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- [00:00]
A
Hi, folks. Harry here. We're bringing you this episode a day early to get ahead of Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing, which begins later this morning and runs through tomorrow. I'll be analyzing Blanche's testimony on substack and YouTube too, so please check those out as well. Talk to you later. Welcome to Talking F1 on One deep dive discussions with national figures about the most fascinating and consequential issues defining our culture and shaping our lives. I'm your host, Harry Littman. Todd Blanche's upcoming confirmation hearings, along with other developments, put the spotlight back on DOJ's wildly deficient discharge of its legal responsibilities to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. You may not know it, but my guest today is a huge part of why you have heard the name Jeffrey Epstein. Julie Brown's indefatigable pursuit of the story goes back to 2017. That's when she put a thousand megawatt spotlight on Epstein's crimes and conduct and on the sweetheart plea deal he got from then U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, who went on to be labor secretary in Trump's first term. This past year, Julie's years of work on the story were recognized with a special citation from the Pulitzer board. She is still on the Epstein beat at the Miami Herald and now on her own substack, the Epstein files. Julie Brown, thanks for joining us on TALKING Feds.
- [01:52]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [01:54]
A
So many aspects to this story and they seem to grow and you've covered the waterfront on all of them. I'd like to talk about first the role of the Justice Department in the earliest chapters of the Epstein saga, when Epstein was actively abusing girls and young women, but also was the beneficiary of a stunning sweetheart deal from the doj. Can you just bring the fatheads listening today up to speed on that first chapter, including the DOJ role?
- [02:31]
B
Well, what actually happened was Epstein became under investigation by the Palm beach police because they had received a complaint from a mother of a girl who had been sexually abused by Epstein. She was a high school girl. And as police started investigating him, one girl led to another girl, led to another girl because he had set up this pyramid scheme where he was having the girls that he abused recruit for him, getting paid to recruit more girls for him. So the police developed a pretty solid investigation, which sometimes people don't realize. They sort of think everybody dropped the ball. But the Palm beach police actually did a thorough investigation and but when they took it to the state attorney in Palm beach, they the state attorney in Palm beach was getting pressure from Epstein's high powered attorney, namely Alan Dershowitz, was one of them at the time who had combed these girls social media profiles and said these are basically prostitutes. This was consensual. And he had no idea that they were underage. And so the, the, he convinced the state attorney that this wasn't worth his time. And at that point, you know, a lot of things happened in the middle of all that. But ultimately what happened was the Palm beach police chief realizing that this was a serious crime that his state attorney wasn't going to prosecute, said, you know, we're going to take it to the feds. So they contacted the FBI and they contacted the US Attorney's office which is based in Miami in the Southern District of Florida. They have offices. The Southern District of Florida includes Palm Beach. But the head, you know, the U.S. attorney at the time became Alex Acosta. He became U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida. In the midst of all this happening, he was appointed as the U.S. attorney.
- [04:39]
A
And that's one of the, the scandals of, I mean he certainly has been, you know, very much tarred from, from this whole episode. And I just not to interrupt you, but I did want to follow up right where the story is now, but based on your recent reporting, because we've known about Epstein's hobnobbing and influence seeking with the rich and famous. But you've documented, Julie recently, including your big article in February, a similar pattern of infiltration and influence peddling with the Fed starting all the way back in 2008, where we are here. So can you continue. But especially any aspects you've recently uncovered about the kind of interactions here he and his lawyers had with federal prosecutors.
- [05:38]
B
Well, you know, to, you know, to bring it up to the present time now we're looking at these files that are coming out. We're seeing emails where Epstein had mentioned some of these very federal prosecutors who were on his case at the time and how he, especially with a couple of them, he, he ended up either he or his attorneys met with these prosecutors and at long after, you know, the deal in at least one case he was right after he got done his incarceration or his, his sentence. He's finished his sentence, I think within months. He was meeting with one of the prosecutors who was on his case as a friendly, you know, he, ultimately he, you know, the lawyer, Matthew Mitchell says that he did not do any business deals with Epstein, but he sure met with him a number of times from just within months of him finishing his sentence. And you know, he tried to get a meeting with Alex Acosta as well. Acosta says they never met, but it's interesting that he was. That he felt confident enough that he could meet with at least one and try to meet with a number of others.
- [06:55]
A
Okay. And, you know, this becomes a theme that is sustained to the present, but sticking with this early period. Why, what do you see? You mentioned Palm beach police were fairly assiduous. Not so much as I understand that the doj. What were the bigger picture issues or even systemic flaws with the department that let Epstein sway the department's decision making and secure a deal that I think almost anybody would say today was a, you know, laughably lenient?
- [07:33]
B
Well, I think just because he had such a high. The first factor was he had some very high profile attorneys. I remember one of the former prosecutors saying to me that they had a meeting and around the table were all these, you know, Alan Dershowitz, Jay Lefkowitz was another one. You know, there was, you know, these were all very big lawyers and the prosecutor looking around the table, just thinking how much money was sitting at that table was what he was thinking. He told me this. So they were dazzled by the legal eagles, so to speak, and that Epstein was able to marshal. And the other thing that he, that he did was he. Every lawyer he hired had some kind of a personal connection to a prosecutor that was on the prosecuting team. You know, one of them was date had dated one of the prosecutors. Another one had worked under some of the prosecutors because they were a former prose. The lawyer was a former prosecutor themselves. He hired Kenneth Starr. And Kenneth Starr, of course, was very high profile. And he also worked for a very high profile law firm that Acosta had worked for. So there were all these connections. So he selected these lawyers for their connections, which, as we now know from all the people he associated with, that was his currency was being able to make the kinds of connections to get deals done. And that's what he did in this case.
- [09:24]
A
Yeah, I know Starr was very close with Acosta and Lefkowitz, of course, the managing partner there as well. We're talking about some really Olympian kind of legal talent. I want to fast forward to the present, but one more question because. And reading your stuff, preparing for today, Julie, something that stood out, and you don't hear about this a lot. There was a bright spot in the DOJ's handling. A prosecutor named Maria Vilafagna pushed hard to build a case, bring a strong indictment against Epstein. What did that look like and how did her colleagues respond?
- [10:06]
B
Well, it was like she was rolling a boulder uphill at every turn. She was facing opposition, especially from her boss, Matthew Menshell, who as I mentioned, he became very friendly with Epstein right after Epstein served his sentence. He was one of the people that was pushing back the hardest at Marie Villafania. We could see it in the emails that are contained in the Epstein files. And also Vilafagnia herself wrote a report that she submitted to the Office of the Inspector General who investigated whether there was any improprieties on the part of prosecutors. And she wrote a lengthy statement and in that statement she detailed, because she kept her emails and she cited these emails that she received that showed the pushback by Menschel and other prosecutors.
- [11:06]
A
Got it. Ok, so now to the present, Epstein is dead, all this is behind. Yet the scandal plays out, especially with the DOJ's deficient failure to adhere to many legal requirements of the Epstein Transparency Act. You, Julie, feel strongly that the DOJ continues to fail the victims. And one of your recent pieces, maybe we can link to it includes a series of heart rending interviews with three then teenage victims of Epstein. I think they all have like braces on and stuff and you first see them and then the, the pain that remains. As adults, many say that the department hasn't spoken with them at all. Let's, let's cut to the chase with Blanche and the Blanche's doj. What it has been the extent of their actual effort to just talk to the victims of Epstein's crimes.
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B
There's been no effort to talk to them that I know of and that's part of the problem. You know, even if you don't feel, as they say, that there's anything there, you know, even if you say, look, there's no dispute that these girls were sexually abused by Epstein, that's not a hoax, it's a fact. So even if you don't think there's anything left to investigate, one would think, given the high profile nature of this, that someone from the DOJ would be designated to at least talk to the victims and try to put a good face on this. But they're not even bothering to do that.
- [12:53]
A
Yeah, I mean, if only to remove the talking point. Do you have any sense, you've worked this from Palm beach but up to D.C. as a former DOJ, or exactly as you say, why not, why not talk to the victims? What do people tell you about why the department has so assiduously avoided it?
- [13:18]
B
Well, they blame Trump, they, they, the victims and their, you know, they have A number of organizations, victims organizations that are working with them, they believe that. I mean, look, Trump punishes people for doing things that he doesn't approve. And one would, you know, think that he wouldn't approve of someone from the DOJ meeting with these victims. So, you know, you work for the doj. I mean, I would think they'd probably be given instructions to stay away from the case and not at the very last thing they would. They, you know, that they would get in trouble if they met with these victims. It would give the victims more credibility if the DOJ and the. And, you know, Trump doesn't want to give this any credibility.
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A
Got it. Okay, so. So let's focus a little on the documents. Look, we have allegations that some 2 million are being withheld. They've totally whiffed on any redactions. And of course, you know, we have Bondi's first statement about a file being on her desk. Trump's vehement opposition until he was forced, his hand was forced to passing the Epstein Trans Parent Act, Epstein Transparency Act. I mean, if nothing else, it just seems so risky to withhold documents. As we speak, a judge is pushing them on this as a result of a lawsuit brought by Katie Feng. I have a. I published a substack on this a couple days ago, just staying with the documents. What do you make of the department's refusal to do anymore and just stand up there and say, oh, we're done. We've complied and produced every. I think their word is, you know, responsive document, nothing more to see here. Move along, please.
- [15:20]
B
Well, you mentioned the risk. You know what the risk factor. If they're not releasing it, then the risk of them releasing it must be greater than the risk of holding it back. In other words, there's something in there that they don't want the public to see, and it's as simple as that. All this talk about there being duplicates is absurd. If that's true, just release them. We've seen lots of duplicates already in those files. We see them often. You know, the public is pretty smart. When they've seen something they've already seen, they can move on. I mean, it's. The arguments that they're using are absurd.
- [15:58]
A
You know, and there's also the whole form of their performance the very first day when everything was supposed to be given over, like 100, 150, all focusing on Bill Clinton. It's hard to deny that there's strategy involved in what they're doing. Let me go back to still a very big Kind of hanging chad, if you will, being from Florida, which is this claim that Pam Bondi made way back when apparently helped put her in bad regard in the White House. But the so called client list that she claimed to have on her desk, which has never materialized. You've said, Julie, that you just don't think there's a single simple list. But what kinds, if you are, and maybe it's just too hard to surmise, that's why we need to see them. But what kinds of crucial documents do you think probably are still out there in DOJ's hands?
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B
Well, there's some key things missing. First of all, we know that for example, there were a number of other investigations of Epstein's over the years. We recently discovered that there was some kind of an investigation by the drug, enforced by a task force involved with the drug dea, the Drug Enforcement Agency. We don't have any of those documents. We don't know what that investigation was about and why they. I mean, There were apparently 14 other possible co conspirators in that investigation. We don't know anything about what they were really, truly investigating there. There was a number of ice, Immigration, border Patrol kind of investigations. We haven't seen any of those documents. We also know, by the way, that his finances should be under scrutiny. As we always say in the journalism business, follow the money. Well, we can't follow the money because the Treasury Department isn't releasing those files. So that's just some of the information that we know is missing. And there's, there's just a number of, of redactions as well that they've made that they shouldn't have made. We don't know. For example, I mentioned earlier Marie Vilafagne's wonderful memo she put together and how she was not allowed to prosecute Epstein and why every single prosecutor's name in that document was redacted. Every prosecutor's name. Now why? These are people who work for the public and people should hold the prosecutors who made these decisions accountable in some way. They should at least have to answer why they made the decisions that they made. But we can't even find out who said what and who made what decision because those names are all redacted. So there's a plethora of information and questions that we have that have not been answered, notwithstanding.
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A
I can just add this, as a lawyer, they were required in each instance. That's what a redaction or privilege log is. Because if you're doing it in court, there's a chance that you're asserting something that really doesn't fly, like executive privilege. So you need to produce a log that says such and such a number, such and such a redaction. Here is our theory. So somebody can actually call balls and strikes on it. They've never even tried to do that on, on, on redactions, not even a good faith effort. And, and I just want to say something that's always kind of. Of chafed at me. This is not any kind of solid proof, but people forget Trump was so adamant that this not pass and he woodshed it. His erstwhile allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
- [19:52]
B
Right.
- [19:53]
A
Who were departed. He had some reason for really aggressively trying to fight it until he was forced. And now they are in this mode of, oh, we're all done here. Let me move to another aspect of this. You've said, I think, Julie, that you think there's a very good chance that Trump ultimately pardons Ghislaine Maxwell. Can you kind of flesh that out? And in particular, she's still around in a nicer prison than where she started. Having been interviewed by Todd Blanche as deputy Attorney general. What's your sense of her, how much she could harm him, where she figures in the whole ongoing mess of this?
- [20:38]
B
Well, I think just looking at where she's sitting right now should tell you where she is in this mess. She's in a very good prison camp, you know, fed, so to speak, Club Fed. She's able to get visits from her sister. She got positioned, I'm sure, in Texas, because her sister is based in Texas and she's getting a lot of privileges there. She was previously at the Women's Federal prison in Tallahassee, which is an abominable place. So she went from dire prison situation to a very cozy prison situation. There's a reason for that. I mean, people just don't get a meeting with the deputy attorney general in person unless they're pretty sure that there's something that that witness has. And she has everything. She knows everything. That woman is extremely smart. And I also suspect that she could have been the person that leaked the birthday book as a message to Trump that I know all that stuff. I mean, she was the one that compiled that book. She put it together. So conceivably she had a copy of it and God knows how much other information she had.
- [21:50]
A
And just to tie up the loose end, that's the reason that you surmise there's a good shot that she winds up getting the pardon just as a way of insulating her and she could otherwise hurt Trump, Trump.
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B
Or someone who in turn is blackmailing Trump to keep quiet on this. Someone who was in FC's orbit, who was clearly doing something wrong, who is a friend of Trump's, who's saying, you gotta fight this. You've gotta not let this happen. You gotta make sure she doesn't talk. I mean, it could be somebody pressuring him because they have blackmail in some respects on Trump. Foreign.
- [22:39]
A
I'm Michael Waldman, host of the Briefing podcast. I'm a former White House speechwriter, a lawyer, and a constitutional scholar. And I'm president of the Brennan center for Justice. We work to repair and strengthen American democracy, from gerrymandering to abuse of presidential power, from Supreme Court reform to congressional corruption and more. What fun. You're going to hear new ideas in this podcast and you're going to hear about the strategies and the legal and political fights that will shape the next phase of American politics. If you care about our democracy, the Briefing is a podcast for you. Okay, so let's cut to the real chase now. Blanche's confirmation hearing is next week. What do you think lawmakers should ask him?
- [23:28]
B
I mean, they should just ask him for one thing. Why are they making the redactions they're making? And where is the privilege log, as you mentioned? How can they redact all those names yet they couldn't redact the names of victims? How did that work? Who made the decisions on what was redacted? I'd really like to know what conversations he's had with the president about these files, about the redactions. Was he instructed by the president or one of the president's top level advisors to redact certain things? Was he given any direct instructions from the president or his top level advisors? That's just off the top of my head. I would ask him that. I would just say, you know, I would come prepared and have a list of items that are missing and ask Blanche where they are. I mean, it wouldn't take, you know, all of one day to put together a list of things that we're missing that we have questions about.
- [24:34]
A
And if I could lob one in again, as a former prosecutor, you mentioned you don't hear from the deputy attorney general personally unless there's really something you can provide. And that would be totally true in any case. But typically what you could provide would be in the public interest and in the deputy's role as taking care that the laws be, you know, faithfully enforced. Here it seems he was 100% in the guise of the Trump defense lawyer. He Used to be. And when he went down to speak with her, there was no public purpose in mind. There was a way of trying to get her, you sort of massaging her for some favorable statements for Trump. And to my mind, as a former prosecutor, just pushing on him for in what sense do you square that with your overall responsibilities as deputy Attorney General? I'd very much like to hear what he's got to say about that one.
- [25:43]
B
Well, he's just going to dance around that one. Look, here's another X factor that he should be asked about, and that is Melania. That press conference that she had some time ago was very, very strange in my view. And it almost seems like there is something going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. And so I would ask him how Melania is mentioned in the files and whether he was instructed to, you know, to redact her from the files. Because again, my radar went up when that press conference, when she held that press conference, it just seemed to come out of nowhere. Nobody was even talking about her in relation much anyway, other than, you know, the fact that she wants to keep saying she wasn't introduced, which I don't think most people care whether who introduced her to Trump. So why would you hold a press conference just on that fact? Unless there's something else going on?
- [26:41]
A
You know, I think you're right. We're going to see a lot of dancing from him. And as we saw when he was talking about the slush fund, he can just sort of stick his chin out and beat his chest and say, I'm not talking. Except there's a political dynamic here. He starts as, you know, potentially in a hole. There are a couple Republican members of the committee, one Democrat he might have hoped would support him. Fetterman will not. So I think his overall kind of approach and even sort of Trumpian like, antagonistic approach to them, you know, may. May put him in hot water. So that's going to be a lot of focus on, especially the couple members, Republican members in Judiciary, Tillis and Cornyn, and whether they are going along or really trying to put him through his paces. I just wanted to end you. You know, you've been really just totally doing heavy lifting on this, and it must feel like, you know, you started one day and here you are almost 10 years later. I know a lot of things don't pan out, but at any given time, you're looking at a number of things. Just wanted to ask you sort of where your spider sense or antenna is. Not with. No, no no supposition it'll all work out or there'll be stuff there. But what are you sort of looking at? What do you think is fertile ground for potential focus in the Epstein saga going forward?
- [28:21]
B
Well, I do think that it should that these prosecutors should continue to be looked at. And over the years, like I mentioned, there were a number of other investigations. So I do think that Congress should be looking at why he was able to get away with this for so long. How did that happen? Who was involved in putting the brakes on some of these investigations? Why were those decisions made? If, for example, it was because someone wouldn't sign a search warrant, who were those people? I mean, I do think, you know, it sounds like he had infiltrated our government in some way, and I think we need to find out where that happened and how it happened.
- [29:06]
A
Joe Brown, thanks so much for your time and really your indefatigable work on this. Every, every time you see the victims who remain pretty resolved and kind of cohesive, it's a vivid reminder that in so many ways justice hasn't been done here. And to the extent it has, I think the spotlight you've carried around on this for pushing 10 years has been absolutely instrumental. Anyway, Godspeed and thanks for your continued reporting here.
- [29:37]
B
Thank you.
- [29:40]
A
Thank you for tuning in to One on One, a weekly conversation series from Talking Feds. If you like what you've heard, please tell a friend to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever they get their podcasts. And please take a moment to rate and review the show. You can also subscribe to us on YouTube, where we are posting full episodes and daily updates on top legal stories. Check us out on substack harrylittman.substack.com where we're posting two or three bulletins a week breaking down the various threats to constitutional norms and the rule of law. And Talking Fez has joined forces with the contrarian. I'm a founding contributor to this new media venture, committed to reviving the diversity of opinion that feels increasingly rare in today's news landscape, where legacy media seems to be tacking toward Trump for business reasons rather than editorial ones. Rest assured, we're still the same scrappy independent podcast you've come to know and trust just now linked up with an ambitious and vital project designed for this pivotal moment in our nation's legal and political discourse. Find out more@Contrarian.com substack.com thanks for tuning in. And don't worry, as long as you need answers, the feds will keep talking Talking Feds is produced by Lou Cregan and Katie Upshaw. Associate producer, Becca Haveian. Sound Engineering by Matt McArdle, Rosie Dawn Griffin, David Lieberman, Hamsum Hadrenathan, Emma Maynard and Hallie Necker are our contributing writers and production assistance by Akshay Turbailu. Our music, as ever, is by the amazing Philip Glass. Talking Feds is a production of Deledo, llc. I'm Harry Littman. Talk to you later.