Pablo Torre Finds Out - Exclusive: The NBA Player, the Congressman and the Epstein Files

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

He's the tall guy in the notorious Mar-a-Lago video with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. He's lived at the intersection of sports, politics and high society. What does Tom McMillen have to say for himself, after the release of the new Epstein files? Pablo asks the difficult questions, in an increasingly awkward interview.(Pablo Torre Finds Out is independently produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. The views, research and reporting expressed in this episode are solely those of Pablo Torre Finds Out and do not reflect the work or editorial input of The Athletic or its journalists.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. I really didn't do this interview. I mean, hashtag something 30 years ago that I barely remember. Right after this ad. So the number one thing that people keep asking me to do on this show is look into the Epstein Files. And so what I should probably just tell you, finally, is that for more than a year now, I've been thinking about one specific piece of this story, a video that I am guessing you've already seen.

The footage shot in November of 1992, before Trump opened the resort as a club, shows the future president surrounded by cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, capturing Trump's fun-loving Bachelor lifestyle for an appearance on Faith Daniels NBC talk show. We're going to get great ratings in your show. After a while, Trump goes to greet three new guests, among them, the financier Jeffrey Epstein. Come on in. Go inside. More than a decade before his guilty plea on state prostitution charges. Donald Trump knew the cameras were there. In the video, he makes a point to draw Epstein's attention to them.

And the video captures Donald Trump and Epstein chatting while watching a group of women at the party dance. It's not an image that matches Trump's declaration. that he was not a fan of Epstein. This viral video is arguably the most famous artifact in the most infamous story in modern American politics. But as a sports journalist, the thing that caught my eye wasn't Trump or Epstein. It was a background character who had been hiding

in a way that would otherwise be impossible at 6'11, basically in plain sight. In fact, you may have missed him right there. walking into that party at Mar-a-Lago right alongside a woman and Jeffrey Epstein shaking hands with our future president. And then trying to duck out of the frame a bit later on as Epstein doubles over laughing at whatever it is that Trump says. And so last month, when the Epstein files re-entered the news cycle, release all the documents and let the American people finally see what the real story is. We here at PTFO emailed this larger-than-life character ourselves.

And his name, you should know, is Tom McMillan. Tom McMillan, it turns out, was the ninth overall pick in the 1974 NBA draft out of the University of Maryland, where he now sits on the Board of Regents. Tom McMillan also served three straight terms as a Democratic congressman. And when we asked Congressman McMillan if he would indulge a Congressman, conversation about his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, and also his own historic and decorated life, he said yes, before canceling on us five days later. But in those intervening days, something fascinating happened.

The next wave of Epstein files, tens of thousands of pages of emails, sent to and from the financier and convicted child sex offender who died in 2019 in prison while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges became searchable thanks to publicly available databases and I fell pretty immediately

into this new rabbit hole. Tom McMillan, meanwhile, did something that I truly did not expect. He rescheduled. Good morning. Everything good? Good morning. I'm good. Great. How are you doing?

I'm good. Good. Yeah. Sorry, I had to bow out of it last week. I cut my elbow pretty bad. I was worried that this wouldn't happen. Yeah, no. I was looking at your Filipino connection. I had a congressional district that had the most Philippine Americans in the country. in, you know, Fort Washington, around Washington, D.C., oxen, and all that area, Prince George's County. Okay, so I got to set up who you are, sir, because your resume is staggering. And I need people to understand Tom McMillan.

Thank you for being here, by the way. Who and what you've done in your life. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. You've done quite a bit yourself, so. I mean, the resume, I'll just read it off. All-American. Olympian, 11-year NBA veteran with the Buffalo Braves, now the Clippers, of course,

plus the Knicks, the Hawks, the Washington Bullets, a road scholar at Oxford, a three-term Democratic U.S. congressman for Maryland, member of the president's counsel on sports and fitness, a businessman in medical devices and biodefense. I was appointed by Richard Nixon as the youngest presidential appointee ever, and then I chaired it under Clinton after Arnold Schwarzenegger. By the way, the former CEO of Lead One, the Trade Association that advises collegiate athletic directors in this era, this strange new era of NIL, name image and likeness, of course, which we'll touch on. You're a man in just so many Rolodexes. And by the way, Tom, I do feel much to call you the Honorable C. Thomas McMillan as your alma mater of the University of Maryland, their Board of Regents calls you. because I think we all can recognize the tallest ever member of Congress at 6'11.

Yeah, that's true. Actually, I was the tallest altar boy in all time, I think, although it's not in his book of records. I presume if you're Filipino, you have that good Catholic. I was an absolutely average-sized altar boy. That is also accurate about my personal biography. But look, part of the reason why I've been studying a biorea, of course, is because of this video that was unearthed by NBC News, Tom, which I just want to address at the top here, if that's okay, because it is this historical artifact. And as I was watching it and studying it, I was like, hold on. That's the guy who might also be the tallest member of Congress.

That's right. So the story is, I was coming to a part. at Marlago. Trump had just bought it, you know, and I'm walking in with my girlfriend, and there's Trump and Epstein there. This was in 91, a long time ago. November 92, I believe, actually, just looking at the date there at Palm Beach, Florida. Right. And what happened was Trump was throwing an NFL party.

So there were all kinds of NFL celebrities there. And he was trying to promote Marlago because, you know, he wanted to do something. with it, like turn it into a club or something. So I literally just walked into that. The reason they were cameras there was because Trump was promoting the NFL's, you know, and promoting his club, you know, typical Donald Trump stuff. So I kind of walked into that. And that film is still, you know, is ever present.

But it was really an NFL party more than anything else. So, and there was a whole host of celebrities there. It just so happens and I walk in, there's Trump and Epstein in the front of the house. I mean, the idea that the most famous clip, one of the most famous clips of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, during this moment in which we are examining both Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, has you and your then girlfriend right there in that receiving line makes me want to just understand where you were in your life at that point. Because I was doing the math on this, and I'm like, okay, so November 92, that would mean you're about 40 years old. I think you had just lost your bid for a fourth term at that moment in time. Is that right? I got redistricted, and so I went to Florida just to take a break.

And I know Donald Trump for. He gave me money when I ran for Congress. I knew him I think I first met him when I played for the Knicks. So I've known a long time. So he invited me in that party. And as I said, there are a whole lot of celebrities there. And then I just walked into the cameras. That was what was the irony of it.

The NFL aspect of it, right? I mean, there were reportedly cheerleaders from the bills and the dolphins. This was, as you described, like this big sort of football-themed kickoff. Did you interact with Epstein that night? Do you remember what he was like as you were sort of like walking in together and all that? No, I just kind of walked into the party. The reason why I saw all those cameras, I said, God, I didn't know. realize I was going to walk into a camera fest.

And so that's kind of like kind of want to get out of there and just go into the party. We have this guy, Jeffrey Epstein, standing in the front, you know. But he was kind of a figure in Palm Beach. I mean, I mean, it wasn't like he was unknown. He was in New York, Palm Beach. He knew a lot of people. And that's just his, he was an M.O. And I mean, I don't think he said it.

I don't think I never knew whether Trump was close to him or not. So I couldn't even make a comment on that. And just, I think they were just talking as he walked in too. This footage from like NBC that they were collecting, the camera fest and the broadcast quality footage here, it brings me to this other video from that broadcast, as we're going to hear the song, Rhythm is a Dancer by Snap. This video, I will note that there's a very tall band

that pops up from behind in the background. And you're kind of like ducking away from what is this very famous scene that I cannot imagine you would anticipate would be so famous in the future. But the person that you're talking to there is Galane Maxwell. Did you have any relationship with her? What was the discussion that you were having at that moment behind Trump and Epstein? Because it's just like this historical time capsule of all of these characters. Well, I think that was the front.

of the party and I was walking through. That's the irony of it. I was kind of saying pleasantries to people and moving on. You know, I just, you know, you walk in, you say hello to everybody, you go through. So I didn't really know Geelaine very well. But I said to folks, hello, and then I went into the party. So, I mean, it's really, you know, it's just the irony of that if it hadn't been the NFL thing, there wouldn't have been any cameras.

So, I mean, I think that's the only picture that I've ever been in with, Trump and Epstein and all that crowd. So it was all, you know, people bringing up all the time, but it was a party 34 years ago. So I don't remember. So you weren't like discussing future trips on Jeffrey Epstein's plane or anything with Galais and Maxwell. I know. I spent a, I mean, so long ago, I barely remember it. So, you know, other than the fact that it's shown from time to time, I had very little memory of it. Yeah. So just so we can move on and for the record. So the last time you interacted with Epstein would have been when? When's the last time that you would have been in a place?

It's not like maybe I might have run into him in Palm Beach or somewhere in the early 90s. But I really kind of lost touch with him. I just never. When I say run into him, I might have seen him at another part in somewhere. Yeah. When he was someone that moved around New York and Aspen in Palm Beach, so I mean, you would probably run into him. some of that stuff. And, I mean, I can't recall, quite frankly,

but it's been a long time. I want to move from that to a bit of our shared past here because I used to work at a certain magazine called Sports Illustrated. Yeah. When I was... Oh, yeah, I started as a fact-checker. That was my first job as a real adult.

And February 1970, Tom, there you are, the second-ever high school player on the cover of the magazine, which is... You know, it's you, and somewhere along that lineage is like LeBron's chosen one cover, but it says there, the best high school player in America, Mainzfield's Tom McMillan. Do you remember what that time in your life was like?

Well, of course. I mean, here I grew up in a very small town in Pennsylvania, and I'm playing a game in Scranton. You know, this was a seminal moment because, you know, every kid, Red Sports Illustrated back then. It's a different Sports Illustrator than it is today, but it was a very iconic publication, and to be on the cover was pretty amazing. People bring that cover up to me all the time today and wanted signed. I remember Neil Weifer, the photographer. A great photographer, yeah. Great photographer for sports Chelsea. Climbed up on those, on that basket and took that shot.

Peter Carey wrote in the Beasts, quote, Recruiters often simultaneously compare Tom to Lou Alcindor and Bill Bradley. Then he goes on to write, he stands at the top of his class academically and is the president of the student council, the first trombonist in the school band, a prize-winning orator, and perhaps the world's tallest altar boy, end quote, owing to the previous description that you gave. And then the recruiting visits, you were such an in-demand prospect that apparently West Virginia, introduced you to Lyndon Johnson, like President Lyndon Baines Johnson, Virginia as a contrast, apparently, Cornice Sports Illustrated, took you and your coach to meet a playmate of the month, which is a different sort of contrast in, I suppose, a recruiting visit. All true. You know, I remember the West Virginia. I was in 10th grade, and Bucky Waters was a coach, and he brought me down to Morgan Town. He's driving me around the campus. He said, what would you like to meet the president?

I said, well, of course I'd like to meet the president of the university. He says, no, I mean the president of the United States. And LBJ was flying into Morgantown Airport. I went out and I met him as he got off the plane. And I remember the first strong wave of bourbon that hit me in the face when I met, kind of new for a high school kid to sense that. But it's the first time I met a president of the United States. So it was pretty crazy.

Well, you go on to Maryland and you playing for Lefty. Lefty Dressout, this is one of the all-time great coaches. And then, by the way, I got a speed run through some of this because you've just done so much in your life. You eventually end up at Munich in the 72 Olympics. That was you as well in this all-time famous piece of footage where it's the U.S., it's Russia, it's the gold medal game, and the ending needs to be played three times as we watch the footage of you guarding the infamous inbound pass here. Well, if you went back a little earlier in that, you'll see that the referee was pushing me off the line.

And he didn't speak English. So I was afraid that he was going to call it technical on me. But pushing me back really made me ineffective. This was the third play, by the way. This was not the first. There were two other plays where they had failed to score. But I never could understand why the referee was pointing to the ground to get off because in international rules, as long as the player can go backwards,

you don't have to get off the line. So it was a, it was, you know, when they were not speaking English and they were not clear what they meant, well, the last thing you want to do is end up having a technical foul. But it was a comedy of errors, but it was really, it was a Cold War battle. I mean, I said Richard Nixon and Brezhnev could have just arm wrestled. we didn't need to play a basketball game because that thing was preordained we were going to have if the game got closed we were going to lose it and it was really kind of unfair in that sense because we were young we were 18 years old the soviets were in the thirties they were very mature they were professionals and yet we came from bahai we came against odds and we won the game and then it was taken away from us it is heartbreaking for us because we really should have had the gold medal. But it's

one of those footnotes in history. The second part is that our medals are sitting over in Switzerland. And I tried to get them to send them to a museum in the United States like the Smithsonian. They wouldn't do it unless all of our team was willing to accept it

and they're not. I am reminded of something else I found in my research, which is that you personally asked then Hawks owner Ted Turner to trade you to Washington. This is toward the end of your career because you wanted to run for Congress. That's right. Which I believe is not a thing that has ever happened otherwise. You were playing for the bullets.

It was 1986. I mean, you had just won NBA player of the week, according to the records we just reviewed. You were playing alongside Minute Bowl, speaking of great international players, speaking of athlete activists, a level of player empowerment, Tom, that is probably historical in its own right. you running for Congress while doing all of that? Well, the history behind it, I had gone to Oxford, and I was a chemistry major in Maryland, so I was a, you know, valedictorian in my class. I was a chemistry. That's very hard to do as a basketball player.

And then I went to Oxford and I studied politics, philosophy, and I got out of it. I said, you know, I came back and I got very interested in politics. And so after coming back from Oxford, I said, well, you know, I'm going to run for Congress. And so I bought a house in Maryland. I spent my summers there. I campaigned and went around and got to know everybody. And then I went to Turner one day. And I said, Ted, I love playing for you.

He's such a great owner. And I said, but, you know, I really want to run for Congress. Would you send me to Washington? And by God, he did a couple months later. And funny enough, when we were, I was on the telecommunication committee, and we were going over a cable bill on the, on the, the house and I remember Turner reminded me that I wouldn't be here without him so he asked me for my support but it was a great story I mean the fact that running for Congress when I was in the

NBA I announced for Congress before the season I played a whole year as a candidate for Congress and then I left the NBA in May my primary was in May and I was elected in November by the way the closest race in the country that year so I don't think anybody's going to do it today I don't think the NBA would allow it. I don't think the teams would allow it. It was just fortunate that I had owners that allowed me to do this. Do you remember who your first two campaign donors were in terms of the $1,000 donors, Tom, who the first two were in your political career? Well, technically, Trump was one of the earliest, believe it or not. I remember I went to New York and I got a thousand from Trump.

You know, I can't recall. It's been so long. We have NBA Commissioner David Stern. Yes. As one of the other early ones. David was a very early supporter. And that's right. And a number of the NBA owners, which were contributors of mine.

All throughout the NBA, there were a lot of very wealthy owners who happened to have democratic inclinations. So they were supporters of mine as well. I'm going through your Twitter account and you are a man about town. I mean, the era of early 87 to early 93 when you're in Congress, the Jock Caucus, this is like an all-time high watermark for athletes also being politicians. This is post-Ragan and here's the photo. Do you recognize these men that you're posing with at Capitol Hill?

They're all iconic. Jack Kemp, who I was very close to Jim Bunning, great player. came in the same time, Moly Udall, real legend, Bill Bradley, of course, who I played with on the Knicks and myself, it was really quite a, quite a group of athletes. And they called it the Jack Caucus. I don't think that we've ever had that many high-profile athletes in the Congress. And, you know, I mean, it was very bipartisan. I worked with Jack and a lot of stuff in sports Bradley and I were Democrat. Jim was a Republican and the other three of us. were Democrats, but it was very bipartisan.

Right. I mean, so Jack Cam, for those who don't remember, this is an MVP quarterback for the Bills, AFL MVP turned congressman, future vice presidential pick of Bob Dole. Jim Bunning, of course, the Hall of Fame pitcher, then member of the House and the Senate out of Kentucky. Mo Udall, he just referenced a star player out of Arizona, played for the nuggets in the NBA, Bill Bradley aforementioned, and you, the congressman from Maryland. And the thing about just like sports and policy at that point, I think it's fascinating to see what you were trying to do as a matter of legislation.

I mean, at one point, you proposed a bill that would have taken TV money and turned it into a monthly stipend for student athletes. That's also part of your story. Well, it was to restore an antitrust monopoly for television for college sports. It was lost in the 1985 Supreme Court case and to spread that money around more evenly.

And by the way, people are trying to do that today, 35. That's why I bring it up. And it was really meant to be a conditional antitrust exemption tied to reforms. And by the way, Senator Maria Cantwell has that bill in the Congress right now. And she talked to me last summer when she was putting it in there. But, you know, Bradley and I, we were two of the three that passed a student right to know Bill, which was the first college sports bill that required universities to disclose graduation rates,

not only of their athletes, but all their students. And believe it or not, the NCAA fought that at the time because it was a consumer item. Look, you ought to be able, a parent ought to be able to tell how a college is doing graduating their athletes and their students.

And so it passed. And then I got the idea of doing something bigger, which was this antitrust bill, I propose. But, you know, as I said, when I put that bill in, I said, this was like a time capsule bill. People will pull it out 25 years later. And I said that at the time. And believe it or not, Sarah Cantwell called me last summer. So that's actually 30-some years. So I was slightly off on my time capsule calculation. But the time capsule that we're exploring here, I mean, that's a bit of a throughline in this episode. It takes us back now. November 92, you have just lost your bid for re-election.

You got redistricted. And at that point, by the way, I'm just curious, did you think you would work in politics again? I'm just curious what the ambition level was after something that must have been frustrating. It was very frustrating because we had a Democratic governor in Maryland, William Donald Schaefer, who actually created a Republican map.

And I lost my seat because of the need to create another minority district in Maryland. But if we would have had a Democratic governor, I would have still, I'd probably still be in, I might still be in Congress. But, you know, when I left Congress, I became a presidential appointee to Clinton. I took over for Arnold Schwarzenegger as head of the President's Council, along with Florence Griffith joiner, the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. I had served on that as a member under Nixon, and now I was chairing it under Clinton. And I had known Clinton because he went to the same college I did at Oxford University

college. So I've known him since 83. I was one of his earliest supporters. And quite frankly, the council was a very highly regarded, highly sought after position in an administration. Because you actually spend some time with the president and go running with them. You get to, you know, go on his helicopter once a while. And so it's, it was kind of a fun, fun gang for a while to do that. And by the way, the president's council on physical fitness and sports is again, sort of back in the news. Trump has all of these appointees that he's put on. And this is Triple H, the wrestler. This is Bryson DeCambeau, the golfer, it's Nick Bosa, Harrison Butker, Lawrence Taylor, Alexi Lollas, Wayne Gretzky, Mariano Rivera, Tony Romo. Like, there's a whole, again, just like this other sort of roster that Trump has put together.

But I'm just imagining, like, what it's like to leave politics in the way that you had. And you're sort of, like, searching around. Did you want to be an ambassador at one point? Like, how does that work? You get to figure out, like, hey, if I could be appointed to some cool country, is that something that you were interested in? I thought about it, but, you know, when I left and went into the Clinton administration as an appointee, I was offered some other positions that would have been full-time in the government. The President's Council wasn't full-time.

So it would have been the park service and different jobs like that. I decided I wanted to take a break, but I never went back and ran for office again. But, you know, I've been very active politically, but just never ran for office again. When I look at the Council on Sports and Bill Cleans' Council on Sports, your time on that was cut short. Why was that? Could you explain what happened there? I had served a number of years, and I really, I pretty well served through his term, but I did leave a little earlier. I really can't recall the reason. It was just, you know, a lot of times, I forget, I can't really recall, quite frankly.

So I just got to interrupt here for a second to read from an article that we found in the Baltimore Sun from November 1997. Quote, former Representative Tom McMillan of Maryland was forced to resign as chairman of President Clinton's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports yesterday, three days after armed federal agents raided the Capitol Hill offices of the health management company he heads. The White House action occurred amid a federal investigation to determine whether the company's clinics had fraudulently billed government health insurance plans for chiropractic care as though it were for traditional medical care. An aide in the White House personnel office telephoned a former acting U.S. Attorney General who was representing McMillan to instruct McMillan to resign from his unlawful. unpaid position as head of the presidential advisory council. End quote. Now, I should also note that this healthcare company apparently never got prosecuted as a result of that government raid.

And so we did follow up with Tom McMillan about all of this. And what he wrote in an email, in part, was this. Quote, I was never involved in the investigation and never even interviewed by the investigators. It was a failed and hyped investigation by the feds and the case was dropped with no charges filed against the company or its officers. I left the president's counsel to pursue other opportunities. End quote. But here, I think it is also worth pointing out another thing in McMillan's biography from earlier that same year, 1997, this in the lead-up to the reportedly forced resignation from President Clinton's counsel.

Again, according to the Baltimore side, quote, last summer, McMillan was arrested after a confrontation with a female friend. The friend, who had accused McMillan of shoving her down a flight of stairs, later took back her story, and police did not press charges. And quote, now the Washington Post had separately and previously reported that on that night in question, police had found lamps busted, a coffee table tipped over, wooden stairwell slats broken, and a glass. bathroom door shattered. The woman, who would later become McMillan's wife, appeared, quote, visibly upset and was bleeding and bruised. End quote.

So we also asked Tom McMillan for comment about these reports of that initial allegation. And in an email, he wrote in part, quote, We are happily married. This story is totally false. End quote. And this brings us, the moment, past the 1990s, and into Tom McMillan's re-emergence, following all of that as a public figure, and back into a different kind of politics this time.

College sports. The biography of your life is so full. You go on to work in private equity, Homeland Security after 9-11. I mean, this is an era of like bipartisanship that is quaint to imagine now bygone is another way of put. it. It brings us to 2017, by the way, when you launch lead one. And this group, I'll summarize it. You tell me if I'm getting it right, because it's a bit complicated, but also quite simple. It's a lobbying group for athletic directors at the big time power football schools, right? This is post-Obanon. This is post-the-O-Bannon case moving through the courts in 2015. That case, of course, ruled ultimately that the NCAA amateurism rules were effectively illegal.

what was your theory of this organization? What were you trying to accomplish when it came to being a student athlete but also a student in a real way? It wasn't a lobbying organization. We were not registered as lobbies, so we didn't really do that. What we did do,

this was the vision of Jacks Warbrook, who was the AD at Notre Dame, and he felt that the division one, the FBS schools, needed to come together and to work on these issues in a more collaborative fact. And it was Jack's vision that by bringing ADs together and coming together on policies that they may have common visions on would be a productive thing for college sports. So I ended that up.

But it was very interesting at the time because we really were trying to get these big-time college death lag programs to collaborate together. And the conference structure makes that very difficult because they're all competitors on the field. And many times they're competitors off the field as well. So it was an interesting experience. I learned and met a lot of people. I got to immerse myself back into college sports.

You know, I mentioned something we didn't talk about it, but I wrote a book when I was in Congress called Out of Bound, which talked to him. talked a lot about these issues. And here I was able to be in the kind of a more of a leadership pool. That was an interesting several years of my life. Just to bring us back, this is the inaugural gala, January 2017, this gala at the Trump International Hotel. And this is one of those things where I'm...

We never did that. We talked about it. We never actually added an event at the Trump Hotel. We never, it never happened. We talked about it, but it never was, never, never, never transpired. But we talked about the, you know, trying to get presidential buy-in to some of the things we were doing. But we never, we never went ahead with that event. We did have our annual meeting, just never at Trump Hotel, never at the Trump Hotel.

Okay, got it, got it, got it. What I'm trying to sort of understand is just the reality of working in politics during this, now the second administration, but during that first one, it seemed like there is, of course, a political strategy to, if we're going to try and be an effective organization, we need to know how the bread gets buttered, where, in fact, we need to go meet the president and his allies. I bring us to Twitter because I was just reading through something that you were talking about in terms of Donald Trump, which is the commission on college sports, the presidential commission, on college sports, which you praised him for.

Because I think this is an idea, by the way, speaking to your personal previous history, you had personally called for this conversation and for this commission almost specifically. Yes. Matter of fact, back in 2013-14, I helped former Congressman Jim Moran, who's my partner now, to introduce a bill.

He introduced a presidential commission bill that was modeled exactly, like the Olympic Commission bill back in the 70s that ended up producing the kind of of the modern United States Olympic structure. And so I helped him write that. We actually copy. We use the same structure from that Olympic bill in Congressman Moran's bill. So when it was discussed again, I was very much an advocate for it.

I thought bringing folks together in a kind of high-level commission. I saw work in the amateur sports. Act in the 70s, I thought it could work for college sports. The Amateur Sports Act was very successful in reorganizing the modern Olympics. And that was the aftermath after Munich. When the Olympics were a mess, the Congress decided they were going to create this presidential commission. The commission met for four years.

Jerry Ford created it, and they produced this legislation that modernized the Olympic movement. I thought something similar could be done in college sports. And that's why I was pushing. it. So, you know, when the president talked about it, President Trump talked about it, you know, I said this would, this would be positive. The problem today is that it's so partisan that commissions are really difficult to make work. So I'm not sure that the idea is as meritorious as it was in the 70s, but it's something I thought would bring these issues to a high level and hopefully have some deliberation on. but it hasn't happened. I don't know if it will happen. When I continue to scroll through your timeline, by the way,

and I'm thinking about the lead one job and how you're back in the mix. And so there is Ted Leonesis, the owner of the Washington Wizards, the Missing of the Capitals in May of 2019 with you. There is Adam Silver in May of 2019 as well, the selfie that you took at the Economic Club, talking about, I believe,

e-sports and one and done, and these other issues, as you put it at the time. Are the commissioners, I mean, is Adam somebody that you're close with having been around, of course, sports and politics for a long time? I wouldn't say I'm close to him, but I do see him from time to time. I saw Commissioner Goodell yesterday. I was at a funeral for Paul Tangaboobo. So I serve on a board with Commissioner Goodell on the National Football Foundation. So I'm proud to be on that board and the commissioners on that board.

And so I was good friends with Paul Taglaboobo. And, you know, I talked to Adam from time to time. So I do have some connectivity there. Look, the Rolodex of Tom McMillan, I mean, it brings us now to August 2019. And this in terms of fact check, I just want to make sure I understand correctly because this is from page 80, Tom, of the exhibit.

This is the Virginia Jewfrey v. Galane Maxwell case. It produced the Black Book. Jeffrey Epstein's Black Book, as it's been called. Yeah. And I just want to, I mean, look, the names in here, it's Robin Leach, Mr. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, the Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams guy. Did you know any of these other people? Well, no, I don't know.

No, I think I'd met Robin Leach maybe once, but I didn't really know him. I mean, I didn't socialize or have any real relationship with him. But as I said, Jeffrey, Jeffrey been around the scene for a long time. he was, I never saw the craziness in his life. I didn't really deal with him much, but he, you know, he collected people. And that's obviously from his diaries and all that, it's pretty apparent that he continued to do that all the way to the end. What was it like?

I'm just trying to understand as a human, what's it like when you see your name with two entries in that black book? You're listed C. Thomas McMillan as chairman in C. of the risk group, but then also elsewhere just with your Landover, Maryland address. What is your reaction when you realize that you're in these papers too? Well, I'm not surprised. I mean, that address goes back to probably the early 90s. So, I mean, as I said, you run into people like this. He was a collector of people.

He had staff of secretaries. They probably kept all these names. So I didn't have much correspondence with him. anything else. But, you know, he's, he knew a lot of people. There's no question about it. But, I mean, it's just the way it goes. I mean, you can pull anybody off the street. Like, and, and if you go through that book, there's thousands of people in it. So it's just part of his M.O. was to collect people, really, more than anything else. And, you know, as he got wealthier, I think over time, the people that he hung out with were, you know, Bill Gates and

those kinds of folks. And so I don't even know what to say. I think is very sad. I feel terrible about the victims. And I hope that all this stuff comes to light and that there can be resolution to it. As your name gets circulated in these ways that are not like super obvious, but I think people who know you, I just wonder like I'm seeing this photo with you and my personal dear frenemy, Mark Cuban. Yeah. And, you know, Mark's not a Trump guy. Are these guys giving you, are the billionaires giving you shit for any of this?

Not sure. I mean, I was, the picture of me was, like, coming into a party with my girlfriend 34 years ago, so I'm not sure what the implications of it all are. It's a, you don't know. I mean, this is, I mean, this is like, it's almost 35 years ago. I can barely remember any of this. So, no, I saw Mark Cuban at a political event. We had a great chat, and he gave a great speech, and I'm really happy to engage it.

And to be clear, you've said very lucidly that you haven't interacted with abstain since the 90s. And just to sort of summarize, of course, for people who aren't familiar, he bleeds guilty in 2008 in Florida to prostitution-related charges involving a minor. He's ruled a registered sex offender in 2011 in New York. And now I just need to examine. So in November, the Epstein files that get released by Congress, I don't know if you're familiar with this email, but I'll show it to you. This is an email.

The subject is Tom McMillan. Have you seen this, Tom, before? Before I read it out? Because this is one. No, I, it's so crazy. I mean, I have no idea where this comes from. You know, it's some, just trying to think who it is. So it's blacked out. The From is sort of redacted on this copy. It's January 22nd, 2013. Yeah. And I really don't know. I don't know. I mean, it's just strange to me. None of that would be make sense to me. So I have no idea. So it's just crazy.

I'll read it because it does verify something that you said, though. It says, hi, Jeffrey. I saw Tom McMillan last night and he asked about you, said he lost touch. He's tight with the Obamas and is going to be an ambassador. Apparently any country he wants. So great, exclamation point. I'd love, all caps, love to be an ambassador, and I'm going attempt to raise enough money on the next election cycle. His info is redacted and redacted. I hesitate to give him your info without your permission.

I'm doing Aspen Institute Socrates Society program over President's weekend. If you're in Aspen, exclamation point, miss you, exclamation point, love and happiness, comma, Gwendolyn. I have no idea what that's all about. I mean, really, I wouldn't have said any of those things just crazy. I mean, it just doesn't. I have no idea. I mean, it's like I can't even respond.

I just don't even know what it's about. Yeah, as a fact-checking concern, I mean, the Gwendolyn in question, do you have any a guess as to which Gwendolyn it is? No. They unredacted the email, and it's a woman named Gwendolyn Beck. Yeah. Do you know Gwendolyn Beck? There's a Gwendolyn Beck that lives that ran for Congress in Virginia, I think. That's the one that she had some relationship with Jeffrey. Yes.

I've run into it over the years, but I don't know her well. She did run for Congress in Virginia. Jeffrey Epstein was a political donor to her campaign. She was listed in... Iran is a Republican. She's pretty... I know she's a big... I guess she was a candidate was on the Republican Party. That's what I remember. Yeah, she was listed in Epstein's Black Book under, quote, massage Florida.

Her name shows up 13 times in the manifests of Jeffrey Epstein's plane in the flight logs. Virginia Jewfrey claims, quote, she was involved in some of the orgies with Epstein. And so just that character and the flight logs listing her,

yeah, it's just Gwendolyn Beck otherwise, No recollection of her. I think that we're getting into this crazy minutia. Well, I spent 35 years ago. I just move on and happy to talk about a lot of things, but this one's like, it just gets tired. People focus on this. And, you know, it's just, what do I say?

I say, look, I haven't been involved in this thing for 35 years. So let's move on. Totally understand. and there's just one more thing because I just need to make sure I understand it for fact-checking reasons and clarify. Let's move on. I really didn't do this interview. Hasht back something 135 years ago that I barely remember. Totally understand.

It's just irresponsible of me to not ask the question about this is Epstein plane flight logs January 29th, 1993. This is two months after the party at Mar-a-Lago that we showed when you were talking to Glenn Maxwell right behind Trump and Epstein. Three weeks after you left Congress, do you do? recall this flight? This would be from D.C. to Atlanta to Palm Beach? No. Because your name is listed there next to Tommy Quinn. I don't recall. And I don't think it's accurate. So I don't recall. Yeah. And then the second line there, it says Tom McMill in parentheses, Congressman. So I'm just trying to make sure I just responsibly clarify what's happening. I don't. Not true. I don't recall any of this. Is Tommy Quinn somebody that you're close with?

I please can we move on I mean this is just I thought we were talking about sports and stuff this was stuff 35 years ago I don't have any relationships here moving on so I'm going to leave I'm sorry that I mean I wanted to talk about the good things and and some of the things that you know about college sports and so forth I I mean this stuff's 30 some years old yeah I can't I consider you an important person in sports and politics and so for me to tell the story of the time capsule of your life, it just requires me to understand. It's not, I don't recall any of this. It's so long. I bet you you don't recall 35 years ago. So, what sign off? Give me your final question. What is it? Is there any final comment based on what I've shown you that you'd want to express? No, I've said I had any relationship with him since the early 90s. So I think that's it. And, you know, I mean, a lot of people knew him. I barely knew him.

And so let's move up. Okay. Tom McMillan, I appreciate your time. If that's how you want to end it. I just need to be thorough in my understanding of somebody who I consider a historical figure. Well, let's, no, I just, I just, we'll move on. I really, I said I would do this for an hour. So we've done him for an hour.

That's fair enough. The Honorable C. Thomas McMillan, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate your time. No problem, thanks. Before I can let you go here, I do need to just follow up on our follow-ups, some of which you've already heard earlier in this episode, because after this interview concluded,

we decided to email Congressman Tom McMillan a series of questions in an effort to double-check our facts and also just make sure that we get this whole story correct. And earlier today, this morning, Tom McMillan replied, saying that he was, quote, disappointed that the primary focus of the interview and the follow-up questions was a combination of Epstein

and 30-year-old incidents that were insubstantial but could be made to look bad. In addition, the interview went well past the 20 minutes I've been asked to do, running at least twice that long. End quote. And so for a second here, I just got to jump in to very briefly point out that McMillan agreed in previous emails to an hour-long interview,

which our conversation was, but I digress back to his email. Quote, I ended the interview in a manner that could be made to look abrupt, and when I did so, I also made it very clear to Mr. Toray that I felt misled about the substance of the interview. The interview seemed to be looking for gotcha angles and not substance, end quote. And so here I should also point out, for transparency's sake, that Congressman McMillan is referencing the original interview request that we made, which was, to be very clear, written before the tens of thousands of new Epstein documents were made searchable in those public records, in those databases, having been released by Congress. And so my curiosity at that point simply hinged on what the hell it's been like to be the guy in the background of that infamous video with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

To quote the email, a PtFO producer sent McMillan, quote, Pablo is really interested in getting to know you. Yes, it's technically because Epstein is in the news, but no, it's not because of any gotcha angle. Sounds like there's not much to that old party video, or at least your presence in it, but Pablo is legitimately curious about your multi-hyphenate post-playing days

and what you think of how Trump interacts with sports these days. End quote. And so, as for the actual substance of our interview, which I do believe strongly is in the public interest, McMillan also did write us this in response to our follow-up fact-checking questions. Quote, I never had a close relationship

or what I would characterize as a friendship with Epstein, but have known President Trump for about 40 years since he donated to my first congressional campaign and was on his guest list for various parties back in the early 90s, including the party to promote Mar-a-Lago that was filmed by NBC in November 1992, or my girlfriend in November 192,

where my girlfriend and I entered the party at the same time as Epstein, then stopped to talk with Mr. Trump while Epstein separately went into the party. I might add that this video and the story around it were widely reported in the press six years ago, and my explanation was the same as now. End quote. But on account of the newest wave of Epstein files, which, again, were released by Congress and the public interest and are publicly searchable for the world to see, Trump and Epstein also were not the only names we mentioned.

mentioned in this episode in connection with Tom McMillan. For instance, Gwendolyn Beck, the woman who emailed Epstein about McMillan in 2013, years after Epstein had become a registered sex offender. Gwendolyn Beck does not simply appear a dozen plus times in the flight logs. There is also this photograph, I found, where Beck is at another reception at Mar-a-Lago in 1995, standing right next to Galane Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. And then there's this other photo from yet another party at Mara Lago in 2000, which shows backstanding between Epstein and Prince Andrew and Melania Trump.

Now, when we asked for further comment about Gwendolyn Beck, Tom McMillan wrote this, quote, As to the 2013 email that Pablo showed me from an acquaintance of mine to Epstein about her having run into me, I have no memory of any encounter, doubt that I am the one who brought up Epstein, and with respect to the comments about me securing an ambassadorship in the Obama administration, know that since I never discussed a possible ambassadorship with the administration,

given my strong support for Senator Clinton's presidential bid in 2008, I don't think I would have even been considered for such a post. It's highly unlikely that I brought up the topic with my acquaintance, end quote. Now, we here at PTFO also reached out to Gwendolyn Beck with a very detailed, tailed list of questions, and she did not respond. But in 2015, when asked why Epstein donated to her congressional campaign in Virginia, for instance, Beck told a local news outlet that she'd managed $65 million of Epstein's money when she worked at Morgan Stanley, and then proceeded to claim, quote, I haven't spoken with him personally in years. And quote, all of which brings us, of course,

to yet another email, Beck sent Epstein, in the files. This one from 2017, asking to be considered for, quote, any special panels or commissions President Trump is forming. And then Gwendolyn Beck closed with this. Quote, let me know if you get to D.C. would love to see you. Three exclamation points. Miss you and all the great times we had, XX, X, X, X, X, X, X, Gwendolyn. to which Jeffrey Epstein personally replied, six minutes later, quote, great news.

But as for the other name, the last name, I asked Tom McMillan about. This, the name right next to the congressman's on those flight logs from January 1993, Tommy Quinn. You should know that Tommy Quinn also appears in Epstein's Black Book, where he is listed as Thomas H. Quinn, of Venable Law Firm, where, by the way, as of today, his bio states that Quinn, quote, offers representation in matters before the Federal Reserve Board, the comptroller of the currency, the U.S. Treasury, the banking, finance, commerce, energy,

and ways and means committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, end quote. You should also know that Tom Quinn appears in a couple other flight logs that I found, apparently with Jeffrey Epstein himself. And when we followed up about these flight logs, complete with screenshots. To Tom McMillan,

he wrote this, quote, I still do not remember ever being on Epstein's plane, including in January 1993. Tom Quinn, a longtime friend of mine, and a lobbyist with Venable in D.C., whose clients included Epstein Client Limited Brands, also couldn't remember the January 1993 flight, but he does remember himself

personally taking a flight to Daytona Beach on Epstein's plane in August 1992. We do not know if Epstein offered us seats January that we ended up not using so the logs are in error. But in either case, it appears from a Palm Beach post story that I dug up that I was traveling to Palm Beach at that time to attend another Trump Mara Lago promotion party, this time filmed by ABC. Unlike the November NBC party, I have no specific memory of this party.

End quote. In an email, when contacted directly, Tom Quinn told us that he was, in fact, on that Daytona flight in 1992, the one listed with Jeffrey Epstein on it. But he said simply, quote, no, end quote, in regards to the January 1993 flight with his friend Tom McMillan. And all of this, at the very end here, leaves me with one more video for you. A video considerably more obscure, I'd say,

than the one we started this episode with. And this one comes thanks to a different kind of public record. A blog that I found on blogspot.com titled Hollywood on the Potomac. And what you can see here is Tom McMillan toasting the host of his 60th birthday party in 2012 at the, quote, Georgetown home of a lobbyist and democratic strategist whose name may now sound familiar. And if you keep watching here, you don't just notice the literal icing on the cake. which is a photo of Tom McMillan in his New York Knicks jersey, you will also notice the birthday candles.

Except these candles, it turns out, are trick candles, which Tom McMillan proceeds to try and try and try and try to extinguish. Trying so hard, actually, that the icing even gets on his tie and stains the lapels of his jacket. And after a full minute of fighting these candles, a minute which feels a lot longer in real time, the tallest congressman ever finally gives up. As if he has just realized what's been obvious

to everybody watching this, he can't make them go away. This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metal Arc Media production. and I'll talk to you next time.