Transcription
The oversight committee was meeting this week to discuss all things Epstein. Can you bring us up to date?
They in particular talked about photos, which I know you've seen. I I think I was the the hidden hand in um in at least one of in a notable confrontation between um between one of the senators, Sel Senator Sheldon White House. Um I always think that's a curious name for a senator. Um um and Pam Bondi, the attorney general. Um um so Senator White House uh asked her about reports of these pictures of of Trump and Epstein. And well, let's get into that in a second. Um and um and she she responded effectively saying saying, "Why are you asking me about pictures? You're the um um you're the the piece of garbage scumbag." um or or something to essentially that that >> well and these were these were notes of attack that she'd actually written down which a photographer rather brilliantly managed to take a snapshot of and they were all her attacks on the Democratic senators including uh Adam Schiff once they started asking her questions and I think for Senator White House she had an attack on the fact that you're a friend of Reed Hoffman you've taken dark money I mean she went on full attack instead of answering the question, does she know if there are photos? >> Yes. I mean, very particularly did not answer this question. Did not address this question. Did not answer this question. And this is what used to be called um I mean in the in in this day and age, it's just business as usual. But what used to be called stonewalling. I can't answer the question because the question will incriminate me. um or in this case incriminate the president of the United States. So um and so she did not and she did not and she successfully did not answer the question.
Um, but let's just go back and let me just say because what they're talking about these the the pictures y >> um uh the pictures are are pictures I am one of the people who has seen these pictures and these are pictures that Jeffrey Epstein would take out of his safe and kind of display on his dining room table almost as you would playing cards. Um, this amused him to have these these pictures.
>> So, Michael, I want you to set the scene for us. So, what time of day is it? Where is the safe? Does he bring them out in a manila folder? Are they in an envelope? Are they in an album? Does it look like his birthday album? I mean, give us more. This is so hard to get your head around that here is this man who's on the one hand entertaining the head of the Nobel Prize Committee and the former head of Harvard, Larry Summers. And then in his safe he has these photos of the president and surrounded by topless girls. I want to just I mean so so anyway this happens all of Jeffrey Epstein's or a good part of Jeffrey Epstein's day was conducted around his dining room table. This is a dining room table that would have, I guess, comfortably could seat, you know, two dozen people, maybe maybe more. Um, bonial. I I I would describe it as um um and in a in a dining room that was also befitting of this kind of kind of table. And it was a weird kind of um you know and I kind of got used to this. So so I I I forget the initial shock that I had when I walked into this house and this this room and I remember saying something to Epstein about it because how could you not? It's just this is not the way other people lived. Um, and I I kind of, you know, summoned a a compliment or like, "Wow, this place is incredible." Um, and I remember he he then took his knuckle and wrapped on the wall and he said, "Fake. It's all fake."
>> and I'm reminding people that you were there at his invitation because he wanted you to write a book about him. >> Yes. >> So, you ended up spending some time with him because he'd said, "Just come and hang out at my house. I just want to set the table as it were metaphorically so people understand why you were there. >> Yeah. No. Um uh uh exactly and thank thank you. But um but then our conversation rolled on into when starting in 2015 and then into 2016 when Trump became what what many people obviously were talking about because he was running for president. But but Epstein was particularly focused because he and Trump had been the closest of friends for more than a decade and and Epstein fancied himself a real Trump whisperer that he understood Donald Trump. Um and in my experience he was one of the one of the people one of the more insightful people about Trump and I have spoken to a lot of people about about Donald Trump. But at any rate, um, in the course of one of these discussions about about Trump, um, he left the room and and then came back holding in his in his hands, um, a, um, about a dozen Polaroid snapshots.
>> Oh, they're Polaroids. They're Polaroid. >> In my mind, they're they're they're Polaroid. I'm I'm I'm not 100% sure that they that they were, but they had those cr those krenellated edges like a Polaroid. I you know that's um in in my as I say in my mind it's these are these are polaroids but they certainly are snapshots and um and then he kind of kind of like like a deck of cards kind of um displayed them on on the table. Um and there are are there were specifically three that um that I remember and this is now almost 10 years ago. So um um but the three that I remember are two in in which topless young women and I don't know the ages of these women but they are young um um are sitting in Trump's lap and and this is and this is outside Jeffrey Epstein's house in Palm Beach around the swimming pool.
>> Okay. And is Trump dressed? Is he what? Trump Trump is dressed and um um in and I'm I'm I'm in in in mind's eye it's kind of golfy golf attire but um um and then in the third picture there is and so so he's wearing light pants. Um there is a or tannanish pants. Um and um there's a stain on the front of his trousers and the girls three four or five as I remember are pointing at the stain and laughing. Um and that is what I remember. And then and then um Epstein would have would have returned these um uh these pictures to the safe because I actually asked them where do you keep these these these pictures? Um and um um and he said in in in the safe and and later when Trump was elected president and I tried to encourage Epstein to do something with these with these these pictures um and um um and and he said um I I I can't Now, I may be such and such, but I'm not crazy. Um, implying that he had some reason to fear the wrath of Donald Trump.
>> And by stain and everybody laughing, are we assuming that Donald Trump was eating a sandwich and somehow mayonnaise slipped out and stained his? >> I I don't know. I can't I'm I'm not making any assumptions here and I don't want to say more than I know. I do not know, for instance, that these photographs were in the safe when the when the FBI raided um Jeffrey Epstein's house in July of 2019. Um is it reasonable that they might have been? Absolutely. I mean, on several occasions, uh we discuss where he kept those photographs in the safe. Um, and that was the question that um that Senator um White House was asking Pam Bondi. Do you know about these pictures? Have you seen these pictures? What is the status of this? You just trying to get information and the question that she refused to answer. And this question has also been asked by the oversight committee of Cash Patel, the head of the FBI, and he too refused to answer. So, do we assume that the FBI does then by their omission do we assume I I am I I think it's probably best >> um as it is always not to assume anything. Yeah, I knew you were going to say that. We don't know. We don't know if they were in the safe. We don't know if there was something done with these photographs after if they were in the safe. if there was something done with these photographs after that. We don't know anything about I think what they what they call the chain of custody and I suspect the chain of custody is quite disorganized in in this situation which goes to the problems of the of the so-called Epstein file. I mean that's everybody released the Epstein files but nobody knows what the Epstein files are. Is there your manila file? Is that does that exist? Is this all all is this information all gathered in and contained in one place? Or is the Epstein file a kind of broad metaphor for all of the information the United States government has on Jeffrey Epstein, which could be spread out among many departments, agencies um and um um be pretty difficult to gather.
So what what happens in a situation as we have with Jeffrey Epstein who was arrested? The southern district was proceeding against him. So they must have they must have a bulk of information. They arrest him when he flies back from France when in fact he's supposed to be having breakfast with you the next day and he then dies. What what where does the evidence go?
>> Well, we don't we don't know. I mean, maybe somebody somebody does. We certainly we certainly don't know. And I and it's not illogical to to suppose that that um that Pam Bondi doesn't exactly know. She may have asked the question. Um and she's probably got a set of a set of somewhat ambiguous answers. And what is the um you know in and in terms of the process of bringing all this information together what the Southern District has what the um um what was what was obtained in the Florida investigation and then there's you know there's also there's also there's the federal investigation in Florida and then there's the local investigation and he was he was actually convicted under state um under a a a state charge and not a federal charge and convicted his he plead guilty um to a to the state charge. So who has this where in in what form?
>> and do these I mean if you're the Southern District, is it possible you just throw things away once someone's died and you think, "Well, that's the end of it." >> I I don't I have no idea. I wonder why the oversight committee doesn't reach out or perhaps they have done to the Southern District and say we would like everything you have on Jeffrey Epstein. theoretically reaching out to the to the Justice Department. Um I mean the Justice Department controls the Southern District theoretically. Although one of the one of the the um one of the issues and that was you know is certainly involved with Epstein the Epstein sides thinking about this is that is that the southern district was acting not only independently of the of of what's called main justice but they were possibly antagonistic to it and their their invest their ultimate investigation was or was possibly about the president of the United States, Donald Trump. And they um and they might well have thought that by arresting Jeffrey Epstein, they would get a source of information, incriminating information about Donald Trump. We don't know that because not long after his arrest, Jeffrey Epstein was dead.