Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Inside the White House Fallout Over the Epstein Files (Part 2) (6/10/26)

Transcript

Inside the White House Fallout Over the Epstein Files (Part 2) (6/10/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

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Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
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Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to get right
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back to that New York Times article about Donald Trump
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and the Epstein files. This article was authored by Maggie
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Haberman and Jonathan Swan. At the start of last summer,
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as far as outside observers could see, Trump appeared to
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be at the pinnacle of his power. He had just
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bombed nuclear sites in Iran, completed the blitz of executive
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orders to reshape the immigration system, and ran through Congress
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his signature piece of domestic legislation, the Big Beautiful Bill.
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He was using the levers of the government to go
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after his enemies, and out of fear and desperation, America's
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corporate titans were falling over themselves to genuflect. Look a
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lot of those people they wanted favorable deals, and they
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knew that the Trump administration was gonna wheel and deal,
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so they're going to do what's best for their companies.
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My beef is with the administration and their nonsense. The
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absolute greed and corruption that we see on a regular
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basis is just unreal. But behind the scenes, the Epstein
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crisis was paralyzing the Trump administration to a far greater
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extent than the public knew. In their public statements, Trump's
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advisors were full of bravado, dismissing the crisis. In reality,
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it was consuming the highest ranks of the administration, As
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no issue had for the President's team since the Russia
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investigation in his first term. His aids were determined to
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keep their rising sense of panic out of public view. Yo,
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this should have been more than Russia. That Russia shit.
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I hate to tell you a lot of it was contrived.
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I know people don't want to hear it because it
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doesn't fit in with their confirmation bias and shit, But
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it's true and all the way back then that there
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wasn't enough there there to send anybody to prison. Meanwhile,
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the Epstein files were rife with all kinds of corruption,
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and if people would have just focused back then when
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this was all happening in real time, we could have
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actually got something done. But unfortunately that never happened. The
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Justice Department had struggled with just how to dispose of
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the Epstein matter since the beginning of Trump's second term.
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The issue was all consuming for the president's political base,
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but also potentially compromising for the president himself in ways
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that officials in the new administration didn't fully understand any
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path forward would be fraud. Some of that complexity was
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self inflicted. Yes, it was all of it. They created
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this problem for themselves. Donald Trump created this problem for himself.
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Here's an idea. Just live up to the promises you
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made while you were on the campaign trail. Let the
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chips fall where they will, let the American people decide.
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But instead you got a gatekeep and said you got
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to protect your people. Instead you have to bring Leon
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black Sun into the administration. So, yeah, all your problems
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self inflicted. Some of that complexity was self inflicted. In
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the engine room of the MAGA movement, the Epstein files
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were potent fuel. Elon Musk had used as social media
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platform to repeatedly question why a client list had not
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been released. Donald Trump Junior and JD. Vance had invoked
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the Epstein files as a broader campaign message to argue
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that powerful people were hiding the truth from Americans. Tucker
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Carlson and the young Conservative leader Charlie Kirk had each
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insisted that the government should release the documents, and each
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floated the idea that there was an expansive cover up
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and progress. Well, that's because there is. And you don't
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have to agree with Charlie Kirk or agree with Tucker
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Carlson to understand that just because you don't agree with
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somebody doesn't mean they're not right. Look. I don't agree
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with Maggie Haberman all the time she's writ in this article,
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and I think that whole entire thing of having to
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agree with everything somebody says is dumb as hell. I'm
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not going to agree with everything somebody says. Ever, I
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have my own opinions on a wide variety of things,
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and I'm willing to listen to anybody whoever has the
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best ideas. That's who I'm voting for. Trump himself had
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been cagi on the Lex Freeman podcast in September of
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twenty twenty four. When asked about releasing the client list,
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Trump responded, I'd certainly take a look at it, adding
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I'd have no problem with it. The list probably will
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be made public, he said, but he sounded less than
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enthusiastic in private. Trump later told Representative Marjorie Taylor Green
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that a release of Epstein material could hurt some of
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his friends. He repeatedly insisted that he had done nothing
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wrong and that the whole saga was fake news designed
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to harm them politically. And that's his go to move.
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Right anytime that Trump is truly in jeopardy, he calls
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it a hoax, and he gets purchased with that because
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of what happened with Russia. I mean, the American people
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heard Russia, Russia, Russia for or how many years, how
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many hearings, and then what came of it. So when
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people hear this, they're like, oh, just another routine move,
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another hoax to try and get Trump. That's what his
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base thinks. And you can say what you want about
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Trump and the administration, but they're effective communicators when it
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comes to their own party, their own people, very effective.
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They know exactly what buttons to push. And he has
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carefully built this whole entire persona of him being some
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kind of martyr, and he knew that it was going
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to be effective. He knew that if he used that
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strategy and said that that it would protect him. And
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it sure has hasn't it. All the people out here
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that were running their yap for all these years about
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Epstein who now say it's a hoax? What a bunch
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of morons, Like, why would anyone believe anything they have
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to say? Now, It's one thing if the evidence would
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have pointed you in a different direction after you had
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one belief, right, Like if somebody was to show up
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tomorrow with all all of the evidence of what happened
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in that Geil cell and it turned out that it
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was one hundred percent suicide, I'd be the first one
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to get on here and tell you, Look, I've been
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wrong the whole time. It was obviously suicide. Because for me, anyway,
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the only thing that matters is getting as close to
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the truth as we possibly can, and anybody standing in
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the way of that, well, I have questions. But his
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posture was overtaken by the growing frenzy among his supporters
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throughout twenty twenty four. Green had made it he remission
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to force the release of the files, and there were
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so many others, the far right influencer Laura Lumer, the
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conservative activist Scott Presler, Chaia Raychik from Libs of TikTok.
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But when it came to propagating the Epstein files as
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evidence of the deep state capable of evil, two podcasters
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were not to be outdone. Cash Betel and Dan Bongino. Well,
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there's no doubt that those two were the loudest voices
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talking about the Epstein files. And then they get access
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to them and we get nothing. We get told that
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there's nothing there and that it was all just a
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big mistake. And they really thought people were going to
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buy it. They really thought that they were going to
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get Joe and Jane America to buy into that nonsense. Well,
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how's it working out for him? Patel, a National Security
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Council Director for counter Terrorism and Defense Department Chief of
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Staff in the first Trump administration, had repeatedly claimed in
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podcast interviews that the government was hiding Epstein's black book
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or a client list, and he frequently asserted that the
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FBI was deliberately withholding names to protect the powerful they were.
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That's true, but so is Cash Pattel. It's all one
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big ass club, folks, and none of us are invited.
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Battell promised that the second Trump administration would release everything
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to restore public trust, and they've made it worse, promises
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on a Boulevard of Broken Dreams on the Dan Bongino Show.
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Bongino's background as a Secret Service agent had lent authority
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to his claims of a cover up. What the hell
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are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein, He'd ask his large
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audience of magadavotees. The release of the client list would
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rock the political world, he predicted, though Washington Swamp was
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not telling you the truth. Well, that's true too, they're not,
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and neither did Dan Bongino. Just another useless son of
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a bitch. Another person who promised that he was going
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to do the right thing, going to expose people, bring transparency,
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didn't do any of it. In fact, tucked his tail
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between his legs and dipped right back to the podcasting world.
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So as they took office in twenty twenty five, Trump's
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advisors were subject to intense pressure of their own making.
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Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly made things much worse. First,
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in a Fox News interview on February twenty, first appeared
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to confirm the existence of an Epstein client list, something
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that the Mega base had believed was sitting in the
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files hidden, and hinted that its release was imminent. Asked
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whether the Justice Department might release the names, she responded,
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it's sitting on my desk right now to review. But
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many viewed what came six days later as even more
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of an egregious misstep. The whole entire thing was poorly planned,
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poorly managed, and poorly carried out. And if we can't
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prove a cover up here, it's not because there's no evidence,
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it's because the willpower isn't there. On February twenty seventh,
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the White House Communications Office scheduled a lineup of cabinet
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officials to brief popular right wing influencers in the Roosevelt Room.
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The session began with Vice President Vance, followed by Secretary
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of State Marco Rubio walking the influencers through the administration's agenda.
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In attendance was a who's who of online Maga, Mike Cernovich,
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Liz Wheeler, Colin rugg d C. Draino. The President himself
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brought them to the Oval Office and gave them custom
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design Challenge coins as a token of his appreciation. Before
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everything went wrong, one of them would a remark, it
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was the best day of my life. What a bunch
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of clowns. Those people are. All those people with the
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white binders, all part of the sciot, all part of
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the cover up. Imagine sacrificing your morality to have a
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few minutes at the White House when the Attorney General
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and her team walked into the Roosevelt Room carrying boxes.
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Bondi had brought binders as handouts for the influencers. Her
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ades would later tell colleagues that the FBI had prepared
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them with the assurance that they contained revelatory details. Someone
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on her staff said, watch this, this is cool. This
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is going to be epic yet an epic disaster, epically ridiculous.
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But as Bondie staffsart distributing the binders, the blood pressure
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of other officials in the room skyrocketed. They had no
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idea what was in the handouts. The Attorney General was
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distributing something she was calling the Epstein Files that had
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not been vetted by anyone in the White House. One
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official opening the binder began flipping through the pages to
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see if Trump's name was mentioned anywhere. A few pages in,
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right in the middle of the page, there it was. Boy,
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I bet they were happy to find the other what
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thirty eight thousand mentions Cure Starmer, the British Prime Minister,
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was at the White House that day. If news broke
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that the Epstein files had been released before the President
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was to meet the press with the Prime Minister. That
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would be all the journalists would want to talk about,
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and Trump would be blindsided. Oh, poor Trump, gonna get blindsided,
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Gonna have to talk about his buddy Jeffrey Epstein again. Well,
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guess what, it's not going anywhere time to meet that
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shit had on. One of Trump's aids hastily steered the
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influencers out of the White House, telling them that the
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content of the binders was embargoed until after the President's
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news conference with Starmer, but the Communications Office would be
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more than happy to talk about the files afterward. As
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the influencers left, they snapped selfies in front of the
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White House holding the binders, quickly posting the pictures on
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social media. They had now created a new shock wave
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of anticipation of what might be in them. And I
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remember when it happened. I knew for a fact that
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we were getting dog walked. I knew that we were
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going to get nothing. And guess what we got nothing?
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Not a zilch ounngts. Like some others in the White House,
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BONDI had either grossly underestimated or simply been blind to
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the voracious appetite of the MAGA base for information about Epstein.
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Her binders contained information about him and his activities, flight logs,
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contact lists, some rease of items taken from the residents
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after his twenty nineteen arrests, and other material, but nearly
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all of it had been previously released. Bondie had somehow
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simultaneously over sold and trivialized the Epstein files, and now
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the influencers made to feel like dupes. Well they are.
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They're just a bunch of grifters. Do you think any
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of those people care about Jeffrey Epstein or the survivors
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or any of the story. It's about engagement to them. Oh,
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they cared about it when they thought they were going
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to use it politically. That's when they cared, you know,
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just like the other side cares. Now, Oh we got
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a political inroad here, we all of a sudden care. Well,
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I hate to break the news to you, but if
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you would have cared when it mattered the most, when
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this was all happening, maybe, just maybe we wouldn't be
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here today. And it was people like Maggie Haberman, the
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author of this article, who was calling people like me
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conspiracy theorists. Meanwhile, we've been over the target for seven years,
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and all you had to do was listen. Just listen
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to what the survivors were saying. Listen to Virginia, Listen
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to what Maria had to say, Listen to all these
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women who actually lived it. And then you go when
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you look at all the core documents, you look at
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everything that came out, and the picture that it paints
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is not very hard to recognize. In the Roosevelt Room,
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Bondi told the influencers that this was just the first
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tranch of files. There would be more coming, she assured them,
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But that story would change too. Yeah, everything they told
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us changed the campaign. It was Oh, we're gonna have
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everything out, then it was oh, no, there's nothing coming out.
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And then after the discharge petition, well, we're the most
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transparent administration in the history of transparency, so we're going
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to get everything out for you. Nothing comes out, nothing
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of substance, and they fight tooth andel the whole entire time.
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If Donald Trump wanted to be transparent, he could be
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him and his Justice Department could have been as transparent
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as they wanted to be. But instead we had to
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jump through hoops and it became a circus. And for
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what so Trump could protect his donors, protect a few
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of Jeffrey Epstein's best friends, or is there something more
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sinister that he's trying to protect. The Justice Department officials
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were reviewing the Epstein material, but months would pass before
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the Department or any of Trump's closest advisers knew just
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how many documents. There were more than three million pages
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of files related to Epstein, and potentially as many as
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six million. In the early months, officials were focused on
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going through the trove of what are known as three
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O two forms, records of FBI agents interview notes with witnesses,
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some of whom were victims of Epstein. These were raw records,
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often containing unverified information. Trump was mentioned numerous times, as
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were other prominent men. Look, the three or two reports
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are telling. These are the words of the people who
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are interviewed, who the investigators think have knowledge of what's
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going on. So I would suggest that you take the
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three O two profers seriously. Now, does that mean that
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people won't lie? Of course not. You have to be guarded,
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and I would suggest that you're very cautious with what's
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sort of slop you're put into your brain when it
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comes to this topic. There's a lot of people out
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there just serving up a bunch of nonsense. In June,
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four months after the circus, in the Roosevelt Room with
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the influencers, Bondie and Blanche brief the President on the
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status of the Epstein review. We've gone through the files,
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blanched old Trump. There's not a lot there a lot
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of child pornography. Obviously, we can't put any of that out.
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There are some mentions of you, but nothing substantative. Most
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of Trump's advisors had rejected out of hand the idea
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of releasing the fbis raw interview notes. More important, they
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wanted to avoid putting out anything that could damage the president.
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Cover up, folks, That's what this is. This is a
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cover up emotion. Everything's being done to protect Donald Trump.
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It has nothing to do with justice, it has nothing
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to do with thrill transparency. It's about protecting Donald Trump
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on Donald Trump's orders. If that's not a cover up,
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I don't know what is. With full transparency a non starter,
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a small group of White House and Justice Department officials
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decided to draft a memo that would explain why the
17:11
department was not releasing any further information about Epstein, but
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even the process of composing the memo was fraud in
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part because no one wanted their name on it, and
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in part because of a deep concern within the leadership
17:25
of the FBI. You know what we need here, a whistleblower.
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We need somebody that was working on this behind the
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scenes to come out and drip all that tea. You
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know that there were people that weren't down with what
17:36
was going on. You know that there were people that
17:38
wanted to go a different way. But all of this
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was done at the behest of Donald Trump. And it
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seems like every time we get new information, it just
17:47
reaffirms that. For weeks, Ptel and Bongino, the deputy FBI director,
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had grown more infuriated as they realized the scale of
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the mess for which they were now being blamed. They
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repeatedly raised alarms internally that the Epstein crisis was gathering
18:04
momentum with Trump supporters. Bongino wanted to convey something definitive
18:09
to the MAGA base, and he and Patel pushed for
18:12
the immediate release of the surveillance footage from the federal
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facility where Epstein was found dead in his cell that
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proved to be a disaster as well. What an absolute
18:22
and utter disaster, missing minute, nothing adding up, couldn't see anything.
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And then of course there's the orange blob that nobody's explained.
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Oh it's Toevin o weel, Well, no it's not. She
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says it's not her, So who is it? Bongino hated
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the Justice departments nothing to see here memo being drawn
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up for public release. He told Patel this would in
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no way a line with their promises of transparency after
18:51
taking over the FBI, and he objected to putting the
18:54
FBI seal on the letterhead, but he was overruled. Patel
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privately shared many of Bongino's concerns, but in an internal
19:03
email on July second, the FBI director gave his support
19:07
for the memo. Well, what's he gonna do? Donald Trump
19:10
wants the memo out, They're gonna put it out. These
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people aren't courageous. They're not willing to stand up to
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somebody like Donald Trump if that means their career is
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going to be over. Thanks for the edits. I still
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believe that this is the correct vehicle forward. Petel wrote
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with the occasional typo to a small group of colleagues,
19:28
including Blanche. I'm happy to add any additional sentences to
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compete the shortfall, but I do think we address specifically
19:37
why Mora can't be released, as it relates to specific topics,
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i e. Coord Order see sam victims protections, et cetera.
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Bondi rarely used her Justice Department email and was not
19:49
on the chain where the group worked on the memo.
19:52
She was aware of both the memo and the release
19:54
of the prison video, but was not involved in editing
19:56
the document. So what was she doing just to figurehead?
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I think that Blanche has been the boss this whole
20:04
entire time. That's what I believe, and I think that
20:07
he was put there by Donald Trump for this exact reason.
20:11
If Chic goes south, Blanche takes the reins and he
20:14
guides the ship home. And that's exactly what's happening right
20:17
now as we speak. But Blanche needs to understand that
20:22
Trump's not going to be president forever, and at some
20:25
point this bill is going to come due. Inside the
20:30
White House, Trump had no interest in releasing anything, and
20:33
senior officials, including Wiles and Blair, were initially unconvinced about
20:37
the reach of the Epstein crisis. They told colleagues that
20:41
Republican voters didn't care, and they had early data from
20:44
Trump's chief polster Tony Fabrizio to demonstrate it. The Epstein Brwaha,
20:50
in their view, was driven by fringe conspiracy theorists and
20:53
amplified by noisy online influencers who didn't represent a meaningful
20:57
block of voters. If the White House engay, it would
21:00
only pump it up, putting the official stamp on the matter. Wiles,
21:05
Blair and others around Trump had seen weather, every storm
21:08
imaginable for years, and in their view, this wasn't a storm.
21:12
It was a passing cloud at most. I wonder if
21:15
he feels that way now. Bongino told anyone who would
21:19
listen that this was a grave miscalculation. It's not an
21:23
online story. He told White House advisors. You don't understand.
21:27
All right, folks, We're gonna wrap up right here and
21:29
in the next episode we'll finish this bad boy off.
21:33
All the information that goes with this episode can be
21:35
found in the description box.