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The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 26
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00:12Good evening. I'm Ali Velshi here in New York and I'm Stephanie Ruhle and welcome to an MSNOW
00:17special report revealed inside the Epstein files. Tonight we're going to try and make sense of the
00:23millions of Epstein documents that were released by Donald Trump's Justice Department. That includes
00:29over three million separate documents just released on January 30th. The Justice Department
00:34had to do this because of the Epstein files Transparency Act. Now the Epstein files Transparency
00:40Act is a law that was passed by Congress and signed in November by Donald Trump. MSNOW has also obtained
00:47a letter that was sent by Trump's Justice Department to members of Congress confirming that they will
00:52in fact be allowed to view the Epstein files without redactions. Big news. That's a very big deal.
00:59And that's starting on Monday. The files are going to be available to lawmakers in a reading room
01:03at the DOJ headquarters but it comes with some some strings. Absolute reading room. Yeah. These
01:08files are not getting out. The letter sent by Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis states
01:13the following. No outside electronic devices will be allowed in the reading room. Members may take
01:19notes. Members must abide by all applicable legal restrictions regarding the dissemination of
01:25any information reviewed. We are confident that this review will further demonstrate the department's
01:30good faith work to appropriately process an enormous volume of documents in a very short time.
01:36Let me just say it wasn't that short a time. No. They have been working on this. They've known this
01:42was coming for a while. It was November when the bill was signed so they had at least that much
01:46time
01:46but they knew this was coming because there was so much pressure building. That whole thing about good
01:51faith. That's the claim that the department's good faith work. That's the the claim that's likely to
01:56raise plenty of eyebrows for the point you just made. Some of Donald Trump's most ardent supporters
02:02Marjorie Taylor Greene for example have turned on him precisely because there's no evidence that the
02:07Trump administration has actually been acting in good faith at all. In fact many of the survivors
02:12of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse including Haley Robson with whom we're going to speak in just a few
02:18moments they've been exceedingly critical of how the administration has actually handled this.
02:23In fact members of the House Oversight Committee say they believe the Justice Department is still
02:28holding on to half of the files. I'm going to say it again half. Many of Epstein's survivors also claim
02:35that he trafficked girls and women not just for himself but for a host of other men and we still
02:40do
02:40not have evidence to prove or disprove those very allegations. All right let's begin our conversation
02:47tonight with MSNOW senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Lisa thank you first of all for being with us
02:51tonight because we're trying to make sense of all this. It's so much information that we're trying to
02:57put it all together. So what stands out to you about what we know so far and and maybe more
03:03importantly
03:03what we don't? Well let's talk about what stands out to me about what we know so far because I
03:08think
03:08this last week represented the media sort of searching for salacious low-hanging fruit. We know a lot
03:14more about who's making $15,000 contributions to private schools in New York for example than we
03:20did before but I'm not sure that that further advances the ball of finding out who is actually
03:25responsible and complicit in the ring of sex trafficking that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine
03:30Maxwell perpetrated for quite some time and increasingly with more and more brazenness
03:35as it went on. One of the things that I think stands out to me is that when you dump
03:40three million
03:41pages as the Department of Justice has. Filled with redactions. Filled with redactions but also
03:46not filled with redactions. It becomes impossible for the public to differentiate between an anonymous
03:53tip called into the FBI's threat operations center on one hand and someone whose story has been vetted
03:59and re-vetted and gone over multiple times with the FBI and the Department of Justice. So there is a
04:05huge
04:05range of credibility with respect to things that people have alleged about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine
04:11Maxwell and putting them all together lumping them all in one big production makes it impossible
04:16for many people to separate the wheat from the chaff and in the end really undermines the stories
04:22of those people that have held up over time. By making them all seem like they are equal
04:28it both elevates the anonymous tip that doesn't pan out and depresses the testimony for example of
04:37people who spent a lot of time with DOJ and the FBI and testified to Ghislaine Maxwell's trial sort of
04:42makes them all equivalent and makes it hard for people to to separate the two. Donald Trump while
04:48he does not have any direct email with Jeffrey Epstein which shouldn't be a surprise Donald Trump doesn't
04:53use email. He's mentioned tens of thousands of times. Is there any reason to believe that he truly
05:01knew what Jeffrey Epstein was up to? I think Donald Trump has told us himself I don't need the Epstein
05:06files to know some of that stuff. When he has made some of his comments about for example why he
05:11stopped
05:11associating with Jeffrey Epstein he made a comment at the White House that he stopped talking Jeffrey
05:15Epstein because Jeffrey Epstein was a creep. He kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago he said. But that wasn't
05:19even true. Yes it's true he was a creep but him his the timeline he's used over the years with
05:25when he
05:26threw him out of Mar-a-Lago doesn't line up when you read the documents. It doesn't. But even taking
05:30him on good
05:31faith it seems as if Donald Trump was perturbed that Jeffrey Epstein poached Virginia Giuffre who is
05:38one of the most prominent accusers from her job at Mar-a-Lago where she was working a summer job
05:42in the
05:42spa. She was approached by Ghislaine Maxwell sitting outside reading a book about how to become a
05:47professional masseuse and that's how she got entangled in Jeffrey Epstein's web. When Donald Trump has
05:52commented about that he appears to be talking about Virginia saying that Jeffrey Epstein poached one
05:56of his employees. If he had understood that Jeffrey Epstein poached a teenage employee and was
06:00allegedly running a finance business why you don't ask yourself what is a teenager doing working for
06:06this person in their finance business but at their home? It seems to me that Donald Trump should have
06:12been asking himself questions a long time ago and in ways that don't even necessarily implicate these
06:17files. Lisa stick around for a minute because we want to now get to the crux of this matter with
06:21Haley Robson. Haley was 16 years old when she met Jeffrey Epstein. Before it became law she spoke
06:28along with many survivors of Epstein's crimes in support of the Epstein files transparency act. Haley
06:34thank you for being with us. We're sorry that you have to keep on doing this. You have to keep
06:38on not
06:39just telling us the story which is important but but trying to just get something honest out of the
06:44Department of Justice. They've claimed this is over. We've got the files we're going to get and
06:49there's no more prosecution to have. How does that make you feel?
06:55I don't think I don't think the DOJ or this administration gets to call it quits. They're
07:01not in charge anymore and I think that's part of the problem. They're not realizing it.
07:06The survivors are not going away. We are not going to sit back. We are going to keep fighting and
07:13keep
07:13moving forward and we have some incredible attorneys and a lot of support and we are
07:20going to keep the pressure on as much as we can. Sloppy redactions expose the name of many survivors.
07:27Some women in the first two days there was nude photos of some survivors that it wasn't for the
07:33New York Times alerting the DOJ. They would still be up there. What has that been like for you and
07:39and
07:40some other survivors that I know you're in communication with? To be clear I'm flabbergasted
07:47at this whole chaotic situation. I mean when you don't think it could get any worse and then you
07:54hold your breath and you're like oh it just got worse. You know to be quite clear on my rate
07:59they've
07:59done a very sloppy job. It's been very unprofessional. It's been heartless and this is what I would
08:06consider a war on not just the sexual assault survivors of Jeffrey Epstein but this is a war
08:14on every survivor that has ever come forward. This is retribution. That's what it feels like for us.
08:19Do you think that America will ever learn the names of these other men that you and other survivors
08:28have said traffic them because there's a lot of other men whose names continue to be redacted?
08:36So I would like to be honest in answering this and I hope I don't offend the media. I absolutely
08:42do
08:43think it's possible but I think for now I think the goal or maybe a game plan should be let's
08:50back
08:51off Trump for a little bit and stop making it about him because there are other men that are equally
08:55involved in those files so let's refocus the energy on some of the other men that are or have already
09:03been named and let's open up an investigation and see if they are going to implicate other men in the
09:10process. Let's wait and see what the Clintons do. Maybe they'll be the ones to save the day but I
09:16definitely think it's possible if we can refocus our energy on not just Trump but let's move away from
09:23that and start focusing on the other individuals that have been implicated or named in the in the
09:27files. Haley I appreciate you saying that because and frankly you should be as critical of the media
09:32as as you'd like because we we we can take that and we should take all of this criticism.
09:38Talk to me about the refocusing because there is an issue here in that there are a lot of people
09:42who
09:42follow this because they wonder whether this is going to be the thing that brings Donald Trump down and
09:47i i understand why people believe that and care about that but that's not even close to being the
09:52most important story here right the survivors are the most important story the idea that there was
09:56sex trafficking of of girls is the most important story tell me more about the refocus that you'd like
10:02to see that you and the the the survivors would like to see from us and can i ask is
10:07there anyone specific
10:10uh anyone specific for the size looking all of them specifically acosta um you know i personally for
10:23me it's right and i hate to speak for the survivors as we're all individual human beings yeah thank you
10:30for that's right but i think the refocus does need to happen and i i think as as a group
10:37of survivors we
10:38need to take a step back and we need to start um pulling away from this administration and trump
10:44and expecting them to help us and really you know how and i know congress i mean i'm so thankful
10:51for
10:51thomas massey and roqana but i know that they have poured their heart and soul into this and i know
10:56that
10:56if we can get with congress and and come up with a game plan of hey listen we know that
11:03there have been
11:03people named we know that there's probably a slim chance that there's going to be investigations
11:09but let's get this taken care of let's refocus on the other people that are named in these files so
11:15maybe those people will full like implicate other people along the way is usually how it happens
11:22um i obviously don't have a written strategic plan but i i do i'm open to listening to congress i'm
11:29open
11:29working with the peter piece this segment just went viral pets are always well it's it is the best part
11:39about having guests join us from home pets are welcome i'm so sorry but yes i would love to speak
11:46to congress i would love to speak to my attorneys i would love to to speak with some of the
11:51other
11:52girls and see about coming up with a strategy to refocus and revamp on some of the other names that
11:57are in those files i don't think strategy wise for us to keep focusing on just trump alone is going
12:04to get us anywhere because we're already being met with so much resistance from the doj and from
12:10other individuals so i think it's time that we need to refocus and then come back to it
12:16hayley thank you so much uh and and one day we're going to have you on to talk about things
12:21that are a
12:21little more celebratory than this but i appreciate the work that you and the other survivors are doing to
12:26to keep us and the whole country thank you hayley robson thank you extraordinary do you the i mean
12:33extraordinary to hear hayley say they're not giving up they're going to continue to fight right she
12:38wants to speak to congress she's got a legal team do you believe we are going to get these other
12:43three
12:43million pages or the fact that we learned today that congress is going to see this first three
12:48million unredacted to me that seems like a big positive it is a big positive but it also comes with
12:54some drawbacks for the victims a number of the survivors will say to me i've never seen my own
12:59file i don't know what's in there about me in a fully unredacted way i would have liked to have
13:04the luxury of getting to review that by myself before everyone in the american is that normal
13:10um this whole process stuff is not normal right it's not normal for congress to pass a law that requires
13:16the revelation of all sorts of investigative material that usually remains concealed by the fbi by the
13:23department of justice or under court order so it's hard to say whether it's normal when this whole
13:28thing is abnormal but i want to put the focus back on what she said will we ever know some
13:32of the names
13:33i think we will but i don't think they're going to come out of the names of survive i'm sorry
13:38out of
13:38the mouths of survivors because there's too much disincentive for them to say it if you think about
13:44some of the history here many of the survivors and one survivor in particular was sued again and again by
13:49people who said that she defamed them right by accusing them of complicity or participation
13:57rich and famous people in there and the survivors are generally not correct and most of them are not
14:03just not rich and famous some of them are even what we call judgment proof meaning they couldn't satisfy
14:08even a small fraction of a defamation judgment against them and as a result many of them are afraid
14:14to say the names that they hold in their heads and hearts every single day so i think if we
14:20learn
14:21names it will come out of the mouths of members of congress on the basis of this investigation and
14:25that's where your question about they're being able to review some of these files fully unredacted
14:30is important because what they were supposed to redact was victim identifying information but there
14:36are a number of times where i have seen redactions in the files other people here at ms now have
14:41seen
14:41redactions that don't seem to be about protecting victims at all they want to get underneath them
14:46and understand who those people are and who is supposed to be protected here uh it it's a remarkable
14:54story that these these survivors continue to do this because as you said it's it's almost like a
14:58re-victimization on a daily basis almost it is none of this would happen if these survivors hadn't met
15:06personally with nancy mace with marjorie taylor green with roe put that pressure and done those
15:10press conferences outside of 100 yeah all right thanks lisa thank you for having me oh my goodness
15:16we are in for it coming up getting accountability for those survivors we're going to ask a former
15:21federal prosecutor where the investigation should go next
15:31donald trump's justice department is not considering bringing any additional criminal
15:36charges at all related to jeffrey epstein despite having released millions of pages from the epstein
15:41files and that's according to donald trump's former personal defense attorney who is now the deputy
15:46attorney general of the united states todd blanche there's a lot of correspondence there's a lot of
15:53emails there's a lot of photographs there's a lot of of horrible photographs that appear to be taken
15:58by mr epstein or were people around him but that doesn't allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody
16:05and that's what that's what's important for for the american people and the victims want to be made whole
16:11and and so we we want that the attorney general wants that more than anything but but that doesn't
16:16mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of um come up with a case that
16:21doesn't that
16:21that isn't there now for months donald trump and his attorney general pam bondi slow walked the full
16:28release of the epstein files and then they refused to meet the deadline completely that was written
16:33into law by congress but what if the trump administration had instead supported a full
16:38investigation in the mold of i don't know jack smith's investigation into donald trump would the justice
16:44department be in a place where it could actually hold more individuals accountable and maybe almost as
16:50important have the trust of the american people because right now given how this goat rodeo has
16:54gone they don't nobody knows what to believe mimi rocco is joining us now she's a former district
16:58attorney for west chester county new york and a former assistant united states attorney for the
17:03southern district of new york mimi great to see you thank you for being with us um that wasn't all
17:08todd
17:08blanche has had to say about this he's been wildly dismissive of of this whole situation putting aside
17:14the fact that he was donald trump's lawyer and lawyers always have an obligation to anyone who
17:18was ever their client and putting aside the fact that that was a weird thing that he did going and
17:22and talking to gillaine maxwell's putting aside what you think about todd blanche's performance
17:27this is this is pretty dismissive very dismissive and i think the most shocking thing that he said the
17:33way that he put sort of um another version of what he said to dana bash there was on fox
17:40news he said
17:41uh you know partying with epstein the american public needs to understand that partying with epstein
17:46is not a crime okay first of all can we just say that it depends on your definition of partying
17:54right
17:54right i mean partying with minors who people are having sex with yes it is okay but maybe even if
18:03it's
18:03not a crime okay we're a few weeks away from spring break right and if there are some people on
18:08spring
18:09break who i don't know engage in a wet t-shirt contest and post it on social media they'll lose
18:13their job offers to be first level analysts at a bank or a paralegal but we're talking about some of
18:20the most powerful people in almost any industry out there and they're lewd and vile and disgusting
18:26behavior and by the way last time i checked it's really easy for a really rich guy to meet women
18:31but instead of going the traditional way this is how they roll and todd blanche's response is it's not
18:37illegal right i mean the point you're making which is a really important one is not everything needs
18:43to be a crime for us to be talking about it and giving it importance and for it to have
18:49some kind
18:50of consequence right i mean we're seeing that with you know larry summers had a step back from his role
18:57uh you know various people in other countries in england have lost their titles there there should be
19:03consequences above and beyond just crimes i mean i'm a former prosecutor we tend to talk about it
19:09todd blanche though is even taking that point which is again a really really important one
19:16but he is dismissing the possibility of crimes again in a very arrogant kind of you know bro fist
19:24bump kind of way that i found offensive and i'm sure the survivors did um but he also is dismissing
19:31it without saying he's he's missing a big step the investigative step he's just saying well we
19:37can't prosecute anybody well there's no crimes right that doesn't mean there's nothing that you
19:41can do exactly can we just look i want to give an email as an example can we pull up
19:44there's one
19:45email i want us to look at on on the screen can we pull this up okay the sender's name
19:51is redacted
19:51yeah thank you for a fun night your littlest girl was a little naughty help us understand we don't
20:00obviously the name is redacted help us understand the mindset of the doj that they would think that
20:06person should have their name protected i cannot explain that i mean it is shocking to me that that
20:12is redacted and that is one of the most astounding things about these uh release of these files is the
20:19number of redactions of people who have what seem to be incriminating emails with epstein we don't know
20:27who they are we don't know if it's the same person we don't know if it's different people
20:30there is isn't that like i i don't want to accuse them of anything but don't they need when you
20:35read
20:35an email like that you assume the worst isn't that why we need the doj to explain these redactions
20:40right there could be a perfectly good answer that email but we don't know it and no one would trust
20:44it anyway yeah i mean it's hard to imagine a perfectly innocent explanation but the point of this
20:50act of this law that they do not seem to be in compliance with was actually to get out into
20:56the
20:56public domain people who are having discussions or emails correspondence like this and then for
21:04the doj to do follow-up investigation now that doesn't mean that there is a crime to charge i mean
21:11on that point todd blanche is like almost right it means that you should do investigation though to
21:18determine it and they have ruled out that important steps of even doing so there was an investigation
21:23once and and it was very strange because when todd blanche went down to meet with gillaine maxwell
21:28lots of people said why would the deputy attorney general be doing that and even if you thought
21:32that was an appropriate thing for the deputy attorney general to have done todd blanche himself probably
21:37wasn't the person to do it because he has ties to donald trump there was somebody named maureen comey
21:41who was at the southern district of new york with whom you've worked who was investigating a lot of
21:46people said would have been interesting if maureen comey was in that room having that conversation at
21:49least she would know what to ask we're not even sure that todd blanche would have known what questions
21:54to ask of my gillaine maxwell a hundred percent but they fired maureen comey just a few months before
21:59that right um you know coincidence i don't know um but they fired her for no good reason they gave
22:06no reason there was no good reason i know maureen very well i supervised her she is a a legend
22:11in the
22:12office she is a phenomenal and aggressive prosecutor she will bring charges when there are charges
22:18to bring then no one's going to really stop her if there's valid charges to bring and the idea that
22:24they would be doing this kind of thing and talking to gillaine maxwell without her at least input is is
22:30malpractice really unbelievable situation uh thank you good to see you mimi thank you we appreciate
22:35your time i have a feeling you'll be back on this subject former federal prosecutor and westchester
22:40county district attorney mimi roca when we come back what the epstein files released has exposed
22:46about jeffrey epstein's network of powerful men in tech entertainment the academic world even british
22:52royalty almost none of them have faced accountability and only a few have suffered professional punishment
22:59for their involvement with the country's most notorious child sex predator that is next on revealed
23:05inside the epstein files
23:13when it comes to jeffrey epstein and those millions of pages of documents we would not be here today
23:18without the women who stood up publicly to speak about what they experienced women like hallie robson
23:24who we just spoke to as we learn more about epstein's years of abuse it is very important to remember
23:29this is not about partisanship this is about power and privilege and the way people in these circles
23:36can abuse that and we are learning so much about the huge network epstein had with powerful and important
23:42men in technology real estate finance entertainment medicine the law academia american and international
23:49politics and yes even british royalty many of them who stayed in contact with epstein even after he pleaded
23:56guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in florida back in 2008 the emails i am going to take you
24:04through happened after that and these are just some of the people we learned about in this latest batch
24:09because many of the documents as we've said have been heavily redacted not to mention
24:13the doj is still holding on to millions more pages which they say they're not releasing let's
24:20start with elon musk the richest man in the world and one of donald trump's most powerful allies
24:25last year musk posted online quote epstein tried to get me to go to his island and i refused but
24:31here's the thing the new document show musk tried to socialize with epstein in 2012 musk asked epstein
24:37quote what day slash night will be the wildest party on your island now over the weekend musk wrote i
24:44had
24:44very little correspondence with epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island but musk did
24:50not appear to be addressing the emails around the party that he specifically had with epstein or the
24:56emails in 2013 that appear to show epstein's staff coordinating a visit for him to spacex
25:02one of musk's many companies then there's steve tisch he's a film producer and co-owner of the nfl's new
25:08york giants tisch is mentioned more than 400 times in the new files messages between tisch and epstein show
25:14epstein offering to connect tisch to several women in one 2013 exchange about a woman tisch wrote quote
25:21pro or civilian yeah that's what he wrote in a statement from the giants tisch said in part
25:28that he only had quote brief association where we engaged emails about adult women he had to clarify
25:35adult women and other topics he said that he never took epstein up on quote any of his invitations and
25:41never went to his island as we all know now he was a terrible person and someone i deeply regret
25:46associating with end quote dr peter atia that's a new name for a lot of people the celebrity longevity
25:52influencer appears in the files more than 1700 times their friendship appears to have started back in
25:592014 and included visits to epstein's home in manhattan as well as occasionally crude emails about women
26:06in 2015 atia wrote the biggest problem with becoming friends with you
26:10the life you lead is so outrageous and yet i cannot tell a soul this week atia published a lengthy
26:16apology on social media calling some of his emails embarrassing tasteless and indefensible he also
26:22stressed that he was not involved in any criminal activity next andrew mountbatten windsor the man
26:29formerly known as the united kingdom's prince andrew his name appears several hundred times in these
26:36new documents that includes an invitation for epstein to have dinner at buckingham palace in 2010
26:43and photos that appear to show andrew kneeling over an unidentified woman who's lying on the floor
26:48he has long denied any wrongdoing then there's brad carp the long-time chair of paul weiss one of the
26:55biggest and most prestigious law firms in america the documents show epstein's team arranging for carp's
27:01children to attend a woody allen film screening in 2015 the day after a scheduled dinner including
27:08carp and allen carp emailed epstein to say you are an extraordinary host and you're amazing on monday
27:15the law firm issued a statement to the new york times qualifying their interactions saying carp regrets
27:21those interactions but by wednesday carp abruptly stepped down as chairman of paul weiss the wall street
27:27journal reported some of the firm's top partners decided he could not continue in that role though
27:32he does remain at the firm finally donald trump's commerce secretary howard lutnik last year
27:37lutnik acknowledged that he used to be neighbors with epstein that happens can't help that
27:42and he spoke he chose to speak about when epstein had he and his wife over for a tour of
27:47his home
27:48back in 2005 watch this we left and in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his
27:58house to my house
28:00my wife and i decided that i will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again so
28:09i was
28:09never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy if that guy was there i wasn't
28:17going because he's gross he chose to say this a few months ago that never after 2005 but here is
28:28what
28:28the new york times said on wednesday when the new epstein files revealed about trip about a trip lutnik
28:34was planning with his wife and children quote lutnik planned a visit to epstein's island in 2012 long after
28:412005 though he previously said he severed ties with epstein right around 2005 reached by phone on
28:47friday lutnik said he could not comment about the island visit because he had not seen the latest
28:53epstein documents didn't say he didn't go said he hadn't seen them he said i spent zero time with him
28:58he then hung up the gathering was set for december 23rd 2012 one day later an assistant to epstein
29:06forwarded lutnik a message from epstein and it said nice seeing you on monday fox news laura ingram
29:14asked deputy attorney general todd blanche about the men who partied with epstein men like donald trump
29:19before he became president and a reminder blanche used to be trump's personal attorney watch this
29:27it is not a crime to party with mr epstein and and so as horrible as it's not a crime
29:32to email with
29:32mr epstein and and some of these men may have done horrible things and and if we have evidence that
29:38allows us to prosecute them you better believe we will but it's also the kind of thing that that the
29:43american people need to understand that it isn't a crime to party with mr epstein he's correct it's not
29:50illegal to party with jeffrey epstein but what the files reveal is how extensive epstein's contacts were
29:57even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a child in 2008 and was sentenced to 18 months
30:04in prison in the years after his conviction that apparently did not matter for lots of powerful
30:09people until it did and when their names resurfaced in connection with epstein some downplayed their
30:15contact with them others denied the stories outright but the documents revealed a different story
30:19one of power and privilege where some of the most powerful people acted is if they lived in a world
30:25different from the rest of us one without consequences but the more we learn that might
30:31not be the case for much longer it's an incredible story and when you realize that epstein didn't really
30:38seem qualified for the financial advice and money management services that he was performing people
30:42it begs the question why were all these people so all over jeffrey epstein after he was convicted
30:49after it was known what he did after he was he was sentenced it boggles the mind it sure does
30:57all
30:57right coming up next one investigative reporter who's doggedly followed the money and the moneyed
31:01men in the jeffrey epstein candle the scandal joins us next
31:08of all the powerful men i mentioned in our last segment there was one man i left out who was
31:14named in
31:14the justice department's latest epstein release thousands of times can you guess who donald j trump
31:21we already knew donald trump and jeffrey epstein were friends until they had a falling out supposedly
31:26in the 2000s trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of epstein's crimes and it's not just
31:32that trump's name is in the files it's in the files thousands of times according to the new york times
31:37they identified more than 5 300 files containing more than 38 000 references to mr trump his wife
31:45his mar-a-lago club in florida and other related words and phrases in the latest batch of emails
31:50government files videos and other records released by the justice department previous
31:54installments of the epstein files which the department released late last year included another
31:59130 files with trump related references joining us now steve eater an investigative reporter
32:05for the new york times steve we were talking to one of the survivors earlier and said look
32:09the media is obviously very very focused on donald trump and clearly there's a lot more to this as
32:14stephanie just outlined in the last block lots and lots and lots of other other men involved in the
32:19accountability involves everybody but let's talk about donald trump for a second because he has for
32:23a long time maintained not a he doesn't have much of he didn't have much of a relationship with with
32:28jeffrey epstein jeffrey epstein claimed they were best friends what do you take away from all these
32:32references yeah i mean look i think even before this latest release of records a picture had emerged
32:37you know of a relationship they were good friends at a time you know a time that goes back um
32:42at this
32:42point a couple decades you know 2004 and earlier they were friends on the scene together you know in
32:47that period um the records don't start filling in the blanks some more i think that we already learned
32:51quite a lot in the fall from some of the earlier sets of records but but surely there's more here
32:56you
32:57see um you know more examples of um of of i guess of that relationship and you know how it
33:03goes back
33:03in time um so it obviously as i went through was not just trump like you know i just mentioned
33:09if
33:09you elon musk ziv tish howard lutnik um uh richard uh european british billionaire richard branson you
33:16got new york real estate mogul andrew farkas what other names in here really stood out to you in terms
33:22of their communication with jeffrey epstein and wrongdoing or just inappropriateness well it's
33:27bill gates you know sure president clinton yeah i think at this point look i've been on this story
33:31you know to some extent off and on for six years now so um you know plenty of other reporters
33:35have
33:36too and and and i think when we look at a lot of these names are familiar to us the
33:39names that you
33:39just mentioned i think there were some here that were new uh tish for example i think was one that
33:44we hadn't had been on our radar so i think you start to see i think it's one of the
33:47things that's not a
33:48whole lot surprises you okay then what was your as somebody who's been in this for six years
33:53in the last five days going through all these emails what was your biggest aha well i think you
34:00start to see some of the really granular um back and forth some of the some of the communications with
34:06epstein himself um the thing that struck me was the piece that you know we published today um where you
34:11can see you know epstein crafting emails drafting emails to people that had this um knowing tone
34:19to them about shared secrets and having this this feeling like he knew things and almost implied
34:24blackmail like like like there's something else some of them were just chummy some people were asking
34:29for dating advice which is weird some people were asking for uh financial advice but there was this
34:33thing about i i know something yeah i think you can see that i think especially in some of his
34:38particularly important relationships that there were this this sort of notion of him at least
34:42acting like he had shared secrets he had something and that they had they had a loyalty to each other
34:50for people who haven't read the article can you give us an example yeah sure so today's piece we we
34:55focused on i mean just by the way the title gang stuff and illicit trysts how epstein sought leverage
35:02with the wealthy like get granular for yeah for sure and so this piece we we focused on one of
35:08jeffrey epstein's most important relationships early relationship with leslie wexner uh the retail
35:13tycoon who's behind uh victoria's secret and the limited um really an important relationship where
35:18it helped epstein accumulate his wealth early on wexner wexner eventually signed off his entire
35:23fortune to him which is wild yes yeah sure and then in 2007 they they cut ties right so what
35:29we found
35:30was in the newly released records that years later epstein seemed to be seeking to rekindle or to
35:35reconnect on the relationship he had been rebuffed um on a on an offer to try to meet with wexner
35:41what happens next is epstein appears to be drafting a letter to wexner um where he starts to craft
35:48out you know a sense of allegations about the relationships of um this shared history around
35:55them um you know wexner in his his folks say this is completely ridiculous these are lies it's
36:00innuendo and this is coming from a liar wexner's team has never explained why on earth this man would
36:06sign over his entire fortune to another grown man it's been one of the big questions you know that
36:10we've been following very interested in the money and trying to piece together the business life the
36:14financial life of jeffrey epstein over all these years it's been one of the priorities for me and my
36:18reporting and you know trying to understand you know the relationship with with wexner the money that
36:23traveled there and then in other relationships as well steve thank you for your excellent reporting on this i
36:28suspect you may be on this for several more years steve eater is an investigative reporter with the new
36:32york times all right coming up our next guest investigative reporter and author barry levine
36:36knows more about the crimes of jeffrey epstein than almost anyone else he'll join us next as the house
36:40oversight committee prepares to depose jeffrey epstein's convicted criminal co-conspirator
36:45gillaine maxwell on monday barry levine joins us next
36:55welcome back to revealed inside the epstein files in our final moments we want to focus
37:00on jeffrey epstein's co-conspirator gillaine maxwell for that we turn to barry levine he's
37:04a veteran investigative reporter he's the author of an important book called the spider inside the
37:09tangled web of jeffrey epstein and gillaine maxwell you've written an entire book about this you know
37:13more about that than than most people do so i want to ask you in all the files that you've
37:18that
37:19you've been able to see or read about is there anything you didn't know that really stood out to you
37:25well i i think there's been bits and pieces of stuff you know i've been digging through um i was
37:31particularly interested in uh jeffrey epstein's death uh i i came across the autopsy report i was
37:37looking from the very beginning on whether or not there had been dna testing on the actual
37:42noose that was around his neck and from what i found there had been no dna testing so how can
37:48we
37:48determine if someone else was involved if they didn't do any dna testing and then reading further
37:53you find out that the uh chain of possession of the actual uh bed sheet around him uh seemed to
38:01disappear when you know when the medics were there and so forth so we don't even know to this point
38:06if
38:06they actually have the correct item that uh he used to you know allegedly strangle himself well
38:11galane maxwell will be deposed by the oversight committee on monday february 9th what questions
38:18would you ask her and do you think she's actually going to answer any because she's reportedly expected
38:23to just plead the fifth yeah i mean she asked for immunity her lawyer said that she would most likely
38:28plead the fifth i would ask her something that i think is a bombshell revelation and that is in the
38:34um habeas corpus petition um for her appeal she said or her lawyer said that there were 25 unnamed men
38:43who did secret settlements with the accusers and that that information was not present for her legal team
38:52and so she's saying that had they known about these 25 men that they would have called these men as
38:58witnesses at her trial this is really a significant development probably the most significant thing
39:03we've heard from gillaine maxwell from the time she was first uh arrested july 2nd tell you that a
39:11little bit what what's the implication if these if she didn't have information and there are these 25
39:15men who have settlements what does that what does that mean well i think i think it blows the case
39:19apart
39:19in the sense that uh representative thomas massey said uh during the summer that there were 20 men that he
39:26was aware of from uh fbi 302 witness reports that allegedly took part in the sex trafficking and he
39:33well he didn't name the men he you know described them as six billionaires one from canada a man from
39:38italy and so forth but if in fact he's referencing the same man who may have done settlements with accusers
39:46that is you know highly significant and the doj really needs to get to the bottom of this
39:53why wouldn't these names be released at this point like wouldn't we see whomever these co-conspirators
39:58are wouldn't they be all over these documents wouldn't it be obvious to us well i mean i i went
40:02through some of the 302s and you have full pages of just black you know all of it redacted um
40:08there's
40:08a without any explanation without any explanation there's an 86 page prosecution memorandum uh that was
40:15given to um um um jeffrey berman who is the uh sdny head four months after jeffrey epstein's death
40:23behind we don't know what that is uh the prosecution memorandum spelled out efforts that the doj could
40:30take to go after other men now there are some men who are named in that document but in terms
40:36of what
40:37they did to corroborate anything most of that is is redacted so you know we're hitting a we're hitting a
40:43wall here we're almost at the end here but you're not a lawyer but you're an investigative reporter
40:46does it strike you as strange that the the deputy attorney general todd blanche also donald trump's
40:51personal lawyer used to be has said there's nothing more to be done here that's the part that i think
40:56people are unsettled about there's nothing more to be done here i mean you know i i've been reporting
41:01on this for for a very long time and i i have you know interviewed the survivors um the fact
41:09of the
41:09matter is there are men that can be prosecuted there's men around the world who put um miners
41:15on planes to jeffrey epstein's island to be abused and there are financial records now senator ron
41:22wyden is going down the financial trail uh looking into more than a billion dollars of uh suspicious
41:28wire transfers so there's a money trail and if they follow that money trail they will get to these men
41:35barry thank you for your uh amazing reporting and don't stop do not stop barry levine author of the
41:42spider inside the tangled web of jeffrey epstein and galaine maxwell this has been an ms now special
41:48revealed inside the epstein files i'm ali belshi and i am stephanie rule thank you for watching
41:53and stay with ms now for the latest for this for this and other news
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