WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.279
<v Speaker 1>What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the

2
00:00:03.319 --> 00:00:07.360
<v Speaker 1>Epstein Chronicles. Now that we have read the full Kathy

3
00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:11.039
<v Speaker 1>Rumler transcript, I can tell you this much. Whatever you

4
00:00:11.080 --> 00:00:14.480
<v Speaker 1>thought about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein before sitting down

5
00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:18.359
<v Speaker 1>with these pages, the transcript does absolutely nothing to calm

6
00:00:18.399 --> 00:00:21.760
<v Speaker 1>the waters. If anything, it raises a whole new set

7
00:00:21.760 --> 00:00:26.399
<v Speaker 1>of questions about how somebody with Rumler's intelligence, experience and

8
00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:30.039
<v Speaker 1>legal sophistication could have moved through Epstein's world the way

9
00:00:30.079 --> 00:00:33.799
<v Speaker 1>she did, while later describing that relationship in terms that

10
00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:37.880
<v Speaker 1>fuel so carefully narrowed. The closer somebody was to Epstein,

11
00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:41.759
<v Speaker 1>the more complicated the explanation seemed to become. After the fact,

12
00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:46.759
<v Speaker 1>everybody knew him, but apparently nobody really knew him. Everybody

13
00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:51.159
<v Speaker 1>communicated with them, but somehow none of those communications meant much.

14
00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:55.200
<v Speaker 1>Everybody had their own little slice of the relationship, carefully

15
00:00:55.240 --> 00:00:58.719
<v Speaker 1>separated from everything else, and nobody ever seems to have

16
00:00:58.799 --> 00:01:02.359
<v Speaker 1>possessed the full picture. Maybe that's true in some cases,

17
00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:06.799
<v Speaker 1>maybe it's even true in many cases, But after years

18
00:01:06.799 --> 00:01:09.879
<v Speaker 1>of hearing the same basic defense wrapped in different packaging,

19
00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:12.480
<v Speaker 1>you would have to be asleep at the wheel not

20
00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:17.120
<v Speaker 1>to notice how often powerful people suddenly become incredibly incurious

21
00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:21.239
<v Speaker 1>when Jeffrey Epstein's standing in front of them, And Rumler

22
00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:25.200
<v Speaker 1>is not just anybody. She knew how investigations worked, She

23
00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:27.920
<v Speaker 1>knew how questions were framed. She knew how words could

24
00:01:27.959 --> 00:01:31.599
<v Speaker 1>be used to narrow exposure, reject premises, and keep a

25
00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:36.879
<v Speaker 1>witness from stepping any farther than absolutely necessary. So when

26
00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:39.519
<v Speaker 1>you listen to this transcript or read it, you can't

27
00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:41.439
<v Speaker 1>just look at the answers. You have to look at

28
00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:44.439
<v Speaker 1>the construction of the answers. You have to look out

29
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:49.640
<v Speaker 1>what's accepted, what's rejected, what's qualified, what's laughed off, and

30
00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:53.719
<v Speaker 1>what gets put into the category of misunderstanding or hindsight.

31
00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:57.640
<v Speaker 1>That's where the real story begins to emerge. So the

32
00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:01.200
<v Speaker 1>question now is what these people knew, what they understood,

33
00:02:01.359 --> 00:02:04.319
<v Speaker 1>what role Epstein played in their lives, and why so

34
00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:08.719
<v Speaker 1>many relationships that appeared significant in real time became strangely

35
00:02:08.759 --> 00:02:14.520
<v Speaker 1>insignificant once investigators started asking questions. That's the larger issue

36
00:02:14.719 --> 00:02:17.919
<v Speaker 1>hanging over this transcript, And once you read the whole thing,

37
00:02:18.199 --> 00:02:21.039
<v Speaker 1>not just the excerpts, not just the committee summary, not

38
00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:24.520
<v Speaker 1>just the press coverage, you start to see why this

39
00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:27.639
<v Speaker 1>interview deserves a much harder look than it's gotten so far.

40
00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:31.240
<v Speaker 1>And that's because Catherine Ruhmler's testimony should make anybody who

41
00:02:31.319 --> 00:02:34.840
<v Speaker 1>has seriously studied Jeffrey Epstein's operation want to put their

42
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:39.039
<v Speaker 1>fists through the fucking television, because rarely has the contempt

43
00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:42.960
<v Speaker 1>embedded in this entire process been displayed so cleanly by

44
00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:46.319
<v Speaker 1>a single witness. Here was a former White House counsel,

45
00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:50.719
<v Speaker 1>a woman whose professional reputation was built on being sharper

46
00:02:50.759 --> 00:02:54.520
<v Speaker 1>than everybody else in the room, suddenly presenting herself as

47
00:02:54.599 --> 00:02:58.879
<v Speaker 1>remarkably unsophisticated whenever the subject turned to the convicted sex

48
00:02:58.919 --> 00:03:03.120
<v Speaker 1>offender she maintained a relationship with that's not merely difficult

49
00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:06.520
<v Speaker 1>to believe, it's insulting to the intelligence of anyone familiar

50
00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:10.759
<v Speaker 1>with Ruhmler's career. She didn't spend decades climbing to the

51
00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:15.439
<v Speaker 1>summit of American law by failing to recognize liability, reputational danger,

52
00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:21.039
<v Speaker 1>compromised actors, or poisonous associations. She made her bones understanding

53
00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:26.039
<v Speaker 1>precisely those things, dissecting precisely those problems, and operating inside

54
00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:29.639
<v Speaker 1>environments where knowing who you were dealing with was not optional.

55
00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:33.400
<v Speaker 1>Yet Apparently Jeffrey Epstein walked through the front door, and

56
00:03:33.560 --> 00:03:37.400
<v Speaker 1>all those finely tuned instincts packed their bags and went

57
00:03:37.479 --> 00:03:40.919
<v Speaker 1>on fucking vacation. Suddenly, the woman who could navigate the

58
00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:44.800
<v Speaker 1>White House, federal investigations, elite law firms, and Wall Street

59
00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:49.080
<v Speaker 1>couldn't fully process the significance of the registered sex offender

60
00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:53.520
<v Speaker 1>standing in front of her. Suddenly every grotesque feature of

61
00:03:53.560 --> 00:03:57.599
<v Speaker 1>Epstein's story required additional context before it could penetrate. The

62
00:03:57.639 --> 00:04:00.479
<v Speaker 1>fortress of benefit of the doubt she had construct around

63
00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:04.840
<v Speaker 1>them and Congress instead of shredding that absurdity until nothing

64
00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:08.879
<v Speaker 1>was left, but the underlying facts allowed the familiar Washington

65
00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:15.560
<v Speaker 1>ritual to commence. Witness minimizes, lawyers, qualify politicians, yapp transcript drops,

66
00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:20.199
<v Speaker 1>everybody congratulates themselves, and nobody gets any closer to explaining

67
00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:25.199
<v Speaker 1>how Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly found sanctuary among people who supposedly

68
00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:28.920
<v Speaker 1>knew better. And this is why Rumler is such an

69
00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:32.800
<v Speaker 1>important figure, because she blows apart the tired excuse that

70
00:04:32.879 --> 00:04:36.439
<v Speaker 1>Epstein survived in elite society because everybody around them was

71
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:40.279
<v Speaker 1>simply too gullible to understand what they were seeing. Catherine

72
00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:44.759
<v Speaker 1>fuckin' Rumler was not gullible. Nobody who has followed her

73
00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:48.600
<v Speaker 1>career could confuse her with some wide eyed mark wandering

74
00:04:48.639 --> 00:04:51.560
<v Speaker 1>through Manhattan waiting to be conned by the first billionaire

75
00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:57.199
<v Speaker 1>who bought dinner. She was trained to interrogate facts, evaluate witnesses,

76
00:04:57.560 --> 00:05:01.759
<v Speaker 1>identify inconsistencies, and to say sipate exposure and understand what

77
00:05:01.839 --> 00:05:05.800
<v Speaker 1>information powerful people desperately wanted kept off the table. That

78
00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:08.439
<v Speaker 1>was her business. So when she asked the public to

79
00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:12.879
<v Speaker 1>believe that her Epstein relationship existed inside some carefully compartmentalized

80
00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:17.279
<v Speaker 1>universe where his intelligence and connections were visible, but the

81
00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:22.160
<v Speaker 1>monstrous baggage attached to him remain conveniently blurred. She's asking

82
00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:25.600
<v Speaker 1>us to abandon common sense in deference to a resume.

83
00:05:26.120 --> 00:05:29.879
<v Speaker 1>Fuck that her resume is exactly why the questions should

84
00:05:29.879 --> 00:05:34.399
<v Speaker 1>become harder, not easier. A former White House Council does

85
00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:38.199
<v Speaker 1>not get to invoke sophistication when it enhances her credibility,

86
00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:43.920
<v Speaker 1>and then invoke obliviousness when sophistication becomes inconvenient. You can't

87
00:05:43.959 --> 00:05:47.000
<v Speaker 1>spend your career selling yourself as one of the smartest

88
00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:50.680
<v Speaker 1>legal operators in DC and then expect everyone to accept

89
00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:54.519
<v Speaker 1>Sergeant Schultz when Jeffrey Epstein appears in the file. The

90
00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:58.120
<v Speaker 1>entire performance becomes even more obnoxious when you move away

91
00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:01.519
<v Speaker 1>from Rumler's carefully chosen description and look at how Epstein

92
00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:06.279
<v Speaker 1>himself treated the relationship. Epstein didn't behave as though Rumler

93
00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:10.319
<v Speaker 1>with some peripheral acquaintance he occasionally bumped into between appointments.

94
00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:15.240
<v Speaker 1>He cultivated her, communicated with her, gave her gifts, involved

95
00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:18.879
<v Speaker 1>her in his world, and apparently regarded her high enough

96
00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:22.600
<v Speaker 1>to include her as a potential successor executor of his estate.

97
00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:27.199
<v Speaker 1>And I think that matters because Epstein was nothing if

98
00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:30.959
<v Speaker 1>not deliberate about the people he collected around them. His

99
00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:36.240
<v Speaker 1>relationships were currency, his introductions were currency, His access was currency,

100
00:06:36.519 --> 00:06:38.720
<v Speaker 1>and the prestige of the people that were willing to

101
00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:45.800
<v Speaker 1>deal with them that was currency too. Every former government official, billionaire, professor, banker, lawyer, royal,

102
00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:49.680
<v Speaker 1>and celebrity in his orbit helped repair the reputational damage

103
00:06:49.680 --> 00:06:53.480
<v Speaker 1>inflicted by his conviction, whether they consciously intended to help

104
00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:57.519
<v Speaker 1>him or not. Rumler brought a platinum plated credential to

105
00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:02.800
<v Speaker 1>that Rehabilitation Machine Council, to the President of the United States.

106
00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:07.600
<v Speaker 1>Epstein understood exactly what that was worth, and I think

107
00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:10.000
<v Speaker 1>the ridiculous part is watching the people who gave him

108
00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.680
<v Speaker 1>that legitimacy later behave as though their relationship carried no

109
00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:18.560
<v Speaker 1>significance whatsoever. And then Rumler had the fucking gall to

110
00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:23.040
<v Speaker 1>sit there and cast skepticism towards Virginia while expecting everybody

111
00:07:23.079 --> 00:07:26.319
<v Speaker 1>else to approach her own account, wearing silk gloves that

112
00:07:26.360 --> 00:07:30.959
<v Speaker 1>should have detonated the entire room. Virginia spent years being

113
00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:35.319
<v Speaker 1>picked apart by lawyers, journalists, Epstein allies, Prince Andrew's camp,

114
00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:38.360
<v Speaker 1>and anyone else looking for a contradiction they could turn

115
00:07:38.360 --> 00:07:42.680
<v Speaker 1>into a weapon, while Rumler apparently felt perfectly entitled to

116
00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:47.199
<v Speaker 1>weigh Robert's credibility from the comfort of her own Epstein relationship.

117
00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:52.319
<v Speaker 1>Talk about nerve. Here's somebody explaining why her own emails

118
00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:56.600
<v Speaker 1>require context, why her comments require interpretation, why her own

119
00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:00.240
<v Speaker 1>relationship should not be overstated, and why her own own

120
00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:04.319
<v Speaker 1>knowledge had limits. Yet suddenly she becomes fucking Sherlock Holmes

121
00:08:04.519 --> 00:08:09.160
<v Speaker 1>when evaluating the woman accusing Epstein and his associates. That

122
00:08:09.319 --> 00:08:13.560
<v Speaker 1>is the Epstein power structure distilled into one ugly little tableau,

123
00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:18.600
<v Speaker 1>The survivor must prove every syllable, while the prestigious insider

124
00:08:18.759 --> 00:08:23.360
<v Speaker 1>gets to explain every uncomfortable document. The survivor is judged

125
00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:27.800
<v Speaker 1>by contradictions, while the insider is rescued by nuance. The

126
00:08:27.839 --> 00:08:31.319
<v Speaker 1>survivor gets suspicion, and the Washington lawyer gets a fucking

127
00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:36.320
<v Speaker 1>seminar on context and her attempt to reach for humor

128
00:08:36.440 --> 00:08:41.080
<v Speaker 1>as a solvent capable of dissolving embarrassing communications is a joke?

129
00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:44.519
<v Speaker 1>How many times are Americans supposed to hear some variation

130
00:08:44.919 --> 00:08:47.799
<v Speaker 1>of that was a joke before somebody in authority finally

131
00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:53.080
<v Speaker 1>responds okay, then explain the fucking joke. Jokes require shared

132
00:08:53.120 --> 00:08:56.759
<v Speaker 1>reference points. Jokes require us to be familiar with the

133
00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:01.120
<v Speaker 1>subject matter. Jokes work because both people on understand what

134
00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:04.759
<v Speaker 1>is being alluded to, and that makes context more important,

135
00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:09.720
<v Speaker 1>not less. When communications involving Epstein brush against subjects connected

136
00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:13.440
<v Speaker 1>to the very conduct that made him infamous, dismissing them

137
00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:16.840
<v Speaker 1>as humor does not finish the inquiry. It should blow

138
00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:20.799
<v Speaker 1>that inquiry wide open. What exactly did Rumler understand about

139
00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:23.879
<v Speaker 1>the joke when it was made? What did Epstein understand

140
00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:29.000
<v Speaker 1>that she understood? What previous conversations made that subject comfortable

141
00:09:29.080 --> 00:09:32.600
<v Speaker 1>enough to joke about in the first fucking place. These

142
00:09:32.639 --> 00:09:35.600
<v Speaker 1>are the questions that federal investigators should have been hammering

143
00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:39.519
<v Speaker 1>through in twenty nineteen, which is why this congressional spectacle,

144
00:09:39.559 --> 00:09:43.639
<v Speaker 1>seven years later feels less like accountability than an autopsy

145
00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:49.200
<v Speaker 1>of prosecutorial cowardice. Epstein was arrested sitting atop a sprawling

146
00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:56.159
<v Speaker 1>apparatus of properties, employees, recruiters, financial structures, legal relationships, travel systems,

147
00:09:56.360 --> 00:10:01.720
<v Speaker 1>corporate entities, assistance pilots, fixers, social connect and wealthy patrons

148
00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:06.039
<v Speaker 1>or associates. You could not look into that architecture for

149
00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:10.080
<v Speaker 1>five fucking minutes without realizing that the meaningful investigative unit

150
00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:14.679
<v Speaker 1>was not Jeffrey Epstein the individual, but Jeffrey Epstein the enterprise.

151
00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:19.240
<v Speaker 1>That should have triggered an all hands federal assault designed

152
00:10:19.279 --> 00:10:22.960
<v Speaker 1>to determine every person who knowingly helped the machine run

153
00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:27.120
<v Speaker 1>and every person who merely passed through it. Instead, Americans

154
00:10:27.159 --> 00:10:31.440
<v Speaker 1>watched Epstein die, Maxwell, eventually get convicted, and much of

155
00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:35.279
<v Speaker 1>the surrounding network migrate into the twilight zone between congressional

156
00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:38.879
<v Speaker 1>curiosity and civil litigation. And that's why my ass never

157
00:10:38.919 --> 00:10:43.360
<v Speaker 1>shuts up about Rico. Prosecutors use enterprise statutes to rip

158
00:10:43.399 --> 00:10:49.480
<v Speaker 1>apart organizations by mapping roles, money, communication, facilitation, concealment, predicate,

159
00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:53.279
<v Speaker 1>acts and relationships, then squeezing the people in the middle

160
00:10:53.559 --> 00:10:57.440
<v Speaker 1>until the fucking hierarchy reveals itself. With Epstein, the hierarchy

161
00:10:57.639 --> 00:10:59.840
<v Speaker 1>seems to have been treated like a collection of a

162
00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:04.440
<v Speaker 1>dependent social encounters that nobody was particularly interested in connecting.

163
00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:08.360
<v Speaker 1>Rumler should have been dragged through that investigative machinery in

164
00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:12.600
<v Speaker 1>twenty nineteen, not because knowing Epstein made her guilty, but

165
00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.840
<v Speaker 1>because knowing Epstein in the manner reflected by the record

166
00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:20.200
<v Speaker 1>made her materially relevant to understanding how is world operated.

167
00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:23.960
<v Speaker 1>There should have been no courtesy lane for former White

168
00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.360
<v Speaker 1>House counsel, no prestige exemption, no assumption that somebody with

169
00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:34.000
<v Speaker 1>an immaculate resume obviously had nothing to explain. Every communication

170
00:11:34.120 --> 00:11:38.360
<v Speaker 1>should have been subpoenaed and chronologically reconstructed. Every gift should

171
00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:42.320
<v Speaker 1>have been cataloged, every referral traced, every meeting placed on

172
00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:47.440
<v Speaker 1>a timeline, every mutual contact identified, every state document examined,

173
00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:53.600
<v Speaker 1>and every discrepancy hammered against independent records. Investigators should have

174
00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:56.919
<v Speaker 1>known exactly what Epstein told Rumler about his criminal history,

175
00:11:57.320 --> 00:12:01.000
<v Speaker 1>exactly what she learned elsewhere, exactly when she learned it,

176
00:12:01.679 --> 00:12:05.120
<v Speaker 1>and exactly how her conduct changed or did not change afterward.

177
00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:09.120
<v Speaker 1>They should have compared her answers against Epstein's communication with

178
00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:12.759
<v Speaker 1>other people, and then compared those people's answers against hers.

179
00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:16.159
<v Speaker 1>That's how you investigate a network, instead of hosting a

180
00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:20.639
<v Speaker 1>fucking book club about one. But instead we get Congress

181
00:12:20.759 --> 00:12:24.960
<v Speaker 1>years later, doing its patent bipartisan rain dance, where everybody

182
00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:30.039
<v Speaker 1>chance transparency until they convince themselves that releasing another transcript

183
00:12:30.240 --> 00:12:34.720
<v Speaker 1>constitutes justice. It does not. Calling Rumler into her room

184
00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:38.720
<v Speaker 1>after the federal investigative moment has been squandered does not

185
00:12:38.759 --> 00:12:42.960
<v Speaker 1>restore the evidence that disappeared, the memories that faded, the

186
00:12:43.039 --> 00:12:46.679
<v Speaker 1>leverage that vanished, or the witnesses who learned exactly how

187
00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:49.720
<v Speaker 1>much they can get away with saying Congress loved the

188
00:12:49.720 --> 00:12:53.440
<v Speaker 1>theater of disclosure because disclosure is cheap. They can fire

189
00:12:53.480 --> 00:12:57.159
<v Speaker 1>off a subpoena, announce a witness pose for television, publish

190
00:12:57.240 --> 00:13:01.159
<v Speaker 1>several hundred pages, and then claim another glorious victory for accountability,

191
00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:05.720
<v Speaker 1>while absolutely nothing fundamental changes the witnesses know the game too.

192
00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:09.480
<v Speaker 1>They arrived lawyer to the teeth, answer the narrow question,

193
00:13:09.799 --> 00:13:15.000
<v Speaker 1>reject the loaded characterization, contextualize the inconvenient document, and wait

194
00:13:15.039 --> 00:13:17.960
<v Speaker 1>for the clock to run out. Then everybody wanders off

195
00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:21.080
<v Speaker 1>to tell the cameras how seriously they take justice for

196
00:13:21.159 --> 00:13:26.600
<v Speaker 1>Epstein's survivors, and then the fucking carousel starts again. Rumler's

197
00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:30.360
<v Speaker 1>testimony deserves particular contempt because it sits inside a much

198
00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:34.200
<v Speaker 1>larger pattern of elite people around Epstein, demanding that we

199
00:13:34.279 --> 00:13:38.240
<v Speaker 1>treat every individual piece of their relationship as an isolated accident.

200
00:13:38.840 --> 00:13:41.919
<v Speaker 1>The dinners were nothing, the emails were nothing, the gifts

201
00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:45.799
<v Speaker 1>were nothing, the jokes were nothing, the visits for nothing,

202
00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:50.600
<v Speaker 1>the referrals were nothing. And somehow this monumental heap of

203
00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:55.399
<v Speaker 1>nothing repeatedly surrounds the exact same convicted sex offender. At

204
00:13:55.399 --> 00:14:00.320
<v Speaker 1>some point, the statistical miracle becomes the story. Jeffrey Exsteine

205
00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:04.759
<v Speaker 1>apparently spent decades accumulating the brightest, richest, most connected people

206
00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:08.639
<v Speaker 1>on Earth, while simultaneously ensuring that none of them ever

207
00:14:08.679 --> 00:14:12.080
<v Speaker 1>possessed enough information to understand the man's standing directly in

208
00:14:12.120 --> 00:14:15.559
<v Speaker 1>front of them. What a fucking magician he could find

209
00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:21.039
<v Speaker 1>former presidents, princes, billionaires, professors, bankers, lawyers, and political operators

210
00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:25.600
<v Speaker 1>with surgical precision. Yet every one of those geniuses somehow

211
00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:30.399
<v Speaker 1>discovered intellectual helplessness at exactly the moment when recognizing Epstein

212
00:14:30.440 --> 00:14:34.519
<v Speaker 1>clearly might have required them to walk away. And that

213
00:14:34.679 --> 00:14:38.840
<v Speaker 1>is the bullshit that Rumler's testimony represents, and that's why

214
00:14:38.840 --> 00:14:42.279
<v Speaker 1>it deserves something far stronger than any other polite article

215
00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:47.360
<v Speaker 1>about questions surrounding her Epstein lies sparis the euphemisms. Her

216
00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:50.440
<v Speaker 1>account should be attacked where it's weak, challenged where it

217
00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:54.679
<v Speaker 1>conflicts with the texture of the documented relationship, and tested

218
00:14:54.759 --> 00:14:59.200
<v Speaker 1>ruthlessly against every record. Congress and federal investigators can obtain.

219
00:15:00.080 --> 00:15:04.000
<v Speaker 1>Her credentials should buy her exactly zero additional credibility, because

220
00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:08.279
<v Speaker 1>credentials are not evidence and power is not corroboration. If anything,

221
00:15:08.360 --> 00:15:12.559
<v Speaker 1>the sophistication of Catherine Rumler raises the standard for explaining

222
00:15:12.559 --> 00:15:15.720
<v Speaker 1>why she continued dealing with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction,

223
00:15:16.120 --> 00:15:19.559
<v Speaker 1>rather than lowering it. Congress needs to stop behaving like

224
00:15:19.600 --> 00:15:23.320
<v Speaker 1>proximity to Epstein is some embarrassing social fall poe, and

225
00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:27.039
<v Speaker 1>start treating the architecture around them like the problem it

226
00:15:27.080 --> 00:15:31.360
<v Speaker 1>always was. The DOJ should explain why the people occupying

227
00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:34.879
<v Speaker 1>meaningful positions in that architecture were not subjected to the

228
00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:38.960
<v Speaker 1>kind of enterprise wide scrutiny routinely unleashed against defendants without

229
00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:43.200
<v Speaker 1>money connections, former presidents in their phone books or Wall

230
00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:47.000
<v Speaker 1>Street titles attached to their names. And Rumler should stop

231
00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:51.720
<v Speaker 1>receiving the institutional courtesy of having every contradiction translated into

232
00:15:51.759 --> 00:15:56.799
<v Speaker 1>the most charitable interpretation imaginable. The American public has been

233
00:15:56.840 --> 00:16:00.519
<v Speaker 1>force fed that garbage for nearly two decades, and anyone

234
00:16:00.519 --> 00:16:03.399
<v Speaker 1>who has actually followed the evidence is fucking sick of chewing.

235
00:16:04.440 --> 00:16:07.879
<v Speaker 1>Catherine Rumler did not answer the central question surrounding Epstein's

236
00:16:07.919 --> 00:16:12.080
<v Speaker 1>ability to burrow back into elite society after becoming a

237
00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:15.559
<v Speaker 1>convicted sex offender. She embodied them, and the fact that

238
00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:19.159
<v Speaker 1>Washington still cannot bring itself to confront that reality without

239
00:16:19.240 --> 00:16:23.000
<v Speaker 1>drowning the discussion in qualifications is exactly why this entire

240
00:16:23.039 --> 00:16:28.600
<v Speaker 1>goddamn exercise continues to smell like a charad. All the

241
00:16:28.639 --> 00:16:31.720
<v Speaker 1>information that goes with this episode can be found in

242
00:16:31.799 --> 00:16:32.759
<v Speaker 1>the description box.