[0:00]The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law in November, gave the Department of Justice a deadline of December 19th to release all of their documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Since Friday,
[0:11]the DOJ has released batches of Epstein related materials on what has been described as a rolling basis. In the document dumps were photo of Epstein with rich and prominent people and celebrities, an image of former
[0:22]President Bill Clinton soaking in a hot tub, and some mentions of President Donald Trump. The DOJ posted a statement to X with the release of the December 23rd files that in part said, quote,
[0:33]"Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded
[0:44]and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already." Barry Lavine, author of The Spider: Inside the Criminal Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Gain Maxwell, has
[0:55]been investigating the deceased sex offender since the mid200s and joins Forb's true crime to discuss what he's learned from the materials that have been released so far. [music] Hi everybody, I'm Britney Lewis. I am
[1:11]the host of Forbes True Crime. Joining me once again is Barry Lavine. He has been covering Jeffrey Epstein for years. He's also the author of The Spider, which is a book that goes into and
[1:21]investigates Epstein's criminal network. Barry, thank you so much for coming on. >> Thank you, Britney, so much for uh thinking of me today. Very happy to be with you. >> Of course, I always rely on your
[1:33]expertise and this is no different when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein because tanches of files related to the convicted sex offender have been released by the Department of Justice
[1:43]since their Friday deadline. And from the tens of thousands of documents, photos, emails, files that have been dumped, what are some of your takeaways?
[1:53]>> Well, I would say I mean my main focus has always been on the investigation and with particular focus to when
[2:03]authorities were first alerted to um what was going on. And in addition to that, Representative Thomas Massie, who uh was one of the co-sponsors of the
[2:15]transparency bill, uh had told us uh a couple months back uh that he noted that there were 20 men who took part in the
[2:24]sex trafficking and he said that the information was from uh uh SDNY, uh this is a Southern District of New York um
[2:34]witness reports. So, I'm particularly interested in what the FBI has done over the years to question these men that have been named by victims and now we
[2:46]are aware that there's 20 men who were named as far as taking part in the sex trafficking. uh some of the things that we've learned and in fact there was a
[2:55]document that was released today that talked about the fact that the FBI was focusing on 10 men, not 20, but 10 men
[3:07]who were apparently um co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein. And the the FBI document uh noted the
[3:18]fact that the FBI was trying to reach out to some of these men. One of the men was in Boston. Another man was in Ohio. Um, we don't have
[3:30]a lot of specific information, but it does uh to me uh from the research that I've done for my book, The Spider, it does connect to men that uh the late
[3:42]Virginia Roberts Juprey um had acknowledged in depositions that she had been sex trafficked to. So that to me
[3:51]made me happy for the sake of the victims that the FBI uh and investigators were at the very least taking seriously the men that she and
[4:03]others had named. However, we still don't know and we're still digging into the files in terms of what actions that that went beyond that in terms of
[4:13]cooperation of these men. And there are still I mean so many documents were released just this morning. Tens of thousands of them. I certainly haven't had a chance to go
[4:25]through all of them yet. I don't think anyone who has a Unless you have bionic vision and bionic pairs of eyes, you could go through all of them yet. But do we know anything else about those
[4:36]co-conspirators, those men who were involved in this sex trafficking ring? Are they household names? I mean, what more do we know as of right now?
[4:45]Well, I in fact named um some of the men that uh Virginia Juy had uh referenced in um past depositions. Uh she was
[4:57]involved in um uh defamation uh lawsuits um with Alan Dersuitz uh who was one of
[5:07]Jeffrey Epstein's lead lawyers in the Florida prosecution. uh she was also involved in a defamation
[5:14]case uh with uh um uh Gileain Maxwell. So there so there has been material in the past that have been u made public
[5:25]where we do know the names of men uh representative Thomas Massie uh without acknowledging the specific names of the
[5:34]men uh he said that there were several billionaires among the group. He specifically noted that one of the billionaires was from Canada. He also referenced a man in the entertainment
[5:45]community. He said there were some individuals in politics. He said there was a wealthy individual from Italy. So these men who uh the FBI apparently
[5:56]investigated uh were all over the world and I am hoping and we still haven't had the full release of all of documents. They are now putting out the documents
[6:07]little by little, but we are getting now into what I hope is the meat and potatoes where we will find out in fact um if these men are named and also what
[6:19]efforts the FBI took to uh question them and if not were they given special treatment. This is something that is very concerning to the survivors of
[6:30]Jeffrey Epstein and Gla Maxwell. Were these powerful men who had been in Jeffrey Epstein's circles given some type of special treatment because of
[6:39]their uh political status or their connections to people in the government? So, this is something that needs to be unraveled here. One amazing document
[6:49]that was located and it had been reported about early this morning was the fact, and I found this very interesting, that the Palm Beach police were on to Jeffrey Epstein and Galain
[7:01]Maxwell going back to December 2001. And this is interesting because officially their investigation did not
[7:10]take place until 2004 into 2005. So now we're learning that the Palm Beach police were aware of some of what
[7:20]was going on all the way back to 2001. And this document uh that is been released discusses the
[7:30]fact that there were college girls who were uh recruited at the Palm Beach Athletic Campus and that Gileain Maxwell
[7:39]had recruited these young, beautiful women to answer phones for $200 a day at Jeffrey Epstein's mansion. Now, what's
[7:51]particularly interesting is that this memo referenced three girls and two of the girls said that Jeffrey Epstein had touched them inappropriately. So, this
[8:03]is bombshell news in the sense of when this investigation first went on the radar of uh of Palm Beach police. And we
[8:13]have to now investigate why it took two or three years more before they began getting search warrants to move in on Jeffrey
[8:23]Epstein. There was a document that was released that indicates an Epstein victim filed a child pornography complaint against Epstein all the way back in 1996. And as we know, Epste
[8:35]wasn't convicted in Florida until 2008, which is more than a decade later. What are your thoughts on this? And do you think that the FBI needs to answer for anything here? >> Well, I I do think the FBI needs to
[8:47]answer for a great deal of this. And I think, however, that we can't really hold them to the fire until we see all
[8:55]of the FBI files. So, we can see in their entirety exactly what efforts were made to investigate these co-conspirators and why it took so long
[9:06]for these investigations to take place. But I want to give the government the opportunity to put out all of all of the material uh that they have in in their
[9:17]hands before we can really intelligently draw questions from that. Now the other part of the question that you raised was
[9:27]uh reference to uh the victim Maria Farmer. Maria Farmer has come out publicly. She was the one who first alerted. She was the very first
[9:38]individual uh in the in the '9s to alert the FBI to Jeffrey Epstein.
[9:46]And she was extremely pleased last week when these documents were seen um in the trench of material that was released.
[9:57]Now, she was an art student. She had two younger sisters and I don't know the specific circumstances but Jeffrey Epstein was able to obtain photographs
[10:08]of her young sisters. One of them being Annie Farmer who also is another Jeffrey Epstein victim and also of Gain Maxwell. In fact, Annie, the younger sister,
[10:20]testified. She was one of the four women who testified against Galileain Maxwell in the successful prosecution that put Gileain Maxwell behind bars for 20
[10:29]years. Initially, Maria Farmer went to the FBI and said that Jeffrey Epstein had these uh partially nude photos of
[10:39]her two younger sisters and was sending these photos around, as far as she found out, to other individuals and that this
[10:48]was child pornography. And in fact, her lawyer has told me over the years, Jennifer Freeman, that the FBI had a
[10:59]very black and white case to deal with back in the '9s. They could have convicted Jeffrey Epstein of child pornography charges. And according to
[11:10]Jennifer Freeman, Maria Farmer's lawyer, this would have been a very easy case to have made against Jeffrey Epstein, and could have put him behind bars for u a
[11:21]period of time, which would have cut into uh and would have stopped, in fact, the sex trafficking that took place for two decades. So, you know, these are all
[11:31]missed opportunities um that the FBI had uh and the Palm Beach police had to put Jeffrey Epstein behind bars much earlier. What's also
[11:42]interesting about that Palm Beach police uh report from December 2001 is why didn't the uh Palm Beach police
[11:53]really uh take on Gileain Maxwell as part of that initial prosecution against Jeffrey Epstein? They pretty much just focused on Jeffrey Epstein. And at that
[12:05]time there were 40 victims that they were able to identify. And of course that led to the notorious nonprosecution agreement uh which only put him behind
[12:16]bars under a uh a Florida prosecution of solicitation of a of a minor. So, we
[12:25]have to wonder why the FB why the Palm Beach police did not um charge uh Gileain Maxwell very early on when they
[12:35]had information about her in terms of recruiting um women going back to college girls going back to 2001. The
[12:44]DOJ has released some photos in relation to the Epstein files release and Epste's pictured with really powerful people like President Bill Clinton, like Mc
[12:54]Jagger, like Michael Jackson. And just this morning, there have been some documents of President Donald Trump. He was mentioned in the release today on Tuesday, December 23rd. And before we
[13:06]talk about them, I do want to read something that the DOJ posted in relation to this. This is what they said. The Department of Justice has officially released nearly 30,000 more
[13:16]pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI before the 2020
[13:26]election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false. And if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already. You told me before in a conversation that you
[13:37]believed Jeffrey Epstein was going to continue to haunt President Trump from his grave. What do you make of what the DOJ said here? >> Well, they're obviously trying to get
[13:47]ahead of the headlines which have emerged. I've been following um the news today and certainly uh some of the um new allegations uh involving President
[13:59]Trump have indeed surfaced. And this was certainly an action that took place uh very early this morning in which the DOJ
[14:08]wanted to specifically, and this is really the only time I've ever seen anything like this. This is kind of history making in the sense that they
[14:17]put out this statement uh related to the sitting president to basically say to the American public, anything you now
[14:27]read or hear about President Trump, you have to understand that we're telling you that these are uh claims that are being made that are unsubstantiated
[14:39]claims. So they're they're really trying to protect him here. And I I have to tell you, Britney, this is from where we were when we first uh began following
[14:49]this uh story uh almost a year ago, last February, when the u justice department said they would begin um uh putting out documents and then in July they said
[15:00]they uh wouldn't put out any documents and then we went into this long fight over the summer for the transparency act to take place. This is this is
[15:10]absolutely shocking. Today has to be one of the um most bizarre days uh of the Epstein file story to take place with
[15:20]this uh Department of Justice memo. >> And now I want to read an email from a US assistant an assistant US attorney from the Southern District of New York
[15:30]from January 7th, 2020. And I'm going to read the full email so no context gets lost and if our viewers haven't seen it yet, they can understand and follow along as well. Here's what it said. For
[15:41]your situational awareness, wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been
[15:52]reported or that we were aware, including during the period we would expect to charge in a Maxwell case. In particular, he is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993
[16:03]and 1996, including at least four flights on which Maxwell was also present. He is listed as having traveled with, among others, and at various times, Mara Maples, his daughter
[16:14]Tiffany, and his son Eric. On one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers. On another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and
[16:24]then 20-year-old, the names redacted there. On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case. We've just finished reviewing the
[16:35]full records, more than 100 pages of a very small script, and didn't want any of this to be a surprise down the road. What do you make of that email?
[16:45]>> Well, I have to say that certainly in regards to President Trump, and we know that they had been very close for more than 10 years. We know that they socialized together. We know that they
[16:57]attended parties together. They they were uh Donald Trump uh at one point had a modeling agency. Jeffrey Epstein was connected to a modeling agency. Uh these
[17:07]men were in the presence of a lot of young women through of the various parties. Uh Donald Trump has said over
[17:17]the years that he was never aware of Jeffrey Epstein's uh sex trafficking. Uh, and he said it was only until
[17:27]Jeffrey Epstein um, uh, began taking young women from his spa at Mara Lago when he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of
[17:38]the spa. And this was around uh, 2004. And this is when um, their friendship
[17:46]um, uh, ended. So, my focus for all of these years has been, has Donald Trump ever been in the presence of Jeffrey
[17:57]Epstein and any of his victims? And if so, if he was aware of anything, why didn't he end his association with Jeffrey Epstein then? And more
[18:08]importantly, why did he not report this information to the authorities? Uh Donald Trump at that
[18:16]time was uh a very uh respected individual in Palm Beach uh and in New York. Uh he could have fasttracked
[18:27]uh any type of investigation if he got on the phone with authorities in Palm Beach or in New York. So I'm particularly concerned
[18:38]about that memo. and mo and and the thing that concerns me is when they say he was on a flight with uh uh two uh
[18:49]women uh who could have been possible witnesses to the Maxwell case. And of course, witnesses to the Maxwell case
[18:58]would have been uh sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Gileain Maxwell. Uh and and we know that there were four
[19:08]women who testified against Gileain Maxwell at trial. Uh women at the time of the sexual abuse were indeed underage. Uh one of the one
[19:20]of the women was older. So I'm concerned as to who these two women were that were on the plane with Jeffrey Epstein and
[19:31]Donald Trump. And in what context did Donald Trump, what was he aware of? What, you know,
[19:40]was he aware that uh either of these women were um in distress in any way? Uh
[19:48]were they uh what was their um attitude? Why did he why was he, you know, why were they on the flight? Where were they
[19:57]going? Uh, it raises questions as to Donald Trump seeing Jeffrey Epstein with possible victims behind the scenes away
[20:08]from anyone else where he was clearly focused on what was going on in that plane. So, it is very concerning as to the nature of what was happening on the
[20:19]plane and what did he know about these women and afterwards after he got off the plane. Did he think that what was
[20:27]going on was appropriate? And if so, why didn't he, you know, ask more questions? These are questions that I don't think the FBI can answer, but
[20:38]these are questions that we have to ask President Trump about. >> And a, do you think we'll ever get to the bottom of those questions? Will we ever get those answers? And B, you've
[20:50]said to me before that you've found it disturbing that we keep finding new layers and understanding the depth of the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. Do you think that this
[21:01]letter from a federal prosecutor, this email rather, do you think that that reveals anything particularly about that relationship? Well, I think, you know, I I I think it
[21:12]raises the question of why authorities did not question Donald Trump as to the specific
[21:23]plane flights in terms of what he knew about the uh women who were on the flights uh and the nature of of that. It raises questions as to,
[21:34]you know, what he knew at the time. Uh we also were a photo was also released the other day from the um uh other
[21:45]release of FBI documents in which there's a photo of a blondhaired woman with Donald Trump. It looks like the photo is taken on a private plane and Donald Trump is sitting next to this
[21:57]woman. Her face is blacked out um to conceal her identity. This is something that's also concerning as to uh who this woman was, how old was she, was she
[22:09]underage, could this be one of the women that is referenced in this uh material uh today? So, we just we just don't know. >> The DOJ did say though in their release
[22:20]of the most recent documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that if there was anything that had what they said a shred of credibility against President Trump, it would have been weaponized against
[22:30]him already. But before this, on Friday's release, one of the big headlines were the pictures of former President Bill Clinton. He was pictured
[22:40]in a hot tub. He was pictured in a pool. What do you make of Bill Clinton's involvement in this dump? >> Well, I have to say, uh, seeing those photos, Britney, was very disturbing
[22:50]involving former President Clinton. Uh we do know from the flight logs and this goes back many years. Uh we do know that
[22:59]um uh Bill Clinton uh in his postp presidency uh traveled with uh Jeffrey Epstein on his uh plane um to go to locations for
[23:10]the uh Clinton [clears throat] Global Initiative meetings uh and the Clinton Foundation. Uh he caught a lot of uh flights with Jeffrey Epstein. But these
[23:20]photos are showing us a different side of that. They're showing us that um Bill Clinton uh socialized with Jeffrey
[23:29]Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and uh more importantly that he socialized with women who were um in the presence of
[23:41]Jeffrey Epstein. And so this is disturbing in the sense that uh just like President Trump and the references to him on the plane with
[23:52]possible um witnesses for the Maxwell case, this is this is putting former President Clinton much closer to
[24:04]knowing about Jeffrey Epstein's involvement with these girls. You have to assume that
[24:12]from seeing these photos and and seeing um women in um these pools or hot tubs uh with uh former President Clinton. And
[24:23]again, just like President Trump, uh Bill Clinton has vehemently denied any involvement in any
[24:32]of this. Uh he said he was unaware of uh Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking until uh the original Florida case and he
[24:42]disassociated himself uh with Jeffrey Epstein from that point on. Uh but it is disturbing that there were these very
[24:54]powerful individuals. We're talking about a former president and a current president who were with Jeffrey Epstein in the presence of him with possible
[25:04]victims of his sex trafficking. And it raises the question of what they knew and if so, if they knew of any criminality, why it wasn't reported.
[25:16]>> I mean, the pictures just show how connected Jeffrey Epstein was to the rich and powerful. So, I think the two big questions that always hang in the air whenever we're talking about Jeffrey
[25:27]Epstein are, what have you learned about his relationships with the rich and powerful? We can talk about that. And B, what have we learned more about this
[25:36]international sex trafficking network? Well, I'm hoping, Britney, that as we get to see more of these files that
[25:46]we'll see more of these documents that reference the particular third parties that were associated with Jeffrey Epstein who were possible co-conspirators.
[25:57]But in addition to that, I have always been interested in the men who have been the enablers who put young women on planes and sent them to Jeffrey
[26:09]Epstein's island in the Virgin Islands. And we know from the uh Denise George, the former attorney general for the Virgin Islands, who conducted an
[26:18]investigation after Jeffrey Epstein's death, that young girls as young as uh 12 years old were being flown uh into
[26:28]St. Thomas to the airport there for transport to Jeffrey Epstein's Island. When they got off the planes, they were wearing ill-fitting college sweatshirts
[26:40]in an attempt to disguise them as being older than they were. And then they were taken on boats or by helicopter to
[26:50]Jeffrey Epstein's island. Now, there are men out there across the world who put these girls on these planes for Jeffrey
[26:59]Epstein, for the sexual abuse. And I am hoping that the files will unlock some of the information about these enablers. One of the enablers was a uh a French
[27:11]modeling agent named Jeanluke Brunell. John Luke Brunell had a long association with Jeffrey Epstein and Galain Maxwell. He
[27:21]socialized with them. There's many photos of um of uh Brunell with both uh Gileain Maxwell and uh Jeffrey Epstein. Um,
[27:33]Jean Br John Jeanluke Brunell was brought up on rape charges unrelated to the Epstein case. Uh, shortly after Jeffrey Epstein's arrest and he also
[27:44]died behind bars like Jeffrey Epstein. Uh, Brunell died in a Paris jail awaiting uh, uh, trial for uh, uh, rape.
[27:54]And so, of course, his life is over. But what about the other individuals? What about the other modeling fixers who brought women
[28:04]telling these young girls that they would be sent to the to the United States and that they would uh be receiving modeling contracts, but in but
[28:15]instead they were just brought to Jeffrey Epstein's island for sexual abuse. Who are these other men and does the FBI have that information? And we
[28:26]know from Senator Ron Weiden's financial investigation into Jeffrey Epstein that uh he had obtained
[28:37]um suspicious wire transfers totaling $1 billion of monies that Jeffrey Epstein had sent through US and and Russian
[28:48]banks to individuals all over the world. And I believe that those men are identified through that financial
[28:59]paperwork. So there is a money trail for the government to go down uh in an attempt to apprehend these individuals
[29:08]and connect them uh for sex trafficking that they were trafficking minors uh from one country to another uh for
[29:18]Jeffrey Epstein's uh sexual abuse. So, you know, I believe that not only in addition to the men who actually took part in the sex trafficking that there
[29:30]are many other unnamed individuals that could be apprehended who took part in the enabling process. >> Hopefully, we will see some more of those answers soon because thousands of
[29:42]documents were released. There's reportedly tens of thousands more still yet to come. And the DOJ had the deadline of Friday to release all of these. And they didn't meet that deadline. But Deputy Attorney General
[29:53]Todd Blanch said that they were working diligently on getting all of these out. But there were simply too many materials and they had to go through and redact victims names and that was taking a
[30:04]really long time. But the bipartisan pair who were um behind the Epstein Files Transparency Act, they co-sponsored that their Democrat
[30:15]Congressman Roana and Republican Congressman Thomas Massie. They threatened to bring inherent contempt charges against Attorney General Bondi because of the redactions and because
[30:25]that all of the files weren't released by the deadline and Connor said that she lost all credibility here. Do you think that this is going to compel the DOJ to move any faster? I think we are seeing
[30:37]the files being released now on a rolling basis. I think to the DOJ's credit, they are releasing material relating to the sitting
[30:48]president that is not complimentary. In fact, it is rather embarrassing uh to uh begin seeing some of this material
[30:56]related to President Trump. Uh but uh I I have to say that um there had been concerns uh from uh Jeffrey Epstein's brother,
[31:07]surviving brother uh that all the references to Donald Trump would be uh completely erased from the files and that's not the case. We are seeing uh
[31:17]references and and photos of him in these files. So I do hope that the rolling releases continue. Yes, it is technically they are technically
[31:27]breaking the law because all these uh files were supposed to be released uh last Friday. However, you're talking about 300
[31:37]gigabytes of material. There's that's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pages of material and as we see there's
[31:46]um you know more than a hundred thousand photos uh that the government has. So it it is going to take a while uh for us to see all the material but I hope at the
[31:57]end of the material I hope at the end of the files release that there are individuals that have been identified that a new investigation
[32:08]um could be um you know could take place in which uh the government tries to work with uh uh foreign authorities uh to apprehend
[32:19]these people. Uh I was I was surprised to see in one of the files that was released today uh information from the
[32:28]FBI to um authorities in England uh asking for an interview with former Prince Andrew. Uh so you know while that
[32:39]interview never took place it does show that the government was taking seriously the claims that had been made by Virginia Duprey against uh Prince
[32:50]Andrew. Of course Prince Andrew has denied taking part in any sexual abuse of uh any women uh connected to uh
[33:00]Jeffrey Epstein with particular focus on uh Virginia Gupy. Uh he also made a large multi-million dollar outofc court
[33:08]settlement uh in New York based on uh Virginia Grey's uh uh civil lawsuit
[33:16]against him. Uh but interestingly we are seeing documents that show that the government was really trying to get an interview with Prince Andrew related to
[33:28]these allegations. >> Well, there's certainly a lot to look out for. We've seen a lot of documents as you and I have discussed, but it still does seem like the tip of the
[33:37]iceberg and as we get more and more as more come out, I hope you can come back on and break them down with me. Barry Lavine, I always appreciate our conversations and your expertise and
[33:48]investigative journalism. Thank you so much for the time. >> Thank you, Britney. Happy holidays, Jim.