Latest / Beyond The Horizon / Mega Edition: Inside the White House Fallout Over the Epstein Files (11/10/26)

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Mega Edition: Inside the White House Fallout Over the Epstein Files (11/10/26) · Beyond The Horizon

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
0:03
Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. Over at the New York Times, they have
0:07
Speaker 1: a new article out discussing the inside freakout, as they
0:11
Speaker 1: call it, at the White House over the Epstein files.
0:15
Speaker 1: And I have no doubt that there was all sorts
0:19
Speaker 1: of freaking out, especially considering the way that they handled it.
0:23
Speaker 1: Could it have been any worse? Honestly, I don't know
0:26
Speaker 1: if anything has ever been handled more poorly than by
0:29
Speaker 1: any administration in the history of the country. And I'm
0:33
Speaker 1: not even kidding when I say that. And then they
0:35
Speaker 1: have the audacity to turn around and say to you,
0:38
Speaker 1: we're the most transparent administration in the history of the
0:41
Speaker 1: United States. I mean, come on. They have to be trolling, right?
0:46
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what you would think. But unfortunately, this
0:49
Speaker 1: is the reality that we're living in. And our lives
0:52
Speaker 1: are being managed by a bunch of scoundrels that not
0:55
Speaker 1: only broke bread with Jeffrey Epstein... but now have the
0:59
Speaker 1: audacity to cover it all up. So today, we're going
1:03
Speaker 1: to dive into that New York Times article, and we're
1:06
Speaker 1: going to see what's up. Headline, Inside the White House
1:10
Speaker 1: Freakout Over the Epstein Files. This article was authored by
1:14
Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. On July 17th, 2025, at
1:21
Speaker 1: around 6 o'clock in the evening, President Trump's top officials
1:25
Speaker 1: filed into the White House Situation Room, the Secura Bunker,
1:28
Speaker 1: where classified and high-stakes national security matters are discussed and decided.
1:34
Speaker 1: This was where President Barack Obama, along with Vice President
1:38
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the president's
1:41
Speaker 1: national security team watched the raid that ended with the
1:45
Speaker 1: death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Now, however, Trump's
1:50
Speaker 1: most senior advisors had gathered, without him, to figure out
1:53
Speaker 1: how to gain some measure of control over a very
1:56
Speaker 1: different kind of crisis threatening to engulf The presidency. The
2:00
Speaker 1: Epstein files. I've never seen an administration fumble so badly.
2:07
Speaker 1: They had everything queued up. They were going around during
2:11
Speaker 1: the campaign talking about how they're going to release all
2:13
Speaker 1: the information. They're going to hold people accountable. They're going
2:16
Speaker 1: to do this. They're going to do that. Then they
2:19
Speaker 1: get into office. They get a look at the files
2:21
Speaker 1: and they realize that their boy Donald Trump and all
2:24
Speaker 1: of his friends are littered throughout the documents. So of course,
2:28
Speaker 1: that caused Donald Trump to slam on the brakes and
2:31
Speaker 1: kill the process before it even got off the ground.
2:34
Speaker 1: That was the goal. And if it wasn't for the
2:37
Speaker 1: discharge petition, it would have worked. And if you're wondering
2:41
Speaker 1: why Trump was so mad at Thomas Massey, that's why.
2:45
Speaker 1: Because without Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna, and without Lauren Boebert,
2:50
Speaker 1: Nancy Mace, without Marjorie Taylor Greene, we never get a
2:53
Speaker 1: look at this. So look, I'm not a big fan
2:56
Speaker 1: of all those people when it comes to all their politics, right?
3:00
Speaker 1: But when it comes to this issue, mad respect to
3:03
Speaker 1: all of them. They all stood up when everybody else
3:06
Speaker 1: was sitting down. Where were the rest of the members
3:08
Speaker 1: of the GOP? Well, that's right, too scared of Donald
3:10
Speaker 1: Trump to stand up for people who have been victimized.
3:13
Speaker 1: And I don't just mean the survivors. I mean all
3:15
Speaker 1: of us. These people have been stealing from us hand
3:19
Speaker 1: over fist for decades. But I guess that's no big
3:22
Speaker 1: deal either. Ten days earlier, the Justice Department and the
3:27
Speaker 1: FBI had jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that
3:30
Speaker 1: their review had found no client list of powerful men
3:34
Speaker 1: for whom the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured
3:38
Speaker 1: underage girls and young women. No, I don't think there's
3:41
Speaker 1: a list, but I can give you two names right
3:43
Speaker 1: off the top of my head that girls were trafficked to.
3:47
Speaker 1: Jean-Luc Brunel and Jess Daly. Jess Daly already admitted that
3:52
Speaker 1: he had consensual sex with one of Epstein's assistants. And
3:56
Speaker 1: if it's somebody that was also a victim, well, there
3:58
Speaker 1: you go. And unfortunately, Jean-Luc Brunel and Jeffrey Epstein, they
4:03
Speaker 1: had a revolving door of girls that were being abused
4:05
Speaker 1: between the two of them. And never mind all the
4:08
Speaker 1: other scumbags that got involved. Should we talk about George
4:11
Speaker 1: Mitchell or Bill Richardson or Glenn Dubin or Les Wexner?
4:14
Speaker 1: Because all of them have been credibly accused. No investigation,
4:20
Speaker 1: nobody being brought in, nothing. And so with just those
4:23
Speaker 1: two dudes alone, It shows you that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked
4:26
Speaker 1: girls to other people. How many more people do you want?
4:29
Speaker 1: How many other co-conspirators would make it trafficking for you?
4:33
Speaker 1: Intended to put to rest years of speculation and end
4:36
Speaker 1: a pressure campaign to release the voluminous material in the
4:39
Speaker 1: department's possession, the memo instead had the opposite effect, setting
4:43
Speaker 1: off a backlash that was notably loud among the MAGA base. Look,
4:48
Speaker 1: people should be given credit for that. The people that
4:51
Speaker 1: are MAGA, the people that were MAGA, who decided that
4:56
Speaker 1: Donald Trump calling them a traitor was too much, that
4:59
Speaker 1: Donald Trump trying to cover this up was too much,
5:02
Speaker 1: those people should be applauded. It's not easy to go against,
5:06
Speaker 1: you know, all your friends and all your other beliefs
5:08
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So we should give them some credit, right?
5:11
Speaker 1: It's okay to have a little grace. Not everybody's your enemy.
5:15
Speaker 1: And I've told you a million times, you're going to
5:17
Speaker 1: have to work with people that you might not agree
5:19
Speaker 1: with politically on a whole host of issues to get
5:22
Speaker 1: something done here. But that's how politics works, right? That's
5:26
Speaker 1: what detente is. You don't have negotiations with people that
5:30
Speaker 1: you agree with. You negotiate with people that you might
5:33
Speaker 1: have some disagreements with. And the best way to do
5:35
Speaker 1: that is to find some middle ground. And if going
5:38
Speaker 1: after Jeffrey Epstein and his network is not middle ground,
5:42
Speaker 1: then I don't know what is. And it was about
5:46
Speaker 1: to get worse. The Wall Street Journal was preparing a
5:49
Speaker 1: damaging article about Trump's relationship with Epstein. The president's desperate
5:53
Speaker 1: attempts to kill the story had failed. His team now
5:57
Speaker 1: had to get everyone onto the same page about how
5:59
Speaker 1: to counter the growing swarm of attention. They needed a
6:03
Speaker 1: gesture of transparency to appease an increasingly angry base, but
6:07
Speaker 1: also a way to convey the message that the president
6:10
Speaker 1: was sympathetic to his supporters' concerns. Which itself was a problem,
6:14
Speaker 1: because he clearly wasn't. Well, that's true, he called us
6:17
Speaker 1: all traitors. He said anybody who's following along with this
6:21
Speaker 1: is his enemy, basically. Imagine the president of the United
6:24
Speaker 1: States being mad because people want accountability for a human trafficker. Like,
6:30
Speaker 1: have we fallen that far? Where people hear this, look
6:33
Speaker 1: at this, and just shrug their shoulders. And they're like, ah, yeah,
6:35
Speaker 1: you know what? He has a point. No, he doesn't
6:37
Speaker 1: have a point. He's trying to cover this up. And
6:40
Speaker 1: this is what I've been telling you guys. Everybody wants
6:43
Speaker 1: that splashy gotcha moment. But in the real world, this
6:46
Speaker 1: sort of shit is messy. It's not splashy. And a
6:49
Speaker 1: lot of times, it's not salacious. You get people like this.
6:53
Speaker 1: on financial crimes. You get them on covering up for
6:57
Speaker 1: other people. That's how it's always worked. And for all
7:01
Speaker 1: these people that have been carrying on about Donald Trump
7:03
Speaker 1: now for eight years with all kinds of crazy stuff, Russia, P-Gate,
7:07
Speaker 1: you name it. But what you have here is an
7:10
Speaker 1: actual cover-up. And instead of focusing on that, you have
7:13
Speaker 1: people focusing on other things that are unprovable. Now, that
7:18
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I don't believe that it happened, but it's
7:21
Speaker 1: not what I believe. It's about what we can prove.
7:24
Speaker 1: And I don't think you need to be some kind
7:26
Speaker 1: of famous investigator to realize that the fix is in
7:30
Speaker 1: and that there's a gigantic cover-up being run and managed
7:33
Speaker 1: directly by the White House. And I thoroughly believe that.
7:40
Speaker 1: Vice President J.D. Vance took a seat at the head
7:42
Speaker 1: of the table in the John F. Kennedy conference room
7:45
Speaker 1: of the Situation Room Complex. This is a huge problem,
7:48
Speaker 1: he told the group. I read around him. where the
7:51
Speaker 1: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the White House
7:54
Speaker 1: Counsel David Warrington, the Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt, the Deputy
7:58
Speaker 1: Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, the Communications Director Stephen Chung,
8:04
Speaker 1: the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, the Associate Attorney General
8:08
Speaker 1: Todd Baby Billy Blanch, and the Deputy Chief of Staff
8:12
Speaker 1: James Blair. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI Director
8:16
Speaker 1: Kash Patel joined on speakerphone. The vice president appeared panicked
8:21
Speaker 1: to others in the room about the way the subject
8:23
Speaker 1: of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Yo, he
8:27
Speaker 1: knows what's up. 100% he knows. This whole entire thing
8:34
Speaker 1: has caused big problems. And I think there's a lot
8:39
Speaker 1: of people that are going to be sitting out the
8:40
Speaker 1: midterms because of it. And I think it's going to
8:42
Speaker 1: have disastrous repercussions for the GOP. Some senior officials had
8:51
Speaker 1: the impression that Vance had bought into the darkest theories
8:54
Speaker 1: about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden within the
8:57
Speaker 1: country's ruling class. Well, is that wrong? Maybe not to
9:00
Speaker 1: the level that some people are trying to make it out,
9:03
Speaker 1: but predators nonetheless. What, being predators in a financial sense
9:08
Speaker 1: is okay? I mean, people just don't get it. And
9:13
Speaker 1: it drives me crazy. Breaking news, we're all slaves. Every
9:17
Speaker 1: last one of us. You got debt. Congratulations, you're a slave.
9:21
Speaker 1: And you're a slave to Jeffrey Epstein's people. The same people,
9:24
Speaker 1: by the way, that ruined the whole entire world in 2008.
9:28
Speaker 1: So if you think this is just about girls being
9:30
Speaker 1: trafficked or kids being abused, you have not been paying attention.
9:34
Speaker 1: Wiles would tell others that the vice president had proved
9:38
Speaker 1: himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official
9:42
Speaker 1: said later that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein
9:45
Speaker 1: issue since the release of the memo. He was privately
9:48
Speaker 1: pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files,
9:52
Speaker 1: everything in the Justice Department's possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation.
9:57
Speaker 1: And look, he's not wrong for that. I think that...
9:59
Speaker 1: Vice President Vance is on point. And that was the
10:03
Speaker 1: campaign promise that was made by the administration. So I
10:06
Speaker 1: think that Vance is just trying to live up to
10:08
Speaker 1: that promise, right? Now look, don't take it for, I
10:11
Speaker 1: think Vance is doing a great job, or I support him.
10:14
Speaker 1: I don't. But of all these robber barons that populate
10:17
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's administration... It looks like Vance is the only
10:21
Speaker 1: one that even cared. Vance told the group that he
10:23
Speaker 1: believed that all files should be released as soon as possible.
10:26
Speaker 1: He argued that Congress was going to force the release
10:28
Speaker 1: of the files eventually. It was already clear that a
10:31
Speaker 1: bipartisan coalition in favor of such action was forming on
10:35
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, and the momentum was going in one direction.
10:39
Speaker 1: If the administration got out ahead of this and released
10:42
Speaker 1: everything voluntarily, including whatever material existed about the president, it
10:47
Speaker 1: would at least get credit for transparency. The alternative was
10:51
Speaker 1: to let the story drag on for months as information
10:54
Speaker 1: dripped out, each new revelation renewing a cycle of suspicion
10:58
Speaker 1: and fury. Better to rip the bandage off and move on. Yo,
11:02
Speaker 1: they would have been so much better served to listen
11:04
Speaker 1: to J.D. Vance. He had the right of it here.
11:08
Speaker 1: Get out ahead of it. Look, it might be embarrassing,
11:12
Speaker 1: and it might cause you some grief, but the more
11:14
Speaker 1: you hide it, the more you act like nothing's going on,
11:17
Speaker 1: the worse it gets when people figure out that they've
11:20
Speaker 1: been bullshitted. And I think J.D. Vance was hip to that,
11:24
Speaker 1: but unfortunately, the rest of the administration is dancing to
11:27
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's tune. Vance even floated to colleagues in extraordinary
11:35
Speaker 1: PR gambit that the White House enlist Tucker Carlson to
11:38
Speaker 1: interview Epstein's longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator Glenn Maxwell in prison.
11:43
Speaker 1: It might help the president if Maxwell was willing to
11:45
Speaker 1: state that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing
11:49
Speaker 1: with Epstein. Well, that's a bad idea. That was stupid.
11:54
Speaker 1: Because nobody believed Glenn Maxwell. Only the people that want
11:57
Speaker 1: to believe what Trump's saying. Right? It's all about confirmation
12:00
Speaker 1: bias with a lot of people. Me? I'm following the evidence,
12:03
Speaker 1: wherever it goes. And the evidence certainly looks like Donald
12:06
Speaker 1: Trump is engaging in a cover-up. That's what the evidence
12:10
Speaker 1: is telling me. And the more we hear from insiders,
12:13
Speaker 1: the more we hear about what was going on on
12:15
Speaker 1: the ground. the more convinced of it I am. Even
12:18
Speaker 1: unsubstantiated allegations and anecdotes about Trump should go out, Vance argued.
12:23
Speaker 1: They were going to surface regardless, and if the administration
12:26
Speaker 1: published them first, it would demonstrate good faith and take
12:29
Speaker 1: the oxygen out of the conspiracy theories. His arguments fell
12:33
Speaker 1: on skeptical ears, but some advisors thought it would be
12:37
Speaker 1: good to have Justice Department officials call a news conference
12:40
Speaker 1: to explain their position on the Epstein affair, going beyond
12:44
Speaker 1: the memo that precipitated the crisis. At this point in
12:48
Speaker 1: the meeting, Blair spoke up. With all due respect, he said,
12:52
Speaker 1: the communication strategy of this group got us here. I
12:55
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to get us out. And if
12:58
Speaker 1: you're going to go in front of the press, you've
12:59
Speaker 1: got a lot of work to do. He began to
13:02
Speaker 1: ask pointed mock questions, demonstrating how difficult a news conference
13:06
Speaker 1: might be. As the president's former defense attorney, Blanche had
13:10
Speaker 1: a unique vantage point in the discussions. He was better
13:13
Speaker 1: equipped than anybody else. In the room, to weigh the
13:16
Speaker 1: ideas being discussed against Trump's personal and political interests, Blanche
13:21
Speaker 1: laid out what he saw as their best option. And
13:24
Speaker 1: here's how the cover-up works. Donald Trump gives Blanche the orders,
13:28
Speaker 1: and then Blanche puts him into action. And then later
13:31
Speaker 1: on down the road, if anybody says, hey, Trump told
13:33
Speaker 1: him to do that, he has plausible deniability. And he'll
13:37
Speaker 1: also say that our conversations were privileged. So it gives
13:40
Speaker 1: Trump that armor. But it sets Todd Blanche up to
13:43
Speaker 1: take the fall. And I think that that might occur
13:47
Speaker 1: at some point. I think that if there's a real
13:49
Speaker 1: investigation into this cover-up, I think that Todd Blanche is
13:52
Speaker 1: going to be the one that's holding the hot potato.
13:57
Speaker 1: Option one was to petition federal district courts in Florida
14:00
Speaker 1: and New York to unseal grand jury testimony, the secret
14:03
Speaker 1: transcripts of prosecutors, presentation of witnesses, and evidence in their
14:07
Speaker 1: efforts to obtain indictments in past Epstein-related cases. As those
14:12
Speaker 1: were almost certain to contain no significant new information, everyone
14:16
Speaker 1: agreed that this option was a good idea. And not
14:19
Speaker 1: only because a release was unlikely to damage the president.
14:23
Speaker 1: And look, there's no doubt that that was the goal.
14:26
Speaker 1: We talked about it at the time. And I told
14:28
Speaker 1: you that the whole entire point of what they were
14:30
Speaker 1: looking to do was to slow things down. And then,
14:35
Speaker 1: of course, get some information out there that is recycled.
14:39
Speaker 1: Then they can say, look, We're working hard to get
14:41
Speaker 1: you all this information. We're doing everything in our power,
14:45
Speaker 1: every single day, to be transparent. Meanwhile, behind the scenes,
14:49
Speaker 1: they're doing everything but. Under the federal rules of criminal procedure,
14:55
Speaker 1: the secrecy of grand jury material is regarded by most
14:58
Speaker 1: federal judges as almost always inviolate. And the bar for
15:03
Speaker 1: any release is exceptionally high. If the court refused to
15:07
Speaker 1: unseal them, as Blanche predicted... they could shift blame for
15:10
Speaker 1: withholding the Epstein material away from the Trump administration and
15:14
Speaker 1: onto the judges. Exactly what they tried to do, and
15:17
Speaker 1: exactly what I pointed out at the time. And all
15:21
Speaker 1: the better if the judges had been appointed by Democratic presidents.
15:25
Speaker 1: Blant's suggestion would make it appear that the White House
15:27
Speaker 1: wanted the materials released when it was almost certain not
15:31
Speaker 1: to happen. We call that a cover-up where I'm from.
15:35
Speaker 1: Option number two was to have Justice Department lawyers question
15:38
Speaker 1: Maxwell and publicly released the transcript, a twist on the
15:41
Speaker 1: idea proposed earlier by Vance. Blanche offered to interview Maxwell himself.
15:47
Speaker 1: What if we get her to talk to Congress, Vance suggested.
15:50
Speaker 1: Blanche raised the possibility that Maxwell's lawyer might expect something
15:54
Speaker 1: in return for her candor. Oh, she got it, didn't she?
15:58
Speaker 1: Nice little move down the club fed. Everything's all good
16:00
Speaker 1: for Ghislaine. Warrington, the White House counsel, responded by laying
16:06
Speaker 1: out the available choices without advocating any of them. Maxwell
16:10
Speaker 1: could be given a pardon, he said, or she could
16:12
Speaker 1: have her sentence reduced. At that, several around the table
16:15
Speaker 1: spoke up to register their strong disapproval. Pardoning Maxwell, a
16:20
Speaker 1: trafficker of young girls, would create a huge PR problem,
16:23
Speaker 1: Chung said. He predicted that in the wake of a pardon,
16:27
Speaker 1: the Epstein accusers would be fanning out on TV, telling
16:30
Speaker 1: their stories, and ripping the administration to shreds. Blair was
16:34
Speaker 1: also adamantly opposed to a pardon. We can't offer Glenn
16:38
Speaker 1: Maxwell anything, he said. I don't know why we would,
16:41
Speaker 1: and B, if we give Glenn Maxwell any sort of
16:43
Speaker 1: break whatsoever, and then she turns around and says nice
16:46
Speaker 1: things about us, or says nice things about us, and
16:48
Speaker 1: we give her a break, it'll undermine the entire point
16:52
Speaker 1: of her saying good things. That'll feed the conspiracy theory, period.
16:56
Speaker 1: If there's nothing for her to say that hurts us,
16:58
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have to offer her anything. That's a pretty
17:01
Speaker 1: fair assessment, no? The consensus was that calling for the
17:06
Speaker 1: release of the grand jury material was the best course
17:08
Speaker 1: of action. Wiles told the group she would discuss the
17:11
Speaker 1: matter with Trump and ask if he would send a
17:13
Speaker 1: Truth Social post calling for the release of the sealed
17:16
Speaker 1: grand jury documents. Just then, the Wall Street Journal article
17:20
Speaker 1: they had been trying to kill was published online. Cell
17:23
Speaker 1: phones are forbidden in the Situation Room, so a staff
17:26
Speaker 1: member brought in printed copies of the explosive report, which
17:30
Speaker 1: detailed how Trump and many others had created birthday cards
17:34
Speaker 1: and letters to be assembled by Maxwell into a special
17:37
Speaker 1: birthday book for Epstein in 2003. The birthday card attributed
17:41
Speaker 1: to Trump depicted a nude woman, hand-drawn and inscribed, with
17:45
Speaker 1: an imagined dialogue between the two men about a wonderful secret. Imagine?
17:50
Speaker 1: A wonderful secret, is it? The drawing was signed with
17:54
Speaker 1: what appeared to be Trump's distinctive jagged, sharpie signature in
17:58
Speaker 1: a place of the woman's pubic hair, another part of
18:01
Speaker 1: the cover-up that looks to be provable. If this was
18:07
Speaker 1: something that was forged, why is there no investigation? You
18:10
Speaker 1: would think, like I've said a million times, that if
18:12
Speaker 1: the President of the United States is being impersonated by someone,
18:16
Speaker 1: we should probably know, and there should be a gigantic
18:19
Speaker 1: investigation into who and why. We haven't seen that, though,
18:22
Speaker 1: have we? Well, that's weird, considering Donald Trump likes to
18:26
Speaker 1: use the FBI to go after everybody, but not the
18:29
Speaker 1: people that allegedly forged this letter. Seems a bit suspect
18:33
Speaker 1: to me. In the days before publication, Trump, in the
18:36
Speaker 1: effort to quash the story, called News Corp Executive Robert Thompson,
18:41
Speaker 1: News Corp owner. Rupert Murdoch, the journal's editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker.
18:46
Speaker 1: Practically shouting, the president told Tucker, who was British, that
18:49
Speaker 1: she must hate America. He told her he would file
18:52
Speaker 1: a lawsuit. But none of his bullying had worked. And
18:56
Speaker 1: now the group sat quietly reading the full story in
18:58
Speaker 1: the Situation Room. Wiles ready to public denial for the president,
19:03
Speaker 1: which he soon posted on social media. Shortly after this,
19:07
Speaker 1: the president posted again. He was going along with the
19:09
Speaker 1: plan his advisors had hashed out in the Situation Room,
19:13
Speaker 1: though it was clear he didn't like having to do it.
19:16
Speaker 1: Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein,
19:19
Speaker 1: I've asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and
19:23
Speaker 1: all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval. This
19:27
Speaker 1: scam perpetuated by the Democrats should end right now. Scam?
19:32
Speaker 1: Imagine calling this a scam? No, Mr. President, the only
19:35
Speaker 1: scam that's being run is the one you're running. on
19:38
Speaker 1: the American people. In response to a request for comment,
19:42
Speaker 1: a White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, repeated Trump's claim that
19:46
Speaker 1: he was innocent in all Epstein-related matters, adding that by
19:49
Speaker 1: releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House
19:53
Speaker 1: Oversight Committee's subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act,
19:58
Speaker 1: and calling for more investigations into Epstein's Democrat friends, President
20:02
Speaker 1: Trump has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him.
20:06
Speaker 1: Why don't you ask the survivors how they feel about
20:08
Speaker 1: that comment? Because I assure you, they do not agree.
20:11
Speaker 1: All right, folks, we're going to wrap up episode one
20:13
Speaker 1: right here. And in the next episode dealing with the topic,
20:16
Speaker 1: we're going to pick up where we left off. All
20:19
Speaker 1: the information that goes with this episode can be found
20:22
Speaker 1: in the description box. What's up, everyone? And welcome to
20:25
Speaker 1: another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're
20:29
Speaker 1: going to get right back to that New York Times
20:31
Speaker 1: article about Donald Trump and the Epstein Files. This article
20:38
Speaker 1: was authored by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. At the
20:41
Speaker 1: start of last summer, as far as outside observers could see,
20:45
Speaker 1: Trump appeared to be at the pinnacle of his power.
20:47
Speaker 1: He had just bombed nuclear sites in Iran, completed a
20:51
Speaker 1: blitz of executive orders to reshape the immigration system, and
20:54
Speaker 1: ran through Congress his signature piece of domestic legislation, the
20:58
Speaker 1: Big Beautiful Bill. He was using the levers of the
21:01
Speaker 1: government to go after his enemies. And out of fear
21:05
Speaker 1: and desperation... America's corporate titans were falling over themselves to genuflect. Look,
21:11
Speaker 1: a lot of those people, they wanted favorable deals. And
21:14
Speaker 1: they knew that the Trump administration was going to wheel
21:16
Speaker 1: and deal. So they're going to do what's best for
21:18
Speaker 1: their companies. My beef is with the administration and their nonsense.
21:24
Speaker 1: The absolute greed and corruption that we see on a
21:26
Speaker 1: regular basis is just unreal. But behind the scenes, the
21:32
Speaker 1: Epstein crisis was paralyzing the Trump administration to a far
21:36
Speaker 1: greater extent than the public knew. In their public statements,
21:39
Speaker 1: Trump's advisors were full of bravado, dismissing the crisis. In reality,
21:45
Speaker 1: it was consuming the highest ranks of the administration as
21:47
Speaker 1: no issue had for the president's team since the Russia
21:50
Speaker 1: investigation in his first term. His aides were determined to
21:54
Speaker 1: keep their rising sense of panic out of public view. Yo,
21:58
Speaker 1: this should have been more than Russia. That Russia shit,
22:01
Speaker 1: I hate to tell you, a lot of it was contrived.
22:04
Speaker 1: I know people don't want to hear it, because it
22:06
Speaker 1: doesn't fit in with their confirmation bias and shit, but
22:09
Speaker 1: it's true. And all the way back then, that there
22:13
Speaker 1: wasn't enough there there to send anybody to prison. Meanwhile,
22:16
Speaker 1: the Epstein files were rife with all kinds of corruption.
22:21
Speaker 1: And if people would have just focused back then, when
22:23
Speaker 1: this was all happening in real time, we could have
22:25
Speaker 1: actually got something done. But unfortunately, that never happened. The
22:32
Speaker 1: Justice Department had struggled with just how to dispose of
22:35
Speaker 1: the Epstein matter since the beginning of Trump's second term.
22:39
Speaker 1: The issue was all-consuming for the president's political base, but
22:43
Speaker 1: also potentially compromising for the president himself in ways that
22:46
Speaker 1: officials in the new administration didn't fully understand. Any path
22:51
Speaker 1: forward would be fraud. Some of that complexity was self-inflicted. Yes,
22:55
Speaker 1: it was, all of it. They created this problem for themselves.
22:59
Speaker 1: Donald Trump created this problem for himself. Here's an idea.
23:04
Speaker 1: Just live up to the promises you made while you
23:07
Speaker 1: were on the campaign trail. Let the chips fall where
23:11
Speaker 1: they will. Let the American people decide. But instead, you've
23:14
Speaker 1: got to gatekeep. Instead, you've got to protect your people. Instead,
23:18
Speaker 1: you have to bring Leon Black's son into the administration.
23:24
Speaker 1: So yeah, all your problems, self-inflicted. Some of that complexity
23:29
Speaker 1: was self-inflicted. In the engine room of the MAGA movement,
23:32
Speaker 1: the Epstein files were potent fuel. Elon Musk had used
23:36
Speaker 1: his social media platform to repeatedly question why a client
23:39
Speaker 1: list had not been released. Donald Trump Jr. and J.D.
23:43
Speaker 1: Vance had invoked the Epstein files as a broader campaign
23:47
Speaker 1: message to argue that powerful people were hiding the truth
23:50
Speaker 1: from Americans. Tucker Carlson and the young conservative leader, Charlie Kirk,
23:55
Speaker 1: had each insisted that the government should release the documents
23:58
Speaker 1: and each floated the idea that that there was an
24:00
Speaker 1: expansive cover-up and progress. Well, that's because there is. And
24:05
Speaker 1: you don't have to agree with Charlie Kirk or agree
24:07
Speaker 1: with Tucker Carlson to understand that. Just because you don't
24:11
Speaker 1: agree with somebody doesn't mean they're not right. Look, I
24:14
Speaker 1: don't agree with Maggie Haberman all the time. She's right
24:17
Speaker 1: in this article. And I think that whole entire thing
24:20
Speaker 1: of having to agree with everything somebody says is dumb
24:24
Speaker 1: as hell. I'm not going to agree with everything somebody
24:28
Speaker 1: says ever. I have my own opinions on a wide
24:32
Speaker 1: variety of things, and I'm willing to listen to anybody.
24:35
Speaker 1: Whoever has the best ideas, that's who I'm voting for.
24:40
Speaker 1: Trump himself had been cagey. On the Lex Friedman podcast
24:43
Speaker 1: in September of 2024, when asked about releasing the client list,
24:47
Speaker 1: Trump responded, I'd certainly take a look at it. Adding,
24:50
Speaker 1: I'd have no problem with it. The list probably will
24:53
Speaker 1: be made public, he said. But he sounded less than enthusiastic.
24:57
Speaker 1: In private, Trump later told Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene that
25:01
Speaker 1: a release of Epstein material could hurt some of his friends.
25:05
Speaker 1: He repeatedly insisted that he had done nothing wrong and
25:07
Speaker 1: that the whole saga was fake news designed to harm
25:10
Speaker 1: him politically. And that's his go-to move, right? Anytime that
25:14
Speaker 1: Trump is truly in jeopardy, he calls it a hoax.
25:17
Speaker 1: And he gets purchased with that because of what happened
25:20
Speaker 1: with Russia. I mean, the American people heard Russia, Russia,
25:23
Speaker 1: Russia for how many years? How many hearings? And then
25:26
Speaker 1: what came of it? So when people hear this, they're like, oh,
25:30
Speaker 1: just another routine move, another hoax to try and get Trump.
25:34
Speaker 1: That's what his base thinks. And you can say what
25:36
Speaker 1: you want about Trump and the administration, but they're effective
25:40
Speaker 1: communicators when it comes to their own party, their own people.
25:43
Speaker 1: Very effective. They know exactly what buttons to push. And
25:48
Speaker 1: he has carefully built this whole entire persona of him
25:51
Speaker 1: being some kind of martyr. And he knew that it
25:53
Speaker 1: was going to be effective. He knew that if he
25:56
Speaker 1: used that strategy and said that, that it would protect him.
26:00
Speaker 1: And it sure has, hasn't it? All the people out
26:03
Speaker 1: here that were running their yap for all these years
26:05
Speaker 1: about Epstein, who now say it's a hoax, what a
26:08
Speaker 1: bunch of morons. Like, why would anyone believe anything they
26:13
Speaker 1: have to say? Now, it's one thing if the evidence
26:16
Speaker 1: would have pointed you in a different direction after you
26:18
Speaker 1: had one belief, right? Like, if somebody was to show
26:21
Speaker 1: up tomorrow with all of the evidence of what happened
26:25
Speaker 1: in that jail cell, and it turned out that it
26:27
Speaker 1: was 100% suicide, I'd be the first one to get
26:31
Speaker 1: on here and tell you, look, I've been wrong the
26:32
Speaker 1: whole time. It was obviously suicide. Because, for me anyway,
26:38
Speaker 1: the only thing that matters is getting as close to
26:40
Speaker 1: the truth as we possibly can. And anybody standing in
26:44
Speaker 1: the way of that, well, I have questions. But his
26:51
Speaker 1: posture was overtaken by the growing frenzy among his supporters.
26:55
Speaker 1: Throughout 2024, Greene had made it her mission to force
26:59
Speaker 1: the release of the files, and there were so many others.
27:02
Speaker 1: The far-right influencer Laura Loomer, the conservative activist Scott Pressler,
27:06
Speaker 1: Chaya Raychick from Libs of TikTok. But when it came
27:10
Speaker 1: to propagating the Epstein files as evidence of the deep state,
27:13
Speaker 1: capable of evil, two podcasters were not to be outdone.
27:18
Speaker 1: Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. Well, there's no doubt that
27:22
Speaker 1: those two were the loudest voices talking about the Epstein files.
27:25
Speaker 1: And then they get access to them, and we get nothing.
27:29
Speaker 1: We get told that there's nothing there, and that it
27:31
Speaker 1: was all just a big mistake. And they really thought
27:35
Speaker 1: people were going to buy it. They really thought that
27:38
Speaker 1: they were going to get Joe and Jane America to
27:41
Speaker 1: buy into that nonsense. Well, how's it working out for them? Patel,
27:46
Speaker 1: a National Security Council Director for Counterterrorism and Defense Department
27:50
Speaker 1: Chief of Staff in the first Trump administration... had repeatedly
27:54
Speaker 1: claimed in podcast interviews that the government was hiding Epstein's
27:57
Speaker 1: black book or client list, and he frequently asserted that
28:01
Speaker 1: the FBI was deliberately withholding names to protect the powerful.
28:05
Speaker 1: They were! That's true, but so is Kash Patel. It's
28:10
Speaker 1: all one big-ass club, folks, and none of us are invited.
28:16
Speaker 1: Patel promised that the second Trump administration would release everything
28:19
Speaker 1: to restore public trust, and they've made it worse. broken
28:23
Speaker 1: promises on a boulevard of broken dreams. On the Dan
28:28
Speaker 1: Bongino show, Bongino's background as a Secret Service agent had
28:32
Speaker 1: lent authority to his claims of a cover-up. What the
28:35
Speaker 1: hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein? He'd ask his
28:38
Speaker 1: large audience of MAGA devotees. The release of the client
28:42
Speaker 1: list would rock the political world, he predicted, though Washington
28:45
Speaker 1: Swamp was not telling you the truth. Well, that's true too.
28:49
Speaker 1: They're not, and neither did Dan Bongino. just another useless
28:54
Speaker 1: son of a bitch. Another person who promised that he
28:57
Speaker 1: was going to do the right thing, going to expose people,
29:00
Speaker 1: bring transparency, didn't do any of it. In fact, tucked
29:04
Speaker 1: his tail between his legs and dipped right back to
29:08
Speaker 1: the podcasting world. So as they took office in 2025,
29:12
Speaker 1: Trump's advisors were subject to intense pressure of their own making.
29:16
Speaker 1: Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly made things much worse. First
29:20
Speaker 1: in a Fox News interview, On February 21st, she appeared
29:23
Speaker 1: to confirm the existence of an Epstein client list, something
29:27
Speaker 1: that the MAGA base had believed was sitting in the
29:30
Speaker 1: files hidden, and hinted that its release was imminent. Asked
29:34
Speaker 1: whether the Justice Department might release the names, she responded,
29:37
Speaker 1: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. But
29:41
Speaker 1: many viewed what came six days later as even more
29:44
Speaker 1: of an egregious misstep. The whole entire thing was poorly planned,
29:49
Speaker 1: poorly managed, and poorly carried out. And if we can't
29:53
Speaker 1: prove a cover-up here, it's not because there's no evidence,
29:57
Speaker 1: it's because the willpower isn't there. On February 27th, the
30:04
Speaker 1: White House Communications Office scheduled a lineup of Cabinet officials
30:07
Speaker 1: to brief popular right-wing influencers in the Roosevelt Room. The
30:11
Speaker 1: session began with Vice President Vance, followed by Secretary of
30:15
Speaker 1: State Marco Rubio, walking the influencers through the administration's agenda.
30:20
Speaker 1: In attendance was a who's who of online MAGA, Mike Cernovich,
30:24
Speaker 1: Liz Wheeler, Colin Rugg, D.C. Drano. The President himself brought
30:29
Speaker 1: them to the Oval Office. and gave them custom-designed challenge
30:32
Speaker 1: coins as a token of his appreciation. Before everything went wrong,
30:37
Speaker 1: one of them would remark, It was the best day
30:40
Speaker 1: of my life. What a bunch of clowns those people are.
30:44
Speaker 1: All those people with the white binders? All part of
30:46
Speaker 1: the PSYOP. All part of the cover-up. Imagine sacrificing your
30:51
Speaker 1: morality to have a few minutes at the White House?
30:56
Speaker 1: When the Attorney General and her team walked into the
30:58
Speaker 1: Roosevelt Room carrying boxes, Bondi had brought binders as handouts
31:03
Speaker 1: for the influencers. Her aides would later tell colleagues that
31:06
Speaker 1: the FBI had prepared them with the assurance that they
31:08
Speaker 1: contained revelatory details. Someone on her staff said, watch this.
31:14
Speaker 1: This is cool. This is going to be epic. Yeah,
31:17
Speaker 1: an epic disaster. Epically ridiculous. But as Bondi's staff started
31:23
Speaker 1: distributing the binders, the blood pressure of other officials in
31:26
Speaker 1: the room skyrocketed. They had no idea what was in
31:29
Speaker 1: the handouts. The Attorney General was distributing something she was
31:33
Speaker 1: calling the Epstein Files that had not been vetted by
31:36
Speaker 1: anyone in the White House. One official, opening the binder,
31:40
Speaker 1: began flipping through the pages to see if Trump's name
31:43
Speaker 1: was mentioned anywhere. A few pages in, right in the
31:45
Speaker 1: middle of the page, there it was. Boy, I bet
31:48
Speaker 1: they were happy to find the other, what, 38,000 mentions?
31:52
Speaker 1: Keira Starmer, the British Prime Minister, was at the White
31:54
Speaker 1: House that day. If news broke that the Epstein files
31:57
Speaker 1: had been released before the president was to meet the
32:00
Speaker 1: press with the prime minister, that would be all the
32:03
Speaker 1: journalists would want to talk about. And Trump would be blindsided. Oh,
32:07
Speaker 1: poor Trump. Gonna get blindsided. Gonna have to talk about
32:11
Speaker 1: his buddy Jeffrey Epstein again. Well, guess what? It's not
32:14
Speaker 1: going anywhere. Time to meet that shit head on. One
32:19
Speaker 1: of Trump's aides hastily steered the influencers out of the
32:22
Speaker 1: White House, telling them that the content of the binders
32:24
Speaker 1: was embargoed until after the president's news conference with Starmer.
32:29
Speaker 1: But the communications office would be more than happy to
32:31
Speaker 1: talk about the files afterward. As the influencers left, they
32:36
Speaker 1: snapped selfies in front of the White House holding the binders,
32:39
Speaker 1: quickly posting the pictures on social media. They had now
32:43
Speaker 1: created a new shockwave of anticipation of what might be
32:46
Speaker 1: in them. And I remember when it happened. I knew
32:49
Speaker 1: for a fact that we were getting dog walked. I
32:52
Speaker 1: knew that we were going to get nothing. And guess what?
32:55
Speaker 1: We got nothing. Nada. Zilch. Un gots. Like some others
33:00
Speaker 1: in the White House, Bondi had either grossly underestimated or
33:03
Speaker 1: simply been blind to the voracious appetite of the MAGA
33:06
Speaker 1: base for information about Epstein. Her binders contained information about
33:11
Speaker 1: him and his activities, flight logs, contact lists, summaries of
33:15
Speaker 1: items taken from the residence after his 2019 arrest, and
33:19
Speaker 1: other material. But nearly all of it had been previously released.
33:23
Speaker 1: Bondi had somehow simultaneously oversold and trivialized the Epstein files.
33:29
Speaker 1: And now the influencers made to feel like dupes. Well,
33:33
Speaker 1: they are. They're just a bunch of grifters. Do you
33:36
Speaker 1: think any of those people care about Jeffrey Epstein? Or
33:39
Speaker 1: the survivors? Or any of the story? It's about engagement
33:42
Speaker 1: to them. Oh, they cared about it when they thought
33:45
Speaker 1: they were going to use it politically. That's when they cared.
33:49
Speaker 1: You know, just like the other side cares now. Oh,
33:51
Speaker 1: we got a political inroad here. We all of a
33:53
Speaker 1: sudden care. Well, I hate to break the news to you,
33:56
Speaker 1: but if you would have cared when it mattered the most,
33:59
Speaker 1: when this was all happening, maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't
34:03
Speaker 1: be here today. And it was people like Maggie Haberman,
34:06
Speaker 1: the author of this article, who was calling people like
34:10
Speaker 1: me conspiracy theorists. Meanwhile, we've been over the target for
34:13
Speaker 1: seven years. And all you had to do was listen.
34:16
Speaker 1: Just listen to what the survivors were saying. Listen to Virginia.
34:20
Speaker 1: Listen to what Maria had to say. Listen to all
34:22
Speaker 1: these women who actually lived it. And then you go
34:26
Speaker 1: and you look at all the court documents. You look
34:28
Speaker 1: at everything that came out. And the picture that it
34:30
Speaker 1: paints is not very hard to recognize. In the Roosevelt room,
34:34
Speaker 1: Bondi told the influencers that this was just the first
34:37
Speaker 1: tranche of files. There would be more coming. She assured them.
34:40
Speaker 1: But that story would change too. Yeah, everything they told
34:43
Speaker 1: us changed. The campaign, it was, oh, we're going to
34:47
Speaker 1: have everything out. Then, it was, oh no, there's nothing
34:50
Speaker 1: coming out. And then, after the discharge petition, well, we're
34:54
Speaker 1: the most transparent administration in the history of transparency, so
34:58
Speaker 1: we're going to get everything out for you. Nothing comes out,
35:02
Speaker 1: nothing of substance, and they fight tooth and nail the
35:05
Speaker 1: whole entire time. If Donald Trump wanted to be transparent,
35:08
Speaker 1: he could be. Him and his Justice Department could have
35:12
Speaker 1: been as transparent as they wanted to be. But instead,
35:15
Speaker 1: we had to jump through hoops, And it became a circus.
35:18
Speaker 1: And for what? So Trump could protect his donors? Protect
35:21
Speaker 1: a few of Jeffrey Epstein's best friends? Or is there
35:24
Speaker 1: something more sinister that he's trying to protect? The Justice
35:30
Speaker 1: Department officials were reviewing the Epstein material, but months would
35:33
Speaker 1: pass before the department or any of Trump's closest advisors
35:37
Speaker 1: knew just how many documents there were. More than 3
35:40
Speaker 1: million pages of files related to Epstein, and potentially as
35:43
Speaker 1: many as 6 million. In the early months, officials were
35:47
Speaker 1: focused on going through the trove of what are known
35:50
Speaker 1: as 302 forms, records of FBI agents, interview notes with witnesses,
35:55
Speaker 1: some of whom were victims of Epstein. These were raw records,
35:59
Speaker 1: often containing unverified information. Trump was mentioned numerous times, as
36:04
Speaker 1: were other prominent men. Look, the 302 reports are telling.
36:09
Speaker 1: These are the words of the people who are interviewed,
36:13
Speaker 1: who the investigators think have knowledge of what's going on.
36:17
Speaker 1: So I would suggest that you take the 302 proffers seriously. Now,
36:21
Speaker 1: does that mean that people won't lie? Of course not.
36:24
Speaker 1: You have to be guarded. And I would suggest that
36:26
Speaker 1: you're very cautious with what sort of slop you're putting
36:29
Speaker 1: into your brain when it comes to this topic. There's
36:32
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there just serving up a
36:34
Speaker 1: bunch of nonsense. In June, four months after the circus
36:37
Speaker 1: in the Roosevelt Room with the influencers Bondi and Blanche
36:41
Speaker 1: briefed the president on the status of the Epstein review.
36:44
Speaker 1: We've gone through the files, Blanche told Trump. There's not
36:47
Speaker 1: a lot there. A lot of child pornography, obviously. We
36:50
Speaker 1: can't put any of that out. There are some mentions
36:53
Speaker 1: of you, but nothing substantive. Most of Trump's advisors had
36:57
Speaker 1: rejected out of hand the idea of releasing the FBI's
37:00
Speaker 1: raw interview notes. More important, they wanted to avoid putting
37:04
Speaker 1: out anything that could damage the president. Cover-up. Folks, that's
37:09
Speaker 1: what this is. This is a cover-up. In motion. Everything's
37:13
Speaker 1: being done to protect Donald Trump. It has nothing to
37:15
Speaker 1: do with justice. It has nothing to do with real transparency.
37:19
Speaker 1: It's about protecting Donald Trump on Donald Trump's orders. If
37:24
Speaker 1: that's not a cover-up, I don't know what is. With
37:28
Speaker 1: full transparency and non-starter, a small group of White House
37:31
Speaker 1: and Justice Department officials decided to draft a memo that
37:34
Speaker 1: would explain why the department was not releasing any further
37:37
Speaker 1: information about Epstein. But even the process of composing the
37:41
Speaker 1: memo was fraught, in part because no one wanted their
37:44
Speaker 1: name on it, and in part because of a deep
37:47
Speaker 1: concern within the leadership of the FBI. You know what
37:51
Speaker 1: we need here? A whistleblower. We need somebody that was
37:54
Speaker 1: working on this behind the scenes to come out and
37:56
Speaker 1: drip all that tea. You know that there were people
37:59
Speaker 1: that weren't down with what was going on. You know
38:01
Speaker 1: there were people that wanted to go a different way.
38:05
Speaker 1: But all of this was done at the behest of
38:07
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And it seems like every time we get
38:10
Speaker 1: new information, it just reaffirms that. For weeks, Patel and Bongino,
38:16
Speaker 1: the deputy FBI director, had grown more infuriated as they
38:19
Speaker 1: realized the scale of the mess for which they were
38:22
Speaker 1: now being blamed. They repeatedly raised alarms internally that the
38:26
Speaker 1: Epstein crisis was gathering momentum with Trump supporters. Bongino wanted
38:31
Speaker 1: to convey something definitive to the MAGA base, and he
38:34
Speaker 1: and Patel pushed for the immediate release of the surveillance
38:37
Speaker 1: footage From the federal facility where Epstein was found dead
38:41
Speaker 1: in his cell. That proved to be a disaster as well.
38:44
Speaker 1: What an absolute and utter disaster. Missing minute. Nothing adding up.
38:50
Speaker 1: Couldn't see anything. And then of course there's the orange
38:53
Speaker 1: blob that nobody's explained. Oh, it's Tova Noel. Well, no
38:56
Speaker 1: it's not. She says it's not her. So who is it?
39:04
Speaker 1: Bongino hated the Justice Department's nothing-to-see-here memo being drawn up
39:08
Speaker 1: for public release. He told Patel this would in no
39:12
Speaker 1: way align with their promises of transparency after taking over
39:15
Speaker 1: the FBI, and he objected to putting the FBI seal
39:19
Speaker 1: on the letterhead, but he was overruled. Patel privately shared
39:24
Speaker 1: many of Bongino's concerns, but in an internal email on
39:27
Speaker 1: July 2nd, the FBI director gave his support for the memo.
39:32
Speaker 1: But what's he going to do? Donald Trump wants the
39:34
Speaker 1: memo out. They're going to put it out. These people
39:37
Speaker 1: aren't courageous. They're not willing to stand up to somebody
39:41
Speaker 1: like Donald Trump if that means their career is going
39:43
Speaker 1: to be over. Thanks for the edits. I still believe
39:46
Speaker 1: that this is the correct vehicle forward, Patel wrote. with
39:49
Speaker 1: the occasional typo to a small group of colleagues, including Blanche.
39:54
Speaker 1: I'm happy to add any additional sentences to compete the shortfall,
39:58
Speaker 1: but I do think we address specifically why more can't
40:01
Speaker 1: be released as it relates to specific topics, i.e. court order, CSAM,
40:06
Speaker 1: victims protections, etc. Bondi rarely used her Justice Department email
40:12
Speaker 1: and was not on the chain where the group worked
40:14
Speaker 1: on the memo. She was aware of both the memo
40:17
Speaker 1: and the release of the prison video, but was not
40:19
Speaker 1: involved in editing the document. So what was she doing?
40:23
Speaker 1: Just a figurehead? I think that Blanche has been the
40:27
Speaker 1: boss this whole entire time. That's what I believe. And
40:31
Speaker 1: I think that he was put there by Donald Trump
40:33
Speaker 1: for this exact reason. If shit goes south, Blanche takes
40:37
Speaker 1: Lorraine's and he guides the ship home. And that's exactly
40:40
Speaker 1: what's happening right now as we speak. But Blanche needs
40:44
Speaker 1: to understand that Trump's not going to be president forever.
40:48
Speaker 1: And at some point, this bill is going to come due.
40:53
Speaker 1: Inside the White House, Trump had no interest in releasing anything.
40:57
Speaker 1: And senior officials, including Wiles and Blair, were initially unconvinced
41:01
Speaker 1: about the reach of the Epstein crisis. They told colleagues
41:04
Speaker 1: that Republican voters didn't care. And they had early data
41:07
Speaker 1: from Trump's chief pollster, Tony Fabrizio, to demonstrate it. The
41:12
Speaker 1: Epstein brouhaha, in their view, was driven by fringe conspiracy
41:16
Speaker 1: theorists and amplified by noisy online influencers who didn't represent
41:20
Speaker 1: a meaningful block of voters. If the White House engaged,
41:24
Speaker 1: it would only pump it up, putting the official stamp
41:27
Speaker 1: on the matter. Wiles, Blair, and others around Trump had
41:31
Speaker 1: seen him weather every storm imaginable for years, and in
41:34
Speaker 1: their view, this wasn't a storm, it was a passing
41:37
Speaker 1: cloud at most. I wonder if he feels that way now.
41:41
Speaker 1: Bongino told anyone who would listen that this was a
41:44
Speaker 1: grave miscalculation. It's not an online story, he told White
41:48
Speaker 1: House advisors. You don't understand. All right, folks, we're going
41:51
Speaker 1: to wrap up right here. And in the next episode,
41:54
Speaker 1: we'll finish this bad boy off. All the information that
41:57
Speaker 1: goes with this episode can be found in the description box.
42:01
Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
42:04
Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
42:07
Speaker 1: where we left off with the New York Times article
42:10
Speaker 1: that was authored by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. On
42:15
Speaker 1: July 7th, the Department of Justice and the FBI released
42:18
Speaker 1: a memo. It was brief, an unsigned one and a
42:21
Speaker 1: half page statement explaining that after an exhaustive search of
42:24
Speaker 1: its database, hard drives and network drives, as well as
42:28
Speaker 1: physical searches of squad areas, lock cabinets, desks, closets, and
42:32
Speaker 1: other areas where responsive material may have been stored, and
42:36
Speaker 1: a corresponding review of more than 300 gigabytes of evidence,
42:40
Speaker 1: the department concluded that there was no evidence Epstein had
42:43
Speaker 1: maintained a client list. The memo also reaffirmed the official
42:47
Speaker 1: finding that Epstein's death in 2019 had been a suicide.
42:52
Speaker 1: The memo was accompanied by the release of video footage
42:55
Speaker 1: from the federal jail in Manhattan where Epstein died, footage
42:58
Speaker 1: that officials said supported the conclusion of suicide. And with that,
43:03
Speaker 1: the memo indicated that the Trump administration would not be
43:06
Speaker 1: releasing further information regarding the Epstein case and no further
43:10
Speaker 1: investigation of uncharged third parties was warranted. Imagine, after all
43:15
Speaker 1: that hubbub, after all the carrying on, after telling us,
43:19
Speaker 1: this time's going to be different. To send out that
43:22
Speaker 1: memo and just spit in everybody's face? Less than five
43:25
Speaker 1: months after Bondi had referred to a secret client list
43:29
Speaker 1: of high-profile predators, the case was closed. Or, so it seemed.
43:34
Speaker 1: If the administration expected that the memo would be the
43:37
Speaker 1: last word on the Epstein case, and that the president's
43:40
Speaker 1: most ardent supporters would accept the purported conclusions of the
43:43
Speaker 1: Department of Justice simply because the department and its investigative
43:47
Speaker 1: agencies were now controlled by Donald Trump, they were sorely mistaken.
43:52
Speaker 1: The memo was an earthquake, and it was received by
43:55
Speaker 1: a part of the MAGA base as an outright betrayal.
43:58
Speaker 1: It amounted to an abrupt disavowal of the sinister conspiracy
44:03
Speaker 1: theories that some of Trump's closest confidants had hyped during
44:07
Speaker 1: the Biden presidency, and that they had promised to expose
44:10
Speaker 1: once Trump returned to power. The release of the surveillance video,
44:15
Speaker 1: which Bongino and Patel had intended as a gesture of transparency,
44:19
Speaker 1: further fueled the fire. The Department of Justice ended up
44:22
Speaker 1: releasing roughly 11 hours of prison video, intended to show
44:26
Speaker 1: that nothing nefarious occurred, but the footage was missing a minute.
44:31
Speaker 1: a visible timestamp jump from 11.58, 58 p.m. to midnight.
44:36
Speaker 1: Bondi initially attributed this to a nightly system reset, and
44:39
Speaker 1: the footage was later restored and released. To many of
44:44
Speaker 1: Trump's followers, however, this was yet more evidence of a cover-up.
44:48
Speaker 1: White House officials complained privately that they hadn't been told
44:51
Speaker 1: about the gap before the release. Social media lit up
44:55
Speaker 1: with blame, not just for Bondi, but for Patel and Bongino, too.
44:59
Speaker 1: None of the three had ever experienced anger at this
45:02
Speaker 1: volume from Trump's conservative base. It was disorienting, especially for
45:07
Speaker 1: Patel and Bongino, whose power and influence had been built online.
45:11
Speaker 1: And you know it was a shock for them. Having
45:13
Speaker 1: everybody come after them like that? That must not have
45:17
Speaker 1: been very much fun. But guess what? They should have
45:20
Speaker 1: done the right thing. If you say you're going to
45:23
Speaker 1: release something, release it. And if not, you better have
45:26
Speaker 1: a good explanation as to why. And unfortunately for them,
45:30
Speaker 1: no explanation came. The movement that had treated them as
45:38
Speaker 1: heroes was suddenly turning on them. The two men were
45:41
Speaker 1: now tightly connected to a memo that stated in black
45:44
Speaker 1: and white that while information in the government's possession showed
45:47
Speaker 1: ample evidence of Epstein's own wrongdoing, there's no evidence of
45:51
Speaker 1: a wider conspiracy. The day the memo was released, Bongino
45:55
Speaker 1: showed up to a daily Justice Department meeting with the
45:58
Speaker 1: FBI staff, and the Attorney General. He was in a
46:01
Speaker 1: volcanic mood. As soon as he entered the room, he
46:04
Speaker 1: erupted at Bondi, shouting at her. You fucked this thing
46:07
Speaker 1: up from the start, Bongino yelled. The way you've been
46:10
Speaker 1: talking about this, that dumb fucking charade with the Epstein files,
46:14
Speaker 1: the they're on my desk nonsense, all the promises to
46:17
Speaker 1: folks out there. Look, he's not wrong about that. And
46:22
Speaker 1: when somebody's right, they're right. Not exactly what I would
46:26
Speaker 1: call the biggest fan of Dan Bongino, but he's not
46:28
Speaker 1: wrong here. and he had every reason to be fired up.
46:33
Speaker 1: This dude basically staked his career on this bullshit. Patel
46:38
Speaker 1: and Bongino both subsequently told the White House official that
46:41
Speaker 1: Bondi needed to resign. Two days later, on July 9th,
46:46
Speaker 1: the two men were summoned to a meeting with Wiles
46:48
Speaker 1: and Bondi in the Situation Room. They were the last
46:52
Speaker 1: to enter the small, wood-paneled room, seated around the table,
46:56
Speaker 1: where Bondi, Wiles, Blanche, and Taylor Budowich, one of Wiles' deputies.
47:01
Speaker 1: The moment Bongino sat down, Wiles told him that she
47:04
Speaker 1: had been informed that he leaked a sensitive story about
47:07
Speaker 1: Epstein and Trump to ABC News. I'll tell you what,
47:10
Speaker 1: Bongino replied. I'll give you $ 100, 000 cash right now. I'm
47:14
Speaker 1: not kidding. Walk out to West Exec, put that reporter
47:17
Speaker 1: on speaker, and get him to admit that I leaked it. $ 100, 000.
47:21
Speaker 1: Wiles snapped back. Well, we got ourselves into this. Bongino
47:24
Speaker 1: cut her off. No, no, no, no, no. We didn't
47:27
Speaker 1: get ourselves into anything. I warned you guys about this
47:30
Speaker 1: the whole time, and you ignored me. And exactly what
47:33
Speaker 1: I said was going to happen, happened. And now you're
47:36
Speaker 1: pretending I was in on this. I was never in
47:39
Speaker 1: on this. It's always nice to see the rats try
47:41
Speaker 1: and flee the sinking ship, huh? Bongino's aggressive response to
47:44
Speaker 1: Wiles startled the others. She was the White House chief
47:48
Speaker 1: of staff, essentially a stand-in for the president. Wiles put
47:52
Speaker 1: Bongino on the spot. Going forward, she said, we're all in.
47:56
Speaker 1: We're all going to agree to move forward. Are you
47:58
Speaker 1: in or not? No, I'm not, Bongino said. This is
48:02
Speaker 1: not my plan. I'm not part of this going forward.
48:05
Speaker 1: Forget it. I'm out of here. He stormed out of
48:07
Speaker 1: the Situation Room and onto West Executive Avenue, where he
48:11
Speaker 1: climbed into the back of Patel's armored SUV and directed
48:14
Speaker 1: the driver to take him to FBI headquarters. Some of
48:18
Speaker 1: Bongino's close friends hoped that he would resign right then
48:22
Speaker 1: and there. an act of protest that would have made
48:24
Speaker 1: him a MAGA martyr and only increased his following. Look,
48:28
Speaker 1: I would have had a lot less to say if
48:29
Speaker 1: he did that. At least he would have shown some
48:31
Speaker 1: integrity and some backbone. But no, he stuck around and
48:35
Speaker 1: ran cover. But the White House advisors intervened, urging him
48:40
Speaker 1: to stay. If he quit over Epstein and went public,
48:43
Speaker 1: it could severely damage the president. Bongino told associates he
48:47
Speaker 1: would remain for Trump's sake and keep pushing for more
48:50
Speaker 1: Epstein information to be released. but privately he seethed. In
48:56
Speaker 1: conversations with confidants, he lamented what the job had cost him,
49:00
Speaker 1: millions of dollars, and podcast revenue, family time, his audience.
49:04
Speaker 1: He was getting torn apart over a strategy he had
49:07
Speaker 1: opposed from the start. The relationships at the top of
49:11
Speaker 1: the Justice Department were by now beyond dysfunctional. In another
49:15
Speaker 1: July meeting in Wilde's office, Bongino and Patel told the
49:18
Speaker 1: Chief of Staff they suspected that Bondi had leaked negative
49:21
Speaker 1: stories about them. Yo, this is a shitshow. No wonder
49:26
Speaker 1: everything was so screwed up, folks. What an absolute clown show.
49:33
Speaker 1: Bondi fucked this whole thing up, Bongino later told the confidant.
49:37
Speaker 1: echoing Loomer's derisive nickname for the Attorney General. She was
49:41
Speaker 1: the one on TV saying, over and over, they had
49:43
Speaker 1: all this stuff. There was never anything. We were always
49:46
Speaker 1: clear about that. But now everyone thinks we did something wrong,
49:50
Speaker 1: and I gave up everything. Bongino complained that he'd given
49:53
Speaker 1: up his high-rated show and millions of dollars, and now
49:57
Speaker 1: it's all disappeared. Because people think we screwed something up
50:00
Speaker 1: with Epstein. You did. You're a coward and a chump,
50:04
Speaker 1: damn Bongino. A real man would have been a whistleblower.
50:10
Speaker 1: A real man would have stood up. Bongino paused. This
50:15
Speaker 1: is going to be President Trump's Iran-Contra. While he's not
50:19
Speaker 1: wrong about that, it sure is. On July 12th, the
50:23
Speaker 1: President took to Truth Social to defend Bondi against criticism,
50:27
Speaker 1: to urge his boys and gals to stop wasting time
50:30
Speaker 1: and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.
50:34
Speaker 1: And that's hilarious, considering that Trump himself and the administration
50:38
Speaker 1: couldn't shut up about Epstein for so long. Trump told
50:44
Speaker 1: aides he was very unhappy with some of his most
50:47
Speaker 1: influential supporters, including Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly,
50:52
Speaker 1: all of whom were publicly urging the administration to come clean.
50:56
Speaker 1: Kirk had held the Turning Point USA event the previous day.
51:00
Speaker 1: That turned into an Epstein grievance fest, with one speaker
51:03
Speaker 1: after another bashing Bondi, over the handling of the situation.
51:08
Speaker 1: Trump had called Kirk and scolded him. Trump is so
51:11
Speaker 1: thin-skinned that he's willing to go after his most ardent supporters,
51:17
Speaker 1: even if they just step out of line once. If
51:19
Speaker 1: they don't agree with everything, then you're a traitor. I
51:23
Speaker 1: just can't get down with the whole absolutism. Sometimes I'll agree,
51:27
Speaker 1: sometimes I won't. And if that's a problem, well, I
51:30
Speaker 1: don't give a shit. It's not my problem. It's yours.
51:34
Speaker 1: Nobody in Trump's orbit had a better feel for the
51:36
Speaker 1: younger part of the MAGA base than Kirk, who saw
51:39
Speaker 1: that the Epstein cover-up, as it was now viewed, was
51:42
Speaker 1: capturing attention to an alarming extent. Donald Trump Jr. and J.D. Vance,
51:48
Speaker 1: both of whom spent considerable time on X, were tapped
51:52
Speaker 1: into the same younger and hyper-online portion of the base,
51:56
Speaker 1: were also worried. They urged the White House to change
51:59
Speaker 1: course and force the Justice Department to to release more
52:01
Speaker 1: of the files. So basically, we had a MAGA civil war.
52:05
Speaker 1: And like usual, the Trump faction won. Vance made it
52:10
Speaker 1: clear to colleagues that he feared losing some of the
52:12
Speaker 1: so-called low-propensity voters, the young men, who are not traditional Republicans,
52:17
Speaker 1: but who had voted for the Trump-Vance ticket in 2024. Bingo.
52:21
Speaker 1: Almost to a person. Those people are out. They're not
52:25
Speaker 1: voting for Trump. They're not going to vote for this bullshit.
52:28
Speaker 1: So either they're sitting out the midterms, or they're going
52:31
Speaker 1: to vote against Trump's candidates, and I've heard that from
52:34
Speaker 1: numerous people. This was the audience that tuned in to
52:38
Speaker 1: the Manosphere podcasters like Joe Rogan, and it was worrisome
52:42
Speaker 1: that the podcast hosts themselves were now rebelling. But there
52:45
Speaker 1: was one major obstacle in the path of a solution.
52:49
Speaker 1: The president himself still had no interest in transparency. He
52:54
Speaker 1: wanted the whole Epstein issue buried, and he was snapping
52:57
Speaker 1: at anyone who mentioned it. His staff largely avoided the
53:00
Speaker 1: subject in their conversations with him, forced to worry among themselves. Finally,
53:05
Speaker 1: on July 16th, in an exasperated Truth Social post, seemingly
53:09
Speaker 1: desperate to make the case in a language that might
53:11
Speaker 1: resonate with his base, Trump somewhat nonsensically called the Epstein
53:16
Speaker 1: case a hoax by Democrats and then proceeded to heap
53:19
Speaker 1: abuse on members of his party and his base, disavowing
53:23
Speaker 1: their support, calling them past supporters and weaklings who had
53:27
Speaker 1: bought into this bullshit hook, line, and sinker. And look,
53:30
Speaker 1: the line was drawn. At that point, the line was drawn.
53:34
Speaker 1: And anybody that's still trying to place Trump as some
53:37
Speaker 1: kind of hero here is crazy. Donald Trump is the
53:41
Speaker 1: one single biggest impediment to transparency right now. And that's
53:45
Speaker 1: just the truth. Whether you want to believe it or not,
53:48
Speaker 1: I don't care. But if this man wanted this stuff
53:50
Speaker 1: to be out there, it would be out there. As
53:53
Speaker 1: the president was trying to redirect everyone away from the
53:56
Speaker 1: Epstein on social media, members of both parties began to
53:59
Speaker 1: push the other way. Many Democrats embraced the growing Epstein
54:03
Speaker 1: scandal as a top focus in their messaging and as
54:07
Speaker 1: a weapon against Trump. That's a big problem too. All
54:11
Speaker 1: these same Democrats, or a lot of them, they were
54:14
Speaker 1: nowhere to be found in 2020, 2019. But all of
54:18
Speaker 1: a sudden, they feel like they can use it politically,
54:21
Speaker 1: so now they care? So look, I'm not under any
54:24
Speaker 1: impression that they're some kind of great crusaders. They're just
54:28
Speaker 1: a vehicle that we're using to get to where we
54:31
Speaker 1: want to go. Same thing with Massey, right? They were
54:36
Speaker 1: joined by a few renegade Republicans, which added to the
54:39
Speaker 1: political pressure on the president's team. Representative Thomas Massey, a Republican,
54:44
Speaker 1: and Ro Khanna, a Democrat, filed H.R. 4405, the Epstein
54:49
Speaker 1: Files Transparency Act, in the House. And although they did
54:52
Speaker 1: not yet have the votes for the bill, it would
54:55
Speaker 1: become the next battleground as the president dug in against
54:58
Speaker 1: releasing information. Which is hilarious, considering they're the most transparent
55:02
Speaker 1: administration of all time. You would think that it would
55:05
Speaker 1: have to be a battle. That Trump would be the
55:07
Speaker 1: one saying, you know what? It's time for full transparency.
55:11
Speaker 1: They were joined by a few renegade Republicans, which added
55:14
Speaker 1: to the political pressure on the president's team. Representative Thomas Massey,
55:18
Speaker 1: a Republican, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat, filed H.R. 4405,
55:22
Speaker 1: the Epstein File Transparency Act, in the House, and although
55:27
Speaker 1: they did not yet have the votes for the bill,
55:30
Speaker 1: it would become the next battleground as the President dug
55:32
Speaker 1: in against releasing information. Word reached the White House in
55:36
Speaker 1: late July, meanwhile, that a subpoena would soon be coming
55:39
Speaker 1: from the House Oversight Committee led by James Comer, a
55:42
Speaker 1: Republican from Kentucky. It had been pushed by committee Democrats,
55:46
Speaker 1: with the help of some Republicans, and it compelled the
55:49
Speaker 1: release of files the Justice Department had on Epstein. On
55:53
Speaker 1: the day that the Trump team learned about the looming subpoena,
55:56
Speaker 1: another Epstein crisis meeting was convened in the Situation Room
56:01
Speaker 1: to discuss the pressure coming from Congress. It included most
56:04
Speaker 1: of the same people, Lyles and Vance, Blanche, Warrington, Patel, Bondi, Blair, Chung, Budowich,
56:11
Speaker 1: and Levitt. Blair told the group that they would try
56:15
Speaker 1: to make sure that they were cooperating fully with the
56:17
Speaker 1: White House subpoena. but that the priority was to release
56:20
Speaker 1: information that demonstrated Trump was not involved in Epstein's crimes.
56:24
Speaker 1: That's the priority, huh? Disgusting. Folks, look, this is a
56:30
Speaker 1: damning article, and if it's true, there is no doubt
56:33
Speaker 1: that there is a cover-up. Blanche gave an assessment of
56:39
Speaker 1: the Epstein material that he personally reviewed or had been
56:42
Speaker 1: briefed on, including a volume of Child Pornography. The conversation
56:46
Speaker 1: turned to how these files should be released to the public.
56:49
Speaker 1: The idea already in the works was to put all
56:51
Speaker 1: Epstein-related material on a website. That way they could overwhelm
56:55
Speaker 1: the magosphere with far greater volume of real information in
56:59
Speaker 1: the form of a huge database. That's called flooding the zone.
57:03
Speaker 1: And it's what they do when they're trying to confuse people.
57:07
Speaker 1: Put out a bunch of shit and hope some of
57:09
Speaker 1: it sticks. The website had been easy to build, and
57:14
Speaker 1: they were looking at potentially going live within a week.
57:17
Speaker 1: They had already accumulated a mountain of material that Blanche
57:20
Speaker 1: had been scrolling through, and it included piles of documents
57:23
Speaker 1: from both civil and criminal cases. They planned to release
57:27
Speaker 1: it all. Blanche could then appear on Rogan's podcast to
57:31
Speaker 1: promote the transparency from the White House. But as it
57:34
Speaker 1: turned out, this searchable website would not go live on
57:37
Speaker 1: their initial timetable, and the version of the site they
57:40
Speaker 1: originally conceived would never be released to the public. The
57:44
Speaker 1: whole last thing has been nothing but a scam from
57:46
Speaker 1: the very beginning. They never had any desire to tell
57:48
Speaker 1: the truth. Never. By late summer, it was plainly apparent
57:54
Speaker 1: to the president's top aides that the Epstein saga was
57:57
Speaker 1: not the same as the countless other crises they had
58:00
Speaker 1: weathered during their service to Trump. To their great surprise,
58:04
Speaker 1: and growing disquiet, Trump's old tricks of deflection and denial
58:07
Speaker 1: weren't working. In late July, the Trump team had discussed
58:11
Speaker 1: in their crisis meetings it was Blanche who interviewed Maxwell.
58:15
Speaker 1: Over two days, she told him she had witnessed no
58:17
Speaker 1: troubling behavior by Trump and didn't recall him sending the
58:21
Speaker 1: birthday card drawn in the shape of a nude woman.
58:24
Speaker 1: Soon after, she was quietly moved to a minimum security
58:27
Speaker 1: federal prison in Texas, a transfer left unexplained at first,
58:31
Speaker 1: which only deepened the public outrage. Blanche said nearly five
58:35
Speaker 1: months later that Maxwell had faced numerous threats against her life. Lies.
58:41
Speaker 1: All lies. So anybody who gets threatened gets moved? That's
58:47
Speaker 1: news to me, and I'm sure that's news to everybody
58:49
Speaker 1: that's locked up. As the calls for transparency grew louder,
58:53
Speaker 1: the top ranks of the Trump administration spent even more
58:56
Speaker 1: time in the bunker. By now, the Situation Room itself
58:59
Speaker 1: had become inseparable from the crisis. A guarded space where
59:03
Speaker 1: Trump's inner circle... work to steer the president around a
59:06
Speaker 1: scandal that would soon taint or consume careers at the
59:09
Speaker 1: highest level of business, science, and politics. Yeah, only about
59:13
Speaker 1: 10 years too late. But I guess welcome to the party.
59:18
Speaker 1: On August 13th, Trump's team met again in the secure
59:21
Speaker 1: complex at 6pm for two hours to refine the Epstein
59:25
Speaker 1: defense strategy. Again, the group included Wiles, Bondi, Blanche, Patel, Blair, Budowich, Chung,
59:31
Speaker 1: and Levitt. Vance phoned in from Britain. The vice president
59:36
Speaker 1: once again pushed to release as much of the Epstein
59:38
Speaker 1: files as possible, and with an eye on the public messaging,
59:42
Speaker 1: he proposed that he should be the one to appear
59:45
Speaker 1: on Rogan's influential podcast. Vance had just gotten off the
59:49
Speaker 1: phone with Rogan, and he later told the others that
59:52
Speaker 1: Rogan said he wouldn't have Blanche on his show, but
59:55
Speaker 1: he'd take Vance. Vance argued that if he were the
59:58
Speaker 1: one to appear on Rogan's show, then only a part
1:00:01
Speaker 1: of the conversation would be about Epstein. The rest of
1:00:04
Speaker 1: the interview, he told the group, could be about the
1:00:06
Speaker 1: president's recently passed legislation and what it would do for
1:00:09
Speaker 1: working families. But the larger conversation before them was how
1:00:13
Speaker 1: to handle the crisis and the public relations risk for
1:00:17
Speaker 1: the administration. The challenge would be any embarrassing or damaging
1:00:21
Speaker 1: allegations about the president, even if they were unsubstantiated, If
1:00:26
Speaker 1: everything was publicly available on the website they had planned,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: it could include all kinds of potentially humiliating material. Well,
1:00:33
Speaker 1: here's an idea. Don't hang out with Jeffrey Epstein, and
1:00:37
Speaker 1: there won't be humiliating material. Thanks for coming to my
1:00:40
Speaker 1: TED Talk. Suddenly, one of the officials in the Situation
1:00:44
Speaker 1: Room raised the subject of a disturbing but uncorroborated accusation
1:00:48
Speaker 1: against Trump that had come to light in unsealed filings.
1:00:52
Speaker 1: from a 2015 defamation case brought by Virginia Roberts against Maxwell,
1:00:57
Speaker 1: which had been settled two years later. The secondhand accusation
1:01:01
Speaker 1: alleging a specific type of sexual abuse was a perfect
1:01:04
Speaker 1: example of something that would show up on the public
1:01:07
Speaker 1: website and put the spotlight on Trump, whether it was
1:01:10
Speaker 1: true or not. Roberts, who had met Epstein when she
1:01:13
Speaker 1: was a teenage spa attendant at Trump's club Mar-a-Lago in
1:01:17
Speaker 1: Palm Beach, became one of the sex offender's most outspoken victims.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: Roberts stated in late 2016 that to her knowledge, Trump
1:01:25
Speaker 1: had done nothing improper. She died by suicide, allegedly, in
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Speaker 1: April of 2025, three months after Trump returned to power.
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Speaker 1: The old Roberts case file included emails sent to a
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Speaker 1: journalist by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransom, who later sued
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Speaker 1: Epstein and Maxwell. Epstein had also settled that case. In
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Speaker 1: the emails, Ransom claimed that she knew a girl in
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Speaker 1: Epstein's sex trafficking ring named Jen, who said she had
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Speaker 1: sex with Trump. Ransom also claimed that Jen had told
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Speaker 1: her that Trump had a predilection for nipples and that
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Speaker 1: he had aggressively flicked and sucked hers. Ransom wrote that
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Speaker 1: she had seen evidence when she shared a bathroom with Jen.
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Speaker 1: They looked incredibly painful and they were red and swollen
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Speaker 1: and I remember wincing when looking at them. Ransom's credibility
1:02:11
Speaker 1: was not uncomplicated. She had made another claim that she
1:02:15
Speaker 1: possessed video footage of prominent men having sex with young
1:02:18
Speaker 1: girls in Epstein's entourage. She later retracted the claims, saying
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Speaker 1: she feared for herself and her family if she proceeded.
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Speaker 1: But after a federal judge ordered the unsealing of some
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Speaker 1: of Roberts' case files in 2023, the document that connected
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Speaker 1: Trump to the claim about abused nipples was among the
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Speaker 1: material that came out. It was an unconfirmed allegation and
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Speaker 1: had not been made publicly, but the disclosure led to
1:02:43
Speaker 1: some articles that were quickly lost in the swirl of
1:02:46
Speaker 1: election-year news. Some of Trump's advisors in the Situation Room
1:02:51
Speaker 1: had never heard of the nipple claim. Those who had,
1:02:54
Speaker 1: and the ones who had, were only passingly familiar with it.
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Speaker 1: Many in the room thought this was just discredited nonsense,
1:03:01
Speaker 1: but it might not matter. The ransom emails could get
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Speaker 1: new attention if they were included in a public-facing and
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Speaker 1: searchable Epstein library that carried the branding of the Justice Department.
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Speaker 1: An administration official had already searched for Trump-related material on
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Speaker 1: the still private test version of the website, and the
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Speaker 1: nipple material was among the first items to show up.
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Speaker 1: None of the credibility issues would come into consideration if
1:03:27
Speaker 1: a government-endorsed database gave Ransom's claims about Trump a stamp
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Speaker 1: of validity. This is out there. One of the officials
1:03:34
Speaker 1: told the group in the Situation Room, they're going to
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Speaker 1: make a huge scene of this, even though it's not
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Speaker 1: true and everybody knows it. Blanche argued that in context,
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Speaker 1: the Ransom document and Ransom's disavowal of some of her
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Speaker 1: other claims would make clear why the allegations related to
1:03:48
Speaker 1: Trump had never been pursued for prosecution. Besides, these allegations
1:03:53
Speaker 1: were already available online because the what had been unsealed,
1:03:56
Speaker 1: so there was no reason to leave them off the
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Speaker 1: Justice Department's website. The Vice President said that he thought
1:04:01
Speaker 1: the President would be okay with releasing the Nipple-related documents,
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Speaker 1: arguing that Trump had been accused of worse. I think
1:04:08
Speaker 1: we should put it out, he said. It would cause
1:04:10
Speaker 1: people to say we're going further than we need to.
1:04:13
Speaker 1: Wiles quickly responded that the president would not, in fact,
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Speaker 1: be okay with it. It was a point no one
1:04:19
Speaker 1: wanted to continue debating. One official would later describe it
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Speaker 1: as surreal experience to be discussing nipples in the White
1:04:26
Speaker 1: House Situation Room. Yeah, I would say so. Talk about embarrassing.
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Speaker 1: As if we have nothing else going on in the world,
1:04:34
Speaker 1: in the country. But these people are busy with their cover-up.
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Speaker 1: This was, in miniature, the entire problem the White House
1:04:43
Speaker 1: had with the Epstein files. Pyle's accusations were impossible to
1:04:48
Speaker 1: disprove and equally impossible to make go away. Every door
1:04:51
Speaker 1: they opened led to another room, and in every room
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Speaker 1: there were more claims from more women. For a few weeks,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: they thought that they had found a way out. The
1:05:00
Speaker 1: subpoena from Comer's committee had specifically requested Justice Department documents,
1:05:05
Speaker 1: communications with the White House, and material from the Epstein files.
1:05:09
Speaker 1: and Maxwell criminal case, not material from civil litigation such
1:05:13
Speaker 1: as the ransom emails. They could comply with the letter
1:05:16
Speaker 1: of subpoena, post the Justice Department material to a stripped-down
1:05:19
Speaker 1: version of the plan website, and leave the rest aside.
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Speaker 1: Civil cases were separate matters outside of the remit of
1:05:27
Speaker 1: the Justice Department, and the subpoena allowed for another escape hatch.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: The Justice Department could withhold certain documents as long as
1:05:34
Speaker 1: it explained to the House lawmakers what they were and
1:05:37
Speaker 1: why they were held back. But that strategy collapsed quickly.
1:05:42
Speaker 1: More Republican lawmakers would press for additional disclosures, including former
1:05:46
Speaker 1: Trump allies like Greene and Lauren Boebert. And the Trump
1:05:49
Speaker 1: administration was slow to comply with even the initial limited
1:05:53
Speaker 1: set of documents required by the House subpoena. All by design.
1:05:58
Speaker 1: Trying to gum it up. The slower it goes, the
1:06:01
Speaker 1: better off for them. By mid-November, the partisan coalition the
1:06:06
Speaker 1: Trump team had worried about since the summer... finally had
1:06:09
Speaker 1: the votes to force the administration's hand. The Epstein File
1:06:13
Speaker 1: Transparency Act passed the House and Senate in quick succession,
1:06:17
Speaker 1: and on November 19th, Trump, yielding to the inevitable, signed
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Speaker 1: it into law. The new law went further than the
1:06:23
Speaker 1: House subpoena. It sought a broader tranche of files and
1:06:26
Speaker 1: contained a warning to the administration that no record shall
1:06:29
Speaker 1: be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment,
1:06:33
Speaker 1: reputational harm, or political sensitivity or including to any government official,
1:06:38
Speaker 1: public figure, or foreign dignitary. It sought everything that Trump
1:06:42
Speaker 1: had spent the better part of a year trying to suppress.
1:06:44
Speaker 1: The legislators who passed the bill had no idea how
1:06:48
Speaker 1: many files they had mandated to be released within a month.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: The pages would end up numbering in the millions. And
1:06:55
Speaker 1: the president and his family and places like Mar-a-Lago estate
1:06:59
Speaker 1: would be referred to more than 38,000 times, according to
1:07:03
Speaker 1: a New York Times analysis. The Trump Justice Department said
1:07:07
Speaker 1: that there was no client list, but the entire episode
1:07:10
Speaker 1: was another flashing light in an era where belief in
1:07:13
Speaker 1: the American system of justice had corroded to the point
1:07:16
Speaker 1: of collapse. Well, this isn't just a making of the
1:07:19
Speaker 1: Trump administration. All the administrations leading up to it, too.
1:07:23
Speaker 1: They bear some of the burden. They should have stepped up.
1:07:26
Speaker 1: They should have stopped Epstein. They should have been the
1:07:29
Speaker 1: ones to release all this. But nobody has. And that's
1:07:32
Speaker 1: the biggest problem. Both sides are in on it. and
1:07:36
Speaker 1: that's why everybody has to be held accountable. Raw witness
1:07:43
Speaker 1: accounts and evidence from incomplete criminal investigations were never meant
1:07:47
Speaker 1: to be seen by the public. There were long-standing systems
1:07:50
Speaker 1: in place to protect both the accused and the accuser.
1:07:54
Speaker 1: The files amounted to a public dump of any Justice
1:07:57
Speaker 1: Department document that mentioned Epstein's name, no matter whether the
1:08:00
Speaker 1: information was confirmed as accurate or not. The release pages
1:08:05
Speaker 1: did not name Many powerful men, among them was Epstein's
1:08:08
Speaker 1: former close friend, now the President of the United States.
1:08:13
Speaker 1: In a January 2020 email, a federal prosecutor told a
1:08:16
Speaker 1: colleague that Trump had flown on Epstein's private jet far
1:08:19
Speaker 1: more than anyone knew. Flight records in the files showed
1:08:23
Speaker 1: at least eight trips between 93 and 96, sometimes with
1:08:27
Speaker 1: his second wife, Marla Maples, sometimes with his children. That's nice, huh?
1:08:32
Speaker 1: Bring your kids on Jeffrey Epstein's plane, come one, come all.
1:08:36
Speaker 1: In January 2024, Trump declared that he would never have
1:08:39
Speaker 1: been on the plane. Just another lie. Everything this man
1:08:43
Speaker 1: says about Epstein is a lie, so why would that
1:08:46
Speaker 1: be any different? What else remained undisclosed? The question would
1:08:50
Speaker 1: only sharpen his people, comb through what was redacted or missing.
1:08:55
Speaker 1: The Justice Department, after more than 3.5 million documents were
1:08:58
Speaker 1: made public, said no otherwise. others needed to be released. Trump, characteristically,
1:09:03
Speaker 1: was creating his own reality. He had long claimed that
1:09:06
Speaker 1: everyone else was corrupt, especially his critics. These files, he
1:09:10
Speaker 1: would say, despite the avalanche of references to himself, were
1:09:14
Speaker 1: the proof. There are a lot of questions about it,
1:09:16
Speaker 1: he told reporters. Trump had declared Epstein a dead issue
1:09:18
Speaker 1: during the summer, but as he began the second year
1:09:21
Speaker 1: of his presidency, his own team could see the voter
1:09:24
Speaker 1: concerns about Epstein were still breaking through at an alarming extent.
1:09:28
Speaker 1: In an eternal memo circulated to roughly a dozen Trump
1:09:31
Speaker 1: advisors in late March of 2026, The president's pollster, Fabrizio,
1:09:50
Speaker 1: summarized findings from two nights of focus groups conducted that month.
1:09:55
Speaker 1: Fabrizio's memo listed the Epstein files as the six most
1:09:58
Speaker 1: important issue raised in the focus groups behind inflation, the economy,
1:10:03
Speaker 1: foreign policy, immigration, and healthcare. But ahead of data centers,
1:10:07
Speaker 1: military issues, crime and safety, and being pro-working class. In
1:10:12
Speaker 1: the section on key takeaways of the focus group, Fabrizio's
1:10:15
Speaker 1: memo stated that There is a consistent mention of the
1:10:19
Speaker 1: Epstein files, which come up in every group and is
1:10:22
Speaker 1: a real negative with some of these voters. Yeah, I'd
1:10:25
Speaker 1: say so. The way it's been handled is completely unacceptable.
1:10:30
Speaker 1: And anybody who's not in the cup for Donald Trump
1:10:33
Speaker 1: knows there's a cover-up going on. And it's infuriating to
1:10:37
Speaker 1: the regular person. They see it. They know it's happening.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: But there's nothing they can do about it. The Epstein
1:10:45
Speaker 1: crisis had exposed something that some of Trump's closest advisors
1:10:49
Speaker 1: spent months refusing to see. The president could break institutions,
1:10:53
Speaker 1: redirect the federal government against his enemies, and bring the
1:10:56
Speaker 1: world's richest men into the Oval Office bearing tribute. But
1:11:00
Speaker 1: he could not, it turned out, make Jeffrey Epstein disappear.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: And look, that's because of you. Not me, not any
1:11:08
Speaker 1: of the people talking about it behind a microphone, but
1:11:10
Speaker 1: because all of you, you deciding you're not going to
1:11:13
Speaker 1: move on, you deciding you want accountability, and you deciding
1:11:17
Speaker 1: that the administration is talking a bunch of bullshit. And
1:11:21
Speaker 1: no matter what they do, no matter how hard they
1:11:23
Speaker 1: try to sweep this under the rug and make it
1:11:25
Speaker 1: all go away, it's not going to happen. I think
1:11:28
Speaker 1: that we've come too far at this point, and there's
1:11:30
Speaker 1: nothing that the Trump administration or anyone can do To
1:11:35
Speaker 1: get people not interested in what's going on. And I
1:11:39
Speaker 1: think the more they dig in and the more they
1:11:41
Speaker 1: try and hide things and the more they're being secretive
1:11:44
Speaker 1: and all it does is confirm what all of us
1:11:47
Speaker 1: already think. That Donald Trump and the White House is
1:11:53
Speaker 1: engaging in an ongoing cover up. And if they think
1:11:56
Speaker 1: we're going to move on, they got a whole ass
1:11:58
Speaker 1: other thing coming. All right, folks, that's going to do
1:12:01
Speaker 1: it for this one. All the information that goes with
1:12:04
Speaker 1: this episode can be found in the description box.