Jeffrey Epstein was a man of many talents. He was a lawyer, a philanthropist, an investor, an entrepreneur, an art collector, and a sex worker. But when it comes to art, he was a master of none other than his own creation, a painting of President George W. Bush and a portrait of President Bill Clinton. This is the story of Epstein's art collection.
00:00:16.560I think that's the one that Lex Wexner gave him.
00:00:18.340It's a beautiful property from what I hear.
00:00:20.620And that's even another soft, soft thing that it said, you know, you hear it's 21,000 square feet.
00:00:29.400Epstein described it as 55,000 square feet.
00:00:32.860And it clearly is, I mean, you know, a good-sized townhouse in New York is about, you know, 15,000 to 20,000 square feet.
00:00:45.800This is triple the size of a good-sized townhouse.
00:00:51.200I mean, it is, it's on a block in Manhattan on 71st Street between Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, which is, it's a block of these significant mansions.
00:01:09.560So, you see, I mean, there are these big mansions which you would say, oh, my God, you know, that must be a, you know, who could possibly live in that?
00:04:01.840Um, but it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a point about Epstein that, that, that he treated almost everything like a joke.
00:04:12.200In fact, art itself was treated like a joke.
00:04:16.580The, the, the, the piece of art above his mantle, above the fireplace on the ground floor, was something he had bought on the street, which is a street painting for a hundred dollars or something.
00:04:32.880And then he had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on framing it.
00:04:38.320So it looked like a, partly because of this frame, it looked like a significant piece of art, which it, which it was not.
00:04:48.700And it amused him that many of the wealthy men he knew spent enormous amounts of money on, on art, which he considered a, a kind of vanity or even a pretension on possibly a fraud.
00:05:07.780So very, very interesting when you think about, so you saw the painting, Bill Clinton's president, Bill Clinton's, if you're going to play a joke and you're going to have all these guests that come in, I don't know if the former who would book, you know, Barack that these guys are coming over 36 times.
00:05:23.540But if, if, if I'm living in America, I don't know if I'm going to have a painting of the president like that in my house to make fun of the president.
00:05:32.160It undermines the leader of my country.
00:05:34.560Or there's some people that speculate that this was one way of him saying, Hey, I have you, Bill, you better, and there's a lot of different speculations.
00:05:43.920I mean, he certainly didn't have him and, you know, the Clintons bill particularly walked out of his life after the, um, uh, the investigation started.
00:05:55.080So the, the painting may have been a kind of, there may have been some bitterness in this painting and he kept this, this, this painting.
00:06:04.780And I don't really know where the painting came from.
00:06:07.300Um, but he was certainly not, you know, again, I, you know, I think it hurt him that, that, that Clinton turned on him like that.
00:06:16.840And that would even, that would be a validation of to say, now that you turned on me and distance, distance yourself from me, after all the fun you had with me traveling without secret service, just so you know, you better not screw me.
00:06:30.220Cause I know, you know, what I know about you in a very dark way.
00:06:35.840That would make sense to say, everyone that comes here better not come after me.
00:06:40.480Cause I'm, I know what you, you know, what I know about you.
00:06:42.720Well, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's possible except that obviously people did come after him.
00:06:48.580Um, and, um, uh, you know, there was no, I, you know, I, I think at various points and there were people who wanted him to spill or share information about Clinton.
00:07:05.060Um, and I don't think that, that, I mean, to my knowledge that never happened.
00:07:12.100And, um, um, uh, you, you know, I mean, I think that was, that was always a possibility in a, in a sense that Epstein believed in the, in the investigation, the initial investigation of him in Florida.
00:07:27.540So the investigation of him in Florida, as I understand, began as a, um, as a state investigation, actually a local investigation by the, by the, by the police in Palm beach.
00:07:42.140And then it was taken over, um, um, and then it was taken over, um, by the feds, which would have been unusual.
00:07:49.060Um, and Epstein believed that that was an effort by people in the Bush administration.
00:07:55.780And then to get information about Bill Clinton, um, is this the Palm beach story with the parents of the 14 year old girl that said that, you know, she was molested by him.
00:08:09.300This is the first investigation investigation, which began in 2004 and then sent him to jail.
00:08:16.560And I don't know, in your, in your eyes, Michael, having, having spent as much time as you did with them, do you think Epstein is a bad guy?
00:09:08.880I, I've met a lot of guys that are extremely knowledgeable and, and fun, even fun to talk to, but you know, they've done some, I interviewed Samuel Volgervano.
00:09:19.480He's got to be one of the best storytellers I've met in my life.
00:09:21.740Well, yes, I mean, I've, I've, I have a kind of specialty in bad guys.
00:09:49.680And I, and I think, and it's always, I think Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein are very much similar people.
00:09:56.940Um, that's why Epstein, knowing Epstein, Epstein supplies a window into who Donald Trump is because they were a, so close, but also so close in their, in their interests.
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