# The Epstein Files are Worse Than You Think!

An episode of [Patrick Boyle On Finance](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1547740313), 28 Dec 2025, 35 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO1751091545.mp3

The first two batches of the Epstein files have finally been released, and the revelations are explosive. For decades, the media and the justice system ignored the most basic question: Who helped him? Now, thanks to thousands of pages of newly released DOJ documents, we know that there were the co-conspirators. In this video, we look through the latest evidence to expose the network of co-conspirators and high-powered enablers who made Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes possible. We go beyond the headlines to reveal the specific individuals—from Ghislaine Maxwell to banking titans like Jes Staley—who were far closer to Epstein’s operation than they ever admitted.We break down the bombshell New York Times investigation that dismantles the myth of Epstein's "financial genius" and uncover the bipartisan cover-up that kept these files buried for 40 years. From Donald Trump’s newly revealed flight logs to Bill Clinton’s White House connections, we show how a "two-tier" justice system worked to protect the powerful at the expense of the truth.New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/magazine/jeffrey-epstein-money-scams-investigation.html Patrick's Books: Statistics For The Trading Floor: https://amzn.to/3eerLA0 Derivatives For The Trading Floor: https://amzn.to/3cjsyPF Corporate Finance: https://amzn.to/3fn3rvC Ways To Support The Channel: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PatrickBoyleOnFinance Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/patrickboyle

## Transcript

[0:00] The congressional order requiring the Department of
[0:03] Justice to release the Epstein files was billed as a victory
[0:06] for transparency last month when it was signed into law.
[0:10] Since the files started being released, a day laid in small
[0:14] increments and with heavy redactions, it's become a
[0:17] chaotic spectacle of incompetence, technical failure,
[0:21] and selective disclosure, making the most unhinged conspiracy
[0:26] theorists look reasonable. On Christmas Eve, it was
[0:30] announced that additional files had been uncovered and that it
[0:33] would likely take a few more weeks for the full data set to
[0:37] be released. The scale of the omission is
[0:40] staggering. To date, the Department of
[0:42] Justice has released just 11,000 and 34 document.
[0:46] Yet with this sudden request for delay, the department admitted
[0:50] that it has uncovered over a million additional records that
[0:54] still need to be reviewed. This admission is a humiliating
[0:58] reversal for Attorney General Pam Bondi, who in February told
[1:02] the public that the relevant files were sitting on her desk
[1:06] and ready for review. This pivot, from ready to
[1:09] release to too much to process confirms the worst fears of
[1:14] transparency advocates. Simple math dictates that if a
[1:18] million documents remain hidden, the public has seen perhaps 1%
[1:23] of the total cash. Rather than the flood of clarity
[1:27] Congress demanded, we've received a muddy trickle, A
[1:31] disparity that critics argue amounts to a deliberate failure
[1:35] to comply with the law. The incompetence was absolute.
[1:40] Ordinary members of the public quickly discovered that some
[1:43] redacted text could be revealed by simply copying and pasting
[1:47] the document into a different format.
[1:50] These digital slip UPS exposed not sensitive victim data, but
[1:55] financial records and details that the law explicitly forbade
[2:00] the DOJ from hiding, proving that the censorship was often
[2:04] protecting reputations, not victim.
[2:08] Beyond the political theatre, genuine scandals have emerged
[2:12] from the recently released files that contradict the official
[2:15] narrative that we've been fed for months.
[2:18] Administration officials like Attorney General Pam Bondi and
[2:22] FBI Director Kash Patel insisted that there was no client list
[2:27] and nothing to see in the files. Patel went further, telling
[2:31] Congress that there's no credible information, none that
[2:35] Epstein trafficked women to others.
[2:38] The documents prove otherwise. Buried within the release is a
[2:42] revelation that federal agents identified and attempted to
[2:46] contact 10 potential Co conspirators immediately after
[2:50] Epstein's 2019 arrest. While most names remain
[2:54] redacted, the existence of this list confirms that suspects
[2:58] beyond Epstein and Shalane Maxwell have been on the FBIS
[3:03] radar for years. Equally damning is the
[3:06] revelation of catastrophic institutional failure.
[3:09] We now know the FBI was alerted to Epstein's abuse as far back
[3:14] as 1996, when Maria Farmer reported that the then 43 year
[3:20] old financier had stolen nude photos of her sisters aged just
[3:24] 12 and 16. The FBI report notes that
[3:28] Epstein was believed to have sold the pictures to potential
[3:32] buyers, a chilling detail that hints at the a very trafficking
[3:36] network Patel denied existed. These revelations, importantly
[3:41] shatter a lingering myth perpetuated by commentators like
[3:44] Megyn Kelly, that Epstein was merely a Playboy who took
[3:48] advantage of willing teenagers dazzled by his wealth and
[3:52] celebrity connections. The files depict a much nastier,
[3:56] more dangerous reality, a predator who threatened to burn
[4:01] down a teenage victim's house if she spoke out.
[4:04] And who's his victims were? Often small children, not party
[4:08] girls. Then there are the bizarre
[4:11] anomalies that feel pulled from a tabloid fever dream.
[4:15] Buried in the cache was a suicide note purportedly written
[4:19] by Epstein to disgrace gymnastics doctor Larry Nasser,
[4:23] containing grotesque claims about the US president.
[4:27] The Department of Justice has officially labeled the letter's
[4:30] contents unfounded and false, and there are many reasons to
[4:35] believe that it might be a hoax. But they released it anyway, a
[4:39] decision that's only fuelled the very speculation they seem to
[4:43] want to discourage. To tell the full story, we have
[4:46] to look far beyond the government's muddy trickle of
[4:49] information. We'll combine the Department of
[4:52] Justice files with new data and photos released by the House
[4:56] Oversight Committee and groundbreaking reporting from
[4:59] the New York Times. While the FBI sat on its hands,
[5:03] reporters were digging through archives interviewing people who
[5:07] had worked with Epstein and knew him socially to reveal the true
[5:11] source of his wealth, exposing him not as a financial wizard,
[5:15] but instead as a relentless scammer who built his empire on
[5:19] a lifetime of frauds, Ponzi like schemes, and the betrayal of
[5:24] friends. The contrast between the
[5:26] investigative success of the press and the abject failure of
[5:30] the state is damning. The government has all the tools
[5:34] needed to uncover the truth, the power to compel testimony, the
[5:38] ability to track the movement of every cent through the banking
[5:41] system, and full access to the IRS tax records.
[5:46] Yet it was journalists, not federal agents, who connected
[5:50] the dots. It's crazy that the ball has
[5:53] been dropped like this on such a high profile case.
[5:56] And it's no wonder that conspiracy theories have
[5:59] bloomed, because as the files now prove, an actual conspiracy
[6:03] existed. Today, I'm going to break down
[6:06] the new data releases in three parts.
[6:09] First, we'll examine the new evidence of Co conspirators and
[6:13] the specific warnings that the FBI ignored in the 1990s.
[6:18] Second, we'll contrast the government's chaotic, redacted
[6:21] dump with the forensic accounting done by journalists
[6:25] that finally explains the mechanics of Epstein's wealth.
[6:29] And finally, we'll ask the question that the DOJ is
[6:32] seemingly desperate to avoid. If the government knew in 1996
[6:37] what Jeffrey Epstein was up to, why did it take 23 years and a
[6:42] billion dollars in stolen money to stop him?
[6:46] For months, the official line from Washington had been that
[6:50] the conspiracy began and ended with Jeffrey Epstein and his
[6:54] jailed accomplice, Elaine Maxwell.
[6:56] The administration insisted that the circle of guilt was a closed
[7:00] loop. In sworn testimony to Congress,
[7:03] FBI Director Kash Patel was unequivocal.
[7:07] Who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic these young women to
[7:12] besides himself? Himself, there is no credible
[7:15] information. None.
[7:17] If there were, I would bring the case yesterday.
[7:20] This claim strained credulity from the moment it was uttered.
[7:24] The public has long known, thanks to leaks like the
[7:27] birthday book, that Epstein did not operate in a vacuum.
[7:32] But what was once strong suspicion is now documented
[7:35] fact. The files prove unequivocally
[7:38] that Patel's testimony was at best a catastrophic failure of
[7:42] memory and at worst a lie. Buried in this weeks chaotic
[7:47] document dump is a heavily redacted e-mail chain from July
[7:51] 2019, sent just hours after Epstein arrest.
[7:56] In it, an FBI agent asks A colleague for an update on the
[8:00] status of the 10 Co conspirators.
[8:03] This is not speculation, it's a time stamped federal record.
[8:08] The e-mail confirms that from the very first moments of the
[8:11] 2019 investigation, the FBI had identified 10 specific targets.
[8:18] So who were they and why were they never charged?
[8:21] The DOJ has redacted 7 of the 10 names, citing privacy concerns,
[8:27] A justification the new law explicitly forbids for anyone
[8:32] other than victims. However, three of the names were
[8:35] left visible. Jelaine Maxwell, Jean Luc
[8:39] Brunel, the French modelling agent who died in prison
[8:42] awaiting trial, and Leslie Wexner, the billionaire retail
[8:46] tycoon behind Victoria's Secret. Wexner's inclusion is explosive.
[8:52] For decades, he was Epstein's primary patron, entrusting the
[8:57] former math teacher with total control over his billions.
[9:01] While Wexner severed his financial ties in 2007 and
[9:05] claims that he was never a target of the federal
[9:08] investigation, his presence on a verified FBI suspect list
[9:13] suggests that agents believe that the money trail and the
[9:17] abuse trail were intertwined. The most chilling evidence of a
[9:21] wider conspiracy comes not from 2019, but from 1996.
[9:27] Included in the files is a police report filed by Maria
[9:30] Farmer, an artist who worked for Epstein.
[9:33] She told the FBI explicitly that Epstein and Maxwell had stolen
[9:38] nude photographs of her younger sisters, aged 12 and 16, that
[9:43] she had taken for her own personal artwork.
[9:47] Crucially, the report notes that Epstein was believed to have
[9:50] sold the pictures to potential buyers.
[9:54] This single sentence destroys the lone wolf narrative.
[9:58] If Epstein and Maxwell were selling photographs like this,
[10:02] then there were buyers. And if the FBI knew about
[10:05] potential buyers of this type of material in 1996 and Co
[10:09] conspirators in 2019, the question is no longer if others
[10:14] were involved. The question is why the most
[10:16] powerful law enforcement agency in the world decided to stop
[10:21] looking for them. While the Co conspirators list
[10:24] points to a cold heart cover up, much of the release resembles a
[10:29] hall of mirrors, a chaotic junk drawer of evidence that mixes
[10:33] genuine leads with bizarre anomalies.
[10:36] Take the suicide note. Buried in the cache is a letter
[10:40] purportedly written by Epstein to Larry Nasser, the disgraced
[10:44] gymnastics doctor. Nasser is a true monster who was
[10:49] convicted of abusing more than 150 women and girls and
[10:52] sentenced to 175 years in prison.
[10:56] Some estimates of the number of victims goes beyond 300.
[11:01] Dear Lane, the note reads. As you know by now, I've taken
[11:06] the short route home. Good luck.
[11:08] We shared one thing, our love and caring for young ladies and
[11:12] the hope they'd reach their full potential.
[11:15] Our president also shares our love of young nubile girls.
[11:20] It then makes a lewd reference to the president's treatment of
[11:23] women and signs off. Life is unfair, yours, Jay
[11:28] Epstein. While the existence of a letter
[11:31] to Larry Nasser has been public knowledge since 2023, when The
[11:35] Associated Press reported on a return to sender envelope
[11:40] turning up in the jail's mail room, there are compelling
[11:43] reasons to doubt the documents. Authenticity.
[11:46] First. Investigators have never
[11:48] established a clear link between Epstein and Nasser.
[11:52] So why would Epstein choose to send his final thoughts to a
[11:56] stranger in a different prison rather than to a friend or
[11:59] family Family member? Second, the letter was
[12:02] postmarked 3 days after Epstein's death, which could
[12:07] theoretically be explained by the delays inherent in the
[12:10] prison mail inspection system. However, the markings indicate
[12:14] it was mailed from Northern Virginia, hundreds of miles from
[12:18] the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan, where
[12:21] Epstein died. Even if the note was written by
[12:25] Epstein, he would have known that it would be read by the
[12:29] prison mailing system and may be given extra attention after his
[12:33] death. So even if authentic, the note
[12:36] could still have been a final act of revenge on his old friend
[12:39] Trump. The DOJ may have dismissed the
[12:43] note as a forgery based on handwriting analysis, but it's
[12:46] contradictions guarantee it'll be dissected by conspiracy
[12:50] theorists for decades to come. It feeds the conspiracy that
[12:55] there was a celebrity ring of abusers who were all in touch
[12:59] with each other. But it also contradicts the
[13:01] conspiracy that many believe that Epstein was murdered in
[13:05] prison. To silence him, the Department
[13:08] of Justice took the unusual step of enabling the letter unfounded
[13:12] and false upon release, yet included it anyway.
[13:16] Then there's the bizarre footage of Epstein appearing to choke
[13:20] himself in his prison cell, a video that circulated online for
[13:24] years and is now formally included in the files simply
[13:28] because someone emailed it to the FBI asking if it was real.
[13:33] But if the noise is distracting, the silence regarding the
[13:37] president is deafening. Administration officials have
[13:41] repeatedly claimed that they're prioritizing transparency, yet
[13:45] the process has been dogged by accusations of bias.
[13:49] Internal documents reveal that the FBI referred to the effort
[13:53] as the Special Redaction Project, an initiative that
[13:57] racked up over $850,000 in overtime costs in a single week
[14:03] back in March. So who knows what the total cost
[14:06] of the redactions has come to buy now, but the return on that
[14:11] investment appears to be a sophisticated form of
[14:14] obstruction. Upon release, users reported a
[14:18] bizarre technical anomaly. Searching the digital files for
[14:22] Trump yielded almost 0 results, making it look like the
[14:26] president didn't appear in the files at all.
[14:29] People eventually worked out that his name could only be
[14:32] found if you searched for Trump with a space at the end, a
[14:37] coding glitch that rendered him invisible to the general public.
[14:41] Meanwhile, specific files, including a photo of a desk in
[14:46] Epstein's home displaying 2 pictures of the president, were
[14:49] quietly removed from an online database and then re uploaded
[14:54] only after a public outcry. Perhaps the most telling was the
[14:58] DO JS framing. When releasing the documents,
[15:02] the department included an unusually specific disclaimer
[15:06] warning that the files contained untrue and sensationalist claims
[15:11] about President Trump. No such warning was offered for
[15:15] the other well known figures mentioned in the files.
[15:18] And then there's the incompetence.
[15:21] At least 550 pages were released entirely blacked out, a move
[15:26] that critics argue violates the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
[15:31] But some of the censorship was as porous as it was
[15:34] heavy-handed, ordinary members of the public quickly
[15:38] discovered. But some redactions were merely
[15:41] black bars placed over live text, which could be revealed by
[15:45] copy pasting the document into a text file.
[15:49] These hacks didn't all expose sensitive victim data, which was
[15:53] supposed to be what was being redacted, but instead financial
[15:57] records and details about Epstein's estate, proving that
[16:02] the censorship was designed to shield the powerful from
[16:05] embarrassment rather than to protect victims from further
[16:08] harm. If the technical failures were
[16:11] absolute, the political weaponization was strategic.
[16:15] But before we dissect the politics, we must address the
[16:18] sheer scope of the orbit. The files feature a surreal cast
[16:23] of characters that spans the entire spectrum of the global
[16:26] elite. The names dragged into the
[16:29] sunlight range from rock stars like Mick Jagger, Diana Ross and
[16:33] Michael Jackson. A Jagger was photographed with
[16:36] Clinton and a redacted image of a woman.
[16:39] While he hasn't made any statements about the release,
[16:42] there's no suggestion that he was involved with or aware of
[16:45] any of the actions of Bill Clinton or Jeffrey Epstein.
[16:49] There were Hollywood A listers in the files like Kevin Spacey
[16:53] and Leonardo DiCaprio, Titans of science and industry like Bill
[16:57] Gates, Gates and Noam Chomsky, and even David Copperfield, the
[17:01] magician, the creepiest style of entertainer.
[17:05] It's important to state clearly that appearing in a photograph
[17:09] with Jeffrey Epstein are flying on his jet does not inherently
[17:13] imply criminal wrongdoing. For many, Epstein was simply a
[17:18] fixture of the social circuit, a wealthy donor who's sinister
[17:22] reality was hidden in plain sight.
[17:24] But for others, the association was far deeper.
[17:28] Former President Bill Clinton featured heavily in the first
[17:31] batch of release documents. While the files contain no
[17:35] evidence of specific crimes, they confirm a long, comfortable
[17:39] friendship that Clinton has spent years trying to downplay.
[17:43] He's seen relaxing in hot tubs and swimming with Elaine
[17:46] Maxwell, images that are embarrassing, if not indictable.
[17:51] Yet for the current White House, embarrassing was not enough.
[17:55] In a move that stripped away any tense of impartiality, a deputy
[18:00] press secretary tweeted a photo from the files showing Clinton
[18:05] with Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and three small children.
[18:09] The children's faces were redacted, implying that they
[18:12] were possible victims. The implication was a lie.
[18:17] The photo had been taken at a public charity event, and the
[18:20] children belonged to Jackson and Diana Ross.
[18:23] The fact that the White House deputy press secretary felt the
[18:27] need to manufacture a scandal when the reality of Clinton's
[18:31] association with Epstein was already damaging enough speaks
[18:35] volumes about how low political figures will go to discredit
[18:40] each other. We're also left with the
[18:42] question of whether prior administrations kept these files
[18:46] sealed not to protect justice, but because Epstein was a
[18:50] bipartisan embarrassment who compromised everyone he was
[18:54] involved with. This question of protection then
[18:58] brings us to Alexander Acosta, the former Labour secretary who
[19:03] is long sad at the centre of the Epstein saga's darkest theory.
[19:07] As the prosecutor who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart plea
[19:11] deal in 2008, Acosta famously claimed he was told to back off
[19:16] because Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above his
[19:20] pay grade. He later denied saying this, but
[19:24] if true, this suggests that for decades states the US government
[19:28] didn't just ignore a predator, it shielded one.
[19:31] The cost of that protection is made viscerally clear in new
[19:35] photos released by the House Oversight Committee.
[19:39] These images destroy, once again, the party girl myth once
[19:43] and for all. They show young girls with lines
[19:46] from the novel Lolita written in black marker across their
[19:50] bodies, on their chests, feet and spines.
[19:53] It's a grotesque display of branding the literary pretension
[19:58] into evidence of systematic abuse.
[20:01] While most of the press has been about Clinton and Trump, the
[20:04] public figure who emerges most damaged by the new files is not
[20:08] a politician but a Prince. Or at least a former Prince.
[20:13] Welcome, peasants. This is diary of a professional
[20:17] eminent Duke and orator. The documents about Andrew
[20:21] contain what might be the closest thing to a smoking gun
[20:25] in the entire release. An e-mail exchange between
[20:29] Shalane Maxwell and the sender signed simply A, who has widely
[20:34] been identified as Prince Andrew.
[20:37] In the emails, the former Prince writes from Balmoral to ask
[20:41] Maxwell if she has found too many new inappropriate friends.
[20:45] Later discussing an upcoming trip to Peru.
[20:48] Maxwell instructed and associate to organize 2 legged sightseeing
[20:53] for the Prince, specifying that the women should be intelligent,
[20:58] pretty, fun, and from good families.
[21:01] The revelation that a member of the royal family was using
[21:04] official travel budgets to procure women via Epstein and
[21:08] Maxwell is a scandal that no amount of redaction can hide.
[21:13] If the failure to investigate the sexual crimes was a tragedy,
[21:17] the failure to investigate the financial crimes was a farce.
[21:22] I made a whole video about this a while back.
[21:25] Tracking the sources of Epstein's wealth would answer
[21:28] many questions about him and his Co conspirators.
[21:32] If there's anyone capable of working out how a high school
[21:36] math teacher transformed into a billionaire, it should be the
[21:40] Department of Justice. After all, the government
[21:43] possesses the ultimate investigative toolkit, the power
[21:46] to compel testimony, the ability to track the movement of every
[21:50] cent through the global banking system, and full access to IRS
[21:54] tax records. Yet in more than 40 years of
[21:58] suspicious activity, federal agents failed to uncover the
[22:02] answer to the most basic question of the Epstein saga.
[22:06] Where did all the money come from?
[22:09] It took a team of journalists from the New York Times digging
[22:12] through dusty archives and interviewing forgotten
[22:15] associates, financial victims and ex girlfriends to finally
[22:20] dismantle the myth. I'll leave a link to the article
[22:23] in the description as it's well worth a read.
[22:26] As the journalist point out, for decades Epstein sold himself as
[22:30] a financial Dr. to the ultra wealthy, A renegade genius who
[22:35] could see patterns in the market that others missed, and an
[22:39] expert in taxes who could even sell tax planning services to
[22:43] people as financially sophisticated as private equity
[22:46] tycoons. The Times revealed a much
[22:50] grubbier reality. Epstein was no wizard.
[22:54] He was instead a relentless scammer who built his empire on
[22:58] a foundation of Ponzi like schemes, fraud and a systematic
[23:02] betrayal of friends. He always seemed to know who to
[23:06] RIP off and who it was more valuable to keep on as a friend.
[23:10] He started his career at Bear Stearns in 1976, having been
[23:15] hired by the firm's chairman, Ace Greenberg, specifically
[23:19] because he fit the profile of what Greenberg called PSD.
[23:24] Someone who was poor, smart and had a deep desire to become
[23:28] rich. He rose quickly even after he
[23:31] was caught lying about his education, claiming have degrees
[23:35] from 2 separate colleges despite never graduating.
[23:39] He basically treated his resume like a creative writing
[23:42] assignment, and on Wall Street in the 70s, that was apparently
[23:46] a passing grade. He got away with a lot of Bear
[23:50] Stearns because his supervisors knew he was dating the
[23:54] chairman's daughter and viewed him as protected.
[23:57] Even still, his time on Wall Street didn't last.
[24:01] He left in 1981 after he was caught breaking federal rules.
[24:06] He had abused his expense account without consequence, but
[24:09] he was finally cornered for lending money to a friend in
[24:13] violation of regulations and funnelling lucrative hot IPO
[24:17] shares to to a girlfriend. After the firm fined and
[24:21] suspended him, he resigned. After leaving Wall Street,
[24:26] Epstein told People that he was a bounty hunter who could track
[24:30] down lost assets, but the reality was often just fraud.
[24:35] In 1982, for instance, he convinced an acquaintance named
[24:39] Martin Stroll to invest roughly 10% of his net worth, around
[24:44] $450,000, into a crude oil deal. The money vanished and Epstein
[24:50] essentially ghosted him, at one point sending Stroll a single
[24:54] quart of oil as a mockery when he demanded proof of the
[24:58] investment. He then moved on to partner with
[25:01] Stephen Hoffenberg at a firm called Towers Financial, being
[25:05] paid $25,000 a month as a consultant.
[25:09] Hoffenberg would later claim that Epstein helped orchestrate
[25:13] the massive Ponzi scheme there that defrauded investors of
[25:17] nearly $500 million. Hoffenberg went to prison and
[25:21] Epstein walked free. He also used the facade of high
[25:25] stakes corporate rating to mask simple market manipulation.
[25:30] In 1988, he and some partners executed a pump and dump
[25:35] strategy with a chemical company called Pennwalt, driving up the
[25:39] stock price with a takeover bid. They then sold their shares for
[25:43] a large profit, but Epstein refused to return the investment
[25:48] to the friends he had recruited to fund the deal, effectively
[25:52] stealing their capital. His biggest source of wealth,
[25:55] however, was retail billionaire Leslie Wexner.
[25:59] Despite warnings from Wexner's own financial advisor, who told
[26:03] the billionaire he smelled a rat, Epstein managed to gain
[26:07] power of attorney over Wexner's entire fortune.
[26:11] Wexner later claimed that Epstein misappropriated vast
[26:14] sums of his money, which Epstein used to buy Mansion's planes and
[26:19] perhaps most importantly, credibility.
[26:22] He used his access to Wexner to open doors to the highest
[26:26] corridors of power, infiltrating the Clinton White House and
[26:30] sitting on boards for prestigious institutions like
[26:33] Rockefeller University. The documents also show just how
[26:38] close he got to the establishment through the people
[26:41] he trusted to manage his estate. Newly released Justice
[26:45] Department documents revealed that two of the biggest names in
[26:48] finance and policy were named as executors in his wills.
[26:53] Jess Staley, the former Barclay CEO, was listed as an executor
[26:58] in wills from 2013 and 2014. This compounds the scrutiny that
[27:03] Staley faced for being banned from the UK banking industry for
[27:08] acting without integrity regarding his ties to Epstein.
[27:12] Even Larry Summers, the former U.S.
[27:15] Treasury Secretary, was named as a successor executor in the 2014
[27:20] Well. While Summers claims he had
[27:22] absolutely no knowledge of this and is deeply ashamed of the
[27:26] association, his inclusion in the document highlights just how
[27:31] effective Epstein's fraud really was.
[27:35] In the end, Epstein didn't get rich because he was a market
[27:38] genius. He got rich because regulators
[27:41] looked the other way while he looted the accounts of those who
[27:45] trusted him. If money was the fuel, the
[27:48] destination was legitimacy. The New York Times investigation
[27:53] makes it clear that Epstein didn't just want to be rich, he
[27:57] wanted to be untouchable. And to do that, he needed to
[28:00] embed himself so deeply in the establishment that no one would
[28:05] dare question him. His most ambitious target was
[28:09] the Clinton White House. In February 1993, just weeks
[28:13] after Bill Clinton was inaugurated, Epstein walked into
[28:17] 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. alongside Leslie Wexner.
[28:22] He didn't just show up empty handed, either.
[28:25] Epstein had become a political donor, having contributed
[28:29] $10,000 to help refurbish the White House, a donation that
[28:34] secured him a spot at a reception with the press
[28:37] president. Obviously, nowadays presidential
[28:40] meetings are much more expensive and paid for in crypto.
[28:45] Money was only part of the equation.
[28:48] He also used people as currency. The Times reports that Epstein
[28:53] leveraged a connection with Lynn Forrester, a successful
[28:57] executive who would later marry into the Rothschild family.
[29:01] Epstein reportedly convinced her that he could help her in her
[29:05] divorce settlement, insisting that he was the only one who
[29:09] could protect her assets. Through Forrester, who was an
[29:13] appointee to the White House Advisory Commission, Epstein had
[29:16] his foot in the door. The strategy worked, and by
[29:20] 1995, Epstein was close enough to the president that Clinton
[29:24] wrote a personal Get well soon. No to Epstein's mother
[29:28] scrolling. Hang in there.
[29:30] On a yellow posted note that Epstein kept, once he had
[29:34] political access, he aimed for social prestige, setting his
[29:39] sights on the Rockefeller family.
[29:41] Using his foundation, funded largely by other people's money,
[29:46] Epstein began donating heavily to Rockefeller University and
[29:50] the Trilateral Commission, buying himself a seat at the
[29:54] table. In 1995, David Rockefeller
[29:57] welcomed Epstein to the board of Rockefeller University.
[30:02] He parlayed this into yet another lie, telling people that
[30:05] he managed money for the Rockefellers, a claim that the
[30:09] families actual financial advisors say was completely
[30:13] false. Perhaps the most strategic
[30:15] relationship he purchased was with the legal scholar Alan
[30:19] Dershowitz. In 1996, Epstein met Dershowitz
[30:23] in Martha's Vineyard, dropping names of Harvard elites like
[30:27] Larry Summers. He worked hard to ingratiate
[30:30] himself, even flying Dershowitz to Ohio to a birthday party for
[30:34] Les Wexner. But the Times uncovered A
[30:37] transaction that was far more significant than a party invite.
[30:41] Epstein had convinced a hedge fund manager to let Dershowitz
[30:45] invest in his fund. When the fund suffered massive
[30:49] losses and wiped out Dershowitz's investment, Epstein
[30:53] stepped in. He bullied the fund manager into
[30:56] making Dershowitz whole, threatening to pull Wexner's $30
[31:00] million investment from the fund if the fund manager didn't sort
[31:05] it out. The fees on Wexner's investment
[31:08] more than covered the cost of making Dershowitz whole, so it
[31:12] went through. It was a masterstroke of
[31:15] manipulation. By using Wexner's money as
[31:18] leverage, Epstein ensured that a prominent legal mind owed him a
[31:23] big favour. That favour paid dividends years
[31:27] later when Epstein was finally arrested in 2005 in Florida,
[31:32] Dershowitz helped engineer the now infamous sweetheart deal
[31:36] that allowed Epstein to escape federal prosecution and serve a
[31:40] light sentence. In hindsight, it wasn't just
[31:44] generosity, it was an insurance policy paid for with stolen
[31:49] money. In the end, when you step back
[31:52] and look at the reality exposed by these documents, you're left
[31:56] with a single uncomfortable realization.
[31:59] Jeffrey Epstein wasn't a ghost in the machine.
[32:02] He was a product of it. Perhaps the most haunting quote
[32:06] in the New York Times investigation comes from Michael
[32:10] Tenenbaum. Tenenbaum was the senior
[32:13] executive at Bear Stearns who supervised Epstein's early rise
[32:18] after Ace Greenberg hired him. Looking back on the man he
[32:21] promoted, the college dropout who lied his way into a job and
[32:26] then scammed his way into a fortune, Tenenbaum admitted.
[32:30] I didn't realize that I was creating one of the monsters of
[32:33] Wall Street. Of course, he didn't do it
[32:37] alone. It took a village of
[32:39] billionaires, bankers and politicians to raise this
[32:42] monster. And that brings us to the
[32:44] uncomfortable truth that I've spoken about in my previous
[32:48] videos. The Epstein files are the
[32:50] ultimate proof that there's a 2 tier justice system in the
[32:54] United States. One set of rules for you and me,
[32:57] and a completely different set for the well connected elites.
[33:02] For years this scandal has been treated like a political
[33:05] football, but the reality is that both parties had reasons to
[33:10] keep these files under lock and key.
[33:12] On the right, you had Republicans desperate to cover
[33:15] up Donald Trump's 15 year friendship with a man he once
[33:18] called a terrific guy. On the left, you had Democrats
[33:22] willing to turn a blind eye to Bill Clinton's association with
[33:26] Epstein, largely to protect Hillary Clinton when she was
[33:30] seen as the future of the party. Today, the Clintons are seen as
[33:35] being less politically relevant, and for that reason, the shield
[33:38] is slipping. A newly released e-mail from a
[33:42] federal prosecutor reveals that flight logs show Trump flew on
[33:46] Epstein's private jet many more times than previously reported,
[33:51] including on flights where Julaine Maxwell was a passenger.
[33:55] We have to remember that what we're looking at today is just
[33:59] the tip of the iceberg. The files that have been
[34:02] released so far are only a fraction of the total evidence.
[34:05] We also need to ask serious questions about the redactions
[34:09] that are in place. Are these documents being
[34:12] blacked out to protect victims, or are they being blacked out to
[34:15] protect the personal reputations of important people?
[34:19] There is a final bitter irony buried in the files from the US
[34:24] Virgin Islands. In 1999, when Epstein was
[34:27] applying for the tax breaks that would save him millions.
[34:31] He was was asked if he would consider teaching a course at
[34:34] the local university. Epstein replied that he would
[34:38] love to. He said that his priority would
[34:40] be to educate young people on the ethics of business.
[34:45] He told the Commission the ethics of business is very
[34:48] difficult nowadays. Epstein teaching a course like
[34:52] this is a little bit like the iceberg teaching a course on
[34:55] maritime safety for Jeffrey Epstein.
[34:59] Ethics weren't difficult. They were non existent.
[35:02] And until we see the rest of these files and until something
[35:06] is done about the two tier justice system that protected
[35:09] them, the story isn't really over.
[35:12] Thanks for tuning into this week's podcast, with special
[35:15] thanks to our supporters on Patreon whose financial support
[35:19] keeps this going. Have a great week and talk to
[35:22] you again soon. Bye, yeah.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.