NEW: Remember when Trump took a trip to Japan back in 2019 and reports surfaced that the WH requested the move the USS John McCain out of view so it wouldn't upset Trump?
Well, I #FOIA'd the military for docs about this & 3 yrs later they just arrived
"This just makes me sad"
The White House Military Office passed along a request to keep the USS John McCain out of sight when Trump visited Japan.
How the sequence of events unfolded. An email describing how the directives to keep the USS John McCain out of sight during Trump's 2019 visit to Japan were passed to US Indo-Pacific Command and the Navy
Navy officials wanted names of the individuals responsible for requesting the USS John McCain be kept out of view during Trump's visit to Japan. They seem stunned.
All of the White House Military Office emails about the discussions to keep the USS John McCain out of sight during Trump's visit to Japan are classified and redacted except for one.
NEW: Here's the story & 109 pages of emails I rec'd from US Indo Pacific Command in response to my #FOIA request about the Trump WH's request to keep the USS John McCain "out of sight" during Trump's Japan visit & what went on behind the scenes bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Epstein Files countdown: What should the files reveal? For one, details about this previously undisclosed money laundering investigation conducted by the US Atty in Fla in 2007 & 2008. My @business & I uncovered details of this probe in Oct.
We pubbed our 1st investigative story in our series in Sept, based on 18K previously undisclosed emails @business obtained earlier this year. That story, about the relationship b/w UK Amb to the US Peter Mandelson & Epstein, resulted in Mandelson's firing bloomberg.com/features/2025-…
Our next story focused on Ghislaine Maxwell. The emails shed new light on Maxwell’s partnership w/Epstein & exposed the holes in the story she told Todd Blanche this summer. One detail we revealed: Maxwell & Epstein discussed undergoing a shared fertility procedure. And this bloomberg.com/features/2025-…
🚨 NEW FOIA Files newsletter is out! DOJ & FBI have made revelatory disclosures in my #FOIA lawsuit about the docs it withheld related to their review/redaction of the Epstein files
While we all wait and see if the DOJ will meet its Dec. 19 deadline and turn over the Epstein files to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I’m still trying to cut through the secrecy around the FBI’s review of the files. In particular, I’ve been curious to know what was behind the mad scramble at the FBI to prepare the files for public release, and then why the bureau and DOJ abruptly concluded that disclosure of them would not be “appropriate or warranted” after all.
Last month, I got 60 pages of emails from the FBI, some of which I featured in the Nov. 25th edition of FOIA Files. They were the first look inside the rushed process at the FBI that took place earlier this year, between March and May. bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
NEW investigative report: Hedge funds. Brokerages. Billionaires. Jeffrey Epstein’s financial ties on and off Wall Street were broader than previously known, a cache of emails @business obtained earlier this year reveals
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The emails provide new details about Epstein as an investor and adviser, including how he leveraged influence when his bets lost money. They also show that Epstein’s ties on Wall Street were broader than previously known, involving not just standard banking relationships but some of the most sought-after hedge funds, such as Renaissance Technologies, whose reputation for success is almost mythical.
After stories of Epstein’s teenage victims spilled into the open, Wall Street continued to stay in touch. He had access to prestigious names in global finance, including the investment firm of billionaire Carl Icahn. And as Epstein was directing his high-powered attorneys to pressure the government into offering him a light sentence, he threatened legal action against Bear Stearns and top executives for steep losses.
🚨 NEW/EXCLUSIVE: The FBI turned over dozens of emails to me in response to my #FOIA request that provides a behind-the-scenes look at the discussions involving the review and redaction of the Epstein files
The records I got also reveal the number of hours the FBI devoted to the project, which required some agents to work nights and weekends. The FBI paid personnel from various divisions, including counterintelligence and international operations, $851,344 in overtime for working on the Epstein files between March 17 and March 22, according to the documents. FBI personnel clocked in a total of 4,737 hours of overtime between January and July. Of that, more than 70% occurred during the month of March while personnel reviewed the Epstein files, the documents show.
The emails reveal the special training given to FBI personnel working on what it called the “Epstein Transparency Project.” In some instances they referred to it as the “Special Redaction Project.” The training entailed PowerPoint slide presentations and video instruction on how to review the files.
NEW/EXCLUSIVE: A French branch of HSBC closed a bank account maintained by Jeffrey Epstein in 2007 after compliance officers flagged transactions for suspicious activity, including payments tied to a modeling agent later accused of rape & sex trafficking
The previously unreported closure, which HSBC officials announced to Epstein in a letter dated Dec. 21, 2007, is the only known instance of a major bank closing one of his accounts before he pleaded guilty to sex offenses in Fla. in 2008.
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This is part of a series of stories based on emails sent to and from Jeffrey Epstein's private Yahoo account obtained by @business. Emails and attachments from that account weren't included in more than 20,000 pages of documents that a congressional committee released publicly on Nov. 12.
An HSBC spokesman declined to comment. But two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the bank closed Epstein’s account because employees in its compliance department raised red flags. Their concerns included financial transactions involving young women associated with the French modeling agency MC2 and its owner, Jean-Luc Brunel.
When investigators were closing in on Jeffrey Epstein, he thought about saying sorry. Merrie Spaeth, a sought-after crisis strategist who once served as the director of media relations for Ronald Reagan’s White House, helped him pick his words.
As some of the country’s best-connected lawyers were defending Epstein and elite academics were catering to his intellectual interests, media professionals worked to protect his public image. His publicists and consultants, according to the emails, included veteran executives Howard Rubenstein, Dan Klores and Mike Sitrick. Peggy Siegal, who held sway over some of Hollywood’s biggest movie premieres, emailed after the 2006 indictment to flag a Vanity Fair story.
“Can only assume Jeffrey does not want me to talk to this reporter,” she wrote his team, “not unless he wants certain things said on his behalf.” (Like Dershowitz and Sitrick, Siegal also did work for Harvey Weinstein.) Rubenstein died in 2020. Sitrick said he was retained by Epstein’s lawyers for a fairly short period. Klores and Siegal didn’t return messages.