Transcription
Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to discuss a very hard topic. And it wouldn't be possible to do these sorts of hard topics if we didn't have sponsors that were willing to come in with the courage to sponsor with a show like ours. And I really want to thank Brunt Workware for being the sort of company that not only produces a good product, but is actually willing to advertise on shows that discuss difficult issues. And Brunt produces excellent products. I'm gonna hold right now. This is one of my favorites. This is the Marin. All right. This is the Marin. This is the one I have. It is the thing I love about him, man. From the moment you put it on, it's just comfortable. No breaking in. No breaking in. That seems like I have I have worn combat boots for a good part of my life, work boots for a good part of my life. You always got to break them in. Not these babies. They are well-made. They're incredibly comfortable. They're good for the work site. And they're also good for just walking about town, right? They they've got a variety of different options. So, if you want the right boot for the right job that you don't have to spend a bunch of time getting blisters breaking in, I want you to go over right now to bruntwork.com/nick. That's bruntwork.com/nick because when you use code nick, you're going to get 10% off your order. That is a great deal from a great company which makes a great product. Please go over there, show your support for them. Use code Nick. It also tells them, hey, where where you've where you learned about him, so that helps us as well. Let's get into the topic.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the Epstein files have dropped, or at least more of them have dropped. Over 3 million copies at this point, and everybody is furiously going through them right now and providing insight, analysis, and everything else that you would expect from the podcast space. Um, and I don't want to replicate all of that. So, I'm actually going to try to I'm actually going to try to hit this up from a slightly different perspective. And so, to give you that perspective, I need you to give I need to give you a little bit of background on myself and some of the work that I did before I was ever involved in politics or social media or things like that. So, for those of you who don't know, I served in the military and uh I served in special forces. And my last job in Special Forces is what they call an 18 FOX, which is a special forces intelligence sergeant. And what a special forces intel sergeant does is they're part of the 12-man ODA. They're part of the 12-man special forces A-team and they handle a lot of the all-source intelligence for the team. So, when a 12-man uh team deploys to Iraq, like I did in 2008 as the 18 Fox, I do a lot of uh intel analysis on the area that we're going to and I start to develop targeting packets. I start to look at the various terrorist networks that we're going after, the various players in the region. And my whole job is to be able to provide our team kind of insight into what's going on, uh possible target lists, and then when we actually select a target to actually gather the intel necessary to put together not only the target packet but to also inform the execution of the target to go out there, the execution of the operation to go out there, get our target, bring him back. And then Iraq in 2008. What was interesting and unique from previous uh tours in Iraq was then I would actually have to go before a judge advocate general at times and I would have to make a case on why the person that I I brought in went to higher detention. I would have to transport witnesses to go testify at the central criminal court of Iraq. So whereas I wasn't doing intel, you know, I don't claim to be like a former CIA guy or anything like that, and where I wasn't a former law enforcement guy, I was in this unique position where as an all-source analyst for the ODA, I got to develop intel, I got to develop packets, I got to look at networks, I got to interact with a lot of different sort of intelligence assets, whether it was technologically sourced intel, whether it was human-sourced intel, whether it was open-source intel, um in order to make a good case for why we should execute operation and then later on why they should actually go to higher detention or or face uh greater legal consequences.
And so what I want to do is I want to take some of that experience uh that I have with that to look at this and look at the data that's coming out um and to also address some of the the questions that have come up with respect to was Epstein working for different intelligence agencies and why would intelligence agencies be complicit essentially know what Epstein was doing and gather it anyways. Now the obvious answer is because the information was valuable, and and I'm going to grant that. Uh, but we're actually going to go through the morality of that. We're actually going to go through kind of the ethical questions with respect to intelligence gathering. We're also going to talk about the first time Epstein was convicted and what that actually tells us about what was going on with respect to his operations. We're going to analyze whether or not he should have gotten the deal he did. Um, and what that also tells us. We're going to talk about some of the practical considerations on why he might have been offered. Like, what are there legitimate reasons why he might have offered a plea deal with some jail time as opposed to going after a heavier sentence? We'll we'll discuss that. But ultimately, this is what I I want to come away with is what what exactly do these new files tell us kind of in the broad sense. There's a lot of specific detail in there and some of it is just randomized because this is just being dropped. It's left up to everyone else to to analyze this, which is not a bad thing. But but what do we actually know now that we didn't know before? And and no, not not speculated on. What do we know now that we didn't know before? What should it tell us going forward? And do we think that we're liable to get more prosecutions? But here's the thing that I really want to dig in on. There's a reason why Epstein was doing specific things that he was doing. And it doesn't just tell us something about intel operations. It doesn't just tell us something about blackmail. It doesn't tell us a thousand things we already knew or or we could have already logically deduced. There's something else going on here that while I wouldn't categorize it as unique throughout history, there is something there's an element of it that is unique to what is going on right now and informs us something about not just Epstein, not just our political class, not just people in power. It actually informs us about something with all of us within this society. And if we don't get a handle on this part and we don't properly understand how it could have gotten to this how it could have gotten to this point, please hear me when I tell you this. If we don't deal with some of the underlying considerations, what it will mean is not only will nobody be prosecuted, not only will nobody be punished, we're getting very, very close to a point in society where this will be the sort of thing that people gloss over. And and it's not because people on the Epstein list won't be prosecuted. That's bad enough. It will actually be because of other reasons that I'm going to discuss. So, we're going to get to all that and more on this episode of Making the Argument. I'm your host, Nick Freighus.
All right. Um, you can go to justice. I'm going to put this up on the screen. You can go to justice.gov/epstein. So, if you want to look at the whole Epstein library, they have a really quick thing on there. You just verify that you're 18. You don't really got to do anything except hit yes. And now you can actually go through and you can look at the various files and it says this site houses materials responsive under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. This site will be updated if additional documents are identified for release. And then you can go in here and you can actually search through it. You can pull in the various files. Um, you can look at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform disclosures, DOJ disclosures, etc. One of the things to understand, there was a lot of frustration about the redaction um that was done on this because there's some things where certain names are are redacted in one portion of a document but then not in another portion. And so that just seems kind of sloppy. The other thing that was problematic is we've already had some victims uh come out and their names were essentially left in there when they probably should have been redacted. One of the things that's important to understand with redaction is why do they do it? Well, obviously there's certain people like victims that might have um certain considerations where there might have been some prosecutions or plea deals or things like that where now their names are sealed, right? They don't want you to know that they were a victim. And and now we're looking at upwards between 1,000 and 1,200 potential victims over the the course and it wasn't all on Epstein Island, right? Some of this was at his other residences, some of this were in other places. So there's a lot of potential victims in here that don't necessarily want you to know that they were a victim. And so when we talk about transparency, it is important to understand that while we we do have a right to transparency, there are certain things with respect to either criminal ongoing investigations, criminal proceedings, or the desire of victims which will restrict your access to knowledge. And and I think most reasonable people can look at that and say yes, if you're in the middle of an ongoing investigation, if you're in the middle of of prosecutions, which certain information can't be released just yet, or if you have victims that want to be protected, or if you have sources that are providing you critical information and you can't provide the name of the source, otherwise that source will disappear. Any reasonable person can look at that and say, I understand why that needs to be redacted. There's other things in here that are just confusing. And this has been, as anybody who watches me know, I have been a big fan of the Trump administration, except when it comes to this. I think the handling of the Epstein files has been sloppy at best. And and there are other things that have happened that a reasonable person is going to look at this going, "Yeah, I don't trust that this is all just either incompetence. I I this looks like this looks like you're covering something up for people." And and and and again, it's not to say I don't overall Trump the it's not that I don't not to say that I don't overall support the Trump administration, but I'm also not going to deny reality. This this looks like certain people are being protected and we don't know why. And one of the things that I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt on the Trump administration that I for instance would not have given to the Biden administration is it could be that they had put stuff out there and then they were pulling it back for the purpose of lulling people into false sense of security. I think it's increasingly difficult to make that argument and so I'm not going to make it anymore. The other argument that's being made right now is that well the left can scream and cry about this but they don't really care. I think that's correct. I don't think most people on the left really care because when they had the Biden administration in full control of Congress, they didn't do any of this, right? It wasn't they didn't care about this until they thought it was useful for them politically. And I think that's accurate. I think that's accurate. Now, does this mean that nobody on the left cares about the Epstein Files or Justice for Kid? No. No. I think some people on the left absolutely do. I just don't think it's the animating feature of the powerful people on the left. I just don't because we see this all the time. They have no problem lying about whatever they need to in order to use it politically. If they had thought that they had sufficient information to destroy Donald Trump, they would have used it. They didn't. And so, like so many other things now, when the left complains about this, I will look at it and I'll say, "Okay, but I don't trust you." But that doesn't mean that we get to suspend reality. That doesn't mean we get to suspend truth. We still have to analyze these things. So, I encourage you if you really want to go through this, I mean, yes, you're going to spend time and you're going to listen to other people like me analyze these things and talk about them, but you have the opportunity to look at this for yourself if you would like to.
Now, there's a couple of things I want people to understand about when you're looking at all these documents. There's a lot of people that were mentioned on this, and in fact, I'm going to pull up a list right now. This is uh this comes from PBS. I don't trust PBS. Uh, but they they do give a a brief list of people that are on here that are are relevant to the topic. Says a list of powerful men named in the Epstein files from Elon Musk to former Prince Andrew. So, the a Andrew Mountain Windsor, again, formerly known as as Britain's Prince Andrew, has long been uh dogged by questions about his relationship with Epstein, including allegations from the late Virginia Roberts, uh Guthrie, that she was trafficked by Epstein and instructed to have, you know, relations. Again, some people have asked me, why do I use certain words other than other ones? It's because they they tend to get throttled if we don't on YouTube. Relations with Mount Windsor when she was 17. Okay. So, she was one of the most um she was one of the victims from the Epstein scene that had came out and had been very, very vocal um and and she was willing to share her story, right? A lot of these victims were not, and you can understand why a minor would not want to be known for this, but um Virginia Roberts Guy was, and again, she she died under somewhat somewhat curious circumstances. We'll just put it this way. But there was even more information that came out because um there's now pictures. There's a lot of pictures that have been put out of, you know, there's there's one picture of him kneeling over a minor. Um and again, Sarah Ferguson. In March of 2011, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, made a public apology for letting Jeffrey Epstein pay off some of her debts. Both she and her ex-husband, the former Prince Andrew, had come under tremendous public scrutiny for continuing a friendly relationship with Epstein after he pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. We're going to talk about this prosecution later because there's another thing too that we have to look at here and that is um kind of the line of de that's that's there's a line that a lot of people draw in the sand where there was pre-Epstein conviction and post-Epstein conviction. So pre-Epstein conviction, is there a world where you could have known Epstein under um circumstances different from what was going on on Epstein Island or his various residences? So for instance, if Epstein is showing up at the same sworeways sworeways and parties that you're at where nothing nefarious is going on, right? It's people have this idea that if Epstein was there, something illegal was going on. No, Epstein had a lot of money. We're not even sure how he got all of it, but we think we have some good ideas. He had a lot of money. He had a lot of access to power. And so it's reasonable to understand that Epstein could be at events where other powerful people would be and get pictures taken and do other things like that. That doesn't automatically mean that you knew everything Epstein was doing or that you were buddy-buddy with him or anything else. And it's important to make that distinction. Now, once Epstein gets convicted of soliciting, you know, from an an underage person or relations, gosh dang it, from an underage person. Now, there's a point where if you're still maintaining friendly relations with him, now we have more questions because it's not as if he was just randomly accused, right? I I've known people that were accused of things where it was almost immediately thrown out of court. Does that mean you're not allowed to be friends with that person anymore? No, of course not. Right. You are entitled to your day in court. Well, Epstein had his day in his court in court and was convicted. He took a plea deal, but he was convicted. Not to mention the fact that there is also overwhelming evidence like Epstein had developed a reputation long before this to where if you were still hanging out with them and you were still buddy-buddy with them, that that causes me to ask some questions right about your judge of character. And this is where other people too that I generally support and generally like have had email correspondence with Epstein after this after his conviction, right? Which which call into question why would you be doing this? Why would you be why would you continue to correspond in a friendly manner with him after this? Why why when it was becoming more and more public public knowledge that he was not only, you know, engaging in the same parties you went to or knew the same powerful people, right? Or or able to invest or spend money on things, but he was actually engaging in a lot of nefarious activity. Why would you continue to put yourself in his orbit? And that's a legitimate question.
Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla founder, turns up at least a few times in Friday's document releases, notably in email exchanges in 2013, uh, 2012 and 2013, in which he discussed visiting Epstein's infamous Caribbean island compound, but it's not immediately clear if the island visits took place. Spokespersons for Musk Company's uh, Tesla and X didn't respond to emails seeking comment Friday or Saturday. Musk has maintained that he repeatedly turned down the disgraced financier's overtures. Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I refused. He posted on X in 2025. Okay. Couple of things can be true at once. There is no question that Musk was pushing for the Epstein files to be released. He was, and and I think he deserves credit for that. But there was also email transactions that came out between Musk and either Jeff Epstein himself or other people. And again, this is the part where it it's important to ask questions here because the conviction, the conviction for um Jeffrey Epstein took place in 2008. That was when the Florida conviction came out. That was public knowledge. These emails are 2012 and 2013. And Elon Musk was not just, you know, giving him a tour of the ex SpaceX facility because again, Epstein was Epstein had a lot of contacts that would be important to people that were engaging in a variety of different industries and politics and everything else. Musk was specifically asking um about visiting the island. Uh Musk had emails to M or at least in the in the email dump and I haven't heard Musk deny the the veracity of the emails yet where he was talking about visiting the island. He was talking about going there with his wife. Um there was one email where Epstein had said I don't know if Ghislaine would be comfortable with the ratios there. And you know that's obviously a reference to the number of women that are there and things like that. And Musk responds with she won't have a problem with the ratio. And so it's also important to understand that Musk has had something of an interesting an interesting view of of sexual activity, let's put it that way, between his multiple marriages, between all the children he has, between, you know, the way he looks at the future of humanity. Um, and so it it seems obvious in these email transactions that Elon Musk was not just, you know, getting an invitation from Jeffrey Epstein and turning it down, but actively seeking out an opportunity to go there to one of the parties he was having. And so that calls into question. Now, there has been no evidence that I'm aware of at this point at the time of filming that Elon Musk actually went there. So, let's imagine a scenario where Elon Musk says, um, you know, hey, I just know Epstein from visiting SpaceX. I wasn't following all the other stuff. I wasn't following the Florida trial in 2008. I just heard that he throws wild parties in the Caribbean, and so I was going to go. But then when I found out it was really bad, I didn't. Okay. Again, some of that can be a little bit hard to believe that you wouldn't have any idea of what Epstein was actually engaged in, especially someone that powerful who theoretically you would think would have people that was actually tracking this down. By the same token, Elon was also pushing for the Epstein files to be released. Now, maybe you could argue that he didn't think he would be mentioned or that his his emails wouldn't be a part of it, but again, it's it's something to be concerned about.
Another one is Richard Branson, uh, the billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, a global conglomerate, exchanged numerous emails with Epstein. Um, in 2013, Branson invited Epstein to his own private Caribbean island, um, which regularly hosted large conferences, charity events, and business meetings. Anytime you're in the area, we would love to see you, wrote, as long as you bring your harem. So again, this this goes into the whole idea of everyone knew what Epstein was known for, right? They're Yeah. If you're if you're some guy that's just going about his life in, you know, rural America, you you might have some vague inclination of Epstein and what he was about or or you might not have ever heard of him. But if you're in this scene, if you're in the in the world uh that Epstein inhabits, you know that he's known for things. And one of the things he's known for are these parties. One of the things he's known for is procuring women. Now, some of these women were of age. That I don't think that makes it right, but some of these women were of age. And so he at least wasn't. But many others were underage. And and again, we don't have to speculate on whether or not he did that. He was convicted of it. Um let me see.
Donald Trump. It's been long known that Epstein was friends with Trump before the two had a falling out. Uh the new the new trove of documents contain thousands of references to Trump, much of which sheds little additional light on the men's relationship. They included emails in which Epstein and others shared news articles about Trump, commented on his policies, on his politics, or gossip about him and his family. So this is the other thing that needs to be understood about the way this is being reported. A lot of people are saying like, "Oh, Trump is mentioned thousands of times." Okay. Well, Trump doesn't have any say on whether or not other people within Epstein's group are mentioning Trump. All right. Trump is not culpable for what other people are saying about Trump in emails to each other that get dropped in this this file. And that's an important distinction, right? With with each one of these, what you need to look at is not just number of times he's mentioned. That's an interesting metric, but it doesn't really tell us a whole lot until you dig in. The one that was kind of used as as more of a damning thing with Trump is uh Maxwell and Epstein apparently visiting Mar-a-Lago and bringing a woman with them that they that from the conversations that were taking place made it apparent that they were trying to they were trying to get a relationship or or you know whatever between Trump and this girl. Now, from other sources, it looks like that not only did Trump not take them up on this offer, but that Trump barred Jeffrey or Epstein from Mar-a-Lago sometime after that encounter. Right. Again, I if if I've got my times or my dates mixed up on this, please let me know. But from what I from what I understand is that the very exchange that people are referencing is one of the things that led to the falling out between Trump and Epstein was this idea that they were they were obviously trying to push this girl on him. And I don't I don't recall the age of the girl. I don't think she was underage. Um but but again, it's this it's this case of Epstein and Maxwell once again being associated with this procuring you know young women for rich powerful influential men. The document also included a range of uncorroborated stories involving many different celebrities and somewhat fantastical scenarios occasionally with notations indicating what followup if any was done by agents. Another thing that's important to understand is that a lot of the things that made it into the Epstein files was again if the FBI got reports from somebody mentioning Epstein, that's in the Epstein files. So before the 2020 election, all of a sudden there's this flurry of people calling tip lines to the FBI implicating Donald Trump with Epstein. There's a lot of notes, too, on some of those files that the FBI put out. And granted, some of the redactions are are weird, but there's a lot of things under there that says, "Yeah, we we don't find the veracity of claims to be, you know, good. We don't find the reliability of the source to be trustworthy." So, again, when you're looking at tips, when you're looking at intelligence, you're looking at things like is there's a couple different criteria you look at. One is the veracity of the claim, one is the reliability of the source. So what what you want and we have different numbers associated with it, but what you want is a a high trust source providing information which can be verified by in multiple independent sources and what that means is it's another source that doesn't have a connection to your primary source or the information they can provide you can be verified through some other means of intelligence gathering. So technological intelligence, signals intelligence, right? You know, electronic intelligence, there's all kinds of what we call assets in the intelligence space. So if I have a high trust source, which means they have access and placement to the information that they're giving me, right? So someone can say, "Oh, I have information on the moon landing," right? But they've never worked for NASA, they know nobody in NASA, they've never, that's not a maybe their information is true, but they don't have sufficient access and placement to give me a a high degree of reliability score for them. So when a source has good access and placement, they're giving me intelligence um that actually makes sense for the other things that I know, they've given me intelligence before which is proven to be true. Right now my source, high reliability, high reliability. And when they give me claims that match up with other things that I know, the the veracity of that claim goes up significantly when I can then in when I can then um independently verify it through other sources. Now we have high trust source giving me good information, right? That that's how we that's kind of we break it down. That's a very rudimentary explanation, but it checks out. You can check with somebody in the intel world if if you don't trust me. Um, there was a lot of claims that went around about Donald Trump where they were looking at going, this person has this person has been before because they have multiple psychological breakdowns or they've been convicted before of of providing false information or there's someone that just randomly calls in tips and it's it usually always ends up being garbage. Right? So a lot of the things that came in were just clearly trying to implicate Trump before an election. And and the other thing that this is where I go where I think the left has really screwed themselves on this because the left has been so willing to lie. Hands up, don't shoot. Oh, Renee Good was just trying to drop her kids off at school. Oh, this they're always willing to lie if it it suits them politically or misrepresent if it suits them politically or lie by omission if it suits them politically. I don't trust them anymore when they make claims. And so even when they make a good claim, I'm skeptical because I don't trust the person. Right? This is one of the problems that we get in the intel world. And I know this because we dealt with sources in places like Iraq. And if you had a source that had a had a low um reliability rate, a low trustworthy rate, they might still give you good information, but you couldn't categorize it as high unless you can find other independent sources that you could trust or other means of gathering intelligence on something that you could trust in order to verify the source. Okay. All that to say, a lot of random claims got put in there that I I think were just meant to be character assassination rather than than having high veracity.
Bill Clinton, like Trump, Clinton spent time with Epstein more than two decades ago, including flying occasionally on his private jet and seeing him at the White House. Clinton also denied any knowledge of Epstein's wrongdoing. Clinton's representatives say the former president broke off relations with Epstein after the first round of criminal charges in 2006. Um, Stephen Tish, New York Giants co-owner, is mentioned more than 400 times in the father's release. Friday, correspondence between the shows shows Epstein offered to connect Tish to numerous women over the years. In 2013, in an email with the subject line, Ukrainian girl, Epstein encouraged Tish to contact a particular woman whose physical beauty he praised in crude terms. Um, and then Tish asked in reply, "Pro or civilian." So, right there is kind of an an acknowledgement by Tish. Again, if the emails are all real, um an acknowledgement by Tish that he understands the difference between is this a prostitute um or is this just some random girl that he's procured. Uh Casey Wasserman, the president of the committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, exchanged flirty emails with Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell. Uh Ghislaine Maxwell. Friday's document released shows. In a 2003 exchange, Wasserman wrote to Maxwell, "I think I think of you all the time, so what do I have to do? See you in a tight leather outfit, blah blah blah." Again, some of this is 2003. The question there is, before the criminal convictions, would it be possible for people to know these people and not be aware of criminal wrongdoing? Let's face it, some of the people that scream the loudest about this stuff in places like Hollywood, Hollywood exactly is is Hollywood is not exactly known for its sexual purity, right? So, some of these people look at these things as these people are already willing to engage in what we might call immoral or deviant behavior that is not necessarily illegal or is illegal adjacent. Right. Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister and his wife turn up frequently in the documents released Friday showing they stayed in regular contact with Epstein for years, including well after his 2008 guilty plea for sex crimes in Florida. Among the correspondents are plans for a 2017 stay at Epstein's New York residence. Other missives discuss mundane logistics for other visits, meetings, and phone calls with Epstein. So apparently Epstein was also helping Ehud Barak try to uh, you know, get work after he's becoming prime minister. And one of the things that Epstein is is um one of the things that Epstein is is schooling him on is this whole idea of how he needs to think about his life post-politics and how he uses his leverage and the people that he helped and everything else in order to make money. Larry Summers, Clinton's former secretary of the Treasury and the one-time president of Harvard is another of Epstein's well-known longtime acquaintances. The new documents are full of references to meetings and dinners between the two men. A previously previously released trove of documents um shows Summers emailing Epstein in 2019 after the financier had been charged with sexual abuse of minors to discuss his interactions with a woman writing, he told her awfully coy you are. Epstein replied, you reacted well. Uh, the other thing too that's that's come out with this and and it's not in this list right here because this list is mainly about certain powerful individuals connected to this. There were other lists where you had people talking about um torture. You had people clearly making references to things that could be associated with S&M. So, some pretty dark stuff, right? It's not just it it's not just the deviancy. It's not just the um stuff with underage minors, which is horrific in and of itself, but it's also the idea of incorporating a lot of other deviant and potentially illegal activities into this potentially being done by minors and people kind of freely exchanging emails about it. And I and I'm going to get to to why that point is also problematic. Uh Wilbur Ross, who's the uh commerce secretary under Trump, we were talking about Ross and his comments. In fact, we were praising Ross for his comments at the WEF. Ross came out and said um limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of doing wrongdoing. So the idea is is that um Ross once gave an interview where he said that, you know, when he met Epstein with his wife, they walked away and both of them basically said, I'm never going to have any dealings with that evil man. But then there were follow-on emails between them. And so this this is again this is the problem a lot of these guys are coming into is that they're saying yes I knew Epstein. Yes, I met Epstein. Yes, he invited me. Yes, he tried to get me into his circle. Instantly saw that it was evil and wanted nothing to do with him. But then there was follow-on correspondence. And and so this is the part where it's like, okay, your trustworthiness now as a source on your own behalf goes down when you get caught in these lies. Uh Sergey Brin, the billionaire Google co-founder, made plans to meet with Epstein and Maxwell at his townhouse in New York years before he was a publicly accused of sexually abusing underage girls, emails show. In one exchange in 2003, Maxwell invited him to join her to a screening of the Renee Zellweger film Down With Love in New York. This is the part too where I think we need to understand something again. If you if you are seeing this guy Epstein in all these different circles, but you are involved in those circles, but you're not involved with Epstein, it is possible that you would think because here's the other thing. Epstein is actively reaching out to these people trying to do them favors. So, he's reaching out to them going, "Oh, I can connect you with so-and-so. Oh, I can take Can I just tell you as someone where I have people contacting me all the time and I'm nowhere near at this level, but I have people in politics and I I have people within the the social media space contacting me all the time saying, "Oh, let me connect you with this person. Let me connect you with this person." Right? So, it would be it would be easy to find transactions of somebody that offering to connect me with some, "Oh, that would be cool. That sounds good. Oh, I didn't realize you knew them." And if I don't know that person that well, I might give a polite response where it's like, "Okay, yeah." Or you might say, "Yeah, we'll go have dinner together." If you don't know, the question is is what did you know and when? And how did it impact your behavior? Because I've seen people I know and like take pictures with people I know and don't like, but I don't know if they just happened to be at the same event together and they asked to take a picture or somebody snapped it or whatnot. That's not the same as evidence of a relationship or criminal wrongdoing. And so I'm capable of making that distinction. So again, when it talks about Sergey right here, the the evidence that that dropped in this doesn't look like it is reasonable to assume that Sergey could have not known anything about what Epstein was doing, had a meeting long before the criminal convictions took place, and then didn't do any follow-up. That that's one of the things a lot of people are looking for here is when did you meet him, and what did the follow-up look like after he was convicted in 2008.
Steve Bannon, one-time adviser to Trump, exchanged hundreds of friendly texts with Epstein, some sent months before the financier's 2019 arrest and jailhouse uh suicide. The two discussed politics, travel, and a documentary. Bannon was said to be planning uh that would help salvage Epstein's reputation. I don't know if that's true. One 2018 exchange, for example, focused on Trump's threats at the time to ask Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. In a 2019 message, Bannon asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome. So it it's it's clearly that there was some interaction between Bannon and them, but it was largely on the um on the political side, not necessarily visiting the um visiting the island. Um, there's a lot more in here um that we can go to. Um, well, there's one more on this one. Uh that's Miroslav Merculov, a national security adviser, the Slovakian prime minister. He resigned Saturday after his past communication with Epstein appeared in Friday's document release. Um opposition parties and a nationalist partner in Fico's government coalition had called for him to step down. Um again, part of the problem with some of this is why are you still hanging out with this guy when when he's trafficked minors? And this goes into that that conviction. So 2008 Florida state conviction. This is the only conviction. Uh charges he was convicted of or or Epstein pleaded guilty to two state felony charges. Soliciting prostitution and and procuring or soliciting a person under 18 for prostitution, right? Victims. The uh FBI identified 36 to 40 underage victims in the investigation leading to the plea. Some were as young as 14. So, this is another thing too where some people will try to say, well, you know, hey, were they 17? Was it a day before their 18th birthday? First of all, I don't care. Don't go around minors. I don't care. Secondly, 14 there there's also people will also try to people will also try to um make a differentiation because there's a different word that like pedophile generally refers to a a child of a certain age and when it goes to a minor there's a different word that that is used to describe it. Again, here's here I'm gonna make it real simple. Ready? Stay away from minors. There you go. You know, if you stay away from minors, you don't have to worry about the confusion. Sound fair? Good plan. All right. Some as young as 14. Later reporting, like the Miami Herald series, identified more alleged victims overall up to 80 plus, but the 2008 case centered on dozens identified at the time. Maximum potential penalties of fully prosecuted without the deal. If convicted on state felony charges involving multiple victims, if pursued against all identified victims without a plea, he could have faced decades in prison, potentially up to 75 years or more in extreme scenarios based on stacking counts under Florida law at the time. Federal charges which were avoided could have carried much harsher penalties, including life imprisonment for sex trafficking of minors. Right. So that's what could have happened. What did happen? An 18-month sentence, served about 13 months in county jail with extensive work release, allowed to leave for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week to go to his office, plus registration as a sex offender and restitution to some victims. He avoided any federal prosecution via a secret non-prosecution agreement that also granted immunity to potential co-conspirators. Okay.
Now, in the realm of criminal prosecution, are there times where it is appropriate for a prosecutor to say, "Look, we've got a lot of damning evidence. However, there's going to be some of it that is going to be problematic in court." Because sometimes when you have witnesses that have to testify, you have to look at the reliability of your witnesses and what's going to happen under cross-examination. You also have to look at things where there may be somebody that's willing to come forward and present evidence, but they refuse to testify or they could potentially recant their testimony. So, if you're a prosecutor, you don't just get to look at what you believe is true. You have to look at what you can not only prove in court, which means it has to pass a certain threshold on what the judge will allow based off of the law with respect to evidence presented and what a jury will be potentially convinced by based off of also considering what defense will claim. So you have to take all that into consideration. There are times where most of us will look at something and be like, "It is horrible that they only got this or it's horrible that this was the only crime they got." And the prosecutor is saying, "Look, I would have liked to go for more, but if my witness won't testify or if it won't or if certain evidence uh was kicked out, I now have to go for the best I can in order to try to get justice for victims both in the form of either, you know, criminal sentencing for their uh per the perpetrator or, you know, financial remuneration." And so I got to go with what I got, right? I got to go with what I got. And and I think it is appropriate to look at that and understand that that is the reality. That is the reality. If you want a court system that is that is really stacked to making sure that innocent people don't go to jail, the price of that is sometimes guilty people don't get everything coming to them. And that's been a price that we we've been willing to pay throughout the history of our country, right? To a point. But on this one, this smacks of Jeffrey Epstein having access to powerful people and getting consideration that very few other people in this circumstance would have gotten. In most cases, I think all of us can imagine a scenario where a federal prosecutor or a county or or a DA or a Commonwealth attorney makes their entire career on taking someone that did these things down unless they did them for powerful people. And so, while I can't prove it, every my analysis would be that it is highly likely that he got a plea deal that nobody else would get because of the people that would have been implicated. Period. The end.
Now, in 2019, the federal charges that never went to trial was sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors related to abusing dozens of girls between 2002 and 2005 in New York and Florida. Now, here's what's important about those dates. Remember that the first prosecution was 2008, okay? But these other victims that were coming forward for the federal prosecution 2002, 2005 in New York and Florida. So what this also suggests is that this was going on in multiple locations, right? It's not just the island, multiple locations. This also brings into question these other people that are in Epstein's orbit. What did they know? When did they know it? And how did it impact their relationship with them? Prosecutions alleged dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14. Maximum penalties if convicted would have been up to 45 years in federal prison. A potential life sentence for someone his age. Outcome, he pleaded not guilty but died by suicide in jail before trial. So, no conviction or sentences. Um, here's some of the reasons why the 2008 result was highly unusual and widely criticized. Non-prosecution agreements ending federal child sex trafficking probes are almost unheard of, especially without at least a decade in prison. It resolved the case with minimal jail time despite evidence of a large-scale operation involving dozens of vulnerable teens. Prosecutors led by then US Attorney Alexander Acosta exercised poor judgment by finalizing the deal before fully completing the investigation, failing to notify victims in advance, violating the Crime Victim's Rights Act, and later ruled as later ruled and granted broad immunity. A 2020 Justice Department review cleared Acosta of misconduct but criticized the handling as flawed and lacking oversight. Critics argued it allowed Epstein to evade serious accountability for over a decade during which more such abuse allegations occurred and shielded potential accomplices. I I have I'm sorry I can't come
to any other conclusion that a deal was cut because he knew powerful people and those powerful people were known on both sides of the aisle. Both sides of the aisle. So the right doesn't get away or or elements of the right doesn't get away with this either. Right?
And this is the part where again Thomas Massie uh put out this post and he was he was he was showing something to Donald Trump and put out a truth and Thomas Massie said, "So now he's attacking my wife who voted for him three times. Maybe someone told him she's actually the one who suggested I ask Pam Bondi in person at a dinner when we would get phase two of the Epstein files." Bondi said there were no more files. As they say, the rest is history.
A lot of people are mad at Thomas Massie for a variety of different things and for a v variety of different fights he has been in with the Trump administration. Um I I have always considered to I've known Thomas Massie for gosh probably since 2018 like known Thomas Massie. I I don't claim that we're best friends or anything like that, but I've known Thomas Massie. I've always respected and liked Thomas Massie. I've always seen Thomas Massie as someone that was willing to pursue the truth regardless of what it cost him. Um, that doesn't mean I've always agreed with Thomas Massiey's analysis, and it doesn't mean that I've always agreed with his strategy, but when it comes to the Epstein files, I'm team Thomas Massie on this one. I'm sorry. I I'm tired of the personal attacks on Thomas Massie. I'm tired of the tax on his wife. Okay, everybody wanted the Epstein files released. Everybody wanted them. We're pushing for and then all of a sudden it was, nope. I remember when it was like, oh, phase one. Phase one implies there will be multiple phases and then all of a sudden there were no more phases and so Massie was the one that cleverly used the discharge petition in order to get him released. I I'm sorry. This was a long time in coming and as much as I have supported the Trump administration and we'll continue to support all of the good things that they're doing. This was a screw up. This shouldn't have happened the way it did. And because it happened the way it did, it leads people to think that there was a cover up by the Trump administration. I don't like that. And and I I don't think that being I don't think that being supportive of the Trump administration means that I have to support each individual activity. I don't and I won't. So Massie did what he had to do to get the files out there. And I think he deserves praise for it. I I don't think he deserves criticism for it. He sure as hell doesn't deserve to lose his seat over it.
Let's go to um I've already talked about the intel side of this and and how do we gather intel? um how do we um how do we properly analyze intel and how do we differentiate between a you know a good source a bad source good information bad information and then what sort of conclusions should we come to it I think the the latest drop that we've seen shows that there's far more widespread involvement through multiple people than was previously known I think it shows that a lot of people were continuing to carry on relationships with Epstein even though they were aware of the sort of person that he was and the sort activities that he was participating in. Um, I think all of that means that we should be uh skeptical of the claims that are coming from certain people. I think it also means that we need to demand more prosecutions. Uh, if we can't have prosecutions, what's eventually going to happen is people are going to start to realize that or or they're going to come to the conclusion that they really can't get justice. And if they can't get justice through legitimate means, they will start to seek it out through other means. is what it is.
Um, and and especially when it comes to children, and this is the part that I I kind of talked about at the beginning that I really want to hammer into at this point, there is a time where Epstein could have blackmailed people with prostitutes. There is a time he could have blackmailed people with um homosexual relationships. There is a time where any number of of you know crimes or just actions that were associated with bad character would have been enough to have leverage on somebody to get what you want to get the sort of things that Epstein was probably after, which is leverage. Leverage on the most powerful people around the world, which he could sell, which he could use to manipulate, which he could pick up a phone call and make sure that a deal went through, right? all of it. Why was there so much emphasis with Epstein on underage girls? Now, you could say, "Well, Nick, this has been a problem since the beginning of the time." And you would be correct. You would be correct. But this is this is at an alarming scale. And a lot of the most powerful people, a lot of powerful people were implicated. And and you could say, "Okay, but wouldn't it have been just as bad or would it have been sufficient if it was these powerful people with someone who was of legal age?" Wouldn't it have been as bad if this was someone that was just a a a willing because I I I stress to say willing. I think most people in prostitution are not willing and the answer is unfortunately no, not anymore. It's not just that this was damning. It's that if you think about it for a moment, this is actually one of the few areas of sexual deviency that the mass vast majority of people will no longer accept. But that's changing, isn't it? That's changing too because now you have an entire political movement in this country which is increasingly grooming children at younger and younger ages to explore their sexuality to explore questions of sexuality at ages that they are not mature enough to even consider. In fact, they're asking them to consider things that they should never consider that nobody should ever consider. But when you have people writing articles for the Washington Post saying that they bring their small children, small children to pride parades so that they can expose them to kink so they can explain why they're a valued member of our community. When you see the emphasis on drag queen story hour, when you see the emphasis on drag queen cabaret and people will say, "Oh, but what about things that went on in the church? What about things that horrible things? Those people should be prosecuted." See, that's the difference. I'm not making excuses for people on the right that engage in this behavior. I want them prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and I don't think current laws do a sufficient job of punishing them. But it isn't amazing how that's usually happened in the darkness. It's happened in secret while this other stuff happens in broad daylight. We're expected to celebrate it. The reason why we need these convictions is because the people that are willing to engage in this behavior, the people that are willing to accept it need to fear the punishment more than they desire their perverse pleasure. Powerful people need to know they can't get away with it. And it needs to be very, very public and it needs to be very, very painful. Because the scary part right now is that if you look at the way this next generation is being groomed, the next generation will look at this and be like, "Well, that's just that's just a a human being expressing their sexuality." And if you don't think that's where this is headed, go read what the French existentialists, go read what some of the best philosophers that are in your kids' school, in your kids' universities, go read what Kinsey was doing. Go read what John Money was doing. Go read what all these people were doing with respect to exploring sexuality of children. Go look at what they were advocating for as late as the 70s. And that's where you start to realize like, oh, Epstein is probably just the tip of the iceberg and it's probably nowhere near as bad as it's act actually is getting in certain places. And the pornography industry is culpable in this. Anybody who thinks that pornography is, well, this is just an innocent thing and these girls are getting paid a lot of money, there's no question there are some people who are voluntarily engaging it by any legal definition and making a lot of money off of doing it. To suggest that is the bulk is absurd. to suggest that there is a there is a fascinating documentary called Buying Her and I would encourage you to go watch it because it it's not it's not um it's not interviewing a bunch of people that were sexual deviants from the time they were four. It's actually showing the connection about how a lot of what we would call pretty ordinary men went from watching what we might call standard pornography to very very hard pornography to very very violent pornography to threatening to rape someone in their car. And so we need to address not just what's going on with Epstein, we need to address the larger degree of sexual deviency which is happening within our society. And this is what happens when you treat as if it is nothing more than just a physical act, stimuli response, an ability to explore what you like and what you don't like. Because once you actually once you take and you remove it completely from morality, the biggest threat you have for a society is not Epstein. The biggest threat you have for society is that nobody cares what Epstein was doing.
So there's two things that have to be addressed with this. The first one is there has to be criminal convictions. Or my good friend Karen Hamilton who just replaced me in the Virginia General Assembly. One of her first bills that is outstanding was removing the statute of limitations for sexual ab child sexual abuse and human trafficking. We need more laws that are protecting children. And I want mandatory minimums. And I want I want mandatory minimums that make them spend as much time at jail as possible at hard labor. I want the people that have have engaged in the most egregious acts. I want the death penalty back on the table. And then what I really want is I really want some of the most powerful people who are involved in this to get convicted. And I want the punishment to be so horrific for them, not cruel and unusual, but so horrific that any other rich guy that even thinks about sending an email to somebody like a Jeffrey Epstein is like it ain't worth the risk. That's what I want over there. I want the punishment to be so horrific that they don't even think about touching a child because that's the only thing that's the only thing that will dissuade some people.
But the other thing that we actually need in this country, and this is the part where people are going to call me a puritan, or they're going to say I'm conflating issues. No, I'm not. If we do not return some aspect of basic morality with respect to sexual activity, this is a neverending neverending regression. And and I'm not I'm not you can go read they were news articles where some of the most Jean Paul Sartra Fuko your existentialist your postmodernist your people that your children are being taught to read and to think and understand. Oh my gosh, weren't they so brilliant? Simone de Bvois arguing for why people for why people were why why people who were keeping multiple 13year-olds in their house was this was just a this was a a friendly and consensual relationship. That's what the thought leaders of leftist ideology were saying in the 70s. So why should we be surprised when it manifests itself in the way it does now?
So, those are the two things I'm First of all, again, thank you to Thomas Massie for pushing the uh release of the Epstein files. I want to see prosecutions and I want to see a change in laws. I want to see places like Idaho or Tennessee or Florida, places with good state legislatures and good governors. I want to see them putting out laws on the books that have medieval style punishments for this sort of behavior. And then I want to see a return to us once again elevating. I don't care if they call you a puritan. I don't care if they they call you whatever they call you. Start advocating for proper morality within sex because in in the way that God intended it between a man and a wife. It's a one it's an incredible thing. But with all this deviation and the deviation never starts with this, right? It always starts with something simple. It starts with treating it like it's nothing about that that it's nothing more than you getting what you want physically out of the exchange. And the thing is we see the results. So, I'm going to encourage us to go for both because if you have a society which actually assigns the proper moral standing with this, you get the requisite outrage and you get the sort of politicians that don't engage in this as much and when they get caught, they're ruined and when they get prosecuted, they're destroyed. But how do you expect to live in a world where people are carrying off their kids to teach them about kink at age seven? How how do you get that sort of society to have the appropriate outrage to go after politicians and everyone else perpetrating this? You have to do both. You have to do both because there's always going to be the Jeffrey Epsteins of the world and there needs to be a special place for them.
But the other thing that we need to do if we want to make if we want to help stop the number of girls that are getting traffic, I can be reasonably certain that this wouldn't have happened to my daughters. Why? Because they had a father, they had a mother, they had a family, they had a support network, they had everything else that set them up in such a way in order to help make sure they would never be trafficked like this. But I've I've seen I have carried legislation on behalf of victims where you look at the circumstances and you saw the broken homes. You saw the broken families. You saw the situations where they easily lured away by people on social media. You saw where the schools, the public school system were complicit in doing it. We need we need to not only prosecute Jeffrey Epstein, we need to not only restore our our thoughts on this and get away from the deviency and degeneracy. We also need to do a better job of pro protecting both our sons and our daughters from this because there is a whole world out there desperately trying to manipulate them and convince them that this sort of activity is perfectly natural. One of the most heartbreaking things about this is that you know you know that were minors that thought that what they were getting into was fun and exciting until it was too late. Where was their protection? We need to think about all these things if we're actually serious about doing something. We need to think about all of these things.
Um, I I want to mention a sponsor that we have for today's uh episode. And because this is an organization that is concerned about making sure that we're raising up the next generation that does believe in morality, that are patriotic, that are moral, that believes that men should be protectors and providers, and that's Young America's Foundation. Young America's Foundation is having a Freedom at 250 rally at the Country Music Hall of Fame February 6th. It is coming up this week, ladies and gentlemen. and you can get your ticket. You can still get your tickets, but they're hosting this. It's going to be an outstanding rally that they're doing there. Um, I'm going to be there. I'm going to be speaking there and and we're actually going to have a special meet and greet for MTA members. So, if you are a member of our community, if you can come out to this uh event, great. Come out. You're going to have a great time. You're hear from wonderful speakers. And we want to do something. We wanted to do something special for all of our members. So, we're going to do our own event, right? So, I'll be speaking. Daily Wire will be there. Greenwood will be there. Uh, meet up with us and the whole MTA crew. You can register now at yaf250.com. That's yaf250.com. If you use discount code Nick, you're going to get 50% off, half off your registration, right? They want you to come here. This is a great network, right? If you want to find your people, this is a great place to do it. So, if you're anywhere near Nashville, February 6, go to Yaf uh YAF250.com, sign up, use the code Nick, because we we'd love to see you there. We always love it when we get to meet our people at the at the events that we go to. So, go in and check that out.
Um, okay. Look, I I think uh I think we've said everything that that I wanted to say on this. I'm I'm sure there's going to be more coming out. Um, this is one where we got to we have to choose the hard right over the easy wrong because it would be easy to just get into this um you know, but what about but what about but what about when it goes to other sides. Uh, from look, from what I've seen, Donald Trump has not been implicated in going to the island or engaging in any illegal activities. Okay. But other people other people seem to have been and we need prosecutions that and we need Donald Trump to be the sort of president that we know we can be and and go after these guys there. An example needs to be set and I desperately desperately hope that that he will set it.
All right, once again, thank you all very much for joining us. Please consider liking and subscribing and if you want to join our community, um please go ahead and check out the link in the description. Uh we'd love to have you as a member. We've we've had our our people in the chat right here. We have our pregame and now we're about to go into our postgame. And so if you would like to be a part of that pregame and postgame, they were helping me out on how we how we formulate this episode, what we needed to focus on, what we should discuss, all that was going on. And now we're going to go into questions in the postgame. So if that's something you're interested, check out the link in the description. Once again, thank you for joining us and we'll see you next episode.