Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / France Identifies Potential Recruiters in Jeffrey Epstein’s Network (9/11/26)

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France Identifies Potential Recruiters in Jeffrey Epstein’s Network (9/11/26) · 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. I don't think it's a shock to anybody
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: who's been paying attention that Jeffrey Epstein was operating in
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: places besides the United States. And one of those places
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: was France. Well, France has now opened an investigation into
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: other potential co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein. Now this comes on
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the back end of Daniel Syed being named as a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: potential recruiter And then that same Mr. Syed ends up dying, what,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a few days later, a couple weeks later, whatever it was?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And France, they announced that death as a suicide. But
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: there were enough questions remaining that the authorities in France,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: additional testing to see if Mr. Syed actually killed himself. Well,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: today we have a quick article from Courthouse News. And
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: then after the article, I have a bit of a
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  Speaker 1: monologue that we'll dive into. But first things first. Let's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: check out this article. This article was published by Courthouse
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: News Service, and the headline, France's Epstein probe identifies potential recruiters.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: This article was authored by the Press Agency of France.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: French investigation into alleged human trafficking that allowed US ex-offender
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein to commit abuses is pursuing several leads involving
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  Speaker 1: potential recruiters, a prosecutor said on Thursday. Paris prosecutor Laurie
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Bacow said, spoke after French modeling scout Daniel Syed, who
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: was accused of helping Epstein traffic women, was found dead
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: in his home in July before he could be questioned.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: We have obtained other names of potential recruiters, she told France, Interradio,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to us. The Epstein network is a labyrinthine network. To
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: get out of it, it's not just a single, arrondised
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: thread you have to pull on. It's dozens and dozens
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of threads, she said. The cases so far led investigators
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  Speaker 1: to New York, and towards Saint-Tropez, towards Cannes, she added.
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  Speaker 1: France opened the human trafficking investigation after the U.S. Justice
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Department in January released the latest cache of files from
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: its investigation into the disgraced financier, who died in prison
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: in 2019 while facing charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Bacow said 26 victims had been identified, including eight who
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: still needed to be questioned because some lived abroad. Of
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: these 26 victims, 13 had not previously appeared in any case,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: she said. French authorities have previously investigated other French figures
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in the modeling industry. Magistrates previously dropped an investigation into
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  Speaker 1: sexual assault and rape allegations against Gérald Marie, the former
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  Speaker 1: European head of the elite modeling agency, who is now
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: in his mid-70s, because the Statue of Limitations had expired.
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  Speaker 1: Several women have called for new investigations into him since
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  Speaker 1: the latest Epstein files were released. Marie denied wrongdoing last month,
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  Speaker 1: telling broadcaster RTL, I've never raped anyone. I've always behaved
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: myself consistently and properly with women. I love women. I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: can't see myself forcing one, he added. He said he
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: met Epstein only once. French police also arrested modeling agent
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Jean-Luc Brunel in 2020 following allegations that that he procured
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  Speaker 1: women for the U.S. billionaire. Brunel was found dead in
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  Speaker 1: prison in 2022. All right, so that's the article. And
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: like I said, not very much going on in it,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: but it does give us a little bit of light
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  Speaker 1: in the room and lets us know that there is
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: more of an investigation happening in France that we might
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: have been aware of. So that's certainly a good thing.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: And that's because the most revealing development in the Epstein
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: story right now is not coming from Washington, Palm Beach,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: New York, or the halls of Congress. It's coming from France,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: where prosecutors are publicly describing Epstein's operation in terms that
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: should sound real familiar to anyone who has spent time
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: following the story. Paris prosecutor Laurie Bacow says investigators have
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: identified 26 victims in the French component of the case,
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  Speaker 1: including 13 who have never previously appeared in an Epstein proceeding.
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  Speaker 1: French investigators have also developed additional names of people they
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  Speaker 1: consider potential recruiters, Bacow described the Epstein network as labyrinthine,
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  Speaker 1: with investigative threads stretching through New York, San Tropez, Cannes,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and elsewhere. That description bears very little resemblance to the neat,
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  Speaker 1: contained version of the scandal that American authorities have repeatedly
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: presented to the public. Epstein didn't live inside of a
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: sealed room where victims were teleported in without the help
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of intermediaries, introductions, scheduling, transportation, money, recruitment, or assistance. The
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: record accumulated over decades shows women and girls moving through
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  Speaker 1: a sprawling social and professional ecosystem surrounding them. France is
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  Speaker 1: now openly attempting to identify more of the people who
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: may have helped populate that ecosystem. That's precisely the kind
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  Speaker 1: of investigative question Americans have been asking for years. After
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: reviewing hundreds of gigabytes of investigative material, the agency said
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: they found no incriminating client list, no credible evidence that
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Epstein blackmailed, prominent individuals, and owe evidence that would predicate
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: investigations of uncharged third parties. The same memorandum acknowledged that
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Epstein harmed more than a thousand victims. And those two
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: facts have lived side by side ever since, and the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: tension between them has fueled enormous public skepticism. More than 1,000
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  Speaker 1: victims necessarily raise basic investigative questions about recruitment, facilitation, logistics, money, access,
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  Speaker 1: and the people who repeatedly moved through Epstein's world. None
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  Speaker 1: of those questions requires belief in some mythical master list
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  Speaker 1: tucked inside a safe. The fixation on whether the document
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: literally titled client list exists has always risked obscuring the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: more important question of how this operation functioned in practice.
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  Speaker 1: France appears to be asking that practical question by examining
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  Speaker 1: potential recruiters rather than waiting for somebody to hand prosecutors
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  Speaker 1: a neatly labeled roster. The French investigation does not prove
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  Speaker 1: criminal conduct by every associate whose name surfaces, and prosecutors
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  Speaker 1: have not publicly identified the new recruiter suspects. What it
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  Speaker 1: does is it demonstrates that authorities examining the same broader
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: universe of evidence can still find investigative trails worth following.
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  Speaker 1: Then there is Daniel Syed, whose story captures both the
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  Speaker 1: possibilities and frustrations surrounding the French investigation. Syed was a
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  Speaker 1: modeling scout whose name reportedly appeared nearly 2,000 times in
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  Speaker 1: the Epstein material released by the Department of Justice. Emails
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  Speaker 1: showed him corresponding with Epstein about teenage girls and young women,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes discussing their ages and nationalities, and offering photographs. French
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  Speaker 1: prosecutors were investigating allegations against Syed involving rape and human trafficking,
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  Speaker 1: allegations that he denied. Investigators placed him under special investigative measures,
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  Speaker 1: including telephone surveillance, but had not accumulated enough evidence at
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  Speaker 1: that point to arrest him. He had not been formally
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: questioned when he was found dead at his home outside
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  Speaker 1: of Paris in July. His death understandably infuriated some accusers
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  Speaker 1: who believed an opportunity to obtain answers had disappeared with him.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing currently released by French authorities establishes that somebody killed
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Syed or that his death was connected to the Epstein investigation. Now,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: what's happened after Syed's death may ultimately prove more significant
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: than speculation surrounding the death itself. French prosecutors did not
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  Speaker 1: announce that the trail had ended because one important subject
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  Speaker 1: was gone. Instead, the investigators said they had obtained other
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: names of potential recruiters. That means investigators are treating recruitment
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: as a structure rather than as a work of one
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  Speaker 1: isolated individual. But we all know that structure requires people.
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  Speaker 1: Someone finds the girls, someone makes introductions, someone arranges meetings,
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  Speaker 1: someone knows who's coming and going, and someone understands enough
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  Speaker 1: about the system to keep it functioning. Criminal liability is
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: an individual question and has to be proven person by person.
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  Speaker 1: But an investigative map does not stop at the person
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  Speaker 1: committing the final act. It moves backward through the chain
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  Speaker 1: and asks who enabled access. It follows communication, payments, travel,
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  Speaker 1: employment arrangements, modeling connections, introductions, and relationships. France is now
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: publicly acknowledging that multiple potential recruitment pathways remain under examination.
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  Speaker 1: Now against that backdrop, what happened to journalist Tara Palmieri
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  Speaker 1: at the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas deserves scrutiny of
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: its own. According to Palmieri's account, published on September 11th,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: she entered the event with a media credential of and
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  Speaker 1: was accompanied by three Epstein survivors who had guest passes.
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  Speaker 1: She says she interviewed a Republican congressional candidate about the
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  Speaker 1: Epstein files. Palmieri says her credential was subsequently revoked, she
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  Speaker 1: was escorted outside the convention perimeter, and she was told
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  Speaker 1: she could be arrested if she returned. And the Republican
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: gathering itself was being shadowed by demonstrations, political counter-programming, a
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  Speaker 1: public display of millions of pages of Epstein material, and
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  Speaker 1: questions about how the government has handled disclosure. Epstein has
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: become an issue capable of producing anger inside both major
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: political coalitions, not merely between them. And that's why reporters
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  Speaker 1: should keep asking politicians about it instead of treating the
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  Speaker 1: subject as radioactive material that can't be touched. A political
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  Speaker 1: convention is among the last places where persistent questioning of
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  Speaker 1: powerful people should be considered unusual. And yo, there is
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  Speaker 1: almost something surreal about watching these two stories unfold simultaneously
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  Speaker 1: on opposite sides of the Atlantic. In Paris, a prosecutor
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  Speaker 1: goes on national radio and talks publicly about victims, potential recruiters,
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  Speaker 1: international investigative paths, and a gigantic network. In Dallas, a
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  Speaker 1: journalist says she lost her credential and was removed after
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  Speaker 1: asking a candidate about Epstein. I mean, the DOJ itself
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  Speaker 1: spent years possessing an enormous investigative archive before announcing in
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  Speaker 1: 2025 that it found no evidence warranting investigations of uncharged
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: third parties. France reopened the prelim investigation in February 2026
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  Speaker 1: following new disclosures and says it has since identified previously
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  Speaker 1: unknown victims and additional potential recruiters. Anyone trying to understand
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: why public confidence remains so low should begin with that
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: contrast rather than dismissing the people who notice it. And that,
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  Speaker 1: of course, brings us to the lone predator nonsense. Because
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that description is inadequate of what the documented record shows,
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  Speaker 1: even if one carefully separates proven crimes from allegations and associations.
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  Speaker 1: Glenn Maxwell was convicted in federal court for helping Epstein
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  Speaker 1: recruit and sexually abuse minors. which by itself makes any
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  Speaker 1: literal conception of Epstein acting entirely alone impossible. Jean-Luc Brunel
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  Speaker 1: was investigated and charged in France before his death in custody,
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  Speaker 1: although he never stood trial and therefore was never convicted
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  Speaker 1: of the allegations. Daniel Syed later came under investigation over
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  Speaker 1: accusations involving trafficking and sexual crimes, while extensive correspondence linked
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  Speaker 1: him socially and professionally at Epstein. Numerous survivors have described
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  Speaker 1: recruitment process involving other young women employees, modeling contacts, friends,
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  Speaker 1: or intermediaries. Listen, Epstein depended upon networks of human beings.
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  Speaker 1: Some may have been criminals. Some may have been victims
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  Speaker 1: manipulated into recruiting others. Some may have known only fragments
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  Speaker 1: of what was occurring. And some may have known nothing
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  Speaker 1: criminal at all. And sorting those categories is exactly what
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  Speaker 1: a serious investigation is supposed to accomplish. Declaring the entire
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: question settled before tracing those relationships is simply guarantees that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the public will continue asking it. Look, for years, the
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  Speaker 1: Epstein debate's been distorted by arguments over spectacular claims, when
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the documented evidence sitting directly in front of everyone is
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  Speaker 1: already staggering. You don't need a secret intelligence dossier to
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  Speaker 1: ask who recruited victims. You don't need proof of blackmail
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  Speaker 1: to investigate who facilitated access to vulnerable girls and young women.
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  Speaker 1: You don't need a celebrity client list to examine money
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  Speaker 1: moving between Epstein and people who who repeatedly supplied introductions.
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  Speaker 1: You don't need to accuse every famous acquaintance of committing
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  Speaker 1: a crime simply because that person appeared in an address book, photograph,
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  Speaker 1: flight log, email, or calendar. Investigators are perfectly capable of
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  Speaker 1: separating association from facilitation and facilitation from criminal participation. That's
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: what subpoenas, interviews, financial records, electronic communications, witness testimony, and
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  Speaker 1: corroborating evidence are for. France's description of the investigation as
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: requiring dozens and dozens of investigative threads is therefore far
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  Speaker 1: more useful than reducing the entire scandal to one magical
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  Speaker 1: piece of paper. Networks are reconstructed relationship by relationship and
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  Speaker 1: transaction by transaction. If French investigators truly follow those threads
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  Speaker 1: wherever they lead, their work could answer questions that have
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: remained unresolved for years. Now, of course, France has plenty
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  Speaker 1: to answer for as well. and nobody should hand its
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: justice system a medal before the investigation produces results. French
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: authorities have already faced severe criticism from alleged victims over
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the pace of the Epstein-related investigations. Two plaintiffs have even
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: taken legal action against the French state, alleging failures and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: unacceptable delays. Jean-Luc Brunel died in prison before his case
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: could reach trial. Daniel Syed died before investigators had formally
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  Speaker 1: questioned them. Those aren't small failures from the perspective of
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: people who waited years to tell authorities what happened to them.
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  Speaker 1: Identifying potential recruiters is therefore only the beginning. Names sitting
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: in a file accomplish very little unless investigators test allegations,
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  Speaker 1: preserve evidence, question witnesses, follow financial trails, and bring prosecutable
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  Speaker 1: cases where the evidence supports them. France now has an
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: opportunity to demonstrate that its renewed investigation is something more
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: substantial than than another round of official declarations. Whether prosecutors
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: actually do that remains, as always in the Epstein saga,
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  Speaker 1: the million-dollar question. And that question should be asked just
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: as relentlessly in the United States, because seven years after
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Epstein's death, the central mystery has never really been whether
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Epstein was a predator. We know he was. The harder
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: question has always been how one man constructed and maintained
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: an international system that reached across mansions, islands, modeling circles, universities, banks, corporations,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: political circles, and some of the wealthiest social networks on earth.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: France is now publicly saying its investigators see a labyrinth
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and additional potential recruiters inside it. Meanwhile, American authorities say
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: their exhaustive review produced no evidence sufficient to investigate uncharged
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: third parties. Those statements can technically coexist because different jurisdictions
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: possess different evidence and different legal predicates, but the public
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is entitled to examine and the enormous space between them.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Tara Palmieri's removal from the Republican convention after questioning a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: candidate about Epstein only guarantees that those questions will become louder,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: not quieter. Daniel Syed's death before questioning guarantees that some
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: answers may now never come from him personally, while French
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: investigators say other leads remain alive. Nobody needs a Tom
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Clancy novel to make this story strange because the verified
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: record already contains enough extraordinary facts to fill one. The
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: only responsible ending is the one this case has demanded
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: from the beginning. Follow the evidence, identify the recruiters and
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: facilitators where the proof supports it, distinguish innocent association from
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: criminal conduct, and stop pretending that asking how Epstein's network
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: functioned is somehow more unreasonable than refusing to find it.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: All the information that goes with this episode can be
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: found in the description box.