← The Tara Palmeri Show
Loading summary
Transcript63 lines
- [00:00]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. 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.
- [00:27]
Jim Acosta
All right. Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. And it's another day that ends in y in the Epstein gate. Cover up. Joining me today, Tara Palmeri of the Red Letter substack. Also on YouTube, so many other places, a longtime reporter who has worked on the Epstein case. And Tara, I mean, these new disclosures that are out today, we should just dive right into this. Happy Holidays. By the way, these new, these new disclosures, it's, it's kind of amazing what we've seen take place. You and I were talking on Friday about the ones that seem to just implicate Bill Clinton. And they, it was, it seemed sort of political and targeted. They wanted to embarrass Bill Clinton. What happened on Monday was apparently the DOJ posted some files, then took them down, then put, put them back. And these files, and this is according to multiple reports, mentioned Donald Trump on multiple occasions. The documents show this. The Washington Post show that a subpoena was sent to Mar? A Lago in 2021 for records that pertain to the government's case against Ghislaine Maxwell. They mentioned that he was on flights on Epstein's plane. I mean, I, we can walk through some of these documents in a second. But your thoughts just initially on what's come. Also, the DOJ put out this statement that was very defensive of Donald Trump. There's a lot to unpack here.
- [01:47]
Tara Palmeri
Yeah, it's really startling, Jim. I mean, first thoughts, this is all coming out days before Christmas. They didn't hit the deadline for a reason. This is exactly why they probably realized they were never going to be able to get through all the mentions of Trump. And that is why they've just decided they're doing it now. They're going to flood the zone and then put out this startling statement basically saying that these are unfounded claims that are false about Donald Trump that were put in there before the 2020 election. And it's like, well, how do you know they're false and unfounded if you haven't done an investigation? Where are the documents that show that you actually followed up and did the investigation to prove that these are false and undoc and unfounded claims? You know, the, the fact that there is a Letter from Jeffrey Epstein. A certified letter from Jeffrey Epstein in jail to Larry Nassar complaining that, like, you know, Trump got away with it, that he also liked young, nubile girls and that he would snatch them, I think was the word. It's really foul.
- [02:51]
Jim Acosta
And that they ended up grab snatch, I think is.
- [02:54]
Tara Palmeri
Yeah, it was such a dark, dark, dark letter about, you know, their, their love for women. And, you know, part of me thinks like, did he plant it? But then another part of me is like, was he angry that he was arrested by Trump's doj? Just. It's so, so foul. And he says that he basically is taking the short route out. He's killing himself. Which I think maybe puts together some of the rest, some of the conspiracy theories about whether he killed himself or not.
- [03:23]
Jim Acosta
Yes.
- [03:24]
Tara Palmeri
But I mean, we still really don't know. But it is interesting to read that correspondence. There's, there's more about Prince Andrew asking Glenn Maxwell to find him girls that are pretty and intelligent and come from good faith families while he's in Peru. You know, it just shows you how this really was a sex trafficking ring, an international sex trafficking ring. And for as much as the, the prince, or the former prince likes to deny it, there are, you know, there.
- [03:52]
Podcast Host/Producer
Are a lot of documents that don't.
- [03:53]
Tara Palmeri
Redact the victim's names. Like documents from Sarah Ransom where she names Bill Clinton as having sex with girls and Richard Branson and Donald Trump and, And she said this in legal statements and sworn testimony, recanted some of the things that she said, like the fact that there were video footage of it, but, you know, their names aren't redacted. Virginia Giuffre's name isn't redacted. It's just, I mean, it's really startling. And then you see the fact that, like, they put Trump's name out by accident, then redact it, then put it back out again when the, when the Internet, which is very smart thanks to AI and a lot of sleuths out there, actually a lot of independent journalists, sleuths, realizing that what they're doing is, is really like a PR operation and PR operation, a public relations crisis, you know, operation for the President of the United States. And they're not working for us, they're working for him.
- [04:46]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, absolutely. Let's show the Department of Justice tweet one more time because it looks as though, you know, Johnnie Cochran came back from the dead and wrote this on Donald Trump's behalf. I mean, this was like, this was very lawyerly, and it says the Department of Justice has officially released nearly 30,000 more pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, it says the claims are unfounded and false. This is a Department of justice tweet, and if they had a shred of credibility, they would certainly have been weaponized against President Trump already. That part about this would have been weaponized against Trump already is right out of the talking points that the White House has used, that the Trump people have used to say, oh, you can't believe any of this stuff about, you know, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. The other thing we should point out is, Tara, this. This email from an Assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York. This was written on January 7, 2020. It says, for your situational awareness. Wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported or that we were aware, including during the period when we would expect to charge. In a Maxwell case in particular, he's listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 93 and 96, including at least four flights on which Maxwell was also present. He is listed as traveled with, among others, and at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany, his son Eric. It goes on to say on one flight, 93, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers. On another. When you've got a classic ride, you make time to work on it, even if it's during your name redacted. Assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York.
- [06:38]
Tara Palmeri
They were trying to subpoena him, and he didn't. He ignored it.
- [06:41]
Jim Acosta
This is staggering, it seems to me, and it raises all kinds of questions. And it says to me, tara, and I know what you think. This is why they've been wanting to conceal and suppress this information for so long. This goes back to the first Trump administration.
- [06:58]
Tara Palmeri
Oh, yeah, this is really, really, really dark. And this is. This explains why he was using. Willing to use all this political capital to make sure that this didn't come out. I think we're really starting to understand why. It wasn't a few pictures. It wasn't a birthday card. I think he thought, oh, I'll sue the Wall Street Journal and that will keep everyone shut. No, this is, like, much deeper, much closer. There's a tip to the FBI from a limousine driver or someone who had spoken to a limousine driver who said that they had heard that. That he was involved in some sort of foul play with a woman and that he was overheard saying that it was a girl that had abused Jeffrey and that they had heard from another person that he was involved in foul play, abuse. I mean, it's, it's just, it's really bad. He's all over the files like there's no other way. There's no other way to put it. So, yeah, it's, it's really, really bad, Jim. I'm trying to think of other things off the top of my head that I've seen that are, that are just really. Yeah.
- [08:00]
Jim Acosta
Well, we should go back to the Larry Nassar thing. I mean, I mean, this is how the Guardian wrote it up. A disturbing letter that appears to have been written by Jeffrey Epstein and sent to Larry Nassar, the U.S. olympics gymnastics team doctor convicted of sexual abuse, is included in the latest batch of Epstein related documents. Just want to make sure people understand who Larry Nassar is. I mean, this is somebody who was a sex predator himself. And this is the letter right here. It says, dear ln. This is Jeffrey Epstein writing this. And it's, and it's from the Manhattan Correctional Facility. He was, you know, it's, it's, it's sent from that correctional facility. As you know, by now, I've taken the short route home. Good luck. We shared one thing, our love and our caring for young ladies and the hope they'd read the reach their full potential. Our president also shares our love of young nubile girls. When a young beauty walked by, he loved to grab, snatch. It is just absolutely disgusting. And then it ends with life is unfair. Yours, Jay Epstein. I mean, to me, Tara, of course, like you said, this could be Epstein taking one last shot at Trump before he kills himself. It seems to indicate that maybe he did kill himself and wasn't murdered, as I guess Jeffrey Epstein's brother has long suspected. We don't know. But for the Justice Department put out a tweet that says all this stuff is untrue, unfounded. Why didn't they weaponize it? There's a lot here to be answered for. And Trump, when he was asked about it at Mar a Lago, he flew off the handle again and was yelling at reporters. Why do you keep asking me about this? It doesn't look good.
- [09:35]
Tara Palmeri
No, it's really bad. There was another thing that was particularly disturbing. An account to the FBI from one of the victims saying that Jeffrey Epstein wondered aloud, what if he could put the heads in pictures of women on children's bodies to masturbate to. It really reminded me of something that Virginia Giuffre told me when we were working together on the broken Jeffrey Epstein podcast. And how Jeffrey would starve them, like, wouldn't let them eat because he wanted them to have really young looking bodies. Like, he wanted them to have young little girl bodies. And like, hearing that just kind of gave me, you know, it really gave me flashbacks to some of the little anecdotal things that she would tell me. I mean, she remembered the meals because of how infrequently they were fed. And she remembered the chef who didn't feed her. I mean, who fed her. Excuse me. His name was Adam Perry Lang. Secretly, he's a famous chef. He had his own, you know, he's a Michelin star chef and friend of Jimmy Kimmel, weirdly. But he, he would give them. Give her pizza secretly. And that was seen to her as like a human gesture in this dark, dark world that she lived in.
- [10:52]
Jim Acosta
And, and so I, I mean, we. And we still don't have all the files. Right? I mean, this is not even a complete release yet. And the fact that they put out these files, then took them back and, and put them back out again, suggest. What do you think, Tara?
- [11:07]
Tara Palmeri
I mean, they're putting through new filters on it. They've realized that the President is angry. He doesn't. He. He thinks that this should be redacted more. I mean, there, there are victims who have said their names haven't been redacted. They could have been doing this all summer. You know, they could have been redacting the names of victims, but instead they were rushing it until the last minute. But it's pretty blatant. I mean, it's really blatant how, how little regard they have for the victims. I also thought that video that they put in there about like Epstein, you know, the fake video of Epstein hanging himself. I know that it was submitted by someone who said they were a friend, a friend of Epstein's to try to find out if it was real. So a lot of it is tips to the FBI, but, you know, just the fact that they don't even really like, explain that and it's just feels like it's a joke. It just feels very.
- [12:00]
Jim Acosta
I don't know, it reeks of incompetence. There's a, there's. It reeks of corruption and it reeks of incompetence at the same time.
- [12:07]
Tara Palmeri
Right, right. And then, you know, the victims are just like collateral damage in all this. Yeah, they really are.
- [12:14]
Jim Acosta
And I was talking to Jess Michaels about this yesterday, and, you know, Jess was saying, and maybe you can weigh in on this. Is that one of the things, I guess if you can call it a silver lining, I don't know what you can call it, is that at least people can now. I mean, they can now just believe the victims, right? That there. There doesn't need to be as much of a struggle anymore, intellectually, morally, to believe these victims.
- [12:44]
Tara Palmeri
There's stories I've always struggled with that I've struggled with people who have a hard time believing it. I do think there are people out there that are paid by powerful men to try to sow doubts in the stories of the women, sow doubts in the story, in the journalists who have spent time reporting on this and learning and trying to back up their claims. Like, you know, even when we did the podcast with. With Virginia, Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who broke the story, reopened it, you know, know, she was executive producer. And we made sure to have a second source on everything we did. We used the same fact checkers that they used at the New Yorker for Harvey Weinstein reporting. And, you know, and still people are like, are you sure there were other men involved? It wasn't just Glenn and Jeffrey with a thousand girls. Can we believe these girls? And it's like, really? You know, really? I would. I would just argue, spend a day looking through, you know, even just the files that exist online. Everyone's like, the world is in a frenzy of a conspiracy hallucination. It's like, no, this was a huge conspiracy. People conspired to cover this up for decades there. That is why the public. The public isn't stupid. They know when something smells and if it reeks and there's corruption. So it's just like, yeah, I kind of feel like it's another time where the elites, even in the telling of the story and the unwillingness to believe it, you know, there's like a don't believe your lying eyes sort of thing about it. And it's like, no, if you just believe the women, then you have a lot of evidence, you know?
- [14:19]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [14:20]
Tara Palmeri
So.
- [14:21]
Jim Acosta
Well, and. And I guess maybe does this. We were talking about this a little bit earlier, but this is kind of put to rest that Epstein maybe did, in fact kill himself at this corner of the Washington Post, that the files include correspondence, and I think you indicated this earlier among prison officials about Epstein's psychological assessments, with discussions about holding him in a special housing unit about two weeks before he died. And one of the emails says, we have supporting memorandums from the responding officers who indicated they observed Epstein with a makeshift noose around his neck.
- [14:52]
Mochi Health Announcer
A mochi moment from Sadie, who writes, I'm not crying. You're crying. This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi, because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP one. He understood, and I felt supported, not judged. I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy. Thanks, Sadie. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com.
- [15:18]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Sadie is a Mochi member compensated for her story?
- [15:24]
Tara Palmeri
Yeah, I think it does. I think it puts a lot of it to rest.
- [15:28]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [15:29]
Tara Palmeri
Which is a good thing. And. But I do think, like, the fact that there were no guards, the videotapes were missing. You know, there's a lot of reason for people to be suspicious. So I'm not. I don't think there. There wasn't a reason for people to be suspicious about how he was handled. I also think Mark, his brother, probably benefited if, you know, if. If it was found that. That he was murdered, because if you kill yourself, I'm sure that impacts your insurance. You know, there's like, there are a lot of different reasons why. And I do think his brother probably pushed this more so. And there are a lot of people wanted them dead. You know, there's no doubt about it. And it's not that hard to kill someone in prison. You pay someone to kill them in prison. I mean, that's what I've been told, at least. Or pedophiles, just in general, don't last very long in prison.
- [16:23]
Jim Acosta
They don't last long. That's right. No, that was. And that was the speculation initially when it was reported that he died, was that. That he got killed because he was a pedophile?
- [16:33]
Tara Palmeri
I mean, Jean Luc Bernal, his partner in his modeling agency, mysteriously died by hanging in a French prison.
- [16:39]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [16:39]
Tara Palmeri
Then there's also Robert Maxwell, who, you know, mysteriously died off the side of a yacht called Lady Book Glenn. So there are a lot of people in Epstein's world that mysteriously die.
- [16:52]
Jim Acosta
Really weird.
- [16:52]
Tara Palmeri
Are they all. Yeah.
- [16:54]
Jim Acosta
And up until this point, I mean, just to go back to the Larry Nasser thing one last time, was it ever reported that they had any kind of a friendship or relationship that is. That stands out to me as very strange that I had never heard Larry Nassar's name come up in any of this?
- [17:12]
Tara Palmeri
Yeah, I don't know. You know, some part of me is like, did he send that to know, knowing that it might ever be seen but, you know, you know? Yeah, yeah. Did he think that one day.
- [17:26]
Jim Acosta
I don't know.
- [17:26]
Tara Palmeri
It seems to me Larry could use it in some way.
- [17:30]
Jim Acosta
I mean, it seems to me you tie this to the birthday letter about a wonderful secret. When you tie this to the 2002 interview that Trump gave to New York magazine where he talks about how he knew that Jeffrey Epstein liked girls or women on the younger side, I mean, it just again adds to this, you know, I don't want to call it a mountain of evidence, but some evidence that appears to exist that Trump knew what Larry, that Jeffrey Epstein was up to, and that Jeffrey Epstein may have had some familiarity with what Trump was into. I, I, I, you know, that's just, Yeah.
- [18:06]
Tara Palmeri
I don't know. Or maybe he thought Larry could use it in his, in his case, get out of prison or.
- [18:11]
Jim Acosta
I don't know.
- [18:12]
Tara Palmeri
I, I, I'm just sad that this is all happening over Christmas. I'm sure a lot of people's lives are really being impacted by it. It should have been dealt with so much earlier, like, such long time ago.
- [18:23]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
- [18:24]
Tara Palmeri
The survivors shouldn't be dealing with this right now. Even the American people, like, they shouldn't have to go through this right now.
- [18:31]
Jim Acosta
It's, it's horrendous. It's terrible. And Donald Trump didn't need to wait this long. And the other thing that he did. And Taryn, you and I cover the political world and the upcoming midterm cycle. I'm sure there are a lot of Congressional Republicans who are not happy that Donald Trump waited as long as he did and that the White House and the Justice Department waited because this pulls this thing right into the midterm cycle. It keeps this story going right into 2026. And I mean, that, you know, from a political standpoint is, you know, malpractice on Donald Trump's part, but all he cares about is himself and saving his own skin, it seems to me.
- [19:10]
Tara Palmeri
And then it's interesting how the Republicans and conservative media were gloating on Friday about Bill Clinton. No one gave him the heads up that it was about to get a lot worse.
- [19:20]
Jim Acosta
A lot worse. Larry Nasser, worse. Well, Tara, it, it looks like you may be traveling. I don't know what to say. Yeah, where from?
- [19:28]
Tara Palmeri
Or where to for Christmas? Yeah. Heading home for Christmas.
- [19:31]
Jim Acosta
So kudos to you.
- [19:33]
Tara Palmeri
Never say no to Jim.
- [19:34]
Jim Acosta
No, no. And kudos to you and all the great reporting you've done this year, it has made a huge difference to a lot of people. And I know because I've talked to some of the folks in the Survivor world and they say, Tara Palmeri, she's the one to get. She's the one to put on. We love her.
- [19:48]
Tara Palmeri
That's so sweet. So appreciate it.
- [19:51]
Jim Acosta
Good for you. Merry Christmas to you.
- [19:53]
Tara Palmeri
You've been doing a great job, too. Just making sure that we cover it and making sure it's like, it's not just fading as, you know, other, you know, Syria's attack, then Venezuela. And it's just like, what are they going to do today?
- [20:07]
Jim Acosta
Greenland. Yeah, he wants to do. I mean, it's just, it's one distraction after another. And it all seems to be about distracting the public from this. The story that won't go away, the cloud that won't clear above his head. It's. It's still hanging in there. But, Tara, great to see, as always. Thanks so much. I don't want to hold you up because I know you're traveling with. Safe travels.
- [20:27]
Tara Palmeri
Safe travels. Thanks.
- [20:29]
Podcast Host/Producer
That was another episode of the Tara Palmari Show. Happy Holidays. I am so sorry that you are having to listen to all of this over the holidays. You know, if you like this show, please rate, subscribe, share it with your friends and leave comments. I want to hear what you think.
- [20:41]
Tara Palmeri
About all of it.
- [20:42]
Podcast Host/Producer
I want to thank my producer, Eric Abenate. I want to thank Abby Baker. He does social media and research for me. I want to thank Dan Rosen, my manager and Adam Stewart on my graphics. And of course, go to tarapaumieri.com where you can keep following my reporting. I will keep updating it. This is a horrific story that we are sadly all having to take in over Christmas.
- [21:03]
Tara Palmeri
I hope that the victims are doing.
- [21:05]
Podcast Host/Producer
Okay and you know that they're processing the fact that they have been made into collateral damage yet again.
- [21:12]
DSW Announcer
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.