Tag Archive for: Jeffrey Epstein

When Manu Raju challenged Mike Johnson on Trump’s claim that the Jeffrey Epstein scandal was a hoax, Mike Johnson didn’t deny knowing that Trump had said that (even during the survivors’ press conference), the tactic he almost always uses when asked to condemn Trump’s atrocities. Instead, he claimed that, “when [Trump] first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mare-a-Lago, he was an FBI informant to try to … take this stuff down.”

This adopts a favorite tactic right wingers used during the Russian investigation, to claim that Carter Page’s explicit willingness to share non-public information with known Russian spies and his pursuit of money from Russia to support a pro-Russian think tank was no big deal because he was an “informant” for CIA, when in reality he was just an American that the CIA was permitted to talk to learn what Russian spies had done, not someone who was cooperating with intelligence collection.

Indeed, according to Rolling Stone, Johnson’s comment set off a frenzy at the White House as people tried to figure out WTF Johnson was saying.

According to five Trump administration officials and others close to the president, Johnson’s “informant” claim on Thursday sparked widespread confusion within the ranks of Trump’s government, with several senior officials blindsided or just completely perplexed by what the Trump-aligned House speaker could have possibly meant.

For some in the administration, the confusion spilled over into Saturday, with some officials still unsure about whether Johnson was citing some explosive, unheard-of insider information, or if he misspoke or was freelancing extemporaneously.

“What the hell is he doing?” one senior Trump administration appointee told Rolling Stone, after being asked about the Johnson “informant” comment.

Other Trump advisers say it’s their understanding that Johnson was referencing past claims made in the media about Trump; however, these claims did not amount to the idea he was a federal “informant.”

This could even have been a reference to a recent comment: At the presser on Wednesday, survivors’ lawyer Brad Edwards described that when he was first seeking information about Epstein in 2009, Trump was one of the few people who cooperated, though tellingly, Trump appears to have done so without deposition.

Bradley Edwards (01:04:44):

I’ll go first and then I’ll let them. They’re much more important than me, but I don’t understand why it’s a hostile act. I can tell you that I talked to President Trump back in 2009 and several times after that. He didn’t think that it was a hoax Then. In fact, he helped me. He got on the phone, he told me things that were helping our investigation. Now, our investigation wasn’t looking into him, but he was helping us then. He didn’t treat this as a hoax.

(01:05:07)
So at this point in time, I would hope that he would revert back to what he was saying to get elected, which is, “I want transparency.” This about face that occurred, none of us understand it. In fact, I don’t understand how this is an issue that’s even up for debate. How do you not stand behind these women after you’ve heard their stories and know that hundreds of them were abused and it was only because files are being kept in secrecy. The world should know who he is, who protected him, and the other people that are out there to be investigated need to be investigated.

So Trump was willing to cooperate, but only in a way in which he managed the information provided (and avoided attesting to his claims under oath).

Josh Marshall contemplates why Trump might have been willing to share information about Epstein after their clash over a West Palm Beach estate. Relying in part on comments from Michael Wolff, who said that Epstein believed Trump narced him out, Marshall adopted the theory that Trump narced out Epstein to undercut Epstein’s threats to expose Trump’s own money laundering efforts.

Epstein was trying to buy a South Florida estate. He brought Trump along to see it one time. A short time later Epstein found out that Trump had gone behind his back and placed a higher and ultimately successful bid on the property. He’d snatched it out from under him with a much higher bid. The problem was that Trump’s entire empire in 2004 was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It made no sense that Trump was coming up with $41 million to buy this property. Epstein suspected that Trump was acting as a front for a Russian oligarch as a money-laundering scheme. And in fact Trump did purchase and flip the estate two years later to a Russian oligarch named Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, or a profit of over $50 million dollars.

Epstein was pissed for his own reasons (he wanted the estate). But he also suspected the money laundering scheme. So he threatened Trump that he would bring the whole thing out into the open through a series of lawsuits. Right about this same time authorities got a tip about Epstein’s activities which started the investigation that led to his eventual 2008 plea deal.

That certainly might explain the seeming coincidence of the two conflicting explanations Trump has given for the split. But Marshall misses several known parts of this timeline.

First, remember there were two grand juries in WPB: one, (05-02), convened in what must have been early 2005, and a second, (07-103), convened later in 2007. The significance of this remains unclear. None of the Epstein experts I’ve asked has any insight on whether the earlier grand jury simply reflects the earlier known investigative steps, stemming from a 14-year old girl’s complaint that year, or whether there was an earlier, separate, investigation, in which case the second grand jury might just reflect one read into the evidence of the first one. But the earlier one would more closely coincide with Trump’s split with Epstein (and the real estate deal).

And almost everyone keeps missing the timing of what Trump (as well as a Page Six source from Mar-a-Lago that could be Trump) has already confessed to.

First, Trump explained that Epstein stole a spa girl from him, Trump told him “don’t ever do that again,” and then Epstein did it again.

What caused the breach with him? Very easy to explain. But I don’t want to waste your time by explaining it. But for years I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn’t talk. Because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help. And I said, don’t ever do that again. He stole people that worked for me. I said, don’t ever do that again. He did it again. And I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out. And that was it.

Trump didn’t confess, here, that he knew Epstein stole his girls to recruit into sex slavery.

But he alluded to as much the next day, when he confessed one of the girls Epstein “stole” was Virginia Giuffre.

Reporter 1: I’m just curious. Were some of the workers that were taken from you — were some of them young women?

Trump: Were some of them?

Reporter 1: Were some of them young women?

Trump: Well, I don’t wanna say, but everyone knows the people that were taken. It was, the concept of taking people that work for me is bad. But that story’s been pretty well out there. And the answer is, yes, they were.

[inaudible]

Trump: In the spa. People that work in the spa. I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago. And people were taken out of the spa. Hired. By him. In other words, gone. And um, other people would come and complain. This guy is taking people from the spa. I didn’t know that. And then when I heard about it I told him, I said, listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether they were spa or not spa. I don’t want him taking people. And he was fine and then not too long after that he did it again and I said Out of here.

Reporter 2: Mr. President, did one of those stolen persons, did that include Virginia Giuffre?

Trump: Uh, I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.

Trump doesn’t confess he knew Epstein was stealing girls for sex, but he does say, “that story’s been pretty well out there,” conceding it is what we think it is.

And in 2007 — in the period when Trump would have been cooperating with the FBI if he did do so — “the Mar-a-Lago” said the following to Page Six even before Epstein had signed the sweetheart non-prosecution agreement.

Meanwhile, the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach last night confirmed a Web site report that Epstein has been banned there. “He would use the spa to try to procure girls. But one of them, a masseuse about 18 years old, he tried to get her to do things,” a source told us. “Her father found out about it and went absolutely ape-[bleep]. Epstein’s not allowed back.” Epstein denies he is banned from Mar-a-Lago and says, in fact, he was recently invited to an event there.

Before the full extent of Epstein’s abuse was public, someone at Mar-a-Lago wanted to make it clear that when Epstein did “procure girls … he tried to get [] to do things.”

We know of two girls Epstein “stole” from Mar-a-Lago. Giuffre in 2000, and this other girl whose father was a member sometime later. And even in 2007, someone who worked for Trump (if not Trump himself, who loved to source Page Six stories) admitted that Epstein “tried to get” this girl “to do things.”

Trump has already all but confessed he learned about Giuffre, did not report it, then learned about another girl, to which he now attributes his break with Epstein in the same period as the real estate deal.

And here’s the thing about Trump and Epstein, which I think helps explain why he continues to flail now.

I tried to imply in this post that Todd Blanche purposely stopped short of getting cooperation from Ghislaine Maxwell. Even if Blanche didn’t know she was lying through her teeth, within days of her proffer, someone, who could even be Blanche, dealt photos to NYT that made it clear her claim there were no video cameras at any of Epstein’s properties was false.

Blanche didn’t get truth from Maxwell. He got leverage over her, fresh lies he could prosecute her for anytime until 2030. He has locked her into the claim (which is carefully caveated so might actually be true) that she was never present when Trump did anything inappropriate with Epstein, which falls far short of her knowing that he (or Melania) did.

DOJ is treating two other Epstein co-conspirators similarly. They were mentioned in a July 16, 2019 letter supporting Epstein’s detention.

In a July 12, 2019 letter, the Government informed the Court that the Government had recently obtained records from a financial institution (“Institution-1”) that appeared to show the defendant had made suspicious payments shortly after the Miami Herald began publishing, on approximately November 28, 2018, a series of articles relating to the defendant, his alleged sexual misconduct, and the circumstances under which he entered into a non-prosecution agreement (“NPA”) with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida in 2007. The same series highlighted the involvement of several of Epstein’s former employees and associates in the alleged sexual abuse. At the Detention Hearing, the Court asked the Government to provide additional information about the individuals to whom these payments appear to have been made.

First, records from Institution-1 show that on or about November 30, 2018, or two days after the series in the Miami Herald began, the defendant wired $100,000 from a trust account he controlled to [redacted], an individual named as a potential co-conspirator—and for whom Epstein obtained protection in—the NPA. This individual was also named and featured prominently in the Herald series.

Second, the same records show that just three days later, on or about December 3, 2018, the defendant wired $250,000 from the same trust account to [redacted], who was also named as a potential co-conspirator—and for whom Epstein also obtained protection in—the NPA. This individual is also one of the employees identified in the Indictment, which alleges that she and two other identified employees facilitated the defendant’s trafficking of minors by, among other things, contacting victims and scheduling their sexual encounters with the defendant at his residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. This individual was also named and featured prominently in the Herald series. [my emphasis]

These are the assistants — not Maxwell — who played a similar role as Maxwell earlier in the scheme, one of whom was suspected of threatening a victim back in 2006.

NBC’s Tom Winter wrote a letter asking that the names — sealed in 2019 to protect potential trial witnesses — be unsealed. But rather than just giving notice to them and asking them to make their own declarations to the court (which would need to be true), DOJ instead informed them, and provided a response on their behalf, opposing unsealing.

Pursuant to the Order, on August 26, 2025, the Government notified Individual-1 and Individual-2 of the Motion and the Order.

On August 29, 2025, the Government received a letter from counsel for Individual-1. The letter, which is attached hereto as Exhibit A, expressed Individual-1’s opposition to the Motion.

On September 5, 2025, the Government received an email from counsel for Individual-2. The email, which is attached as Exhibit B, expressed Individual-2’s opposition to the Motion.1

1 Because Exhibits A and B both contain personal identifying information for Individual-1 or Individual-2 and describe certain matters that are highly personal and sensitive, the Government respectfully submits that sealing of both exhibits is appropriate. See, e.g., United States v. Amodeo, 71 F.3d 1044, 1051 (2d Cir. 1995) (The “privacy interests of innocent third parties” should “weigh heavily in a court’s balancing equation” and can be the kind of “compelling interest” that may justify sealing or closure, and “[i]n determining the weight to be accorded an assertion of a right of privacy,” courts must “consider the degree to which the subject matter is traditionally considered private rather than public,” such as “family affairs, . . . embarrassing conduct with no public ramifications, and similar matters.”); cf., e.g., United States v. Silver, No. 15 Cr. 93 (VEC), 2016 WL 1572993, *7 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 14, 2016) (considering “personal and embarrassing conduct [with] public ramifications”).

At least one of these is necessarily (because she was named in the Epstein indictment) one of the people named in Epstein’s grand jury transcript to whom DOJ gave notice of the grand jury request before giving the victims any notice.

That is, both before and after pretending Maxwell provided truthful information and using that as an excuse to move her to comfier digs, DOJ has been solicitous of the other women who helped enslave these girls. And remains so.

Within a month, after two special elections are expected to send two more Dems to Congress, the Khanna-Massie dispatch petition will almost certainly get the required 218 votes.

And Mike Johnson will have to invent yet more false claims to excuse Republican efforts, from the very top of the party, to help Trump keep all these people silent.