and the sweetheart plea deal he secured to serve little jail time, Wolff strategized with Epstein about how to “game everything out.”
“I don’t think it’s a question now of directly debunking this,” Wolff wrote. “That’s going against virtue itself. What I’d like to do is game out everything, creating a structure for thinking this through. Definitely not a piecemeal response. Figure out where we want to be and where we can reasonably get and work backwards.”
“im thinking what would trump do,” Epstein replied. “Claims are ludicrous and self-serving, media is working with the other side’s lawyers, this is all about Donald Trump,” Wolff wrote.
Epstein agreed: “...all about Donald Trump, the real villain.”
If Wolff helped Epstein execute on those plans, however, their strategy failed. The newspaper series led to the federal prosecution of Epstein for sex-trafficking crimes, and in 2019 while awaiting trial on the charges, he killed himself in a Manhattan jail.
The documents released Wednesday show that Epstein, while not directly communicating with Trump or his inner circle, obsessively tracked Trump as a candidate and then as president. Friends and confidants emailed him news clips about Trump’s political scandals and economic moves, and Google alerts swept up what they missed. Epstein even closely tracked the location of Air Force One, primarily to ensure the associated airspace restrictions didn’t affect his own travel plans to and from Florida.
Epstein’s friends appeared well-versed with his Trump ties. Jonathan Farkas, a fixture of the New York society pages, told him the day before the 2016 election, “I think you are going to have a winderful [sic] life from now on.” Farkas’ wife, Somers, declined to provide an immediate comment.
In an email dated shortly after Thanksgiving of 2016, Epstein told Dangene and Jennie Enterprise, founders of the private, members-only CORE club, “im in palm with the trump crowd.”
“Cool!,” they replied, “Lets go to the inauguration together!!!” A club representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Around the same time, Epstein asked an acquaintance to delay an acquaintance’s planned visit, writing: “trump related issues occupying my time.”
Once Trump took office, Epstein appeared bullish about the possibilities. In January 2017, he emailed an acquaintance: “all good with trump lots of opportunity.”
*Gregory Svirnovskiy, Cheyanne Daniels and Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.
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Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon coached convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for a "60 Minutes" interview months before he was arrested on child sex trafficking charges, according to a passage from a new book by Michael Wolff first reported by The New York Times' Ben Smith.
Bannon conducted more than a dozen hours of practice interviews with Epstein in 2019, aimed at making the latter appear less "creepy" ahead of the interview — which ultimately never happened — according to Wolff's forthcoming book "Too Famous." Wolff is best known for his recent trilogy of books on the Trump administration, "Fire and Fury," "Siege" and "Landslide."
Bannon, who led former President Donald Trump's first campaign and briefly served as his chief White House strategist before being fired, in part because of critical comments he made to Wolff, encouraged Epstein to speak to "60 Minutes" and recorded more than 15 hours of practice interviews with him at his Manhattan estate, according to Wolff.
Bannon interviewed Epstein while giving him tips, such as urging him to avoid looking at the camera so he doesn't come across as "stupid" and "advising him not to share his racist theories on how Black people learn," according to the report. Bannon reportedly also told Epstein to "stick to his message, which is that he is not a pedophile."
"You're engaging, you're not threatening, you're natural, you're friendly, you don't look at all creepy, you're a sympathetic figure," Bannon told Epstein toward the end of the session, according to interview transcripts obtained by Wolff.
Bannon confirmed to the Times that he had encouraged Epstein to talk to "60 Minutes" and had recorded more than 15 hours of interview footage with the deceased financier, but insisted he had "never trained anyone." Bannon told the Times he had recorded the interviews for an "previously unannounced eight- to 10-hour documentary" that was intended to show how Epstein's "perversions and depravity toward young women were part of a life that was systematically supported, encouraged and rewarded by a global establishment that dined off his money and his influence."
It's unclear how Wolff obtained the transcripts, though the author told the Times that Epstein wanted him to write a book about him.
"He wanted me to write something about him — a kind of a book — it wasn't clear why," Wolff said.
It's also unclear how Bannon and Epstein connected. Epstein, a millionaire financier who regularly socialized with wealthy businessmen, academics and even former presidents, was arrested months later on federal child sex trafficking charges. He had previously pleaded guilty to soliciting a person under 18 for prostitution in a controversial and remarkably lenient plea deal involving infamous attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr and future Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who ultimately resigned after new details of the Epstein deal were reported. Epstein later died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial. His alleged accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, has pleaded not guilty to charges that she recruited and groomed underage girls for him to sexually abuse and sometimes participated in the abuse.
It's not the first time Bannon has been linked to Epstein, a longtime friend of Trump's that the former president touted as a "terrific guy" who enjoys women "on the younger side." Page Six reported in 2018 that Bannon was seen entering Epstein's Manhattan mansion, where Epstein and Maxwell are accused of repeatedly abusing underage girls.
"Bannon needs money to bankroll his political agenda," a source told Page Six at the time, just months after Bannon had left the White House. "Epstein has plenty of money, and craves power and access."
Epstein's former butler at his Paris estate also claimed in 2019 that Bannon had stayed at Epstein's apartment in the fall of 2018, which a spokesperson for Bannon denied at the time.
New York Times columnist James Stewart also wrote in 2019 that Epstein invited him, Bannon and Wolff to a dinner in 2018 but it's unclear whether the dinner ever happened and Bannon has denied that he attended.
Wolff, who regularly writes about disgraced powerful figures, has his own extensive ties to Epstein. In 2003, the Times reported that Wolff organized a bid to buy New York magazine with investors that included Epstein as well as disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Wolff later continued to see Epstein at his office, New York reported in 2007. Wolff told the outlet at the time that he had first met Epstein in the late '90s, recalling how the millionaire was followed around by "three teenage girls" who were "not his daughters." In fact, it appears that Wolff coached Epstein himself when the millionaire first faced charges before his 2005 guilty plea.
"He has never been secretive about the girls," Wolff told New York. "At one point, when his troubles began, he was talking to me and said, 'What can I say, I like young girls.' I said, 'Maybe you should say, 'I like young women.'"
Even after Epstein's 2005 conviction, Wolff continued to try to help Epstein.
"A few years ago the journalist Michael Wolff wrote a profile of him for New York magazine that was meant to 'rehabilitate' Epstein's image and would tell of all the billionaires who still, secretly, hung out with Epstein," The Daily Beast's Vicky Ward reported in 2019. "The piece had 'fact-checking' issues and never ran."
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The good news is that Vrablic, 58, is alive. That is not something to take for granted when you look at two dead Deutsche Bank executives with ties to Trump, Russia and possibly at dead pedophile money man Jeffrey Epstein. One banker was found hanged in 2014 and one in November.
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WSOP
When Epstein’s powerful lawyers cut his plea deal with Federal prosecutors in 2008, the Palm Beach police had credible evidence that Epstein had sexually assaulted dozens of underage girls at his home in Palm Beach. The police had even asked the FBI to investigate. But the Federal government left Epstein off with a single count of soliciting sex from a minor and one count of soliciting prostitution from an adult. His 13 months of jail time consisted of being ferried by his private driver and limo to an office where he spent 12 hours a day on a so-called work release program. According to the New York Times, “When Jeffrey Epstein was serving time in Florida for soliciting prostitution from a minor, he got a surprising visitor: James E. Staley, a top JPMorgan Chase executive and one of the highest-ranking figures on Wall Street.” Staley wanted to keep his relationship with Epstein, according to the Times, because “Epstein had funneled dozens of wealthy clients to Mr. Staley and his bank.”
2x from 1
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/deconstructing-the-epstein-myth-what
...SK
Well, was looking at all of the criminals around Donald, and I had a head start with a piece of information that I had gotten in 2005—before there was even an imagination that this man would run for president. I think to the layman’s understanding, if you knew who Trump was, which people did, that he was political in any way, just maybe he had been and we learned that he had been.
In 2005, Trump had this new reality show with Mark Burnett. And so I had a circle of people that I knew. I’m a writer, screenwriter. So I knew folks in that circle with that man.
GO
Okay. Meaning Burnett.
SK
Yes, Burnett. And I had learned that Donald was in a tremendous amount of debt to some Russians. And it was threatening this new thing—this idea of him as this self-made, you know, billionaire, whatever, whatever the thing was, a successful businessman, because it was all about to crumble. And there’s been a tremendous amount of reporting since I learned that. Verifying all of that. So I had that information at the time, back in the day.
And so when he came down that escalator, I knew, I was like, “Oh no, that’s the guy that’s in debt to a bunch of Russian gangsters!” And so I started trying to figure out who those Russians may be. And then in doing that, I came across Jeffrey Epstein.
GO
Okay, interesting. So Trump to the Russians to Epstein.
## Tinker, Tailor, Mobster, Trump
March 31, 2020
SK
Yeah, well, organized crime—specifically Russian organized crime. And then trying to understand Donald and Fred, Fred’s empire, his father’s empire, which was built with the Genovese crime family. And then the building of Trump Tower in Manhattan that moved in—they had different territory as Fred would call it, as Donald has said on the record—that Manhattan wasn’t. According to his father, “That’s not our territory,” because it wasn’t, it was Gambino territory. For Donald Trump specifically to be able to build in Manhattan, develop in Manhattan, Fred arranged for, and Roy Cohn arranged for, the two crime families, the Gambinos and the Genovese to form what became known as a concrete cartel—all the five families were in there. And this was the bid-rigging over concrete contacts to develop in Manhattan. And it was called “the Donald Trump deal.” And so that was in the middle of it, for those U.S. crime families and the racket they were running, which is this very racket that Giuliani used to prosecute the five families. So…
GO
Four of the five families.
SK
Four of the five families. Castellanos was a holdout and then was killed, shot dead in the street. So that’s the history.
There’s way more than that. During that time, before the Russian mafia had really taken over New York—which it did; it rolled in in the late 80s, some of it even back to the 70s, but very specifically in the 80s and the 90s and just sort of rolled up a lot of the territories as their own. And they did it by laundering money through Donald’s casinos. There was a lot of ways that they did all of that. There was a very prominent Russian gangster named Ivankov, who had actually an office in Trump Tower in Manhattan, but he was ultimately caught, tipped off and caught by Andy McCabe’s team.
Like when you start learning about these characters, of what they were doing back in the day, both on the law enforcement side pursuing Russian organized crime and from the Russian organized crime side—the bosses and the key figures there were all in business in some fashion with Donald Trump.
Then in the mid early 2000s to like 2005, 2006, right around when I was hearing this stuff about him, what was happening was the Russians were wanting to keep using Trump to go internationally. So the properties: Trump Panama developing and Trump Toronto developing and Trump Georgia developing and all of these foreign developments, which we were watching. If you watch “The Apprentice,” it unfolds on “The Apprentice” as well. This sort of expansion of the Trump thing where he was just licensing his name to be put on these things, because he was really over-leveraged.
Like the one in Georgia, the country Georgia—the Trump Tower there, all they did was just stick a shovel in the ground, and a whole bunch of money was laundered. There’s Trump Baku, which, you know, there was quite a bit of reporting how that was probably a front for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Again, Iran and their corruption very closely tied in with Russian organized crime as well.
GO
Right. Adam Davidson in the New Yorker.
SK
So that’s the background. That’s why the Trump/Russia thing is not a hoax. Donald is the hoax. You know, he did. And there’s so much reporting and Trump, the company, Allen Weisselberg, all those people, they affirm this, they said, “Yeah, yeah, we took that money.” The problem with it is some of it was illegal, but a lot of it’s not illegal, right?
He couldn’t get a casino license in Australia, infamously. They would not give him a casino license because of his ties to organized crime, both U.S. organized crime and Russian organized crime.
GO
So a major Five Eyes power decided that Trump couldn’t have a casino license because of his ties to organized crime—and specifically Russian organized crime. Let’s just underline that because it seems important. Australia is, as they say, a real country, you know—that is one of our strongest allies.
SK
Right. Right.
So how you get to Jeffrey is, there was a time in the 80s where Donald was really having issues, and he was sort of over-leveraging himself. He was building in Atlantic City. He was doing these things and couldn’t get them funded. He always had a problem getting the money because legitimate banks would stop lending to him, which was the crisis he was facing in the early 2000s, mid-2000s. There was Deutsche Bank, but even Deutsche Bank was turning him down, so he had to go for this Russian money. You could get Russian money, you could get Chinese money, and the Chinese money hadn’t quite showed up yet. But the gangsters will invest in you. So the banks were difficult.
Now part of the stuff that made it hard to get finding from U.S. banks is because of what happened with him in the 80s with Bear Stearns. So there’s a guy that ran Bear Stearns.
(This is all the reporting done by Wayne Barrett. And I recommend everybody go read Wayne Barrett’s work on Donald and Fred Trump and that sort of “Trump Inc.” He did extraordinary work on that. He also did great work on Giuliani and showing what sort of a criminal and a fraud Giuliani was. And it still is, I guess.)
So Ace Greenberg ran Bear Stearns. Bear Stearns is the company that infamously went down in 2008 with all the credit-default swaps, all that kind of stuff that just crashed—you know, the Big Shorttype of thing.
But before that, they were a real player—Bear and Lehman and these other entities. Goldman Sachs. And so Donald had a very close relationship with Ace Greenberg. Ace Greenberg is the man whose daughter was Jeffrey Epstein’s student when Jeffrey Epstein was at the Dalton School. And Epstein did whatever he did at the Dalton School to leverage his just being a math teacher and tutor at this private school into working directly for Ace Greenberg.
So he went into the financial industry at Bear Stearns. And he didn’t come in as a low-level person and work his way up. He came in at a very senior level, and it caused a great sort of upset at Bear Stearns. Who is this guy? Where is he coming from? And why is Ace giving him this plum spot?
And he was handling private wealth management. And his big client that he had, that Ace gave him, was Edgar Bronfman, who’s Sam Bronfman’s son. Sam Bronfman, he established Seagrams, and he was Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano’s business partner during the bootlegging days. And Edgar Bronfman has a lot of ties to Russia as well, quite frankly. And it’s his daughters that were part of that NXIVM thing. That’s how people recognize that name, Bronfman.
GO
He’s Canadian though, right? Sam Bronfman?
SK
Yes, he was Canadian. So that was part of the bootlegging thing. Yeah.
But that was Jeffrey’s client, and he got into difficulties and troubles there at Bear Stearns with that particular client managing, you know, and he basically had to be fired. And Ace really resisted firing Jeffrey. And what I uncovered and discovered was that he didn’t fire him. He just moved him into Offshores. Jeffrey went into establishing offshore accounts and offshore money, sort of tax havens for Bear Stearns clients.
If you go into the Offshore Leaks database—which is where I found Jeffrey’s offshore accounts, some of them—you can see there are old Bear Stearns officers. In fact, Ace Greenberg’s partner at Bear Stearns is still connected and linked into those offshore accounts. So Epstein was very much doing that business, and he was doing that business for Bear Stearns right at the time that Bear Stearns was doing these wild, risky, money-backing things for Donald, for Donald developing his casino.
:{:{So thatis where I found him. And I’m like, “Who’s this Jeffrey Epstein, and what is this?” And then I started looking into Jeffrey Epstein, and I’m like, “My God, everybody’s some kind of sex-trafficking criminal.” He’s not the only one that was tied in with Donald’s business or his financial backing in some way that also was convicted for sex trafficking.}:
There’s another guy named Tevfik Arif, who was a big partner with Donald, who had that yacht with all the underage prostitutes and the trafficking that went on there. There’s a yacht, I think off of Turkey where they were finally caught, he was finally caught. So there’s the folks in Panama: his business partners in Panama were nailed for sex trafficking, international sex trafficking. And the people in Canada: there’s ties in there for his business partners in Trump Toronto and Canada, who were also Russian. The main partner there was the son-in-law of Semion Mogilevich’s business partner and consigliere—Semion Mogilevich being a great big Russian gangster.}:
And then there’s all the Craig Unger reporting on Mogilevich, that Donald was in fact laundering Mogilevich’s money himself. And that’s the man who originally compromised him. So that’s the money. It’s full of sex traffickers and it’s full of Russian gangsters.
GO
So let’s underline again Semion Mogilevich. That’s an important connection because Semion Mogilevich, if I remember correctly, was at one point directly working with Robert Maxwell. That was in one of those books, right?
SK
Correct. In Maxwell’s biography, Mogilevich is named several times. I believe the source for that was Ari Ben-Manashe, a former Israeli intelligence officer who also worked for the Kremlin. But that Robert Maxwell biography—this is Ghislaine Maxwell’s father—outlines Robert Maxwell as a Mossad and a KGB spy. That means that he was an intelligence officer. It looks like he also did—there’s quite an FBI file on him. He probably worked with U.S. intelligence at times, and it looks like he definitely worked for the Queen. He was very close with, very close with the Queen. He touched the Queen. There’s video of him, footage of him touching her, like walking alongside her and touching her like.
GO
He was friends with the Queen. Yeah.
SK
That’s very rare and weird and very strange.
GO
It’s very strange. Robert Maxwell also, when he died in 1991, in November of 1991, by falling off a yacht off the coast of the Canary Islands—as happens, I guess, all the time, so no foul play at all, none suspected; it’s weird how that thread keeps going up—but remember, he had defrauded the pensions of the company, the publishing company that he bought. So he was about to collapse before he died, like his entire...
SK
That’s right.
GO
…financial empire was a house of cards, and it was all bullshit. So that’s an important thing to keep in mind.
SK
That’s right. And he knew Donald. Donald knew him directly. There’s a lot of images and photographs. They were on the yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, that he named after his daughter. So yeah.
GO
They were on the yacht, in Page Six. With Ivana, which is interesting because Robert Maxwell is born Jan Hoch and is from Czechia. And Ivana Trump is also Czech. So I envision a scenario where the two of them are on the yacht talking in Czech, and Trump is just standing there like an idiot.
SK
I’m sure, yeah. Junior, I believe, is fluent in Czech. People underestimate Don Jr.
GO
Yeah, and Baron is fluent in Slovenian, yes.
SK
But you know, another character that was in that world with them, with Robert Maxwell—and it’s important because his money shows up in Jeffrey Epstein’s next big financial scam after the Bear Stearns moving him—is a man named Adnan Khashoggi, who is Jamal Khashoggi’s uncle. And there’s not a lot of Khashoggis, actually, by the way.
Donald knew the Khashoggis very, very, very well. Ivana called Adnan her best friend quite often. When Donald bought the one and only yacht he’s ever bought, he bought Khashoggi’s yacht. So he bought Khashoggi’s, yeah.
And Khashoggi was a known intelligence officer for Saudi Arabia, but he was at one point the wealthiest man in the world.
GO
He was an arms dealer, right? Wasn’t he an arms dealer?
SK
He was a big arms dealer. Yeah.
GO
I remember that, even in the moment, people knew who he was. Like, he wasn’t some hidden figure. I remember reading about him in the 80s. I didn’t know what these people were at the time. But I knew their names.
SK
Paul Manafort was also in this mix, Tom Barrack was in this mix. There were a lot of folks that we saw show up in Trump 1.0 as President, helping with his campaign, that were swirling around in this—what I call the underworld. But it’s where crime syndicates and intelligence services are just, you know, intertwined.
And that’s what MAGA is aware of when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein. They can kind of feel that there’s something odd there. There are intelligence services there.
Now, it’s important to point out that before Robert Maxwell died—there are several people who are credible witnesses and know what they’re talking about that have identified that Robert Maxwell was taking Jeffrey Epstein around and sort of introducing him as his protégé. So this myth—this lie—that Ghislaine and Jeffrey told that he showed up after Ghislaine’s dad died, that she moved to New York and that’s where she met Jeffrey? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They knew each other before her father died or was killed or whatever happened off the side of that yacht. So that’s kind of key.
And then Jeffrey went from there to creating one of the biggest Ponzi schemes, the biggest Ponzi scheme ever before Bernie Madoff. He almost kind of invented it. That was called Towers Financial. And I talked a lot with Steve Hoffenberg; you talked with him as well. He was a tricky character. He’s passed away now, but he went to prison for quite a long time, and he got out of prison right at the beginning of Trump’s first term. The first person to call him when he was out of prison actually was Roger Stone, he told me.
But Hoffenberg was mortified with what Jeffrey had done with the victims. That reporting had kind of just come out when he was just out of prison. And he did contact the victims, and he did want to kind of make good. Because the money from Towers Financial was never fully recovered, Hoffenberg didn’t understand why he went to prison and Jeffrey got off.
I talked to Hoffenberg a bit. I’m like, “Well, what are some of the ways that someone gets out of being prosecuted for a big crime financial crime like this?” And it looks like Jeffrey very much cooperated with prosecutors. Now, there were a lot of criminals that were part of Towers; that was a big money laundering vehicle. Quite a lot of the money from Iran-Contra, Steve Hoffenberg suspected, was pushed—that Jeffrey got his hands on—it was pushed through Towers.
That is money that Robert Maxwell was in charge of that also disappeared around the time of his pension scandal. And so there was a lot of pressure on Robert Maxwell right before his death. It wasn’t just that his empire was crumbling. There was a lot about to be exposed of the kind of places he’d had his hands in, money that disappeared that he should never have been anywhere near it. And it exposed nation-states, intelligence services, doing what maybe they shouldn’t have been doing.
So that’s the world. It’s like a private intelligence rogue operatives. Private arms dealers like Adnan Khashoggi or the guy that Nicolas Cage played in that movie, Lord of War—like those guys, that world.
There’s also: you don’t have to just deal in arms or traffic in arms. You can traffic in kompromat, right? You can traffic in other things that would have value to intelligence services of both our nation and other nations. And it does very much look like that Robert Maxwell was in that business. It looks like Ghislaine took the mantle, and Jeffrey took the mantle from him and developed their own little operation. So all of the pieces are there for Epstein to have that connection.
And Towers Financial, I think, is also a great big piece that doesn’t get talked about enough, in terms of, What kind of deal did this guy cut with those prosecutors, that he got out of facing prison? And his business partner went in for 20 years, 18 years or whatever.
And knowing the kind of money, the kind of players that Epstein ran with, just with that one fraud and scheme alone—those are very valuable names, and a lot of money that he could have turned over to prosecutors to cut himself a deal. That could very well be the key to Alex Acosta’s phrase about Jeffrey, when he says he was told Epstein “belonged to Intelligence.” Because he would have some really big names in Towers, and really powerful players that maybe were on a sanction list, quite frankly.
GO
So just to review quickly, Towers Financial ran from 1988-1993. He’s now worked, Jeffrey has, as a math teacher at Dalton (where he got fired), at Bear Stearns in some weird capacity (where he got sort of fired). And then he went to work, if I remember correctly, Hoffenberg said Epstein went to work for Douglas Leese, who was another person in that world.
SK
Leese, yes—who was an arms dealer for the Queen. Right.
GO
And he, Leese, according to Hoffenberg, recommended Epstein to Hoffenberg by saying, “He’s smart and he has no moral compass.” So Hoffenberg knew he was going to do this Ponzi scheme, and he needed like a guy to help him with it. And that’s why he hired him. Like, specifically.
SK
And that would have been while Robert Maxwell was still alive or just sort of on his way out to the next world. Yeah. Right. All right around that time.
GO
Right. Again; so now, we’re all the way into the early 90s, and so far it’s money and offshores and arms deals and Russian mobsters and shady characters, but we haven’t even—we haven’t gotten to the sex trafficking part yet, right?
SK
Yeah, as far as we know, it wasn’t happening then. And that’s just—we only know what’s in those court documents, with what the prosecutors brought to light. And a lot of it’s still redacted. But yeah, then he’s setting up, and he’s got Les Wexner, you know, somehow come folding him in.
GO
Les Wexner being the guy that owns Victoria’s Secret and these other big retail chains. And that was the time when Jeffrey was walking around saying he was a model scout for Victoria’s Secret, you know, as a pickup line that he was using.
SK
That’s correct. There is a journalist in the Ohio area, Bob Fitrakis, who’s really good, a great muckraker, and he did a lot of work on Wexner and Wexner’s ties to organized crime. And Wexner as a potential…what’s called a non-official cover, a NOC, for our own intelligence services. Wexner has an airfield there in Ohio, a private airstrip, and there were planes coming in and out of there that Fitrakis believed and tracked to our own intelligence services.
GO
Right, and Wexner’s the guy that owns the lovely, huge mansion on the Upper East Side of New York, on East 73rd, where he’s like, “Why don’t you just live in my mansion? You know? Why don’t you Kato Kaelin this? And you just move in. I don’t need it, it’s fine, it’s good.”
SK
Right. Yeah. To Epstein, yeah, Wexner handed over the most valuable piece of property, the most valuable private residence in Manhattan to Jeffrey—just gave it to him.
GO
Which is, I think, I would say odd, unusual, strange, whatever word you want to use. Weird.
SK
It’s odd.
The other odd thing, and we talked about this this past week a lot, but we kept talking about it at the time, too. We do know that that all of these homes, New York, down in Palm Beach, out in New Mexico, the island and the plane, that these properties that either Jeffrey owned or had access to or were his in some way or form, all had surveillance technology wired throughout them. That’s in the underlying evidence in the court cases against him. So we’re not just speculating about this. It’s in the evidence. And you have to understand that we’re talking about properties that he was using for the—you know, for the abuse, while he abusing these minors and raping the minors.
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In 2004, Muzio’s Blue Moon Group was a subsidiary of Genesis Intermedia, an Internet start-up used by Saudi arms dealer and ‘fixer’ Adnan Khashoggi in what will become a massive and masterful stock fraud generating a sweet $300 million dollar payday.
Whether Muzio was an active participant is unknown. But he was not shy getting involved in stock fraud later, after he went from working for Adnan Khashoggi t0 an “alt-right” stock fraud ring run by a business partner and Breitbart collaborator of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon,Sarasota’s own Andrew Badolato.
It does not seem to have been a difficult leap, especially since Khashoggi is a charter member of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach ‘homies.’
It was at this time—in 2003—that Russian Mobsters, including Semion Mogilevich, Russia’s Mob’s Mr. Bigski, began colluding with elements of the American Mafia, the nascent alt-right, and Adnan Khashoggi, who was right at home in this company, having been in operations for over 40-years in his long career as a CIA fixer.
Khashoggi’s longevity owed partly to being able to offer the requisite plausible deniability (he’s a foreigner!). As well, they offered the chance to meet starlets, like Paul McCartney’s future wife Heather, in decidedly relaxed circumstances.
Until his death last year inNew York Adnan Khashoggi was a fixture in nearly every American scandal since Watergate. He was around for so long that clips from his first big scandal—something to do with bribes and Lockheed—are in black and white.
The staple of spammers everywhere was Viagra, in all its hundreds of mutations. Penile enlargers sold well. Aftersales might include an antenna booster.
The secret life of an agent provocateur
Jerome Corsi, alt-right rabble-rouser, led a secret second life....
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