Latest / The Morning Edition / Abuse claims against Trump in the missing Epstein files: will it bring him down?

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Abuse claims against Trump in the missing Epstein files: will it bring him down? · The Morning Edition

0:04
S1: Only days before Donald Trump declared war on Iran. Another
0:08
S1: Epstein files bombshell dropped, this one relating to allegations against
0:13
S1: the American president. An investigation revealed that the Department of
0:17
S1: Justice withheld more than 50 pages of FBI interviews and
0:22
S1: notes from conversations with a woman who accused Donald Trump
0:26
S1: of sexual abuse decades ago, when she was between the
0:29
S1: ages of 13 and 15 years old. I'm Samantha Sellinger Morris,
0:34
S1: and you're listening to Morning Edition from The Age and
0:37
S1: the Sydney Morning Herald. Today, Foreign Policy Magazine deputy editor
0:43
S1: Amelia Lester on what some Democrats are calling the largest
0:47
S1: government cover up in modern history. And if it could
0:50
S1: hurt Donald Trump. It's March the 3rd. Amelia, welcome to
0:57
S1: the podcast.
0:58
S2: Thanks for having me, Sam.
1:00
S1: Okay, let's just begin. Can you briefly take us through
1:03
S1: these allegations against Donald Trump that are contained in the
1:05
S1: more than 50 or so missing pages from the recent
1:09
S1: release of The Epstein Files?
1:11
S2: Yeah. So I just want to flag for listeners that
1:14
S2: this is a little confusing, because in the original tranche
1:17
S2: of documents that was released by the Justice Department last year,
1:21
S2: there was a set of tips that came into an
1:25
S2: FBI hotline after Epstein was arrested, which were completely unsubstantiated
1:30
S2: claims about Trump and what Trump may or may not
1:33
S2: have done. And Epstein as well, which I think really
1:36
S2: muddied the waters here because that was reported on a
1:39
S2: lot when those documents came out. But what we have
1:41
S2: subsequently discovered in the files is a set of allegations,
1:45
S2: which come from a woman who says that she was
1:48
S2: sexually assaulted by Epstein and Trump as a minor.
1:51
S3: Allegations President Trump sexually abused a minor.
1:54
S4: Related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor.
1:59
S5: Introduced to Trump by Epstein in the early 1980s and
2:02
S5: then alleging that Trump assaulted her when she was roughly 14.
2:06
S2: There were four interviews that the FBI did with her,
2:09
S2: but only one of those interview summaries was released. And
2:12
S2: guess what? It was the interview summary about the Epstein accusation,
2:16
S2: not the Trump accusations.
2:25
S1: And okay, this is massive. Now, we do know, like
2:27
S1: you've just said there, that these allegations against Donald Trump,
2:30
S1: they are unsubstantiated. But do we have any idea about
2:34
S1: how credible they might be? You know, we do know
2:37
S1: that the FBI interviewed this woman multiple times. So does
2:40
S1: the fact that the FBI interviewed her multiple times suggest,
2:44
S1: one way or another that her allegations were credible?
2:46
S2: I don't think we can say one way or the other,
2:49
S2: but what we can say is that, as you pointed out,
2:52
S2: the FBI did four interviews with her. Only one of
2:55
S2: those interviews has been released. And there's a sense that
2:59
S2: maybe there was a desire not to release the others
3:02
S2: because they were related to Trump. The reason why we
3:04
S2: even know about these other interviews is basically to do
3:07
S2: with the indexing of all these documents, because the index
3:11
S2: shows the three other interviews and various investigative journalists whom
3:15
S2: I should shout out here, such as Roger Sollenberger, who
3:17
S2: has a Substack, and also NPR, discovered that there was
3:21
S2: this big gap in the documents based on the indexes.
3:24
S2: So I think we can't say one way or the
3:27
S2: other whether they're credible. I should point out that that
3:30
S2: this woman who made the allegations, they came out many
3:33
S2: years after she says that they happened. And the reason
3:36
S2: for that is she says that she didn't know who
3:38
S2: Epstein was until she saw a photo of him after
3:41
S2: he was arrested. So these interviews took place in 2019,
3:45
S2: many years after Epstein and Trump were accused of sexually
3:49
S2: assaulting her.
3:50
S1: Democrats in the congressional committee investigating Epstein say that this is, quote,
3:54
S1: the largest government cover up in modern history that has
3:58
S1: yet to be. We'll see borne out as to how
4:00
S1: truthful or not that is. But many laypeople like myself
4:04
S1: would be listening and thinking, okay, is there some untoward
4:08
S1: conduct here? Like, you know, is there some suggestion that
4:11
S1: someone else has purposely removed them to shield Trump? Because
4:14
S1: that's sort of certainly that's what certain Democrats in Congress
4:17
S1: are saying. And that's what a lot of people would think, right?
4:19
S2: Look, let's look at the facts of this. In February,
4:22
S2: after Trump has been elected, in part because people who
4:25
S2: were very senior or would become very senior in his
4:28
S2: administration promised supporters that they would release the Epstein files.
4:33
S2: So he gets into office. And then the very next month, February,
4:36
S2: Bondi says on TV that she has the quote unquote
4:39
S2: client list, Epstein's client list on her desk.
4:43
S6: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Well,
4:47
S6: that really happened.
4:49
S7: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's
4:52
S7: been a directive by President Trump on reviewing that I'm reviewing.
4:56
S2: She clearly gets into trouble for that because we hear
4:59
S2: nothing else about it until July when the Justice Department
5:02
S2: says that Epstein didn't maintain a client list and that
5:05
S2: it won't make any files public. And it's only when
5:07
S2: a bipartisan initiative by reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie
5:11
S2: is introduces the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November of
5:15
S2: last year that we finally get some sense of what
5:19
S2: is in these files. So all I can say is
5:22
S2: that the theme throughout has been, we don't want to
5:25
S2: show you what's in these files.
5:28
S8: And everybody knew that there was more there. Pam Bondi
5:31
S8: had made promises to release the the names. Um, the
5:35
S8: Trump administration, whatever we find out, whatever the ground truth is,
5:40
S8: it's very clear that they haven't been straightforward, they haven't
5:42
S8: been transparent, they haven't been honest. And I think that's
5:45
S8: one of the reasons that Democrats now.
5:51
S1: So is this I mean, is this a smoking gun
5:55
S1: of sorts? Even if these allegations, even if they're not true,
5:59
S1: which of course, we don't know. Is this something that
6:02
S1: could really hurt Trump? I guess, because of course, like
6:04
S1: you say, he has completely wrong run on a mandate of,
6:08
S1: you know, there's this conspiracy amongst Democrats and it all
6:11
S1: revolves around Epstein, and we are going to let everything out. And,
6:15
S1: you know, it seems like time after time after time,
6:17
S1: like you've just set out there seems to be a
6:20
S1: lot of effort, of course, to conceal what's in these.
6:23
S2: But what's interesting, Sam, is that when you go back
6:26
S2: to what he said during the campaign, he never actually
6:29
S2: promised to release the files himself. I was very careful
6:33
S2: before to describe. It was essentially his proxies around him
6:36
S2: that pushed this idea that we needed to release Epstein files.
6:39
S2: When he was directly asked about it during the campaign,
6:41
S2: he essentially demurred. Or he would say, yeah, I'll think
6:44
S2: about it. But he was never the one out there saying,
6:46
S2: I want to publish these files. And in fact, when
6:48
S2: Bill Clinton testified in the House last week under duress,
6:52
S2: under a subpoena, Trump said that he did not approve
6:55
S2: of that, that he likes Clinton. He does not think
6:57
S2: Clinton should be forced to testify about Epstein in Congress.
7:00
S2: So one theme the whole way along has been while
7:04
S2: Trump's supporters and his proxies really want to push this
7:07
S2: issue to the fore, Trump himself has never wanted to
7:09
S2: talk about it.
7:10
S1: But tell us about the possible political ramifications for Trump.
7:14
S1: You know, especially as American senators, they're looking at the
7:18
S1: midterm elections in November, and they're thinking, okay, how much
7:21
S1: of a liability is Trump going to be? Do we
7:24
S1: stick with him? Is this our time to leave? Because yeah,
7:28
S1: I mean, Democrats obviously are of course hoping to capture
7:30
S1: the House.
7:32
S2: One thing that I think is worth watching is the
7:35
S2: House Oversight Committee is trying to compel Trump to do
7:38
S2: exactly what they compelled Bill Clinton to do last week,
7:41
S2: which is testify in front of the committee about everything
7:43
S2: he knew about Epstein. It's very mysterious to us, the
7:47
S2: nature of their friendship, why it ended. Even Clinton last
7:51
S2: week said it ended over disagreement about property. Trump has
7:55
S2: previously said that their 15 year friendship ended because Epstein
7:58
S2: was stealing his girls from Mar a Lago. So it
8:02
S2: would be nice to know a little bit more about
8:04
S2: the nature of the friendship. The Wall Street Journal last
8:06
S2: year released a birthday card that Trump wrote to Epstein
8:09
S2: in 2003. That was very mysterious. It said, we have
8:12
S2: certain things in common, Jeffrey. Enigmas never age. May every
8:16
S2: day be another wonderful secret. I think that the American
8:19
S2: people would be very interested in the House asking Trump,
8:23
S2: what is the wonderful secret that you and Epstein shared
8:25
S2: over all those years that you were friends? The question is, though,
8:29
S2: whether this becomes a more pertinent issue than all the
8:31
S2: other issues that are currently consuming American voters. So there
8:35
S2: is a war in Iran going on. The economy is
8:38
S2: on shaky ground. Trump is very unpopular right now. In fact,
8:42
S2: he's as unpopular as he was after January 6th. But
8:45
S2: it's unclear whether that's as a result of the Epstein files,
8:48
S2: or whether it's because people are feeling an economic pinch.
8:51
S2: And that's exactly what he campaigned on fixing for them.
8:56
S1: After the break.
8:58
S2: The only thing that that the men in these files
9:00
S2: have in common is that they all had a great
9:02
S2: deal of either power or money or both. And there's
9:06
S2: something very disenchanting about how deep that network goes.
9:19
S1: Okay. Now obviously you've just mentioned the Iran war, which
9:22
S1: as we record this on Monday morning, it's escalating, right?
9:25
S1: Of course, there was a joint Israeli American bombing of Iran.
9:29
S1: We know of course, Iran's been retaliating just this morning.
9:32
S1: We've heard that more than nine people are dead near
9:34
S1: Jerusalem in retaliatory strikes. So, of course, I have to
9:37
S1: ask you about the timing of this revelation by NPR
9:42
S1: and other journalists. Some people have speculated that his strike
9:44
S1: on Iran or the timing of it, because we know,
9:46
S1: of course, this would have been planned for months. The
9:48
S1: timing of it might have been in part to deflect from,
9:52
S1: you know, the Epstein files yet again. What do you
9:54
S1: make of that?
9:55
S2: I'm one of those people who thinks that conspiracies are
9:58
S2: often a little bit more complicated than what is the
10:01
S2: likely more simple scenario. the neocons that actually have wound
10:05
S2: up surrounding Trump, the people who he denounced during his
10:08
S2: first term, but who pretty much make up his inner
10:11
S2: circle in his second term, have been wanting to bomb
10:13
S2: Iran for two decades now. So the fact that they're
10:15
S2: now in charge and getting to do it, it is
10:18
S2: interesting the timing, but I also think that that's been
10:21
S2: a push in Washington for a long time.
10:24
S1: It certainly has. I mean, that's what Trump has said, right?
10:27
S1: Like this. I'm accomplishing something that no other American president
10:30
S1: has been able to accomplish. So let me go.
10:33
S2: And it is interesting, though, that that it happens right
10:36
S2: now in his second term, a year into his second term,
10:39
S2: because the big question that experts are asking about about
10:43
S2: this bombing campaign over the weekend. Well, there are two questions.
10:46
S2: The first question is why now? There was no imminent threat.
10:49
S2: He didn't go to Congress for war authorization, which is
10:52
S2: what you need to do if there is not an
10:54
S2: imminent threat to the American people. And then the second
10:57
S2: question they're asking is why Iran? Because Iran didn't pose
11:00
S2: that imminent threat to the US.
11:01
S1: I mean, if anything, it's weaker than it has been
11:04
S1: in God knows how long. And its allies have essentially, um,
11:08
S1: you know, evaporated China, Syria, Russia. So.
11:13
S2: And Trump seemed to be distancing himself from Netanyahu in
11:16
S2: recent months. There's a lot that's very mysterious about the
11:19
S2: timing and the choice to attack right now. I suppose
11:22
S2: if one was being generous to Trump, you'd say that
11:24
S2: he thinks that it's important to strike the regime while
11:27
S2: it's down. It's been weakened by the protests that have
11:29
S2: been happening in December and January. But I think, as
11:33
S2: with Venezuela, he doesn't have much of a plan for
11:35
S2: what happens after that.
11:37
S1: And yeah, it's interesting. I'm reflecting, just as you speak,
11:40
S1: on something that David Sanger, the white House correspondent for
11:43
S1: The New York Times, wrote just to think over the weekend.
11:45
S1: And the headline was something like, this is a war
11:48
S1: of choice, not of necessity. Yes. And you have to
11:51
S1: wonder how how I guess this will impact Trump ahead
11:54
S1: of the midterm elections as well, because American soldiers are,
11:57
S1: of course, inevitably, tragically going to die or.
12:00
S2: Have.
12:00
S1: Died. Right.
12:01
S2: There's 2 or 3, I think that it's been reported today,
12:04
S2: have already died in this campaign. And and the war
12:07
S2: is very unpopular. It seems like the the most recent
12:10
S2: polling that was done before the weekend suggested that only
12:12
S2: about 20% of Americans really wanted this war to happen,
12:16
S2: which makes sense. I just keep wondering whether Trump or
12:18
S2: the first term, when he campaigned on the idea that
12:22
S2: that this forever war, the forever wars, were part of
12:24
S2: what catapulted him to power. Americans were sick of seeing
12:28
S2: people in the Middle East getting bombed by Americans. And
12:31
S2: it's just mind boggling to think of how far he's
12:33
S2: come since then. Bringing it back to Epstein. I think
12:36
S2: a lot of this has to do with who he's
12:38
S2: chosen to surround himself with in the second term. In
12:41
S2: the first term, he had people around him, such as
12:44
S2: remember Mad Dog, James Mattis, people who were very experienced
12:48
S2: in the military and who were able to kind of
12:50
S2: give him the reality check he needed in the second term.
12:53
S2: People like Siouxsie Wiles, his chief of staff. They just
12:56
S2: want to facilitate whatever whims Trump has. It's a very
12:59
S2: different environment to the first term.
13:01
S1: And now, Amelia, some of our listeners might not know,
13:04
S1: but you are absolutely no stranger to the American political establishment.
13:07
S1: You're from Sydney originally, but you lived in the US
13:10
S1: for more than 15 years. First, outside of Boston, you
13:12
S1: went to Harvard, you lived in New York City for
13:14
S1: 11 years. You were in Washington for a time. And
13:17
S1: of course, now you write about geopolitics and other matters
13:20
S1: for Foreign Policy magazine. So I do want your opinion.
13:23
S1: Do you think we are ever likely to see these
13:25
S1: missing Epstein files that we've been speaking about, that contain
13:29
S1: these FBI interviews with allegations by this woman who says
13:32
S1: that Trump abused her as a minor. Because we know
13:34
S1: that Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the congressional committee
13:37
S1: investigating Jeffrey Epstein, said that he and other Democrats have
13:41
S1: been working to demand that the remaining unreleased files get
13:45
S1: released to the public.
13:47
S2: Yeah, and in fact, there are Republicans who really want
13:49
S2: them released to Marjorie Taylor Greene has been really disenchanted
13:53
S2: by how this administration has handled the Epstein situation, and
13:57
S2: she was a big Trump supporter ahead of the 2024 election.
14:02
S2: I don't know if we will ever know. I mean,
14:04
S2: I I think the thing that really shocks me about
14:06
S2: these files is how widespread the exploitation of girls was
14:14
S2: by both Democrats and Republicans. The only thing that that
14:17
S2: the men in these files have in common is that
14:19
S2: they all had a great deal of either power or
14:22
S2: money or both. And there's something very disenchanting about how
14:27
S2: deep that network goes. It suggests to me that there
14:30
S2: are a lot of powerful interests who don't want us
14:32
S2: to understand the full extent of it, and I'm not
14:36
S2: sure that with the American political system being such a
14:38
S2: football right now between Democrats and Republicans that will ever
14:42
S2: have that kind of consolidated power, which will enable us
14:47
S2: to see the full extent of the files.
14:49
S1: I mean, I have to say, it's so depressing. I mean,
14:52
S1: can you believe this is where we are? I know
14:53
S1: that we're all thinking this, but that I mean, you
14:56
S1: think about what Nixon went down for, what previous American
14:59
S1: political figures have been ruined by. And here we have
15:03
S1: the president of the United States with allegations against him
15:07
S1: that have now been hidden. That he's sexually abused a minor.
15:11
S2: Look, again, I don't know what to make of those
15:13
S2: claims and they are unsubstantiated. And Trump does deny them.
15:17
S2: But what I come back to is how mishandled these
15:21
S2: files have been all along. Just remember the fact that
15:24
S2: Ghislaine Maxwell was interviewed last year and said that she
15:28
S2: never saw Trump involved in sexually inappropriate activity, and as
15:32
S2: a result of that, she was interviewed by Todd Blanch.
15:34
S2: In fact, and as a result of that, was immediately
15:36
S2: moved to a lower security prison. So I'm not getting
15:39
S2: out my red string just yet, but I am pointing
15:42
S2: out that there's something here, which is weird. It's just weird.
15:47
S1: Right? Absolutely. And also weird, as we've discussed, has been
15:51
S1: the entire release of the Epstein files, right? I mean,
15:54
S1: mishandled at best.
15:55
S2: The Justice Department have made the rollout of these files
15:59
S2: such a mess. It is so disorganized. They have made
16:01
S2: no attempt to file or classify them in a way
16:04
S2: that is useful for the public to consume them. And
16:07
S2: I think that's a strategy, because if you make the
16:09
S2: whole thing look like a mess, it's very hard to
16:11
S2: pull anything meaningful out of it. Whether that strategy is
16:14
S2: because Trump did anything criminally wrong, or maybe the most
16:18
S2: likely explanation is he's maybe just a little bit embarrassed
16:21
S2: about this friendship. It was a friendship that he had
16:23
S2: for 15 years, a long time ago. We know that
16:27
S2: he cut ties with Epstein. For whatever reason. The two
16:29
S2: men cut ties a long time before Epstein was even arrested.
16:34
S2: So it could just be that he's embarrassed by the
16:36
S2: whole thing. He wants it to go away. And, you know,
16:39
S2: in my more rational moments, that's kind of where I
16:41
S2: land on this, because Trump's the most scrutinized man in history.
16:46
S2: So the idea that that these kinds of he's already
16:50
S2: been found liable in a civil court for sexual assault,
16:53
S2: he's been looked at from every angle for many, many
16:56
S2: years now. So where I kind of land ultimately, is
17:00
S2: that he might feel a little embarrassed about the friendship.
17:03
S2: And that's why we've had this sort of drip, drip strategy.
17:07
S1: And that's so interesting. And of course, you just mentioned
17:09
S1: there his civil liability for sexual assault against E Jean Carroll,
17:12
S1: the American writer and columnist. So there is definitely a
17:16
S1: part of me that thought, well, he weathered that. No problem. Yeah.
17:19
S1: What's the possibility that this will damn him? Because these are,
17:22
S1: of course, just allegations that was proven in a civil court.
17:25
S2: Exactly. I just think that we have to distinguish between
17:29
S2: whether he wants to be talking about this. And it's
17:31
S2: pretty clear that he doesn't, and whether or not there's
17:34
S2: some kind of there there in conspiratorial terms.
17:38
S1: Well, Amelia, it is such a pleasure to have your insights.
17:40
S1: So thank you so much for your time.
17:42
S2: Thanks for having me.
17:56
S1: In other news today, a Sydney scientist has revealed in
17:59
S1: a new study that honey from bees, which have fed
18:02
S1: on a diverse range of flowers, produced the the most
18:05
S1: antimicrobial honey, which might be helpful to fight superbugs. Melbourne
18:10
S1: raised F1 superstar Oscar Piastri is Australia's highest earning athlete
18:15
S1: from last year, banking $57 million, and the reserve Bank
18:21
S1: has defended his handling of interest rates in the battle
18:24
S1: against inflation, revealing that almost 200,000 more people would be
18:29
S1: out of work and mortgage holders hit with much higher
18:32
S1: repayments if it had more aggressively tightened monetary policy. You
18:38
S1: can read more at the or smh.com.au. Today's episode was
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