Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Mega Edition: Inside the White House Fallout Over the Epstein Files (11/6/26)

Transcript

Mega Edition: Inside the White House Fallout Over the Epstein Files (11/6/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. Over at the New York Times, they have
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a new article out discussing the inside freakout, as they
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: call it, at the White House over the Epstein files.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: And I have no doubt that there was all sorts
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of freaking out, especially considering the way that they handled it.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Could it have been any worse? Honestly, I don't know
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: if anything has ever been handled more poorly than by
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: any administration in the history of the country. And I'm
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: not even kidding when I say that. And then they
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: have the audacity to turn around and say to you,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: we're the most transparent administration in the history of the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: United States. I mean, come on. They have to be trolling, right?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what you would think. But unfortunately, this
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is the reality that we're living in. And our lives
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: are being managed by a bunch of scoundrels that not
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: only broke bread with Jeffrey Epstein... but now have the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: audacity to cover it all up. So today, we're going
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to dive into that New York Times article, and we're
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: going to see what's up. Headline, Inside the White House
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Freakout Over the Epstein Files. This article was authored by
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. On July 17th, 2025, at
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: around 6 o'clock in the evening, President Trump's top officials
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: filed into the White House Situation Room, the Secura Bunker,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: where classified and high-stakes national security matters are discussed and decided.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: This was where President Barack Obama, along with Vice President
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the president's
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: national security team watched the raid that ended with the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Now, however, Trump's
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: most senior advisors had gathered, without him, to figure out
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: how to gain some measure of control over a very
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: different kind of crisis threatening to engulf The presidency. The
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Epstein files. I've never seen an administration fumble so badly.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: They had everything queued up. They were going around during
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the campaign talking about how they're going to release all
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the information. They're going to hold people accountable. They're going
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: to do this. They're going to do that. Then they
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: get into office. They get a look at the files
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and they realize that their boy Donald Trump and all
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of his friends are littered throughout the documents. So of course,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: that caused Donald Trump to slam on the brakes and
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: kill the process before it even got off the ground.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: That was the goal. And if it wasn't for the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: discharge petition, it would have worked. And if you're wondering
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: why Trump was so mad at Thomas Massey, that's why.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Because without Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna, and without Lauren Boebert,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Nancy Mace, without Marjorie Taylor Greene, we never get a
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: look at this. So look, I'm not a big fan
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: of all those people when it comes to all their politics, right?
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: But when it comes to this issue, mad respect to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: all of them. They all stood up when everybody else
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: was sitting down. Where were the rest of the members
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of the GOP? Well, that's right, too scared of Donald
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Trump to stand up for people who have been victimized.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And I don't just mean the survivors. I mean all
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of us. These people have been stealing from us hand
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: over fist for decades. But I guess that's no big
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: deal either. Ten days earlier, the Justice Department and the
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: FBI had jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: their review had found no client list of powerful men
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: for whom the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: underage girls and young women. No, I don't think there's
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a list, but I can give you two names right
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: off the top of my head that girls were trafficked to.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Jean-Luc Brunel and Jess Daly. Jess Daly already admitted that
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: he had consensual sex with one of Epstein's assistants. And
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: if it's somebody that was also a victim, well, there
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: you go. And unfortunately, Jean-Luc Brunel and Jeffrey Epstein, they
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: had a revolving door of girls that were being abused
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: between the two of them. And never mind all the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: other scumbags that got involved. Should we talk about George
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Mitchell or Bill Richardson or Glenn Dubin or Les Wexner?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Because all of them have been credibly accused. No investigation,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: nobody being brought in, nothing. And so with just those
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: two dudes alone, It shows you that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: girls to other people. How many more people do you want?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: How many other co-conspirators would make it trafficking for you?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Intended to put to rest years of speculation and end
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a pressure campaign to release the voluminous material in the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: department's possession, the memo instead had the opposite effect, setting
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: off a backlash that was notably loud among the MAGA base. Look,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: people should be given credit for that. The people that
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: are MAGA, the people that were MAGA, who decided that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump calling them a traitor was too much, that
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump trying to cover this up was too much,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: those people should be applauded. It's not easy to go against,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: you know, all your friends and all your other beliefs
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So we should give them some credit, right?
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It's okay to have a little grace. Not everybody's your enemy.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: And I've told you a million times, you're going to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: have to work with people that you might not agree
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: with politically on a whole host of issues to get
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: something done here. But that's how politics works, right? That's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: what detente is. You don't have negotiations with people that
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: you agree with. You negotiate with people that you might
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: have some disagreements with. And the best way to do
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: that is to find some middle ground. And if going
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: after Jeffrey Epstein and his network is not middle ground,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: then I don't know what is. And it was about
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to get worse. The Wall Street Journal was preparing a
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: damaging article about Trump's relationship with Epstein. The president's desperate
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: attempts to kill the story had failed. His team now
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: had to get everyone onto the same page about how
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: to counter the growing swarm of attention. They needed a
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: gesture of transparency to appease an increasingly angry base, but
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: also a way to convey the message that the president
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: was sympathetic to his supporters' concerns. Which itself was a problem,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: because he clearly wasn't. Well, that's true, he called us
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: all traitors. He said anybody who's following along with this
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: is his enemy, basically. Imagine the president of the United
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: States being mad because people want accountability for a human trafficker. Like,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: have we fallen that far? Where people hear this, look
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: at this, and just shrug their shoulders. And they're like, ah, yeah,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: you know what? He has a point. No, he doesn't
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: have a point. He's trying to cover this up. And
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: this is what I've been telling you guys. Everybody wants
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: that splashy gotcha moment. But in the real world, this
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: sort of shit is messy. It's not splashy. And a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: lot of times, it's not salacious. You get people like this.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: on financial crimes. You get them on covering up for
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: other people. That's how it's always worked. And for all
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: these people that have been carrying on about Donald Trump
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: now for eight years with all kinds of crazy stuff, Russia, P-Gate,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: you name it. But what you have here is an
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: actual cover-up. And instead of focusing on that, you have
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: people focusing on other things that are unprovable. Now, that
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean I don't believe that it happened, but it's
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: not what I believe. It's about what we can prove.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: And I don't think you need to be some kind
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of famous investigator to realize that the fix is in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: and that there's a gigantic cover-up being run and managed
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: directly by the White House. And I thoroughly believe that.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Vice President J.D. Vance took a seat at the head
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: of the table in the John F. Kennedy conference room
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: of the Situation Room Complex. This is a huge problem,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: he told the group. I read around him. where the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the White House
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Counsel David Warrington, the Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt, the Deputy
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, the Communications Director Stephen Chung,
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  Speaker 1: the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, the Associate Attorney General
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Todd Baby Billy Blanch, and the Deputy Chief of Staff
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: James Blair. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI Director
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Kash Patel joined on speakerphone. The vice president appeared panicked
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to others in the room about the way the subject
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Yo, he
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: knows what's up. 100% he knows. This whole entire thing
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: has caused big problems. And I think there's a lot
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of people that are going to be sitting out the
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: midterms because of it. And I think it's going to
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: have disastrous repercussions for the GOP. Some senior officials had
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the impression that Vance had bought into the darkest theories
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden within the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: country's ruling class. Well, is that wrong? Maybe not to
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the level that some people are trying to make it out,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: but predators nonetheless. What, being predators in a financial sense
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: is okay? I mean, people just don't get it. And
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: it drives me crazy. Breaking news, we're all slaves. Every
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: last one of us. You got debt. Congratulations, you're a slave.
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  Speaker 1: And you're a slave to Jeffrey Epstein's people. The same people,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: by the way, that ruined the whole entire world in 2008.
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  Speaker 1: So if you think this is just about girls being
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  Speaker 1: trafficked or kids being abused, you have not been paying attention.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Wiles would tell others that the vice president had proved
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: said later that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: issue since the release of the memo. He was privately
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: everything in the Justice Department's possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: And look, he's not wrong for that. I think that...
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Vice President Vance is on point. And that was the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: campaign promise that was made by the administration. So I
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: think that Vance is just trying to live up to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that promise, right? Now look, don't take it for, I
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: think Vance is doing a great job, or I support him.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I don't. But of all these robber barons that populate
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's administration... It looks like Vance is the only
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: one that even cared. Vance told the group that he
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: believed that all files should be released as soon as possible.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: He argued that Congress was going to force the release
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: of the files eventually. It was already clear that a
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: bipartisan coalition in favor of such action was forming on
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, and the momentum was going in one direction.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: If the administration got out ahead of this and released
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: everything voluntarily, including whatever material existed about the president, it
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: would at least get credit for transparency. The alternative was
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to let the story drag on for months as information
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: dripped out, each new revelation renewing a cycle of suspicion
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and fury. Better to rip the bandage off and move on. Yo,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: they would have been so much better served to listen
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: to J.D. Vance. He had the right of it here.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Get out ahead of it. Look, it might be embarrassing,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and it might cause you some grief, but the more
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: you hide it, the more you act like nothing's going on,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the worse it gets when people figure out that they've
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: been bullshitted. And I think J.D. Vance was hip to that,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: but unfortunately, the rest of the administration is dancing to
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's tune. Vance even floated to colleagues in extraordinary
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: PR gambit that the White House enlist Tucker Carlson to
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: interview Epstein's longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator Glenn Maxwell in prison.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It might help the president if Maxwell was willing to
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: state that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: with Epstein. Well, that's a bad idea. That was stupid.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Because nobody believed Glenn Maxwell. Only the people that want
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to believe what Trump's saying. Right? It's all about confirmation
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: bias with a lot of people. Me? I'm following the evidence,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: wherever it goes. And the evidence certainly looks like Donald
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Trump is engaging in a cover-up. That's what the evidence
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: is telling me. And the more we hear from insiders,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the more we hear about what was going on on
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the ground. the more convinced of it I am. Even
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: unsubstantiated allegations and anecdotes about Trump should go out, Vance argued.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: They were going to surface regardless, and if the administration
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: published them first, it would demonstrate good faith and take
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the oxygen out of the conspiracy theories. His arguments fell
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: on skeptical ears, but some advisors thought it would be
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: good to have Justice Department officials call a news conference
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: to explain their position on the Epstein affair, going beyond
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the memo that precipitated the crisis. At this point in
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the meeting, Blair spoke up. With all due respect, he said,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the communication strategy of this group got us here. I
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going to get us out. And if
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you're going to go in front of the press, you've
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: got a lot of work to do. He began to
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: ask pointed mock questions, demonstrating how difficult a news conference
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: might be. As the president's former defense attorney, Blanche had
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a unique vantage point in the discussions. He was better
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: equipped than anybody else. In the room, to weigh the
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: ideas being discussed against Trump's personal and political interests, Blanche
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: laid out what he saw as their best option. And
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: here's how the cover-up works. Donald Trump gives Blanche the orders,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and then Blanche puts him into action. And then later
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: on down the road, if anybody says, hey, Trump told
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: him to do that, he has plausible deniability. And he'll
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: also say that our conversations were privileged. So it gives
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Trump that armor. But it sets Todd Blanche up to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: take the fall. And I think that that might occur
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: at some point. I think that if there's a real
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: investigation into this cover-up, I think that Todd Blanche is
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: going to be the one that's holding the hot potato.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Option one was to petition federal district courts in Florida
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: and New York to unseal grand jury testimony, the secret
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: transcripts of prosecutors, presentation of witnesses, and evidence in their
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: efforts to obtain indictments in past Epstein-related cases. As those
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: were almost certain to contain no significant new information, everyone
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: agreed that this option was a good idea. And not
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: only because a release was unlikely to damage the president.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: And look, there's no doubt that that was the goal.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: We talked about it at the time. And I told
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you that the whole entire point of what they were
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: looking to do was to slow things down. And then,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of course, get some information out there that is recycled.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Then they can say, look, We're working hard to get
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: you all this information. We're doing everything in our power,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: every single day, to be transparent. Meanwhile, behind the scenes,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: they're doing everything but. Under the federal rules of criminal procedure,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the secrecy of grand jury material is regarded by most
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: federal judges as almost always inviolate. And the bar for
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: any release is exceptionally high. If the court refused to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: unseal them, as Blanche predicted... they could shift blame for
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: withholding the Epstein material away from the Trump administration and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: onto the judges. Exactly what they tried to do, and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: exactly what I pointed out at the time. And all
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the better if the judges had been appointed by Democratic presidents.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Blant's suggestion would make it appear that the White House
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: wanted the materials released when it was almost certain not
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to happen. We call that a cover-up where I'm from.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Option number two was to have Justice Department lawyers question
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Maxwell and publicly released the transcript, a twist on the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: idea proposed earlier by Vance. Blanche offered to interview Maxwell himself.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: What if we get her to talk to Congress, Vance suggested.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Blanche raised the possibility that Maxwell's lawyer might expect something
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: in return for her candor. Oh, she got it, didn't she?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Nice little move down the club fed. Everything's all good
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: for Ghislaine. Warrington, the White House counsel, responded by laying
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: out the available choices without advocating any of them. Maxwell
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: could be given a pardon, he said, or she could
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: have her sentence reduced. At that, several around the table
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: spoke up to register their strong disapproval. Pardoning Maxwell, a
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: trafficker of young girls, would create a huge PR problem,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Chung said. He predicted that in the wake of a pardon,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the Epstein accusers would be fanning out on TV, telling
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: their stories, and ripping the administration to shreds. Blair was
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: also adamantly opposed to a pardon. We can't offer Glenn
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Maxwell anything, he said. I don't know why we would,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and B, if we give Glenn Maxwell any sort of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: break whatsoever, and then she turns around and says nice
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: things about us, or says nice things about us, and
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: we give her a break, it'll undermine the entire point
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: of her saying good things. That'll feed the conspiracy theory, period.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: If there's nothing for her to say that hurts us,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't have to offer her anything. That's a pretty
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: fair assessment, no? The consensus was that calling for the
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: release of the grand jury material was the best course
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of action. Wiles told the group she would discuss the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: matter with Trump and ask if he would send a
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Truth Social post calling for the release of the sealed
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: grand jury documents. Just then, the Wall Street Journal article
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: they had been trying to kill was published online. Cell
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: phones are forbidden in the Situation Room, so a staff
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: member brought in printed copies of the explosive report, which
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: detailed how Trump and many others had created birthday cards
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and letters to be assembled by Maxwell into a special
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: birthday book for Epstein in 2003. The birthday card attributed
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: to Trump depicted a nude woman, hand-drawn and inscribed, with
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: an imagined dialogue between the two men about a wonderful secret. Imagine?
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: A wonderful secret, is it? The drawing was signed with
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: what appeared to be Trump's distinctive jagged, sharpie signature in
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a place of the woman's pubic hair, another part of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the cover-up that looks to be provable. If this was
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: something that was forged, why is there no investigation? You
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: would think, like I've said a million times, that if
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the President of the United States is being impersonated by someone,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: we should probably know, and there should be a gigantic
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: investigation into who and why. We haven't seen that, though,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: have we? Well, that's weird, considering Donald Trump likes to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: use the FBI to go after everybody, but not the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: people that allegedly forged this letter. Seems a bit suspect
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: to me. In the days before publication, Trump, in the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: effort to quash the story, called News Corp Executive Robert Thompson,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: News Corp owner. Rupert Murdoch, the journal's editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Practically shouting, the president told Tucker, who was British, that
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: she must hate America. He told her he would file
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: a lawsuit. But none of his bullying had worked. And
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: now the group sat quietly reading the full story in
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the Situation Room. Wiles ready to public denial for the president,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: which he soon posted on social media. Shortly after this,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the president posted again. He was going along with the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: plan his advisors had hashed out in the Situation Room,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: though it was clear he didn't like having to do it.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I've asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval. This
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: scam perpetuated by the Democrats should end right now. Scam?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Imagine calling this a scam? No, Mr. President, the only
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: scam that's being run is the one you're running. on
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the American people. In response to a request for comment,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, repeated Trump's claim that
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: he was innocent in all Epstein-related matters, adding that by
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Oversight Committee's subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and calling for more investigations into Epstein's Democrat friends, President
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Trump has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Why don't you ask the survivors how they feel about
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: that comment? Because I assure you, they do not agree.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: All right, folks, we're going to wrap up episode one
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: right here. And in the next episode dealing with the topic,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: we're going to pick up where we left off. All
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the information that goes with this episode can be found
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: in the description box. What's up, everyone? And welcome to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: going to get right back to that New York Times
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: article about Donald Trump and the Epstein Files. This article
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: was authored by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. At the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: start of last summer, as far as outside observers could see,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Trump appeared to be at the pinnacle of his power.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: He had just bombed nuclear sites in Iran, completed a
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: blitz of executive orders to reshape the immigration system, and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: ran through Congress his signature piece of domestic legislation, the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Big Beautiful Bill. He was using the levers of the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: government to go after his enemies. And out of fear
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and desperation... America's corporate titans were falling over themselves to genuflect. Look,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of those people, they wanted favorable deals. And
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: they knew that the Trump administration was going to wheel
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and deal. So they're going to do what's best for
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: their companies. My beef is with the administration and their nonsense.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: The absolute greed and corruption that we see on a
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: regular basis is just unreal. But behind the scenes, the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Epstein crisis was paralyzing the Trump administration to a far
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: greater extent than the public knew. In their public statements,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Trump's advisors were full of bravado, dismissing the crisis. In reality,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it was consuming the highest ranks of the administration as
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: no issue had for the president's team since the Russia
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: investigation in his first term. His aides were determined to
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: keep their rising sense of panic out of public view. Yo,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: this should have been more than Russia. That Russia shit,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I hate to tell you, a lot of it was contrived.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I know people don't want to hear it, because it
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: doesn't fit in with their confirmation bias and shit, but
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: it's true. And all the way back then, that there
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough there there to send anybody to prison. Meanwhile,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the Epstein files were rife with all kinds of corruption.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: And if people would have just focused back then, when
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: this was all happening in real time, we could have
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: actually got something done. But unfortunately, that never happened. The
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Justice Department had struggled with just how to dispose of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the Epstein matter since the beginning of Trump's second term.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: The issue was all-consuming for the president's political base, but
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: also potentially compromising for the president himself in ways that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: officials in the new administration didn't fully understand. Any path
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: forward would be fraud. Some of that complexity was self-inflicted. Yes,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: it was, all of it. They created this problem for themselves.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump created this problem for himself. Here's an idea.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Just live up to the promises you made while you
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: were on the campaign trail. Let the chips fall where
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: they will. Let the American people decide. But instead, you've
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: got to gatekeep. Instead, you've got to protect your people. Instead,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: you have to bring Leon Black's son into the administration.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: So yeah, all your problems, self-inflicted. Some of that complexity
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: was self-inflicted. In the engine room of the MAGA movement,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the Epstein files were potent fuel. Elon Musk had used
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: his social media platform to repeatedly question why a client
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: list had not been released. Donald Trump Jr. and J.D.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Vance had invoked the Epstein files as a broader campaign
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: message to argue that powerful people were hiding the truth
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: from Americans. Tucker Carlson and the young conservative leader, Charlie Kirk,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: had each insisted that the government should release the documents
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and each floated the idea that that there was an
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: expansive cover-up and progress. Well, that's because there is. And
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: you don't have to agree with Charlie Kirk or agree
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: with Tucker Carlson to understand that. Just because you don't
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: agree with somebody doesn't mean they're not right. Look, I
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: don't agree with Maggie Haberman all the time. She's right
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: in this article. And I think that whole entire thing
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of having to agree with everything somebody says is dumb
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: as hell. I'm not going to agree with everything somebody
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: says ever. I have my own opinions on a wide
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: variety of things, and I'm willing to listen to anybody.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Whoever has the best ideas, that's who I'm voting for.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Trump himself had been cagey. On the Lex Friedman podcast
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in September of 2024, when asked about releasing the client list,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Trump responded, I'd certainly take a look at it. Adding,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I'd have no problem with it. The list probably will
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: be made public, he said. But he sounded less than enthusiastic.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: In private, Trump later told Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene that
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a release of Epstein material could hurt some of his friends.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: He repeatedly insisted that he had done nothing wrong and
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: that the whole saga was fake news designed to harm
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: him politically. And that's his go-to move, right? Anytime that
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Trump is truly in jeopardy, he calls it a hoax.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And he gets purchased with that because of what happened
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: with Russia. I mean, the American people heard Russia, Russia,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Russia for how many years? How many hearings? And then
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: what came of it? So when people hear this, they're like, oh,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: just another routine move, another hoax to try and get Trump.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: That's what his base thinks. And you can say what
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: you want about Trump and the administration, but they're effective
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: communicators when it comes to their own party, their own people.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Very effective. They know exactly what buttons to push. And
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: he has carefully built this whole entire persona of him
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: being some kind of martyr. And he knew that it
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: was going to be effective. He knew that if he
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: used that strategy and said that, that it would protect him.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: And it sure has, hasn't it? All the people out
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: here that were running their yap for all these years
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: about Epstein, who now say it's a hoax, what a
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: bunch of morons. Like, why would anyone believe anything they
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: have to say? Now, it's one thing if the evidence
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: would have pointed you in a different direction after you
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: had one belief, right? Like, if somebody was to show
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: up tomorrow with all of the evidence of what happened
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: in that jail cell, and it turned out that it
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: was 100% suicide, I'd be the first one to get
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: on here and tell you, look, I've been wrong the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: whole time. It was obviously suicide. Because, for me anyway,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the only thing that matters is getting as close to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the truth as we possibly can. And anybody standing in
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the way of that, well, I have questions. But his
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: posture was overtaken by the growing frenzy among his supporters.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Throughout 2024, Greene had made it her mission to force
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the release of the files, and there were so many others.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: The far-right influencer Laura Loomer, the conservative activist Scott Pressler,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Chaya Raychick from Libs of TikTok. But when it came
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: to propagating the Epstein files as evidence of the deep state,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: capable of evil, two podcasters were not to be outdone.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. Well, there's no doubt that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: those two were the loudest voices talking about the Epstein files.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: And then they get access to them, and we get nothing.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: We get told that there's nothing there, and that it
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: was all just a big mistake. And they really thought
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: people were going to buy it. They really thought that
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: they were going to get Joe and Jane America to
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: buy into that nonsense. Well, how's it working out for them? Patel,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: a National Security Council Director for Counterterrorism and Defense Department
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Chief of Staff in the first Trump administration... had repeatedly
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: claimed in podcast interviews that the government was hiding Epstein's
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: black book or client list, and he frequently asserted that
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the FBI was deliberately withholding names to protect the powerful.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: They were! That's true, but so is Kash Patel. It's
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: all one big-ass club, folks, and none of us are invited.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Patel promised that the second Trump administration would release everything
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: to restore public trust, and they've made it worse. broken
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: promises on a boulevard of broken dreams. On the Dan
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Bongino show, Bongino's background as a Secret Service agent had
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: lent authority to his claims of a cover-up. What the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein? He'd ask his
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: large audience of MAGA devotees. The release of the client
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: list would rock the political world, he predicted, though Washington
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Swamp was not telling you the truth. Well, that's true too.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: They're not, and neither did Dan Bongino. just another useless
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: son of a bitch. Another person who promised that he
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: was going to do the right thing, going to expose people,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: bring transparency, didn't do any of it. In fact, tucked
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: his tail between his legs and dipped right back to
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the podcasting world. So as they took office in 2025,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Trump's advisors were subject to intense pressure of their own making.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly made things much worse. First
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: in a Fox News interview, On February 21st, she appeared
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: to confirm the existence of an Epstein client list, something
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: that the MAGA base had believed was sitting in the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: files hidden, and hinted that its release was imminent. Asked
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: whether the Justice Department might release the names, she responded,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. But
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: many viewed what came six days later as even more
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of an egregious misstep. The whole entire thing was poorly planned,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: poorly managed, and poorly carried out. And if we can't
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: prove a cover-up here, it's not because there's no evidence,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: it's because the willpower isn't there. On February 27th, the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: White House Communications Office scheduled a lineup of Cabinet officials
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: to brief popular right-wing influencers in the Roosevelt Room. The
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: session began with Vice President Vance, followed by Secretary of
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: State Marco Rubio, walking the influencers through the administration's agenda.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: In attendance was a who's who of online MAGA, Mike Cernovich,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Liz Wheeler, Colin Rugg, D.C. Drano. The President himself brought
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: them to the Oval Office. and gave them custom-designed challenge
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: coins as a token of his appreciation. Before everything went wrong,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: one of them would remark, It was the best day
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of my life. What a bunch of clowns those people are.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: All those people with the white binders? All part of
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the PSYOP. All part of the cover-up. Imagine sacrificing your
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: morality to have a few minutes at the White House?
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: When the Attorney General and her team walked into the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt Room carrying boxes, Bondi had brought binders as handouts
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: for the influencers. Her aides would later tell colleagues that
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the FBI had prepared them with the assurance that they
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: contained revelatory details. Someone on her staff said, watch this.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: This is cool. This is going to be epic. Yeah,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: an epic disaster. Epically ridiculous. But as Bondi's staff started
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: distributing the binders, the blood pressure of other officials in
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the room skyrocketed. They had no idea what was in
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the handouts. The Attorney General was distributing something she was
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: calling the Epstein Files that had not been vetted by
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: anyone in the White House. One official, opening the binder,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: began flipping through the pages to see if Trump's name
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: was mentioned anywhere. A few pages in, right in the
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: middle of the page, there it was. Boy, I bet
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: they were happy to find the other, what, 38,000 mentions?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Keira Starmer, the British Prime Minister, was at the White
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: House that day. If news broke that the Epstein files
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: had been released before the president was to meet the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: press with the prime minister, that would be all the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: journalists would want to talk about. And Trump would be blindsided. Oh,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: poor Trump. Gonna get blindsided. Gonna have to talk about
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: his buddy Jeffrey Epstein again. Well, guess what? It's not
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: going anywhere. Time to meet that shit head on. One
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of Trump's aides hastily steered the influencers out of the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: White House, telling them that the content of the binders
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: was embargoed until after the president's news conference with Starmer.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: But the communications office would be more than happy to
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: talk about the files afterward. As the influencers left, they
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: snapped selfies in front of the White House holding the binders,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: quickly posting the pictures on social media. They had now
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: created a new shockwave of anticipation of what might be
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: in them. And I remember when it happened. I knew
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: for a fact that we were getting dog walked. I
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: knew that we were going to get nothing. And guess what?
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: We got nothing. Nada. Zilch. Un gots. Like some others
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: in the White House, Bondi had either grossly underestimated or
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: simply been blind to the voracious appetite of the MAGA
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: base for information about Epstein. Her binders contained information about
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: him and his activities, flight logs, contact lists, summaries of
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: items taken from the residence after his 2019 arrest, and
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: other material. But nearly all of it had been previously released.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Bondi had somehow simultaneously oversold and trivialized the Epstein files.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And now the influencers made to feel like dupes. Well,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: they are. They're just a bunch of grifters. Do you
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: think any of those people care about Jeffrey Epstein? Or
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the survivors? Or any of the story? It's about engagement
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to them. Oh, they cared about it when they thought
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: they were going to use it politically. That's when they cared.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: You know, just like the other side cares now. Oh,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: we got a political inroad here. We all of a
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: sudden care. Well, I hate to break the news to you,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: but if you would have cared when it mattered the most,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: when this was all happening, maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: be here today. And it was people like Maggie Haberman,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: the author of this article, who was calling people like
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: me conspiracy theorists. Meanwhile, we've been over the target for
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: seven years. And all you had to do was listen.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Just listen to what the survivors were saying. Listen to Virginia.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Listen to what Maria had to say. Listen to all
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: these women who actually lived it. And then you go
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and you look at all the court documents. You look
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: at everything that came out. And the picture that it
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: paints is not very hard to recognize. In the Roosevelt room,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Bondi told the influencers that this was just the first
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: tranche of files. There would be more coming. She assured them.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: But that story would change too. Yeah, everything they told
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: us changed. The campaign, it was, oh, we're going to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: have everything out. Then, it was, oh no, there's nothing
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: coming out. And then, after the discharge petition, well, we're
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the most transparent administration in the history of transparency, so
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: we're going to get everything out for you. Nothing comes out,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: nothing of substance, and they fight tooth and nail the
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: whole entire time. If Donald Trump wanted to be transparent,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: he could be. Him and his Justice Department could have
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: been as transparent as they wanted to be. But instead,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: we had to jump through hoops, And it became a circus.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: And for what? So Trump could protect his donors? Protect
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: a few of Jeffrey Epstein's best friends? Or is there
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: something more sinister that he's trying to protect? The Justice
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Department officials were reviewing the Epstein material, but months would
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: pass before the department or any of Trump's closest advisors
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: knew just how many documents there were. More than 3
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: million pages of files related to Epstein, and potentially as
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: many as 6 million. In the early months, officials were
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: focused on going through the trove of what are known
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: as 302 forms, records of FBI agents, interview notes with witnesses,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: some of whom were victims of Epstein. These were raw records,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: often containing unverified information. Trump was mentioned numerous times, as
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: were other prominent men. Look, the 302 reports are telling.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: These are the words of the people who are interviewed,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: who the investigators think have knowledge of what's going on.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: So I would suggest that you take the 302 proffers seriously. Now,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: does that mean that people won't lie? Of course not.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: You have to be guarded. And I would suggest that
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: you're very cautious with what sort of slop you're putting
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: into your brain when it comes to this topic. There's
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of people out there just serving up a
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: bunch of nonsense. In June, four months after the circus
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: in the Roosevelt Room with the influencers Bondi and Blanche
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: briefed the president on the status of the Epstein review.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: We've gone through the files, Blanche told Trump. There's not
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: a lot there. A lot of child pornography, obviously. We
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: can't put any of that out. There are some mentions
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: of you, but nothing substantive. Most of Trump's advisors had
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: rejected out of hand the idea of releasing the FBI's
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: raw interview notes. More important, they wanted to avoid putting
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: out anything that could damage the president. Cover-up. Folks, that's
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: what this is. This is a cover-up. In motion. Everything's
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: being done to protect Donald Trump. It has nothing to
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: do with justice. It has nothing to do with real transparency.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: It's about protecting Donald Trump on Donald Trump's orders. If
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: that's not a cover-up, I don't know what is. With
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: full transparency and non-starter, a small group of White House
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: and Justice Department officials decided to draft a memo that
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: would explain why the department was not releasing any further
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: information about Epstein. But even the process of composing the
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: memo was fraught, in part because no one wanted their
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: name on it, and in part because of a deep
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: concern within the leadership of the FBI. You know what
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: we need here? A whistleblower. We need somebody that was
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: working on this behind the scenes to come out and
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: drip all that tea. You know that there were people
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: that weren't down with what was going on. You know
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: there were people that wanted to go a different way.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: But all of this was done at the behest of
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And it seems like every time we get
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: new information, it just reaffirms that. For weeks, Patel and Bongino,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the deputy FBI director, had grown more infuriated as they
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: realized the scale of the mess for which they were
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: now being blamed. They repeatedly raised alarms internally that the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Epstein crisis was gathering momentum with Trump supporters. Bongino wanted
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: to convey something definitive to the MAGA base, and he
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and Patel pushed for the immediate release of the surveillance
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: footage From the federal facility where Epstein was found dead
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: in his cell. That proved to be a disaster as well.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: What an absolute and utter disaster. Missing minute. Nothing adding up.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Couldn't see anything. And then of course there's the orange
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: blob that nobody's explained. Oh, it's Tova Noel. Well, no
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: it's not. She says it's not her. So who is it?
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Bongino hated the Justice Department's nothing-to-see-here memo being drawn up
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: for public release. He told Patel this would in no
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: way align with their promises of transparency after taking over
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the FBI, and he objected to putting the FBI seal
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: on the letterhead, but he was overruled. Patel privately shared
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: many of Bongino's concerns, but in an internal email on
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: July 2nd, the FBI director gave his support for the memo.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: But what's he going to do? Donald Trump wants the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: memo out. They're going to put it out. These people
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: aren't courageous. They're not willing to stand up to somebody
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: like Donald Trump if that means their career is going
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: to be over. Thanks for the edits. I still believe
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: that this is the correct vehicle forward, Patel wrote. with
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the occasional typo to a small group of colleagues, including Blanche.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to add any additional sentences to compete the shortfall,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: but I do think we address specifically why more can't
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: be released as it relates to specific topics, i.e. court order, CSAM,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: victims protections, etc. Bondi rarely used her Justice Department email
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and was not on the chain where the group worked
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: on the memo. She was aware of both the memo
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and the release of the prison video, but was not
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: involved in editing the document. So what was she doing?
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Just a figurehead? I think that Blanche has been the
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: boss this whole entire time. That's what I believe. And
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I think that he was put there by Donald Trump
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: for this exact reason. If shit goes south, Blanche takes
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Lorraine's and he guides the ship home. And that's exactly
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: what's happening right now as we speak. But Blanche needs
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: to understand that Trump's not going to be president forever.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: And at some point, this bill is going to come due.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Inside the White House, Trump had no interest in releasing anything.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: And senior officials, including Wiles and Blair, were initially unconvinced
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: about the reach of the Epstein crisis. They told colleagues
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: that Republican voters didn't care. And they had early data
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: from Trump's chief pollster, Tony Fabrizio, to demonstrate it. The
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Epstein brouhaha, in their view, was driven by fringe conspiracy
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: theorists and amplified by noisy online influencers who didn't represent
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: a meaningful block of voters. If the White House engaged,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: it would only pump it up, putting the official stamp
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: on the matter. Wiles, Blair, and others around Trump had
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: seen him weather every storm imaginable for years, and in
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: their view, this wasn't a storm, it was a passing
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: cloud at most. I wonder if he feels that way now.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Bongino told anyone who would listen that this was a
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: grave miscalculation. It's not an online story, he told White
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: House advisors. You don't understand. All right, folks, we're going
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: to wrap up right here. And in the next episode,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: we'll finish this bad boy off. All the information that
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: goes with this episode can be found in the description box.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: where we left off with the New York Times article
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: that was authored by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. On
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: July 7th, the Department of Justice and the FBI released
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: a memo. It was brief, an unsigned one and a
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: half page statement explaining that after an exhaustive search of
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: its database, hard drives and network drives, as well as
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: physical searches of squad areas, lock cabinets, desks, closets, and
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: other areas where responsive material may have been stored, and
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a corresponding review of more than 300 gigabytes of evidence,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the department concluded that there was no evidence Epstein had
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: maintained a client list. The memo also reaffirmed the official
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: finding that Epstein's death in 2019 had been a suicide.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: The memo was accompanied by the release of video footage
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: from the federal jail in Manhattan where Epstein died, footage
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: that officials said supported the conclusion of suicide. And with that,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the memo indicated that the Trump administration would not be
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: releasing further information regarding the Epstein case and no further
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: investigation of uncharged third parties was warranted. Imagine, after all
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: that hubbub, after all the carrying on, after telling us,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: this time's going to be different. To send out that
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: memo and just spit in everybody's face? Less than five
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: months after Bondi had referred to a secret client list
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: of high-profile predators, the case was closed. Or, so it seemed.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: If the administration expected that the memo would be the
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: last word on the Epstein case, and that the president's
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: most ardent supporters would accept the purported conclusions of the
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Department of Justice simply because the department and its investigative
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: agencies were now controlled by Donald Trump, they were sorely mistaken.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: The memo was an earthquake, and it was received by
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: a part of the MAGA base as an outright betrayal.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: It amounted to an abrupt disavowal of the sinister conspiracy
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: theories that some of Trump's closest confidants had hyped during
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: the Biden presidency, and that they had promised to expose
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: once Trump returned to power. The release of the surveillance video,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: which Bongino and Patel had intended as a gesture of transparency,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: further fueled the fire. The Department of Justice ended up
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: releasing roughly 11 hours of prison video, intended to show
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: that nothing nefarious occurred, but the footage was missing a minute.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: a visible timestamp jump from 11.58, 58 p.m. to midnight.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Bondi initially attributed this to a nightly system reset, and
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the footage was later restored and released. To many of
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Trump's followers, however, this was yet more evidence of a cover-up.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: White House officials complained privately that they hadn't been told
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: about the gap before the release. Social media lit up
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: with blame, not just for Bondi, but for Patel and Bongino, too.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: None of the three had ever experienced anger at this
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: volume from Trump's conservative base. It was disorienting, especially for
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Patel and Bongino, whose power and influence had been built online.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: And you know it was a shock for them. Having
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: everybody come after them like that? That must not have
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: been very much fun. But guess what? They should have
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: done the right thing. If you say you're going to
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: release something, release it. And if not, you better have
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: a good explanation as to why. And unfortunately for them,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: no explanation came. The movement that had treated them as
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: heroes was suddenly turning on them. The two men were
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: now tightly connected to a memo that stated in black
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: and white that while information in the government's possession showed
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: ample evidence of Epstein's own wrongdoing, there's no evidence of
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: a wider conspiracy. The day the memo was released, Bongino
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: showed up to a daily Justice Department meeting with the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: FBI staff, and the Attorney General. He was in a
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: volcanic mood. As soon as he entered the room, he
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: erupted at Bondi, shouting at her. You fucked this thing
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: up from the start, Bongino yelled. The way you've been
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: talking about this, that dumb fucking charade with the Epstein files,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the they're on my desk nonsense, all the promises to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: folks out there. Look, he's not wrong about that. And
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: when somebody's right, they're right. Not exactly what I would
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: call the biggest fan of Dan Bongino, but he's not
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: wrong here. and he had every reason to be fired up.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: This dude basically staked his career on this bullshit. Patel
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: and Bongino both subsequently told the White House official that
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Bondi needed to resign. Two days later, on July 9th,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the two men were summoned to a meeting with Wiles
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: and Bondi in the Situation Room. They were the last
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: to enter the small, wood-paneled room, seated around the table,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: where Bondi, Wiles, Blanche, and Taylor Budowich, one of Wiles' deputies.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: The moment Bongino sat down, Wiles told him that she
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: had been informed that he leaked a sensitive story about
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Epstein and Trump to ABC News. I'll tell you what,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Bongino replied. I'll give you $ 100, 000 cash right now. I'm
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: not kidding. Walk out to West Exec, put that reporter
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: on speaker, and get him to admit that I leaked it. $ 100, 000.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Wiles snapped back. Well, we got ourselves into this. Bongino
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: cut her off. No, no, no, no, no. We didn't
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: get ourselves into anything. I warned you guys about this
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: the whole time, and you ignored me. And exactly what
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I said was going to happen, happened. And now you're
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: pretending I was in on this. I was never in
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: on this. It's always nice to see the rats try
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and flee the sinking ship, huh? Bongino's aggressive response to
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Wiles startled the others. She was the White House chief
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: of staff, essentially a stand-in for the president. Wiles put
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Bongino on the spot. Going forward, she said, we're all in.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: We're all going to agree to move forward. Are you
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: in or not? No, I'm not, Bongino said. This is
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: not my plan. I'm not part of this going forward.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Forget it. I'm out of here. He stormed out of
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the Situation Room and onto West Executive Avenue, where he
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: climbed into the back of Patel's armored SUV and directed
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the driver to take him to FBI headquarters. Some of
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Bongino's close friends hoped that he would resign right then
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: and there. an act of protest that would have made
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: him a MAGA martyr and only increased his following. Look,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: I would have had a lot less to say if
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: he did that. At least he would have shown some
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: integrity and some backbone. But no, he stuck around and
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: ran cover. But the White House advisors intervened, urging him
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: to stay. If he quit over Epstein and went public,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: it could severely damage the president. Bongino told associates he
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: would remain for Trump's sake and keep pushing for more
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Epstein information to be released. but privately he seethed. In
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: conversations with confidants, he lamented what the job had cost him,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars, and podcast revenue, family time, his audience.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: He was getting torn apart over a strategy he had
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: opposed from the start. The relationships at the top of
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: the Justice Department were by now beyond dysfunctional. In another
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: July meeting in Wilde's office, Bongino and Patel told the
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Chief of Staff they suspected that Bondi had leaked negative
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: stories about them. Yo, this is a shitshow. No wonder
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: everything was so screwed up, folks. What an absolute clown show.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Bondi fucked this whole thing up, Bongino later told the confidant.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: echoing Loomer's derisive nickname for the Attorney General. She was
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: the one on TV saying, over and over, they had
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. There was never anything. We were always
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: clear about that. But now everyone thinks we did something wrong,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and I gave up everything. Bongino complained that he'd given
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: up his high-rated show and millions of dollars, and now
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: it's all disappeared. Because people think we screwed something up
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: with Epstein. You did. You're a coward and a chump,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: damn Bongino. A real man would have been a whistleblower.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: A real man would have stood up. Bongino paused. This
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: is going to be President Trump's Iran-Contra. While he's not
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: wrong about that, it sure is. On July 12th, the
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: President took to Truth Social to defend Bondi against criticism,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: to urge his boys and gals to stop wasting time
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: And that's hilarious, considering that Trump himself and the administration
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: couldn't shut up about Epstein for so long. Trump told
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: aides he was very unhappy with some of his most
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: influential supporters, including Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: all of whom were publicly urging the administration to come clean.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Kirk had held the Turning Point USA event the previous day.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: That turned into an Epstein grievance fest, with one speaker
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: after another bashing Bondi, over the handling of the situation.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Trump had called Kirk and scolded him. Trump is so
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: thin-skinned that he's willing to go after his most ardent supporters,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: even if they just step out of line once. If
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: they don't agree with everything, then you're a traitor. I
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: just can't get down with the whole absolutism. Sometimes I'll agree,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: sometimes I won't. And if that's a problem, well, I
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: don't give a shit. It's not my problem. It's yours.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody in Trump's orbit had a better feel for the
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: younger part of the MAGA base than Kirk, who saw
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: that the Epstein cover-up, as it was now viewed, was
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: capturing attention to an alarming extent. Donald Trump Jr. and J.D. Vance,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: both of whom spent considerable time on X, were tapped
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: into the same younger and hyper-online portion of the base,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: were also worried. They urged the White House to change
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: course and force the Justice Department to to release more
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: of the files. So basically, we had a MAGA civil war.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: And like usual, the Trump faction won. Vance made it
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: clear to colleagues that he feared losing some of the
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: so-called low-propensity voters, the young men, who are not traditional Republicans,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: but who had voted for the Trump-Vance ticket in 2024. Bingo.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Almost to a person. Those people are out. They're not
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: voting for Trump. They're not going to vote for this bullshit.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: So either they're sitting out the midterms, or they're going
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: to vote against Trump's candidates, and I've heard that from
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: numerous people. This was the audience that tuned in to
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: the Manosphere podcasters like Joe Rogan, and it was worrisome
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: that the podcast hosts themselves were now rebelling. But there
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: was one major obstacle in the path of a solution.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: The president himself still had no interest in transparency. He
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: wanted the whole Epstein issue buried, and he was snapping
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: at anyone who mentioned it. His staff largely avoided the
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: subject in their conversations with him, forced to worry among themselves. Finally,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: on July 16th, in an exasperated Truth Social post, seemingly
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: desperate to make the case in a language that might
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: resonate with his base, Trump somewhat nonsensically called the Epstein
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: case a hoax by Democrats and then proceeded to heap
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: abuse on members of his party and his base, disavowing
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: their support, calling them past supporters and weaklings who had
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: bought into this bullshit hook, line, and sinker. And look,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: the line was drawn. At that point, the line was drawn.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: And anybody that's still trying to place Trump as some
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: kind of hero here is crazy. Donald Trump is the
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: one single biggest impediment to transparency right now. And that's
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: just the truth. Whether you want to believe it or not,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: I don't care. But if this man wanted this stuff
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: to be out there, it would be out there. As
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: the president was trying to redirect everyone away from the
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Epstein on social media, members of both parties began to
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: push the other way. Many Democrats embraced the growing Epstein
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: scandal as a top focus in their messaging and as
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: a weapon against Trump. That's a big problem too. All
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: these same Democrats, or a lot of them, they were
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: nowhere to be found in 2020, 2019. But all of
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: a sudden, they feel like they can use it politically,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: so now they care? So look, I'm not under any
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: impression that they're some kind of great crusaders. They're just
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: a vehicle that we're using to get to where we
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: want to go. Same thing with Massey, right? They were
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: joined by a few renegade Republicans, which added to the
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: political pressure on the president's team. Representative Thomas Massey, a Republican,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: and Ro Khanna, a Democrat, filed H.R. 4405, the Epstein
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Files Transparency Act, in the House. And although they did
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: not yet have the votes for the bill, it would
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: become the next battleground as the president dug in against
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: releasing information. Which is hilarious, considering they're the most transparent
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: administration of all time. You would think that it would
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: have to be a battle. That Trump would be the
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: one saying, you know what? It's time for full transparency.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: They were joined by a few renegade Republicans, which added
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: to the political pressure on the president's team. Representative Thomas Massey,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: a Republican, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat, filed H.R. 4405,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: the Epstein File Transparency Act, in the House, and although
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: they did not yet have the votes for the bill,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: it would become the next battleground as the President dug
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: in against releasing information. Word reached the White House in
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: late July, meanwhile, that a subpoena would soon be coming
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: from the House Oversight Committee led by James Comer, a
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Republican from Kentucky. It had been pushed by committee Democrats,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: with the help of some Republicans, and it compelled the
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: release of files the Justice Department had on Epstein. On
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: the day that the Trump team learned about the looming subpoena,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: another Epstein crisis meeting was convened in the Situation Room
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: to discuss the pressure coming from Congress. It included most
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: of the same people, Lyles and Vance, Blanche, Warrington, Patel, Bondi, Blair, Chung, Budowich,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and Levitt. Blair told the group that they would try
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: to make sure that they were cooperating fully with the
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: White House subpoena. but that the priority was to release
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: information that demonstrated Trump was not involved in Epstein's crimes.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: That's the priority, huh? Disgusting. Folks, look, this is a
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: damning article, and if it's true, there is no doubt
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: that there is a cover-up. Blanche gave an assessment of
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: the Epstein material that he personally reviewed or had been
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: briefed on, including a volume of Child Pornography. The conversation
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: turned to how these files should be released to the public.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: The idea already in the works was to put all
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Epstein-related material on a website. That way they could overwhelm
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the magosphere with far greater volume of real information in
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: the form of a huge database. That's called flooding the zone.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: And it's what they do when they're trying to confuse people.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Put out a bunch of shit and hope some of
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: it sticks. The website had been easy to build, and
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: they were looking at potentially going live within a week.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: They had already accumulated a mountain of material that Blanche
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: had been scrolling through, and it included piles of documents
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: from both civil and criminal cases. They planned to release
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: it all. Blanche could then appear on Rogan's podcast to
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: promote the transparency from the White House. But as it
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: turned out, this searchable website would not go live on
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: their initial timetable, and the version of the site they
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: originally conceived would never be released to the public. The
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: whole last thing has been nothing but a scam from
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the very beginning. They never had any desire to tell
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: the truth. Never. By late summer, it was plainly apparent
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: to the president's top aides that the Epstein saga was
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: not the same as the countless other crises they had
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: weathered during their service to Trump. To their great surprise,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: and growing disquiet, Trump's old tricks of deflection and denial
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: weren't working. In late July, the Trump team had discussed
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: in their crisis meetings it was Blanche who interviewed Maxwell.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Over two days, she told him she had witnessed no
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: troubling behavior by Trump and didn't recall him sending the
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: birthday card drawn in the shape of a nude woman.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Soon after, she was quietly moved to a minimum security
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: federal prison in Texas, a transfer left unexplained at first,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: which only deepened the public outrage. Blanche said nearly five
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: months later that Maxwell had faced numerous threats against her life. Lies.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: All lies. So anybody who gets threatened gets moved? That's
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: news to me, and I'm sure that's news to everybody
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: that's locked up. As the calls for transparency grew louder,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: the top ranks of the Trump administration spent even more
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: time in the bunker. By now, the Situation Room itself
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: had become inseparable from the crisis. A guarded space where
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Trump's inner circle... work to steer the president around a
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: scandal that would soon taint or consume careers at the
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: highest level of business, science, and politics. Yeah, only about
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: 10 years too late. But I guess welcome to the party.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: On August 13th, Trump's team met again in the secure
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: complex at 6pm for two hours to refine the Epstein
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: defense strategy. Again, the group included Wiles, Bondi, Blanche, Patel, Blair, Budowich, Chung,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: and Levitt. Vance phoned in from Britain. The vice president
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: once again pushed to release as much of the Epstein
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: files as possible, and with an eye on the public messaging,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: he proposed that he should be the one to appear
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: on Rogan's influential podcast. Vance had just gotten off the
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: phone with Rogan, and he later told the others that
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Rogan said he wouldn't have Blanche on his show, but
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: he'd take Vance. Vance argued that if he were the
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: one to appear on Rogan's show, then only a part
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: of the conversation would be about Epstein. The rest of
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: the interview, he told the group, could be about the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: president's recently passed legislation and what it would do for
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: working families. But the larger conversation before them was how
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: to handle the crisis and the public relations risk for
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: the administration. The challenge would be any embarrassing or damaging
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: allegations about the president, even if they were unsubstantiated, If
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: everything was publicly available on the website they had planned,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: it could include all kinds of potentially humiliating material. Well,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: here's an idea. Don't hang out with Jeffrey Epstein, and
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: there won't be humiliating material. Thanks for coming to my
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: TED Talk. Suddenly, one of the officials in the Situation
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Room raised the subject of a disturbing but uncorroborated accusation
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: against Trump that had come to light in unsealed filings.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: from a 2015 defamation case brought by Virginia Roberts against Maxwell,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: which had been settled two years later. The secondhand accusation
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: alleging a specific type of sexual abuse was a perfect
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: example of something that would show up on the public
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: website and put the spotlight on Trump, whether it was
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: true or not. Roberts, who had met Epstein when she
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: was a teenage spa attendant at Trump's club Mar-a-Lago in
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Palm Beach, became one of the sex offender's most outspoken victims.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Roberts stated in late 2016 that to her knowledge, Trump
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: had done nothing improper. She died by suicide, allegedly, in
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: April of 2025, three months after Trump returned to power.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: The old Roberts case file included emails sent to a
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: journalist by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransom, who later sued
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Epstein and Maxwell. Epstein had also settled that case. In
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: the emails, Ransom claimed that she knew a girl in
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Epstein's sex trafficking ring named Jen, who said she had
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: sex with Trump. Ransom also claimed that Jen had told
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: her that Trump had a predilection for nipples and that
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: he had aggressively flicked and sucked hers. Ransom wrote that
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: she had seen evidence when she shared a bathroom with Jen.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: They looked incredibly painful and they were red and swollen
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: and I remember wincing when looking at them. Ransom's credibility
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: was not uncomplicated. She had made another claim that she
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: possessed video footage of prominent men having sex with young
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: girls in Epstein's entourage. She later retracted the claims, saying
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: she feared for herself and her family if she proceeded.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: But after a federal judge ordered the unsealing of some
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: of Roberts' case files in 2023, the document that connected
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Trump to the claim about abused nipples was among the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: material that came out. It was an unconfirmed allegation and
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: had not been made publicly, but the disclosure led to
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: some articles that were quickly lost in the swirl of
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: election-year news. Some of Trump's advisors in the Situation Room
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: had never heard of the nipple claim. Those who had,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: and the ones who had, were only passingly familiar with it.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Many in the room thought this was just discredited nonsense,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: but it might not matter. The ransom emails could get
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: new attention if they were included in a public-facing and
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: searchable Epstein library that carried the branding of the Justice Department.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: An administration official had already searched for Trump-related material on
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: the still private test version of the website, and the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: nipple material was among the first items to show up.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: None of the credibility issues would come into consideration if
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: a government-endorsed database gave Ransom's claims about Trump a stamp
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: of validity. This is out there. One of the officials
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: told the group in the Situation Room, they're going to
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: make a huge scene of this, even though it's not
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: true and everybody knows it. Blanche argued that in context,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: the Ransom document and Ransom's disavowal of some of her
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: other claims would make clear why the allegations related to
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Trump had never been pursued for prosecution. Besides, these allegations
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: were already available online because the what had been unsealed,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: so there was no reason to leave them off the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: Justice Department's website. The Vice President said that he thought
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: the President would be okay with releasing the Nipple-related documents,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: arguing that Trump had been accused of worse. I think
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: we should put it out, he said. It would cause
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: people to say we're going further than we need to.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: Wiles quickly responded that the president would not, in fact,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: be okay with it. It was a point no one
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: wanted to continue debating. One official would later describe it
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: as surreal experience to be discussing nipples in the White
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: House Situation Room. Yeah, I would say so. Talk about embarrassing.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: As if we have nothing else going on in the world,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: in the country. But these people are busy with their cover-up.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: This was, in miniature, the entire problem the White House
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: had with the Epstein files. Pyle's accusations were impossible to
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: disprove and equally impossible to make go away. Every door
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: they opened led to another room, and in every room
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: there were more claims from more women. For a few weeks,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: they thought that they had found a way out. The
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: subpoena from Comer's committee had specifically requested Justice Department documents,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: communications with the White House, and material from the Epstein files.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: and Maxwell criminal case, not material from civil litigation such
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: as the ransom emails. They could comply with the letter
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: of subpoena, post the Justice Department material to a stripped-down
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: version of the plan website, and leave the rest aside.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Civil cases were separate matters outside of the remit of
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: the Justice Department, and the subpoena allowed for another escape hatch.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: The Justice Department could withhold certain documents as long as
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: it explained to the House lawmakers what they were and
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: why they were held back. But that strategy collapsed quickly.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: More Republican lawmakers would press for additional disclosures, including former
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Trump allies like Greene and Lauren Boebert. And the Trump
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: administration was slow to comply with even the initial limited
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: set of documents required by the House subpoena. All by design.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: Trying to gum it up. The slower it goes, the
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: better off for them. By mid-November, the partisan coalition the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Trump team had worried about since the summer... finally had
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: the votes to force the administration's hand. The Epstein File
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: Transparency Act passed the House and Senate in quick succession,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: and on November 19th, Trump, yielding to the inevitable, signed
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: it into law. The new law went further than the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: House subpoena. It sought a broader tranche of files and
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: contained a warning to the administration that no record shall
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: reputational harm, or political sensitivity or including to any government official,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: public figure, or foreign dignitary. It sought everything that Trump
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: had spent the better part of a year trying to suppress.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: The legislators who passed the bill had no idea how
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: many files they had mandated to be released within a month.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: The pages would end up numbering in the millions. And
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: the president and his family and places like Mar-a-Lago estate
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: would be referred to more than 38,000 times, according to
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: a New York Times analysis. The Trump Justice Department said
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: that there was no client list, but the entire episode
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: was another flashing light in an era where belief in
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the American system of justice had corroded to the point
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: of collapse. Well, this isn't just a making of the
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Trump administration. All the administrations leading up to it, too.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: They bear some of the burden. They should have stepped up.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: They should have stopped Epstein. They should have been the
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: ones to release all this. But nobody has. And that's
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: the biggest problem. Both sides are in on it. and
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: that's why everybody has to be held accountable. Raw witness
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: accounts and evidence from incomplete criminal investigations were never meant
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: to be seen by the public. There were long-standing systems
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: in place to protect both the accused and the accuser.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: The files amounted to a public dump of any Justice
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Department document that mentioned Epstein's name, no matter whether the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: information was confirmed as accurate or not. The release pages
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: did not name Many powerful men, among them was Epstein's
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: former close friend, now the President of the United States.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: In a January 2020 email, a federal prosecutor told a
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: colleague that Trump had flown on Epstein's private jet far
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: more than anyone knew. Flight records in the files showed
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: at least eight trips between 93 and 96, sometimes with
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: his second wife, Marla Maples, sometimes with his children. That's nice, huh?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Bring your kids on Jeffrey Epstein's plane, come one, come all.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: In January 2024, Trump declared that he would never have
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: been on the plane. Just another lie. Everything this man
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: says about Epstein is a lie, so why would that
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: be any different? What else remained undisclosed? The question would
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: only sharpen his people, comb through what was redacted or missing.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: The Justice Department, after more than 3.5 million documents were
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: made public, said no otherwise. others needed to be released. Trump, characteristically,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: was creating his own reality. He had long claimed that
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: everyone else was corrupt, especially his critics. These files, he
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: would say, despite the avalanche of references to himself, were
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: the proof. There are a lot of questions about it,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: he told reporters. Trump had declared Epstein a dead issue
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: during the summer, but as he began the second year
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: of his presidency, his own team could see the voter
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: concerns about Epstein were still breaking through at an alarming extent.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: In an eternal memo circulated to roughly a dozen Trump
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: advisors in late March of 2026, The president's pollster, Fabrizio,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: summarized findings from two nights of focus groups conducted that month.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Fabrizio's memo listed the Epstein files as the six most
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: important issue raised in the focus groups behind inflation, the economy,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: foreign policy, immigration, and healthcare. But ahead of data centers,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: military issues, crime and safety, and being pro-working class. In
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: the section on key takeaways of the focus group, Fabrizio's
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: memo stated that There is a consistent mention of the
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: Epstein files, which come up in every group and is
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: a real negative with some of these voters. Yeah, I'd
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: say so. The way it's been handled is completely unacceptable.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: And anybody who's not in the cup for Donald Trump
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: knows there's a cover-up going on. And it's infuriating to
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: the regular person. They see it. They know it's happening.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: But there's nothing they can do about it. The Epstein
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: crisis had exposed something that some of Trump's closest advisors
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: spent months refusing to see. The president could break institutions,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: redirect the federal government against his enemies, and bring the
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: world's richest men into the Oval Office bearing tribute. But
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: he could not, it turned out, make Jeffrey Epstein disappear.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: And look, that's because of you. Not me, not any
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: of the people talking about it behind a microphone, but
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: because all of you, you deciding you're not going to
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: move on, you deciding you want accountability, and you deciding
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: that the administration is talking a bunch of bullshit. And
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: no matter what they do, no matter how hard they
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: try to sweep this under the rug and make it
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: all go away, it's not going to happen. I think
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: that we've come too far at this point, and there's
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: nothing that the Trump administration or anyone can do To
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: get people not interested in what's going on. And I
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: think the more they dig in and the more they
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: try and hide things and the more they're being secretive
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: and all it does is confirm what all of us
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: already think. That Donald Trump and the White House is
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: engaging in an ongoing cover up. And if they think
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: we're going to move on, they got a whole ass
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: other thing coming. All right, folks, that's going to do
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: it for this one. All the information that goes with
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: this episode can be found in the description box.