Latest / Beyond The Horizon / Inside the White House Fallout Over the Epstein Files (Part 3)

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Inside the White House Fallout Over the Epstein Files (Part 3) · Beyond The Horizon

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
0:03
Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
0:06
Speaker 1: where we left off with the New York Times article
0:09
Speaker 1: that was authored by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. On
0:14
Speaker 1: July seventh, the Department of Justice in the FBI released
0:17
Speaker 1: a memo. It was brief, an unsigned, one and a
0:20
Speaker 1: half page statement explaining that after an exhaustive search of
0:23
Speaker 1: its database, hard drives, and network drives, as well as
0:27
Speaker 1: physical searches a squad areas, lock cabinets, desks, closets, and
0:31
Speaker 1: other areas where responsive material may have been stored, and
0:35
Speaker 1: a corresponding review of more than three hundred gigabytes of evidence,
0:39
Speaker 1: the department concluded that there was no evidence Epstein had
0:41
Speaker 1: maintained a client list. The memo also reaffirmed the official
0:46
Speaker 1: finding that Epstein's death in twenty nineteen had been a suicide.
0:51
Speaker 1: The memo was accompanied by the release of video footage
0:53
Speaker 1: from the federal jail in Manhattan where Epstein died, footage
0:57
Speaker 1: that official said supported the conclusion of suicide, and with that,
1:02
Speaker 1: the memo indicated the Trump administration would not be releasing
1:06
Speaker 1: further information regarding the Epstein case, and no further investigation
1:10
Speaker 1: of uncharged third parties was warranted. Imagine, after all that hubbub,
1:15
Speaker 1: after all the carrying on, after telling us this time
1:18
Speaker 1: is going to be different, to send out that memo
1:22
Speaker 1: and just spit in everybody's face. Less than five months
1:24
Speaker 1: after Bondi had referred to a secret client list of
1:27
Speaker 1: high profile predators, the case was closed, or so it seemed.
1:32
Speaker 1: If the administration expected that the memo would be the
1:35
Speaker 1: last word on the Epstein case and that the president's
1:38
Speaker 1: most ardent supporters would accept the purported conclusions of the
1:42
Speaker 1: Department of Justice simply because the Department and its investigative
1:46
Speaker 1: agencies were now controlled by Donald Trump, they were sorely mistaken.
1:50
Speaker 1: The memo was an earthquake, and it was received by
1:54
Speaker 1: a part of the magabase as an outright betrayal. It
1:57
Speaker 1: amounted to an abrupt disavowal of the sinister conspiracy theories
2:03
Speaker 1: that some of Trump's closest confidants had hyped during the
2:06
Speaker 1: Biden presidency and that they had promised to expose once
2:09
Speaker 1: Trump returned to power. The release of the surveillance video,
2:14
Speaker 1: which Bongino and Patel had intended as a gesture of
2:17
Speaker 1: transparency further fueled the fire. The Department of Justice ended
2:21
Speaker 1: up releasing roughly eleven hours of prison video intended to
2:25
Speaker 1: show that nothing the farius occurred, but the footage was
2:28
Speaker 1: missing a minute, a visible timestamp jump from eleven fifty
2:32
Speaker 1: eight fifty eight pm to midnight. Bondi initially attributed this
2:36
Speaker 1: to a nightly system reset, and the footage was later
2:39
Speaker 1: restored and released to many a Trump's followers. However, this
2:44
Speaker 1: was yet more evidence of a cover up. White House
2:47
Speaker 1: officials complained privately that they hadn't been told about the
2:50
Speaker 1: gap before the release. Social media lit up will blame
2:54
Speaker 1: not just for Bondi, but for Patel and Bongino two.
2:58
Speaker 1: None of the three had ever experiencest anger at this
3:00
Speaker 1: volume from Trump's conservative base. It was disorienting, especially for
3:05
Speaker 1: Patel and Bongino, whose power and influence had been built online.
3:10
Speaker 1: And you know, it was a shock for them. Haven't
3:12
Speaker 1: everybody come after them like that? That must not have
3:16
Speaker 1: been very much fun. But guess what they should have done?
3:19
Speaker 1: The right thing. If you say you're going to release something,
3:22
Speaker 1: release it, and if not, you better have a good
3:25
Speaker 1: explanation as to why and unfortunately for them, no explanation came.
3:35
Speaker 1: The movement that had treated them as heroes was suddenly
3:37
Speaker 1: turning on them. The two men were now tightly connected
3:40
Speaker 1: to a memo that stated in black and white that
3:43
Speaker 1: while information in the government's possession showed ample evidence of
3:47
Speaker 1: Epstein's own wrongdoing, there's no evidence of a wider conspiracy.
3:52
Speaker 1: The day the memo was released, Bongino showed up to
3:54
Speaker 1: a daily Justice Department meeting with the FBI staff and
3:58
Speaker 1: the Attorney General. He was in a volcanic mood. As
4:01
Speaker 1: soon as he entered the room. He erupted at Bondi,
4:04
Speaker 1: shouting at her, you fucked this thing up from the start,
4:07
Speaker 1: Bongino yelled, the way you've been talking about this, that dumb,
4:10
Speaker 1: fucking charad with the Epstein files. They're on my desk. Nonsense,
4:15
Speaker 1: all the promises to folks out there. Look, he's not
4:18
Speaker 1: wrong about that, and when somebody's right, they're right. Not
4:24
Speaker 1: exactly what I would call the biggest fan of Dan Bongino,
4:26
Speaker 1: but he's not wrong here, and he had every reason
4:31
Speaker 1: to be fired up. This dude basically staked his career
4:33
Speaker 1: on this bullshit ptelling. Bongino both subsequently told the White
4:39
Speaker 1: House official that Bondi needed to resign. Two days later,
4:43
Speaker 1: on July ninth, the two men were summoned to a
4:46
Speaker 1: meeting with Wiles and Bondie in the Situation Room. They
4:50
Speaker 1: were the last to enter the small wood paneled room,
4:53
Speaker 1: seated around the table where Bondy, Wiles, Blanche, and Taylor Budowitch,
4:58
Speaker 1: one of Wiles's deputies. The moment Bongino sat down, Wiles
5:02
Speaker 1: told him that she had been informed that he leaked
5:04
Speaker 1: a sensitive story about Epstein and Trump to ABC News.
5:08
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, Bongino replied, I'll give you one
5:10
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars cash right now. I'm not kidding. Walk
5:14
Speaker 1: out to West exec, put that reporter on speaker and
5:17
Speaker 1: get him to admit that I leaked it one hundred
5:19
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Wiles snap back, well, we got ourselves into this,
5:23
Speaker 1: Bongino cut her off. No, no, no, no, we didn't
5:25
Speaker 1: get ourselves into anything. I warned you guys about this
5:29
Speaker 1: the whole time, and you ignored me, and exactly what
5:32
Speaker 1: I said was going to happen happened. And now you're
5:35
Speaker 1: pretending I was in on this. I was never in
5:37
Speaker 1: on this. It's always nice to see the rats try
5:39
Speaker 1: and flee the sinking shit. Huh. Bongino's aggressive response to
5:43
Speaker 1: Wiles startled the others. She was the White House chief
5:47
Speaker 1: of Staff, essentially a stand in for the president. Wiles
5:51
Speaker 1: put Bongino on the spot going forward. She said, we're
5:54
Speaker 1: all in. We're all going to agree to move forward.
5:57
Speaker 1: Are you in or not? No, I'm not, Bonge said,
6:01
Speaker 1: this is not my plan. I'm not part of this
6:03
Speaker 1: going forward. Forget it. I'm out of here. He stormed
6:06
Speaker 1: out of the situation room and on to West Executive Avenue,
6:09
Speaker 1: where he climbed into the back of Attel's armored suv
6:13
Speaker 1: and directed the driver to take him to FBI headquarters.
6:17
Speaker 1: Some of Bongino's close friends hoped that he would resign
6:20
Speaker 1: right then and there, an act of protest that would
6:22
Speaker 1: have made him a Maga martyr and only increased his following. Look,
6:26
Speaker 1: I would have had a lot less to say if
6:28
Speaker 1: he did that. At least he would have shown some
6:30
Speaker 1: integrity and some backbone. But no, he stuck around and
6:34
Speaker 1: ran cover, but the White House advisors intervened, urging him
6:39
Speaker 1: to stay. If he quit, over Epstein and went public
6:41
Speaker 1: it could severely damage the president. Bongino told associates he
6:46
Speaker 1: would remain for Trump's sake and keep pushing for more
6:49
Speaker 1: Epstein information to be released, but privately he seethed. In
6:55
Speaker 1: conversations with confidants, he lamented what the job had cost
6:58
Speaker 1: him millions of dollars and podcast revenue, family time, his audience.
7:03
Speaker 1: He was getting torn apart over a strategy he had
7:06
Speaker 1: opposed from the start. The relationships at the top of
7:10
Speaker 1: the Justice Department were by now beyond dysfunctional. In another
7:14
Speaker 1: July meeting in Will's office, Bongino and Patel told the
7:17
Speaker 1: chief of staff they suspected that Bondi had leaked negative
7:20
Speaker 1: stories about them. Yo, this is a shit show. No
7:25
Speaker 1: wonder everything was so screwed up, folks, What an absolute
7:28
Speaker 1: clown show. Blondie fucked this whole thing up, Bongino later
7:34
Speaker 1: told a confidant, echoing Lomer's derisive nickname for the Attorney General.
7:39
Speaker 1: She was the one on TV saying over and over
7:41
Speaker 1: they had all this stuff. There was never anything. We
7:44
Speaker 1: were always clear about that, but now everyone thinks we
7:47
Speaker 1: did something wrong, and I gave up everything. Bongino complained
7:51
Speaker 1: that he'd given up his high rated show and millions
7:54
Speaker 1: of dollars, and now it's all disappeared because people think
7:58
Speaker 1: we screwed something up with Epstein. You did, You're a
8:02
Speaker 1: coward and a chump. Dan Bongino, A real man would
8:07
Speaker 1: have been a whistleblower, A real man would have stood up.
8:12
Speaker 1: Bongino paused, this is going to be President Trump's Iran contra.
8:17
Speaker 1: While he's not wrong about that, it sure is. On
8:21
Speaker 1: July twelfth, the President took the Truth social to defend
8:24
Speaker 1: Bondi against criticism, to urge his boys and gals to
8:27
Speaker 1: stop wasting time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that
8:31
Speaker 1: nobody cares about. And that's hilarious considering that Trump himself
8:35
Speaker 1: and the administration couldn't shut up about Epstein for so long.
8:42
Speaker 1: Trump told aides he was very unhappy with some of
8:45
Speaker 1: his most influential supporters, including Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and
8:50
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly, all of whom were publicly urging the administration
8:53
Speaker 1: to come clean. Kirk had held the Turning Point USA
8:56
Speaker 1: event the previous day that turned into an Epstein grievance fest,
9:01
Speaker 1: with one speaker after another bashing Bondie over the handling
9:05
Speaker 1: of the situation. Trump had called Kirk and scolded him.
9:09
Speaker 1: Trump is so thin skinned that he's willing to go
9:13
Speaker 1: after his most ardent supporters, even if they just step
9:16
Speaker 1: out of line once. If they don't agree with everything,
9:20
Speaker 1: then you're a trader. I just can't get down with
9:22
Speaker 1: the whole absolutism. Sometimes I'll agree, sometimes I won't. And
9:27
Speaker 1: if that's a problem, well I don't give a shit.
9:30
Speaker 1: It's not my problem, it's yours. Nobody in Trump's orbit
9:34
Speaker 1: had a better feel for the younger part of the
9:36
Speaker 1: MAGA base than Kirk, who saw that the Epstein cover up,
9:39
Speaker 1: as it was now viewed, was capturing attention to an
9:43
Speaker 1: alarming extent. Donald Trump Junior and JD. Vance, both of
9:47
Speaker 1: whom spent considerable time on X, were tapped into the
9:51
Speaker 1: same younger and hyper online portion of the base, were
9:55
Speaker 1: also worried. They urged the White House to change course
9:58
Speaker 1: and force the Justice Department to release more of the files.
10:01
Speaker 1: So basically, we had a MAGA civil war, and like usual,
10:05
Speaker 1: the Trump faction won. Vance made it clear to colleagues
10:09
Speaker 1: that he feared losing some of the so called low
10:11
Speaker 1: propensity voters, the young men who were not traditional Republicans
10:15
Speaker 1: but who had voted for the Trump Vance ticket in
10:18
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Bingo, almost to a person, those people
10:22
Speaker 1: are out. They're not voting for Trump. They're not going
10:25
Speaker 1: to vote for this bullshit. So either they're sitting out
10:28
Speaker 1: the midterms or they're going to vote against Trump's candidates.
10:32
Speaker 1: And I've heard that from numerous people. This was the
10:36
Speaker 1: audience that tuned into the manisphere of podcasters like Joe Rogan,
10:39
Speaker 1: and it was worrisome that the podcast hosts themselves were
10:42
Speaker 1: now rebelling. But there was one major obstacle in the
10:46
Speaker 1: path of a solution. The President himself still had no
10:50
Speaker 1: interest in transparency. He wanted the whole Epstein issue buried,
10:55
Speaker 1: and he was snapping at anyone who mentioned it. His
10:58
Speaker 1: staff largely avoided the subject their conversations with them, forced
11:02
Speaker 1: to worry among themselves. Finally, on July sixteenth, in an
11:05
Speaker 1: exasperated truth social post, seemingly desperate to make the case
11:09
Speaker 1: in a language that might resonate with his base, Trump
11:12
Speaker 1: somewhat nonsensically called the Epstein case a hoax by Democrats,
11:17
Speaker 1: and then proceeded to heap abuse on members of his
11:20
Speaker 1: party and his base, disavowing their support, calling them past
11:23
Speaker 1: supporters and weaklings who had bought into this bullshit hook
11:28
Speaker 1: line and sinker, and look, the line was drawn at
11:30
Speaker 1: that point. The line was drawn. And anybody that's still
11:34
Speaker 1: trying to place Trump as some kind of hero here
11:37
Speaker 1: is crazy. Donald Trump is the one single biggest impediment
11:41
Speaker 1: to transparency right now. And that's just the truth. Whether
11:45
Speaker 1: you want to believe it or not, I don't care.
11:47
Speaker 1: But if this man wanted this stuff to be out there,
11:50
Speaker 1: it would be out there. As the President was trying
11:53
Speaker 1: to redirect everyone away from the Epstein on social media,
11:56
Speaker 1: members of both parties began to push the other way.
12:00
Speaker 1: Many Democrats embrace the growing Epstein scandal as a top
12:03
Speaker 1: focus in their messaging and as a weapon against Trump.
12:08
Speaker 1: That's a big problem too. All these same Democrats, or
12:11
Speaker 1: a lot of them, they were nowhere to be found
12:13
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, twenty nineteen. Well, all of a sudden,
12:18
Speaker 1: they feel like they can use it politically, so now
12:20
Speaker 1: they care. So look, I'm not under any impression that
12:24
Speaker 1: they're some kind of great crusaders. They're just a vehicle
12:28
Speaker 1: that we're using to get to where we want to go.
12:31
Speaker 1: Same thing with Massy right. They were joined by a
12:36
Speaker 1: few Renegador Republicans, which added to the political pressure on
12:39
Speaker 1: the president's team. Representative Thomas Massey, a Republican, and Rocana
12:44
Speaker 1: a Democrat, filed HR forty four h five the Epstein
12:48
Speaker 1: Files Transparency Act in the House, and although they did
12:51
Speaker 1: not yet have the votes for the bill, it would
12:53
Speaker 1: become the next battleground as the President dug in against
12:56
Speaker 1: releasing information, which is hilarious considering they're the most transparent
13:00
Speaker 1: administration of all time, you would think that it would
13:03
Speaker 1: have to be a battle that Trump would be the
13:06
Speaker 1: one saying, you know what, it's time for full transparency.
13:10
Speaker 1: They were joined by a few renegad Republicans, which added
13:12
Speaker 1: to the political pressure on the president's team. Representative Thomas Massey,
13:17
Speaker 1: a Republican, and Rocanna a Democrat, filed HR forty four
13:21
Speaker 1: oh five the Epstein File Transparency Act in the House,
13:25
Speaker 1: and although they did not yet have the votes for
13:27
Speaker 1: the bill, it would become the next battleground as the
13:30
Speaker 1: President dug in against releasing information. Word reached the White
13:35
Speaker 1: House in late July. Meanwhile, that a subpoena would soon
13:38
Speaker 1: be coming from the House Oversight Committee, led by James Comer,
13:41
Speaker 1: a Republican from Kentucky. It had been pushed by Committee
13:44
Speaker 1: Democrats with the help of some Republicans, and it compelled
13:48
Speaker 1: the release of files the Justice Department had on Epstein.
13:52
Speaker 1: On the day that the Trump team learned about the
13:54
Speaker 1: looming subpoena, another Epstein crisis meeting was convened in the
13:58
Speaker 1: Situation Room to discuss the pressure coming from Congress. It
14:02
Speaker 1: included most of the same people, Wiles and Vance, Blanche, Warrington, Patel,
14:08
Speaker 1: Bondie Blair, Chung Buddha Witch, and Levitt. Blair told the
14:12
Speaker 1: group that they would try to make sure that they
14:14
Speaker 1: were cooperating fully with the White House subpoena, but that
14:17
Speaker 1: the priority was to release information that demonstrated Trump was
14:21
Speaker 1: not involved in Epstein's crimes. That's the priority. Huh, disgusting folks. Look,
14:28
Speaker 1: this is a damning article and if it's true, there
14:31
Speaker 1: is no doubt that there's a cover up. Blanche gave
14:37
Speaker 1: an assessment of the Epstein material that he personally reviewed
14:40
Speaker 1: or been briefed on, including a volume of child pornography.
14:43
Speaker 1: The conversation turned to how these files should be released
14:46
Speaker 1: to the public. The idea already in the works was
14:49
Speaker 1: to put all Epstein related material on a website. That way,
14:53
Speaker 1: they could overwhelm the magosphere with far greater volume of
14:56
Speaker 1: real information in the form of a huge database. That's
15:00
Speaker 1: called flooding the zone, and it's what they do when
15:03
Speaker 1: they're trying to confuse people. Put out a bunch of
15:07
Speaker 1: shit and hope some of it sticks. The website had
15:11
Speaker 1: been easy to build, and they were looking at potentially
15:14
Speaker 1: going live within a week. They had already accumulated a
15:17
Speaker 1: mountain of material that Blanche had been scrolling through and
15:20
Speaker 1: that it included piles of documents from both civil and criminal cases.
15:25
Speaker 1: They planned to release it all. Blanche could then appear
15:28
Speaker 1: on Rogan's podcast to promote the transparency from the White House.
15:32
Speaker 1: But as it turned out, this searchable website would not
15:35
Speaker 1: go live on their initial timetable, and the version of
15:38
Speaker 1: the site they originally conceived would never be released to
15:41
Speaker 1: the public. The whole last thing has been nothing but
15:44
Speaker 1: a scam from the very beginning. They never had any
15:46
Speaker 1: desire to tell the truth. Never By late summer, it
15:52
Speaker 1: was plainly apparent to the president's top aids that the
15:55
Speaker 1: Epstein saga was not the same as the countless other
15:58
Speaker 1: crisis they had weathered during their service to Trump. To
16:01
Speaker 1: their great surprise and growing disquiet, Trump's old tricks of
16:05
Speaker 1: deflection and denial weren't working. In late July, the Trump
16:09
Speaker 1: team had discussed in their crisis meetings it was Blanche
16:11
Speaker 1: who interviewed Maxwell over two days. She told them she
16:15
Speaker 1: had witnessed no troubling behavior by Trump and didn't recall
16:19
Speaker 1: him sending the birthday car drawn in the shape of
16:21
Speaker 1: a nude woman. Soon after, she was quietly moved to
16:24
Speaker 1: a minimum security federal prison in Texas, a transfer left
16:28
Speaker 1: unexplained at first, which only deepened the public outrage. Blanche
16:33
Speaker 1: sat nearly five months later that Maxwell had faced numerous
16:36
Speaker 1: threats against her life. Lies all lies. So anybody who
16:43
Speaker 1: gets threatened gets moved, that's news to me, and I'm
16:47
Speaker 1: sure that's news to everybody that's locked up. As the
16:50
Speaker 1: calls for transparency grew louder, the top ranks of the
16:52
Speaker 1: Trump administration spent even more time in the bunker. By now,
16:56
Speaker 1: the situation room itself had become inseparable from the crisis
17:00
Speaker 1: up guarded space, where Trump's inner circle worked to steer
17:03
Speaker 1: the president around the scandal that would soon tank or
17:06
Speaker 1: consume careers at the highest levels of business, science, and politics. Yeah,
17:12
Speaker 1: only about ten years too late, but I guess welcome
17:15
Speaker 1: to the party. On August thirteenth, Trump's team at again
17:19
Speaker 1: in the secure complex at six pm for two hours
17:22
Speaker 1: to refine the Epstein defense strategy. Again. The group included Wiles, Bondie, Blanche, Patel, Blair, Budowitch, Chung,
17:30
Speaker 1: and Levitt. Vance phoned in from Britain. The Vice President
17:34
Speaker 1: once again pushed to release as much of the Epstein
17:37
Speaker 1: files as possible, and with an eye on the public messaging,
17:41
Speaker 1: he proposed that he should be the one to appear
17:44
Speaker 1: on Rogan's influential podcast. Vance had just gotten off the
17:48
Speaker 1: phone with Rogan, and he later told the others that
17:50
Speaker 1: Rogan said he wouldn't have Blanch on his show, but
17:53
Speaker 1: he'd take Vance. Vance argued that if he were the
17:56
Speaker 1: one to appear on Rogan's show, then only a part
18:00
Speaker 1: of the conversation would be about Epstein. The rest of
18:02
Speaker 1: the interview, he told the group, could be about the
18:05
Speaker 1: president's recently pass legislation and what it would do for
18:08
Speaker 1: working families. But the larger conversation before them was how
18:12
Speaker 1: to handle the crisis and the public relations risk for
18:15
Speaker 1: the administration. The challenge would be any embarrassing or damaging
18:20
Speaker 1: allegations about the president, even if they were unsubstantiated. If
18:24
Speaker 1: everything was publicly available on the website they had planned,
18:28
Speaker 1: it could include all kinds of potentially humiliating material. Well,
18:32
Speaker 1: here's an idea. Don't hang out with Jeffrey Epstein and
18:35
Speaker 1: there won't be humiliating material. Thanks for coming to my
18:39
Speaker 1: ted talk. Suddenly, one of the officials in the situation
18:43
Speaker 1: room raised the subject of a disturbing but uncorroborated accusation
18:47
Speaker 1: against Trump that had come to light in unsealed filings
18:50
Speaker 1: from a twenty fifteen defamation case brought by Virginia Roberts
18:55
Speaker 1: against Maxwell, which had been settled two years later. The
18:58
Speaker 1: second hand accusation alleging a specific type of sexual abuse
19:02
Speaker 1: was a perfect example of something that would show up
19:05
Speaker 1: on the public website and put the spotlight on Trump,
19:08
Speaker 1: whether it was true or not. Roberts, who had met
19:11
Speaker 1: Epstein when she was a teenage SPA attendant at Trump's
19:14
Speaker 1: club mar A Lago and Palm Beach became one of
19:17
Speaker 1: the sex offenders most outspoken victims. Roberts stated in late
19:21
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen that, to her knowledge, Trump had done nothing improper.
19:25
Speaker 1: She died by suicide, allegedly in April of twenty twenty five,
19:29
Speaker 1: three months after Trump returned to power. The old Roberts
19:32
Speaker 1: case file included emails sent to a journalist by another
19:35
Speaker 1: Epstein victim, Sarah Ransom, who later sued Epstein and Maxwell.
19:40
Speaker 1: Epstein had also settled that case. In the emails, Ransom
19:44
Speaker 1: claimed that she knew a girl in Epstein's sex trafficking
19:47
Speaker 1: ring named Jen, who said she had sex with Trump.
19:50
Speaker 1: Ransom also claimed that Jen had told her that Trump
19:54
Speaker 1: had a predilection for nipples and that he had aggressively
19:57
Speaker 1: flicked and sucked hers. Ransom wrote that she had s
20:00
Speaker 1: evidence when she shared a bathroom with Jen. They looked
20:03
Speaker 1: incredibly painful, and they were red and swollen, and I
20:06
Speaker 1: remember wincing when looking at them. Ransom's credibility was not uncomplicated.
20:12
Speaker 1: She had made another claim that she possessed video footage
20:15
Speaker 1: of prominent men having sex with the young girls in
20:17
Speaker 1: Epstein's entourage. She later attracted the claims, saying she feared
20:22
Speaker 1: for herself and her family if she proceeded. But after
20:25
Speaker 1: a federal judge ordered the unsealing of some of Robert's
20:28
Speaker 1: case files in twenty twenty three, the document that connected
20:31
Speaker 1: Trump to the claim about abused nipples was among the
20:35
Speaker 1: material that came out. It was an unconfirmed allegation and
20:39
Speaker 1: had not been made publicly, but the disclosure led to
20:42
Speaker 1: some articles that were quickly lost in the swirl of
20:45
Speaker 1: election year news. Some of Trump's advisors in the situation
20:49
Speaker 1: room had never heard of the nipple claim, those who had,
20:53
Speaker 1: and the ones who had were only passingly familiar with it.
20:57
Speaker 1: Many in the room thought this was just discredited nonsense.
21:00
Speaker 1: But it might not matter. Though. Ransom emails could get
21:03
Speaker 1: new attention if they were included in a public facing
21:06
Speaker 1: and searchable Epstein library that carried the branding of the
21:10
Speaker 1: Justice Department. An administration official had already searched for Trump
21:14
Speaker 1: related material on the still private test version of the website,
21:18
Speaker 1: and the nipple material was among the first items to
21:20
Speaker 1: show up. None of the credibility issues would come into
21:24
Speaker 1: consideration if a government endorsed database gave Ransom's claims about Trump,
21:29
Speaker 1: a stamp a validity. This is out there, One of
21:32
Speaker 1: the officials told the group in the situation room, They're
21:35
Speaker 1: going to make a huge scene of this, even though
21:37
Speaker 1: it's not true and everybody knows it. Blanche argued that
21:39
Speaker 1: in context, the Ransom document and Ransom's disavowal of some
21:43
Speaker 1: of her other claims would make clear why the allegations
21:46
Speaker 1: related to Trump had never been pursued for a prosecution. Besides,
21:50
Speaker 1: these allegations were already available online because of what had
21:54
Speaker 1: been unsealed, so there was no reason to leave them
21:56
Speaker 1: off the Justice Department's website. The Vice President said that
22:00
Speaker 1: he thought the President would be okay with releasing the
22:03
Speaker 1: nipple related documents, arguing that Trump had been accused of worse.
22:06
Speaker 1: I think we should put it out, he said. It
22:09
Speaker 1: would cause people to say, we're going further then we
22:11
Speaker 1: need to. Wiles quickly responded that the President would not,
22:14
Speaker 1: in fact be okay with it. It was a point
22:17
Speaker 1: no one wanted to continue debating. One official would later
22:21
Speaker 1: describe it as surreal experience to be discussing nipples in
22:24
Speaker 1: the White House situation room. Yeah, I would say so.
22:28
Speaker 1: Talk about embarrassing as if we have nothing else going
22:32
Speaker 1: on in the world, in the country, but these people
22:35
Speaker 1: are busy with their cover up. This was, in miniature
22:40
Speaker 1: the entire problem the White House had with the Epstein files.
22:44
Speaker 1: Pyle's accusations were impossible to disprove and equally impossible to
22:49
Speaker 1: make go away. Every door they opened led to another room,
22:52
Speaker 1: and in every room there were more claims for more women.
22:56
Speaker 1: For a few weeks, they thought that they had found
22:58
Speaker 1: a way out. The subpoena from Homer's committee had specifically
23:02
Speaker 1: requested Justice Department documents, communications with the White House, and
23:06
Speaker 1: material from the Epstein and Maxwell criminal case, non material
23:10
Speaker 1: from civil litigation such as Loransom emails. They could comply
23:14
Speaker 1: with the letter of subpoena, post the Justice Department material
23:17
Speaker 1: to a stripped down version of the planned website and
23:20
Speaker 1: leave the rest aside. Civil cases were separate matters outside
23:24
Speaker 1: of the remit of the Justice Department, and the subpoena
23:27
Speaker 1: allowed for another escape patch. The Justice Department could withhold
23:31
Speaker 1: certain documents as long as it explained to the House
23:34
Speaker 1: lawmakers what they were and why they were held back,
23:38
Speaker 1: but that strategy collapsed quickly. More Republican lawmakers would press
23:43
Speaker 1: for additional disclosures, including former Trump allies like Green and
23:47
Speaker 1: Lauren Bobert, and the Trump administration was slow to comply
23:50
Speaker 1: with even the initial limited set of documents required by
23:54
Speaker 1: the House subpoena, all by design trying to gum it up.
23:59
Speaker 1: The slower it goes, the better off for them. By
24:03
Speaker 1: mid November, the partisan coalition the Trump team had worried
24:06
Speaker 1: about since the summer finally had the votes to force
24:09
Speaker 1: the administration's hand. The Epstein File Transparency Act passed the
24:13
Speaker 1: House and Senate in quick succession, and on November nineteenth, Trump,
24:17
Speaker 1: yielding to the inevitable, signed it into law. The new
24:21
Speaker 1: law went further than the House of poena. It sought
24:23
Speaker 1: a broader tranch of files and contained a warning to
24:26
Speaker 1: the administration that no record shall be withheld, delayed, or
24:29
Speaker 1: redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity,
24:35
Speaker 1: including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.
24:39
Speaker 1: It sought everything that Trump had spent the better part
24:41
Speaker 1: of a year trying to suppress. The legislators who passed
24:45
Speaker 1: the bill had no idea how many files they had
24:47
Speaker 1: mandated to be released within a month. The pages would
24:51
Speaker 1: end up numbering in the millions, and the President and
24:55
Speaker 1: his family and places like mar A Lago estate would
24:58
Speaker 1: be referred to more than third eight thousand times, according
25:01
Speaker 1: to a New York Times analysis. The Trump Justice Department
25:06
Speaker 1: said that there was no client list, but the entire
25:08
Speaker 1: episode was another flashing light in an era where belief
25:12
Speaker 1: in the American system of justice had corroded to the
25:14
Speaker 1: point of collapse. Well, this isn't just a making of
25:18
Speaker 1: the Trump administration. All the administrations leading up to it too.
25:22
Speaker 1: They bear some of the burden. They should have stepped up.
25:25
Speaker 1: They should have stoped Epstein. They should have been the
25:27
Speaker 1: ones to release all this, but nobody has. And that's
25:31
Speaker 1: the biggest problem. Both sides are in on it, and
25:34
Speaker 1: that's why everybody has to be held accountable. Raw witness
25:42
Speaker 1: accounts and evidence from incomplete criminal investigations were never meant
25:45
Speaker 1: to be seen by the public. There were long standing
25:49
Speaker 1: systems in place to protect both the accused and the accuser.
25:53
Speaker 1: The files amounted to a public dump of any Justice
25:56
Speaker 1: Department document that mentioned Epstein's name, no matter whether the
25:59
Speaker 1: information confirmed as accurate or not. The release pages did
26:04
Speaker 1: not name many powerful men, among them was Epstein's former
26:07
Speaker 1: close friend now the president of the United States. In
26:12
Speaker 1: a January twenty twenty email, a federal prosecutor told a
26:15
Speaker 1: colleague that Trump had flown on Epstein's private jet far
26:18
Speaker 1: more than anyone knew. Flight records in the files showed
26:22
Speaker 1: at least eight trips between ninety three and ninety six,
26:25
Speaker 1: sometimes with the second wife, Marlon Maples, sometimes with his children.
26:29
Speaker 1: That's nice, huh, bring your kids on Jeffrey Epstein's plane,
26:33
Speaker 1: Come one, come all. In January twenty twenty four, Trump
26:37
Speaker 1: declared that he would never have been on the plane.
26:39
Speaker 1: Just another lie. Everything this man says about Epstein is
26:43
Speaker 1: a lie, So why would that be any different? What
26:47
Speaker 1: else remained undisclosed? The question would only sharpen his people
26:50
Speaker 1: comb through what was redacted or missing. The Justice Department,
26:55
Speaker 1: after more than three and a half million documents were
26:57
Speaker 1: made public, said no others needed to be released. Trump
27:01
Speaker 1: characteristically was creating his own reality. He had long claim
27:05
Speaker 1: that everyone else was corrupt, especially his critics. These files,
27:09
Speaker 1: he would say, despite the avalanche of references to himself,
27:12
Speaker 1: were the proof. There are a lot of questions about it,
27:15
Speaker 1: he told reporters at the White House in February of
27:17
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. But nothing on me. Imagine having that
27:21
Speaker 1: kind of worldview and having that kind of you know,
27:25
Speaker 1: tunnel vision. Nothing on you, buddy. There's a whole shit
27:28
Speaker 1: ton on you. Trump had declared Epstein a dead issue
27:31
Speaker 1: during the summer, but as he began the second year
27:33
Speaker 1: of his presidency, his own team could see the voter
27:36
Speaker 1: concerns about Epstein were still breaking through at an alarming extent,
27:41
Speaker 1: and an eternal memo circulated to roughly a dozen Trump
27:43
Speaker 1: advisors in late March of twenty twenty six, the president's
27:47
Speaker 1: polster for Breezio summarized findings from two nights of focused
27:51
Speaker 1: groups conducted that month. Fabrizio's memo listed the Epstein files
27:56
Speaker 1: as the sixth most important issue raised in the focus groups,
27:59
Speaker 1: beyond inflation, the economy, foreign policy, immigration, and healthcare, but
28:05
Speaker 1: ahead of data centers, military issues, crime and safety, and
28:09
Speaker 1: being pro working class. In this section on key takeaways
28:12
Speaker 1: of the focus group for Breezio's memo stated, there is
28:16
Speaker 1: a consistent mention of the Epstein files which come up
28:19
Speaker 1: in every group and is a real negative with some
28:22
Speaker 1: of these voters. Yeah, I'd say so. The way it's
28:26
Speaker 1: been handled is completely unacceptable. And anybody who's not in
28:30
Speaker 1: the cup for Donald Trump knows there's a cover up
28:33
Speaker 1: going on, and it's infuriating to the regular person. They
28:37
Speaker 1: see it, they know it's happening, but there's nothing they
28:41
Speaker 1: can do about it. The Epstein crisis had exposed something
28:45
Speaker 1: that some of Trump's closest advisors spent months refusing to see.
28:50
Speaker 1: The President could break institutions, redirect the federal government against
28:54
Speaker 1: his enemies, and bring the world's richest men into the
28:57
Speaker 1: Oval Office bearing tribute, but he could not, it turned out,
29:01
Speaker 1: make Jeffrey Epstein disappear. And look, that's because of you,
29:05
Speaker 1: not me, not any of the people talking about it
29:08
Speaker 1: behind a microphone, but because all of you. You deciding
29:11
Speaker 1: you're not gonna move on, you deciding you want accountability,
29:15
Speaker 1: and you deciding that the administration is talking a bunch
29:18
Speaker 1: of bullshit. And no matter what they do, no matter
29:21
Speaker 1: how hard they try to sweep this under the rug
29:23
Speaker 1: and make it all go away, it's not going to happen.
29:26
Speaker 1: I think that we've come too far at this point,
29:28
Speaker 1: and there's nothing that the Trump administration or anyone can
29:33
Speaker 1: do to get people not interested in what's going on.
29:37
Speaker 1: And I think the more they dig in and the
29:39
Speaker 1: more they try and hide things, and the more they're
29:42
Speaker 1: being secretive, And all it does is confirm what all
29:46
Speaker 1: of us already think that Donald Trump and the White
29:50
Speaker 1: House is engaging in an ongoing cover up. And if
29:54
Speaker 1: they think we're gonna move on, they got a whole
29:57
Speaker 1: less other thing coming. All right, folks, that's gonna do
30:00
Speaker 1: do it for this one. All the information that goes
30:02
Speaker 1: with this episode can be found in the description box