Latest / Gunther Fehlinger Podcast / Epstein Affair What’s Broken in the US Justice System? with former As. Attorney General John Olseke

Transcript

Epstein Affair What’s Broken in the US Justice System? with former As. Attorney General John Olseke · Gunther Fehlinger Podcast

0:01
Perfect we are now live and I welcome you very much at the
0:05
Gunter failing a podcast. I'm very happy the podcast is
0:08
developing very good in this exciting times 2026.
0:12
There's always a very big things moving on from Venezuela to
0:16
Greenland to ICE to everything which is in America, moving
0:21
Europe and the world very excitingly.
0:24
But also some tragic things are happening.
0:26
And so we want to discuss now about the Epstein affair, the
0:30
American legal system, and what's exactly going on in
0:33
America. Because I love America, but this
0:37
is not a good image for the free world when we are led by a
0:41
nation which seemingly is very much located in a lot of
0:45
nefarious activities. And I'm very happy to have a
0:49
professional from the legal profession, lifelong activist in
0:53
the legal system, who can explain us a little bit of
0:56
what's going on and give your insight, take your American
1:01
perspective on the current affairs.
1:03
I welcome you, John, and please introduce yourself.
1:06
And then we go into the middle of the debate, which is keeping
1:09
the whole world busy right now. John, you're very welcome at our
1:13
show. Thank you very much, Gunther.
1:15
I really appreciate the opportunity to speak on your
1:17
podcast and to all of your listeners.
1:19
And I just wanted to say to everybody who is listening to
1:22
you in Europe, our our friends and allies there, we're sorry
1:26
and we're doing the best we can to recover our democracy and and
1:32
the rule of law in our country. But unfortunately, right now,
1:36
really, we're in a situation that is unprecedented for
1:39
attorneys like myself. I've been practicing law for,
1:44
you know, coming up on 30 years. We came up, I think, with an
1:49
understanding of the United States Department of Justice was
1:52
the most elite law enforcement agency in the world.
1:55
And that there was no way that rampant open criminality could
2:03
become the model of American governance.
2:06
Or that, you know, kind of widespread criminal trafficking
2:11
networks like Jeffrey Epstein's could be allowed to persist for
2:16
20 years undisturbed, more than 20 years undisturbed.
2:20
I think it's been a great shock to the entire legal community.
2:24
And now we're seeing a kind of a caricature of an institution
2:28
that we all grew up to esteem now ruling us like cartoon super
2:35
villains. So I it's it's it's been quite a
2:38
dramatic turn. And I think that there's ways
2:42
that, you know, our country can recover from this.
2:45
I think there are specific ways that the Epstein matter can be
2:48
brought back into a professionalized law enforcement
2:53
frame and the rule of law as a norm re established.
2:58
And then maybe even an opportunity for American leaders
3:01
to partner with European leaders and other allies around the
3:05
world whose intelligence agencies undoubtedly are doing
3:11
the kind of work that you see online that just citizens are
3:14
doing around the world, looking through the files.
3:16
Obviously, they're going to have more access, more insight and
3:19
more information that we don't know about.
3:22
And I think there's an opportunity for a kind of a re
3:25
emergence of a unified Western law enforcement approach and
3:31
kind of reject what we're going through or have gone through for
3:34
these last few years. John, we in Europe, we always
3:38
envy your kind of FBI system. You know, we want to have one as
3:43
ourselves. We also think that, you know,
3:46
the CIA has been the sword of the West in the Cold War, very
3:50
effective. And the NSA supposedly is in the
3:54
know of everything which is going on.
3:57
How could this real powerful agencies be somehow so negligent
4:01
and not knowing what's going on in the heart of American
4:05
democracy and political system? Well, I, I think that I think
4:12
that there's a professionalization that existed
4:15
within those agencies that was and has been attempting to do
4:21
the work kind of all along throughout this.
4:25
I think we saw that in the responses during the first Trump
4:29
administration to President Trump's endangerment of national
4:33
security there. I think we saw it in the Jack
4:36
Smith investigation of the classified documents that were
4:38
brought tomorrow, Lago. I think we're seeing it right
4:42
now in the whistle blower reaction to Director Gabbard
4:47
attempting to use our intelligence community, you
4:51
know, as tools for Vladimir Putin.
4:53
I think I think, you know, both inside the agency, but I can't
4:58
believe the fact that I think now it's becoming a kind of a
5:01
public understanding that the director of national
5:03
intelligence is effectively a foreign agent.
5:06
And I think that what we've had, and this is I think a phenomenon
5:11
that's not just an American problem, is that, for lack of a
5:15
better word, the Idiocracy has been allowed to occupy decision
5:21
making positions in which competent people, competent
5:25
professionals, if we're talking about in the CIA, we're talking
5:29
about agents. If we're talking about FBI,
5:31
we're talking about, you know, domestic law enforcement agents.
5:35
And in the Department of Justice especially, you're talking about
5:37
the kinds of professional criminal prosecutors of
5:43
sophisticated organized crime who have the ability to put
5:47
together all of these different threats.
5:51
Those people have all been undermined by this cast of
5:55
idiots who I think you know very much as a matter of their self
6:00
preservation. You know, if you are the
6:03
imposter in charge of a organization of professionals,
6:06
well, then all of the competent professionals are a threat to
6:09
you as the leader. And I think that's what we had
6:12
happened in the first Trump administration.
6:14
But there was a lot of a lot of professionals in the way.
6:18
And then we had the interregnum, which thank God we did, of the
6:21
the Biden presidency because had we gone straight to another
6:24
Trump presidency, I think Ukraine would be lost already.
6:28
But now we're back into the frying pan.
6:30
And this time, none of the responsible adults who were
6:35
willing last time to constantly babysit the president and make
6:40
sure the Republican Party didn't betray our country completely
6:44
are gone. And so now I think you have a
6:46
lot of people in the CIA and the FBI and the Department of
6:50
Justice who are all still trying to do their jobs.
6:56
But in a way, the better they do them or the more visible their
7:01
efforts are, I think the more risk they're at to be
7:05
eliminated. Let me ask you, let me ask you
7:09
this, why John Joe Biden, he was four years now from 2020 to 24
7:15
in power and he was in America also controlling the attorney
7:19
general. Why were the Epstein files not
7:22
released during his presidency? Because logically, Trump, who is
7:26
so implicated in all this pedophilia network, seemingly he
7:33
would never have been elected in 24 as a president if the people
7:38
would know already all the things we know now.
7:42
I think, I think to start with, I want to say I think that your,
7:46
your, your impulse is correct. I think it's shared, the feeling
7:51
is shared widely here by a lot of professional, you know,
7:55
attorneys and especially law enforcement adjacent
7:58
professionals that it could have been done.
8:02
It could have got this, could have gone faster.
8:05
The Trump prosecutions could have gone faster and wider in a
8:09
way that, excuse me, that could have allowed those prosecutions
8:14
to move forward in time for this last election.
8:17
Not to have had Donald Trump as an eligible candidate and to
8:20
have not had the Epstein matter as something that appeared to be
8:24
to the public just a matter of Epstein and Maxwell and really
8:29
nothing else known to the public as other people implicated
8:32
besides the victims in to to to speak in defense of the
8:38
professionals who were making these decisions.
8:41
There was a prosecution ongoing after Maxwell was dead, after
8:46
Epstein was dead. There was a prosecution of what
8:50
everyone agrees was his closest Co conspirator, his partner in
8:55
crime, Dwayne Maxwell and the Department of Justice diligently
8:59
prosecuted that case and obtained a very serious
9:03
conviction where that woman should vote, should be spending
9:06
virtually the rest of her her life in prison.
9:10
And all during that time, the materials that could have been
9:16
used to investigate and or indict other potential
9:20
defendants was there to be sure. But there is a there's something
9:25
to be said and and certainly for the people doing it to do one
9:28
thing at a time and to do the biggest thing first.
9:30
And she was the biggest thing to do.
9:33
And certainly publicizing details of the files, releasing
9:37
the files certainly could have, if done improperly, if a mistake
9:41
was made, compromised the prosecution of Maxwell.
9:46
Because one thing you have to keep in mind about our justice
9:48
system is that while they say prosecutors can indict a ham
9:52
sandwich, and that's largely true.
9:55
And while the state is very powerful, the the protections
9:59
for criminal defendants in the United States are very strong.
10:04
And it's a, it's a one mistake and you're out system, one
10:08
strike and you're out system in the United States.
10:10
Once you put someone on trial, once Maxwell was in jeopardy, as
10:14
we say, constitutionally, any mistake by the prosecution could
10:17
lead to the case being dismissed in a way that she could never be
10:21
prosecuted again, at least federally.
10:24
And I should come back to that as a something we could do.
10:29
But I think that a lot of the issue comes from the fact that
10:34
during Biden's term, there was still a tremendous amount of
10:38
trust by people like me that I'm going to trust.
10:43
They they put an expert on it. Jack Smith was an expert, is an
10:46
expert. He was the right prosecutor for
10:48
the case. They had the right man doing it.
10:51
He was apparent, he he was finding, you know, the, the, the
10:54
right things to prosecute. He was trying to push those
10:57
cases forward. So it seemed like there was
11:01
reason to hope that this could work out, But it just turns out
11:04
that doing it the old fashioned way was not fast enough to deal
11:10
with the kind of level of rampant criminality.
11:15
And and also the frankly, the defect in our system that's been
11:18
exposed by having a partisan Supreme Court with lifetime
11:23
appointments with really no accountability.
11:27
And that. And there I think, I think, I do
11:29
wonder whether or not the the majority that told the president
11:33
after his first term that they wouldn't let him be prosecuted,
11:36
whether they're all so happy about the blank check they
11:39
handed him that day. But that is what happened.
11:42
John, when you see now all this collusion going on with Steve
11:45
Bannon supposedly and with Epstein to somehow make Trump
11:51
president in 2016. And they used all this kind of
11:56
allegation of a Peter Phil ring of this kind of wild allegation,
12:01
which now supposedly are true. They used them very much against
12:04
the Democrats. They always implicated that
12:07
Clinton family was was somehow behind that.
12:11
And now it turns turns out that this is absolutely a MAGA
12:14
scandal and about European socialists in collusion with
12:18
Russia. And all these things are hugely
12:20
politically and why have the Democrats not used to turn the
12:24
table when they had the control of the Attorney General is a
12:29
mystery for me. Well, I will tell you, I mean, I
12:32
think an important, ideally our Justice Department can't be used
12:40
that way. And in part the, the reason why
12:43
you don't see a strong reaction from Democrats of, oh, we should
12:47
have done this is, is we still believe in a Justice Department
12:52
that does not do what the president tells it to do and
12:56
instead pursues law enforcement matters as an independent
13:00
professionalized agency. That's ideally now the the
13:04
problem you're identifying is wait a second, if the
13:07
professionals were doing this, how could they have not acted?
13:11
And I think that's a very reasonable question.
13:14
And it did not require political interference.
13:17
It just required, frankly, a more aggressive and perhaps a
13:23
more realistically attuned to the danger, some might have said
13:27
paranoid at the time, perspective about the risk of
13:32
inaction about what happens when you allow criminals to operate
13:37
without any sanction. I when when the president was
13:42
refusing to accept the results of the the election in 2020, I
13:48
immediately went to my then boss, Tish James, the Attorney
13:51
general of New York. And, you know, confronted her
13:56
with the fact that it was entirely possible that the
13:58
president was going to pardon himself and others for their
14:01
behavior and that there would be no way for there to be federal
14:05
accountability. But that we had been
14:08
investigating Donald Trump for many matters for many years.
14:11
And that our office had the authority to convene a grand
14:15
jury to begin a criminal investigation of Trump to ensure
14:19
as best we could that we will be ready to arrest him at noon on
14:24
January 20th of of 2021. And I was basically dismissed as
14:32
being, you know, an alarmist. I said that there was an
14:37
existential risk of the president further corrupting
14:41
state and federal governments if he was allowed to go
14:44
unprosecuted. And sadly, I think I was right
14:46
about that. But I think a lot of people
14:50
really thought someone else is going to take care of this.
14:55
You know, the topic of corruption is also very big
14:57
because during his one year of presidency, he seemingly has
15:00
accepted via his family trust. Family companies is kind of
15:05
whatever it's called Bitcoin or stablecoin or other things and
15:10
they have a lot of hello yeah, I think you're.
15:15
Yeah, I'm here. Sorry.
15:16
Yeah, Situation is that this is in Europe obviously seen as
15:21
corruption, as conflict of interest to be so commercially
15:24
active here to allow foreign companies to buy into the
15:27
American political system. We have now the case of the
15:31
Republic of Swabska taking off the sanctions.
15:34
We have the Qataris here, whatever kind of government
15:38
seems to be as a kind of pay per go services of the White House.
15:44
This is really I mean, we in Europe, we even prosecuted the
15:48
French President for his things. I remember he has a kind of, I
15:53
don't know how you call it house arrest now.
15:55
Yes, Vice President, the president of France.
15:59
And you know, I think somehow we have always expected America to
16:03
be the city of the on the hill, this kind of example for the
16:06
free world and this kind of blatant corruption with this
16:10
airplane, for example, and all this visible, it's in the bright
16:14
daylight. Actually, we are a little bit,
16:17
and not just surprised a little bit, but very surprised that
16:20
this is without any legal consequences in the United
16:24
States of America 2026. I, I, I think that's absolutely
16:29
reasonable. And I think that expectations
16:32
that the window has shifted so radically.
16:35
I, if, if you think back to when Bill Clinton was impeached, a
16:39
lot of the, the talk and a lot of the reason why Democrats at
16:43
the time were confident it was not going to result in his
16:47
conviction was because people at the time very much separated
16:53
what was perceived as a personal failing and scandal from what it
16:58
very much was not, which was bribery.
17:01
That the Constitution only identifies really, you know, one
17:07
crime that the president can specifically commit that
17:10
qualifies for impeachment, and that's bribery.
17:13
And so I think prior to Trump's presidency, there was a broad
17:18
understanding among the American public that and, and a, a
17:23
adherence to norms by American presidents of both parties when
17:27
it came to even, you know, donating small gifts to a
17:31
museum, The Smithsonian, instead of accepting the, the, the Bush
17:34
presidents, for example, were just as clean as any Democrat in
17:39
keeping the office separate from any kind of foreign emolument,
17:44
which is what is specifically banned in the Constitution.
17:48
But I think unfortunately, during the same time that the
17:52
Trump movement was becoming ascendant, we also had a similar
17:57
movement within our judiciary, unfortunately with those same
18:03
Republican appointed justices who I don't know if if this is
18:08
widely understood outside of the United States.
18:11
Basically, the, the ability of the Department of Justice to
18:14
prosecute people below the president for bribery was very
18:20
undermined by a series of Supreme Court decisions that
18:23
virtually required an on tape quid pro quo hand off of money
18:30
in order to demonstrate bribery or, or, or honest services fraud
18:36
is what it was called. And so there was this
18:38
undermining of the idea that these people could be held
18:41
accountable at all unless there was the most obvious crime.
18:46
And then we've moved on to, well, now the obvious crime is
18:48
happening in front of everybody. But we found out from the series
18:52
of cases of the the president's first term, which did deal with
18:56
emoluments and his his accepting of benefits, both domestic and
19:00
foreign. The Supreme Court threw its
19:02
hands up at that too, and said that's not just disable for us.
19:05
That's a political question. That's where the Congress to
19:08
impeach him for. So basically, we're left in a
19:12
situation in the United States where we had a very strong
19:15
system of norms that and and constitutional commands that
19:20
seemed to guarantee that we couldn't have a president openly
19:25
engaging in accepting bribes in this way from foreign powers.
19:29
But as it turns out, our courts have said there's no actual
19:34
mechanism to enforce that other than the Congress impeaching the
19:38
president, which as we know, is an extremely limited remedy.
19:43
And I think it's come to a surprise to everybody that it
19:45
could possibly be the case that there is no remedy.
19:48
But we don't have what we probably need in this country,
19:51
which is some version of the Brazilian Supreme Court with the
19:55
authority to proactively investigate and prosecute
19:58
matters like this. John, let me come back to
20:01
Epstein case because we learn now in the 90s ninety 697, there
20:06
was already women who were complaining about rape and
20:09
sexual. Scandals and crimes by in there
20:14
for against Epstein, but the investigation was basically not
20:19
pursued. And then ten years later in
20:22
Florida, there was a brave and good sheriff who really
20:26
investigated in Florida against Epstein.
20:29
But then there was some kind of bargaining or deal and this
20:34
Acosta who later became a minister or secretary of Labor,
20:37
it's called in your language. And he was then basically
20:40
agreeing to give him half a year of house arrest or something and
20:46
he could continue all his activities despite these
20:50
accusations, despite the police investigating.
20:53
Everything was already in your legal system, very much
20:57
recorded. But still, you know, only he had
21:00
to stop in 2019 because some brave women and journalists have
21:04
really started to dig all his crimes up again, but not because
21:09
of the legal system really stopping him.
21:11
And that's my question, what you assess now as a lifelong member
21:15
of the legal profession and establishment of the United
21:19
States of America. This is not good.
21:23
No, it's, it's, it's a demonstration of of frankly,
21:25
what I was discussing before, which is that there are people
21:28
trying to do the work. And the problem is that the
21:31
wealthy and the powerful are generally able to Co opt
21:35
decision makers at the top of these structures who negate all
21:39
of that work. So you take Alex Acosta, for
21:41
example, who swooped in and basically sold off an
21:46
investigation done by much more competent professionals than
21:49
him. He was amply rewarded for that,
21:53
not just as you suggest by being made the the labor secretary in
21:57
the first Trump administration, but unbelievably, in a further
22:02
demonstration of this phenomenon, you're talking about
22:05
this, this lack of accountability despite everyone
22:08
knowing he did have to resign from that position because of
22:13
the sweetheart deal was exposed that he had given to Epstein.
22:17
But he is not living in exile now.
22:20
He was named last year to the board of directors of Newsmax.
22:26
And so he's now out there with his thumb on the global media
22:31
scale, still affecting the coverage of this very story
22:36
right now. This is really very disturbing,
22:42
this kind of multi level justice system which you ineffectual
22:49
seem to have. I don't say that we are clean in
22:51
Europe. I'm not saying that a lot of
22:54
Europeans are also implicated in the scandal of around Epstein,
22:58
but at least, you know, some of them had to resign and we really
23:02
banish them from public life like Mendelssohn or some
23:05
Norwegian diplomats from the socialist especially.
23:09
They all live now forever in infamy and shame.
23:13
And so the question of consequences and about justice
23:17
for everybody equal under the law, This is a real big societal
23:21
question for the United States of America.
23:23
Oh, it's, it's, I believe that's the fundamental crisis that's
23:26
now facing the country for the first time really in the face
23:30
over the last couple weeks. I think people are are coming to
23:33
to realize that the entire system has been capable of being
23:40
corrupted for the right person at the right time, basically,
23:44
you know, without anyone finding out about it and without
23:46
anything being done about it. And I think part of the the
23:50
reckoning that we have to do that is probably different from
23:53
the situation in Europe where it seems like Epstein managed to
23:57
pick off, you know, vulnerable but useful actors in the the
24:03
Putin, you know, manipulative drama people who would be useful
24:09
to him or were useful to Putin. And he was instructed to use
24:12
however that was working, but it doesn't implicate the entire
24:18
system in Europe, where as my understanding is, and I've, you
24:23
know, I've been through a lot of what's been produced so far.
24:27
Yes, there are a lot of Republican bad actors.
24:32
There are a lot of people associated with the Democratic
24:35
Party, especially, you know, before the, the, the, the Trump
24:39
era. A lot of the people who are in
24:41
the files as associates of the president.
24:43
Now, we're Democrats in the 90s and the 2000s and I think the
24:49
really deep and and frightening problem is how was the Justice
24:53
Department so thoroughly Co opted that far back and how to
24:57
has it continued for 20 years? I will tell you I've disclosed
25:00
this before when I was being interviewed by a reporter for
25:06
The Daily Beast named Jose Paglieri about my issues with
25:10
the New York attorney General. We were talking about the
25:13
investigations of Trump because that was part of my issue with
25:16
the attorney general. And he mentioned to me that he
25:20
had a conversation with a federal judge, a senior federal
25:23
judge in New York federal court, who had told him that one of the
25:28
top prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, which is
25:32
the most elite office of the US attorney's offices in the United
25:35
States, that there was some horrible secret that implicated,
25:41
it seemed, people within the Justice Department itself that
25:46
was guaranteeing that there would never be a prosecution of
25:49
Donald Trump by the Southern District.
25:52
And I think it's remarkable people don't, who are not part
25:56
of the system, I don't think have an appreciation of the fact
26:00
Alvin Bragg's prosecution of the president for those 34 Class E
26:04
felonies. That was a prosecution that the
26:09
Justice Department and the Southern District of New York
26:11
could have undertaken with much more powerful charges requiring
26:15
mandatory prison time had the same facts been proven and they
26:20
had all of the same facts. And yet the Southern District of
26:24
New York did nothing. And so I think much more than I
26:27
think a lot of people appreciate, there is a very open
26:30
question of how is it that the Justice Department has been so
26:36
thoroughly either corrupted or neutered in these high level
26:42
investigations and, and what can we do about it?
26:45
I mean, there's a lot of work to be done if the Democrats are
26:47
able to retake the Congress and start just with oversight.
26:50
But then with hopefully a new president focused on the rule of
26:54
law, we're going to have to make structural changes that allow
26:57
for real time surveillance by the Congress or other
27:01
independent authorities to see what the Justice Department is
27:04
doing. In Europe, for example, in
27:07
Austria, we are really trying to get our general attorney
27:11
general. It's called in the US, it's the
27:13
prosecutor general in most European languages somehow to
27:17
have him independent from the political level.
27:19
And that some of the conditions in the Council of Europe, when
27:22
we say the rule of law, there should be no political influence
27:26
on the independent prosecution, because otherwise here we are
27:29
like the Soviet Union where the prosecutor general is carrying a
27:33
uniform with stars and is in command, control of the
27:36
secretary general of the Soviet Union.
27:38
And we had these traditions as well in several European
27:41
countries. We have it to some extent in
27:42
Austria now, but we are trying to change it at least because
27:45
that's the rule of law, the independent justice system and
27:49
the independent prosecution. But in America it seems we are
27:54
really very far from independent prosecution, at least today.
27:59
And that's really when you think that you even elect I think your
28:04
your attorney general's, your prosecutors go for election
28:07
system and then. Well, it depends.
28:09
It's, it's interesting that you raise that, that point, you
28:12
know, that the US attorney general is not elected up until
28:16
the Trump administration, I think for all of the 20th
28:19
century, I think even even during some of the, the, you
28:23
know, the most troubled presidencies like, like Nixon's,
28:29
even if you had a political attorney general willing to do
28:32
the wrong thing, you know, Nixon's attorney general ended
28:35
up going to prison. Mitchell went to prison, was
28:37
prosecuted and went to prison for Watergate.
28:41
The people under him weren't willing to go along.
28:44
And I think that we were protected by norms for a long
28:49
time in the absence of rules. We had norms that really did
28:53
last and people really did rely on.
28:56
And now we're finding those norms are simply not good
28:59
enough. But I do think that there is a,
29:03
you know, there's a real question about whether or not
29:04
it's wise to have any kind of elected law enforcement
29:09
officials in New York. The reason our state has a
29:12
separately elected attorney general was supposed to be to
29:16
make the attorney general independent of the governor and
29:19
able to, you know, it's going to be we're going to elect a
29:22
professional law enforcement agent to be the attorney general
29:26
on qualifications is the idea. And they're going to be able to
29:30
act independently of the governor and they're going to
29:32
prosecute crimes, you know, regardless without fear or
29:35
favor. And unfortunately, over time in
29:38
the American political system, those separately and they're the
29:41
same is true in other states that elect the attorney general.
29:43
It's the same theory in time. They've become absorbed in the
29:46
same partisan envelope that you have people like my former boss,
29:51
Letitia James, becoming the attorney general of New York
29:54
without any real prior prosecutorial experience, just
29:57
really political experience. She had been a member of the
30:00
City Council of the city of New York.
30:03
And so I think that's really what's happened there is this
30:06
kind of de professionalization of law enforcement that, you
30:09
know, there's I think there's a lot of people in this country
30:12
interested in a renaissance and, and ready to to run into that
30:16
breach. But we have to have the
30:18
leadership that's calling for it.
30:21
I think you will have because of if this scandal, the Republicans
30:25
and Trump are discredited for a generation to my modest.
30:30
I mean, I'll tell you this, I have to be honest with you.
30:33
I think a lot of us thought that same thing when we were watching
30:36
January 6th, and yet here we are.
30:39
Here we are. Let me ask you a little bit
30:42
about all these social media reels of discoveries of the
30:46
Epstein files. Yeah, which are really so
30:48
shocking. I really, for me, it's hard to
30:52
believe that this is real. Cannibalism, sexual rights and
31:00
crimes all over. Babies.
31:02
Yeah. You know, is this real?
31:04
Do we have to understand that as real?
31:07
Is this somehow, How do you assess it?
31:09
Because it's children basically watching social media,
31:12
Instagram, and they see all these crimes.
31:15
And for me, I'm a lifelong activist against conspiracy
31:18
theories. And I have an inherent kind of
31:21
disbelief of all this wild accusation, but seemingly,
31:26
what's your take on that one? Here's my take.
31:28
My take is that we don't know to what degree any of the more
31:34
sensational, you know, accusations or, or, you know,
31:38
disturbing allegations are true. But zooming back from that, I, I
31:44
think, I think that that part of the the problem we all face is
31:50
the sensation of these individual crimes, which are
31:54
terrible and any of them, they're true, justify that the
31:56
most vigorous prosecution of anyone who can be found to be
32:00
prosecuted. I'll be clear about that.
32:02
But the actors here, it appears to me that the sexual abuse
32:09
involved here was, if anything, a side project of Epstein and
32:17
the people he was and Steve Bannon and the other people he's
32:19
associated with the, the, the, the conspiracy that they're
32:24
engaged in, the real conspiracy that I know that they were all
32:27
engaged in. While anyone, any, you know,
32:30
clearly Epstein was engaged in sexual abuse.
32:32
Clearly minors were involved in that.
32:34
We're going to find out who victimized those people, we
32:37
hope, who can still be prosecuted.
32:40
But while all of that was going on, they were also doing much
32:44
wider crimes that involve corrupting the United States
32:48
government and and Western governments generally for the
32:51
benefit of the kleptocracies that these criminals plugged
32:57
into the networks of mainly Vladimir Putin.
33:00
And to me, when I think about it, and I think about the range
33:05
of horrific crimes that I know from my experience as a
33:10
prosecutor on the Mexican border.
33:12
I know from lots of other experience that the crimes that
33:17
are fostered and occur every day around the world because of the
33:21
network going from Putin in Moscow to North Korea to the
33:26
Cambodian government, to the, the Burmese Tatmedaw to, to
33:31
Hamas, to all of it, to the, the, the, the cartels in Mexico
33:36
and South America. There is a network of
33:40
criminality of dirty money that breeds horrible inhumanity to
33:48
innocent people who are trafficked and murdered and, and
33:52
their lives enslaved around the world every day by this network.
33:58
That I'm, I'm worried that the focus on the sensational
34:05
individual things that happened on an island in, in, you know,
34:09
the British Virgin Islands. So the American US Virgin
34:11
Islands is obscuring, to some extent, the degree to which
34:16
Epstein was part of and propagating and and helping to
34:19
further a network that's committing crimes of equal
34:25
horror every day around the world.
34:28
So, John, let's talk about the international dimension because
34:31
there is a debate now on Twitter.
34:33
Maybe you'll follow it if Epstein was for the Israelis, as
34:38
some suggest, or he was very closely connected to the Russian
34:43
services and basically he ran a gigantic honey trap for Putin.
34:49
And what's your take on that? What do you think is the
34:53
international implication here? I I I find it hard to believe
34:59
that Mossad would have deliberately gotten into a
35:04
situation where Ehud Barack is so prominently exposed and
35:12
compromised in this process if if Epstein was a Mossad agent.
35:20
It seems to me that it was not an operation that was, you know,
35:25
fully controlled, didn't go the way it was supposed to.
35:29
It certainly doesn't seem like everything Epstein was doing
35:33
could possibly have been in the service of the Mossad, because a
35:37
lot of what he was doing had nothing to do with Israeli
35:40
national interests, it would seem.
35:42
On the other hand, it seems very believable to me that Epstein
35:47
managed to be all things to all bad people, that, that he
35:53
managed to cultivate a relationship with Vladimir Putin
35:56
where he was working with that effort when it suited him.
36:01
I've seen emails, I, I, I saw an e-mail just yesterday from
36:06
Mandelson to Epstein about his work in China and how, how keen
36:12
the Chinese Communist Party was on what Mandelson was working
36:15
on. And so I, I don't think these
36:18
things are mutually exclusive at all.
36:20
I think that there's no reason to believe that any of these
36:25
actors further in the recesses of the, you know, the underworld
36:31
as it were, would not want to take advantage of this person
36:35
who had the ability to crossover effortlessly between their
36:38
world, the underworld. He comes to to, to Russia on
36:42
visas well after the Ukraine invasion.
36:44
He's, you know, there all the time.
36:46
He can flit around there. He can flit around to, to to the
36:49
Middle East if he wants. He can flit around all of
36:51
Europe, meet with whoever he wants, and he can become a
36:55
conduit at a moment's notice between Putin and whoever in the
37:01
British or German or French establishment that he wants to
37:06
have contact with, it seems to me.
37:11
It's really shocking that Putin could exploit the inner rotten
37:14
core of the West to such extent for so long because, you know,
37:19
Putin came to power with the help of sexual compromise.
37:23
He has used that consistently as a tool.
37:26
And so he basically, when he entered power, he found a ready
37:31
network of American potential accomplices for to work with.
37:36
I think that's one of the ways this has worked out over the
37:40
decades. And like please.
37:43
I, I, I think that it, it is good to go back to what you were
37:45
saying about fighting conspiracy theories for so long.
37:50
I think part of it, what has always been difficult for me, is
37:53
the notion of resistance to the idea that Vladimir Putin, AK, GB
37:59
agent, would be engaged in a deliberate conspiracy to
38:04
undermine Western. Of course he is.
38:06
Of course I mean that. Why do we need to pretend as if
38:10
there could be any other alternative?
38:12
That's what his business, that is his profession undermining
38:16
the West is, Putin said. What he learns when he was 18
38:20
years old. And he does this consequently
38:22
all his lifelong. Correct.
38:25
Let me ask you, is all the files now in the public domain because
38:29
there's a debate about 3 million or 6,000,000.
38:32
Will we find out more? Is the compromise directly
38:35
implicating President Trump and is basically putting controlling
38:41
President Trump? What's your take?
38:43
Yes, I I think the answer is yes.
38:45
I think that there's definitely more material that they have not
38:48
released. We know that because we know
38:50
there are attachments to the files that are not available.
38:53
They you know, whether or not you want to say they were
38:55
redacted or not. There are video and and photo
38:59
files that are not available even though they're obviously
39:01
attached to emails or E docs in this collection.
39:05
I am convinced there's other repositories that have not been
39:09
fully published. But I think that regardless of
39:12
whether it's to the question you just asked, whatever there is
39:16
now or maybe was but is gone in the Epstein material, I am
39:23
confident that Vladimir Putin possesses a video of Donald
39:28
Trump committing some sort of violent and potentially fatal
39:35
act toward a sex partner and or child.
39:39
Because I believe that is what would be necessary.
39:43
Frankly, I don't believe the kinds of materials that were
39:46
spoken of in the past would be sufficient to achieve what Putin
39:50
has clearly been able to achieve, for example, in
39:52
Anchorage, when whatever happened was clearly Putin
39:57
saying no, I'm not going to make you look good.
40:01
I'm not going to make this easy. Remember, I have X now.
40:06
We don't know what X is, but at this point it seems like X would
40:09
have to be very, very bad. It's very logical explanation
40:15
for the events of the last years and tragically I think this is
40:21
very negative material according to many statements which I see
40:25
on XI mean look. At this point, we're obviously
40:29
all speculating, but it's it's obviously not money.
40:33
It's obvious that Donald Trump doesn't have any family or
40:37
friends, that Putin could be threatening to obtain
40:41
compliance. It has to be something that
40:45
directly that if Putin pushed the button, Donald Trump's
40:49
presidency would be over the next day.
40:52
So if it's not something like I've described, it's got to be
40:55
something that achieves that. Who knows what else that could
40:58
be, but it's hard to imagine. John, the last six weeks, we are
41:02
now six weeks in 2026 and the overall balance sheet of Trump
41:08
is a full Epstein scandal, a Greenland disaster, a botched
41:13
Venezuela thing, the calling the Iranians for revolution and not
41:20
helping them and then killing several American citizens during
41:26
this ICE interventions. And you know, it's a complete
41:30
disaster. How do you think this will
41:32
continue throughout 2026? Well, I, I, I do think that the
41:37
president is proving the kind of the truth of what some of us had
41:42
hoped, which is not a very, you know, happy hope, which was that
41:45
although the president was obviously determined to
41:47
establish a fascist dictatorship, it appeared that
41:51
he was not smart enough and did not have competent enough people
41:54
to accomplish that. And that certainly seems to be
41:57
what's happening is that you know what the the Greenland
42:02
episode is a perfect example. Although I'm not so sure that
42:06
that was not the president manipulating world stock markets
42:10
for his and his associates benefit.
42:12
Because honestly, he's learned that the world is pretty easy
42:14
prey for him when it comes to his apparent irrational behavior
42:19
along those lines. But if you talk about, you know,
42:22
the the ICE murders and especially what's happened with
42:26
Epstein now, I do think that that they've gone too far that
42:32
the president has kind of broken a certain level of implicit
42:37
trust with the remaining non hardcore MAGA Republicans or
42:44
moderates who previously were liable to both sides things.
42:49
I think we are quickly establishing a political milieu.
42:52
And I think we saw that in, I don't know if you saw there was
42:54
a special election in Texas to the Texas State Senate that the
42:58
Democrats had not been competitive in for decades, and
43:01
instead it was a landslide for the Democrat.
43:04
I think that's what we're looking at in November.
43:07
I think that we've just got to kind of hold on and hope that
43:10
the president does not manage to break anything that can't be
43:13
fixed between now and then. I do think that it is reasonable
43:19
for people to be worried about the integrity of the election.
43:23
I think it's very reasonable to expect the president to try to
43:26
interfere with the election. I think it is fortunate for us,
43:31
and this may not be widely understood, I think among a lot
43:34
of folks in Europe where systems are different, you know, because
43:40
as of yet, the United States does not have a central election
43:43
authority. And as of yet, the federal
43:46
government does not have any control over the elections for
43:49
the federal government, at least this election is.
43:54
It's too late to prevent the states from administering it.
43:57
And so we should have a free and fair election at least one more
44:01
time. And I, I, I really do believe
44:04
that we're building to a broad rejection of the president's
44:09
criminalization of the presidency.
44:12
But in the meantime, I, I can't, I can't say that we're not in
44:16
danger of the president doing something else incredibly
44:20
reckless in the meantime. It's just, I guess it's running
44:24
out. It's difficult, it beggars the
44:27
imagination to try to figure out what he could do worse than he's
44:31
already done between now and then.
44:34
John, let me ask you as well a political question.
44:37
You know, the Democratic Party. So shall it win in November and
44:40
then in 28? Yeah.
44:42
Will it be a understanding that the deep need for reform and
44:48
really be a reform mandate or will it be as we have seen now
44:53
several times, once they have the power and they just happy
44:57
with the status quo without a lot of reforms and then we have
45:01
a even worse president coming after that.
45:05
Because that's a little bit of what I observed the last year's,
45:09
the lack of really consistent effort to reform something which
45:14
I confess may be difficult. Yeah, but.
45:17
I think you're identifying that this is the existential risk for
45:20
the United States going forward, is that this didn't happen by
45:26
accident. This happened, in my view,
45:29
largely because of, again, the rise of this idiocracy where
45:35
competence has been devalued and political maneuvering has
45:40
allowed decision making to be taken over by imposters.
45:44
And unfortunately, for example, the attorney general of New York
45:47
State, I believe that many Democratic politicians are
45:51
imposters who are not capable of understanding what needs to be
45:55
done. And I, I think that is the, the,
45:58
the big work for Democrats in the next two and four years is
46:03
not going to be to win these elections.
46:06
I think if we're going to win, it's going to be because the
46:09
president's going to lose these elections.
46:13
It's, it's can we fight for a Democratic Party that centers
46:18
competence and professionalism, at least when it comes to things
46:22
like the Justice Department, the rule of law, the National
46:27
Security Agency, our intelligence community, our
46:31
military, our diplomatic relationships with our allies?
46:36
You know, I do believe there is an opportunity, an entry point
46:39
for that re engagement with professionalism and competence
46:44
through what I think is a broad belief and support by the
46:48
American public for reversing the president's repudiation of
46:54
NATO and our European allies and and Western engagement.
46:58
And I'm, I'm hoping that maybe in sort of the way that the
47:01
United States helped its allies after the Second World War with
47:07
constructing and reforming institutions that could provide
47:12
the kinds of democratic controls that were not present in the
47:16
interwar European republics. Maybe the United States needs
47:20
the help of its friends, advice and counsel on how we might be
47:25
able to incorporate some of the innovations that have been
47:29
happening in the laboratories of democracy, of the the
47:32
democracies of the European Union over the last 30 years.
47:36
I think we have a lot to learn. We are far from perfect, but we
47:40
are like your friends, your partners, your allies.
47:42
And of course, we are ready to improve each other mutually.
47:46
We definitely need more entrepreneurship, more freedom,
47:49
more capitalistic spirit, if you want to call it like this, more
47:53
growth and but a little bit of order and rule of law like a
47:58
modern society, which America is now.
48:00
We see it's still a little bit Wild West, some of your
48:03
institutions, and you really have to see that we have
48:07
actually the contrary to what MAGA people claim, we have the
48:11
rule of law in the European Union.
48:14
And when there is crime, we prosecute it and we clean up our
48:17
institutions when we see things are wrong and there is a
48:21
political process and there is a judicial process.
48:24
And again, presidents of France are at the court and are in
48:29
prison, and we do these things and we also prosecute our
48:34
powerful people. At least I hope so.
48:37
Well, I mean, I, I take, I take comfort and inspiration from the
48:41
fact that it appeared. I mean, I, I do think it was
48:44
reasonable for a while for a lot of people to have written
48:46
Hungary off. And yet I think that the
48:49
combination of the push and pull from the rest of the EU and
48:54
NATO, and the durability of at least some of the domestic
48:59
institutions in Hungary itself have led to a place where the
49:03
failure of competence by the would be autocrat has led to an
49:09
opening for the restoration of the rule of law.
49:12
And I'm hoping we have a similar chance ourselves this November.
49:15
Putin has bought Orban for 10 years, but now it's the end in
49:20
April and he will be replaced and voted out.
49:24
There's no doubt about it. And I will do on this podcast as
49:27
much as I can to make sure that Orban will lose this election
49:32
and Peter Macchia will win. Well.
49:35
I want to thank you very much for your friendship assessment,
49:38
for your clear explanations, and also for your great effort for a
49:44
moral renewal of America, for just justice system, and also to
49:50
hold the criminals even when they're powerful, accountable in
49:54
America. And for your explanations about
49:57
the whole terrible story of this Epstein saga and all these
50:00
crimes connected with it. I want to thank you very much,
50:03
John. All the best and and success in
50:06
2026 in cleaning up the mess. Thank you very much.
50:11
Good. There.
50:11
It's been. It's been a privilege and honor.
50:12
It's been a wonderful experience.
50:14
I value the chance to talk anytime.
50:16
Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
50:19
All the best. All right, bye.
50:20
I stop.