Tangle - Trump tries to close the Epstein investigation.

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

On Monday night, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a joint memo with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) affirming prior findings in the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The memo concludes that materials related to the Epstein case prove that he had committed suicide in 2019, that Epstein did not have a “client list,” and that no other parties were materially implicated as a result of the government’s investigation. Additionally, the memo stated that the federal government would keep materials relevant to his case sealed to protect victims.Ad-free podcasts are here!Many listeners have been asking for an ad-free version of this podcast that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it. You can go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Take the survey: Do you think the government has a list of Epstein’s clients? Let us know!Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Hunter Casperson, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. Today is Wednesday, July 9th, and we are covering the Epstein files. I can't believe this is still a story that we're talking about, but courtesy of the Trump administration, it's back in the headlines. We're going to share a bit about what happened this week, what the Justice Department is saying publicly alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation, what Trump has said, and

then share some views from the left and the right about all of that and of course my take. Before we jump in though, I want to give you a quick heads up that back in April, I sat down with Nick Traiano. He's the executive director of the election reform nonprofit Unite America. We have had him on the show before. This was his second time here because he's frankly just working on a lot of really interesting stuff related to election reform, which I think is a big, boring topic for a lot of people, but it's kind of at the heart of so many of the issues that we cover and talk about and tangle,

especially a lot of the issues related to partisanship and extremism rising in politics. And in our conversation, we talked about things like rank choice voting, which became really relevant after the New York election of Zoran Mamdani to be the Democratic nominee for the mayoral race, which was a rank choice voting election. So there's some really good and relevant stuff in here, even though the conversation is a couple of months old. And because it's all good and relevant, we decided to release it this week. So it is up now on our YouTube channel, which you can find by looking up Tangled News on YouTube. And I encourage you to go check out the conversation if that's a topic that you're interested in. All right, with that, I'm going to send it over to John for today's main topic and I'll be back for my take.

Thanks Isaac and welcome everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, in an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court temporarily paused an order by a federal judge that barred the Trump administration from carrying out mass reductions in the federal workforce. The Internal Revenue Service said in a court filing that churches and other houses of worship can endorse political candidates to their congregations, creating an exemption in an existing ban on political activity by tax-exempt nonprofits. 3. An unknown individual has contacted at least five government officials using artificial

intelligence to mimic Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Authorities believe the individual is attempting to gain access to government information or accounts. 4. The Trump administration is reportedly deliberating whether to send an additional Patriot air defense system to Ukraine. The report follows President Donald Trump's announcement that the United States will send more weapons to Ukraine.

Justice Department charged 10 people for allegedly planning an ambush at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Center in Texas on Friday. Overnight, the FBI and Justice Department releasing 11 hours of footage they say helps confirm notorious financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019, awaiting his sex trafficking trial. According to a memo detailing the findings, investigators found the video showed no one entering the area in the overnight hours before Epstein was found unresponsive. But perhaps the biggest bombshell,

investigators say they found no incriminating client list of Epstein's, no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals, and no evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties. On Monday night, the Department of Justice released a joint memo with the Federal Bureau of Investigation affirming prior findings in the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The memo concludes that materials related to the Epstein case proved that he had committed suicide in 2019, that Epstein did not have

a client list, and that no other parties were materially implicated as a result of the government's investigation. Additionally, the memo stated that the federal government would keep materials relevant to his case sealed to protect victims. For context, Jeffrey Epstein was a wealthy financier with influential Global Connections who was charged in 2019 with sex trafficking minors and conspiracy to sex traffic dozens of underage girls. Shortly after his arrest, Epstein died in his cell in what was officially ruled a suicide. However, due to the high-profile individuals linked to him, Epstein's death sparked widespread

speculation that he had been covertly killed and prompted public demand that information about his co-conspirators and clients be made public. The DOJ and FBI memo contradicts previous statements about commitments made by leaders in both agencies. Before being appointed to their current roles, FBI Director Cash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino speculated that Epstein's suicide was a cover-up and advocated for the release of the entirety of the files related to his investigation.

However, both Patel and Bongino now say they have reviewed Epstein's file, confirmed he committed suicide, and determined his case file should not be released to protect victims. Attorney General Pam Bondi is also facing scrutiny, particularly for comments she made in February that suggested she was considering releasing Epstein's client list. It's sitting on my desk right now to review, Bondi said. There's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that. At the time, Bondi and Patel had just authorized a partial distribution of the files that contained

little new information. Many conservative commentators have criticized Bondi and the administration for choosing not to release new information about Epstein, with some suggesting that President Donald Trump may be personally implicated. In a since-deleted post on X from June, former White House adviser Elon Musk claimed that Donald Trump was implicated in the Epstein files. On Tuesday, President Trump dismissed a question during a cabinet meeting about the Epstein files. Are you still talking about Epstein?

Trump asked. This guy has been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this creep? Today, we'll get into what the left and the right are saying about the Epstein files, and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Alright first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left views the case's denouement as a predictable letdown after the Trump administration

ginned up false hopes of an expose. Some say the memo is a blow to conservative conspiracy theorists. Others say the left should be equally outraged by the case's handling. In CNN, Aaron Blake wrote about Pam Bondi's botched handling of the Epstein files. None of this is new or surprising to anyone who has followed the Epstein case closely. New York City's medical examiner had ruled the death a suicide. The attorney general in Trump's first term, Bill Barr, had come to the same conclusion, despite his initial suspicions of something more sinister.

A Justice Department inspector general report also pushed back on the idea that the death was anything but a suicide, while criticizing staff failures that allowed such a thing to happen, Blake said. Still, the memo undercuts theories that continued to circulate, including that there was proof that influential figures were involved in Epstein's exploitation of underage girls. The idea that Epstein kept a client list that potentially impacted influential figures has become an article of faith in some circles. Key Republican lawmakers have treated its existence as an established fact and pushed for its release. And the big reason for that was Bondi herself," Blake wrote.

Bondi said there were tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn. Bondi first made the assertion on a secretly recorded video. Then she repeated the claim publicly, possibly in an effort to get ahead of that video's release. But just a month later, FBI Director Cash Patel appeared to walk back Bondi's claim. In Salon, Sofia Tesfaye said the memo slams the door on MAGA World's longest-running Epstein grift. After Sunday's anticlimactic release,

the conspiracy theorists who have suggested that Epstein's death in custody was nefarious and meant to cover up a wide range of crimes presumably committed by leading Democrats and liberal celebrities have seemingly turned on Trump and his team, Tess Farah. According to this newly released DOJ memo, there is no incriminating client list, no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals, and no evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties. This is hardly the first time that Trump's die-hard fans have been left holding the bag

of broken promises. But coupled with rumors that Trump plans to provide relief to farmers and factory owners by offering amnesty to undocumented laborers in certain fields, we begin to see the mega-coalition fraying seriously. More wars, fewer deportations, and no Epstein client list is a far cry from the core of Trump's America First platform. In The Guardian, Arwa Madawi argued, MAGA aren't the only ones who should be outraged by the memo.

Great minds have looked into the case and discovered there's nothing more to uncover, so don't waste your time wondering which powerful people might have been part of Epstein's alleged trafficking operation. There's nothing to see here, nothing at all. Case officially closed. That in essence was the message from the Trump administration over the weekend," Madhawi said. It's always fun when the MAGA crowd realize what the people they propelled into power

are really like. But why are right-wing voices the loudest on this topic? I'll tell you what is not a conspiracy. The fact that there are a lot of high-status people who are very interested in covering up their association with the disgraced financier. It is not a conspiracy to say the US has a two-tiered justice system where rich and powerful people can do terrible things and face no consequences," Maddoway wrote. Epstein was enabled by people who looked the other way, who helped whitewash his reputation,

who hobnobbed with him in high society. Those people are still out there living their best lives, and it looks increasingly likely that they will never be held accountable. Alright that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right is critical of the administration's handling of the case, with many saying that they misled the country. Some doubt the FBI and DOJ's claims. Others say the story is a lesson on what happens when conspiracy theorists gain power.

In National Review, Jim Garrity called the memo a dramatic reversal. How do you get a conspiracy theorist to stop believing in the conspiracy? Put him in charge of revealing the conspiracy with full police powers and no excuse for failing to deliver the full story or hold the perpetrators accountable," Garrity wrote. As recently as February 7th, Dan Bongino was hosting his podcast, talking up Epstein's connections to the Clintons and declaring, it's time to start overturning that rock and seeing what's underneath.

Keep in mind, Bongino is now the deputy director of the FBI. Whoopsie. Turned out, that list never existed, according to Bongino's department now. At absolute minimum, Bondi had no problem creating a false impression of what she had found and what kinds of information would be released. At absolute minimum, when Bongino was a podcaster, he felt comfortable speaking about theories and allegations as if they were proven facts, Garrity said. We have a lot of people in our government who lie.

They don't see any contradiction in making media appearances for years, making accusations of the most salacious and notorious crimes, and then, once they're in a position of power and authority to bring criminal charges, shrugging their shoulders and announcing that there is no evidence. In hot air, David Strom said, nobody is buying the Epstein memo. To be clear, Pam Bondi and the Justice Department have not said whether there is no evidence against Epstein. There are videos they are withholding due to court orders to protect victims, and others

that amount to child pornography. They claim that the evidence stops there, Strom wrote. Unfortunately for them, few people believe that the evidence stopped there, with so many prominent people visiting the same island where the crimes took place, and at the same time Epstein was committing the crimes, it seems implausible that nobody else was involved. As for whether Epstein killed himself, opinions are split more evenly. The claim is more plausible, but the circumstances surrounding his death lead to suspicion.

The people most angry about how this has been handled are Trump's most vociferous supporters. They take it as a betrayal and an indication that the deep state is still in control. I can't say that this is the case. It could well be that the evidence just isn't there, either because not enough existed to justify prosecutions or because it disappeared in the weeks before Trump took office, Strom said. Regardless of what the actual facts are, this disaster is a self-inflicted wound. Big promises were made, along with big accusations implicating very powerful people.

Now all those promises are unfulfilled. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about the Epstein conspiracy boomerang. These are boom times for conspiracy theorists, and one problem is they're never satisfied. There's always another cover-up to unravel and another hidden file somewhere that the evil establishment is hiding. That's what Trump Justice Department officials are learning to their dismay now that they're trying to close the books on the prosecution and death of Jeffrey Epstein, the board said. Government investigators ruled years ago that the sex offender killed himself in prison,

but many on the political right don't want to believe it. The skeptics included Cash Patel and Dan Bongino before President Trump chose them to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Laura Loomer, Alex Jones, and other conspiracy theorists think messengers Patel and Bongino, as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi, must be lying or have been co-opted or who knows what the board wrote. There's a lesson here for partisans who think they can ride conspiracies to power. They can easily boomerang on you once you're in a position to see the real evidence and

then have to convince a public that doesn't trust anyone in power. Welcome to the rotten establishment Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino. Alright, let's head over to Isaac for his take. Alright, that is it for with the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. Let me start with just one overarching thought. Through all the nonsense that we're going to talk about here today, I think it's worth just saying not to forget about the victims here.

Despite the conspiracy theories, there are real girls who were trafficked and abused and their lives were stolen from them by people like Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell and whatever abusers actually participated in their schemes. And on days like today, their stories are regularly moved to the background while lasting repercussions for their abusers seem evasive and delayed. For that, I think we should all feel a sense of shame

and injustice and we should do what we can to keep the focus on their suffering and what they went through. I'm going to talk a lot today about the politics of this case, so I'm a little guilty of this as well, but it feels important to just kind of start there. Now I hate the expression conspiracy theory and I've been advocating against its casual use for a couple of years now. I especially object to how commonly people use the term to slander popular beliefs

that go against institutional statements but are highly credible. We've learned that many quote unquote conspiracy theories have ended up being true. But today I'm going to use the expression to refer to things that I'd define like this, a belief or a set of beliefs which connect unrelated observations together based on a set of beliefs which connect unrelated observations together

based on a set of fundamentally false assumptions. As the internet has proliferated unsubstantiated assumptions, conspiracies have become more abundant. Internet has also incentivized politicians, political influencers and pundits to constantly battle for attention. Attention means influence, which translates to votes, fundraising, clicks, subscriptions, and or money, depending on what you're looking

for, of course. And easy ways to get attention include stoking conspiracies, evoking fear, and providing shock value. For about a decade now, the war for conservative attention has been dominated by some of the most conspiratorial thinkers. In simple terms, conspiracy theories have become central to right-wing discourse. Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Candice Owens, and yes, Donald Trump are some of the most popular promoters. Each of them has elevated a handful of deranged theories about how the world works that are incredibly conspiratorial,

which again, to me, means based on false assumptions. From the 2020 stolen election to Paul Pelosi being with a gay prostitute when he was nearly beaten to death, to Democratic pedophilia rings and the Obama birther conspiracy. To be clear, I'm not saying conservatives have a monopoly on conspiracies. The left traffics in a great many of its own conspiracy theories. But I am saying that liberal discourse is much less dominated by overt loyalty to conspiratorial thinking. The conservative writer Richard Hananiya

has broken this phenomenon down in convincing terms. And I find this excerpt from something he wrote particularly memorable, quote, "'Democrats may have flaws, but if tomorrow Ivanka Trump got into a car accident, I promise you that you would not have rampant speculation by Chuck Schumer, Rachel Maddow, and Barack Obama that she was actually buying crack or driving to get an abortion at the time. Some left-wing influencers might suggest things like this, but they wouldn't have the status

of Trump, Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson, and members of Congress. Republican conspiracy theories are at the center of conservative discourse and messaging. Conspiracy theories on the left, in contrast, are usually marginalized." For several years now, I've been warning about what will come after all the intricate threading of these conspiracies falls apart. In 2021, for example, Donald Trump Jr. tried to urge Americans storming the Capitol building to back off. Many of his followers responded to his request by telling him to stand down and that this was now bigger than him.

As I said at the time, Trump Jr. had lost control of the train that he had built. He spent months convincing people of their belief that the election was stolen, then got nervous when his followers did the rational thing that followed that belief, fight for democracy. Similarly, in February, when a set of conservative influencers

quote unquote, received the Epstein files, which ended up being a bunch of publicly available nothing burger, I warned that those influencers had lost control of the train. Their followers were pissed, suspecting the influencers themselves might now be in on the conspiracies they themselves cultivated. And that phenomenon just got supercharged this week.

The Justice Department's decision to announce Jeffrey Epstein had no incriminating client list, that he did in fact kill himself, and that they would keep the files related to his case sealed spurred understandable outrage. It was the rational response to beliefs the administration encouraged. Since the campaign, Team Trump has been promising the goods. JD Vance in October of 2024 said this about what he would do when in office, quote, seriously, we need to release the Epstein list.

That is an important thing, end quote. Attorney General Pam Bondi in February of 2025 on the Epstein list said, quote, it is sitting on my desk right now to review. Alina Habba, counsel to the president in February, 2025 on releasing the client list said, absolutely. I think it would be negligent for us not to. You have to hold individuals

who are indeed rapists accountable. We have to have them tried in my opinion. Pam Bondi again in March said, a truckload of evidence arrived. It is now in the possession of the FBI. FBI Director Cash Patel is going to get me and himself really a detailed report as to why all these documents and evidence

had been withheld. FBI Director Cash Patel in June on the concealment of evidence and the existence of damning videos. You're going to get all that information, he said. Like, that's literally what we're putting together. And we're going to give you every single thing we can. And that's the whole point.

Now we're figuring out how to put it out." End quote. Popular right-wing influencers went even further on social media, declaring in no uncertain terms that they saw the leaked Epstein files and warned people to get ready for the world to change. Of course, don't forget President Donald Trump, who repeatedly amplified conspiracy theories

that the Clintons were responsible for Epstein's death while he was in federal custody. This was always, always nonsense. Epstein killed himself and no evidence of any kind has suggested otherwise, only pure speculation. There is no Epstein client list and never has been. Journalists covering this story closely have repeatedly tried to communicate this to the public for years, but with little

success. And the idea that Trump, a public official whose relationship to Epstein was closer and more intimate than any other I can think of, was going to be the person to blow the lid off this whole thing was always farcical. Remember, Trump and Epstein each describe one another as close friends. Trump, Trump and Epstein each describe one another as close friends. Trump regularly traveled in Epstein's private plane, and Trump personally knew Epstein's longtime fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell.

That's more than you can say about most of the people conspiratorialists associate with Epstein, yet for some reason, Trump has largely avoided scrutiny. To call this dynamic mind-boggling doesn't really do it justice. What's more, Bondi was the Florida Attorney General when Epstein's plane records became public, and she resisted calls to aggressively pursue

more serious charges against Epstein. And Epstein had yet to be investigated because Alexander Acosta, who worked in the first Trump administration, oversaw a sweetheart plea deal Florida gave Epstein in 2008, one so egregious that a federal judge blocked it, ruling that Acosta had violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act

by keeping the deal from Epstein's victims. This is the administration that has for months promised they would blow the top off this case, yet Trump remains largely unimplicated. It is shocking really to watch as many of Trump's most loyal followers blame Bondi or Patel or Bongino as if these people haven't pledged total allegiance to Trump and don't serve at his pleasure. Bondi is by all accounts an extension of the Trump administration,

as disheartening as it is that the lines between the Attorney General's office and the presidency are being absolutely erased. To believe that she is closing this case down without Trump's green light, or explicit encouragement, is simply absurd. There are really only two options. Trump, Bondi, Patel, and Bongino are now telling the truth, which is what I think, or they are covering something up to protect more powerful parties, which would logically have to include Trump, or at the very least his close allies. I have to admit to a certain amount of catharsis about this,

like when the stolen election conspiracies fell apart. Dan Bongino and Cash Patel, two people I've warned were partisan hacks unfit for the FBI, are now being devoured by the online monster that they created. In reality, I think they are now finally telling the truth. They got inside, they looked for the goods, and they realized they had nothing to offer their misled followers. It's hard to spare any empathy for them.

However, I'm also unsettled about whatever comes next. First, people like Trump, Bondi, Patel, and Bongino convinced people that Epstein was killed because he had a list of powerful people who were actually child molesters. Then after rising to power in part on promises to expose that list and seek justice, they got access to the files and declared

there is actually nothing to see here. Now their followers are breaking from them, refusing to believe everything that they've been told is a lie and insisting that Trump et al are now part of the coverup. What comes next? If storming the Capitol was the rational response to the 2020 Stolen Election Conspiracy, what is the rational response to this?

We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Antonio in Seattle, Washington. You said, why are the reader questions always the thing to be cut for time length? Tangle doesn't have to abide by traditional news standards, so why cut it when you don't have to? So I'll try to answer the question briefly so it doesn't meet the same unfortunate fate. And this isn't a question that we've answered a couple times, but yes, we aren't subject to the same constraints as traditional media, page limits, editorial oversight, and physical space on a

printed page. However, we do still have constraints. First, if our emails get too long, they get clipped, meaning your inbox cuts off the newsletter midway through and you have to click away to read the whole thing. This hurts the livability of our newsletter, which hurts our business, which hurts our product. Second, we know that we're competing for attention every day and that if we demand more and more of our readers' time, we'll lose some of them. So we set ourselves a word limit that not only safely keeps our emails from being clipped,

but keeps us asking for a reasonable amount of attention. Third, the reader question is what we decide to cut because it's the only section that exceeds a few hundred words and isn't essential to that day's coverage. Other sections are either way too necessary or way too small to skip for space. All right. That is it for my answer to your question about why we cut reader questions. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the podcast and we'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one.

Peace. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under the radar story for today, folks. A new study from researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of California, Los Angeles found that the health of children in the United States has significantly declined across almost all major health metrics over the past 17 years. The study analyzed 172 health indicators using data from five national surveys, US and international mortality databases and a network of pediatric health systems.

Among other findings, the study reported that children and teens in the US were nearly twice as likely to die as their peers in 18 other high-income countries between 2007 and 2022, while chronic conditions and diagnoses of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders all rose sharply. UCLA Health has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. Alright, next up is our numbers section. It's been approximately six years since Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell while facing federal charges for sex trafficking minors. The prison sentence in months for Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is 240 months. The approximate number of pages in the first phase of

declassified Epstein files released by the Justice Department in February is 200 pages. The percentage of Americans who thought Epstein committed suicide shortly after this death in August 2018 is 37%, according to a Certis Insights poll. Of those who think Epstein committed suicide, the percentage who believe prison guards intentionally gave him the opportunity to do so is 53%. The percentage of Americans who think Epstein was murdered is 35%. And of those who think Epstein was murdered, the percentage who believe that a well-known public figure had Epstein killed to stop him from testifying is 83%.

And last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. On June 22, over 70 pilot whales became stranded on the shores of Olavsjöður, a small town in northern Iceland. Local police, firefighters, volunteers, and rescue teams from four neighboring towns came together in an attempt to refloat the whales. Thanks to their coordinated efforts and a brief flood, the team succeeded in returning all the whales safely back into the fjord. I was surprised at how well it went, Laura Steffenstader, one rescue worker, said. We didn't expect to get everyone out.

Iceland Review has the story and there's a link in today's episode description. Alright everybody that is it for today's episode. As always if you'd like to support our work please go to www.reettangle.com where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. And remember, we just released our interview with Nick Troiano, the executive director of Unite America, and we're looking forward to doing more work with the Unite America team on some upcoming future projects for YouTube. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me,

Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Law. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will K. Back and associate editors Hunter Tasperson, Audrey Morehead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at retangle.com.