Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Jeffrey Epstein and the Highbridge Capital Deal (Part 1) (9/23/26)

Transcript

Jeffrey Epstein and the Highbridge Capital Deal (Part 1) (9/23/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. Highbridge Capital was one of the most successful
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: hedge funds on Wall Street, managing billions of dollars and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: operating in the rarefied world where money, access, and influence
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: all moved together. When J.P. Morgan moved to acquire a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: controlling stake in Highbridge, it wasn't some minor financial transaction
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: buried in the business pages. It was a major Wall
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Street deal. The kind of transaction that could elevate careers,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: reshape relationships, and generate enormous amounts of money for the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: people who helped make it happen. And sitting somewhere in
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the middle of that transaction was Jeffrey Epstein. That alone
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: should be enough to make anyone stop and take a
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: closer look. Because for all the years we've spent talking
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: about Epstein's money, his wealthy friends, and the people who
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: benefited from being inside his orbit... there are still certain
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: financial relationships that have never received the attention that they deserve.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Highbridge is one of them. This deal connects some familiar names,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a very powerful bank, and one of the biggest questions
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: surrounding Jeffrey Epstein from the beginning. What exactly was he
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: doing for these people that made him so valuable? Because
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: once you start pulling on the Highbridge thread, you very
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: quickly realize that this was about much more than a
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: hedge fund changing hands. And that's where we're going today.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: For all the endless talk about Jeffrey Epstein's money, one
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: of the biggest financial scores of his life somehow remains
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: buried underneath everything else. Highbridge Capital was not a dinner invitation,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: a ride on a plane, or another entry in Epstein's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Little Black Book. It was a massive Wall Street transaction
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: involving billions of dollars, J.P. Morgan, Jess Staley, Glenn Dubin,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and Jeffrey Epstein standing squarely in the middle of all
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of it. Epstein introduced the people who needed to know
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: one another and helped turn that introduction into a deal.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: When the dust settled, Epstein walked away with roughly $ 15
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: million in declared compensation for his role. $ 15 million. Not
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: pocket change. Not some vague consulting arrangement worth a few
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. But a fortune paid to a convicted
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: predator whose supposed financial genius has always been wrapped in mystery.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and somehow this transaction never received the forensic demolition it
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: should have. Instead, Highbridge became another Epstein story that everybody
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: mentions in passing, before moving on to something easier to digest.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: That should have never been allowed to happen. Jess Staley
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: has already told us how important the deal was to him.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: He didn't describe Highbridge as some forgettable transaction, among hundreds
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: of others. He described it as one of the most
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: important deals of his career at J.P. Morgan. Epstein was
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the man who helped put that opportunity in front of him.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Staley got the relationship with Glenn Dubin, JP Morgan got
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: access to Highbridge, and Epstein got paid handsomely for making
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the machine run. Everybody walked away with something. Epstein wasn't
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: merely hanging around rich people begging for access. He was
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: creating value for them. And Highbridge shows exactly how useful
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein could be when people involved had enough money
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and influence to make the usefulness worth millions. And I
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: think that usefulness is the part of the story that
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: people still refuse to seriously confront. Everybody wants to know
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: why powerful people kept them around. Everybody wants some complicated
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: answer involving intelligence agencies, blackmail tapes, or shadowy operations. And look,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: all of that might be true. Maybe pieces of those
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: theories eventually prove true, and maybe they don't. But Highbridge
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: gives us something far more concrete. Epstein could make rich
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: people richer. He could connect bankers to hedge fund titans,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: he could create introductions that turned into billion-dollar transactions, and
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: he could help executives increase their standing inside some of
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the most powerful financial institutions in the world. And when
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the deal closed, he could send an invoice worth millions
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: of dollars. That kind of usefulness buys an awful lot
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of tolerance. And then, of course, there's the $ 15 million itself,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: a number that should have triggered years of questions all
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: by itself. What exactly did Jeffrey Epstein do that was
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: worth $ 15 million? Where's the work product? Where are the
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: detailed advisory memoranda? Where are the valuation models? How about
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the negotiation documents and transactional analysis carrying Epstein's fingerprints? Who
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: decided that this contribution was worth that much money? Who
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: approved the payment? Who negotiated his fee? What did Glenn
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Dubin believe Epstein had done to earn it? Now, we've
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: heard plenty about Epstein being a brilliant money manager. Yet
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: whenever the curtains pull back on the actual mechanics of
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: how he made his fortune, the whole ass room suddenly
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: gets dark. And look, that darkness has always surrounded Epstein's
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: professional life. He was supposedly managing enormous fortunes, yet nobody
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: has ever produced a conventional client list explaining how he
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: built a financial empire capable of supporting his lifestyle. He
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: had extraordinarily wealthy clients, but only a tiny number of
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: them were publicly identified. His business model was always described
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: in hazy language about tax strategy, wealth management, and services
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: for billionaires. Highbridge is different because here we have a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: real transaction, a real company, real executives, and a real payment.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: There's no need to speculate about whether Epstein was making
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: money from wealthy people. We know he was. The question is,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: what was he doing for them? Highbridge is one of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the best chances we've ever had to answer that question
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And instead of tearing the transaction apart piece by piece,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: everybody largely moved on. And the man sitting on J.P.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Morgan's side was Jess Staley, which makes the lack of
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: sustained scrutiny even more ridiculous. Staley has spent years trying
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: to present his relationship with Epstein in ways that become
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: harder and harder to square with the record. The emails
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: told a very different story. This wasn't some banker occasionally
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: checking in with an annoying client. These two dudes communicated
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: with affection. Staley traveled Epstein properties. Their relationship continued across years.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Regulators eventually concluded that Staley had mischaracterized significant aspects of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that relationship. Yet Highbridge, the deal that Staley himself says
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: helped his career, somehow never became the central exhibit it
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: should have been. Yo, that should have been the first
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: thing that the congressional investigators drilled into when Staley appeared
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: before them. Not 20 minutes of general questions before bouncing
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: to the next Epstein curiosity. Hybrid should have consumed hours.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Start with the introduction. Who called whom? What did Epstein
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: say to Dubin? What did Epstein tell Dubin about Staley?
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: What meetings did Epstein arrange? How often was Epstein communicating
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: with both sides while the transaction was being negotiated? Did
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Staley ever discuss Epstein's fees with Dubin? Did Staley know
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Epstein was going to make $ 15 million before the deal closed.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Then keep going. Why was Epstein worth $ 15 million? What
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: exactly did Staley see him do? What did JP Morgan
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: believe Epstein contributed? Did anyone at JP Morgan review his role?
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Did anyone ask Glenn Dubin's longtime friend and family intimate
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: who was suddenly serving as an enormously compensated advisor on
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the sale? Did lawyers vet the arrangement? Did compliance officers know?
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Did senior executives know? Who inside J.P. Morgan understood just
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: how deeply embedded Epstein was in the transaction? Those are
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: questions that should have been fired at Staley until somebody
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: finally produced the paperwork. Instead, Congress had one of its
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: most important Epstein-connected bankers in the country sitting in front
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of him and somehow managed not to perform the financial
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: autopsy this deal required. They had a transaction worth more
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: than a billion dollars. They had Epstein earning millions. They
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: had Staley acknowledging how important the deal was to his
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: own career. They had years of ugly Epstein-related revelations sitting
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: behind all of it. They had the opportunity to walk
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: through the single most obvious example of Epstein creating real
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: professional value for Staley. And these clowns barely scratched the surface.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Talk about leaving the biggest piece of meat on the bone.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And look, Staley becomes even more difficult to stomach when
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you look at everything that came afterward. The emails were
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: grotesque enough on their own. Then came the Snow White exchange.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Then came the revelation that Staley acknowledged having sex with
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: a woman connected to Epstein whom he described as one
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of Epstein's assistants. An encounter that Staley says was consensual.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Then came the fights over what Staley knew, how often
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: he visited Epstein's properties, and how accurately he described their relationship.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Then came regulators concluding that he had not been truthful
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: enough about the closeness between the two men. And through
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: all of that, Highbridge sits there in the background like
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: somebody deliberately turned the lights off around it. Yet, financially,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Highbridge may tell us more about why Epstein mattered to
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Staley than almost anything else. Epstein did not simply give
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Staley companionship. He helped his career. He helped produce a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: deal Staley viewed as enormously important. That introduces an entirely
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: different dimension to their relationship because now there's a professional
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: debt sitting beside the personal relationship. Epstein brought Staley something valuable.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Staley knew it. J.P. Morgan knew the transaction mattered. Highbridge
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: benefited from having a buyer. Epstein benefited from being paid
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars. And when people asked why Staley remained
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: close to Epstein for so long, perhaps they should spend
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: less time pretending the answer is unknowable and spend more
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: time looking at what Epstein had already delivered. Then, of course,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: that brings us to Glenn Dubin, who somehow continues to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: occupy one of the strangest protected corners of the entire
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Epstein story. Yo, Dubin wasn't some kind of random guy,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a hedge fund buddy that Epstein happened to know. Epstein
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: had previously been involved romantically with Eva Anderson, who later
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: married Dubin. Epstein remained close to the family afterward, and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: we're not talking about a relationship that disappeared when Eva
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: married another man. Epstein remained deeply embedded in their world.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: He socialized with them, maintained contact with the family, and
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: reportedly became familiar enough to the children that he was
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: known as Uncle Jeffy. That alone should have generated far
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: more examination once Epstein's crimes became public. And then, of course,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: we have Virginia. She named Glenn Dubin among the men
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: she said she was directed to have sex with while
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: she was being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell. Now, Dubin,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of course, has denied the allegation. Fine. His denial belongs
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: in the record. But so does Virginia's allegation. And nobody
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: gets to make it disappear simply because Dubin's wealthy, connected,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and well-lawyered. Yo, this isn't some anonymous internet rumor stapled
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: onto a Reddit post. It came from Virginia, one of
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the central survivors in the Epstein case. The same Glenn
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Dubin she accused was also one of Epstein's closest associates.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: The same Glenn Dubin was at the center of Highbridge.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: The same transaction that made Epstein $ 15 million richer. All right, folks,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: we're going to wrap up episode one right here. And
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: in the next episode, we're going to pick up where
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: we left off. All the information that goes with this
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: episode can be found in the description box.