BREAKING NEWS:

Hillary Clinton testified behind closed doors today before the House Oversight Committee in Chappaqua, New York, with Bill Clinton set for tomorrow. Clinton demanded the hearing be public, telling Chairman Comer, “If you want this fight, let’s have it in public.” Comer refused. Then Rep. Lauren Boebert broke committee rules by passing a photo from the closed-door deposition to conservative influencer Benny Johnson, who posted it online, pausing the hearing. Clinton’s opening statement was direct: “I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall encountering Mr. Epstein.” She then delivered what Dean called “a stake in the heart of Comer,” noting that the committee held zero public hearings, refused media access, and that not a single Republican member showed up for Leslie Wexner’s deposition. The real question, as Zev put it, is why the committee is interrogating someone with no connection to Epstein while the man with 5,400 mentions in the files sits in the Oval Office untouched.

5. Armed Cubans Shot Off Coast

A Florida-registered speedboat carrying ten armed Cuban nationals opened fire on the Cuban Coast Guard about a mile off the coast, seriously injuring the commander. Cuban forces returned fire, killing four and wounding six. They seized assault rifles, body armor, and Molotov cocktails. Dean, who broke the story on his Substack, raised the Gulf of Tonkin comparison, pointing to a pattern of incursions including an incident where Americans planted a flag on a Mexican beach from Elon Musk’s Space City. “They are actively trying to start a war with Cuba,” Dean said, noting the Trump administration’s oil embargo has already crippled the island. Rubio said he didn’t have enough information, which Dean found hard to believe from the Cuban-American Secretary of State who has openly pushed Cuba as the next target.

4. Trump Juicing the Economy

Mortgage rates fell below 6% for the first time in three years, and Trump took credit at the State of the Union. What he didn’t mention: he ordered Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed bonds to push rates down. “That’s not a free market move,” Zev explained. “He’s doing this only to win the next elections. It’s one of the first signs we’re seeing of him juicing the market to get the economy humming so he can win in November.” Dean compared it to Ontario’s premier handing out cheap booze and rebate checks before elections. “It’s just another cooked up bribe,” Dean said, while warning that it actually works and Democrats shouldn’t assume November is in the bag.

3. Trump Plans Election Emergency

A Washington Post exclusive revealed that pro-Trump activists coordinating with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order declaring a national emergency over elections, claiming China interfered in 2020. The order would let Trump ban mail ballots and voting machines by executive fiat, bypassing Congress and the Constitution. The SAVE Act died in the Senate, so this is Plan B. Dean imagined a bingo wheel in the White House spinning through countries to blame: Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Italy, Iran, and now China. “The Chinese had no interest in helping Biden get elected in 2020,” Zev noted, pointing out that China rolls out the red carpet for Trump, not his opponents. Combined with the mortgage rate manipulation, these two stories reveal Trump’s full midterm strategy: juice the economy and rig the rules.

2. Democrats Say DOJ Running a Cover-Up

NPR identified more than 50 pages the DOJ withheld from the Epstein file release, including four FBI 302s from a woman who testified under oath in 2019 that Trump and Epstein sexually abused her when she was between 13 and 15. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and dozens of major outlets have now confirmed the story. Rep. Robert Garcia called it a “White House cover-up” and opened a parallel investigation. “Pam Bondi, on orders from the president, took it upon herself and the entire DOJ and the FBI to delete these files out of the public record,” Dean said. “These are 302s. These are victim statements under oath.” The DOJ said it would “review and republish.” They got caught.

1. The Rothschild-Trump-Epstein Network

New Narativ analysis published today reveals the financial architecture connecting Trump and Epstein. Zev reported that Wilbur Ross, who ran Rothschild’s bankruptcy practice in the United States for two decades, bailed out Trump’s Atlantic City casinos by convincing bondholders to keep Trump in control. Three years earlier, Baron Elie de Rothschild personally endorsed Epstein to Leslie Wexner. Both men then moved through the same banks for decades. The Commerce Department seat went from Rothschild’s man Ross to Epstein’s man Howard Lutnick, whose photo with Epstein and his two sons on Little St. James Island surfaced during the show. Newly uncovered emails from the Epstein files show Epstein claiming descent from the Ritter von Epstein banking dynasty of 1870s Vienna, a claim accepted without question by the Rothschilds themselves. “No one’s asking those questions,” Zev said. “They’re not actually concerned about the organized criminal ring trafficking underage girls. They’re trying to score points against the Democrats.”

The Clintons testify while Trump hides. Fifty pages vanish. The financial network stays invisible. And the committee asking questions is looking everywhere except where the evidence points.

The FiveStack is available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The FiveStack is a co-production of deanblundell.substack.com and narativ.org.

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