If President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice wants to talk to someone in prison for sexual offenses who may have information about Jeffrey Epstein and his links to well-known men, it should talk to Harvey Weinstein, according to the reporter whose work led to Epstein’s final arrest.
“Why don't they talk to Harvey?” Julie K. Brown said. “Harvey might know something, too.”
Brown was speaking to The Court of History podcast, as controversy continued to rage over a jailhouse interview between Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, formerly Trump’s personal lawyer, and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s sometime girlfriend, who was convicted in 2021 of offenses including sex trafficking of underage girls.
Epstein, a financier and convicted sex offender, killed himself in federal custody in 2019.
His links to Trump are at the center of an ongoing scandal, ignited last month when Trump’s Justice Department said it would not fulfill his campaign promise to release the so-called Epstein files, lists of prominent men believed to have been closely connected to Epstein.
That announcement triggered fury among Trump’s supporters and a torrent of reporting and speculation about why Trump would block the files’ release.
Trump vehemently denies all wrongdoing, but the Wall Street Journal and other outlets have reported on his long friendship with Epstein.
The Journal also revealed that Pam Bondi, the attorney general, told Trump his name was in the Epstein files in May, before the administration decided not to release them.
In a highly unusual and controversial move, Blanche interviewed Maxwell at a jail in Florida last week.
This week, Maxwell was moved from a Florida jail to a lower-security facility in Texas amid reports she seeks a pardon or clemency in return for helping the Trump administration.
Brown’s work for the Miami Herald led to Epstein’s 2019 arrest on charges of sex-trafficking minors, after Brown exposed how, in the mid-2000s, Epstein gained a sweetheart deal from Florida prosecutors regarding similar charges.
Brown’s reporting led to the resignation of Alex Acosta, Trump’s first labor secretary, who gave Epstein the deal. Such work won awards, and in 2021 Brown published Perversion of Justice, a book about the Epstein case.
Speaking to Court of History hosts Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer, and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, Brown discussed links between Epstein and Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul convicted of sexual assault and now in jail in New York.
Weinstein “was also on the message pads the Palm Beach Police Department [took from Epstein’s] home at the time … he was first arrested,” Brown said. “These were the old-fashioned pink message pads, where somebody called, you write their name and why they're calling … you tear it off, but there was a copy right underneath. So they got these books of message pads.
"Harvey Weinstein was one of those people that called [Epstein]. Trump called him. There were a lot of names of people who would call him. Now, of course, it didn't say what they wanted. Just said, you know, ‘Trump called’ or ‘Harvey called.’
“That raises another question. Why don't they talk to Harvey? Harvey might know something too.”
Blumenthal asked Brown: “Do you think Harvey Weinstein should be called as a witness … or approached by Todd Blanche and the Justice Department?”
Referring to doubts over the veracity or value of interviews with Maxwell, who has also been subpoenaed by Congress, Brown said: “I mean, [Weinstein is] a sex predator himself. So again, [it would be] the same laundry, involving someone who, are they talking because they're really being honest or because they want some kind of a deal?
“So I think you have the same credibility issue [as with Maxwell] with him, although I feel like … he might be able to provide information from a different vantage point, because he might not have been part of this Epstein sex trafficking operation, but maybe saw things.”
That said, Brown added, “I just don't think that anyone wants those names to get out, of the men who were very powerful and wealthy who … participated in sex with these girls and young women … I think they're very powerful people, and I don't think that even Trump wants those names to get out.”