Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Congress Names Epstein’s 'Filthy 14' (Part 1) (9/2/26)

Transcript

Congress Names Epstein’s 'Filthy 14' (Part 1) (9/2/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. There comes a point where ignorance stops being believable.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: There comes a point where the excuses stop sounding complicated
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and start sounding insulting. And there comes a point where
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: you have to ask whether some of the people who
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: spent years telling you not to look too closely were
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: ever interested in the truth to begin with. That's where
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: we're at now. For years, Jeffrey Epstein was dismissed as
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a distraction, a conspiracy theory, a political weapon, a hoax,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a story for cranks, a story for people who supposedly
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: saw monsters in every shadow. Funny how that works. The
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: more evidence piles up, the more desperate the dismissal becomes.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: The more names surface, the more people suddenly discover an
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: intense interest in restraint. The more records come out, the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: more we are told not to read too much into them.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: The more testimony appears, the more people remind us that memory, well,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: it's imperfect. And the more money that's uncovered, the more
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: complicated everything supposedly becomes. And every single time the trail
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: starts moving toward people with wealth, status, influence, or something
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: valuable to lose, the tone changes. Suddenly, everyone becomes delicate. Suddenly,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: all these politicians become careful. Suddenly, everyone becomes deeply concerned
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: about reputations. Where was that concern when the women were talking?
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Where was that caution when survivors were being picked apart publicly?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Where was that restraint when powerful institutions were given years
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to explain themselves while victims were expected to prove every
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: detail of their lives over and over again? It seems
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: like the compassion always arrives late, and it always seems
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: to arrive for the same people And that's one of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the biggest disgraces of all time. Because Jeffrey Epstein's dead.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: That dick has been dead for years. He doesn't need
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: anyone to defend him. He doesn't need anyone to protect
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: his reputation. He doesn't need anyone to minimize what happened.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: He doesn't need anyone to bury documents, soften language, redirect attention,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: or pretend the questions are somehow beneath serious people. And
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: yet the instinct to protect the world around him is
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: still alive and well. And that tells you everything. The
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: protection was never really about Epstein. It was about who
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: sat behind him, who knew him, who used him, who
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: benefited from him, who stayed close, who kept answering the phone,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: who kept finding reasons to look the other way, and
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: who would rather have you believe that all of this
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: somehow begins and ends with one dead predator and one
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: woman sitting in prison. That story's always been too convenient.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Way too convenient. It lets everybody else walk away clean.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: It lets institutions call the matter closed. It lets people
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: who spent years around Epstein redefine themselves as innocent bystanders
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: who just happen to keep showing up. It lets the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: people who had access to more information than the average
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: person pretend they somehow knew less than everyone else. And
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: maybe that worked for a while. Maybe it worked because
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the public was overwhelmed. The records were scattered. Because too
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: many people were willing to reduce the entire scandal to
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: a punchline, or a political slogan. Maybe it worked because
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: calling something a hoax is easier than reading, easier than listening,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: than asking uncomfortable questions about people you might admire. But
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: that excuse is getting harder to sustain. The record keeps expanding,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the contradictions keep multiplying, and the gap between what people
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: said they knew and what the documents suggest they were
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: close enough to know keeps getting harder to ignore. Now look,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean every person in Epstein's orbit committed a crime.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: It means the old performance is wearing thin. The shrugs.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: The selective memory. The carefully polished statements. The insistence that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: everything was misunderstood. The outrage at being questioned. The sudden
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: shock that anyone would dare revisit relationships that somehow lasted
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: for years. All of it. I'm tired of it. I'm
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: tired of watching people with immense power act like asking
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: them to explain themselves is some outrageous violation of their
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: bitch-ass dignity. I'm tired of watching survivors receive suspicion while
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: powerful people receive patience. I'm tired of watching obvious questions
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: get treated like bad manners. And I'm especially tired of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: people who call this entire scandal a hoax, not pretending
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: they were merely asking reasonable questions. No, no, no. You
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: weren't asking questions. You were trying to shut them down.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: You are trying to make curiosity embarrassing, scrutiny sound unserious.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And you are trying to create a social penalty for
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: anyone who refused to stop digging. Because every time somebody
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: says there is nothing here, what they're really asking for
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: is silence. When they say move on, what they're really
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: saying is that the unanswered questions are becoming too inconvenient.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: And when somebody calls the whole thing a hoax, they're
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: asking you to ignore the people who still have something
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to explain. I'll let other people talk about theories and
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: shadows and internet rumors. We're going to talk about the
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: names that have been dragged directly into the public record
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: in a way that can no longer be brushed aside
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: so easily. If somebody spent years close to Jeffrey Epstein,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I want questions asked. If they benefited from that relationship,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I want questions asked. If somebody continued dealing with him
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: after everyone knew what he was, I want the questions asked.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: And if somebody spent years telling the rest of us
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that there was nothing to see here, I want them
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: to explain why they were so invested in making sure
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: nobody looked. Because maybe the most revealing thing about the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Epstein scandal was never who was simply around them. Maybe
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: it was who kept insisting that none of it mattered.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Thomas Massey walked onto the floor of the United States
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: House of Representatives and did what the Justice Department has
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: spent years finding reasons not to do. He said the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: names out loud. Chess Daly, Leon Black, Les Wexner, David Copperfield,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Lapo Elkin, Thomas Pritzker, Glenn Dubin, Frederick Fokai, Eduardo, Teodorani Fabri,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Jean-Luc Brunel, Daniel Syed, Ramsey El-Kholi, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and Leslie
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Groff were all placed into the congressional record. Massey described
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: them as Epstein co-conspirators and demanded that they be investigated
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and prosecuted where the evidence supports it. That's not some
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: random guy screaming names into a camera for clicks. This
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: was a sitting member of Congress using the House floor
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to openly challenge the Justice Department over people appearing throughout
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the Epstein record. And after everything that has happened in
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the case, the question is not why Massey finally named them.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: The question is, what took so fucking long? Epstein has
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: been dead since 2019. Glenn Maxwell. sitting in a federal
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: prison for years, millions of pages have been accumulated, and
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: somehow the wider investigation has crawled along like the government
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: has all the time in the world. It does not.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: People die, memories disappear, evidence gets harder to reconstruct, and
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: every year a delay becomes another gift handed to anyone
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: hoping this story eventually exhausts the public. What makes Massey's
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: List so important is that these 14 people did not
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: all encounter Epstein in the same way. Some handled logistics.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Some moved through his financial life. Some allegedly encountered women
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: connected to him. Some supplied models or introductions. Some socialized
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: with him. And some maintained relationships with him after his
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: criminal history was impossible to pretend did not exist. Epstein's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: life was not one endless dinner party where rich people
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: happened to wander past him and accidentally end up in photographs.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: His world had moving parts. Somebody scheduled things. Somebody arranged things.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Somebody introduced people. Somebody paid money. Somebody accepted money. Somebody traveled.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Somebody opened doors. And somebody always seemed available when Epstein
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: needed access to another room full of powerful people. Yet
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: every time scrutiny reaches one of those people, the public's
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: handed some variation of the same insulting explanation. Nobody knew anything.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Nobody noticed anything. Nobody understood anything. And apparently Jeffrey Epstein
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: spent decades surrounded by extraordinarily accomplished adults who suddenly developed
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the observational abilities of houseplants whenever the subject turned to him.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: After a while, that becomes less believable than offensive. And look,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: there's anger here because the women and girls around Epstein
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: never received the luxury of being oblivious. They live with
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: what happened. They remember the rooms, the massages, the money,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: the instructions, the pressure, the names. and the adults who
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: appeared throughout those years. Meanwhile, many people occupying the wealthy
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: side of Epstein's world had lawyers, publicists, corporations, royal institutions, banks,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and reputations standing between them and meaningful scrutiny. The teenage
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: girl was expected to remember every detail of something traumatic
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: decades later, while billionaires routinely appeared before investigators, and suddenly
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: struggled to remember conversations, meetings, introductions, or obvious warning signs.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Somehow amnesia becomes respectable when the person suffering from it
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: owns enough property. Somehow terrible judgment becomes sophisticated complexity when
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the person exercising it manages billions of dollars. Somehow continuing
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: to deal with a convicted sex offender becomes a complicated
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: personal matter rather than a base test of character. Massey
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: threw 14 names into the middle of that hypocrisy, and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: they deserve to be examined one by one. So, let's
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: start with Jess Daly. Because his relationship with Epstein makes
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the phrase, I didn't know, feel like an insult to
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: basic intelligence. Staley wasn't some inexperienced junior banker who met
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Epstein once and forgot about him. He rose through J.P. Morgan,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: eventually became chief executive of Barclays, and occupied the highest
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: levels of international finance. He visited Epstein's Manhattan townhouse repeatedly.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: He traveled to Epstein's island. He exchanged a mountain of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: communications with him. He continued treating Epstein as someone worthy
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of his time, even after Epstein had been convicted in Florida.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Then congressional testimony released in 2026 added another astonishing layer
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: when Staley acknowledged sharing confidential and market-sensitive J.P. Morgan information
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: with Epstein. Apparently Jeffrey Epstein was trustworthy enough to hear
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: sensitive information from one of America's most powerful bankers, but
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: somehow not trustworthy enough for that banker to know much
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: about what Epstein was actually doing with his life. That
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: is one hell of a selective French shit. Staley told
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Congress that he had viewed Epstein's 2008 crime as essentially
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: a one-off and hoped Epstein had changed. And as far
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: as I'm concerned, that explanation deserves nothing but contempt. Because
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: it asks everyone else to accept the level of him
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: being naive that would be embarrassing coming from a teenager,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: never mind a man entrusted with enormous financial institutions. Epstein
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: wasn't caught stealing a bottle of whiskey and promising to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: behave himself. The case in Palm Beach involved allegations from
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: multiple girls, and yet the investigation that had already exposed
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: deeply disturbing conduct, yet Staley continued that relationship. He even
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: advocated inside J.P. Morgan for retaining Epstein as a client,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: while concerns about Epstein were multiplying like gremlins. The same
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: man who could navigate financial crisis, billion-dollar transactions, regulatory minefields,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and international banking politics, apparently decided that Jeffrey Epstein, deserve
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt. If Staley truly believed Epstein's
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: behavior had been some isolated lapse, then his judgment was appalling.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: If he knew more than that, then investigators should determine
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: exactly how much more. His 2026 testimony made the whole
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: thing smell worse, not better. Staley acknowledged that Epstein helped
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: generate valuable introductions and served as a source of advice.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: He admitted discussing matters with Epstein was that most bankers
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: would not casually share with an ordinary acquaintance. Epstein had
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: enough importance in Staley's life that his usefulness crossed personal
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and professional lines. Staley also acknowledged the sexual relationship with
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a woman who worked for Epstein, describing it as consensual.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Other allegations involving Staley have been made and denied, including
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: deeply serious claims connected to women and Epstein's orbit. And look,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the point isn't to try and pretend that every allegation
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: has been proven. The point is that the relationship keeps
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: producing more material every time somebody finally forces open another door.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Every new disclosure makes the old claims of limited knowledge
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: look more ridiculous. Staley wasn't watching Epstein from across a
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: football stadium. He was close enough that ignorance itself now
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: deserves investigation. Leon Black presents another problem entirely because here
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the numbers become so obscene that they almost sound like satire.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Black pay Jeffrey Epstein roughly $ 158 million, with some congressional
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: figures placing the overall amount around $ 170 million for financial, tax, estate,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and related advisory services. Read that again and resist the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: urge to laugh. A billionaire private equity titan with access
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: to the finest tax lawyers, accountants, estate planners, consultants, and
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: investment professionals money can buy somehow found Jeffrey Epstein uniquely valuable?
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: After Epstein was already a convicted sex offender? Not mildly valuable.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Not a few million dollars valuable. Nine-figure valuable. Epstein apparently
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: possessed financial wisdom so extraordinary that Leon Black showered him
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: with a fortune while the rest of the professional financial
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: world somehow failed to recognize his towering genius. Miss me
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: with that. Black has insisted the services were legitimate and
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that Epstein provided significant tax and estate planning benefits. Wonderful.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Then open the books, and let the work speak for itself.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Show every assignment, show every invoice, show every calculation. Show
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: every contemporaneous explanation for why Jeffrey Epstein was worth compensation
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: that would make elite law firms blush. Show exactly why
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Black continued pouring money toward a registered sex offender years
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: after Palm Beach. Instead, the public has watched congressional investigators
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: fight for information, while Black's relationship with Epstein has become
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: more disturbing with every serious examination. His name appears thousands
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: of times in released material. The United States Virgin Islands
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: pursued him over Epstein-related issues and obtained a $ 62. 5 million
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: settlement without Black admitting liability. None of that looks like
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a relationship deserving a shrug. Then came Black's 2026 encounter
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: with Congress, and somehow the arrogance managed to become even
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: more visible. He voluntarily appeared before the House Oversight Committee
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and then refused to answer certain questions involving nondisclosure agreements
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and women. Lawmakers responded by serving subpoenas. Black walked out
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of the interview after the committee escalated the matter. Imagine
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: behaving that way while Congress is investigating Jeffrey Epstein. Imagine
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: having paid Epstein an amount approaching $ 170 million and deciding
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: that certain questions simply were not going to receive answers
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: on the committee's timetable. That's the kind of privilege that
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: has infected this story from the beginning. Everyone wants privacy
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: when scrutiny arrives, but survivors were denied privacy for years
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: while every painful piece of their lives was picked apart.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Black is denied participating in Epstein's crimes and denied allegations
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of sexual misconduct. Fine. But denial is not a substitute
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: for answers when the financial record is screaming this loudly.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: All right, folks, we're going to wrap up part one
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: right here. And in the next episode, we're going to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: pick up with Les Wexner. All the information that goes
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: with this episode can be found in the description box.