All posts tagged "jeffrey epstein"

MAGA billionaire's secret society list looks a lot like Epstein files: columnist

A recently leaked list of the members of a MAGA billionaire's secret society looks a lot like the Epstein files, one columnist warned.

Wired published a list of more than 200 of the world's elite who are part of a secret society, Dialog, run by tech billionaire Peter Thiel. A list of events at a retreat for the group included sessions on "Navigating WWIII" and "How's Your Sex Life?" Wired reported.

However, progressive writers Wajahat Ali and Danielle Moddie said in a recent episode of "The Left Hook" podcast that they were more freaked out by how names from the secret society had connections to Jeffrey Epstein or appeared in the Epstein files.

"When you look at the list, all you have to do is then like cross-reference it with people in the Epstein files," Moddie said. "Looking at it and reading it, I was just like, 'Of course.'"

Ali pointed out that Peter Attia, the physician and longevity expert, is listed as part of Thiel's secret society, adding that Attia allegedly "did horrible things with Jeffrey Epstein." He also called out author Jonathan Haidt and venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale as being in both Thiel's secret society and the Epstein files.

On top of that, Epstein himself was invited to the 2014 Dialog retreat, Wired reported, and Thiel is also named in the Epstein files as he exchanged emails with the sex criminal until early 2019. "It's all a big club, and you ain't in it," Ali said. He and Moddie also noted how the Epstein files and Thiel's secret society list are both "bipartisan."

Moddie said it's proof "these people have no problem with each other," while Ali called both lists proof of "the Epstein class and how the world's worst people all know each other."

"Dialog": A Secret Society of Bond Supervillains Who Are Part of the Epstein Class and Intent on Destroying the World by THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali

Techno-fascist friend of Epstein, Peter Thiel, has assembled a bipartisan club of elite influencers and CEOs from around the world to strategize world domination.

Read on Substack

Epstein bomb drops on 'Real Housewives' as Carole Radziwill grilled over Maxwell ties

"Real Housewives of New York City" cast members clashed after Sai De Silva called out Carole Radziwill for her connection to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, TMZ reported on Wednesday.

Radziwill, who returned to the show after years off-camera, was reportedly questioned during filming by De Silva after her name was in the Epstein files, according to TMZ. Maxwell was also the photographer for Radziwill's photo on her 2005 memoir "What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love."

"Our sources tell us Sai and Carole beefed throughout the season … after Sai decided to grill Carole about the Epstein Files … telling people she felt the need to speak up because she has children," TMZ reported.

Carole Radziwill is a former ABC News producer and author turned reality television star. She married Anthony Radziwill, the son of Polish prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł and Lee Radziwill. He died after a battle with cancer in 1999, just weeks after his cousin and best friend John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy died, according to The New York Times.

Her name appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, and she has acknowledged knowing Ghislaine Maxwell in social circles. She described the moment she learned of Maxwell's crimes.

"Imagine knowing someone and even being friendly with them and then they turn out to be, like, a monster," Radziwill told The Times in May.

Prison staff at Ghislaine Maxwell's facility evade questions during lawmaker visit: report

The officials running Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell's prison dodge questioning from visiting congressional staff, according to reporting by Politico.

Maxwell transferred from a prison in Florida to the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas. Politico noted that Democrats have wondered whether her transfer to a "cushier" facility was part of a deal to keep her quiet about Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Whistleblowers have alleged that officials running the Texas prison have gone out of their way to make Maxwell's life easier behind bars, and staff for the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees paid a visit to the facility on Tuesday to find out.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking members of the two committees, said in a statement that their staff was there for "answers about Ms. Maxwell's unprecedented transfer and VIP treatment," Politico reported.

However, during the three-hour visit, congressional staff weren't able to gather much from the warden or facility staff. The warden argued that Maxwell wasn't really given special treatment, according to Politico.

"The lawmakers added that they received little in the way of new details," Politico reported, adding that those lawmakers "doubted the truthfulness of the information that they did receive."

"Bureau of Prisons leadership repeatedly shut down our lines of questioning or could not provide basic information about our central concerns, including Ms. Maxwell's extraordinary treatment, allegations of sexual assault at the facility, and retaliation against inmates who tried to blow the whistle," Raskin and Garcia said in their statement, per Politico.

Raskin and Garcia also promised to investigate Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's "role in ensuring Ms. Maxwell remains comfortable and quiet."

Ghislaine Maxwell forms 'highly secretive' prison crew as rumors swirl behind bars: report

Ghislaine Maxwell has reportedly assembled a "highly secretive" prison group behind bars as more details behind her incarceration at a minimum security facility have been revealed, The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.

The former partner and co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein has befriended three women and allegedly sees them as the "finest and best educated" among the population at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, according to The Mail. These friends include Bethany Cataldi, 54, "a disgraced doctor serving eight years for charging the government for non-existent procedures." Another is former CFO Antonietta Nguyen, 58, "who plundered $9 million from company funds to splurge on purses and luxury vacations."

Maxwell's reported best friend is Jennifer Bengston Cook, 58, a former bookkeeper who "wrote checks worth $1.6 million to herself."

"They are highly secretive. They whisper to one another and cover their mouths so nobody can understand what they are saying," a source told The Mail.

There are also reports of special privileges for Maxwell behind bars, including the decision over who she bunks with at the location. She has also only had one roommate, while most other prisoners have to bunk with two other people.

"The cozy arrangement caused a stink because it's normally up to prison counsellors to decide who sleeps where inside the 37-acre compound that accommodates 635 women," The Mail reported.

One source told The Mail the former socialite has sway inside the prison.

"Max had a different bunkie to begin with but as soon as that girl was released, Jennifer took her place," a source told The Mail.

"If the rumors are to be believed, Max picked her because they are so close. Nobody else gets to choose who they live with," the source explained. "It's typical of the sort of special treatment she enjoys."

Epstein survivors hit Trump with a birthday gift he won't want to open

Jeffrey Epstein survivors are marking Trump's 80th birthday with a pointed gesture that he will not want to see.

Marina Lacerda and Andrea Sterling called out Trump's ties to Epstein as his 80th birthday present in a recent interview with journalist Aaron Parnas.

The two women walked Parnas through a space filled with the voluminous Epstein files known as the Jeffrey Epstein Reading Room. Lacerda said that part of Trump's birthday present is calling attention to what she renamed "The Trump Epstein Reading Room."

"He wants his name everywhere. His name is here. This is his birthday present," Lacerda told Parnas. "What better present can we give the president of the United States right now than what we have here?"

In addition to the new name for the reading room, the two survivors said that their sardonic gift for the president will also be to continue "to fight and give awareness" about Jeffrey Epstein, and push for Congress to release more from the Epstein files.

'Damning' omission in NYT's massive Epstein report flagged by journalist

A veteran national security blogger is calling foul on the New York Times' latest sprawling Epstein dive over one curious omission.

The name "Melania" does not appear anywhere in Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's roughly 8,000-word piece detailing the White House's panicked response to the Epstein files, longtime legal commentator Marcy Wheeler pointed out on her Emptywheel blog on Thursday.

Wheeler argued the absence was "especially damning" because Haberman herself co-wrote a July 2019 NYT story noting that Epstein had bragged since Trump's election that he was the one who introduced the future president to his third wife. The 2019 piece, co-bylined by Annie Karni and Haberman, plainly mentioned Epstein's claim.

"Instead, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan give us t---, a bulls-- claim that the White House was panicked about the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files primarily because a woman had claimed Trump abused a girl’s nipples until they hurt," wrote Wheeler.

The Melania question has since become a legal battle.

Earlier this year, an FBI document from a 2019 witness interview stated that "Epstein introduced Melania Trump to Donald Trump," an accusation Melania aggressively pushed back against, insisting in an April news conference that she met Trump "by chance" at a 1998 party. The first lady has threatened multi-billion-dollar defamation suits against journalists and authors who repeat the Epstein connection, including biographer Michael Wolff and Hunter Biden.

Wheeler argued The Times piece pursued other detail-rich angles, such as a passage on the strategy of having acting Attorney General Todd Blanche interview Ghislaine Maxwell, while leaving the explosive personal Trump-Epstein link untouched.

"With Maggie especially, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether she is deliberately crafting her narrative in service to clients, or whether she is just easily snookered by her sources," Wheeler railed.

WSJ exposes one detail Trump 'cannot' dispute about bawdy Epstein letter

The Wall Street Journal is arguing that one detail matches its reporting about President Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

In a new legal filing, lawyers for Dow Jones, the company that owns the Wall Street Journal, argued that Trump "cannot" dispute that a signature appearing on a typewritten note and a sketch of a naked woman sent to Epstein resembles his own.

Trump sued the Wall Street Journal over an article about a book of letters compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. He alleged that the paper defamed him by noting that the letter and sketch bear his signature.

Earlier this year, a court accepted the Journal's motion to dismiss because Trump couldn't prove actual malice in the article. Trump was able to revive a defamation claim, but Dow Jones's lawyers are again seeking to dismiss Trump's lawsuit in their new legal filing.

The defense lawyers are telling the court to throw out Trump's lawsuit because "the article is true." After the Journal reviewed the letter and sketch with Trump's signature, Epstein's estate released the "Birthday Book" to the House Oversight Committee in September.

"The article is true because the description of the letter 'bearing Trump's name' in the article is an entirely accurate description of the letter as it appears in the Birthday Book," the filing read.

"The article states that the Journal 'reviewed' the letter before publication and described its contents in detail (which exactly match the contents of the letter released by Congress)," the legal filing argued, adding that Trump doesn't even dispute the resemblance of his signature to the one in the birthday book "because he cannot."

Jaws drop as new Trump admin Epstein details go public: 'Sheer panic'

The internet was stunned on Wednesday after explosive reporting from two New York Times reporters revealed how the Trump administration panicked as the Justice Department released the Epstein files.

In an excerpt from the upcoming book from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the reporters detailed what happened behind-the-scenes as former Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly infuriated the Trump team over meeting with right-wing influencers about the Epstein files, while Chief of Staff Susie Wiles believed that the Jeffrey Epstein controversy would eventually pass.

The reporting also revealed that Vice President JD Vance convened an urgent Situation Room meeting to address the unfolding crisis after the DOJ denied there was an Epstein client list — infuriating MAGA — and told top administration officials, "This is a huge problem."

Public figures and media experts reacted to the revelations.

"Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report that sheer panic over sordid facts surrounding the conduct of both Donald and Melania Trump have left the White House in a state of complete panic for over half a year. Suppressing the files and diverting attention from them led to commencement of a war," Scott Horton, Harper's Magazine contributing editor and lecturer at Columbia Law School, wrote on Bluesky.

"DOJ had already closed the Epstein file. No client list. Death ruled suicide. The Situation Room meeting wasn't about accountability. It was about stopping a MAGA civil war before the WSJ published a birthday letter Trump had been trying to bury. The performance of transparency. Not the thing itself," political commentator and Substack writer Mike Young, who has more than 15,000 followers, wrote on X.

"BIG excerpt out from new @maggieNYT and @jonathanvswan book 'Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump'...apparently WH staff were terrified about the release of a document alleging Trump had a 'predilection for nipples' and abused those of an Epstein victim," Tommy Vietor, co-host of Pod Save America and former spokesperson for President Barack Obama and the National Security Council, wrote on X.

"A must read by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan," actress and activist Mia Farrow wrote on X.

Eyebrows rise as Bill Gates taps controversial lawyer to advise on Epstein deposition

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has turned to an unlikely person to help advise him as he prepares to testify about his relationship with late financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a report from The New York Times on Tuesday.

Gates was slated to speak to the House Oversight Committee in private on Wednesday, and The Times reported that he has tapped Jake Greenberg, the former top investigative counsel to the Committee, to help him in the wake of the release of the Epstein file. The fallout has affected his Gates Foundation amid questions about the nature of his relationship with Epstein, two sources affiliated with the organization told The Times.

"In preparing for the deposition, Mr. Gates has turned to Jake Greenberg, who until December was spearheading the oversight panel’s Epstein inquiry in his role as the committee’s top investigative official," according to The Times. "The people who disclosed his involvement insisted on anonymity to discuss Mr. Greenberg’s previously undisclosed function."

"The arrangement, while not uncommon, raised eyebrows among government ethics experts who said it could create questionable optics for the deposition in a high-profile investigation," The Times reported.

Greenberg had served as general counsel and chief investigations counsel for the House Oversight Committee until December 2025. He had previously led an investigation into the mental acuity of former President Joe Biden and had led depositions of Annie Tomasini, Biden's former senior advisor, and Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden's former White House press secretary. He was also working with the committee when it deposed William P. Barr, former attorney general, in the Epstein investigation.

After leaving his job, he joined DLA Piper, a law firm that advertises its experience in congressional oversight and has received praise from House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY), which is displayed on the group's website.

"In his previous role, Mr. Greenberg was often one of the most direct and aggressive questioners of witnesses whom the Republican majority called in to testify in their investigations — experience that could help him prepare Mr. Gates for the kinds of questions he might face on Wednesday," according to The Times.

Democrats have said they plan to push Gates to answer questions during the closed-door hearing.

"We need accountability for those in power and answers for survivors," Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) told The Times. "No one — regardless of power, political party or wealth — is above justice."

Todd Blanche's Senate confirmation fight may expose Epstein coverup: expert

President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche, and his upcoming Senate confirmation hearing could reveal more about his efforts to conceal the Epstein files and backfire on his nomination, a former White House insider explained on Monday.

Bill Kristol, the editor at large for The Bulwark and a former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, described how senators who will vote to confirm Blanche as the nation's next top law enforcement official will ultimately have to face off over Jeffrey Epstein and Blanche's role in the cover-up.

"There are many, many Republican lawyers in America," Kristol wrote. "Many, sadly, are also pro-Trump. But it is Todd Blanche who has been selected by the president to be attorney general of the United States. He has this distinction: He is the prime orchestrator and key executor of the Trump administration’s Jeffrey Epstein coverup."

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi testified to the House Oversight Committee on May 29, saying Blanche “supervised [the] entire process” of overseeing the Epstein files.

"He was leading the Epstein matter and the release of everything from the beginning," Bondi said in her testimony.

Questions have surrounded Blanche and his visit to Epstein co-conspirator and former partner to the late financier, Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell has been pushing for clemency as a condition of her testimony to Congress.

"Blanche has also been the most visible public defender of the coverup, and of the decision not to investigate or prosecute anyone else for crimes," Kristol wrote.

After the files were released, no follow-up investigations have been underway.

"But thanks to Trump’s nomination of Blanche, there is a chance to force a real public debate, with real Senate votes, on the Epstein coverup," Kristol explains.

"That is not what Blanche wants. In early April, shortly after becoming acting attorney general, Blanche told Fox News, 'And so I think that to the extent that the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward,'" Kristol wrote.

And that doesn't mean senators will not question him about it.

"But the Epstein coverup should be part, a key part, of one thing going forward: It should be a key part of the upcoming debate on Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general," Kristol wrote. "The Blanche confirmation fight can bring the Epstein coverup back into the spotlight this summer. His nomination can be turned into a referendum on the coverup by the Trump administration, and by the entire political class, of Epstein and his co-conspirators and clients."

"The vote on Blanche can become, it should become, a vote on Epstein," Kristol further added.