TRIGGERnometry - Epstein, CIA, Mossad, Trump - Mike Benz

00:00:00.000 we're really not very conspiratorially minded people but then the other day i woke up and i

00:00:06.680 started reading about it and i was like oh oh there's actually like there there with this

00:00:10.680 epstein stuff particularly you know this letter that was reported the entire trajectory so far

00:00:17.460 of epstein's career i'm not a conspiracy theorist but dot dot dot i'm going surely but this is cia

00:00:24.860 isn't it he was told to back off epstein because epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it

00:00:31.680 alone because it was above his pay grade people are going to invent their own epstein story unless

00:00:38.380 there's an official one and the only people who can provide the official one are the people we just

00:00:45.140 elected in this past election who ran on giving us the official story

00:00:50.360 mike bentz welcome back to the show thanks for having me oh it's good to have you on listen i'll

00:00:57.560 be honest with you you know francis and i we're really not very conspiratorially minded people it's

00:01:02.500 not something we pay a lot of attention to there's been a lot of this epstein stuff lying around for a

00:01:07.980 long time and to be honest with you i've tuned most of it out i see that you know the people who hate

00:01:13.160 israel are talking about epstein and israel the people who are about this talk about epstein and

00:01:18.340 this everyone's got their own hobby horse right but then the other day i woke up and i started

00:01:23.320 for some reason something came up in my news feed and i started reading about it and i was like oh

00:01:28.160 oh there's actually like there there with this epstein stuff particularly you know this letter that was

00:01:33.320 reported i think it was it was in the wall street journal um about donald trump uh supposedly uh sending

00:01:42.420 some kind of note with a picture of a woman and all of this and and when i started reading it i was

00:01:48.200 actually starting to go wait wait there's actually stuff in this that sounds kind of legit so we

00:01:54.240 thought we'd have you back on the show and to break it down for us and also explain how it ties in to a

00:01:59.900 lot of the intelligence community and institutional stuff that you're always talking about that we

00:02:04.580 discussed last time you were on the show but first of all i thought it'd be really helpful for people

00:02:09.940 who are like me not particularly into this stuff not particularly aware of it who've heard the name

00:02:16.280 jeffrey epstein who kind of go oh he had this island that he he was a pedophile etc for you to

00:02:22.960 just tell us who the man was what is his biography how he did get to his positions and who actually was

00:02:28.680 in what role did he play uh in a lot of this stuff that we're now talking about well jeffrey epstein is

00:02:34.860 this kind of international man of mystery figure who has uh sort of done a forest gump tour through

00:02:42.500 strange areas of u.s politics for about four decades so he's a guy who was recruited as versus

00:02:49.920 a math and physics teacher to the dalton school a prestigious new york city private school um in the

00:02:56.840 in the mid-1970s uh by donald bar who was the former uh he's the father of william bar the attorney

00:03:05.160 general the head of the u.s criminal justice system uh during the the second trump administration then

00:03:10.760 also was also attorney general in the 1990s donald bar uh started his career in the cia uh it was the

00:03:19.000 oss the predecessor to the cia before he went on to columbia and then the dalton school his son bill

00:03:25.760 uh bill bar was also uh started his career in the cia then was a lawyer for the cia uh told his high

00:03:33.200 school guidance counselor his dream job was to be the head of the cia this is in his own autobiography

00:03:38.500 um and then you have this kid jeffrey epstein who by all accounts was you know did not come from

00:03:46.740 from much um before the dalton school he got this job teaching math and physics without a college

00:03:52.240 degree which is somewhat unusual but he was very charming and charismatic and had the opportunity

00:03:58.040 to tutor the son of ace greenberg ace greenberg was the head of bear stearns bear stearns uh folks

00:04:06.820 may remember from the 80s through the early 2000s was one of the marquee investment security brokerage

00:04:14.260 firms and investment houses on wall street it went down in flames in 2008 in the uh mortgage-backed

00:04:20.300 securities crisis that was also the year that jeffrey epstein um was was first uh first arrested

00:04:26.840 the first the plea deal for his first indictment but essentially as the as the legend goes what's

00:04:33.060 been publicly reported uh in terms of how epstein got into the finance business was uh he met ace

00:04:39.580 greenberg through through greenberg's son that he was tutoring and when when epstein got fired from

00:04:45.680 the dalton school um ace greenberg gave him a chance at bear stearns and ace greenberg at the time had

00:04:52.060 this corporate philosophy that he called the psd poor smart driven to make money and he liked the hustler

00:04:59.820 types so he brought jeffrey epstein on and jeffrey epstein started kind of as a junior floor trader

00:05:06.640 and then quickly made his way up to a uh partner status at bear stearns uh primarily running um

00:05:16.000 uh family uh family and estate accounts for tax uh handling taxes and um you know creatively using

00:05:24.480 the offshore banking system in order to maximize uh you know minimize the tax liability for big family

00:05:31.680 accounts uh reportedly these included big accounts like the bronfman family and others uh and it was

00:05:38.320 through and you have to remember so this is 1976 to 1981 is this first phase of epstein's launch launch of

00:05:46.480 his career and something uh something very important happened in that period for for us geopolitics for british

00:05:55.280 for israeli for because this is what's happening right now and i'll just back up to say that

00:06:00.000 right now many of these uh what's there's a little bit of a revolution in the mega base under trump as

00:06:07.760 people feel like they're insufficient answers and one of the lingering questions has been epstein's

00:06:13.840 intelligence ties and so i'm going to sort of tell this story to sort of connect where the intelligence

00:06:20.160 touch points come into this as as as well as his adjacent financier story and so 1979 there there were

00:06:30.560 in the middle of epstein's bear stearns tenure a couple of big things happen in the world of

00:06:36.240 intelligence and geopolitics the jimmy carter years uh smashed the cia's traditional covert action

00:06:43.600 capabilities jimmy carter rode to power on the back of the church committee hearings which uh which

00:06:50.480 was the first time that the cia ever had congressional oversight frank church famously held up the heart attack

00:06:56.240 gun about how the cia kills people uh with uh effectively a dark gun that makes it look like

00:07:02.000 a heart attack uh everything came out from operation mockingbird in terms of control over the media to

00:07:08.800 operation chaos in terms of infiltration of student groups to mk ultra in terms of you know messing around

00:07:15.520 with ways to psychologically influence people and chains were put on the cia in terms of its

00:07:21.200 traditional covert action jimmy carter fired 30 of the cia's operation division in a single day

00:07:27.360 he then crippled its budget and it was also during this time that the u.s suffered numerous setbacks

00:07:33.840 in its foreign policy uh vision uh most notably the loss of iran iran had been a obviously massively

00:07:42.880 geostrategic um pivot point for pretty much most of the 20th century uh it's you know obviously it's

00:07:51.760 the second largest uh reserve of oil third largest reserve of natural gas and in 1979 there was a

00:07:59.440 islamic revolution in the country and a lot of people in the national security space felt that

00:08:04.400 that would not have happened if the cia had had its traditional powers back and in the background of

00:08:10.160 that there were there were joint intelligence networks that were being formed to try to offset

00:08:17.280 the cuts to the cia very famously folks can look up a group called the safari club which was led

00:08:24.000 by french intelligence actually but it it swept up the egyptians the moroccans um the portuguese and

00:08:31.280 also the u.s and israeli intelligence functions were junior partners on that network as well but you

00:08:38.240 essentially had the outside financiers and outside weapons dealers who were being tapped to uh to informally

00:08:48.080 coordinate what the cia itself was was banned from doing directly so these networks were already

00:08:56.560 lurking when epstein went out on his own in i'm just going to interrupt you very briefly just to uh

00:09:02.400 crystallize this so one of the things that i've learned from watching some of your stuff is

00:09:06.080 essentially what you're saying is as you're talking about now the cia had its wings clipped there were

00:09:11.440 certain things that it could no longer do legitimately and so it started using various

00:09:17.920 kinds of agents assets contacts etc to effectively do the same things but outside of its formal

00:09:25.920 structure so that it could never be pinned on cia uh itself is that that's basically what you're saying

00:09:31.520 right that's exactly it and this structure would come to a head in the biggest scandal of the

00:09:38.240 ronald reagan white house in the 1980s so ronald reagan was the u.s president from 1980 to 1988

00:09:46.400 and he came he came to power essentially on the heels of the iran hostage hostage uh situation and

00:09:52.880 and people feeling like america was weak under jimmy carter and president reagan wanted to get the cia's

00:10:00.640 old powers back uh but felt but was hamstrung by the democrats in congress uh who were still stinging

00:10:08.160 from the revelations of the cia targeting the democrat party uh during the 1970s and so the

00:10:15.040 depth there was a there was a difference in foreign policy between the republicans and democrats in the

00:10:19.440 1980s that's quite similar to what's happening with the democrats and republicans having a difference

00:10:24.720 over ukraine today and that was notably around the issue of nicaragua which is you know in latin america

00:10:32.480 the republicans wanted to do a regime change against nicaragua to take out the the sandinista

00:10:38.480 government and back a group of rebels called the contras but the democrats did not want to do that

00:10:44.800 they called that they said that that was sort of imperialist colonialist and also the ci should not

00:10:50.080 be doing this sort of thing and so the democrats passed a congressional amendment that banned any u.s

00:10:56.560 government money going for the overthrow of nicaragua it was called the boland amendment so this meant no

00:11:02.480 state department money no pentagon money no us aid money but the the roland reagan white house still

00:11:09.520 wanted to do it and so they they found a very creative mechanism to do this which is really part

00:11:16.000 this is where the epstein story where he's first getting his legs so just to back up for a second

00:11:20.800 jeffrey epstein leaves bear stearns in 1980 late late 1980 early early 1981 um under circumstances

00:11:29.920 that are disputed but effectively he either left or was fired after the after he got in trouble with uh

00:11:38.960 vile alleged violations of a private securities offering it's called regulation d um but regardless of

00:11:46.320 the circumstances of how he left bear stearns he remained very close with bear stearns he remained

00:11:50.640 in close contact with ace greenberg he was reportedly still a client of bear stearns services but he went

00:11:56.880 out on his own at that point he's 28 years old and he starts a a one-person consultancy from his new

00:12:03.360 york apartment called intercontinental assets group and he and he has that company for the next 12 years

00:12:10.640 but particularly throughout the 1990s this is his primary financial vehicle and what he says that

00:12:16.960 he does through iag inter intercontinental assets group is provide two adjacent services to the same

00:12:24.640 function uh he's his clients are high net worth individuals and governments who either want to

00:12:31.440 shelter money from creditors and other governments or who want to find hidden assets of debtors who owe

00:12:38.640 money to those high net worth individuals or governments so it's basically taking advantage of

00:12:43.200 the offshore banking system the cayman islands u.s virgin islands the um you know jersey uh the the like

00:12:53.280 in in order to do the same sorts of work that he would have been adjacent to when he was running family

00:12:59.520 estate accounts in terms of um you know the brothman family and and the like but he's doing this at a time

00:13:08.160 when the u.s gets intimately involved in the iran contra affair the iran contra affair was from

00:13:16.400 effectively 1983 to 1988 and it gets its name iran contra because the u.s did um did try to hit two

00:13:26.880 birds with one stone the republicans in the ron reagan white house they the iran iraq war had popped off

00:13:34.800 between 1980 and 1988 and the u.s was at on the one hand sort of in a cold war with iran because of

00:13:44.400 the 1979 revolution but did not want iraq to just steamroll over iran because they had twice as many

00:13:50.800 forces and there were concerns about saddam hussein and him having regional hegemony so one way to get

00:13:57.840 in with the iranian government in order to get them to uh be more amenable to u.s foreign policy was

00:14:03.920 to sell them arms against the iraqis but the problem was is that was illegal under international

00:14:09.920 law because of an arms embargo against iran so what happened was in 1983 adnan khashoggi

00:14:17.600 who was at the time the the largest arms dealer in the world by a large large margin he was at one

00:14:25.360 point rumored to be the richest man in the world he just for one weapons company alone for example for

00:14:31.200 lockheed martin he made three times more in commissions as an arms dealer for lockheed martin

00:14:36.480 than every other commissions agent of lockheed martin combined three times more than every other

00:14:42.720 arms broker on earth and he was he was a saudi uh high net worth individual connected to the royal family

00:14:49.760 in 1983 adnan khashoggi travels to the u.s and he and the ron reagan national security advisor robert

00:14:56.880 mcfarland work out this creative structure in which adnan khashoggi would serve as a middleman between

00:15:04.880 the u.s and israel for u.s weapons to be effectively smuggled to israel and sold to iran and then they

00:15:13.200 skimmed the profits of the arms deal to fund the nicaraguan contras so the reagan white house thought

00:15:20.480 that this would basically knock out two birds with one stone this would uh advance their foreign

00:15:26.560 policy in the middle east through the weapon sales to iran and it would also satisfy the

00:15:32.320 boland amendment restrictions it would not be u.s money that was that was funding the contras it

00:15:37.920 wouldn't be us aid money or or official dod money this would just be skimmed money from a private

00:15:43.040 transaction that had nothing to do with the u.s um uh officially because this was all coordinated through

00:15:49.840 the national security council and the central intelligence agency under its plausible deniability

00:15:54.800 doctrine now at that time jeffrey epstein was claiming that adnan khashoggi was one of his

00:16:02.880 marquee clients at iag in 1987 jeffrey epstein gave an interview where he reiterated that adnan khashoggi

00:16:10.480 was one of his main clients uh for his uh for his iag business and in fact when jeffrey epstein's

00:16:18.320 safe was raided in january 2019 by the fbi they found they drilled a hole in his personal safe at

00:16:25.440 his uh residence and found a a series of fake passports that jeffrey epstein had had throughout

00:16:32.080 his life and one of them was a passport that was it was a fake passport so it had his id but it had a

00:16:38.880 fake name and it was issued in 1982 expired in 1987 and it listed the residence as saudi arabia and it had

00:16:47.200 in this past fake passport in the early 1980s so again jeffrey epstein is just now 30 years old

00:16:53.920 it was so good that he was able there were four stamps on the passport including to saudi arabia

00:16:59.360 uh to france uh to the uk and i believe to spain um so this this passport was so good that

00:17:06.560 he got in and out of four different countries under a fake under a fake name but again listed the

00:17:12.080 residents of saudi arabia where adnan khashoggi was and showed visits to saudi arabia on the

00:17:17.760 stamp passport so uh but at this time you have this multi-intelligence agency operation that's

00:17:26.160 running this you had the us and uk interest in iran at the time you had the israeli interest in iran at

00:17:34.080 the time you had the saudi interest in iran at the time so right there you've got four different sort of

00:17:41.040 pools of joint intelligence work um that's happening before jeffrey epstein's 30th birthday

00:17:47.440 now he continues that relationship throughout the the 1980s and it's it's noteworthy here just to

00:17:54.400 note that the primary cia vehicle for running transport of guns and at the time illegal narcotics

00:18:02.880 because this was another way that u.s intelligence was funding the war in nicaragua

00:18:08.480 was because they couldn't get us aid money they had to work through the black market goods

00:18:15.440 economy in order to fund the contras the contras sat on the supply chain for illegal narcotics

00:18:21.120 especially cocaine this gave rise to a series of scandals about alleged cia drug running uh to

00:18:27.840 support that war this was uh this was covered by senator then senator john kerry who would in something

00:18:35.040 called the carry report on cia drug running at that time um the john kerry would then go on to be the

00:18:41.520 secretary of state and he would also run for president against george w bush in 2004 but uh as well as

00:18:49.520 these were also the gary webb allegations in fact the the head of the cia in 1996 john deutsch had to

00:18:55.680 travel to compton los angeles to do a mea culpa to explain how it was just an isolated incident this is not a

00:19:03.520 systematic thing the cia does um but but the the main transport mechanism for that was a ci proprietary

00:19:10.080 airline named southern air transport it's formerly air america this is all declassified everyone can

00:19:15.840 look up southern air transport um and it was primarily it was it was a ci proprietary this was

00:19:22.800 something that was done by the ci in the 1950s and 70s you don't see this very much anymore because of the

00:19:28.080 the reforms in the 1970s this type of of subsidies these type of subsidies will usually now come from

00:19:34.720 usaid or the u.s development finance corporation you don't really see large companies being originated

00:19:41.920 or birthed by the cia anymore after the carter reforms but what's important about the story is

00:19:46.880 that southern air transport um was was the the bag airline for deposits of weapons drugs and cash for

00:19:56.640 iran contra for the republicans during the 1980s one of its one of its bases of operations one of its

00:20:03.200 main touch points was the u.s virgin islands it was saint thomas that it had a exemption to charter large

00:20:10.480 freight too now the u.s virgin islands of course would be where jeffrey epstein would famously purchase

00:20:15.920 his lolita island the famous little saint james um just two miles from saint thomas it's actually right

00:20:23.040 across the water from it if you want to get to little saint james you fly to saint thomas

00:20:27.200 just like southern air transport and then you take a ferry across the water and you're right there

00:20:32.400 the u.s virgin islands is important because it is the money laundering it was the money laundering front

00:20:37.360 end for the cia money laundering that was done at that time before u.s funds went to swiss bank accounts

00:20:45.360 or panamanian offshore bank accounts they would be run through the u.s virgin islands which was still

00:20:51.920 continental united states but had much more lax uh anti-money laundering and know your customer rules

00:20:59.280 and so this was a place that cash would be deposited and then you know into local branches

00:21:05.600 in the u.s virgin islands and out from there but what's very interesting is that uh after the iran

00:21:11.200 contra chapter of jeffrey epstein's life concludes he links up with les wexner who is one of the wealthiest

00:21:18.880 uh business mike i'm sorry to interrupt before you move on from that section i just had a couple of

00:21:23.200 questions about what he was actually doing so uh he was he uh khashoggi who's this arms dealer is a

00:21:30.320 client of his but what is his level of involvement in all of this is he actually doing things that are

00:21:36.080 illicit is he just managing money for this guy is he helping these weapon shipments what do we actually

00:21:41.280 know about epstein's involvement in this intelligence operation at this point we've been doing trigonometry

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00:23:46.000 or scan the qr to take control of your digital safety today well the record is unclear other than that he

00:23:54.000 was moving money for them we don't even know for example with khashoggi whether or not it the the funds that

00:24:00.160 he was managing for khashoggi were related to iran contra or to khashoggi's other business dealings

00:24:07.520 so in in this also included he was moving money around for people um uh in european royal families

00:24:15.280 but the khashoggi the khashoggi part of the story i think is is interesting because khashoggi was the

00:24:21.040 linchpin of the iran he was the middleman between the u.s and israel for the whole operation and therefore

00:24:28.560 all of u.s british saudi and israeli uh security and uh you know the success of their operation

00:24:38.320 depended on khashoggi and you had you know khashoggi is one of epstein's marquee clients but what happens

00:24:46.160 at that point is 1988 the iran contra affair concludes uh jeffrey epstein gets involved in

00:24:53.200 the towers financial scandal which was uh the largest ponzi scheme that went down in flames in

00:25:00.880 the u.s before the the bernie madoff affair this is 1989 uh to 1990 that towers financial um he gets

00:25:10.560 hooked up to them through a a british arms dealer uh doug doug doug lease um he gets connected uh into that

00:25:19.520 network through john mitchell who was the uh the former attorney general of the united states under

00:25:25.440 richard nixon uh john mitchell went to prison during the watergate affair he was the again the head of

00:25:32.320 the justice department so you have the jeffrey epstein story sort of sandwiched by attorney

00:25:36.640 generals of the united states the highest levels of uh u.s you know criminal justice john mitchell uh was

00:25:43.920 from 1969 to 1972 he was the attorney general and then he stepped down to run the re-elect uh nixon

00:25:50.480 campaign and then was busted as the guy who was running the political intelligence fund that funded

00:25:55.920 watergate which was you know watergate itself was a bunch of ex-cia um uh plumbers that went in and

00:26:04.080 you know uh bugged and and raided the the dnc headquarters uh john mitchell's was john mitchell was

00:26:10.640 arrested for that and uh then when he came out he became a kind of wheeler dealer uh in this kind

00:26:17.360 of underground overground underground network and he was who connected epstein to doug lease

00:26:23.520 um after towers financial goes down in flames um uh the the ceo of towers financial end up spending

00:26:31.680 something like 20 years in prison but jeffrey epstein skated out of that jeffrey epstein then

00:26:37.040 linked up with les wexner in ohio and this is sort of the period that is more uh that is bet that is

00:26:43.760 more robustly i think discussed in in present discourse because les wexner was the was the head

00:26:52.160 of the limited which was at the time in the early 1990s the largest retail chain in the united states

00:26:58.720 it was uh victoria's secret it was uh believe uh bed bath and beyond it was all these different sort

00:27:05.440 of mall retail chains uh abercrombie and fitch uh and so it was a you know a huge public you know

00:27:13.840 these are all giant retail companies with with vast legit logistical train uh chains in terms of

00:27:20.880 transport and logistics in 1991 uh jeffrey epstein gets durable power of attorney over les wexner's

00:27:28.640 financial affairs and this is a mike sorry again let me pause you here for a second i'm just trying to

00:27:34.240 fill in a few blanks and obvious questions that people will have on their minds who is this guy

00:27:39.360 how is he jumping from one thing to another and getting all these crazy jobs and before you know

00:27:44.560 he has power of attorney over a guy who owns the largest retail chain in america how is this what is

00:27:50.800 he is he is he some kind of genius is he charismatic is he as some people are saying like using blackmail

00:27:58.320 over these people like what what's going on this is quite an extraordinary career well i think what's

00:28:03.680 important to keep in mind is that he maintained close ties with the bear stearns network when he

00:28:08.880 went out on his own at 28 years old you wouldn't be capable of of singularly you know running the the

00:28:16.640 tax affairs for some of the most high net worth um you know in individuals and and family offices or

00:28:23.520 i mean why would adnan khashoggi for example you know trust uh you know trust a 20 29 30 year old

00:28:30.560 kid to run these affairs the fact is is he maintained client services at bear stearns bear stearns was

00:28:35.920 still one of the most uh aggressive but marquee names on wall street um what he you you enter the realm

00:28:43.840 of speculation is what i'm trying to say in terms of how he was able to um you know like les wexner for

00:28:49.760 example was not uh it was never deposed by the by the justice department um or or ever really

00:28:57.600 publicly answered how it was that he or why it was that he gave power of attorney uh to jeff to jeffrey

00:29:04.000 epstein i can i can speculate as you know as to the reasons um but but and i can either do that now

00:29:10.720 or i can do that after i lay out all the facts it might be a little bit give us and give us a sense

00:29:14.800 because i think at this point a lot of people will be going how is this guy bouncing from one like

00:29:19.680 insane opportunity to the next at these young ages with right without an education etc well what's

00:29:25.520 noteworthy is in 1991 this is the reported um you know time that jeffrey epstein links up with galane

00:29:31.360 maxwell um uh whose father robert maxwell had you know just just died robert maxwell was a a towering

00:29:41.120 figure really in um in british statecraft and uh also uh quite seriously involved in the early zionist

00:29:50.160 movement uh in israel and was you know given a very famous funeral uh in in israel with heads of state

00:29:57.440 saying that you know that maxwell has done more uh you know for the for the state of israel then i can

00:30:04.320 then the story can presently be be told maxwell ran a big publishing house um and was a billionaire

00:30:11.280 was uh highly influential in uh in british statecraft affairs as well as with many touch points to the

00:30:17.920 israeli mike there's something that i i want to ask you here and and then we'll get back to it but this

00:30:23.520 is a point on robert maxwell there's a lot of people and i'm told a lot of credible evidence that says

00:30:28.880 that maxwell was heavily involved with massad is this true well there's there's so much smoke there

00:30:36.880 that it's again like when you look at the state funeral held for robert maxwell where you have

00:30:41.280 all the senior heads of state i mean essentially robert maxwell was a guy who um you know helped in

00:30:46.720 in the founding of israel itself he started off in uh i think czechoslovakia under the iron curtain and

00:30:52.800 then fled fled to the uk and then helped run guns uh to the the stern gang in the early zionist movement 0.89

00:31:01.280 uh as you know during the period of the creation of israel itself and what's what's consider what's

00:31:08.720 interesting about that is just how uh how fascinating that dovetails with jeffrey epstein's own work

00:31:16.240 um himself again iran contra was a situation of gun running to two different uh countries uh in a

00:31:24.080 covert action this was weapon sales to iran and gun smuggling uh to the contras in nicaragua and then

00:31:35.120 you would see this this repeated uh in uh in the dealings with doug lessee again how he would or doug lease

00:31:44.320 how he was actually uh you know he himself was a major british arms dealer so you have this kind of

00:31:50.160 covert uh military logistics pipeline and this also is uh these are some of epstein's closest

00:31:57.520 relationships with the government of israel that have these adjacencies to robert maxwell's like for

00:32:02.640 example 43 times uh it was reported that um that uh ehud barak the uh met with jeffrey epstein and

00:32:12.000 stayed at jeffrey epstein's home uh these are 43 reported times that this happened ahud barak was

00:32:17.760 the the prime minister of israel but he was also the defense minister of israel so he was the head

00:32:23.440 of the israeli military uh before he was prime minister and defense minister ahud barak was the

00:32:29.200 head of the amman that's israeli military intelligence that's actually the the largest of the israeli

00:32:35.760 military of the military uh of the intelligence agencies you have the you have amman which is

00:32:40.720 the military intelligence you have uh the massad and then you have shin bet uh this is sort of the

00:32:46.000 equivalent of the nsa the cia and the fbi and so uh uh and ahud barak before that had been the um

00:32:56.240 the commander of israel's most elite uh covert military special operations force and so

00:33:02.720 this is the guy that that is tightly connected to epstein uh you know again over 40 reported

00:33:08.160 meetings who barak is staying at jeffrey epstein's house but this is again connected to the military

00:33:14.000 establishment just as iran contra was a military affair uh just as what robert maxwell was doing

00:33:19.360 between british and israeli intelligence was military um and so you know this is this is another part of

00:33:26.880 this this story is that as so as epstein links up with the maxwell family in the early 1990s uh you

00:33:34.880 you all you have this period of turmoil in in the 1990s uh bill clinton was became president in january

00:33:42.240 1993 and 17 times uh on the white house visitor logs jeffrey epstein visits the bill clinton white house

00:33:51.520 so and this is also in the late 1990s it should be noted is when who barak was the prime minister

00:33:57.120 of israel so you you have this go this this guy who's got high level dealings with the highest level

00:34:03.280 of the u.s government and the highest levels of the israeli government now we don't know what they

00:34:08.400 talked about in these meetings we don't know uh you know if if epstein was you know just bringing coffee

00:34:14.720 to the white house to talk uh with with bill clinton and his national security council but uh but the fact

00:34:20.240 is is this was also a period of considerable turmoil um uh in in middle east affairs you have you know

00:34:26.560 the the camp david and and oslo you have the uh many of these uh u.s israeli uh economic integration

00:34:34.640 zones that are set up by bill clinton in order to try to uh bring security uh as well as economic

00:34:41.280 development um to to both partner countries as they try to uh try to solve many of the flare-ups that

00:34:48.000 were happening in the middle east but it's but at this time the main asset that epstein appears to

00:34:52.960 be able to bring to the table is that he's very close with uh the what's reported to be the highest

00:34:58.800 net worth individual in the state of ohio um leslie wexner who was the head of this giant retail

00:35:06.000 conglomerate uh the limited now it's a it's it's very curious as to how someone gets durable power of of

00:35:13.360 attorney over such a a far-flung international business empire uh there's now this is where we

00:35:20.720 enter again the realm of of speculation um in one reason to assign durable power of attorney to

00:35:28.800 somebody other than yourself durable power of attorney means you have a a static ability to sign documents

00:35:35.840 on somebody else's behalf and they are then legally obligated uh this is something that's often

00:35:41.680 assigned for example when somebody is uh 80 90 years old or they're on their deathbed but their

00:35:47.600 transactions you're not transferring equity to them uh to somebody else but they are effectively

00:35:52.880 running your affairs now you know wexner was you know healthy in the and there's there's no reason

00:35:59.520 to do this other than um the i should say there are very few reasons to do this other than the kind

00:36:07.280 of legal protection that you get by being able to maintain plausible deniability that if somebody else

00:36:12.800 uh signed something under durable power of attorney that uh that you did not agree to that and so

00:36:18.800 because you're not the authorized signatory uh at that point when that happens you can claim for

00:36:23.280 example if someone was involved in an illegals illegal weapons purchase or some sort of business fraud

00:36:29.360 that it would be your the person who executed the contract who would be legally liable for that so

00:36:34.800 many speculate that the reason for this is that jeffrey epstein was in very deep with these

00:36:40.720 international um high net worth uh figures as a financier and a go but a middleman between different

00:36:47.840 governments and that wexner and he sort of came to wexner vetted and wexner then assigned durable

00:36:54.640 power of attorney to him uh for for wexner's international business affairs now what's very interesting about

00:37:00.000 this can i just pause you there mike so what you've just explained and the entire trajectory so far

00:37:08.080 of epstein's career that to me seems like something out of a movie neither plausible nor realistic

00:37:14.960 i'm not a conspiracy theorist but dot dot dot i'm going surely like this is cia isn't it isn't it

00:37:21.840 i mean how else has this man been able to do all of these things well it's really not that crazy i

00:37:29.900 mean so first so first of all i i do agree with that assessment that that epstein no the c can i just

00:37:37.500 make one more sort of factual thing about this and then come back to my question the cia's story i think

00:37:42.760 is a very important one and it's one of these things that they're very actionable things that the

00:37:47.480 attorney general pam bondy can do to get answers to that and the failure to pursue those has made

00:37:52.880 this question i think linger in maga world and one of the things that i've been trying to advocate for

00:37:58.360 is you know transparency measures so we can put this to bed uh to sort of quiet i think a lot of the

00:38:05.880 uh satisfy i think a lot of uh the concerns that have popped up on in domestic u.s politics on this

00:38:11.600 but what happens uh in 1994 is southern air transport if you remember the exact cia proprietary

00:38:18.920 airline proprietary meaning it belongs to it was created by it was run directly by the central

00:38:24.620 intelligence agency when the cia used to do that sort of thing in the 1950s to the 1970s today that

00:38:30.720 money would come from usa id or the development finance corporation or these other sources but

00:38:35.780 when when southern air transport um got in trouble uh over iran contra it moved its base of operations

00:38:43.660 from miami because miami was the major transit point because it touched the u.s virgin islands it touched

00:38:49.300 colombia nicaragua guatemala it was you know the nearest flight path um when southern air transport's

00:38:55.660 business essentially ran out uh after iran contra it moved in 1994 to columbus ohio which was exactly

00:39:04.620 where jeffrey epstein was domiciled with his with uh with his residence there it's exactly where the

00:39:09.880 limited was headquartered it's exactly where les wexner uh you know owned the largest residence in

00:39:15.700 the in the state of ohio it was in columbus ohio the head of the ohio development uh development

00:39:21.460 office for for franklin county uh where frank where um columbus resides gave juiced this big tax incentive

00:39:30.320 deal for southern air transport to to move to columbus ohio again epstein and wexner's hometown

00:39:36.600 and it was specifically to service the limited and this again is these are statements on the record

00:39:42.080 from the head of the development office of franklin county uh that southern air transport moved from

00:39:47.580 miami where it was transiting guns and drugs and cash for the central intelligence agency it moved

00:39:54.480 while directly to um columbus ohio specifically to service the exact business conglomerate that

00:40:02.940 jeffrey epstein had durable power of attorney over running and so you know there is this curious kind

00:40:09.900 of uh you know anecdote here where i don't think you and i could just negotiate the transfer of a ci

00:40:17.000 proprietary airline you know to service our lemonade stand if we if we set it up now now the the argument

00:40:23.360 was because the limited was the world was the country's largest retail chain at the time it had

00:40:29.060 very serious charter flight and logistics needs in order to uh you know do the logistics uh from

00:40:37.120 columbus ohio where the flagship was to all the supply chains around the world what's notable is it was

00:40:43.100 around this time that that the limited started buying up sporting goods stores which sell guns and

00:40:49.200 hunting equipment um it actually in 1994 uh the limited bought uh one of the one of the largest

00:40:57.060 bought six branches in ohio of one of the largest gun stores um now of course this is not unusual in

00:41:03.900 intelligence work this is what happened in operation fast and furious for example um which took down

00:41:09.700 the attorney general eric holder under the obama administration if folks remember 2012 to 2014 there was a

00:41:17.080 famous cia gun running operation well it was technically run by the fbi and atf but it was

00:41:23.060 approved at the interagency level meaning approved by the white house interagency the cia state department

00:41:28.780 the national security council and these were a ring of gun stores in arizona and parts of texas that were

00:41:37.400 running guns to the sinaloa cartel a narco trafficking cartel uh in mexico ostensibly for that cartel to do

00:41:46.340 battle with another cartel called the zetas who were stealing oil from pipelines that exxon mobil and

00:41:52.800 chevron had partnerships with uh pemex the the main state oil company in mexico at the time the u.s

00:41:59.580 couldn't just go in and bomb mexico to take out a narco cartel there the only way to stop the problem

00:42:05.900 of u.s companies being robbed by one narco gang was to build up another gang in the country to take

00:42:14.140 them out themselves and so that of course had blowback on on the u.s intelligence state when

00:42:20.820 one of those guns was used to kill a u.s border agent and then those guns were traced to those

00:42:26.520 very gun stores and then eric holder famously was held in contempt of congress for failing to

00:42:32.480 dis for stonewalling congress about the the uh effectively the intelligence ties and how deep they

00:42:38.880 went in that operation so eric holder was then ejected uh from uh from the attorney general's

00:42:45.240 office i mean you see these same types of things i guess is what i'm trying to communicate here with

00:42:49.580 john mitchell and bill barr um around jumping on the grenade but so so at the same time the limited is

00:42:57.980 buying up these gun stores in ohio they get the cia's gun running airline uh to go directly to

00:43:04.640 uh columbus ohio it should be noted that five years earlier jeffrey epstein when he was at towers

00:43:09.980 financial the ponzi scheme i mentioned mentioned one of the companies they made a play at to purchase

00:43:15.220 was pan am uh pan american airlines who was not a cia proprietary but was one of the commercial branches

00:43:22.400 that the cia frequently used uh for commercial cover in uh during the vietnam war era and earlier so

00:43:30.680 this was not a cia proprietary but jeffrey epstein seemed to have a thing for purchasing uh airlines

00:43:35.700 that were logistics for intelligence hubs and then in 1998 southern air transport folds up uh in october

00:43:43.400 1998 on the very day that the cia um comes clean on the iran contra scandal that again the cia in the

00:43:50.760 late 1990s was under a lot of pressure particularly from the black community in america because of the

00:43:55.660 disclosures from gary webb around around cia uh narco trafficking with southern air transport this

00:44:03.000 was the same time that john deutsch the cia director uh traveled to los angeles to speak to

00:44:08.720 the black community about um apologizing effectively for those operations that put crack cocaine on the 0.85

00:44:14.900 streets of of miami and la but on the very day that the cia uh uh concedes southern air transport's

00:44:22.360 role in weapons and guns dealing is the very day that southern air transport declares bankruptcy

00:44:27.080 and cuts off operations in in columbus ohio at this point epstein appears to move into his third phase

00:44:34.880 so you can think of it as phase one is he's sort of a a scrappy kid who's willing to take chances

00:44:41.300 on fine on murky financial dealings and is sort of the long arm of the bear stearns network um for for

00:44:49.140 work that touches high net worth individuals family offices and governments around uh sensitive

00:44:55.240 geopolitical operations and then you have sort of the less wexner period where he is running you know

00:45:01.800 this kind of vast uh retail chain and running the money and finances for that and then he sort of

00:45:08.300 enters this statecraft and philanthropy period around bill clinton um and the the clinton foundation so

00:45:15.920 and so after bill clinton leaves office in the late 1990s jeffrey epstein uh flies bill clinton around

00:45:25.160 uh to africa in these various african development uh initiatives that were done um in 2002 for example

00:45:33.080 bill clinton flies on jeffrey epstein's jet and flies around publicly with jeffrey epstein uh for an hiv aids

00:45:41.840 uh humanitarian relief tour uh on that on that as well was bono and i think chris tucker um and that

00:45:49.200 very year bill clinton starts the clinton foundation which would then spawn the clinton global initiative

00:45:55.020 which would boomerang back on u.s politics in a big way with its various scandals uh during the 2016

00:46:02.040 election cycle but jeffrey epstein's attorney testified in uh in court that bill clinton was

00:46:09.780 a co-founder of the clinton global initiative and pitched the idea of it to bill clinton now the

00:46:16.060 clintons have not either confirmed or denied that but the fact is is um the epstein is you know a state

00:46:24.000 felt that that was such a um such a noteworthy thing to to mention that they you know that that uh you

00:46:31.820 know there's testimony under uh penalty of perjury that uh that epstein helped set up the clinton global

00:46:37.760 initiative and of course this would be a international philanthropy pools of tens of millions of

00:46:43.280 dollars that connected world leaders for joint um philanthropic efforts that also dovetailed with

00:46:50.660 statecraft initiatives happening uh at that time this is a this was this was a frequent cover for example

00:46:57.720 for for intelligence work after the 19 the reforms of the 1970s much of this work moved into usa id and

00:47:04.720 private philanthropies and it's around this time also that epstein is deepening his ties with high

00:47:11.740 level figures in uh in his israeli statecraft uh as well as in uh in with the british royal family

00:47:18.520 um it's jeffrey epstein goes in on a deal for example uh with uh ehud barak uh to purchase uh shares

00:47:27.900 in in carbine uh a major uh you know technology and surveillance firm but you you have and then of

00:47:35.080 course but a lot of this came to a halt in 2006 when jeffrey epstein was indicted the first time

00:47:39.720 um i i should note a few other notables before i talk about this 2006 event which is really what

00:47:45.580 we're living in the aftermath of um jeffrey epstein was was also many of these networks the les wexner

00:47:51.980 networks as well as the leon black networks uh leon black was the the ceo of apollo apollo is one

00:47:58.860 of the largest uh investment firms in new york uh it's got billions tens of billions of dollars of

00:48:05.240 assets under management i think about 500 billion dollars of assets under management leon black the

00:48:10.680 head of it personally paid uh jeffrey epstein 170 million dollars for uh you have so-called uh tax

00:48:18.500 advice and and restructuring uh hang on a second sorry let me introduce you to the people i work

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00:49:50.820 future today but there are times when you're telling this story mike that i'm going okay that sounds

00:49:58.340 plausible that sounds plausible and then he goes 170 million dollars for tax i mean if that's the case

00:50:07.680 shouldn't we all become tax advisors well of course the you know being the tax advisor in that way is

00:50:14.080 about creative structuring if there were things that apollo management was doing um as a as a kind of

00:50:20.660 liquid middleman uh for various uh various deals that could have been brokered um you know internationally

00:50:28.800 because a lot of what hedge funds or a lot of what private equity funds and alternative asset managers do is

00:50:34.060 you know they are they're they're moving in these illiquid uh assets that then become very easy

00:50:40.680 fronts for for money laundering through the debt schemes that that that they do like a lot of ways

00:50:45.540 that the the for example the cia structures the these money laundering operations is as as debt

00:50:51.720 instruments as these complex loans back-to-back loans between different banks or different portfolio

00:50:57.780 companies in a common um in a common fund and then you simply never pay back the money and so it's

00:51:05.080 effectively the bank ends up going bankrupt or the asset ends up going under this is what happened with

00:51:09.840 bcci the big cia bank that adnan khashoggi was heavily involved in um that uh got in a lot of trouble

00:51:18.280 uh in in the 1980s during the iran contra affair because it was the cia's sort of primary banking

00:51:24.920 um uh house for the iran contra operation but just to just to i guess bring bring this back a little

00:51:32.460 bit the in in 2006 because the leon black uh jeffrey epstein uh affair is noteworthy particularly

00:51:41.020 because it happened after the first indictment and the the first indictment of jeffrey epstein

00:51:45.920 which is being relitigated right now uh in in the united states is happened started in 2006 and at this

00:51:53.620 time epstein's dealings with a lot of these networks ended up getting fractured because people

00:51:58.780 don't want to really do business with them anymore after the allegations in 2006 for example this is

00:52:05.240 around when donald trump sort of severed ties with epstein when these allegations mike what can you give us

00:52:12.680 some details on that indictment what is he indicted for what is the what are the accusations what is it

00:52:17.680 that's being revealed to the public at this point right so in 2006 after after dozens of reports from

00:52:25.780 local families in florida um jeffrey epstein ends up getting indicted by the state the florida state

00:52:32.420 prosecutor um for effectively uh prostitution and and trafficking of women um for for sexual acts

00:52:41.420 and uh the the state the state prosecutors uh end up watering down the charges uh brought against

00:52:49.240 epstein after some sort of mercurial moves are reportedly made by epstein's defense lawyers and at

00:52:55.500 that point the fbi and federal justice department moves in on epstein and says okay we're going to

00:53:03.040 actually make this a much more substantial case um and so that's when the underage uh you know child

00:53:10.820 sex trafficking charges start to come in and in may 2007 the the lead prosecutor at at the justice

00:53:18.320 department uh maria villanueva as well as the fbi are prepared they prepare a 60 count federal

00:53:25.380 indictment 82 pages worth of charges and they alert the head of the justice department in miami at the

00:53:33.240 time a guy named alex acosta that they are going to the the fbi is going to arrest jeffrey epstein the

00:53:39.020 following week in may 2007 um while he was in the u.s virgin islands judging a beauty pageant at the

00:53:46.140 time so this may 2007 the fbi is ready to go they've got the you know this massive uh indictment

00:53:53.180 and they're ready to make the the formal arrest when alex acosta according to the justice department's

00:54:00.080 own investigation of this in 2020 stops stops the the arrest and says no you're going to observe the

00:54:06.860 chain of command here you're not going to arrest jeffrey epstein until i say you can i'm going to

00:54:11.600 meet with epstein's defense counsel first and at this point alex acosta effectively takes over the

00:54:17.420 epstein investigation um and then cuts a a sweetheart deal for jeffrey epstein in which jeffrey epstein

00:54:25.860 uh they effectively drop the criminal charges uh at the federal level in um for epstein to agree

00:54:34.700 to the state level charges and plead guilty to them and get a year and a half in prison where

00:54:40.440 effectively for the the last six months of that epstein can walk in and out of the prison uh to do

00:54:46.920 his own kind of uh business dealings so basically gets a sweetheart deal where they he the the whole

00:54:53.700 federal charges end up getting dropped for epstein to plead guilty to the state level ones and he's

00:55:00.600 completely you know free and clear within two years despite this massive i mean it's been reported

00:55:06.580 in the glane maxwell trial for example it was about a thousand women uh who were who were trafficked in 0.96

00:55:12.300 this and so to only and many of them underage so to have effectively under two years of prison for that

00:55:19.020 and then be back out on the streets was seen as the sweetheart deal of the century and it was very

00:55:23.960 unusual the way it was cut because acosta cut the process the lead prosecutors out of out of the plea

00:55:29.740 negotiations and he also cut the victims so the victims this is highly unusual in a plea deal of

00:55:35.940 this kind the victims had no say in the the justice department didn't even ask whether or not the

00:55:41.200 victims were okay with that uh you know as but the details of this plea deal were never known until

00:55:48.140 2018 when the miami herald uh one of the big mainstream news outlets in miami reported the details

00:55:55.960 of this plea deal uh and the miami herald began it became began investigating this because it was

00:56:02.600 in 2017 2018 when alex acosta would go to be a cabinet member uh he was this he was the secretary

00:56:10.120 of labor for the trump administration which is a cabinet level position it's the the head of

00:56:15.740 the department of labor which which is which is effectively the touchpoint between the federal

00:56:20.120 government and unions unions should be noted uh are are one of the ways that logistics are done

00:56:25.920 for intelligence work and also have many touch points with organized crime but the fact is alex

00:56:31.300 acosta went from running this um you know miami justice department office to being elevated to sitting in the

00:56:38.280 cabinet meetings and being you know the the highest you know person for all things labor in the u.s

00:56:43.680 federal government so miami herald begins digging into this and gets a hold of this secret plea deal

00:56:50.600 and publishes its contents as and so alex acosta is having to deal with the scandal for the trump

00:56:55.740 administration in february 2019 uh the justice department launches an internal uh investigation

00:57:02.980 into the contents of the plea deal and whether or not it was on the up and up um and then five months

00:57:09.580 later in july 2019 jeffrey epstein is indicted for a second time um uh with much more extensive charges

00:57:18.540 he's indicted on july 6 2019 and then on july 9th so just three days later july 9th 2019 a bombshell

00:57:27.760 was published which we are living in the aftermath of which is vicky ward who is uh you know a prolific

00:57:34.300 investigative journalist at the time for the daily beast publishes a piece saying that

00:57:39.520 trump transition officials spoke with her and told her that when alex acosta was being interviewed

00:57:46.980 by the trump administration for the department of labor job he was asked by the trump transition team

00:57:52.880 if the epstein plea deal was going to cause embarrassment to the trump administration and

00:57:57.380 why did you cut this plea deal and what the trump transition officials told vicky ward is that when

00:58:03.080 acosta was asked that question he replied at that time in that interview that he was

00:58:09.300 told to back off and tell it back off epstein because epstein belonged to intelligence and to

00:58:15.260 leave it alone because it was above his pay grade and that was the reason he cut the sweetheart deal

00:58:19.980 told by whom this we don't know this we don't know and this is one of the lingering questions

00:58:25.840 um for the for for the justice department today to answer because that was july 9th 2019 the very next

00:58:33.740 day alex acosta is under the gun now he is being attacked by the by the uh by the media he's

00:58:40.200 eventually going to resign over this uh over this affair uh and step down as secretary of labor but

00:58:46.000 the very next day jeffrey uh alex acosta gives a one hour media press briefing uh to answer questions

00:58:53.780 from the media about the epstein plea deal and the the very last question you can look this up on youtube

00:58:59.280 it's alex acosta's uh july 10th 2019 uh press conference he's asked by a reporter i believe

00:59:06.120 from reuters whether or not there was any truth to what was published the the very day before by the

00:59:12.400 daily beast that he cut the plea deal to alex acosta because uh he cut the plea deal to jeffrey

00:59:17.900 epstein because epstein belonged to intelligence and alex acosta kind of shuffles nervously and says

00:59:24.060 i am not allowed to answer that question because of uh ethics rules uh by the justice department

00:59:30.940 so don't believe everything that you read in the media but i can neither confirm nor deny

00:59:36.660 richard lardner from the associated press secretary were you ever made aware at any point

00:59:41.600 you're handling of this case if mr epstein was an intelligence asset of some sort um so

00:59:47.940 so so so so there has there has been reporting to that effect and and let me say um there's been

00:59:54.860 reporting to a lot of effects in in in this case uh not just now but over the years and and again i

01:00:02.560 would you know i would hesitate to take this reporting as fact um this was a case that was brought

01:00:11.680 by our office it was brought based on the facts and and i look at that reporting and others i can't

01:00:18.240 address it directly because of our uh our guidelines um but i can tell you that that a lot of reporting is

01:00:25.680 just going down rabbit holes so this sort of set u.s media in a tizzy what possible reason could alex

01:00:33.840 acosta have to not answer whether or not this whole affair can be attributed to something much

01:00:41.860 bigger than just child sex trafficking or prostitution but that this was actually sanctioned by u.s

01:00:49.180 intelligence agencies or potentially international intelligence agencies we don't know what intelligence

01:00:55.580 uh you know branch that was um and the fact that alex acosta when asked publicly by mainstream media

01:01:02.460 reporters didn't even deny that that's what he said you know but now arguably you could argue that

01:01:08.740 because of the justice department office of professional responsibility investigation that um

01:01:15.020 specifically about the plea deal that alex acosta um was bound by some uh ethics guidelines um related

01:01:25.980 that that to not jeopardize the the ongoing investigation of the justice department but this had been a cold

01:01:31.460 case for 11 years at that point that case was already uh over in 2008 and in previous questions

01:01:38.680 in that same press conference alex acosta would cite and everyone can go back and look this up on youtube he

01:01:45.000 would he would preface things by saying well i can't answer that question directly because of

01:01:50.860 because of the ongoing justice department investigation but let me try to answer your question from a different

01:01:57.280 angle he would use phrases like that to try to get more information about other things but on this he

01:02:02.080 was totally mum and so so there's been no public statement from acosta on this million dollar question

01:02:09.680 all we have is what came out in the opr report the office of professional responsibility report

01:02:15.480 uh when in november 2020 which was which happened two weeks after trump lost the election so this report

01:02:22.480 took 21 months for the justice department to write it was a review of the plea deal uh that alex acosta

01:02:28.760 struck in order to decide whether or not disciplinary disciplinary action should be uh meted out on alex

01:02:36.080 acosta and his and his associates for violating uh justice department protocol you know what they

01:02:42.220 ultimately found is that it was uh unseemly and it did not perfectly observe justice department protocol

01:02:48.160 but they would not be pursuing disciplinary charges that was what came out of that now it's a 348 page

01:02:52.900 report a 21 month investigation um and the only reference to uh asking acosta about the intelligence

01:03:02.120 question was a single footnote on page 169 it's it's footnote 244 where opr writes uh we asked alex acosta

01:03:12.520 if he had any knowledge about epstein being an intelligence asset direct quote and epstein and

01:03:19.520 acosta said quote the answer is no now now there's a lot of problems with with this first of all

01:03:26.600 the way they teed up the idea of an intelligence asset in the report is that there were rumors that

01:03:34.340 acosta was uh an fbi informant and was providing um informant testimony

01:03:42.500 to the fbi uh covertly as the fbi was investigating the collapse of bear stearns because bear stearns

01:03:50.620 and jeffrey epstein were acosta or epstein mike you said i'm sorry that that that epstein was it was

01:03:57.340 an fbi informant and so so in the 348 page report they say there were rumors that uh that lenience

01:04:05.280 was cut by alex acosta because epstein um there were media reports that epstein was an fbi informant

01:04:12.280 in the fbi's bear stearns probe and this is very common uh one of the ways to get your sentencing

01:04:16.960 cut down or to get a plea deal on favorable terms is to become an informant for the fbi who's the

01:04:22.840 investigative arm of the justice department and so um what you know even within what acosta

01:04:29.480 was seen as denying it did not appear to be cia or international intelligence the other part of it is

01:04:36.360 they use the word asset which is a very limited term in this sense uh most most figures who act as

01:04:43.740 fiduciary go-betweens financial middlemen for the cia uh in covert action are not given uh you know

01:04:53.400 201 human intelligence asset files they are not considered assets in a classical or or technical

01:04:59.900 sense um they are not recruited by by the cia they are they are not beholden to they are not

01:05:07.240 salaried by it so for example if you look at figures like bruce rapaport or mark rich or uh i there's

01:05:15.540 i did a study of what you're saying mike just to save people all the details is essentially he uh

01:05:21.960 alex acosta can deny that he is a cia asset but at the same time he could be somebody that the cia

01:05:29.700 works with right right and that denial is a technical use of the term asset and if he's

01:05:35.600 just somebody that they used as a go-between he might be somebody that they use but he wouldn't

01:05:39.720 be labeled an asset and that's that's what you're trying to explain right and and they never published

01:05:44.420 the transcript again this is in in a single footnote on one page you know this is completely buried now

01:05:51.660 the media reported this as being okay acosta walked back the statements that that epstein was you

01:05:59.460 belong to intelligence uh but but what's very curious about this is even in the footnote of

01:06:04.980 this report it doesn't say what question they even asked acosta like there's they quote acosta as

01:06:12.160 saying the answer is no but they don't even quote their own question uh and and so you know and this

01:06:19.100 is another thing if somebody's asked me a question and the answer is no to something i'll typically say

01:06:24.480 no if i if i say the answer is no you've usually worked me up to it like i might say well i don't

01:06:30.040 know it might be yes it might be no i heard that he belonged to intelligence but i didn't know for

01:06:35.340 sure so how do you want me to answer that question well only answer this question if you have firsthand

01:06:39.440 knowledge that you were shown you know a document or okay well in that case the answer is no you could

01:06:44.060 see it going like that and then it being dangled out as only reporting the you know the four four line

01:06:51.500 quote but the fact is is at that time opr reports directly the office of professional responsibility

01:06:57.920 conducting this investigation reports directly to the uh to the attorney general of the united states

01:07:05.040 it's an independent branch of the justice department that doesn't have all these bureaucratic layers

01:07:09.180 it reports directly to the attorney general the attorney general was bill barr who again uh father was

01:07:15.920 cia who recruited jeffrey epstein who he and who bill barr himself uh started his career in the cia

01:07:21.960 was a cia lawyer he was referred to by the new york times as the cover-up general of iran contra itself

01:07:27.740 when when when bill barr was the cia lawyer during iran contra and then pardoned everyone involved while

01:07:35.380 he was the attorney general the first time this is the last person that you would expect um i mean bill

01:07:41.460 bar should have been conflicted out of that until that entire investigation because of his own history

01:07:46.700 in that exact network but that it was who was shaping the opr report and what i'm saying is pam bondy

01:07:53.240 could answer this question for us right now because she's the attorney general and opr reports to her

01:07:59.120 that report was only was less than five years ago she can go directly to the opr office she can pull the 0.92

01:08:05.660 transcript of what opr investigators asked alex acosta about epstein's ties she can publish

01:08:11.440 that for the public and we can see exactly what was asked about the intelligence ties we can see

01:08:17.620 that transcript and see did did they ask about you know did it go the way for example i just posited

01:08:24.540 that it might have that i it's impossible for me to believe that they asked a single question

01:08:31.000 about that given that it was what alex acosta resigned over and given that this media reporting uh dominated

01:08:38.640 uh the an entire year's worth of election cycle dialogue in 2020 about epstein's intelligence ties

01:08:45.820 in that question itself you would have had traffic from the central intelligence agency's office of

01:08:50.400 general counsel who would have coordinated with uh with the uh office of professional responsibility

01:08:55.940 in order to run that question down what came out in the cia name trace all this information can be made

01:09:02.420 public if the justice department wants to provide an answer and and pam bondi was asked this question

01:09:09.320 at a white house press briefing uh just two weeks ago where pam bondi was asked did you uh was epstein

01:09:17.380 an intelligence asset and then it was again that's the wrong question as i see it you're you're going

01:09:22.860 to want want to run a broader sweep because most most of the time these sort of financial middlemen

01:09:29.320 are not formal assets but pam bondi was stopped by president trump when she got asked that question

01:09:36.100 uh trump then leapt in and said pam you don't need to answer that why are we talking about epstein and

01:09:42.360 then he said well listen if you want to answer it you can but you don't have to and pam bondi uh then

01:09:47.400 turns back to the the questioner and says i don't know the answer to that we're going to try to run it

01:09:53.200 down i'll revert to you but but look a cia name trace only takes two weeks to get the results of

01:09:59.300 this is something okay mike so what's going on why what is why would president trump

01:10:04.320 into interfere in this information coming to light well there's lots of reasons that and and i've been

01:10:12.480 a very vocal trump supporter um you know i think that that it's been a phenomenal presidency um in

01:10:18.800 terms of so many different policies that the admin has been able to get through but you know the epstein

01:10:23.160 one is a very sensitive one for for pretty obvious reasons the fact is is jeffrey epstein

01:10:28.800 so so trump's concern that he stated is that if you publish um the list and we still don't know

01:10:35.960 exactly what that is there's a little black book that was that the justice department held up during

01:10:40.820 the glane maxwell trial um but that is under seal um you uh the justice department said there's no other

01:10:47.720 client list but the fact is there's many of these documents um that would uh implicate epstein's

01:10:54.580 business dealings with many other people it doesn't necessarily mean they were involved

01:10:59.160 um in a child sex trafficking ring but it's still embarrassing to be seen as doing business with

01:11:04.520 someone who is indicted that way the fact is is there are many many people around trump world

01:11:09.540 um who were doing business with epstein for many many years and i'll i'll run through a short list of

01:11:15.580 this um now this it before i do it's worth noting that that trump himself in february 2015

01:11:22.600 everyone can look this up in in youtube in cpac the you know republican uh you know conservative

01:11:29.000 action network that's highly influential in u.s republican politics in february 2015 when trump

01:11:35.380 was first considering running for office he said to sean handity at cpac um he was asked his opinion

01:11:41.880 of bill clinton and trump says bill clinton nice guy but i think he's gonna have a little problem

01:11:47.580 with a little guy named jeffrey epstein and his famous island bill clinton nice guy uh got a lot of

01:11:55.920 problems coming up in my opinion with the famous island with jeffrey epstein a lot of problems in

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01:13:41.280 using the epstein connections to bill clinton as a kind of sword against the democrat nexus and of course

01:13:49.260 you know trump was running against hillary clinton for president but trump world itself is deeply

01:13:55.600 interlaced in this as i mentioned this the epstein story goes back to much of the um the republican

01:14:03.840 nexus around iranian foreign policy from the 1980s many of these senior figures from iran contra like ellie uh

01:14:13.440 like um elliot abrams and and many others were were involved they went from the reagan white house in the

01:14:20.260 1980s to the trump white house um uh you know running high level policy uh in in 2016 many of

01:14:28.220 trump's donors come from that world uh you have i i mentioned leon black uh a trump donor who was the

01:14:35.680 head of apollo uh management one of the biggest uh most powerful you know uh funds on wall street

01:14:42.440 was a trump donor was a trump vip at the inauguration uh a kind of gadfly figure at mar-a-lago um leon black

01:14:51.260 as i mentioned gave 170 million dollars to jeffrey epstein i believe it was in 2013 to 2015 this was 0.69

01:14:59.300 this was after epstein had been uh indicted and was a you know was a child was a sexual predator uh you

01:15:07.680 know formally with a predator alert whatever neighborhood he moved to he was a formally 0.79

01:15:12.500 indicted uh sexual predator at the time that leon black was doing you know giving him 170 million

01:15:18.140 dollars um leon black's son ben black is now in charge of the development finance corporation which

01:15:25.960 is uh the exact place that was involved in uh many of these uh scandals from the 1980s it was in uh the

01:15:35.620 the so-called iraq gate the iraq uh oil pipeline scandal of the reagan administration when once again

01:15:42.460 the reagan administration used an israeli middleman for an for a u.s statecraft initiative this was the

01:15:50.000 case where um the u.s iraq in jordan wanted to have bechtel a major u.s engineering uh firm

01:15:58.740 construct a billion dollar pipeline from uh from iraq through jordan uh so that u.s

01:16:05.440 uh u.s business interests would take advantage of iraqi oil rather than it going to the the soviets

01:16:11.140 but they were afraid that israel might bomb the pipeline because it was right in their face and

01:16:16.380 israel wasn't getting any cut of it and so the the central intelligence agency by way of the national

01:16:21.900 security council in 1988 um hired a uh a swiss financier with deep ties to the governor of israel

01:16:30.980 named bruce rapaport and again these swiss bank accounts is also how jeffrey epstein was uh was

01:16:37.620 was running his his affairs but um bruce rapaport was engaged because of his connections uh to the

01:16:44.520 israeli defense sector and his closeness with shimon perez the israeli president and the head of the

01:16:49.980 labor party just like jeffrey epstein was close with ahud barak the head of the israeli labor party

01:16:54.540 and prime minister at the time in the 1990s but bruce rapaport was the you know the formal conduit

01:17:01.560 in order to secure a guarantee from the israeli government not to bomb the pipeline and he

01:17:06.040 secretly negotiated a 30 cut for the israeli government uh you know in that and but bruce

01:17:13.360 rapaport by the way it should be noted when all this came to light and a special prosecutor was uh was

01:17:19.120 stood up to investigate the the u.s justice department head at me over this bruce rapaport

01:17:24.560 did not have a 201 file there there was a cia dossier on him there was a cia um uh uh go-betweens

01:17:34.060 that were setting up the financing but they said bruce rapaport is a contact but he's not an asset so

01:17:39.780 we don't so initially they stonewalled the investigation and refused to turn over files to

01:17:44.960 the development finance corporation because at the time what happened was the national security

01:17:49.500 council wanted the development finance corporation which again today is run by the son of leon black

01:17:54.920 epstein's biggest client they wanted the development finance corporation to put up 400 million dollars

01:18:00.000 to uh to finance this pipeline to subsidize it but the development finance corporation said

01:18:06.080 we don't want to do that this money could go to nothing israel is this is right in israel's face

01:18:11.420 it's going to they're going to they're going to sabotage this pipeline why would they allow this

01:18:14.820 to run right over their border uh and the national security council said put up the money and shut up

01:18:20.740 um they said well why are we doing business with this guy bruce rapaport this guy's got an extremely

01:18:25.740 checkered past his allegations of fraud the development finance corporation queries the cia for a name

01:18:32.240 trace on bruce rapaport the cia spits back nothing but public news clippings but the cia hides from

01:18:40.640 from the development finance corporation that actually they were doing business with bruce

01:18:46.100 rapaport and that they had a whole dossier about bruce rapaport's ties to the israeli government

01:18:51.100 and this all came out because of a special prosecutor probe but what i'm saying is is in that case you

01:18:56.300 once again have four different governments the u.s israel iraq jordan and and you have and at the time

01:19:05.140 they didn't want to make public the u.s government support for this deal because it cut turkey

01:19:09.260 out of the money so they didn't they wanted bechtel to construct this pipeline they wanted

01:19:15.360 the consent of the iraqis the jordanians and the israelis but they didn't want the state department

01:19:20.040 to acknowledge it so they couldn't tell the development finance corporation which is u.s

01:19:23.760 government agency that they were supporting this deal they just wanted it financed they wanted to

01:19:29.340 happen on its own but then to covertly push it in the background and so again but that was the

01:19:36.620 development finance corporation today that's being run by the head that the son of leon black 0.96

01:19:41.500 howard lutnick also you know has reported connections to this as well because you know his

01:19:46.860 residence uh you know he was basically epstein's neighbor and there were some strange financings

01:19:51.760 around that but again that doesn't mean that you know no what nick of course was the head of um

01:19:57.140 you know the head can i just stop you there because you what you painted is a very very detailed

01:20:02.280 picture of all these people who stand to lose significant status reputation possibly criminal

01:20:11.840 charges of all of this thing these things come out if we look at elon's tweet how much of that do you

01:20:20.860 think is accurate where elon basically said trump's mentioned on the epstein files that's the reason

01:20:29.300 it's not going to be released sayonara and goodbye well i i don't think that trump was involved in um

01:20:38.100 you know any any underage prostitution or even prostitution uh or or anything illegal about uh about

01:20:45.480 the epstein network but but you you do have these ties i mean i'll give you give you just some the

01:20:50.640 historical record of this so i i mentioned that in 1987 jeffrey epstein bragged to the press

01:20:57.100 that you know one of his top clients was adnan khashoggi the the cia's middleman for for iran

01:21:03.600 contra adnan khashoggi at the time was one of the richest men in the world adnan khashoggi owned an

01:21:08.720 86 million dollar yacht um trump purchased that yacht in 1989 um it's he's he's been connected to this

01:21:18.920 network i'll give you another one is uh if you look at the flight logs from the 1990s i had a birthday

01:21:25.920 party about about a month ago where uh one of the guests at my birthday party brought the the famous

01:21:32.100 binder for influencers that was handed out by pam bondy uh which contained the flight log records

01:21:39.460 and i skimmed through the flight logs of of this this is a pump this was shut handed out there's only

01:21:45.980 a couple months ago that this uh this thing was well you can in those flight logs donald trump's name is

01:21:52.380 mentioned probably two or three times so he flew on jeffrey epstein's planes in the 1990s now that

01:21:58.600 now again this doesn't mean that uh you know donald trump was involved in some sort of uh child

01:22:04.620 prostitution ring but jeffrey epstein was the money guy at the time jeffrey epstein was had power of

01:22:11.520 attorney over les wexner's entire estate les wexner is a is a giant benefactor in republican politics

01:22:17.020 um you know very influential in in the whole ohio politics region jim jordan uh the you know

01:22:24.720 highly influential head of the house judiciary committee as an ohio guy um vivek ramaswamy is

01:22:31.500 uh you know apparently running for for office uh in ohio uh these these are networks that go to the

01:22:38.100 highest levels of republican power they also go to the highest levels of republican foreign policy

01:22:43.640 especially vis-a-vis uh iran and the you know the the us you know the iran foreign policy issue is one

01:22:50.540 of the major pivot points that distinguished trump world from obama world if you look at so so you have

01:22:58.400 this this complicated relationship where on the one hand uh epstein is is intimately involved in the

01:23:05.480 clintons and the anti-trump side of the israeli government uh uh hood barack for example was very

01:23:11.840 close with with west exec which was the um uh you know essentially the government and waiting for

01:23:19.320 the biden uh foreign policy team this is where avril haynes and samantha power and um and tony

01:23:25.820 blinken were all you know kind of parked uh in this consultancy firm that effectively did in the private

01:23:32.760 sector what they were doing for the obama uh state department and uh odni and and white house

01:23:39.780 and then they all got senior placements in the biden administration and ahud barack was a was a

01:23:45.360 consultant for them while he was meeting constantly with epstein um you also have the fact that ahud

01:23:51.980 barack is is one of netanyahu's chief opponents uh in israeli politics you have netanyahu in the lakud

01:23:59.920 party you have this kind of war going on between the the labor side and the lakud side in israel and so

01:24:06.840 in in the present day incarnation of epstein world it seems to be trump's enemies and i think that's

01:24:13.420 probably what trump was alluding to in 2015 when he used that epstein connection as a sword against

01:24:19.220 clinton but historically speaking epstein really started off much more on the republican side

01:24:25.340 and with these gop networks and so it looks like basically around the clinton era in the late 90s

01:24:32.760 early 2000s epstein really started teaming up more with the democrats but you still have these

01:24:37.780 connections throughout uh you know about 20 different high level members of trump world and i think trump's

01:24:44.020 point on this is that he was initially um leaning into the disclosures and then i think he got startled

01:24:52.100 and i don't know whether someone in you know trump donors or personal friends uh leaned on him to do this

01:24:58.160 uh whether or not part of that concern came from the national security community but effectively

01:25:02.900 i i think his his stated answer for not wanting to do maximal disclosures is he said if you put these

01:25:10.220 names out it's going to go out without context and the media never reports context and so it'll all be

01:25:16.400 out of context and i don't think he's wrong about that i mean you take the leon black situation for

01:25:22.080 example i've mentioned that a couple times here because leon black is a powerful figure in in

01:25:26.880 conservative politics and and you know has a you know is like i said a family placement uh at a

01:25:32.920 high level you know trump world thing that doesn't mean leon black was uh you know involved in anything

01:25:39.320 illegal uh he's you know his stated you know reason was that he he thought that epstein told him it was

01:25:44.680 a one-off thing and that he was a a new man now and he'd never do it again uh but the fact is is like

01:25:50.820 if if publications come out for example about howard lutnik and and the like doesn't mean lutnik is

01:25:56.300 involved in that trump himself flew on epstein's jet and you know reportedly had epstein at mar-a-lago

01:26:03.480 several times before he kicked him out of the club it doesn't mean that he's involved in that but you

01:26:07.820 get tainted by association and so i think that um the levels of association are deeper than what

01:26:15.500 uh the trump white house wants to let on but there's so much that's come out publicly that it's

01:26:22.620 hard to make this go away well it's not just hard to make it go away mike i posit to you that it's

01:26:29.180 impossible to make it go away and this is the biggest challenge that trump has faced so far in

01:26:34.660 his presidency this is bigger than elon this is bigger than the war in iran this is bigger than the

01:26:39.680 the fallout with with uh with the tech right and vivek and all of that i mean this is really serious

01:26:46.760 you're looking at the wall street journal running that story you're looking at you know some of the

01:26:52.640 things that trump has said and look francis maybe just let's pause on that story shall we because

01:26:57.660 it's one thing we haven't fully addressed but the story alleges and and it's kind of interestingly

01:27:03.020 written because on the one hand it sounds kind of plausible on the other hand it is second-hand

01:27:08.040 information they say that according to a person with knowledge so they themselves have not seen this

01:27:13.440 for one of the jeffrey epsteins i think it was his 50th maybe one of his birthdays uh jelaine maxwell

01:27:20.040 arranged for a bunch of powerful influential people to send in various notes for him and according to

01:27:26.860 this report uh somebody with knowledge of this said that donald trump sent in a letter which had a kind

01:27:34.200 of suggestive image of a woman with rather a strange kind of message about you know we have a shared

01:27:41.700 secret uh and all of this sort of stuff and immediately a bunch of people came out very

01:27:48.700 high level which to me was quite significant right because if the story is just bs you often don't

01:27:53.300 you don't even acknowledge it jd vance president trump himself i think and they all said well i've

01:27:58.760 never drawn a picture someone immediately showed a picture that he drew of something right uh i've never

01:28:03.980 used the word enigma again this video of him using that word right all of these things 0.62

01:28:08.300 and you're kind of going uh what's going on here is this is this real because if it is that message

01:28:16.260 is kind of weird mike all right bit of an unexpected one for you but this actually got my attention

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01:28:42.220 you should avoid like the plague and a few other things he's doing to keep in shape and stay sharp

01:28:47.600 i was skeptical at first the stuff he suggests is genuinely simple and actually makes a lot of sense

01:28:54.200 if you're interested in health energy or just curious what chuck norris swears by at 80 plus

01:29:00.380 this is worth your time watch the video now at chuck defense dot com slash trigger that's chuck

01:29:08.220 defense dot com slash trigger and we put the link in the description below to make it easy

01:29:14.520 right and it was i mean trump filed a 10 billion dollar lawsuit against his formerly close ally

01:29:21.520 rupert murdoch um you know over this it's just a huge amount of of money immediately now now you know

01:29:28.920 reportedly this was entered uh the way the wall street journal got a hold of this was because of

01:29:33.460 a justice department exhibit i believe in the glane maxwell trial um that was that was leaked and so

01:29:39.740 the so the wall street journal said well listen we're just publishing what the justice department

01:29:44.080 itself did i know i don't know that the truth or falsity of it but you can certainly i think the speed

01:29:51.080 at which the the trump train moved legally on this uh speaks to uh the you know perceived

01:29:58.380 vulnerability uh around it and you know that's this is an issue that is um tearing the base apart

01:30:08.080 um not in a way that i think will make people who are pro-trump anti-trump because i think that

01:30:14.900 there's so much goodwill there but there are all these unanswered questions and um i think everyone

01:30:22.140 can see because of the proximity of the epstein network to the to the highest levels of power on

01:30:27.820 both sides of of the u.s political aisle be they the reagan administration the clinton administration

01:30:33.300 the trump administration as well as other you know international governments you i think everyone

01:30:40.400 um has been excited about these disclosures and that it would kind of give a blueprint about many of

01:30:47.260 the shadow elements of the administration of power that ordinary lay people aren't just not privy to

01:30:54.440 they're not a member of the billionaire hedge fund class they're not a member of high level governments

01:30:59.280 but that by getting the disclosures around epstein you would be able to sort of peer through the veil

01:31:05.120 and this was something that was teased and ran on by trump in 2015 by jd vance on the campaign trail

01:31:13.540 in 2024 by pam bondi cash patel dan bungino and i think to when when the big man himself trump uh

01:31:23.220 echoes why are we still talking about epstein i'm not going to do a special prosecutor which has come

01:31:29.520 out and said now he has signaled that he supports on uh unsealing grand jury uh indictment evidence and

01:31:38.680 and the to to their credit pam bondi did file that motion um but the problem is is there's enough

01:31:45.360 smoke there's not enough smoke to say exactly what the fire is but there is so much smoke that you

01:31:54.340 can't ignore the possibility you can't ignore that there is some sort of fire there whether that is

01:32:00.480 from the trump donor world network whether that's from the intelligence community thing and this gets

01:32:04.700 back to you know so when you talk about the intelligence side of this you know in my view

01:32:10.280 i mean i see what people obviously see about epstein from all the different different linkages and in

01:32:16.040 my view i actually think it would be better to put that to bed by simply publishing it because i think

01:32:21.760 that the conspiracy theories that will abound about it will be worse than what it actually is and and

01:32:28.600 the fact is is like you see all these touch points for example there is a there's a big part of the

01:32:34.140 trump base that is just that is they're in bed together but they are sort of bound in bed together

01:32:44.080 because of political necessity you have these kind of domestic focused um america first folks who want

01:32:50.820 to america to invest in its own infrastructure and its own education it and and wants out of kind of

01:32:57.540 financial or geopolitical entanglements in foreign wars and the like and you also have a kind

01:33:04.100 of international foreign policy class who likes trump for his foreign policy dealings uh who likes

01:33:09.580 trump for example for his policies on a maximus against iran both the obama and biden administrations

01:33:15.600 uh were seen as you know brokering um you know the a pro-iran network from the iran deal that was struck

01:33:22.960 by uh by barack obama this is what bound israel and saudi arabia together because by pump by allowing

01:33:30.540 iran to have sanctions relief and export oil and gas it could then pump up the you know hezbollah and

01:33:37.500 the houthis and hamas with tens of billions of dollars worth of of exports and then you also

01:33:43.340 had the saudi network which was uh which was which was vehemently against the iran deal together with

01:33:49.640 israel because iran being able to export all this oil and gas would undermine uh the saudi you know the

01:33:55.900 saudi uh hegemony in the in the region over oil and gas and so this is what gave rise to the abraham

01:34:02.440 accords and this is also what put both saudi and israeli government um interests behind trump

01:34:09.400 against obama uh clinton and biden um and so you have this kind of foreign policy focus and this

01:34:17.540 domestic policy focus in the maga camp where the the foreign policy side of trump world needs the

01:34:25.300 maga base for the votes and the maga base needs the trump foreign policy world for the money and 0.59

01:34:31.640 the institutional clout and i don't think either of them can win an election without the other

01:34:35.840 if you don't have the base that turns out for the votes then you're going to end up with an iran deal

01:34:40.520 you're going to end up you know with the foreign policy that isolates israel from uh you know from

01:34:45.940 the biden biden administration uh and obama administration uh and if you don't have the

01:34:52.860 if you push it too far the other direction and you don't account for the sentiment of the maga base

01:34:56.720 you're not going to have the votes so you're going to end up with democrats and uh you know the sort of

01:35:01.160 iran-based foreign policy uh so so both of them need each other and they're both i think at loggerheads

01:35:07.160 over this because there are lingering issues about the intelligence side of what epstein appeared to be

01:35:13.560 involved in the fact is when you look at the ace greenberg networks the edgar bronfen networks

01:35:17.980 the the adnan khashoggi networks uh the leslie wexner networks the ahoud barack networks the the

01:35:25.380 robert maxwell networks the you every single step in the link of this chain from the from the time

01:35:33.240 epstein was 25 years old till the day that he died ran straight through this nexus of u.s israeli

01:35:40.620 saudi as well as uh you know sort of western european intelligence agencies and it's and it's

01:35:47.000 or at least government affairs that connected them to you know to to the money side of that and so i

01:35:54.560 think people are looking at this moment and there there's i think that they are kind of presuming

01:35:59.900 like like a lot of what you'll hear is like you know um epstein was this high level you know massad

01:36:05.860 agent and that uh he he was effectively blackmailing you know high level u.s politicians on behalf of

01:36:13.560 israel this sort of thing and i think that that people look at that because they see what appears

01:36:17.700 to be you know the the guts if you will of a potential blackmail scheme given the you know the

01:36:27.140 underage girls and the video equipment and the like and the fact that the justice department has kind 0.89

01:36:33.220 of sat on a lot of that or said that they won't be publishing it to protect the victims and so none

01:36:38.160 of the names have come out and as i see it you know what you have here is something which is

01:36:44.040 still a monumental scandal if indeed the plea deal was cut to protect epstein because he was a a node in

01:36:53.480 this network but something that is much more ordinary course insofar as how the intelligence angle

01:37:00.840 relates to this which is that you know this is this is how business is done even in these situations

01:37:06.680 you don't know uh whether or not it was an asset or an agent i would not expect it to be an agent

01:37:13.020 um you don't know who was the junior or senior partner in any of these it's very so one of the

01:37:18.820 things that happens in these kind of statecraft operations is you have junior and senior partners

01:37:24.200 for example in the uh in the safari club network that ran through bear stearns and ran through uh this

01:37:31.140 1970s iran and uh you know foreign policy network that was primarily led by french intelligence and then

01:37:40.100 you had junior partners from the u.s and israel now of course epstein would go on to have a residence in

01:37:45.500 france um you know one of the women who supplied uh one of the high level guys who supplied women to him

01:37:51.360 was john luke burnell who himself died mysteriously in prison uh while he was uh under investigation

01:37:56.960 you have these you know french connections around the epstein network um you also have

01:38:03.140 for example the with iran itself you know iran was you know obviously in 1953 the u.s participated

01:38:12.300 in a regime change operation through kermit roosevelt uh to install the shah but this was also

01:38:17.700 largely a british-led uh in you know uh operation where it was anglo-british petroleum that was being

01:38:23.380 nationalized at the time that you know led to uh that series of events and so you have you you to

01:38:31.560 the extent that you have you know u.s and israeli participation in that affair you could argue that

01:38:36.880 it was a senior british role in it uh for example if you look at things like iran contra that was

01:38:42.040 primarily a u.s intelligence operation where the israelis played a junior partner in the deal

01:38:47.880 uh you have you know the case of you know the iraqi oil pipeline that i mentioned 1988 once again

01:38:54.780 that's primarily u.s intelligence and you do have an israeli intelligence touchpoint but again it's in

01:39:00.000 a junior role it was initially a u.s intelligence idea they needed a broker to the highest levels of the

01:39:06.740 israeli um defense and statecraft sphere in order to negotiate that you don't know in any particular

01:39:14.060 uh epstein dealing who's senior and who's junior on these things and i would prefer that the records

01:39:22.720 simply come out um and i i i see this as being one of these things where losses loom larger than gains

01:39:29.960 there's more market instability when you don't when there's uncertainty than than when there's

01:39:36.180 certainty and the you know and things are simply you know priced in um and so i think that what's

01:39:42.580 been done to date has been an attempt to kind of blame other governments in power for not disclosing

01:39:50.060 this and using that as campaign talking point but then once you're in power simply sitting on

01:39:56.240 everything and the fact is is they're just very easy answers that we can get without having to do

01:40:00.980 a whole um you know we don't need to spend four years on this issue there's there's a number of

01:40:06.740 disclosures that can be made immediately as i mentioned the results of a cia name trace you don't

01:40:11.660 you're not able to subpoena the british government or the saudi government or the israeli government uh

01:40:16.240 but you can publish what's in the cia files uh it was or you know it's to the extent that you have a

01:40:22.620 special prosecutor uh who or some sort of justice department investigation that makes this public

01:40:28.900 um you know uh through a justice department investigation you can get the alex acosta

01:40:36.000 transcript so that we know at least what the justice department asked the guy who cut the sweetheart

01:40:40.760 deal about the intelligence question but i i think right now people are assuming the worst about the

01:40:47.420 epstein story that are like that the u.s government is totally controlled through this blackmail nexus

01:40:53.940 that's got you know foreign and the fact is is at this point it's so far gone that i think you're

01:41:01.960 going to have depressed voter turnout in 2026 from a lot of people who are going to hear all these

01:41:06.560 things and not really know how you know the the statecraft works and there are easy things the

01:41:13.400 justice department can do that it isn't and people are going to see say well hey this was easy to get

01:41:19.000 you didn't do it because there's something in there you don't want us to see and so i i think that you

01:41:23.820 can there's a way to do this that kind of um would be best for the administration and best for the

01:41:30.700 american public that um that that that for whatever reason is not being pursued right now i i think you

01:41:37.880 know sometimes mike there there happens to be an issue which covers and triggers your fam your your

01:41:46.940 base and it covers every single point and i think epstein for the mega base is that issue which is

01:41:57.320 why it's so toxic for trump trump talked about draining the swamp i mean you can't get any more 0.99

01:42:02.280 fucking swamp than this can you number one number two there's the abuse of underage girls particularly 1.00

01:42:09.840 when a lot of mega uh sort of the earth working christian people they quite rightly find that 0.99

01:42:17.280 abhorrent right when trump came to power he was you know he spoke about this he used it as a sword

01:42:24.420 against other people the dismissive way that he is in on social media attacked the base and also

01:42:34.080 lastly as well i mean it just by refusing to deal with it you're refusing to deal with a cancer yeah and

01:42:45.740 it's only going to grow so you either deal with the cancer or you let it engulf your party and your

01:42:52.520 reputation is that an unfair assessment of what trump is dealing with now i think that's spot on and

01:42:59.260 trump is in an unusual place because there's so much love for trump from the base i mean we watched

01:43:04.840 this guy get a get 91 felonies you know uh on totally bs grounds uh the first president to ever be arrested

01:43:14.300 indicted have a mug shot we were all there through that you know uh we were there when he got shot in the

01:43:20.220 you know it was we were there when he got spied on by the central intelligence agency and who placed

01:43:26.860 spies in his campaign in 2016 we were there through the fbi special there's so much love for trump and

01:43:33.720 we're so used to seeing him be attacked on pernicious uh illegal or immoral or unjustified grounds

01:43:43.860 and i think trump is used to having the base be dogmatic and persistent in defending him against

01:43:51.200 um alleged scandals that are non-scandals and this is one of the first times that trump is kind of on

01:43:58.020 the receiving end of that same kind of persistence and aggression that it feels like has been trained

01:44:04.940 into the mega movement and it's it's very it's very you can see how trump is between a rock and a hard

01:44:11.360 place here because depending on what exactly is motivating the i mean it could be coming from the

01:44:17.680 donor world it could be coming from his personal friends it could be coming from foreign governments

01:44:22.000 who don't who whose own operations are wrapped up in this and don't want disclosures uh you know it

01:44:26.460 could be coming from the high finance world um from current business partners that but trump has been

01:44:32.960 just kind of screaming about this and even using some pretty strong language like saying that he doesn't

01:44:38.980 want the that there's a portion of the base whose support he doesn't even want this this was embedded

01:44:44.320 into one of his his truth last week i don't think he really means that um but but i i think you're

01:44:51.340 exactly right on on that but trump has has a weird way of being able to surf these things and you know

01:44:59.680 they that saying you know post through the scandal just keep posting through it um you know trump

01:45:05.540 remember trump in 2016 had one of these major scandals that no one thought would would go away

01:45:11.180 um when uh you know this was the famous grab him by the blank thing with the the the cbs tape and

01:45:18.400 everyone thought oh this is going to dog him the rest of his life and when's the last time you heard

01:45:22.380 that thing so it is possible that trump can simply post his way through this is look that was a cross

01:45:30.040 lewd off the cuff comment made which you know sometimes men say those types of things fine

01:45:38.440 not not ideal as we would say in britain with our cash with our sense of understatement but this is

01:45:45.260 something very very and the big difference is that was all the people that already hated trump

01:45:50.540 attacking trump attacking him this is his own side now going after him really well because when you

01:45:55.580 don't have an investigation even though you are the only because trump world trump and the and

01:46:01.540 trump's attorney general these these are the only people that we the people can petition for answers

01:46:06.720 on this otherwise we have to come up with our own and if you have the internet come up with its own

01:46:11.980 answers they're gonna come up with something as you know extremely wild and and the issue is is if it was

01:46:21.840 less wild than what the internet thinks up then you would think that the justice department would

01:46:27.900 give those answers and their failure to do so leaves the base with either um you know trusting what they

01:46:35.000 read on the internet which is which given everything epstein was involved in you know a billionaire

01:46:41.160 financier connected the highest levels of wall street multiple uh you know multiple powerful world

01:46:47.600 governments uh both sides of the the political aisle presidents on both sides um attorney generals

01:46:54.860 spanning back 50 years uh you have your people are going to invent their own epstein story unless

01:47:03.560 there's an official one and the only people who can provide the official one are the people we just

01:47:10.320 elected in this past election who ran on giving us the official story by having the justice department

01:47:16.940 do an investigation and unseal everything make available all the everything that was behind the

01:47:24.020 curtain of the justice department of the central intelligence agency of the fbi of of you know

01:47:29.700 international entries the only of the only official biographer of the epstein story who can tell this

01:47:36.640 with any completion is the trump government that we elected who told us they were going to do this

01:47:43.060 so in the absence of an official biography the internet has to invent one and that is going to

01:47:50.300 as years and years go by that story is not going to get any less fantastical and it does not that story

01:47:57.340 that's being written by the internet does not look good for trump world the best thing they can do is

01:48:02.480 come clean and rip the band-aid off tell us exactly who jeffrey epstein was

01:48:09.660 mike uh it's been a pleasure we could talk for hours in fact we have talked for hours we've got

01:48:14.960 some questions from our audience that we'll put to you from uh them on our substack before we do that

01:48:20.460 what's the one thing about this entire thing that no one is talking about and shouldn't be i think it's

01:48:27.640 the alex acosta transcript at opr the fact is is it when you look at something like cia stonewalling

01:48:36.660 the um uh files which is a very very common thing i've i've even had you know meetings around this

01:48:44.480 with with folks in government about just how how difficult it is to get files from the central

01:48:49.640 intelligence agency when they don't want to show you something there's lots of bureaucratic tricks

01:48:53.980 i mentioned this in the bruce rapaport case where they stonewalled you know uh uh even even official

01:48:59.840 requests until it was yanked out of them under threat of criminal punishment by the justice department

01:49:04.460 in this case pam bondy could walk down the hallway to the office of professional responsibility there 1.00

01:49:11.100 was a 21 month investigation about epstein's intelligence ties that was already done by the

01:49:17.080 justice department and the fact that all of the files around that investigation are still under seal at

01:49:24.200 the justice department um is is not right that is something we have a right to know and it's so easy

01:49:31.880 to do it's not going to require sifting through four decades of cia uh you know financial transactions

01:49:38.720 it's not something that you can blame anybody else for it it reports directly to the justice department

01:49:44.140 i think that everybody needs to demand this and pam bondy the next time there's a microphone 1.00

01:49:49.060 um you know interface uh you know at a podium needs to be asked did you retrieve the alex acosta

01:49:56.240 transcript from november 2020 that specifically asked alex acosta about jeffrey epstein's uh

01:50:03.620 intelligence ties and if you haven't asked for it why not it it's the office that reports directly to

01:50:11.380 you and if you have asked for it when are you going to make that document public mike it's been an

01:50:17.560 absolute pleasure make sure to head over to our substack where we carry on this very interesting

01:50:23.120 conversation early in trump's current term the kremlin sanctioned media inexplicably released

01:50:30.300 naked pictures of melania trump do you believe that this photo release and the recent epstein ferrari

01:50:35.560 are connected

01:50:36.280 you

TRIGGERnometry - July 23, 2025

Epstein, CIA, Mossad, Trump - Mike Benz

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