Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - She Broke the Epstein Case — Now She Says Something Doesn’t Add Up (ft. Julie K. Brown)

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov sit down with investigative reporter Julie K. Brown, the journalist whose groundbreaking work helped expose Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and reignite the case against him. They dig into what it was like chasing the story when no one else would, where the case stands today, and why so many questions still remain — from missing documents to the controversy surrounding Epstein’s death. They also unpack the idea of an “Epstein class,” the role of powerful institutions, and whether real accountability is actually slowly happening — or quietly slipping away. Plus, Julie shares what it means to see her reporting adapted for TV, with Laura Dern set to portray her in the upcoming series based on her book Perversion of Justice. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway  Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod  Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether it's with your besties or date night, get to all the hottest concerts with GoTransit. Go connects to all the biggest entertainment venues and makes it affordable with special e-ticket fares. A weekend pass offers unlimited travel across the network on any weekend day or holiday for just $10. A weekday group pass offers the same weekday travel flexibility from $30 for two people up to $60 for five.

So no matter what day of the week, Go's got you covered. Find out more at goadransit.com slash tickets. You can tell a lot about a person by their accent. I really do say I pog my cat and have a yard. Everyone around here says like a coffee and dog. We're so attached to the way that we sound because it tells a part of the story of who we are. Your accent, decoded.

That's this week on Explain It to Me. Find new episode Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlev. Joining us today is Julie K. Brown, the investigative reporter whose groundbreaking work at the Miami Herald helped expose the scope of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and ultimately led to his arrest. And the big news today is that there's going to be a limited series based on perversion of justice, Julie's 2021 book. That's the definitive account of the Epstein case. And Laura Dern is going to be playing Julie K. Brown.

And you're also the executive producer. That's very exciting. So, Julie, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. So I have all these very thoughtful, measured questions. I want to skip to what's going to feel like a little bit of conspiracy theory, but I'm just curious to get your viewpoint. I can't understand when I see this whole thing, we're missing something here. And when I read about the fact that he was given, I think it was six months house arrest on what is supposed to be a five-year minimum,

and I read about the power and potentially the involvement of different security apparatus from different nations. Is your sense that somewhere along the lines as the truth comes to bear here that the CIA, the Mossad, and other intelligence services played a bigger role here than maybe that has come to light? And I realize I might have my tinfoil hat on here, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. I've been dying to ask you this question. I think that what we're learning just, we're getting. kind of crumbs of this, I think, in these files, which I've been buried in for about two months now,

three months. And you do see indications that he had, he definitely had his tentacles into some kind of intelligence operations in various ways. Now, was he actually, was he employed by the CIA or by Mossad? I don't think so. But I think that he used any kind of link that he could, any kind connection he could to get information. I mean, he was really a person who sold and bartered on information. And part of that information, of course, is intelligence information involving countries and different security and arms dealing and all those kinds of issues. And I think as time goes on, we're going to get a better picture of how much he was involved in those things. I don't think it's a tin foil hat issue, by the way. You know, to get away with the crimes that he got

away with for so long. I think it is fair, journalistically even, to ask these questions and to be open-minded as to whether it's possible that he could have been more involved in intelligence than we know of right at this very moment. I'm convinced he was an agent of Mossad and the CIA said, you're either going to jail for the rest of your life unless you turn and become a double agent. But anyways, that's my script for a movie. The next question is, you've been sort of the shepherd or the scout leader here around all of this and brought it to light. I'm curious how you personally feel because the kind of the most chilling moment in Attorney General Bondi's

testimony was when Representative Jaya Paul asked some survivors to stand up and ask them if they had been contacted by the DOJ and interviewed. And not only had they not been contacted, but the victims had reached out to the DOJ and were stonewalled. And, um, And it definitely feels like, well, where you is upset, I think, is a lot of people that it feels like our Department of Justice is really the Department of Delay and obfuscation right now when it comes to the Epstein Foss. Yeah, and I, absolutely. And I think that most people that follow this story, even to a small degree, understand or believe that there has been a cover up in this case. I don't think anybody really understands why, except for the obvious, that there are some very powerful moneyed people in these files or who were associated with Epstein, who don't want their association known. But I absolutely think that Bondi has been given marching orders. Initially, her marching orders were release, you know, the binders or release the client list or whatever you want to call it.

and she was all gung-ho toward that. Then all of a sudden it got a little too hot, and I guess some people got worried on what that meant. And then they changed years and said, uh-uh, nothing to see here. We're not going to release anything. So she got new marching orders, and that was to do everything, I think, in her power

to not release the information. So I think that the American public is pretty sharp in understanding exactly what's happening here. Yeah. Thank you again for being here. I'm so psyched about this. And congratulations on the series. Laura Dern is a high compliment to come in and play you.

Yeah. I want to also be a little tinfoil hatty, but then also serious about it, though. The intersections are a plenty between them. And you've been writing about this and commenting on the last days of Jeffrey Epstein within the Metropolitan Correctional Facility. And you've said that you don't think that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, at least without assistance. And I'm curious if you could talk a little bit more about that and the role of the security guard who was doing some interesting Googling just a few minutes before this was reported. You know, I've been on the record even since my book, I have a chapter on this in my book, that I don't believe that.

he committed suicide. And by the way, I suspect that it's possible that he was killed, that he was murdered. And I don't think that there's anything conspiratorial about that. I think that any good detective would look at all these facts as we know them and we're getting to know more and more of them as I'm reviewing these files. I don't think that anybody in law enforcement would look at the circumstances, how he died and what people said and how this all played out. and not suspect that it's possible that he was killed. I mean, any good police detective will tell you that you couldn't find a cause of death, but to figure out the manner of death, sometimes it takes additional investigation.

And that simply was never done in Epstein's case. They decided right away that he committed suicide. The medical examiner ruled pretty quickly that it was a suicide, even though, by the way, the medical examiner who actually conducted the autopsy, left the cause of death pending. In other words, she, too, was a little concerned that it wasn't a suicide. And then you have the whole events surrounding it. You know, he was supposed to have a cellmate. They pulled a cellmate out.

That morning left the cell empty all day long. And then, of course, into the night, even though everyone was given strict instructions that he was to have a cellmate. The guards fell asleep. They were playing on their computers. You know, there's just a litany. I should probably put together a whole list because it would fill a whole page of things that went wrong to the point that you have. The cameras weren't working. You know, there is just so many things that went wrong that night that I think that it's fair to say that it should have been more thoroughly investigated.

It was never treated like a crime scene. And he was one of the most high profile, if not the most high profile. if not the most high-profile inmate at that prison. And by the way, who they found a few weeks before that, laying on the floor of his cell. And the first thing when they found him, he said was that his cellmate tried to kill him. So, you know, you have all this conglomeration of events,

and then you have the Justice Department never thoroughly investigating, not really investigating it at all. Yeah. And I mean, this spans Democratic and Republican administrations, this lack of interest in at least publicizing what really happened. You brought up the surveillance footage. We have deleted video footage of the cell. We also now have a lot of shredded documents, which is a new ish, development from the latest dump of Epstein files. Could you talk about those and also the security guard who got payments from J.P. Morgan, I think 12 payments that have been flagged.

Right. So I know that was a lot to throw out to you. No, but actually the shredded documents was my story. I broke that story and everybody picked it up. Didn't mention the fact that the Miami Herald was actually the one that found that. I apologize. An amazing story, Julie K. Brown. I just, you know, these files are very interesting because you go in there and I always say you go in and you can't get out.

I'll be busy for 15 hours, you know, because one thing will raise another thing, will raise another. thing. And I just stumbled upon the word shredding in these files. And I'm like, what? Shredding? What the heck happened here? You know, then you find all these FBI reports and they were interviewing a corrections officer who was a whistleblower and had tried to get their attention, wrote an email to the FBI and to the U.S. Attorney's Office as this was practically happening. He said the documents were being shredded. And what's interesting is that he claimed that it was this after-action team that was called in by the Bureau of Prisons after usually an incident like this. And they said it was that very team that was doing the shredding. And as I mentioned, they were going to try to grab the stuff before it could be taken,

but they just didn't do it fast enough. And the bags of material was put in a dumpster. and, you know, sent to the dump. So we don't really know the outcome of that, but we do know that they did assign a case number to that shredding incident. So they, to some degree, took it seriously as a possible obstruction of justice case.

But there's, you know, the prison guard, by the way, there were two guards on duty that night. We know a little bit more about the female guard only because there are more documents in the DOJ's library. right now about her. They did get the financial files for three guards, not just her, but we can only find her financial records. And in that grouping of files, we could see her bank accounts and the fact that her bank had flagged one of her, or many, I think about 12 of her deposits. One of them

right around the time that Epstein died, which was the largest, and it was for $5,000. So there's been a bunch of things like that that we're seeing in the files that are very suspicious. And like I said, the problem is with the Justice Department only giving us a portion of these files, that doesn't mean that there weren't other suspicious things happening that we just don't have in the files that maybe were held back. So the protocols around how files are released. And I'm going to propose a thesis and have you respond to it, Julie. I feel as if we're the victims of what is one of the most coordinated and deftly executed sci-ops programs in history.

And that is the way these documents, these files have been released, the way they've been dribbled out, what's been redacted, what hasn't been redacted, has resulted in what I think is just this incredible manipulation of the U.S. public, where we spend hours, days, weeks, months, talking about how creepy, a spiritual leader or a wellness expert is. to avoid the conversation around were elected officials engaging in child rape. I feel as if we have been so deftly manipulated to talk about whether Deepak Chopra is a creep or not. And I'm at the point now where I wonder if the FBI should be in the business of not releasing files, but communicating to the public what is in the files with criminal indictments, as opposed to dribbling them out such that we TMZ the whole thing and ruin people's reputations but have a lack of actual prosecutions that result in incentives such that children are less likely to be raped in the future.

It feels to me like the document dispersal of the protocols here have been absolutely manipulated, something that the GRU would be jealous of. Your thoughts? Yeah, I agree. this was done in such a chaotic way, and I think that it didn't have to be. So certainly there was a purpose, I think, for doing it this way, to confuse people, to be able to pull things out and manipulate people, to quite frankly intimidate people, especially the victims whose names were not all redacted from these files, to make inferences by redacting, I mean, there is no

reason for them to make some of the redactions that they did make, instead of protecting the victim's names, it seems like they redacted a lot of names of some politicians. They redacted names of some of the prosecutors. You know, the main reason why I took up the story to start with was because of this very thing that you mentioned. I thought that the story, the Jeffrey Epstein story, was sort of like, as you said it, a TMZ kind of story. the plane, the Lolita Express, Clinton on the plane, you know, it was this sensationalness of this story that was what everybody was hanging their stories on, maybe for clicks, I don't know.

And what troubled me about this is I knew that there was a serious story to be told about the fact that these prosecutors let this man off the hook and that they allowed. to him and his lawyers to manipulate the criminal justice system. And I thought, that's really the story here about how he was able to get off. And then think about all the girls and young women that he sexually abused after Florida, after he was under investigation in Florida. So I have myself been really trying to focus on that and the mistakes that were made by the criminal justice system, the leaders that were in power and why were they allowing him to get away with these crimes? You know, over so many years, I mean, now we know that there were subsequent investigations after Florida that went nowhere with the Justice Department. Yeah, I'm curious

on that point, you know, the story that you're telling is one of what powerful people can get away with if they have the law makers, at least on their side as well. And the Epstein class has become this rallying cry, at least in democratic politics and a bit in Republican politics with some of the more fringe characters who are, you know, sticking to their story that they care about what happened to these young women over the years and the crazy web, right, that Jeffrey Epstein was involved in. how do you feel about the fact that so much of your work has become part of politics? It must be so strange. It's awful. It's awful. Okay.

Actually, it doesn't matter. I say the same thing to Democratic lawmakers. This isn't a political story. This was a crime. This was a real crime. And it did turn political for a bunch of reasons. chiefly because there was a cover-up, you know, as the same goes. The cover-up is often worse than the crime. And I'm sure that the victims are grateful that there were some people, at least, in political circles, who fought to get to the truth here by releasing the files. I'm not sure we're where they would like us to be with finding and holding people accountable who helped Epstein. I've never understood, for example, why they would like us to be with finding and holding people accountable who helped Epstein. I've never understood, for example, why they would, wouldn't go through the finances and the lives of some of these prosecutors who let him off the hook.

I mean, I know you have to get a subpoena to do this, but I mean, why didn't they look at, I have no inkling that they ever looked at Alex Acosta's, you know, bank records, for example. They're looking at these correctional officers bank accounts, but they're not looking at the prosecutor's bank accounts who let him off the hook. And I think that's really important. because had they stopped him back then, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. If you're not already, please make sure you get subscribed to our YouTube channel so you stay up to date with the latest in politics and news. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. After 19 years, they're back.

Frankie Munis, Brian Cranston, and the rest of the family reunite in Malcolm in the middle, life's still unfair. After 10 years avoiding them, how and lowest demand Malcolm be at their anniversary party, pulling him straight back into their chaos. Malcolm in the middle, life's still unfair. A special four-part event, streaming April 10th on Hulu on Disney Plus. When WestJet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different.

People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us

and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Hi, I'm Brenay Brown. And I'm Adam Grant. And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop. A podcast that's a place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning. It's going to be fun.

We rarely agree. But we almost never disagree. And we're always learning. That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday. Welcome back.

You raise the issue of accountability. And I'm curious as to where or if you think there will be any in the United States. It seems like the rest of the world is taking this more seriously than us. New Mexico has been a shining spot in it. It seems with Zorro Ranch there and legislators in that state, Republicans and Democrats, voting to, you know, be able to search it, for instance. But do you see there ever being any arrests or prosecutions? I mean, it's a lot of money that the financial institutions that Epstein banked with and went through, they've paid these huge settlements. Not one banker has been arrested.

And besides Galeen Maxwell, you know, nobody else in the web. Yeah, I don't think we're going to see it right now with the Trump administration because people like Scott dissent is blocking. Senator Wyden's effort to look at Epstein's taxes and his financial records. So there has to be, I think, on the part of the public, they have to continue pressuring their lawmakers to force the Trump administration to be more transparent. You know, they go in front of the microphones a lot. You know, the White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, oh, we're the most transparent, you know, administration ever. But in reality, if they were so transparent, then why aren't they letting investigators with the House Oversight Committee look at the money piece of Epstein's crime?

And they're not doing that. So I think that, you know, it's incumbent upon the public, at least while Trump is still in office, to force lawmakers to pressure the White House to release those records. And that's just one of them. I mean, there's tons of other stuff in there. I don't think we have. We don't have a lot of information about Epstein's early years. He had an SEC investigation. He was a big-time scammer, and he did get in trouble early in his career, and there might be some clues in there. I mean, one of his partners went to prison for 20 years for a scam that Epstein had a hand in. and Epstein wasn't even touched. So we still don't have any of those early files or records of those investigations.

I would love to see that. I went to Dalton, where he was a math teacher, I went, you know, many decades later. But, you know, when Bill Barr's dad was the headmaster and then suddenly Jeffrey Epstein, a college dropout is teaching high school math at the most prestigious school on the Upper East Side and then ends up working with the right. richest Dalton families, even, you know, like Leon Black. You know, it's very weird. So along the lines of Leon Black, Leslie Wexner transferred reportedly $200 million to abstain. Leon Black, somewhere between $160 and $170 million. And these weren't to set up funds. They were, I believe, classified as payments for services. Right. And as someone who works a lot with lawyers and estates, you don't pay someone $200 million to manage your estate.

And I realize we don't know definitively here, but is your thesis that this was blackmail or they were being paid off? Or the way these payments are described doesn't make any sense. What's the missing piece here in your view? And what is your thesis? Well, the missing piece are settlements. There were obviously some legal settlements. We know that Black, for example, did make a settlement with the U.S. Virgin Islands because they had some goods on him.

And he just paid them off. And I know from the lawyers who have been handling these cases involving victims that there have been a number of legal settlements that have been handled by these powerful men. And of course, the women that were the victims are, you know, given these, you know, agreements where it's non-disclosure. So I think that that's why we don't have all the answers because there were a lot of settlements that were made with some of the women that were ready to come forward. Some of these lawyers were really pretty shrewd. If these victims went to these lawyers, they didn't make a big fuss over it. They just contacted whoever the big guy was, whether it was black or anyone and said,

you know, we had this, are you willing to settle? And look how quickly black settled with the U.S. Virgin Islands. So I just think that there's a lot of settlements here and that it wasn't necessarily blackmail, but it was the idea that Epstein had given them things that they weren't proud of. And there's some hints in the files. I mean, there's a letter that it looks like an email or a letter that Epstein wrote to Wexner where he's saying, basically, there's a little. a lot of things that I have kept secret for you. And, you know, reading between lines with this letter, you could see that he had dirt on Wexner. Okay. So my last question, I recognize you're not a lawyer, but based on what you've seen in the documents, if the president weren't the president, just a wealthy real estate developer, and these documents were reviewed by any other DOJ, do you think that there's enough in these documents that you? you've seen to warrant a criminal indictment against citizen Donald J. Trump? No, not from what I've seen yet. I mean, nothing's been proven. That doesn't mean there

shouldn't be an investigation, but whether there would be an indictment. I haven't seen enough. These cases are very hard to indict, very hard to prove. We're talking about, you know, sexual assaults that happened if they happened 20 years ago. I mean, Even with, I sat through Maxwell's trial and even those victims that testified, they were very shaky for obvious reasons. It wasn't because they were, I think, misleading or being untruthful. It's just you're raising all this horrible trauma that they experienced again. And they don't trauma victims like that, especially child trauma victims, their brain has, you know, been traumatized and they don't remember exact dates, exact times. You know, it's very hard to prove these cases.

And I just, I do think that the Justice Department kind of shoved these allegations aside. And it appears they just let them sit there and did not do the due diligence that I think they needed to do. Julie K. Brown is the investigative reporter whose groundbreaking work at the Miami Herald helped expose the scope of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and ultimately led to his arrest. And it's largely credited with arguably the biggest story that almost was. story. So it's a real honor to have you and thanks for your good work. Thanks for having me.