Okay, everyone. By popular demand, we're

doing an all Epstein show today. My

besties are all on vacation for ski

week, so I'm taking this on solo. We

have three different guests on who all

have very different interpretations and

opinions of the Epstein story. Sagar and

Jetty from Breaking Points believes that

the Epste shows that there is a quote

unquote Epstein class that operates

above law and accountability. He views

the story as an indictment of our ruling

elites. Michael Tracy is skeptical about

many of the most salicious claims about

Epstein and questions whether they meet

any kind of evidentiary standard. He has

criticized the media feeding frenzy over

what he has called Epstein mythology.

And finally, Kevin Bass, a citizen

journalist who's been tracking the

release files and posting his findings

on X, specifically in regards to Reed

Hoffman, perhaps the figure in tech most

closely associated with Jeffrey Epstein.

Some of it gets heated, but hopefully

you'll come away with new perspectives

and great information. I felt like it

was important to showcase a range of

viewpoints on this issue. I'm trying to

keep an open mind and I'll describe my

own point of view at the end of the

show. And with that, here we go. Sager,

let me start with you. What is the

import of the arrest of Prince Andrew in

the UK this morning? I mean, is this a

case of show us the man and we'll tell

you the crime? I mean, it obviously it

seems kind of coincidental that he's not

being arrested for misconduct in the

Epstein affair. He's being arrested on

mishandling,

I guess, trade secrets or public

documents. So, obviously, the timing of

this is not coincidental.

>> No, it's certainly not coincidental, but

I do believe that the facts do matter in

this case. And uh unfortunately, you

know, for Prince Andrew, for Lord

Mandlesson, the former ambassador uh to

the United States from the UK as well,

it is pretty clear-cut that they did

violate their official duties. We should

remember that the crux of this case

involving Andrew is not just about some

of the accusations that were made,

although that is the genesis, let's say,

of the investigation and of the

interest. This is about Prince Andrew

serving as a UK trade adviser and

forwarding non-public information to

Jeffrey Epstein has been released that's

currently in the file. Some of it is

involving scheduling. However, uh Gordon

Brown this morning said that he had

actually shared some new information

with Scotland Yard in the police. So,

none, it's not exactly just what's in

the file, but it could potentially be

other uh material that Gordon Brown and

the chancellory were able to investigate

as to what Prince Andrew was sharing as

part of a broader probe into Lord

Mandelson and the tip off that he gave

to Jeffrey Epstein about an upcoming

bailout. And I do think that this does

reveal quite a lot about Jeffrey

Epstein. The next is the genesis of his

rise to power, his wealth, and his

influence. something that involved let's

say even some of the co-hosts uh let's

say on this very podcast which is a deep

financial knowledge of moneyaundering

networks of trying to be at the very

forefront of moving money across the

globe which I believe is his real power

and his influence which is what enabled

much of the behavior that much of the

public is now horrified by

>> okay wait I I can't let that just go by

what do you mean by involving co-host of

this podcast

>> I'm talking about Jason I actually

thought that the Jason email uh was Very

interesting. So you'll see that in 2011

that Jeffrey Epstein is contacting Jason

about Bitcoin. This is by I saw I

watched your discussion. I'm not

implicating him in any crime. I'm saying

if you watch and look at that email very

closely, you are watching Jeffrey

Epstein, a master money launderer and

financial mastermind himself, be at the

forefront of the Bitcoin technology and

wondering about it in 2011, which as

Jason even pointed out in the last

episode that you guys did about this

when Bitcoin was some $1 and some sort

of open-source project. Like to me that

shows how at the forefront he was of new

technology and new ways to move money

surreptitiously across the globe, which

is what I believe was his real strength

and his basically um his his uh raise on

detra for being so useful to all of

these different foreign governments and

intelligence assets including ours,

Russia, Israel, various different

Israeli or various different

intelligence uh networks across the

globe. Yeah, let me just for for viewers

of this episode who didn't see that

episode, let me just summarize what

exactly happened there because I want to

just make sure that

>> Jason's reputation is not unfairly

impuged. And I don't think you're doing

that, but just to be absolutely clear

about it, what happened was that Jason

hosted an episode of This Week in

Startups roughly, I think in 2011, with

a couple of the Bitcoin core founders

and then Epstein reached out to him for

an introduction to those people. I

thought and and one of my takeaways from

that was like you said Sagar that Epste

was extraordinarily early to Bitcoin. He

clearly had a nose for putting himself

in the middle of things. I think 2011 is

when I discovered Bitcoin. So that was

relatively early. I thought it was

almost comical the way that Jason was

trying to warn Epstein, oh, you don't

want to meet these guys. These are some

these are some crazies. They're like

these crypto libertarians. They want to

take down the government. There's no

profit. Um there's no investment

opportunity here. In a way, it was kind

of comical that Jason was trying to warn

Epstein about the Bitcoin guys rather

than vice versa. But I don't really

think people knew at that point in time

what Epstein was involved in. Do you

disagree with that? Do you think people

should have known by 2011? Well, David,

I mean, I will say there is a way back

machine and we can go back and we can

look at what the Google results were and

we do have somebody who pled guilty. And

look, I mean, this is for every

individual to make up their own mind.

You can't Google for solicitation of

prostitution involving a minor. I mean,

that was literally a matter of public

record. I can only speak for myself.

That's not really somebody I would

involve myself with, even at a

professional level. Uh, and had you

known?

>> Well, you can Google it. It's literally

public,

>> but it wasn't widely publicized at the

time.

Palm Beach Post. There were numerous

news articles.

>> I thought the Palm Beach story didn't

come out until or sorry, maybe it was

the Miami Herald didn't come out till

2018.

>> Well, you're Yeah, you're talking about

the 2018 kind of the broader story, but

the original solicitation of prosecution

involving a minor charge, 2007, I

believe, is when the nonprosecution

agreement came to bear. That was all

public record in terms of registration

of a sex offender. And again, you can

use the way back machine and you can go

back and look. I mean again this doesn't

necessarily implicate anybody in a crime

and anybody can make up the decision for

themselves as to how they would have uh

you know involved themselves with that

person but it was it was out there like

it wasn't uh unknown and I do think it's

not really responsible to imply

otherwise.

>> Quick factual clarification on that

although it wasn't an enormous story at

the time. You can find coverage in the

New York Times in July of 2008 after

Epstein pleaded guilty to the two state

level prostitution charges. We didn't

have the full scope of the information

obviously about what he was accused of

or the nature of the nonprosecution

agreement, but a Google search would

have yielded that at that time.

>> Yeah, that's right.

>> Yeah, it's hard for me to judge. I

certainly in that time period had never

even heard of Jeffrey Epstein

and I don't think most people had. When

did this become sort of a cause celeb? I

mean, wasn't it more around his

>> 2018? I would say

>> 2018. Yeah, I think it's important to

explain and

>> when the incredibly overrated Miami

Herald series by Julie K. Brown, which

is just r rife with errors and

mischaracterizations

became this sensation across the media

landscape and Julie K. Brown was

showered with all these accolades from

all these bogus journalism industry

organizations. Even though, for example,

I caught her fabricating quotes in her

book, Coversion of Justice, which was

based on the initial Miami Herald

series. But Michael, I don't think that

you would clownish people in the

journalism landscape.

>> Michael, I don't think that you would

deny that ultimately that this did not

Yes, it was sparked by Julie K. K. K. K.

K. K. K. K. K. K. Brown's Miami Herald

story is that a federal judge was not

necessarily like, you know, a federal

judge who reviewed the nonprosecution

agreement did say that this was a

violation of the Crime Victim's Rights

Act because

>> that was overturned on appeal.

>> Right. Well, I understand, however, that

this has also gone forth to the Supreme

Court involving Gain Maxwell. As I

understand now, is currently being

litigated. But I do think it is

important.

>> The Supreme Court rejected it.

>> Yeah, that's what I'm what I'm talking

about.

>> Maxwell's appeal appeal.

>> I'm talking about the Maxwell appeal,

but specifically the nonprosecution

agreement and the overturning is what re

led to the current indictment of the

2019 indictment of Jeffrey Epste. No,

>> that's wrong, Sager.

>> No. Well, go ahead. You I'm happy for

you to explain it to me. Go ahead.

>> Yeah. I mean, this is a misconception.

The nonprosecution agreement was never

overturned. Gileain Maxwell's argument

includes Let me just finish.

>> Sure. Gileain Maxwell's argument in her

appeals included citing the

nonprosecution agreement as something

that she claimed she ought to have been

covered by. Yes. And therefore insulated

from federal prosecution which was

initiated against her in 2020. The

nonprosecution agreement was never

nullified. It was never voided. Bradley

Edwards, the victim lawyer, attempted to

convince federal judges to somehow

nullify it, but he failed. The reason

why Jeffrey Epstein was federally

reprosecuted in 2019 is because

prosecutors in the Southern District of

New York, Moren Comey at all, concocted

this cockamame rationale for how they

could circumvent the nonprosecution

agreement by picking claiming they found

a new victim in New York, claiming that

there was some interstate nexus in which

they could tie some of the old Florida

allegations, but it was never nullified

at all. So just I I apologize for not

being very specific in my language. It

was ruled in 2019 that it had violated

the Crime Victim's Rights Act. That's

what led to the reindictment. But what

I'm spec Well, no,

>> there was no connection.

>> Well, no, because that led to the story

reopening from Miami Herald and that led

then to the 2019 SDNY.

>> You got I mean, I'm sorry, not to be

combative, but you have your chronology

wrong. The Miami Herald story was based

on Julie K. Brown. Julie Yeah, that was

based on Julie K. around colluding with

the victim's lawyers, not the court

ruling on the crimes victim's rights

act.

>> All right, guys. Let me let me just get

control of this again because I think

we're going down a rabbit hole and

there's lots of aspects of this story

that that we could discuss. I think that

>> we should probably judge each person who

interacted with Epstein or visited his

island and so forth and so on

individually in terms of what they

actually did, what they actually knew.

Sar, I just think you're being a little

bit unfair to Jason because all he did

was exchange emails with

>> I I don't think in the 2011 time period.

That's all.

>> Well, what I was trying to point out was

Jeffrey Epstein's knowledge or interest

of Bitcoin in 2011. And that links to a

broader Epstein involvement with money

laundering and tax fraud and so-called

involvement with Leon Black and many of

these other multi-billionaires who paid

him lots of money. I'm just saying I'm

putting that as part of into a broader

scheme.

>> Yes. And I think that exchange was

noteworthy for the reason you just said,

which is that Epstein somehow was

putting himself in the middle of all

sorts of things. I mean, he's almost

like a Zeligike figure who pops up in

many different newsworthy stories over

the last few decades, which is what I

think makes this interesting. I think

maybe a question for each of you is who

do you think this guy ultimately was? I

mean, you hear all sorts of theories.

Let's say maybe the Epstein maximalist

position would be that he was an

intelligence asset or intelligence agent

who was running a vast compromat

operation on his island and thereby was

corrupting and blackmailing the world's

elite to someone who uh I think Michael

you you have a different point of view

on that. Let me not characterize it.

I'll let you guys do it, but Sagar, let

me start with you. Who do you think this

guy was? And ultimately, you know, at a

30,000 ft level, what do you think is

going on here? What is this Epstein

story really about? And then Michael, I

want to go to you on the same question.

>> Yeah, sure. I mean, I do think that

there is a very low IQ unfortunate, you

know, explosion of accusations that are

out there. And I want to be very

responsible in the way that I describe

it. I think that Jeffrey Epstein was

somebody who arose under very suspicious

conditions uh in the 1980s potentially

involving Iran Contra knowledge

specifically with arms traffickers like

Adnan Kosigible and Douglas Lease Steven

Hoffenberg as well and that these black

market moneyaundering tax evasion

strategies were honed over a period

which eventually inspired various people

like Lesie Wexner and many other

multi-billionaires and that at the very

same time he also had you know his

sexual proclivities which I think at

this point were wellknown and that those

became and became useful his

moneyaundering specific uh duties and

knowledge and usefulness let's say to

the CIA to various other intelligence

assets became a very useful part of the

nexus in the postcold war environment

and that at the time it was also

socially known for a lot of Epstein

associates that he had this bizarre

practice of often you know seeking out

massages which In some cases, they are

saying involving underage girls. And so

to say that he was running a vast

compromat operation, I think ascribes

too much intention to what's really

happening here. And the reason why I'm

being intentional in my language is that

what he clearly was doing was recruiting

and running this like vast massage

scheme also involving Gain Maxwell all

across the world, Russian and Eastern

European women, but also that this

behavior was tolerated in some cases

seen by a vast number of the global

elite. Now, the 2007 circumstances of

the nonprosecution agreement, you know,

and Michael and I could go back on this

uh forward a long time as to the

circumstances of which that arose.

However, I don't think Michael, you

would even deny that his access to

wealth, power, and money did eventually

allow him to get off with the 2007

nonprosecution agreement and the

eventual sweetheart deal uh that he gets

with his hiring. I wouldn't agree with

that, actually. Well, I mean, I don't

think the average Joe can just hire Ken

Star and uh private investigators and

lawyers to tell some of the

>> Oh, sure. I mean, his vast wealth

enables him to secure very high power

legal represent representation.

>> That's what I'm claiming. This whole

concept of a sweetheart deal is a total

canar that

Brown.

>> Michael, I don't want to get off on that

yet, but just go back to my original

question of what is your 30,000 ft take

on what this story is about? Who was

this guy in your view?

>> I will answer that. However, I do want

to just stipulate upfront that I think

this reflex to have to offer some kind

of totalistic

assessment of who Jeffrey Epstein was

at, his very essence has fed into so

much of the constant churn of

algorithmic slop that has generated this

hysterical frenzy around this issue and

has led to people being totally deluded

about what we're even talking about.

What do most people I I I have some

surmises about Jeffrey Epsteine. He

definitely was a money manager who, as

you mentioned, was sort of like this

Zelig character who did have an

extraordinary cross-section of

connections with people from across

fields. And, you know, I just was

looking through some of these records in

the new Epstein Files Productions, and I

was looking for something else, but

there are there's an archive of these

old message pads that he had at his Palm

Beach house

>> and I'm scrolling through and it turns

out Holly Berry left him a couple of

messages. I had no idea that Holly Berry

was ever in contact with Jeffrey

Epstein. So you can always find somebody

new and novel who apparently had a one

dealing or another with him. But why are

we talking about Jeffrey Epstein right

now in February of 2026

>> because PE he is believed to have been

the most prolific child sex trafficker

in American or perhaps world history

which is why this issue might now take

down the British government. It's

embroiling Norway. A minister in

Slovakia had to resign over it. There's

a new criminal investigation that was

just launched in France, etc. That's

what people conceive Jeffrey Epstein to

have been. And that whole notion is

based on just an onslaught of

mythological nonsense that's pumped out

daily by these YouTube shows, I won't

mention names, podcasts, etc., social

media personalities who are driven by

these perverse algorithmic incentives to

be totally divorced from the facts.

foreground this rampant speculation that

ties in the Mossad, ties in unnamed

other intelligence agencies with this

presumed

implication or this presumed uh reality

that of course we know for sure that

Jeffrey Epste was running this pedto

crime ring and we all so they they

presuppose a conclusion that's just been

floating out there in the ether thanks

to all this horrendous media coverage. I

think this is the worst story of my

adult lifetime in terms of the media

coverage and it implicates the

alternative media, the mainstream media

and everybody in between. It's actually

shocking. I will predict here and now

that if we revisit this issue in I don't

know two or three years, people will

come to realize if I have anything to do

with it that they were bamboozled on a

mass scale. There's genuine fraud that

has been rampant in ter the journalistic

malfeasants. We're not supposed to ever

consider the massive financial

incentives where the Epstein industry is

now something like I've estimated a

billion dollars in terms of the payouts

that have been given to purported

victims who are allowed to just

reimagine things that happened to them

20 years before as an adult, not as a

child, but adult at the time of their

claim victimization and then call

themselves a sex trafficking victim and

then they can secure a couple million

dollars tax-free from JP Morgan and the

media will hail them as these brave

survivors without doing a single thing

to check the veracity of any of their

claims. You know why people are so upset

about these redactions in the Epstein

files? And I'm upset too. I criticized

Thomas Massie and Roana for the language

of their bill that they crafted, the

Epstein Files Transparency Act, which

they crafted in concert with Bradley

Edwards, this extortionist quote unquote

victim's lawyer who's made a killing on

this issue over the past 10 years in

conjunction with David Boy, another

shyer. and Bradley Edwards at his urging

Roan and Thomas Massie put in this giant

carveout to so-called transparency and

disclosure into their bill such that the

DOJ was authorized to redact or withhold

or conceal any information that could be

the most tangentially tied to anything

that's quote victim identifying. So,

they've been arguing frantically in

federal court for the past few months

that they're opposed to the disclosure

of Epstein files because it's going to

terrorize all these belleaguered women.

I don't know. Do you think that maybe if

we did get full transparency, it might

disrupt this sanitized quote survivor

narrative that everybody pushes so

credulously? I'll just give you one

example and I don't want to go on for

too long and I there's so many uh

threads that I could pull here that you

have to kind of rein me in. But one

narrative that could disrupt if we

actually did get genuine disclosure,

which we're not. And in fact, Edwards at

all demanded that the entire archive be

taken down because this disclosure was

just too horrendously threatening to

them. We would maybe get more insight

into some of the government propaganda

that's been allowed to promugate

unchecked. Sag, I wonder if you've

corrected this on breaking points. You

can let me know. But for months,

>> people politicians across the media the

the political spectrum as well as the

media at large have unthinkingly

regurgitated this figure that there were

over a thousand victims of Jeffrey

Epstein. Sometimes that gets upgraded to

thousands of victims. That's what pre uh

Primila Japal said at the Bondi hearing

last week. Ro Connor constantly blurts

out this whole this claim of over a

thousand survivors. And this is based on

the July 6th, 2025 FBI DOJ memo which

claimed that they after a review of the

evidence after the second Trump

administration came in, they found that

over 1,000 victims were quote harmed by

Epstein. So they used this very

conspicuous conspicuous weasel wordage

and it was very dubious to me the

instant I read it. Turns out, you know,

thank God on some level for the Epstein

files because there is a major

revelation contained therein, which is

that this whole this number is a fraud.

It's bogus. They they they admit in FBI

memoranda that this number is based on a

total of purported victims, the majority

of whom were would have been adults at

the time of their claim victimization.

Anyway, but it that includes the family

members of alleged victims in that total

number that's been how many alleged

victims are there?

>> Well, who knows? Why is the government

deceiving the public about it? If people

want to be mad about

Michael tell him Pam Bonnie for putting

out that phony propagandistic figure and

then have it be repeated adnauseium

without the slightest bit of critical

discernment.

>> Well, I do, Michael. I think we can at

least agree that Cash Patel and Pam

Bondi haven't uh handled this all that

responsibly on that particular issue.

>> Oh, oh, well, I mean, you're asking me

to correct the record of something I've

never even uttered. I've never said the

word.

It's literally not something that I've

ever claimed. I mean, I do think,

Michael, uh, that what you like to do is

to go after, and really, I think

fundamentally, I'm not even sure if you

would reject this. You reject the idea

of victimization, that post

victimization, uh, can't even happen.

And I also, I don't even necessarily

want to get the idea of victimization. I

don't even know what that means.

>> Well, you reject the idea that women

could be victimized, uh, let's say, by

Jeffrey Epste, manipulated. Yes. in even

if some cases money were exchanging

hands. I will say, by the way, that just

paying or flying in adult women from

Eastern Europe to for the express

purposes of having sex is a crime, by

the way. Sure, it's not underage.

However, we do have the 2007 draft

indictment where there were a number of

underage victims that were mentioned

there where Epstein specifically asked a

15-year-old if he knows anybody who's

younger uh that he could be able to

recruited. And so, I do think your core

contention that at the end of the day,

he was a quote pedophile uh is

definitely illegitimate. But I also

don't necessarily want to get dragged

into the victim uh stuff which I think

that you are fundamentally focused on

because I do think when you're saying

why are people talking about this? It

confirms a general suspicion of the way

that people act with impunity at the

highest levels of American or global

society in terms of their moral

character in terms of their dealings

let's say financially and uh you know

you like to brush across this

intelligence question. I actually I

would love for you to be able to just

grapple with some of the facts, you

know, necessarily just related today

where the Israeli government was

installing surveillance equipment in

Epstein-owned apartment but used for the

former prime minister of Israel, Aud

Barack, where we have Aud Barack and

Epstein uh joking questioningly about

Mossad where Epstein is foying 1999 the

CIA for any mention of himself for the

very dealings that he himself had with

the arms dealing industry in the 1980s

for the fact that he had a false

Austrian passport at the age of 29 years

old. Austria being the capital of spies

long before he ever became, you know,

very filthy rich. And so, Michael, I

think what you're obiscating is a

general interest in the story. And often

that what you try to do is find the

lowest IQ, most maximalist people

talking about cannibals or anything like

that and then paint that as a

but

I barely mentioned the cannibalism

stuff. I mean, of course, you're trying

to Yeah, you paint the rest of us who

believe, let's say, in some of a bigger

part of this story as

>> I mean, if you believe if you believe

that we can just accept at face value

that a 21-year-old model who accepted an

invitation to visit Jeffre Island when

she was in the British false pretenses,

let me finish under false pretenses by

Jean Luke Brunell. And you've looked

into it. No, it had nothing to do with

it. This is nonsense. I mean, I'm

>> Tell me if you've looked into what I'm

about to describe. Can I have 30 seconds

to describe it?

>> All right. Uh, go ahead.

>> Lisa Phillips, who was one of the women,

quote, survivors who spoke at these

press conferences in front of the US

capital and infamously declared that she

and her fellow survivors were going to

create their own list of Epstein clients

and then hand it over to Marjorie Taylor

Green and Thomas Massie so they could

read it out on the floor of the House of

Representatives under the protections of

the speech and debate clause and caused

a giant media firestorm. As I don't have

to remind you, her whole tale of

victimization is that at age 21 as a

professional model, she was on a photo

shoot in the British Virgin Islands.

Another girl, you know, or young woman

that she was with invited her to take a

ferry to Jeffrey Epstein's island in the

US Virgin Islands. She accepted. She

never claimed victimization for likeif

or 20 years. She's on a podcast in 2020

saying, "Gee whiz, I never heard

anything about all this crazy Epstein

stuff, but I knew him and I I don't know

what went happened there." Then all of a

sudden, JP Morgan opens its floodgates

for settlements of, you know, $290

million. You know, I know like we're not

supposed to acknowledge human nature

about what that can incentivize on this

particular subject. I mean, explain that

to me. And she now claims that we're

supposed to just take her to be a

survivor. She was the one one of the

women who also stood up and protested

Pam Bondi last week. So yes, Sager, if

you do take at face value that that

person can be rightly designated as a

victim and fuel and fment this giant

worldwide pedophilia crisis that we're

supposedly in the midst of, then I don't

know. I mean, I consider you to have a

pretty high IQ and that's just not some

like random on social media talking

about cannibals. So you tell me if you

agree that that's a legitimate case of

victimization and it should be just on

the classic example of selecting

somebody. Look, I'm not here to defend

every so-called Epstein victim. Because,

by the way, I think that what you do

very expertly is finding people like

Lisa Phillips and then trying to portray

all of them of that sort. Like, would

you deny that vast wire transfers were

sent to Eastern Europe to fly in women

for the express purposes of sex? Because

that is women. Okay. Is that not a

crime, Michael? Have you Googled the man

act? I mean for somebody who has

actually looked into prostitution I mean

this is what I'm talking about is that

by the way also you have not yet

grappled with the 2007 draft indictment

there okay I mean look I have

unfortunately very limited amount of

time out for that

hold on guys so told us um up front that

he only had half an hour so okay

>> you know we don't have that much time

listen let me ask you a couple other

questions and then once leaves Michael

we can get you to say what you want to

say I want to go to the less waxner

deposition the other day. What did we

learn from that specifically about how

Epstein got his start? I do think that

there are these questions about again

who this guy was, how did he accumulate

hundreds of millions of dollars so early

in his career? How did he seem to um

obtain all these different uh

connections specifically to the

intelligence world? Did any of that get

resolved? And what what's your take on

that?

>> No, David, it wasn't resolved.

Unfortunately, the entire transcript is

not public. What we do know from the

House Oversight Committee, at least

what's been released now so far is

Leslie Wexner said he was never

questioned ever once by the FBI or the

Department of Justice involving this

case. I will say if you look at the

track record of Leslie Wexner, it's

incredibly bizarre. He claims that

Epstein was a con man who stole his

money for decades. In 1991, we had the

power of attorney that was signed over

to him. He claims that Epstein was a

financial genius and a wizard. We have

the transferring of the town home which

eventually there was some payment uh

that was reconciled uh on the back end.

But an incredible amount of control that

Jeffrey Epstein had over Leslie Wexner's

finances over the Wexner Foundation

which he used to funnel money to Aud

Barack the former prime minister of

Israel support many Zionist causes under

the Wexner Foundation including the

Wexner Fellowship currently at Harvard

University. I do think it's important

for us to explore some more of that.

There's some very odd dealings with the

beginnings of their relationship.

Previous Epstein associates have

testified that in 1992, which is shortly

after power of attorney and all of that

uh was acquired or the relationship,

sorry, between Epstein and Wexner began,

is that much of Epstein's lifestyle

exploded. Wexner does not even dispute

uh that Epstein had vast control over

his finances and even claims that he was

stolen from by Jeffrey Epste that their

uh relationship is supposed to have

ended sometime I think in 2007 but he

has not yet answered questions about

this relationship in an open public

forum beyond some statements and he

currently did issue an opening statement

for the record. I personally would like

to see the release of that transcript. I

mean all for transparency here in this

particular case. He's an 88-year-old man

and I do think it's genuinely bizarre.

Oh, and not to even mention the modeling

uh industry uh which you know ep which

Wexner himself was involved with and

there's several emails including

Wexner's own crude drawing in the

Epstein birthday book involving boobs

that he said that's all Epstein ever

wanted. So there be their relationship

is bizarre goes back decades. Wexner

maintains as I said that he was conned

and that he was stolen from. I don't

really believe much of that story. Uh,

Michael, you and I have now read

thousands of Epstein emails. There's no

sophisticated financial instruments

going on. Uh, even back to the very

beginnings of Jeffrey Epstein's claims

here about managing money. Almost none

of it passes the smelter. David, you're

a very high net worth individual. You

can go to Goldbin Sachs or many other

financial houses and get teams of people

to manage money for sophisticated uh,

financial instruments and others not

available to the rest of us. be very odd

for you to turn over your finances to to

Jeffrey Epstein.

>> Yeah. So, he he began his career, I

guess, at Bear Sterns. I guess it was a

brief stint where he worked I guess he

one of the curious things about him is

he dropped out of college around age 20.

>> I guess he was studying math. He then

was a teacher at the Dalton School for

like a year,

>> correct?

>> And then he worked at Bear Sterns for

four years.

>> He met Ace Greenberg through the Dalton

School. Greenberg's I think it was it

was either one of his children uh was

there and then he went to Bear Sterns.

He's fired from Beer Sterns after a

couple of years and that's when his

descent into what I call like the

darkness his expertise in

moneyaundering. I believe that that's

when it was honed as reflects in the

record and the testimony of the people

who dealt with him there at the time

including the false passport Iran

contour arm smuggling and all of that

that I've laid out.

>> S can I ask you a quick question because

I know you have to go soon. I'm I'm

honestly curious if you would agree with

the statement from Thomas Massie. This

is from

>> Okay. February 16th, he says, quote,

"We're exposing the extent of Epstein's

global pedophile ring and how it touches

our government and aristocracy." So, do

you think it's a factually valid

statement that what we know to have

taken place and maybe even is still

ongoing is a quote global pedophile

ring? Well, I mean, when what you're

asking about a global pedophile ring, it

was well, sorry,

>> this is Thomas Massie saying

>> Thomas Massie, a global pedophile ring

is a ring of global elites who seemed

aware and perhaps participated in the

abuse of underage children. Now,

Michael, I will grant you this and what

I respect. Well, no, I will grant you

this. What I think you do well is to

parse the actual individual claim of

many of the victims and others that are

out there. And I actually think you have

a great role in this ecosystem for

debunking especially some of the lowest

IQ content which is out there like you

did with the torture video. So I do want

to appreciate you for doing that.

>> That was low hanging fruit. I mean I

don't I don't really appreciate this

idea that I only focus on low IQ social

media blushia

of all this sag.

>> Yes, I know you have. Jeffrey Epste is

just casually called a pedophile

virtually everywhere in the media and

among every politician much of your what

he is nobody thought because he would

like to pre post pubar

don't you find it bizarre that for all

the enormous media resources that have

been poured into this story over the

past however many years among by

newspapers magazines podcast specials

you name it I guess I'm the only one who

ever thought to actually go into the

Florida court document and pull up the

transcript of the plea hearing in June

of 2008 when he entered his two guilty

pleas

for two state level prostitution charges

and he's called a convicted pedophile

adnauseium. It turns out the sole minor

victim who was cited in that plea

hearing as the sole minor to whom he

procured for prostitution was literally

17 years old. Yes, Michael. I understand

that because they picked the oldest

person in the indictment to plead guilty

to and there's a 14 15year-old which is

named in the 2007 draft indictment which

was released. Michael, you're focusing I

I am focusing on a federal document. Uh

there's a federal document which

specifically alleges a 14 and 15year-old

who are abusing including asking a

15year-old if there is this 2007 draft.

You have read it. You're going to take

as dispositive.

>> Well, I I'm not going to Okay.

Unfortunately, it was never uh never

contested because of the plea agreement

which eventually came forward. I mean, I

think you're using the same tactic Alan

Dersowitz did in his defense.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to do with

Dersuits or I don't share his tactical

maneuver.

>> I unfortunately have to take my child to

a doctor's appointment as I flagged uh

to do uh and uh in the beginning of this

entire thing. And I do

>> I think you'd be operating in good faith

as well. Sager for the most part unlike

a lot of people who have glombmed onto

this story and you're willing to you

know engage on the substance. So that

again is appreciated by me and you know

whenever you'd like to engage further

I'm always available.

>> All right Michael uh thank you David for

the invitation.

>> Yes. Thank you for coming Saga.

Appreciate it. All right. So Michael let

me kind of reset here.

>> Okay. I'm I'm not sure you've had a

chance to kind of lay out your case for

what you called Epstein mythology.

>> Yeah.

>> So, I want to give you a chance to kind

of just lay out your thesis here that

what's happening is actually a type of

moral panic or feeding frenzy, a type of

hysteria. You've compared it to the

Salem witch trials.

>> Yeah.

>> There was also the case in the 1980s of

the whole day child abuse.

>> Satanic panic. the satanic

>> where I think hundreds of people went to

jail or were prosecuted for that. It

turned out

>> I don't know if it was hundreds but more

than enough to make it a extreme

miscarriage of justice.

>> So that's the comparison you've made. So

I guess I want to let you lay out that

case in a clear way cuz I'm not sure

that you've had a chance to quite do

that yet.

>> I mean I definitely laid out my case on

this score in many other venues and on

many other occasions but I guess not on

this particular podcast yet. So, I'm

happy to sketch it out. In terms of the

satanic panic parallel, that's not one

that I would have necessarily been most

inclined to bring up until recently just

because there's now this new layer of

the mythology that's added been added

with the production of these Epstein

quote files where people are reading

snippets of emails to signify some kind

of coded messaging around cannibalism or

around grotesque child sacrifice. that

really wasn't a hallmark of the Epstein

story so much before this enormous tunch

of emails were released. And it relates

to the satanic panic frenzy in so far as

claims around such things as like truly

grotesque child sacrifice,

mutilation of infants, you know, bathing

toddlers in blood. Like all the most

nightmarish scenarios you could possibly

dream up were alleged in the 1980s

and taken deadly seriously by the

authorities resulting in as you alluded

to a good number of people actually

being thrown in prison for many years

and it was turn it was found to be just

a gigantic hoax. Um, but maybe a more

apt parallel that also would have been

apt even before this latest record

production is that

the satanic panic frenzy of the 1980s

was ultimately concluded to have

originated really with one woman who was

just straightforwardly mentally ill,

delusional, needed to essentially be

institutionalized. And yet she would

make claims about sex child sex abuse

that the authorities countenanced or

gave credence to. And there's a similar

thing going on with the Epstein

mythology. Now, when I mention the

Epstein mythology, I'm not talking about

the 2007208

Florida nonprosecution agreement or that

whole scenario that Sager brought up in

peace meal before. That's a different

element of this whole story. The

mythology developed later, mostly around

2014 with the introduction of these new

claims by Virginia Roberts Guay and her

lawyers Bradley Edwards, Paul Cassell,

later David Boy in which she alleged

that she had been child sex traffked

around the world and that she knew that

Epstein enforced this child sex

trafficking operation via blackmail. And

also she made specific allegations

against three particular individuals.

Alan Dersowitz, Prince Andrew, John Luke

Brunell, and then also she accused a

generic category of other high-profile

trial persons who she didn't specify as

also victimizing her like prime

ministers and um uh politicians and

presidents and so forth. Um, so that's

the basically the origin of what I would

call the mythology, which

is just sort of a different order or

magnitude than the initial Palm Beach

prosecution, which was effectively a

local crime. But in terms of the mythol,

the parallel to the satanic panic,

Virginia Roberts Kufra was a profoundly

disturbed mentally unwell person who was

validated and legitimized and now

continues to be celebrated as some kind

of martyr for truth. Even though if

anybody had used a lick of discernment

about as to her claims, it would have

been found that she could not be treated

so credulously. maybe she needed some

help, but this idea that she would be

the basis for this global scandal that's

rocking all these countries is just

outrageous. And there are two others who

are fundament two other mentally ill

women. And I don't say that even to be

pjorative or derogatory at all. It's

just objectively true. If you take a

look, Maria Farmer is one of these other

definitely mentally ill persons who, for

example, introduced or was integral in

introducing this idea that Epstein had

cameras set up in all his bedrooms and

bathrooms and was surreptitiously

recording prominent people so he could

use it for blackmail. And then another

one, Sarah Ransom, was one of the people

who spurred the mythology in large part

around the island. So she came to claim

after going through several mental

health crisis that she had been

systematically raped at the island even

though when she actually had to

eventually give a deposition. She really

described nothing of the sort. She was

also an adult when she went to the

island voluntarily and she described

what it was effectively a se a

consensual you know minor sexual

encounter with Epstein but she

dramatized it radically in the wake and

people don't know I mean David do you

did you know this or does anybody know

that there in the public know that

despite everybody and their mother

including like Rokan and Thomas Massie

at all declaring that the Epstein

property in the US Virgin Islands the

private island that it's rape island or

pedophile island that there's never been

a credible allegation of rape ever

discovered that that take that took

place on that island. Like is that well

known or am I crazy?

>> No, it's not well known. The only reason

I knew is because I've heard you on a

couple of podcasts. So, I thought it was

important to get you on as a

counterpoint. So, just with respect to

these three women, they did go to the

island. Is is that true?

>> Sarah Ransom did.

>> Okay.

>> Um Maria Farmer, no. Maria Farmer is the

one who purported that she was actually

the original Epstein accuser and she was

this great hero whistleblower because

she tried to sound the alarm way before

all these other females were abused. She

claims that in 1996

after she had been a 25-year-old

employee of Epstein's who basically sat

at his front desk in his New York

townhouse that she was invited and

accepted uh to go to the Ohio compound

of Lexley Wexner to be an artist and

residence of sorts because she was a

paint a painter. And then she claimed

that over the course of her interactions

with Epstein and Maxwell, she ended up

filing a first an attempted police

report and then went to the FBI. And she

never really specified what it is that

she claimed that she reported to the FBI

with any clarity. But she told this tale

about how Epstein had supposedly stolen

these photographs that she had produced

of her younger sisters who were below

the age of 18 so that she could use

those photographs to paint paintings of

her younger sisters in the nude. Now, I

don't know. I mean, I guess that's a

confession to production of child

pornography, but technically speaking,

but you know, um, but that's what she

claimed. And then she also added that

she had been sexually assaulted or

abused or raped by both Epstein and

Maxwell. And somehow over the course of

that assault at age 26, she had like a

divine revelation literally and realized

that they were both pedophiles. This is

how she recounted it years after the

fact. And if you look at the police that

FBI intake report or the complaint that

was memorialized that has come out in

terms of the what was contemporaneously

documented, she mentions nothing about a

sexual assault. She mentions nothing

about any kind of sex crime at all. She

simply claims that these photos of hers

were stolen and there's never been any

evidence that those photos were actually

stolen. So that's one person and she's

come these and these three women ransom

farmer uh Roberts Guay were all integral

in different dimensions of the

mythology. They were incredibly

important named plaintiffs in critical

litigation. They, you know, criminal

investigations were launched based on

the basis of her their claims in various

respects. And they're all just

profoundly mentally ill, erratic, and

wholly unreliable to the degree that if

we're going to have a international

pedophilic mass hysteria narrative

that's at all predicated on their

claims, then we've entered into a

fantasy land because it will never in

the future hold up to any kind of

rational re-evaluation or scrutiny at

all.

>> Okay. So, Robert Scufrey or VRG as as I

think you've called her in your

Substack.

>> Yeah.

>> When did she come forward with her?

>> Yeah.

>> Her story

>> cuz I she was the basis of that Netflix

movie or documentary

>> called Filthy Rich about about Epstein.

You were saying that that happened

>> after the whole 2008 Palm Beach.

>> Yeah, I I'll I'll explain. by the way,

Filthy Rich, which uh o over this past

summer when the Epstein furer kind of

got reignited, it like skyrocketed to

like the one of the, you know, the top

of the charts on Netflix once again. So

that little piece of commercial

commercial propaganda has been very

determinative in terms of how people

have had their perception shaped of this

issue. And it is like literal propaganda

I would argue in the sense that it was

concocted as a PR vehicle for the victim

quote unquote victims and especially

their lawyers to create like a public

clamor for some kind of remedial action

to be taken against um Epstein's

co-conspirators or more more relevantly

his estate. It was it was a maneuver. It

was a PR maneuver by a legal team who

worked alongside the producers of that

documentary as has as have been so much

of the mass market entertainment

products that have been produced around

the Epstein affair. It's only taken from

that one perspective of the purported

victims and that perspective is shaped

very carefully by their lawyers to

create this sanitized survivor narrative

that is now the predominant one. But in

terms of her origins, yes, she um she

initially filed some civil litigation

around

I want to say ' 09 2010 maybe 08 as a

Jane Doe

um maybe 2011 somewhere in that range as

first as a Jane Doe meaning she wasn't

named in the litigation and this related

to a period of around

2001 2002 when she was in the Epstein

orbit to some extent. And there's

there's evidence that she was in the

Epstein orbit to some extent. She's not

hallucinating everything. I've argued

that I would she's not so much a liar. I

wouldn't say like I've never directly

accused her of lying about anything as

such. I've called I've said that she's

kind of confabulated an alternate

reality. And that's a little bit

different because it doesn't necessarily

conote willful deceit and it's almost

even more disturbing if you think about

it. But

>> what's your basis for that? The big one

I guess is that in your view that she

recanted her story about Dersowitz or

>> Yeah, she recanted her story not just

about Dersitz. That's maybe the most

well-known instance of her recanting one

of her marquee claims and it really only

came about because Dersowitz was

unusually motivated to actually pursue

some sort of resolution through a very

protracted litigation process against

very highpowered lawyers. I mean, one of

the fallacies here is that these

survivors, quote unquote, such as

Virginia, are taken to be these

bleaguered victims, etc., who had no

power at all in this dynamic, and yet, I

mean, they were represented by some of

the most powerful and skillful lawyers

in the country, such as David Boyce,

who's like one of the best known lawyers

of all time and was hugely wellresourced

and also, you know, Virginia Guay became

incredibly wealthy. maybe not as wealthy

as you, David, but you know, 20

estimates range from like 15, 20, $25

million. It's hard to know because a lot

of the settlement details are secret.

Um, so it wasn't just this hless victim

who had nothing, no leg to stand on in

order to make her claims, but yeah,

Durowitz, she ended up recanting her

allegations. And bear in mind, it wasn't

just that she, you know, happened to

level some accusation at some point,

maybe in like casual banter.

It's that she made allegations of

herself having been victimized by

Dersuit sexually on at least six or

seven occasions. And she described each

individual instance of that

victimization in vivid, graphic, almost

grotesque detail, describing Dersuit's

body parts, sexual proclivities, etc.

And she did this in sworn affidavit and

under deposition. So could theoretically

even be subject to perjury charges

should a prosecutor ever have been

inclined to bring them which of course

they wouldn't have been in this

environment. Um and but it goes much

further. She had to recant claims

against Harvard professor Steven Klin

who she claims she had intercourse with.

Um, she recanted even claims against

John Luke Brunell, who's another sort of

actor or a player in this whole story

that leads people to make their

postulations about there being this

supposedly international sex trafficking

ring because he was like a modeling

mogul. But he ends up getting arrested

by French authorities under pressure

from the US in 2019 after Epstein

himself was federally indicted and

arrested. And given the vagaries of the

French legal system, which I don't fully

comprehend still in relation to the

United States, he was in custody or

incarcerated for quite a long time prior

to any formal charges being brought.

Eventually, she's called to provide

evidence against Virginia is called from

Australia to go to Paris to provide

evidence against John Luke Bernell in

2021 in this format that is nothing that

takes place in the US, but it's like

where the both the defense and the

prosecution have an ability to question

or have colloquiz with the accuser. And

she ends up having to retract her claims

against him as well. And you know they

her lawyers had to admit that this

memoir that she produced or memoir

manuscript that she produced in 2011 and

2012 that she was sort of scheming with

this ghost writer who was potentially

going to work with her, Sharon Churcher,

a journalist at the Daily Mail. She was

scheming about how they could get the

biggest possible book deal or even like

a movie deal or some kind of

entertainment package deal. and she

already had been paid 160,000 plus by

the Daily Mail plus serialization

revenue for having done an interview

with them and given over the Prince

Andrew photo and then they wanted to

marshall or leverage that momentum

publicity wise from the Daily Mail's

articles in 2011 into a book and so

Sharon Sarin Churcher in this email

exchange you can go read it came ac

yeah you know what just like throw throw

anybody's name in you can think of who

might have had the most fleeting

association with Jeffrey Epstein

And that'll get us the biggest possible

book deal that'll entice the most

publishers and agents. And as to Duritz,

yeah, I mean, he's pretty well known and

we all think he's a pedto, so throw him

in there, too. I mean, that's what

they're saying. Um, and

>> wait, this is your interpretation of

what happened.

>> Almost literally what they say. I'm

almost quoting ver I'm not exactly

quoting.

>> Who said that? Who said that?

>> This is what Churcher says to Virginia

Roberts Guay and she's all on board with

it. Wait, how do we know that?

>> Because we have the transcripts of the

emails.

>> Oh, wow. Okay. And

>> they came out of the course of discovery

in in litigation.

>> And this person was

>> she was a trash journalist. Yeah. Who

was working on co-authoring the book

with her or what was

>> they were in talks for her to

potentially be the co-author of the

book. Uh, so they were they were sort of

strategizing as to how they could get a

book deal or get a literary agent to

sign on with Virginia and get her a

lucrative book deal.

>> And then what what ended up happening?

>> A draft manuscript was produced. I don't

know exactly how involved Church was.

>> Was there published or

>> not initially? Finally, a version did

eventually come out last October after

Virginia Roberts phrase purported death

in April of last year. And I only say

purported because the circumstances of

it are still bizarre. Look, I mean, I'm

I I'm willing to grant that she is in

fact dead at this point, but I mean

that's another sort of tangent. But no,

it didn't come out for a long time. a

draft was produced and then the draft

manuscript had to be had to be um

um revealed or handed over over the

course of litigation with Durowitz and

her lawyers by the by 2017 to 2019

had to admit on her behalf so David Boy

at all that this fiction that that this

memoir manuscript which had been

presented as non-fiction which was

shopped around to potential book

publishers as non-fiction which have

been the basis for a lot of media

coverage around these allegations as as

though it were a non-fictional

representation of her purported

experiences. They finally have to admit

that it was a fictionalized account of

her purported experiences. So like for

example,

>> this is VRG's own lawyers ad like David

Boy,

>> right? Yep. So they basically said that

this manuscript which had been the basis

for her story and

>> a lot of the mythology like Bill Clinton

was on the island she claimed no

evidence Bill Clinton was ever on the

island. He did fly around in Epstein's

private jet in 2002 and 2003 but no

evidence he ever went to the island she

saw him on the island and which is false

as far as we as far as we know as far as

all the available evidence has ever

suggested. That probably is one of the

most repeated claims in respect to

Epstein, which is that Oakland was on

the island. And you're saying that's

just completely untrue. And that came

from VRG's manuscript, which ultimately

they had to admit was a work of fiction,

not

>> non-fiction, at least her own work.

>> Correct. But to but what's so

mindboggling is that just relatively

recently after this whole blow up around

Ebstein got ignited last July,

the book publishers obviously

realized that it was a highly profitable

opportunity for them to produce some

version of her manuscript in the form of

a new memoir. Now, she had been working

on a new version of it with another

ghost writer for some time, Amy Wallace,

but they

obviously wanted to peg the publication

of it to this renewed Epstein uproar.

So, this her the memoir finally gets

published in some capacity in October of

last year. It becomes an international

bestseller, not just in the United

States, but in Britain, Australia, etc.

And I'm still stunned. I mean, maybe I

don't I can no longer really be stunned

anymore, but it's still stunning to

think back on how credulously the

reception to that memoir was, even

though I mean, it was basically just Amy

Wallace, this ghost writer, repackaging

and massaging. Um, oh, I always catch

myself when I use the verb massage now.

I shouldn't use that. Repackaging the

initial memoir manuscript and basically

updating it for 2025 and

Nowhere do they nowhere do they dis do

they disclose that it's based on a

fictionalized manuscript. So it's just a

fraud that was

>> So they ultimately did publish a version

of the manuscript.

>> Yes. Last year.

>> And did that book include the

accusations against Dersitz and Bill

Clinton or had that been removed by that

point?

>> To clarify those allegations of sexual

improprieties against Dersitz were not

in the 2011 manuscript. Those were

concocted later as a basis for Virginia

Roberts Guay to join this ongoing

litigation that her lawyer Bradley

Edwards had initiated around something

called the Crime Victim's Rights Act and

how the nonprosecution agreement from

2007208 had supposedly violated the non

the Crime Victim's Rights Act. It's a

it's a complicated issue. Um but that

was debut those those claims against

Durich were debuted in December of 2014.

Um, but there are a bunch of other

claims already in the manuscript from

2011 and there's a reference to

Dersowitz, but it's just not a an

accusation of sexual uh misconduct.

>> Okay. The the three women that you

mentioned um Grey Ransom Farmer, did

they have the same lawyers or different

lawyers? Were lawyers working together?

>> Uh, pretty much the same lawyers. I

mean, it's basically the same cabal of

lawyers. It's uh Davis

and then Bradley Edwards firm. Bradley

Edwards was the initial lawyer that that

oversaw primarily the Florida the the

the purported victims from the Palm

Beach phase from like 200

2 to 2005. um he started representing

them around 2008. And then boys came a

little bit later around the more kind of

grandiose litigation, but they were

working they've worked in conjunction

with one another and still are. They're

still suing as a in a class action

lawsuit that they initiated last

October, Bank of America to extract a

couple hundred more million dollars just

like they did from JP Morgan and Deutsch

Bank and the Epstein estate and plenty

of individualized lawsuits that they've

alluded to but never um clarified the

parameters of like they brag Bradley

Edwards does that they got like 20 or 25

settlements that are still secret. he

says from specific individuals whom he

acknowledges may not have committed any

wrongdoing at all, but just simply don't

want to suffer the PR backlash that

we're seeing now on steroids. So, it's a

hugely lucrative industry. And I don't

know, you tell me, David, is this like

dimension of this whole story ever

mentioned anywhere in any of the popular

media coverage, whether it's on podcasts

or on CNN or anywhere?

>> No. Um, okay. So, and even the

Deutschbang settlement, I don't think

I'd heard of that. What What was that?

So when Epstein dies August 10th, 2019,

right,

the aing frenzy breaks out in terms of

litigation that is brought against his

estate

cuz at that point Epstein is obviously

no longer available to contest any

claims that are made against him and

liel laws ceased to apply. People are

aware obviously that he was very

wealthy. He wasn't like a multi

multi-billionaire as a lot of people

suspected at the time, but according to

his um disclosure of assets when he was

arrested, his net worth was like six uh

650 million. So still a pretty big

estate. And so because of this flood of

lawsuits against the estate, the

executives of the estate,

Darren Indk and Richard Khan, decide to

agree to coordinate with the victim's

lawyers, Bradley Edwards, David Boy, at

all to set up a basically a mediation

program that they call the embassy and

victims compensation fund, which is a

holistic

settlement process that victims or

alleged victims could submit claims to

and then there would be a mediator

brought in to evaluate the claims and

decide what amount of money to give out.

So there wouldn't have to just be like a

flood of individual lawsuits. They could

kind of consolidate it. And so they set

up a settlement model basically for the

Epstein estate which was expressly

non-adversarial, meaning there would be

no adversarial scrutinization

of the claims that were made to justify

somebody's entitlement to millions of

dollars.

people as uh uh claimants were entitled

to as much as $5 billion from just this

one settlement fund and it was taxree by

the way.

>> Wait, this is with this is with Deutsch

Bank.

>> No, no, this is the epsian estate. I'm

getting to Deutsch Bank because it ties

into the Epstein estate from the Epstein

estate. This Epstein estate was first in

the chronology of settlements

>> and so they set up a settlement model,

right? It's a non-adversarial,

confidential, tax-free because they

claim that it applies under that it

could be categorized under the IRS code

as like compensation for an injury. So

therefore, you don't have to pay income

taxes on it. Um, and so that gets set

up, right? And then

>> and who adjudicates that?

The court in the US Virgin Islands

because the estate was doiciled in the

US Virgin Islands

appointed on the recommendation of both

parties a an independent mediator or

administrator Simona Lelchuk her name is

who specialized she claimed anyway in

this sort of thing and like she had an

extra sensitivity toward sexual assault

victim she claimed um I mean it's kind

of a phony we don't want to get you know

sucked into that nec necessarily tangent

but um yeah so there's an independent

administrator and that was modeled they

said on

>> previous consolidated settlement

mechanisms such as like the Jerry

Sanduski

>> um I don't know if you recall the Jerry

Sanduski sand scandal at Penn State

where claims were made that this

football coach had abused a bunch of

boys and so a consolidated settlement

program was set up to pay out

settlements to claimments.

>> Okay, got it. So that's the Epstein

estate. So let's get to the

>> So then they they they take that model

that had been set up for the Epstein

estate and then they start going after

bank major multinational banking

institutions that David Boy and Bradley

Edwards decide to very creatively and

cleverly I have to say allege were

complicit in Jeffrey Epstein's like

world spanning child sex trafficking

operation and therefore reliable.

>> Wait, what is the nexus between Deutsch

Bank or Bank of America and Epstein?

Were those the banks that he used?

>> Epstein banked at those institutions. So

first JP Morgan from like the late 90s

to 2013 roughly and then Deutschbank

from 2013 to 2019.

>> And the argument is that they should

have somehow stopped his activities.

>> Yeah. That

>> or failed to do a KYC or something like

that.

>> Yeah. I mean they they they they they

first started making a much more

accusatory argument about their direct

complicity in facilitating a sex

trafficking operation. But what the

judge ultimately agreed to was to that

they were effectively or they were

reasonably guilty or reasonably to be

found liable for essentially negligence

because Epstein would withdraw cash

and that's supposed to trigger certain

monitoring provisions that it was

claimed JP Morgan and Deutsch Bank did

not satisfactorily do. I mean it was

kind of like a stretch of an argument

frankly but because of the popular

climate around oh the people anybody who

was involved in this in any way has to

pay for all this pedophilic sex

trafficking there wasn't a whole lot

really that the lawyers for those

banking institutions could do to take

the heat off

>> so they settle right so they settled so

there are two funds and that yeah

>> how big are those settlement funds th

those two

>> so JP Morgan was ended up totaling

around 290 million

and the lawyers end up convincing the

judge who presided over this agreement

in New York, the federal judge Rakeoff,

to grant them 30% in legal fees or

attorneys fees that they claimed. Um,

and Deutsch Bank was around 90 million

or 80 million maybe. Um,

>> okay.

>> So, just add those up now. So, the

Epstein estate was around, if I'm

remembering, 121 million and that's gone

up actually since even more litigation

has been filed separated apart from the

class action settlement. JP working 290,

Deutsch Bank around 80 or 90. So we're

already at like a half a billion dollar

industry

and there's plenty of other lawsuits and

settlements that have been spawned from

this thing. And so I just have never

understood or I do understand it. So I

should correct myself. I've always found

it perversely amazing that this whole

aspect of this story is never mentioned

because it's led to such things as this

gross inflation of the total number of

victims where you have adult there's

financial incentives. You're saying

there's financial incentives here and

just the lawyers are these are

contingency fee plaintiffs lawyers. They

get like 30% or what's their I mean

these guys are not paid by the hour,

right? They they're they get

>> Well, no. Well, could that they I don't

think it's No, not it's not a

contingency fee.

>> Okay.

>> Set up for this. They they got the judge

to approve

>> a 30% earmark of the resulting

settlement funds to be

g given over for attorneys fees. So, it

wasn't a contingent based on the client.

It was that the judge approved 30% of

the overall settlement.

>> Got it. So the the lawyers who sort of

organized these settlement pools,

>> right,

>> negotiated essentially their cut up

front and you're saying with the judge

and you're saying that was about 30%

>> of all these exactly 30%.

>> Okay. Okay. Got it.

>> But you have a if you have a set of

criteria that are so lax, I mean JP

Morgan even had even more lax criteria

than the epste which basically allowed

anybody who ever like came within two

football fields of Jeffrey Epstein to

file a claim against them and get a few

million dollars taxfree. Um but the the

JP Morgan settlement was even more lax.

So there are people who are event

basically rejected the few who were

rejected from the Epstein estate fund

end up getting a settlement from some of

them anyway the JP Morgan or Deutschbank

fund. So that that's so this woman Lisa

Phillips who was like an adult model

never made any claim about anything to

do with Jeffrey Epstein that was

wrongful for like 20 years said on a

podcast publicly that she had no idea

what these girls were talking about when

they make these allegations against

Jeffrey Epstein as of 2020 she said this

by 2023 she's getting you know she never

she I asked her she didn't disclose to

me her full amount but you know probably

around 2 million at least and then they

get free healthcare from yet another

settlement between the US Virgin

Islands, the government of the US Virgin

Islands and the and JP Morgan um that

they set aside for just free health care

for until 2028 for any alleged Epstein

victim. Um and it's just like don't

people

recognize how that can be incentivized

this inflation of the number of total

victims we're told must exist and that

thus gives rise to this mass hysteria

and moral panic about like thousands of

victims. I mean at this Bondi Pam Bondi

hearing that was so contentious last

week at the House Judiciary Committee

you had people screaming thousands of

victims need you know demand justice and

it's just like a concoction that is not

grounded in any approximation of like

empirical fact. So I always say if

people want to be mad at Pam Bondi and

Cash Patel for something, be mad at them

for signing off on that ridiculous memo

from last July where they include that

figure of over a thousand victims that

has f given fuel to the most maximalist

conceptions of Epstein mythology in

terms of the victims that were left in

their wake. I mean soccer always wants

to and I shouldn't maybe say too much.

I'm not and I'm not trying to impute him

at all, but I do get a lot of people on

the internet doing a variation of what

soccer did saying, "Hey, let's just talk

about the Intel ties. Forget all this,

you know, gossip stuff around.

>> Well, they are interesting. I mean, the

intel ties are interesting, right?

>> Sure. I'm I'm, you know, the whole story

is interesting. It's interesting that

Epstein apparently met Michael Jackson

in his Palm Beach house and photos of it

came out. It's interesting that he can

live with everyone from Donald Trump to

Bill Clinton. I agree. It's interesting.

>> Let me bring up one sort of criticism of

you and then I want to give Kevin a

chance to get in here. So look, I I

think it's very important that we hold

this process to evidentiary standards

like you're saying. I think that

people's motivations need to be

examined, especially like the lawyers

who are bringing these cases who are,

you know, reaping hundreds of millions

of dollars. So I think you are and I

think even Saga admitted this, I think

you're playing an extremely important

role in this process by bringing some

rigor and accountability to a lot of

these claims. I think that's really

important.

At the same time, you're not really

offering an explanation of so many

aspects that are so interesting about

Epstein. And I'm not saying it's

necessarily your duty to do that, but

I'm wondering, you know, do you have a a

theory of how did he accumulate hundreds

of millions of dollars? How did he get

so connected? Some people like Mike Benz

have said that it all goes back to Burr

Sterns where he says that one of his

accounts was BCCI which was this

notorious international bank that was

involved eventually was shut down

because it was involved in international

moneyaundering and crimes things like

that. So I think this is Mike Benz's

theory. In any event, do you have a

theory that would provide a satisfactory

explanation for so many of the threads

that we see? Or do you just feel like

it's not really your job to to do that

and your job is really more just to poke

holes in, you know, what are some of the

more outlandish claims of politicians or

lawyers?

>> Well, I'm happy to address any little

data point that people want to throw out

at [laughter] me. I mean, I do that all

day every day pretty much. So, it's not

like I'm trying to avoid anything or be

at all evasive, right? So, people ask me

all the time, okay, how did he make his

money? What about Leslie Wexter, etc.,

etc. So, it's not like I'm unaccustomed

to addressing any of this stuff. It's

just that I feel like there's a bit of a

fallacy or a logical

flaw in attempting to say that it's

incumbent on me to profer some kind of

ultimate totalizing theory. I have a

theory I could sketch out that maybe

explains some of what people would like

to know in such you know that people are

so titillated by. But I think again one

of the things one of the reasons why the

coverage of the story has been so

horribly bad is that

speculation has replaced fact and we

just have this whole mythology or

folklore that's developed and that

people just kind of am ambiently absorb

and then they end up just believing

things that are totally false. So, for

example, people just believe, and I'm

sure you've seen this, that Epstein must

have referred to his private plane as

Lolita Express. Therefore, anybody who

was ever on the plane must have known

that this was like a child sex

trafficking plane because why else would

it be named the Lolita Express after the

famous book about, you know, 12-year-old

girl or whatever who was a sexual

object. That's just like false. I mean,

that was this is there's never any

evidence for that. It was a nickname

that it was invented like by a it was a

cheeky nickname invented by this British

tabloid. And so that's just one example

of all this flatsom that

>> Okay. But but but to go back, do you

have a theory of how specifically

Epstein got started? Because somehow I

guess it was in the 80s he went from

someone who was just a trader at Bear

Sterns to very quickly amassing a

fortune that I don't know seems like

hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean

like you said he died with about 650

million. I don't know how big the

fortune was in the 1980s. We know that

Wexner sold him the townhouse. I guess

one of the details that came out the

other day is Wexner said it was at what

he was told was fair market value and

Epstein obtains his plane from Wexner.

So, I mean, is that the explanation that

somehow he got his start because Wexner

was extraordinarily generous towards

him? Like, I'm just curious like

>> not quite. Um,

so I mean there there was a a huge New

York Times article that was one of the

few helpful contributions to the popular

knowledge around Jeffrey Epstein

recently in December where they go

through I mean they they basically set

out to answer the question that