Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / The Epstein Files Hack the FBI Never Fully Explained (9/21/26)

Transcript

The Epstein Files Hack the FBI Never Fully Explained (9/21/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. A few months ago we were talking about
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a hacker who had accessed the C20 lab vault at
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the FBI. And the C20 vault is where they keep
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of the CSAM confidential type of information and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: where they were storing a lot of Jeffrey Epstein's information. Well,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: all the way back in 2023 during Super Bowl 57,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the Chiefs and the Eagles, that vault was accessed by
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a hacker. And according to the agent, Mr. Spivak's own declaration,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: that hacker had access to that vault for a significant
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: amount of time. And according to the FBI, they don't
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: know if or what was taken or copied from that vault. Now,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: mind you, this happened in 2023. And of course, we
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: heard nothing about it. The administration didn't want to talk
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: about it. The Biden administration certainly didn't want to give
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: us any information about that breach, especially considering an election year.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So they knew about it, but they had no desire
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to talk about it. And now Trump, obviously, he knows
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: about it and they're not going to tell us shit.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So my question is, what exactly did this hacker have
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: access to? And what, if anything, did they take? Today's
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: article is from the Eastern Herald and the headline, The
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: FBI's Epstein server was hacked on Super Bowl Sunday. Washington
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: buried it for three years. This article was authored by
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Hicks. The morning after Super Bowl 57, FBI Special
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Agent Aaron Spivak arrived at his desk in the New
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: York field office and found a text file he had
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: not placed there. The message was brief and unambiguous. Your
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: network has been compromised. Imagine being an FBI agent and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: walking into your office and seeing that sort of note
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: inserted into the file. Talk about your heart dropping. The
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: machine that had been accessed was not standard bureau infrastructure.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: It sat inside the Child Exploitation Forensic Lab, known internally
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: as the C-20 Lab, where the FBI stored digital evidence
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: from the most sensitive child exploitation cases that it handled,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: including investigations into Jeffrey Epstein. A foreign hacker, according to
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Spivak's own sworn declaration, had spent time reading through files
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: specifically tied to that case. So it wasn't like somebody
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: just accessed this vault and stumbled upon this information. This
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: is what they were looking for. This is what they found.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: The question is, why? And who put them up to it?
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I'm sure some hacker wasn't just sitting around doing their
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: hacking activities. and decided, you know what, let's go and
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: check out what's inside the C-20 lab over at the FBI.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: They were directed to that, in my opinion. And of course,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: that then leads us down a rabbit hole of who
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: could have ordered the operation. That was February 13th, 2023.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: For three years, the public learned nothing. No press release
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: was issued. No member of Congress was briefed. The disclosure
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: came quietly. Embedded inside a sworn statement, Spivak later gave
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to the FBI's own inspection division, A document surfaced only
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: because a transparency statute dragged it out. On September 18th, 2026,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the Justice Department, acting under Donald Trump's direction, hold on
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: a minute, what now? You mean under the direction of Congress?
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump didn't leave this dance. Released roughly 3.5 million
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: pages of Epstein-related material, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Spivak's declaration arrived inside that dump. The account he gives
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: is precise. He left the C20 Labs computer with remote
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: internet access enabled, a configuration that arose, by his account,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: from conflicting guidance inside the FBI's own IT structure. The
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Bureau's internal policy, he said, had not clearly prohibited what
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: he had done. When the Inspection Division reviewed the breach afterward,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Spivak described being made a scapegoat by an institution deflecting
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: from a systems-level failure. He gave a sworn testimony on
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: January 26, 2024, and again on August 8, 2024. His
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: declarations sat inside government files until the transparency statute pulled
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: them out. So keep this in mind, okay? It's not
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: like the previous administration, Biden, or any of the administrations
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: before him had any desire to give us the truth.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: And that's one of the biggest problems. And that's something
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: that people need to come to terms with, right? And
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: there are no good guys here. Both sides of the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: aisle have been complicit in this for literally decades. The
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: data exposure was substantial. The hackers swept through roughly 500
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: terabytes of stored material on the C20 lab server. Approximately
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: 100 terabytes, Spivak stated, were permanently unrecoverable. What the fuck?
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Permanently unrecoverable? What does that even mean? What did they access?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: What did they take? What did they get? A single
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: terabyte can hold several hundred thousand documents or tens of
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: thousands of hours of standard video. What the hacker extracted
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: versus merely browsed through has never been publicly determined. Oh,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: it needs to be. We need to know what's up.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And we need to know who was behind it, right?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: That seems like a worthy investigation, something Congress should be
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: looking at. And not just in regards to Epstein, but
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: obviously as a national security issue as well. If somebody
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: can access that server, then we got big problems. What
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: complicates the picture is what the intruder apparently did not know.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Based on contents of Spivak's declaration, the hacker did not
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: initially appear to realize they had penetrated an FBI server.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: They encountered child sexual abuse material stored on C-20 lab drives,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: evidence from an active federal investigation. The response by Spivak's
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: account was discussed. They left a note threatening to report
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the owner of the files to the FBI, not realizing
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that the owner was the FBI. A foreign actor had
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: walked into the most sensitive server the New York field
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: office operated and did not recognize the building they were inside.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: So there's a whole host of things here that don't
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: add up. They had no idea what they were looking for? Please.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Or is that their cover story? so that you think
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: they have no idea what they're looking for. That detail
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: does not diminish the exposure. A foreign actor, whatever their
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: state of awareness, had access to a federal law enforcement
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: server containing evidence in one of the most politically consequential
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: investigations in modern American history. The C-20 lab held material
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: touching Epstein's network. Individuals the Department of Justice had spent
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: years building records around. The possibility that any of those
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: files or the metadata identifying who appeared in them was
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: exposed to a foreign intelligence service or a private actor
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: has never been publicly assessed by the Bureau. Oh, it's
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: been assessed behind the scenes, I promise you that. But
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: we're just not worthy. Unfortunately, they're not going to tell
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: us anything. The only way that we're ever going to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: learn anything more about Jeffrey Epstein, what he was up to,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and who he was doing it with, is if we
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: force it out of them, kicking and screaming. That's the
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: only way. The Declaration entered the public record through an
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: unlikely path. The Epstein Files Transparency Act passed by Congress
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: after years of sustained pressure from survivors' advocates and oversight lawmakers.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Say what now? Oversight lawmakers? They were putting pressure on people?
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Hate to tell you, but most of those lawmakers just
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: showed up to the party. And most of the people
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that are chirping, well, they just showed up too. The
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Justice Department was required to compile and release a comprehensive
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: archive of Epstein-linked government records. The September 18th batch is
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the largest single disclosure yet. The Spivak Declaration arrived inside
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: it with no announcement, no press conference, no highlighted index entry.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Finding it required... working through a document set large enough
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to fill multiple commercial hard drives. The disclosure adds a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: specific texture to critiques that have surrounded the government's handling
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of the Epstein evidence for years. The House Oversight Committee
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: has pressed the Justice Department repeatedly on how Epstein files
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: were managed, what may have been lost, and whether the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Bureau protected its own institutional interests ahead of the public record.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt they did that, and that's one of
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the biggest problems. And that's why we need to know
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: all the names of the people who are making the decisions.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: The revelation that a foreign actor accessed the primary FBI
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: evidence server in this investigation and that the breach was
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: withheld from public view for more than three years sharpens
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: those questions without resolving them. Every single lie, every single
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: bit of obfuscation damages the institution a bit more. And
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the DOJ at this point, it can't afford it. You
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: would think that they'd reverse course and they'd be transparent
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and that they'd come forward and say, look, this is
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: what happened. This is when it happened. And this is
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: what was exposed. But instead, we keep getting told to
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: move on. Spivak. has not faced public disciplinary action. The
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: inspection division reviewed him, took his sworn testimony twice, and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the matter remained internal. His declaration frames the breach as
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: institutional in origin as much as personal. He argues that
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the Bureau's IT guidance was inconsistent, that the configuration error
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: was not one that had been explicitly directed to avoid,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and that the agency's response treated him as a single
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: point of failure for a problem that ran deeper. Whether
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the FBI audited what the hacker accessed or notified any
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: individual whose evidence sat on the C20 lab server is
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: not addressed anywhere in the material the Justice Department has released.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: The September 18th release is not expected to be the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: final batch. Advocacy organizations tracking the disclosure process have said
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: more material remains to be processed under the Transparency Act's requirements.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: What the Justice Department will release next and whether any
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of it will include an institutional assessment of the 2023
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: breach is not known. The hacker has never been identified.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: The FBI has never publicly confirmed the breach. What sits
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in the public record now because an agent wrote it
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: under oath and the transparency law forced it into daylight,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: is what Spivak put there. The server was left open.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: A foreign actor walked through it on Super Bowl Sunday.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: 100 terabytes are gone. Washington has said nothing for three years.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And the band just plays on. And the band just
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: plays on. No big deal, folks. Come on. Don't ask
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: any questions about who accessed this server. And certainly don't ask,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Who put them up to it? And maybe even more crucially,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: what happened to the evidence that walked away? All the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: information that goes with this episode can be found in
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the description box.