Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / The Adfin Deal: Howard Lutnick, Jeffrey Epstein and the Paper Trail (7/15/26)

Transcript

The Adfin Deal: Howard Lutnick, Jeffrey Epstein and the Paper Trail (7/15/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:02
  Epstein Chronicles. Ever since the Epstein files have dropped, we've
• 0:07
  talked about a lot of people that were close or
• 0:10
  friendly with Jeffrey Epstein. And one of the people who
• 0:14
  has been revealed to be closer to Epstein than they
• 0:17
  ever told us was none other than Howard Lutnik And
• 0:20
  not only was Howard Lutnik close to Jeffrey Epstein, he
• 0:24
  was close to Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew and according
• 0:28
  to a whistleblower, Kenner, Fitzgerald had a plan in twenty
• 0:32
  thirteen to buy themselves with Prince. Today we have an
• 0:36
  article from BBC and the headline how US Commerce Secretary's
• 0:40
  Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower. This article was
• 0:45
  authored by Andy Verity, rob Byrne and Ben Milne. A
• 0:50
  British man has told BBC how he unearthed evidence indicating
• 0:54
  that his former employer, Howard Lutnick, now US Commerce Secretary,
• 0:59
  failed to disclose it was a business relationship with the
• 1:01
  pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. Wait a minute, you need to
• 1:05
  tell me that Howard Lutnick, of all people wasn't honest.
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  I'm shocked, shocked, I say, said nobody. Ever, Howard Lutnik
• 1:13
  is one of the most dishonest people, maybe in the
• 1:16
  history of DC. And that's telling you a lot. How
• 1:20
  do I know while I worked for counter Fitzgerald Folks,
• 1:23
  not for the financial arm of it, but for their
• 1:26
  gaming arm. And it was a shit show, an absolute
• 1:31
  shit show. One of the worst corporations I've ever worked for.
• 1:34
  You ever see Wolfe of Wall Street? That's what I
• 1:36
  was like. Simon Andrees, previously a managing director at a
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  Wall Street firm, discovered an email chain from twenty eighteen
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  in which Lutnik and Epstein had discussed the prospects of
• 1:48
  a startup business they were both involved in. Andrees shared
• 1:53
  his findings from the millions of released Epstein files with
• 1:56
  US politicians on the influential House Oversight Committee ahead of
• 2:00
  an appearance thereby Lutnik in May. And look, that's great.
• 2:04
  Everybody who has information should be turning it over. The
• 2:07
  problem is, I don't trust the arbiters. I don't trust Congress.
• 2:13
  They've proven time and time again they're not to be trusted.
• 2:17
  Now I understand that they're pretty much the only lifeline
• 2:20
  at this point to get justice. But that doesn't mean
• 2:23
  I'm confident, that doesn't mean I think that we could
• 2:27
  just pack it in and not keep their feet to
• 2:29
  the fire. Lutnik told the committee that, to the best
• 2:33
  of his knowledge, he had only learned this year that
• 2:35
  Epstein had been an investor in the firm. Speaking on
• 2:39
  his behalf, the US Commerce Department told us there was
• 2:42
  no evidence of wrongdoing. Oh, of course, not squeaky clean
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  Howard Lutnick, good old Howard nut Lick, the squeakiest clean
• 2:51
  man in the history of squeakiest clean men. Andres also
• 2:56
  discovered in the files that one of lutnik firms had
• 2:59
  made plan ends in twenty thirteen to go into business
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  with another figure linked to Abstein, the then Prince Andrew,
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  by commercially exploiting the contacts the former UK Trade Envoy
• 3:11
  had made. What it involved was alone to Andrew mount
• 3:15
  Batten Winsor for one pounds to basically buy a prince.
• 3:19
  He tells File four on four investigates, Now, does that
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  sound like something that's out of the realm of possibility?
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  Of course not. That's what these people do. And I
• 3:30
  don't think people really understand the degeneracy that you find
• 3:34
  in these boardrooms. These people have so much money that
• 3:39
  the things that get me and you off would never
• 3:42
  get them off. And I'm not talking about sexually, I'm
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  talking about in general. You know, you go to the casino,
• 3:47
  you want to blow a couple hundred cool, You're satiated,
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  You're done, that's it. Party over. Do you think they
• 3:54
  get the same feeling? They have billions of dollars, So
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  how did they get that cortisol blast? We all know,
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  just ask Jeffrey Epstein. I was completely shocked, says Andrewes,
• 4:05
  describing the moment when he discovered his own name in
• 4:08
  the Epstein Files, a massive collection of documents, photos, video,
• 4:12
  and emails relating to the notorious sex offender released by
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  the US government in the past year. The specific files
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  in which Andreas appeared related to interviews he had given
• 4:23
  to the FBI well in dispute with his former employer,
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  BGC Partners, a financial brokerage firm part of Lutnix Canter
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  Fitzgerald Group. And I worked for a company called Cannter Gaming,
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  and it was the gambling arm of Canter Fitzgerald, and
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  I was managing sportsbooks for them here in Las Vegas
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  in twenty sixteen. Andrees had raised concerns internally about accounting
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  irregularities at the firm. He was sacked in twenty seventeen,
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  but some of the allegations later led to BGC being
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  ordered to pay three million dollars by the US Derivatives
• 4:58
  Regulator for Numero supervision, reporting and record keeping violations. None
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  of that shocks me, especially considering the scam that we're
• 5:06
  running through the sports book. I mean, the Jersey Boy
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  scandal was out of control. You have people laying money
• 5:13
  off at the sports book, laundering it, moving lines, not
• 5:19
  getting it checked, all kinds of shit at a casino
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  in Las Vegas. And you really think that the regulators
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  aren't gonna know you eventually, Like the gaming board in
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  Las Vegas might as well be the Stasi. Right. They
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  don't fuck around, not one bit. And it was only
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  a matter of time before somebody got HM dub and ratted.
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  And that's exactly what happened. And for me, that was
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  when the writing was on the wall. I mean, you
• 5:44
  can't be running an illegal book through your legal book. Okay,
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  not exactly the kind of thing the regulators are okay
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  with BGC told us that Andres's allegations lack credibility and
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  were categorically false. It said the claims had been investigated
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  by authorities in several jurisdictions, which, according to BGC, had
• 6:03
  not substantiated the allegations. Well, Kantor told you that it's true.
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  Might as well listen to them, said nobody. Ever. Andrew
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  spoke to the FBI about BGC and about the firm's
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  ultimate boss, Lutnick, back in twenty twenty one, after Epstein
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  had killed himself in jail while awaiting trial on sex
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  trafficking charges. The Epstein files show Andrees alleged that Lutnik
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  had undeclared business ties with Epstein. The FBI did not
• 6:32
  investigate these accusations. They didn't investigate anything. So how can
• 6:36
  we say that anyone's exonerated, including the Donald Trump situation
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  in South Carolina. Let's get a real investigation by a
• 6:43
  special council, and let's put it all to bed. We
• 6:46
  can all move on to other things then. But they
• 6:49
  don't want to do it. Ask yourself, why why are
• 6:53
  they refusing a special council? Why are they refusing the
• 6:56
  one mechanism we have to get a real look at this,
• 7:02
  Andrees tells the BBC he was disappointed that few had
• 7:06
  seem interested in what he had discovered. I'm exposing how
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  were Lutnick's relationship financial links with Jeffrey Epstein, and there's
• 7:13
  no interest. Nobody cared back then. All these politicians who
• 7:16
  say they care now, they didn't care back then. And
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  I'm here to tell you that I went through it
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  in real time, and I watched all these people ignore
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  the survivors and ignore what was happening, and now they
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  show up like some champions riding horses wearing white armor.
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  In twenty twenty five, Lutnik was appointed US Commerce Secretary,
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  at which point he sold his shares in Kenner Fitzgerald
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  and passed control of the firm to his sons. On
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  a podcast later that year, he claimed he had only
• 7:46
  ever met Epstein once, twenty years earlier, when they had
• 7:49
  been neighbors in Manhattan, and that he found out his
• 7:52
  behavior was gross. Oh yeah, we believe that story. I
• 7:57
  went over and Jeffrey Epstein was talking about massages, and
• 8:00
  I leaned over to my wife and said, we have
• 8:01
  to get out of here. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the
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  gist of it. Who the fuck believed that? However, with
• 8:09
  the Epstein files release, inconsistencies began to appear in this
• 8:13
  version of events. A photo showed Lutnik with Epstein on
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  the Sex Offenders Caribbean Island Little Saint James in December
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  of twenty twelve. But don't worry, he had his wife
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  with him, his kids, his nannies, and some other degenerate dudes.
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  No big dildough. Nothing to see here. Who brings their
• 8:30
  kids to Jeffrey Epstein's island when he's already a convicted
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  sex offender? Is anybody gonna ask that question? Four years
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  earlier and Florida, Epstein had been sent to prison for
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  two charges a soliciting prostitution, including one with a minor.
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  Andrew suspected there was yet more to find than the
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  Epstein files that could back up his claims, if only
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  people knew where to look in the three and a
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  half million pages of documents everyone was searching. Lutnik he
• 8:59
  says he knew, though that Canter Fitzgerald's executives preferred to
• 9:03
  use initials rather than full names in the emails andres
• 9:08
  searched for HWL Howard William Lutnik and found emails sent
• 9:13
  to and from Ebstein in twenty eighteen. Ebstein had talked
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  directly to Lutnik about a digital advertising company called Adfinn,
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  in which he and Lutnik's firm Counter Fitzgerald had both invested.
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  And I'm sure that that's true because I know that
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  at the time, we were pulling out a mobile gaming
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  platform here in Las Vegas, and of course you have
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  to have ads in it, right, So all this betting
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  at home was started by Canter Fitzgerald. We were the
• 9:40
  first team to roll that out and it allowed you
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  to make wagers from your home. And look, the technology
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  is cool as shit, I'll be the first to tell you.
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  But when you have technology like that, it's great to
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  have a platform or an app or whatever that deals
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  with ads. So that was all baked into it. Andrew
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  spotted correspondence where Epstein had directly asked the HWL account,
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  what do you think the prospects for adfinnar Lutnik responded,
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  producing revenue. Finally, this is their year, next twelve months.
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  They need to become economically self sufficient. Andrees then shared
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  the information with US politicians on the House Oversight Committee,
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  the US Congress's main investigatory committee. Lutnick agreed to appear
• 10:27
  before the committee in an off camera hearing in May.
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  Oh yeah, let them volunteer. Let him do it off
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  camera like everybody else. Let's not hold anyone accountable for
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  what they say. He's not been accused of any wrongdoing
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  in connection with Epstein, and he told the committee, I
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  unequivocally condemned the conduct attributed to Jeffrey Epstein and everyone
• 10:48
  who participated in his legal activities, the survivors of his
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  crimes to deserve our respect and our support. What exactly
• 10:56
  have you done for him, howie, besides pop off at
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  the mouth and give lip service. Lutnik repeated his claim
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  to the committee that he did not know until this
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  year that Epstein had been a co investor in Adfin. However,
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  democrats on the committee accused him of lying, and all
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  twenty one signed a letter demanding his resignation. Look, he lied. Okay,
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  I know people don't want to play politics and don't
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  want to look at their own team. But I'm here
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  to tell you Howard Lutnick is on team Lutnick, not
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  Team America, not you, not even Team Trump. The US
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  Commerce Department told us the allegations against Lutnik were a
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  desperate partisan distraction from the historic work of this administration,
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  adding that the Commerce Secretary has answered hundreds of questions
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  before Congress and there's no evidence of wrongdoing or legitimate
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  cause for concern. No, not at all. Everything's fine here, folks.
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  Nothing to see Jeffrey Epstein's next door neighbor just lied
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  to us about his relationship, and then that next door
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  neighbor happens to be the Commerce Secretary. But nothing to
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  see here. Why don't you move on? Have you heard
• 12:05
  we're bombing Iran again? Or maybe you want to talk
• 12:08
  about Nanty Guthrie. I mean, imagine having the audacity to
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  tell us there's no room or reason for legitimate concern. Buddy.
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  All I have is legitimate concern, and all of it's
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  directed at your administration. In another discovery andres made in
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  the Epstein files concerned Lutnik's association with two other people
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  who knew Epstein well, the then Prince Andrew and his
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  ex wife Sarah Ferguson. Lutnik had been friends with Ferguson
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  since the nineties and was a guest at Princess Eugenie's
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  wedding in twenty eighteen. Documents in the file revealed his
• 12:44
  firm counter Fitzgerald, had a plan in twenty thirteen to
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  buy a prince, as Andrewes put it, and exploit Andrew's
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  contacts with wealthy individuals and sovereign institutions. While we all
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  know he was for sale. If you're looking to buy
• 12:58
  a prince, you've come to the right place. Is there
• 13:02
  anything Andrew wouldn't do for some money? I don't know.
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  I don't think so. I think that everything's on the table, honestly,
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  whether it's treason or engaging in what he was engaging
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  in with Jeffrey Epstein. Under the proposed terms of the deal,
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  one million would be loaned to a firm controlled by
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  the Prince, which would then be bound to do business
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  exclusively with Kener Fitzgerald. Epstein warned the Prince's business ay
• 13:28
  David Stern, against the deal. The files reveal one of
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  his concerns was about the exclusivity of the deal. Under
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  its terms, Andrew could only introduce wealthy clients to Kenter
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  Fitzgerald and no one else. The files indicate that advisors
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  to both Lutnik and the former Prince discussed the deal
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  for four months from August to November twenty thirteen, but
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  it came to nothing. Asked about the deal, Kener Fitzgerald
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  did not deny the talks took place, but told the
• 13:56
  BBC it did not go into business with the former Prince.
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  Andrew mount Baton Winsor did not respond to a request
• 14:03
  for a comment. Well, no, shit, what do you think
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  he's going to say. He's not going to say anything.
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  If we're waiting for Prince Andrew to speak up again,
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  we're going to be waiting for a long time. Andreas,
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  now fifty seven, lives in a quiet corner seaside village
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  a world away from Wall Street. He says the litigation
• 14:21
  of the past decade has had a devastating effect on
• 14:24
  his career, his finances, and his health. Despite winning a
• 14:28
  financial award of four hundred and twenty thousand for his
• 14:31
  whistle blowing from the US regulator, Andrew says authorities in
• 14:34
  the US and UK have felt the hold BGC and
• 14:38
  Canner Fitzgerald properly to account order to protect him from
• 14:42
  retaliation by his former employer for his reports of wrongdoing
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  that doesn't shock me. Howard Lutnik and Canter they don't
• 14:50
  play by the rules. BGC says it has strong policies
• 14:54
  protecting whistleblowers from retaliation and denies retaliating against Andrees. Says
• 15:00
  it had no involvement with him since his departure, other
• 15:03
  than responding to litigation he has initiated. It maintains Andre's
• 15:07
  employment was terminated after he refused to follow medical advice,
• 15:11
  declined to perform essential job duties, rejected reasonable accommodation, and
• 15:16
  ultimately abandoned his role. Speaking on behalf of Lutnik, the
• 15:20
  White House said the BBC's pathetic and desperate attempt to
• 15:24
  slander Secretary Lutnik will do nothing to change the fact
• 15:28
  that he's been the most consequential Commerce secretary in modern history.
• 15:33
  Like what planet do these people live on. There's actually
• 15:36
  people that believe that that shit's wild, because Howard Lutnick
• 15:43
  is not somebody who's consequential. Howard Lutnik is just another
• 15:46
  piece of the puzzle, right, another cog in the machine,
• 15:50
  another scumbag that used his wealth and power to climb high. Meanwhile,
• 15:56
  at the same time shitting on the rest of us,
• 15:59
  treating the rest of us like we're stupid and treating
• 16:02
  the rest of us like we should just move on. Well,
• 16:05
  guess what, Howard Lutnik, we're not moving on from shit,
• 16:09
  and we're certainly not moving on from the fact that
• 16:11
  you lie to everybody about your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
• 16:15
  In fact, we're digging deeper, all right, folks. That's gonna
• 16:20
  do it for this one. All the information that goes
• 16:23
  with this episode can be found in the description box.