Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Mega Edition: Robert Maxwell And His State of Mind Before His Demise (10/27/26)

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Mega Edition: Robert Maxwell And His State of Mind Before His Demise (10/27/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles.
0:05
Speaker 1: Next week, there's a documentary that's going to be premiering
0:09
Speaker 1: on BBC that's called The House of Maxwell. Well, today
0:13
Speaker 1: we have an article from The Mirror that's giving us
0:16
Speaker 1: a little bit of a preview of some of the
0:19
Speaker 1: stuff that we're going to find in this documentary. And
0:23
Speaker 1: this article is discussing how Robert Maxwell was deep into
0:28
Speaker 1: his paranoia in the months prior to his death. And
0:32
Speaker 1: that all adds up, right? The walls were closing in.
0:36
Speaker 1: The man was an asset for multiple intelligence services. And
0:41
Speaker 1: when the walls start closing in on people like this,
0:44
Speaker 1: a lot of times, well, either A, they're killed off,
0:48
Speaker 1: or B, there's a suicide. And it was option B
0:52
Speaker 1: with Mr. Maxwell. We all know that old boy was
0:55
Speaker 1: having a whiz in the complete nude off the edge
0:58
Speaker 1: of his boat and allegedly he fell in and drowned. Now,
1:03
Speaker 1: I have my doubts about the official narrative when it
1:05
Speaker 1: comes to Robert Maxwell, but why don't we jump into
1:09
Speaker 1: this article and let's see what the Mira has to
1:12
Speaker 1: say about this upcoming documentary. Headline, secret tapes reveal Robert
1:18
Speaker 1: Maxwell's paranoia in the months prior to his death. This
1:23
Speaker 1: article was authored by Nikola Methvin. The full extent of
1:29
Speaker 1: media mogul Robert Maxwell's paranoia in the months leading up
1:33
Speaker 1: to his death has been laid bare in secretly recorded
1:36
Speaker 1: phone calls between his executives. Now, imagine you're an executive
1:41
Speaker 1: at the time when things start going south and you're
1:46
Speaker 1: so suspicious of what Maxwell is up to that you
1:49
Speaker 1: start recording conversations that are being had in the company
1:53
Speaker 1: between you, between him, whenever he's talking to anyone, all
1:57
Speaker 1: because you know that something is amiss. The disgraced mirror
2:02
Speaker 1: owner who had worked for the KGB, the MI6, bugged
2:06
Speaker 1: the offices of his global media empire and his lavish
2:10
Speaker 1: home in Oxfordshire. So look, let's not forget that he
2:14
Speaker 1: also worked for the Mossad. Now, there's a lot of
2:16
Speaker 1: people out there that love to insert the Mossad all
2:19
Speaker 1: over the place, right? But this is one instance where
2:22
Speaker 1: it is actually correct. You just take a look at
2:26
Speaker 1: how Robert Maxwell was honored in death inside of Israel,
2:30
Speaker 1: and it tells you everything you need to know about
2:32
Speaker 1: the extent of the relationship between Maxwell and the Israeli
2:37
Speaker 1: government and intelligence services. It's very clear what was going
2:41
Speaker 1: on there. But he wasn't one of these guys that
2:43
Speaker 1: was just playing for one team, if you will. He
2:47
Speaker 1: was working with the KGB, he was working with the MI6,
2:51
Speaker 1: and I suspect that he passed that sort of tradition
2:54
Speaker 1: down to his daughter, Ghislaine Maxwell. I've said from the
2:57
Speaker 1: beginning that Maxwell was groomed for her behavior, for her,
3:02
Speaker 1: you know, asset behavior. Sitting at the knee of her father,
3:05
Speaker 1: she learned the ins and outs. We all know that
3:09
Speaker 1: they were very close, and we all know that her
3:11
Speaker 1: and Maxwell were, you know, the two that were closest.
3:17
Speaker 1: So it makes sense that Robert Maxwell would divulge a
3:20
Speaker 1: bit of the family secrets down to Ghislaine, doesn't it?
3:26
Speaker 1: In the audio recordings revealed in a TV documentary, his
3:29
Speaker 1: senior staff are frustrated at being unable to contact Maxwell
3:33
Speaker 1: for three days while he was sailing off the Canary Islands.
3:37
Speaker 1: One key executive says, I'm fucked if I know what
3:41
Speaker 1: he's done. He's gone away on his boat. And he
3:44
Speaker 1: said to me, he was going to talk to them.
3:46
Speaker 1: And I'm still trying to track this bloody money down.
3:49
Speaker 1: So this is when everything was going south. The money
3:51
Speaker 1: was gone. There was no way to recoup this money.
3:54
Speaker 1: It was way too much. And Maxwell had already spent it.
3:57
Speaker 1: And furthermore, now the executives can't even find him. So
4:01
Speaker 1: as the shit hits the fan, Robert Maxwell's out here
4:04
Speaker 1: in the Canary Islands floating around like some clown. leaving
4:10
Speaker 1: a mess to be picked up and cleaned by his
4:14
Speaker 1: subordinates and colleagues. Typical in Maxwell fashion, no? That's one
4:18
Speaker 1: of the trademarks of the family. Another is heard saying
4:23
Speaker 1: it's going to blow up and head in the sand
4:25
Speaker 1: isn't going to help. Fuck's sake. For months, senior Miro
4:29
Speaker 1: Group employees had secretly suspected there were holes in the
4:32
Speaker 1: company's finances, including the staff's pension fund. Now imagine you
4:38
Speaker 1: go to work every day You're contributing to your pension,
4:42
Speaker 1: every paycheck. Come to find out that this already rich
4:47
Speaker 1: piece of shit is stealing your money, stealing your future.
4:52
Speaker 1: So again, it's in their genes, right? It's like a
4:55
Speaker 1: Maxwell family trait to be a scumbag. In November of 1991...
5:02
Speaker 1: Their boss's body was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean.
5:06
Speaker 1: Soon after his death, it was discovered he had stolen
5:09
Speaker 1: 440 million pounds, not dollars, pounds, from the pension fund
5:16
Speaker 1: to inflate the company's share price. Out here playing games,
5:20
Speaker 1: trying to manipulate the market, trying to make it look
5:23
Speaker 1: better for investors so that when they sell shares, more
5:27
Speaker 1: people will be interested in buying them. While in the meantime,
5:31
Speaker 1: all of the money that was in the pension, all
5:33
Speaker 1: of the money that was being contributed by the employees
5:38
Speaker 1: was being pilfered. There is a deep, dark hole in
5:44
Speaker 1: the bottom of hell for people who do that. His
5:51
Speaker 1: global media empire was found to be around 2 billion
5:54
Speaker 1: pounds in debt. The BBC2 series also contains previously unseen
5:59
Speaker 1: footage of Maxwell hours before his death standing on the
6:03
Speaker 1: deck of the superyacht Lady Ghislaine, named after his favorite daughter.
6:08
Speaker 1: You know, all of these guys with their big-ass yachts
6:10
Speaker 1: and this and that and the other thing. I am
6:12
Speaker 1: so convinced at this point that the vast majority of
6:15
Speaker 1: these people are involved in schemes, plots and otherwise disgusting,
6:21
Speaker 1: you know, scams. When it comes to making this money,
6:25
Speaker 1: because it just every time we hear about one of
6:29
Speaker 1: these people, they're corrupt, they're a derelict and they're just
6:33
Speaker 1: gross human beings. I honestly struggle to look and find
6:38
Speaker 1: one billionaire, even just one billionaire out there that you
6:41
Speaker 1: can look at and say, all right, this is somebody who,
6:44
Speaker 1: you know, does it the right way. Somebody that you
6:46
Speaker 1: can say breaks the norms of the usual scumbags like
6:50
Speaker 1: the Finks of the world, the Leon Blacks of the world,
6:53
Speaker 1: the Robert Maxwells of the world. Just take a look
6:56
Speaker 1: at all of the heads of all of these financial
6:58
Speaker 1: institutions and hedge funds. They're all, for the most part,
7:03
Speaker 1: have all been slapped with SEC sanctions or insider trading
7:07
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. Now, obviously, I'm not saying they're
7:09
Speaker 1: all on the level of Jeffrey Epstein or Robert Maxwell,
7:13
Speaker 1: but none of these people are, like, you know, squeaky clean.
7:19
Speaker 1: And all you have to do is take a look
7:20
Speaker 1: at their records. The footage also shows 22-stone Maxwell naked
7:29
Speaker 1: in the sea with the ship's buoyancy ring around his torso.
7:33
Speaker 1: Sounds like a pretty wrong way to go, huh? Pretty ignoble.
7:39
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, like, was his body so rank that
7:43
Speaker 1: he was so corrupt that even the sharks could sense
7:46
Speaker 1: that so they didn't eat him? I mean, I know
7:48
Speaker 1: there's sharks off of the Canary Islands. I know there's
7:51
Speaker 1: great whites off of the shores of the Canary Islands.
7:55
Speaker 1: So you mean to tell me no fish ate this dude?
7:58
Speaker 1: No sharks ate this dude? Must be because he's so corrupt.
8:00
Speaker 1: They didn't want the indigestion. They didn't want to deal
8:03
Speaker 1: with that agita. So they were like, fuck it. We'll
8:05
Speaker 1: just let this dude float around. After his death, senior
8:08
Speaker 1: staff struggle to make sense of his finances. One tells
8:12
Speaker 1: another they have discovered they are short by 6.8 million pounds.
8:16
Speaker 1: On top of the 100 bloody million, this is only
8:19
Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg, comes the incredulous response. Now,
8:24
Speaker 1: these guys are left holding the bag, all of these executives. Now,
8:27
Speaker 1: I don't know the story completely, like, too deep as
8:30
Speaker 1: far as... you know, the grift that was going on
8:32
Speaker 1: with the company. I never really delved all the way
8:36
Speaker 1: deep into it about other executives and stuff. But I'm
8:39
Speaker 1: guessing a few of these other guys were enriched on
8:41
Speaker 1: this scam. And it's not so much that they know that,
8:46
Speaker 1: you know, money's been pilfered. It's that they're about to
8:49
Speaker 1: get caught. And again, it really goes back to what
8:51
Speaker 1: we talk about with the royals in general. All of
8:53
Speaker 1: these people, it's not so much that they're, you know,
8:56
Speaker 1: oh man, I'm remorseful. They're not remorseful about their actions.
9:00
Speaker 1: They're remorseful that they get caught doing it. Because if
9:04
Speaker 1: they were really remorseful about their actions, they would have
9:06
Speaker 1: shown that. They would have, you know, tried to make amends.
9:10
Speaker 1: But how many of these people do that? In exchanges
9:18
Speaker 1: voiced by actors to protect identities, one executive says, where
9:22
Speaker 1: the hell has all the money gone? He is assured
9:25
Speaker 1: that a big chunk is on the way back. The
9:27
Speaker 1: man replies, if it doesn't, there's going to be the
9:29
Speaker 1: most God almighty public scandal. Another staff member concludes, we're fucked.
9:35
Speaker 1: I think that's the most straight to the point and
9:39
Speaker 1: obvious statement of the day. You guys are all screwed.
9:42
Speaker 1: Taking all this money, 400 million pounds in grifted dough.
9:49
Speaker 1: Certainly not going to end well for anybody. Former Mirror
9:54
Speaker 1: Group secretary Cara Bragioli said towards the end of his life,
9:58
Speaker 1: Maxwell only trusted... sons Kevin and Ian who worked alongside him.
10:04
Speaker 1: She added, he was becoming very suspicious. It reflects how
10:07
Speaker 1: paranoid he was becoming. So the two sons, Kevin and Ian,
10:11
Speaker 1: they also ended up dealing with some criminal charges of
10:15
Speaker 1: their own that they did beat. Now I have my
10:18
Speaker 1: doubts about all of that, but hey, what do I know, right?
10:21
Speaker 1: Just a guy with an opinion hanging out in the studio.
10:26
Speaker 1: The Maxwell brothers were later arrested on suspicion of fraud,
10:29
Speaker 1: but were both acquitted at a trial. Executive producer Colin
10:34
Speaker 1: Barr said despite the extensive research for the three films,
10:37
Speaker 1: it is still unknown if Maxwell killed himself or fell
10:40
Speaker 1: in by accident. He does not think it was murder.
10:43
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny, everyone's always so... cautious about saying
10:48
Speaker 1: something like that because they don't want to be called
10:50
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theorist by the knuckleheads in the legacy media.
10:54
Speaker 1: You know, the same people who cause a lot of
10:56
Speaker 1: these conspiracy theories by not being honest, by not demanding
11:00
Speaker 1: transparency from our government, only to go around and start
11:04
Speaker 1: castigating people as conspiracy theorists. It's a bit of a joke, right?
11:10
Speaker 1: How can we count out That something bad happened to
11:14
Speaker 1: Bob Maxwell on this boat. Now, I don't know what happened.
11:17
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and, you know, go
11:19
Speaker 1: to the mattresses and say, oh, he was definitely killed.
11:22
Speaker 1: But to just discount it and then to call people
11:24
Speaker 1: who have a different opinion conspiracy theorists, well, you're going
11:28
Speaker 1: to need to have some evidence of that, right? It's
11:30
Speaker 1: not like we're talking about the flat earth here. He
11:35
Speaker 1: told Radio Times, we have footage from the yacht that
11:38
Speaker 1: week where he looks relaxed, but who knows? He had
11:41
Speaker 1: a bottomless capacity for convincing himself his own lies were true.
11:46
Speaker 1: And then by then, he was extremely paranoid or ever
11:51
Speaker 1: more isolated as the financial noose tightened. You'll see that
11:54
Speaker 1: a lot with people like this. When they're getting ready
11:57
Speaker 1: to get nailed by the police, they become paranoid. They
12:00
Speaker 1: become all sorts of unhinged and they become reclusive. Maxwell
12:05
Speaker 1: could have been a heroic figure, coming from poverty to
12:09
Speaker 1: succeed in a country as class-ridden as Britain. Instead, his
12:13
Speaker 1: path curdled into hubris, vanity, and moral corruption, which was
12:17
Speaker 1: then passed down the line to his family, including Ghislaine.
12:21
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine a more dramatic rise or disastrous fall.
12:26
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that. This guy could have really
12:30
Speaker 1: been a hero, somebody that people looked at and said,
12:33
Speaker 1: hey man, this guy really made his way, didn't he?
12:36
Speaker 1: He really pulled himself up from his bootstraps and made
12:39
Speaker 1: his way. But that's not the case. Instead, he used
12:45
Speaker 1: the power and the influence that he gained for evil,
12:49
Speaker 1: to steal from people, to take the pensions of the
12:54
Speaker 1: people who actually made him rich, his employees, the people
12:57
Speaker 1: that built the company for him. He might have had
13:00
Speaker 1: the ideas. He might have had the resources, but it's
13:03
Speaker 1: people on the front line, the very people that were
13:06
Speaker 1: putting money into those pensions that made that company what
13:10
Speaker 1: it was. And this MF decided, screw them and screw
13:15
Speaker 1: it all. I'm stealing the money. Why? Because he needed
13:17
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more rich. He needed a
13:19
Speaker 1: little bit more money, a little more money to swim
13:22
Speaker 1: around in like Scrooge McDuck. I find it all obscene.
13:27
Speaker 1: And honestly, I find it all absurd. The way that
13:30
Speaker 1: these people are able to do whatever they want, whenever
13:33
Speaker 1: they want, there has to be a point in time
13:36
Speaker 1: where enough is enough. And sure, if he didn't die,
13:40
Speaker 1: I'm sure he would have been convicted. And I'm sure
13:42
Speaker 1: he would have spent some time in jail. But do
13:45
Speaker 1: you really think this guy would have been penalized to
13:48
Speaker 1: a point where he would have never thought of grifting again?
13:51
Speaker 1: Where he would have never thought of trying to regain
13:54
Speaker 1: his fortune? Because you know all of these people will
13:57
Speaker 1: not cede power. Power has to be ripped from them.
14:01
Speaker 1: Absolutely ripped from them. And I don't just mean from
14:04
Speaker 1: their hands. I mean in a societal manner. All of
14:09
Speaker 1: these laws that are on the books that benefit these
14:11
Speaker 1: people while they shit on us, they all have to
14:14
Speaker 1: be looked at. We need a full audit of the
14:18
Speaker 1: country and of the laws in this country. I'm convinced
14:21
Speaker 1: of that. Because we have so many stupid laws that
14:25
Speaker 1: mean nothing. And then we have all of these rules
14:31
Speaker 1: and guidelines that only the poorest amongst us have to follow.
14:36
Speaker 1: We don't have the ability to park our money offshore
14:39
Speaker 1: or in some tax haven the way these people do. Nah,
14:44
Speaker 1: we show up every year and pay our taxes the
14:46
Speaker 1: way we're supposed to and keep on moving. But these
14:50
Speaker 1: people continue to manipulate society and they continue to get
14:53
Speaker 1: away with it. And then at the end of the day,
14:56
Speaker 1: when they've already secured the bag, they got to shit
14:59
Speaker 1: on us some more by stealing our pensions. The series
15:04
Speaker 1: also deals with Ghislaine's friendship with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
15:09
Speaker 1: In December, she was convicted of sex trafficking. House of
15:13
Speaker 1: Maxwell starts Monday on BBC2 at 9 p.m. Well, there
15:17
Speaker 1: you have it, folks. We got ourselves a new documentary
15:20
Speaker 1: to dive on into called The House of Maxwell. I'm
15:23
Speaker 1: certainly going to give it a look. I'm very interested
15:25
Speaker 1: about Robert Maxwell's life and the depraved lifestyle that derelict lived.
15:32
Speaker 1: You have to understand the origin stories. If you want
15:35
Speaker 1: to understand now, you most certainly have to understand the
15:38
Speaker 1: past and how we got here. And what better way
15:41
Speaker 1: to do that than to take a look behind the
15:44
Speaker 1: scenes at Robert Maxwell's rise to power and his fall.
15:52
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for tonight's update, folks. Obviously,
15:55
Speaker 1: plenty more is on the way, flashback episodes and otherwise.
16:00
Speaker 1: If you'd like to contact me, you can do that
16:01
Speaker 1: at bobbycappucci at protonmail.com. That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I at protonmail.com. You can
16:11
Speaker 1: also find me on Twitter at B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I. The
16:18
Speaker 1: link that we discussed in this episode can be found
16:20
Speaker 1: in the description box. All right, folks, I hope you
16:23
Speaker 1: all have a great day, and I will be back
16:26
Speaker 1: later on. begin our exploration of the Maxwell family today
16:32
Speaker 1: and we're going to start obviously with the patriarch we're
16:35
Speaker 1: going to start with Robert Maxwell today and we're going
16:38
Speaker 1: to be hearing from the author John Preston and the
16:45
Speaker 1: article we're going to be sharing is an excerpt from
16:47
Speaker 1: his book From Fall The Mysterious Life and Death of
16:52
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell so obviously Mr. Preston has done the legwork,
17:01
Speaker 1: done the deep dive, and has explored the history and
17:07
Speaker 1: past of Robert Maxwell. So that's going to be our
17:11
Speaker 1: starting point for our conversation about the Manson family, I
17:16
Speaker 1: mean the Maxwell family. Maxwell, Manson, get it? Pretty much
17:21
Speaker 1: the same thing, right? With these crazy sons of bitches. So,
17:26
Speaker 1: We're going to begin our exploration of the Maxwell family
17:32
Speaker 1: and the deep dive that is going to follow it
17:35
Speaker 1: right here with this article from Town and Country magazine,
17:41
Speaker 1: courtesy of John Preston. So we've talked about Robert Maxwell
17:49
Speaker 1: at length and we've discussed his various dealings, And I
17:58
Speaker 1: have definitely come to the point where I believe he
18:02
Speaker 1: was big time involved in getting Ghislaine and Jeffrey Epstein together. Now,
18:09
Speaker 1: you all know how I feel about that relationship. I
18:12
Speaker 1: don't believe there was any love there. I don't believe
18:14
Speaker 1: there was ever any love there. And I think certainly
18:18
Speaker 1: from Bob Maxwell's perspective, it was always a business deal.
18:25
Speaker 1: And you know, like in the old days when rich
18:27
Speaker 1: and powerful families would have children and their daughters, they
18:31
Speaker 1: would be used to cement alliances with other noble houses
18:36
Speaker 1: or other houses that they might be at war with.
18:39
Speaker 1: And it's no different for these kind of people these days, right?
18:43
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell and the Maxwell clan looked at themselves as
18:46
Speaker 1: some sort of, you know, royal family. And if he
18:50
Speaker 1: could pawn Ghislain off to Jeffrey Epstein... and increase his
18:54
Speaker 1: wealth or his reach or anything like that then he
18:58
Speaker 1: wouldn't hesitate to do it Ghislaine Maxwell to Robert Maxwell
19:04
Speaker 1: was just another piece on the chessboard oh sure he
19:07
Speaker 1: liked that piece a little bit more than the others
19:10
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day he certainly would
19:14
Speaker 1: have no problem sacrificing the queen to save the king
19:21
Speaker 1: The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell. Today, Ghislaine
19:27
Speaker 1: Maxwell's father, Robert, is remembered mostly for his death. But
19:31
Speaker 1: in his prime, he represented power, money, and shocking deceit.
19:37
Speaker 1: And British society ate it all up. So, again, when
19:42
Speaker 1: I talk about the United States, that's the face for
19:46
Speaker 1: the whole entire Western world. Because this is happening every England,
19:51
Speaker 1: the United States, France, Italy, it doesn't matter. These people
19:56
Speaker 1: run a roughshod over all of the elected officials, use
20:00
Speaker 1: backroom chambers, backroom dealings, and they live their lives like
20:04
Speaker 1: they're above the law. And Robert Maxwell certainly was no different.
20:11
Speaker 1: Can scandal be hereditary? Ghislaine Maxwell's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein
20:17
Speaker 1: made her a household name. But her ongoing legal woes
20:21
Speaker 1: didn't mark the first time her family had endured the
20:24
Speaker 1: glare of the spotlight. And yeah, I think it can
20:27
Speaker 1: be hereditary, right? If you were raised at good old
20:30
Speaker 1: daddy's knee and you were taught all of the tricks
20:33
Speaker 1: of the trade and the family business and how to
20:36
Speaker 1: operate in the shadows and you learned from your pops, well, yeah.
20:41
Speaker 1: It could definitely be hereditary and passed down. How many
20:46
Speaker 1: times have you seen it in organized crime? You have
20:50
Speaker 1: a mafioso who has a son who ends up getting
20:53
Speaker 1: into the life and all of that was because he
20:55
Speaker 1: spent so much time at the social club with dad
20:58
Speaker 1: or at the bar with dad and this becomes his life.
21:03
Speaker 1: It's the only life they've ever known. So this is
21:06
Speaker 1: the life they choose. And it's no different for Maxwell
21:09
Speaker 1: in my opinion. She knew that she wanted to be...
21:12
Speaker 1: Amongst the highest levers of power... And she knew how
21:15
Speaker 1: to get there... All she needed was the proper tools...
21:20
Speaker 1: And my friends... There is a tool for every job...
21:24
Speaker 1: And a job for every tool... And the Maxwell's... Optimized that...
21:30
Speaker 1: At every turn... When Ghislaine's father... Robert Maxwell... Died in 1991...
21:39
Speaker 1: The official cause of death was a heart attack, but
21:42
Speaker 1: not everyone was convinced. Rumors swirled that the larger-than-life newspaper baron,
21:48
Speaker 1: whose body had been found near the Canary Islands, he
21:51
Speaker 1: was presumed to have fallen off his yacht, had committed
21:54
Speaker 1: suicide in the face of financial ruin, or had been
21:57
Speaker 1: assassinated by some shadowy intelligence agency. And was it really
22:02
Speaker 1: any wonder? And you know what makes me... Think about things.
22:07
Speaker 1: This guy's body was found floating around near the Canary Islands.
22:11
Speaker 1: You mean to tell me that the sharks didn't get him?
22:16
Speaker 1: I know there's a ton of sharks around the Canary Islands.
22:19
Speaker 1: And maybe Robert Maxwell was so putrid and so disgusting
22:23
Speaker 1: that the sharks didn't even want to eat him. They
22:27
Speaker 1: were like, you know what? This is obviously going to
22:29
Speaker 1: give us agita. We can't eat this shit. Let this
22:32
Speaker 1: dude float away. And that'll be the end of that.
22:35
Speaker 1: And the sharks moved on to better tasting prey. How
22:41
Speaker 1: the hell does this guy float around near his boat
22:43
Speaker 1: and not get eaten by a shark or some sort
22:47
Speaker 1: of aquatic animal? Throughout his life, Maxwell worked tirelessly to
22:54
Speaker 1: obscure the truth about himself. Sound familiar, folks? Sound familiar?
23:00
Speaker 1: This is exactly what Ghislaine Maxwell has done. She has
23:02
Speaker 1: worked tirelessly to obscure the truth, tirelessly to make it
23:08
Speaker 1: seem like she is just another so-called member of polite
23:12
Speaker 1: society getting on to get on. And that is a
23:18
Speaker 1: tactic that these people love to use. They will hide
23:22
Speaker 1: in plain sight while being brazen about their activities, rubbing
23:26
Speaker 1: everybody's face in it. And for the most part, they
23:29
Speaker 1: don't have to worry. because all of their buddies and
23:31
Speaker 1: all of their friends that are running around at the
23:34
Speaker 1: highest levels of politics and power are there to smooth
23:39
Speaker 1: things out for them the second it gets wrinkled up.
23:45
Speaker 1: He changed his name, denied his religion, and played shell
23:48
Speaker 1: games with vast fortunes, all in effort to storm first
23:52
Speaker 1: the British aristocracy, and later the international cabal of billionaires, businessmen,
23:59
Speaker 1: and power brokers. The plan worked. And there's no doubt,
24:05
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell, Bob Maxwell, had his fingers on the levers
24:09
Speaker 1: of power in many different places. There's a lot of
24:13
Speaker 1: talk about his contacts in Russia. There's obviously his contacts
24:18
Speaker 1: in Israel, America, the United Kingdom, France. You know, this
24:22
Speaker 1: was a very powerful man with a lot of reach.
24:26
Speaker 1: This is a guy who... Had it all. Had all
24:29
Speaker 1: the power in the world. Had all the money in
24:32
Speaker 1: the world. And it was never enough. His greed is
24:36
Speaker 1: what drove him. His greed is what continued to make
24:42
Speaker 1: him go. And in the end, I suspect, it was
24:46
Speaker 1: his greed that ended up killing him. In his lifetime,
24:52
Speaker 1: Maxwell became a global publishing tycoon. running such newspapers as
24:56
Speaker 1: London's Daily Mirror and the New York's Daily News, a
25:00
Speaker 1: member of Parliament, and a bête noire for the likes
25:04
Speaker 1: of Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher. Again, the levels of
25:11
Speaker 1: power that these people have infiltrated at, folks, is the
25:16
Speaker 1: highest levels there is. And that's not hyperbole either. That's
25:21
Speaker 1: not trying to make the statement more impactful. Look at
25:26
Speaker 1: the names of the people that guys like Bob Maxwell
25:32
Speaker 1: was cavorting with. Margaret Thatcher, Rupert Murdoch, the list goes on.
25:39
Speaker 1: That's just a little taste. A guy like Robert Maxwell
25:48
Speaker 1: was wielding so much unchecked power for so long and
25:53
Speaker 1: he To think or to act like the English authorities
25:57
Speaker 1: had no idea what was going on is naive at best.
26:03
Speaker 1: How many of them, English politicians, were being enriched by
26:09
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell? Running their campaigns on his dime? I'm sure
26:16
Speaker 1: a lot of them. There were also rumors that he
26:22
Speaker 1: was a spy for Israel or Britain or both. And
26:26
Speaker 1: I don't even know if like we can call it
26:29
Speaker 1: rumor at this point. And again, I don't know about
26:32
Speaker 1: spy either, though. I think that's a stretch. I believe
26:35
Speaker 1: he definitely was an asset, but a traditional spy in
26:39
Speaker 1: the sense of, you know, somebody marking some chalk on
26:43
Speaker 1: a park bench and leaving a message for their handler.
26:46
Speaker 1: I don't believe that was the case. But I definitely
26:49
Speaker 1: believe he was an asset of the Israeli intelligence apparatus,
26:54
Speaker 1: the English intelligence apparatus, certainly the CIA, and maybe was
26:58
Speaker 1: even being run by the KGB or was dog walking
27:01
Speaker 1: the KGB for, you know, to gain more money and
27:06
Speaker 1: try and gain a little bit more access to more
27:09
Speaker 1: powerful levers of power. Because we know that's what these
27:13
Speaker 1: people did. Look, they collected powerful friends like you or
27:17
Speaker 1: I collected trading cards when we were growing up. In
27:22
Speaker 1: the new biography, Fall, The Mysterious Life and Death of
27:26
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron, author John Preston
27:31
Speaker 1: follows the story of Maxwell's life from a destitute childhood
27:35
Speaker 1: in Czechoslovakia to the heights of fame and fortune. And
27:40
Speaker 1: now remember, this is going to be our intro into
27:44
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell and then obviously to the rest of the Klan.
27:49
Speaker 1: But we're going to go into the beginning of his
27:54
Speaker 1: life and all of that as well. I have an
27:57
Speaker 1: episode that I'm working on probably going to come out
28:00
Speaker 1: next Monday where it's going to start at the beginning
28:04
Speaker 1: of Robert Maxwell's life. And work through from there... To
28:08
Speaker 1: try and build even more... Of an idea of who
28:12
Speaker 1: he was... And what his involvement was... With people like
28:16
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein... Preston deftly depicts... How the trappings of money
28:22
Speaker 1: and power... Can be used to obscure... A lifetime of
28:25
Speaker 1: secrets and lies... In this excerpt... Maxwell's uncanny ability... To
28:29
Speaker 1: deflect attention with abundance... Is on full display... And serves
28:34
Speaker 1: as a chilling reminder... that the apple never falls far
28:39
Speaker 1: from the tree. And again, I've said it from the
28:43
Speaker 1: very beginning, that I think that Maxwell, Ghislaine, spent plenty
28:48
Speaker 1: of time at Robert Maxwell's knee, and of all of
28:52
Speaker 1: the Maxwell children, was the most like dear old dad.
28:57
Speaker 1: She had the same chemical build-up, she had the same
29:01
Speaker 1: exact ideas, And she also had the same outlook on
29:08
Speaker 1: life after spending so much time with her dad and
29:11
Speaker 1: being so heavily influenced by her dad and the way
29:15
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell conducted himself on a day-to-day basis. The dinner
29:21
Speaker 1: dances hosted by Robert and Betty Maxwell at Headington Hill
29:25
Speaker 1: Hall were considered, even by hardened partygoers, to be in
29:29
Speaker 1: a class of their own. The house itself was an
29:33
Speaker 1: ideal venue for a party. It had been built in
29:35
Speaker 1: the early 19th century by a culture-loving family of brewers.
29:39
Speaker 1: the Morels. They, too, had been keen party-givers. In 1878,
29:46
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde was among the 300 guests at one of
29:48
Speaker 1: their fancy dress balls. For reasons that are not entirely clear,
29:53
Speaker 1: he chose to come dressed as Prince Rupert of the Rhine. So...
29:58
Speaker 1: This house has a history, obviously, of a place where
30:05
Speaker 1: the so-called elite of England come for parties. And it's
30:09
Speaker 1: not a new place when it comes to these people
30:14
Speaker 1: gathering and having whatever kind of weirdo, billionaire, howlet-the-moon-covered-in-blood type
30:20
Speaker 1: of parties that these sick people have. And it shows
30:25
Speaker 1: you the kind of power that Robert Maxwell had. He
30:29
Speaker 1: had to have this kind of house, right? A house
30:32
Speaker 1: that had some history. A house where, you know, there
30:35
Speaker 1: was people before him who were established in society. You know,
30:41
Speaker 1: it's a good dinner piece conversation. Yeah, you know, Oscar
30:45
Speaker 1: Wilde used to hang out at my house. You know
30:47
Speaker 1: how rich people have to floss about everything? Ever since
30:52
Speaker 1: the Maxwells moved into Headington Hill Hall, they continued the
30:56
Speaker 1: tradition of throwing grand parties. I love it. Heddington Hill Hall.
31:01
Speaker 1: All of these names are, you know, like a name
31:03
Speaker 1: from Game of Thrones, right? Summer Hill Hall. And it
31:09
Speaker 1: cracks me up when I read about these different locations
31:13
Speaker 1: and you reflect back on different fantasy books that have
31:16
Speaker 1: come out and the influence that England and London has
31:20
Speaker 1: had on the whole fantasy genre is just incomparable. All right. Well,
31:26
Speaker 1: I digress. But as guests soon discovered, Maxwell had his
31:31
Speaker 1: own way of doing things. The writer and future conservative MP,
31:36
Speaker 1: Giles Brandreth, was a guest at one of their parties
31:40
Speaker 1: in the 1970s. At first, nothing struck him as out
31:44
Speaker 1: of the ordinary. It was only when I went up
31:46
Speaker 1: to Maxwell that I realized he had this apparatus on.
31:51
Speaker 1: There was an old-fashioned microphone attached to the lapel of
31:54
Speaker 1: his jacket with a windshield on it. And on his
31:57
Speaker 1: belt was this large box. the size of a hardback
32:00
Speaker 1: book with a dial in the middle. This was somehow
32:03
Speaker 1: connected to the speakers in each of the rooms. All right,
32:06
Speaker 1: so that explanation, for some reason in my mind, I
32:10
Speaker 1: had the visions of Data from Goonies and all of
32:15
Speaker 1: his little contraptions that he wore, right? You know, the
32:17
Speaker 1: little belt contraption. He had a contraption for this, for that.
32:22
Speaker 1: Who does Robert Maxwell think he is? Data from Goonies?
32:27
Speaker 1: A broken down wannabe Bruce Wayne? I mean, really, with
32:32
Speaker 1: the apparatuses all over the belt, the windshield? I mean, what?
32:36
Speaker 1: What are you even wearing, you jack wagon? Maxwell, Brandreth realized,
32:43
Speaker 1: was wearing his own personal PA system, enabling him to
32:47
Speaker 1: address people no matter how far away they were. Talk
32:51
Speaker 1: about being an arrogant tool. You're walking around with a
32:55
Speaker 1: PA system on you, looking like Billy Blanks teaching a
32:58
Speaker 1: Taibo class. Get a grip, daddy serpent. He turned the
33:05
Speaker 1: dial down when he was talking to you. Then, as
33:07
Speaker 1: soon as he saw someone he wanted to talk to
33:10
Speaker 1: on the other side of the room, he turned it
33:12
Speaker 1: up again. And this disembodied voice would be booming out
33:15
Speaker 1: of the speakers. I can only imagine. This idiot. trying
33:21
Speaker 1: to get your attention from across the room with this
33:23
Speaker 1: stupid contraption he's wearing, looking like the world's biggest moron.
33:30
Speaker 1: For all the splendor of his parties, Maxwell himself remained
33:34
Speaker 1: an oddly elusive figure. It was as if there was
33:37
Speaker 1: kind of invisible mode around him, Brandreth recalls. He was
33:41
Speaker 1: definitely a presence, but whenever he came into a room,
33:45
Speaker 1: instead of the room being more crowded, it always seemed
33:48
Speaker 1: slightly emptier than before. Well, that's what happens when a
33:52
Speaker 1: bipedal serpent walks in and sucks the air out of
33:55
Speaker 1: a room, right? Daddy Serpent comes strolling in on National
33:59
Speaker 1: Serpent's Day, by the way, that is what today is,
34:02
Speaker 1: and sucks all of the air out of the room.
34:08
Speaker 1: I'm sure that Robert Maxwell was an absolute dickhead, okay?
34:12
Speaker 1: Let's just be honest, all right? I'm sure he's one
34:16
Speaker 1: of those rich dickheads That makes you want to vomit
34:20
Speaker 1: in your own mouth. It is disgusting. The narcissism that
34:28
Speaker 1: we see on display with these people. As Maxwell's fortune grew,
34:34
Speaker 1: the larger and grander the parties became. Cabinet ministers would
34:39
Speaker 1: rub shoulders with captains of industry. Leading scientists with newspaper editors. Boy,
34:45
Speaker 1: does that sound familiar? almost like the blueprint was taken
34:48
Speaker 1: directly from Robert Maxwell, handed off to dear old little daughter,
34:54
Speaker 1: Mini Serpent, and then put into action with the help
35:00
Speaker 1: of Jeffrey Epstein. It is the same exact playbook that
35:06
Speaker 1: was used. Get close to all of these people of industry, scientists,
35:11
Speaker 1: newspaper editors, and then go to work. Shape the narrative.
35:17
Speaker 1: Build yourself a shield that encompasses all of these dumb
35:24
Speaker 1: idiots in so-called polite society, in the so-called realm of
35:29
Speaker 1: the elite, that gives you the cover to continue your
35:35
Speaker 1: disgusting human trafficking. And that is exactly the blueprint used
35:42
Speaker 1: by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell just like it was
35:46
Speaker 1: used by dear old dad. But the joint party to
35:51
Speaker 1: celebrate Maxwell's 65th birthday and the 40th anniversary of his company,
35:57
Speaker 1: Pergamon Press, in June 1988, was confidently predicted to outdo
36:02
Speaker 1: them all in terms of both opulence and pomp. Now,
36:07
Speaker 1: we know that these MFers like to spend a couple
36:11
Speaker 1: of bucks on their parties, right? And it all makes sense, right,
36:14
Speaker 1: when you start looking at it. Of course they were
36:16
Speaker 1: willing to spend all these monies on parties and on
36:18
Speaker 1: opulence and on all other sorts of nonsense because it
36:22
Speaker 1: wasn't their money. They were laundering it. They were stealing it.
36:25
Speaker 1: It was a Ponzi scheme. But meanwhile, even after Maxwell's fall,
36:31
Speaker 1: even after Maxwell was caught in the act, basically, somehow
36:37
Speaker 1: his children, his ex-wife, all of the Maxwell clan still
36:41
Speaker 1: have a ton of money. Now, when normal people get
36:45
Speaker 1: caught up doing something like this, all of your money
36:48
Speaker 1: is seized by the government. But when you're rich, well,
36:51
Speaker 1: you find a way around that. Unfortunately, the crack dealer
36:56
Speaker 1: in South Central LA isn't afforded the same luxuries under
37:02
Speaker 1: our two-tiered system. No one, not even as many critics,
37:07
Speaker 1: could deny that Maxwell was on a roll. From Oxford
37:11
Speaker 1: to Osaka, his empire was booming. As he had boasted
37:16
Speaker 1: just a few weeks earlier, the banks owe us money.
37:19
Speaker 1: We have so much on deposit. Oh, is that so?
37:23
Speaker 1: So much money on deposit. You mean money that you
37:25
Speaker 1: were laundering, money that you were stealing, money that you
37:28
Speaker 1: were taking from other people. And how much of that
37:31
Speaker 1: money and how much of that scam was helped along
37:35
Speaker 1: the way by somebody like Jeffrey Epstein. We know that
37:38
Speaker 1: Epstein was involved in this sort of thing. moving money around,
37:42
Speaker 1: hiding money, making money untaxable and untraceable. At the same time,
37:50
Speaker 1: academic institutions were queuing up to bestow honors upon him.
37:55
Speaker 1: Maxwell had just been given a doctorate of law by
37:58
Speaker 1: Aberdeen University, as well as an honorary life membership in
38:03
Speaker 1: the University of London's Institute of Philosophy. Now, you see
38:08
Speaker 1: how academia... is always involved with the scummiest amongst us,
38:13
Speaker 1: it would seem. And yet these are the people who
38:17
Speaker 1: think that it's a good idea for us to send
38:19
Speaker 1: our children to them, to safeguard them, to teach them,
38:23
Speaker 1: to show them the right way in life. Academia should
38:29
Speaker 1: be ashamed of themselves. And there should be a much
38:33
Speaker 1: more forceful voice coming from every corner of academia. Unfortunately,
38:40
Speaker 1: there's only a handful of strong, courageous people in that
38:45
Speaker 1: world that have stood up and Dr. Stephen DeLay most
38:48
Speaker 1: certainly is one of them. But we need more people
38:52
Speaker 1: in that world to stand up and they need to
38:54
Speaker 1: understand and admit how deep the problems run on their end.
39:03
Speaker 1: So many guests had been invited, around 3,000, that it
39:06
Speaker 1: had been decided to hold the party over three consecutive nights.
39:10
Speaker 1: Friday night would be white tie and decorations, and Saturday night,
39:15
Speaker 1: black tie, while the Sunday night party would be a
39:18
Speaker 1: more informal affair for members of staff. In between, there
39:22
Speaker 1: was a lunch party on Saturday. Oh, if you're staff,
39:25
Speaker 1: you can't come to Friday or Saturday. No, no, no. That's,
39:28
Speaker 1: you know, that's for... our real guests. That's like in
39:32
Speaker 1: the Italian household. If you try and go and get
39:34
Speaker 1: yourself a little bit of the Entenmann's, your mom will
39:36
Speaker 1: slap you in the hand with a wooden spoon and
39:38
Speaker 1: tell you that's for company. So basically the he would
39:43
Speaker 1: have a little function on Sunday at the tail end
39:46
Speaker 1: of it for his staff and for people that weren't
39:49
Speaker 1: worthy of running the halls with the rest of the serpents.
39:57
Speaker 1: Bob Maxwell and the rest of these people are some
40:01
Speaker 1: of the most disgusting human beings, and I use that
40:07
Speaker 1: word loosely, that I have ever had the I don't
40:16
Speaker 1: even know what to say about it, honestly. I've never
40:18
Speaker 1: really researched people like this. Literally, the whole entire family
40:24
Speaker 1: is scummy. One scummier than the next. In the days
40:29
Speaker 1: leading up to the first party, vast marquees were erected
40:32
Speaker 1: around the house. Two floor-to-ceiling windows were removed to improve
40:36
Speaker 1: access to the main marquee. Legions of florists came down
40:40
Speaker 1: from London to create elaborate displays in the house. The marquees,
40:44
Speaker 1: and even the swimming pool, this involved them transporting the
40:48
Speaker 1: flowers out to the middle of the pool in little dinghies.
40:51
Speaker 1: Imagine having a pool so damn big you needed a
40:54
Speaker 1: dinghy to get out to the middle of it. I mean,
40:57
Speaker 1: my parents have a junior Olympic-sized swimming pool in their backyard,
41:02
Speaker 1: and that's the pool I grew up swimming in, and
41:04
Speaker 1: it's big as hell. I can't even imagine needing a
41:07
Speaker 1: dinghy to get out to the middle of my pool.
41:12
Speaker 1: A stage had been built at one end of the
41:14
Speaker 1: main marquee, and a dance floor laid so the guests
41:16
Speaker 1: could dance on the sound of the Joloss Orchestra. Later on,
41:21
Speaker 1: it would be a disco. At the end of the meal,
41:24
Speaker 1: the cast of the West End musical, Me and My Girl,
41:27
Speaker 1: would perform highlights from the show. So they had the
41:30
Speaker 1: whole thing going on here, right? They had, um... the
41:35
Speaker 1: orchestra they had a dance floor they had it turned
41:40
Speaker 1: into a disco they had people that were involved in
41:43
Speaker 1: plays doing little skits from those plays so as you
41:46
Speaker 1: can see it was your typical debased Roman-esque debaucherous evening
41:55
Speaker 1: to ensure that everyone enjoyed unimpeded views of the entertainment
41:59
Speaker 1: the dining area had been constructed on two levels A
42:02
Speaker 1: mobile darkroom had also been set up on the grounds.
42:06
Speaker 1: Guests who had their pictures taken during the evening by
42:08
Speaker 1: a team of six photographers would be able to collect
42:11
Speaker 1: them as they left. Woo-wee! I would love to find
42:15
Speaker 1: out who those photographers were and what sort of pictures
42:19
Speaker 1: they still have up the cuff. I bet you that
42:22
Speaker 1: there are a ton of pictures from this event that
42:25
Speaker 1: are floating around, and these six photographers, those would be
42:29
Speaker 1: some interesting-ass conversations. To mark the 40th anniversary of Pergamon,
42:36
Speaker 1: a special book of tributes had been compiled. Pergamon had
42:39
Speaker 1: grown into the world's largest scientific publisher, and the editors
42:43
Speaker 1: of Maxwell's scientific journals, more than 300 in all, along
42:48
Speaker 1: with various Nobel laureates, extolled his virtues in extravagant terms. Again,
42:54
Speaker 1: you see the hooks that Bob Maxwell had into the
42:59
Speaker 1: world of science and academia. And that was passed down
43:02
Speaker 1: to Ghislaine, the blueprint, and to Jeffrey Epstein. Obviously, I
43:08
Speaker 1: don't have direct evidence of that. But folks, I am
43:11
Speaker 1: convinced that that is how all of this came to be.
43:16
Speaker 1: If we just take a look at Bob Maxwell and
43:18
Speaker 1: his blueprint, and we bring that blueprint over and put
43:24
Speaker 1: it on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's blueprint, it matches up.
43:29
Speaker 1: Almost to a T. With lucky land slots. International Journal
43:33
Speaker 1: of Hydrogen Energy noted, everything Bob Maxwell touches turns to gold.
43:39
Speaker 1: You mean fool's gold, right? While the director of one
43:42
Speaker 1: of his Japanese companies wrote, each time I have the
43:45
Speaker 1: pleasure of meeting him, I am reminded of F. Scott
43:48
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald's words that a millionaire is no ordinary man. Yes,
43:53
Speaker 1: he is. And F. Scott Fitzgerald was completely wrong. They
43:56
Speaker 1: bleed the same. They put their pants on the same
43:59
Speaker 1: as us. And guess what? They're no better than you
44:02
Speaker 1: because they have a couple of bucks. Most of them
44:06
Speaker 1: had the fortunate luck of being born into it. And
44:12
Speaker 1: those that made their own millions, well, hey, good for you, right? Again,
44:16
Speaker 1: I don't have any problem with people being wealthy. I
44:18
Speaker 1: think it's a great thing. I think that we should
44:20
Speaker 1: all want to have a good amount of wealth. Because
44:25
Speaker 1: if we all had wealth, then we could do good
44:26
Speaker 1: things with it. Help other people. You know, when you
44:30
Speaker 1: see something that's wrong, you could jump in and fix it.
44:35
Speaker 1: But it seems like everybody who has this kind of
44:37
Speaker 1: wealth is nothing but a scumbag. Last night during the
44:42
Speaker 1: live stream, I had a listener ask me if I
44:46
Speaker 1: could name one billionaire that I thought was a good person.
44:50
Speaker 1: And folks, I honestly cannot. Now, I know that I'm
44:54
Speaker 1: probably the wrong person to ask considering how cynical I
44:57
Speaker 1: am when it comes to these people, but I really
45:00
Speaker 1: truly believe that there's not one person that comes to
45:03
Speaker 1: mind that I can think of. Now, I'm sure I'm
45:07
Speaker 1: missing somebody. I'm sure there's probably a billionaire or two
45:09
Speaker 1: out there that have done good things, but when you
45:12
Speaker 1: start breaking it down and you look at all of
45:14
Speaker 1: these hedge fund managers and all of these people who
45:17
Speaker 1: are in the financial sector, it seems like all of
45:20
Speaker 1: them have been fined Or slapped with some sort of
45:24
Speaker 1: penalty for stealing and cheating. All of them. So how
45:29
Speaker 1: can I think and sit here and even begin to
45:32
Speaker 1: try and lie to you folks or gaslight you by saying,
45:35
Speaker 1: oh yeah, well this millionaire is a good guy. Because honestly,
45:38
Speaker 1: I truly don't think that there are any at this point.
45:44
Speaker 1: Arthur Barrett, editor of Vacuum, recalled how his initial doubts
45:48
Speaker 1: about Maxwell had soon disappeared. I have to confess that,
45:52
Speaker 1: quickly realizing his predatory and entrepreneurial ambitions, I nonetheless took
45:58
Speaker 1: a great liking to him. And there's no doubt he
46:01
Speaker 1: was a human predator, right? Definitely a predator. The kind
46:04
Speaker 1: of person that preyed on the less fortunate, the weak,
46:08
Speaker 1: companies that were in peril. You know, basically the same guy...
46:14
Speaker 1: That's taking it in the shorts right now on Wall
46:16
Speaker 1: Street with the short of GameStop. The same kind of scumbag.
46:25
Speaker 1: Among the congratulatory telegrams was one from the U.S. President
46:29
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. As the happy birthdays ring out, Nancy and
46:34
Speaker 1: I are delighted to join in the chorus of appreciation.
46:37
Speaker 1: Isn't that nice, Ronnie Reagan? Send your buddy there, Bobby Maxwell,
46:44
Speaker 1: a nice happy birthday card, the leader of the free world,
46:48
Speaker 1: sending a nice happy birthday card to a scumbag like
46:52
Speaker 1: Bob Maxwell. You see, folks, Donald Trump wasn't the cause
46:57
Speaker 1: of the problems. Donald Trump is a symptom of the problems.
47:02
Speaker 1: And I know it feels good and visceral to lash
47:05
Speaker 1: out and blame him. But we have to dig deeper.
47:09
Speaker 1: We can't just... dig a little bit under the surface
47:13
Speaker 1: and be like, all right, that's it. We're where we
47:15
Speaker 1: need to be. This goes back a very long time, folks.
47:18
Speaker 1: And the politicians that we elect and the people that
47:21
Speaker 1: have ruled over us for a very long time have
47:27
Speaker 1: straight up been evil. I'm sorry to say. The prime minister,
47:34
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher, offered a somewhat solipistic contribution of her own.
47:39
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell has never made any secret of the fact
47:42
Speaker 1: that officially he is politically opposed to me. But to
47:46
Speaker 1: tell the truth, I think he rather liked my approach
47:49
Speaker 1: to politics and government, a sense of direction and decision.
47:52
Speaker 1: These are the very qualities that have taken him far. Oh, well,
47:57
Speaker 1: that's nice by the Iron Lady, huh? You know, Robert Maxwell,
48:01
Speaker 1: he doesn't like me very much, but I think that
48:04
Speaker 1: he likes my approach to politics and government. Probably not
48:07
Speaker 1: the stamp of approval that you're looking for there, Iron Lady.
48:13
Speaker 1: These are the very qualities that have taken him far.
48:16
Speaker 1: As far as the labor leader, Neil Kinnock, was concerned,
48:20
Speaker 1: if Bob Maxwell didn't exist, no one could invent him. Yeah,
48:24
Speaker 1: he is one of those characters, right? One of those
48:27
Speaker 1: characters that you think you'd only see in a book.
48:30
Speaker 1: But he was a real-life arch-villain, folks. That's what Bob
48:34
Speaker 1: Maxwell was. A real-life bad guy. On the night of
48:41
Speaker 1: the first party, guests passed down a receiving line where
48:44
Speaker 1: they were greeted by Maxwell, Betty, and all seven of
48:47
Speaker 1: their children. Oh, kind of like when Robert Baratheon comes
48:51
Speaker 1: to Winterfell, huh? And the Starks are all lined up
48:54
Speaker 1: to meet him and greet him. These people truly thought
48:56
Speaker 1: that that's who they were. They thought that they were
48:58
Speaker 1: the modern day nobles. They were royal houses. We were
49:02
Speaker 1: living in a feudal world and we were all still
49:05
Speaker 1: their serfs. And when they raised the banners, we have
49:08
Speaker 1: to come running. That's how these people truly lived. Some
49:13
Speaker 1: of the guests arrived bearing birthday presents. The broadcaster, David Frost,
49:17
Speaker 1: turned up with a 500-pound bottle of wine. Unaware of
49:21
Speaker 1: how much it had cost, Maxwell's chef later tipped it
49:25
Speaker 1: into a beef stew. Imagine that. 500-pound bottle of wine
49:32
Speaker 1: used in this stew? That's the sort of money we're
49:37
Speaker 1: dealing with. That's the kind of people we're dealing with.
49:41
Speaker 1: A $ 500 pound bottle of wine pays a lot of
49:46
Speaker 1: people's car payment and insurance, half of their rent, food
49:50
Speaker 1: for a month. But these people are like, oh, we'll
49:53
Speaker 1: just pour this in the wine. I mean, pour this
49:55
Speaker 1: in the beef stew here. They are so disconnected from reality, folks,
50:00
Speaker 1: that when their crash inevitably comes, forget Humpty Dumpty. because
50:09
Speaker 1: these pieces can never be put back together again for
50:13
Speaker 1: the so-called elite. The toothpaste is out of the tube.
50:20
Speaker 1: As guests sip their drinks, the band of the Coldstream
50:22
Speaker 1: Guards march back and forth across the lawn. Before dinner started,
50:27
Speaker 1: Robert and Betty made their formal entrance into the marquee
50:31
Speaker 1: to an announcement from the master of ceremonies. Ladies and gentlemen,
50:35
Speaker 1: would you please welcome your host and hostess, Robert and
50:38
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Maxwell, and a fanfare of herald trumpeters. Like I said,
50:45
Speaker 1: they truly believe that they're the modern-day aristocracy, the ruling houses,
50:50
Speaker 1: and that we should all be out working their farms
50:53
Speaker 1: as their serfs. And when it's time to go fight
50:57
Speaker 1: in one of their endless, unneeded wars... Well, make sure
51:01
Speaker 1: you grab your hoe. Make sure you grab your pickaxe,
51:04
Speaker 1: because you're going to be on the front line, and
51:06
Speaker 1: you're going to be cannon fodder, while the rest of
51:08
Speaker 1: us eat our caviar and sip our bubbly. Like bad
51:14
Speaker 1: religion says, we'll just let them eat war. Everyone stood
51:21
Speaker 1: to applaud. Along with a row of medals pinned to
51:23
Speaker 1: his black tailcoat, Maxwell was wearing a large white enamel
51:27
Speaker 1: cross on a chain around his neck. Oh yeah, because
51:30
Speaker 1: I'm sure Robert Maxwell was Captain Religious Pants. What they
51:36
Speaker 1: do is they wear these religious symbols from Christian religions
51:42
Speaker 1: or otherwise, and they do it as mockery. These people
51:48
Speaker 1: aren't religious. These people are out, you know, howling at
51:53
Speaker 1: the moon to Moloch and shit. That's what it certainly
51:56
Speaker 1: seems like. So whenever you see them wearing some sort
52:01
Speaker 1: of religious apparel like a cross or anything like that,
52:05
Speaker 1: it's in mockery in my opinion. This was the Order
52:09
Speaker 1: of the White Rose of Finland, a decoration normally given
52:13
Speaker 1: to foreign heads of state in recognition of outstanding civilian
52:16
Speaker 1: or military conduct. Betty Maxwell wore a dress made of
52:20
Speaker 1: gold embroidered tulle over yellow taffada silk. Boy, must be nice.
52:26
Speaker 1: Must be nice, huh? a gold embroider, and yellow taffeta silk.
52:32
Speaker 1: These people are living in a completely different world than
52:38
Speaker 1: the rest of us, folks. And for a long time,
52:40
Speaker 1: they were allowed to exist there, up in their so-called
52:43
Speaker 1: rarefied air, without none of us really paying attention. That
52:48
Speaker 1: shit is over. We are fully engaged now, and you
52:53
Speaker 1: so-called elites, you have our full unadulterated attention. At one
53:02
Speaker 1: of their earlier parties in 1986, the speech had been
53:05
Speaker 1: given by a former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. Suffering from
53:09
Speaker 1: the early stages of Alzheimer's, Wilson had begun this speech
53:13
Speaker 1: brightly enough, but then clearly forgot who he was supposed
53:16
Speaker 1: to be talking about. This time, nothing had been left
53:20
Speaker 1: to chance. The main speech was given by Maxwell's banker,
53:24
Speaker 1: Sir Michael Richardson. Managing Director of Rothschild's Bank and an
53:29
Speaker 1: Economic Advisor to Miss Thatcher. Boy, those Rothschilds are just
53:32
Speaker 1: quality people as well, huh? I mean, they don't have
53:35
Speaker 1: their hands in all kinds of scumbaggery. They haven't had
53:38
Speaker 1: their hands in all kinds of scumbaggery since, oh, I
53:41
Speaker 1: don't know, Waterloo. Do you think it's just a coincidence, folks,
53:47
Speaker 1: that the same names happen to pop up in these
53:50
Speaker 1: articles as we go through this? Do you really think
53:55
Speaker 1: that's just a coincidence? Betty and Bob, this must be
54:00
Speaker 1: the party of the decade, Richardson declared to shouts of hear, hear,
54:04
Speaker 1: and another round of applause. All of us are delighted
54:08
Speaker 1: to be here because we believe you have made a
54:11
Speaker 1: major contribution to all of our lives. But as she
54:15
Speaker 1: sat beaming away by Maxwell's side, Betty found herself wondering
54:19
Speaker 1: if the party might not be too puffed up with self-importance.
54:23
Speaker 1: if something vital might not have been lost along the way. Oh,
54:27
Speaker 1: it's all about the face, right? We got to have
54:30
Speaker 1: the best party. Everything is about consolidation of power. It
54:34
Speaker 1: comes back to that no matter what. And you see
54:38
Speaker 1: it in real time with these articles as we read them.
54:42
Speaker 1: It is so apparent that these people are operating in
54:50
Speaker 1: a forget a different world a whole different universe than
54:55
Speaker 1: the rest of us. In particular, she had major doubts
55:00
Speaker 1: about the Herald Trumpeters. I thought it was really over
55:03
Speaker 1: the top, but I managed to play my part. For
55:06
Speaker 1: all its success, for me, it had lost the intimate
55:09
Speaker 1: quality that our previous parties had had. It was just
55:13
Speaker 1: too vast. Oh, please. I'm sure that, you know, your
55:17
Speaker 1: husband felt the same. The party had to be vast.
55:23
Speaker 1: The more vast it was, the more glitzy, the more glamorous,
55:26
Speaker 1: the easier it was for Maxwell to sink his hooks
55:29
Speaker 1: into people. The easier it was for Maxwell to use
55:32
Speaker 1: the so-called rich and elite to make his own reputation
55:39
Speaker 1: stellar and to give him access to these higher levels
55:43
Speaker 1: of power the same way his daughter used the same
55:48
Speaker 1: blueprint to ape his behavior all of these years later.
55:54
Speaker 1: That evening, the economist Peter Jay found himself sharing Betty
55:57
Speaker 1: Maxwell's misgivings. It was as if people came because they
56:01
Speaker 1: wanted to see Maxwell. It was a spectacle. And although
56:04
Speaker 1: they sucked up to him and enjoyed his hospitality, you
56:08
Speaker 1: could see them raising their eyebrows at the same time.
56:11
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm sure that they had such a big
56:13
Speaker 1: problem with it that they ate all of his food
56:16
Speaker 1: and enjoyed all of his music and hung out with
56:19
Speaker 1: all of the other scuzzbags. I love these people who
56:23
Speaker 1: are like, oh, our eyebrows were raised as you stayed
56:27
Speaker 1: and continued to party and suck down champagne on his dime.
56:31
Speaker 1: Like that makes you a better person. Just like the
56:34
Speaker 1: jackasses with the Reddit CEO when Maxwell was at the
56:41
Speaker 1: party with all of them and she comes out and says, oh,
56:43
Speaker 1: we all knew what Maxwell was. Then why are you
56:46
Speaker 1: still at the party with her? Why didn't you leave
56:48
Speaker 1: right away? and it comes down to, at the end
56:51
Speaker 1: of the day, these people don't give a damn. After
56:56
Speaker 1: dinner was over and the cast of Me and My
56:58
Speaker 1: Girl had finished performing, guests were asked to go back outside.
57:02
Speaker 1: There they were, treated to a fireworks display, the culmination
57:06
Speaker 1: of which was a huge flaming sign spelling out the words,
57:10
Speaker 1: Happy Birthday, Bob! across the Oxford skyline. Must be nice.
57:16
Speaker 1: Big fireworks display, Forcing everyone to come out and watch
57:20
Speaker 1: it in your honor? Nah, no narcissism here, folks. But
57:24
Speaker 1: not all of the guests stayed to watch. Some of
57:28
Speaker 1: them succumbed to curiosity and went snooping. Mike Malloy, by
57:32
Speaker 1: now the editor-in-chief of The Mirror, was particularly struck by
57:36
Speaker 1: the decor of Headington Hill Hall. All the furniture looked
57:40
Speaker 1: as if it had been bought from the sale of
57:42
Speaker 1: a second-rate country house in the 1920s. And the paintings
57:46
Speaker 1: were absolutely terrible. I've never seen a worse collection. I
57:51
Speaker 1: bet you those paintings were all fake. He probably had
57:54
Speaker 1: his art collection stashed somewhere to, you know, hide it.
57:58
Speaker 1: Make sure that he wasn't getting taxed on it and shit.
58:01
Speaker 1: And the furniture, well, that doesn't shock me. It seems
58:04
Speaker 1: to me that a lot of these people have terrible
58:09
Speaker 1: taste when it comes to the interior decorations of their houses.
58:12
Speaker 1: I mean, look at how bad Jeffrey Epstein's houses were decorated.
58:17
Speaker 1: Having inspected the art, Malloy peered into Maxwell's drawing room.
58:21
Speaker 1: There were all these bookshelves with books on them, except
58:24
Speaker 1: when I looked more closely, I saw they weren't real books.
58:27
Speaker 1: They were made out of cardboard. I couldn't get over it.
58:30
Speaker 1: Here was this man who had this fortune out of publishing,
58:33
Speaker 1: and yet there weren't even real books on his shelves.
58:36
Speaker 1: In fact, not all the books were false, only those
58:40
Speaker 1: concealing Maxwell's stereo system. And, you know, it's just, An
58:47
Speaker 1: overall look at Maxwell in general, his whole life was false.
58:50
Speaker 1: Everything about him was false. The way he presented himself
58:53
Speaker 1: was false. And even the books that he had on
58:58
Speaker 1: display were fake. While the dancing was going on, Maxwell
59:05
Speaker 1: asked another of the guests, Gerald Ronson, CEO of the
59:08
Speaker 1: property developers Herodotus, International, if he would like to come
59:12
Speaker 1: into the house for a quiet drink. He waved his
59:15
Speaker 1: fat finger at me and said, let's go into the
59:17
Speaker 1: library because I don't want to talk to these people.
59:20
Speaker 1: They were, Maxwell told him, a bunch of arseholes who
59:23
Speaker 1: would go anywhere if they were invited by someone important. Well,
59:27
Speaker 1: I can't disagree with Maxwell there. He's right about that.
59:30
Speaker 1: These people are a bunch of arseholes. And they would
59:33
Speaker 1: go anywhere if they were invited by somebody with power
59:36
Speaker 1: and money. And it doesn't matter how scummy that person
59:39
Speaker 1: might be. Maxwell had something he wanted to show him.
59:45
Speaker 1: Bob said, you always thought I was joking when I
59:47
Speaker 1: told you I had won the military cross. He then
59:51
Speaker 1: opened up a large photo album and proudly pointed to
59:54
Speaker 1: one of the photographs. Taken more than 40 years earlier,
59:58
Speaker 1: it showed Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery pinning the medal onto
1:00:01
Speaker 1: the uniform of a much younger, slimmer Maxwell. Ronson laughed
1:00:06
Speaker 1: and held up his hands. I said I'd take it
1:00:08
Speaker 1: all back, Bob. I'm sorry if I didn't believe you,
1:00:11
Speaker 1: but you do tell so many stories. Well, folks, that
1:00:17
Speaker 1: is the opening salvo into our exploration of the Maxwell family,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: starting with Robert Maxwell. Now, this is just one instance,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: a bit of an overview, and it gives to show
1:00:31
Speaker 1: you a little bit of the opulence and the way
1:00:33
Speaker 1: that he lived his life. But as we begin to
1:00:35
Speaker 1: dig deeper and go further down this rabbit hole, you
1:00:39
Speaker 1: will see that his life was mainly based on stealing,
1:00:44
Speaker 1: consolidating power, and being a general all-around scuzzbag, just like
1:00:51
Speaker 1: daddy's little girl. If you'd like to contact me, you
1:00:55
Speaker 1: can do that at BobbyCapucci at ProtonMail.com. That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I at ProtonMail.com.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter at B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: All of the links that go with this episode can
1:01:15
Speaker 1: be found in the description box.