← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [00:25]
Will Sommer
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- [00:27]
Sarah Longwell
We're prohibited by law 21 terms and conditions apply. Hello everybody, I'm Sarah Longwell with the Bulwark and we have got breaking news. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. The Wall Street Journal has just dropped the story. They've got Josh Dawsey as the top byline, although there's five people on the byline. So pretty big story. Clearly been some reporting that's been in the works. I got my guy, Will Summer with me who has been the point guy on the Epstein controversy. He follows the tin foil MAGA hat set. And so will I just have to ask you from the jump, is this like, how big a deal is this, the Journal having this news?
- [01:05]
Will Sommer
I think it's really big. I think it's a really big deal. I mean, I think, you know, the maga, up until a few weeks ago, they thought this was going to be like, they thought like Hillary Clinton was going to be in these files or like Tom Hanks, they thought all these people they hated so much were going to be in here. And who's in it instead? Donald Trump.
- [01:23]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I mean, I guess there's part of me, like one hand, I was like, okay, the Wall Street Journal's got it. And let me just read you really quickly one of the opening graphs in the story. When Justice Department officials reviewed what, reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a truckload of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump's name appeared multiple times, according to senior administration officials. Officials, meaning multiple sources. They've got. So his name appears multiple times now. I guess that doesn't surprise me at all. Right. Like anybody who's been watching this story unfold and knows about the close relationship that Donald Trump had with Epstein doesn't seem crazy at all that Trump's name is in there. I guess the question is, there's two questions. One is okay, and it's along with hundreds of other names is one of the other things, like there's lots of names in here. Donald Trump's is among them. We don't know what context. Right. Like, we don't know what it's saying, but we do know is that Donald Trump did not want to release these files. And so what else jumped out at you from the story that you said, oh, wow, like they got this on the record.
- [02:33]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I think the other aspect later on in the story we have Cash Patel apparently has been telling people, as the FBI director, he's been telling people, oh, yeah, Trump's in the files. So apparently this, this idea has been floating out there. I mean, this is sort of the other shoe we've been waiting to drop. Clearly, we all knew something happened between Epstein Binders Mania. Oh my gosh, the flight logs are about to come out. Everyone in the administration was getting in on it and suddenly. What are you talking about? Who's Jeffrey Epstein? You know, we got to move on. So clearly something happened and I think a lot of us suspected that it's because Trump's name came up in the files and they said, oh, gosh, this is awkward. And I think, you know, this is confirmation of that.
- [03:11]
Sarah Longwell
All right, so let me just read you a couple other excerpts here that stood out to us. In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the President at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files. The official said many other high profile figures were also named. Trump was told being mentioned in the records isn't a sign of wrongdoing. Right. So it's not. We don't know why he's in there. They told the President the meeting that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump. Now, this part is interesting to me because this is Trump's doj folks like, I guess we don't know who, in addition to Bondi was briefing the President on this and whether or not they're the kind of people who are there to be like, sir, your name appears in the files. But, you know, there's lots of stuff in there, lots of, lots of wild stuff. And we have not verified this information. And so, you know, we're not accusing you of anything, but if they're going to out, out, out of their way to say that there is a lot of stuff in there and Trump's in it, it probably sounds like his name did not appear in only innocuous ways. Would you read that that way?
- [04:26]
Will Sommer
I think that's right. I mean, certainly. I think, at minimum, I think we would expect the information in there to be embarrassing. I mean, the, for example, the earlier Wall Street Journal story about the letter Trump supposedly wrote to Epstein about their secrets. You know, I think if it's that kind of stuff, you could see why Trump even, even that, even something that is not really criminal but suggest relationship with Epstein than he would like people to know about. You know, one would imagine that that would set him off. You know, the New York Times had reporting about earlier complaints to the FBI that an Epstein employee had made regarding Trump and Epstein. And so perhaps it's this kind of thing where it's just a report they received and didn't follow up on or didn't think it was actionable. But, you know, I think you could easily imagine Trump, and in particular after Elon started saying, hey, you know, Trump's in the files, you could imagine that that is why just so abruptly, they decided to close the case.
- [05:19]
Sarah Longwell
Because, well, here's my. I mean, if Trump was in the Epstein files in a way that was relatively innocuous, then who cares? Like, put it out. Like it's, it's me in there saying that this guy's a creep and I kicked him out of my Mar A Lago club and it's somehow related to that. But Trump is trying very hard to bury this. I mean, here's the thing, and this is actually, I don't think this is conspiratorial at all. This is, to me, just an observation. Tulsi Gabbard held a press conference today, in fact, just a little bit ago now, the Trump administration is, they're on the record in this. You got Steve Chung denying all the this is fake stuff, blah, blah, blah, just like the other fake story in the Wall Street Journal. But don't you think Tulsi Gabbard holding a press conference to say we've got a smoking gun on Obama, who today, the same day the Wall Street Journal is dropping the story. That feels like not a coincidence, would you say?
- [06:18]
Will Sommer
I think that. I think you might, you might be onto something here. I mean, given how much political capital the administration has expended over this. I mean, they've taken so much incoming from maga, they had to shut down the House early to avoid these files getting out or even the House calling for the files to get out. They kind of, There was sort of a break glass in case of emergency thing with this Obama situation where they're dredging up these old files, which, by the way, they already had access to in the first administration to say, you know, oh my gosh, Obama tried to steal the 2016 election. Clearly, I think there's like a huge smokescreen effort happening. And as you said, if it was Trump. Oh yeah, I invited this guy to my wedding and then I found out he's a pedophile and I didn't want anything to do with him that was in there. Why not just put it out there? Because presumably a lot of other people, as I said, a lot of other people are implicated or mentioned in these files. And so I think if it was something innocuous, they'd probably just move on. But I mean, this is like the, the biggest, you know, the biggest effort from the White House to, to hide this information. It makes you wonder what's in it.
- [07:18]
Sarah Longwell
It does make you wonder what's in it. And now we know of the things that are in it. Is Donald Trump's name clearly more than once. And according to multiple officials. I'll say there's a couple other things that happened today. So just before this story broke, it also broke that, you know, one of the things Trump had been throwing out there as sort of trying to hold off the pitchfork wielding Magaz who wanted their Epstein files was to say, well, we're going to release the grand jury testimony around the Ghislaine Maxwell, you know, indictment. And we all knew, like, well, that's BS because that's not the stuff people are looking for. And you know, that that was another kind of smokescreen on his part to make it look like they were putting something out. But once what happened today was that the judge in Florida said we cannot unseal those documents. Like, that's just not a thing we can do. Our hands are tied on that. And then I was like, oh, well, he probably knew that, right? He probably knew that they couldn't unseal them as a matter of legal whatever. And so now he has, he was looking to have that as cover. And so it mentioned in here, the grand jury testimony makes up only a portion of the more than 300 gigabytes of Epstein related material the FBI compiled as part of the recent review. Among other material, the FBI confiscated digital and documentary evidence from EP properties in the US Virgin Islands and New York in 2019 when he was arrested. The other thing that, one of the other reasons they say in here and elsewhere that they can't release the files. Well, I guess I, I don't. Let me forget the grand jury thing because I want you to comment on that. But they're saying they can't release the senior administration files who are being, who are going on talking to Dawsey in the story. They're saying it's because there's so many victims names in the story and that's why they can't release it as well as child pornography. Right. Because these girls, they were girls, they were underage. Epstein is sexually assaulting them in it. So they're like, we're not going to release it. That makes sense. I mean, I don't this like the weird part of this is their, the idea that I'm like, okay, no, nobody wants you to release the victim's names. I don't think anybody's asking for that. But they are using that part as the COVID for why the rest of this stuff couldn't come out. Do you think that's going to hold up?
- [09:41]
Will Sommer
You know, we're seeing the same thing with the House resolution where Mike Johnson saying, well, like, whoa, whoa, you want to put out all this child porn, all these victims names? You know, we can't do that. And, and I mean, look, the government redacts things all the time. They know how to do this. They know what to segregate and what not to. And so that definitely is the excuse we're seeing, I think. But I don'. That's going to hold up. I mean, I think, you know, there are, there are the flight logs. There are all these things that presumably wouldn't reveal victims names if you just take a black marker to them. And I think like that, you know, going back to the grand jury testimony, I think what's going on here is this Wall Street Journal article also suggests why the administration has been sending us down these specific alleys of exploration. Initially it was all the Epstein files are coming out. And then it becomes, okay, well we can do the grand jury testimony, which probably we can't get anyway, but presumably they know that Trump's not mentioned in that we know from the Dick, Dick Durbin has claimed to hear her from the FBI. They were flagging the files in the Epstein review that mentioned Trump. So let's, let's do the grand jury testimony and then also let's send it to Ghislaine. And I think this, this claim that, that Trump has been making that Obama and Comey cooked the files has been part of an effort to really sour at least Republicans on the idea of the files as trustworthy. I just saw, I believe either Charlie Kirk or Benny Johnson was saying yesterday, well, you know, unfortunately the whole files, we can't them because who knows knows what Comey put in them like that that letter to, that letter to Epstein, that's just a great example of how we can't trust the files. So really, Ghislaine is our last option.
- [11:14]
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- [12:58]
Sarah Longwell
Mean, obviously for those of us who are interested in now in the truth about all this, the Ghislaine is. Ghislaine is exactly how you pronounce it.
- [13:07]
Will Sommer
I think that's right.
- [13:08]
Sarah Longwell
Okay.
- [13:08]
Will Sommer
Not the easiest name.
- [13:10]
Sarah Longwell
It's not. But also I'm not giving a lot of due deference to a sex trafficker. So if I mispronounce her name, she can live with it. But the idea of that they are throwing her out there as like, well, she could testify in front of congress. But like a couple things about this feel weird to me and maybe you could just help me with the timeline. Number one, it feels weird that they would close the files anyway and say nothing to see here when they hadn't talked to her. Right. If they were so interested in getting to the truth. So it feels like that's something they could have done. So like now they're and also, everybody knows that there could be some kind of exchange of a pardon for a certain kind of testimony. Like, I don't know that we're all sitting here thinking we're going to trust Ghislaine to come out and tell us the truth about anything. Like, right now she's just trying to get herself out of jail because she's got a pretty hefty prison sentence. Like, she's going to be in prison for a very long time. She got 20 years.
- [14:07]
Will Sommer
Yes, 20 years.
- [14:08]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, 20 years. That's one thing that I don't understand. The other thing that I don't understand is they agitated for these files the entire four years that Biden was president. When would the DOJ have had these files, though? At first, because Epstein killed himself in 2019 while Trump was president. Could they not have found this out before?
- [14:32]
Will Sommer
Right. So presumably, I mean, these files really stretch over at least like a 13 year period, possibly longer, possibly even into the 90s. I mean, if this is just like, if we assume this is like the kind of file they would hand over after someone dies and you can file a FOIA request, presumably it's just sort of every FBI interaction and presumably, presumably maybe even some intelligence agency interactions with Epstein, who knows what's in it? But I do think that it is interesting how suddenly they, who knows, like, when they. There was such a rush, maybe there was so much material that it was only when, you know, reportedly, they basically had everyone in the SDNY office looking through these files and only then did it become clear that all this Trump stuff was in there. I mean, it is, it is really striking how quickly they turned around on it.
- [15:19]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I mean, I guess, like, what, back in 2020, when they were in there, they didn't go through them. He didn't want to check. Because back, I mean, right after the whole Epstein thing went down, there was still like the Maxwell hearing. There was everybody saying, like, Epstein didn't kill himself. That all started. But I guess it wasn't until Trump was not in office any longer that all of his people started acting like, well, we didn't get into the Epstein files or we need to know what was in there. And I just have always wondered, like, okay, but what about the year that you, the year and a half, you had them while you guys were in charge. And even for Trump, if Trump was like, oh, I might really be in there, you'd think he would go have somebody he trusted, go look and be like, what does it say about me in there? And then Tamp down Kash Patel and Bondi and everybody else who are setting expectations about this. I don't know. It just all seems very strange to me. And clearly, even some of the, the footage that's resurfacing about, you know, like that Fox News edited interview that kind of belatedly came to light where the Department of Transportation's wife, Sean Duffy's wife. Also on the Real World, Rachel Campos Duffy is asking him, will you release the JFK files? Yes. Will you release the. I forget what it, you know, what the other conspiracy ones are. And then she says, what about the Epstein files? And he goes, yes. Well, actually, maybe not. That one's different. That one, whatever. And they had edited it to just say yes. And they took out the part where then he really equivocates hard about, like, all the fake stuff that's in there. So I guess I just don't know what to make of Trump's. Like, maybe he has known for a long time that he's in there in ways that are unflattering or bad or he's concerned about. But then, like, why does he let all these guys go out there and hammer this during the election? Any thoughts on that? I can't make heads or tails.
- [17:21]
Will Sommer
Yeah. I mean, maybe this is something that, that was bubbling along for a while and Trump sort of knew this contradiction was going to come to a head at some point. Or maybe he thought, you know, we'll just string these people along forever and then, oh, no. But they've been making too many promises. And Pam Bondi said the list is on her desk and things like that.
- [17:37]
Sarah Longwell
At the direction of Donald Trump.
- [17:40]
Will Sommer
Yes. I mean, it is, it is crazy. I mean, they're also, you know, Steve Bana's claim. Maybe Trump didn't realize what a big, big deal this was for the Republican base. I mean, it is. There are so many weird things he said, you know, when he said, well, I hope I wish Glenn well. And sort of along this track, you point out they made a lot of, of Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, and Pam Bondi have both claimed that the DOJ never tried to interview Ghislaine before. But that sort of beggar's belief, I mean, she's clearly like the smaller fish compared to Jeffrey Epstein. So why wouldn't you try to roll her up? Why would you just launch a massive criminal trial against her without trying to speak to her? And as you said, I mean, Epstein died when Trump and was indicted when Trump was president the first time. So the idea that, like, I guess the Bill Barr's DOJ never tried to speak to Ghislaine, and they're only trying to speak to her now after five months in office. Really none of it makes sense.
- [18:32]
Sarah Longwell
None of it makes sense. All right, I want to throw one last. There's one last fun little bit in this particular Wall Street Journal piece. They've got a little section on Bondi versus Bongino, and it said Bongino and Bondi clashed in a meeting in which Bondi alleged that Bongino secretly provided information to the media to damage her reputation. People familiar with the meeting said Bongino, in turn, exploded about Bondi, his face red, and called her a liar. A senior administration official said, so there was a little bit of color here, the color, I guess, being Bongino's red face, that around this fight between Bongino and Bondi, which we all knew there was some tension around. What do you think is going on? There's, like a bunch of weird things have been happening where Bondi recently said, or maybe it was Trump, I can't remember, said, well, this is. This is with. This is with the FBI now. Like, they're gonna have to figure out Trump said it, because I remember taking it kind of like, is he throwing cash and Bongino under the bus in favor of Bondi? Because I do think he thinks of Bondi as somebody who is lying on a grenade for him, presumably because she knows exactly what is being said about him in these files. So what do you make about that sort of weird dynamic?
- [19:51]
Will Sommer
I think there's a lot of buck passing going on. I think a lot of these people are saying, you know, Bondi saying, well, you know, who knows what the FBI, or maybe it's up to Trump and then the FBI, they kind of keep rolling it around. And I mean, the reality is, I think Bongino, you know, we're to understand him and Cash and. And Todd Blanche all signed off on this original memo that caused so much trouble. And suddenly now they're pivoting. I mean, this is cracking me up. This whole, like, the journey. It's like out of John Grisham novel. Todd Blanche is going to journey to the prison and interview Ghislaine, and Cash tweets, you know, get it. And it's like three weeks ago, you guys were the ones saying it was over, and now you're acting like we're just. We're going to get to the bottom of this. The powers that be don't want us to know.
- [20:31]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, man. This is. It gets weirder all the time. But now that people have finally decided to look hard at this, we've got the Wall Street Journal doing some excellent reporting. And I guess as far as they're concerned, if Trump's going to sue them for the first thing, he can sue them for the next thing. But they got sources from inside the Department of Justice, multiple sources, it looks like, from this piece, who say something that we've long suspected, but nobody had the smoking gun on. And it sounds like it is true. Donald Trump's name is all over the Epstein files or is in multiple places in the Epstein files. And it must not be in there in a way that is benign, otherwise they would put them out. Will Summer, any last thoughts as we wrap this up? I want to get this out so people have our thoughts as they just.
- [21:17]
Will Sommer
It just keeps going. I just feel like every news break, everything they try to do to close it up, it's just so weird. I mean, and then it just leaves you with more questions.
- [21:25]
Sarah Longwell
I got more questions. More questions. All right, thank you, Will Sommer, and thanks to all of you. Go hit subscribe. You know, go over and subscribe on substack, become a free subscriber, whatever. Come ride with us. We'll see you guys again soon and keep you posted on this story.
- [21:40]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [22:04]
Sarah Longwell
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- [22:05]
Will Sommer
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- [22:08]
Sarah Longwell
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