Elon Faces Criminal Investigation!

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Parnas Perspective – “Elon Faces Criminal Investigation!”
Host: Aaron Parnas | Guest: Jess Michaels | Date: July 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Aaron Parnas unpacks a dramatic wave of political and legal developments shaking the U.S. news landscape. The primary focus is the criminal investigation facing Elon Musk for alleged election bribery in Wisconsin. Other key topics include Trump’s payment to E. Jean Carroll, a Republican governor’s misuse of his office, surging U.S. inflation, and ongoing developments in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
The episode’s feature interview is with Jess Michaels, a survivor of Epstein’s abuse, on the eve of the high-stakes Senate confirmation hearing for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Jess provides a profoundly personal, behind-the-scenes look at the fight for accountability and justice in the Epstein case.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Elon Musk’s Criminal Investigation in Wisconsin

• Background: Elon Musk is referred for possible criminal prosecution after a bipartisan panel found that he likely violated Wisconsin law by giving $1 million checks to voters during the 2025 state Supreme Court election.
  • “Billionaire Elon Musk likely broke Wisconsin law when he handed out $1 million checks to voters in the 2025 state Supreme Court election, a bipartisan panel has found. The Wisconsin Elections Commission last week referred two complaints to the Brown County District Attorney's office…” (00:30)
• Legal Consequences: These are state charges, not federal, and cannot be pardoned at the presidential level.
• Outcome: Despite Musk’s spending, his preferred candidate lost.

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2. Other Major Political Headlines

• Trump Pays Out to E. Jean Carroll

  • Trump paid $5,625,005.48 to Carroll, complying with a jury verdict.
  • Trump’s spokesperson frames this as “winning against liberal lawfare,” but Aaron counters:
    “He actually lost. And he lost big time. Paid out the money to Carol.” (02:19)

• Gov. Joe Lombardo, Nevada – Office Abuse

  • Lombardo caught on tape being let off from a traffic stop due to his status as governor:

    Police Officer: “You’re good to go, sir. Appreciate you. Have a good day.” (03:30)

  • Aaron expresses incredulity at the double standards in law enforcement.

• Rising U.S. Inflation

  • The U.S. is recorded as having the highest inflation in G7 at 3.5%.
  • Aaron credits economist Justin Wolfers for this data and highlights the current economic pressure. (03:48)

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3. Focus Interview: Jess Michaels on the Epstein Files

Jess Michaels, Epstein survivor, returns for an in-depth discussion ahead of the Todd Blanche confirmation hearing.

Preparing for the Senate Hearing

• Jess and fellow survivors are assembled in Washington, “geared up,” though expectations are low due to past disappointments.
  • “We have low expectations, but I think we're ready for it. Nothing can surprise us at this point, right?” (06:28)
• The emotional toll is highlighted, referencing the unexpectedly raw Bondi hearing. (05:50-06:28)

Lack of Official Communication

• Todd Blanche, despite promises, has not met or communicated with survivors.
  • “He has not. And as I understand it, there is a senator in Washington who just called him out on this... We are willing to meet with him.” (06:40)
• The Department of Justice and FBI, per Jess, remain uncommunicative with survivors:
  • “No one at the Department of Justice has ever communicated with me or any... survivors that I know that are all talking to each other.” (09:23)

Institutional Inaction and Redacted Records

• Jess describes her own experience with FBI inaction and suspiciously redacted case files (the ‘302’):
  • “My one tiny, minuscule file says so much about the incompetence or choices made during this investigation...” (07:08)
  • “You can read through all of the abuse, every detail that I shared... but there are eight lines... that are redacted... And that seems suspicious.” (09:42-10:46)
• She personally handed over strong leads that journalists confirmed easily, but federal officials never followed up.

Calling Out Official Priorities

• Jess critiques officials for prioritizing the testimony of convicted felon Ghislaine Maxwell over survivors:
  • “When a Deputy Attorney General meets with the convicted sex trafficker of minors for 9 hours and 0 minutes or hours with survivors, that's problematic.” (08:10)
  • Direct message to senators:
    “Why would you give nine hours to the felon and sex trafficker and not even nine minutes to survivors?” (08:44)

Public Pressure and Misplaced Outrage

• Many people online question why survivors don’t simply “name names.” Jess’s response:
  • “Survivors have already been doing the right thing. They've been telling authorities... for 30 years.” (11:09)
  • “Right now, Ghislaine Maxwell is getting more protections than survivors are. But that's besides the point...” (11:29)
  • She insists the focus should be on pressuring Congress and DOJ, not survivors.

Endurance and Collective Action

• Jess marks the 35th anniversary of her assault and reflects on progress:
  • “What keeps us going is that this time is different. We are connecting. We are a united force. We’re strategizing and we are leaning on each other… We recognize this is a moment where if we can't get justice, nobody’s going to get justice.” (13:11–16:01)
• Emphasizes hope from increased survivor solidarity and public engagement, even as fundamental institutional obstacles remain.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jess Michaels on FBI neglect:
  “The fact that I was discouraged from even reporting because it was 1991, I was discouraged by the FBI... [My file] says so much about the incompetence or choices made during this investigation.” (07:08)

• On DOJ priorities:
  “When a Deputy Attorney General meets with the convicted sex trafficker of minors for 9 hours and 0 minutes or hours with survivors, that’s problematic.” (08:10)

• On survivor action vs. public pressure:
  “We say names then what? If nobody’s prosecuting now and they have all of the files… Why do they believe something would change just because another famous abuser’s name is released?” (11:29)

• On 35 years of perseverance:
  “I actually had a trauma anniversary… The date that my whole life just crashed and burned was July 9, 1991… But things have changed… This time is different. We are connecting. We are a united force.” (13:11–16:01)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:30 – Aaron summarizes the major stories of the day, focusing on Elon Musk’s legal woes
• 02:19 – Trump’s E. Jean Carroll payment analyzed
• 03:30 – Audio: Governor Joe Lombardo traffic stop
• 03:48 – U.S. inflation data point
• 05:31 – Interview begins: Jess Michaels on emotional preparation for the hearing
• 06:40 – Discussion: No contact from Todd Blanche or DOJ
• 07:57 – The question of DOJ priorities and survivor testimony
• 09:23 – DOJ and FBI silence toward survivors
• 09:42 – Jess on her FBI 302 and redacted files
• 11:09 – Why survivors “don’t just name names” – full context given
• 13:11–16:01 – Jess reflects on endurance and changing tides in the survivors’ movement

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Tone and Style

Aaron is forthright, analytical, and unfiltered—combining legal know-how with journalistic bluntness. Jess Michaels is candid, resilient, and unwavering, voicing both her personal pain and the shared experience of a broader movement seeking justice.

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in U.S. legal accountability, survivor advocacy, and the complex intersection of power, justice, and public pressure in today’s America.

Transcript

[Jess Michaels]

Close your eyes.

[Police Officer]

Exhale.

[Jess Michaels]

Feel your body relax. And let go of whatever you're carrying today.

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[Jess Michaels]

Oh, sorry.

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[Shannon Maldonado]

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[Jess Michaels]

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[Aaron Maté]

Good afternoon, everyone. A major news afternoon. We have Elon Musk facing criminal prosecution right now for interfering with the Wisconsin election. We have the highest inflation in the United States of America among the G7. A Republican governor was caught using his status as governor to get out of a traffic ticket. Trump is having a rough afternoon given the fact that he paid out millions of dollars to Eugene Carroll today. And, well, the kicker. The kicker is we have major Epstein news as I sit down with Epstein survivor Jess Michaels. I told you from the beginning I will never stop talking about the Epstein files. And I wanted to speak with Jess ahead of tomorrow's critical confirmation with about Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. As always, if you can, like, comment, share, get the word out and subscribe to my substack link below to support my work. I'm facing threats. I'm facing more attacks today because I'm reporting the news specifically about Epstein. And even platforms don't like me talking about it. So if you can hit that subscribe button, help spread the word, help build independent media. Thank you from the bottom of my heart this afternoon. Billionaire Elon Musk likely broke Wisconsin law when he handed out $1 million checks to voters in the 2025 state Supreme Court election, a bipartisan panel has found. The Wisconsin Elections Commission last week referred two complaints to the Brown County District Attorney's office, which can choose to bring criminal charges over violating the state law against election bribery. Prosecutors have 40 days to report back to the commission. Musk was deeply involved, spent millions of dollars to try to influence the Wisconsin election. And while he was unsuccessful because Justice Janet Protosay would successfully beat her Republican opponent.

[Jess Michaels]

And.

[Aaron Maté]

And while now Musk faces possible criminal prosecution in Wisconsin for his bribery during the 2025 election. This is a state violation, not a federal violation. This cannot be pardoned by Donald Trump. But alas, here we are at the same time, Trump today paid $5,625,005.48 to Eugene Carroll. That's $5 million plus interest to Carol to Carol's attorneys and then eventually to Carol. Carol's attorney said, quote, we are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment the jury awarded her as a result of the verdict. A spokesperson for Trump's team said the American people stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all the witch hunts, including the Democrat funded travesty of the Carol hoaxes. President Trump will keep winning against liberal lawfare as he continues to focus on his mission to make America great again. But he didn't win. He actually lost. And he lost big time. Paid out the money to Carol. It comes as a Republican governor Joe Lombardo in Nevada was caught using his status now to essentially get out of a traffic ticket. Take a listen.

[Police Officer]

Hello. How you doing sir? Good. Sergeant Chego, Metro Police. The reason I'm stopping you is for the. I'm aware for the red light violation back there. Your right turn onto Gyr. So you're good to go, sir. Appreciate you have a good day.

[Aaron Maté]

Come on man. I'm Joe Lombardo. You're good to go, sir. Have a good day. Meanwhile, the United States now has the highest inflation in the G7, leading Canada, Italy, Great Britain, Netherlands, France and Japan. Higher than any other nation. Three and a half percent is the current inflation. This is from Justin Wolfers, a colleague of mine. Good guy, by the way. Spoke with Jess Michaels this afternoon about the Epstein files, about Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing. You're going to want to. You're going to want to see this because I think it's important. So make sure to like comment share if you can subscribe to my substack link below to support my work. And also by the way, everyone asked me how I protect myself when reporting on Epstein related stuff. That's why Delete Me sponsored this video. Check them out, let me know what you think.

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Like I said, delete me is great. Now here's my interview with Jess Michaels. Jess Michaels, it is so great to back to have you back on the Parnas perspective. For those who don't know Jess, who's been here multiple times, she is an Epstein survivor, and tomorrow is a big day. Todd Blanche, confirmation hearing. You're in Washington, D.C. how are you feeling right now?

[Jess Michaels]

I'm. Hi. First of all, so great to see you again, Erin. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm. I'm here with a bunch of us ready to go for tomorrow to be in that room in the hearing. You know, we. I think. I think we feel more prepared than maybe what we felt like for the Bondi hearing. The Bondi hearing ended up, for me personally, being far more emotional than I expected it to be. And even though I went in with really low expectations, this one, you know, we. We have low expectations, but I think we're ready for it. You know, we're.

[Shannon Maldonado]

We're.

[DeleteMe Spokesperson]

We're.

[Jess Michaels]

We've geared up for it. Nothing can surprise us at this point. Right?

[Aaron Maté]

Yeah.

[Jess Michaels]

I mean, shockingly.

[Aaron Maté]

Well, I want to ask you, Todd Blanch, has he reached out to you to meet with you yet?

[Jess Michaels]

He has not. And as I understand it, there is a senator in Washington that just called him out on this that said. You said two months ago you were going to meet with survivors, and you didn't. So she is. She is asking. We are willing to meet with him.

[Aaron Maté]

Yeah.

[Jess Michaels]

The word is still out. Like, we have not withdrawn that. Yeah.

[Aaron Maté]

I mean, if you could tell him one thing, what would you tell him

[Jess Michaels]

for me personally? Because I can always speak for myself. I know there's a million things we can tell him. For me personally, the fact that I was discouraged from even reporting because it was 1991, I was discouraged by the FBI that it took a year and a half for somebody to get me to listen to me. And then when I gave them two really good leads to follow up on, I know neither one of them were followed up on. And so my one tiny, minuscule file says so much about the incompetence or choices made during this investigation, which should be. That alone should be enough to at least have questions, and mine is so little compared to what everyone else is dealing with.

[Aaron Maté]

One of your survivor sisters, Danny Bensky, is testifying in front of the Senate, which is going to be a powerful moment, I believe. If you had the opportunity to tell senators something today about Todd Blanche and his confirmation, what would you tell them?

[Jess Michaels]

That you can't say that an investigation is concluded when you haven't even met with the survivors. When. When a. A person. That is the. I don't know if he was Deputy Attorney General Black last year when he met with Ghislaine Maxwell, but when a Deputy Attorney General meets with the convicted sex trafficker of minors for 9 hours and 0 minutes or hours with survivors, that's problematic. So I would like to ask him and the senators to ask that question. Why would you. Why would you give nine hours to the felon and sex trafficker and not even nine minutes to survivors?

[Aaron Maté]

Well, so I want to kind of even take a step back here. So I guess ever since Blanche took office in, I believe it was February of last year when he was confirmed as Deputy ag, has his office at all communicated with you?

[Jess Michaels]

Never. Not once? Not once? Never. Not through any of our attorneys. And I know that our attorneys have reached out.

[Aaron Maté]

Wow. Has anyone at the Department of Justice communicated with you all?

[Jess Michaels]

No one at the Department of Justice has ever communicated with me or any. Any of the survivors that I know that are all talking to each other.

[Aaron Maté]

Your FBI 302. That's something we've talked about a lot, and I've still to this day been searching for it in the Epstein files, and I haven't been able to come across it. Have you been able to come across it yet?

[Jess Michaels]

I did. And the thing. One of the things I brought up in my statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee was that there were two leads that I gave them, and I could prove it in that 302. I can. I know that they were never followed up on. And actually a journalist came and spoke with me. I gave her the leads. She made one phone call and connected with that person that worked for Epstein for over 18 years in one phone call. The other thing that I pointed out in my 302 is that you can read through all of the abuse, every detail that I shared with Special Agent Amanda Young in March of 2021. But there are eight lines that are redacted or, sorry, 11 lines, eight lines in the beginning, three lines at the end that are redacted. And there's nothing there that I said that was redacted. So they chose to redact things that obviously the special agent wrote down about what I said, and that's redacted. And that seems suspicious. Yeah.

[Aaron Maté]

Do you want to ask you. Because this is a question. I think I've asked you this question before, actually, but I think it's important to reiterate, and I asked Laura Blue McGee, who I spoke with over the weekend, about it as well. The prevailing comment we get whenever I post about Epstein is how come these survivors just don't come out? Name names. Put out their. Their abusers on blast. Why don't they do that? What do you say to someone who asks that question?

[Jess Michaels]

I have so many things to say. Let's start with 1. 1. So survivors actually have already been doing the right thing. They've been telling authorities, and they've been telling authorities for 30 years. That is what a victim does. Because there are protections under the Department of Justice that we don't get anywhere else. Well, that we're supposed to get.

[Shannon Maldonado]

Right.

[Jess Michaels]

Right now, Ghislaine Maxwell is getting more protections than survivors are. But that's besides the point. The other thing is we say names then once. If nobody's prosecuting now and they have all of the files and they have 20 years of investigation, then what? What is the public. The public's not making a big enough stink about what's happening right now. Why do they believe something would change just because another famous abuser's name is released?

[Aaron Maté]

And for what it's worth, you've gone to the doj, you've spoken with FBI agents, you've named names.

[Jess Michaels]

Yes. And on my end, it was just Jeffrey Epstein. But the woman that recruited me, I let them know that she had bragged about massaging Prince Andrew in the mid-90s long before he said he knew Jeffrey Epstein. Where he publicly said that he knew Jeffrey Epstein.

[Aaron Maté]

And that's the. I. Nothing came of that.

[Jess Michaels]

Nothing came of it. Nothing. And so, you know, I feel like people want to be on the side of the. The emotions and the rage, but they don't want to be on the side of the action. And what we need them to do is actually put pressure on Congress and Department of justice and stop putting pressure on survivors.

[Aaron Maté]

I gotta ask you, it's been 35 years. 35 years, and we're still here. And while there's some more attention on it, it seems like nothing's ever getting done in a lot of ways. Right. It seems like we hit roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. How do you keep fighting?

[Jess Michaels]

So I think That's a great question, Erin And I actually had a, had a trauma anniversary. Like I had it written down. The exact date that Jeffrey Epstein had raped me. The date that my whole life just crashed and burned was July 9, 1991. So that was exactly 35 years ago last week. But things have changed. So back then, as I understood the

[Police Officer]

law,

[Jess Michaels]

it wasn't rape unless a victim resisted. As I understood it, my, my perception of the law. So, so we, now we know, right? You can freeze and it can still be rape. There are things that have changed. The MeToo movement did change things this year, actually. It is because of the efforts of World Without Exploitation that they have made 2025 and 2026 very different than 2006 and, and 2019 when nothing was done and everything was closed up. So what keeps us going is that this time is different. We are connecting. We are a united force. We're strategizing and we are leaning on each other. We are tag teaming media. I can't do this. Can you do that one or this one wants me at this time, but I'm doing something else. Can you please jump in? And we are working together and I think that makes a big difference. We all are also, from what I can see from all of us, no one is just in this for themselves. We recognize that this is a moment where if we can't get justice, nobody's going to get justice. If you can't get justice with 6 million pieces of evidence, what's going to happen to the rest of the world? I mean, that's all happening in plain sight. The world is watching what happens to anyone when no one's looking. And so there feels like there's a responsibility, like, hey, we are in the best, not the best case scenario. That's the worst way. It's the wrong way to say it, but we have an opportunity here to use this case because people are listening because it happens to be wealthy white guys and we have 6 million pieces of evidence and the government is now involved. And we're doing it because I think we're really feeling the love and the support of the millions of survivors that are out there right now that, that, that haven't had a chance to speak up or would choose not to speak up or just feel like a tiny bit of hope because we're out here doing this and that maybe they'll take that one step and whatever they need towards their healing, towards reporting, towards, towards getting support.

[Aaron Maté]

Jess Michaels, thanks so much. It's always a pleasure.

[Jess Michaels]

Thank you so much.

[Aaron Maté]

Aaron hey folks, thanks so much for watching. Feel free to add this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you watch for the latest breaking news and daily hits throughout the day. Make sure to follow subscribe.

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