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The Emails That Map How Epstein Stayed Inside Elite Financial Circles · The Epstein Chronicles

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Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
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Epstein Chronicles. Jeffrey Epstein didn't appear out at thin air.
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He was kept alive here after year by a financial
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system that understood exactly what it was dealing with and
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chose to proceed it anyway. There was no mystery about
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him inside of those institutions. His behaviors set off the alarms,
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his accounts raised questions. His patterns didn't make sense unless
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you were willing to accept that something deeply wrong sat
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at the center of it all, and instead of stopping it,
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the machine adjusted around them. Banks don't just hold money,
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They legitimize people. They decide who gets access and who
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gets treated like a liability. Epstein was never treated like
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a liability. He was handled, managed, tolerated, and ultimately preserved.
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Each approval, each exception, each quietly filed report that went
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nowhere added another layer of insulation. That insulation didn't just
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protect his finances, It protected his standing. It allowed him
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to move through the elite spaces without being challenged. Because
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institutional acceptance carries its own form of silence, and make
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no mistake, there is a specific kind of moral numbness
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required to make that work. Ordinary customers get caught off
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without hesitation. Accounts are frozen for fractions of the activity
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Epstein generated as a matter of routine. But when the
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client is wealthy enough, scrutiny turns into patients risk becomes
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something to monitor instead of eliminate. The system isn't built
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to ask whether harm is being done. It asks whether
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the relationship is still manageable. And all of this didn't
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happen because there was an absence of rules. It was
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a hierarchy of enforcement. Epstein sat high enough that the
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usual consequences never reached them. Red flags became internal documents.
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Internal documents became someone else's problem, and the farther responsibility traveled,
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the easier it was for everyone involved to tell themselves
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they weren't the one making the decision. By the time
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the public finally saw Epstein clearly, his longevity was already explained.
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He had survived not because the system failed to see him,
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but because it had learned how to live with them.
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And that was possible because financial credibility functioned as cover.
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Epstein was a criminal, the system that sustained them was operational,
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and that distinction matters because it means this wasn't an exception.
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It was a process working exactly the way it was
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designed to work. When profit outweighs consequence and silence is
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treated as a form of professionalism. Today we have an
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article from Bloomberg and the headline how Epstein's Wall Street
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contacts helped them build wealth and power. This article was
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authored by Max Abelson, Soriah Mattu, Jason Leopold, Harry Wilson,
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and Jeff cow Just weeks after Jeffrey Epstein was charged
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with soliciting prostitution, he received a coveted invitation from o
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Way Health Manager a shot at investing with the hedge
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fund Renaissance Technologies, whose reputation for success is almost mythical.
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It was August two thousand and six and newspapers were
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reporting accounts of Epstein paying teenagers for sex. A rising
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star at Smith Barney named Greg Hirsch wrote an email
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to Epstein's office. I would like to bring to Jeffrey's
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attention that City Group's feeder fund to doctor James Simon's fund,
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Renaissance LLC, will be closing to new investors at the
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end of this month as it nears its limit of
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four hundred and ninety nine investors. I feel it would
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be a mistake to not make this investment, wrote Hirsch,
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adding that it wasn't typically his style to give a
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hard sell. Epstein jumped his chief investment vehicle, the Financial
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Trust Company, was in for one million dollars. He wrote,
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Let's do it one million FTC. And keep in mind,
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this was going on after Epstein was already convicted the
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first time around, so previous to that, you could at
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least try and make the case that, you know, you
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didn't have any idea who Epstein was or what he
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was doing. Not that anyone's gonna buy it, but you
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could at least make that case. After the fact. How
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could you try and explain this away. Oh, I didn't
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know what he was doing. I didn't know what was
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going on. Everybody knew, especially people that were in business
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with them. So the whole entire narrative that they had
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no idea and everybody was just blind to the fact
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that Epstein was a monster just doesn't work. And when
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we're talking about Wall Street, especially in the financial sector,
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they most certainly knew what they were getting into. They
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didn't care. Two days later, when The Palm Beach Post
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published an editorial about Epstein. He was over fifty and
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they were girls. His office received the investment details and fees.
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The exchange ended with Epstein's one word, go ahead, fine,
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because look, in this world, like I've told you for
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years now, there is only one crime, and that crime
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is being poor. You can get away with anything else.
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You can be as big of a scumbag as the
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scumbags come. But if you're broke, forget it. Hirsh, who
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now runs his own fund, said through a spokesperson that
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his interactions with Epstein were solely professional and ended in
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two thousand and seven. Before Hirsch says he learned of
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Epstein's crimes. Representatives for Renaissance and City Group Incorporated, which
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owns Smith Barney at the time, declined to comment. I'm
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sure they did. Nobody wants to step in it, and
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nobody wants to be the guy that comes forward and says, hey,
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this is what we were doing, because then the jig
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is up right. So it's better for everybody if everybody
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just makes pretend nothing happened. Let's just be quiet about everything.
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Let's just make pretend everything's fine and Jeffrey Epstein never existed.
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That's what the financial sector wants to do, and that's
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certainly what our politicians want to do as well. On
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Wall Street, finding success takes a mix of ambition, skill
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and luck, but turning a good run into a fortune
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and then power requires connections. A cash of more than
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eighteen thousand emails sent to and from Epstein's private Yahoo account,
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obtained by Bloomberg News earlier this year, shows the abundance
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of access he enjoyed across Wall Street and how relentless
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he was at transforming it into wealth. And that was
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his skill. If this idiot had any skills at all,
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it was finagling people into believing that he was some
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kind of you know, genius or financial wizard, when the
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reality is he was none of it. Just a shyster,
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just a conniver, just a bullshit artist, just a piece
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of shit. It's been well established that JP Morgan Chasing
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Company and other major banks worked with Epstein after he
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pleaded guilty in June two thousand and eight to state
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level sex charges in Florida, including procurement of miners to
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engage in prostitution and sod about a year in jail.
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Congressional investigators are probing that business and President Donald Trump,
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once friendly with Epstein, signed legislation last month compelling the
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Justice Department to release its files on them. And we're
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nine days away from that deadline coming into play, so
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we better start seeing some documents soon. The Yahoo email
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provides new details about Epstein as an investor and advisor,
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including how he leveraged influence when his bets lost money.
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They also show that epstein ties on Wall Street were
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broader than previously known, involving not just standard banking relationships
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but some of the most sought after hedge funds not
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known to who. I've been telling you this for years.
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Everybody's out here chasing bullshit, salacious nonsense, But the real
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boogeyman is in the financial sector. And I don't think
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people truly understand that these people have been fucking us forever.
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Every single war, every single bit of heartache, all rests
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at the feet of the finance sector. And yet a
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lot of people still don't understand the true scope of
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what we're dealing with. We're not dealing with this in
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a vacuum. This is how these people are. And if
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you think they give one goddamn about you, your kids,
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your life, your future, your plans any of it. They don't.
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What they care about is wealth and power, and if
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that means stepping over a million bodies, so be it.
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After stories of Epstein's teenage victims spilled into the open,
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Wall Street continued to stay in touch. He had access
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to prestigious names and global finance, including Renaissance and the
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investment firm of billionaire Carlikon. And as Epstein was directing
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his high powered attorneys to pressure the government into offering
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him a light sentence, he threatened legal action against barri
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Stearns and top executives for steep losses. This is a
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man who used to work for bear Stearns, by the way,
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a man that was involved in all kinds of bs
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and then this piece of shit in two thousand and eight,
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after the whole ent higher system tanked, ended up making
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like two hundred million dollars. I'm sure all of that
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was on the up and up too. The email cash
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doesn't solve a central Epstein enigma. How did a former
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math teacher without a college degree turn himself into a
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globe trotting money manager with his own island. But it
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shows Epstein's gamesmanship across Wall Street, where He was chummy,
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aggressive and defective. He found the right doors to banks, billionaires,
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and investments. When something went wrong, he had a playbook
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to handle it, often ruthlessly. Yeah, because that's what a
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lone wolf predator does, right, Give me a break. Anyone
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who still thinks this guy wasn't an asset and being
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run by the government in some capacity is crazy. You
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don't get to operate the way Epstein did for all
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these years with impunity because you're just some disgusting man
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with proclivities with a couple of bucks. That's not how
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it works. How does the failed teacher high school end
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up becoming a powerbroker like Jeffrey Epstein if he has
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no backing? It just doesn't pass the sniff deest Right.
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When that high flying career was threatened by investigations, charges
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and convictions, not all of his elite connections shunned them. Instead,
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some helped them keep the money machine turning. Yeah, because
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they were profiting too. When everybody's profiting off the bullshit,
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they're much more inclined to help out. Epstein's first stint
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in finance ended terribly. In nineteen eighty one, he left
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bear Stearns with a cloud hanging over him by his
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own account. When his bosses had found out he loaned
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fifteen thousand to a friend so the friend could buy stock,
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They told him it could violate security's law. The way
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it was handled subsequently was offensive to me, and I
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decided to resign, Epstein told regulators months later, during an
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investigation and other matters, this is where he was flipped.
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Nobody wants to talk about it, but this is where
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he was initially flipped. And that initial flipping was by
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the FBI, and then from there he was farmed out
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to the CIA. What you think the CIA is in
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paying attention to what's going on, especially when we're talking
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about finances and shit like this, they most certainly are.
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But when he returned to high finance, this time as
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an exclusive money manager, his old firm was woven into
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his work. The email show his companies put tens of
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millions of dollars in Bear investment funds and bought tens
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of millions of dollars more of its stock. He helped
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oversee one of Bear CEO's, Jimmy Kaine's trusts. When Bear
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stock hit one hundred dollars for the first time, Epstein
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bought one hundred chairs and presented them to Kine as
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a gift. One document in the inbox reveals Epstein was
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also chairman of Liquid Funding Limited, a Bermuda based investment
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vehicle that Bear co owned. The emails show two that
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he called the shots as money moved out of a
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Bear account belonging to one of Epstein's key clients, the
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Ohio billlionaire Les Wexner. All of this unexplained. None of
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these people called before Congress, and it's left up to
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us to figure out what's what. And this is the
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biggest problem. There was never a real investigation. This should
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have been RICO from the very beginning, but instead what
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we got was a tighter scope. And that was all
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by design because if they went RICO, all these people
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that we're talking about right here, you know, the people
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that are funding your favorite politician, these people would not
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allow it. And if you think that's crazy or that's
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far fetched, you haven't been paying attention. Epstein was savvy
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in a fight that began once the subprime mortgage market
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sank in August of two thousand and seven, after the
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collapse of Bear hedge funds that Epstein had invested in
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his office got an email from a lawyer representing other investors,
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including Charles fix Err to a Greek beer fortune. The
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attorney invited Epstein and his office to join in a
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confidential plan to boot Bear's director from fun leadership through
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a vote and replace them with an ally, then to
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unleash a full investigation into what had gone wrong, positioning
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investors to claw back losses. Do it, Epstein told Darren Endyke,
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his longtime personal lawyer, another guy that should be up
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in front of Congress yesterday. But I guess I'm the
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only one who's paying attention here. Three months of emails
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and meetings followed as the team kept Epstein's office posted
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on strategy and internal fights. In November, the team believed
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they had gained control of enough votes to win. It
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wasn't that simple. Epstein soon flipped against the investor group,
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triggering rage from the Greek beer er. In Dyke wrote
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fix His colleagues wrote back, it's with particular ill grace
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that you were trying to suggest that. Mister Epstein claimed
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surprise at our being angered by his and your misconduct today.
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He asked Epstein to explain why. After a month of
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his assuring us that he was supporting our efforts, he
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did a one hundred and eighty degree turnabout refusing to
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vote with the group, thereby ensuring a loss for them,
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and thus, well we all know why Epstein was the
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ultimate free agent and if he could find a better deal,
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he would. Epstein had been playing both sides behind the scenes.
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He was sharing intelligence with Kin. The Inbox shows forwarding
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him the ill grace email from Fix's colleague. Around the
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same time, Epstein emailed the Bear Boss a list of
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complaints about the prosecutors investigating him for sex crimes and
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money laundering. Still, there was one more twist coming. Yeah,
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more than one twist. This shit looks like one of
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those talkies. Following bear Stearn's meltdown the next March, Epstein
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made preparations to sue Behar and several top executives. According
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to a June two thousand and eight draft of a
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lawsuit from The Inbox. In it, one of the most
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notorious figures of his era presents himself as the opposite
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a victim, and this is one of their favorite moves too.
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Once they get nailed for having a relationship with Epstein,
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one of their favorite moves is to act like they
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were defrauded. They were you know, treated wrongly by Epstein,
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he stole from them whatever, And just coincidentally, it only
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came out after we learned about what Epstein was up
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to and he got charged. But previous to that, you know,
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nobody was the wiser. The draft Camplan asks for more
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than seventy million in damages. It alleges that banker's dump
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toxic waste into BEAR funds and depicts Epstein as a
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loyal associate who was fraudully induced by manipulative bankers. Bear
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betrayed special continuous thirty year relationship with him, according to
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this version, learning him to buy and hold steaks and
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funds that were riskier than advertised. Oh yeah, I'm sure
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that Jeffrey Epstein's bitch ass was bamboozled. The bamboozler was bamboozled.
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What do they say, You can bullshit a bullshitter, right,
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And if Jeffrey Epstein was anything, his bitch ass was
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a bullshitter. And though the draft doesn't name Kane as
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a defendant, it turns against him too, alleging that he
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gave Epstein false assurance about his bare holdings before the
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company collapsed and JP Morgan bought it. Around the same
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time of the draft, Epstein's attorneys emailed with a JP
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Morgan lawyer about a potential settlement. Epstein sued Behar over
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related issues, including fraudulent misrepresentation in two thousand and nine.
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Two years later, JP Morgan agreed to settle his claims
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against Beherr for about nine million, according to court documents
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filed in a separate case. A spokesperson for JP Morgan
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declined to comment. Lawyers for the Bear Investment Group didn't
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return messages. Cain died in twenty twenty one. During a
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given week, one investment sent Epstein's way might have been
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for him, but the next might have been for Wexner,
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the billionaire behind Victoria's secret. Sometimes even Epstein himself hesitated
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to say what went where. In late two thousand and six,
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when Indyke passed along question about whether one security investment,
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the three times levered basket was for a Wexner family
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trust or Epstein's company, Epstein told his lawyer to remind
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him about it in a couple of days. Look, there
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was so much fraud going on here, and so much
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money laundering that it'll make your head spin. And that's
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another reason they didn't go the route that they should have.
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They should have made this so rico case. If they
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did that, this whole last thing is a completely different conversation.
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Indike didn't answer specific questions for the story. For a
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financial advisor at Merrill Lynch named ed Spector that fluidity
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was par for the course. In two thousand and five,
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the Merril advisor sent Epstein a reminder about the timing
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of an investment for Wexner's wife. A few days later,
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he advised Epstein on a peso deal for Financial Trust
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that November. In an email about a plan to go
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long on the Australian dollar while shorting New Zealand's Specter
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also asked if he wanted to split ten million between
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Financial Trust and Wexner. Epstein told him all Wexner. The
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inbox shows Epstein as a brash power broker who twisted
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arms to get what he wanted from Wall Street colleagues,
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and though it often worked, sometimes he went too far.
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In early two thousand and six, Epstein asked for a
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favor that made Specter uncomfortable. According to emails from the
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Financial advisor, Jeffrey, I just got back to the office
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in New York. Please understand that as I thought about
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our conversation the last couple of days, and two thoughts
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hit me. First that I do not know the gentleman
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no names well enough to approach him on this. He
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would look at me like I'm nuts and ask what
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my interest is. I know him only from a business sense. Also,
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as innocent as the request may sound, it could result
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in big problems for me internally if this gentleman doesn't
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think it's an appropriate conversation. There is zero tolerance in
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the organization. The emails don't spell out what Epstein wanted,
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but he kept pressing his advisor. Spector bristled, Jeffrey, as
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you know, I have a great deal of respect for you.
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I've asked around this afternoon after receiving your email on
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a no name basis, and have been advised that I
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can have significant issues approaching the topic. I hope you
19:08
understand that cryptic exchange and Epstein's July arrest in Florida
19:13
didn't stop the pair from doing big business. In August,
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Epstein thanks Spector for telling him that a Hurtz investment
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had paid two point two million each to Epstein's firm
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and to a Wesner trust fund. Later, Spector reminded Epstein
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that the deal had been a special opportunity, as you know,
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inclusion in Hurtz was limited to clients with one billion
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net worth. He wrote, would Epstein want to be included
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in Merrill's billion dollar only deals? He added that it
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would take a commitment of twenty million or so per year.
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Epstein wrote back, got it, I'm in Spector died in
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two thousand and nine. A spokesperson for Bank of America,
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which bought Meryl that year, declined to comment. According to
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an email in late two thousand and seven, Epstein was
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also connected to billionaire Carl Kon's investment firm, Icon Capital Management,
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sent them revised fees and terms, the kind that are
20:06
usually only shared with investors, along with holiday wishes. Icon's
20:11
office did not respond to questions, Oh, why would he?
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He knows he stepped in it. And this is the
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kind of thing that we're going to see. If we
20:19
get a accounting of the financials, you're gonna see some
20:24
of the biggest names in the history of Wall Street
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and the financial sector. And they were all in bed
20:29
with Jeffrey Epstein and all the people that are all
20:31
of a sudden shocked that this is going down. Well,
20:34
where have you been for the past six years? News
20:39
reports that Epstein was preparing to plead guilty to sex
20:42
crimes didn't stop contacts from pursuing them. An investment firm
20:45
called Yin Harbor Drive Capital sent him an email in
20:48
February of two thousand and eight with a plan to
20:50
profit even if the markets fall. They met that month.
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I hope that you found the discussion as interesting and
20:58
thought provoking as I did, execute Duncan Yin wrote afterwards,
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sending along details about trading Indian equity volatility. Investment talks
21:07
continued for months. Bruce Jaeger, a former Berenstern's executive, met
21:11
with Epstein about the deal in June, just as Epstein
21:15
was finalizing his plan to plead guilty in Florida. But
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he had no idea, right, mister Jager had no idea
21:22
what was going on. He thought Epstein was just a
21:24
great guy. It was great to see you on Monday,
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and I'm glad to see that you are keeping such
21:30
a positive attitude, Jaeger wrote earlier that month. I'm sure
21:34
that you will prevail and make the right decision on
21:37
how to proceed. Right before Golaine entered your office, you
21:40
asked me if we could start trading, and the answer
21:43
is yes. The executive attached details for a five million
21:47
dollar investment. Yin didn't return messages. Jaeger said he couldn't
21:51
answer questions on the phone and didn't return messages, of
21:55
course not. Do you see the pattern here? Do you
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see how they all handled them when they were called
22:01
on the carpet. Epstein fielded a request for investments until
22:05
his last week of freedom. That June, his office got
22:09
a pitch for an offshore fund that traded carbon credits.
22:12
The next day, he got another nudge from an acquaintance
22:15
about investing in an oil firm. On June thirtieth, he
22:19
pleaded guilty to two felonies in Palm Beach County, which,
22:22
under an agreement that has since become infamous, spared him
22:26
and any potential co conspirators from federal prosecution in exchange.
22:31
For about thirteen months in jail, Epstein's continued attention from
22:35
Wall Street included in exchange with Morgan Staley the email
22:39
show Patricia Glass, a senior vice president and director of
22:43
portfolio management in its wealth unit, teamed up with an
22:47
executive director to talk to Richard Kahn, Epstein's longtime accountant,
22:51
and a key deputy. They followed up in October of
22:54
twenty sixteen with a presentation on a strategy called risk reversal,
22:59
buying one kind of option while selling another. A lawyer
23:03
for Khan said he doesn't believe the strategy was pursued.
23:06
Lawyers for Con and Endyke said their clients haven't been
23:09
accused of witnessing or committing abuse, and that they never
23:12
knowingly enabled Epstein to abuse or traffic women. A spokesperson
23:16
for Morgan Stanley declined to comment. And this is another problem.
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The fact that they weren't charged in the overall criminal
23:26
empire is a gigantic problem. How can you look at
23:29
this and look at their name littered all over all
23:32
this paperwork and not have them caught up. The only
23:35
explanation is that the fix is in. Some of Epstein's
23:39
most intriguing work wasn't just with banks, brokerages or hedge funds,
23:44
to globe trotting billionaires, men who were richer and more
23:47
powerful than he was. Epstein offered the services of a
23:50
consigliari over email. He was empowered, paranoid, and shrewd. At
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the end of two thousand and five, years before artificial
23:59
intelligen became an obsession of global capitalism, Epstein had an
24:04
idea for Leon Black, the co founder of Apollo Global Management.
24:08
Marvin Minsky, a celebrated computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute
24:13
of Technology, was working with colleagues to build a machine
24:16
that is capable of common sense thinking, one that can
24:19
solve real problems for real people. According to one of
24:23
the Yahoo emails, their pitch was to build a nonprofit
24:26
for profit spinoffs. Epstein asked an assistant, Cecilia pleads facts
24:32
to Leon Black with a note that says, this guy
24:34
is the father of artificial intelligence. You could adopt the
24:37
whole project and have fun. Minsky died in twenty sixteen.
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Documents released last month by a congressional committee also show
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Epstein's role for clients as something less conventional than a
24:49
mere money manager. In a batch of twenty fifteen emails
24:53
that he later forwarded to himself, he tried to shape
24:56
Black's financial life. Leon Yesterday, I spent hours upon hours
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of my time with your office, he wrote. He complain
25:04
that Black had gotten himself into a fix by ignoring
25:07
his advice from a year earlier, going so far as
25:10
to quote it the family office needs a daddy. Children
25:14
with good intentions are running around sniping, nitpicking with little direction.
25:19
Epstein made clear that his involvement didn't come cheap, very serious.
25:23
I'm willing to continue to accommodate some of your concerns,
25:26
but I am under no circumstances, none willing to spend
25:30
my time for free. It's not fair, he added parenthetical,
25:35
and another inside it, you had claimed I had you
25:38
over a barrel, A horrible position to be in with
25:40
my very close friend. Unfortunately, I fear that if you
25:44
are not cautious in the near future, another barrel will
25:47
appear of your own design. Well that sounds threatening, huh.
25:52
Imagine having the kind of firepower to say that kind
25:55
of shit to Leon Black, Of all people, Epstein was
25:59
like Thomas Cromwell and Henry the Ash Here. At the
26:02
end of twenty fifteen, an email described one of Black's
26:05
deputies as a little man using your power to appear larger.
26:09
And another colleague is self aware enough to know she
26:12
was over her head. A spokesperson for Black said he
26:15
had no comment, of course, not so how about we
26:18
subpoena him and force him to comment. Oh, I know
26:21
that would take some effort, though, and God forbid. They
26:24
subpoena one of their biggest donors in Ohio. The Yahoo
26:27
email show. Epstein had wide influence over Wexner's world. He
26:32
dictated time off for members of the billionaire's family's office,
26:35
orchestrated the movement of money, advised on the payment plan
26:38
for his wife's private jet, suggested how to structure the
26:42
purchase of a condo for a security staff member, and
26:45
pass judgment on senior executives at Wexner's retail Empire L Brands.
26:50
He nicknamed one of them Mighty Mouse after the cartoon,
26:53
calling him incompetent and delusional in a pair of notes
26:56
to Wexner in two thousand and six. In two thousand
26:58
and seven, the second email also warned them about his
27:02
company's directors. He has no judgment, Be careful. A spokesperson
27:07
for Wexner declient to comment. Epstein advised the rich, powerful
27:11
and well connected. When Nilli Prael Barrock, whose husband Ehud Barrock,
27:17
had been Israel's Prime Minister was making high level introductions
27:20
to clients for a fee. She turned to Epstein in
27:23
early two thousand and eight. She sent a text of
27:26
her client agreement. Taurus Ltd, a consulting firm, would for
27:31
thirty thousand dollars a year, identify strategic partnerships, screened business opportunities,
27:36
and introduced clients to Israeli business and public opinion leaders.
27:40
And look, let's not cut corners here. They're also worried
27:43
about releasing this information and embarrassing our allies over in Israel.
27:48
There is zero doubt about that. And while I'm not
27:51
somebody that believes Epstein was created and managed by the Masad,
27:55
he most certainly was doing work for them, and he
27:58
was definitely doing work for Ehud. Opportunities kept coming for
28:03
Epstein even in his final years. In January twenty eighteen,
28:07
he heard from a deputy of music mogul, Tommy Mottola,
28:11
about investing in a musical he was producing that covers
28:14
the life of disco queen Donna Summer. The executive, Joanne Riti,
28:19
told Bloomberg News that the documents were sent to dozens
28:22
and dozens of people, and Epstein did not invest. That
28:26
April summer, the Donna Summer Musical opened on Broadway. Federal
28:31
prosecutors charged Epstein with sex trafficking minors one year later.
28:35
So when people ask how Epstein lasted as long as
28:38
he did, this is the answer they don't want to
28:40
sit with. He wasn't invisible, he wasn't untouchable by accident.
28:44
He was carried propped up by institutions that knew how
28:48
to keep things moving quietly, efficiently, and without friction. Because
28:51
when all is said and done, Epstein didn't beat the system.
28:54
He used it, and the system didn't lose control. It
28:58
just made a choice. All of the information that goes
29:02
with this episode can be found in the description box.