← The Tara Palmeri Show
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today.
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Smart choice.
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Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Welcome back to the Tara Palmeri show. Today is a big day. December 19th. It was the deadline for the Epstein files to be released by the Department of Justice. And no surprise here for anyone who has been following this channel to learn that the Department of Justice could not meet the deadlines. They are releasing some files and I expect it will be very late tonight because that is when you take out the trash in Washington Friday night. How late they take out the trash? Who knows, could be as late as midnight. I'll be on a number of shows. I'm going on Jim Acosta show at 4. Then I'll be on Chris Hayes on Ms. Now and I'll be talking about it all the entire time. But you know, here's what I'm looking out for. Something that really irritates me is that I always get asked this and you might hear this on sometimes when I go on other people's shows and I put them up on, on the feedback about whether there were other men or if it was just Jeffrey Epstein who abused a thousand women. And I say there were other men and they say well why weren't they prosecuted? Why weren't what happened? And I try to explain that these victims were scared. Some of them signed agreements. They, some of them signed non disclosure agreements. Some of them, you know, had settlements with these men and Jeffrey Epstein was involved in them. According to Galen Maxwell's latest statement, her habeas petition, by the way, she claims that there is new evidence that reveals that there were 25 men with which the plaintiff's lawyers reached secret settlements that could equally be considered as co conspirators. None of these men have been prosecuted and none have been revealed to petitioner. She could have called them as witnesses had she known. So There you go, 25 men who had engaged in settlements. We don't know who they are. Will we find out who they are? Is the Justice Department furiously working on redacting their name? So we never know. I wonder, will the public be satisfied with just a little bit of the files? A thousand pages were adapted apparently according to cnn. You know this dribble, dribble, dribble as they try to get them out. How can we really trust the Justice Department that has lied at every turn about this, like Pam Bondi saying the files are on my desk and then saying later on, oh, there is no list. And by the way, there are no third party perpetrators. Case closed to okay, we're reopening it, but just to focus on Democrats. How can we trust these people? You know, I personally want to know about the sweetheart deal. Why did Jeffrey Epstein get it? Why did multiple administrations over three decades ignore the calls, the cries for help to the FBI from victims like Maria farmer back in 1996? Why did they have a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? Was he an asset to US Intelligence? Were they afraid of how the story could impact the monarchy, the crown? Is it national affairs, national interests? We might not know because there is a loophole in the law that means that they can redact information that is related to national interest, foreign affairs, national security? There are a lot of loopholes here. There are a lot of reasons why we may not know the full story. I'll keep on it. Here is a panel with some of the top reporters on the Jeffrey Epstein story, Vicky Ward and others. And just take a listen to it. It's on MSN now. I'll be back soon. Stay tuned to my channel. Go to tara palmary.com you can sign up for my newsletter, the Red Letter. It's where I'll be doing my exclusive reporting. It's how you can support my independent journalism and know more about the Epstein story. Some of you may not know this, but I spent many, many years working on this story. I did two podcasts, one with Julie K. Brown, the woman who broke the story for the Miami K, the Miami Herald, and it's called Broken Jeffrey Epstein. It's the second season and I worked very closely with Virginia Giuffre. We traveled all over the country together talking to people who are witnesses to her crime. Also did power the Maxwells. So spent a lot of time on this, written a piece for Politico magazine. And of course, all of my reporting is@tara palmeri.com I hope you'll tune in and I will be up late tonight. I can assure you, if you're anything like me, then you hate running around from store to store to store for holiday gifting. But you still want to get people that you love something beautiful, beautiful, something timeless, something that they will wear for years. And that's why this year I'm going to quince. From Mongolian cashmere sweaters that only cost $50 to Italian wool coats. Everything is premium quality at a price that actually makes sense. I personally wear a lot of their silk tops on this show because they're so reasonably priced and they're made with premium materials from ethical, trusted factories priced so far below luxury brands. I don't know how they do it. Their craftsmanship is shown in every single detail. The stitch, stitching, the fit, the drape. It's elevated. It's timeless. It's, it's clothing you'll wear forever. So if you want to find gifts that you'll want to keep for yourself, Then head to quince.comtara for free shipping on your order and 365 days of returns. They're now available in Canada, too. That's Quince Q-U-I-N C E.com Tara T A R-A to get free shipping and 365 days of returns. Quince.com Tara do that.
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So in the roughly 300 days since Pam Bondi, the AG made those claims, President Trump and a number of key administration officials, some of whom were prolific Epstein conspiracy theorists, have done the exact opposite. Today, bipartisan law, spearheaded by the work of Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna, is forcing the administration to release all the files. The law not only requires the release of all of the unclassified documents on Epstein and his accomplishment, his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, but also flight logs and travel records. It also requires the Justice Department release all internal communications on the Epstein case regarding its decisions to investigate and charge him and his associates. Given the fact that the administration is already signaling they will not release all of the files today, Democrats are threatening to sue. So what exactly are we going to see? Joining us now, host of the Tara Palmieri show and author of the Red Letter on Substack, Tara Palmieri, investigative reporter and author of the Vicki Ward Investigates newsletter on Substack, Vicky Ward, former deputy assistant attorney general and partner with Gibson Dunn, Tom Dupree and deputy investigations editor for the New York Times, David Enrich. Okay, so, Tom, the Department of justice says they need more time. You heard Todd Blanche a little bit earlier say that they're going to release a whole lot of files, but that there are so many they need more time to redact. They've had these files for a long time. They've done redactions in the past. In fact, they've talked about already doing redactions. So why could they possibly need more time?
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Well, they have known about this deadline for a long time, and they certainly have had these documents for a long time. And look, I have no doubt that the Justice Department has mobilized a fairly large team to go through what is a very, very, very significant document production and that many of these documents do require thought and judicious consideration as to what can be released to the public and what needs to be redacted. All that said, I wish they had met the deadline. From my perspective, I think the two significant takeaways from the fact they're not fully meeting the deadline are, number one, when will all of these documents ultimately come out? And hopefully the Justice Department, if it doesn't release all the documents today, which it sounds like they're not going to, will give the public a sense of what the timetable looks like for what now is going become a rolling production, as lawyers would say. The other question is the redactions themselves. How heavily are these documents going to be redacted? And more importantly, what is the basis for these redactions? If, as that former survivor that you had on earlier, Katie, says, that these redactions are made to protect wealthy men, I mean, that obviously is an unjustifiable, inappropriate reason to redact. If, on the other hand, they're doing so to protect the privacy of victims and survivors, that to my mind at least, would be a more legitimate basis for, for the redactions.
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So, Vicki, what are you expecting to see? I mean, there's going to be, it's hard question even ask. There's going to be so much documentation, I guess. What specifically will you be looking out for?
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So I'm going to be looking for the 302, you know, the, the, the records that the FBI keeps when they interview witnesses. I'm going to be looking for money. I know David Henry, who's on this panel will also be looking for that because we do know now that in 2008, one of the mechanisms by which they were able to get Jeffrey Epstein to take a plea deal for state charges and drop the federal charges against him was that they threatened him with money laundering charges. So I want to really go through all the records around that conversation. I'm also going to be looking for, you know, I've always said that we know Jeffrey Epstein paid for civil litigation to go away, that some of the, some of the men settled with Epstein accusers in the shadows and Jeffrey Epstein paid for those settlements. So I am, I'm wondering if we're going to see anything around that and maybe there are draft indictments that could be helpful as well.
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Yeah.
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So David, expand on that.
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Well, I mean, I first of all agree with everything Vicky just said. And there my team and I at The New York Times have been spending a lot of time following the money here. And I think that is the thing that I personally am most eager to understand better. I mean, Epstein has or had a worldwide network of bank accounts and financial entanglements with some of the world's most powerful and wealthiest men. And there a lot of that has remained in the shadows. And I'm hopeful that there might be some added transparency about that later today when these files start coming out. And we have, I'm sure most news organizations are in the same boat. We have dozens of people standing by, ready to start going through these, but it could take a really long time to fully process it all.
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That is such a good point. You know, Tara Thomas Massie, who spearheaded the effort to get these files released, has said that he expects or there should be names of other men, at least 20, he says, accused of sex crimes, and that if they do not see those names, that's how he will know that DOJ still has something to hide.
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I would agree with him on that. I want to see the depositions from the victims and the names of the men that they name that they were trafficked to, and I want to see the names not redacted, because we have seen some of those depositions. Right now. You can go to the FBI's website and read through them, but they're fully redacted. So I hope that the Epstein files that they release do not protect these men. You know, it also showed in. Belen Maxwell just filed a form, I think, a habeas corpus, and it showed that Jeff Epstein had made settlements with 25 men separately. 25 men, she says. So who are these men? And I hope that we learn more about that. And I think we'll. I think also I would like to know, why did he get this sweetheart deal? Why did the Justice Department ignore these reports from women for three decades? What kind of relationship did he have with the Department of Justice that made them look the other way? Also, did he have any relationship with, you know, foreign governments? Did they take into account that this involved the monarchy? I'm curious to see if there were any phone calls that were made the Department of Justice to try to. To kill this. The many, many times women have come forward and reported it. So I think. I'm doubtful, though, that the Department of Justice will actually police itself and admit that, but who knows?
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One of the obvious points of interest, David, is Donald Trump's involvement. They've said that Donald Trump's name is in these files. The administration has admitted that Susie Wiles had said that. So the expectation is that Donald Trump is going to be in quite a few documents that we received today or maybe in the following days, as the FBI actually or as the DOJ actually does release this information. You've been writing a lot about their relationship. What can you tell us about what you've learned?
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Well, I mean, I don't even know where to begin with that question. I could talk to you about it for the next hour, which I know you don't want me to do. But the bottom line is that Trump and Epstein were in the same social circles in the 80s and ninet. They appeared to be very close friends. They were pursuing women together, young women together, and in some cases it sounds like competing over them, and were engaged, at the very least in very bawdy conversations in competitions that at times allegedly involved the president sexually assaulting women. So what's actually going to be in these files? We don't know. But I think you can rest assured that to the extent that these files are searchable in an easy way, the first control f search that we, and I'm sure all of our competitors will be doing is for the word Trump.
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Yeah. So here's the thing. And this is where lawyers and prosecutors, investigators, people in the FBI, people outside of it, this is where they get a bit worried because what happens during an investigation is that names are handed over, testimony is given, statements are taken from witnesses, from victims, and typically what is done or what should happen is that those names are run down, the leads are run down, those people are investigated, and then if there is enough evidence to charge them with a crime, they are charged with a crime. And yet over multiple administrations, multiple administrations, Democrat and Republican, nobody else has been charged with a crime regarding Jeffrey Epstein other than Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. So, Tom, how much caution will you be using as you consider what's released today?
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Well, I will be exercising some caution for the exact reasons you mentioned, Katie. And this is a very unusual situation. I mean, I can't think of many times where the Justice Department is compelled to basically open up its secrets and reveal all the raw evidence that they've collected over, you know, concerning horrible crimes that occurred over a span of years and involved many high profile people. And to your point, typically if someone is criminally investigated but ultimately not charged, that fact of investigation and whatever evidence they collected in the course of that investigation wouldn't become public. So this is an extraordinary case. And I think the caution you issued is one that everyone should be mindful of that, what we are going to be seeing, presumably later today, is raw evidence that was collected, but for whatever reason did not result in criminal charges against these people. Those reasons may be legitimate, they may not be legitimate, and they will be publicly debated extensively. But it is going to be a real challenge for us, for the media, for everyone, the American public, to parse through what could be thousands and thousands and thousands of pages and try to make sense of it and figure out what it means.
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You know, part of the suspicion comes from the testimony and the, you know, years of interviews that Virginia Giuffre gave about her experience with Jeffrey Epstein and the experience that she had specifically with Prince Andrew. Vicki, Prince Andrew has been stripped of his titles. I was just talking to my last guest about it, Marina Lacerda, who is, by the way, victim number one, the victim that helped get Jeffrey Epstein behind bars here in the New York investigation. But she pointed as well to Virginia Giuffre's testimony and her description of what happened with Prince Andrew. He's been stripped of his titles, but that's about it.
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That is about it. And obviously I don't think you'll be seeing him land on American soil.
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In.
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The near future because he certainly doesn't want to, to have to face Congress on this. I mean, you know, it's a, it's a real worry about these redactions because there are, you know, I just know from having sat through Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trial and we saw flight logs flash up in front of the jury, we saw bold faced names, you know, some of whom, you know, I've even forgotten. And then we, we get reminded of. And yet it was really hard to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. And I think one thing you have to remember is that when investigators investigate crimes like this, they are very targeted. So they may not necessarily have run down all the allegations that they heard and therefore names will be redacted. And that is just going to be deeply, I think, frustrating for all of us. But we'll have to see.
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Yeah. What about the folks out there, Tara, that had been demanding the files for so long? What, what are their expectations?
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I think they want to see everything and I think that if they don't see everything, I don't, I don't know how they can be satisfied with, with this. Anything less than the entire file is, is not enough because, I mean, also we're supposed to trust the Justice Department that has lied at every turn about the Epstein files to release the entire file and and they are admitting that they're redacting thousands of pages. So I think it's going to be a lot like what you're seeing right now on the FBI's website. I'll be curious to see what they choose to redact, what they choose to un redact, whose names they choose to unredact, and if it seems to be politically motivated or not. I think you'll know how big of a hand President Trump had in it, if it seems like most of his enemies are highlighted in it and he seems to be missing from the control f as David said. So we'll see what happens. But I think people are smart enough to know if it seems too political.
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Yeah. Susie Wiles has said that she's seen the Epstein files and she's found that there was nothing to nothing. No, there, there. When it came to President Clinton, despite what the president, the current president has said, she said Donald Trump has been wrong about that. Okay, Tara, Tom, David and Vicky Ward, thank you very much.
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That was another episode of the Tara Palmieri Show. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like it, please subscribe, follow, share, comment, tell all your friends about it. Please go to tarapaulmieri.com and sign up for the Red Letter newsletter. It's how you can get my exclusive reporting straight to your inbox. You become a paid subscriber, you can get those exclusives and you can support my independent journalism. I want to thank my producer Eric Abenate. I want to thank Abby Baker on the research and social media. I want to thank Dan Rosen, my manager and Adam Stewart on the graphics. See you again today. DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse is the one stop shop for all your footwear needs with sneakers, boots and everything in between for every style, mood and occasion. You'll definitely find shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. DSW has what you need, but more importantly, they have what you didn't even know you wanted. You never know what you'll find at dsw. Find the shoes that get you at prices that get your budget at DSW stores or dsw.com.