Transcription
[Music] [Music] Oh. All right, it's time for us to start getting into Les Wexner. And before we begin, let me just preface this with saying the Les Wexner rabbit hole is vast and extensive. I want to do my best to try to kind of build you guys a timeline of who Les Wexner is, how he got so wealthy, how he's attached to Jeffree, some of the scandals he's been involved in. So, we're going to touch on a lot of different things, but there's going to be certain subjects we are not going to fully dissect for the sake of time and brevity. So consider this deep dive to kind of be like your overview of Les Wexner's life. And this deep dive is very important because Les Wexner is one of those people who made certain decisions in his career that we are paying the price for in present day.
Leslie Herbert Wexner was born on September 8th of 1937 in Dayton, Ohio. His father, Harry Wexner, was born in Russia but immigrated to the United States. And his mother, Bella, was born in Brooklyn but grew up in Ohio. Les Wexner also grew up with his younger sister Susan and they grew up in a very traditional Jewish household.
After he graduated from high school, Les Wexner would attend Ohio State University. And at Ohio State University, he was a part of a fraternity and he would go on to graduate with a degree in business administration. After graduating from college, Les Wexner would go on to briefly serve in the Air National Guard, and he would also go on to briefly attend Moritz College of Law. But he did not complete his studies here. He instead went on to begin a career in retail. And he chose to go into a retail career because he was inspired by his parents, whom he watched growing up, run and operate their own retail clothing store called Leslie's, named after their son. With the degree that he got at Ohio State University in business administration, he attempted to work with his parents at Leslie's to make the store more profitable. But his parents were not interested in the ideas that he had. So he just went on to open his own retail clothing store.
So in 1963, Les Wexner would get a $5,000 loan from his aunt and then he would get a matching loan from the bank. And with that $10,000 combined, he would open his own store called The Limited. Long story short, The Limited was very successful and by 1976, Les Wexner had opened his 100th location of the Limited retail store.
In 1982, Les Wexner acquired the women's apparel chain Lane Bryant as well as Victoria's Secret after the founder Roy Raymond along with his wife filed for bankruptcy. In later interviews after acquiring Victoria's Secret and doing this business dealing with Roy Raymond, he explained how he had observed that Roy Raymond was very standoffish around him and just very cold towards him, almost afraid of him. Les Wexner recalled how he felt like when Roy Raymond looked at him, it was as if Roy Raymond was looking at the devil. Which is actually very interesting because in an interview that Les Wexner did just a few years after acquiring Victoria's Secret in 1985, Les Wexner discussed how he felt that he was possessed by a dark entity. And he shared this with full sincerity, too. He was not saying this as a joke. He explained in this article how he never slept well at night due to this dark entity that was possessing him. And this entity was not just something he felt within himself. It was something that had been appearing to him ever since he was a child. He even recalled that when he woke up in the morning every morning, it felt like this entity was tweaking and pulling at him in his own words, which just makes this photo of Les Wexner even creepier. As you can see in the reflection, there's something looking back and it is very creepy. Maybe just his reflection, but it looks like it's flipped. I don't know. Very creepy.
After he acquired Victoria's Secret, he very quickly turned the brand into a billion-dollar business, which especially gained a lot of popularity whenever the annual Victoria's Secret shows became a tradition associated with the brand. And by the time Victoria's Secret was really becoming one of Les Wexner's hottest commodities is when Jeffrey would come along. By this point, Les Wexner had created kind of like a parent company, an umbrella company. Over his many retail chains that he owned called the LB Brands. And underneath that umbrella fell the Limited, the Limited 2, Bath & Body Works, Lane Bryant, Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, like just to name a few. There were a ton of retail chains that he operated underneath the LB Brands.
So Jeffrey would meet Les Wexner, after he worked at the Dalton School, after his time working at Bear Stearns, after he started Intercontinental Assets Group, where he was self-admittedly working as an intelligence operative, and after his time working for Steven Hoffenberg at Towers Financial Corporation, which we know was exposed as being one of the largest Ponzi schemes to ever operate in American history a few years after Jeffrey stopped working there, allowing him to evade criminal charges and liability for fraud. After all of that, in 1988, he started J. Epstein and Company, where he would utilize the connections that he had built since the Dalton School to manage assets and tax strategies for wealthy clientele, like extremely wealthy clientele. And one of these wealthy clients was Les Wexner, whom he had met a few years before he actually started J. Epstein and Company. So Jeffrey became Les Wexner's financial advisor for the LB Brands as a whole. The two of them not only had a very good working relationship, they were also very close friends. There are rumors out there that Les Wexner and Jeffrey had something more with one another. We're just going to kind of not even touch that right now. It's a rumor. Let's talk about the things that we do know.
Within a very short time of Jeffrey beginning to work as the LB Brands' financial advisor, personal financial advisor, Les Wexner, Les Wexner in 1991 granted Jeffrey power of attorney over his affairs. Meaning Jeffrey had power of attorney over the entirety of the LB Brands. So essentially Jeffrey had the power to hire people, fire people, buy and sell properties and store locations, sign checks, receive loans. He effectively had full control over the LB Brands in just about every way. And right around the time when Jeffrey was being handed all of this power by Les Wexner is right around the same time period when Jeffrey, whose main girlfriend at this time was Ghislaine Maxwell, but still dated other women. Right around this time in 1993, Jeffrey was dating Sports Illustrated model Stacy Williams and she is the woman who was assaulted by Donald Trump while her boyfriend Jeffrey watched, amused. So, as you can see with everything we know about Jeffrey and Donald's timeline, you'll know that when Jeffrey became very powerful within the LB Brands, he was also at this time becoming very, very close friends with Donald Trump.
Notably, 1993 was also the same year that Les Wexner would marry his wife Abigail Koppel, now Abigail Wexner, and they would go on to have four children together. So yes, throughout Les Wexner's relationship with Jeffrey, he was actively growing and raising a family.
Because of the power that Jeffrey had within the LB Brands and because of his many, many friendships with modeling agents, he would use that power to his advantage and he would portray himself as if he were an international talent scout for Victoria's Secret. He could very easily fly under the radar doing this because he did technically work with the LB Brands who own Victoria's Secret and his closest friends in this time period are some of the biggest modeling agents on the globe. He would leverage that power upon young models to procure them and lure them into situations that would bring him pleasure while getting the green light to do this from his buddies like Paolo Zampoli, Donald Trump, Jean-Luc Brunel, and Casablancas without a second thought because Jeffrey was bringing them in to get that same kind of pleasure. It was almost too easy for him to fly under the radar.
So by the mid-90s, executives at the LB Brands were starting to observe this power play that Jeffrey was utilizing against models that were always needed within the LB Brands Corporation. And executives reported this misconduct that they believed to be seeing on Jeffrey's part directly to Les Wexner, who took absolutely no action whatsoever.
So, as far as how Jeffrey was getting paid by Les Wexner, keep in mind Jeffrey was the power of attorney over the LB Brands, a billion-dollar corporation. He could basically decide to pay himself whatever salary that he wanted, which would very quickly make Jeffrey a multi-millionaire if he was not one already due to his time scamming with Steven Hoffenberg and evading any kind of prosecution, allowing him to keep whatever money that he made during that time and his time working as an intelligence asset. If he wasn't a multi-millionaire by that point, Les Wexner certainly made him one. Well, I guess technically he was signing his own checks, so he made himself one. And just as a side note, we have no reason to believe that once Jeffrey began working as an intelligence asset, he ever stopped because he never denounced nor pledged loyalty to any specific country. Instead, whatever country, nation, or government was working with him pledged their loyalty and allegiance to him. So, we have no reason to believe that once he began, he ever stopped. While he might not have made millions working at the Dalton School or Bear Stearns, he certainly had many other opportunities to become extremely wealthy with the work that he was doing. Even before he began working with Les Wexner, by the time that Donald, for example, began a friendship with Jeffrey, Jeffrey was already rolling in money. He definitely had the ability to keep up with Donald Trump.
In 1995, Jeffrey was named director of Les Wexner's Wexner Foundation as well as his Wexner Heritage Foundation, giving him more power within Les Wexner's empire without ever technically being named an employee of the LB Brands. By the time that Jeffrey even began working for Les Wexner, he was excellent at helping his wealthy clients find loopholes to help them avoid having to pay taxes. He was excellent at setting up tax shelters, creating trusts, and offshore accounts. He was excellent at helping wealthy people become even wealthier by helping them to avoid paying taxes and keeping huge amounts of money off of the government's radar. This is what made Jeffrey so valuable to Les Wexner. The multi-million dollar salary that Les Wexner was paying out to Jeffrey annually did not even hold a candle to the amount of money that Jeffrey was helping Les Wexner keep off the government's radar. In trust, Les Wexner is certainly not the only billionaire to ever have a Jeffrey. Now, maybe not every billionaire's Jeffrey is sick in the mind and attracted to children, but a position like that isn't the craziest thing to see amongst the uber wealthy.
In 1996, Jeffrey changed the name of his firm from J. Epstein and Company to Financial Trust Company, and he relocated it to the Virgin Islands to reduce his federal income taxes by 90%. This is right around the time when Jeffrey developed a business relationship with JP Morgan and a friendship with JP Morgan executive Jes Staley. And Jeffrey and Jes Staley had a good working relationship within JP Morgan for many, many years until 2012 when they had a falling out and Jeffrey would move his assets and his money to Deutsche Bank. But going back, 1996 was when Jeffrey, still working very closely with Les Wexner, began to have very serious allegations levied against him. In 1996 was when Maria Farmer, I have done a full deep dive on the Farmer sisters that you guys can watch, but Maria Farmer contacted local authorities as well as federal authorities in 1996 to report both her and her sisters as victims of sexual assault by Jeffrey and Ghislaine. And for Maria Farmer specifically, her assault occurred while she was working as an artist and resident at Les Wexner's Ohio estate, where Jeffrey lived part-time, while her sister Annie Farmer's assault occurred in Jeffrey's Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. The Farmer sisters were also able to give the FBI and the NYPD extensive detailed information about the different co-conspirators they saw within Jeffrey's property, as well as the descriptions of the victims that came in. Yet nothing was done about it at this time.
Within a year of the Farmer sisters reporting Jeffrey and Ghislaine, a complaint was filed by model Alicia Arden, who accused Jeffrey of misrepresenting himself as a Victoria's Secret recruiter to get her into a compromising situation and ultimately assault her. And these incidents occurred years after executives at the LB Brands were bringing it to Les Wexner's attention that Jeffrey was behaving inappropriately and misusing his power. And Les Wexner just continued to ignore it. Les Wexner really would not distance himself from Jeffrey despite the swirling allegations until after he was arrested for the first time. And they cut ties publicly. We don't know if behind the scenes they still remained friends or if Jeffrey continued to manage his assets. But despite Les Wexner stating publicly that he cut Jeffrey off, it has not stopped the public from speculating about the full extent of their relationship. In later interviews when he's been questioned about his relationship with Jeffrey, he's acted as though he is a victim himself of Jeffrey and how Jeffrey swindled him out of millions of dollars. He had no idea how much money Jeffrey was paying himself. And he accused blatantly Jeffrey of misappropriating funds and stealing from his family. Basically trying to like pull the elder abuse card. But I personally don't buy it.
Now that we've built a rough timeline, like a very in-a-nutshell timeline of Les Wexner's life, I now want to dive into some weird connections and like global scandals that involve Les Wexner, but these might not be in a perfect timeline. So by now you have a basic understanding of who Les Wexner is and how he became so exorbitantly wealthy. But I think one of the most important things that we have to talk about when discussing Les Wexner was his involvement in a creation called the Mega Group. Mega, Ga, Mega, not MAGA, just coincidentally sounds a whole lot like it. I am a little worried that this video might be taken down if I repeatedly say the Mega Group. So, for the sake of censorship, we're just going to call it the M Group. And the M Group is basically the real-life version of what people have thought is the group that is similar to the word "Illuminati." Okay, you following me here? It's kind of like the real-life version of that. Don't worry, we are not going to go into conspiracy theory land. We are going to talk about the facts of what the M Group was, is, and has accomplished. But before we get into this, I just want to reiterate there is a difference between Judaism and Zionism. Zionism is an ideology that is extremely dangerous when it is attached to any kind of religion. We've especially seen that in the United States when it comes to Christian nationalism, aka Christian Zionism. And we have been seeing the dark consequences of Zionism in the Middle East since at least 1948, but technically long before that. So please act right in the comment section. We are not going to be hateful to any religion. We are not going to be hateful to any group of people whatsoever because the major thing that all of these people that are a part of the M Group have in common more than anything is that they are all billionaires. That is what should be frightening. These are all billionaires. Okay, so let's get into it.
So the M Group was founded in 1991 by Les Wexner and Charles Bronfman. We have talked about the Bronfman family before. They are Canadian billionaires who are the heirs and owners of the Seagram liquor empire. The man right here in the back is Edgar Bronfman Sr. The man right here is his brother Charles Bronfman. And the man right here is Edgar Bronfman Sr.'s son, Edgar Bronfman Jr. Edgar Bronfman Sr. specifically was a client of Jeffrey back in the late 70s through the early 80s when he was working at Bear Stearns for Alan Greenberg. His son Edgar Bronfman Jr. appears in Jeffrey and Ghislaine's Black Book. And Edgar Bronfman Jr. is also the former CEO of Warner Music Group. He is a current chairman of Fubo TV and he is a Broadway producer and songwriter as well. Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s half-sisters and Edgar Bronfman's youngest daughters, Sarah and Claire Bronfman, were both involved as perpetrators in the NXIVM cult out of California with Keith Raniere. So, we know that the Bronfmans already have kind of a very strange history.
Ultimately, Les Wexner and Charles Bronfman created the M Group so that twice a year, influential Jewish entrepreneurs could get together and network amongst one another. So, beginning in 1991, this like fraternity began meeting twice a year. And while it's technically now defunct and not an actual group anymore, it's not necessarily true because it kind of just rebirthed into something on a much bigger scale. Let's just say, and you'll understand more in a moment, the M Group was the blueprint for a lot of things that we're seeing happening within media across the globe today. Not specifically just the M Group. These people did not cause all of the problems going on in the world. That is not what I'm saying. But this idea that Les Wexner and Charles Bronfman had in 1991 to create this fraternity of like-minded wealthy figures who all had the same end goal is a formula that worked and has been repeated on many different levels. So for example, the M Group are the people who created, originated, founded Birthright trips to the blue and white state. And in present day, this is something that is still happening and it is being almost fully funded by billionaires like Miriam Adelson. But the people who created the Birthright trips are the M Group. And there are many other similar initiatives that we see within the United States that originate and go back to the M Group.
So the M Group at any given point of time had anywhere from 20 to 50 members. And Jeffrey, who we know was attached to Les Wexner's hip at this time, utilized the M Group to build connections to further align his own pockets. While Jeffrey was never an official member of the M Group, he has connections and associations with nearly everyone who was in the original M Group. So, let's go over a few people who were in the M Group, whether they were founders or just members. So, aside from Les Wexner, we know that the Bronfmans were founding members and heavily involved with the M Group. More on that in a moment. Another member of the original M Group was Laurence Tisch. He is the grandfather of New York City police commissioner Jessica Tisch. Laurence Tisch has another grandchild, Jessica's cousin, David Tisch, who is in Jeffrey's Black Book. And Laurence Tisch is the former CEO of CBS. Another member was Leonard Abramson, who is the former CEO of U.S. Healthcare, now known as Aetna. Another member is Ronald Lauder, who is the son of cosmetic company founder Estée Lauder. He is the heir to his mother's empire. He is also a political activist for the blue and white state, which technically like most of the members, if not all of the members of the M Group were, but not all of them were officially working for the blue and white state, but some were. Another member was a Russian oil and gas billionaire named Charles Schusterman, who is the founder of the Samson investment firm. Another member is Lester Crown, who has held ownership in like everything from sports teams like the Chicago Bulls and the New York Yankees to appliance companies like Maytag and hotel chains and event spaces like the Hilton Hotels and the Rockefeller Center in New York City. Another member was Max Fisher, who founded Aurora Gasoline, which was the gas and oil company that owns the Speedway gas stations. And Max Fisher was also a major, major donor to the Republican Party. Another member was Michael Steinhardt, who is a hedge fund manager and an antique collector who sat on the board of Christie's Art and Antiques auction house for many, many years. Another member was Conrad Black, a Canadian billionaire who built a media empire, who had control of the Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, like just to name a few out of the dozen. Similar trajectory to what Robert Maxwell was doing, becoming a media mogul. And just as a side note, Conrad Black was the billionaire who was convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice back in 2007. He went to prison, but in 2019, Donald Trump gave him a presidential pardon, clearing his criminal history. Conrad Black is also in Jeffrey and Ghislaine's Black Book. Robert Maxwell was connected to the M Group. I think that kind of goes without saying. And Steven Spielberg was also unfortunately a member of the M Group as well. I could keep going, but I think you like get the picture. And again, I just want to reiterate that saying the truth of what the M Group was, it becomes very easy to fall into the slippery slope of conspiracy theories and blaming all of the world's problems on one group of people. Groups like this exist under different pretenses. Stuff like this exists amongst Christian nationalists as well, prevalently. The Heritage Foundation, for example. The problem is not that they're all Christians. It's the attachment of exorbitant wealth and Zionism that make the people operating groups like that extremely dangerous. There's always only one outcome of Zionism of any form and money.
So the majority of members from the M Group were donors of the Republican Party, but there were most certainly people who were involved in the M Group who were donors to the Democrats as well. Part of what made the M Group so unique was the fact that the founding members also brought in high-ranking government officials of the blue and white state as well as political operatives for the blue and white state in under their wing, which allowed the blue and white state's government to co-opt the M Group and use it as a vehicle for influence for blue and white state operations occurring in the United States. As time has gone on, the M Group has transformed into something much, much bigger than a fraternity of wealthy men meeting twice a year in New York City. Because individually, many of these members would fund or create different coalitions, different organizations and foundations, all working toward similar goals. So, like for example, EMEP, the Endowment for Middle East Truth, a blue and white state propaganda think tank that is based in Washington D.C. that was founded in 2001. That would be considered a fruit that has been produced from the M Group tree. But what is very scary is once the M Group had an idea, they would each utilize their own individual foundations and resources to try to bring these ideas to fruition. For example, in 2001, Edgar Bronfman Sr. gave a speech that effectively foretold what we would see in present day happening between the blue and white state and Palestine. And that was back in 2001, decades before what we have seen happen on our screens for the past 2 years. In this speech, Edgar Bronfman Sr. encouraged the creation of an apartheid system in Palestine and he also suggested the total obliteration of Palestine and Palestinian people if they were to ever resist the apartheid or breach the wall. And the speech was given without the basic acknowledgment that the natural reaction to oppression is resistance. That's the human reaction, which they know. They were always saying the quiet part out loud. But the destruction of Palestine is far from the endgame. When it comes to the blue and white state, it's like impossible to conceptualize that what is happening to Palestine right now is something that the blue and white state wants to happen on many fronts with many different countries. Very scary. And this was a plan we saw set into motion decades ago and we're seeing brought to fruition in present day. If it continues, what will things look like 20 years longer down the line? So that is your very much in a nutshell version of what the M Group is. The M. It's a lot. It's a lot. I could talk for hours about it. It's definitely a topic we will be revisiting.
So we're going to wrap this up by talking about a few other scandals that Les Wexner involved himself in. So let's talk about Southern Air Transport. So Southern Air Transport was a Miami-based cargo line that was founded in 1947, but in 1960 it was acquired by the CIA. And the CIA made Southern Air Transport their main airliner that they would use to conduct covert operations globally. In 1973, the CIA sold Southern Air Transport, SAT, to a private buyer named James Bastain, who was a lawyer for Air America. But even after this transfer of ownership, the CIA continued to use Southern Air Transport as a CIA asset. And Southern Air Transport was the main cargo airliner that was used in the Iran-Contra affair. And we're not going to fully dive into this piece of history. We are just going to talk about a portion of it because it's a lot. This is a very, very, very, very basic graph of the Iran-Contra affair. But basically, in the 1980s, journalists and congressional investigators exposed the United States government operating under the Reagan administration for utilizing SAT to transport weapons to Central America and the Middle East. And after the United States would send cargo planes full of unauthorized weapons to various places around the world, specifically Central America, in return, those cargo planes would come back filled with substances that would be used to fuel the United States substance trade, which was like a whole other thing under the Reagan administration. And notably, there are quite a few names in Jeffrey's Black Book who were involved in the Iran-Contra affair, including Adnan Khashoggi. And we have talked about the Khashoggi family in depth, but Adnan Khashoggi specifically was Jeffrey's client long before he even met Les Wexner. He was his client back when he was working as a self-admitted intelligence operative. We could get more into the Iran-Contra affair another time. It's a lot, just like a frustrating period of history to like learn about and read through because it's like, what, what were we thinking? What were we thinking?
But after this massive, massive scandal, SAT would move their operational headquarters from Miami to Columbus, Ohio, where Les Wexner headquartered and operated the LB Brands out of. Les Wexner actually funded SAT's move from Miami to Ohio. And he also fully funded the Rickenbacher Air Force Base to be converted into a commercial cargo hub because he wanted to use SAT as his main airliner when transporting merchandise from Hong Kong to Ohio, where LB Brands operated out of. For the next decade, Southern Air Transport and Les Wexner had a very good relationship, working relationship with one another until SAT was caught yet again smuggling weapons and substances and they were finally forced into bankruptcy. So, through and through, Southern Air Transport was deeply corrupt and willing to do whatever, transport whatever, for the right price.
We're going to wrap this up. Just a couple more things. This is what Les Wexner and his wife's political donations look like. So, as you can see, like the M Group in general. It varies from Republicans to Democrats, but you can see who they donate to more heavily. Mitt Romney is a figure whom Les Wexner really liked. For some reason, he hosted a campaign fundraiser for him at his home when he was running against President Obama and he himself donated a quarter of a million dollars to Mitt Romney's campaign.
Now, I think there's something to be said about the culture that Les Wexner harbored and nurtured within the LB Brands because we have Jeffrey, who was his like number one good boy. And then we have Mike Jeffries, who was arrested for very similar charges as Jeffrey. Victims were just a different gender. So, there was clearly some kind of predatory culture that was being fed underneath Les Wexner. We have Jeffrey, who we know what kind of ring he was operating. We have Mike Jeffries from Abercrombie & Fitch, who was arrested for very similar charges as Jeffrey. We know Abercrombie & Fitch is a product of the LB Brands. There was just like clearly something here that was nurtured and cultivated that produced a normalization of predatory men who believed they were untouchable.
Not only that, but we have to also think about Les Wexner's ties to Ohio State University. He sits on the board of Ohio State University. He's one of their largest donors. He's one of the wealthiest people in the state of Ohio as it is. This is also the university where he himself graduated from. And we know Ohio State University had their horrible scandal involving Dr. Richard Strauss that was eerily similar to the Larry Nassar case in a lot of ways. But Dr. Richard Strauss of Ohio State University, who was working at a time when Les Wexner was on the board, subjected upwards of 177 male athletes, male students of Ohio State University to some varying form of sexual assault. One thing that we learned later throughout Dr. Richard Strauss's case was that faculty and board members of Ohio State University were aware of what Dr. Richard Strauss was doing to these victims, to their students, and no action was taken, which at this point for Les Wexner is a pattern. We saw this happen with the LB Brands. Executives came to him and said, "Hey, we think Jeffrey's acting inappropriately and he's overstepping his power to do inappropriate things with women and models." And it was ignored. Same situation with this. It was just ignored.
When you step away and think about the big picture, who was funding all of these things? Who was funding Jeffrey so that he could keep his operation running? Les Wexner. Who was funding Mike Jeffries of Abercrombie & Fitch so he could keep his ring running? Les Wexner. Who was funding Ohio State University to keep them out of trouble as their students were actively being victimized? Les Wexner. And I mean, this is the guy who created the M Group. This is the guy who co-founded the M Group. This is a man who does not look at human beings that he does not view as equal to him as human. But that is Les Wexner and the Mega Group in a nutshell. There's a lot more. There are a lot of subjects that I will be coming back to to further dissect, but this is kind of like your rough timeline of who Les Wexner was, how he's associated with Jeffrey, how so many global scandals just somehow involve him. I guess consider this your introduction to Les Wexner. Your phase one, if you will. That's all I have for you guys right now.