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The Jim Acosta Show
ICYMI: NEW BOMBSHELL EMAILS REVEAL EPSTEIN ALLEGED THAT TRUMP SPENT HOURS AT PREDATOR'S HOUSE. WITH REP. ROBERT GARCIA, KATIE PHANG AND RYAN LIZZA.
01:53:27
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Foreign.
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Welcome to a special live edition of the Jim Acosta Show. And we have breaking news to report to you this morning. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, just this morning, they released a small batch of emails allegedly written by Jeffrey Epstein that claimed that Donald Trump had, quote, spent hours at my house talking about Epstein's house. And in that same email, purportedly by Epstein, written back in 2011, the Child Sex offender wrote to his longtime accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, that Trump was, quote, the dog that hasn't barked. Maxwell replied to that. I have been thinking about that. I have Katie Fang with me, a legal analyst. And Katie, I mean, I'm just reading from the post I put up just a few moments ago about this because I, you know, I want to make sure we get all the facts straight here and, and put all the, you know, qualifications here that these are alleged emails that were released by the House Oversight Committee Democrats. But if all of this shakes out to be true, these are very damning emails, and we should go through them one at a time. Katie, what do you think?
- [01:11]
A
Yeah, Jim, not only are they damning and they suggest that there was legitimate compromise, is what I am calling it, that existed that Epstein could use for purposes of extortion, blackmail, or other activities concerning Donald Trump. But I just want to make sure people understand these documents were produced as a part of a tranche of 23,000 documents from the Epstein estate. And to refresh people's recollection, House Oversight served a subpoena on the estate of Jeffrey Epstein months ago. And unlike the Department of Justice, which has not been producing jack concerning the Epstein files, the Epstein estate has understood the assignment, and they understand that compliance with a congressionally lawfully served subpoena requires that as they uncover information, they turn it over. And remember, Jim, the Epstein Estate was the one that gave us the birthday book that also implicated Donald Trump. Right. I mean, so thank gosh for the Epstein estate understanding that compliance means you got to give what you got. And they did to the tune of 23,000 documents. And contained within that tranche of documents were these three incredibly damning emails.
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B
Yeah. And I mean, we. Let's just read verbatim. And this is a Jeffrey Epstein email, allegedly to Ghislaine Maxwell, written on April 2nd back in 2011. We have this up on screen for everybody. It says, I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump. And there's a, a redaction here that says, victims spent hours at my house with him referring to Trump. He has never once been mentioned. And Ghislaine Maxwell replies to that by saying, I have been thinking about that because, I mean, I mean this email right here, and this is back in 2011, folks. This is before Donald Trump ran for president. I covered the Mitt Romney campaign back in 2012. This is before Donald Trump came out and supported Mitt Romney, I believe, back in 2012. And so, you know, he had been toying with politics and so on. This is just Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein apparently talking about Donald Trump as somebody who was just a known figure, as somebody who was a celebrity, as somebody who obviously had something to lose if this did come out about him. I mean, Katie, there's, there's so many layers to this and it's so damning for Trump. I mean, this, this could be highly damaging. I mean, I think this is absolutely highly damaging stuff.
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A
Yeah. So this is a, for all intents and purposes, private conversation, Right. There's no ccs, Jim. So it's not like they were ccing lawyers or other people. It's just buying between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let's also put it in chronological context, right? 2011 is coming three years after Jeffrey Epstein has received that sweetheart plea deal from then U. S. Attorney for the Southern district of Florida, Alex Acosta. It's three years after he did not get fed federally prosecuted nor any of his co conspirators by the Southern district. And instead he could, he got that state charges thing where he didn't even do any state prison time and he had that work release kind of situation. But what's so concerning, Jim, about this email is they redacted the name of a victim from this email and it says that that victim spent hours at my house, as in at Epstein's house with Trump. And it also says that the police chief is mentioned. Right, right. That Jeffrey says I'm 75 there, which I again, this is my speculation on this, Jim. Yeah, I think it means I'm 75 of the way there to tell the police chief about Donald Trump spending hours with a victim whose name has been redacted from this email at my house. What is Donald Trump doing at Jeffrey Epstein's home for hours with a victim whose name has been redacted.
- [04:57]
B
I mean, you know, it's pretty obvious what Jeffrey Epstein is saying to Ghislaine Maxwell there. The other part of this, and this is taking all of this, you know, not exactly from most important thing to least important thing, but Ghislaine Maxwell replying To this. I have been thinking about that. Remember, you know, there was that, that super sketchy meeting that Todd Blanche had with Ghislaine Maxwell at the, at the prison, and then she was transferred to the minimum security prison. And we were all supposed to believe that Ghislaine Maxwell had basically exonerated Don in this setting. And everybody, you know, obviously people who have been following this closely said, you know, in all caps, don't believe anything. Ghislaine Maxwell says she is a liar. She has lied repeatedly. I mean, this shows you right here that obviously Ghislaine Maxwell knew something was up, something was going on, and replied to Jeffrey Epstein that, you know, this is something on her mind, too. They both feel like they have something on Trump that they're talking about. This is 14 years ago.
- [05:59]
A
I will also say that, you know, I've become a little familiar with the kind of writing and patterns of these people as I've been looking at these documents. And I am that crazy person who has been reading the thousands and thousands of pages of these documents that have been released from House Oversight. And I will say Ghislaine Maxwell is actually strategically a sphinx, like in the way that she answers in these emails, right? And if you look at the other ones that were produced a few months ago that we saw that also had Peter Thiel's name, name and Steve Bannon's name, et cetera, in terms of meetings and such, she doesn't really come out and say a lot, but there's enough there to insinuate, if not kind of directly suggest, Jim, that she knows. So, so what's, what's not there? Let's focus on that for a hot second, right? What's not there is her saying, what are you talking about? Jeffrey Trump never went to your house. What are you talking about? Trump was never there for hours. And of course, Ghislaine Maxwell, if there was anybody who would know what was going on there because she herself was complicit in being a part of the sexual abuse, she would know. And so it's what's not there in response from Ghislaine Maxwell, that also raises eyebrows.
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B
And if we could look at the next email, we've got two other emails to show. This one is written what appears to be the author, Michael Wolf, who was in these circles with Epstein and Trump and so on. I, you know, this doesn't mean that Michael, you know, knew damning details and so on, but, I mean, he's in this email with Jeffrey Epstein, whose email address, by the Way we should note is jeevacation gmail dot com. I mean, that is disgusting stuff as it is. But anyway, there's an email from Michael Wolf to Jeffrey Epstein that appears to say, I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you, either on air or in scrum afterwards. And then there's a response from Epstein that says, if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be? To which Wolf allegedly replies, I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. I mean, it goes on and on and on. I mean, again, Katie, what's important in all of this is there's this discussion about Trump. And now flash forward to what is this? This is December 16, 2015. This is when Donald Trump is very much in the throes of running for president. He had already announced he was running for president by that point. And this was two weeks before the 20s, before the year 2016, when he's elected president.
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A
So the other thing is that this is again a private conversation, allegedly. Right. Buying between Wolf and Epstein. Remember to footnote, Michael Wolf is in active litigation against Melania Trump. He's suing her for defamation. Why? Because she's called him a liar with his reporting that there was a relationship between Trump, Melania Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and how everybody met, etc. Right. So Wolf is has a direct conversation with somebody like Jeffrey Epstein who responds. And this is the one line among many in this email, Jim, that.
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B
Yeah, let's go back to the 2015 email.
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A
Yeah, if we could pop that back up.
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B
Yeah, pop that back up. We can.
- [09:20]
A
If we see Jeffrey Epstein's response to Michael Wolf at 11:52pm it's in the middle of those emails. It says, if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be? Now, the him there is Donald Trump. Why in the world would Jeffrey Epstein be asking somebody like Michael Wolf, who is skilled in the language of the arts. Right. And who understands how to, how to speak. Right. You think this is a hypothetical question? It's not, Jim. I think it suggests here that Jeffrey Epstein was still in contact with Donald Trump in December of 2015 and was going to provide perhaps some assistance to Trump to respond. But that response from Michael Wolf I thought was so strategically Machiavellian in its way that he answered. He basically says if Trump doesn't. If Trump says he's never been on the plane or to the House that gives you valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that generates a positive benefit for you. Or if it looks like he really could win, as in the presidency, quote, you could save him generating a debt. Why would anybody owe anything in any capacity in Epstein's world unless Epstein had something compromising about that person? Person.
- [10:34]
B
Yeah. I mean, and the email says, of course, it is possible that when asked, he'll say, Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime. I mean, you know, obviously Wolf and Epstein knew one another. And again, Katie, you and I, I think, have talked about this in the whole Epstein saga. You talk about the birthday book in, in the letter that Trump allegedly wrote to Epstein for Epstein's 50th birthday. There was a familiarity between these two men, there was a friendship between these two men, and there was, it appeared to be common knowledge in Palm beach that there was stuff going on at Jeffrey Epstein's house. And Donald Trump was a part of this world, apparently. I mean, these emails fit into that puzzle, it seems to me. The puzzle pieces are now coming together, it seems to me, Katie, is what we're, what we're witnessing in real time right now. And these emails help put the puzzle pieces together.
- [11:37]
A
And that is the reason why I like to underscore the importance of process, congressional process, this idea of House Oversight actually doing the job it's supposed to do. Remember the subpoenas that went to DOJ and that went to the Epstein estate? They were done through an incredibly smart and savvy mood move, excuse me, by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. They inserted the motion in a way that was voted on, and it cornered the Republicans to have to vote on that motion. And that is the thing that got the ball rolling. So it's, it's remarkable to me that when Congress does its job the way it's supposed to be done, it provides literally the oversight that's required for the American people. But at the end of the day, the entirety of the files must be released, read in conjunction with what we continue to receive from places like the Epstein estate, so that people could decide on their own, Jim, what they think about Trump's culpability and exposure when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
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B
Yeah. And if we can flash forward to that 2019 email again, these are emails that were allegedly written by Jeffrey Epstein over an eight year period. Who knows what other emails are out there? Here's the. The 2019 email. It says, victim redacted. Mar a Lago. Another redaction. Trump said, he asked me to resign. Never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls. As he asked Galain to stop. I don't know what that means, but it, you know, of course he knew about the girls. That part right there is pretty remarkable stuff, Katie. He, if it says he knew about the girls, the word girls is there, remember, for folks out there paying close attention to this. And there was also this, remember, I mean, and Again, this is 2019. Now we're in the, you know, the middle of Trump's presidency. He's President of the United States In January of 2019, when this email exchange went back and forth between Epstein and allegedly Michael Wolf, the author. And, you know, at this point, I, I'd have to go back and look at what was in the news in January of 2019. Was there some Epstein news going on at that point? I don't know, but. And Katie, help us fill in the blanks if you can. But I mean, this is, this is when Jeffrey Epstein, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken here, this is when he goes to prison, is it not in 2019?
- [14:17]
A
Well, remember, Epstein always was kind of percolating to the top of the discourse every once in a while, depending upon what was happening. But, yes, there was the Epstein and the Ghislaine Maxwell indictments that were happening in the Southern District of New York. And we, and I, I believe you are right, that actually that was the tail end of the superseding indictments that were happening with Epstein, because eventually Epstein d. Right. Ghislaine Maxwell gets indicted, and she, you know, her case ended up going to a trial. But it's an. Again, we need to see maybe context of how these emails were produced, Jim. So we're kind of operating in a little bit of information vacuum. But this email was allegedly from Epstein directly to Michael Wolf. And there is a huge portion of it that we can see on the screen right now. And the viewers can see that's redacted. Right. So the name of the victim is redacted, which is understandable. And then it says Mar a lago. But then there's this chunk of information that is redacted that's really piquing my curiosity, because I don't know for what purpose the redaction has happened. But then it references the girls. Now, remember, Trump claimed last summer in 2024, that he and Epstein split up as friends and that he asked he demanded he kicked Epstein out of Mar A Lago.
- [15:32]
B
Right.
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A
That's always been the square there. He was never a member of Mar A Lago. But then it was also this allegation that Epstein was, quote, sick, stealing girls from the spa at Mar A Lago. And that is what this reference is in terms of. Trump knew about the girls as Trump asked Ghislaine to stop. So yet once again, we have culpability in equal parts on the part of Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as it looks like Donald Trump knowing what the hell is going on.
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B
Yeah. And now we have Katie, we have independent journalist Ryan Lizza with us. Our friend Ryan Lizza. Ryan has the tele substack. Ryan, great to see you. You and I were pinging each other earlier this morning. I know you've been on top of this. You've already written a substack post on this. You've been following a lot of this closely. And I mean, this is, this is remarkable jaw dropping, eye popping stuff.
- [16:23]
C
Yeah. I actually obtained these emails last night, so.
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B
Oh, wow.
- [16:26]
C
Okay. Hit send at 8:30am that's why I was out first. You know, I was just to go back to the, the conversation you all were having about what was going on in January 2019, because last night when I was working on this, I went back and just put together the timeline to remind myself of that important question. And so a couple of things. So two months earlier, the Miami Herald's now very famous Perversion of Justice series had dropped. That was November 2018. And so that reignited scrutiny of Epstein and the, and the 2007, 2008 non prosecution agreement. Right. And then the other big thing that was going on, you know, so later on sdny, which is the Southern District of New York, that eventually would indict Epstein, they said in court much later that after the Herald expose that Epstein had wired 350, $350,000 to two potential witnesses. And they, you know, as you can imagine, were wondering if those transfers were possible witness tampering. So the walls were closing in on him in late January 2019, the date of the, of this one email. And so remember, he was indicted and arrested in July 2019. So not long, you know, not long after this. And he was making some moves because of the Miami Herald series and sending money to potential witnesses. He knew things were in a bad place, so he was free, but he was a registered sex offender at that point. And you know, on the, on the cusp of, of going to jail.
- [18:28]
B
And, and back to that 2019 email, which, I mean, again, I. My. My jaw is dropping a little bit with some of this stuff. Trump's in office, he's the president, and Jeffrey Epstein is saying to Michael Wolf, allegedly, of course, he knew about the girls. And then he goes on to say, as he asked Ghislaine to stop. I don't know what that means. As he asked Elaine to stop. Like, as in stop talking, stop cooperating. Stop, stop. I don't know what.
- [18:58]
C
Yeah, I think I could shed light on two aspects of this. The one is the second redaction. So, yeah, the first one, they've labeled it here. Victim. It's not labeled in here, but my understanding of that second redaction is that it is other identifying information about the victim. That it's not. I was gonna say it's not substantive. It might be substantive, but it's. It's. It was redacted because it could identify the victim. Victim in. Yeah, that's all I'll say about that. I don't know, you know, I don't know, off the record or otherwise, what actually it says in there, but I have my understanding is that it's identifying information. And so, you know, we'll have to see what the White House says about that last line, the line that is just sort of, you know, make sure your eyes pop out. You know, of course, he. Trump, knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop. You know, there has been some. There has been some reporting, if I'm not mistaken, that Trump didn't like the Trump that Ghislaine was. Was maybe recruiting at Mar A Lago or was in some way interacting with girls and young women there. And we've never really gotten to the bottom of what that story was, but that's what I. That's. That could be what it's talking about, or it could just very generally be that he knew everything. Right. So it could be a discrete example of something that Ghislaine was doing at Mar A Lago, which has been in previous press reports. But still, a lot of details about that have been unexplained, or could be just Epstein saying here, yeah, he knew everything. So obviously, I think, you know, Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, you know, he had it right in his. His statement that this, you know, this raises a lot of questions. Right. We don't have all the answers this morning, but we have a lot of new questions.
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B
Yeah. Well, I'm hoping to speak with Robert Garcia later this morning, but, I mean, he's the new ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. And he has been making a name for himself with this very aggressive investigation into the Epstein files and what Donald Trump knew and when did he know it. And we should go Back to that 2011 email, Brian, because you jumped in after we talked about this 2011 email to me. Yeah, this one is wild. I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump victim. Redacted, spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. Police chief, etc. I mean that. And then Ghislaine Maxwell replies, I have been thinking about that and Katie and I talked about this earlier, this whole Ghislaine Maxwell, you know how Todd Blanche put this out there, that he talked to her and, and you know, she exonerated Trump. That nobody believed, literally nobody believed. And here it is, she apparently says in this email, I've been thinking about that. But your thoughts on this email, because it's, this to me is kind of the whole ball game. If I, I mean, I mean, I don't know what whole ball game means entirely because maybe Trump people just, they don't give a, whatever he does, they don't care. But for a lot of people in this country, I think people care about this.
- [22:34]
C
Yeah, I mean look at the time of this email in April 2, 2011, Epstein was now out of jail. Right. On the state charges, on the state prostitution charges that were so controversial. But he was facing a lot of new questions. He'd recently been branded a level 3 sex offender in New York and he was under new scrutiny in the spring of that year in the UK because the press there was becoming obsessed with his continued association with Prince Andrew. So that was all in the ether at that, at that moment. And then the month before, in March, Maxwell had put out a public statement denying any wrongdoing in the, you know, in just in general. So there was renewed scrutiny on Maxwell in February and March. So this was not in any way behind him, even though he was, you know, out of jail. And in Florida, a lot of civil litigation was getting off the ground over his past conduct that was all ratcheting up. And then I believe it was the following month. But very shortly after this email, the non prosecution agreement, which obviously was immensely, enormously controversial, was about to be made public on the docket in Florida. So there was a lot swirling around at this time. And the reference to the police chief is the Palm Beast. Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reader. Right. You've probably seen him on tv. He's you know, he aggressively pursued this case. He was very disappointed in the, in the, in this and how it, and the outcome with the non prosecution agreement. And so that's what he's talking about there, that you know, Trump never came up. But he's basically saying in any of the criminal inquiries that they, they had dealt with up until that point, Trump hadn't been mentioned. And that's the, the dog that, that hasn't barked. Again, it's, it's a little cryptic.
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D
Right.
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C
We don't, you know, and this is.
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B
Before he ran for president. Katie and I were talking this earlier was. It's basically before I think he even joined forces with Mitt Romney. When he endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2012 campaign, he was, he had been talked about as a political figure, but at this point he's really more of a rich guy, celebrity TV star kind of this, that he's in that category in April of 2011. So for all the people in Maga who are going to go on social media and try to tear this apart and apologists on FOX and so on, if you believe that this email existed and, and happened, this is in a part of the timeline that has nothing to do with politics at that point, basically.
- [25:31]
C
Yeah, that's right.
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B
And just one more on this too.
- [25:34]
C
Yeah, I'm sorry, Katie. Go ahead if you want.
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B
Katie.
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A
No, I just want to speak from the legal standpoint because you know, there's a chain of custody when it comes to these documents and I understand why, you know, we have to give some grain of salt to when we're looking at this. But I'd say to you, Ryan and Jim, you have to consider the fact that the production was made by the Epstein estate. So I mean, is, is, are people going to suggest that these were manufactured in some way? You know, is there some type of issue I would actually, you know, submit? No, I think that these are authentic emails that were sent. But of course I understand that there's a caveat that perhaps there's not. But you know, Ryan, you did say they were cryptic and I had mentioned before you jumped on with Jim, Ghislaine Maxwell is incredibly sphinx, like in the way that she does these emails. That's just the way that she answers. She doesn't ever directly implicate herself. Right. She doesn't ever outwardly say anything. But I was mentioning, you know, that Ghislaine doesn't even say though, in response to Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, what are you talking about? We never saw Trump there. Right. There's no Pushback to suggest that what Epstein's suggesting is not true. So, you know, I feel like if you use those as building blocks and you look at the context that you just provided as well, which was fantastic about the United Kingdom and everything that was happening with Maxwell herself, of course Maxwell's thinking about that. Because if she's also now getting into the spotlight of her own culpability, let's just bring everybody down, right? If I go down, we all go down and let's, let's burn the house down at exactly the same time.
- [26:57]
C
That's absolutely right. Like, she was suddenly, you know, having to put out an on the record statement, you know, denying she had anything to do with this. So she's freaked out. And remember, you can't, you can't forget that the relationship between Epstein and Trump ended in this still mysterious way, but that, you know, allegedly over this bidding war on a, on a mansion in Palm beach in 2004. They had a big feud over that. There's back and forth allegations of, you know, did Trump kick him out of Mar A Lago or not? Was he actually a member? You know, one of these emails, Epstein says he was never actually a member. Other reporting says that he actually was a member. And the. But what happens after the feud? And this is something that, you know, Michael Wolf has actually reported on in 2021 and republished in his. His new substack is highly relevant here.
- [27:53]
B
Yeah.
- [27:54]
C
The investigation in Palm beach starts just a few months after Trump and Epstein have their falling out. And over the years. So guess what? Epstein thinks, he starts to think it was Trump who turned him in to the police. Let me just read from Michael Wolf's reporting about this because it's, it's, you know, he, he has interviewed Epstein extensively and he writes Epstein, and this is Wolf writing, concluded Trump ever cultivating the Palm beach police. And as a frequent visitor to Epstein's house, well aware of his friend's proclivities, turned him in.
- [28:37]
A
Wow.
- [28:38]
C
So that is important context for this conversation between Epstein and, and Ghislaine.
- [28:45]
B
Yeah.
- [28:45]
C
And that what I just read from Michael wolf was from 2021. I don't know the exact date of his interview with Epstein, but it was, you know, it was toward the end of Epstein's life, I think it was, you know, right before he was arrested in, in July 2019. So in 2000, in that era, he's telling reporters that he, he's still telling reporters that he believed Trump, you know, turned him in. And so now look, Epstein's Epstein Lied a lot. So, you know, you have to be. You really have to be careful with sort of after the fact, him trying to say, oh, this guy did me and that guy did me in. But it could be the context here that, like, they're. Ghislaine and Epstein are. The subtext is that they believe Trump had some. Trump knew a lot, turned them in, but the spotlight was never on him. The dog that didn't bark because he was somehow in the background pulling the strings.
- [29:49]
B
Sounds like the title of Michael Wolfe's next book. But anyway, Katie.
- [29:53]
A
No, but, Jim, you said something a couple of minutes ago about how the puzzle pieces are coming together, which is why I'm underscoring the importance as somebody who kind of, from my vantage point, professionally, would like to forensically understand, to put everything together. Right. So Ryan is providing just important context and insight. And we get these email emails, but we also know that the financial records are being tracked down as well. So if there is an outflow of money, if there's things that are going on and you combine them with the actual investigative files from the Epstein, you know, investigation that was done in an official capacity from all law enforcement, if you kind of have that holistic view, you'll be able to understand, I believe, things better. But when you're having to do it in this piecemeal way because of the stonewalling that's happening from this administration, it becomes incredibly frustrating for people that want to know the truth. And the irony that doesn't escape any of us, obviously, is this. Trump campaigned on a platform that included transparency on these files, right? Yeah, that was the promise that was made, a pledge that was made that a lot of MAGA loved while he was on the trail to be able to get back into the Oval. So the about face has pissed off a lot of people within that world. And I cited to a poll somewhere, I think it was From September, from NPR, PBS, Marist, 75% of people polled of Americans, regardless of party affiliation, believe that the Epstein file should be released in their entire entirety with just the victim's names redacted. That is, I think, a damning indictment, no pun intended, of. Of what people want to know about what happened here. And these emails just pour kerosene on a conflagration, in my opinion.
- [31:29]
B
Yeah, and. And I mean, these emails do have redactions in them. So the Epstein files, I mean, we're starting to see that as these files get released, the victim's names are redacted, but they tell us the important information that we all need to know, and that is whether or not the president of the United States, Donald Trump, at one point in his life was involved in misconduct. And I'm, and that's a super sanitized word, was involved in illegal, abusive behavior that even now, if it's revealed, would have to be totally impeachable for the president of the United States. You cannot have somebody in the Oval Office who had ever engaged in this kind of behavior. And that's just me saying it as it is. But the other thing, Ryan, that we should put into perspective in all of this, looking back at this 2011 email, it starts to put the pieces of the puzzle together as I was talking about with Katie Fang, in terms of the birthday book, remember the birthday book and the letter that Donald Trump allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein talked about. May every day be another wonderful secret. A pal is a wonderful thing. The familiarity that is just baked into the writing here, allegedly by Donald J. Trump. And it wasn't long after this that this email emerge emerges between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. As, as Katie and I were talking about Ryan earlier, before you hopped on the fact that his Gmail address is jee vacation or something along those lines. I mean, good lord. I mean, that's just putting it out there, too. But I mean, yeah, Ryan, this ties together, this relationship and a relationship that was built around allegedly potentially unspeakable behavior.
- [33:19]
C
No, absolutely. And I think it's important in, you know, a lot of what we discuss about this case is the, the politics of it, how it's going to affect Trump politically and the wrangling on Capitol Hill over getting access to the remaining hidden documents at the Justice Department and elsewhere. And yeah, you can't forget that at the, at its core, this is a case about a man who trafficked minors and abused children. And that does get lost. I know in a lot of the political convert conversation about this and in just the, you know, the sort of baroque details of the whole sordid affair, you know, as you're pointing out, oops, a dog running around here.
- [34:08]
B
And we should know it. I mean, I, for the litigious jackasses out there, I will say definitively on this show, in case anybody's wondering, the tape is here. Donald Trump and his aides have repeatedly denied this. Donald Trump and his aides repeatedly denied this. Anyway, go on, wait, just say it.
- [34:28]
C
When you say that. Denied what, Jim?
- [34:30]
B
Well, they, they've denied any wrongdoing, I believe, is what they've said. Right. Repeatedly over the years. I think Stephen Chung and others in Trump's orbit have said repeatedly that this is, that Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar A Lago because he thought he was a creep. I mean, that was, that is one of the denials that they have put out there.
- [34:51]
C
Yeah.
- [34:52]
B
My understanding is that Caroline Levitt is going to have a press briefing today, hasn't been canceled already, and she's going to be asked about this unless she just calls on the sycophants. But, you know, this is, they've tried to put a lid on this over the years, Ryan. They've tried. And it's, I, I sort of feel like, and I, I'll say I was a White House correspondent during a lot of this. This was all under our noses, I guess, and we just, this information was just being kept under wraps, a secret for so many years.
- [35:25]
C
Yeah.
- [35:26]
B
And feel free to correct anything I've said that's wrong or no.
- [35:29]
C
I mean, the only thing I would say is, you know, Carolyn Levitt, whether she's doing a press conference or not, you know, we're not going to get any accurate or meaningful information out of her. Although, you know, an additional denial or whatever I suppose is somewhat useful. And I think, like, you know, there's the question of, you know, crimes. He would, you know, there's, he was, he knew about the, you know, he was one of these emails that talks about him being with one of the victims. But even be, even if you don't get to that level of horrible behavior, there's, and this is, Trump won't be the only person in who this is affected this way. It's the sort of, did he know? What did he know? You know, did he, did he have detailed knowledge? A lot of other people in public life have suffered serious reputational harm because of palling around with this guy well.
- [36:35]
A
After.
- [36:37]
C
His, his child abuse was known. And so that's, you know, that alone is an important question. It's just the classic, what did you know? What did, what did he know and when did he know it?
- [36:52]
B
Exactly, Katie, that, I mean, that to me is, and this is why, you know, Trump needs to answer some questions on this. He just has to, and he can't be allowed to my friends in the White House press corps, the next time you ask, get a chance to ask him a question, you have to press him on this. And when he yells and screams and calls you names, you have to keep going. He needs to be, he needs to be read this email and say, what, what is this? What did you spend hours At Jeffrey Epstein's house with victim redacted.
- [37:25]
A
Yeah. And, and to Ryan's well taken point, we always need to remind ourselves and ground ourselves in the reality that there are victims and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, Galay Maxwell and countless others. And it's the countless others that need to be held accountable for what their role was and whether the statute of limitations has come and gone for criminal prosecution. I do think they need to stand and stand in judgment for what they have done. And if that includes the President of the United States, then so be it. I also think it begs the question, casual racism, weaponization of the doj, prosecution of political enemies, you know, embarrassment and humiliation on the, on the global stage, whatever that is that you are able to tolerate and stomach and swallow with a smile as maga. Fine. But is there a red line that cannot be crossed when it comes to child sex predation, child sex trafficking? I would hope the yes part of my French. Ryan. Sorry. So, so, so if you are a Republican and I. And you know that and, and you all watch this show and mine and everybody to hate, watch us. If you're tuning in. This has to be the red line for you. Right. There cannot be any excuses. And this also includes Mike Johnson, for example. What a horrific man to sit there and delay the swearing in of Congresswoman elect Adelita Grijalva just to be able to avoid stuff like this coming out. So there has to be accountability for the victims. And, and if it means that this is how we get there, you know, fighting and screaming and dragging ourselves out there, then this is how we're going to do it for them.
- [38:59]
B
Yeah.
- [38:59]
C
I don't know if you guys talked about this already before I came on, but as you probably know, Grijalva will be sworn in today.
- [39:08]
B
That's right.
- [39:08]
C
Congress is back and Mike Johnson is out of options. She's going to be sworn in and she's going to provide the final signature on the petition to force the floor vote on the measure that would demand that the Justice Department release the Epstein files.
- [39:28]
A
Fantastic. There we go.
- [39:29]
B
And she was elected to Congress nearly two months ago and in a special.
- [39:35]
C
Election, she was elected on September 23rd.
- [39:39]
B
September.
- [39:39]
C
It is now November 12th.
- [39:42]
B
And unreal.
- [39:43]
C
Mike Johnson, the only explanation for that delay is because he does not want this vote and does not want those files at the Justice Department released. And I mean this is just like.
- [40:00]
B
And there's been some speculation, Ryan, that. And there's been some speculation. I'm sorry, don't mean to cut you off because Adelita Griava would be the decisive 218th vote to force the release of the Epstein files. This discharge petition. There's been some speculation that, that Mike Johnson in the White House, they've already gotten to one of those Republicans. They've tried. They're, that maybe they've been quietly lobbying Republicans to pull them out of, you know, voting for this. Is it Nancy Mace, is it larger? Phil Agree. I don't, I mean, I, I will find out, I guess.
- [40:31]
C
I mean, that, you know, who is going to be the Republican that, especially if it's just one, if it's not a group who is going to be the Republican that is going to be known for the rest of their life that they were the one that prevented the public from knowing the full details about, about Jeffrey Epstein. So, I mean, nothing surprises me anymore in terms of Republicans on the Hill and their willingness to do, to stoop to any low, to defend Trump and to just debase themselves for him. But even, even I, I think, would be shocked if one of them stuck their neck out and publicly said, I'm taking my name off of this letter because, you know, they're not going to say Trump made him do it. They're going to come up with some other excuse and, you know, this is a Democratic plot or something. We'll have to point to the left. But boy, unless it's, unless it's a group of them, which you can't discount that possibility that Trump has gotten to a group of them and the whole thing falls apart. But I just don't know. As you guys have probably seen, this is just the one issue on the right that Trump does not control. Yeah, Almost everything else he says filters down to the base in an astonishing sort of cult like way. And he is able to make stuff disappear. And this just, it doesn't happen with this. There's actually Republican resistance to him, to him on this issue. And I, you know, I think that's one of the great frustrations he has on this is whatever power he has over, you know, maga, it just doesn't apply to Epstein.
- [42:26]
B
Yeah. And I mean, if there's one person that Donald Trump is not threatening to sue these days, at least not that I've heard is, is Elon Musk who said Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is why they have not been released. And it was shortly after that that the Justice Department just more pieces of the puzzle. Talk about the timeline. The Justice Department puts out the memo, remember this, that says basically, oh, there's nothing to See here with Donald Trump in the Epstein files, we're going to sweep this under the rug. And that's when it became game on. As you were indicating, Ryan, that is when MAGA blew their and started to say what is going on? What's happening with Cash Patel and Pam Bondi who said I have the Epstein files on my desk, which is a physical impossibility and the client list is on my desk, which is a physical impossibility. And then, and then they proceeded to just continue to lie about this over and over and over.
- [43:24]
A
Lied in October too. Guys, remember Pamela Joe and Cash Patel were in front of Congress being asked about Epstein and both of them are like, it's a nothing burger. There's nothing there. There's no there there. And they were asked specifically about references to Trump. So one of two things is happening here or maybe three really. Door number one, they're lying. Door number two, there could be in, in good faith this possibility that the Epstein files are different and don't have a related overlapping subset of documents with the estate of Epstein could be Jeffrey maybe kept things, although I doubt it because these are emails. Right. So if email handles or access to emails and you would have it. But it also, you know what I like about this? Or the third option is, you know, well, there's no real third option. So here's the deal. So what I like about this though is this is the first time we're seeing Michael Wolf's emails in this. Right. Which suggests that there are people and third parties out there that may continue to have access to information that implicates people. Which is why Jamie Raskin just eight days ago sent a letter to Pamela Jo saying why did you guys make a investigation of the Southern District of New York into co conspirators of Epstein and Maxwell stop when Donald Trump took office? Why? Yeah, and so Jamie Raskin is asking all the right questions because this was a trafficking ring. It was not just two people involved in this. And I think that is how we are going to be piecing things together. I think the victims and the survivors have been failed repeatedly by the system in informal and formal ways. And if there's a way to help them achieve justice, truly, then that's what we have an obligation to do by writing about it, talking about it, exposing it and doing our damnedest to be able to bring it to light.
- [45:10]
B
Yeah, yeah. And my understanding is that some of these survivors are coming down to Washington for the swearing in of Adelita Grialva. I've heard from one Survivor right now. I don't want to mention her name, but she has texted me to say that she's on her way to attend the swearing in of Adelita Grialva. Ryan, this is building up to critical mass. You've been around Washington for a while. I don't want to date either of us too long, but y' all don't have the wrinkles.
- [45:42]
A
You're fine. Don't worry about it.
- [45:43]
B
This is a hell of a, this, this is a whopper. This is a bombshell of a revelation that came from the House Democrats and the Oversight Committee this morning. This is, I mean, and, and people say, oh, that word sensational and all.
- [45:59]
A
No, it is.
- [45:59]
B
No, this is a bombshell.
- [46:03]
C
Oh, yeah, the, the number of new threads that you can pull on with these emails and the number of new questions it raises are, you know, extensive. And remember, this is, these are three documents. These are three emails. Garcia says that they turned over the Epstein estate, turned over 23,000 documents. 23,000. Now, obviously a lot of that's going to be, you know, uninteresting, but they're just getting started. And I would expect that we're going to see more very, very soon. I don't think, I don't think these are the only three we're going to see in the, in the immediate future. And hopefully. I heard you, Jim. If you have Garcia on, you know, soon, he, that would be a good question for him is, you know, what's, what's coming next because, you know, they're, they're going through this very, very carefully and only releasing stuff, you know, slowly. There's, there's more to come, I guess, is what I'm saying here.
- [47:18]
B
There's no question about it. And you know, the other thing in all this, Ryan, is, is that this is being done by the Democrats on the committee. James Comer, the Republican congressman from Kentucky, is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. And the Democrats have basically had to do this by going around him over and over and over again to get this information out to the public. And.
- [47:44]
C
Yeah, yep.
- [47:45]
B
You know, so for the Republicans are like, I, you know, I want to see the Epstein files released and you should see the calls coming into my, the switchboards lighting up like a Christmas tree and all. Baloney. They have been helping Donald Trump cover this up, up and it's because of Robert Garcia, people like Ro Khanna, Jamie Raskin. This has been a full court, I mean, for the folks who are pissed at the Democrats and I get it, people are pissed at The Democrats right now, there are a number of them who have been really working this. And I will say that, I mean, if, if, if Elon Musk had never tweeted this earlier this summer. I mean, it's, it's kind of unreal how this is played out over the last six months or so. It's kind of crazy.
- [48:32]
C
Yeah. Pains me to say it, but Elon was right.
- [48:37]
B
Yeah.
- [48:37]
C
And, you know.
- [48:40]
B
Yeah.
- [48:40]
C
It's just fascinating. Did he just make that up and got lucky or was he deeply informed about this and part of the, the high level conversations in the administration when this issue started gaining traction and there were, you know, Oval Office meetings, you know, telling, telling Trump he's in there. I always wondered that maybe that's been reported and I just missed it. But I just, when he tweeted that, it suggested that there was, that this was a topic of conversation at the highest levels right. In the administration, that this has just been sort of percolating in the background. And, you know, Elon's there doing his doge stuff. But, you know, the private conversations among Trump's top, top officials are about, oh, shit, you know, there's this big political problem that may be coming, you know, down the pike. And he just sort of, you know, held it in his back pocket until the inevitable Trump Elon blow up and, you know, detonated a, the nuclear weapon he had there.
- [49:56]
B
No question. Yeah. And the other thing too, Katie, is, I mean, I, we, you know, we weren't showing it earlier. We're just showing that the birthday letter from Trump from the birthday book. But there are other pages from that birthday book that indicate a familiarity in the Palm beach community, in the Jeffrey Epstein community, that there was something fishy going on between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and what Jeffrey Epstein was doing. I mean, remember in the birthday book there are the images of the girls on the beach giving a massage and everything. And then there's the, the phony check from Donald Trump. There's an image of a phony check from Donald Trump that, that is made out, I believe, to Epstein. And you know, all of this indicates to me and I talked about this on my show and you, Katie and Ryan, I think we've all talked about it. There's a familiarity with, with what was going on, that something was going on. And people, I've heard this from a number of people in South Florida, in the Palm beach community, that they just, people knew about this friendship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. We've seen the images of them doing the white man's overbite and stuff like that on the dance, dance floor. But, I mean, this is all starting to make sense. And if you're Pam Bondi.
- [51:15]
A
Yeah.
- [51:15]
B
Here are the images right here. Dear Jeffrey, Happy 50th. All of this stuff. And so, you know, and. And the Trump people have said, oh, the birthday letter, that was forged, that wasn't really from him. I mean, give me a break. Like, somebody went back in time in a time machine and slipped that in there, and they somehow forged his signature and slipped it in there. Or the Epstein estate is part of the conspiracy. At some point, you have to give it up. You have to give it up that you believe in some goddamn conspiracy that always exonerates. That there's always a conspiracy that exonerates Donald Trump. This is. This is the. The mental gymnastics that his supporters and people at MAGA go through. It's like, it's just, guys, you got to give it up. You got to give it up.
- [51:56]
A
So there's two different types of evidence. There's direct and circumstantial evidence. And, you know, as of right now, as the three of us sit here, we don't have, quote, direct evidence of Donald Trump's complicity in, you know, criminal conduct right now. Right. And to underscore what you said a couple of minutes ago, Jim, yes, there has been repeated denials of wrongdoing by Trump and the people in Trump's sphere. Okay. But you can also convict uncircumstantial evidence. I did it as a prosecutor, and it's. It's not out of the norm, because if you look at the rules of evidence, they treat direct evidence with the same value as circumstantial evidence. And it's just up to the triers of fact, the members of the jury, to decide what value do they want to put on admissible evidence. But direct and circumstantial evidence can be admissible. And the reason why I kind of do that really quick legal primer, is when you look at the totality of the circumstances here. When you look at the birthday book, when you look at these emails, when you look at the, you know, media reporting, when you look at the photographs, when you look at the closest, the intimacy, the. The fact that these. These people that are in the birthday book and that are in the pictures and that are reported upon, these people were rarefied air individuals. They were people that were a part of an exclusive club of money, means, wealth and power and influence, and they were able to be able to do these things. Right. Without any type of oversight or any type of, of, of, of people stopping them. You are just as complicit if you knew as you were if you partook, right? And so the question is, how much did Donald Trump know? How much did Donald Trump do? If Donald Trump had just minded his own damn business and continue to run his businesses into the ground, we would never be having this conversation, right? But Donald Trump was the dumbass who decided to run for office twice. And so when you put yourself into the public sphere, people, three times.
- [53:47]
B
But you know, he says he won three times.
- [53:49]
A
Sorry, you know what?
- [53:50]
B
He says he won all three times.
- [53:52]
A
Well, really, it's all about keep going. But the point is, we care because he's the, quote, leader of the free world, right? We care because he's the President of the United States. And if there was anything that rose to the level of impeachable conduct, it would either be direct involvement or even circumstantial evidence of involvement or knowledge, right? Any of that should be enough to be able to say, you are not fit for office. Putting aside all the other shit he does badly, something like this in and of itself is impeachable conduct.
- [54:25]
B
And while we have that 2015 email up, we can hit the pause button on that. Ryan, let me ask you about this because this Michael Wolf email. December 15, 2015, 8:00pm I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you, either on air or in scrum afterwards. Michael Wolf's familiarity with how we do things is interesting. That is exactly how things would go down. And then Epson allegedly writes, if we are able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it would be or should be? And then Wolf says, I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the House, then that gives you valuable PR and political currency goes on and on. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or if it really looks like he could win, you could save him generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that when asked, he'll say, Jeffrey's a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime. There are so many layers to that. That might a lot here.
- [55:30]
C
This one, I don't, I don't think this one makes Michael Wolf look great. And I want to get, I want to get to some of Michael Wolf's reporting that.
- [55:38]
B
Very Trump worldy. Anyway, you go ahead.
- [55:40]
C
Very Trump worldly. You know, a couple of things in. And Wolf, he spent a lot of time with Epstein. He's written extensively about him. He talked to him quite a bit, and so he understands him. So the thing that struck me was he was immediately recommending that Epstein use information he has about Trump for leverage. And so, you know, I'm sure Michael will be writing and talking about this soon, but my first question was, is he doing that because he understands that's something that Epstein did with other powerful people, or was this just, you know, a Wolfian idea off the. Off the top of Michael's head? But it's a conversation between two people who have a shared understanding of Trump's close relationship with Epstein, the fact that he was on the plane. And I believe the. It's been confirmed that Trump was on one of Epstein's aircraft seven times, most often back and forth from the New York area to Palm Beach. He was never on any flights that we know about to the. To the famous island. And so these guys are talking about Trump with personal knowledge of his close relationship with Epstein. I mean, I think that's the main takeaway of this. And I just. Can I just tell you a few things that have not gotten enough attention that Wolf has reported directly from Epstein's mouth recently that, you know, the first thing is about Steve Bannon. I mean, Bannon and Epstein were very, very close. And there's a scene In Michael Wolf's 2021 chapter about Epstein that he's now republished on Substack, that goes like this. So he. Bannon comes into this conversation, I think, over the phone, and they don't. They've recently been introduced. I think this scene takes place in, like, 2017 or 18. And Wolf says, this is Wolf quoting Bannon. This is Bannon to Epstein. You were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign, said Bannon, laughing when they met, meaning he believed Epstein knew dangerous secrets about Trump. Epstein replies, as well, you should have been. As well. You should have been afraid. That is just a really underreported quote between and seen between Bannon and Epstein and the two of them with this understanding that Epstein had information about Trump. Now, maybe Epstein was bluffing, right? Obviously he was. You know, he. He lied about a lot of stuff. That's, That's. That's one thing. Just one other quick thing that I thought was fascinating that, you know, given our conversation here, adds some important context, and that is. So when Epstein is arrested in 2019, in July 2019, he's coming back from Paris, apparently, and He's, I think he's arrested at the airport. At the same time the FBI is raiding his house on the Upper east side of Manhattan, which incidentally happened to pass by the other day when I was in New York. And you know, they removed all sorts of stuff and they, they, they blew a hole in his safe.
- [59:20]
A
That's right.
- [59:20]
C
And this is Michael Wolf describing that the FBI prosecutors publicly announced that they had found nude pictures of women who might appear to be underage. A 30 year old passport from Saudi Arabia with a phony name and Epstein's picture along with cash and diamonds. Wolf goes on. The FBI did not list in its findings a set of pictures that Epstein sometimes removed from the safe to show friends. A dozen or so snapshots from shortly before Trump and Epstein's quarrel in 2004 of Donald Trump at Epstein's Palm beach home posing with a variety of young women in various stages of undress, some topless, sitting on his lap, touching his hair, laughing and pointing at a suggestive stain on the front of the future president's pants. So that is Michael Wolf reporting on photos that he says were found in that safe that the FBI raided and.
- [60:23]
B
Which would so be a part of the Epstein files. I mean, one would think.
- [60:28]
C
Absolutely. And so, you know, just, just for context of when people are looking at these emails and saying, why is this author Michael Wolf and, and Jeffrey Epstein, why are they emailing back and forth, you know, with this sort of very, very personal relationship? They had a, a pretty tight source journalist relationship. So that's, you know, that's what I think people need to understand. And you know, these are scenes and facts that Michael Wolf, you know, longtime author, has put in the public domain. One final thing from his reporting, if you'll indulge me, that I do think is interesting to viewer, that might be interesting to viewers. So we already talked about how the original investigation in 2011 that Epstein believed Trump may have had something to do with it. In 2019, Trump's in the White House. Epstein. Wolf says that Epstein believed there were two scenarios of why this all came roaring back. And one of them, okay, is that the Southern District of New York, which according to many reports was hot on Trump's tail, had moved through its public corruption unit. With its focus on bribery of public officials, it could avoid having its investigations approved by Washington. Katie, maybe you could fact check that. But they, they'd moved through its public corruption unit to arrest Epstein and pressure him to flip on Trump. That is the Southern District of New York had slipped Epstein's arrest past Trump's attorney general and watchdog Bill Barr, who indeed, oddly, recused himself after the arrest and then hurriedly at Trump's urging, at Trump's urgings. Bannon was sure. That's Michael Wolf saying that Trump urged this, according to Bannon, and then unrecused himself. So I'm not deep in the weeds on Epstein's conspiracy theories, but this is Michael Wolf saying that Epstein believed that SDNY wanted him and wanted to pressure him to flip on Trump. So I don't know if you guys are familiar with any of that, that stuff, but that's all in Michael Wolf, one of the people mentioned in these emails. That's all in his chapter about Epstein in his 2021 book that he is now republished on Substack.
- [62:55]
B
Well, and Katie, I know it's a lot, but. It's a lot. No, but, but I mean, Katie, I mean, what the White House is going to do is they're going to try to discredit Michael Wolf.
- [63:05]
A
Wolf.
- [63:05]
B
They're going to go after Michael Wolf, and they've done this in the past because Michael Wolf has written unflattering stuff about Donald Trump, even though he gets incredible access to Trump world. I think we know why now. But what these emails demonstrate and I, it'll be interesting to hear what Michael Wolf has to say about this. You know, he has access to the people in the room, to the principals involved in all of this. And so you can't really impeach somebody like Michael Wolf, I suppose. I mean, you can take issue with certain things that he does or whatever, but if he's emailing with Jeffrey Epstein, he's emailing with Jeffrey Epstein, you know, and I guess the White House will also say, well, Jeffrey Epstein, this was all a figment of his imagination and then he was trying to extort things from Donald Trump. I mean, I'm just trying to think of all of the things that they'll say.
- [63:58]
A
So, so when you're trying to impeach somebody for their credibility and you do stuff, maybe look for prior inconsistent statements or you look for reasons why somebody would be not a truth teller in this context, you also have to look at the timing of it. And the chronology of this is so damning for Trump because it goes so far, damn back. This is not stuff that was happening. Right. Like just yesterday, like this is years years ago. The first email we're looking at is from Trump 2011, folks. 14 years ago. Right. And again, there could be underlying context within kind of situationally situational context as to why these emails are flying back and forth. But the thing is this, there is a reason why Michael Wolf has gone the on the offensive by suing Melania Trump for defamation. Right. Michael Wolf has said, y' all want to, on my credibility, whatever. I'm gonna actually put it out for the public to see and decide on their own by suing you, which in my mind lays down a pretty hard gauntlet for Trump because by putting it in the judicial system, by creating a, a vehicle for discovery to occur, Michael Wolf has said, let's rock, let's rock. And what's amazing too is the crowdfunding that has happened for Michael to support this litigation has been jaw dropping. The number of stuff small do. I mean, Michael at this point is like a one man political campaign. The amount of small dollar donations that have rocked into this litigation has been stunning, in my humble opinion. And so it just goes to show that people are showing support where it needs to be. Which speaks to the bigger picture issue of transactional loyalty with somebody like Donald Trump. People are learning the hard way, as they have done consistently while they have been in Donald Trump, Trump's sphere and orbit. Let's look at Michael Cohen, for example, right? There is transactional loyalty only with Donald Trump. We are seeing people like Republicans that got totally by the redistricting scheme from Texas because California Prop 51 and they know that they have exposure now. Like there are people that are realizing that maybe this really wasn't the best deal, contrary to Donald Trump's promise of the art of the deal. Right? And so I think it just goes to show that there are a lot of people, for example, like Jeffrey Epstein that probably were willing to sell his ass up the river to be able to not only help themselves, but to show that Trump shouldn't get away with it all because Trump has that reputation of being what, Teflon Don? Right. Well, it looks like to me that people are like, you want to know? Well, here's an email. Let me show you what it says, right? And I think this, I think from a objective standpoint, this is what we call, I say, independent corroboration. If there are emails that are in writing. I'm not relying upon Michael Wolf's recollection of the email. Epstein. I'm like, your Honor, may I may approach the witness. I'd like to introduce this into evidence, right? And then the jury actually sees it. And you're asking a jury not to believe their eyes. We've been there, done that with Trump and we know where this goes, right. We've seen the classified documents and the crapper at Mar a Lago, so we understand what we're getting with somebody like Trump, which is why I don't care what Caroline Levitt or Cash Patel or Pam Bondi want to say. The American people are not going to sit silently and watch this happen in real time without demanding the truth on this one.
- [67:17]
B
And you're absolutely right, because if you look at the 2011 email, you know, Michael Wolf is not in that email. That is an email between Jeffrey Epstein, Jee Vacation, which, again, it's disgusting. And Ghislaine Maxwell, the dog that hasn't barked. Ryan Lizard. The. The dog is barking this morning. The. The dog is howling.
- [67:43]
C
I'm laughing at it because I have a dog that you guys can't see that is upstairs.
- [67:50]
A
Mine's under the desk. Yours is running around. Ryan. And poor Duke. I don't know where Duke is right now.
- [67:56]
B
So he's upstairs. He knows. He's kind of learned. Now when I start talking into my laptop, it's time for me to go upstairs and take a nap or something, which is sad in the beginning.
- [68:05]
C
This is the opposite of. This is the opposite of Bodhi, who, whenever I'm sitting in this little spot looking into a camera is just. He decides that's time to, like, just absolutely go wild because he knows I can't do anything. I can't go get him.
- [68:21]
B
That's okay. That's all right.
- [68:22]
C
But on Katie's point about, you know, Michael Wolf is he's an interesting character in all this, and he is stirring the pot in, you know, a lot of interesting ways. I was just looking at the GoFundMe page that Katie referred to.
- [68:38]
A
Isn't it a lot, Ryan?
- [68:40]
B
What does it say?
- [68:41]
C
$726,000? 26. 726. 559. So he's raised over. And his goal is to raise $900,000.
- [68:51]
B
It's not quite a Michael Wolf book advance, but it's, you know, that's a.
- [68:55]
A
Lot of money from people wanting to support him suing Melania Trump. Right. I mean, that's wild. Right?
- [69:01]
C
And look, he did this after. I don't know if they went ahead with it, but they threatened Trump and Melania threatened to sue.
- [69:08]
A
They did a cease and desist against him is what they did. Right.
- [69:11]
C
Did they actually follow through with the lawsuit? Do we know?
- [69:14]
A
No, no, this is him. I think this is him taking the offensive against her. I don't. I don't remember him actually being sued Sued.
- [69:22]
B
Yeah.
- [69:24]
C
And so his, you know, his goal.
- [69:25]
B
With this is why is she involved? Why, why, why is Melania even part of this conversation?
- [69:33]
A
Oh, because. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Ryan. Go ahead, go ahead.
- [69:36]
B
No, just for the viewers who are wondering, as I'm kind of wondering.
- [69:39]
C
Yeah. And, you know, I would recommend being very careful in how you discuss this case.
- [69:43]
A
Yes. Yeah.
- [69:45]
C
Speaking of lawsuits, because this is the issue that has prompted, you know, threats of litigation and I'm frankly not personally up to speed enough on. Wolf alleges, he alleges there was a.
- [70:02]
A
Connection between Melania and Epstein and that's pretty much non defamatory. That's just what the allegations are.
- [70:09]
B
Yeah. And, and I mean, just so we're airtight on all of this, we're not alleging that either.
- [70:15]
A
No, no.
- [70:16]
B
We're just reporting on what is in the news. And I just heard from Robert Garcia's office. He's running a few minutes behind, but that's okay. I told them no worries, we'll take them when we get them on to talk about it. Lots to talk about. But for folks who have watched this show ever since July, that July memo came out. We were on this like white on rice. And we've been covering this repeatedly ever since. Ryan, you and I have talked about this. Katie, you and I have talked about this. And I know you guys have been on this as well. But there, and there, and I thought there was some reluctance on the part of the mainstream corporate media to really jump on this, but to me, this is the most important threat to Donald Trump's presidency that I have ever seen. More than the Ukraine. The Ukraine thing was appalling. Absolutely. January 6th obviously should have resulted in being disqualified from the presidency, but that's on Mitch McConnell. And obviously the Republicans weren't there on that. But, but Ryan and Katie, to me, if, if it, if more evidence comes out, this becomes a, a runaway freight train. And the MAGA people may not be able to imagine this now because they've just been completely brainwashed into this. But if we're just seeing three emails today as Congress is coming back to town. The House is coming back to town.
- [71:50]
C
Yeah.
- [71:51]
B
Ladies and gentlemen, there's more that's coming. And, and people like Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise, John Thune, they just have to ask themselves the question, do it goes back to what Adam Schiff said, I think, during the first impeachment. Do you want to tie yourself to this man with an iron, unbreakable cord that will drag you down, too? And as Liz Cheney Said, do you want to be remembered for the shame and the dishonor of linking yourself to this man irretrievably? And it seems to this is the test. This is, this is now. I, I, I just, I see this unfolding in this fashion. I could be wrong, Ryan and Katie, but I see it unfolding in that we will be talking about this now up until the 26 midterms.
- [72:41]
A
Well, they unfortunately, I mean, listen, the still critical issues for Americans are can we put food on the table? Right. So let's be very clear. That's still paramount.
- [72:51]
B
No questions.
- [72:52]
A
But the unfortunate consequence of this news dropping now is even though we're still technically in the midst of a government shutdown, you know, people can actually pay attention to this now. We're not, you know, we can still walk and chew gum at the same time. We can have a conversation about, you know, what is happening with this impending continuing resolution issue and all this other stuff and appropriations. But, you know, the focus has appropriately now shifted to this because it still ties into the idea that there's a reason why Speaker Ma. Speaker Mike Johnson sent everybody home early because he didn't want to vote on this. Right. This is so much the what are you trying to hide moment, and now it's all going to come home to roost. And if this is only three emails of 23, 000 documents, well, I can't wait to see the entirety of them when they're released.
- [73:38]
B
Yeah. And, and Ryan. Oh, you were gonna say something?
- [73:41]
C
No, I'm actually going to ask you guys to, to. I'm just checking on something that might be interesting for our conversation. So I'm gonna ask you guys to, to carry the conversation while I, while I communicate with someone here. If I'm.
- [73:54]
B
No worries.
- [73:54]
C
That's not, if that's not too annoying.
- [73:57]
B
No, you do your thing. All right. Ryan may have popped out. He may pop back in. I just got an update, Katie, from Robert Garcia's office. We're expecting him at about 11:05am okay, so for any cable news bookers out there who are thinking about holding Robert Garcia hostage, I know how this works, people.
- [74:17]
A
Release him.
- [74:18]
B
Release him. Release the congressman so he can come on.
- [74:21]
A
He can come talk to us.
- [74:22]
B
Growing audience on Both Substack and YouTube right now. And Katie, I mean, to me, as we're getting close to the top of the hour and more and more people are jumping on and watching this, we need to remind folks what you and I have been talking about for almost the last hour and a half. And that is some very important documents have been released by the House Oversight Committee Democrats, not the entire committee, by the Democrats. They allege these emails that, that were released by the Oversight Committee Dems allege that Epstein emailed Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein emailed the author Michael Wolf over a course of an eight year period from 2011 to 2019 that indicate that Donald Trump had knowledge of what was going on at Jeffrey Epstein's house. The 2011 email alleges claims that Donald Trump spent hours with a victim, victim name redacted at Epstein's house. Doesn't get into the behavior, doesn't, doesn't give us that kind of level of detail. But Katie, you, as you and I were talking about this with Ryan Lizza also a few moments ago, these emails are some of the most damning emails that I have ever seen produced in reference to a President of the United States. He has been dogged by this scandal for months now and had, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. But when the White House and the Justice Department tried to put out this memo back in July and say that there was nothing going on here. And then in the, in the aftermath of that, in the months that came after that, we've seen all of this, as you said earlier, circumstantial evidence, you know, documentation emerged that, that shows that Donald Trump has a lot of questions to answer.
- [76:15]
A
Yeah, and I think that assuming, arguendo what's put in here is authentic and true. That's a big assuming. And, and we can couch all of this with these are alleged, you know, statements that are being made here. This is the first, I believe, of kind of the direct implication of Donald Trump allegedly having no knowledge of what was transpiring with Jeffrey Epstein. Putting aside the fact that Epstein and Maxwell themselves suggest in these email correspondence that Trump himself was partaking in this, putting aside that if you don't even want to give that any type of credence. There is a suggestion here in these emails that Trump knew or had knowledge or should have known as to what the hell was going on with Epstein at Epstein's estate and Epstein's homes, et cetera. And I think that is why these are such bombshell emails. You know, we use the adjectives bombshell, unprecedented and others so often these days. They do appropriately, you know, match what is being revealed. But I do think we've become almost immune to it because we're using those adjectives so often. But I think in the context of these particular emails, they are so fitting because it shows a consciousness of guilt on the part of Trump and others to be able to continue to hide this information from public consumption if you were not implicated, if you didn't do anything wrong, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to say that you would have released these files months ago. And the fact of the matter is, again, these emails are coming from the Epstein Estate. So there is a very real possibility that there is not an overlap in a subset of documents that exist between the DOJ and the Epstein Estate. Although I find that hard to believe. The greatest, most powerful law firm and law enforcement agencies in the world are the United States government. You would presume that they would have had their hands on this. Which just goes to show then misplaced and completely ill guided loyalty on the part of Cash Patel, Pamela Joe and others, including Todd Blanche. Let's not forget him spending nine hours with Ghislaine Maxwell. And now the media is reporting through a whistleblower that there is the possibility that Ghislaine Maxwell is seeking a commutation of her 20 year federal prison sentence from Donald Trump. Timing is really shitty for Ghislaine right now with these emails coming out because Donald Trump ends up giving that commutation. I think that's yet another indicia of guilt on the part of Donald Trump. But it just shows that everybody is kind of in on this and trying to hide this. And it is an incredible insult to those of us that just want to make sure that the people that should be held accountable and should be forced to stand in the sunlight of truth, that they are actually forced to stand in the sunlight of truth.
- [78:47]
B
Yeah. And Ryan, you were just saying you've got some new information to share.
- [78:51]
A
Oh, great.
- [78:52]
C
Yeah. Well, earlier I was talking about how I had reason to believe that we were going to see some more emails from the 23,000 documents that the Oversight Committee subpoenaed from the Epstein Estate. And they have just now released 16 pages of additional emails. I was just taking a sort of glance at them and I think on first glance there are going to be some names that people are familiar with in here. So it's more communication between Epstein and some of his high profile people. Just one, since we're talking about our friend Michael Wolf, there's one that struck me here. This is from Michael Wolf to Jeffrey Epstein, October 29, 2016. So right before election day in 2016, importance high. And Michael writes to Jeffrey Epstein, there's an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and Help finish him. Him interested? He asks. It's page 10, I believe.
- [80:15]
B
Page 10.
- [80:16]
C
Okay, so look again, you know, Michael.
- [80:19]
B
Wolf, and as we're scrolling our my producer Matt is flying up some other emails as you were talking. Ryan, we'll have to get to this. There are some emails that appear to come from Larry Summers. But anyway, we'll get to that. But to the one you were just talking about, I think we were just showing it on screen here. If we can pause right there. Michael Wolf to Jeffrey Epstein. You're right. October 29, 2016. Yeah.
- [80:43]
C
So right before the election, just right.
- [80:44]
B
Before the election, after Access Hollywood. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Ryan.
- [80:49]
C
Yeah. And just, you know, this is Michael suggesting that what Epstein knows about Trump could finish him. I will say we all thought that Access Hollywood was enough to finish Trump at that point. So there were a lot of things that people thought would finish Trump that didn't finish him. So, you know, it's weird, these conversations between Wolf and Epstein, they hint at a lot of secrets that Epstein seems to or at least that Wolf believes that Epstein knows about Trump. But it's cryptic and not, you know, not totally spelled out. And even in that chapter that I was quoting from before that Michael has written, he alludes to things that Epstein knows but never, you know, never goes, you know, quite beyond beyond that. So it could be stuff that, you know, we've just come to know in years since then, which is, you know, the fact that Trump was at the house all the time, the fact that Trump was on the airplane seven times, you know, just details about the close friendship and association. Or it could be something, you know, much, you know, you know, much more damning.
- [82:14]
B
Yeah. And there are emails in here between allegedly and I'm just going to keep saying allegedly as much as possible, even though it may annoy viewers who are saying, oh, Jim, don't say allegedly. Have to say it between Larry Summers and Jeffrey Epstein. And again, if somebody's mentioned in the emails, we should not infer ironclad proof of any wrongdoing or anything like that. But I'm looking at page, I believe it's three and I think we were showing that a few moments. Pull that up. Yeah. And you know, you kind of have to read these backwards a bit. But it looks as though Summer says to Epstein was there spoke well spent time with SoftBank Deputy. Don't know what that means. Epstein replies, Any one stand out when we meet, I will endeavor to mesmerize you with stories of D.C. so wild again from Epstein. And then there's, there's, there's an email response from Larry Summers here. I believe, if I'm reading the time timeline correctly, that says SoftBank Deputy Guy I liked seemed aware and honest. Lots of slathering to Saudis. I yipped about inclusion. I observed that half the IQ and world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51% of population. Mnuchin plums new depths. Not sure what that means, but that refers to Steve Mnuchin, I believe, who was the treasury secretary during the first Trump. Trump presidency War seems more likely than I used to think. And then it says, DJT is world's luckiest guy in terms of opposition economy. Still think his world will collapse. This is an email written October 27, 2017. I believe that's right. And this is when he's in office. So this is during his first year of his presidency. I'm trying to figure why America elite think if you murder your baby by beating and abandonment must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard, but hit on a few women 10 years ago and can't work at a network or think tank. Do not repeat this insight in all caps. I mean, so there's a lot here that we just, we're just getting to the bottom of this now. We're just hearing about this stuff now, I guess. And this is Ryan. These are other documents released by the Oversight Democrats. Is that.
- [84:44]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's on and, you know, it's on their website now. And you know, I want to be careful because we're reading these in real time, in real time, and the context is important. And as Jim pointed out, just because a name pops up in these emails that obviously doesn't, you know, tell you anything one way or another, you've got to read them carefully and understand the context. At the top on the first page, there's, there's something from Bannon. If you scroll up there and maybe we can try and decipher this together. But if you look at page one, well, it has Bannon saying, can't believe nobody is making you the connective tissue.
- [85:40]
B
Yeah.
- [85:41]
C
Yeah. To be honest, this one is just going to require a little bit more.
- [85:47]
B
Yeah, well, there's a message above it because the call prince Andrew accuser came out of Mar a Lago. So there's a Prince Andrew mention. And there's a. There's another message that says Prince Andrew and Trump today, too. Funny, that's in that first page.
- [86:10]
C
Yeah. I guess what isn't clear to me, although I, I think is the email address. You see this email address here? That's g itunes gmail.com. are we to understand that that is Epstein?
- [86:28]
B
J E E Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah.
- [86:31]
C
Yeah.
- [86:31]
B
The other one was jee vacation at Gmail. This is. Yeah.
- [86:35]
C
So apparently he had multiple aliases and email addresses.
- [86:38]
B
Multiple email addresses, yeah. Nothing special about that.
- [86:43]
C
Yeah.
- [86:43]
B
So, and again, this goes back to what we were saying earlier. For folks who are tuning in, it sounds as though the Epstein estate was participating with some of these. Oh, and there's Congressman Robert Garcia. Now he's the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Congressman Garcia, I've got Ryan Lizzo with me, independent journalist. He's been working on all of this as well. And I'm hearing from your staff, you've got a heart out. I'm sure you're a busy man doing lots of interviews, but tell us your initial reaction to these emails, particularly that one we were showing our viewers a little while ago From April of 2011, this exchange between Epstein and Maxwell where it says, victim spent hours at my house with him, referring to Trump, the dog that hasn't barked. Your thoughts, sir?
- [87:31]
D
I mean, really disturbing stuff, obviously. Look, I think these are really serious again for us. Really gives us a lot more to work on. And honestly, we have a lot more questions and important questions that the White House refuses to answer. I think it's clear that Donald Trump up to this point has been untruthful in what actually has happened, what he knows, what he may have participated in. You know, he said the birthday note didn't exist. It exists. He, he said he didn't know Jeffrey Epstein very well. We know that's not true. Epstein said they were close friends. And this email that essentially says that Donald Trump may have spent hours with the victim. The other email from Epstein that said that Trump had some knowledge allegedly right. About, about these girls, I think really raise serious questions. And the White House could fix all of this and end this today if they just released all the files, but they're refusing to do so. I mean, we just saw that Caroline Levitt just recently put out this long statement about, you know, upset that we are somehow releasing some of these documents. Well, they can. Her boss today can release all the files and get all of these questions answered and put this whole thing to rest. But it's a White House cover up and it's serious. And the American public should know that Donald Trump has betrayed the public by saying he was going to release them and now he's not.
- [88:49]
B
Right. And, and I guess the other aspect in all of this, Congressman is, I mean, this is a redacted name that's in there that says that this is a victim who spent hours with Trump at Epstein's House. Congressman, that, that seems to indicate something very serious. Very, very serious. And I think you're absolutely right. It, it underlines the urgency for releasing these files. And if the White House wants to take issue with this, if Trump wants to take issue with this, then release the files. Let us. But it, but one of my main takeaways from this Congressman is that it appears he is all over these files. Donald Trump is.
- [89:34]
D
We think that's, that's, we think that's right. And obviously we don't know. We haven't seen the files. We, we're getting our direct emails and correspondence from the Epstein estate from other sources. Look, we've had to fight to get all this released. It has not been because Republicans have somehow decided to make these releases public. The subpoenas are only in place because oversight Democrats had to fight like hell to push Republicans to get this done. We had to call for the Epstein estate and get a subpoena so that we're able to get these actual documents. We would know little to nothing if it was left to Republicans. And so I believe that Mike Johnson is now complicit in this cover up. He obviously has stalled and trying to get, at least Grahalva sat there right now trying to, I'm sure, do everything they can to kind of take off and, and encourage Republicans to come off that petition. But the truth is going to come out and, and let me tell you why. Because there's enough good men and women in the FBI and other agencies that have actually worked on this case that have put these documents together, other, that have spent hours being, being led by a sense of justice and trying to get justice for these survivors who were trafficked in many cases as children and they were underage. And so this is going to come out and we're not going to stop until we get. We got this. Justice for the, for the, for the Epstein survivors and victims.
- [90:58]
B
Yeah. And Congressman, this also, and I'll let Katie ask question in a second but because she comes from a legal standpoint, which is terrific, but it also really calls into question what Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly said to Todd Blanche during this cockamamie meeting that they had before she was transferred to a minimum security prison where she swore up and down that Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong. In the April 2011 email, Epstein allegedly says that Trump is the dog that hasn't barked and that he spent hours at my house with a redacted name victim. And then she replies, I have been thinking about that. So it seems to me she has, she has information.
- [91:40]
D
I think that's absolutely right. And that's why we want her to come testify in front of the Oversight Committee. Look, we know she wants a pardon, she wants a commutation. The DOJ is secretly talking to her, apparently about who knows what. What I think the American public right now understand is that Donald Trump and the White House are covering up some apparently massive information that would implicate, I think, a lot of powerful men in this country, maybe around the world. We know that in the initial filing from the lead prosecutor in that, in the, in the Acosta investigation that happened in Florida, we know if the lead prosecutor had information that would essentially there would be, there would be 20 other, at least 20 other men that could have had and really faced serious consequences had Acosta allowed that prosecution in that case to move forward as it should have.
- [92:31]
B
This is Alex Acosta, the U.S. attorney.
- [92:33]
D
U.S. attorney in Florida, no relation. All of this really raises serious questions.
- [92:40]
B
And Katie, you were going to ask a question.
- [92:42]
A
Yeah. Congressman Garcia, it's always so good to see you. I did want to talk about the congressional subpoenas because I did give props to you guys because the Epstein estate is the only entity that is currently complying with the lawful requirements of that congressional subpoena. We are getting the tranches into House Oversight, but I wanted to kind of get people up to speed on what the hell is happening to that congressional subpoena that was served on the Department of Justice. Putting aside Adelita Grahava getting sworn in as she should have been more than two months ago and getting that discharge petition done, and, you know, the full vote being set up, that was still a lawful subpoena from House Oversight that theoretically was supposed to be bipartisan, with Comer, you know, signing on to it and sending it over. Has anything else come from doj?
- [93:24]
D
It has not. And that is what's really, I think, for us it's unacceptable. And that's why we're saying this is a cover up. We have a subpoena in place. They, they sent us that first batch of documents, 97% of which were already public documents. Yeah, we know they have an enormous amount of materials, emails, photos, possibly videos in their possession. It's time for them to comply with the subpoena. And we're getting no support from the House Oversight Republicans. They should be calling on the Department of Justice to do the same. But they're not interested, apparently, in the truth. What we're focused on is the survivors and the truth, and we're not going to stop till we get it.
- [94:02]
B
And Ryan, did you have a thought? Because Ryan and I were talking earlier about the Michael Wolf angle and all this.
- [94:09]
C
Well, yeah, I wonder, Congressman, it's good, it's good to see you. And you know, I have to point out, Congressman, I know some of your staff and you really have some of the best people in the House. So it's a real testament to you that you attract such gifted staffers up there on the Hill. Can you take us through and give us any of the highlights as you see it, of the 16 pages that were just released before you came on? We're just seeing them for the first time. Little, little tough to decipher. But anything that you think we should pay close attention to or that stood out to you?
- [94:48]
D
Well, I think there's obviously some communication there between Steve Bannon and I think that is really important. I think there's we just released some additional, some additional documents there that show some of those appear to be messaging, text messaging that is in place there. We also, I think, released some other additional emails. But remember, there's 23,000 pages. And so our intention is to release all of it. And I think the bigger question as it relates to the release that just came out, more documents that will come out later, we think today. And what we released this morning is they all point back in many ways to Donald Trump or his associates having relationships or being involved or asking questions or what the president may have known or not known at the time. Of course, he had not been elected yet. Ghislaine Maxwell is clearly very involved in these communications. And we get to really see Michael Wolff engaging directly with Jeffrey Epstein about Trump and what he may have known and his time spent spent with, with victims and survivors. And so there is a lot there. Obviously, we have a lot has had to have been redacted, which I know is hard for some. We're trying to protect the victims and survivors. But people should read all these documents for themselves and make those judgments. We think it's very interesting.
- [96:09]
B
And you need to talk to Michael Wolf, I assume, too, I have to let you go.
- [96:12]
D
But yeah, we are, we trust we've been talking to everybody, anything.
- [96:18]
B
Got it. Congressman Robert Garcia, thank you so much for your time. I know your time is limited, but appreciate you stopping by. Best of luck with the investigation. It seems to me there's more to come.
- [96:28]
D
Thanks so much. There is.
- [96:29]
B
All right, thank you. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Wow. Well, Ryan and Katie, I mean, I'm a little speechless, I have to say. I mean, I just think that this is unraveling and it may be unraveling at a pace that the White House cannot keep up with.
- [96:47]
C
Yeah, I mean, this is Epstein day. So now, you know, 16 pages, so almost 20 pages of emails. A lot of well known people mentioned throughout. Although the common theme is Trump. These are all emails and text messages that in some way relate to Trump. Incoming Congresswoman Grijalva is going to be sworn in today. As far as we know, that's going to, you know, trigger a vote that will force the Justice Department to release the documents they've been sitting on and that Trump himself has been insistent that they not come out. So, you know, a fairly significant day. I wish he had shed a little bit more light on the, on the 16 pages. This is there, you know, I've been sifting through them while we've been talking and you know, they're, they're going to require some, some, you know, some, some careful study to understand the dates and the personalities and, and you know, what's, what's going on here. Have either of you, Katie, you were off looking at them also. Have either of you picked up anything else that is, is worth flagging yet?
- [98:09]
A
Well, did you, you guys talked about the Steve Bannon, the, the sender Steve Bannon thing, the actual message from June 3rd of 2019. Jim, y' all talked.
- [98:18]
B
Yeah, it sounds like Garcia was mentioning that these might be texts.
- [98:22]
A
Texts, it looks like. So it's the first page of the 16 page PDF. And you can see it says sender Steve Bannon. You see how it's, it's, yeah, black box right there.
- [98:30]
B
That might be a phone number, I guess.
- [98:31]
A
2019, 4:33am and the message says can't believe nobody is making you the connective tissue. I see something like that. And of course that means the common denominator, right. Is Jeffrey Epstein connecting all of these people. I mean, and then of course there's a prior one that, that says to somebody message Prince Andrew and Trump today too funny. Then another one recall Prince Andrew's accuser came out of Mar A Lago. I mean it's all interconnected. But I just wanted to remind people about.
- [99:05]
B
And the dates are, is that 2019? I'm just making 2019, June 3, 2019, before Jeffrey Epstein. Is he go, does he go to prison after these texts occur? Is that.
- [99:16]
A
And then he was indicted. I think Ryan. It was July. Right. Of 2019, he got indicted.
- [99:23]
C
Yeah, great flag. I didn't even pick that up. So that. Yeah, that's. This is the month before he's indicted by sdny. And so this is. The walls are really closing in on him at this point.
- [99:37]
A
I also just want to remind people that Ghislaine Maxwell was supposed to sit for her Congressional House oversight deposition, but then Comer gave an accommodation to Maxwell because she had a pending petition to the Supreme Court of the United States to take over her appeal concerning whether she should have been a beneficiary of that non prosecution agreement that Epstein got back in 2008 that had a we will not prosecute your co conspirators clause. Comer said, we will pump the brakes on your depot and said we will reset it for a date after the Supreme Court has ruled on your petition for writ of cert. That petition has now come and gone when the Supreme Court said we're not touching. Epstein related. So the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell, instead of sitting down to be able to be cross examined by people like Robert Garcia and others, instead had that nine hour, let me braid our hair with you, Todd Blanche moment, you know, in Tallahassee and now is hanging out with, you know, pets and, and, and is doing all sorts of fun stuff in her minimum security facility as she pitches for a commutation. I mean, there is a reason why somebody like Elaine Maxwell has not sat in the proverbial hot seat to answer the questions you should have been required to answer. But for people like James Comer and others running interference.
- [100:53]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Ryan, what do you think?
- [100:56]
C
That's an excellent point. Now I'm just, I'm trying to decipher the Bannon text. And just one, you know, small point is at this point, Bannon is out of the White House. He was, he was out in 2017. But the fact that they're going back and forth and talking about Epstein being the connective tissue and, you know, these insider details that they have about Prince and the accuser of Prince Andrews, and, you know, assuming this is true, coming out of. Out of Mar a Lago and, you know, this is at a point when Bannon. One piece of helpful context I think I could provide is this is at a point when Bannon has developed a relationship with Epstein and actually sets up a camera and it brings a crew to Epstein's mansion on the Upper east side there in New York and starts doing prep sessions for a potential TV interview that he and others were encouraging Epstein to do, to start to push back against allegations, rehabilitate his reputation. And so Bannon was, you know, was part of this whole effort to, you know, basically help Epstein with PR in the months before he was arrested. And all, you know, all that is detailed in a sort of fly on the wall way in that. In that chapter from Michael Wolf's book that we've. We've been referencing. And this is that. This is that time period. So, yeah, it's certainly notable. And look, I know there's a cottage industry of Epstein conspiracy theories out there, and I don't think Steve Bannon telling him, can't believe nobody is making you. The connective tissue will do anything to dampen those conspiracy theories.
- [103:02]
B
That's right. And we should know that this time. Yeah, go ahead.
- [103:06]
A
Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry. There's a. I don't know what page this is in the PDF doc. I apologize, but it's an email from Jeffrey Epstein's disgusting vacation email address, and it was sent to the late Roy Black, who was a renowned criminal defense attorney, who was a part of Jeffrey Epstein's criminal defense team when he was being prosecuted in Florida. And the question to Roy was, quote, who will represent Acosta at hearings? To which Roy responds, this is February 19, 2017. He will be by himself, perhaps a Trump administration aide to assist and accompany him. Jeffrey Epstein then forwards it to Reid Weingarten, who is his other lawyer at the time in 2017. And again, caveat being assuming, arguendo, these are authentic emails by and between Roy Black, Jeffrey Epstein, and Reed Weingarten. This is important because Acosta just sat for his depot in September, and I read all 190 pages of that depot transcript when he sat for House oversight. Alex. Yeah, not Jim. No relationship. Alex Acosta sat for this depot, and he was, you know, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida who authorized that sweetheart plea deal for Donald Trump. Excuse me, Sorry. For, For. For Jeffrey Epstein. Sorry. But Acosta says it wasn't a sweetheart deal, to which we all beg to differ. But Acosta begged off saying that he didn't have any type of communications really whatsoever dealing with the fact these were dealing with his Senate confirmation hearings. If you recall, he was the Secretary of Labor. So, I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on here that intimates that people like Jeffrey Epstein are paying attention to somebody like Alex Acosta. Like, if you're not worried about what's happening, if you're not worried about the dam Breaking open for information to flow. What is going on here that you're actually keeping tabs on somebody like Alex Acosta's confirmation hearing to be the Secretary of Labor? These are the type of things that pique more curiosity and create more questions than provide answers.
- [104:57]
C
Yeah, it's going to take a while to sift through this. I'm just, you know, the other one that piqued my interest is the. From Jeffrey Epstein to a recipient that is redacted. And the subject is, how are you send this interview to Donald Trump, please. It's going to be everywhere.
- [105:21]
B
Wow.
- [105:22]
C
And.
- [105:24]
B
The.
- [105:25]
C
I'm just trying to pull that interview up here on YouTube. And if the, if my, if my computer has interpreted the link correctly, what comes up, unfortunately, is a private video. So we'll have to figure out what that's all about. Yeah, some sleuthing. What exactly is that, you know, all about? So I apologize to viewers who are watching us trying to decode some of this stuff in real time.
- [105:55]
B
Well, I mean, that's, I mean, that's what we've been doing for the last, what, three hours after this was released. And, Ryan, you broke this, along with some other great reporters who reported on this this morning when the House Oversight Committee Democrats put these, these emails out. And it's just extraordinary. It's extraordinary. A, It's a treasure trove. I can use that term of information. And we have to underline this, put it in bold, put it in italics, increase the font. This is all information that was being kept from the public for years before Donald Trump was a candidate for president, while Donald Trump was a candidate for president and after he became President of the United States. And these, these, these messages, these emails, these texts, they indicate that the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, and yes, he has denied this was more than just a friendship, that there is something, there's. There's some kind of there there that we have to all get to the bottom of. And as Congressman Robert Garcia was saying earlier, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, what did he say at the very end of our interview? There is more to come and that they have been obtaining this information through the Jeffrey Epstein estate, not through the Justice Department, through the Epstein estate. And guys, I mean, to me, these are, this is, these are bombshells for Donald Trump, absolute bombshells.
- [107:36]
C
And again, the politics of this are so different than every other issue that Trump has faced because, you know, just like we're doing, you know, live on air here, going through these, there are going to be, you know, all sorts of amateur sleuths trying to figure out and decipher these emails. And a lot of the people who are interested in this subject for whatever reason happen to be on the right and happen to be, you know, hardcore Donald Trump supporters. And it just goes back to what we were talking about before. It's just the one issue that, you know, covering Trump for 10 years and covering this movement for 10 years, it really is the only issue I can think of that breaks the spell of some of the MAGA diehards in a way that so many other stories haven't. And I think the political context is important here, Jim and Katie, and that is like his popularity has been suffering. You know, I think some people point to the destruction of the East Wing as the, as the tipping point, you know, others the kind of constant drip, drip, drip of the Epstein story. Just obviously the general economic environment is bad. Democrats just won a huge election a week ago where affordability and inflation were the big issues. So he's not nearly as powerful as he was a few months ago when he looked like a colossus and was just grabbing power on every front without a lot of pushback. We're at a different stage of his presidency now. So this is, you know, this is coming at a time when, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say his White House is in crisis politically, but it is at a low point and all the pieces are being put into place for, you know, the Democrats to have another good election next year. And this is, you know, this is just this unusual issue that turns his own voters away when he tries to, you know, explain it away or tell them that it's, it's not important. They care about it.
- [110:13]
B
And how do they, how do they vote to keep, keep these files a secret? Now, Katie, I just to me, talk.
- [110:20]
A
About making everybody Johnny on the spot for that one, right? What? It's your publicly recorded vote. So what are you going to say on this one when you meet your maker?
- [110:28]
B
When you meet your maker, are you going to say, I helped cover up the Epstein files, Mike Johnson, you presume.
- [110:36]
A
They'Re going to the great white place up there. Well, so, so that's a good point. But, but if you're, but it may not be at St. Peter's craven enough, though, you got to figure out what counts for you. And I think self preservation is going to kick in for a lot of Republicans and they're going to say he's not worth it. Again, there's a transactional loyalty with this guy. He's literally not worth it. He's in it for himself. The let them e Kate, Great Gatsby energy that this guy is exuding. He's a sinking ship and like all rats do. So I don't know. We'll see. Right. But this is a very public vote that they're going to be on record for. And let's see what happens. You can only say this is just a distraction. So many times before people are like, yeah, but we're seeing this ourselves and we don't know how much of a distraction this is.
- [111:20]
B
It's not a distraction anymore, folks. Well, I think we should probably wrap it there. And Ryan, I'll let you do your investigative work and Katie, do your investigative work. And guys, this has been phenomenal reporting and coverage this morning. I appreciate both of you taking the time to do this and everybody watching. And of course, Congressman Robert Garcia for taking his time as well. But really thank you guys, both of you. Really appreciate it. I can't hold you all day as much as I would like to. But everybody, thank you so much for watching. This has been a Jim Acosta SHOW special report along with Katie Fang, Ryan, Eliza of Telus News at Substack Independent journalism. That's what we're bringing to you here this morning, Independent media coverage of what what might be the biggest threat to Donald Trump's presidency thus far. Just incredible bombshell emails released by the House Oversight Democrats this morning. Thank you guys very much for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a great day.
- [112:17]
A
See you soon, everybody. Thanks, Ryan.
- [112:19]
C
Thanks, guys.
- [112:19]
B
Thanks, guys.