MAGA Demands More Epstein Transparency, and Epstein's Potential Intel Ties, with Ben Shapiro and Michael Shellenberger | Ep. 1107
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 43 minutes
Words per Minute
197.88864
Summary
Ben Shapiro and Michael Schellenberger join me to talk about Jeffrey Epstein and the scandal surrounding his possible involvement with the Democratic National Committee, the FBI and the Justice Department. Plus, new details about former Vice President Joe Biden's alleged use of an unauthorized surveillance device.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Monday.
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I feel like we start every week that way, but it's true.
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I was down in Florida this weekend speaking to the future of the conservative movement at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit.
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But one of the big topics of the weekend, not just from my conversation with Charlie Kirk,
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but from the young people in that audience and virtually every presenter, was Jeffrey Epstein.
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It was one week ago today we were talking about that leaked DOJ-FBI memo that was dropped in an Axios report.
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I think the DOJ hoped they would put this thing to bed with that memo.
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And conservatives are up in arms over this thing.
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And certainly all the young people at that Turning Point event.
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And now the liberals have kind of finally looked over at the other side of the aisle and said,
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After for years just dismissing it as a conspiracy theory,
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now that they think it can hurt Trump, suddenly they're expressing interest.
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It's like, look, this has never been my main story.
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As you know, we've covered it over the years as news has been made.
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But like, let's not be so nakedly political over the molestation of little girls.
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Fuck these Johnny come lately's who just want to use it as a battering ram over Trump politically.
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Plus some wild new details about former President Biden's use of the auto pen.
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It was like an oral authorization, maybe, that his staff then put into writing that went through
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like a game of telephone before it actually got entered into the auto pen.
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Seems like even some of his staffers were feeling a little sketchy about whether in fact he had
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We've got two great guests for all of this today.
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Joining me later, sub-stack journalist Michael Schellenberger.
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But we begin with my friend Ben Shapiro, who's hosted the Ben Shapiro show on the Daily Wire
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and author of the forthcoming book, Lions and Scavengers, out in September.
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Ben, you're exactly who I want to discuss this with, because there's so many angles on Epstein.
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Let's just talk about what happened in terms of the facts within the administration over
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the past 72 hours, and then we'll get to whether he was an agent for us, for Israel, for somebody
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As we went to, I don't know, off air on Friday, we found out that it was either she goes or I
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go situation between Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, and Pam Bondi.
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And I confirmed that with my own reporting, that they had had a massive blow up on Monday,
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a week ago today, in the wake of that memo, that it had resulted in shouting, that it culminated
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in a second meeting at the White House on Wednesday.
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And Susie Wiles, who's the chief of staff for Trump, but a Florida native, and I think
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reportedly close with Pam Bondi, seemed to be trying to put it to bed and see if, you
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know, Dan could calm down and Pam could calm down, both of whom had been screaming at each
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And the next thing we hear is Bongino saying, I'm leaving unless she leaves or does something
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more to come clean or be more transparent about the whole Epstein thing.
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And then over the weekend, I will say my own sources said there'd been a softening because
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And, um, as of today at noon, Monday, Bongino has not resigned, but we don't know.
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Um, she's clearly fighting back to she's dropped, obviously, I mean, this is my supposition, some
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hit pieces on him in various places, including Axios saying he's just having a hissy fit because
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he was behind the minute before midnight that's missing in the Epstein tapes from that cell block,
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which don't show his cell, but show an area near his cell and that he was caught embarrassed
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because he didn't highlight that minute before midnight that was missing, but it soon came out.
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And now he's scrambling to sort of look like he's been tougher on this issue than he actually has
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And Todd Blanche, who's her deputy at DOJ and president Trump's former personal lawyer has
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come out with a statement on X saying there is no daylight between the FBI and DOJ at all on that
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I will tell you, my own reporting suggests that's not true, um, but Blanche trying to
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So first of all, I'm hearing many of the same things that you're hearing, Megan.
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I'm talking, I'm sure, to many of the same people that you're talking to here.
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I think that Pam Bondi botched this eight ways from Sunday.
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I have not seen a bigger botchery of a rollout of a story maybe ever.
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And that is really what you're looking at here.
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Um, I think that what you're looking at is Pam Bondi went on Fox news at the very best
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was unclear when she said the Epstein list is on my desk.
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She didn't actually say the Epstein list is on my desk.
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There's a reference to the Epstein list by the questioner.
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And then she returned and said, it's on my desk.
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The, it, she claims was like all the papers for Epstein.
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But you were very, very not clear about that at best.
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And then let me just, let me interject quickly.
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The other piece of that that's problematic, her excuse is the Epstein file would fill a
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Like it's a discreet file on her desk, which makes, yeah.
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I mean, I don't mean to offend Pam Bondi because I'm ripping the crap out of her right
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It's possible to, it's possible to say on my desk as, as sort of a euphemism or meaning
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like it's in front of me, but you know, the, the, the one that was much more damning to
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When she had a bunch of influencers in the white house, she hands them a binder filled
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And then they trot out and hold it up to the cameras like, Hey, look, this is our big prize.
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And then it turns out that there's nothing new there.
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And then she sends a letter to cash Patel at the FBI saying, why haven't you given me all
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these documents that I was supposed to be given?
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And there is no evidence that there are all these documents that cash Patel was hiding
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somewhere in the basement that he had not given Pam Bondi.
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And then all we get is this two page letter that basically is supposed to put everything
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And so I'm not blaming anybody who is upset with the fact that they were told by Pam
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Bondi, at least by implication that there was an Epstein list, that there were tens of
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thousands of hours of tapes, that there are a thousand victims, that there was more coming
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And that's why I think Dan Bongino is extremely upset today because the contention he's
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making from what I understand from my own sources is that it is not that Epstein is a foreign
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agent or that, and that's being hidden or that Epstein was trafficking girls to third
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parties who remain hidden by the government or anything like that, or that even there was
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My understanding is that the actual outcome of the DOJ investigation is properly stated in
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What he's upset about is if you oversell the story and you create a deliverable for the FBI
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and then the FBI doesn't deliver, then that falls on Kash Patel and Dan Bongino.
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She went out there and ran her mouth without the actual goods to back it up.
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And then when it turns out that it's Geraldo Rivera safe, then of course it makes Dan look
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It makes the president look bad and all the rest.
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And if that's the nature of the dispute, then obviously I'm very much on Dan Bongino's side
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and Kash Patel's side, because again, I think that Pam Bondi pretty clearly to the public
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made a bunch of statements that were unrepresentative of the final DOJ FBI memo that was released.
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Many people, including me, do not believe that they've released everything that's releasable
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I think this is another piece of the problem that we're left asking why.
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Now, maybe, maybe as Mike Davis, who's a serious person, who's well-connected to the administration
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was saying on X, on X yesterday, maybe it really is because what's left is grand jury
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proceedings, which would be secret, not releasable witness testimony, victim testimonials, which
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might reveal identities, which, you know, victims are not prepared to have revealed that
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But Pam Bondi hasn't answered any of those questions.
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No one's explained that Mike Davis, much as we love him.
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It's not a spokesperson for the administration.
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So we we're still left in a position where at least I don't believe them that everything
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They've released everything that can be released, but only because I trust Dan Bongino and Kash
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And so I've been saying literally since the first day this memo broke that there is no way
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that Pam Bondi should not be doing a press conference where she at least answers that
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I need to hear it from their mouth that this is that we're releasing everything that that
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However, you know, I'm very hesitant to make the claim that there is evidence that exists
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that I have not seen because that's totally unfalsifiable.
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I've only seen the same stuff that you've seen, Megan.
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And I'm probably talking to many of the same sources that you're talking to people like
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Dan and Kash and Pam and the president and the vice president, everybody else in the
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They have seen material that I have not seen because, again, they're the ones who are reviewing
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You put out a tweet earlier that I think is right.
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Basically, there's two theories of this particular case.
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One, Pam Bondi overpromised and underdelivered, which seems to be the most plausible.
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Or two, there's an active cover up that the Trump administration is engaging in of a child
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And I think that if people want to make that accusation, they should just come out and say
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And if that's the case, if they want to make that accusation that President Trump and everybody
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who was elected to uncover this is actually now they flip 180 and now they're engaging
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in a full scale cover up of a child rape ring, then people should just have the balls to say
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it out loud and articulate it as opposed to sort of softly peddling the possibility that
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Because it seems to me when you articulate these two possibilities out loud, one of them
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is significantly more plausible than the other.
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Now, again, that does not relieve the responsibility on the administration to answer basic questions
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And that's where I think the great screw up is.
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But I think there are a lot of people who are trafficking in unevidenced theory.
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And I do trust the president of the United States that he is not covering up a child rape
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My tweet was a little worded differently, which was either, you know, either Pam Bonney is
00:13:08.280
Um, and the president is just forgiving her because she's a loyal soldier and, you know,
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he likes her and he doesn't want to go through the messy confirmation process of getting somebody
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And there's no, they're there in the files anyway, right?
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Like the way she screwed up was over promising when she didn't have the goods and she genuinely
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And so the big mistake was over promising and the president doesn't really care about that
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mistake or there is something there and it's being covered up and the president blessed
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Like that's, but I didn't say, or there's a child sex ring that he's actively covering
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up because the truth is, I think there's some middle ground between one and two, you're one
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and two of there is something in there more could be disclosed.
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And it's something short of there's a massive pedophile ring that they're covering up.
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Maybe the administration doesn't think it's a fair position to put them in.
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Maybe there are like half-hearted allegations in there that, you know, normally a DOJ would
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not put out, but feels like it kind of might have to, given all the promises that have been
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made by Pam and prior to taking office cash and Dan rattling about this.
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So I think there could be a middle ground and also look, this may be complete bullshit,
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So I just big asterisks on it, but some have speculated that the Biden DOJ may have left
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the Epstein files in such a manner that it like leads directly with an arrow toward Donald
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Not that he did anything whatsoever, just that they're bastards and they knew he was coming
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in and they knew his people were interested in this story.
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So something like that could be between your one and two, where it's less nefarious than
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full child sex ring and our government officials have said, let's just move on.
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We're not going to release this stuff just because you overpromised Pam Bondi.
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And because we have a top two officials at the FBI who are big saber rattles rattlers
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So I agree that there's a plausible idea somewhere in the in-between.
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But the reason that we care about the Epstein case is because everybody thinks it was a
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I mean, that's been the basis of this entire conversation.
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But the real reason that people care about Epstein is because the story that was sold for
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years in retail by pretty much everybody who had a passing even reference to the case was
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that Jeffrey Epstein was running a child sex ring on behalf of third parties who were unnamed
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and that we needed to have the list, the Epstein list of the third parties who were having sex with
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little girls and then were being blackmailed by Jeffrey Epstein, which is how he made his money
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or how he was serving a foreign intelligence service.
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And so we have to at least fully publicly articulate that that is the theory that most people were
00:16:05.680
And that is why people are freaked out right now.
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If it turns out that it's your middle of the road case and then those materials get released,
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that it turns out that there is some scurrilous reference to a third party and it ends up
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I would I would say the answer is no, because the theory has been so wildly retailed at this
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point and widely retailed at this point that anything short of a full justification of
00:16:29.700
the theory means that somebody is covering something up.
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And this is where I start to get pretty yippy, because if the idea and this is why I go back
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to my original reference, if the idea is that the full scale theory is the thing that
00:16:41.200
is being covered up by President Trump, then people who are making that sort of charge and
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that includes by name Tucker Carlson at TPUSA, they should actually just say it.
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I mean, Tucker says that that this that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent who's blackmailing
00:17:02.460
I mean, that's so that's so logically the point.
00:17:04.340
The point I'm making about Tucker is a very simple one.
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If you're going to retail that claim and say that you are very certain of that claim,
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It's about the United States government covering up for Mossad, which means the Trump administration
00:17:19.040
And if you are going to say the Trump administration and President Trump is covering up a sex ring,
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you should just have the balls to say it publicly.
00:17:24.620
OK, it's true that if if you are a Mossad spy and that's the reason we're not releasing
00:17:30.840
more information, yes, then the theory would be that Trump blessed the cover up of that
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Middle East peace, world peace, a promise he made to somebody of who knows.
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There is no good reason that you can cover up a child sex ring, period.
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End of story would be evil by President Trump and be evil by Mossad, obviously.
00:17:47.900
Well, OK, I mean, look, I do want to table this because I want I very much want to get
00:17:52.360
I just want to stay on part one before we get it, because logically it makes more sense
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to me just just to stick with what actually is happening within the administration and
00:18:00.480
what's happened and what might be getting withheld.
00:18:07.360
I mean, I spent way more hours than I want to admit going back and looking at his plea deal,
00:18:12.700
you know, when it first came out that he might be a pervert and the feds were involved and
00:18:18.040
he the Palm Beach district attorney was involved and the feds basically stepped in.
00:18:28.280
And he is the one who stepped in and basically gave Jeffrey Epstein what turned out to be
00:18:34.060
a sweetheart deal, like two counts of soliciting prostitution, which is not what he did.
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So he got a slap on the wrist that gave him like 13 months of the equivalent of house arrest.
00:18:49.220
He had to go sit in like the local jail for, you know, 10 hours a day.
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And then he was back in his office with an ankle monitor.
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I mean, it was just a complete slap on the wrist and it also got Epstein off the hook
00:19:00.140
for any crimes he'd committed prior to 2008 toward any young girls for these, this slap
00:19:04.720
on the wrist and prevented the government from coming back and prosecuting him for them and
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prevented a bunch of victims for suing him for certain things and from, from obtaining
00:19:13.940
damages beyond a certain amount, all without getting the blessing of the victims.
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A court leader overturned that saying, this is so damned illegal.
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This whole deal, you cannot do this without alerting the victims.
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But anyway, there was, and I want to make sure I say it correctly.
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There was an opinion by a court in this case that was deciding the dispute between a bunch
00:19:36.980
of victims who came forward to say, this wasn't well handled.
00:19:40.300
And the government and the government in that case admitted a bunch of things to try to
00:19:47.300
So, including one between or about 1999 and 2007, Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused more
00:19:54.060
than 30 minor girls at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida and elsewhere to Epstein and
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his co-conspirators knowingly traveled in interstate and international commerce to sexually abuse
00:20:05.740
And they committed violations of Florida law and federal law three.
00:20:09.760
In addition to personally abusing his victims, Epstein also directed other persons to sexually
00:20:15.100
For example, Nadia Markinova sexually abused Jane Doe, number one and other victims at the
00:20:23.760
The FBI established the government admits this.
00:20:27.020
The FBI established that Epstein used paid employees to repeatedly find and bring minor girls
00:20:33.120
to him, Epstein worked in concert with others to obtain minor girls, not only for his own
00:20:39.440
sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification of others.
00:20:43.680
So I don't know exactly what that means, Ben, but I know that's our government admitting in
00:20:48.420
court that Jeffrey Epstein used, worked in concert with others to obtain minor girls, not only
00:20:55.180
for himself, but also for the sexual gratification of others.
00:21:04.840
One obvious answer is Ghislaine Maxwell, right?
00:21:07.040
Who's in prison right now for having engaged in the sexual abuse of children.
00:21:10.840
And, and one of the other people that you just mentioned is one of the others, right?
00:21:15.440
So, you know, that, that is sort of the, the big open question that everyone was asking was,
00:21:21.440
Cause he was one of the names who was mentioned, or Alan Dershowitz was one of the names who was
00:21:24.020
mentioned, or Hood Barack or Lex Wexner, right?
00:21:26.520
Like all these were, and, and again, here's my thing.
00:21:28.680
I was open to every single one of these theories until the DOJ and FBI put out a memo saying,
00:21:34.060
we have looked at all the evidence and here's what we have come to, right?
00:21:37.140
You were persuaded by that memo without, without more.
00:21:40.160
I know I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not persuaded by a memo.
00:21:43.380
What I'm persuaded by is the fact that I have not seen evidence that they have seen.
00:21:46.660
And so I'm not prepared to call Dan Bongino, Cash Patel, President Trump, J.D. Vance and
00:21:51.580
Their two page memo says no credible evidence, no credible evidence.
00:21:55.800
Well, somebody has made a judgment call there and there's all, you could drive a truck through
00:22:00.060
Well, I mean, if the idea is that they're supposed to release non-credible evidence, then I'd
00:22:03.980
love to see them, you know, hand it over to a special investigator to a court.
00:22:09.100
But back to, back to my scenario of possible scenario number two.
00:22:11.340
I mean, listen, it's fine with me and do a, do a special investigator.
00:22:18.720
But the, the jump from there to the most extreme version of the theory, I don't find, like
00:22:24.120
if you're going to cite the theory, it's pure speculation, but if you don't want to,
00:22:28.900
Like I like to operate in the world of evidence.
00:22:30.180
But let's spend more time in my scenario, which is like 1A, you know, between one and
00:22:34.020
two, you know, of like, they're not covering up a sex ring, but there's enough in there
00:22:37.880
that they find troubling that sees, let's say, major Trump donors, um, that they don't
00:22:43.160
want to embarrass and that have been accused in some way, shape or form.
00:22:46.280
I mean, even Alan Dershowitz pointed out to me on episode 10 of this show that many
00:22:51.400
others had been accused and he listed some of them.
00:22:56.460
Um, he mentioned a couple of others saying not everybody, right?
00:23:02.780
He said, not everybody who's been accused has come forward.
00:23:08.980
Virginia Dufresne is lying and I'll show you all my records to prove that it's a lie.
00:23:13.780
Now, and Alan said on this show, and without specifying which of those names he was referring
00:23:18.000
to, some of those men likely have something to hide and that's why they haven't been so
00:23:25.440
So just take those two things, Alan saying that, and he, he was Epstein's lawyer.
00:23:29.960
Um, and then this, the government admitting that he, he worked to obtain minor girls for
00:23:36.860
And we don't know who those others are because the government hasn't told us.
00:23:39.900
So those are questions that we'd like answered.
00:23:41.820
You know, if I got Pam Bondi on this show or at a presser, which I would travel to, to
00:23:49.320
You know, not non-credible evidence is not good enough.
00:23:54.620
Well, I mean, again, I think that in the world of the DOJ and the FBI for what they are,
00:23:58.140
law enforcement agencies, it may not be good enough for public consumption, but that's
00:24:01.960
sort of what we've been saying from the outset, right?
00:24:03.880
Is that more transparency with regard to the public is necessary.
00:24:06.540
That's not quite the same thing as do the DOJ and the FBI have the legal grounds to prosecute
00:24:11.600
or release information that you want prosecuted or released, right?
00:24:16.320
I don't, I don't know that they do have the grounds to prosecute.
00:24:18.900
I don't either, but I mean, I would suggest that they probably do not given that they're
00:24:23.420
That's a different question from informational release or answering questions on a straight
00:24:27.660
Again, that's the reason why Dan is pissed is because he's saying release the information
00:24:31.680
that you can release or at least answer the questions that you can answer.
00:24:35.660
I think that's true because I do believe Dan is convinced there is no case to be brought
00:24:40.500
and there's not some huge scandal behind the scenes.
00:24:43.300
And I think, yes, one of his frustrations is why doesn't Pam just as the spokesperson,
00:24:48.340
she's his boss effectively, go in front of the microphones and just answer all the questions
00:24:53.100
so that you and I and Tucker and everybody else can be as convinced as he apparently now
00:25:00.460
I mean, the problem for the administration is, yes, those two top officials at FBI and
00:25:07.320
You know, I, this is another thing I spent the weekend looking at not so much Trump, but
00:25:11.320
J.D. Vance, Don Jr., Alina Haba, many of the president's surrogates have been stirring
00:25:20.580
And so, you know, we are owed more than a two page memo being like, there's no there
00:25:28.120
I mean, I, again, I totally agree with you on this and I still think that there's a gap
00:25:33.660
And the, the most extreme form of the theory is true.
00:25:36.060
And now it's a giant Trump administration coverup, but I won't actually name the members
00:25:38.780
of the Trump administration because I'm a coward.
00:25:44.400
Now let's talk about whether, oh wait, no, I wanted to play this Julie Brown soundbite
00:25:49.280
first, sorry, before we move on from like what's being withheld, what what's potentially
00:25:53.100
out there that they're not telling us, which led to the big dispute between Bondi and Bongino
00:25:58.520
Brown is probably the, the reporter who's done most on Epstein.
00:26:03.360
She's annoying because she hates conservatives in my viewpoint.
00:26:07.780
And I really can't stand people who report on big, important stories like this and make
00:26:15.320
You know, when you're talking about the protection of minors, like I asked her to come on the
00:26:19.260
show in 2020, I asked her for help trying to figure out what's happening with Epstein.
00:26:33.880
But she's not going to do a conservative podcast because I guess in her mind,
00:26:37.980
we, you only give a shit about little kids if you're a liberal, even though her side
00:26:41.660
of the aisle has taken huge dumps on this story since the day it was broken, that no
00:26:47.940
Brown and her reporting other than people on the right, as you know, Ben, but having said
00:26:52.700
all that, she's, she's annoying, but I think she's honest.
00:26:55.180
Um, and she did go on this LeBetard show on Saturday and spoke to what's likely still
00:27:23.120
There's, there's, when she said she had the file sitting on her desk, I was just stunned.
00:27:29.420
I'm like that those files wouldn't even fit in her office.
00:27:32.380
I mean, it's, it's, remember they did an investigation way back in 2005, all that stuff had to land
00:27:42.800
at the justice department because, you know, they did a subsequent investigation in New York.
00:27:48.340
So they had to look at everything and remember the, the department of Homeland security has
00:27:53.920
records because he went in and out of all those airports with his private planes.
00:28:01.780
The FAA has flight records that haven't been released.
00:28:05.380
There's been, there's been tons of material in different government departments that even
00:28:14.600
And, and like I said, you can look on the vault.
00:28:17.300
There's like, I don't know, 20, 30 parts, Jeffrey Epstein, part one, two, three, four.
00:28:24.380
And if you click on all those things, you'll see, you know, hundreds of pages.
00:28:28.560
So there's probably tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, you know,
00:28:35.200
so, uh, that are still missing that are ostensibly at this point being covered up.
00:28:44.100
So that's her saying there's more, there's a lot more, uh, Ben.
00:28:49.860
She also has serious doubts about the cell block tape showing not Jeffrey Epstein's cell,
00:28:58.120
but the area outside of his cell, which she does not credit in any way, shape or form.
00:29:05.940
He did not kill himself or that he did kill himself.
00:29:10.120
Uh, here she is in, uh, let's see, SOT 6, I think it is.
00:29:17.120
I covered prisons for about four years and I can't even tell you some of the stuff that
00:29:28.860
They know exactly how to commit crimes where nobody knows how to do them.
00:29:34.620
I mean, these prisons are full of corrupt people and it's just not a far-fetched idea
00:29:42.700
and not a conspiracy theory to think that something else may have happened.
00:29:56.740
Well, I mean, that last quote's about as vague as it's possible to be.
00:30:02.120
She talked about how you can't see Jeffrey Epstein's cell.
00:30:04.620
You don't know whether another prisoner went in there.
00:30:07.080
But when she says she's not saying that he didn't commit suicide, but it's possible.
00:30:14.400
So, again, I'm only operating off the evidence that I can see in front of my eyes.
00:30:19.100
We can all speculate it's the evidence that we can't see, but now we're doing kind of
00:30:23.400
Okay, well, I mean, I don't have evidence of what the other two cameras that were broken
00:30:31.440
And as far as this camera, all I can see is what's on the footage that we were presented.
00:30:36.180
So I can speculate, but my speculation is not worth very much.
00:30:39.780
And I don't think hers is on that particular score either, considering we now have multiple
00:30:44.460
So you can either believe it or you can't believe it.
00:30:46.180
But if you're going to provide an alternative theory.
00:30:48.260
One is the medical examiner who said, this is a suicide.
00:30:51.880
And one is Dr. Bodden who said, no, it doesn't look like one.
00:30:54.940
Well, Dr. Bodden, I don't credit for very much.
00:30:57.300
I mean, his prior history with autopsies is rather checkered.
00:31:00.580
And when it comes to the DOJ also did an autopsy and an investigation and found that he committed
00:31:05.960
And again, I've talked to, without revealing sources, the people in the federal government
00:31:11.060
who I have talked to, who are familiar with the details of this case, have said unanimously
00:31:15.440
Now, again, you can say that they're all lying.
00:31:19.000
I have my own sources high up in the law enforcement, let's say, I'll just go that
00:31:24.340
far, who say, not only do we believe he was an agent, but we don't believe he killed himself.
00:31:30.960
And then they should come out and they should say that.
00:31:32.640
And then they should say who's covering that up.
00:31:37.480
I mean, there are a lot of people who say they can't, right?
00:31:39.520
They can't because let's look at what the administration is saying right now.
00:31:44.620
But my position is, like, show us all the evidence.
00:31:51.340
But in the absence of that, I have the names of the people who are making the claim that
00:31:55.920
Jeffrey Epstein killed himself and that the most gross and sort of extreme of the conspiracy
00:32:02.440
theories or theories, just don't even call them conspiracy theories.
00:32:05.200
The most sort of extreme version of the theory is not true.
00:32:08.580
I have names of the people who are claiming that.
00:32:13.440
If other people want to make those claims that are counter to that, then they should
00:32:16.160
provide evidence or at least put their names on it so we can question them about that as
00:32:20.200
Because otherwise, we're just in the realm of pure speculation.
00:32:27.040
I think there should be all the useful information possible.
00:32:29.420
But the same thing holds true for people who are making claims on the other side.
00:32:31.960
Otherwise, I can claim that he was working for a cadre of space aliens who are blackmailing
00:32:36.720
high-profile Americans in order to protect from a future invasion.
00:32:39.340
And there's just about as much evidence for that as many of the claims that are being
00:32:45.680
Any claim that's being made requires actual evidence.
00:32:48.040
And at the very least, in the absence of evidence, the credible names of the people
00:32:51.500
that I can either trust or not trust, ranging from, again, the president of the United States
00:32:55.280
and vice president to the head of the FBI, the AG, and the deputy head of the FBI.
00:33:00.060
Well, I think it's very hard to say those people need to come out and put their names
00:33:04.060
on their, on these claims when they're working for an administration, this one and the one
00:33:11.300
You're asking somebody to countermand the people they work for.
00:33:15.800
Now we're working in the realm of the unfalsified.
00:33:17.040
You're not, but you're, look, Ben, you can't come to me and say, everybody I know says he
00:33:23.200
And then I respond saying, I actually have my own sources who say he didn't.
00:33:26.980
And then you say, well, your sources are not valid because they won't put their names
00:33:33.260
And then we'll talk about why they might be saying that.
00:33:35.700
My sources are the president of the United States, the vice president of the United States,
00:33:38.500
Cash Patel, the head of the FBI, Dan Bongino, the deputy head of the FBI, and Pam Bondi,
00:33:44.160
They're everybody's sources because they publicly came out and said this.
00:33:47.680
Trump hasn't specifically weighed in on that specific aspect of it.
00:33:50.580
We've all seen the limited things that Trump has said and tweeted on this.
00:33:53.520
And J.D. Vance was calling for transparency and suggesting otherwise prior to taking office.
00:34:01.200
You've got Cash, you've got Dan, and you've got Pam.
00:34:03.000
And we've already discussed that memo in full detail.
00:34:05.860
I'm talking about people behind the scenes who, prior to this, to Trump taking office,
00:34:13.360
But trust me, I have high-level sources who have said they don't believe any of that.
00:34:18.780
And I'm not going to out them for purposes of convincing you, but you're telling me name
00:34:24.820
And then you say, well, I dismiss all of it because you won't name them.
00:34:29.500
I'm saying they should name themselves because otherwise they are being complicit in one
00:34:33.500
of the greatest cover-ups in the history of the American Republic.
00:34:38.960
Because you'll have your job and you'll have your millions no matter what they do.
00:34:43.660
If somebody came out today and they were a whistleblower on the greatest scandal in the
00:34:46.840
history of the American Republic, they would make more money tomorrow than in their
00:34:53.280
There are reasons not to cross the people who are in charge, and that's all I'm going
00:34:58.700
Look, this is me not having drawn a conclusion.
00:35:03.720
I mean, I see you've taken a side that you've chosen to believe the story that's being offered,
00:35:10.340
I don't actively say that there's a pedophile ring.
00:35:14.380
I'm just following the facts, and we're not at the place where I can draw that conclusion.
00:35:18.700
Well, no, I can draw the conclusion that the evidence that I'm seeing and the people
00:35:21.780
who are speaking about it lead me toward this particular conclusion.
00:35:24.900
And if counter evidence is presented that is not speculative, then I will change my conclusion
00:35:30.800
Until this memo came out, I was weighing toward the more extreme version of this theory,
00:35:35.920
and you can look back at my tweets and what I've said about it.
00:35:37.640
And then this came out, and now my perspective has changed.
00:35:41.780
When the facts change and the people who are speaking change,
00:35:43.480
I guess I'm just not that trusting of government.
00:35:49.820
They talked about what was the qualifier they used on the client list,
00:35:55.340
something like no persuasive client list or something.
00:35:57.320
Megan, I'm not that trusting of government either,
00:35:59.320
unless I know the exact people in government we're talking about.
00:36:02.720
I mean, look, all I've said so far is I trust Dan.
00:36:05.680
But do you believe that Dan has all the information?
00:36:11.780
You believe, what about Julie Brown's claims about the number of data,
00:36:14.600
like the documents, the Department of Homeland Security,
00:36:21.560
And he's said, I've reviewed it all and none of it's persuasive.
00:36:24.900
I believe Dan's reviewed what's been made available to him by the pre-existing FBI.
00:36:31.140
And in there, he hasn't come up with anything that proves Epstein was murdered
00:36:34.820
or found some child pedophile ring that's been covered up.
00:36:38.880
I'll accept his word and effectively cash his word and Pam's word to some extent on that.
00:36:43.420
But it doesn't explain all these other questions that existed prior to them taking office
00:36:47.760
that have been raised by people like Julie Brown,
00:36:50.180
that have been raised by people like Pam Bondi before today.
00:36:55.820
Again, I'm unsatisfied with the amount of information that we're getting.
00:36:58.780
But if the question is, is there information being hidden now from Dan or Cash or Pam,
00:37:04.060
then I would like evidence that there's information hidden from them
00:37:06.620
in the same way that I want them to be more transparent.
00:37:09.360
Why is asking for evidence from all sides suddenly?
00:37:11.360
Well, are you not persuaded by that soundbite from Julie K. Brown, for example,
00:37:16.780
That FBI, just on their vault alone, has tons and tons of redacted information
00:37:20.800
that you could see that they may or may not be able to see.
00:37:24.260
But that there's lots of information still out there.
00:37:26.860
I mean, she's claiming that quote that the FBI does have all that information.
00:37:33.940
I mean, do you think the redactions are not available to the FBI?
00:37:37.360
I think the redactions are available to the FBI.
00:37:39.860
You were making the claim a moment ago that they actually are not available to Pam or Dan.
00:37:46.380
Why wouldn't they come out and say, here are the documents that we have?
00:37:53.840
But where's the DHS account of who was on the Epstein plane?
00:37:56.920
Where's the Alan Dershowitz account of those names that I gave you?
00:37:59.800
And what role, if any, they played in this matter?
00:38:08.400
Your conclusion is that they're covering something up.
00:38:10.180
And my conclusion is that there's wild incompetence happening at the level of the attorney general.
00:38:15.280
I don't think, I don't think you're, I think you're trusting the conclusions of that memo and a decision made by our administration to move past this far too much.
00:38:28.800
But I think they've made a decision that they want to put this in the rear view.
00:38:33.420
You think it's because there's absolutely no there there and you're crediting that claim.
00:38:41.020
And again, I'm open to doubts about whether that's true.
00:38:43.320
But I think that once you have the doubts about whether they are lying to you, that's a different thing.
00:38:48.280
I mean, that really is the question, is it not?
00:38:50.020
You don't think even the Trump administration is capable of lying to the public because they think it's for the greater good?
00:38:58.080
I mean, I'm wondering what they are lying about and what the lies would be.
00:39:01.160
So again, I think in your middle scenario, that's the most credible scenario.
00:39:04.140
Do you think they're capable of doing it if they think it's for the greater good?
00:39:06.540
I think anybody is capable of lying if they think that it's for the greater good, of course.
00:39:10.460
But I think that in order to answer the question of whether they are doing that, we would have to determine what greater good is being pursued and what the lie is.
00:39:17.120
Well, that's why some of us are still asking questions.
00:39:19.720
I mean, I'm not in the business of covering for any administration, Republican or not.
00:39:22.900
Megan, Megan, not all the questions are the same.
00:39:24.920
Asking a question about whether all the information has been released because there are figures who would be publicly humiliated because they were riding on Epstein's plane,
00:39:32.280
but there's no evidence the person was raping a child, is not quite the same thing as some of the more outstanding claims,
00:39:37.140
which is that the administration is covering up full scale for a child's sex operation.
00:39:42.860
That's a debate you need to have with somebody else because no one on this set is claiming that.
00:39:46.840
All right, let's move on to point two, which is whether he was some sort of an agent.
00:39:50.520
And that's a possible reason why he got a sweetheart plea deal and or why to this day people aren't that interested in digging deep under the Jeffrey Epstein story.
00:40:05.860
I'll just play what he said at Turning Point and we can take it from there.
00:40:11.240
You have the former Israeli prime minister living in your house.
00:40:15.420
You have all this contact with the foreign government.
00:40:21.520
Were you running a blackmail operation on behalf of foreign government?
00:40:29.580
And I think the truth for whatever it's worth, in case you're interested,
00:40:32.460
is that the DOJ didn't release lots of incriminating sex videos with Epstein and his billionaire pals because they don't have them.
00:40:40.000
They don't have them because when the original search warrant was served 2007, I think,
00:40:48.580
The search warrant was written in such a way to make sure that the feds never got their hands on the actually incriminating evidence.
00:40:59.000
And I think the real answer is Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of Intel services, probably not American.
00:41:04.500
And no one has ever gotten to the bottom of that because no one has ever tried.
00:41:07.720
It's extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government.
00:41:13.860
Now, no one's allowed to say that that foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that's naughty.
00:41:26.740
There's nothing anti-Semitic about saying that.
00:41:28.180
There's nothing even anti-Israel about saying that.
00:41:30.140
I've spent my entire life pretty much in Washington where I knew and loved a number of people, including one very close person who worked at CIA.
00:41:37.580
That has never prohibited me from saying, I think the CIA has done some horrible things.
00:41:50.980
You could hear the cheers in the audience when he said he believes Epstein was working for Mossad.
00:41:55.380
I, on my Twitter feed today, laid out some of the evidence why people believe he was an agent.
00:42:03.400
And if he was an agent, I don't know whether he was ours or he was Mossad or he was something else.
00:42:08.700
But I know there's, there's enough to sniff around on whether he was an agent.
00:42:12.080
The most persuasive piece of which is where to get all that money.
00:42:15.980
I mean, nobody's been able to answer the question in following the money of how Jeffrey Epstein earned all that dough.
00:42:22.120
Why is it problematic for Tucker to say, I think he was an agent.
00:42:30.860
I think that if, if he's saying that he worked for Mossad and that no one has looked into it and that he was running a child sex ring on behalf of Mossad and the evidence should exist for that to happen, then just say the administration is covering for Mossad.
00:42:42.940
I mean, if you're that certain of it and you believe that that's the case, then presumably the case that you're making is that the administration is now working for Mossad and covering up a child sex ring.
00:42:53.040
But I think he should then have the balls to say what Dave Smith said, which is that the Trump administration was covering for a child sex ring.
00:43:04.800
Because the only evidence that I've seen related to Jeffrey Epstein and Mossad, so far as I am aware, is a secondhand quote from Vicki Ward at the Daily Beast, who I do not consider a verifiable source, about Alex Azar, the original prosecutor.
00:43:22.140
I mean, her being on Epstein from the beginning doesn't mean she's a credible source.
00:43:24.540
She ran for the Daily Beast and she was arguing about a person who said secondhand.
00:43:36.940
No, but the point is that the Alex Azar quote that she is making is not even from Alex Azar.
00:43:44.160
Alex Acosta, the prosecutor who ended up being labor secretary.
00:43:47.200
Alex Acosta, that quote was not from Alex Acosta.
00:43:51.080
And that said that he was told to shut down the investigation because he was working for a for an intelligence agency.
00:44:01.580
I'll just give it exactly because we need to be precise.
00:44:04.580
So he she reported in Vanity Fair or she reported for Vanity Fair, like a definitive Epstein article.
00:44:09.740
And then she updated it in the Daily Beast in twenty nineteen when I think it was after Epstein died or could have been when Trump nominated him.
00:44:18.800
It was probably when they did the investigation into the.
00:44:24.360
He was already in office, Acosta at this point.
00:44:31.680
I'm looking to find out that she had spoken with a member of the Trump transition team when Trump was taking office, who told her that when they talked to Acosta about possibly becoming the labor secretary, they said, is this Epstein thing, this settlement that you oversaw going to be a problem for us?
00:44:47.760
You know, because you know, because you're the guy who basically gave him that slap on the wrist and that Acosta had told the Trump transition team that Epstein, quote, belonged to intelligence, end quote, and that he'd been ordered to, quote, leave it alone, end quote, and that he'd, quote, been told to back off.
00:45:06.540
He later was on the record, Ben, is saying main justice was the one who told him to settle that case and that they had approved of the Epstein plea deal.
00:45:19.560
We know that main justice did tell Alex Acosta to settle that case.
00:45:23.720
What we don't know is whether he in fact said all that stuff to the Trump transition team.
00:45:27.680
Well, he was asked about this at a hearing, I believe, a congressional hearing, and he said that there are a lot of rumors out there and you shouldn't believe everything you read, I believe, was something close to the direct quote from the congressional.
00:45:36.500
We have it, we have it, right, Deb, do we have, sorry, stand by, we have it on camera, it was first asked, it was a press conference on July 10th, 2019, this is the first we know of that he was asked about Vicki Ward's report, watch.
00:45:52.460
Secretary, were you ever made aware at any point in your handling of this case that Mr. Epstein was an intelligence asset of some sort?
00:45:59.860
Um, so, so, so, so, so there has, there has been reporting to that effect and, and let me say, um, there's been reporting to a lot of effects in, in, in this case, uh, not just now, but over the years.
00:46:14.140
And, and again, I would, you know, I would hesitate to take this reporting as fact.
00:46:22.940
Um, this was a case that was brought by our office.
00:46:25.920
It was brought based on the facts and, and I look at that reporting and others, I can't address it directly because of our, uh, our, our guidelines.
00:46:35.560
Um, but I can tell you that, that a lot of reporting is just going down rabbit holes.
00:46:42.620
I'm sorry, but that's a non-denial denial and he never came out to deny it in any other way after Vicki Ward reported it.
00:46:51.140
Uh, he did later tell the office of professional responsibility within the DOJ when he was asked during an investigation that he did not say that to the Trump transition team.
00:47:01.280
So later outside of the public setting, he reportedly did deny Vicki Ward's reporting, but I have questions about that too, because that's the department of justice investigating itself.
00:47:12.060
And under this theory that Epstein was compromised and the DOJ knew it, the DOJ would have been the one to tell Alex Acosta to drop it.
00:47:21.140
And then the DOJ would have been sitting down with Alex Acosta saying, did we tell you to drop it or didn't we?
00:47:26.320
So I can see why people have doubts about that later testimony.
00:47:29.220
Again, I don't know what's true, but that's a very weaselly answer.
00:47:33.160
I mean, that's fair to say it's a weaselly answer.
00:47:35.460
It's also fair to say that the original quote was never confirmed by anybody on the record, correct?
00:47:39.620
So I mean, like at the very best, that one is, it's, it's dicey.
00:47:42.040
I mean, like, I think the best you can say about that particular claim is dicey, both for and against.
00:47:47.180
And I see why you can take away either conclusion.
00:47:51.240
But there's also the matter, like I said, of the money and there's also the question of super suspicious, but I think that's really more about Leon Black signing him a check for like $160 million for unspecified financial services.
00:48:08.300
You know, there's this former Israeli intel guy named Ari Ben-Minas.
00:48:18.460
And actually, if you if you look up this guy's Wikipedia, it's actually quite interesting.
00:48:26.660
And there was this whole long trial in which they tried to disown him and it failed.
00:48:34.920
And this guy has come out to say Epstein was a Mossad agent and that he this Ari Ben-Minas was the agent who handled him.
00:48:45.620
Others, including Danny Yatom, who ran the Mossad for three years, say that's not true.
00:48:50.180
And this morning we had and Naftali Bennett come out publicly as a former Israeli prime minister saying I was with the Mossad.
00:48:59.560
And I mean, the Mossad reported directly to me.
00:49:01.740
And I say to you with 100 percent certainty, the accusation that Epstein worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false.
00:49:09.140
Well, I mean, I actually followed up with with Bennett to ask for more clarification on that.
00:49:15.100
And what he actually told me is that Mossad has not run an operative against the United States or in the United States since Jonathan Pollard was convicted in 1987 because Israel really wants to steer clear of pissing off the United States.
00:49:26.680
So there's some speculation about whether Epstein wasn't an agent, but was like an asset.
00:49:32.040
Right. So asset is a really weird word in terms of intel, because he was also accused of being an asset for both the Saudis and MI6.
00:49:39.400
Right. So there are multiple intelligence agencies for whom he could theoretically have been considered an asset.
00:49:45.140
Asset is not necessarily by the legal definition, somebody who is like working for a foreign government.
00:49:51.440
It could be somebody who is giving information to a foreign government under a wide variety of auspices.
00:49:58.680
However, what we do know from what we do know from the public statements is that he was not working for an American intelligence agency.
00:50:08.580
Now, one of the weird sort of unfalsifiable aspects of this case is that if Mossad says somebody is not working for them, are they or are they not?
00:50:18.960
And so so this is kind of my problem with this case and why I keep begging for more.
00:50:24.220
I tend to believe that the DOJ and FBI are correct in their evidentiary presentation.
00:50:27.600
You tend to not. But I think that we're coming to the same conclusion, which is release everything you got, because I don't think anybody should be afraid of the answers.
00:50:33.740
I just think there's a way in which it's not some they're not covering up for pedophiles that Jeffrey Epstein was the disgusting dirtbag that was referenced in that settlement agreement.
00:50:42.620
I read to you part of and that there the DOJ at the time started sniffing around him and then quickly was pulled off of the Epstein matter.
00:50:52.040
And I believe Acosta might have been told by DOJ.
00:50:58.080
I mean, there was a there, by the way, not for nothing, but I did find this interesting in my in my research.
00:51:02.280
The local the Palm Beach County state attorney at the time, Barry Krishner, wrote the assistant U.S. attorney at the time when it was settled about the proposed agreement.
00:51:14.020
Glad we could get this worked out for reasons I won't put in writing after this is resolved.
00:51:18.640
I would love to buy a cup at Starbucks and have a conversation.
00:51:23.940
And I think there's there there could be a piece in what Tucker said that's true, that they didn't investigate as hard as they wanted to or could have.
00:51:33.760
And from that point forward, they never got all the evidence that we would like to see.
00:51:40.240
Ben Shapiro, I love debating the facts with you.
00:51:45.200
All right. To be continued with Michael Schellenberger right after this break.
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00:53:34.700
Here for more on the Epstein discussion is journalist Michael Schellenberger.
00:53:38.440
He feels strongly, as strongly as we do, about the importance of the Epstein case.
00:53:44.280
This failure to follow through seriously undermines Trump's explicit commitments to reform
00:53:51.440
Michael is the founder of Public News on Substack and CBR chair of politics, censorship and free
00:54:02.260
So I understand, you know, Ben's position, which is I trust these guys.
00:54:07.140
And without direct evidence to contradict what they're saying, I'm choosing to move on.
00:54:13.200
That's exactly what Trump would like everyone to say.
00:54:16.460
And I'm a Trump supporter, but I'm just not there yet because my only goal is to follow the facts.
00:54:30.400
Well, first of all, it's great to be back with you, Megan.
00:54:32.000
And I'm really glad that you're continuing to cover this.
00:54:35.180
In fact, we just published a story really praising MAGA for standing up to Trump on this
00:54:43.960
Of course, the media has said for over a decade that MAGA is a cult of personality.
00:54:50.560
And I think it thus marks a pretty important watershed moment in the Trump administration.
00:54:54.820
I think it's a big blow to the legitimacy of the Trump administration.
00:54:58.500
And legitimacy is really essential for governing.
00:55:05.680
I mean, look, part of the problem is that you have the director of the FBI, the deputy
00:55:09.900
director of the FBI, the attorney general, all having made very strong claims.
00:55:16.100
You know, I mean, we have Pam Bondi said there was a truckload of evidence, thousands of pages
00:55:21.680
You had deputy director Dan Bongino say that he was told that Epstein was an intelligence
00:55:29.440
Director Cash Patel said that the FBI wasn't releasing the client list because of who's
00:55:36.100
And then I think kind of tragically, you know, Cash Patel has sort of positioned himself as
00:55:40.940
a really loyal public servant for the president.
00:55:43.880
But Dan Bongino was a really trusted influencer, podcaster.
00:55:49.600
You know, he went on Fox and Friends and said that they were going to release the raw, unedited
00:56:00.480
And so they still have a lot of explaining to do.
00:56:03.420
I don't think the cover up's worse than the crime, but clearly there's a cover up that's
00:56:08.080
And I just don't see how the Trump administration moves on without transparency.
00:56:14.780
The why do you say they did not do that about the prison cell video?
00:56:18.480
I mean, I know there's a missing minute before midnight and now there's a report out that
00:56:23.200
the video itself has been, I don't want to say manipulated, which makes it sound nefarious,
00:56:28.480
but that changes were made to it prior to it being released.
00:56:31.040
Dan admitted on Fox and Friends that they were cleaning it up so that it was more easy to
00:56:35.640
And that minute before midnight, I think his defenders would say, what kind of a ninja
00:56:39.800
could get in and out of the cell in a minute and commit this murder?
00:56:43.220
Like, if you believe that, you know, I got a spaceship I want to sell you.
00:56:49.040
Brown who say, like her response to all that was, you're debating what happened at a Starbucks
00:56:55.340
in Austin instead of talking about JFK getting shot in the head in Dallas.
00:56:59.940
Her point has been that video doesn't show Epstein's cell.
00:57:06.540
It shows a common area down the hallway from Epstein's cell.
00:57:11.460
And we have no idea what prisoners may have had access to Epstein, what deal may have been
00:57:17.420
struck with them, how easy it was for them to get to him.
00:57:20.740
Even in his cell alone, if you want to argue, there was that just allowing him to commit
00:57:25.500
suicide was what was done as opposed to actual murder.
00:57:28.620
He was given two mattresses when most people had one.
00:57:31.280
He was given extra linens when that was forbidden, you know, a couple of weeks after he had tried
00:57:38.760
But I'm curious what you why you think Dan didn't live up to the promise on the on the
00:57:42.880
Well, I mean, he said both he and Patel said that that we would be getting the original
00:57:49.900
I mean, the exact quote from Patel was, we're going to give the original Epstein prison video
00:57:58.660
I was like, one of the most endearing quality of Republicans is that they're such bad liars.
00:58:06.140
You know, you can see in the metadata that they were that the video was assembled from
00:58:11.800
two source clips, saved multiple times, exported and uploaded to the Department of Justice's
00:58:18.040
This was you can see this both in the Wired report, also Coffeezilla, a really underrated
00:58:22.760
podcaster, did a really incredible investigation of it.
00:58:26.480
Moreover, it doesn't, as you said, it doesn't actually dispel suspicions in any way.
00:58:30.900
It doesn't it contradicts the previous assertion that all the inmates were in their cells
00:58:39.340
The new DOJ memo says Epstein was out of his cell around 1040 p.m., which is consistent
00:58:45.480
with a distant orange image in the footage that appears near the staircase to the cell
00:58:50.620
But what's still unexplained is why the prison guards failed to complete their mandatory
00:58:54.120
rounds and inmate counts that night and then why they falsified their statements and
00:59:03.000
I mean, the other thing was that we also saw this huge escalation in 2019.
00:59:07.320
The DOJ said that the Epstein indictment referred to dozens of victims.
00:59:16.180
That's the new that they've received the memo that the Trump administration just put out.
00:59:24.780
I mean, and Michael, just to go back, we talked about this in hour one.
00:59:27.840
We pulled up the old DOJ documents from right around the time Epstein cut that sweetheart
00:59:34.580
And in that in one of the related documents in settling a civil case with the victims,
00:59:39.360
the DOJ is on record as admitting he had approximately 30 victims as of 2008 from all around the country.
00:59:51.260
And from 2008 to 2020, 19 or to 2019, when he died, he amassed another 970 victims.
01:00:03.360
I mean, they just that was part of the part of the sweetheart deal was to cover up the full
01:00:10.680
There's a there's a sort of a story going around now that this is all sort of a conspiracy
01:00:14.960
theory, you know, that we don't know, you know, you know what they got.
01:00:20.100
I mean, you know, this is the Miami Herald in 2019 reported that FBI agents found a cache
01:00:25.820
of thick black binders, all labeled with names that contain hundreds of naked or semi naked
01:00:31.100
photographs on CDs that Epstein stored in various places.
01:00:34.800
The picture that Bondi was sort of presenting was, well, he just had some child porn that
01:00:41.180
That is just absolutely contradicted by all of the court cases, by what's been reported.
01:00:47.060
You know, the intelligence community ties are amazing.
01:00:50.760
I mean, you know, let's talk about I don't think you got to listen to my discussion with
01:00:55.060
Ben, but Ben does not he does not believe from the sound of it that that he was an intelligence
01:01:01.440
agent or asset, though we agreed asset is lesser charged, a lesser charged term than
01:01:08.340
But still, for my purposes, I don't care because I think the government would have an interest
01:01:16.440
And he doesn't put much stock into the reports about Alex Acosta, who was the U.S.
01:01:21.500
attorney handling the case for the feds when they went after Epstein in 08 07 08.
01:01:26.140
Um, because the best thing we have against Acosta is a hearsay statement reported by Vicki
01:01:32.680
Ward in the Daily Beast in 2019, in which she claimed that a Trump transition team official
01:01:38.780
had told her that when they went to Acosta, when they were considering him for labor secretary,
01:01:43.740
he said, like, this isn't going to come back to haunt us because, um, Epstein was, I just,
01:01:53.260
Yeah, I don't want to have the wrong language, but I do have it written down in front of me
01:01:57.320
that he, quote, belongs to intelligence and that he is, quote, above my pay grade.
01:02:04.840
I was told he was above my pay grade, um, and that he was, yeah, that he, quote, belonged
01:02:10.740
And it told me to, to move off of the case, which, I mean, frankly, I believe, I believe
01:02:18.580
that, and I know many people don't because then later Acosta gave that smarmy little
01:02:23.660
on-camera statement at a 2019 presser when he was in trouble.
01:02:27.560
He was about to resign because he was part of the Trump administration.
01:02:30.680
Then Epstein died and all hell broke loose and he was on, on his heels.
01:02:34.380
And now he's like, oh, maybe you shouldn't believe everything you read in the press is
01:02:39.780
But then when he got interviewed by the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility,
01:02:44.780
he reportedly behind closed doors said, it's not true that I said that to the Trump transition
01:02:50.420
I mean, you know, if that were all it was, but we also have, you know, I think you did
01:02:54.540
mention to Ben, I heard the last part of it, you know, Ari Ben-Munash, the former high-ranking
01:02:58.780
Israeli intelligence officer, um, who said that he was his handler.
01:03:04.360
He said he introduced Epstein to Israeli intelligence and that the higher ups approved of Epstein,
01:03:09.000
one of whom was the former prime minister, Ehud Barak, who was also the head of Israeli
01:03:15.360
So how many times did Ehud Barak stay at Jeffrey Epstein's house?
01:03:19.660
I mean, what I, what we had, what we report is that Epstein had planned 36 meetings with
01:03:24.960
Barak without, I'm not sure how many of those meetings actually happened, but I mean, that's,
01:03:32.420
I mean, the CIA, the former CIA director under, under, yeah, the former CIA director under
01:03:37.680
Biden, Bill Burns, uh, has already been, the wall street journal reported that he had three
01:03:44.600
So, I mean, you kind of look at it, it looks like there was a, a sex blackmail operation,
01:03:50.100
uh, being operated on us soil that the CIA knew about.
01:03:55.560
I mean, I just kind of think, I think it's important for people to remember too, that like
01:04:00.280
honeypots or sex blackmail operations, we know that the CIA used those in the, you know,
01:04:07.800
According to Whitney Webb's reporting, the CIA actually got the idea for them or learned
01:04:15.900
But, you know, 1975, the CIA operated love traps in New York city and San Francisco were
01:04:21.400
foreign diplomats were lured by prostitutes in the pay of the CIA.
01:04:25.660
They used one way mirrors to fill, to film the sexual adventures.
01:04:29.820
I'm, I'm quoting from Whitney Webb's two volume book, one nation under blackmail.
01:04:35.340
So this is, it's not like, it's, it's certainly not outlandish, uh, that, that was what was
01:04:40.800
going on, that, well, that what was going on was what it appears to have been, which was
01:04:45.120
a sex blackmail operation operated by intelligence.
01:04:47.240
And that's very serious, obviously, because we have a democracy that depends on the idea
01:04:52.640
that we're electing people who are loyal to the citizens and not to some secret intelligence
01:05:01.100
But Ben said that he, after Naftali Bennett, uh, put out this statement today saying he was
01:05:08.260
never a Mossad agent, which I have to say, I credit not even a little, not even remotely.
01:05:13.460
Um, I don't actively disbelieve him either, but I don't put any of what do you, what would,
01:05:25.980
I get, but anyway, Ben said he reached out to Naftali Bennett's office and that they told
01:05:30.600
him for what it's worth that they haven't conducted any sort of spying operation on U.S.
01:05:38.080
And what, what's making me uncomfortable, Michael, is that I, I'm just trying to lay
01:05:44.400
Tucker's saying what his opinion is, which is not outside of the mainstream at all, that
01:05:47.880
he thinks Epstein worked for Mossad or was a, was somehow an asset to them.
01:05:51.860
But this immediately, even if you're as a staunch, a staunch, a defender of Israel in general,
01:05:58.860
I haven't defended all the way they've conducted this war, but in general, their right to defend
01:06:02.260
themselves after the horrific attack of 10-7 and, and of American Jews who are facing
01:06:07.280
overwhelming discrimination on college campuses.
01:06:09.180
Even if you're in my position, you get lunatics out there who accuse you of being like anti-Semitic
01:06:15.000
because you are exploring this theory, which is such utter bullshit.
01:06:21.180
And honestly, like, I will just say this for the record.
01:06:23.440
If you think that those kinds of smears are going to stop me from reporting, you haven't
01:06:32.260
If anything, when you accuse me of shit like that, I will double, triple, and quadruple
01:06:39.720
So nice try, but you've chosen the wrong person.
01:06:43.220
You know, I can hear Tucker's frustration when they do this to him.
01:06:46.420
He's much more controversial than I am because he's interviewing the president of Iran and things
01:06:51.280
like, I'm like, I've been a defender of Israel.
01:06:53.440
So people who say I'm not going to fuck off, they don't know me at all.
01:06:56.760
I'm allowed to figure out what Jeffrey Epstein's actual connections were.
01:07:00.740
And if that leads me to our government or Israel's, too bad.
01:07:11.640
I think, first of all, we don't want any foreign intelligence.
01:07:15.260
We don't want any sex blackmail operations operated by intelligence.
01:07:18.120
We certainly don't want any foreign intelligence, whether it's France or Germany or Israel or anybody
01:07:26.080
I mean, it's I think if you're a defender of strong defender of Israel right now, this is a
01:07:31.640
You have to remember a majority of Americans currently have an unfavorable view of Israel
01:07:36.220
and the share of Americans with a very unfavorable view nearly doubled between 2022 and 2025.
01:07:42.880
Now, among Republicans ages 18 to 49, which was that audience that you were with on Friday
01:07:49.760
night at Charlie Cook, Charlie Cook's Turning Point USA, 50 percent hold negative views of
01:07:58.040
So I don't think that I don't think that you're going to deal with that problem by trying to
01:08:02.060
cancel, as you said, people that are really allies of Israel, defend the right of Israel to
01:08:08.380
My co-author, by the way, the lead author of the piece that we just published, Daughter of an
01:08:12.360
Israeli, certainly Israelis have no hesitation about criticizing the Israeli government.
01:08:18.340
It just appears to be a kind of I mean, it's sad to see because I do see some people that engage in
01:08:24.080
that idea that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic.
01:08:27.580
I see some of those are people that were actually very good on this issue of cancel culture and
01:08:32.460
kind of the woke reign of terror over the last 12 years.
01:08:37.840
You know, I think there's just this other thing that's going on, which is that MAGA, I
01:08:43.400
I mentioned before, I'm very impressed with MAGA.
01:08:44.800
I disagree with MAGA on a lot of things, including some of the stuff around free speech.
01:08:49.240
I'm not a huge fan of the these attempts to do mass deportations in the way that they're
01:08:57.160
They are sticking with their principles on this.
01:08:59.880
They want reform of the intelligence community.
01:09:01.900
I put out one tweet on election night after Trump won, which was that we need serious
01:09:07.920
So, Megan, this Epstein cover up, which it clearly is, it's just undeniably a cover up
01:09:16.500
It's happening in a context where we're just not getting the transparency and disclosure
01:09:21.040
of information that we were promised, much less the intelligence community reform that
01:09:27.240
So, look, we have three branches of government.
01:09:29.660
Two are extremely strong, you know, Supreme Court and the executive branch.
01:09:34.240
I don't think Congress is stepped up in the way that they need to, with some exceptions.
01:09:39.560
Representative Luna, for example, has been wonderful in getting the JFK files released.
01:09:43.080
But I think Congress now needs to step up and hold those hearings to get to the bottom
01:09:48.040
I think whether or not there's a special prosecutor, as Steve Bannon has advocated, it's now time
01:09:54.240
for Congress to do its job and do its Article II duties under the Constitution and provide
01:10:05.080
That's just not, there's zero chance that the executive branch is going to authorize that.
01:10:11.000
I mean, they've already told us where they're going with it, which is move on, move on.
01:10:21.060
It's either this is all on Pam Bondi as a communications failure, which 100 percent is
01:10:27.560
in large part on Pam Bondi, the current crisis, because she definitely overpromised.
01:10:31.920
And then when she underdelivered, it was in the dark of night, skulked away with an unsigned
01:10:36.400
memo that she just wanted to shove down our throats and then have us accept or that this
01:10:44.140
So I said that I said that in a tweet, right, that this is either Pam Bondi created this
01:10:49.100
crisis and that the president is just standing by her because he thinks it's just a communication
01:10:54.080
He believes there's no there there and he's willing to forgive her for her stupid comms
01:10:57.740
because she's a loyal soldier or this actually is a cover up and the president has authorized
01:11:03.160
But Ben took that to mean that I was saying a cover up of an active pedophile ring that
01:11:08.280
Trump and Bongino and Kash Patel and Pam Bondi all know about and are fine with.
01:11:13.200
I think there's a there's an in between there of there's a decision to move on made at the
01:11:18.220
highest levels and loyal soldiers are going along with it and that there are reasons other
01:11:23.360
than like act girls are getting raped right now by pedophiles, foreign and domestic, and
01:11:30.040
we're all just fine with it within the Trump administration.
01:11:35.340
And I think, too, I also saw somebody go viral on X over the weekend who said something like,
01:11:40.420
hey, that's all in the past and we need to really crack down on sex trafficking of minors
01:11:44.800
that's happening in the present, which I totally, of course, agree with.
01:11:48.080
But I think you have to keep in mind if there's impunity for sex blackmail or sex trafficking
01:11:52.780
operations in the past that directly undermines your ability to crack down on them in the present.
01:11:58.500
And look, if if it's not a cover up, then release the truckloads of documents and thousands
01:12:05.960
I don't think this is just a communications problem.
01:12:09.280
If it is just a communications problem, then Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are equally guilty
01:12:15.280
of it because they went on Rogan and on Fox and Friends and said that we were going to get
01:12:20.160
the raw, unedited file of Epstein's cell and we didn't get that.
01:12:25.040
So I don't think that Bondi had her communications were particularly worse.
01:12:29.400
But again, I just don't think it's a communications issue.
01:12:31.780
I think when she said there's truckloads of information that had come from the FBI to her,
01:12:36.160
I think all these other information we've gotten shows that there's huge amounts of information.
01:12:41.100
You know, there was a whole there's deception involved in the communications.
01:12:44.660
They said there's no Epstein list that could be true, but it's completely irrelevant if
01:12:50.380
you have truckloads of documents and thousands of documents and hundreds of CDs with videos
01:12:55.540
potentially shot through one way mirrors of Johns with, you know, minors.
01:13:02.120
That's we're in a totally different universe here.
01:13:08.100
I think it's really important not to let it go.
01:13:09.940
I know the Trump administration is going to want to let it go.
01:13:11.940
I know a lot of folks that are Trump allies are going to want to move on.
01:13:16.000
We have a lot of things that we want to see the Trump administration do.
01:13:18.260
I mean, I just I thanked President Trump on Friday for what he's been doing on Brazil because
01:13:26.000
So I myself am in a situation where I'm like criticizing the administration.
01:13:34.220
It's it's requiring a level of complexity here, but I don't think we should let it go.
01:13:40.080
I don't think it's just a communications problem.
01:13:42.380
I think Congress needs to step up and do its job and provide oversight, even as uncomfortable
01:13:46.540
as that make people, because I just think it's going to be a festering issue for for months
01:13:52.260
Better just to be transparent and get the information out there rather than let it fester.
01:13:58.480
But here's a from a New York Times article dated July 8th, 2019.
01:14:03.340
In a detention memo submitted on Monday, federal prosecutors outlined some of the evidence seized
01:14:07.540
from a search of Epstein's house on Saturday night.
01:14:09.800
It included hundreds, possibly thousands of sexually suggestive photographs of girls
01:14:14.520
who appear under age, as well as hand labeled compact discs with titles like girl picks nude
01:14:20.640
and with the names redacted young so-and-so plus so-and-so together.
01:14:26.000
Like that's just one example of the amount of data that's out there.
01:14:28.780
And you said that Cash and Dan had promised release of all the unredacted files.
01:14:40.380
And just to be clear, and so like on the video front, I mean, FBI, I think, would say they
01:14:47.320
But then there is this Wired report today saying that it's been, that it actually has been edited.
01:14:54.000
But they released two, you know that, they released like one that looks cleaned up and
01:14:58.140
one they say is the RAW, but the Wired report is saying that even the RAW has gone through
01:15:06.760
Hold on, I'm just trying to pull up my report here from Wired.
01:15:10.460
They say metadata shows the FBI's RAW prison video was likely modified.
01:15:16.160
Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by Wired and independent video forensics experts
01:15:20.040
show that rather than being a direct export from the prison surveillance system,
01:15:23.400
the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro.
01:15:27.920
File appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times,
01:15:31.880
exported, then uploaded to DOJ's website where it was presented as RAW.
01:15:35.960
Experts caution it's unclear what exactly was changed and that the metadata does not prove
01:15:43.740
The video may have simply been processed for public release using available software with
01:15:48.400
no modifications beyond stitching together two clips.
01:15:51.940
But the absence of a clear explanation is a problem.
01:15:55.580
They go on to say if then they go to a professor at UC Berkeley whose research focuses on digital
01:16:04.720
And he says, if a lawyer brought me this file and asked if it was suitable for court, I'd say,
01:16:15.640
The video's aspect ratio shifts noticeably at several points.
01:16:18.420
Why am I suddenly seeing a different aspect ratio, he asks.
01:16:22.240
He says, while the metadata clearly shows the video was modified, the changes could be benign.
01:16:26.500
For example, converting footage from a proprietary surveillance format to a standard MP4.
01:16:30.900
The FBI did not respond to specific questions about the files processing.
01:16:35.980
The DOJ in turn referred inquiries back to the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons.
01:16:42.140
By the way, here's that Julie Brown clip from the Dan Levitard show on why, again, the whole
01:16:49.260
debate about the metadata is like talking about the Starbucks in Austin instead of the president
01:16:54.720
getting shot in the head in Dallas when it was JFK.
01:16:59.040
Turns out that might not even be video of his cell door.
01:17:03.300
The whole thing, again, is a big, big red herring.
01:17:08.560
And they think the people, and I guess there are some people that look at this because it's
01:17:14.700
OK, and then they point to them, him walking down below.
01:17:20.340
And now they're saying, oh, a minute is missing.
01:17:27.400
It doesn't even show where people are going in and out of his cell.
01:17:31.080
So, and if you read the report on his investigation, the guy who ran the cameras in the prison,
01:17:40.900
the tech guy, says to investigators, none of the cameras were recording.
01:17:53.200
That is the camera that they showed you the footage of.
01:17:55.640
But that camera is of what they call the common area.
01:18:03.680
For example, let's just say another inmate wanted to go in his cell.
01:18:07.480
You would never know that because we don't have footage of his wing.
01:18:11.520
There is a camera at the end of his hallway, but it wasn't recording.
01:18:16.960
So somebody could have, you know, left one of the other inmates' cells unlocked.
01:18:22.660
The inmate could have gone in and done something to him.
01:18:28.300
They're showing you a camera that doesn't even show his cell.
01:18:37.580
I mean, look, they, and that's, again, they promised that they were going to show,
01:18:41.960
they were going to share the raw video of the cell.
01:18:46.900
And they were, I mean, when you watch the Patel on Rogan and Bongino on Fox and Friends,
01:18:53.240
they were trying to just kind of go, look, no, no, it's just not true.
01:18:59.980
So for this to just, for, to, to, to see that it was doctored, the video.
01:19:04.880
And again, you could say, well, we didn't do anything misleading.
01:19:09.600
So, but again, as she was saying, great, I mean, it's not, even if they released the
01:19:13.800
raw video, it wouldn't show anything because you're still missing the video of his cell.
01:19:17.640
So it just feels like a deliberate misdirection on the part of the administration.
01:19:24.240
And again, that's why I don't just think it's Bondi's fault.
01:19:27.040
I mean, you know, and not to mention the fact that, you know, the FBI is a department within
01:19:31.660
DOJ and that both FBI and DOJ signed off on that memo.
01:19:35.280
So I, you know, I know you're friendly with Bongino.
01:19:39.060
I actually praised him last summer because he was absolutely right about the failures
01:19:46.060
I think he was right about a bunch of other stuff, but, you know, he made a promise basically
01:19:52.940
So I, for me, you know, I just kind of go, you got to come clean.
01:19:57.940
You, I mean, I'm not saying he needs to resign, but something needs to change here.
01:20:01.700
I don't think just getting a phone call from Trump telling him to calm down should be
01:20:09.100
And I assume he wants to go back to rumble and do his podcast after the administration.
01:20:16.080
And, you know, Patel might be more of a character that, you know, is just there to kind of do
01:20:21.900
But I mean, with Bongino, he sort of had this, this kind of dual identity.
01:20:25.740
And I think that makes this whole episode particularly problematic for him.
01:20:30.040
I, my own suspicion without knowing this firsthand is that the only way Dan's going to stay is
01:20:35.500
if something happens, like she agrees to a presser or she does an interview or she does
01:20:42.160
I just know, just having known him, that transparency really is his big issue.
01:20:46.060
And even though I'm sure it took a lot for him to go on Fox and friends and say, I think
01:20:52.120
You know, I know it's a reversal, but like, I think that's what I think.
01:20:57.540
I'll take a look at it, but we haven't seen it.
01:20:59.940
I'm sure that took a lot for him because there's a difference between being, you know, in your
01:21:03.320
seat and my seat and then actually getting to the FBI and getting actual data or the lack
01:21:08.520
of it and having to say, look, we have it or, or we don't.
01:21:11.640
So I, for me, I, I believe he wasn't lying on Fox and friends about the, the murder suicide
01:21:16.820
Cause I think it took a lot for him to say that, but I know he's pro transparency on
01:21:22.060
everything and we're just not getting that at all.
01:21:24.920
And like, you know, I'm all over the board on this in a way, Michael, because like, I
01:21:28.540
don't know what to believe other than ever since that memo and Trump's, uh, cabinet
01:21:35.340
meeting the day after that memo, I'm more suspicious than ever.
01:21:38.580
Like that did exactly the opposite for me than, than I think was intended.
01:21:45.880
I'll tell you something else that I think is really interesting, Megan, is that, you
01:21:48.500
know, Trump is sort of famously gregarious, you know, talks a lot.
01:21:52.800
One of the criticisms, of course, is he shares, you know, information he shouldn't share.
01:21:56.700
That's been one of the constant criticisms of him, but here you have everybody around him.
01:22:02.060
Um, his closest people are all saying, we're going to release, you know, Epstein lists.
01:22:08.300
I mean, the AG says that the director of the FBI, before he comes into office, the deputy
01:22:15.900
I think it was about a week before the election and said, yeah, seriously, we need to release
01:22:22.920
You see Donald Trump Jr., the president's son, uh, getting up there and, and, you know, saying
01:22:31.400
Look, I think one of the best arguments that there's nothing there that, that implicates
01:22:36.400
Trump is the fact that Democrats didn't use it.
01:22:38.940
They were, they were trying to put Trump in prison, trying to put him from running for
01:22:46.120
You know, and, and, and, but it was a weird thing.
01:22:48.320
I'll say, you know, when you watch, uh, Trump was on Lex Friedman as well.
01:22:51.860
And there was an interesting moment where Lex, to his credit, because Lex has a reputation as
01:22:55.360
a bit of a soft interviewer, you know, he was really pressing the president on the Epstein
01:22:59.900
files and you just see it in, you don't have to be one of those body language experts.
01:23:03.620
You know, you just see Trump becoming really uncomfortable and he kind of hems and haws
01:23:09.060
And then he goes, well, the JFK files, you know, we're going to release that.
01:23:12.380
And you kind of get a sense that at least in the president's mind, he was going to release
01:23:17.740
the JFK files and that that would be sort of, that would kind of cover the transparency
01:23:22.700
But he was kind of like the Epstein files are a little bit more tricky.
01:23:25.400
It was like, well, but have you talked to everybody around you to not create expectations?
01:23:30.980
Because I mean, it's, I mean, you can say it's a communications problem, but it's like,
01:23:36.980
I mean, it'd be the Bondi, you know, apparently it sounded like cash and, you know, it's not
01:23:41.600
like Patel and maybe Bongino kind of got the memo and that's why they went on Rogan and
01:23:45.340
then Fox and friends, but like the AG is just up there talking freely about truckloads of evidence
01:23:50.560
and thousands of pages, which sounded more like Bongino and cash prior to them joining
01:23:57.640
the administration, which sounded more like virtually every Trump surrogate when he was
01:24:05.900
And then what, you know, Pam Bondi's statements prior to actually assuming the role as DOJ as
01:24:11.380
AG sounded totally consistent with what most of MAGA had believed.
01:24:16.060
Not to mention we're letting Alina Habba off the hook, but she was probably more provocative
01:24:23.500
And it's not like she had no connections to the administration.
01:24:25.820
She was at that time, counselor to the president.
01:24:28.180
And within three weeks, she was working for DOJ and didn't dial any of it back and made,
01:24:38.240
I have zero desire to like hurt Trump as an electoral matter.
01:24:43.000
I've been very open about that, but I also prize honesty with the audience and just honesty
01:24:53.180
This is an awkward moment because you really have to make sure you have your integrity.
01:24:57.720
You have your commitment to honest reporting, and you're not letting your fondness for the
01:25:02.660
administration drive the way you cover it, nor like, as soon as I see the left jumping
01:25:07.960
on, I'm like, ew, that's, that makes me want to leave this, this little lily pot, you know,
01:25:12.720
like I don't want to be on the same side of Jamie as Jamie Raskin on anything, but I kind
01:25:18.160
of would like to see a hearing or a congressional subpoena.
01:25:24.760
I mean, the left bring back, you know, all the awfulness they brought back, you know,
01:25:29.480
at the same time, intelligence community reform is something that had been bipartisan.
01:25:34.520
The last time we had significant intelligence community reform was in 1975 when you had
01:25:39.440
the church committee hearings, and then there was a whole set of reforms that were passed
01:25:43.360
into law with bipartisan majorities in Congress.
01:25:46.240
And so, yeah, I mean, I don't trust Jamie Raskin and the folks that have been really,
01:25:51.640
you know, we're promoting various hoaxes and conspiracies around the president.
01:25:56.060
But I do feel like there, I wish there were, this were an opportunity, like if, even if you
01:26:00.560
couldn't get the transparency of the Epstein files, can we get intelligence community reform,
01:26:06.680
you know, and that's not just putting, you know, Trump's picks as the head of those agencies.
01:26:12.520
And you saw Tulsi Gabbard, the president's director of national intelligence at the Turning
01:26:17.280
Point USA conference that you were at on Friday night, get up there and say that just
01:26:22.340
openly that they're dealing with deep state operatives that are preventing them from releasing
01:26:31.700
Yeah, you have this clear cry for help where and I understand the challenge of it, because
01:26:34.960
often those people that are the problem of blocking information are also, you know, valuable
01:26:41.640
They have all this, you know, they have strings that they're they're pulling in all
01:26:47.520
But that's why I'm like, you've got to bring Congress into it somehow.
01:26:50.280
You've got to get some dynamics set up where there's something going on to get more
01:26:55.900
information released to get intelligence community reformed.
01:26:58.920
If there really is, if all that's left in the so-called files is stuff that could potentially
01:27:03.960
be problematic for like an individual wrongly accused or, you know, nobody's interested
01:27:09.000
in seeing actual victims names of, you know, like that's not that's actually not appropriate
01:27:12.580
to release or secret grand jury testimony that we have no legal right to.
01:27:16.560
If you get a congressional subpoena, all that can be handled.
01:27:25.100
If they're not interested in covering anything up, then they should welcome a congressional
01:27:33.840
I think some people, at least in the administration, may want that.
01:27:36.400
I have to take a break, but I've got to ask you something quickly about the piece you just
01:27:43.380
This is interesting on the question of whether Epstein was an agent possibly for Israel.
01:27:48.120
You write about this guy, Ben Minaj, who we discussed in brief.
01:27:50.580
He asserted that he introduced Epstein to Israeli intelligence and that his higher ups approved
01:27:56.500
Once one such higher up was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was the head of Israeli military
01:28:04.440
Between 13 and 17, Epstein planned 36 meetings with Ehud Barak.
01:28:09.260
In the 1980s, according to reports, Epstein developed relationships with British arms dealers and often
01:28:19.160
Ben Minaj alleged that Epstein was then contracted to act as a professional blackmailer on behalf
01:28:29.760
Due to fears that a new American president would push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
01:28:40.000
Like, that actually gives a motive to Israel, potentially, for why it would do this.
01:28:46.360
Like, because, you know, it seems somewhat incredulous.
01:28:50.000
I'm incredulous to think Israel just wanted to see a bunch of little girls molested and sat
01:28:56.260
And again, I don't think we're talking about little girls.
01:29:00.780
I mean, I'm just there is a somewhat of a difference just in terms of the crime.
01:29:04.960
When you talk about six versus 14, 15, you know what I'm saying?
01:29:10.460
Anyway, this this actually puts a potential motive behind why they thought it was worth
01:29:19.960
And potentially, I mean, a really disturbing one when you consider that this is potentially
01:29:25.300
an effort to control or influence U.S. foreign policy, you know, whatever you think of the
01:29:32.860
bombing of those uranium enrichment facilities in Iran, there's a legitimate debate about
01:29:39.840
You know, clearly it was started, instigated by Israel.
01:29:44.060
I think there's real questions about why that's in the U.S. interest.
01:29:46.940
It was, I mean, just to be, you know, open about it.
01:29:50.900
I mean, look, to be honest about it, Iran was complying with international law.
01:29:58.940
It had not kicked the inspectors out under the nonproliferation treaty.
01:30:04.000
Again, I'm not defending Iran, I'm not defending the uranium enrichment, but this was not consistent
01:30:10.500
And maybe we just don't believe international law anymore, shouldn't believe it anymore.
01:30:13.760
But, you know, I think there's reasons to wonder if that was motivated by some, motivated
01:30:20.500
by wanting to support Israel rather than an objective look at U.S. interests.
01:30:25.000
So all of this is occurring in a context when I think whatever you think of Israel-Gaza-Hamas
01:30:31.000
war, there's a genuine concern that the U.S. could get drawn into a broader Middle Eastern
01:30:38.300
I don't think that's, that's not anti-Israel to be concerned about being pulled into foreign
01:30:44.140
So when you add in this, you know, potential sex blackmail operation, yeah, it really dials
01:30:53.620
Well, I think it's safe to say both you and we will stay on it.
01:30:58.040
All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back on what we
01:31:00.440
just learned about Joe Biden and President Otto Penn.
01:31:03.500
This thing is getting more interesting and more problematic for the Biden administration.
01:31:06.640
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01:34:20.580
Look, the auto pen I think is maybe one of the biggest scandals that we've had in 50 to
01:34:29.480
And I know the people on the other side of the auto pen.
01:34:38.460
But, you know, we have our choice of seven desks.
01:34:42.740
But I chose the resolute and so did he, unfortunately.
01:34:47.180
But the people on the other side of the resolute desk, I know them.
01:34:56.840
And I guarantee you, he knew nothing about what he was signing.
01:35:04.040
So they're going to figure it out and we'll see what happens.
01:35:14.520
Michael, that was the president commenting on this New York Times report on the auto pen,
01:35:19.980
where they, for the first time, got access briefly to Joe Biden himself.
01:35:23.720
And it was revealed by him, he claimed, that he had orally granted all the pardons and commutations issued at the end of his term,
01:35:36.840
But the New York Times actually unearthing that the person who would actually, like, press go on the auto pen was her last name is Feldman.
01:35:50.120
And she, I guess, felt uncomfortable with the process they had set up because she was not in any of the meetings with the president, only was receiving direction from underlings and wanted to have some written accounts confirming his oral instructions in these meetings.
01:36:05.180
And yet, all she got was assistants who drafted blurbs who were not themselves in the room.
01:36:12.440
The assistants then circulated the drafts to the people who were in the room, like Ed Siskel, his White House counsel, Jeff Zients, his chief of staff, and some others.
01:36:22.140
And that whole people wound up pardoned or having their sentences commuted by Jeff Zients just simply hitting reply to all to approve these decisions.
01:36:36.140
So it was like Biden orally to some set of staff.
01:36:40.480
Then the girl who had to press go said, can I have something in writing?
01:36:43.960
And all she got was like a reply to all from the chief of staff saying, everything's approved.
01:36:49.040
And that is how we wound up with some of the most controversial pardons in U.S. history.
01:36:55.700
The only one he physically signed was the one for his son, Hunter Biden.
01:37:06.960
I mean, it's so crazy because if you're if you're too debilitated to actually sign something, then how can you say that you were, you know, were fully competent to actually make the decision?
01:37:21.300
I mean, I thought the Times piece, first of all, is very long.
01:37:25.940
They then frame it sort of defensively on the side of Biden.
01:37:31.620
But if you actually go read that full piece, it is absolutely damning.
01:37:35.380
Investing, you know, Comer, you know, Congressman Comer doing oversight apparently is issuing new subpoenas.
01:37:47.000
Does it go to the Supreme Court finally to rule on this stuff?
01:37:51.800
You know, Jeff Zinz, the chief of staff, Zinz, who pardoned Fauci, was also the main social media censorship coordinator on covid policy.
01:38:04.020
So, I mean, it's just, you know, so corrupt from top to bottom.
01:38:11.380
And that's really interesting because the other person who got pardoned, of course, was Fauci.
01:38:16.240
And he's the only other one that I think the president admits in this meeting.
01:38:24.080
He said specifically yes to Hunter, specifically yes to Fauci.
01:38:28.700
But, I mean, the more we learn about Fauci, the more we come to understand that this whole cabal probably well understood that Fauci, this was not some prophylactic, oh, just protect our friend who did nothing wrong, that perhaps it was much more nefarious.
01:38:44.440
And they knew what we're starting to realize about Fauci and what we're starting to glean from the intel community, which is he knew far more and was repeatedly under oath with Congress lying.
01:38:56.640
I mean, it's also such a testament to, like, these cases that you think are actually that we know everything and they're ready to move on, that there's still information coming out about them.
01:39:05.860
I mean, I thought we knew everything about Biden's, you know, poor health until the the Jake Tapper, you know, book came out, which was, I think, contained a bunch of new revelations as annoying as it was coming from him.
01:39:17.760
But similarly, for COVID, there's still there's so much we still don't know about COVID.
01:39:24.620
You know, was COVID, you know, if it's created in a lab, I mean, this whole idea that it was a people go people say it's a conspiracy theory.
01:39:32.480
It's a conspiracy theory to suggest it was a bioweapon.
01:39:34.620
But if it was created in a lab, you know, it was potentially in a lab that PLA had oversight over the Chinese army.
01:39:46.380
And so you're looking at essentially I mean, I still told this to some progressive friends of mine.
01:39:52.040
And I was saying I'm saying that it looks as though and we don't have all the proof yet, but it looks as though the United States was involved in a bioweapons program, you know, I think motivated to develop vaccines against those bioweapons, but was involved in a bioweapons and vaccination program in China.
01:40:10.180
We did a lot of the intellectual development of it.
01:40:15.020
And the guy that was responsible for creating it also oversaw the response, which, Megan, I think people don't fully appreciate.
01:40:23.680
I mean, we know, of course, it was, you know, people know that it was an over we over responded to it.
01:40:30.500
Like, why was there such a radical, aggressive response to COVID with the lockdowns and the school closures?
01:40:35.760
One possibility is that they knew perfectly well that it was a bioweapon, that it wasn't some thing that leaked out from the wild.
01:40:44.240
And so one of the remaining questions that we want to get at is, did Fauci and his lieutenants realize, oh, you know, they were developing a bioweapon in that lab?
01:40:52.980
Again, I'm not saying it was some conspiracy to poison the world or kill all these people.
01:40:56.600
I'm just saying as a military project to develop vaccines to potential bioweapons and then when it leaked, the response to it resembled much more of a response that you would have to a bioweapon rather than to some virus that had emerged naturally, you know, from the jungles of South China.
01:41:14.940
Mm hmm. And now I feel like we're never going to know because there is no question in my mind that neither Fauci nor Francis Collins left those offices without scrubbing anything and everything that would have reflected any of that.
01:41:32.300
Yeah, you could be right. You know, like I said, I think that, you know, I think we all thought, you know, I just published a I've been publishing a debate around the JFK files and the person that thinks it was a lone shooter wrote a book called
01:41:44.880
Case Closed that came out of the 90s. So, you know, I think that sometimes we think these things are case closed, but there is some information lurking out there.
01:41:53.740
So another reason to keep the cases open and continue to investigate and continue to demand transparency in congressional hearings, because there could very well be more information out there that we're not aware of.
01:42:05.080
Well, and I wonder now whether the Fauci pardon and for that matter, the Hunter Biden, I don't know.
01:42:12.860
I'm like, not sure if Biden was non-compass mentis, the Hunter one could be in trouble, too.
01:42:16.360
But really, the auto pen pardons, whether they're really going to stand.
01:42:20.140
I mean, the odds you'd have to put money on them standing.
01:42:22.680
I don't think the Supreme Court is going to want to second guess any of this, but it's one of the reasons why we need this Dr.
01:42:27.480
Kevin O'Connor to actually speak, notwithstanding his BS assertions of privilege, which don't stand when you're looking at a congressional subpoena.
01:42:35.680
Not the attorney or the doctor patient privilege.
01:42:42.260
Anyway, there's a lot more happening on that front.
01:42:46.560
Michael Schellenberger, I love your journalism.