MTracey podcast - Epstein Debate/Discussion with journalist Daniel Boguslaw

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

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As I understand it, drum roll, please. Okay, we are now, we are left. Great. Okay, so as I just discussed with Daniel, Dan, here offline, this doesn't have to be a formal debate. I know I've been noting that a lot of people who are much more invested in the Epstein maximalist interpretation have been very reluctant to debate me or even engage with me in any way. I don't know that I would strive to necessarily that outlook to you.

I don't know the full extent of your outlook on Epstein, but you did want to have some sort of debate slash dialogue, right, based on my happening to see a handful, you know, one or two of your tweets and objecting on certain grounds. Yeah. So can I do a little intro about my, go ahead, go ahead. My Epstein journey and, okay, great.

We all have an Epstein journey at this point. So my Epstein journey began when I was working as an intern at the New Republic and sitting through just dog shit editorial meetings there. And this was like around. to 2019. So this was like right around when he died. Um, and there was just like a group of, of people who would meet up in Union Square, uh, to discuss it. Yeah, like Dasha and people, the Epstein, the Epstein meet up. It was a weird, it was a weird. I never saw her. I mean, I only went a couple times, but I, it was there was Catholic people. I remember Dasha from

Redscare for a while, had like an Epstein meetup. And I don't know if it was no, okay. I was not, I was not involved in that. Okay. But it would, no, it was more, it was an Outdoor gathering, there were reporters, there were cranks. Oh, really? Okay. It was a great, weird, eclectic. You got together and you celebrated child sex trafficking. And, no, we sat under a statute and we said, like, okay, what's, what is the venue to understand more about this, right?

It was, you've admitted yourself that it was a strange thing. There was questions around the- The death? The death. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my- The fact that Bill Barr was the attorney general at the time, right? I don't know that that's what struck me is so strange about it.

I'm just saying, because, like, I hope. Who cares if his father Donald Barr may or may not have been the headmaster? Sure. I'm just saying at the time. It's another like dock connecting thing. But the death itself, yes, my instinct immediately on hearing about it was suspicion. And there hadn't been a lot of reporting on it yet, right? Like now we have.

There had been quite a bit. There hadn't been the- August of 2019. No, not like we're seeing now, but there was quite a bit at the time. I mean, I didn't have to think of knowledge at the time. The podcast was all about it. It was just starting up. I'm saying.

Yeah, which is a joke. There were more questions. Sure. But I'm just saying there were, there was not some of information. So, anyways, that was the, but now we're in 2026. So let's, okay, so let's get to it. I think the first time that you got on my radar about this, I know you've been writing about this for a long time, was your piece on the reality of the Epstein Disclosure Act, right?

The fact that there was actually loopholes, I think that's the right term. I don't know if that was the headline, but yeah, I read the Massey-Connor bill. Right. It was just before I went down to DC. actually to attend the first quote Survivors press conference in front of the Capitol by the way most if not all of the purported survivors at that thing

are just fake meaning their survivorship is fake nobody in the media wants to point that out but anyway yeah the the Epstein Files Transparency Act you know I did something novel I guess for in the journalism world and I read the bill right and it was a loophole

I mean there were several loopholes sure and a lot of people fixated on the national security loophole, as though that was going to prevent us from learning the truth about his connections to the Mossad and so forth. No, but the point is that the main goal or exemption was the victim identifying information. Sure, sure, that's one loophole, but I just want to backtrack to the thing you said about national security, which I think I am not a like intelligence, he was an intelligence asset guy. However, I think that that loophole is still important because it gives, it gave DOJ the ability to use that exemption for a lot of things. So, well, they claim they didn't use

for anything in these latest production. That's what Todd Blanche expressly said. Okay, sure. But they had the other one you pointed out. I mean, if I had my way, I would have had a one sentence bill, released the Epstein files. Wasn't that the slogan? It wasn't released the Epstein files and then add

17 exceptions that can be interpreted a million different ways. The explanation was ultimately that you had to protect the victims. No, no, you're wrong. I believe what Massey said, no, I believe what Massey said in terms of the national security Luke was that we would never get any support without that exception.

Which, what? He told me that. I'm the one who went out that quote. Right. So, so, but I think, he didn't explain that. That was just an assertion. Okay, but I think, but I think that's a powerful, interesting point that he was, he was afraid. I don't really buy it because, you know, he's, like off the reservation.

So I don't know how you could take anything he says. I do buy it because I think that that's, that is the way that, that any, of our federal law enforcement or national security agencies withhold information. So anyways, I think that's an important point. But I would like to tell you, it's much less, it's a just vastly lesser significance in terms of the practicalities of what in fact has been redacted or withheld. Yes, right. And then the other glaring exception that was inserted, which is this victim identifying information exception. I know guys on the internet, readers of drop site news and all these podcast, you know, dudes, they love to fix it on the intel aspect. You know, it's a cool espionage saga. So they don't

focus as much on the other stuff, but if you're mad about the redactions, you should be mad about the exception that was inserted at the behest of the lawyers who conferred with Rokana and Thomas Massey to protect their quote clients and their lucrative lawsuits, which is the victim identifying information. Can I have five minutes here to just two minutes? Can I have two minutes go ahead. Yes. Look, I, I feel like I had questions that I wanted to answer myself, specifically about this alleged intelligence and excess. I quit my job at the Intercept because they would not let me pursue

national security reporting. Oh, really? More trouble in paradise at the Intercept. Yes, and so I wanted to investigate these issues. Now, I did write two articles. I don't know if you saw my articles about Jeffrey Epstein and the CIA and Jeffrey Epstein and FBI.

Before you freak out, let me explain what I found. I'm not going to freak out. I didn't see them. I will acknowledge. There has been exceedingly little evidence as far as I'm concerned that Jeffrey Epstein was any sort of intelligence asset. In fact, I think many of his emails regarding the CIA make him look like

he was begging to knock on the door and be let in. He wanted this access. He wanted, you know, to go to Langley. What I did hear from a lot of... And he sure had a lot of unencrypted emails and texts for an intelligent asset. But what I was told is that he was very likely bumped knowingly or unknowingly by a member of the National Resources Division whose job is to talk to people who are handling the types of money he was handling, who have connections to those types of people and are traveling in the places that he's traveling. And so to me, that, I spent a long time hitting up a lot of different people trying to understand what was the intelligence nexus there. And who did you hit up? Can you tell us, give us any examples? No. But you can read the article.

Okay. That article is, I believe, in Rolling. No, that one is in unheard, sorry. And I was also very curious about the- I've done Epstein report. boardage for an unheard as well, me from a different angle. But my Prince Andrew thing that they solicited from me last week was even too spicy for them. Sure, okay. But I want to move over to FBI because that gets us closer to some of the real points that I think we fundamentally disagree on. And I have a few introductory points as well. Okay, sure. But so to me. Can I ask?

Okay. Make the FBI point. Well, I also wanted to call around to talk to both DOJ officials and FBI sources to ask, you know, what is the inside perspective? there because if you actually have read through the multiple OPR reports, if you've read through the... There's only one OPR report, right? No, there's two OPR reports, actually. What's the second one? There was the first OPR report, I believe, is from 2017, and then they reopened the examination

in 2020. There's two reports. So there's a 2017 report, DOJ OPR report? Yeah, there's... If that's true, you've told me something new. See, I'm always, I mean, there's always more to be learned on this topic. I hadn't known that. I will definitely look that up.

I think it's OPR. There were two. There's lots of IG reports in addition to the main OPR report from 2020 on the 2006 to 2008 Florida investigation. Hold on. No. There was, there was, I believe there are two OPR reports. Whatever it is. Just, yeah.

So, so anyways, if you've looked at those, I mean, so anyways, I mean, I was. I just was curious about what is the inside perspective here from DOJ, from FBI. I'm what, just like Epstein in general? Well, there's different factions, right? You have Maine Justice. You have the U.S. Attorney's Office for Southern Florida. And then you also have the FBI. SDNY.

Multiple FBI, SDNY, but I'm just focusing right now on 2006, 2007. And then you also have what... Which the SDMI actually did have a role in, as we've now learned in some of these new records, even though they kind of tried to obscure that to enable the feds to re-indict Epstein while circumventing the constraints of the non-prosecution agreement. But anyway, let's say. So the main takeaway I found was that there was extreme pressure exerted basically across that chain of command, whether it was the local PD, whether it was the FBI agents who were assigned to the case, whether it was the, or whether it was the U.S. attorneys at. Extreme pressure exerted from what direction? Extreme pressure exerted from Jeffrey Epstein on each one of those law enforcement notes.

And so that's where I think we really fundamentally. Insofar as he had a very well-restroreds defense counsel. I wanted to let you do your introduction, but I wanted to say that the place I'm most interested in having this discussion is in the place I'm most familiar with in my own reporting is those sort of early days I would like to really focus on sort of that time period. Yeah, okay. I just want to set some parameters. though in terms of where we might diverge. Sure.

So I'm just going to read you a few quotes or excerpts and just get your general agreement or disagreement or somewhere in between as to these quotes. Okay. So this is Murtaza Hussein of Dropside News where they're, you know, they cling to every little tangential Israel thing. They can fish out of any archive and they take for granted. Don't make me, don't make shit talk to Ortaza because I disagree with some Mortaza reporting. I've always described more thousand as levitating. One of the most chill people ever. Perhaps.

That proves that chill people can definitely be full-quered paper. About what I may not be about to say. Okay. So here's a direct quote for him, November 22nd, 2025. I thought this was an astonishing quote because people kept telling me, I must read all these bombshell drop site news scoops to learn how the Mossad was running. And they would always like take for granted that there must be this child sex trafficking, but never actually do any reporting on us.

Okay, so give it to me. Let's go. Quote, it's amazing that the conspiratorial contention that the U.S. is run by a cabal of genocidal child sex traffickers is more or less true and substantiated by available evidence. Give it, give that to me one more time. Okay, quote, it's amazing that the conspiratorial contention that the U.S. is run by a cabal of genocidal child sex traffickers is more or less true and substantiated. by available evidence.

I'm just curious what you're taking is on that. And then I have a couple others. So just hold that thought. Okay, great. I like the rapid fire. This is Ryan Grim. He decided that, you know, Whitney Webb is a paragon of journalistic achievement,

and he decided to credit her for having been vindicated, essentially, for this prognostication that she made in April of 2020. So this is Ryan Grimm amplifying this, quote, and this is from Wendy Webb, co-signed by Ryan Grim, quote, your reminder that Leslie Wexner financed the mass rape

and trafficking of thousands of American children for over a decade. Okay, and one more? Sure. And this is outside the drop site universe now. So we're going to Thomas Massey, right? Because he's on the vanguard of all things, Epstein. Now, whether that's slandering

random auto mechanics in New York, as child sex traffickers, or everything else he's been up to in his eventful past few weeks. He says, quote, now that we're exposing the extent of Epstein's global pedophile ring and how it touches our government in aristocracy, there's a campaign to smear me in social media and he's basically asking for donations. So I'm wondering if you agree with any or all of those statements as to what the parameters are here of what this story ultimately can be said to consist of. Sure. Okay.

Well, first of all, I mean, I would say that. I have lots of issues with the work of my former intercept colleagues. I often find the work published by DropSite to be histrionic, misleading, and at times untrue. But it's a somewhat complicated response to this idea of a global network. I do not think that hundreds of children have been, you know, I think that's getting a little into Alex Jones territory, but I was wondering if I could get like five minutes to lay out a little bit of my... I'll give you two and a half minutes. Two and a half minutes? Okay, start the clock. I'm looking.

Got it. Okay. Clock's ticking. So, and this gets to, I think, really the bottom line here of where we're going to disagree. You know, I read through some of your reporting on, again, those early days in 2006, 2007, 2008. and what seems to be one of the main catching points here is a contention that you have that despite the fact that that dozens of underage women, girls, if you will. Hold on, I got to stop you for a second. Are you going to, are you going to reveal

whether you agree or disagree with those statements that I read you? I think I said I don't. So you disagree with them? I think I would say I. Okay, so then the gap between us, is lesser than maybe we might have thought. Okay, well, can I finish though? Yeah, yeah.

You said I do and have minutes. Go ahead. So in your writing, you say that, like, it seems like one of the foundational tenets of your whole rejection of this whole thing is this idea that the underage women, the high school students, the dozens of high school students,

who went and performed various acts for Jeffrey Epstein, ranging from clothed, semi-nude and sex acts with Jeffrey Epstein should not be should not be adjudicated under the law because they lied about their age. They should not be adjudicated under the law. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Well, you said, you had one tweet that said,

why are we having this moral outrage for someone who was 17 and engaged in a sex act with Jeffrey? Do you want me to address that or do you want me to let you complete your two minutes? I'd like to finish my two minutes. Okay. And, you know, when we go from there into the rest of your writing and we look at the OPR reports and we look at some of the arguments that you're making about that era and the way that the, you know, sweetheart plea deal was not actually a sweetheart plea deal. A lot of what you described as a fact that these women who I think you acknowledge are underage and were engaging in an illegal, that EPSC was engaging in illegal acts, we're starting to recant. some of their testimony. You kind of paint one of the chief prosecutors, Maria Villafania, as waffling on the strength of the case. When I think if you actually review a lot of the

allegations in OPR, and you also review the testimony under oath of the agents and law enforcement police officers who were involved, you see that there was tremendous pressure exerted by Jeffrey Epstein again on these women, harassing these women. And when you say tremendous, okay. Oh, you finish. Surveillance, threats. I don't know. That's never been established.

I mean, that's part of the Netflix commercial narrative. Well, no, I mean, it's part of the sworeno testimony of FBI and West Palm Beach police officers. That there, what's like, give me an example of a threat? Okay. Can I read you an email sent by the, um, one of the private investigators? We're talking about tremendous pressure. We're talking about. stuff that's generally within the law.

He had a very aggressive defense counsel. There's no doubt about that. He had a lot of money to hire some of the most skillful and aggressive defense lawyers in the country to support his position. So I've never denied that. But like when you say a tremendous pressure was exerted by... Okay. So if you look at my article that I reported in Rolling Stone, not even a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of pressure that can be exerted with the full force.

of the federal government. Well, how about the fact that he hired private investigators to harass and surveil FBI agents to the point where they had to move their home address because they felt as a way. Harass and surveil, I just think, it's a bit of an overstatement. Was anything illegal about it?

No, but we're talking about the way that he used his power to manipulate the criminal justice system. And in fact, Marie Villafania, if only every defendant had the resources to be able to manipulate this. In the draft of her indictment, which OPR discovered, Villafani had two charges of obstruction that she wanted to bring.

Now, ultimately cut from the deal. Right, because they appeared to be groundless. One of the... Let me read you, let me read you this email. This was an email written by one of the private investigators that Epstein hired who worked for a firm that was run by senior former DEA agents. This is the email. We were undertaking some very discreet surveillance of the house

in order to observe and verify. And which house is he referring to? Well, it's redacted in this email. It's one of the victims. This is in 2006. One of the high school students. One of the alleged victims. One of the high school students who is under aides-

Why can't we say alleged victim? Why is that just a taboo? Why is everybody just presumptively a victim as though it was ever adjudicated because it has not been? I'm sorry you can want there to have been some adjudication that would entitle us to say victim, but I don't understand that.

Why are journalists so eager to ascribe victimhood without the slightest bit of corroboration of anything ever? I don't get it. If you're driving, if you, if you're driving, if you're driving down to the tenderloin and you see a child in high heels and lipstick

and you ask them, are you 18, and they say yes, and you say great, and you pull them into the car and you have them rub you down and jerk you off. Isn't that, isn't that a- Did Jeffrey Epstein ever put in a car? No, I'm just asking, though. I mean, it was well-known.

That would be an assault. It was well-known in all those circles. That would be an assault and kidnapping. So bad analogy. But how about, okay, how about a 14-year-old going through? If Jeffrey Epstein-in committed an assault and kidnapping, then, sure. How about a 14-year-old going into his house and rubbing him down in her underwear? Yeah, in-advisable behavior, sure.

In-advisable behavior? Yeah, I would say it's an advisable. behavior. I don't think is, do you think that's grounds for 20 years later for the entire world to be embroiled in what we're called is the most giant, is the most massive pedophilia crisis of all time? Okay, let me ask. Let me respond now. Let me respond now. Let me respond now. I'll respond now. I'll respond now. Okay. So we've established that you disagree with the Ryan Graham interpretation of thousands of child rapes and comfort. Sure. And the intelligence agents and the, and the, and the court and blackmail. My whole point is that the. The.

assumptions or the extrapolations associated with that Florida episode have gotten so extreme and so far afield from the actual facts and evidence that yes, I do think it's a more than worthwhile corrective on my part to try to bring things back down to reality a bit and let's say keep things in a sense of proportion

because the entire world right now is reverberating with uncontrolled rage about what we're told is the most unthinkable pedophilia scandal in world history. And I don't think that the facts of the Florida case support that at all. I do. That doesn't mean that I'm therefore saying I condone everything that Jeffrey Epstein ever did or what have you. But I do think, yes, how about a little bit of perspective so we're not fomenting mass hysteria?

That's why I wanted to talk to you because I do agree that there's a lot of criticism and everyone's cashing in on this story. But what my critique of your writing and your perspective often is, is that you are not taking all the facts seriously. Because I think the severity of Epstein's conduct has been grossly exaggerated to foment this mass. It doesn't mean that I'm therefore saying, great idea, Jeffrey, to have girls funneling into your house and not being told that they're scrupulous about checking their ages or even

being in that position in the first place. But yeah, I do think that the severity of the conduct has been grossly exaggerated. Very few, if any of the girls, contemporaneously, as far as anybody can tell, perceive themselves to have been victimized by anything, okay? How are you making that assessment? The girls who were in high school? Because that's what the, who went. The girls who got into, where one girl got into a fight and was attacked by her fellow students

for being a prostitute, a 14-year-old who was being called a prostitute by a prostitute? Yeah, she was victimized by them. Yeah, but there's not really any evidence. And if you found some, it's always possible that I've overlooked something. I'm not claiming I have totally comprehensive. I mean, you would agree that we have age of consent. But we also have, we also have our own critical discernment. We also have our own critical discernment to understand whether the current political, legal, and cultural narrative is consistent with the underlying facts and evidence. That is a separate concern. And it's a legitimate concern is how is. How is it? this energy being marshaled. What I'm saying is that you have overlooked the foundational elements of this piece in an effort to redirect what is, in some cases, hysterical energy. But what I'm saying is I want to show you, I want to show you some of the places where I think you're wrong, and I want to try to put in front of you some other interesting things. So look, I want to give you, I want to give you one example of what I'm talking about as to the lack of contemporaneous

perception of victimization. So the set of, 17-year-old, who was by then 18, that Epstein ended up having to plead guilty to procuring for prostitution pursuant to the terms of the non-prosecution agreement. He pleaded guilty to two-state level Florida charges, as I'm sure you know. And then I guess I'm the only one who ever thought to go look at the Florida court docket and read the and pull the transcript of that plea hearing, it turns out to be this one 17-year-old who had told police it was consensual activity with Epstein. There was intercourse.

the day before her 18th birthday. There I've been incrementally escalating sexual contact before that. But she tells the police investigator, Rickeri, that Epstein didn't force her to do anything. If she didn't want to do something, Epstein had no issue with that, et cetera. Okay. So when I describe that set of facts, people then immediately accuse me of saying it's, gee, it's that was swell for Jeffrey who have done that. Great idea. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that is worthwhile context to understand what kind of proportionality we should apply to this, right? And so, and so, and I'll give you one more data point.

I'll give you one more data point. You know, he was surveilling and intimidating. I mean, I mean, I think we're talking about the severity of the sexual victimization. If you're living in a trailer park in Florida, I thought we talked about the severity of the sexual victimization. And some guy comes and knocks on your door and, and, and surveils you and follows you to school. I mean, that's, that's real. That's, that's something that's, okay, but I thought we were talking about the

emails that showed that that was happening. But I thought we were talking about the severity of the sexual victimization. not the ancillary stuff later about surveillance or lack there. Let's talk about the law. I mean, let's talk about the law. Why? You asked me for my moral judgment. No, I'm saying what's your moral judgment?

There's a moral judgment. Okay, so let's fuck about the moral judgment. Then we can move on to other considerations. Okay, great. Yeah. So, I mean, so if the girl who is 17, right, just to get, take one example, perceived herself to not have been victimized in real time, and in fact was demonstrable.

more disturbed from being ensnared in the prosecution of Epstein. She did not want to participate in his prosecution. She did not want to be summoned to testify before the grand jury. She didn't want anything to do with it. She even says to the questioner at the grand jury session, my life was fine. I'm paraphrasing my life was fine before you guys made me come here. So if that's the kind of victimization we're talking about, hold on one more point. And on top of that, one of these new files I had been.

looking for for a long time, but couldn't locate, but found in these new record productions, is a deposition of the police chief for Kerry. And he's asked to describe the interviews that he conducted with all these girls. Yes, some of whom were in high school, some just out of high school. You know, it was a spectrum of younger women to grow. Over 14. Yeah, the initial one was 14. And she was told by Haley Robson, who were not told as a survivor, to lie about her age.

And Epstein asked her explicitly, how old are. you she calls him 18 again i'm not saying that to condone it i'm saying it's worthwhile context if all you ever read about geoffrey epstein and all the political turmoil he's spawning right now is notorious convicted pedophile sex trafficker etc okay fine fine i hear your argument but but here's what rickory says hold me 30 more seconds 30 more seconds committed okay fine 30 and what rickory says is that but for some of the girls not being above the legal age of consent in florida there would not have been any victimization for him to pursue or put another way,

there were girls who were 18 above who he did also encounter and who we also did locate interview who participated in some of these massage sessions and they had not been victimized in a way that could have been prosecuted. He told his recruiters that they were too old, right? So there was... I don't know that that's true. No, that is true. That is in the interviews of Rissetti

with the high school girls. So that is true. And there was a fixation. Rissetti. What's the... Ricari. Receri, sorry. Yeah, so that's his characterization of something.

But that's the characterization through multiple emails with all kinds of other people, through the fucking president of the United States. I mean, Joanna Schoberg was there and she was 22, 23, and she told Rerkeri when he interviewed her, look, whatever went on between me and Jeffrey was between consenting adults. So she was beyond that age range. Sure, that's one example. But again, I'm writing off dozens of... I'm not writing them on.

You are. And oftentimes they were, you know, working class, poor girls who were... Yeah, I don't all the time. And also, he paid tons of... He threw money around like crazy. He was donating money. That's why they kept coming back on their own volition. But he was also paying off the police. He was donating almost $100,000 to the... He was paying off the police. He would make donations to, like, the police foundation or whatever. Right, right. And this is, this gets... But apparently it didn't work because Harry and writer were very aggressive in pursuing him, weren't they? There was a refusal to engage.

in any of the tactics. Well, you're saying that my reporting is completely moot. The fact that he was intimidating federal law enforcement officials. The fact that he was intimidating women at their own. I think he was characterizing it.

Talked about one of the private detectives running him off the road. So there's a... Yeah, which was never substantiated. Which was never substantiated. Again, another Netflix myth. What about my independent reporting of DOJ and FBI officials?

I mean, are you calling me a liar? Are you calling me a liar? No. I mean, the running off the road incident, though, I'm not aware of that ever be. I would have to take a look at your reporting. We have emails. We have multiple emails from his PI shop, his elite PI shop, full of former DEA agents, talking about surveilling these girls in their homes.

Okay. But if you're a defendant, right, if the government's coming hard after you and you are well-resourced, you have a lot of money, you can hire very well-resourced and aggressive lawyers, then one thing they might suggest is that in order to gather, evidence that could help you defend yourself, you might send out investigators to gather information. Like, I don't, to say that's intimidation or it's something like nearly sinister, I just don't buy because that's something I would recommend, that's something I would recommend to virtually

any defendant who has the government crashing down on them if they're able to do so. And what I'm trying to tell you is that is that the DOJ officials I spoke to are very familiar with aggressive defense tactics. and they said that this was unprecedented what they experienced. And that was the wrong. There was a lot that was unprecedented about it. God knows what you could charge

when they were contemplating as federal sex trafficking. Now, I want to move on here. I would like to move on to get deeper into the plea agreement. Can we do that? Sure, sure, sure. I want to bring up something myself first and then we can move on to that. So one of our exchanges, okay,

and this maybe gets into a little bit more of a media critique, but I'm going to quote you, this is February 19th. important to remember that the first journalist to excavate the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein was a working class warrior named Julie K. Brown and not an Ivy League employee of the Times of the Post. Wow.

So inspiring. This working class hero, I can almost let's put the John Lennon song to celebrate Julie K. Brown. I don't know. She got a $1 million. Why John Lennon? A working class hero is something to be. You never heard that song? It doesn't matter.

I'm sure there are other working class songs that I could have cited that maybe. Yeah, I just, John, I mean, John Linens was kind of, he had a working class, he had a song called Working Class Hero. I would go with Bruce personally, but, um, you're from Jersey too, so it's kind of, so, so, but, but, I mean,

Julia Kay Brown, I mean, not that this is that important of a point, but, like, she's been made hugely wealthy off her supposed to this story. After, after she points to all this shit. But more relevantly is that the initial series was a joke. I admit that I was bamboozled by it at the time. I took way too much of it at face value. I was not in a position to be able to discern that she was typically serving as a PR proxy for these profit-seeking, quote-unquote, victim's lawyers, one of whom Bradley Edwards rags about how he manipulated her into doing his bidding because he had litigation that was ongoing against Epstein, and she helped him out to divert attention from some of his tactics. Let me just finish.

Let me just finish. She fabricates quotes in her book, Proversion of Justice, which was a book-length expansion of her Miami. Harold series. If you go back and look at that initial series, she foregrounds people like Virginia Roberts Gouffray. I don't know. You can give me your take on her. It seems like signature allegation after signature allegation that Virginia Roberts Gouffray made, thanks to the likes of Bradley Edwards, who was conniving with Julie K. Brown, have been resoundingly discredited. And that's the crux of the Epstein mythology in terms of child sex trafficking to prominent individuals, blackmail, etc. And Julie

K. Brown could not have been more hyper-credulous in just promoting that stuff. And she's been on a war path recently. You said 30 seconds. That's one thing. So, and the articles are also rilled with just like factual errors. Can we talk? I just, I want to be. Let's talk about the. So give me.

So why do you, why do you, why do you, why do you, why do you find her so, so inspirational? Let me know. Well, I think because, I think because the facts of the plea agreement are actually accurate. And you're saying that the original 20, 2019 miscarriage of justice article, is a complete fabrication. 2018 is a complete fabrication. Not a complete tarotapage. I'm saying it's incredibly flawed and misleading.

Can we go through some of that to discuss, for example, let's talk about Matthew Mitchell. Okay, can we talk about some of the people who had pretty obvious conflicts of interest that never arose that were involved in both the prosecution and the defense in various ways? I mean, like, have you... There were conflicts of interest on both sides, arguably.

Surely you saw the article that she did today, which was effectively a re-statement of, the players. Which article today? I think it was today that there was basically a restatement of a lot of the people who were involved in both the prosecution and defense and sort of where they are now because there was obviously in the latest, in one of the latest tranches, there was emails that came out showing that Menchel and Epstein sort of developed this close relationship. Yeah, afterwards. after the prosecution, but before his... There wasn't any conflict while the prosecution was... Well, only that they, that he had dated Epstein's defense lawyer.

Right. And that was then noted by Acosta, and he sought a guidance from the DOJ chain of command to see whether that rose to the level of a conflict of interest that should necessitate a recusal. And he was told, no, because it was like, you know, 20 years before or something. And what did the OPR report? And what did the OPR report found? It found that Acosta repeatedly fucked up and it didn't have any criminal, he didn't have any criminal liability. Villafania, right, she, her boyfriend had a law partner whom Villafania wanted to refer the victim's cases when the civil restitution mechanism was set up

so that they could use this lawyer to acquire the civil restitution from Epstein. So in other words, she knew somebody in her close social circle, her boyfriend's partner, law partner, was the one that she wanted to funnel business to to collect all this money from Epstein's, from Epstein pursuant to this bizarre and, I think, unprecedented civil restitution mechanism that Epstein had to agree to in the non-prosite Accusion agreement where he had to waive his ability to contest

claims against him amongst the 30 or so government-designated victims. Were you aware of that conflict? Sorry, say that again, I was looking for something else. Okay. In the non-prosecution agreement, one of the terms of it, right, is that Epstein would have to waive his ability to contest claims against him for civil restitution,

meaning for money, monetary damages. Right. Amongst this 30-something victims that the government had designated, but hadn't been adjudicated as victims. And Marie Villafania, you know, the hard-charging prosecutor who wanted to most indict Epstein, her boyfriend's law partner was the person to whom Villafanya was proposing to funnel business so that law partner could represent some of these government-designated victims as they were seeking to collect the monetary damage.

from Epstein. Now, that might be considered a conflict of interest as well. Were you aware of that one out of curiosity? No, I wasn't. Well, there you go. We all learned. But let's do one more back at you, which is Reinhart, who is one of the prosecutors who was found to have started laying the groundwork to communicate and go work for Epstein while he was still working on the case. Villafania had conveyed critical information about the prosecution to him. He denied that he had information about this, but later that was contradicted in a different legal altercation down the line,

and then OPR decided that they were just not going to look into that in the same way that they didn't look into a million other things. OPR also interviewed, going back to the FBI DOJ officials, a bunch of FBI who were involved in the case, who all testified that the whole thing was crooked, that they were continuously stymied at everything. They said the whole thing was crooked? Yeah, that there was evidence destruction,

that they were continuously trying to make arrests and get search satinas and that they were routinely rebuffed by the U.S. Attorney's Office. I don't know. I mean, I don't know that I've seen that quote where they say everything was crooked. I know, you know, Villafone, even Villafonda, who was the most aggressive in wanting to pursue the maximum punishment of Epstein federally, she also said that, look, I mean, the reservations that were expressed within the office in South Florida about

the evidentiary issues, the legal issues around jurisdiction. They were valid and they actually were a significant problem, which is why a bunch of people in that office contemporaneously are saying amongst themselves, that they thought that they

had about the pressure campaign that disrupted the witnesses being able to testify. They thought they ran a risk. They thought they ran the risk of actually having Epstein acquitted at trial and he would face no punishment at all. So they thought that the optimal resolution from their standpoint was to force them to plead guilty to the state level charges. To your questioning about the three

theses on global, global pedo. I do not believe in the maximalist interpretation. I believe that there has not been. Well, what do you believe? Well, that's what I'm trying to explain. Can I? May I? Thank you. I do believe that if you look, if you spend time actually reading through the email back and forth with a lot of the famous people, whether it's Bill Gates, whether it's Romler, whether it's Larry Summers.

There is an acknowledgement of, whether it's with Larry Summers' wife, who's constantly talking about Lolita and what's the other book, some other book about an older man with a child. There is, or whether it's the president's statement about his interest in younger women,

there is a, implicit but constant understanding that Jeffrey Epstein is engaged in some sort of taboo behavior involving relationships with young women and in some cases children, as we know, again. The children thing is a leap, though. It's not a leap based on the facts that we already agreed on. No, no, it is a leap.

I mean, it's a leap because virtually all the email exchanges you can possibly be referencing there would have occurred during the period where there's no evidence that he actually had any illicit sexual contact with anybody below the age of 18. There's no allegation from 2005 onward that he had any illicit sexual contact with anybody under 18. He did actually change his behavior after he started being investigated in Florida and stopped the massage situation. He was on house arrest and he hired officers from the West Palm Beach Police Department to guard his house and then he snuck women in to jerk him off. He didn't change his behavior. You just said women.

What do you mean changing behavior? Oh my God. So we can't distinguish women and children. No, we can. 14 years old is a child. No, no. Post 2005, when all these email exchanges with Larry Summers and his wife Eliza New and all these other people are occurring, if they're referencing any taboo behavior,

they're referencing that, yes, he did enjoy being surrounded by young, attractive women who were adults, but young adults. That is true. Anything that can be classified as a child did not take place post-2005 as far as any available evidence has ever suggested. Or as far as ever even any allegation was made. But do you know what the book is about? Sorry?

I'm just saying like you're saying that there would be no suggestion of that, that there would be no knowledge of that. I guess what you're saying is that the grand jury records and the police testimony wouldn't have come out yet during a time period that those emails were being. sent. But what I would argue is that the fact that in 2019 you have, Elisa New, making these references, shows that all these people did actually know about his proclivities and did know about his discrimination. Right. And did know about his behavior. I mean, those books are about men engaging with children who are under the age. But that's our best evidence. We just got millions

of new records. You're saying our best evidence has to probation upon children. Pedophilia. Pedophilia is some snarky reference to a book and a an email, that's our best evidence at this point. And the president's saying it and a half dozen other people talking about it. Now, I'm no hard evidence. Well, the hard evidence is the literal hard evidence we have that he was engaging in these acts with children. But not post-2005.

Like for 2005 to 2019, there's never even any allegation that he engaged in illicit sexual contact with anybody under the age 18. So if they're making snarky references to some book in, I don't know, 2013, and it's a reference to his proclivity to be surrounded by attractive young women. It's a reference to young women, not children, not something pedophilic. And yeah, I think that's worth emphasizing if we're going to be in the throes now of a global pedophilia. But the literal references, you admit that those books are literally about men engaging in sexual acts with women who are under the American age of consent. That's literally what they're about. So what? It's a, it's a,

They're starky emails. I'm just saying. Like, shouldn't at this point we have some more tangible evidence if that's actually what they're referencing? Let's move on. You're not into like the pizza and beef jerky stuff, are you?

No, I'm, no, I'm not. But can we, can we move, can we shift to one other? No, I want to ask me one more question because you asked me a lot of questions. No, I don't feel that's true at all. I don't think I've really been able to continue on a whole other subsection,

which is I want to talk about, because I actually don't really know what your perspective is on this because there's so much fighting that goes on. about this other stuff. So I'm very interested in some of the the suspicious activity reports, the FinCEN flags, the again, the retroactive information we know now about things that happened in the

past regarding Jess Staley and J.P. Morgan, the concerns that were raised prior to 2019, the concerns that were raised, say, in 2010, 2011 by J.P. Morgan executives. I mean, I'm curious, and what your perspective is on, were they anticipating what we're seeing now? How do you view that as the fact that there were very senior people in these organizations saying these money transfers are suspicious? This guy is a potential huge massive liability.

You know, how do you, we have those records now. We have those emails. How does that fit into everything? Is that not a hard capital financial times, element to show that, okay, this wasn't just politicians' grandstanding. This wasn't victims trying to tap into a compensation fund, but the hard barons of capital were literally concerned about their bottom line because of this guy. Sure. I mean, they became aware that one of their most lucrative clients had gotten himself convicted for prostitution charges in Florida. So obviously

that's going to be flagged. That's going to be something considered. And then a cost benefit analysis was made at J.P. Morgan that although this is concerning and we should keep our eye on it, he's still a profitable enough client that we're not going to cut him off. And yeah, that seems like the calculation that was made. Then J.P. Morgan ended up getting sued out the wazoo for that years later because they unearth those emails where they were proven to have been aware that there were issues and that Epstein could be a liability and yet they proceeded to permit him to continue to continue to continue to allow him to store their money with him and like make referrals to J.P. Morgan and so forth and then later Deutsch Bank.

That's true. I mean, what's what's the rub there? Because to me the rub is that was then the fodder for these giant class action lawsuits to be brought by the cabal of lawyers, Edwards, David boys at all. And, you know, we're always, you know, we're always supposed to be like underscoring the beleagueredness of all these working class victims and so forth. And yet they were represented by some of the most powerful attorneys in the world. And they were able to extract just from two multinational banking institutions, $360 million in a class action lawsuit that was basically about them being accused these institutions of either. being active enablers of, quote, sex trafficking or being negligent in not monitoring Epstein

closely enough. And what I take to be the most important aspect of that whole part of this is that this whole notion of a giant globe-spanning sex trafficking ring was the invention of these profits-seeking attorneys effectively using creative legalisms because trafficking is such a nebulous concept and using like the PR pressure on these multinational banking institutions to extract these gigantic settlements. And the reason why that was so formative in laying the groundwork for this mass hysteria is that it grossly inflated the number of alleged victims or perceived victims such that we're told still today that they're either hundreds or thousands of alleged victims. And the average member of the public hears that and says, oh, my God, you're saying there were

thousands of helpless children for victims of? That is false. And that is making people crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just last weekend, we had a 21-year-old obsessed with the Epstein files, try to launch an armed I know, I know, I know. And then that's, that's, I mean, I'll agree with you that it, it, that level and language is irresponsible. But I want to go back.

Just had a curiosity, have you ever, like, push back on that language anywhere? I mean, I haven't, I don't think I've, that, like, I'm just not even like, like, a wear of that level. Like, obviously. At what point is anybody else in the media other than me going to try to counter it to some degree? Yeah, I mean, I think that that's Fair, I guess, but I guess my concern is less I mean, and by the way, I think I'm serious if that if the world is confess that there's a giant pedophilia crisis, okay

I mean like there's no better excuse for the government to crack down I don't and impose greater surveillance powers and expand the carcical power of state This is this is a good this is a good piece to get into you too because like I saw that one of your main pieces was about like like this idea that this is somehow an affront civil liberties. Yes. But I do think that like if you, if you're willing to, you know, take, acknowledge that a lot of this is, especially at least in the political arena right now, is, is being weaponized in a superpartisan way because of the president's affiliation and it's being completely directed in that direction. It's turned the media. that's really into this like algorithmic retardation slot machine.

But but can we bad effect? But can we look? I mean, but you did acknowledge that there was serious concerns in 2011. You'd,

and you've acknowledged that I don't think this. I'm not saying that I personally fault them to be serious concerns. I'm saying the bank, the banks themselves, the employees of the banks, perceived them that's something

that needed to be flagged and monitored such that they were fulfilling their obligations into these various laws and regulation. But you, and you agree that, that you wouldn't contest that just Staley did sleep

with Epstein's assistant in... Yeah, I think that's pretty well established. I wouldn't agree that that constitutes some kind of heinous sex trafficking offense. By all accounts, it was a consensual thing, right? I'm not saying that, right? I'm not saying that, but I'm trying to answer your initial question. And you would dispute that Bill Gates

asked Jeffrey Epstein for advice about sexual encounters that were in some way affiliated with him and I don't know that that's quite right but well he did he emailed him for advice

about how to deal with the behavioral disease to be sexual adult encounters yeah yes sure sure sure yeah

I'm not why should I why should we be so alarmed by that explain it well I'm I'm agreeing

with a fair with like a young woman who was like a no but I'm I'm agreeing with a really intelligent scientist

I'm agreeing with a piece of you that that that the scope of of this has been distorted in some capacity, but I do think that... When's the correction coming? Well, I don't know. I'm a freelancer.

I mean, I'm not... I'm not interested in trying to show. I'm trying to... I spend a lot of time on articles. You know, it's not easy to get former CIA FBI... I got you. I'm interested in the truth. But I do think that you're writing off the reality that these people knew...

I do think that these people knew about what happened in Florida. And I think that... Of course, it was public. information. And I think they get a sick thrill out of the taboo and the violation of our social contract. And in fact, the reason why those lawyers, those compliance officials at J.P. Morgan were so worried in 2011 was because they knew that the society we live in does not accept the behavior and crimes that Jeffrey Epstein was committing. That's literally... Yeah, which he served a sentence for at that point. I mean, what are we talking about? So, I mean, do you think... You also know,

He was addicted to getting good luck. You think that Noam Chomsky is one of these people who got a sick thrill from entertaining Jeffrey Epstein after he was known that he committed certain offenses? I think he got a different kind of sick thrill. I think he got a sick thrill. So you feel like Noam Chomsky is guilty of something morally condemnatory? I do actually. I do think that. Well, we disagree on that for sure.

Well, that's okay. But I believe that thinkers, journalists should be very insulated from people like Jeffrey Epstein. Why? I'll meet anybody as a journalist. No, I'll have a discussion. There you go. So you wouldn't have had a discussion with him? No, I probably would have had a discussion with him. Okay.

So then you could be denounced now after the fact as somebody who somehow enabled Jeffrey... And I don't agree with that. I mean, I call all kinds of people. You know, I get attacked by people all the time for saying, why are you talking to... You know, I was tweeting about talking to people in DHS and people said, why would you talk to those Nazis? I don't agree with that. But my point is that there's differences between speaking with some... having a debate, having a conversation, and the gradations that we saw happen with all kinds of

people. The fact that a fucking New York Times reporter started out making phone calls and then went down the slippery slope of hanging out and then getting Epstein to donate like 30 grand to his neighborhood. Is that a Landon Thomas? Is that who you're talking about? I think so. Yeah. So my point is that I agree like as reporters, you actually need to be able to talk to pretty much anyone. But again, with the news outlet you mentioned earlier. I agree with Chomsky in that he looked at the reaction publicly to the Julie K. Brown Miami Herald farce and he was able to discern much earlier than I was. So I think he should be commended for this.

He was able to discern that it was just hysteria. And it was impossible, would have been impossible to reason with, which is why he maybe mistakenly told Jeffrey Epstein that he should just keep quiet for a while and let things blow over. And then within six months, of course, he's put, into federal jail and then ends up dead. So that didn't pan out as Chomsky foresaw it. But other than that, on the substance, I'm sorry, I agree with Chomsky, and I am stridently opposed to people just flippantly declaring that he needs to be melodramatically condemned for having had, you know, really laudable prescience in understanding what the real situation was here

and not being swindled by media hysterics like Julie K. Brown or all these other people. Okay, we have five minutes left, and as I said, my wife is six. I do have a fast eight cutoff. Do you agree with Virginia Roberts, I mentioned her before. Do you think that's a legitimate part of this?

Do you believe the thrust of what she has alleged? I do in part, but there's a different question I would like to end on, because I feel like that's more your terrain of picking through all the books and stuff, and I just haven't done that, and I'm not really interested in that. It's some pretty important terrain to tread if you want to be conversed on this subject. It is in one sense, and it's not another.

Is it taking down the British Royal Family right now? Yeah, which is fucking hilarious. And I'm here for it. I saw you wanted to go hand out hot chocolate to Prince Andrew, but I'm sure he'll be fine without you. I'd be okay with them taking down the monarchy, but maybe for something real. I would like to end on this, which is,

I thought one of the most shocking things that I saw that, to me really, wiped out a lot of some of the histrionics, but also revealed how stupid the ruling elite are, was the two-hour banning interview. By the way, where's the other 14 hours? Or now he says it's 50 hours?

Oh, really? He told the New York Times there's like 50 hours. I don't know. Why do we only have that two-hour excerpt? I still don't understand it. Well, I don't know. But if we're taking that as, I mean, if we're just watching that,

if you've watched that. I mean, I found that incredible in the sense of... It was awesome. He has this platform to talk about so much, to describe so much, and he just comes off is so fucking stupid. He can't get his metaphors in order. He can't really explain the financial crash. He keeps going back to these metaphors about a human body and all this stuff, and you can see banning...

I followed that metaphor pretty well. The metaphor was, if you have a heart attack, right? And... I'm not going to but it was the metaphor made sense meaning in that like Bannon was trying to get him

to say what the cause was of the financial crisis in 2008 and Bannon said it was this right and no and Epstein was saying no it was a confluent of things just like you can't necessarily assign a direct cause if you have a heart attack

you can't necessarily say after the fact that it was caused by one particular condition or something like that which I mean I follow the metaphor I don't know if it was the most brilliant metaphor I think it was ever invented.

Yeah, but no, but then he kept applying that metaphor to other things and it was interesting because, you know, I don't take him to be stupid. Like, why do we have to, why do we have to declare that this guy was stupid when he clearly wasn't? Doesn't mean that he was good or bad necessarily.

You can be highly intelligent and also wicked, but I think he wasn't extremely high intelligence. I think he was very socially manipulative, and I think he amassed a lot of money very quickly. I mean, I don't want to get into like some, eugenics like skull measuring thing with you. I just, I had no, I had no notion of eugenics. I think if you read his emails and you watch his interviews, he comes off as, as perhaps

socially manipulative, but, but extraordinarily stupid on any actual issue of substance. I don't know that I, I don't know that I agree with that. I mean, his, his response to the financial crashes, oh, this was not CLOs, oh, this was not the rating agencies. So many people who knew him personally say that he was. extremely high intelligence. Like Wexner just said that. And I don't know why he would make that up at this point since he's trying to distance himself from Mabst. How many rich people have... Chomsky apparently thought he was highly intelligent. I mean, rich people are some of the stupidest people I've ever met. And Chomsky's kind of on the... So you think Chomsky would like lie? What what reason would Chomsky have to falsely say that he found him intelligent? I think he was you know he he he he's louded Chomsky I think he offered to introduce Chomsky to all kinds of different people I think he was a money bags who was part of the elite

that was still willing to tolerate Chomsky and his radicalism which is probably a rarity in his life so again I think he was very socially manipulative but I don't think he was intelligent I mean I've read a lot of his emails I've watched the interviews it garbled emails I mean that's true but a lot of older people who are not like keyboard native No, I'm not talking about the spelling errors. I mean, I'm even talking about his memos to himself. I mean, there's just a lack of strategic intent in his self-memos. There's just a...

You might have had a more mathematical proficiency. My experience with the wealthy and the elite is that they're extremely stupid people. I'm being honest, that's not like a moral judgment. That's just what my experience has been. They're very dumb people. Okay. I mean, I don't know that that that's accurate or if that would even give us the best insight and to have best to understand or conceptualize what this whole obscene thing was if we have to just feel like we're morally obligated to declare them to be a dummy.

Well, we have one minute left. One minute left is right. Would you like to make a final statement? I would love to make a final statement. I would ask that, Michael, you go and you read some of my reporting after this. And maybe you can give me a free subscription to your stack and I'll read some of the rules. I would just like to say that I do think that everyone in their mother is grabbing on to. this story and trying to get their own from it. However, I don't think that erases a lot of the

essential foundational underlying facts. I think that you should also go and check out the reread the OPR stuff. I'm going to try to find that second report. And I believe it's referenced in my FBI story. But that I would just highly suggest that you have garnered a lot of attention. I think it's good to be someone who's always sticking there. And you've said that you have you said something like I have done something that had some value in shining a light on these settlement programs and like the whole racket that's been established around this stuff. And showing that people... Is that right?

Yeah. Well, I would say that showing that politicians are all using this in different ways for their own game. And it's like a billion dollar industry. And that it is a big industry, but that again, like our job is to piss everyone off. And that means not only pissing off the Epstein champions, but also pissing off the Epstein's. and following the truth, whoever. I don't know any Epstein deniers, and I wouldn't consider myself an episode of an interviewer.

What about in the New York Times op-ed page? And now that fancy little guy from Unheard who interviewed you. I mean, I'd say those people are skeptic. Epstein denier. So how about how about skeptics? How about skeptics? I mean, if there's something I come across that would upset an Epstein, quote, skeptic, like the one or two that exists, then I would say it.

But I'm not you go early news to me. You might recall. Okay. Your last year of close of thoughts, sir. my last closing thoughts yeah um thanks for coming on i guess you know this is fine this is fine like i'm i've been

begging people to have adversarial exchanges with me or even debates or whatever you want to call it and virtually no one will do it so i have to uh applaud you for doing it i don't think it was the debate necessarily i think it was productive enough yeah maybe maybe some people at drops i can do it next if they're not too much no they've refused

oh well it's too bad it's shame Ryan Graham is too much of a you know what. Well, I got to go on that note, but hey, great chatting. All right, take care. All right. I will stick around and look through the comments and see if there's anything of interest. I tend to doubt it. So while he logs off, let's see.

Did anybody say anything interesting? I'm trying to pull up. I wish there was like an AI bot I could insert into this chat stream. and have it notify me if anything intelligent was said. Who is next to debate? Can you please go over the beef jerky stuff? No, I will not go over the beef jerky stuff.

I'm not going to do the thing that all these dopey podcasters do where I just pull up an email with a reference to beef jerky and then ponder it and make all these salacious inferences from it and then speculate about what they're saying as to beef jerky No, I will not do that. Because you know what? If you go into this, these millions of files with the idea that or the presupposition that a variety of different food stuffs must be suggestive of something pedophilic

and you type into the search bar beef jerky or pizza and then you find a, you know, a handful of emails that seem a little odd and you do like videos about it that get millions of views, no, that's not like a, that's not a constructive way of evaluating the story. So no, I'm not going to talk about it. At least not in the way that you want, because there's plenty of actually interesting material and stuff that does illuminate various dimensions of this story that are much more worthy of being poured through and of being analyzed and of being presented. And if you want to just have a beef jerky commentary, there's plenty of low IQ

you YouTubers for you to get that from. I don't need to join in on that. Somebody says, I'm a pariah. I mugged that guy. I don't know. What is this verb mocked? How come that's being used so often now? I don't even know what it means exactly.

Mogged meaning overwhelmed or what? Mogged meaning you showed him who's boss, something like that. I wasn't looking to mock anybody. Kishav says, why don't you write a book, Michael? I'm working on it. Okay, so steps have been taken. Let's see if I can get it to come to fruition. But I've had enough people, enough people independently tell me to write one or even command that I must write one.

And not just commenters, but there have been many random commenters, but people in the media beseeching me to do this. So I think that I will strive to do it. And I've initiated a process, hopefully, where that does come about. No guarantees yet. But I honestly think I'm the only person, not to be smug, but I'm really the only person that I know of who's in a position to do this subject justice, at least from my preferred perspective, right? So I'm almost obliged to do it, because otherwise it's not going to get done.

Robert Swain says, this guy thinks he did something and is very proud of himself. Tracy rules, Epstein, Chad's drool. I mean, you don't have to be nasty to the guy. I mean, he seems like a perfectly nice guy. I've been peripherally aware of him. At least he has some journalism. Like, he's not just one of these lazy comment, commentary people or pundits or streamers who add really nothing original or of value.

So I'll give him credit on that. I only see that got into the lion's den. to say. So we don't have to be too derogatory. Will the Florida docket ever be published online? The Florida docket's accessible online. It's been accessible for ages. I mean, I think it's even in the new records. They've swept up everything from Florida and elsewhere into the new DOJ records. I don't know for sure if everything is there, but I assume it. No, I think it is, actually. So, yeah, it's all online. But I pulled up that transcript from the plea hearing from the Florida State docket, which you can also go get.

I mean, you have to like log into their state court system, but that's available. Is Jennifer Aura's a legit victim? You know, I was looking at that a little bit, I don't know, she explicitly, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Again, I don't claim to have comprehensive knowledge of absolutely everything on this. But from what I could tell, she conspicuously does not say what age she was when she purportedly encountered Epstein.

I saw that she was featured on this British TV special of Epstein victims. reported victims recently and she says I was a young woman or young something but she doesn't like to say what age or what year I don't know I would like to see some more specific details as to the chronology and details of her claim

so I don't know it's difficult to tell wasn't she like some acting thing I don't know I'm reserving judgment until I get more information and if she and her people are deliberately withholding information then that should tell you something unto itself Do you think Iran war is inevitable this year?

I wouldn't say inevitable. Little is inevitable in this world. But I thought when Trump crossed the threshold last June and launched the first direct strike on Iran in conjunction with Israel that's ever taken place, I always thought it was folly to declare that, oh, everything's over once Trump, comment came out and announced, okay, we destroyed the nuclear sites. mission accomplished because to me that was just phase one of whatever new phase or that was just the first part of whatever new phase has been initiated in terms of the direct military conflict with Iran. You know, I think it was yesterday I saw J.D. Vance said something like,

we have intelligence that Iran is reconstituting the nuclear program, something like that. I mean, I haven't been paying as close attention to it as I probably would have otherwise because of the Epstein uproar. But, no, I wouldn't say it's inevitable, although he didn't Trump give like a 10-day ultimatum. And that's what he did the first go-around. So I guess draw your own inferences. Likely you're dead wrong about that letter being from Nadia. Her dad died in 1983 before she met Epstein.

You better do you like the tweet. I'm almost 100% that I confirmed that that was Nadia prior to tweeting it. I will double check. I'll double check now. Okay, you might be right. I might have made a mistake there. I double check that with somebody else. I missed that dad part.

I thought that was either it either had to be Maria Farmer or Nadia. But maybe you're right. Maybe I did make a mistake there. I will look into that and double check it. Okay.

Look, if I make a mistake, I'll correct it. So it's possible that I did make a mistake there. Who wrote the letter that? I mean, I thought it, I was almost positive that it was. Nadia. Did she have a stepfather?

I mean, that's who she's referring to because everything else in that letter aligns with Nadia. I believe so. Now you got me spooked. Let me double checking this. Because I know the mother went to L.A. to visit her. Who else would have performed in the circus in L.A.? I'm still pretty sure it's Nadia. I think she might have had a stepfather or something.

Again, now you gave me some reasonable doubt here, so I will look into it and verify. But if I made a mistake, yeah, I'll correct that. Um, thoughts on Clinton deposition. I hadn't seen it. It's not out yet, right? There's no transcript. I only saw her opening statement, which was just, you know, pretty much what you would have expected. Nothing that interesting.

Any thoughts on Tulsi and the two big Wall Street Journal reports during your brief four-day hiatus? Oh my God. The hiatus, you guys are still fixated on that? I'm not on the internet for four days. And everybody thinks that I've like ran away in shame because I just can't bear to reckon with the Epstein files because they proved me so disastrously wrong.

Val, I like this Val person. She's he or she, I think it's a she. I'm not sure. It always has an interesting comments to me. Have you seen the deposition of Charon Churchill, Michael? I have it. I don't think she ended up doing a deposition.

She was subpoenaed or she was summoned to give a deposition, but I think they ended up invoking like, First Amendment Journalistic privilege. I don't think she gave a deposition. But I might be wrong about that. that.

Tell you the letter was written by Zinta Brocas. Okay. Then, you know, I'm going to, I will take that down out of an abundance of caution. I appreciate the, the correction.

Okay. Yeah, you might be right. I don't know why, because that, it was in the Galane Maxwell SDNY stuff. Like, one of the markings on it, or the bait stamps is, um, no, he's not a bait stamp,

but the stamp cataloging it is from the Southern District of New York, Galee Maxwell trial. So what relationship did Zinta Barakas having that? I mean, you might be right. I'm just a little bit befuddled. I'm going to confer with somebody once I get off. I might have to end the stream now to go look into that because like I'm actually

concerned if I get something wrong or if I, you know, if I need to make a correction, half the, you know, all these other online ecosystem people, they don't seem to care at all. I mean, I have like, I have like lie to wake at night worrying about a mistake. So if I made a mistake there? Yeah, of course I'll correct it. The letter, by the way, sent by Zinta had a date of 2005 in it. Yeah, I thought I saw 2005, but it was faint. Can you, uh, can whoever is saying this to me now, Jen?

Can you, like, can you DM me or email me and give me like a bigger explanation of how you know that it's into? Um, because you, you're, you're probably right. Now, I mean, I don't know. I guess I overlooked the dad thing. I don't know why she's in the Galeem Maxwell file or, I don't know why that was produced by the Southern District of New York pursuing to the Gilemaxmal trial. So it's a little odd, but I will definitely double-check that.

Yeah, I saw the envelope. Okay, you know, I'm going to delete that right now because I just, I don't have enough confidence that it's correct to leave it up. So I will delete that right now. And then I will make a correction. Okay, the tweet is not deleted. Might have, might have misidentified the writer of this letter. so deleting tweet

out of abundance of caution credit to substack commenter who notified me about the potential error okay I corrected it I mean I'm I

that's odd again I still have questions about what the context of that letter was but I did just delete it um what about the 2001 investigating into J.E. by P.B. Yeah, there is some stuff that's earlier than I would have thought or I think was known at all until the most recent record of productions into.

There was something, I'm not going to remember exactly now, but I think there might have been just a report in 2001 of females potentially going to the house that just prompted some small scale brief investigation where it ended up getting memorialized in some record. Like, it wasn't a protracted investigation at that point. But, yeah, I saw that. I'm not able at the moment to expound on what that was, but I did see something like that, which told me that there was investigation, there was law enforcement activity or interest in Epstein earlier that had been generally assumed.

The unrelated acted letter is in your replies. How did I miss the unredacted letter? Now how do I even get to my, replies. Grant F. Can you, can you DM that to me? Or I don't even know how to now find that.

I guess I deleted the tweets and said. Unredacted letter. I thought I looked through every copy of that letter. Some of them were more redacted than others, but maybe I missed it. I see this guy, Marlon Ettinger is here. I mean, I know like you're a big trafficking guy

and like you think you're a big MacBull expert and so forth, and I'm wrong about everything. So if you want to come up, I'll invite you right now. If you have a substack account, do you? I mean, let me know.

I'll send you an invite right now and you can press me on whatever you'd like. I'll see if your name pops up. Marlon. Marlon Ettinger. Okay. I just sent you an invite. So feel free to pop in if you want. And you don't have to troll me on X.

Okay. I mean, it's not too intensive trawling from what I've seen so far. And I'm happy to mix it up, as you could probably tell. But there you go. I hereby invite you to join right this moment, if you'd like. And then you can rake me over the coals. You can beat me over the head with a big giant baseball bat.

You can even traffic me. You can enslave me in sex trafficking captivity. You can cannibalize me. You can drown me in a vatible. of sulfuric acid. You can engorge me with pizza. I think I can invite up

if you have a substack account. I'm not 100% sure. This is only like the second or third time that I've even done this substack streaming on the desktop. Before you could only do it on the phone. I've been screaming for like a year and a half for them to just add

desktop accessibility. And they finally did it. So Marlin, if you're out there, you have been hereby invited. Oh, okay, Grant is sending me the tweet from Zinta. Okay, you guys are right. Thank you. I screwed that up.

Okay, Edwin Collins, I know I should have downloaded all the zip files on the first day. Can you, can, if, if Ed out there, and I, I, I know that, I know that some of the zip files, the initial zip files are accessible. But if you can send, if you have all the original zip files from January 30th, can you please figure out some way to send them to me? ideally they would be searchable as well. I'll even pay you if I need to. So Grant F slash Ed Collins, whoever has that, I hear by Tatsky,

I'll message you later. I need the original zip files in like a searchable format. I know there are torrents with them and like they're housed in certain places on the internet, but if you have it readily available, I be willing to pay for it. So please be in touch. No word from Marlon Ettinger yet,

even though I just invited him. Pay me for my homework you keep copying. What homework does I copy? I mean, if somebody tweets me, I don't know, are you saying that you've tweeted something at me and then I've used it? Like, what else? Isn't that like the whole point?

if you're saying I didn't credit you or something. Okay, I mean, maybe I didn't. I don't know. Like people send me stuff and then I'll use it if I feel like it's worth using. So it's not skilly homework. Okay, if Marlon is not going to show up, I'm going to tweet at him. You have been invited to join the substack stream.

Let's see if he shows up. Epstein photo of Howard Letnik vanishes from DOJ files. Is that right? Oh, there he is. Is this Marlon? Hey, can you hear me? I can, yeah. Hey.

How's it going? I just hopped off and then you sent me an invite. Well, yeah, I figured if you were here, you might as well just confront me directly. Rake me over the coals. I even said you can traffic me if you want. You can overload me with pizza and beef jerky, whatever you'd like to punish me for how rum I am. That's funny stuff. You're a real comedian.

Yeah. Thank you. I'm here all right. Well, like I said, I just hopped off. I'm in France, so I'm going to sleep now. Let's talk about one subject really quickly. And we can talk more some other time. Let's quickly address, you know, you took down this tweet.

Yeah, yeah. Right. I mean, I admit it. That was an error. I cross-checked that with somebody and then it turned out to be wrong. So I'm correcting it. You're, like you said, you have a real knowledge of the case, right? So Nadia, it failed me here, but.

Of course. Like you said, Nadia, Nadia, she testified as Jane Doe in that case. And what were the accusations? She testified in Jane, Jane, it wasn't Jane, Joe. Sure. And what were the allegations she made? Well, there were numerous allegations. What was one of the allegations she made?

You claim that this master of the case. What were the allegations she made? Well, I mean, the allegations. Allegations fundamentally are from the governor that she was child sex trafficked. Because you're a purported victim. So you're basically claiming that she was not a victim. And that's fine. You can have that position. We can dispute it is not saying, it's not to say someone is a purported victim. It's not to say that they are not a victim. It's specific to say that her victim has been reported. You dispute the idea that she's a victim. You dispute the idea that she's a victim. You dispute the idea that she's a victim. You dispute the idea that she's a victim. We can have this discussion. if you, you know, I doubt the government's case. I doubt Maureen Comey's trafficking theory. What about her testimony?

What do you doubt about her testimony? I think that there are lots of problems with the testimony. For example, I'll give you one. Let's move back. Do you want me to tell you a problem or not? I'd first like you to tell me what her testimony is. I'm not just going to recite to you what her testimony is. Let's talk about a particular aspect of it.

Of course I do. I've read the whole trial transcript. Sure you do, Michael. Have you? I haven't read the whole- You attended it, right? I attended the trial. You have not read the trial transcript at that.

So you have to refresh your memory in the past five years? I refreshed my memory earlier today. Okay. Well, here's some of some new knowledge that I was able to acquire recently because her FBI 302s are now out, or at least some of them. She gave an FBI interview in 2020, so about a year and a half, it was early 2020, right? So a little under two years before the trial. And she's asked by the FBI agent to describe her experiences with Epstein and Orer Maxwell. interestingly she says that there was a point where she felt like they were the only people who ever cared about her in the world or something like that.

Right. Her father had died the year before. She felt alone. She was 13 years old. Right. By the time she's testifying it was many years before. But she's describing her experience. Yeah. Yeah. The chronology of it is always a little fuzzy. But one thing that she was asked is, I think so. But one thing, one thing she was asked is, was there any sexual abuse at the New Mexico ranch? Because she, was said to have gone to the New Mexico ranch on one or two or three occasions I forget exactly how many and she said that she said she was asked this several times

and she repeated several times that she had no specific recollection of any sexual abuse that took place of the New Mexico ranch. Then fast forward from like February of 2020 to December to November of 2021 all of a sudden she's testifying

at that trial that she knows for a fact that sexual abuse took place at the New Mexico ranch. So I don't know how that's not impeachable as to her witness testimony. It's not to say that I can make a wholesale statement that she would never victimized by anything ever.

When you're interviewed by the FBI, you're under the credit of perjury. What's that? You think impeachable, you think the idea that if you don't recall something when you're having an interview with the FBI that you were under the threat of perjury and your statements are impeachable,

she may not have remembered it when she talked to the FBI. She may not have been comfortable with the agents when she talked with them. I mean, impeachability as to her credibility at trial. Meaning the defense counsel can... Well, the jury certainly didn't believe that or credibility was impeachable. Right, because they had a guy who lied in his jury questionnaire, and then he gives this oration during the jury deliberations and says, I too am a survivor of child sex abuse, even though

that was supposed to be filtered out by the jury questionnaire because it can bias the impartiality of a juror given the subject matter. And he says himself that in particular with respect to Nadia, his fellow jurors were very skeptical as to the validity of her claims, or the... the creditors. So do you believe he's a credible person or not that true? Well, he lied in the questionnaire.

So why would you believe his account of the deliberations? He clearly was self-agrandized. He wanted to get into the media. Sure. I don't think he had any incentive to lie about the jury deliberations at that point. I think he was oblivious as to what repercussion there could be. So let's go back to sort of what her allegations were. You know, Nadia said that when she was, I think it was 14.

Like you said, it could have been 50. I'm just refreshing myself. This trial was years ago, but it was either 14 or 15 when she claimed when she first encountered them. She claimed it was 13 when she first encountered them at interlocking.

Yeah, but it got revised like different directions. Yeah. We could drill deeper into it. Like you said, I'm just refreshing myself on this. Do you recall that, you know, did you attend the trial in person? I thought I attended the trial in person, yeah.

Do you recall when it was claimed that she was in an orgy with Maxwell as a participant? participant in the orgy. And this was supposed to be one of the overt acts. I recall that they're talking about sexualized massages with Maxwell. I don't recall.

Maybe I don't remember it, but I don't recall. There was an orgy that was claimed. I'm telling you, look up the, look it up. By who? By the prosecution using her as a witness. And so the defense says, okay, who else participated in this orgy? And somehow, strangely, the prosecution was never able to produce the other participants in that alleged orgy.

But the defense did or they produced the only who could plausibly be the participants given who she identified them as. And they both testified that no such orgy ever took place. So yeah, I do think that is reasonably impeaching of the credibility

of her testimony, among other reasons. Among other reasons. Okay. Yeah. So you don't believe they met. The headshot, Jeffrey, thank you. You rock my world. When she's an adult, she sends this. not this letter that would be the fact that they had a relationship

yeah I'm not saying they had no relationship but they didn't know or she like hallucinated the entire thing like other of the alleged victims clearly have but the sort of narrow band

that you're working is you think that you know not actually had a relationship but there was no sexual contact when she was a child no no I'm not saying that you know I've always said you know it's possible

that there could have been some degree of sexual contact when she was not above the legal age of consent federally because that's all they need to establish for a trafficking charge. It's not, you know, 17, 3 to 64 days as you like to fall in on. She was either 14 or 15. It was unambiguously a child.

That's the, maybe you say it's the narrative, but it's not talking about. Because I think there were different gradations of sexual acts. Epstein walked her down to the poolhouse and pulled her onto his lap and started masturbating on her. That was when she was 14. Apparently, that was the first time she ever saw a penis. Right. That's one act. That's not, it's not like, these are the, these are the actual allegations.

Sure. Yeah. Well, I don't know. If she, if she didn't have any memory of sexual abuse in Mexico in 2020, but then she had vivid memories of it in 2021. And in the interim, she's suing Maxwell. She's suing the Epsina state. She's demanding tens of millions of dollars.

And she's conferring with personal injury, injury attorneys in Los Angeles who were telling her that she would be best served by comporting her story as much as possible with the prerogatives of the prosecution, then yeah, that's some grounds for skepticism as to the reliability of the argument. That the Maxwell's defense made it to trial. And you think it's a totally implausible argument? I think it is an impossible argument. Here's one reason why it's impossible.

And we should talk again because I do. Sure, it's like 2.30 here. But I didn't realize that you were on Central European time. So Paris time. But for instance, Oh yeah, Paris time. What if these women who testified in the criminal trial's sole motivation was money, why did they testify in the criminal trial?

Because they'd already received their settlements. What did they have to gain by opening themselves up to cross-examination to potential impeachability? Like you said, when they'd already got their money. They already had their payout. Why participate in the criminal trial? I'm not saying it was the sole reason necessarily. There could be a multitude of reasons why somebody does something. the monetary factor of using.

I mean, wouldn't that in peril their settlements? If they had this fabricated narrative, why then testifying the criminal trial? It doesn't even have to be totally fabricated. It can be embellished or dramatized or tailored toward the attainment to the maximum possible settlement, which is precisely what the lawyers were encouraging her to do. And, like, if Sarah Ransson didn't testify to the Maxwell trial,

but like, if you go look at her submission to the Epstein Victims' Compensation Program was actually in these new files. I mean, to say that she didn't tailor it, tailor her account of her experiences to the imperative of convincing the administrator of the settlement program

to give for the most money, it just, it defies credulity. And I don't know, like, why, on this one issue, we're all just supposed to ignore the potential distorting effects of these gigantic financial incentives. Like, why? Isn't that, wouldn't that be human nature?

Like, why we're supposed to think that that, like, you know, to dangle millions of dollars over somebody's head would have no effect whatsoever on that point, on that point, 75 women who made submissions to the fund had their claims rejected. So if they were just handing out this money building. Do we know for sure that it was 75 that were rejected? Where has that been confirmed? I can't put off that, but I've seen the number 225, submissions, 100 or, it's from subtracting the amount of submissions that were submitted and the amount

that were paid out. It's been reported widely. I can't hold up for you right now. Yeah, I mean, I think you're probably in the ballpark. But anyway, I'm going to run. We'll talk about this some other time. Talk about this other time. That's fine.

But she doesn't have to have fabricated the entire thing. Like Virginia Roberts Goufrey didn't fabricate literally everything. She did almost certainly know Epstein and she was in contact with. She's very corroborated. She did confabulate her marquee accusations that form the crux of the Epstein mythology. Right. That's the argument.

Maxwell, no, I don't. That's the argument of Maxwell and Epstein's defense lawyers. I don't care whose argument in this. I recognize, like, you know, I've read a lot of these cases. I recognize the arguments you're making. They're well argued. They're initially credible because

defense lawyers make convincing arguments, but they're not accurate. But I didn't just pilfer the argument. of any lawyer, right? This is my own independent assessment. It happens to align with some lawyer in some respect, then that's incidental. In a lot of cases, it's not incidental.

I read these documents. It makes sense if you're done. So you think I'm lying? You think I'm lying when I say it's my own independent assessment? I think it not just aligns, but it directly mirrors a lot of the defense arguments. Like, for instance, you posted about Nadia today, and you mentioned the photo she sent. That was an argument by the defense lawyers. Yeah.

I mean, that's how I found the photo, because I remember. Remember the part of the trial transcript where they reported it? And then I searched for the, I captioned the photo and I pulled it up. Sure. Yeah. I agree. Okay. I do have to run.

Okay. Goodbye. Talk to you some other time. There you go. Okay. Cameo by a guy who is always railing at me on X. Anybody else out there who wants to give me a hard time? Okay.

I think I am going to log off at this point. Please do a grape soda and pizza live stream. Yeah. You know what? I think at some point I might just have to sink my teeth. into a piping hot cheese pizza, just so that everybody can analyze it and try to divine the sinister meaning of it.

So you can watch me safer that cheese pizza all night long and then tell me what you're able to conclude from it. Okay, thanks everybody for tuning in. maybe I'll debate slash converse with that guy later like not everything has to be a structured formal debate I don't know

um okay ta ta ta for now I hopefully will have some an article in a not on the substack but I'll repost it on the substack uh

either tomorrow or maybe over the weekend but it's something that I hope comes out um and if you're watching now and you're not subscribe or whatever, make sure to subscribe.

Obviously, paid subscriptions are appreciated because I'm actually not paid by any Epstein co-conspirators. I mean, maybe that would be nice if all these billionaires were desperate to just fund me so I could be subsidized to look through court records and so forth. But that is not the case, which is why my appreciation of anybody who is not yet subscribed as a hate subscriber, if they would consider upgrading. but you don't have to. It wouldn't just be nice.

Okay. Take care of, everybody.