Wendy Deng (then the wife of Rupert Murdoch) introduced them.
the former wife of Rupert Murdoch, who had introduced Dasha Zhukova to Ivanka years earlier and whose social and investment networks tied Russian oligarchs together with Silicon Valley capital, and Western media elites. Deng, Zhukova, and the Kushner brothers had previously co-invested in Artsy, an online art platform backed by Jared’s brother, Joshua Kushner, and in which Jared Kushner also held a stake before entering the White House.
From:
35. Midnight in Moscow: The Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Edition (2014) Substack
Trip to Russia: In 2014, Dasha and her then-husband Roman Abramovich invited Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner to Russia for a four-day visit. During this trip, they attended a fundraising dinner for Moscow’s Jewish Museum
This marks the beginning of their friendship, which has been noted for its duration and significance in social circles. Business Insider
BFFs: Ivanka Trump and Dasha Zhukova at the 2016 US Open.Photographer: Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images
Their meeting was months after Donald Trump staged the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.
When Donald Trump brought Miss Universe to Moscow
How a 2013 beauty pageant explains Trump’s love for Russia and obsession with Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump and Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo show off on the red carpet at the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. | Victor Boyko/Getty Images
Abramovich, Bloomberg reported, was one of Putin’s most trusted associates, and the owner of Russia’s second largest steel company, plus the Chelsea football club. As I wrote in my post about Trump’s Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, that 2013 outing successfully embedded the Trump family inside a Kremlin-adjacent network that was built around Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov, and his son, Emin.
These meetings were important not because anything illegal took place or even that money was changing hands. Instead, the ties between Trump and Russia, which had been a series erratic and fitful contacts that took place over more than thirty years, were solidifying into cohesive relationships. Ivanka’s and Jared’s trip in 2014 attracted little attention in the United States, but it further strengthened those relationships and put the entire Trump family directly inside the same Kremlin network that had hosted him only a few months earlier, and that later became the target of investigations into Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.
From:
35. Midnight in Moscow: The Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Edition (2014) Substack
Dasha Zhukova:
How NYC socialite Dasha Zhukova lived large with oligarch Roman Abramovich
Art-world power player and celebrity pal Dasha Zhukova was married to sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich (with her, right) and apparently still has ties to him — creating a potentially uncomfortable situation for her.
NY Post photo composite
Two days after Vladimir Putin’s forces marched into Ukraine last month, New York art collector Dasha Zhukova postponed all of the exhibits at the Garage, her contemporary museum in Moscow, to protest “the brutal and horrific invasion.”
But while Zhukova, 40, has been emphatic in her condemnation of Russian aggression, she has remained silent about her ex-husband and the father of two of her three children, billionaire Roman Abramovich.
See more from Chris Ungar, here is another extract:
One reason the 2014 visit was so significant was that it took place just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine and illegally annexed Crimea. In other words, the Trump family disregarded the growing risk of sanctions and continued to engage with the Kremlin’s oligarchs as they continued to pursue a real estate project that depended on Putin’s approval.
The February 2014 visit also placed Jared Kushner within oligarch networks that later intersected directly with U.S. politics. Viktor Vekselberg, who chaired the fundraiser, later drew FBI scrutiny during and after the 2016 election when investigators examined whether his companies and his associates played roles in Russian political influence operations to help Trump win.
Kushner’s presence during the Moscow trip was particularly significant, as he later established contact during Trump’s first term with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and with Sergey Gorkov, the head of the Russian state-owned development bank VEB. He also tried to establish a private backchannel between the Trump transition team and the Kremlin to avoid detection by U.S. intelligence.
The DOJ redacted Trump’s name from explicit sexual abuse allegations in the Epstein files. An unredacted version of Case 1:15-cv-07433 states a witness was told “Donald Trump liked flicking and sucking her nipples until they were raw” and that she “had sexual relations with Trump at Jeffrey’s NY mansion on regular occasions”—allegations completely blacked out in the DOJ’s public release. The same document, same page, same case number—one version names Trump, the version DOJ released does not. The unredacted version was already in the public record from the Giuffre v. Maxwell civil case. The DOJ chose to add new redactions to information that was already public. Rep. Thomas Massie warned “a future DOJ could convict the current Attorney General” for selective compliance with the transparency law. Epstein victim Marina Lacerda demanded the DOJ “stop redacting names that don’t need to be redacted,” asking: “Who are we trying to protect?”
Nev Shalev, Substack, Dec 22, 2025
I was 14 when Epstein recruited me. He demanded that girls show their school IDs
Paedophile wanted proof victims were underage and was ‘furious’ when 18-year-old was brought to him, victim says
Jeffrey Epstein would call high-profile friends while having a massage
Susie CoenUS Correspondent21 December 2025 3:14pm GMT
Jeffrey Epstein demanded that young girls show their school IDs to prove they were underage.
Marina Lacerda, who was abused by Epstein from the age of 14, said the paedophile was “furious” when an 18-year-old was brought to him, immediately sending her away.
Ms Lacerda, now 37, was forced to recruit other victims, and told The Telegraph that Epstein instructed her to only present him with girls who had a student school ID.
Global energy markets are deeply interconnected, and oil remains the lifeblood of modern economies. However, when geopolitical tensions lead to sanctions on major oil-producing nations, such as Russia, Iran, or Venezuela, these countries often seek alternative methods to keep their crude flowing to international buyers. One of the most controversial and opaque mechanisms enabling this is the so-called “shadow fleet”—a clandestine network of aging oil tankers operating outside traditional regulatory and safety frameworks. This article explores what the shadow fleet is, why it exists, how it operates, and the risks it poses to global trade, environmental safety, and maritime security.
Inside Venezuela’s growing arsenal of Iranian weapons
Iranian-made attack boats, missiles, drones, and Hezbollah-linked networks have given Venezuela a small but real combat capability in the Caribbean – and a new way for Tehran to poke at the United States.
A menacing ‘shadow fleet’ of Iranian-linked tanker ships is operating in the Caribbean, sparking alarm amid ongoing US military action in the region.
Despite a long history of brazenly transporting sanctioned Iranian oil, the vessels have been seen sailing just miles from the American coastline as President Trump continues his unrelenting bombardment of alleged drug boat
The Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners (KVNR) has revealed that several dozen vessels are fraudulently flying the flags of Aruba, Sint Maarten, and Curaçao. These ships, believed to be part of the so-called “shadow fleet,” are operating under false registrations, raising alarm over safety, environmental, and legal risks.
Flags Without Registers
KVNR’s weekly checks in August 2025 uncovered that a fluctuating number of vessels are sailing under the flags of Aruba, Sint Maarten, and Curaçao. However, none of these territories maintain a flag register for sea-going vessels or issue valid Certificates of Registry, making the practice fraudulent. This development is particularly concerning for Dutch shipowners who are legitimately entitled to fly the Kingdom flag.
And 6 years ago, the UK Conservative government, as an ally of the US::
Why is Venezuela’s gold still frozen in the Bank of England?
Four years ago, the UK government recognised Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president. He’s now gone, but the Bank of England is still holding some of the country’s key assets.
President Maduro wants Venezuela’s gold back from Britain. (Photo: Hand out / Prensa Presidencial)
In late December, Venezuela’s leading opposition parties voted to oust Juan Guaidó as “interim president” and dissolve his parallel government.
This was clearly not the ending the UK government had in mind.
Four years ago, the British government made the bold decision to recognise Guaidó as Venezuelan president, and proceeded to facilitate his legal battle to seize roughly $2bn of gold held in the Bank of England.
Indeed, the UK government insisted at every turn that it recognised Guaidó – and not Nicolás Maduro – as Venezuelan president. In turn, Guaidó’s lawyers argued that he was authorised to represent and control the assets of the Central Bank of Venezuela held in London.
A long-running legal battle between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido over who should hold the key to more than $1.5 billion of gold stored at the Bank of England resumed at the London High Court on Wednesday.
The UK Supreme Court ruled last year that Guaido should be recognised as the Latin American country’s head of state, taking a lead from the British government’s position, and that he had the authority to determine the future of the 31 tonnes of bullion.
The High Court will now grapple with the novel question, over a four-day trial, about how to treat rulings by the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice (STJ) that say Guaido’s appointments to an “ad hoc” central bank board are invalid.
“At stake is the question of whether the English courts can sit in judgment on the validity of decisions made by another sovereign nation’s highest court,” said Sarosh Zaiwalla, a partner at law firm Zaiwalla & Co., who is representing the Maduro-led Banco Central de Venezuela.
Ukraine has recently attacked three tankers in the Black Sea that it says are Russian ‘shadow fleet’ vessels engaged in sanctions-busting
Guardian graphic. Source: MarineTraffic
“The shadow fleet itself is not a new threat,” said Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a research fellow at the finance and security centre at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank. “But [it] has expanded drastically after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That saw what we call the shadow fleet explode to some 900-1,200 vessels globally.
Military oil spill: How the Kerch Strait tanker disaster is linked to Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ oil exports, 18 January 2025
…With Russia’s seizure of Crimea, its military and civilian activity in the area has increased, further worsening oil pollution in the Azov Sea and Black Sea.
Oil spills are clearly visible in satellite images made available in a review of the environmental consequences for marine ecosystems published by the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) and Zoi Network. In one case, the spills resulted from missile attacks on ChernoMorNeftegaz drilling platforms in June 2022.
Risks posed by wrecked ships have also increased, with roughly 100 additional ships, military and civilian, sinking or damaged since the war began. For example, evidence of a limited oil spill was visible from space at the site where the Moskva military cruiser sank. Most of its fuel reserves, which may exceed 2,000 tons, are probably still stored in its fuel tanks at a depth of 50 meters—a huge risk for the future…
At the same time, there is still insufficient direct evidence regarding the shadow fleet’s negative consequences for marine ecosystems. A review of tanker leaks around the world, published in October 2024 by Politico, lists just nine examples of oil spills likely associated with the shadow fleet (shown in the map below)…
On December 15, 2024, two small river tankers located at the southern anchorage at the exit from the Kerch Strait awaited transshipment to a large sea tanker. Both were caught in stormy weather and broke in half. On the Volgoneft-212, which sank completely, one sailor died from hypothermia and exposure, but the remaining 12 crew members were rescued. The stern half of Volgoneft-239, which also broke apart during the storm, managed to approach the shore and run aground 80 meters offshore. The entire crew was rescued.
According to various estimates, between 2,400 and 8,000 metric tons of mazut originating from the Saratov Oil Refinery spilled out of the damaged tankers into the sea…
The desire and capacity of the Russian Federation to ensure the safety of oil and gas shipping has diminished substantially during this war, hostilities which are fundamentally nourished by oil exports. However, even prior to this catastrophe, environmental safety in the oil and gas shipping sector has not been a priority.
The main reason for these accidents, according to an independent environmental expert who wishes to remain anonymous, is the careless disregard of the state and all its structures, as well as big business, for environmental safety. These tragedies occur because of irresponsible individuals and organizations, as well as gaps in legislation and deliberate weakening of environmental law in recent years (especially since 2021, when the requirement for constituent regions to maintain oil spill response plans (OSRs) was abolished), corporate lobbying lowering environmental standards and procedures, and stifling of the professional environmental conservation community and the country’s news media…
Dr Sian Prior, lead advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance told UWEC, “The Clean Arctic Alliance believes that other regions would benefit from following the example of theInternational Maritime Organization, through which a new ban (with notable caveats) on the carriage and use of HFO as fuel in polar regions came into force in July 2024.”
Cuba is a classic example of how economic sanctions cannot achieve their intended objectives. The U.S. has maintained an almost complete trade embargo against Cuba since Fidel Castro took power in 1959, aiming to push the country toward democracy and better human rights observance. Nevertheless, almost sixty years later, Cuba remains a one-party state under communist rule.
On the contrary, these very measures have worsened life for Cubans by drastically reducing the availability of goods, including humanitarian items such as medicines and other essentials for survival. Although the regime has exploited this situation to blame its internal problems on the embargo and to increase anti-American propaganda among segments of the population, it has not weakened its hold on power, all while compromising the welfare of ordinary citizens under sanctions. Successive U.S. administrations have, at times, failed to bring about democratization through adjustments in the sanctions.
Iran: Sanctions and Nuclear Ambitions
Iran has faced tough sanctions, particularly regarding its nuclear program, for many years. Sanctions on Iran’s energy sector and financial institutions are not new; major Western nations, including the U.S., have enforced them to compel the country to abandon its nuclear weapons aspirations, which are deemed unacceptable according to international standards of human rights and regional order. Like Cuba and Russia, achieving these objectives through sanctions has proven fruitless.
Consequently, despite skyrocketing inflation, unemployment, and shortages of basic commodities, the leadership refuses to conform to external pressures due to adverse economic conditions. Public support for the regime serves as an excuse for rallying nationalist sentiments among its people against Western aggression. Iran has managed to find new trading partners, such as China and Russia, allowing it to continue its nuclear program even after sanctions were imposed by multiple countries as a stance against its leadership. The ordinary populace in Russia, along with Cubans, has been worst affected, suffering more than those in power.
A victim of Jeffrey Epstein has said newly released documents about the late paedophile have “vindicated” her.
Maria Farmer, who was one of the first people to accuse the financier of sexual misconduct, said she had been “redeemed” after the files revealed that she had reported him to the FBI in 1996.
Media accounts and institutional statements differ on implications. Some outlets and Farmer’s attorneys present her reports as among the earliest law‑enforcement warnings about Epstein and Maxwell, arguing agencies ignored them [1][8]. Institutional responses — for example, the New York Academy of Art’s later probe into claims about institutional enabling — contested aspects of Farmer’s narrative or context around how the school responded at the time [10]. Available sources do not mention any definitive public law‑enforcement finding that proved or disproved every detail Farmer reported in 1996; instead, later investigations and prosecutions (including Maxwell’s 2021 trial and convictions) have corroborated broad patterns Farmer described [2][8].
Susie Wiles confirms Trump is in the Epstein files: They were ‘young, single playboys together’
Wiles also torched Pam Bondi for her handling of the Epstein matter and described JD Vance as a longtime ‘conspiracy theorist’
Brendan Rascius in New YorkTuesday 16 December 2025 16:38 GMT
Young and single?
Trump, born 1946, was 50 in 1996. Epstein was born 1953 so 43.
Donald Trump has been married three times. His first wife was Ivana Trump, with whom he had three children; they divorced in 1990. He then married Marla Maples in 1993, with whom he had one daughter, Tiffany, before their divorce in 1999. His current wife is Melania Trump, whom he married in 2005, and they have one son, Barron. sacksandsackslaw.com Miller Center
Susie Wiles, born 1957, 11 years younger than Donald Trump, born same decade as Jeffrey Epstein.
Women who set out to harm the innocent:
Ghislaine Maxwell’s ultimate humiliation: Epstein’s sex trafficker girlfriend poses in outrageous outfits and exposes herself in dozens of photos released from the billionaire paedophile’s files
From wrestling on a sofa to frolicking with celebrities and pulling suggestive poses, Ghislaine Maxwell portrays the ultimate life of frivolity with her paedophile financier boyfriend, newly-released photographs from the Epstein files show.
In one, smirking Maxwell – who is currently serving 20 years for her role in recruiting and trafficking minors for sex on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein – can be seen wrestling on a sofa with French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel.
Ghislaine Maxwell was born 25th December, 1961,15yrs younger than Donald Trump.
=================
Michael D Sellars,Substack on his initial work on the DoJ Epstein files dump on Friday, 15th December, 2025:
Here’s the biggest takeaway. After all this hoopla — they released less than 10,000 pages, which is a small “production” for a case like this. If I got this production in a real case I’m working on, I would feel like I’ve been given Chapter 1 of a 24 Chapter book. So this is not even remotely close to everything they were supposed to release. It’s a tiny fraction of it.
On 23rd Decembet, 2025, Epstein file release:
Trump and Epstein flew on private jet with 20-year-old woman, new files reveal
President travelled on paedophile’s jet ‘more times than previously reported’
So what are we learning now about the involvement of major banks, such as Deutsche Bank, and particularly, JP Morgan which acquired Chase bank after the 2008 financial crash.
Jes Slaley worked closely with Epstein since 1998, and was still a close friend after the first conviction of J Epstein in 2008.
In the shadowy world of global finance, JP Morgan’s deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein have resurfaced with disturbing force. Newly unsealed documents, revealed in a New York Times investigation on 8 September 2025, exposed how the banking giant ignored red flags surrounding the convicted sex offender’s activities.
The report detailed a web of suspicious transactions worth over £717 million ($1.1 billion), some processed even after Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea for soliciting a minor. Executives like Jes Staley defended the disgraced financier despite internal warnings, prioritising profits from his estimated £130 million ($200 million) deposits. The scandal now casts a harsh spotlight on the bank’s role in enabling potential sex trafficking.
As victims seek justice, the revelations raise urgent questions about accountability in financial institutions entangled in Epstein’s crimes.
How JP Morgan Ignored Warnings After Epstein’s 2008 Conviction
JP Morgan maintained its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein for years after his conviction on 30 June 2008, processing thousands of transactions that raised alarms internally. Emails from senior executives, including then-general counsel Stephen Cutler, flagged concerns in October 2011: ‘This is not an honourable person in any way. He should not be a client.’ Still the bank continued to handle Epstein’s accounts until 2013.
During this period, Epstein held 134 accounts, generating millions in fees for the bank while wiring funds to Russian and Eastern European entities linked to young women. Compliance officers flagged Epstein’s frequent cash withdrawals as potential red flags for money laundering or worse. Yet decisions were often delayed, marked as ‘pending Dimon review‘, referring to CEO Jamie Dimon, who later claimed ignorance until 2019.
It was only after Epstein’s arrest on 6 July 2019 that JP Morgan retroactively reported 4,700 suspicious transactions to regulators, underscoring a failure in oversight that enabled the sex trafficking network. Victims’ advocates argue this reflects a broader banking scandal where profit trumped ethics.
Key Executives Defended Epstein Despite Sex Trafficking Red Flags
Jes Staley, then head of JP Morgan’s private bank, emerged as Epstein’s staunchest ally. He visited Epstein’s properties like Zorro Ranch during house arrest and emailed in 2009, ‘I owe you much‘. Staley also introduced Epstein to high-profile clients like Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who later deposited over £2.6 billion ($4 billion), boosting the bank’s revenue.
Even as reports of Epstein’s abuses surfaced, Staley continued to advocate for maintaining the ties, reportedly saying he would ‘trust Epstein with his daughters‘. Jamie Dimon testified he had no recollection of Epstein as a client until 2019, despite emails suggesting his involvement in account decisions.
This executive defence has drawn sharp criticism. Law professor Bridgette Carr warned that ‘I am deeply worried here that the ultimate message to other financial institutions is that they can keep serving traffickers’. Notably, no executives lost their jobs over the scandal.
Massive Settlements and Revelations in Epstein Banking Ties
In June 2023, JP Morgan agreed to a settlement of £189 million ($290 million) with nearly 200 victims, admitting no wrongdoing but regretting the association. This was followed by a £49 million ($75 million) payout to the US Virgin Islands in September 2023.
The bank’s statement read, ‘In hindsight we regret it, but we did not help him commit his heinous crimes. We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was engaged in an ongoing sex trafficking operation.’ These payouts total over £238 million ($365 million), yet no regulatory actions ensued.
The New York Times exposé, drawing from 13,000 pages of records, detailed how Epstein brokered JP Morgan’s £846 million ($1.3 billion) acquisition of Highbridge Capital, earning £9.8 million ($15 million) in fees.
On 8 September 2025, X user @davidenrich posted: ‘How JPMorgan Enabled the Crimes of Jeffrey Epstein,’ linking to the article and sparking discussions on banking ethics.
In the arid hills outside of Stanley, New Mexico, about 30 miles southeast of Santa Fe, sits one of the most mysterious and unsearched pieces of real estate in the United States: Zorro Ranch. Spanning over 10,000 acres, complete with a 26,000-square-foot mansion, guest homes, stables, a private airstrip, a firehouse, and a rail line, this fortress of stone and secrecy was once owned by Jeffrey Epstein — the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender at the center of the most notorious trafficking scandal in modern American history.
Epstein acquired Zorro Ranch in 1993, reportedly from the family of former New Mexico Governor Bruce King, for roughly $12 million. But what’s perhaps more telling than the sale is how Epstein expanded it. Nestled within the private holdings were an additional 1,243 acres of state trust land, leased to Epstein’s shell company Cypress Inc. for agricultural use. Except… no agriculture ever happened there. No livestock. No crops. Just seclusion.
The leases remained active until 2016, and despite Epstein’s 2008 felony conviction, no one in the state questioned his continued use of public land. In fact, in 2010, Epstein was briefly added to New Mexico’s sex offender registry — only to be removed two days later. Why? Because his victim in Florida was 17, and New Mexico law only required registration for offenses involving victims under 16. A loophole, or a lifeline?
Meanwhile, the ranch itself evolved into more than just a luxury estate. It became, according to survivor accounts, a key node in Epstein’s trafficking network.
From 2013 to 2018, Deutsche Bank opened more than 40 accounts for the financier—after JPMorgan Chase had severed its ties with Epstein, New York Department of Financial Services investigators found and the two civil complaints claim. For the next five years, the bank processed millions in allegedly suspicious transactions tied to Epstein’s web of trusts, including payments to women described as “tuition fees” and large cash withdrawals structured to avoid reporting requirements. When New York regulators finally investigated, they called the bank’s conduct “inexcusably” deficient. In 2023, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $75 million to Epstein’s victims in a class action settlement. The bank was also fined $150 million by the New York Department of Financial Services for its involvement with Epstein.
Jes Slaley emails are presented by Ellie Leonard on Panicked, Substack yesterday. Here is a 2008 extract:
9/29/2008
JS: I hope you keep the island. We all may need to live there.
10/10/2008
JS: I am dealing with the Fed on an idea to solve things. I need a smart friend to help me think through this stuff. Can I get you out for a weekend to help me (are they listening?).
10/10/2008
[Staley forwards Epstein a term sheet that was sent to others at the Treasury/Fed]
11/9/2008
JS: My one exposure is if Glenn slips. He has to stay correct, and show calmness.
12/30/2008
JE: sunday will not work for me. everyone is gone except the housekeepers, you are more than welcome to use the house. you will be well looked after. The chef from paris is there.
JS: I think I will head back. If something changes, let me know. Otherwise I’ve asked Rosa to make a date free in early January for me to visit the Palm Beach office and spend some time with you.
Delivering teens:
What Mar-a-Lago Really Was
Mar-a-Lago, at least the spa, wasn’t just a luxury resort. It was a filter for young, inexperienced girls — curated for appearance, not skill — in a place frequented by powerful men, including Epstein.
Whether Trump enabled Epstein by design or by indifference, the effect was the same: Giuffre was recruited there, and she wasn’t the only one.
Now, after years of evasions, Trump admits Epstein “stole” girls from his club. But the more we learn, the clearer it becomes: the girls weren’t stolen. They were delivered.
Jeffrey Epstein purchased Little St James in 1998 and then covertly purchased Great Saint James in 2016, after he was a registered sex offender
Epstein’s second island, Great St. James, has all but been erased from the narrative. But survivors remember it. Virginia Giuffre wrote about it in her unpublished memoir (the one Jeffrey Epstein’s estate had a copy of) so I chased the leads no one else touched—and here’s what they never reported.
Little St James, years after it was cleaned by his estate and “raided” by FBI. Both islands sold in 2023 to billionaire Stephen Deckoff
In order to understand the operations of Jeffrey Epstein and the network that empowered him, I need you to stop looking at the island they won’t shut up about.
It’s a distraction.
This isn’t to say nothing happened on Little Saint James.
I understand that survivors have given harrowing accounts of being trapped there.
It’s true.
A 15-year-old once attempted to escape by swimming off the island, only to be found by Epstein’s “people” and dragged back.
“I was prepared to die swimming and trying to escape off that island that night. And there was another occasion when, you know, I didn’t respond to Jeffrey. And I was walking along. And his car pulled up next to me. I was forced into his car, taken to his mansion and raped. He knew exactly where I was, survivor Sarah Ransome remembered.
Many survivors were teenagers when they were targeted and groomed. They describe being trained to be sexually compliant, to bathe and prepare men, to massage them, to tolerate whatever was demanded of them, no matter how gut-wrenching or degrading. Virginia Guiffre wrote that while trapped in Epstein’s network, she was “passed around like a platter of fruit,” to Epstein’s powerful friends and associates.
Epstein and four survivors who were teens from Palm Beach High School when targeted and trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
Little Saint James island was scrubbed by Epstein’s handlers years before the FBI ever stepped foot on it. Across time and properties: there was a cleanup effort ahead of law enforcement searches.
Little St James resort area, closed up and cleared out. It has remained unchanged despite sale in 2023
Epstein was surrounded by enablers and handlers who kept his operation running and cleaned up after him.
The same way Epstein’s fixers could sweep his properties of evidence overnight, the properties themselves were built like sets — curated, controlled environments engineered for operations, leverage and psychological control over the people being moved through them.
All of Epstein’s properties were equipped with shower and steam rooms made of marble, complete with benches. Survivors recount being teens ordered to sit in the floor of the shower to massage, bathe, groom and sexually please Epstein and others
Little Saint James was multi-purpose as the property itself was used to condition girls and host the “elite,” (it was also a helicopter jumping point to Great Saint James, for Epstein and VIPs.)
The cow statue and faux temple kept the world looking exactly where Epstein wanted them looking. In the wrong direction.
The real story is what may have been happening on the other island — the island almost no one talks about. The island only a select few were ferried to by helicopter, lifted from Little St. James and dropped onto a makeshift helipad at Balmar Point on Great Saint James.
Survivor Virginia Giuffre remembers that hop.
She says she was flown there with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell — with Maxwell at the controls. Ghislaine was reportedly still learning to fly, and the short trip between the islands doubled as her practice route.
Great Saint James barely appears in search results online, refuses to load cleanly on satellite, and is almost entirely absent from the public narrative.
Great Saint James development
This is the island they didn’t want you looking at.
There is much more to this construction than what meets the eye.
What’s on the surface is almost meaningless once you compare it to the plans.
The island has underwater utilities carved into the coastline, a solar array big enough to power something far larger than a cottage, and a structure described—casually, almost innocently—as a “pool and underwater office.”
We don’t know the full footprint of that “office” or its use.
But from looking at the (low quality) satellite imagery: whatever it is, it likely lives beneath that deceptively small “pool” with a thick concrete base. This is likely an entry point to an underground facility of some kind.
“Pool” on Great Saint John. Possible entry point to underground facility.
The Shell Game Acquisition
Great St. James was acquired in 2016 through a shell structure designed to conceal true ownership. The community didn’t want Epstein (by then, a convicted sex offender) to own it. Residents protested. Local officials hesitated. But the purchase went through anyway. Strangely, under a name that wasn’t his. He used the name of an associate and Dubai businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.
Epstein, Sulayem
This wasn’t a simple real-estate purchase. It was engineered with intent over time.
The transaction ultimately go through Great St. Jim LLC, a shell entity designed for one purpose: separation. There were other shells involved with Great Saint James and the activities there, including one for Epstein’s private planes and helicopters.
It wasn’t that Epstein wanted or needed financial privacy.
It was about Epstein creating and maintaining operational distance.
The moment the sale cleared, construction began—despite the fact that he had no permits for anything beyond a flagpole and cistern repair.
Equipment arrived by barge.
Heavy machinery was staged on the shoreline. Roads were cut. Concrete footings appeared. A dock installed.
Underwater utilities, solar construction, and trenches were dug.
Regulators and inspectors were denied access. Epstein would not allow them on the island to conduct routine site visits and inspect what they said was “unpermitted and potentially damaging construction activity on Great St. James,” according to a law suit filed by the Virgin Islands.
Instead, Epstein and his “enterprise” would meet inspectors at the dock and said the visits were “invasions” of his right to privacy in his home – which he defined as the entire island.
Everything about Epstein’s acquisition of Great St James and the construction and use of the facilities there was handled like a strategic site takeover for secret research or illegal activities.
Development on Great Saint James
THE PART THEY TRIED TO BURY
Once you understand the shell structure that delivered Great St. James into Epstein’s hands, the next question is obvious:
Why go to such lengths unless the island was meant to operate outside of view?
That’s when the patterns begin to surface.
Not long after he was cited for illegal removal of protected colonial-era structures—he continued bulldozing anyway.
Authorities ordered him to repair the environmental damage on Great St. James, acknowledging publicly that historically significant structures had been destroyed.
But even that violation was handled quietly, folded into a paperwork shuffle that never made national headlines.
Epstein and his powerful network found a remote location to operate—one without much jurisdictional oversight or government power. A completely controlled location where they could transport girls and young women to be enslaved, raped, abused and possibly worse.
Balmar Point on Great Saint James, ideal for helicopter landing site
THE ISLAND THE INTERNET ERASED
Great St. James kept showing up strangely in public satellite tools—it was never updated, then I noticed misaligned labels, distorted edges, partial renders, tiles that refused to load.
Most people probably brushed it off as a glitch.
But the “glitches” only appeared on that island. The one that was mid-construction, receiving illegal utilities, and tied to a shell network built for anonymity.
Glitches may not be proof. But patterns are.
And every pattern pointed to an island that was undergoing far more development than the public narrative ever acknowledged, and survivors remember being taken there.
THE LOCAL REPORTING THAT DISAPPEARED
In April 2019, a local reporter in the Virgin Islands finally started publicly asking the questions residents had been asking for years:
Why is construction happening out there?
Who is building?
Where are the permits?
Why won’t DPNR release the documents?
Her story ran in the Virgin Islands Daily News. But now it’s gone—scrubbed from public access, removed from search, and unarchived.
Not even the Wayback Machine captured it.
This story is now missing from the internet
Reporting doesn’t vanish unless someone wants the questions to vanish with it.
THE RAID THAT WASN’T
When the FBI performed their “raid” on Epstein’s property in 2019, it was Little St. James that got the cameras—the dramatic boat landings, the agents in jackets, the boxes carried out.
FBI on Little St James in 2019
But eyewitnesses described agents (or people dressed like them) riding around in golf carts, emptying buildings and tossing items into dumpsters.
It looked more like a clean-out than a search.
Men in FBI shirts on golf carts on Little St John, as seen by boaters passing by in 2019
And Great St. James?
Nothing. No raid. No footage. No documentation. No mention.
An island with illegal construction, destroyed historical structures, underwater utilities, concealed infrastructure, an underwater structure and a shell-company acquisition was treated like it didn’t exist.
This isn’t oversight. Why hasn’t anyone demanded a proper investigation and search?
Ask yourself who benefits from the silence about Great St James and what may have happened there.
THE QUESTION THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING
Once you put the pieces together:
the shell acquisition, the bulldozed historical ruins, the underwater utility lines, the compound-level solar infrastructure, the misfiled satellite images, the vanished reporting, the staged half-raids, the survivor accounts of “the bigger island,” and the fact that construction continued until at least 2019 the question stops being “What happened on Great St. James?”
and becomes: Why did every official narrative work so hard to leave it out?
Because that’s where the story breaks open.
It was never about a temple or a single “pedo island.”
It was the network’s infrastructure for sale, so the buyer had to be predetermined in order to protect their common interests.
THE ISLAND NEVER LEFT THE NETWORK
When Epstein died, Great St. James didn’t fall into the hands of a neutral third party.
Great St James in US Virgin Islands
There was a public real estate listing for both islands, but it included no details about existing construction nor any photos or renderings of Great Saint James.
And then, it was purchased by Stephen Deckoff — a billionaire who comes out of the exact same Wall Street pipeline that produced Jeffrey Epstein.
Both Epstein and Deckoff built their early careers at Bear Stearns, under the same culture of structured finance, opaque vehicles, and complex offshore asset architectures.
Deckoff wasn’t a random buyer.
He was a Managing Director in Bear Stearns’ Structured Finance Group. The same department where Epstein rose, protected by the same mentor “Ace” Greenberg.
You don’t need a conspiracy to see the pattern.
You just need to understand how networks maintain and protect themselves.
The islands stayed inside the same ecosystem that built and placed Epstein, then protected him, and continue to profit from him.
Deckoff founded Black Diamond Capital Management in 1995 — an “alternative asset” firm, meaning private, opaque, aggressively structured, offshore-friendly.
In other words, the exact kind of entity that could take over Great St. James without ever exposing what Epstein was actually building there.
Deckoff also relocated to the Virgin Islands with his family around this time.
When he bought the islands for less than half the original asking price, Deckoff announced he was turning them into a luxury 25-room resort with villas, pools, and a bathhouse.
Except, no permits have been filed for construction, no environmental reviews were initiated for either island and no zoning applications seem to exist. There have been no signs that construction has begun and no public updates have ever been issued, beyond the announcement that the new resort would be open in 2025.
The resort never existed.
The plan never moved. Despite Deckoff telling reporters he was sourcing architects at time of purchase.
The island simply stayed under private, tightly controlled ownership inside the same financial ecosystem it had always belonged to. Boaters and locals say the islands appear to have little to no activity, aside from armed security guards on ATV’s who reportedly patrol the islands permitters.
The name on the deeds changed.
The network didn’t.
Great St. James didn’t disappear into justice. It wasn’t sold and the proceeds distributed to survivors.
Published: Dec 19, 2025, 22:14 IST | Updated: Dec 19, 2025, 22:14 IST
Before taking over global ports, Sulayem was the man who literally changed the map of the world. He established and led Nakheel, the real estate giant behind the Palm Islands (Palm Jumeirah) and “The World” islands. These artificial archipelagos are iconic symbols of Dubai’s wealth.
More from Ellie Leonard (Panicked, Substack) as she works through released emails of Slaley and Epstein, here Sultan (see above) is often mentioned:
2/5/2011
JE:[forwards e-mail from Larry Summers to Staley] What is the real story on madoff? Shouldn’t jpm have known better? If they had no obligation to figure it out why should people private bank w them?
JS: I can’t reply in email. Will call.
JS: Like taking financial advice from the guy who single handedly created the biggest loss in the Harvard Endowment’s history.
JE: donor advised fund. 1. You could tie it initially just to the gates program,, minimum gift. 100 million. It could then be opened up later. IT will be the largest foundation in the world. You need an advisroy board for 1. investments. 2. distribution. you will need an amministration, mirroring a mutual fund. 4. tax compliance dept. Dedicated to the operation. IT will underpin a trust and estate. dept, the size of which will be enormous, 5. I would suggest, an irs auditor full time on site. 6, as a DAF [donor advised fund], you will be able to take in funky assets. (sub s, closely held c’s, art,) valuation services..sale and mgmt of 144 stock_). done right its 100 billion dollars in 2 years. the tension is making money from a Charitable Org. therefore the money making parts need to be arms length. salaries are disclosable and closely watched. Farming the investments to a highbridge is no brainer, but must be done with airtight options and reviewed by committees. I thought of University Heads. Foundation Chairs, for the boards. It will be the most sort after board in the country.
And right now, the network continues unabated.
In Sudan, the UAE continues to back the vicious RSF who are slaughtering civilians at every opportunity, thus gaining land grabs and extending power in the region:
Now, he seeks to repeat history. In early 2025, the United States government formally accused the Rapid Support Forces of committing genocide in Sudan. The consequences? The paramilitary group, its leaders, and RSF-owned businesses in the United Arab Emirates were formally sanctioned. However, this condemnation of RSF involvement in the UAE ignores how the Emirati government actively seeks it out, despite denying the allegations of funding. The relationship between the UAE and the RSF is neither nonexistent nor parasitic; both sides view it as a partnership.
The linkages between the Rapid Support Forces and the United Arab Emirates indicate Abu Dhabi intends to capitalize on the growing instability in Sudan. Since the beginning of the conflict, Emirati passports, bombs, and military hardware have been coincidentally discovered or intercepted in RSF-controlled Sudan, causing Sudan to accuse their former ally of funding genocide within its borders. The United States deemed these allegations factual after Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative Sarah Jacobs confirmed that the UAE government directly transmitted weaponry and military aid to the paramilitary group, contrary to what Abu Dhabi told Washington.
The UAE’s support of the RSF is motivated by a desire to extract raw materials, namely agricultural crops and precious metals, from the prosperous Sudanese land. The current Sudanese government, the primary opposition to the RSF, has rejected multiple agricultural and land agreements with the United Arab Emirates due to exploitative and unfair terms that yield substantial profits for the Emirati government while providing little protection for local workers and landowners. The Rapid Support Forces, thus, signify a new opportunity for Abu Dhabi to solidify its influence and extend its reach further into the region
In May, the UAE’s ruling family deposited $2 billion into the crypto fund cofounded by Eric and Donald Trump, Jr. with, among others, the Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff’s fresh-faced son, Zach and a fourth Musketeer Zak Folkman, who used to run a company called Date Hotter Girls, —and lo!—two weeks later, the White House gave the UAE access to a payload of the world’s most advanced and scarce AI computer chips, despite national security concerns that they might be shared with our biggest adversary, China. A NYT investigation described the transaction as “eviscerating the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in a manner without precedent in modern American history.”
And lest we forget, prior to UAE supporting RSF, it was Russia:
Exclusive: Evidence emerges of Russia’s Wagner arming militia leader battling Sudan’s army
President Donald Trump made a series of false claims during his prime-time address from the White House on Wednesday night, most of which have been debunked before. Here is a fact check.
Inflation and the economy
Inflation under Trump: Near the end of the speech, Trump falsely claimed, “Inflation is stopped.” Inflation hasn’t stopped; the year-over-year inflation rate in September, 3.0%, was the same as the rate when Trump returned to office in January – in fact, if you go to multiple decimal places, the September rate was a tiny bit higher – and September was the fifth consecutive month the year-over-year rate had increased.
Inflation under Biden: Trump repeated his false claim that “when I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country.”
The year-over-year inflation rate in the last full month of the Biden administration, December 2024, was 2.9%; it was 3.0% in January 2025, the month of Trump’s second inauguration. That’s the same as the most recent available rate at the time Trump spoke on Wednesday, 3.0% in September 2025. (The November rate is scheduled to be released on Thursday morning.) We don’t know who Trump was referring to when he said “some would say,” but neither the December 2024 number nor the January 2025 number was anywhere close to the worst inflation in decades or all time.
It is true that the year-over-year US inflation rate hit about a 40-year high (not a 48-year high) during the Biden administration in June 2022, 9.1%, but even that was not close to the all-time record of 23.7%, set in 1920 – and it occurred more than two years before Trump returned. Inflation had plummeted before Trump’s inauguration.
The cumulative increase in prices from the beginning of the Biden administration to the end was also not the worst in US history. Federal figures show that cumulative inflation under Biden was less than half of that during President Jimmy Carter’s term.
Grocery prices: After noting that the price of eggs has plummeted since March, Trump added, “And everything else is falling rapidly.” That is not true even if he was talking specifically about grocery prices, which are up this year. Consumer Price Index data shows that a far greater number of grocery items have increased in price since he returned to office than have decreased. The most recent available CPI figures at the time he spoke on Wednesday, for September, showed that average grocery prices were up about 2.7% from September 2024; about 1.4% from January 2025, the month Trump returned to office; and about 0.3% from August to September.
It’s possible the November data, scheduled to be released on Thursday, will show a month-to-month decline in grocery prices, but grocery prices will almost certainly still be up for Trump’s term.
Prescription drug prices: Trump repeated his false claim that an executive order he issued on prescription drug prices will cut those prices by “as much as 400, 500, and even 600%.” These figures are mathematically impossible; if the president magically got the companies to reduce the prices of all of their drugs to $0, that would be a 100% cut. You can read a longer fact check here.
Gas prices: Trump said, “Gasoline is now under $2.50 a gallon in much of the country, and some states it by the way just hit $1.99 a gallon.” These claims need context.
As of Wednesday, there were only four states whose average price for a gallon of regular gas was below $2.50, according to data published by AAA: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa and Colorado. (Nine more states had averages between $2.50 and $2.60 per gallon.) The AAA national average was $2.905 per gallon.
No state had an average below Oklahoma’s $2.339 per gallon. And while some individual stations around the country were offering gas for $1.99 per gallon or less, the number was tiny; Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for the firm GasBuddy, estimated that it was between 75 and 100 stations of the tens of thousands GasBuddy tracks around the country. (That doesn’t include others offering special discounts.)
Investment in the US this year: Trump repeated his false claim that there has been “$18 trillion” in investment in the US during his second presidency, saying Wednesday, “I’ve secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States.” This figure is fiction. At the time he spoke on Wednesday, the White House’s own website said the figure was “$9.6 trillion,” and even that is a major exaggeration; a detailed CNN review in October found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US, or vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges. You can read more here.
Immigration and foreign policy
Trump and wars: Trump repeated his false claim that he has ended eight wars this year, saying Wednesday, “I’ve restored American strength, settled eight wars in 10 months.” While Trump has played a role in resolving some conflicts (at least temporarily), the “eight” figure is a clear exaggeration.
Trump has previously explained that his list of supposed wars settled includes a war between Egypt and Ethiopia, but that wasn’t actually a war; it is a long-running diplomatic dispute about a major Ethiopian dam project on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s list includes another supposed war that didn’t actually occur during his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has sometimes claimed to have prevented the eruption of a new war between those two entities, providing few details about what he meant, but that is different than settling an actual war.) And his list includes a supposed success in ending a war involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, but that war has continued despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration this year – which was never signed by the leading rebel coalition doing the fighting.
Trump’s list also includes an armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, where fighting erupted again this month and continued into this week despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration earlier in the year.
One can debate the importance of Trump’s role in having ended the other conflicts on his list, or fairly question whether some have truly ended; for example, killing continued in Gaza in November after the October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Regardless, Trump’s “eight” figure is obviously too big.
Migration and Biden: Trump repeated his false claim that “25 million” migrants entered the country under Biden. The “25 million” figure is false; even Trump’s previous “21 million” figure was a wild exaggeration. Through December 2024, the last full month under the Biden administration, the federal government had recorded under 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during that administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country. Even adding in the so-called gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no way the total was even close to what Trump has said.
A US Army soldier closes a gate at the US-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 24, after President Donald Trump ordered additional military personnel to the border with Mexico as part of a flurry of steps to tackle immigration. Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images/File
Trump also repeated his unsubstantiated claim that, during the Biden administration, foreign countries emptied their prisons and mental institutions to somehow send the people in them to the US as migrants, claiming that “many” members of the supposed “army of 25 million people” were “from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums.” Trump has never provided corroboration for such claims about foreign countries in general or the specific places he has named in the past: Venezuela and “the Congo.” Experts on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighboring Republic of Congo said during the Biden administration that they had seen no basis for Trump’s stories, the governments of both of the Congo countries told CNN the stories are false, and an expert on the global prison population told CNN she saw “absolutely no evidence” of any country emptying its prisons to somehow release prisoners into the US.
Other topics
Trump’s bill and Social Security: Trump repeated his false claim that the big domestic policy bill he signed earlier this year includes “no tax on Social Security.” The legislation did create an additional, temporary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for individuals age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for individuals earning $75,000 per year or more), but the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged that millions of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will continue to pay taxes on their benefits – and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn’t even apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65.
Biden, crime and law enforcement: Trump falsely claimed that, under Biden, there was “crime at record levels, with law enforcement and words such as that just absolutely forbidden.” Neither of these two claims is true.
There was no ban on the phrase “law enforcement” under Biden; the Biden administration itself used the phraserepeatedly. And crime wasn’t even close to an all-time high under Biden. Crime in the US was far higher in the early 1990s and at various points of the 1970s and 1980s than it has been in the 2020s under either Biden or Trump.
Murder spiked nationally amid the turmoil of the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, under both Trump in 2020 and Biden in 2021. But FBI data showed that both violent crime and property crime declined nationally under Biden in 2023 and 2024. Trump has challenged the FBI data, and while it does have flaws and limitations, there is simply no basis for the notion that crime was at a record high during the Biden era.
This story has been updated with additional details.
Reid Weingarten served on Jeffrey Epstein’s defense team in 2019, though the two men had spoken for many years and it’s unclear when Epstein retained Weingarten as counsel. I have kept in all the spelling errors.
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JE: have one of your cronys ask to see the mortgage to mara lago cash from the electricinas union,, ( his driver MAtt was the bag man , later made an exec at the public co. ) and the 30 million dollar loan from the casino to Donald trump. backdated,
7/2/2014 10:18 AM – 2:42 PM
JE: Speak?
RW: On my way to atlantic city…thinking of helping a client “steal” the revel casino…(in bankruptcy)…he wants to give me a piece…you want in?
JE: No but you should tLk to Nick ribbis knows it inside and out
RW: Is he a friend of yours?
JE: Very
RW: God guy?
JE: Been beaten up by trump , promoter , he is strIght with me and will with my direction , be with you
JE: [Rape lawsuits against Donald Trump linked to former TV producer] www.theguardian.com > US News > Donald Trump July 7, 2016 – Lawsuits accusing Donald Trump of sexually assaulting a child in the 1990s appear to have been …. follows a near-identical suit in California that made the same allegations against Trump and Epstein.
1/11/2017 11:52 PM – 3:19 PM
JE: if not in florida do you have any plans to be in new york next week.
RW: Going through florida…then end of the week nyc
JE: Thursday new york? my birthday fri
RW: Craziest shit happening…trying to deliver el chapo to barack instead of trump….figuring out my schedule next week. let you know
RW: 2-3 weeks but Not sure how it will roll….supposed to be serious riots here may 1….lefties are pissed and trump said p.r. can fuck itself….what’s with you?
JE: new york fun your girl is in the DR . i have no idea
RW: Do you know if your boy Barrack is close witha lebanese/nigerian biz guy named chagoury
JE: I don’t but with details can ask
7/26/2017 3:12 PM
RW: Chagoury about to get indicted in l.a….wants me to rep him…supposed to be close to your guy
10/15/2017 5:59 AM – 4:11 PM
JE: “In the last 10 months, we have followed through on one promise after another,” Mr. Trump told the Values Voter Summit in Washington. “I didn’t have a schedule. But if I did have a schedule, I would say we are substantially ahead of schedule.”
RW: Is the point of this he is totally divorced from reality?
RW: Trump’s handpicked sdnyusa just authorized a search warrant of trump’s private lawyer’s office looking for trump communications…..had to justify it with crime-fraud exception….trump has to be shitting water
RW: Do you have 5 minutes today? You could actually help me on something I think… (mizrahi bank wants to hire me)
9/25/2018 11:42 AM
JE: where?
Looking back to an article in Esquire, Nov 2025:
The Epstein Emails Are Hinting at a Bombshell Revelation About Trump
Even with the feds closing in on him, Epstein was seemingly auditioning for a chance to throw the president to the wolves.By Charles P. PiercePublished: Nov 14, 2025 5:10 PM EST
And in the Miami Herald some recent questions asked of Julie Brown, the first reporter to pursue sex crimes against young girls by Epstein:
SOUTH FLORIDA Five questions about Jeffrey Epstein with Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown By Julie K. Brown Updated July 25, 2025 6:25 PM
…………extract:
Q: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell on Thursday, and the U.S. House Oversight Committee plans to talk with her in August. What kind of information do you think Maxwell could reveal? A: Ghislaine Maxwell knows pretty much everything, I think. She was what the victims consider the mastermind of Epstein’s sex trafficking organization. She was recruiting women to both work for Epstein and help schedule his trysts with these girls, these massage sessions, as they were called at the time. But she started the ball rolling by going into spas and gyms throughout Palm Beach and giving her business card to to young girls and telling them, “You know, I work for a very wealthy man. He is looking for a masseuse. You can make a lot of money.” And that’s what got the ball rolling. Some of the victims consider her in some aspects worse than Epstein because they felt safe with her. Here was this woman that was a very nurturing kind of personality, very bubbly, telling them that this man’s fine, he’s going to help you. And they trusted her to some degree. So then to learn that she was part of the crime was a real betrayal to them because they were sort of tricked into this world by Ghislaine Maxwell.
Weingarten argued that because Epstein did not force or coerce any of the girls to do things against their will, he should not be charged under sex-trafficking statutes which he said were enacted to protect girls from being forcibly raped by “15-20 guys” in a brothel under threat of violence.
There was no rape here, Weingarten said, although maybe Epstein did engage in “maybe a lot of prostitution.”
That prompted Judge Pitman to interject and question Weingarten’s legal reasoning.
“Isn’t it rape if the girls are underage?” the Judge asked.
Weingarten paused for a moment: “well…statutory maybe,” before moving on.
Law+Crime reported that the packed gallery ‘responded with a combination of audible laughter and shocked gasps as Epstein’s attorney appeared to be admitting his client had committed rape.’
Weingarten addressed his gaffe, telling Pitman his reference to statutory rape was a “senior moment,” insisting Epstein had not committed statutory rape because there was “no penetration.”
And as in January 2026 we will see the release of the film about the current First Lady, produced by Brett Ratner, what did he know about sexual misconduct?
Six women accuse filmmaker Brett Ratner of sexual harassment or misconduct
In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, six women — including actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge — accused filmmaker Brett Ratner of a range of sexual harassment and misconduct that allegedly took place in private homes, on movie sets or at industry events.
More Epstein and Brett Ratner images in latest release from DOJ:
An image of Brett Ratner and Jean-Luc Brunel that was released by the Department of Justice as part of their release of information relating to Jeffrey Epstein.DOJ
Re: above, who is Barrack?:
Close friend of Trump investigated over alleged €170m tax evasion
This article is more than 8 years old
Real estate mogul Thomas Barrack, under investigation in Italy, played a critical role in Trump’s 2016 US presidential campaign
A close friend and major fundraiser for Donald Trump is under investigation in Italy for allegedly evading €170m (£147m, $190m) in taxes after the sale of a luxury resort on Sardinia’s Emerald Coast, the beach playground frequented by Gulf Arabs and Russian oligarchs.
Thomas Barrack played a critical role in Trump’s 2016 election campaign and inauguration and has been described as one of the president’s key advisers outside the West Wing.
At the heart of allegations against Barrack in Italy are claims that he and associates in his private equity firm, Colony Capital, orchestrated a complicated scheme involving Luxembourg-based companies to shield tens of millions of euros from Italian tax authorities after Colony’s 2012 sale of the Costa Smeralda resort to Qatar for €600m ($670m).
As President Bola Tinubu’s administration deepens its grip on Nigeria’s public institutions, one name continues to surface behind the scenes of major deals, diplomatic flights, and controversial infrastructure projects:
Gilbert Ramez Chagoury, a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire businessman, convicted money launderer, and former bag man for Nigeria’s late military dictator, Sani Abacha.
While his name rarely appears in official press releases, Chagoury’s fingerprints are visible across key decisions and financial flows under Tinubu’s administration, raising serious questions about state capture, corruption, and influence trading at the highest levels of government.
Today, Ellie Leonard (Substack, The Panicked), worked on transposing Landon Thomas Jr.’s emails with Trump, Ellie inserting relevant information for readers to understand the context:
A former portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley, Landon Thomas handled investments in Turkey, Pakistan, and the Middle East, before coming to work at the New York Times in 2002. Prior to that, Thomas had written the now well-known article “International Moneyman of Mystery” for New York Magazine, profiling Jeffrey Epstein as an enigmatic financial kingpin whose fortune origins and career path were hard to pin down. It’s unknown whether Thomas continued to correspond with Epstein between 2002 and 2015, when his emails began, as documented by the House Oversight Committee, but for the next three years they had quite a lot to say about people like Alan Dershowitz, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and of course Donald Trump. I have included all the original spelling errors.
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12/8/2015 5:41 PM – 10:59 PM
LT: Now everyone coming to me thinking I have juicy info on you and Trump. Because of this. “’I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,’ Trump booms from a speakerphone. ‘He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.’” That story will never die
JE: research how he paid for mara lago . matt was his bagman, , trump shuttle. . trump casino review sec filing to see the backdates taking of money
JE: read the uzz feed re my airplane logs and hawain tropic contest. / have them ask my houseman about donad almost walking through the door leaving his nose print on the glass as young women were swimming in the pool and he was so focused he walked straight into the door.
JE: would you like photos of Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen.
LT: Yes!!!
Landon Thomas Jr. – The New York Times
JE: when we bet that marla maples was pregnant , i olst and sent him 10,ooo dollars of baby food. the hawain tropic girls all have photos he was the judge
LT: I am serious man — for the good of the nation why not try to get some of this out there. I would not do it myself, but would pass on to a political reporter.[Court Papers: Trump Ate At Jeffrey Epstein’s House]
Epstein and Celina Midelfart
JE: (Broken link “celina midelfart the queen of glamour”) my 20 year old girlfriend in 93, , that after two years i gave to donald
LT: Do you mind if I pass Petrella’s contact on to the political reporter? I won’t do it unless you say OK because after that I would have no say as to where story goes. Let me know — its not a big deal for me either way. But at some point this stuff will come out — as long he continues to top polls.
LT: I am kind of shocked that our reporters did not contact you re the Trump/women story. Seems to me he got off rather lightly. How are you doing?
JE: Me too.
6/1/2016 3:25 PM – 4:00 PM
LT: Keep getting calls from that guy doing a book on you — John Connolly. He seems very interested in your relationship with the news media. I told him you were a hell of a guy:) One oddity: he said he had been told that that quote from Trump about you in the original NY Mag story had been manufactured. ie, that I did not actually speak to Donald. Which is bull shit of course. I am sure that is what Trump told him as they have been getting a lot of questions from reporters about you. He actually seemed to be a sensible guy/solid reporter — just from the few conversations I had with him. I think he is close to finishing up. Did you ever speak to him?
JE: no
LT: are you still getting calls from reporters re Trump?
JE: every day
LT: everyone except the NYT it seems:) yes or no question: does he win?
JE: ask me august
Donald Trump speaks with supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, in June 2016 – Gage Skidmore
6/22/2016 4:15 PM
LT: Any big finance names out there supporting trump that we have not heard about? We are trying to get an angle on who is supporting and who is not.
9/16/2016 5:08 PM – 8:56 PM
LT: I am getting worried. Is he ever going to implode?
JE: too late
LT: you think he will win?
JE: ask again 30th
LT: Lets catch up next time you are in NYC. NYT is making me write more on markets now and I don’t really know who to believe any more re where the market is going these days.
JE: no place else to invest for alpha, your children are rich
LT: If you knew Trump was going to win, how would you position your portfolio?
JE: five me a number ill call
LT: [REDACTED]
10/17/2016 5:57
LT: I have been called in to help on a big NYT investigation into how low oil prices have been affecting the personal finances of royal family in Saudi Arabia. Obviously they called in much of their cash form the likes of BlackRock and others but I thought you might have some ideas. Maybe some people to talk to? I would think its more than cutting down on yachts and private planes or selling real estate in Paris, Istanbul, London. Any thoughts? PS: does my story on Abraaj get me a meeting with Gates next time he is in town:)
10/18/2016 7:04 AM
JE: words that you to refer to one thing, USA . the stock market / the Royal family, . are no longer very useful. In politics the USA meant the white house. now there is pentagon. cia, state, and congress in addition, each feels empowered to act more independantly. stock market even in tech, needs bio tech, consuner tech. infrastructure tech. etc. same with Royal family, there are 20k members of a tribe. called the royal family, the words are misleading. if your article is focused on bin salman, or the very top. no one is wondering where they can find the local Costco.. but they are aware that a message needs to be sent to their population , regarding the next 20 years, social media, and the selfie crowds post the best of everything, their cutest pictures the amazing food , the luxury resorts. the masses see these things and the difference between expectations and reality widen, the anger grows. trump is tapped in. with the passage of the 9 11 saudi bill, unlike the french revolution where it was the people of france that revolted against their own aristocracty, with the internet and globalization of discontect it is now the americans that can revolt against the saudi leadership. it is the americans that are demanding women drive. not the Saudis
10/19/2016 9:41 AM – 3:02 PM
LT: Interesting. CEO of big finance form told me that the Saudis (SAMA)have withdrawn $200 billion that has been parked with usual suspects over the past year or so. That number seem in line with what you know?
JE: most of the saudi money is tied up in pe funds. no withdrawals allowed . and im not seeing much in the secondary market. . blackrock is more money market , more like custodian than investor .
Remunance.com
LT: what is your back of the envelope guess as to much saudi money tied up in such funds?
JE: sorry, no good handle without digging
LT: I have spoken to a lot of ceos of fund outfits who say Saudis have been pulling billions of dollars in separate money — not just from BR. And plus I cant believe they would have so much tied up in lock ups.
LT: You called it! How are you positioned re market?
JE: long dow , short yen euro and pound. long reits,
LT: who is treasury secretary? Is Mnuchin a done deal? Seems too obvious.
JE: number?
LT: 212 556 3821
11/14/2016 2:51 PM – 2:59 PM
LT: Any further intel on Treasury? Priebus choice suggests to me that he may go for a bigger name in treasury than Mnuchin. Someone to underscore/push forward this notion that he is Reagan 2.0 (as some are suggesting.) I am just not sure who that person would be. The Trump trade certainly seems to have legs — all the Hillary loving hedgies I am talking to are congratulating themselves for making so much money last week. They are all Trump lovers now!
JE: no intel but lots of profits
LT: do you agree with my thesis?
JE: no, they don’t have many loyal people that have gravitas. . it will be somewhat random but he is being advised to do as you suggest but he doesn’t like advice in teneral. he has no loyalty ZERO tossed christie after being his best friend. in four seconds flat.
Chris Christie – AP
LT: yeah, but that was a smart move — made him look presidential. everything he has done so far suggests to me he is going to do what you told me months ago: appoint competent people beneath him who he trusts AND who will not fuck things up. Christie was not one of those people.
LT: How are you explaining this to your Saudi friends? Can’t believe logical people like Barrack would support such insanity.
JE: oh no , you too/ I have been fielding similar emails calls texts ALL DAY, it will all turn out ok. shaking things up will bring about hopefully positive change. . he won and his people won , this is what his people want. cant be sore losers.
The Muslim Travel Ban, 2017 – ABCNews
LT: I gave him benefit of doubt on a whole bunch of stuff and agree that we need to shake things up. But this ban is just wrong and I really don’t see how it helps him.
1/29/2017 9:59 AM
JE: IT helps as he is seen to be keeping his word, it is important with putin and north korea. as you notice north korea has not fired there missile that he promised wouldn’t happen. Obama was never able to effecturate that. . that being said Donald is fucking crazy I told you that
2/3/2017 3:43 PM
LT: Do you think he gets what he wants? [An Early Trump Backer Awaits His Reward] Interesting piece on cognitive science/Trump. Right down your alley. (Broken “Trump fog” link.)
2/15/2017 3:48 PM
LT: I am writing a story about how markets keep ripping ahead despite political craziness. VIX so low, etc. You must get a lot of this in talking to clients — people freaking out about headlines as markets hit new highs. How do you spin this to them? One hedgie Trump supporter told me that Trump is the highest beta prez ever — ie the highs will be high but so will be the lows. Question: how closely does DJT track market moves? I know he tweets about Dow 20,000 but how aware do you think he is about how market really betting big on him. Does he talk to Barrack about this? Cohn?
LT: Seems to me he is a natural guy for you; he is going to be in Florida in March for some Trump event. I know some of his financial guys pretty well: I might try to facilitate something if you are not opposed.
Masayoshi Son, “Masa,” CEO of SoftBank – Getty Images
JE: great , thanks, or new york , or this weekend as Donald arrives at 5pm tonight
LT: OK. Let me see what I can do. What is the latest from the inner circle?
JE: they believe all on track, . tax policy, big changes. . law and order and immigration. . . jobs. . however russia not going away anytime soon. . lots of people with magnifying glasses.
3/9/2017 3:30 PM
LT: Trying to get you in with Masa crowd. Some resistance though, due to all the headlines/controversy — as you might expect. I tell them about your relationship with Saudis/Gates/Trump crowd, but still doubts. Working on it!
LT: I was in Toledo Ohio yesterday drilling down on small business animal spirits: amazing how bullish they are there — for all of DJT’s craziness, his ability to present himself as a small biz owner pissed off about regulations/health care/anti-business sentiment in White House was a brilliant stroke. They really dig him down there….
JE: foot off the brake
2019:
A former New York Times staffer quietly left the paper after revealing he had solicited charitable donations from Jeffrey Epstein
Former New York Times financial journalist Landon Thomas Jr. left the paper after revealing to editors he solicited charitable donations from Jeffrey Epstein, NPR reported Thursday.
Thomas Jr. reportedly told his editors he became friends with the disgraced financier after profiling him in 2008. He had asked Epstein to make a $30,000 donation to a Harlem cultural center in 2017.
The Times issued a statement confirming his exit and called his solicitation “a clear violation” of their ethics policy, NPR said.
Thomas’ action “was a shocking lapse of journalistic standards,” an unnamed source with the Times told The Daily Beast.
A former New York Times reporter was ousted from the publication after asking convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to make a $30,000 charitable donation, NPR reported Thursday.
Financial journalist Landon Thomas Jr. told his editors in summer 2018 he had become friends with Epstein after covering the financier years earlier, according to the report. He also revealed he’d convinced Epstein to donate the five-figure sum to a Harlem cultural center in 2017.
Thomas tried to convince his editors that Epstein was merely a source of information and not a subject he reported on, according to the report, but they rejected the explanation and disavowed him from any professional contact with the disgraced investor.
Measles was almost wiped out due to the brilliant development of the measles vaccine, developed in America, which has saved millions of lives over the years it has been used.
But now misinformation and declining health care standards has resulted in the gradual spread of the potentally fatal disease.
Why?
Crumbling health systems and misinformation fuelling global surge in measles, scientists warn
Experts say that a ‘generational decline in living standards’ could be behind waning rates of vaccination
report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) warning that the rise in measles cases is a consequence of declining vaccine rates – and that other diseases prevented by vaccination could be next.
“It’s a global story,” Dr Kasstan-Dabush told The Independent. “The issue of declining vaccination coverage can’t really be separated from the bigger picture of declining standards of child and adult health.
Measles vaccination rates remain high in the U.S. In 2017, the CDC reported that 94 percent of children entering kindergarten had received two doses of MMR vaccine.83 For the 2018-2019 school year, 94.7 percent of children in kindergarten had received the two recommended doses of MMR vaccine.84
Further, in 2020, 92.4 percent of adolescents 13 to 17 years were reported to have received the two recommended MMR vaccine doses.85
In June 2022, the FDA approved PRIORIX, a live attenuated measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.86PRIORIX was initially licensed in Germany in 1997 and according to the CDC, the vaccine has been in use globally in nearly 100 countries.87On June 23, 2022, the CDC’s ACIP voted to approve use of PRIORIX as an option for the MMR vaccine according to the current MMR recommendations and off-label uses.88
IMPORTANT NOTE: NVIC encourages you to become fully informed about Measles and the Measles vaccine by reading all sections in the Table of Contents , which contain many links and resources such as the manufacturer product information inserts, and to speak with one or more trusted health care professionals before making a vaccination decision for yourself or your child. This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice.
In American history of the first to the most recent vaccines:
The first two measles vaccines were initially licensed for use in the United States in 1963 and both contain the Edmonston B measles strain isolated by John Enders in 1954. Rubeovax, a live attenuated vaccine, was manufactured by Merck while Pfizer-Vax Measles-K, an inactivated (killed) virus vaccine, was manufactured by Pfizer.1
………
IMPORTANT NOTE: NVIC encourages you to become fully informed about Measles and the Measles vaccine by reading all sections in the Table of Contents , which contain many links and resources such as the manufacturer product information inserts, and to speak with one or more trusted health care professionals before making a vaccination decision for yourself or your child. This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice.
Measles vaccine has saved hundreds of thousands of lives
Dec 1, 2025
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has underscored the remarkable progress made in the fight against measles over the past 24 years.
Since 2000, global measles cases have fallen by 71%, dropping from an estimated 38-million to 11-million in 2024 – with improvements driven by vaccination coverage.
Deaths have declined even more dramatically, by 88%, from 777 000 in 2000 to 95 000 in 2024 – the lowest annual estimate in decades.
In total, measles vaccination has prevented nearly 58,7-million deaths worldwide in this period, making it one of the most successful public health interventions in history.
Beyond its public health impact, measles vaccination also delivers tremendous economic returns – yielding $58 for every dollar invested.
reported on Tuesday come from Way of Truth Church in Inman, with eight of those cases coming from household exposures to measles. One new case of measles came from “exposure in a health care setting,” according to the South Carolina Department of Public Health, though more details about that case were not released. The agency encourages those who’ve been potentially exposed to measles to notify their health care provider before coming in so that proper arrangements can be made to protect others.
Trump Administration influence on take up vaccinations:
As part of that effort, the MMR vaccine is required for children to attend public school throughout the country, but many states offer parents the choice to exempt their child for religious or personal reasons. In a media briefing yesterday, South Carolina’s state epidemiologist Linda Bell said that vaccination levels there were simply “lower than hoped for.”
The state has seen vaccination rates of its schools’ students decline from almost 96 percent in 2020 to 93.5 percent in 2025—for context, robust herd immunity from measles requires about 95 percent of the population to be vaccinated, according to the World Health Organization.
Both Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and President Donald Trump have criticized the shot, suggesting it should be broken up into separate jabs and linking it, without evidence, to autism. Numerous studies have debunked this link.
Sometimes going to a new school or learning new things can be scary. Image by Ernesto Eslava via Pixabay.
Have you ever been scared of something you were told was good for you? Think of the first time you entered a new school…maybe that scared you. You may have been nervous to meet new friends, or to sit in a classroom taught by a teacher you didn’t know. That teacher may be mean, or they might be nice. You don’t know. It’s normal to be worried about new things; however, learning about things that are new to us can help us understand them better.
Why are some people against vaccines?
The fear of vaccines actually started early in history. Some people feared the vaccines Edward Jenner was using to protect them against smallpox. This fear arose because people misunderstood how biology worked. In the 18th century, people didn’t even know that germs caused disease.When cowpox started to be used to prevent smallpox, people were afraid. Click for more detail.
The smallpox vaccine was first associated with a cow virus, cowpox. People were afraid that if they got the vaccine they would grow cow body parts, or they might even turn into a cow! That might sound strange to us today, but for them the vaccine was scary because it was new and people didn’t know how it worked. Additionally, in reality, smallpox vaccines have been made with cowpox, horsepox, and other poxviruses over time. The history is unclear as to what source was being used for virus when, but many poxviruses were able to provide immunity to smallpox.
Fear of vaccines today
Today most people realize a human won’t just start growing cow (or horse or other animal) parts, but fears about vaccines persist. Some of these fears come from misconceptions about vaccines and their safety. One misconception is that the when babies are born, their immune system cannot handle vaccinations. Though infant immune systems are still developing, they are also very strong. Babies come into contact with many germs in the environment that may make them sick. If a baby were given all 14 scheduled vaccines at once, it would only use up 0.1% of a baby’s immune capacity.
December 11, 20255:09 PM GMTUpdated December 11, 2025
Summary
US set to withdraw from WHO next month
WHO chief says it has learned COVID lessons
US was biggest donor to global health agency
GENEVA, Dec 11 (Reuters) – The World Health Organization chief said on Thursday that he was still hoping the U.S. administration would reconsider its decision to withdraw from the organisation next month, saying that its exit would be a loss for the world.
In one of his first acts as U.S. president, Donald Trump signed the order to withdraw, saying the global health agency had mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and was too close to China. It will take effect on Jan. 22, 2026.
Attorney Ken Starr is most well-known for having authored the Starr Report, which served as the basis for the Clinton impeachment proceedings. But in 2007, Starr joined Jeffrey Epstein’s defense team, which led to the notorious “sweetheart deal.” Starr remained Epstein’s friend until his death in 2019, often counseling Epstein and his friends on how to handle sexual misconduct allegations. This is their correspondence.
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11/10/2016 4:03 PM – 10:14 PM
JE: any new york plans
KS: Thanks for checking in. I’ll make some. What timing would work for you?
KS: Darn. On a cruise in the aforementioned Caribbean that week. Weekly Standard post-election cruise. Bad timing on our part. We’ll try for January-February in warm climate, or NY when you’re next there. Many thanks
JE: are you going to stop in st. Thomas on your cruise?
11/19/2016 8:36 PM – 11:11 PM
KS: Greetings! Just got my hands on the itinerary. Alas, no St. Thomas. Back to the drawing board. Hope you’re well. Best, Ken
JE: hope thanksgiving is peaceful . miss talking to you
KS: And to you as well. We’ll be at the Breakers en famille as of Tuesday evening.. Any chance to see you in the Sunshine State? Hugs, Ken
11/20/2016 5:32 AM – 11:00 PM
JE: I’ll be there wed
KS: Fabulous! May I buy you lunch?
JE: great great anytime at your convenience or you can come to the house ,
KS: Jeffrey, sensational! I’ll be there with bells ringing. High noon ok?
JE: perfect
12/18/2016 7:39 PM
JE: if trump fully supports jasta , does that make the constitutional challenge moot
12/25/2016 5:46 PM – 7:39 PM
KS: Hope Santa (swim trunks donned), reindeer and sleigh successfully made it southward. Yuletide hugs, Ken
JE: thx hope this year brings you true peace. you deserve it
KS: A prince art thou. Thank you. Just agreed to handle an appeal — billion-dollar jury verdict in federal court against Johnson & Johnson. Get ready: Representing the hip-replacement plaintiffs. Good friends on both sides. Love ya.
5/19/2018 10:01 AM – 8:25 PM
JE: my good friend Michael wolffe of Fire and Fury fame, .wanted to speak to you totally off the record. thoghts? he wanted some color on indicting a sitting pres, between us , he has seen a draft of one. . ) what does not subject to criminal process mean. ? I assume trump corp has none of the consiutuional baggage?
KS: Happy to do so. Feel free to give Michael my email address. Hugs, Ken
The following is a conversation between Jeffrey Epstein, Ken Starr, and Michael Wolff
JE: Ken – Michael , Michael/ Ken
MW: Ken, delighted to meet. Jeffrey has long told me about your friendship and the respect he has for you. If you send me your mailing address, it would be my pleasure to send you my recent book about the Trump White House. I’m now at work on a sequel focusing on the legal case against Trump and Trump’s response to it. Any counsel and background you might provide would aid me enormously and enrich the book. I, of course, would be willing to talk with you on an entirely off-the-record basis or under any arrangement that suits. Thanks in advance and I look forward to the chance to chat. All best, Michael
KS: Michael: Excellent. With thanks to Jeffrey, I’m delighted to come into your orbit, and look forward to our conversation. My mailing address is: [REDACTED] Warm regards, Ken
8/17/2018 10:14 AM – 10:18 AM
July 30, 2008 photo of Jeffrey Epstein in court in West Palm Beach – Palm Beach Post
KS: Good morning! Jed teaches crim law at Yale. Outspokenly strong on the need for procedural fairness in campus adjudicatory proceedings. Relevant to your friend’s unhappy situation? If so, happy to make the connection. Hugs, Ken
JE: thx
8/22/2018 12:07 PM – 7:17 PM
KS: Can you talk? Impt. [REDACTED]
JE: i vote yes as it makes you relevant to today rather than merely re- reciting an old tale. 🙂 or tail?
JE: I think scholarly but not too much so. no one above the law. . we begin leaving a kingdom. . unlikely to give king like powers to a president. on one above the law. I would like lunch pail joe to come away and think , this guy is smart . I understood . lets see what he writes about the clintons. someone suggested that trump could shoot someone on fifth avenue and not lose a vote. that is true , but would make little sense for him not to suffer an immediate consequence. the allowed civil depo setting precedent for criminal process , is a lawyers outline I might think of dumbing it down , again , and suggesting that you can sue your neighbor , even if your neighbor is the president. makes little sense that the you can be indicted for assaulting him but he cannot if he assaults you. low bar for civil higher bar for criminal. . at some point on your book tour I might point out how disappointed you were that the clinton and betty curries‘ trashcan story , was reopened . .
KS: Wise counsel. Thx!
12/13/2018 4:24 PM
JE: ken ,would you take a stab at the article for the law journal. ? thx
12/15/2018 11:24 AM
KS: Here goes: “Sweetheart deal! “ So goes the critique of the resolution of a long-ago case involving our former client — and now-friend — Jeffrey Epstein. The critique is profoundly misplaced, supported neither by the law or the facts, nor by the structure of our constitutional republic. To the contrary, Jeffrey, Jeffrey was subjected to an unprecedented federal intrusion into a quintessentially local criminal matter in south Florida. His offense to the social order — involving sex for hire — was entirely a matter entrusted to laws of the several States, not the federal government. His conduct — a classic state offense —was being treated exactly that way by able, honest prosecutors in Palm Beach County, but the overweening federal government intruded where it did not belong. And now, over ten years after the fact, the current assault on federal decision-makers at the time, including now-Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta (then the United States Attorney in south Florida), condemns the federal authorities for not going far enough.
Alexander Acosta, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida – AP
The critics are entirely wrong. Neither the facts nor the law support the misguided criticisms being leveled by journalists and politicians at federal offices from over a decade ago — including the highest levels of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. .
Here are the key facts: Jeffrey Epstein, a successful self-made businessman with no prior criminal history whatever, engaged in illegal conduct that amounts to solicitation of prostitution. That was wrong, and it was reasonably viewed as a violation of Florida state law. Although no coercion, violence, alcohol, drugs and the like were involved, the unsavory facts were carefully assessed by experienced state prosecutors who aggressively enforce state criminal laws. No one turned a blind eye to potential offenses in the public order. To the contrary, the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office conducted an extensive 15-month investigation, led by the chief of the Sex Crimes Division. Mr. Epstein was then indicted by a state grand jury on a single felony count of solicitation of prostitution.
During that intense investigation, the state prosecutors extensively gathered and analyzed the evidence, met face-to-face with many of the asserted victims, considered their credibility — or lack thereof — and considered the extent of exculpatory evidence. Then, after months of elaborate negotiations, the state prosecutors believed they had reached a reasoned resolution of the matter that vindicated the public interest — a resolution entirely consistent with that of cases involving other similarly-situated defendants,
Then, in came the feds. The United States Attorney’s Office tried, to no avail, to fit Mr. Epstein’s situation into its vision of what it viewed as a commercial trafficking ring targeting minors. This was anything but. At long last, the federal authorities acknowledged that stark reality and grudgingly agreed to defer prosecution to the state. But there was a huge catch. In the face of our arguments sharply condemning their overreach, the federal prosecutors insisted on many unorthodox requirements that tugged at fundamental values of due process. For example, the agreement required Mr. Epstein to pay an undisclosed list of asserted victims $150,000 each. Even more, the feds insisted that Jeffrey pay for an attorney to represent such unidentified victims if any chose to filed civil litigation against him. When asked what possible legal authority supported this extravagant exercise of national power, the feds lamely cited a wildly inapposite case from Alaska involving cocaine and forced on-the-street prostitution. Apples and oranges.
Under the federally-forced deal, Jefrey was sentenced to jail. That would not have been the case under the agreed-upon state disposition of this non-violent, consensual commercial arrangement. Jeffrey complied, served that sentence, and in the process was treated exactly the same as other state-incarcerated individuals. His conduct was exemplary, and so characterized by the state custodial authorities. He continued to work, including his many philanthropic efforts.
Our friend Jeffrey Epstein has paid his debt to society. He has also paid out millions of dollars to the asserted victims and their highly-creative lawyers. For over ten years, he has lived an exemplary life, including carrying on his wide-ranging philanthropies. Those of us who represented him in the Florida proceedings — for customary professional fees — now count him as a trusted friend.
Our nation faces vitally important challenges, many involving the treatment of women and basic human dignity. Voices are rightly being raised speaking truth to power, especially about women in the workplace. But Jeffrey, an exemplary employer, has long been called to account by the criminal justice system for his misdeeds of yesteryear. In the spirit of the bedrock American belief in second chances, that unhappy chapter in Jeffrey’s otherwise-magnificent life should be allowed to close once and for all.
borderslynn 
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