The great Epstein unravelling

[pasayten]

https://www.alternet.org/epstein-trump/
Written by Joe Conason July 13, 2025 | 06:39AM ET

Years after his apparent suicide in a Manhattan federal lockup, the notorious sex offender and financial manipulator Jeffrey Epstein has returned from the dead to haunt Donald Trump and instigate a massive rupture in Trump's government and MAGA movement.

Having long encouraged the proliferation of conspiracy theories on the right -- from the racist birther myth about Barack Obama to the QAnon mania over alleged pedophilia among Democratic politicians and Hollywood figures -- Trump now stands accused of concealing proof of his own perfidy in the "Epstein files." Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed to have those files on her desk, promised to release them, and yet now tells the MAGA faithful that they will not be released.

The reaction has been volcanic.

The most sedulous and servile Trump supporters in the right-wing media complex, from Jack Posobiec and Laura Loomer to Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, are castigating not just Bondi but the Trump administration. The far-right provocateur Mike Cernovich posted a direct blast at the president on X: "No one is believing the Epstein coverup, @realDonaldTrump. This will be part of your legacy. There's still time to change it!" On Bannon's livestream show, he taunted Posobiec as a "sap" for ever believing that Trump would release the Epstein files.

Amusing as it is to observe the MAGA weirdos chewing on each other, and to mock them as paranoia overwhelms their usual sycophancy, their suspicions are not ill founded. It was very strange indeed when Bondi -- as well as Trump's FBI director, Kash Patel, and deputy director, Dan Bongino, both professional conspiracy-mongers -- so abruptly decided to bury the Epstein evidence after all their vows of "transparency."

Most Americans interested in Epstein and Trump have seen the old video of them together at a party, whispering and leering at young women. Most have seen quotes from Trump in magazine profiles praising his pal Epstein, who "likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." But if you listen to Michael Wolff, the bestselling Trump biographer and National Magazine Award-winning writer, there is far more to their relationship than a few words and images.

Wolff knows Trump well and knew Epstein very well -- and what he has to say about them points in a very troubling direction. Last month he discussed both subjects and their connections on "The Court of History," a MeidasTouch podcast hosted by journalist Sidney Blumenthal and historian Sean Wilentz.

While Trump has repeatedly tried to minimize his ties to Epstein, whom he now calls a "creep," Wolff said "Epstein and Trump had been the best of friends for almost 15 years. ... They were instrumental in each other's rise." The pair "hunted women together," according to Wolff, but fell out, as very rich men do, over real estate. Trump went behind Epstein's back to outbid him on a Palm Beach property that both coveted. Epstein believed that Trump was actually laundering money for a Russian oligarch and threatened to expose him. And then, according to Wolff's recollection of what Epstein told him, Trump "dropped a dime" on his friend's trafficking of young girls to the Palm Beach Police Department. (Which, as Wolff notes, indicates that Trump had long known of the crimes perpetrated at Epstein's house.)


By the time of Trump's ascent to the presidency, Epstein was ready to "drop a dime" of his own. Wolff told Blumenthal and Wilentz how, after Trump's election in 2016, "I was sitting talking to Epstein and he said, 'Wait a minute, I've gotta show you something.'" According to Wolff, Epstein "went into his safe, and he came out with photographs. They were Polaroids, I think, and he kind of spread them out like playing cards. ... It was Trump with girls of an uncertain age, at Epstein's Palm Beach house, where all of the things that (Epstein) would ultimately be accused of took place." He places the date of those pictures around 1999 or 2000.

"And I remember very vividly three of them," Wolff continued. "There are two in which the girls, topless girls, are sitting on Trump's lap. And then a third in which he has a stain on the front of his pants, and the girls are kind of pointing at it, sort of bent over, laughing ... three or four girls." Wolff also said he assumes those photographs were in Epstein's safe when the FBI raided his house and seized every item of potential evidence.

The crimes and coverup demand a Congressional investigation -- and perhaps this time, Democrats and a few courageous Republicans will dare to demand the truth from Trump.

[mister_coffee]

Oh he was surely getting paid. But then there is this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/08/nyre ... owitz.html

[PAL]

Follow the money. He must be getting paid by Fox and/or OAN.

[mister_coffee]

In another thing about this that makes no sense: Alan Dershowitz.

Given that he has well-known personal connections to the whole mess one would think that a Smart Person (and he is a Smart Person) would wisely keep his mouth shut about the Epstein files and the whole situation. But he is on Fox News and OAN talking about it. But he is actually being very cagey about what he does and does not say.

So it is (again) just plain weird.

Just asking questions here.

Why would a well-respected lawyer and law professor bend legal ethics into a pretzel representing a friend in a case where has has some involvement and might arguably be a witness?

Given his involvement, however indirectly, why aren't Fox News and OAN mentioning that when he is on their shows?

Does the Dershowitz-Epstein connection explain why Mr. Dershowitz defended Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial in 2020?

[just-jim]

More on Epstein’s finances. From NPR, Saturday:

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We have the basics on Jeffrey Epstein. The sex offender who died six years ago is in the news because President Trump's administration promised revelations then enraged his supporters by failing to deliver. Many people listening right now were not even adults when Epstein was a friend of Trump, or when he served time in jail, or when he was arrested again and killed himself. So we've called journalist Vicky Ward who has covered Epstein most of that time. She profiled him in 2003. Our conversation will last about 4 1/2 minutes and will include details of sexual assault. Welcome to the program.

VICKY WARD: Thanks for having me, Steve.

INSKEEP: OK. So in 2003, Epstein was an apparently very rich man who was connected with many rich and powerful people. How did he make his money?

WARD: Great question. He claimed that he was a financial adviser for billionaires, and yet there was no footprint of him trading in the markets. We know that he invested money through hedge funds from a very wealthy billionaire whose name was Leslie Wexner. But even that didn't really explain why suddenly, out of nowhere, a guy who hadn't even graduated from college suddenly possessed the largest town house in Manhattan, a private island in the Caribbean, a ranch in New Mexico, an apartment in Paris and the famous Lolita Express, his private airplane. The math has never added up, and there's been a lot of mystery and secrecy, frankly, around his money. He was also - he had to leave Bear Stearns in the early 1980s under slightly strange circumstances.

INSKEEP: Wow. OK. Was it apparent to people who wanted to know how much interest he had in sex with minors?

WARD: So that is one of the great, great - another great mystery. We do know that there were a lot of bold-faced names, politicians, very rich men who were on his planes, who may have visited the island, who came to dinner at his houses. And he was, at the same time, surrounded by beautiful women, many of whom were underage minors, almost in plain sight. I mean, even last week, you had reporting in The Wall Street Journal that for his 50th birthday, which happened exactly around the time I did my first Vanity Fair piece on him - early 2003 - you know, people, again, big names were sending him messages almost referencing his obsession with sex with underage minors.

INSKEEP: Now, we'll just review that in 2007, he was charged with recruiting dozens of girls, some as young as 13. He reached a plea deal with Alex Acosta - who was a U.S. attorney in the Bush administration, went on to serve as labor secretary in Trump's first term - was arrested again in 2019. Here, however, is something that I think is important. You've mentioned how many questions there still are about this man. Do you think the Justice Department files, if released in full, would answer some of these questions for you?

WARD: I think there's got to be something in there. You know, we know that they took a huge amount of material out of his house in Palm Beach back in the - sort of the 2000s. They also had access to a huge amount of stuff out of his New York mansion when they rearrested him in 2019. There are still a lot of questions about that plea deal, how he escaped federal charges back in 2008, '09 and did that sweetheart deal with Alex Acosta. Who else was involved in this scheme? Who propped him up financially? Because without his money, there's no evidence that when he didn't have money, he was trafficking minors. So I think that there's got to be something. But the person who really, really knows a lot of the answers to these questions is Ghislaine Maxwell.

INSKEEP: ...Ah, who is now being questioned once again by the Trump administration. Investigative journalist Vicky Ward, thanks so much for the basics on Jeffrey Epstein - really appreciate it.

WARD: Thanks for having me.

[mister_coffee]

Whatever Mr. Thiel's other flaws might be, we can be certain he wasn't diddling little girls.

[just-jim]

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[mister_coffee]

There is no indication from Epstein's well-publicized job history that he had any particular expertise in either tax or estate planning. People who actually do that work for wealthy people don't charge $153 million for their services either.

The math doesn't math here.

Whatever Epstein did for Black didn't involve taxes or estates.

More on the modeling to trafficking pipeline:

https://thegoodage.medium.com/modeling- ... 5f37e1e49f

[Rideback]

Jeffrey Epstein Invested With Peter Thiel And His Estate is Reaping Millions
NYT:
By Matthew Goldstein
June 4, 2025

Jeffrey Epstein, the registered sex offender, met with many powerful people in finance and business during his career, but the financier invested with only a few of them.

One of those people was Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire.

In 2015 and 2016, Mr. Epstein put $40 million into two funds managed by Valar Ventures, a New York firm that was co-founded by Mr. Thiel. Today that investment is worth nearly $170 million, according to a confidential financial analysis of the late Mr. Epstein’s estate reviewed by The New York Times and a statement provided by a Valar spokesman.

The investment in Valar, which specializes in providing start-up capital to financial services tech companies, is the largest asset still held by Mr. Epstein’s estate, some six years after he died by suicide in federal custody while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Mr. Epstein’s investment with Mr. Thiel’s firm has not been previously reported or publicly disclosed.

There’s a good chance much of the windfall will not go to any of the roughly 200 victims whom the disgraced financier abused when they were teenagers or young women. Those victims have already received monetary settlements from the estate, which required them to sign broad releases that gave up the right to bring future claims against it or individuals associated with it.

The money is more likely to be distributed to one of Mr. Epstein’s former girlfriends and two of his long-term advisers, who have been named the beneficiaries of his estate.

That outcome doesn’t sit well with one of the lawyers who fought for years to help the women receive restitution. David Boies, who represented several of Mr. Epstein’s victims, said federal authorities seemed to lose interest after Mr. Epstein’s death and the successful conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, his former companion, on sex-trafficking charges.

He said prosecutors in New York had made a mistake in not going for civil forfeiture after Mr. Epstein killed himself, which would have allowed the federal government to potentially seize the remaining assets.

“While we are grateful for the government’s prosecution of Epstein and Maxwell, the truth is that, both before and afterwards, the government was largely asleep at the switch,” Mr. Boies said.

Civil forfeiture allows the government to seize assets suspected of being involved in an illegal action. In theory, some of the seized assets could have been used to compensate victims.

After Mr. Epstein’s death, federal prosecutors considered bringing a civil forfeiture action against his estate. But the authorities rejected the idea because the process may have delayed settlement payments to victims, said a person who was briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.

Image
Jeffrey Epstein.
Conspiracy theories continue to swirl about the circumstances of Jeffrey Epstein’s death in jail.
Credit...New York State Sex Offender Registry/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A college dropout, Mr. Epstein amassed much of his wealth by charging hefty fees for providing tax and estate services to a few billionaires like Leslie Wexner, the retail magnate, and Leon Black, the private equity investor. Mr. Black, for instance, paid Mr. Epstein more than $158 million in fees, and Mr. Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan once belonged to Mr. Wexner.

Mr. Thiel, whose meetings with Mr. Epstein were first reported by The Times two years ago, is just one more in a long list of famous and wealthy men who met with Mr. Epstein over the years.

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Aaron Curtis, a Valar spokesman, said in statement that when a firm representative met with Mr. Epstein in 2014, he was considered a “well-known adviser to world leaders, top universities and philanthropic organizations.”

He said the firm, which is led by Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald, “hopes that the eventual distribution of these investments can be put to positive use by helping victims move forward with their lives.”

Jeremiah Hall, a spokesman for Mr. Thiel, declined to comment.

Through a representative, the co-executors of Mr. Epstein’s estate declined to comment.

At the moment, the estate’s investment with Valar remains locked up, meaning it cannot be paid out in cash. Investments with venture capital firms are normally subject to long periods of lockup to give the companies that are being funded time to grow.

Based on the estimated value of the Valar investment, Mr. Epstein’s estate is worth more than $200 million in all, according the confidential report and estate records. When he died, Mr. Epstein had about $600 million in assets, which included investments, his lavish homes, artwork and jewelry. Over the past six years, the estate has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to victims and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Mr. Epstein maintained a residence. The estate has also had to pay federal taxes and hefty fees to lawyers working for the estate.

Years after his death, Mr. Epstein’s story, especially the circumstances of his passing, has remained fodder for conspiracy theorists.

Mr. Thiel himself has discussed the importance of the federal government’s airing facts surrounding certain conspiracy theories, including those involving Mr. Epstein. In an opinion piece he wrote in January for The Financial Times, Mr. Thiel said the conspiracy theory surrounding Mr. Epstein’s death was one of many that might be dealt with during the Trump administration.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, recently reaffirmed the agency’s determination in 2019 that Mr. Epstein died by suicide.

Just one major federal civil lawsuit remains pending against the executors of the estate, a potential class action filed on behalf victims who haven’t yet settled with the estate. The lawsuit was brought by Mr. Boies’s firm, but it’s not known how many women would even quality for a settlement.

In the past, victims have received settlements ranging from $500,000 to $2 million.

Once that lawsuit is resolved, the estate will be close to begin distributing money according to terms of the will Mr. Epstein signed shortly before he died. The will calls for the assets remaining in his estate to be distributed according to a secret trust he set up called the 1953 Trust, which was named for the year he was born.

Estate law normally does not give executors much latitude to deviate from how a person wanted his or her assets distributed.

The only known beneficiaries of the trust are a former girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, and the co-executors of the estate, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, both longtime advisers to Mr. Epstein. The 1953 Trust has never been made public. Ms. Shuliak’s lawyer declined to comment.

According to a confidential financial document describing some details of the 1953 Trust, it was also Mr. Epstein’s intent for some $19 million in loans he had made to be forgiven, including some loans to entities that Mr. Indyke and Mr. Kahn are “closely associated” with. The confidential document, which was reviewed by The Times, was prepared by a special master working for the judge overseeing the probate of Mr. Epstein’s will in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was publicly filed on the court docket before it was later sealed.

At one point, one of the executors had predicted the estate would be worth less than $40 million after claims were paid.

But the estate’s assets began to swell last fall, after it received a large $111.6 million tax refund from the Internal Revenue Service. Some of that money has since gone to pay off a loan and legal fees.

In its most recent public court filing, the estate, as of March 31, listed its total assets at a little over $131 million, of which about $50 million is cash. But that document notes it still records investments, such as the Valar investment, at their value when Mr. Epstein died nearly six years ago."

For those not in the know; Peter Thiel is who literally placed JD Vance into the role of VP, he is a naturalized S African and pal of Elon Musk

[mister_coffee]

Trump and Epstein were in it together, at least if you read between the lines here:

https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles ... awsuit.pdf

It also spells out in words of one syllable what a monstrous and evil creep all those idiots voted for.

[Rideback]

He's backing off the Obama charges at least after someone told him that the SCOTUS ruling makes it tough to prosecute a president. He's pouting in Scotland where he's gotten a massively funny Go Home from the Scots. I particularly like the one where the Scotsmen are depositing sh** in the golf course holes.

[mister_coffee]

More distractions are incoming.

Trump is calling for prosecutions of Kamala Harris, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce, and Al Sharpton.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... s?from=mdr

[Rideback]

Fox poll. Rep's don't think Trump is being transparent
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/onl ... nYRVexqv6i

[mister_coffee]

[Rideback]

From '22. There's already been a successful major investigation into the sex trafficking within Epstein's circle. We need the records from this case.
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/30/11462214 ... ds-lawsuit

[just-jim]

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[mister_coffee]

A theory: Murdoch and the WSJ has it all and is going to slowly release it over time. If only to keep the whole scandal at the top of the news for as long as possible. And the longer this goes on the more likely it is that Trump and his MAGA cult will do something really stupid, really desperate, and ultimately self-destructive. Although I'd only want to watch whatever they do from a safe distance.

Either Bongino or Patel are leaking a lot of this material. Which is delicious all by itself.

So I think it is a safe bet that we will eventually see all of it. Including parts we'd rather not see.

[just-jim]

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From a couple months ago…..the sleezy folks we are talking about….
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[just-jim]

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I always figured Guilty FELON tiny donnie was in it up to his fat azz on all fronts……customer, supplier, etc
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[mister_coffee]

Just asking questions here.

It is a Matter Of Record that at least one girl who was trafficked by Epstein & Maxwell worked at Mar-A-Lago before Maxwell "discovered" her. Where there others who worked at Mar-A-Lago who had similar experiences?

Epstein seemed to have acquired some young girls from multiple modeling agencies. Trump had his own modeling agency "Trump Model Management" from 1999 until 2017. Did Epstein acquire girls for nefarious purposes from Trump Model Management?

The assumption that Trump is in the "Epstein Files" as a customer. What if he is also a supplier and business partner?

References: Trump Model Management Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Model_Management

In July 2015, it was reported that Trump Model Management and Trump Management Group LLC combined had requested US visas for almost 250 international fashion models.[

In August 2016, former Trump models alleged that they had worked for the agency without the company having obtained proper work visas on their behalf.

Now that's some sketchy stuff.

[Rideback]

So Murdoch is not rolling over like CBS after Trump filed the lawsuits, instead the WSJ is doubling down and Murdoch must be pretty sure of the sources to put it all out there.

Next question; the reporting is that Bondi told Trump the FBI had found that yes, he was in the files, alongside other people of stature. So, rather than go after those 'other people' in his attacks Trump has chosen to attack Iran, pump up the tariff fiasco and wildly accuse the Clintons of nefarious deeds. 1,000 FBI agents spent months going thru the files. Let that one sink in. 1,000 agents off field duty, not chasing criminals or terrorists.

Now the judge has declined to release the grand jury testimony, but the Dems have voted to subpoena the DoJ for the records so the fight is probably just warming up.

Apparently Murdoch wants a piece of the action.

[mister_coffee]

WSJ confirms that Trump is "in the files".

[Rideback]

This whole Epstein thing is so ugly

"There is a lot of consistency in these reports. Shared from Bruce Fanger at Donald Trump Jail Tracker: Forget Epstein. Look at Trump Model Management: The Real Pipeline of Power, Flesh, and Silence
Forget what you’ve heard about Ghislaine Maxwell being the mastermind—she wasn’t the start of this story. If you want to understand how elite trafficking really worked—how girls were recruited, processed, and handed off to billionaires—you don’t start with Epstein. You start with the modeling agencies.
John Casablancas, Jean-Luc Brunel, Donald Trump, and Paolo Zampolli didn’t just work in fashion. They operated a system. A system that targeted vulnerable girls—especially from Eastern Europe, South America, and small-town America—and fed them into a machine dressed in glamour but running on coercion.
Casablancas created the cultural template with Elite Model Management, turning underage girls into marketable assets and normalizing relationships between adult men and teenage models. Brunel expanded it internationally with MC2, an agency Epstein himself bankrolled with at least $1 million, giving him open access to a pipeline of girls. Zampolli specialized in the immigration angle, gaming the U.S. visa system to bring in foreign models on O-1 "extraordinary talent" visas, or more often, B-1/B-2 tourist visas, and placing them in overcrowded, overpriced apartments while booking them for under-the-table modeling jobs.
Trump joined this system fully in 1999 with the creation of Trump Model Management, shortly after his relationship with Melania—herself a Zampolli recruit from Slovenia—became public. The agency followed the same model: bringing in young women illegally, charging them for housing and services, and working them while they accumulated debt. Former models testified they were told to lie to customs officers, to say they were tourists, and then immediately sent out to work. This wasn’t alleged. This was documented. The visas were real. The labor was real. The fraud was real.
Compared to the agencies, Maxwell and Epstein were the curated side of the operation. They didn’t run dorm-style housing. They didn’t feed girls into low-budget catalog shoots. They offered the illusion of escape. Girls who had already been broken in by the agency system—groomed to obey, to smile, to say yes—were selected by Maxwell for "something better": jets, shopping, rich men, and beachfront estates. The sex was transactional, yes. But it felt luxurious. Many of the girls said yes willingly. Not because they were naive, but because they had already learned how the game worked.
Maxwell didn’t coerce; she inspired. She flattered. She offered protection and status. Epstein didn’t chase; he curated. He kept logs, wired his homes, tracked movements. He didn’t need to rape. The system had already trained the girls to comply. His value wasn’t as a user—it was as a middleman. He connected the supply (from the agencies) to the demand (from the elite).
Epstein's network wasn’t about individual lust. It was about leverage. He offered powerful men something better than market returns: exotic islands, off-book girls, and plausible deniability. He recorded everything. Not always to blackmail—but to own them. To keep the powerful quiet. And it worked.
These weren't dark secrets. They were sunlit transactions, wrapped in language like:
“Your back hurting, Joe? I got a girl, comes every day. Real sweet. Max set it up. No pressure. You want to come by for dinner next week?”
This is how trafficking happened. Not with chains, but with calendars. Not in shadows, but at dinner parties.
And what’s worse—compared to the brutality of the modeling agencies, Epstein and Maxwell could almost be seen as saviors. At least their girls got paid. Got flown somewhere. Got treated like something more than inventory. That’s how sick the foundation really was. That’s what kept the pipeline full.
This wasn’t just Epstein. It wasn’t even just a ring. It was a whole tier of elite society operating on shared appetites, protected by shared silence.
You don’t see this story in major media because they’re in on it. The PR firms, the publishers, the party hosts—they’re the white-gloved cleanup crew. The modeling industry protected the designers. The lawyers protected the agencies. The press protected the donors. The politicians protected each other. And the girls? They vanished into the system.
Trump saying "release it all" is performance. He was in it. Clinton was in it. Maybe more. The point isn't whose side you're on. The point is that the rot is bipartisan and built into the architecture of power itself.
This wasn't a scandal.
This was policy.
And the reason it’s never been fully exposed is simple:
Because when the rot climbs all the way to the top, there's no one left to report it."

[Rideback]

COlbert hits back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIZegLAvK8o

[Rideback]

Trump is sending in his fixer to silence Maxwell
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/trump-send ... irect=true