Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Before the Island: The Real Origin of the Governments Jeffrey Epstein Failure (Part 2)

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Before the Island: The Real Origin of the Governments Jeffrey Epstein Failure (Part 2) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

0:04
Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
0:07
Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're picking up where we
0:11
Speaker 1: left off in the last episode, talking about the corrupt
0:15
Speaker 1: nature of the Epstein investigation from the very beginning. This
0:20
Speaker 1: article was published by NBC News and once again the
0:24
Speaker 1: authors are Sarah Fitzpatrick and Rich Shapiro. Epstein, who had
0:29
Speaker 1: a massive bankroll and extensive connections, had assembled the high
0:33
Speaker 1: powered team of lawyers including Kenneth Starr, Alan Dershowitz, Jack Goldberger,
0:37
Speaker 1: and Jay Lefkowitz. Around the time, writer said, the investigation
0:42
Speaker 1: took another strange turn. Epstein's defense team seemed to know
0:46
Speaker 1: details about the probe before they were made public. Oh
0:49
Speaker 1: I wonder how that happened. I'm sure it had nothing
0:51
Speaker 1: to do with people on the high giving Jeffrey Epstein's
0:55
Speaker 1: lawyers information. Right, that would never happen. That would be
0:58
Speaker 1: way out of bounds. So why was Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers
1:02
Speaker 1: having meetings with high ranking officials from the DOJ? Everybody
1:06
Speaker 1: wants to talk about Alex Acosta, But bro, you really
1:09
Speaker 1: think Acosta made this decision? You think Acosta was the guy?
1:13
Speaker 1: Zero chance he was given marching orders and he marched
1:17
Speaker 1: to the tune that the DOJ was playing, because I
1:20
Speaker 1: assure you that any deal that's getting cut, any kind
1:23
Speaker 1: of serious situation that's involving somebody like Epstein, who has
1:28
Speaker 1: donated so much money, who is so connected politically, that's
1:32
Speaker 1: not a decision that some mid level prosecutor in Florida
1:35
Speaker 1: is going to make. Now, he can have recommendations, and
1:38
Speaker 1: he can go to his bosses and say, look, this
1:40
Speaker 1: is what I want to do, but the bosses ultimately
1:43
Speaker 1: have to sign off on it. So if you're out
1:45
Speaker 1: here blaming alex Acosta, congratulations, you fell for it. And
1:49
Speaker 1: whoever Epstein's handlers are, they thank you for it. We
1:55
Speaker 1: believe that the content of our probable cause affid David eventually,
1:58
Speaker 1: sometime after we presented it to the State Attorney's office,
2:02
Speaker 1: ended up with the defense attorneys. Writer said, because minute
2:06
Speaker 1: details that nobody else knew that were in those documents
2:09
Speaker 1: were being refuted and contrary information provided by the defense.
2:13
Speaker 1: The whole last thing was tilted from the beginning. And remember,
2:17
Speaker 1: they were doing all of this to protect a guy
2:18
Speaker 1: that was accused of molesting little girls. And when we're
2:23
Speaker 1: talking about palm beach. That's what we're talking about. Don't
2:26
Speaker 1: get it conflated. We're not talking about nineteen twenty year
2:29
Speaker 1: old girls. We're not talking about eighteen year old girls.
2:33
Speaker 1: We're talking about girls in high school fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, maybe.
2:39
Speaker 1: But when Epstein was up to this bullshit with the
2:41
Speaker 1: high schools, he liked them young, and when the girls
2:43
Speaker 1: would age out, what he would do is have them
2:46
Speaker 1: go and recruit girls for them, and the girls themselves,
2:50
Speaker 1: they didn't know any better. Sixteen seventeen years old, some
2:54
Speaker 1: guy says, bring some friends over to give me a massage.
2:58
Speaker 1: And to these girls that sounded like a great idea. Oh,
3:00
Speaker 1: I can go make a couple hundred bucks and give
3:02
Speaker 1: this guy a massage. Until they got there and he
3:05
Speaker 1: started molesting them. But the whole entire network, the infrastructure
3:09
Speaker 1: was built to make that seem normal, so that when
3:12
Speaker 1: the girls will come over and get a massage and
3:15
Speaker 1: then Epstein would do his bullshit, they talk to their
3:17
Speaker 1: friends and their friends would be like, oh, he does
3:19
Speaker 1: that to me too. So in the girl's mind, remember
3:22
Speaker 1: we're talking about kids here, in her mind, it's like, well,
3:24
Speaker 1: if all my friends are doing it, then it must
3:26
Speaker 1: be okay. But as we all know, nothing about this
3:30
Speaker 1: was okay. And the fact that this dirtbag was getting
3:33
Speaker 1: inside information is just unbelievable to me. And the fact
3:37
Speaker 1: that more people don't talk about it is wild. I mean,
3:42
Speaker 1: if you want to get down to it, you got
3:43
Speaker 1: to start at the beginning, right the origin story. And
3:46
Speaker 1: the origin story when we're talking about Jeffrey Epstein's bullshit,
3:49
Speaker 1: most certainly begins in Palm Beach. And this guy was
3:54
Speaker 1: abusing high school girls. Remember we're not talking about oh,
3:57
Speaker 1: this girl looked nineteen. Stein knew that these girls were underage,
4:02
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what he wanted. But yet somebody in
4:05
Speaker 1: the federal government decided they wanted to protect them. Ask yourself,
4:09
Speaker 1: why why, Jeffrey Epstein? Why pull out all the stops
4:13
Speaker 1: for a man who is accused of crimes against children?
4:16
Speaker 1: It makes zero sense. This is the kind of guy
4:19
Speaker 1: that you usually try to put underneath the prison, unless,
4:22
Speaker 1: of course, he has friends and money. This writer said,
4:27
Speaker 1: never happened to me before in my career. I don't
4:30
Speaker 1: doubt it. How many times are you dealing with somebody
4:33
Speaker 1: like Jeffrey Epstein? Imagine dealing with somebody like this as
4:37
Speaker 1: the chief, and all this stuff starts happening, and you're
4:41
Speaker 1: saying to yourself, look, I'm just trying to engage an
4:44
Speaker 1: investigation here and bring down a child molester. Meanwhile, I
4:47
Speaker 1: got the federal government, state prosecutors, everyone breaking my chops
4:51
Speaker 1: and folks. Unfortunately, this is just a tip of the iceberg.
4:55
Speaker 1: When you start digging into Epstein and what he was
4:57
Speaker 1: up to, it runs deep as fuck. And that's why
5:00
Speaker 1: I find it offensive when you have the President of
5:03
Speaker 1: the United States out here talking about move on. We
5:06
Speaker 1: haven't even figured out the basics yet when it comes
5:09
Speaker 1: to who was involved as far as behind the scenes.
5:13
Speaker 1: One thing we do know though, is there are people involved.
5:17
Speaker 1: Stuff like this doesn't just happen. This wasn't a mistake.
5:20
Speaker 1: Somebody didn't just wake up one morning and say, you
5:22
Speaker 1: know what, let's protect Jeffrey Epstein. There was motivation there.
5:27
Speaker 1: Question is what was that motivation and who was providing
5:31
Speaker 1: that motivation. Writer was so frustrated that he took the
5:35
Speaker 1: unusual step of asking the state Attorney Barry Krisher, to
5:39
Speaker 1: remove himself from the case, citing the office highly unusual
5:42
Speaker 1: treatment of the investigation. The man investigating the case, asked
5:47
Speaker 1: for the state attorney to be removed because he felt
5:50
Speaker 1: like there was impropriety. He felt like somebody in the
5:53
Speaker 1: state attorney's office or federal government was feeding Jeffrey Epstein information.
5:58
Speaker 1: And when that didn't work, the police chief turned his
6:01
Speaker 1: evidence over to the FBI, and they said, this is
6:04
Speaker 1: an easy case. This is a horrific situation. We'll put
6:09
Speaker 1: him away for the rest of his life. Writer recalled,
6:11
Speaker 1: and that's what the US attorney assistant US attorney told
6:15
Speaker 1: us as well. So it was an easy case until
6:18
Speaker 1: it wasn't. Huh. It was an easy case until Mukasey
6:22
Speaker 1: and Philippe called you and said, look, that's the end
6:24
Speaker 1: of that. Kill this shit. Kick this back down to
6:27
Speaker 1: the state level. Get us out of it, because we
6:30
Speaker 1: don't want to rock the boat. The last thing we
6:32
Speaker 1: want is some unnamed spoot kicking in our door and
6:36
Speaker 1: telling us that they better back off of Jeffrey Epstein.
6:39
Speaker 1: I mean, what other excuse can there be? The Fact
6:43
Speaker 1: that Jeffrey Epstein was being handled by the very very
6:46
Speaker 1: top brass at the DOJ should tell you everything you
6:49
Speaker 1: need to know. But writers renewed enthusiasm didn't last long.
6:53
Speaker 1: In time, it became clear that the federal probe was
6:56
Speaker 1: also stalling. Though he believes the FBI agents were invested
7:00
Speaker 1: did in the case. I believe that this was a
7:03
Speaker 1: decision made by brass, point blank, period, nobody else. Writer
7:09
Speaker 1: arranged to meet face to face with the prosecutor in
7:12
Speaker 1: charge of the case, US Attorney Alex Acosta. Acosta would
7:15
Speaker 1: go on to be named US Labor Secretary under President
7:19
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. The conversation writer said did not get off
7:23
Speaker 1: to a promising start. He basically said, in a very
7:26
Speaker 1: measured manner that the defense in the case has successfully
7:29
Speaker 1: delayed and frustrated their investigation and their prosecution of the case.
7:33
Speaker 1: Writers said, imagine saying that this is a federal government
7:38
Speaker 1: we're talking about, not some podunk backwater district, the federal
7:42
Speaker 1: government that has unlimited resources, unlimited money onlimited prosecutors. But
7:48
Speaker 1: they could do nothing here. They were being frustrated by
7:50
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein, huh? Or would they being frustrated by their
7:53
Speaker 1: own bosses. That's what it comes down to, and in
7:56
Speaker 1: my opinion, that's what was going on. Mukasey and Philip
8:00
Speaker 1: they're the ones who slowed this all down, and they're
8:03
Speaker 1: the ones who eventually made it go away. When you're
8:06
Speaker 1: the boss, the buck stops with you. I don't want
8:08
Speaker 1: to hear shit about middle management. I don't want to
8:10
Speaker 1: hear anything about the supervisor on duty. You're the boss.
8:14
Speaker 1: And that's why I always talk about Acosta being the
8:16
Speaker 1: fall guy. He don't make those decisions, but the fact
8:20
Speaker 1: that he went down for them is another tell that
8:22
Speaker 1: this was a big cover up. But Writer left Acosta's
8:25
Speaker 1: office hoping for the best after the prosecutors told them
8:29
Speaker 1: they were moving forward with the investigation. I left that
8:33
Speaker 1: meeting thinking, this guy hopefully is going to do his job.
8:36
Speaker 1: Writer said. It didn't turn out the way Writer had hoped.
8:40
Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, Acosta made the decision not
8:42
Speaker 1: to charge Epstein in federal court. Instead, he sent the
8:46
Speaker 1: case back to the local prosecutors. How could you even
8:49
Speaker 1: write that with a straight face? How could you say
8:51
Speaker 1: that with a straight face. Anybody who knows anything about
8:54
Speaker 1: anything knows that that's not the truth. That a guy
8:57
Speaker 1: like Acosta isn't the one making that deal. It has
9:00
Speaker 1: to get signed off on. We're talking about a bureaucracy here.
9:04
Speaker 1: We're not talking about a guy with no notoriety. We're
9:07
Speaker 1: not talking about somebody who's not connected. We're talking about
9:11
Speaker 1: a guy that obviously had very very deep connections to
9:15
Speaker 1: very very powerful people. So acting like Alex Acosta is
9:19
Speaker 1: going to be the one to make that call has
9:21
Speaker 1: always been ridiculous. Writer was crushed. The same office that
9:25
Speaker 1: had seemingly refused to pursue Epstein aggressively was now back
9:28
Speaker 1: in charge. Acosta agreed to sign a non prosecution deal
9:33
Speaker 1: that ended the federal sex crimes investigation and spared Epstein
9:36
Speaker 1: the prospect of serving several years in prison. Instead, Epstein
9:40
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to stay charges of soliciting a minor for
9:44
Speaker 1: prostitution and served thirteen months at Palm Beach County jail.
9:48
Speaker 1: Epstein was also required to register as a sex offender
9:52
Speaker 1: and pay his restitution to his victims. So that made
9:55
Speaker 1: it all better. Everything was all fine and well now, right, No,
10:00
Speaker 1: the fact that they didn't go after Epstein here with
10:03
Speaker 1: federal charges allowed Epstein to continue to operate all the
10:06
Speaker 1: way up until he was arrested. So all those girls
10:10
Speaker 1: who were molested and abused after he was arrested the
10:13
Speaker 1: first time in Florida, that's directly on the hands of
10:17
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice and the federal government. No wonder
10:21
Speaker 1: they want this all to go away. I've never seen
10:26
Speaker 1: anything like it, Writer said. It was extremely unusual and disappointing.
10:30
Speaker 1: Writers said he believes a result would have been different
10:33
Speaker 1: had the victims been underage boys. That would have shocked
10:37
Speaker 1: the senses more. Writers said, somehow this hit a different
10:40
Speaker 1: place and that they were young women on the way
10:43
Speaker 1: to being women. Man, that's horrible to even think about.
10:47
Speaker 1: How could you even think like that? Like I don't
10:50
Speaker 1: even have a daughter, and the thought of a child,
10:53
Speaker 1: a young high school girl, being lured into the clutches
10:56
Speaker 1: of Jeffrey Epstein is just almost too much to stomach.
11:00
Speaker 1: So I don't know how anybody with a daughter out
11:02
Speaker 1: here could give Jeffrey Epstein any kind of deal. But unfortunately,
11:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who are sick in the
11:09
Speaker 1: fucking head, and some of those people are the ones
11:12
Speaker 1: who can make decisions about mine and your freedom. And
11:16
Speaker 1: if that's not terrifying, I don't know what is. Epstein
11:22
Speaker 1: was released from jail in the summer of two thousand
11:24
Speaker 1: and nine. The case seen behind him until twenty eighteen,
11:27
Speaker 1: when the Miami Herald published an expose highlighting the government's
11:31
Speaker 1: kid glove treatment of a man accused of praying on
11:34
Speaker 1: dozens of underage girls. Acosta defended the way his office
11:38
Speaker 1: handled what he described as a complicated case. We believe
11:41
Speaker 1: we proceeded appropriately, Acosta said during a July twenty nineteen
11:46
Speaker 1: press conference. We did what we did because we wanted
11:49
Speaker 1: to see Epstein go to jail. You had all the
11:52
Speaker 1: evidence to send him to federal prison. Stop the bullshit.
11:56
Speaker 1: All of the evidence was there. You didn't have the backbone,
11:59
Speaker 1: Alex Acosta to stand up to your superiors. That's the
12:02
Speaker 1: real story here, not that Alex's Acosta gave out a deal.
12:06
Speaker 1: He didn't give out shit. Bro has no backbone, though,
12:09
Speaker 1: and that's why he should be ridiculed. Imagine your boss
12:13
Speaker 1: is coming to you and telling you that it's time
12:15
Speaker 1: to let this go, that you're just going to kick
12:17
Speaker 1: this back down to the state. I would lose my job.
12:20
Speaker 1: I would go absolutely bonkers. I go to the OIG,
12:24
Speaker 1: I go to the president, everybody. There is zero way
12:27
Speaker 1: that I'd be okay with this, and any prosecutor that
12:30
Speaker 1: is okay with it is a spineless ass pump and
12:33
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that Acosta is certainly guilty of that.
12:36
Speaker 1: But Acosta resigned as Labor Secretary two days later amid
12:40
Speaker 1: mounting criticism. Krisher, the former state attorney, didn't return a
12:44
Speaker 1: request for a comment from NBC News, but he released
12:48
Speaker 1: a statement in July defending his office and pushing back
12:51
Speaker 1: against acosta suggestion that the state prosecutors were driving the case.
12:55
Speaker 1: If mister Acosta was truly concerned with the state's case
12:58
Speaker 1: and felt he had to rest the matter, he would
13:01
Speaker 1: have moved forward with the fifty three page indictment that
13:03
Speaker 1: his own office drafted, Krisher said, And look, it's always
13:07
Speaker 1: been a game of hot potato, all these agencies passing
13:11
Speaker 1: the buck when they all played their part. But I
13:13
Speaker 1: think the most egregious issue here is the federal government
13:17
Speaker 1: kicking this back down to the state. They had everything
13:19
Speaker 1: they needed, but instead they pumped out. Epstein was arrested
13:23
Speaker 1: on fresh charges in July. New York federal prosecutors charged
13:27
Speaker 1: them with sex trafficking and conspiracy in a case that
13:30
Speaker 1: featured similar allegations to those a decade earlier. Epstein pleaded
13:35
Speaker 1: not guilty, but he committed suicide allegedly inside his federal
13:39
Speaker 1: jail cell last month. The death left Righter thinking about
13:42
Speaker 1: the victims and their lost chance to see them held accountable.
13:46
Speaker 1: I feel badly for the victims, Writer said. I realize
13:49
Speaker 1: that there's catharsis in confronting Epstein, and they'll never have
13:53
Speaker 1: that opportunity. But he hopes that the entirety of the
13:57
Speaker 1: case will lead to systemic change. Yeah, how's that working out?
14:01
Speaker 1: Six years later, how's it working out? Oh, that's right,
14:05
Speaker 1: we're just moving on. So what has changed. Nothing? That's
14:09
Speaker 1: what's changed, absolutely nothing. The criminal justice system needs to
14:14
Speaker 1: learn from this and make sure it can't happen again,
14:17
Speaker 1: said Rider, who still lives in Palm Beach where he
14:19
Speaker 1: runs a security consulting firm. Writer wants to see legislation
14:24
Speaker 1: that bars miners from being labeled as prostitutes in the
14:27
Speaker 1: justice system. He also called on Florida lawmakers to close
14:30
Speaker 1: the loopholes that allow people like Epstein to get away
14:33
Speaker 1: with misdemeanors for child sex crimes. If you look at
14:36
Speaker 1: the first dozen victims and their accounts of what happened
14:39
Speaker 1: to them, it's clear to me he was coached by
14:41
Speaker 1: a lawyer on how to only commit a misdemeanor. Writer said,
14:45
Speaker 1: if you're a member of the legislature and you're out
14:47
Speaker 1: listening to this right now, fix this. It needs to
14:50
Speaker 1: be fixed. Writer also delivered a message to all those
14:54
Speaker 1: girls whose lives were upbended by a middle aged sexual
14:57
Speaker 1: predator with endless resources available to him. I don't have
15:01
Speaker 1: any contact with the victims, and if they're listening now,
15:04
Speaker 1: I'm embarrassed for the way the criminal justice system treated
15:07
Speaker 1: them back then in Florida, Writer said, But I want
15:10
Speaker 1: them to know that not every part of the system
15:12
Speaker 1: failed them. We did our job in Palm Beach Police Department,
15:16
Speaker 1: and everything that happened here should lead to in the future,
15:19
Speaker 1: if any of these things happen again to some other victim,
15:22
Speaker 1: that the system won't fail them. Chief Michael Ryder didn't
15:26
Speaker 1: set out to make history. He wasn't chasing headlines, and
15:29
Speaker 1: he didn't have a political agenda. He was a police
15:32
Speaker 1: chief trying to do his job, trying to protect children,
15:35
Speaker 1: trying to hold a predator accountable, trying to believe that
15:38
Speaker 1: the system he served would do the right thing once
15:41
Speaker 1: the truth was laid bare. But the truth wasn't enough.
15:45
Speaker 1: The Epstein case in Palm Beach exposed a terrifying reality
15:49
Speaker 1: that in America, the rules bend for the rich and
15:52
Speaker 1: the powerful can buy not just silence, but immunity, and
15:56
Speaker 1: Writers saw at firsthand. He saw a case with overwhelming
16:01
Speaker 1: evidence get quietly gutted. He saw a prosecutor shrink in
16:04
Speaker 1: the face of billion dollar pressure. And he saw a
16:07
Speaker 1: man who should have faced decades behind bars walk away
16:10
Speaker 1: with a wrist slab and a secret deal that shielded
16:14
Speaker 1: his entire operation. And still Chief Writer refused to back down.
16:19
Speaker 1: He went to the FBI, He wrote a letter to
16:21
Speaker 1: the victims. He called out corruption when it would have
16:23
Speaker 1: been safer to stay quiet, because he understood something that
16:27
Speaker 1: most people in power seem to forget, that silence in
16:31
Speaker 1: the face of injustice is complicity. In this episode, you
16:35
Speaker 1: heard what he saw. You heard how the case was buried,
16:37
Speaker 1: how justice was bought, how victims were sidelined, and how
16:41
Speaker 1: the system at every level chose to protect a predator
16:45
Speaker 1: over the truth. So the question now isn't just what happened,
16:49
Speaker 1: it's why did it happen, and more importantly, who made
16:52
Speaker 1: sure it did. This was never just about Jeffrey Epstein.
16:56
Speaker 1: This was about the system. It was about the system
16:59
Speaker 1: that at them thrive. All of the information that goes
17:03
Speaker 1: with this episode can be found in the description box