00:02:21.140But I do think it is a very interesting example of what happens when somebody who makes their entire thing about feeding conspiracy theories and builds up a loyal following in doing so tries to put that toothpaste back in the tube.
00:02:37.020So here's what's going on for folks who don't know.
00:02:39.580First, I'll start with a kind of quick and dirty crash course on who Epstein was with a few diversions, how we got here, and then I'll get into what I think it all means.
00:03:18.600And of course, while teaching, he had a reputation for inappropriate behavior with his students.
00:03:23.500He was first convicted of sex crimes against minors in 2008 and got off with a very lenient sentence, only about 13 months with work release.
00:03:32.620After serving his unbelievably short sentence, Epstein continued to amass money, power, and influence until he was arrested again in 2019.
00:03:41.800Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
00:03:46.860The New York City medical examiner ruled his death a suicide, but conspiracy theories claiming that Epstein didn't kill himself began to spread almost immediately in the aftermath of his death.
00:03:57.440The idea here is that Epstein did not actually die of suicide like we were told, but instead was taken out to avoid more details that might incriminate powerful people.
00:04:07.040And it's one of those theories that kind of works regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, because Epstein had deep ties with both political parties.
00:04:14.220The thing about Epstein is that part of his M.O. really was ingratiating himself in lots of influential spaces with wealthy, powerful people.
00:04:22.800He gave donations to a lot of influential spaces.
00:04:25.260We did an episode that I'll link to in the show notes about the contributions that he made to MIT's Media Lab
00:04:30.340and the Kenyan first year MIT grad student who called this out and called for the head of the Media Lab to resign once his connections to Jeffrey Epstein were revealed.
00:04:39.280So it's one of those things where a lot of powerful, rich, and or famous people on all sides of the aisle had deep connections with Epstein at one time or another.
00:04:47.580And that is exactly the way that Epstein designed it.
00:04:50.440Now, obviously, just because somebody was connected to Epstein does not mean they did anything illegal.
00:04:55.980Rich and famous people know other rich and famous people.
00:04:58.440so once Epstein was in some of those circles, I think a lot of people probably did just casually
00:05:03.720know them because they were all rich and powerful, not necessarily because they were all doing crimes
00:05:08.800together. Just to give you a sense of the diversity of people who were connected to Epstein's world,
00:05:14.800allow me two quick diversions. One is that I just finished the fantastic memoir called What Remains
00:05:20.760by Carol Radswell, formerly of The Real Housewives of New York City, and once I finished the book,
00:05:25.660I flipped the book around the back cover to see her author photo and was shocked to see the photo
00:05:31.060credit because that photo was taken by none other than Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently
00:05:36.560incarcerated in connection with helping traffic women and girls for Epstein.
00:05:45.020The second diversion, if you'll allow me, is Epstein's connection to the creator of one of
00:05:50.520my favorite television shows, The Simpsons, Matt Groening. One of the last accusers of Epstein to
00:05:56.660be public and not use a pseudonym like Jane Doe was Virginia Gouffre, who died by apparent suicide
00:06:02.700this April, who in court described being sexually abused by Epstein. She gave a detailed description
00:06:09.280of a foot massage that she said that she was asked to give Matt Groening when she was 16 years old on
00:06:14.820a private flight in California. This specific claim was made in an unpublished manuscript that
00:06:19.940she wrote called The Billionaire's Playboy Club, where she described how she was talking to Matt
00:06:24.180Groening on a flight, telling him how much she loved The Simpsons when Epstein suggested that
00:06:28.480she give Matt Groening a foot massage. And she agrees. He takes off his shoes and his feet are
00:06:34.140so horrible that she's like, I can't do this. And she takes out a rag and washes them first because
00:06:40.800that's how bad they are. And as a show of thanks, Matt Groening gets her a little drawing of her
00:06:46.840two favorite Simpsons characters, Homer and Bart, as a thank you. Disgusting. So I wanted to share0.96
00:06:53.280that to illustrate the diversity of famous, powerful, and wealthy people who have a connection
00:06:58.760to Epstein. And that is by design. He did this as a way of protecting himself and shielding himself
00:07:04.360from accountability for his many crimes. Kind of like we talked about in that episode that we did
00:07:08.600about Diddy. Really getting in tight with a lot of different powerful people across a lot of
00:07:13.300different industries and sectors, and of course, throwing around tons of money. Because how could
00:07:18.080a man who spends so much of his own money supporting charitable causes also be a serial
00:07:22.800abuser and trafficker, right? Also very similar to Sean P. Diddy Combs, Epstein was known for
00:07:28.900having hidden cameras all around his property as part of a compronaut strategy, where he would get
00:07:33.920evidence of these powerful people doing things they shouldn't be doing, and then use that to
00:07:38.560extort or blackmail them later. And he apparently extorted people like Bill Gates, who was friendly
00:07:44.860with Epstein, and eventually Epstein tried to extort him. According to the Wall Street Journal,
00:07:49.540before his arrest and death, Epstein extorted Bill Gates by threatening to release information
00:07:54.120about an extramarital affair that Gates had while he was married. Now, Gates is divorced now and has
00:07:59.420admitted that he had affairs while he was married. This is from The Guardian. Epstein found out about
00:08:04.300the Microsoft's co-founder's affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova, and he threatened
00:08:09.420Gates into reimbursing him for tuition costs that Epstein had initially covered for Antonova to
00:08:14.280attend a software coding school. Epstein's threat to Gates came in the form of an email he sent in
00:08:19.3202017 after he failed to convince Gates to join a multi-billion dollar charity fund he attempted to
00:08:25.140set up. I looked into this story and it's kind of a very weird situation. Basically, this 20-year-old
00:08:31.460Russian bridge enthusiast Antinova, wanted half a million dollars to start a business that would
00:08:38.120teach people to play bridge online. Epstein was like, oh, I bet Gates will give you the money,
00:08:42.740so connected her with Bill Gates. Bill Gates declined to give her the money, but it sounds
00:08:47.660like they did start some kind of a relationship while Gates was married. Then Epstein paid for
00:08:53.680her to stay in an apartment and go to coding school. At the same time, Epstein was trying
00:08:58.340to start up this charitable fund with the bank J.P. Morgan. And this was meant to be a way for
00:09:03.160Epstein to kind of rebuild his reputation in polite society after he had to register as a
00:09:08.000sex offender because of his 2008 conviction for sex crimes against minors. But starting up this
00:09:13.080fund really relied on Epstein getting big money from Bill Gates. So Epstein was kind of scamming.
00:09:20.520He was communicating with J.P. Morgan as if he was Bill Gates's financial advisor, but in reality,
00:09:25.440he wasn't. When this scam all blew up in Jeffrey Epstein's face, it sounded like Epstein thought,
00:09:31.800well, at least Bill Gates should be reimbursing me for this woman's coding school because he
00:09:36.560ended up having an affair with her. So in 2017, Epstein emailed Gates about Antinova after Gates'
00:09:42.320affair with her ended. In the email, Epstein demanded Gates reimburse him for her coding
00:09:47.440school costs. The tone of the message was that Epstein knew about the affair and could expose it,
00:09:52.500The Wall Street Journal reported. Bill Gates' ex-wife, Melinda, has given interviews to the
00:09:57.160effect that Bill Gates' relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a contributing factor to their
00:10:02.040marriage falling apart. You know, it was also widely reported that Bill had a friendship or
00:10:08.380business or some kind of contact with Jeffrey Epstein and that you were not, that that was
00:10:13.260very upsetting to you. Did that play a role in the divorce at all in this process? Yeah, as I said,
00:10:19.340it's not one thing. It was many things. But I did not like that he'd had meetings with Jeffrey
00:10:26.040Epstein. No. And you made that clear to him. I made that clear to him. I also met Jeffrey Epstein
00:10:33.400exactly one time. Did you? Yes, because I wanted to see who this man was. And I regretted it from
00:10:41.680the second I stepped in the door. He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. I had nightmares about it
00:10:48.920afterwards. So, you know, my heart breaks for these young women because that's how I felt.
00:10:54.000And here I'm an older woman. My God, I feel terrible for those young women. It's awful.
00:10:58.660You felt that the moment you walked in. I didn't realize it. Yeah. And you shared that with Bill
00:11:03.140and he still continued to spend time with him? Any of the questions remaining about what Bill's
00:11:10.060relationship there was, those are for Bill to answer. Okay. But I made it very clear how I felt
00:11:14.380about him. So Epstein was all mixed up with all kinds of wealthy, powerful people in tech and
00:11:20.840politics and notably had connections with both Democrats and Republicans. In 2024, a federal
00:11:26.660court in Manhattan unsealed the court documents associated from a 2015 civil lawsuit and revealed
00:11:32.180the names of numerous individuals described in the suit as associates, affiliates, or victims
00:11:37.160of Jeffrey Epstein. Those names include people like President Bill Clinton and President Donald
00:11:42.600Trump, magician David Copperfield, Prince Andrew, which like no surprise there, the former Israeli
00:11:48.840prime minister, actor Kevin Spacey, lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz was a member of the legal
00:11:54.260defense team for the criminal case against Epstein in 2008, the late New Mexico governor Bill
00:11:59.360Richardson and former vice president Al Gore, among others. And of course, Trump has his own
00:12:04.720documented connections to Epstein. Trump was known to have been friendly with Epstein, telling New
00:12:09.120York Magazine in 2002. I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with.
00:12:15.280It's even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger
00:12:19.640side. Now, these statements came before there were any public allegations of wrongdoing against
00:12:25.100Epstein. Epstein and Trump shared events at Mar-a-Lago and Palm Beach, where they both lived.
00:12:30.420There is lots of video and photos of them partying together at Trump's Mar-a-Lago in 1992, 1997,
00:12:36.800and 2000. They frequently traveled together. Epstein's private jet logs list Trump on
00:12:42.580multiple flights between Palm Beach and New York in the 90s. Epstein is on audio describing Trump
00:12:48.360as, quote, his closest friend for 10 years. But remember, Epstein is somebody who inflated his
00:12:54.340connections or representation with wealthy and powerful people. So who knows? In any event,
00:12:59.400very conveniently, in 2019, after Epstein's arrest, Trump said that he had a falling out
00:13:04.480with Epstein a long time ago. So during Trump's campaigns, he really fanned the flames of the
00:13:10.740kind of conspiracy theories adjacent to Epstein, but not necessarily Epstein specifically. This is
00:13:17.360all complicated by the fact that Epstein was a real convicted child sex criminal, but his whole
00:13:22.960saga kind of got lumped in with a mishmash of harm against children conspiracy theories that
00:13:27.960are not true. Things like QAnon, Pizzagate, and Save the Children. So the fact that Epstein really
00:13:33.800was an abuser of children and really was connected to powerful political leaders kind of gets used
00:13:39.640as a proof point for a larger umbrella of often anti-Semitic false narratives about harm being
00:13:45.060done to children by a cabal of global elites who control everything. And that is the set of
00:13:50.820conspiracy theories that Trump more openly flirted with. Even if he did not often evoke
00:13:55.460Epstein specifically, you can see how this was a useful message for Trump to have used in his
00:13:59.780campaigning. Trump and his allies really harnessed the kind of simmering suspicion of establishment
00:14:04.760figures and cast Trump in opposition as this bold outsider and the only person brave enough to take
00:14:11.520on the deep state. Trump pretty openly evoked all of this while campaigning. In 2022, he reposted
00:14:17.500an image of himself wearing a Q for QAnon lapel pen overlaid with the words, the storm is coming.
00:14:24.280In QAnon lore, the storm refers to what people think will be Trump's final victory, when there will be mass arrests and maybe even mass executions of Democrat sex criminals in the street.
00:14:36.200In 2020, Trump was asked about QAnon directly in an interview.
00:14:40.580Now, he could have dismissed this as a baseless conspiracy theory, but instead he praised the movement as people that love our country.
00:14:49.320He basically was like, oh, QAnon says that I'm against pedophiles.
00:19:32.520But the exchange went like this. Friedman says, it's just very strange for a lot of people that that list of clients that went to the island has not been made public. And Trump responds, it's very interesting, isn't it? It probably will be, by the way. Friedman responds, if you're able, you'll be. And then Trump interjects and says, yeah, I'd certainly take a look at it.
00:19:53.580Now, Kennedy's interesting because it's so many years ago.
00:19:56.860They do that for danger because it endangers certain people, etc., etc.0.76
00:20:00.800So Kennedy is very different from the Epstein thing, but I'd be inclined to do the Epstein.0.87
00:24:15.120What's kind of funny is that Pam Bondi essentially blamed this whole thing on Kash Patel.
00:24:19.220Bondi released a letter to Patel accusing the FBI of inappropriately withholding
00:24:23.400thousands of pages of files related to Epstein from the DOJ and demanded the FBI turn over the
00:24:29.220material by 8 a.m. the following day. But no additional information ever came. Bondi said in
00:24:34.920a response to a question from a Fox News host about Epstein's client list that the client list
00:24:40.420is, quote, sitting on my desk right now to review. So get out those handcuffs and get ready for those
00:24:45.980perp walks because there's about to be a mass wave of arrests, right? This is going to invigorate
00:24:50.880the MAGA base, right? Well, no, because now they're saying, actually, our bad, there is no
00:24:56.280Epstein client list. They announced this on 4th of July holiday weekend, which is a classic time
00:25:01.900to drop information you kind of don't want people to see because everybody's on vacation.
00:25:06.320In a memo, they said that after a systematic review of the Epstein files, the Justice Department
00:25:11.220officials revealed no incriminating client list, nor did they find evidence that Epstein had
00:25:15.940blackmailed any powerful figures. And the memo reaffirmed that Epstein died by suicide in his
00:25:21.500Brooklyn jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. So Bondi basically
00:25:26.780said, there is no client list. Epstein died of suicide. Nothing to see here. The administration
00:25:31.720also released what they called raw video of surveillance footage of Epstein's death by
00:25:36.880suicide. However, Wired recently reported that newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly
00:25:43.320three minutes of footage were cut out from what the FBI and the DOJ described as full raw
00:25:49.620surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein's prison cell the
00:25:54.920night before he was found dead. The Trump administration said that releasing this full,
00:25:59.940this quote, full raw surveillance video was part of their commitment to fully investigate
00:26:04.720his death. But given that almost three minutes of that footage was not released, it only raised
00:26:10.300new questions about how that footage was edited and assembled. Now, Wired had previously reported
00:26:15.620that that video had been stitched together in Adobe Premiere Pro from two different video files,
00:26:20.920contradicting the Justice Department's claim that it was, quote, raw footage. And now, further
00:26:26.000analysis shows that one of the source clips was approximately two minutes and 53 seconds longer
00:26:30.700than the segment included in the final video, suggesting that that footage appears to have been
00:26:35.440trimmed before release. But to be super clear, it is unclear what, if anything at all, the minutes
00:26:41.020cut from that first clip showed. Attorney General Pam Bondi has attributed it to a nightly system
00:26:46.020reset. So as you can imagine, just even just hearing that, as you can imagine being told like,
00:26:53.380oh, that missing footage, just a normal glitch in the system that happens every night. None of this
00:26:58.440went down super well for Trump's QAnon true believers. Because remember, these are people,
00:27:03.780They are Trump's own supporters who have made their entire personality this stuff.
00:27:09.200Their entire personalities and identities, in some cases, are about getting justice for kids.
00:27:14.880Some of these people have alienated their entire families and lost lots of money because of this pursuit.
00:27:20.380And they were told by Trump that they could not trust elected officials because all the elected officials are implicated in this and lying.
00:27:27.700And now those same people are just saying, trust us and his supporters are not having it.
00:34:15.080What's going on with my, quote, boys, and in some cases, gals?
00:34:19.620They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was doing an all-caps fantastic job ellipses for some reason.
00:34:26.420Let's keep it that way and not waste any capital T time and capital E energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that no one cares about.
00:34:34.680Their new all-caps scam is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein hoax.0.98
00:34:40.780and my past supporters have bought into this bullshit hook, line, and sinker. Let these0.99
00:34:46.420weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats' work. Don't even think about talking about our
00:34:51.920incredible and unprecedented success because I don't even want their support anymore. Which,
00:34:57.300I have to say, fucking all-time truth social post from Trump, and that is really saying something.0.95
00:35:04.940And him basically coming out and saying that if you are still asking questions about Epstein,0.97
00:35:10.000I don't even want your support, I think is really something.
00:35:17.920Now, people have been saying a lot that they think that this is going to be the thing that
00:35:21.680pulls MAGA world apart. Can you believe it? Jeffrey Epstein. And you might be thinking,
00:35:25.940if I think that as well, do I think this is going to have a lasting impact in MAGA world,
00:35:31.640considering that Trump has been telling his supporters that he wants him to shut up about
00:35:35.300it and they have not shut up about it? Honestly, I really don't think so. I don't know if this is
00:35:39.600just my own cynicism and sort of resigned status to what's happening. But I think that a lot of
00:35:46.960these people have built up so much of their identities and their personalities around this,
00:35:51.700like where else would they go? Who else would enable that? Where would all that energy go?
00:35:55.920One of my favorite journalists who focuses on conspiracy for NBC, Brandy Zardroni, put it very
00:36:01.020well on Blue Sky. She writes, we're about to find out if Get Over It from a trusted leader can pull
00:36:06.060people away from a conspiracy theory. I'm skeptical, but you never know. And that really
00:36:10.300sums up how I feel about it too. And maybe we will never know because House Republicans just
00:36:16.320voted down another Democratic procedural maneuver aimed at forcing the DOJ to release documents
00:36:22.460related to Epstein. Republicans in the House voted against attaching a Democratic amendment
00:36:27.340to another piece of legislation that would have forced the DOJ to release the Epstein files.
00:36:32.180This would have, had it gone through, it would have forced Pam Bondi to publish all documents related to Epstein within 30 days.
00:36:39.160So Trump officials were trying really hard to put this whole thing to bed.
00:36:42.720But it has not been put to bed at all, because the Wall Street Journal released a report that Trump may have sent Epstein kind of a gross, crude birthday card for his 50th birthday back in 2003, with a hand-drawn picture of some boobs.
00:36:57.340And it ends with the words, a pal is a wonderful thing, happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret.
00:37:05.400Trump says he never wrote it, doesn't draw pictures, doesn't talk like that, and filed a suit against the Wall Street Journal, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, and the two journalists responsible for the article.
00:37:16.140And on Thursday night, Trump suddenly reversed course and instructed Pam Bondi to release pertinent files on the criminal investigation into Epstein, subject to court approval.
00:37:26.620And on Friday, Bondi filed a motion in New York to release grand jury transcripts associated with the Epstein case.
00:37:32.980Now, keep in mind that the Department of Justice and the FBI still retain the bulk of what those who are calling for transparency are really wanting to see.
00:37:40.640And it's not even clear what, if anything, would be potentially released in that.
00:37:45.400Meanwhile, Senate Democrats sent a letter to Bondi asking why exactly it took an additional three months to release a summary of the findings related to Epstein.
00:37:53.500and, importantly, why agents were instructed to flag any mention of Trump in whatever they found.