Speaker 1: Welcome to the Deep Dive, the show where we take
these incredibly tangled stories, stories that are politically charged, socially unsettling.
Speaker 2: And we really try to pull them apart. We pull
on the threads to show you exactly what matters.
Speaker 1: And today we are wrestling with a story that, I mean,
it really defines that intersection of wealth, power, and just
profound moral failure.
Speaker 2: We are talking, of course, about the relentless and still
unfolding saga of Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: You know, this is a story that's just defined by paradox.
For years, this same core question just keeps coming.
Speaker 2: Up, which is, how how did a convicted sex offender,
someone who should have been a complete pariah.
Speaker 1: Right instantly ostracized?
Speaker 2: How did he acquire and then maintain such staggering influence,
such wealth, and this proximity to the global elite.
Speaker 1: And maybe the even bigger question is why the power
structure seemed to protect him, you know, even after his
first conviction.
Speaker 2: That is our mission for you today. We are going
to track the political drama, this whole saga that led
to the let's call it grudging release of these critical documents.
Speaker 1: It's a real case study in congressional revolt and a
complete presidential reversal.
Speaker 2: We are diving deep into these shocking ethical revelations that
have already come out, things that have just crippled high
profile figures.
Speaker 1: People like Larry Summer, Stacey Plaski exactly.
Speaker 2: And then we're going to confront the really deep seated rumors,
the idea that Epstein's true power base wasn't just financial
or predatory, but that it was rooted in something much
bigger geopolitical influence, the really unsettling possibility that he was
functioning as a kind of high level foreign agent.
Speaker 1: And to do this, we're drawing from some really solid sources.
There's a lot of extensive political reporting that details those
legislative fights.
Speaker 2: We're also looking at detailed analysis of the emails that
have just been released, all what twenty thousand plus pages
of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a huge trove of correspondence. And then there's some
crucial expert commentary we're leaning on. Specifically, we're trying to
link the legal and intelligence angles. So for that we're
using insights from a former FBI counter intelligence officer, Eric O'Neil.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a heavy hitter.
Speaker 1: And we're pairing that with the really meticulous investigative reporting
of Ryan Gram. His work at dropsite has been laser
focused on the geopolitical and financial dimensions of this whole network.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's get into it. Let's unpack this whole thing.
We have to start with the immediate political drum. The
centerpiece is President Trump signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Speaker 1: A bill that was signed only after months and months
of his administration opposing it.
Speaker 2: So, for you, the learner, the biggest question now is
whether this sudden pivot, this move towards transparency is just
a political game.
Speaker 1: Is it designed to fail a dud, you know, because
of heavy.
Speaker 2: Redaction, or represent a genuine turning point. Is this the
moment that will finally expose the full horrifying depth of
the network? Yeah, that protected Jeffrey Epstein for so long.
Journey to get that signature was it was just pure
political trench warfare? Oh?
Speaker 1: Absolutely. President Trump pulled what the source material rightly calls
a dramatic abault face.
Speaker 2: He signed a bill he had fought tooth and nail
for months.
Speaker 1: And let's be clear, this wasn't some sudden change of heart.
Speaker 2: This was him surrendering he was giving in to what's
described as immense political pressure and maybe more importantly, an
internal Republican party revolt.
Speaker 1: The velocity of that shift is what's so fascinating. The
pressure was just building and building to a breaking point.
Speaker 2: So the House was expected to pass the bill right
with near unanimous support after Trump finally backed down.
Speaker 1: But even that was filled with tension. The vote actually
got delayed by.
Speaker 2: A single holdout.
Speaker 1: A single holdout Republican Representative Clay Higgins.
Speaker 2: Clay Higgins is not exactly a figure known for his
let's say, legislative nuance, which made his holdout even more
damaging for the Republican leadership politically speaking.
Speaker 1: Right, the source material cites his his prior controversial history,
supporting some of the most outlandish of.
Speaker 2: Trump's claims, including that deeply xenophobic social media post about
Haitian immigrants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where he described them as and this is a
quote wild eating pets, voodoo.
Speaker 2: So this is the guy holding up a transparency bill exactly.
Speaker 1: The optics were just terrible. You have the entire body,
led by Republicans trying to pass this bill, and one
of the most controversial, you know, fringe members is the
only thing standing in the way.
Speaker 2: Which puts the speaker, Mike Johnson, in a tough.
Speaker 1: Spot, a very tough spot. When he finally did get
on board, it was, as the source describes it, a
grudging yes vote.
Speaker 2: He was visibly playing defense completely.
Speaker 1: He went out of his way to try and you know,
absolve the president, arguing, quote, really, Donald Trump has nothing
to worry about.
Speaker 2: And his argument was basically just deflection.
Speaker 1: Wasn't it pure deflection? He said the Biden Justice Department
had the files for four years, and that no prominent Democrat,
not Hicking Jeffreys, not Rikana, had push the issue until now.
Speaker 2: The subtext being if there was anything truly explosive in there,
the Democrats would have already used it, so Trump must be innocent.
Speaker 1: It's a calculated attempt at what you might call political immunization,
but it immediately brings up the obvious question of timing.
Speaker 2: If the administration really had nothing to hide.
Speaker 1: Then why the long, concerted effort to delay the bill
for months and months.
Speaker 2: That's the real problem, isn't it. Reuter's reported that the
White House was quietly lobbying senators to slow walk their vote.
Speaker 1: At the same time the President was publicly demanding transparency.
Speaker 2: You just can't have it both ways. And that kind
of manipulation, that game with the legislative calendar, it just
fueled this deep public skepticism.
Speaker 1: And that skepticism wasn't just coming from the opposition party.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Former Vice President Kamala Harris really highlighted the absurdity of
it all. She pointed out the contradiction, saying, all of
a sudden, he was saying he'll wait to see what
Congress does since when it.
Speaker 2: Just shows how transparent the political game was to everyone
one who is paying attention.
Speaker 1: And the timeline details they really reveal the administration's calculation.
Speaker 2: So Trump finally signs the bill that starts a thirty
day clock for the Justice Department to release the files.
Speaker 1: And where does that thirty day clock land?
Speaker 2: Less than a week before Christmas?
Speaker 1: That specific holiday timing is I mean, it's absolutely strategic.
You can't convince me otherwise.
Speaker 2: It's a classic political okay, classic.
Speaker 1: You release potentially devastating information in that dead zone between
Christmas and New Year's.
Speaker 2: The media's focus is scattered. People are preoccupied with.
Speaker 1: Holidays, The news cycle slows to a crawl. The goal
is clearly to minimize the coverage, minimize public attention, you
basically bury the story in tinsel and eggnog.
Speaker 2: And it's just fascinating to watch how that pressure plays
out in real time. When reporters actually pressed Trump on it,
on why he dragged his feet if he was so innocent,
he got incredibly defensive, aggressively, so he started resorting to
personal attacks, calling one journalist a terrible porter and a
terrible person.
Speaker 1: His defensiveness was just palpable. He claimed vindication, saying he
realized Epskin was a sick pervert and threw him out
of his club many years ago.
Speaker 2: But that defense, it just crumbles under the slightest bit
of scrutiny. It leads these two massive unanswered questions just
hanging there in the air.
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the first one.
Speaker 2: The first is the moral question, and it's the most
obvious one. If you knew Epstein was a sick pervert,
why did you just throw him out of your.
Speaker 1: Club instead of reporting him to the authorities like.
Speaker 2: Any responsible citizen would do. And the second is the
political question.
Speaker 1: If you genuinely had nothing to hide.
Speaker 2: Why wait for Congress in the Department of Justice to
force your hand, why not just order the immediate, unredacted
release of everything.
Speaker 1: The implication, which is pretty much impossible to ignore, is
that he was trying to buy time, the time for
what for the DOJ to redact anything sensitive before the
political firestorm could really hit. And that suspicion, it's not
just in the media. It's deeply rooted in the electorate.
The polling data confirms it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we look at a yugav poll that asked voters
directly if they believe Donald Trump was involved in crimes
allegedly committed by Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: And the numbers were, what.
Speaker 2: A stunning forty six percent of all voters said yes,
forty six percent compared to just twenty nine percent who
said no.
Speaker 1: And this is where that political pressure becomes truly internal.
This isn't just a partisan issue, is it not?
Speaker 2: At all? That forty six percent includes nine percent of
self identified Republicans who hold that same suspicion.
Speaker 1: Nine percent of his own party.
Speaker 2: That level of internal distrust, combined with you know, the
general public distaste for the long government shutdown that happened
right before this, Yeah, that's what forced the president's hand.
Speaker 1: And that's what resulted in that dramatic about face.
Speaker 2: The political cost of looking like you're protecting Epstein finally
outweighed the risk of releasing the albeit redacted documents.
Speaker 1: So the act a sign the clock is ticking and
the first major relief uses of correspondence start to drop
over twenty thousand pages of emails.
Speaker 2: And he immediately delivered the shocks everyone was expecting. We're
talking about figures of immense mainstream political and well intellectual prestige,
and the.
Speaker 1: First big name to just crash and burn was Larry Summers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What stands out about Summers, you know, the former
US Treasury Secretary and influential economic advisor to President Obama,
is the sheer duration and timing of his relationship with Epstein.
Speaker 1: He kept in contact, which the sources describe as congenial,
well into twenty nineteen, right up until the.
Speaker 2: Day Epstein was finally arrested.
Speaker 1: It's just it defies belief, it really does.
Speaker 2: This isn't just some old contact from the past. This
is years after Epstein's conviction, years after he was a
known branded sex offender.
Speaker 1: And the content of their exchanges was just it was
truly toxic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the released emails detailed some highly inappropriate contact about
Summer's personal life.
Speaker 1: Specifically, he was discussing his attempts to and I'm quoting Bed,
a younger woman at Harvard.
Speaker 2: And to be clear, Summers was a mentor figure to
this woman at the university. He wasn't her direct teacher.
But the power dynamic.
Speaker 1: Is the power dynamic is the whole issue. The ethical
breach here isn't just maintaining contact with a convicted predator.
It's seeking his advice and discussing this deeply problematic pursuit
involving a subordinate figure at.
Speaker 2: An institution where Summers wielded massive, massive power. He's an
institutional titan at Harvard.
Speaker 1: So to use Epstein as a sounding board or even
a confidant for pursuing a mentee, it just shows a
profound lapse in judgment, an alarming disregard for the very
norms that are supposed to protect students.
Speaker 2: Well. The fallout from it shows that even Somers understood
the scale of his error.
Speaker 1: He had to He released a statement calling the association
a major error of judgment.
Speaker 2: He immediately stepped aside from his teaching duties at Harvard,
which then launched its own internal investigation.
Speaker 1: And he resigned from the board of Open AI.
Speaker 2: That's a very quick, very comprehensive retreat from public life.
Speaker 1: It suggests a preemptive damage control measure, doesn't it. He knew,
as the sources say, that there's even more on the.
Speaker 2: Way, so he was cutting ties before the next shoe
could drop.
Speaker 1: And if you compare his timeline to other figures, like
say Prince Andrew.
Speaker 2: Who cut contact a decade and a half.
Speaker 1: Earlier, right Summer's insistence on maintaining that communication right up
to the final arrest, it makes his association look so
much more deliberate, so much more continuous.
Speaker 2: It really speaks to a deep sense of entitlement among
certain members of the elite, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: It does the idea that the rules apply to everyone
else but not to them, and that Epstein, regardless of
his past, was somehow still useful.
Speaker 2: And that idea of utility brings us to the next revelation,
which is arguably even more politically brazen. Stacey Plaski, the
non voting Democratic delegate for the US Virgin Islands, her
relationship with Epstein. It wasn't sexual, but it was profoundly financial.
Speaker 1: And decades long, largely.
Speaker 2: Because Epstein owned an Eye Island and her constituency.
Speaker 1: That relationship really defined their whole connection. He was her
local representative, so Epstein donated to her campaign and she
represented his interests, and.
Speaker 2: The victims quite understandably saw this as facilitation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The sources detail a previous and unsuccessful lawsuit where
victim's alleged Plasket facilitated Epstein in his ongoing sex trafficking
operation we by ensuring he received preferential treatment and unfettered,
unmonitored freedom while he was living in the Virgin Islands.
Speaker 2: And the release emails they gave us a clear, undeniable
picture of just how transactional their connection was.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Plasket personally emailed the convicted sex offender.
Speaker 2: Asking for campaign contributions.
Speaker 1: Explicitly writing I would be grateful for his support and
the support of those that he made direct to assist me.
Speaker 2: It's a direct request for money and connections from a
person everyone knew should be completely radioactive, and that's bad enough.
Speaker 1: But the most stunning revelation the real puppet master moment.
Speaker 2: Came from that twenty nineteen incident during a congressional hearing.
Speaker 1: The Michael Cohen hearing, Trump's former fixer.
Speaker 2: Describe that moment for us because it really highlights how
Epstein was actively trying to manipulate legislative action from the sidelines.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Epstein is watching the hearing on television, and
he's simultaneously texting Plaskett, who is sitting right there in Congress.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: He starts with just pure personal flattery. You look good, great,
great dress, you know, softening her up right, and then
he moves straight into legislative direction. He texts her that
Cohen had brought up Rona, Keeper of the Secrets.
Speaker 2: And Plasket's reply is the key here. It shows her
panic and her readiness to just comply immediately, even though
she has no idea what he's talking about exactly.
Speaker 1: She replies Rona quick, I'm up next? Is that an acronym?
Speaker 2: She's asking for clarification while literally waiting for her turn
to speak.
Speaker 1: Epstein clarifies that's his assistant, So.
Speaker 2: She takes a question, rushes to the microphone and immediately
asks about miss Rona. She mistakenly believes Rona is a
last name.
Speaker 1: She was referring to Ronograph, Trump's executive assistant, but she
was just guessing at the context, the political absurdity of it,
reading a script provided by a convicted sex offender without
even understanding the subject matter.
Speaker 2: It's immense and Epsty's reply after she did it good work.
She was operating as a literal conduit for him.
Speaker 1: And her defense, which the sources labeled the excuse for
the ages was that she quote believed that Jeffrey Epstein
had information and I was going to get information to
get at the truth.
Speaker 2: Then she just dismisses the whole thing early.
Speaker 1: That's what this whole Epstein thing is about. It's about
moving forward.
Speaker 2: That kind of flippant dismissal, the idea that we should
just move forward after she was caught taking questions from
a criminal operator. That's what breeds such extreme public cynicism.
Speaker 1: It exposed a fundamental truth about Washington culture, didn't it.
That campaign contributions buy you access, they buy you favors,
and they.
Speaker 2: Can even buy you manipulation of the legislative process.
Speaker 1: And the political hypocrisy from her colleagues that followed was
immediate and uh highly corrosive.
Speaker 2: Democrats like Hakeen Jeffries and Jamie Raskin, who had spent
years using Trump's connections to Epstein as a political.
Speaker 1: Hammer, suddenly went silent. When they were confronted with Plasket's actions.
Speaker 2: Jeffries completely refused to address her directly. Instead, he deflected.
Speaker 1: He started praising the work of Representative Massy of Rocanna,
but most importantly the survivors. He strategically hid behind the
survivor to avoid.
Speaker 2: Holding his own party member accountable.
Speaker 1: And Raskin's response was maybe even more damaging in terms
of just minimizing the ethics of it. What did you
say when asked about the ethical breach? He just dismissed
it entirely. He said, where's the ethical transgression? He's just
a constituent. He'd paid his debt to society.
Speaker 2: Which completely ignores the profound difference between a normal constituent
interaction and having a highly compromised figure feed you specific
unverified questions during a high profile hearing.
Speaker 1: And the source material is really clear on this point.
This institutional refusal to hold your own side accountable, it
feeds that dangerous public perception that both sides are as
bad as.
Speaker 2: Each other and that they are all in on it.
Speaker 1: That narrative whether it's true or not, is precisely what
Donald Trump is counting on to mitigate his own exposure.
Speaker 2: It shifts the blame from one person's criminal connections to
an entire system's generalized corruption. Okay, so the files are coming,
But the big question that one everyone is asking is
how much are we actually going to get to see
the timing of President Trump's executive order? You know, launching
a new investigation into prominent Democrats like Bill Clinton and Larry.
Speaker 1: Summers less than a week before he signed the Transparency Act.
Speaker 2: It looks so calculated. Was this a tactical move to
create a loophole for redaction?
Speaker 1: Well, according to Eric O'Neil, the former FBI counterintelligence expert
we mentioned, the answer is yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2: He says this is standard procedure.
Speaker 1: He emphasizes that the ongoing investigation loophole is standard operating
procedure in law enforcement, and it's always the most potent
tool for.
Speaker 2: Reaction, and the legal rationale behind that protection is pretty powerful,
even if it is politically frustrating for us.
Speaker 1: It's a core principle of due process right. You can't
release information related to an active, ongoing investigation because doing
so risks unfairly identifying, punishing, or destroying the reputation of
individuals who might ultimately be found innocent before they're ever
formally indicted.
Speaker 2: O'Neill stresses that an investigation has to pursue both innocence
and guilt right.
Speaker 1: So by launching new investigations into prominent democrats, the DOJ
and the FBI now have a legitimate legal basis to
redact all correspondence related to those people.
Speaker 2: Regardless of what that correspondence actually says.
Speaker 1: It all just gets covered under the umbrella of ongoing
investigative goals. It will simply, as he puts it, not
be part of the Epstein files information that is produced
in the next thirty days.
Speaker 2: So O'Neil's and analysis is here is key. He thinks
the success of the act really hinges on how many
redactions fall unto this specific category exactly.
Speaker 1: He says, a positive sign would be if the DOJ
is redacting information related to dozens of people, because that
means they are actively being investigated in. A negative sign
would be if they release the files with no open
investigation redactions. That would signal that they aren't pursuing anybody seriously.
Speaker 2: And that potential lack of action is exactly what previous
claims suggested, right like from former Agpambondi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when she said there was no there there and
no actionable information or client list.
Speaker 2: So the sudden shift to launching investigations now months later,
it certainly invites suspicion that this is just a delaying tactic.
Speaker 1: The DOJ is caught in a really impossible political bind here.
They have to demonstrate action to appease Congress and the public.
Speaker 2: Well at the same time using legal defenses to protect
the integrity of any legitimate investigation they might have.
Speaker 1: O'Neil outlined five key areas. He calls them the five
legal shields that the DOJ is either obligated or allowed
to use for redaction even under this new Mandatory Disclosure Act.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's walk through those shields, starting again with the
first one.
Speaker 1: One ongoing investigations. We've covered this, but the Act requires
that this specific redaction must be incredibly narrow.
Speaker 2: And crucially, the DOJ has to report why they are
withholding it right.
Speaker 1: A public report that will give us the first real
window into the scope and targets of their current inquiries,
but without revealing any names.
Speaker 2: Okay. The second shield is one that absolutely has to
be prioritized, no matter what the political pressure is.
Speaker 1: Two victim's identities. This is the most important ethical and
legal shield. Any information that could possibly identify a victim
will be.
Speaker 2: Scrubbed, as it should be.
Speaker 1: The individuals who suffered this abuse have to be protected,
and they must retain the right to decide if they
want to come forward on their own terms. This shield
is non negotiable. It's essential to prevent any further trauma.
Speaker 2: What about the people who cooperate with the FBI. You
have to protect the ability of law enforcement to get.
Speaker 1: Witnesses, right, that's shield number three, cooperating witnesses informants. If
someone was, say a small fish, who committed a minor
crime and is now cooperating with the DOJ or FBI
to catch the big fish.
Speaker 2: Their identity has to be redacted, has.
Speaker 1: To be to ensure their safety and their continued usefulness.
They'll likely be referenced generically something like confidential informant one.
Speaker 2: It's standard prosecutorial strategy.
Speaker 1: Right, You sacrifice the ability to prosecute a minor crime
in order to secure a major conviction.
Speaker 2: Okay, so then we get into the more procedural protections,
starting with the judicial process itself right.
Speaker 1: Four grand jury material, testimony deliberations, any specific information used
to secure indictments. All of that is typically protected from.
Speaker 2: Disclosure, and the reason for that the.
Speaker 1: Grand jury process is meant to be secret to protect
the innocent and ensure the integrity of the whole process.
We will not get to see how the grand jury
decided which charges to pursue.
Speaker 2: And finally, there's the internal bureaucracy of the agencies.
Speaker 1: Five internal DOJFBI deliberations. This is often called the sausage
making process.
Speaker 2: How they decided what to pursue, what intelligence to prioritize,
what resources were.
Speaker 1: Allocated exactly, and this is protected by attorney client privilege,
especially if they were clever enough to involve their general
counsel in those high level communications. This will likely be
a very large category of redactions.
Speaker 2: And it will prevent us from understanding the true depth
of any institutional cover up or lack thereof. Precisely so,
the thirty day clock is ticking. What does Eric O'Neil,
as a former insider, actually believe about the feasibility of
them meeting this deadline?
Speaker 1: He's highly skeptical. O'Neill notes that, having been on the
government side doing these kinds of massive sensitive redactions, thirty
days is a virtually impossible.
Speaker 2: Timeframe, so he expects delays.
Speaker 1: He fully expects the DOJ will ask for and likely
be granted more time. The public really needs to be
prepared for that, and.
Speaker 2: Once the eventually redacted files released, the fight for the
rest of the information just begins.
Speaker 1: Right that's when it really kicks off. The Act requires
the DOJ to explain why they withheld information within fifteen
days after the files.
Speaker 2: Are released, and what does that explanation look like.
Speaker 1: It'll be entirely legal and procedural. They won't provide names,
but they will use broad brush categories to explain which
legal rule like ongoing investigation or victim Protection Rule six
y was used for each batch of redactions.
Speaker 2: But that detailed legal justification is the key.
Speaker 1: It's the key because it allows outside experts like O'Neil
to read between the lines and get a deeper sense
of what is being protected and why, and.
Speaker 2: Then Congress and the public can unleash the hounds exactly.
Speaker 1: Congressional committees will immediately demand to see all redacted material
in a closed session. That's what the legal term in
camera means.
Speaker 2: It's not about filming, No.
Speaker 1: It means the documents are shown privately to the committee
under strict security clearance, away from the public eye, so
Congress can determine if the DOJ actually followed the letter.
Speaker 2: Of the law. Yeah.
Speaker 1: At the same time, outside victim advocacy groups and special
interest organizations will file Freedom of Information Act FOIA requests
and they'll likely launch lawsuits demanding the release of the
rest of the information.
Speaker 2: So the Act begins the process, But the transparency fight,
it's really just getting started. Okay. Now, let's shift to
the most explosive and frankly, the most persistent question in
this whole saga. How did Epstein secure and then sustain
this seemingly limitless power and wealth.
Speaker 1: This is where the speculation often centers on the theory
that he was an agent of Israel or Masad.
Speaker 2: It's a compelling narrative, isn't it, because it offers a
neat explanation for the unexplained wealth and protection he seemed
to have.
Speaker 1: It does. However, former FBI agent Eric O'Neil, he really
dismisses the idea of him being a formal card carrying
massad agent as speculation, a conspiracy theory, and his reasoning,
he states, there is nothing that proves that in the
thirty thousand plus pages of evidence that have been released
so far. O'Neill's take is that he was simply a
really bad guy with a lot of money who people
in power wanted to be around.
Speaker 2: But the lack of evidence in the release documents doesn't
necessarily mean he's innocent of that charge, right right. O'Neil
himself offered a pretty crucial caveat about national security redactions.
Speaker 1: Oh. Absolutely, The massive glaring caveat is that if Epstein
was involved in any kind of espionage, foreign counterintelligence, or
operations related to national security.
Speaker 2: That information is a slam dunk, easy to redact and
remove category of information. Right.
Speaker 1: O'Neil acknowledges that if he was a spy, we would
never ever see it disclosed in these public documents.
Speaker 2: So if the counterintelligence experts are skeptical, where does the
factual evidence of foreign government connections actually come from?
Speaker 1: This is where the investigative reporting that emerged from that
RANI and hacking group Hondola becomes so.
Speaker 2: Critical the Hondli emails.
Speaker 1: Yes, those emails detailed a strange, deeply transactional relationship between
Epstein and the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud.
Speaker 2: Barock, and these documents clearly showed Epstein was acting as
an intermediary for Barack.
Speaker 1: Quietly facilitating Barack's lucrative post government career as a salesman
of Israeli security services around the globe.
Speaker 2: We're not just talking about consulting work.
Speaker 1: Here, no, No, he was operating at a strategic global
level a broker for defense and surveillance technology. The sources
cite some highly specific examples of this global broker. For instance,
the deal in codey wir Right, Epstein broker a lucrative
security deal between Israeli interests and that West African nation,
and it essentially amounted to selling them the blueprints and
technology for a surveillance state that's.
Speaker 2: Highly sophisticated, sensitive technology being deployed in a really complex geopolitical.
Speaker 1: Environment, all facilitated by Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: And his reach wasn't just limited to Africa.
Speaker 1: No, they also struck security deals and created extra business
opportunity in Mongolia, which just shows Epstein's wide reaching network
into Asia. He was providing global access to governments that
were desperate for defense and surveillance capabilities.
Speaker 2: He even dabbled in some alternative high stakes diplomacy he did.
Speaker 1: The documents reveal Epstein organizing a back channel meeting between
Ahud Barak and Russian President Vladimir.
Speaker 2: Putin and the goal of that meeting.
Speaker 1: To try and encourage Russia to end the conflict in Syria.
This shows him operating completely outside of traditional diplomatic channels
trying to influence global conflicts. That's a role that far
exceeds just being a high net worth playboy.
Speaker 2: And his proximity to Israeli intelligence interests. Yeah, it couldn't
be any closer. He housed a senior Israeli intelligence officer
in his Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Apartment on and off for years.
Speaker 2: That level of access suggests an operational usefulness, whether or
not he held a formal spy designation.
Speaker 1: And this brings us to Ryan Grimm, the investigative reporter
from dropsite. He offers what I think is the most
compelling framework for understanding Epstein's ultimate power.
Speaker 2: What's his take?
Speaker 1: Grimm argues that asking if Epstein worked for Masad or
the Cia is actually the wrong.
Speaker 2: Question because it inverts the power dynamics at play exactly.
Speaker 1: Grimm suggests Epstein was operating within a supernational global elite,
the Davos men and women.
Speaker 2: And their ultimate allegiance isn't to the US or Israel
or any single nation state.
Speaker 1: But to this global power set itself, competing for influence
within it. And Epstein was at the absolute epicenter of
this group.
Speaker 2: And the implication of that is terrifying. Instead of an
elite working for intelligence.
Speaker 1: Agencies, Grim suggests intelligence agencies often work for these elites,
serving the interests in the competing factions within that global
power structure.
Speaker 2: So Epstein, the ultimate connector and facilitator, was positioned above them,
not beneath them.
Speaker 1: And Grimm's conclusion is that this framework does answer that
ultimate question of his value and his wealth.
Speaker 2: It wasn't primarily about blackmail, right.
Speaker 1: Blackmail was certainly a tool in the tool, but he
was valuable because he was a constant connector delivering deals, money, power,
and access in these incredibly complex global operations.
Speaker 2: His specific, highly technical expertise was crucial here.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, he understood how to move immense sums of money
without a trace. He had a deep command of global
tax and money laundering policy. This was essential for figures
involved in high level warlord activity, mining magnets, and weapons companies.
Speaker 2: The shocking conclusion, then, as Grim articulates, it, is that
in many of these cases, the elites didn't need to
be blackmailed to be drawn in.
Speaker 1: They wanted to use Epstein as the connector to make
incredibly complex, shady shady deals come together. In places like
Cote de War Mongolia, Nigeria, the UAE.
Speaker 2: Epstein was the untraceable, non ideological conduit who could deliver
on any promise.
Speaker 1: And that access became his ultimate currency.
Speaker 2: So given the gravity and the specific nature of this
documented evidence about geopolitical fixing about proximity to high level
foreign intelligence, why do the sources note this profound media
blackout in the US.
Speaker 1: It is a striking phenomenon. Most mainstream American media outlets
have focused intensely on the salacious sex trafficking aspect the
celebrity connections.
Speaker 2: But they've imposed with the source calls a near media
blackout on the Israel and broader foreign agent allegations.
Speaker 1: Reason Magazine is cited as a rare exception that actually
covered the complexity of the Hondola emails, and this.
Speaker 2: Blackout has real world political consequences, doesn't it. It creates
this information imbalance.
Speaker 1: A huge one. The sources highlighted the absurdity of it
when Representative Marjorie Taylor Green alluded to the geopolitical reporting
during a hostile CNN interview.
Speaker 2: Right Because CNN hadn't covered the content of the emails,
the deals the intelligence officer living in his apartment.
Speaker 1: She sounded, She sounded completely crazy to their viewers, even
though the factual correspondence was publicly available. It allowed the
network to just dismiss the complex document intelligence aspect as
pure conspiracy theory.
Speaker 2: So if we connect the public cynicism that was generated
by this whole slow walk transparency fight right and the
clear exposure of elite ethical.
Speaker 1: Corruption, we can see how this controversy really affected the
American political landscape.
Speaker 2: The controversy combined with that long government shut down right
before it, it created an atmosphere that was for Donald
Trump and the Republican Party not.
Speaker 1: Making for particularly happy reading.
Speaker 2: No, the polling data released in the wake of these
crises showed a significant slide in Trump's approval rating.
Speaker 1: Writer Sipso's had him at just thirty eight percent. Marist
and Fox News had him at forty to forty one.
Speaker 2: We're talking about historical loads. One ABC poll compared it
to Harry S. Truman in nineteen fifty two. Kind of levels. Wow,
his average approval rating was dangerously close to dropping below
forty percent, a floor he very rarely breached in his
first term.
Speaker 1: And the specific reasons for that disapproval are really relevant.
It wasn't just generalolitical fatigue.
Speaker 2: No, if you look at the issues, only twenty six
percent of Americans approved of his job managing the cost
of living.
Speaker 1: A staggering sixty five percent disapproved, and that includes one
in three Republicans. That economic dissatisfaction is a powerful undercurrent
of vulnerability.
Speaker 2: But the Epstein case itself served as a direct torpedo
to his credibility.
Speaker 1: Only twenty percent of Americans approved of how Trump handled
the Epstein case. That's a massive rejection.
Speaker 2: But look deeper at the distrust. A staggering seventy percent
of all respondents believe the Trump administration is hiding information
about Epstein's.
Speaker 1: Clients seventy percent.
Speaker 2: And this is the critical number. That seventy percent includes
sixty percent of Republicans who share that suspicion.
Speaker 1: So this isn't just partisan opposition. This is the core
of his own base doubting the transparency and motives of
his administration, and.
Speaker 2: That internal erosion of trust is what fueled the pressure
that forced his hand on the Transparency Act.
Speaker 1: That internal erosion also translated into a tangible loss of
political command, which led to that major revolt we talked
about earlier.
Speaker 2: Over one hundred Republicans were prepared to defy him on
the Epstein Files Act, forcing his ultimate concession.
Speaker 1: And you combine that with the Supreme Court turning against
his tariffs and organized resistance in the Indiana State House
against his pressure to Jerrymander, it signifies a clear change
in the party dynamic.
Speaker 2: The sources also pointed to a moment that was described
as something that has not.
Speaker 1: Happened before Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 2: She stood up to Trump on a key legislative point
and he was forced to back.
Speaker 1: Down, which signals a breakdown in the previously absolute party
loyalty he could command. He's showing a vulnerability.
Speaker 2: To pressure, and this changing political dynamic has major implications
for the midterm outlook, particularly when it comes to the
Republican strategy of jerrymandering.
Speaker 1: Right, and for the general audience, we should probably clarify
what the source is called demi mandering.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is a technical detail, but it has huge consequences.
Explain strategy behind spreading Republican voters so thinly across districts.
Speaker 1: The goal of this modern jerrymandering strategy is to get
the maximum number of seats, not to have massive margins
of victory.
Speaker 2: So instead of packing Republicans into a few districts they
win with seventy five percent of the vote, which wastes
thousands of votes.
Speaker 1: They spread them out. They aim to win many more seats,
but with much narrower margins, maybe fifty five or fifty
four percent.
Speaker 2: This strategy is brilliant for maximizing your seats in a
good year, but it leads.
Speaker 1: Them acutely vulnerable to a uniform swing.
Speaker 2: Exactly if the swing against the Republicans continues, and it's
fueled by issues like cost of living, political fatigue, the
cynicism from the Epstein scandal.
Speaker 1: Then those thinly spread jerrymandered seats can flip very very quickly.
The source analysis suggests that if that swing continues, especially
among crucial demographic groups like Latinos.
Speaker 2: Those five jerrymandered seats could suddenly become Democrat seats, creating
a significant landslide risk for them.
Speaker 1: And this political fallout measured in both pulling lows and
a tangible loss of command over his party. It really
frames the Epstein controversy not just as a moral failure.
Speaker 2: But as a critical turning point, one that accelerated the
shifting power dynamics within American politics, the pushback against Trump,
Republicans refusing orders on cherrymandering, the revolt on the Epstein files.
It makes this a defining moment of his current political chapter.
Speaker 1: So today we have navigated the maze of the Epstein files.
We've tracked the legislative journey from a congressional revolt to
a grudging presidential signature.
Speaker 2: We've exposed the shocking ethical lapses of the elite people
like Summers in Plasket.
Speaker 1: We've analyzed the legal mindfield of redactions, and we've delved
deep into that international web of influence that really defined
Epstein's true power as a geopolitical broker.
Speaker 2: And the ultimate takeaway here is that the documents, even
when they're sanitized, they force us to look beyond the
simple narrative of just a sex offender.
Speaker 1: They strongly suggest that Epstein operated as a dabos man,
a high level broker for a new form of supernational
elite power.
Speaker 2: His value was in connecting defense contracts, creating diplomatic back channels,
and moving untraceable money for powerful global players.
Speaker 1: And the true currency of this new elite. It's not
based on political ideology or morality. It's based on pure
leveraged access.
Speaker 2: And if we connect this back to that core enduring mystery,
the ultimate question of his influence and protection, it raises
a chilling but really important question for you, the learner,
to consider.
Speaker 1: The evidence suggests Epstein was so valuable as a broker
delivering power and money that many powerful people were willingly
using him for these dark connections. Blackmail may have been
secondary to his utility.
Speaker 2: So if the global elite were willingly utilizing a man
like Epstein as their essential connector, what does that say
about the true nature of global governance and the allegiances
of those the very top who operate outside the constraints
of traditional nation states.