Jeffrey Epstein was able to traffic and assault young women and girls for almost two decades, without consequence. How did he get away with this? The simple answer is wealth. But how did a college dropout who was quietly dismissed from his first job as a teacher at a private school acquire a private jet and party with some of the most famous and powerful people in the world? We delve into the money and the people who may have aided and abetted Epstein’s scandalous and criminal life.

Credits:

• Written by: Taya Graham, Amanda Scherker
• Pre/Post-Production: David Hebden

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Taya Graham:

For most of 2025. One story and one story alone dominated the cultural and political discourse in America, the Epstein files. This phenomena was remarkable, all but more so for President Trump’s response. This was the first time in Trump’s decade long political career that we saw a significant rift in his fiercely loyal MAGA movement. By late July, 47% of Trump supporters disapproved of how he was handling the issue. Now, given Trump’s controversial association with the dead man, his obfuscation seemed like it could be the only thing to finally chip away at his political capital. Since then, a lot has happened in the American news from a major ice crackdown in blue states to the illegal bombing of ships in the Caribbean to an attempted ceasefire in Gaza, and yet Epstein’s case still looms large, large enough, some believe to have played a significant role in the October government shutdown.

Now ostensibly, the shutdown was triggered by congressional Republican and Democrat’s inability to meet a consensus about funding the government, but some believe Republicans are using it to stall developments on the Epstein issue. Indeed, how speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to swear in newly elected Arizona representative at Grava. Though there is recent precedent for doing so crucially, Reba has said she would provide the 218th signature needed to force a house vote on whether or not to release the entirety of the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein. But if the Epstein files are really playing a role, large or small in the entire shutdown of the federal government, it’s worth asking how and why. Because if that’s the case, then it fits a familiar pattern, those in power bending over backwards to protect a wealthy serial sex criminal and his elite circle of powerful conspirators and that can tell us something much bigger about how justice works or more accurately doesn’t work in America because despite the truly shocking magnitude of his crimes, what if Epstein isn’t that much of an outlier? What if he’s just the most potent example of something deeply sinister, yet totally normal about how billionaires are allowed to behave in America? Let’s find out in this video, are billionaires above the law.

The biggest question that invariably comes up about Jeffrey Epstein is this, how was he able to abuse over 1000 victims by the Justice Department’s own estimations over the course of several decades? The short obvious answer is he was rich, is Harrowingly documented in Virginia GRE’s new posthumous memoir Nobody’s girl Epstein’s. Immense fortune and extensive network of prominent allies were key to his ability to prey on young underage girls like her when she met Epstein’s criminal collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell as a teenage employee at the Mar-a-Lago Spa, grie Harbor dreams of becoming a professional masseuse. Maxwell immediately promised that if the young girl impressed her friend, he would pay for her entire masseuse training. No small boon for someone likely earning minimum wage. GRE describes how intimidating it was even being inside a mansion as opulent as Epstein’s and how desperate she was to conceal her working class background.

The first time she visited as her first interview with Epstein went from unprofessional to invasive to an all out assault. Gire blamed her own lack of experience for her discomfort, she blamed herself. From there, Epstein convinced Gure to quit her job and offered her $2,500 to pay for her apartment. This generosity was darker than it even sounds. At first. Epstein also showed her a grainy photo of her brother and said, we know where your brother goes to school. You must never tell soul what goes on in this house. He added that he owned the Palm Beach police force implying he could hurt her family with impunity. Gure continued acquiescing to his increasingly horrific demands, culminating in being regularly, often violently sex trafficked to world leaders. She feared she would die a sex slave. In her book Gure notes that this was a pattern of Epstein’s identifying young women who had dreams bigger than their pocketbooks and promising to fulfill them either through paying for their schooling or introducing them to important people in their chosen field.

Epstein’s network of famous and powerful people was mutually enforced by his immense wealth, and the nexus of the two enabled his criminal enterprise. Epstein apparently built his fortune offering tax advice to the likes of Leslie h Wexner. His resulting wealth made him one of JP Morgan’s most valuable clients. He was also the kind of guy who quote drops 50 names in an hour long conversation. According to one JP Morgan exec, this was seen as an asset. Epstein proved himself even more valuable when he started introducing the bank to influential potential clients including Microsoft, bill Gates and Google Founder Sergei Bryn. This meant the bank didn’t bat an eye when he withdrew more than $1.7 million in cash in 2004 and 2005, most of which he spent procuring women and girls. Despite such an amount being far more than enough to warrant filing suspicious activity reports with the US Department of the Treasury.

Over the years, JP Morgan opened 134 accounts for Epstein, supporting everything from companies that handled his private islands where many of his sex crimes took place to providing financial backing for French modeling scout and fellow sex criminal Jean-Luc Purnell’s modeling agency. Epstein regularly used his wealth to ingratiate himself to his ever-growing network. One spreadsheet from his accountant sent in a 2007 email details, $1.8 million in gifts and payments between 2003 and 2006 alone, including a $35,000 watch to a senior aide to former President Clinton and a $71,000 Lexus. To his lawyer, Alan Dershowitz. His planes flew everyone from Prince Andrew to Bill Clinton to model Naomi Campbell. Less discussed than his affiliations with world leaders though is how Epstein painted himself as a philanthropist. Though he did not attend the school, he established the image of himself as a Harvard man and donated $9.1 million to the university between 1998 and 2008.

According to its own reports, Gure describes Epstein’s determination to mingle with high-minded men of science, including hosting a 2006 conference at his private compound that was attended by astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and along with 20 other physicists at the event. Epstein was reportedly always seen with three to four young women in tow. Though much is made of Epstein’s political connections, GRE underscores how his reputation amongst intellectual luminaries was just as crucial to his ability to operate with impunity and some respectability. She writes, don’t be fooled by those in Epstein Circle who say they didn’t know what he was doing. Epstein not only didn’t hide what was happening, he took a certain glee in making people watch because he could and people did watch scientists fundraisers from the Ivy League and other Herald institutions, titans of industry, they watched and they didn’t care, but not even Epstein could keep this act up without some chips beginning to fall back in March of 2005, a woman alerted authorities that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been sexually assaulted by a wealthy man in West Palm Beach At the time the world would later learn Epstein had been systematically preying on girls as young as 11 for years.

The peculiar fallout of these accusations was recounted in a Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald report by Julie K. Brown published in 2019. The first thing Epstein apparently did offer the girl a cash payment if she would only shut up. She’s apparently told that those who help Epstein will be compensated and those who hurt him will be dealt with. This was just the beginning of his intimidation campaign that included hiring a team of private investigators to follow his accusers, their current and former boyfriends and even their parents, including running one father off the road. Another father said one investigator was photographing his family and chasing visitors who came to the house. The investigators often called the girls immediately before or after they were questioned by authorities about their accusations. Gure recalls being so frightened that when she received a call from the FBI, she assumed it was a ruse from the Epstein camp and hung up.

Later she recalled I was still scared to death. I just didn’t want my family harmed. She recalls outside her family home, a mysterious car approached slowly then stopped and stayed put in the front seat idling with the high beams trained on our see-through front door. If intimidation wasn’t enough to shut the whole thing down, Epstein had other roots. By the end of 2005, Epstein had also assembled a veritable football team’s worth of the country’s most powerful lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, Roy Black and Kenneth Starr. Spencer Coven, an attorney four three accusers recalls. He had this team of maybe six to eight lawyers all pressuring not only the state’s attorney but the feds to drop all this saying that they were going to make these girls’ lives miserable. Meanwhile, his lawyers conducted an aggressive investigation into his victims whom they painted as gold diggers using their MySpace pages to argue that the girls were liars or partier whose testimony couldn’t be trusted due to drug use.

Being able to spend lots of money does more than buy you a team of strong arming lawyers. In her new posthumous memoir, Epstein survivor Victoria GRE recalls receiving a call from Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2007 who said Grie would be taken care of if she didn’t cooperate with investigators and even explicitly offered to pay for GRE’s own legal representation. Now, this is a common tactic that the uber wealthy employee by paying legal fees for potentially problematic witnesses, someone like Epstein can all but ensure that they won’t flip, and this is perfectly legal in the us despite the obvious conflict of interest it creates. Epstein had also used his vast wealth to recruit prominent attorney Jack Goldberger, whose law partner just happened to be married to Delilah Weiss, then the toughest child sex crime prosecutor in Florida. Weiss was forced to recuse herself due to this super convenient conflict of interest in another stroke of definitely random luck.

Yet another lawyer on Epstein’s team, Jay Lefkowitz was a friend and former colleague of Alexander Acosta Florida’s attorney General, basically their chief legal officer. In October of 2007, the two old pals met for breakfast at a West Palm Beach Marriott, 70 miles away from Acosta’s office. There they hashed out the broad strokes of what the Miami Herald calls Epstein’s deal of a lifetime. This was a non-prosecution agreement that effectively halted the FBI’s sprawling investigation into dozens of Epstein’s victims. We’d later learned that the agreement was essentially written by the defense team in it. Epstein pled guilty to two counts of soliciting prostitution from a minor said minor was 14 years old. You didn’t actually hear that wrong. The state actually labeled a 14-year-old child a prostitute. At the time, local police had heard the same sickening story about Epstein’s abuse from about 50 some young women.

The Herald would eventually find 80 women abused by him from 2001 to 2006 alone. This wasn’t the only shocking concession Acosta made. He also promised to keep the deal a secret from the dozens of victims who had already come forward. This denied them the chance to contest the agreement in court. They only learned that their abuser had been all but absolved after the judge had approved the deal. This is in blatant violation of the Victim Rights Act. One victim’s attorney actually had shown up at court the day the sweetheart deal was certified prepared to serve the billionaire with papers for a civil suit. He was flabbergasted to learn in real time that his client’s criminal case was essentially being thrown out that very same day. Many of his other victims learned about the Epstein’s deal from media reports, but they had been so misled that they assumed it was separate from the ongoing FBI investigation.

They had been aiding and had been aiding at great personal cost that despite the fact that the agreement that Epstein signed effectively put an end to all federal efforts to investigate his crimes. Most cruelly labeling Epstein’s crime as prostitution related effectively implied that the other victims who had come forward were also sex workers rather than simply vulnerable children. Despite all of this Epstein’s disgraceful deal was swiftly put into action. Epstein registered as a sex offender, paid restitution to three dozen victims and served 13 months in the nicest private wing of the county jail, usually reserved for government informants rather than a state prison like any other child sex offender. And this is particularly wild because Florida has some of the country’s toughest sex crime punishments consider a case from earlier this year, an Ohio man whose sole crime was soliciting sexual images from a 14-year-old South Florida girl was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

On top of all this, while Epstein was serving his blink and you’ll miss it jail time, he was granted generous work release privileges and thus spent six days a week working in a nearby fancy office building. That’s even though sex offenders explicitly do not qualify for work release under local law. Epstein paid officers from the Sheriff’s Department undisclosed amounts to act as his personal security guards, and he was allowed to receive male and female guests without screening. This arrangement seems to have further enabled Epstein’s cycle of abuse with two additional victims’ claiming they were coerced into performing sexes in his office during his work release, all while his security staff waited outside after he was released on probation, Epstein was permitted to travel by private jet traipsing from Florida to New York to his private island in the Caribbean where he is known to have regularly abused minors.

Gure says he once joked that girls who didn’t speak English were the easiest to get along with. Importantly, as part of the deal, Epstein and four of his accomplices also received immunity from all federal criminal charges, and so did any potential co-conspirators. A very unusual stipulation, which has understandably done plenty to stoke conspiracies. Most evidence in the case was promptly sealed and redacted. So how on earth did a man credibly accused of assaulting dozens of children get a slap on the wrist? One internal email shows a prosecutor worried that the officer was simply intimidated by Epstein’s lawyers. An attorney for three of the victims agreed saying prosecutors weren’t up for the fight they were afraid. This speaks to the way prosecutors are allowed to exercise enormous discretion when it comes to seeking and setting punishments. Years of research shows how subconscious bias inevitably plays a role in their choices with factors like class and race influencing the outcome, but sometimes their choices aren’t subconscious at all.

Consider a stockbroker, Deborah Kelly, who pled guilty in 2017 for bribing a New York official with a hundred thousand dollars worth of gifts including sex, drugs, trips and concert tickets facing up to five years in prison. Kelly was instead sentenced to home confinement and probation. Why? The judge said she seemed like a good person. As legal scholar Jennifer Taub notes such empathy rarely extends to the burglar or small time drug dealer. The lack of similar concern for poor offenders is astonishing. In Epstein’s case, the leniency provided was less about empathy than pure cowardice in the face of his legal muscle, but the facts remain. If Epstein wasn’t wealthy and white, he would’ve been treated very differently. Of course, just when you think you understand Epstein’s case, there’s always a unique coda. The Harold speculates that Epstein’s plea may have been related to you guessed it, his enormous wealth and network.

Specifically his role as one of Bear Stearns largest investors. He ended up being a crucial witness in the case against the investment bank Bear Stearns for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. The timing on this adds up as Epstein had signed the plea deal just as America was plummeting into a recession. If true, the prosecutors inked the ultimate deal with the devil. All of this makes Epstein really just the most striking example of a truism being rich can offer near total immunity from the justice system. This reality is ingrained in every phase of the justice system. Poor people are more likely to be arrested than wealthy people for the same crime. There are also more likely to be charged for those crimes, more likely to be convicted, more likely to get prison time, and more likely to get longer prison terms than their wealthier counterparts.

We even see it in the treatment of others in Epstein’s orbit. For example, Epstein served less time for his crimes than his former butler. Alfredo Rodriguez served for obstruction of justice charges in the case against Epstein Rodriguez’s crime not giving prosecutors his former boss’s little black book, which supposedly listed his crimes and his associates. He later attempted to sell it to a lawyer for one of Epstein’s victims for $50,000. Shady behavior, of course, as bad as serially trafficking Underage girls, not hardly yet. Rodriguez received an 18 month sentence just like his boss. Unlike his boss, he actually served full sentence or here’s another comparison. One of Epstein’s underage victims who fell into addiction as a means of coping after years of abuse served twice as long in prison as Epstein for drug crimes. And around the same time as Epstein’s case in Tennessee, Santoya Brown ate child survivor of sex trafficking was condemned to life in prison for killing the man she was being trafficked to.

And of course, as I mentioned earlier, a man was sentenced to 30 years for soliciting images from a 14-year-old. On the face of it, Epstein’s cushy treatment looks revolting, but when you compare it to the way our carceral system treated these other people, none of whom can hold a candle to Epstein’s criminality, it really puts into perspective that the rich and powerful live in a different justice system than the rest of us. And so Epstein was allowed to continue to commit his crimes and brought daylight for many more years. While testifying in front of the House oversight Committee, Acosta remarkably stood by his actions in the Jeffrey Epstein case. He said that a billionaire going to jail sends a strong signal to the community that this is not right, that this cannot happen. His registering as a sex offender puts the world on notice. Well, despite the world supposedly being put on notice, Epstein would go on not only to rebuild, but expand his power and influence because his network and friends, they weren’t going anywhere.

He had spent years cultivating a network of wealthy and influential friends. One spreadsheet from 2008 itemized 2000 gifts, luxury items and cash payments, nearly tolling, $2 million. Powerful British politician, Peter Mandelson, who later became the UK ambassador to the us, even urged his Powell Epstein to push for an early release and wrote, I think the world of You and I feel hopeless and furious about what happened months after Epstein’s release, Mandelson helped him cinch a $1 billion banking deal with JP Morgan. Soon Epstein was hobnobbing around New York and comparing his criminal behavior to stealing a bagel because another important aspect of being a wealthy criminal, you can control the narrative. While his lawyers worked hard to clamp down on media coverage of Epstein’s arrest at the time it happened, it was after emerging from prison that the PR campaign to rehabilitate his image began in earnest. He launched websites like Jeffrey Epstein science.com and Jeffrey Epstein education.com and posted photos of himself with Stephen Hawking.

He and his staff paid a number of journalists to call him things like one of the largest backers of cutting edge science while upping his donations to Harvard, which put up a page on their website honoring his philanthropy and sponsored other prestigious science conferences. Famed event planner, Peggy Siegel threw him a party attended by everyone from Katie Cork to George Stephanopoulos. He attended huge movie careers. His contacts continued to span the ranks of the wealthy, influential folks. He scheduled a dinner in 2013 with former Prime Minister of Israel, a Hood Barack and Larry Summers, former treasury secretary and Harvard University president Tech billionaire. Elon Musk was scheduled to visit Epstein’s Island in 2014 while Peter Thiel met with him in 2017 and Steve Bannon had meetings with him in 2019. Now, Epstein’s reputation management also included intimidation when necessary sex, and the city writer, Candace Bushnell tried to interview Epstein about the sexual predator rumors, but was thrown out of his townhouse and threatened until she dropped the story.

As Palm Beach Police Chief Michael re notes journalists start working on the Epstein story only to end up being transferred to the papers real estate department. Virginia Gire gave an interview to a BC, but shortly before its air date, Dershowitz called the network and urged them not to air it. The journalist behind the interview was caught on hot mics, speculating that the role family had also put pressure on A, B, C, not to air the special, which would implicate Prince Andrew in sex crimes so as not to generate negative publicity before William and Kate’s royal wedding. At any rate, the story was killed. As Epstein’s crimes continued, he kept his legal enemies close. The Miami US attorney’s office, chief Criminal Prosecutor, Matthew Mitchell, the man who signed that sweetheart deal, apparently went with Epstein on a ski trip at some point in the two thousands, had meetings and dinners with him in 2011, 2013 and 2017 and after the bombshell Miami Herald story broke about his crimes, Epstein apparently wired $350,000 to two co-conspirators in exchange for their silence.

We all know what eventually happened to Jeffrey Epstein, though the more conspiratorial we’ll continue to debate how he died. It’s fitting that our corrosive system of justice, which sees wealthy criminals as careless millionaires and poor criminals as subhuman never actually forced him to publicly reckon with the enormous extent of his crimes. Though getting true justice for Epstein’s victims is now impossible. Some of the folks who enabled him along the way are facing consequences. More than 40 women sued Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan for facilitating their abuse, settling for 75,000,200 90 million respectively. JP Morgan settled an additional lawsuit accusing a former executive of personal involvement with Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. Now the Bank of New York Mellon is being sued for processing a total of $378 million in payments to the women. Epstein Trafficked Bank of America is also being sued for its alleged complacency in helping Epstein financially manage his criminal network. Jeffrey Epstein is a flashpoint in this cultural moment because his crimes are so galling. But digging into the real weeds of how he got away with so much criminality for such a prolonged period of time really clarifies a lot about the US justice system after Epstein’s absurdly short sentence. Peggy Siegel told the New York Times that he said he served his time and he assured me that he changed his ways and now there’s the director of the FBI Cash Patel. Why don’t we hear him in his own words?

Speaker 2:

Who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic? These young women too, besides himself

Kash Patel:

Himself, there is no credible information. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals and the information we have again is limited.

Speaker 2:

So the answer is no one

Kash Patel:

For the information that we have

Speaker 2:

In the files

Kash Patel:

In the case file. Okay,

Taya Graham:

No other names. That’s what FBI, director Cash Patel told Congress. But if that’s true, then why do so many people tied to Jeffrey Epstein keep turning up dead Epstein’s modeling recruiter and alleged sex criminal. Jean-Luc Brunell was found hanged in a Paris jail cell while awaiting trial. Movie producer Steve Bing fell from his 27th floor LA apartment just weeks after talking with investigators. Clinton advisor, mark Milton was found hanged and shot in Arkansas, and that was officially ruled a suicide. And Deutsche Bank executive Thomas Bowers, who oversaw Epstein’s accounts was also found hanged in his home and it didn’t stop there. Two other outspoken accusers, Carolyn Adriano and another alleged suicide and Lee Sky, Patrick, an alleged accidental overdose. They also died under questionable circumstances. Even Epstein’s last cellmate, Afra Stone. Reyes conveniently died of COVID just weeks after meeting with federal investigators. And now of course, the death of Virginia Giuffre, his most outspoken accuser speaking out even now through her book, her death was also determined to be a suicide, and this is just a few of the nearly 22 suspicious deaths listed by reporters of the enquire.

But if the public record looks like this and the FBI insists, there’s nothing to see. Ask yourself what are they really protecting and why? And considering that Mark Epstein, his brother, believes he was murdered, maybe the question should be, who else are they protecting? On the face of it, Epstein’s cushy treatment looks revolting, but maybe exceptional. But when you compare to the way our carceral system treated those other people, none of whom can hold a candle to Epstein’s criminality, it really puts into perspective that the rich and powerful live in a different system of justice than the rest of us. There’s just one last way that wealthy people are treated differently by the justice system. People without Jeffrey Epstein’s absurdly fat bank account are likely to face homelessness difficulties with employment, mental health issues, and more struggles after being in prison. And I’m not usually one to scream for more incarceration, but this sweetheart deal of the century actually makes me feel ill because it effectively facilitated Epstein’s future abuse of so many more children and his co-conspirators and wealthy fellow predators to evade justice. If you want to commit hideous crimes in America, it seems your best bet is to be hideously wealthy and hideously well connected. We have more billionaires like Epstein in this new Gilded age. Are they going to help the rest of us have nots? Maybe take the reins of government, make it more efficient, beneficial for all Americans as they assert, or will they pillage and rape like robber barons in the oligarchs of old? If Epstein is any indication, it’s the latter.

https://therealnews.com/jeffrey-epstein-how-wealth-protected-americas-worst-child-sex-criminal

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The names of at least 20 prominent people who may be involved in late financier Jeffrey Epstein's crimes are in the closed portion of his files, with no investigation pending, US Congressman Thomas Massie said on Sunday.

"We know they there are at least 20 people in those files. There are politicians, billionaires, movie producers, who are implicated criminally, who have not been investigated," Republican Representative Massie told the ABC broadcaster.

The congressman added that he would not believe these names would ever be released to the public until he saw US President Donald Trump announce investigations into those people.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20251116/undisclosed-epstein-files-contain-names-of-some-20-prominent-people-congressman-1123122697.html

 

IT IS NOT A CRIME TO VISIT A BROTHEL FOR SEX... OR IS IT? WERE THE WOMEN IN THE EPSTEIN'S BROTHEL WILLING PARTICIPANT AND PAID FOR SERVICES, BEYOND BOARD AND TUCKER? 

SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM IN RELEASING THE NAMES?

ANYONE RELEASING THE NAME COULD BE SUED FOR MILLIONS, BUT MORE LIKELY WOULD DISAPPEAR WITHOUT TRACE... WHY?

IT'S NOT THE SEX THAT COULD BE EXPOSED, BUT THE TRANSFER OF SENSITIVE INFORMATION VIA THE EPSTEIN-MOSSAD CONNECTION...

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdeg8z0j2j2o

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is reiterating her calls for the release of all Epstein files, after US President Donald Trump called her a "traitor" and said he no longer supports her. 

Speaking to CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Greene told host Dana Bash that while she still supports the president, she does not agree with his efforts to keep the Epstein files under wraps.

President Trump said Sunday that House Republicans should vote to release the files related to late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — a surprising reversal after previously dissuading the GOP from backing the measure. 

“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” he wrote on Truth Social Sunday evening.

A discharge petition for the House to vote to force the Justice Department to release all additional Epstein files received its final signature on Wednesday.

The House voted on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, authored by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in July.

All House Democrats and Republican reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado signed the petition — much to Trump’s ire. 

 

On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 pages of documents provided by Epstein’s estate.

https://nypost.com/2025/11/16/us-news/trump-says-house-republicans-should-vote-to-release-epstein-files-in-stunning-reversal-nothing-to-hide/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

NANCY O'BRIEN SIMPSON   The Epstein Island of Everyday Capitalist Reality

 

There is a missing thread in the public narrative of the Epstein scandal, one that hovers like a ghost in the archive but rarely enters polite conversation. We have heard about the money, the models, the private jets, the island. We have examined the transactional rot of a man who believed that teenage girls were merely amenities in the portfolio of the powerful. But folded into the corners of this story is a parallel truth: Epstein’s long-standing, mutually beneficial ties to the Israeli political and intelligence sphere—an element American media tiptoes around as if pointing it out is itself an act of sedition.

This is not rumor. It is documented in reporting from The Miami Herald, The New York Times, and former Israeli intelligence officials, including Ari Ben-Menashe, who told multiple outlets that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell worked as intelligence “assets” in the 1980s and 1990s. Even Ehud Barak—former Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister—acknowledged his financial partnership with Epstein, an association he later called “a mistake.” When Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, drowned mysteriously off his yacht in 1991, British investigators uncovered his decades-long work for Mossad. The web was always there. We just preferred not to see it.

Why does this matter?

Because when we strip away the specifics, we find the same psychological architecture that undergirds Israel’s ongoing occupation and siege of Gaza. It is the mindset of a certain tier of global decision-makers—wealthy financiers, political elites, intelligence operatives, and the businessmen who glide between all three worlds—who share an unexamined assumption: that everything they desire is theirs by birthright.

We are told that “sex sells.” Every ad agency knows this. Every political operative knows this. But genocide does not sell, and so it must be narrated. It must be softened, reframed, hidden beneath the euphemism of security and self-defense. It must be sold through moral misdirection.

There is a structural link between the private exploitation of girls and the public devastation of Gaza. Not a conspiracy, but a worldview.

To a certain kind of powerful man, a female body and a piece of land serve the same function: they are resources to be acquired, controlled, and consumed.

Historical Patterns of Elite Entitlement

This attitude has deep roots.
In the late 19th century, King Leopold II of Belgium engineered the genocide of the Congolese people in order to extract rubber and ivory profits—an atrocity that killed an estimated 10 million Africans. Business interests masked as “civilizing missions.” In the early 20th century, American corporations overthrew Latin American governments that threatened fruit or mining profits, giving us the term “banana republic.” Today, U.S. defense contractors earn more from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than from most other foreign engagements; in 2023 alone, the Pentagon approved over $20 billion in weapons sales to Israel.

In each era, human beings became a means to an end.
Bodies were resources.
Land was a resource.
Life was a resource.

The same moral logic that fueled Epstein’s empire fuels the global systems that devastate the powerless.

The Economics of Devaluation

Consider the numbers:

Ecocide: The world’s richest 1% produce more carbon emissions than the poorest two-thirds of humanity combined (Oxfam, 2023).
Perpetual War: The United States has spent over $8 trillion on post-9/11 wars, with defense contractors earning historic profits, while American veterans struggle with homelessness and suicide.
Housing Crisis: In 2024, median rent in major U.S. cities topped $2,000—an all-time high—while corporate landlords like Blackstone and Invitation Homes bought tens of thousands of properties, driving prices up.
For-Profit Medicine: Americans spent $4.5 trillion on healthcare in 2023, yet medical debt remains the No. 1 cause of personal bankruptcy.
Wages: Nearly 45% of American workers earn less than $20 an hour, a wage that cannot support a one-bedroom apartment in most cities.
These statistics are not accidental. They reveal a system designed to extract life from those with the least leverage.

Epstein was not a glitch in the system.
He was the system—stripped of its polite language.

A Structural Mirror

What we see in Epstein’s rise is an x-ray of modern neoliberal power:
A man with no clear talent other than social manipulation becomes a billionaire-level operator, protected by intelligence agencies, bankers, diplomats, and corporate titans. When he is caught, the institutions responsible for justice buckle under the weight of his connections. When he dies—if that is even the correct verb—those same institutions fall silent.

No single nation or ideology owns this corruption. Rather, it is the natural outgrowth of a world economy that prizes extraction over dignity and power over truth. It is a system in which the boundary between capitalist oligarchy and the political-military state becomes porous, and where old-fashioned words like exploitation and domination are brushed aside in favor of cleaner phrases like market efficiency or security priorities.

Thus we arrive at the uncomfortable conclusion:

We are all living on The Epstein Island of Everyday Capitalist Reality—a world where the powerful feed on the weak, where the cost of elite ambition is measured in human suffering, and where the public is asked to swallow the narrative while the private deals take place offshore.

Epstein’s island was small.
The one we inhabit is planetary.

The question is no longer “How did this happen?”
The question is: “How long will we endure a world built this way?”

https://english.pravda.ru/opinion/164928-epstein_capitalist_reality/

 

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         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

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imperial, neo-colonialist policy continued.....

 

Jeffrey Epstein’s Federal Agents for Hire
The most recent Epstein emails disclose ties to DEA, FBI, CIA, and D.A.R.E.

Daniel Boguslaw, Harrison Berger

 

The American Conservative has gained access to more than 20,000 unreleased emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s private Yahoo account. The emails were first leaked to Bloomberg shortly after passwords for Jeffrey Epstein’s email accounts were obtained and published by Deeper States. A slightly modified version of the same set of emails—verified by Bloomberg as authentic—was leaked to the non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets, which provided TAC with access to the files. 

What the most recent cache of emails shows, among other things, is the ease with which elite operators like Epstein routinely hire (or are offered) the services of former federal law enforcement agents and intelligence personnel who maintain close ties to those still employed by the federal government. In addition to purchasing the services of former DOJ officials whose expertise and connections helped secure a sweetheart plea deal, the disclosure also shows that Epstein was able to purchase favor and proximity with officers of the law. 

Epstein himself contracted with a private investigation firm run by two former DEA agents to investigate his victims and aid in his legal defense. More than a decade after his plea deal in 2008, Epstein was still being invited to meet-and-greets through the firm with senior federal law enforcement executives including agents and officials from the FBI, DEA, NYPD, and Secret Service. 

 

In the email tranche, Epstein’s longtime fixer and girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell describes being approached by a former CIA asset for hire. And a DHS official is found in the emails soliciting Epstein for a charitable donation to the “U.S. Custom and Border Patrol Explorer’s Post 5101”, a Boy Scouts affiliate overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. 

Taken together, the new emails offer an insight into the world of special agents for hire, where the deep ties forged between special agents and intelligence officers serving their country are tapped for the benefit of the rich and powerful who can afford services in an elevated lane of justice reserved for those who operate above the law. 

In a July article published in Rolling Stone, multiple FBI sources said that Epstein had hired private investigators to surveil and intimidate FBI agents who were contacted by the West Palm Beach Police Department to investigate Epstein. While the recent tranche does not show further evidence of this allegation, it does shed light on a private firm tied to federal law enforcement surveilling Epstein's accusers. 

 

Dozens of emails in the recent tranche entail Epstein’s communication with private investigators from the private investigation firm Investigative Management Group, founded by the former DEA agents Robert J. Strang and Ann Hayes. A handful of those emails are dated to April 2006, one month prior to Palm Beach police filing a probable cause affidavit for unlawful sex with minors and sexual abuse. 

 In one of the emails, Epstein appears to describe one of his victims to aid in surveillance:

SEE IMAGE....

In another email, a private investigator from Investigative Management describes surveillance of a victim to try to obtain proof that she is partying. 

While Epstein’s messages to his private investigators trail off, luncheon invitations with current and former law enforcement officials from the firm continued up through 2021. Among those event speakers were the former NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill, Secret Service special agent Thomas A. Petro, DEA Special Agent James J. Hunt, NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller, NYC DEA Special Agent in Charge Raymond P. Donovan, the FBI special agent in charge of counterterrorism, Bryan Paarmann, and a former member of the French intelligence service. 

 

In another instance of intelligence connections put up for sale, an email from Ghislaine Maxwell to Epstein details the efforts of one unnamed man to trade off the CIA’s good name. In the email below, Maxwell claims to have met a CIA “operative” who worked with her father Robert Maxwell, a notorious British media magnate and fraudster who was suspected by the British foreign service of being a spy. That “operative,” a term no CIA officer would use, claimed he “could tell, all find all, and reveal all, (for a price)!!” 

As POLITICO reported in the 2010s, the CIA has routinely allowed its employees to moonlight for corporate firms, with hedge funds winning out as the top landing spot. Other agencies including the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence have also endorsed the practice to varying degrees. In 2013, Newsweek reported that the financial benefits of working on Wall Street were so great that the CIA was concerned about the number of officers hemorrhaging to the private sector. 

In another bizarre exchange documented in the latest email tranche, Epstein agreed to pony up $10,000 dollars for a joint DHS/Boy Scouts of America program called U.S. Customs & Border Protection Explorer Post 5101 Saint Thomas (USCBPE). 

According to the back and forth, 

The Virgin Islands Police Department Training Staff and Immigration and Customs Enforcement RAC and Special Agents train “Explorers” in  Accident Scene, Traffic Stop Neighborhood Watch, Bomb Threat, Shoot Drill, Domestic Violence, Forensic, Inspection, Narcotics, Self Defense, White Collar Crime & Arrest Techniques.

“For the past 14 years, the U.S. Customs & Border Protection Explorer Post 5101 Saint Thomas, (USCBPE) has been a youth organization, registered under the Learning for Life, a division of the Boy Scouts of America career education program, that is developed to help young adults build character, enhance leadership, professionalism, and personal development by promoting integrity, accountability, fairness, service, and pride that is useful in selecting a career in law enforcement,” a DHS employee wrote to Epstein as part of solicitation for program funds. “The Instructors and Advisors have joined together to work hand in hand to encourage positive behavior conducive to promoting productive, law abiding citizens amongst our youths in the community. One of our goals is to have the community realize that the programs will also develop a positive relationship between law enforcement and the youths and citizens of this community.”

The CBP Explorers were not the only youth organization seeking donations from Epstein. For years after Epstein inked his plea deal, the disgraced financier was routinely invited to attend the D.A.R.E fundraising gala in New York by the chairmen Robert J. Strang (former FBI/DEA), Howard Safir (NYPD/DEA/USMS), and the D.A.R.E President Frank Pegueros.

Jeffrey Epstein’s affinity for Israel is now well documented. Emails first reported by Drop Site News show how Epstein helped the celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz organize a campaign against the political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt following their paper on the Israel lobby while simultaneously working with Dershowitz to discredit a teenager who accused him of sexual abuse. The Harvard megadonor Les Wexner, a longtime Epstein associate, also participated in the campaign against Walt through the surrogate David Gergen.

In another illustrative email, Ghislaine Maxwell forwards a complaint from a Davos participant objecting to what they call “the single most anti-Semitic, anti-Israel article” printed in the World Economic Forum’s official magazine at the time, Global Agenda.

“woujld he like me to call mort.. ..2 where are you?” replied Epstein. “Mort” is a likely reference to the Canadian-American billionaire and owner of U.S. News and World Report Mort Zuckerman.

The material reviewed by TAC so far does not suggest that Epstein manipulated or directed intelligence services. What it does reveal is that Epstein was a player in a market for private investigators, technology, and connections that is only on offer for the most powerful and well-financed business people.
What remains notable about the Epstein saga is that even now, with thousands of emails available and reporters combing through them, some of the simplest questions about Epstein remain unanswered: how he acquired his wealth, what role he played in the finances of an international suite of billionaires and power players. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and the House Oversight Committee are currently leading an effort in Congress to subpoena the world’s largest banks, many of which Epstein continued to do business with up until the time of his death.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that law enforcement officials were guest speakers at Investigative Management Group events, not hosts.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/jeffrey-epsteins-federal-agents-for-hire/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 The intel scandal behind Prince Andrew’s twisted Epstein exploits

 

KIT KLARENBERG·NOVEMBER 16, 2025

 In an interview with The Grayzone, author Andrew Lownie details shocking findings of his research into Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Describing Andrew as his “Super Bowl trophy,” Epstein used the prince for intel, which he passed to foreign spy agencies.  Lownie says further revelations threaten to “bury” the Royal Family. 

Prince Andrew’s decades-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was “earlier, longer, and far more intimate than anyone has previously admitted,” historian Andrew Lownie told The Grayzone. Their friendship was so depraved that even Epstein, the self-proclaimed “king of kink,” was shocked by the Prince’s sexual appetites, according to Lownie’s new book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York. 

Based on years of research in BBC archives, interviews, and leaked emails, Lownie’s investigation provides a chilling portrait of a man shielded by royal privilege, addicted to sex from childhood, and ultimately undone by his alliance with the world’s most notorious pedophile. The historian reveals that Epstein not only supplied Andrew with a steady stream of underage girls, but also gathered intelligence from the prince, and dutifully passed it along to Mossad and other spy agencies.

“The Prince was a useful idiot who gave Epstein respectability and access to political leaders and business opportunities,” Lownie explained to The Grayzone. “Meanwhile, Epstein offered Andrew an opportunity to join the super rich and enjoy a lifestyle to which he had long aspired, an endless supply of women, a chance to make lots of money, and someone who would bankroll his lavish lifestyle as well as settle Sarah Ferguson’s debts.”

Lownie revealed that Epstein was able to gather a steady flow of sensitive intelligence from Andrew, including potential blackmail material which he could hawk to foreign governments. Epstein’s one-time ‘mentor,’ the serial fraudster Steven Hoffenberg echoed this account, claiming Epstein referred to Andrew as his “Super Bowl trophy.” While the British royal unwittingly spied on Epstein’s behalf, he simultaneously compromised himself, making him into a perfect tool.

For much of his life, Andrew enjoyed an astonishing level of protection and indulgence from his mother, Queen Elizabeth. A former worker interviewed by an Australian outlet divulged that royal staffers were terrified by the prince’s impunity, and largely avoided standing up to his compulsive bullying because “Her Majesty almost always backed him and he fully exploited that.” 

Lownie told The Grayzone Andrew’s explosive tantrums at Buckingham Palace, which reduced some targets to tears, were a “virtually daily” occurrence.

A source close to Andrew revealed to Lownie that the prince began exhibiting unusual sexual tendencies when he was only eight years old. The problem only worsened when Andrew lost his virginity at age 11 after a friend’s father hired two escorts for the boys. Andrew reportedly informed the source that by the time he was 13, he had already slept with over half a dozen girls, leading the source to conclude that the prince had been “a victim of sexual abuse at a very young age.” 

Thanks to Andrew and Epstein, the cycle of abuse allegedly continued with a number of young girls — most notably, Virginia Giuffre. When her allegations against the Prince became public in 2015, a BBC team secretly travelled across the US, reviewing police files, while interviewing the pair’s victims at length. Along the way, they unearthed emails between Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell discussing Giuffre.

The emails offer no indication either were unaware of Giuffre, or any sense her allegations were bogus. Lownie says the BBC team’s lead investigator told him, “instead Andrew and Maxwell worked together to build a dossier about Virginia [Giuffre] to leak to the media.” In other words, the pair colluded to smear one of their victims in the court of public opinion, before legal action could be initiated. When a suit was finally initiated on her behalf, Andrew paid out handsomely rather than face scrutiny.

Lownie believes full disclosure of Andrew’s involvement with Epstein could permanently sink the House of Windsor. A former Buckingham Palace staffer told him, “they’d never be able to bounce back from it,” as the resultant scandal “would bury them for good.” Lownie’s source cautioned, “if the unconditional truth is ever released, the British public would try to impeach the Royal Family — after all, many of Andrew’s wrongdoings were done on the British taxpayer’s tab.”

Andrew’s sexual depravity shocks even Epstein

Canadian journalist Ian Halperin was the only reporter to interview Epstein at length before the financier’s death. He provided Lownie with exclusive access to his records. They show Epstein was surprisingly candid about his predilection for underage girls, to the extent of openly arguing pedophilia should be decriminalized. Along the way, the pedophile offered a number of explosive revelations about Andrew, who he described as his “closest friend in the world.”

In one email, Epstein insisted he and Andrew were “very similar,” as they were “both serial sex addicts” who’d even “shared the same women.” Andrew was “the only person I have met who is more obsessed with pussy than me,” he attested. Based on “reports” Epstein received from their mutual sexual conquests, Andrew was “the most perverted animal in the bedroom,” he wrote. Epstein expressed awe at the degeneracy of Andrew, who he said possessed “the dirtiest mind I’ve ever seen,” concluding: “He likes to engage in stuff that’s even kinky to me – and I’m the king of kink!” 

Lownie also provides evidence that the depraved duo crossed paths far earlier than is claimed by Andrew. According to a statement by the prince after Epstein’s death, he insisted they met in 1999 and subsequently saw each other “probably no more than only once or twice a year.” In reality, Andrew’s private secretary places the start of their friendship in “the early 1990s,” Lownie explained. Flight logs from Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the Lolita Express, reveal that Andrew’s occasional partner, Sarah Ferguson, travelled on the aircraft with her children as early as April 1998.

By 2000, the royal had become a fixture at elite Stateside social events hosted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the publishing heiress who met Andrew during the 1980sat Oxford University. As their friendship developed, Andrew and Ferguson often stayed at Epstein’s palatial New York and Florida homes.

These trips have largely been concealed from the public, which is perhaps understandable given the purpose of his visits.

“Whenever Andrew was in town, I’d be picking up young girls who were essentially prostitutes,” Epstein’s personal driver, Ivan Novikov, recalled to Lownie. “One time I drove him and two young girls around 18 to the Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking District. Both girls were doing lines of cocaine. Prince Andrew was making out with one of them.”

All the while, Epstein and Maxwell were insinuating themselves into the top echelons of the British aristocracy. According to one now-deleted British media report, Andrew invited Epstein and Maxwell to attend events at Windsor Castle and Sandringham in 2001, including Queen Elizabeth II’s 74th birthday that August. The article, which has since been scrubbed from London’s Evening Standard website, quoted a friend of Ferguson’s as saying Andrew’s lewdness was so undisguised that he “travels abroad with his own massage mattress.” According to the Evening Standard, the “very manipulative” Maxwell introduced Andrew to a “sex aid entrepreneur” at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. 

The same piece described Andrew traveling around Phuket, Thailand with Maxwell, frequenting “sex bars in the area’s red light district”, and visiting Los Angeles with his friend and “self-confessed drug dealer” Brett Livingstone-Strong. During this time, Andrew was apparently so infatuated with Epstein and his clique that he opted to stay at the pedophile’s Miami beach mansion rather than attend his daughter Eugenie’s 12th birthday party at Disneyland Paris, Lownie reveals.

Andrew’s fall from grace 

In May 2007, Epstein began negotiating an unusually lenient plea deal with Florida authorities after local police uncovered a trove of evidence implicating the financier in a national sex trafficking conspiracy. Finally, English-language media began scrutinizing the potentially pedophilic implications of the financier’s bond with Prince Andrew for the first time. Another since-deleted Evening Standard report on their friendship noted Epstein’s Florida mansion was filled with pictures of nude girls, with two cameras found hidden in clocks. 

The net significantly tightened in December 2014, when lawyers filed court papers in Florida alleging Andrew was one of several prominent figures who’d raped Virginia Giuffre at Epstein’s arrangement. The pair purportedly had sex in London, New York, and on Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James. In the latter case, Giuffre claimed to have been involved in a “disgusting” orgy with Andrew, Epstein, and multiple girls who “all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18.”

The filings also alleged Andrew had lobbied on Epstein’s behalf after his arrest, working to ensure he received a light sentence. Epstein repaid the favor by clearing Sarah Ferguson’s substantial debts. British media reacted with shock: “Prince Andrew may have been secretly filmed with underage girl he is alleged to have abused,” blared one mainstream headline. That day, a seemingly frantic Andrew emailed Maxwell: “Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts.”

Buckingham Palace issued a firm denial, stating “any suggestion of impropriety” by Andrew “with underage minors is categorically untrue,” and that he “emphatically denied the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts.” Until Epstein’s death, the British media seemingly accepted the royal line. But Andrew’s now-notorious November 2019 Newsnight interview revived public suspicions, and ignited a new wave of scrutiny.

Over the course of an hour-long grilling, the Prince offered a series of preposterous excuses for his friendship with Epstein, while failing to credibly explain his time with Giuffre. For example, he claimed her account of him sweating profusely while they danced together at a London night club couldn’t be true, as he was unable to sweat at all because he suffered a scientifically implausible “adrenaline overdose” during the Falklands war.

Next, Andrew attempted to justify a four-day December 2010 visit to Epstein in New York, during which paparazzi documented a young woman leaving his town house, and a friendly walk he enjoyed with the prince through Central Park. (The tweet below incorrectly dates the footage from 2011; it was filmed on December 6, 2010).

In his Newsnight interview, Andrew claimed he initiated the meeting to break off ties with the financier following his conviction for sex trafficking offenses. He insisted that he felt the need to end their connection in person, due to his “tendency to be too honourable,” but struggled to explain why this necessitated a four-night-long stay, replete with a dinner party in his personal honor.

The prince claimed he opted to stay at Epstein’s mansion as “it was… convenient”  — apparently overlooking the British consulate and numerous upmarket hotels which could have provided an alternative to staying with a convicted sex offender.

 

Furor over Andrew’s performance erupted as soon as the interview was broadcast, with one royal observer dubbing it, “nuclear explosion level bad.” Yet the Prince was initially satisfied with his public self-immolation. The Guardian reported at the time that Andrew “was so pleased with how things had gone that he gave the Newsnight team a tour of the palace afterwards.”

Andrew’s British state protection crumbles

Days after the disastrous interview, Andrew’s ex-girlfriend disputed his account of the 2010 visit with Epstein, stating that the prince’s main purpose was to determine whether the financier had “any dirt on him.” The pair reportedly also discussed securing $200 million funding for mysterious energy company Aria Petroleum, prompting Epstein to inform close contacts at JP Morgan that the prince sought to represent the interests of a Chinese commercial entity.

From this point on, Andrew withdrew from public life. Under pressure from British Army apparatchiks, he was stripped of his military awards and decorations. Charities distanced themselves from the royal, while polls indicated a majority of Britons believed he should be extradited to the US to face questioning. In May 2020, Andrew permanently resigned all his public roles over his Epstein connections. In the meantime, pressure began building in the US for the Prince to speak to Giuffre’s lawyers and federal investigators.

In his Newsnight interview and subsequent official statements, Andrew claimed he was happy to assist with any investigation into Epstein’s abuse. But the American prosecutor who led investigations into the financier and his associates in New York, Geoffrey Berman, reported he was repeatedly stonewalled by Buckingham Palace. Contacting royal lawyers was difficult enough in the first place, he said, and he described their communications as having quickly devolved into an never-ending series of questions.

“What kind of an interview will it be? Are there any protections? Is there this? Is there that? And where do you want it to take place?” Berman recalled. “It was an endless email exchange, and it was clear we were getting the run-around. He was not going to sit down for an interview with us.” Finally, Berman asked the State Department to dispatch a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) request to British police, demanding an interview with the prince.

US prosecutors “almost always got what we asked when we put in an MLAT request,” Berman recalled. “But that was not what happened with Prince Andrew. We got absolutely nowhere. Were they protecting him? I assume someone was.”

Andrew’s state-level protections began to dissolve, however, after a December 2020investigation by the Daily Mail into Giuffre’s claim that Andrew had sex with her when she was just 17. His alibis for the dates in question had been incinerated.

In August 2021, Giuffre’s lawyers filed suit against Andrew in a US court for “sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” The action raised the prospect of Andrew giving sworn testimony proving his inability to sweat on the witness stand. Members of the Royal Family, including Ferguson and their daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, also faced the threat of grilling under oath. Rather than go to court, the House of Windsor settled for as much as $16.3 million.

Andrew Prince no more as scandals proliferate

For the first time, Buckingham Palace began to firmly distance itself from Andrew. As Lownie recorded, the media was informed that the Queen would no longer bankroll his legal fees. After a lifetime of protecting her son from the consequences of his excesses, fear of further damaging admissions may have motivated the monarch’s decision. 

Those fears were well-founded, as Lownie revealed that Andrew emailed Epstein in February 2011, months after claiming to have cut off all contact with the financier following their four day 2010 ‘farewell’ summit in New York.

In that email, Andrew promised to “keep in close touch,” stating, “we are in this together and will have to rise above it,” and promising, “we’ll play some more soon!!!” That same year, Sarah Ferguson expressed her affinity and gratitude to Epstein in a separate covert email exchange. Sources suggested to Lownie that Epstein had supplied her with hundreds of thousands of dollars, far in excess of the £15,000 she claims to have received from the serial sex abuser.

In a 2011 interview, Ferguson said “having anything to do” with Epstein had been a “gigantic error of judgment” on her part. She added, “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children…what he did was wrong and…he was rightly jailed.” Shortly after though, she contacted Epstein claiming she “did not, absolutely not, say the ‘P word’ about you.” Ferguson apologised for letting him down, stating “you have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”

This October 30, as furor over Epstein’s activities engulfed the Trump administration, Buckingham Palace issued a shock declaration. Prince Andrew will be stripped of his titles, honors, and stately home, and now simply be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – in effect excommunicated from the British Royal Family for life. While no formal explanation for the unprecedented move was provided, it was clear they were determined to cleanse Epstein’s stain from their house.

“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the royal statement read. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

But Andrew’s erasure from the spotlight, termination of his assorted patronages and curtailment of public duties may have come too late. After years of alternating between silence over his sexual abuse or flatly denying the allegations, Buckingham Palace faces the threat of further disclosures. As Lownie makes clear in his newly released book, Entitled, new details of the prince’s perversions could discredit the royal family for good

https://thegrayzone.com/2025/11/16/prince-andrews-epstein-buckingham-palace/

 

 

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When a Duchess threatens to detonate: Australia braces for the Fergie files

By Vince Hooper

 

When the former Duchess of York hints at going nuclear, even Buckingham Palace braces for a royal-level scandal with global blast radius, writes Vince Hooper.

AUSTRALIA HAS WEATHERED many royal curiosities: monarchs who won’t visit, governors-general who occasionally overreach and the lingering national trauma of Charles III’s pen-leaking meltdown.

But nothing – absolutely nothing – has prepared us for Sarah Ferguson’s latest gambit: the implicit threat that she might, at any moment, go rogue and tell all.

This is not merely a royal wobble. It’s a Duchess-Level Event, the kind of destabilisation that forces Buckingham Palace to activate the Fergie Containment Unit — an elite squad armed with NDAs, chamomile tea, a chequebook and a stack of her previous autobiographies ready for tactical pulp fiction distraction.

(The Fergie Memoir Cinematic Universe now has more instalments than The Crown has historically inaccurate subplots.)

Because Fergie, in her indefatigable entrepreneurial spirit, has never met a scandal she couldn’t monetise. Weight-loss programmes? Tick. Lifestyle brand? Tick. Pay-for-access sting? Tick — with gusto.

Australians should brace for her next innovation: FergieLeaks, the world’s first subscription-based royal whistle-blowing platform, where grievances drop weekly like a prestige drama.

And now the former Duchess has signalled – softly, dramatically, like a Bond villain who’s recently discovered mindfulness – that she could reveal the truth about the Royal Family. The whole truth. A full-spectrum detonation of duchess-grade intelligence.

Naturally, this raises unsettling questions.

What exactly does she know?

• That King Charles occasionally experiments with Darjeeling?
• That Princess Anne once muttered “Oh, for heaven’s sake” at a corgi?
• That certain royals’ understanding of consequences remain largely theoretical?
• Or – far more likely – that Fergie believes humanity is spiritually and commercially craving another 900-page memoir about her heroic struggle to be placed slightly off-centre in official photos.

What juicy scandal remains untapped?

Even Prince William reportedly took the news in the traditional Cambridge manner: a brief tightening of the jaw, followed by staring stoically into middle distance.

Queen Camilla, meanwhile, is said to have responded with her trademark raised eyebrow — an expression roughly translating to: “Do I look like I care?”

Australia, normally distracted by its own constitutional vaudeville, may not appreciate the magnitude of this threat. Monarchists are quietly praying. Republicans are drafting referendum questions. Sky News Australia has already scheduled an eight-person panel titled Fergie Unfiltered: Threat or Menace?

In London, MI5 has allegedly created a ginger colour-coded Fergie Threat Index, ranging from Minor Nuisance to Full Oprah. The current setting: Ceremonial Chaos.

Let's not pretend Fergie’s intentions are subtle. This entire “don’t push me or I’ll reveal all” routine carries the unmistakable scent of a Netflix pitch. One imagines her proposing:
“The Crown: The Fergie Cut — eight episodes, all about me, with optional interpretive dance.”

Palace insiders report that, given cost-cutting measures, the official royal crisis-response plan now consists of one lukewarm cup of herbal tea and a polite request for Sarah to reconsider. Historians may one day call this The Great Duchess Gambit — the only instance of a royal threatening detonation while wearing a fascinator.

The royal corgis, seasoned veterans of palace turbulence, have apparently been briefed to brace for impact. They have survived worse — namely, former Prince Andrew attempting small talk.

As for the King, officials fear that if Fergie truly detonates, His Majesty may need immediate relocation to one of his organic gardens. Secure pen-handling protocols may also be reintroduced.

Meanwhile, the tabloids are preparing special supplements titled “Everything We Already Knew But Will Pretend Is New”.

And here in Australia, the republic debate has found new life. Should Fergie unleash her truth bombs, Australians may finally unite behind one of two options: become a republic, or appoint her Governor-General just to keep the entertainment flowing.

In the end, we can only watch. We can only wait. Because when Sarah Ferguson threatens to tell all, one thing is certain: it will be long, it will be eccentric and it will absolutely be serialised in The Daily Mail.

God save the King.

And God help the editors because nothing will save Andrew Windsor Mountbatten.

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/when-a-duchess-threatens-to-detonate-australia-braces-for-the-fergie-files,20441

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.