IHIP News - EXCLUSIVE: Epstein Whistleblower Drops Bomb on Ghislaine, Trump, and DOJ Cover-Up

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

Today we are joined by the journalist who broke the Epstein case, Julie K Brown. Please check out her book with the link below!https://www.harpercollins.com/products/perversion-of-justice-julie-k-brown?variant=44010796908578Order our new book, join our Substack, shop our merch, and more by clicking here: https://linktr.ee/ivehaditpodcast.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

While the convicted felon president is running around getting triggered by escalators and teleprompters, all of this is a distraction because he will not release the Epstein files. He won't release them because one could only deduce from it per Elon Musk. He's cancles deep in the middle of said Epstein files. And today I'm so happy to welcome to IHIPP news. investigative journalist Julie K. Brown, she's known for her investigative reporting for the Miami Herald that exposed the global sex trafficking operation of Jeffrey Epstein and the failures of the justice system to hold powerful men accountable. Julie, welcome to IHIP News. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me. So this is such a major thing to have broken that story. And I want to

talk first about Alex Acosta, who has just come back in the news. So if you'll just briefly describe what Alex Acosta's role was in this, and then what just recently happened in front of the, I believe it's the oversight committee. Okay. Well, Alex Acosta was an ambitious U.S. attorney in Miami. He got appointed under George Bush, George W. Bush administration, to head the Miami U.S. Attorney's Office right around the time that the Epstein case was being taken over by the FBI. This was about 2005, 2006. The FBI got the case from Palm Beach Police, after Palm Beach Police found that the state attorney wouldn't prosecute Epstein. So they took it to the FBI. And now the case was landed in the lap of the U.S. attorney.

And he was, you know, Epstein was very shrewd. What Epstein did was he plugged into lawyers that all had connections. He plugged into defense attorneys who all had connections to either Acosta or one of the line prosecutors in his office. So he plugged into their buddies, in other words. So he hired Kenneth Starr, for example. He hired a guy by the name of Jay Lefkowitz, who who was with Kirkland and Ellis, which is a big time powerful law firm. And these people were members also of the federal society. So they had the power to appoint Acosta theoretically

to a great job after this job. And he wanted to be a Supreme Court justice. So therefore, he had, you know, he's looking at this case and he's thinking, I'm gonna piss off a lot of people if I prosecute this guy. guy. And ultimately, he ended up meeting personally with one of Epstein's lawyers in a meeting in West Palm Beach when they were trying to negotiate this plea deal. So he was on the front

lines of negotiating this sweetheart deal, which, as you probably heard, he said in front of the oversight committee that he didn't consider it a sweetheart deal. And my understanding, and I haven't seen, we haven't gotten the transcript yet, by my understanding is that he didn't believe that he did anything unusual and that he handled this case by the book. But it's very unusual for U.S. attorney to meet directly with the lawyer of a man that you are prosecuting for sex crimes. I want to ask you, I have a couple questions. Regarding the line prosecutors that worked in Alex Acosta's office. I've been down the rabbit hole. I've read all your work on it.

We see this female prosecutor and her name escapes me. Marie Villafana. Right. Can she not come out? Because it seems like she was ready to go and take this case to the mat. And then, of course, Alex Acosta vetoes her. Hang on. I have a question for the layman.

She's a lawyer, your journalist. When you say line prosecutors, are you saying lying or lying? L-I-N-E. Will you explain for the layman with someone that's- works under the U.S. attorney. So like an assistant U.S. attorney. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Answer, I just, I didn't know what that was. So I'm sure there's some listeners that didn't. Okay, tell us the T. Well, she definitely had her, you know, she was dealing directly with the victims. She knew the stories that they were telling were very credible because they all matched. These were women that didn't know each other necessarily, but the same method of operation. They all told the same story.

So she knew how credible that these. girls were. She also knew, by the way, that they wanted him prosecuted. So the idea that, you know, in the past, Acosta had said, well, we didn't think that we had a good case. It was weak. The victims weren't always credible. They didn't tell the same story. All these excuses really are excuses. That's exactly what they were because Marie Villafana, who was the lead prosecutor on the case, felt very confident. In fact, confident enough that she drew up. a 56, I think it's like a 56-page indictment on sex crimes against Seppstein. And she was, you know, FBI agents were also beginning to get tips about the fact that this

wasn't isolated to Palm Beach, that he had an island, that he had a ranch at New Mexico, that he had, you know, that he had homes in New York, and that there were tips that they were getting that he was doing this elsewhere. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure out he's probably not just doing this with girls in Palm Beach. So they not only had good evidence against, by the way, they had cooperating evidence. They had message pads from his home that showed so-and-so the name of, just say, Diane says she could come over. They had phone records showing that he had called these girls. So it wasn't even just the word. word of these girls. They had other evidence showing that, you know, he was involved with these

girls. So this case was a slam dunk. They would have gotten a conviction. I think they would have absolutely gotten a conviction, especially when you had at that time 30 victims. We know now that grew and grew. And my guess is if they would have pursued it, they would have found even more victims. And by the way, if they would have put them away, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. Well, and then he gets the deal and he's back out and he's like all sex offenders do. He's immediately reoffending new victims. And I think that is just one of the saddest parts of the story that a powerful person, and that's something that seemed to have bipartisan support on this, that powerful people shouldn't be above the law.

And Jeffrey Epstein was because I read an article the other day that said basically, it was so, it's so dangerous for the elites because it's exposing, when I say elites, I don't mean that in a left, right term. I'm talking about, you know, the controlling governing class, that it would expose the rot within the whole system because that's how big the relationships were with Epstein and other people. And that's just so devastating. It's so devastating when you think about these cases against the Catholic Church and you think about all of these victims, most of them poor and were approached because they were needed money. And it just, when this whole thing went down and you broke the story, was, were there any threats to you or threats

to keep it quiet or anything like that? No, I, I, I, I, It just kind of went out there and it just exploded before I think anybody. Epstein obviously realized he was in trouble because he immediately sent two payments to two of his assistants that were helping him almost immediately the following week after my series. So he knew that this wasn't good. But I think he was in damage control mode by that time. You know, I worked under the radar on this story. I did not contact any of the principles like Epstein or Maxwell until, you know, I had it pretty well in hand the story. And then I reached out to all of them, told them what I had. And by that time,

it was too late for them to really stop me, so to speak. And I think, you know, given the fact that the U.S. attorney in New York immediately launched a new investigation into him, he had his handsful. So I don't think he was worried about a little old reporter from the Miami Herald. I think in time, you know, some strange things started happening. I did this story, by the way, with a photojournalist, Emily Michelle. She was my partner in this project. And she was a little bit more paranoid that I was with some of the weird things that were occurring with cars being outside her home and strange people ringing her doorbell. But I just kind of keep moving and and try to, you know, just be smart, but not get too paranoid.

Can you tell our listeners, because we have, you know, Jeffrey Epstein is dead, whether it's suicide or murder, you know, who knows? But we know Galane Maxwell is currently convicted in a 20-year term, just went to a country club prison. Can you describe her role? You referred to her as a principal. And I think most people understand, but I just think it's so important. that we continue to talk about how damaging her role was.

Well, these were very vulnerable young girls. Some of them were homeless or practically homeless living, you know, with friends of friends kind of situations. And they, a lot of them came from broken homes where, you know, their parents were, you know, divorced. Some of their parents also were drug abusers. So, you know, he didn't pick girls that, you know, he didn't pick girls that, you know, he knew would say no, he got off on the girls that were scared, little vulnerable girls. And so the way that you get at these kind of girls is you present sort of a female figure, a motherly type figure in front of them that's going to say, look, we have something that's

going to really change your life here. If you come and you just give a massage to this wealthy man, you'll be able to travel around the world with him. You'll, if you want to. go to college. He'll help you with your college. I mean, the whole, he and Maxwell were very adept at finding out exactly what each girl needed. You know, one girl, woman now, came out, I think last week, and she was talking about how her mother had cancer, and she had no idea how to help her with, you know, the medical expenses and everything. And he claimed, look, I have connections with Johns Hopkins and she will get the best medical care ever. So he found her weak spot, which was that she was, you know, her mother had cancer and he used that. And he did that for

every single one of these girls and young women. And do you know if it went like, was there any sort of, and this is awkward to talk about, but was there within the organization you had Jeffrey and then Gie Lane? And then these girls would go through Jeffrey, I would assume, first. And then was it like, okay, she's a good one that then we can give to these friends and then were some preferred and some discarded of the victims? Yes. It's really, we don't have a full clear picture yet of exactly how he trafficked some of these

girls and young women and others. We believe that probably once they got too old for him, so to speak, and they still needed income, because once you get in, it's hard to get out, because you get to the point where he's providing you food and shelter, and he's so promising you that he's going to get you through a fashion school or modeling school. And so we, I know of victims who at that point when they were too old for him, he started then introducing to other wealthy men. And in fact, some of these women ended up marrying some of these wealthy men, you know, if they were shrewd enough to know how to do that, you know, and to, to, but a lot of them

started out as young girls who were victims of Jeffrey Epstein and then they got, you know, kind of caught up in this whole world, this orbit of. wealth and you know you can have anything you want and you don't have to ever go back to the life of living on the street kind of thing so it was um he also had recruiters all over the place besides maxwell maxwell was not the only recruiter who went out and got girls for him uh he had um recruiters in europe that were bringing girls in from overseas so um and also he used some of the that's also what he did with some of the older women as they got older He used them as recruiters.

So he was having some of his own victims recruit other victims. I mean, it was really a mastermind operation when you really think about it. Okay, I have one more question. Do you have any reporting or have you discovered anything through your investigation about why he had recording devices in all of the bedrooms and all the rooms of his houses? Well, you know, we think that he probably was using it as insurance, you know, with the people that he had there, you know, and, you know, he was committing a lot of crimes, not just sex trafficking. I think, quite frankly, he was money laundering, too. And we don't know even what else he was doing. There are some rumors he was even doing arms dealing. So I think he was doing it for insurance, you know, to be able to show that. that there were a lot of powerful men that were there and who knows, you know, what happened to those recordings. I know that there were a lot of stuff on his computers in Palm Beach that the police were unable to get their hands on because he was tipped off before the search warrant was served

and he got the computers out of there. Now, one would think that the U.S. Attorney's Office would have immediately got another subpoena and forced his lawyers to turn over those computers, but they did not do that. That is just always these crimes like this, and then you find out the enablers, whether it's the Catholic Church or Jim Jordan with the Ohio State University, when you find out that people were complicit and helped cover it up, that is such a part of the cover up that is so disheartening and so devastating that people don't have the courage to stand up to something that's so obviously a black and white issue. And that's such a devastating part. Okay,

final question, in your opinion, not in your reporting, in your opinion, do you think Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide? No. Wow. No. He did not. He didn't have the wherewithal to do it himself. He just didn't. He had a butler that tied his shoes for him. He didn't do anything. He had so many people. He just also was too soon. He was only in that jail for a month. And he had a good chance, by the way, of beating that case based on the same argument that Maxwell is using right now to get out of her case, to get out of her criminal charges. So he had a chance to beat this. And he had a chance to beat this. So I think it was way too soon for him to throw in the towel and do that. I don't think he could have done it himself. I think that he probably, it's possible that he wanted somebody to do it for him. But still, I think he was too sure of himself that he would get away with it like he got away with it before. Right, like the hubris.

Okay, just one thing. So when you're talking about the defense that Maxwell's raising, are you referring to the immunity deal he signed at the time of Florida? Okay. Yes. He was going to use that to say it was global. It was a global agreement. And you can't, so you can't prosecute me. And quite frankly, the case that the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York at that time when they first arrested him wasn't really strong. I think they had maybe two victims and one of them was from Florida. So that case, I think they wouldn't have been able to, I mean, I'm not a lawyer. But think about it. If the crime was committed in Florida and he, got that agreement in Florida. That case was shaky. So they only had one other victim at the time. Now, I'm sure that they would have gathered more information, and they probably were, but still, it was, you know, there was a good chance that he would have been able to get out of it because of that immunity deal. Well, Julie K. Brown, thank you so much for coming on IHIP News. If there's more developments, would love to have you back. It's fascinating and so devastating and disappointing and

add for these victims of this crime. And so we just appreciate journalism. And we appreciate the important part that journalism plays in our democracy. So from two American women to another one, thank you for what you do. You are valued. Truly, I mean that. All right, thanks again. Thank you.