Two years ago today, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in New York. Many people remain unconvinced by the coroner’s suicide ruling. To this day, there remain questions about the circumstances surrounding his death.
The guards on duty the night Epstein died were supposed to check inmates twice an hour. But footage shows them at their desks, browsing the Internet, and sleeping for more than two hours of their shifts. npr.org/2021/05/22/999…
The surveillance footage taken from outside Jeffrey Epstein's jail cell on the day of his first apparent suicide attempt was accidentally destroyed, allegedly due to “clerical error.” nbcnews.com/news/us-news/s…
Jeffrey Epstein had been taken off suicide watch at the request of his attorneys 12 days before his death. nytimes.com/2019/08/10/nyr…
With Ghislaine Maxwell now standing in Epstein’s shoes in many ways in her own jail cell in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, more than one of my sources has expressed the sentiment that there is risk for Ghislaine’s safety if she talks.
David Boies—lawyer to Virginia Giuffre—told me, “I think there is a danger that some of the rich + powerful figures she might identify could seek to do her harm. I do think that she would be safer w/ a plea deal than she would be just living out the next decade or two in prison.”
With sources saying that continuing to hide Jeffrey’s secrets is the safest strategy for Ghislaine, only time will tell what she’ll do at her upcoming trial in November…
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The Epstein/Maxwell story has, in a sense, always boiled down to Prince Andrew & Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Very few people outside of Palm Beach had heard of Epstein before that infamous photo—taken in March 2001 of a then-17yo Giuffre—first appeared in a British tabloid in 2011.
The picture was reportedly taken at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London home.
There is Andrew, in a white button-down shirt, top button undone, with his arm around the bare midriff of the 17-year-old Giuffre. Smiling proudly off to the side, like some sort of triumphant mama hen, is Ghislaine Maxwell. And Epstein? He’s said to have taken the photo.
I heard the name Tom Barrack as far back as 2014 when I was writing a book about the world of New York real estate. He was a big connector between the New York players and the money in the Middle East.
I wrote a whole book—"Kushner, Inc."—around the allegation that the Trump Administration’s foreign policy was run basically as one big effort to bail out Jared Kushner’s family’s financial problems.
My sources in NY real estate are asking if the indictment against Tom Barrack is actually about Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations or if it’s just another way to get to Trump, if Weisselberg does not talk.
The other speculation is that this is a way to get to Kushner, since Barrack’s dealings were more with Kushner than Trump.
Tom Barrack’s connections are all over the place, and he has long had his name tied with allegations of crony capitalism.
Jeffrey Epstein wanted the world to think he was some amazing money manager for billionaires only. But the story is so much more complicated than that. He was many things: A sexual predator, a con artist, an embezzler, an arms dealer, and part of an intelligence network.
There’s been a lot of focus on Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual crimes. My podcast “Chasing Ghislaine” is not really about that. Instead, it’s about the men—the circle of male power that surrounded Jeffrey Epstein and enabled his sex-trafficking enterprise.
There have been many boldface names associated with Epstein: Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Trump, Prince Andrew, financier Leon Black, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, retail king Les Wexner. These men are why we are still talking about Jeffrey Epstein two years later.
When I was assigned to write about Jeffrey Epstein in 2002, I spoke to him almost daily for several months for my reporting. Our conversations were originally off the record, but we’re releasing them now in the public interest in “Chasing Ghislaine.” audible.com/ghislaine
In re-reading the transcripts, I was struck by his staggering, untempered misogyny. But I could also see now—given all we've learned since 2002—where he had blatantly lied. Some of the lies were so bizarre, they clearly told me something. So I went out and re-reported the story.
I have spent almost 20 years on this story, but I did not do it alone. I want to thank everyone who spoke to me for my original article, for my reporting since then, and for the podcast.
But, as I noted, the Kushners—thanks to Trump’s pardon of Charles Kushner—are now extremely liquid and ARE very bankable. A couple of my sources say the idea of the Kushners buying the Trump assets is now being seriously discussed. They may just strip his name off the properties.