Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. Over at the New York Times, they have
Speaker 1: a new article out discussing the inside freak out as
Speaker 1: they call it, at the White House over the Epstein files,
Speaker 1: and I have no doubt that there was all sorts
Speaker 1: of freaking out, especially considering the way that they handled it.
Speaker 1: Could it have been any worse? Honestly, I don't know
Speaker 1: if anything has ever been handled more poorly by any
Speaker 1: administration in the history of the country. And I'm not
Speaker 1: even kidding when I say that, And then they have
Speaker 1: the audacity to turn around and say to you, were
Speaker 1: the most transparent administration in the history of the United States.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, they have to be trolling, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what you would think. But unfortunately, this
Speaker 1: is the reality that we're living in and our lives
Speaker 1: are being managed by a bunch of scoundrels that not
Speaker 1: only broke bread with Jeffrey Epstein, but now have the
Speaker 1: audio audacity to cover it all up. So today we're
Speaker 1: going to dive into that New York Times article and
Speaker 1: we're going to see what's up headlined inside the White
Speaker 1: House freak Out over the Epstein Files. This article was
Speaker 1: authored by Maggie Aberman and Jonathan Swan. On July seventeenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, at around six o'clock in the evening,
Speaker 1: President Trump's top officials filed into the White House Situation Room,
Speaker 1: the secure bunker where classified in high stakes national security
Speaker 1: matters are discussed and decided. This was where President Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: along with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: and the president's national security team watched the raid that
Speaker 1: ended with the death of Osama bin Laden in twenty eleven. Now, however,
Speaker 1: Trump's most senior advisors had gathered without them to figure
Speaker 1: out how to gain some measure of control over a
Speaker 1: very different kind of crisis threatening to engulf the presidency.
Speaker 1: The Epstein Files. I've never seen an administration fumble so badly.
Speaker 1: They had everything queued up. They were going around during
Speaker 1: the campaign talking about how they're going to release all
Speaker 1: the information, They're going to hold people accountable, They're going
Speaker 1: to do this, They're going to do that. Then they
Speaker 1: get into office, they get a look at the files
Speaker 1: and they realize that their boy, Donald Trump and all
Speaker 1: of his friends are littered throughout the documents. So of
Speaker 1: course that caused Donald Trump to slam on the brakes
Speaker 1: and kill the process before it even got off the ground.
Speaker 1: That was the goal, and if it wasn't for the
Speaker 1: discharge petition, it would have worked. And if you were
Speaker 1: wondering why Trump was so mad at Thomas Massey, that's why.
Speaker 1: Because without Thomas Massey and Roe Conna, and without Lauren Bobert,
Speaker 1: Nancy Mace, without Marjorie Taylor Green, we never get a
Speaker 1: look at this. So look, I'm not a big fan
Speaker 1: of all those people when it comes to all their politics, right,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to this issue, mad respect all
Speaker 1: of them. They all stood up when everybody else was
Speaker 1: sitting down. Where were the rest of the members of
Speaker 1: the GOP. Oh that's right? Too scared to Donald Trump
Speaker 1: to stand up for people who have been victimized. And
Speaker 1: I don't just mean the survivors, I mean all of us.
Speaker 1: These people have been stealing from us hand over fist
Speaker 1: for decades. But I guess that's no big deal either.
Speaker 1: Ten days earlier, the Justice Department in the FBI had
Speaker 1: jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that their review
Speaker 1: had found no client list of powerful men for whom
Speaker 1: the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured underage girls
Speaker 1: and young women. No, I don't think there's a list,
Speaker 1: but I can give you two names right off the
Speaker 1: top of my head that girls were trafficked to, Jean
Speaker 1: lu Brunel and Jess Stay. Jess Stale already admitted that
Speaker 1: he had consensual sex with one of Epstein's assistants, and
Speaker 1: if it's somebody that was also a victim, well there
Speaker 1: you go. And on Fortunately, Jean Luke Brunel and Jeffrey Epstein,
Speaker 1: they had a revolving door of girls that were being
Speaker 1: abused between the two of them. And never mind all
Speaker 1: the other scumbags that got involved. Should we talk about
Speaker 1: George Mitchell or Bill Richardson or Glenn Dubin or a
Speaker 1: Les Wexner, because all of them have been credibly accused,
Speaker 1: no investigation, nobody being brought in, nothing. And so with
Speaker 1: just those two dudes alone, it shows you that Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein traffic girls to other people. How many more people
Speaker 1: do you want? How many other co conspirators would make
Speaker 1: it trafficking? For you? Intended to put to rest years
Speaker 1: of speculation and then a pressure campaign to release the
Speaker 1: voluminous material in the department's possession. The memo instead had
Speaker 1: the opposite effect, setting off a backlash that was notably
Speaker 1: loud among the Magabase. Look, people should be giving credit
Speaker 1: for that. The people that are MAGA, the people that
Speaker 1: were a MEGA who decided that Donald Trump calling them
Speaker 1: a trader was too much, that Donald Trum I'm trying
Speaker 1: to cover this up was too much. Those people should
Speaker 1: be applauded. It's not easy to go against you know,
Speaker 1: all your friends and all your other beliefs and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. So we should give them some credit. Right,
Speaker 1: So get to have a little grace. Not everybody's your enemy.
Speaker 1: And I've told you a million times you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to work with people that you might not agree with
Speaker 1: politically on a whole host of issues to get something
Speaker 1: done here. But that's how politics works, right, That's what
Speaker 1: Detonte is. You don't have negotiations with people that you
Speaker 1: agree with. You negotiate with people that you might have
Speaker 1: some disagreements with. And the best way to do that
Speaker 1: is to find some middle ground. And if going after
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein and his network is not middle ground, then
Speaker 1: I don't know what is and it was about to
Speaker 1: get worse. The Wall Street Journal was preparing a damaging
Speaker 1: article about Trump's relationship with Epstein. The President's desperate attempts
Speaker 1: to kill the story had filled. His team now had
Speaker 1: to get everyone onto the same page about how to
Speaker 1: count or the growing swarm of attention. They needed a
Speaker 1: gesture of transparency to appease an increasingly angry base, but
Speaker 1: also a way to convey the message that the president
Speaker 1: was sympathetic to a supporter's concerns, which itself was a
Speaker 1: problem because he clearly wasn't. Well, that's true. He called
Speaker 1: ass all traders, he said, anybody who's following along with
Speaker 1: this is his enemy. Basically, imagine the president of the
Speaker 1: United States being mad because people want accountability for a
Speaker 1: human trafficker, Like, have we fallen that far where people
Speaker 1: hear this, look at this and just shrug their shoulders
Speaker 1: and they're like, ah, yeah, you know what, he has
Speaker 1: a point. No, he doesn't have a point. He's trying
Speaker 1: to cover this up. And this is what I've been
Speaker 1: telling you guys. Everybody wants that splashy gatcha moment, but
Speaker 1: in the real world, this sort of shit is messy,
Speaker 1: it's not splashy, and a lot of times it's not salacious.
Speaker 1: You get people like this on financial crimes, you get
Speaker 1: them on covering up for other people. That's how it's
Speaker 1: always worked, and for all these people that have been
Speaker 1: carrying on about Donald Trump now for eight years, with
Speaker 1: all kinds of crazy stuff, Russia, pgate, you name it.
Speaker 1: But what you have here is an actual cover up,
Speaker 1: and instead of focusing on that, you have people focusing
Speaker 1: on other things that are unprovable. Now that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I don't believe that it happened, but it's not what
Speaker 1: I believe. It's about what we can prove. And I
Speaker 1: don't think you need to be some kind of famous
Speaker 1: investigator to realize that the fix is in and that
Speaker 1: there's a gigantic cover up being run and managed directly
Speaker 1: by the White House. And I thoroughly believe that Vice
Speaker 1: President JD. Vance took a seat at the head of
Speaker 1: the table in the John F. Kennedy conference room of
Speaker 1: the Situation Room complex. This is a huge problem, he
Speaker 1: told the group. A right around him where the White
Speaker 1: House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the White House Council
Speaker 1: David Warrington, the Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, the Deputy Chief
Speaker 1: of Staff Taylor Buddha Witch, the Communications Director Stephen Chung,
Speaker 1: the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Associate Attorney General
Speaker 1: Todd Baby Billy Blanche, and the Deputy Chief of Staff
Speaker 1: James Blair. Attorney General Pound Bondi, and the FBI Director
Speaker 1: Cash Pttel joined on speakerphone. The Vice President appeared panicked
Speaker 1: to others in the room about the way the subject
Speaker 1: of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Yo, he
Speaker 1: knows what's up, one hundred percent. He knows. This whole
Speaker 1: entire thing has caused big problems. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are going to be sitting
Speaker 1: out the midterms because of it, and I think it's
Speaker 1: going to have disastrous repercussions for the GOP. Some senior
Speaker 1: officials had the impression that Vance had brought into the
Speaker 1: darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden
Speaker 1: within the country's ruling class. Well, is that wrong. Maybe
Speaker 1: not to the level that some people are trying to
Speaker 1: make it out, but predators. Nonetheless, what being predators in
Speaker 1: a financial sense is okay? I mean, people just don't
Speaker 1: get it, and it drives me crazy. Breaking news. Were
Speaker 1: all slaves, every last one of us. You got debt congratulations.
Speaker 1: You're a slave, and you're a slave to Jeffrey Epstein's people,
Speaker 1: the same people, by the way, that ruined the whole
Speaker 1: entire world in two thousand and eight. So if you
Speaker 1: think this is just about girls being trafficked or kids
Speaker 1: being abused, you have not been paying attention. Wiles would
Speaker 1: tell others that the Vice President had proved himself to
Speaker 1: be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official said later
Speaker 1: that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein issue since
Speaker 1: the release of the memo. He was privately pressing for
Speaker 1: the administration to release all the Epstein files, everything in
Speaker 1: the Justice Department's possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation. And look,
Speaker 1: he's not wrong for that. I think that President Vance
Speaker 1: is on point. And that was the campaign promise that
Speaker 1: was made by the administration. So I think that Vance
Speaker 1: is just trying to live up to that promise right now. Look,
Speaker 1: don't take it for I think Vance is doing a
Speaker 1: great job or I support him. I don't. But of
Speaker 1: all these robber barons that populate Donald Trump's administration. It
Speaker 1: looks like Vance is the only one that even cared.
Speaker 1: Vance told the group that he believed that all files
Speaker 1: should be released as soon as possible. He argued that
Speaker 1: Congress was going to force the release of the files eventually.
Speaker 1: It was already clear that a bipartisan coalition in favor
Speaker 1: of subch action was forming on Capitol Hill, and the
Speaker 1: momentum was going in one direction. If the administration got
Speaker 1: out ahead of this and released everything voluntarily, including whatever
Speaker 1: material existed about the president, it would at least get
Speaker 1: credit for transparency. The alternative was to let the story
Speaker 1: drag on for months, as information dripped out, each new revelation,
Speaker 1: renewing a cycle of suspicion and fury. Better to rip
Speaker 1: the bandage off and move on, yo. They would have
Speaker 1: been so much better served to listen to jd Vance.
Speaker 1: He had the right of it here. Get out ahead
Speaker 1: of it. Look, it might be embarrassing, and it might
Speaker 1: cause you some grief, But the more you hide it,
Speaker 1: the more you act like nothing's going on, the worse
Speaker 1: it gets when people figure out that they've been bullshitted.
Speaker 1: And I think Jay d Vance was hip to that.
Speaker 1: But Unfortunately, the rest of the administration is dancing to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's tune. Vance even floated to colleagues an extraordinary
Speaker 1: pr gambit that the White House and list Tucker Carlson
Speaker 1: to interview Epstein's longtime girlfriend and co conspirator Glenn Maxwell
Speaker 1: in prison. It might help the president if Maxwell was
Speaker 1: willing to state that Trump had not been part of
Speaker 1: any wrongdoing with Epstein. Well, that's a bad idea. That
Speaker 1: was stupid, because nobody believes Glenn Maxwell. Only the people
Speaker 1: that want to believe what Trump's saying, Right, It's all
Speaker 1: about confirmation bias with a lot of people. Me. I'm
Speaker 1: following the evidence wherever it goes, and the evidence certainly
Speaker 1: looks like Donald Trump is engaging in a cover up.
Speaker 1: That's what the evidence is telling me. And the more
Speaker 1: we hear from insiders, the more we hear about what
Speaker 1: was going on on the ground, the more convinced of
Speaker 1: it I am. Even unsubstantiated allegations and anecdotes about Trump
Speaker 1: should go out. Vans argued they were going to surface regardless,
Speaker 1: and if the administration published them first, it would demonstrate
Speaker 1: good faith and take the oxygen out of the conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: His arguments fell on skeptical ears, but some advisers thought
Speaker 1: it would be good to have Justice Department officials call
Speaker 1: a news conference to explain their position on the Epstein affair,
Speaker 1: going beyond the memo that precipitated the crisis. At this
Speaker 1: point in the meeting, Blair spoke up. With all due respect,
Speaker 1: he said, the communication strategy of this group got us here.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going to get us out. And
Speaker 1: if you're going to go in front of the press,
Speaker 1: you've got had a lot of work to do. He
Speaker 1: began to ask pointed mock questions, demonstrating how difficult a
Speaker 1: news conference might be. As the president's former defense attorney,
Speaker 1: Blanche had a unique vantage point in the discussions. He
Speaker 1: was better equipped than anybody else in the room the
Speaker 1: way the idea is being discussed against Trump's personal and
Speaker 1: political interests. Blanche laid out what he saw as their
Speaker 1: best option. And here's how the cover up works. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump gives Blanche the orders, and then Blanche puts him
Speaker 1: into action. And then later on down the road, if
Speaker 1: anybody says, hey, Trump told him to do that, he
Speaker 1: has plausible deniability. And to also say that our conversations
Speaker 1: were privileged. So it gives Trump that armor, but it
Speaker 1: sets Todd Blanche up to take the fall, and I
Speaker 1: think that that might occur at some point. I think
Speaker 1: that if there's a real investigation into this cover up,
Speaker 1: I think that Todd Blanche is going to be the
Speaker 1: one that's holding the hot potato. Option one was to
Speaker 1: petition federal district courts in Florida and New York to
Speaker 1: unseal grand jury testimony the secret transcripts of prosecutors, presentational witnesses,
Speaker 1: and evidence in their efforts to obtain indictments in past
Speaker 1: Epstein related cases, as those were almost certain to contain
Speaker 1: no significant new information. Everyone agreed that this option was
Speaker 1: a good idea, and not only because the release was
Speaker 1: unlikely to damage the president. And look, there's no doubt
Speaker 1: that that was the goal. We talked about it at
Speaker 1: the time, and I told you that the whole entire
Speaker 1: point of what they were looking to do was to
Speaker 1: slow things down and then of course get some information
Speaker 1: out there that is recycled. Then they can say, look,
Speaker 1: we're working hard to get you all this information. We're
Speaker 1: doing everything in our power every single day to be transparent. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes they're doing everything, but under the federal
Speaker 1: rules of criminal procedure, the secrecy of grand jury material
Speaker 1: is regarded by most federal judges as almost always inviolate,
Speaker 1: and the bar for any release is exceptionally I if
Speaker 1: the court refused to unseal them, as Blanche predicted, they
Speaker 1: could shift blame for withholding the Epstein material away from
Speaker 1: the Trump administration and onto the judges. Exactly what they
Speaker 1: tried to do, and exactly what I pointed out at
Speaker 1: the time, and all the better if the judges had
Speaker 1: been appointed by Democratic presidents. Blant's suggestion would make it
Speaker 1: appear that the White House wanted the materials released when
Speaker 1: it was almost certain not to happen. We call that
Speaker 1: a cover up where I'm from. Option number two was
Speaker 1: to have Justice Department lawyers questioned Maxwell and publicly release
Speaker 1: the transcript. A twist on the idea proposed earlier by Vance.
Speaker 1: Blanche offered to interview Maxwell himself. What if we get
Speaker 1: her to talk to Congress, Vance suggested. Blanche raised the
Speaker 1: possibility that Maxwell's lawyer might expect something in return for
Speaker 1: her candor Oh she got it, didn't she? Nice little
Speaker 1: move down the club fed everything's all good for Glaine Warrington.
Speaker 1: The White House Council responded by laying out the available
Speaker 1: choices without advocating any of them. Maxwell could be given
Speaker 1: a pardon, he said, or she could have her sentence reduced.
Speaker 1: At that several around the table spoke up to register
Speaker 1: they're strong disapproval. Pardoning Maxwell a trafficker of young girls
Speaker 1: would create a huge pr problem. Cheng said. He predicted
Speaker 1: that in the wake of a pardon, the Epstein accusers
Speaker 1: would be fanning out on TV telling their stories have
Speaker 1: rippen the administration to shreds. Blair was also adamantly opposed
Speaker 1: to a pardon. We can't offer Glenn Maxwell anything, he said.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we would, and be if we
Speaker 1: give Glenn Maxwell any sort of break whatsoever, and then
Speaker 1: she turns around and says nice things about us, or
Speaker 1: says nice things about us and we give her a break,
Speaker 1: it'll undermine the entire point of her saying good things.
Speaker 1: That'll feed the conspiracy theory. Period. If there's nothing for
Speaker 1: her to say that hurts us, we shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: offer her anything. That's a pretty fair assessment. No, The
Speaker 1: consensus was that calling for the release of the grand
Speaker 1: jury material was the best course of action. Wyles told
Speaker 1: the group she would discuss the matter with Trump and
Speaker 1: ask if you would send a truth social post calling
Speaker 1: for the release of the sealed grand jury documents. Just then,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal article they had been trying to
Speaker 1: kill was published online. Cell phones are forbidden in the
Speaker 1: situation room, so a staff member brought in printed copies
Speaker 1: of the explosive report, which detailed how Trump and many
Speaker 1: others had created birthday cards and letters to be assembled
Speaker 1: by Maxwell into a special birthday book for Epstein in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. The birthday card attributed to Trump
Speaker 1: depicted a nude woman, hand drawn and inscribed with an
Speaker 1: imagined dialogue between the two men about a wonderful secret.
Speaker 1: Imagine a wonderful secret? Is it? The drawing was signed
Speaker 1: with what appeared to be Trump's distinctive jagged sharpie signature
Speaker 1: in a place of the woman. Subicare another part of
Speaker 1: the cover up that looks to be provable. If this
Speaker 1: was something that was forged, why is there no investigation?
Speaker 1: You would think, like I've said a million times, that
Speaker 1: if the President of the United States is being impersonated
Speaker 1: by someone, we should probably know, and there should be
Speaker 1: a gigantic investigation into who and why. We haven't seen
Speaker 1: that though, have we? Well that's weird considering Donald Trump
Speaker 1: likes to use the FBI to go after everybody, but
Speaker 1: not the people that allegedly forged this letter, seems a
Speaker 1: bit suspect to me. In the days before publication, Trump,
Speaker 1: in the effort to quash the story, called News Corp
Speaker 1: Executive Robert Thompson, News Corp Owner Rubert Murdoch, the Journal's
Speaker 1: editor in chief Emma Tucker, practically shouting. The President told Tucker,
Speaker 1: who was British, that she must hate America. He told
Speaker 1: her he would file a lawsuit. But none of his
Speaker 1: bullying has worked, and now the group sat quietly reading
Speaker 1: the full story in the situation room, whiles ready to
Speaker 1: public denial for the President, which he soon posted on
Speaker 1: social media. Shortly after this, the President posted again he
Speaker 1: was going along with the plan his advisers had hashed
Speaker 1: out in the situation Room, though it was clear he
Speaker 1: didn't like having to do it. Based on the ridiculous
Speaker 1: amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I've asked Attorney
Speaker 1: General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand
Speaker 1: jury testimony subject to court approval. This scam perpetuated by
Speaker 1: the Democrats should end right now. Scam. Imagine calling this
Speaker 1: a scam. No, mister President, the only scam that's being
Speaker 1: run is the one you're running on the American people.
Speaker 1: In response to a request for comment, a White House
Speaker 1: spokeswoman Abigail Jackson repeated Trump's claim that he was innocent
Speaker 1: in all Epstein related matters, adding that by releasing thousands
Speaker 1: of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee
Speaker 1: subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling
Speaker 1: for more investigation into Epstein's Democrat friends, President Trump has
Speaker 1: done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him. Why
Speaker 1: don't you ask the survivors how they feel about that comment,
Speaker 1: because I assure you they do not agree. All right, folks,
Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap up episode one right here, and in
Speaker 1: the next episode dealing with the topic, We're gonna pick
Speaker 1: up where we left off. All the information that goes
Speaker 1: with this episode can be found in the description box.