Epstein, the Russian Mob, & the Hidden Assets of the Maxwells (w/ Moe T.) | The Chris Hedges Report

Jeffrey Epstein's financial network is often overlooked in the released Epstein files. He was not only a trafficker and abuser of girls and women, but at the epicenter of the ruling billionaire class, which is global. A class that controls not only our economies and politics, but also our systems of information and education. Investigative journalist Maureen Tkacik has examined the files to knit together the intimate connections between Epstein and our global financial elite. Joining me to discuss this Epstein class is Maureen Tkacik, the investigative editor at The American Prospect. So Maureen, there's two articles I want to discuss with you uh which focus on how Epstein got his money. Uh the first was in The Nation, it's called "Larry Knew You Too Well." The second is in The Prospect, "Newspapers Did Not Kill Themselves." But let's start with your article in The Nation because it goes back to the breakup of the Soviet Union, the seizure of state assets that created the Russian oligarchic uh you know, cabal that Putin comes out of. Uh and and Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard, and uh Jeffrey Epstein, they're all involved. So I'll let you go from there. >> Sure, yeah. So in 1990 and it's funny, it always comes back to 1991. This is the year that uh you know, Jeffrey gets um Les Wexner to sign over power of attorney. Um this is the year that um >> Can I just interrupt you? Do you have a theory as to why Wexler did that? >> Well, it was >> This is the head of Victoria's Secret and >> It was roughly the >> huge huge amounts of money from Wexner is trans- are transferred and property and everything else. >> It was roughly the same month, maybe even the same week that a um a secret Columbus Columbus Police Department uh memo was uh started to circulate about um Wexner's organized crime connections and his um connection to the uh really violent assassination style hit on his accountant who had been scheduled to testify, you know, in exchange for um leniency on a um some pretty bad tax evasion charges. Apparently, he hadn't filed his tax returns for 7 years and so this guy who is sort of known as something of a mob accountant was going to testify um you know, go- going to talk to the FBI. He shows up dead. Um it's it's it's really ugly. I forget the the sort of details, but the Columbus Police Department started mapping all of um Wexner's relationships and those of his landlord, his biggest um uh retailer landlord that uh the Taubman families and also um a guy who used to own the San Francisco 49ers um but then was had to sell it because he was pushed out by the NFL very mobster uh uh type. I'm I'm forgetting his name, but Joe something Italian, I think. And uh and um and his accountant was Shapiro. So it was he was under and and I'm sure that um Wexner being who he was had a lot of connections in the Columbus the Police Department. It is said that he um was uh a molesting young boys um uh who were you know scouted through a a modeling agency in the '80s. That is something that has been a persistent rumor. I read about it in a book. Um, so I have um So so something was closing in. There was some folks closing in on Wexner and I sensed just because of the timing because the timeline, um, that that might have been one of the reasons that he signed it over to to Jeffrey to keep it from the feds, right? You know, that that makes sense. That that's makes a lot of sense to me. But a lot of other things were happening in 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union being a a big one and Robert Maxwell the textbook publisher, newspaper publisher, uh, Mossad lifetime Mossad asset, um, you know, big, uh >> >> jolly fellow, um is is buys the New York Daily News which has just come out of a really really horrible strike. Um, the its owners, the Chicago Tribune, had you know, spent a lot of money. It's been something like $250 million trying to break the union and they pretty much you know, they they almost broke it but then Maxwell swoops in and says, "I will buy the New York Daily News if you give me $60 million to do it and the Tribune said, well, $60 million is cheaper than the $150 million that we think that it will cost to actually pay out all of the union contracts that we're going to owe. Um So sure, it's yours. Everybody is elated at the New York Daily News and then a few months later, you know, eight months later, seven months later, Maxwell falls off his yacht and dies although not necessarily in that order or almost certainly not in that order. And it turns out, uh very quickly after that, that um uh Maxwell's uh Maxwell Communications, his his um communications empire, uh has, you know, is missing 1.4 billion dollars in cash that it was supposed to have. Where is this money? Um it is a big mystery. Uh you know, the the bank accounts of the family are uh frozen uh internationally. And uh Kevin Maxwell is uh put, you know, sort of put under house arrest to to to a certain extent. I mean, he is he's his um he's the the I think the eldest son, but he was the son who was really um taking the reins at the at the business. And um you know, Ghislaine at this time is in New York complaining at to everybody that she's completely broke, that she has not a cent to her name. And um you know, how do they emerge from the situation? Because Ghislaine has been spotted by none other than a Mirror reporter, actually um you know, telling the all of the servants on the yacht to shred everything they find, and you know, throw documents overboard, that kind of thing. So, she um you know, she's under a cloud of suspicion. She decides um she's been living in New York, she decides to live in New York. And um there's a document in the Epstein files that I found that actually, you know, sheds a lot of light on what happened. Um but simultaneously to, you know, to all this, of course, the Soviet Union is collapsing. And uh Larry Summers, uh not sure if he is um is friends with uh Epstein yet, not sure when Larry Summers becomes, you know, best friends with uh Jeffrey Epstein, like it seems he was um you know, right before his his death. But um Larry Summers is um the president of the World Bank, and he sends um a protege of his named Andrei Shleifer, a Harvard economist, who um you know, is very young and he was born in Russia, but he came over and he, you know, graduated college at 16, something along those lines and, you know, he's an up-and-coming, um, hot hot in the economics world. Uh, Larry puts him in charge of this project to privatize Russia, essentially oversee the private of it privatization of 225,000 state-owned enterprises, um, under, you know, this kind of team of of, you know, Chicago type boys, but they're Harvard boys. Um, inside Yeltsin's administration and, um, this all ends in, you know, they these guys get, um, unbelievably rich, um, and and no one sort of really pays attention while while Russia, you know, completely collapses, the economy collapses, the ruble loses all of its value, um, you know, a lot of the the IMF loans that, um, that Russia is supposed to be getting in order to stabilize its currency are going missing, the wire transfers suddenly like, you know, a billion dollars will be transferred from the IMF to Russia and they won't be able to find where it went, you know, this is really, really, uh, shady stuff happening. And in 1997, after, you know, sort of a a whistleblower comes forward, um, somebody who gets sort of screwed out of the action, um, USAID, which has been funding this whole, uh, uh, operation, uh, suspends all of its funding to the project, kind of kicks these guys out of Russia, and it turns in and and they start investigating what actually happened. And as it turns out, um, the, uh, you know, they had made a lot of money, um, investing in these privatized Russian assets, um, a lot of that money that money was actually supposed to go and be distributed among the Russian population, um, as as vouchers, um, and that program is a, you know, universal laughing stock, um, people are are, you know, selling their their vouchers for a loaf of bread while, um, uh, Andrei Shleifer's wife, who's a hedge fund manager working for Tom Steyer, um, gets extremely wealthy. And so does their co-investor, um, a guy named Len Blavatnik, who helps them out later by backdating a bunch of, uh, uh, you know, documents. Um, Len Blavatnik, now, um, a, you know, also a good friend of all the Epsteins, now worth $30 billion, um, at one point the richest man in the UK, so kind of put a pin in him in that guy. So, this this episode, and a lot of what happened in Russia, a lot of the really, um, you know, horrific plunder that happened in the '90s that, you know, set the stage for Putin to emerge as their savior. Um, >> Um, let me just stop you there because I want to just look at the details. So, they're buying a state industries at at for ridiculously low prices, uh, which creates this oligarchic class. How did Shleifer and these figures How did they What was their involvement? So, we know how the the oligarchs were buying state factories for nothing, uh, and and creating, you know, uh, in terms of assets immense wealth for themselves. How did these, uh, these Harvard economists and others in AID, how were they actually also making money? >> Well, I think that Len Blavatnik, um, was a big key to this. Um, so, Blavatnik is a, um, sort of shadowy figure. He, like, there's never any mention of him in any, you know, newspaper. I couldn't find anything, um, until 1997. Chrystia Freeland, um, former finance minister of Canada, maybe current, I don't know, or, um, but, uh, she writes this glowing profile about how this um, exemplar of the American dream has you know gotten unspeakably wealthy in Russia and isn't that lovely. Before that it's not clear what he was doing. He shows up as the CEO of some Jersey City based outfit um and in in 1990 but it's it's very he's supposedly involved in leveraged buyouts of a distribution company um he had gone to Harvard MBA um but it's not clear he is just is his record before 1997 when he turns you know he turns up as one of the first oligarchs um is and he also sues people who call him an oligarch um I'm not sure um if I don't think that he's actually been successful in any of those lawsuits but just a legit oligarch um is uh it it you know his his track record from before that is is sort of unknown. Um and this is the case for a lot of these folks um I'm not the best at at figuring out you know being able to read um you know Russian newspapers um on the the internet I've I've been scouring for a lot of these guys but you know one pattern that emerges when you start to study this stuff is that um for the for the most part um these are guys who got out of the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s um generally through Israel um but there's also Armenians who got out during this time and um maybe some Austrians some Hungarians um but um but it's primarily um you know uh Jewish uh Soviets who um you know were refuseniks who who were uh you know anti uh communist and um sort of went to to New York or showed up in in Texas by way of um Israel and then uh came back as soon as the the as soon as the the the government started to collapse. And so, you know, I I'm not exactly sure, you know, some of these guys were supposedly driving taxis all of these years. Blavatnik was getting an MBA, but but you know, there are also a lot of connections that a lot of these folks have and and Blavatnik I have no idea. But in the case of some of these guys like a guy who will come up Greg Luchansky. They have, you know, documented organized crime ties and and so they're kind kind of part of this sort of Russian Zionist mafia and I think that's the reason that, you know, Russia gate was able or that you know, that that people like Rachel Maddow are able to say, oh well, this you know, the Epstein files really implicates Epstein is a Russian intelligence officer. Well, yeah, there you know, Russia plays very prominently in all of these stories and and mostly because there was so much money to be made there in the 90s while everybody >> let me just throw in which some people don't know Sy Hersh exposed this. Jonathan Pollard who was the CIA agent who was arrested for espionage for providing information to Israel and now was freed and lives in Israel. He had exposed to Israel the entire network of American intelligence in Russia and Israel traded that information for the release of Soviet Jews. >> >> Well, that you know, a lot of these this is in what really 1980, the the mid-80s? I um >> Yeah. >> I Yes, um I think that um so a lot of the the folks that I uh focused on are um are people who came before that in the in the 1970s. That is something that I actually read in a lot of places um is a threat that they share. But surely it it you know those who were there in the 80s are even much more useful. And that's when a lot of the uh you know the because obviously in 1991 wasn't the beginning of this. There was a lot of um uh theft happening and just you know wholesale kind of mafia takeovers of a lot of these um a lot of these enterprises. Um and that was what they had to contend with, right? Like there were um there were these these guys they call them um roofs um who were sort of who who ran the extortion rings around state-owned enterprises. So you had to pay off these guys and their whole operations in order to privatize any of these um entities. So this is a you know very um uh exotic uh operation happening um you know reliant on a lot of people who kind of know um uh bad guys um throughout the former USSR and um and going as as as quickly as possible and doing it all um as quickly as possible under the kind of rubric of free market, you know, shock treatment um Milton Friedmanomics. And um and Larry Summers um you know, I don't know how intimately involved he was in Shleifer's actual um itself-enrichment. But he sure as heck um did what he could to cover it up. He told the deans to to Yeah. >> Where is Shleifer now? >> Shleifer's still at Harvard. He's he's still a Harvard professor. >> Oh. >> His wife was um after uh enriching um them the the first time with investments in Gazprom and and various oil uh aluminum smelters um owned by um uh Blavatnik, um she shows up again with uh uh Paul Singer in the um the default of Argentina, so the one of the holdout bondholders, so would have made, you know, 1,000% returns on that. So, Schleifer's still okay. Larry Summers, however, um because he he leaves the Clinton administration, he leaves the World Bank, becomes a Treasury Secretary, probably some jobs uh in between that I'm um missing. Then he um gets the presidency of Harvard um in uh 2001. Um immediately commences uh pissing people off. Like you said, he wants to shut down the classics department, which >> Well, yes. I I was involved in all that. Oh, yeah, he he he he didn't believe in in >> humanities. >> humanities. He shut down the Sanskrit department. He made war on the humanities, and he was just uh uh you know, uh Philistine. Um but let let's let's get to Epstein and Summers and Schleifer. >> So, what I saw in the files, and this was just the the Nation wanted me to write um a sort of elegy to Larry Summers on the event of his uh you know, second um resignation from Harvard uh a week before a week before last. Um and um I found in the Epstein files this fascinating exchange or series of exchanges between um Epstein and his very close friend Peter Mandelson, um who is now under um indictment, I think, in in the UK for um you know, >> former former UK Labour Party leader and former US or UK ambassador to the US. >> And really sort of the behind-the-scenes architect of of Tony Blair's New Labour, um, you know, Clintonian, uh, neoliberal program. So, Mandelson and uh, Epstein are talking about various Dodd-Frank reforms and their counterparts in the UK, um, dealing with, you know, uh, clamping down on the financial sector's abuses and bank remittances and the like. And they're talking a lot about this stuff and this is a period when Jeffrey Epstein is not, uh, emailing Larry Summers himself that much. Understandably, Larry Summers is running the National Economic Council. He, uh, probably shouldn't be, um, emailing, um, uh, Jeffrey too much at this time, although they're having meetings. Um, but Mandelson and, um, Epstein, um, keep emailing back and forth about how they can constrain some of these reforms. They're trying to get rid of, you know, the the banker bonus tax in the UK. They really hate the Volcker rule, which is part of the sort of, you know, uh, rehash of of Glass-Steagall. And, um, while they're discussing this, Mandelson's like, "Okay, I'm going to go to Davos. What should I say to Larry? You know, does he know that we are friends?" And, uh, Epstein says, "You must bring up Andrei Shleifer. Uh, you know, in back when, you know, Larry was at Harvard, he had this terrible time with Andrei Shleifer with the scandal and, um, you got to bring that name up. That's how he'll know how to trust you." And Mandelson is like, "Okay, you know, well, well." It's it's, you know, he's kind of like not getting it and he's like, "No, no, no, no. You must bring up Andrei Shleifer. That's how he'll know, you know, he can open up." And then, months later, they're you know, he's about to see Larry again and um he says to Mandelson, um "Listen, you got to bring up Schleifer. Remember, don't forget to bring up Schleifer." And Mandelson's like, "Yeah, remember we talked about this. I brought him up at Davos and he was very embarrassed. I don't know if I'll be able to see him alone." So, but but one thing that that Epstein says is, you know, "I helped him through that. I saw him through that. I was behind him a thousand percent through this Schleifer scandal." He doesn't discuss the the specifics at all what this is. But the way that he keeps telling Mandelson to bring it up to to Summers, despite it being completely irrelevant to any of the substance that they're talking about, um really has this like very clear blackmail light, um you know, sort of sheen to it. And um you know, I have no idea how you'd have to speculate as to how um Epstein would have been assistance to Summers back when he was going through this um Schleifer scandal because it was a you know, it was a huge investigation. Um it cost Harvard at least uh $10 million in in legal expenses. Um probably actually a lot more than that. Um it um you know, it was an episode where the the university is literally accused of defrauding the US government, which is um pretty unreal. Um in in a case like that, luckily it was Harvard, you know, was a was a think tank, a corporate think tank that wasn't actually Harvard University. But when you are um actually found guilty of defrauding the US government, you're not actually allowed to take any more money from the US government. Now, everybody has ways of getting around this. I've never seen the US government actually blacklist anybody who's accused of defrauding it because of course that's, you know, who who pays for your for your uh campaign commercials? But, um it's it's very um it's a very unusual um case, especially back then in 2000, that that the um that the that a university, especially Harvard, would be um charged with um defrauding uh the government. So, this was um a real sordid chapter. Larry managed to sort of keep it out of the headlines. But, there was a 22,000-word institutional investor piece about the whole thing. And it goes into great detail. It's it's it's quite crazy about how um just utterly out of control this crew was. And um and this story comes out at the very beginning of um of 2006. Um somebody anonymously mails the story in manila envelopes to, you know, all of these people on the faculty senate. Um it makes the rounds. All of these emeritus professors are you know, up in arms, and they're like, "This is, you know, this has gotten so out of control." A lot of these professors are like accounting professors and math professors, you know, not not the humanities uh you know, softies that that Summers uh doesn't take seriously. And he announces his resignation within weeks of this happening. In in February, basically, like I said, 20 years ago um last week. So, it um it was a big deal. And um and yet, I am told that whenever anyone would ever bring it up again with Larry, you know, he would shoot it down. So, now, when we talk about Larry being president of Harvard and why he resigned, um everybody brings up women are are are, you know, can't do math. Um which is, you know, some something that he had said like over a year earlier. Um and then his um his constant belittling of Cornell West supposedly for recording a rap album you know probably for having you know standing for everything >> >> that that Larry Summers um is is is not. >> But also the Harvard Corporation because they >> Oh yes and the looting >> lost almost a third of its endowment. >> Of the endowment right and that was the reason >> were bad investments which that's another issue. Let's let's go back to Epstein. So with this looting by you know an American type mafia or you know in in alliance with the Russian oligarchs where was Epstein and does it appear that some of Epstein's money and wealth came through that process or not? >> So we shall cuz I have not I have not yet examined the relationship with between Epstein and Blavatnik who's a really you know kind of fascinating but also very shadowy character but this unbelievable document that I came across in the files um really starts to shed a a lot of light on how central you know how how central the collapse of the Soviet Union was to the Epstein class and to his network and to a lot of you know potentially a lot of his sort of you know mysterious money. And in so in 1991 like I was saying Robert Maxwell newspaper baron publishing you know magnet falls off his yacht and dies and and you know there are a lot of different reports, but they're you know, there's there's autopsies that there's there's medical examiners that say, "No, he was hit by a blow to the head." You know, obviously he he was hit. But you know, within weeks of his death, it is discovered that there is a 1.6 1.4 billion dollars missing from the Maxwell Communications his publishing empire. And most of it is missing from the pensions of Daily Mirror workers. And um everything is frozen for the Maxwell family. So, the the the you know, his sort of heir a guy named Kevin Maxwell, Ghislaine's much older brother. She's the baby of the family. He is immediately under a cloud of suspicion, but so is she because she's spotted you know, when they go to get the body to to fly it to Israel because of course he must be buried in Israel even though they're not acknowledging that he was a lifetime Mossad asset. He she is seen by a Daily Mirror reporter who she has brought along ordering all of the servants to get rid of shred everything that they find find all of the documents on the yacht find anything you know, and and get rid of it. And so isn't that interesting? They are all under this cloud of suspicion and very broke and she's you know, complaining to everybody in her elite circles in New York. Oh my God, they don't have any money. I'm completely I'm a complete pauper. Terrible. And um at this point this is when and this is some something that Kevin does. She gets hooked up with Epstein. And apparently Epstein did not know according to this this this gentleman who's being interviewed by a completely clueless assisting US attorney Um, 2020. This is a guy named James Hatt. He was a telecom executive, but really he was working for the intelligence service, um, and so he was sort of posing as a telecom executive. He was posted most of the time to the Soviet Union, largely Latvia, to try and privatize telecoms. Um, and he encounters all of these folks, and he comes forward in 2020 to the FBI and says, "Listen, I have all this information. I used to hang out with these people all the time. I can tell you what they were doing, how it all fits together. These are the things, the connective tissue. How are they fitting together?" And he says that, um, number one, he says that, um, basically that Kevin, under the advice of his father, Kevin had appointed Jeffrey Epstein to sort of take care of the family's money while, um, you know, in event of an emergency, right? And so, they never found the money that was missing from the Daily Mirror. What they did have was, you know, um, you know, hundreds of shell companies, most based in Liechtenstein, um, that they were sort of, you know, cycling through. There were bankruptcy examinations, um, but nothing ever, you know, maybe half the money was found, but a lot of it just sort of went missing. And what this guy says is that they had sort of put the money under the, um, you know, into the, the, uh, the coffers of this mobster in Vienna, a Vienna-based based mobster named Gregory Luchansky. Um, Luchansky was, um, born in Georgia, um, spent a lot of his time in Latvia. There was a ton of money laundering going on in Latvia at the time, a very critical port for, um, illicit oil sales. Um, so a lot of money is funneling through Latvia, and this guy Luchansky is sort of like the the the boss, uh, the main mob boss of Latvia, he becomes very good friends with this this telecom executive because he's trying to privatize telecoms in Latvia, so he has to pay him off. He refers to him as something called a roof, which is like the the network of of kind of the extortion ring that surrounded any of the the the Russian state-owned enterprises. You'd have to pay these guys off in order to successfully privatize it. And so Luchansky is this kind of mobster. He's based in Vienna, spends a lot of time in Latvia, and Epstein is getting money, you know, is laundering money for him and bringing back some of it to Ghislaine Maxwell. And Epstein is getting a lot of his money to kind of keep the the Maxwell family afloat. Apparently, according to this document, he's getting it out of the New York Daily News, which is, of course, the newspaper that Maxwell owned, had just purchased when he died. He had just purchased it in, you know, early 1991 after this horrible strike. And in bankruptcy court, the newspaper is sold to Mort Zuckerman, who is a you know, Montreal-born sort of, you know, man-about-town, recent ex-boyfriend at that point of Gloria Steinem. And and he owns US News and World Report and at that point the The Atlantic Monthly. He buys the New York Daily News after months and months in which Conrad Black is supposed to be buying it, you know, everything is set. Conrad Black, the ink is almost dry, but he's having trouble with the unions. And that's another interesting wrinkle here because the union, and I talked to some um you know reporters from the New York Daily News, the union that is kind of holding everything up and and and that decides whether or not um you know somebody's going to get to buy the Daily News is the newspaper deliverers union which is basically a wholly owned subsidiary of organized crime. Um it's you know under investigation. It's um president um just got out of prison on you know 124 counts of racketeering. Um he's going to about to go back to prison when this whole deal is going down because he test positive for cocaine. Um they literally threatened when Maxwell was buying the newspaper this union these unions representatives literally threatened to um to kill him right then and there and apparently you know that seals the deal for him. But um but somehow um you know Mort Zuckerman takes this uh newspaper out of the hands of of Conrad Black another interesting fellow at the last minute even though they don't have any of the details sorted out. And for some reason apparently according to this this uh gentleman and I'd have to go through the bankruptcy filings to see whether there were you know whether there were avenues that they established for this um legally. Uh they were extracting large sums of money and and you know he just says so much money was coming out of the Daily News and um and giving it you know distributing it to Ghislaine and the rest of the um you know nine I think um >> But through Epstein? Through Epstein? >> Epstein was the one who was doing that. Now Epstein was also extremely good friends with Mort Zuckerman. Um uh they had >> Now there's there aren't there email exchanges where he's like sending them sending Zuckerman women? >> Yes. Yes, he um so in you know he he Zuckerman is an interesting fellow but yeah he's he No now uh granted he you know he says his 32 is 31 too young um to the then uh 72-year-old um uh Mort Zuckerman. So, uh Mort Zuckerman, again, and this is another thing that gets really um that gets really sort of not recognized within the Epstein network. He set plenty of of rich guys up with you know, over 18 women, with wives, with mistresses, Leon Black's mistress, um you know, she was a, you know, fully of age. Um and that was an almost, I think that um him and and I'm, you know, he must, he has to have set up Leslie Wexner with his wife Abigail, who was a um she I think that her father um what was the CEO of L All at the time. Um but she um uh you know, because he is very close with with a lot of these women. He's extremely close with Soon-Yi Previn. He's extremely close with Wendi Murdoch. Um Wendi Deng. >> Tramske. >> And yes, and and so this this is the >> I want you to talk about that, but there's also the biographer of the former Prince Andrew before after 60,000 copies of his book came out, he had to remove it, claims or argues that uh Epstein provided uh Melania to Trump. >> >> And funny that you should mention that because um the guy who did uh I mean, the the there's a guy named um uh uh uh Paolo Zampolli is the gentleman who supposedly introduced uh Melania to Trump. They're still very good friends. He was there the other day when Melania was presiding over the Security Council. Um Paolo is um is in the Trump administration. He is the He He works for the State Department as something like a senior advisor over special world projects or or something along those lines. Um, he's uh, he's in this network and during the time he he runs a modeling agency. Um, and I've spoken to a lot of folks close to Zampolli about whether he did actually introduce Trump to Melania or whether it was Epstein. Um, there are, you know, it's it's it's it's really hard to know. Zampolli is not necessarily he's not as um, he's nowhere near as sort of formidable as Epstein. Um, but um, in terms of being savoryness, um, I would say that he is uh, no more savory. He's um, but um, but Melania has sued um, and won um, in in in a lot of cases, but she has sued pretty much anyone who has um, wondered about the official story of her and Trump. Um, there is a Slovenian journalist who um, wrote a long investigation into this that basically said, "No, it was Zampolli." Um, but uh, she was she was a high-class call girl. Um, you know, she was modeling in all of these um, these clubs in Milan that were are known brothels. And that's how she met Trump. And that is why, you know, this is and and she has um, she has sued uh, anyone who has um, republished that. Um, he put out another book. But one thing that um, that the Slovenians will always say is that she supposedly met Trump in 1998. But it was in 1996 that in Slovenia they started hearing about this up-and-coming model who was um, supposed to be dating Donald Trump. She was not a successful model at all. Um one thing that is um really uh amazing is how um casting directors cuz the Slovenians have have really uh gone over a lot of these territories, you know, she's they'll they'll they'll say, "Oh, she's such a she's so beautiful and she has such great skin and hair and she she takes such good care of herself, but she has like zero charisma and she is just like a terrible model." Um so she didn't have a lot of work. Um but somehow she got a 3-year H-1B but these uh in 1996. Um and supposedly met Trump um 2 years later. And um I think that with a lot of the um the sort of uh Melania truthers believe was that she met uh Trump much earlier that that she got the visa as a result of Trump wanting her to have a visa and um and that you know, they can't you know, they have to sweep this under the rug because at the time Trump was still married and not even um separated from Marla Maples um and you know, God knows whatever else. But yes, um Jeffrey Epstein was at the epicenter of that this whole network. He was friends Zampolli's very close with Jean-Luc Brunel. They were all kind of um they all all of them these models Zampolli's models tended to live in the this building that was owned by um Jeffrey Epstein's brother. Um so all of these enterprises were interconnected. >> Let let me let me ask because it's an interesting point that you make in your article in The Prospect about Epstein's relationship with the much younger wives of people like Chomsky, Woody Allen. Now you you raise that point. Explain. >> >> Um I think that you know, he's he's extremely close to Soon-Yi Previn. Um >> This is Woody Allen's wife and former stepdaughter. >> He So one of the things that it seems like cuz one of the reasons that I thought I started thinking about this was that Mort Zuckerman um has uh pretty advanced dementia, has for a very long time. Um he was diagnosed, it looks like, around 2013. And um after his diagnosis, he goes to Epstein and basically says, you know, what what should I do? Um you know, he doesn't have He has two daughters, one of whom um one the first with his um with an ex-wife, a woman that he married for like 4 years. Um And um the second with no one knows. Um possibly it's egg donor surrogate combination. Um but she has no known uh mother. Um so, un- unusual uh situation there. Um he doesn't seem um inclined to like sort of leave them with um his fortune. He has these nephews who he does um but he's kind of going to Epstein with like, you know, what do I do with all this money that I have? And it's you know, two 2.8 billion dollars at this point. Um and Epstein's like, "Well, send it over to me. I'll I'm going to figure it out." And you know, how you avoid taxes or whatever. And um so, he sends over um all of this financial information and and Epstein is just like at you know, number one, he says, you know, this is all a complete mess. You got to send it, you know, you got to give it to me. I can straighten this out for you, but all of your trust need to be rewritten. Not exactly sure why. Um but the the the folks at JP Morgan, to whom he, you know, um uh referred Zuckerman, are apparently um you know, falling down on the job. And um And then he keeps saying, "Well, what if you just get married? If you just get married, we don't have to deal with any of this problem. You know, just get married and then we don't have to deal with, you know, um step-up basis or whatever, you know, these the uh estate tax issues. You know, this would just be so much easier if you got married. And what what made me think, you know, a what that made me think was that Epstein really, you know, he was sort of a magnet for these sort of you know, much older man with money and and younger wife combinations. He, you know, was very like he was a little cooler than the geezers, you know, I mean, I think that like, you know, a little younger than than Woody and a little bit more kind of of the world. He and Sunni were just extremely close. But I think that that, you know, and this is one of the things about, you know, this Wexner relationship that I started to think after reading so many of the exchanges between him and Mort Zuckerman is that for these guys you get the sense that their wealth like isn't it it it it isn't even theirs. Like there is some element that they are owned by these, you know, cuz cuz Zuckerman at one point he's like, you know, he's like, "Okay, where do I have to give my money away to? Who do you have to give your money away to?" And and and Epstein's like, "I don't know, you know, what do you want? Like, you know, Jewish, Alzheimer's?" And and you know, Zuckerman just says, "Well, Jewish Alzheimer's." So, that's that's one of the expectations is that, you know, there's going to be an enormous amount of money um flowing back to the various Zionist organizations. Um And Zuckerman was at the very top of that of of that collection. He he ran something called the Council of Presidents of Jewish Organizations for a while. Um which is a title they call King of the Jews Um, in supposedly in in according to the forward, I think. Um, and there is also this like there's just this sense that you get that like these that at the very top these oligarchs, um, you know, again, you can't take it with you. And, um, so they get very sort of, um, you know, paranoid, um, when they when they start to get older about, um, what's going to become of their money and um, and and, you know, how sort of to protect themselves. And Epstein is the guy who kind of soothes their, um, their sort of sense of of, um, you know, existential, uh, dilemmas about that. But then also encourages them to just, "Hey, leave it to your wife." Because the wife is going to be even more, you know, Zuckerman is very resistant to to a lot of Epstein's, uh, suggestions. Um, and it's he's he seems extremely stingy. Like he doesn't, you know, Epstein's like, "Why don't, you know, like why don't you just agree to pay for camp for your, you know, for for your kids' cousins? Like that doesn't, you know, it What's what's the big deal?" And then he's kind of like, um, and but, um, but there is this sense I think that Epstein has is like, you know, as soon as this sort of, um, transfers over to, um, the the lady, um, then, you know, the the money is even even more sort of, um, uh, controllable by, you know, me and my networks and I can, you know, I have even more clout in terms of deciding what where to target it, you know, what what universities, what, you know, um, galleries that we're going to, um, you know, sort of annex. Um, so I think that, you know, this is this is something that, um, you know, sort of needs to be explored. A thing that I do worry about with Chomsky is is just like his papers um uh I you know that was something that I've I've thought about while reading the you know Valerie Chomsky stuff. Clearly, you know, um uh Chomsky was like you've observed um sort of um drawn to Epstein's um financial acumen about you know how to kind of deal with his his um estate. But in in in his case um especially given that we know that he was such a um a a prolific um answerer of emails and you know correspondence, I fear um what happens to all of his papers when he dies, who's going to get first crack at them, um you know, is is is you know, Mossad going to be there um because I've I've I've heard about that that stuff happening um in the past. And so I you know, I I think that there's probably good reason that he had for wanting to cultivate Chomsky, but the reason that they get drawn to him, I think is cuz he is very good. He's very good at um at ingratiating himself to women. >> Mhm. >> Um >> Let let let me ask about the the the focus has obviously been on the uh pedophilia rings and the sexual abuse of girls and women, but I think you argue that they missed this other important aspect in the Epstein files, which is fun this financial cabal that Epstein was at the center of. >> Yeah, I mean so one thing that um that was really striking about again going back to that um British intelligence officer who um you know, telecom guy was that this this gentleman that he mentions Gregory Luchansky was like an obsession of the CIA. William Safire wrote a column about him in 1995. Um in the '90s, this guy was there was a lot of fear about what was going to happen to Russia. Is it you know, I remember um the fear of Zhirinovsky. Um you know, what all of this chaos um that we had done so much to unleash and to worsen. Um was was going to wreak. And so the big thing on Luchansky was that, you know, he was suspected um and he showed up at um a bunch of DNC. He he he gets a meeting with uh Clinton that supposedly Ghislaine uh you know, organizes. Um and Ghislaine goes to work as his um as his pimp essentially. Um >> You don't mean Chomsky, you mean Epstein. >> No. No, no, I mean as this guy Luchansky's um pimp. >> Oh, Luchansky. Yeah, yeah. >> She was working for Lu- Luchansky. But in the um in the real hawkish stories about this guy. And he was one of a large parade of very shady foreign um donors to the DNC and to Clinton during the mid-'90s. Like he was he belonged to that sort of parade, the Charlie Tree, Tree you know, those guys. Uh but um but they were saying that he was suspected of trafficking, you know, nuclear materials to Iran. And you know, that was you know, if only I guess. But um but you know, this is one of the the things that um we that was just so striking to read was and and to understand cuz the the other that's the other thing is that he was um a business partner of Marc Rich who was famously um you know, pardoned by Clinton on his last day in office, um and um Marc Rich was another one of these guys who um you know, he he sold Iranian oil. He didn't care um who he was taking money from. He was completely unideological. A Zionist, right? But like um he you know, he he did lots of deals with Iran and that was one of the reasons that he um actually was originally indicted. Um and and and you know, that's the other thing is that is that like these none of these guys are it is all about you know, getting getting rich um and uh you know, punishing your enemies and at the end of the day um they don't have loyalty to uh any country, right? That that's not like they they don't have loyalty to anyone. Um and that's the other thing that's so depressing about reading some of Rubsin's emails is that like he is um he's such a bad guy. Um he's he's but he is he's more human than a lot of the the folks that he was dealing with. Certainly Zuckerman um you know, and and and that's like it's hard to kind of wrap your mind around that or he's he's more or he maybe has more of like a um a patina of humanity because like you know, at the he was a like I said, a really bad guy got but he could play a human being. And um you know, it I feel like that is sort of what has happened. He and Marc Marc Zuckerman um these guys um were and Ehud Barak, it's important to you know, put that into context, right? Like who Barack is is BB's, you know, long-time rival. Um supposedly he was, you know, he was as woke as it as it got in the '90s in Israel. Um certainly he was also, you know, uh a racist um Jewish supremacist, but also an Ashkenazi supremacist. He looked down on the Mizrahi and uh Ashkenazi uh and uh Sephardic Jews. But um you know, he there's a point at which he um he says to Epstein, you know, we have to, you know, we don't have to import, you know, these uh like sort of um low-rent Jews anymore, like the the Mizrahi Jews from from Yemen and and um and Morocco and and and Egypt. You know, we can um we can really, you know, have our choice of of Jews and we should try to um you know, get um uh better stock to immigrate, right? Um cuz they're crazy eugenesis. But at the same time that was a calculation because the um you know, as you know, um Likud uh Netanyahu's party, their base is um Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews and Soviet Jews. Um it is not and and these are people who suffered a lot of discrimination and bigotry um at the like incredible, like scandalous um feats, you know, their babies being stolen um at the, you know, in the hospital and and and auctioned off to to Ashkenazi parents in the in the '50s that like literally happened. Um and it's one of the um motives for the guy who killed Rabin. Um but uh but you know, these are these are folks who had some, you know, sympathy for the Arabs um back in the '50s. Um you know, that was snuffed out and they became the hardest core um Likudnik um you know, Kahanist uh Jewish supremacist uh uh people in in in Israel that faction and um that's what we're living with now and now you know the the old labor Zionist the Ashkenazis um the woke Ashkenazis like have you know they're they they're all you know moving to Berlin um and not allowed to vote anymore and um and and so you see kind of how um as bad as things were when when Epstein was writing all of these emails um they've definitely gotten worse. >> >> It's a win- it's a window into the into the ruling class. I mean that's what it is and it's not just that they they treat everyone as objects including girls and women but I think that what you have investigated and written on it also just shows how the the criminality the uh in you know and and of course it's a network where they all watch out for each other as you pointed out on the way to getting fabulously rich. >> Yeah and um you know another thing that's a like sort of a meta story that I came across because initially I started looking at this because of the New York Daily News. I was interested um that newspaper um which was the highest circulating newspaper in America um in the 70s um had a circulation close to like 1.5 million in the 80s um you know it was always a friend of Israel um but it was a um a you know working class it was kind of the the epitome of the populist newspaper. Um they're down to 20 reporters um four on the national desk and you know 16 on state and uh local. Um I don't know how you run a newspaper with that kind of crew a daily newspaper. Um but they have um they're owned by Alden uh Global Capital, the uh the Duke Lacrosse bro run, I think um uh you know, newspaper uh plunderer um that's kind of gotten all of the newspapers, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, uh you know, the Times, you name it. And um but when they were sold, when Zuckerman finally sold the paper, and that was the other thing is that Epstein wanted Zuckerman to get the paper off his hands in 2013. Um it was sitting on on Zuckerman's books at a value of like $550 million. He ends up selling it for $1 to the sort of precursor of Alden called Tronc. Um and these guys are like they it you know, it immediately, you know, that that like it gives this contract to this guy for like $10 million. He's like flying around in private jets. I mean, it's completely completely um disgusting. Um but you know, you realize that, you know, because the a lot of the in the context of Jeff Bezos, um you know, just sort of having the the Washington Post stuff, and um Epstein at one point he um writes to Peter Thiel, "Hey man, you know, it it like I'll I'll front half of your expenses on that Gawker lawsuit. I hate them, too." Um for these guys at one point um owning a newspaper was um a path to influence, and they sort of subsidized these things, and they took money out of these things, and the journalists never really paid attention to the depressing uh finances of their operations because um it's a source of existential dread. I mean, being in this industry you know, for my whole life um it's been in, you know, crippling recession. And um and nobody can sort of pays attention, but they're, um, you know, when they sold it, he they sold it not just the newspaper, but this, um, 25-acre, uh, plot of land in New Jersey where they had a, um, printing press and, um, it's it's, you know, waterfront land, um, you know, overlooking the Hudson, um, and they and, you know, it was a 50% interest in that that land, but they they sold this thing for for a dollar. And, um, you know, who knows, you know, where, like, what other side deals were involved in in that transaction, um, probably quite a few. Um, but it is sort of this like this there's, you know, there's so much that we don't know, there's so much that you're not allowed that that you don't have to disclose as an oligarch these days. We're, um, sort of at the the mercy of these people, and, um, yeah, and and and if if we un-turn, you know, over if the the more journalists are not, um, uh, really, uh, uh, you know, they're they're very much loathed. Um, real journalism is is, um, loathed by these guys and that's why there's not, you know, it it occurred to me that the New York Daily News would have been the ideal newspaper to sort of be sifting through the Epstein, um, files because, you know, so many of these characters are are, you know, in New York, they're sort of, uh, New York personalities, um, and, you know, the New York Times, um, can't, you know, they they've they've tried to cover this scandal, but they keep running against up against I mean, one of my favorite things was, um, a story that they ran about, you know, how, uh, Epstein was just a con man and there's all this talk about how he was in and but he was just a con man, and it doesn't you know, it's like no, like you don't get to to do like Ponzi scheme after Ponzi scheme and get away with it if you don't have some connections, you know, and where are those connections, right? That those things go together. Ponzi schemes, money laundering, intelligence, they're all you see these that you know, that triumvirate over and over again, right? And and they you know, there's one point where they say that he gets this, you know, he he has this connection to the White House and it's what's-her-face, but it's a Rothschild. They they just leave out the Rothschild part of her name, right? You know, there's so much that the the New York Times just won't touch. Um and and it's and and the the FBI didn't want to investigate. I mean, the you know, the the other story is how the files show complete disinterest on the part of the um US attorney and on the part of our you know, federal investigators in understanding what was going on. Um and and so, you know, it's it's um it's not it's a bleak story, but um it's it's also um in light of the absolute insanity of this particular moment. Um >> Well, it is it's the depravity, the greed, the hedonism, the lack of empathy, the callousness, the cruelty that has defined all oligarchic classes throughout history. And I think that your work has been important because it it's it that pedophilia, that exploit human trafficking, that exploitation of girls and women is just one piece of that vast puzzle. Uh and uh and and and we need to highlight that uh you know, the we need that complete picture, which I think that you your work is have been very important in terms of providing. Um thanks, Maureen. And I want to thank uh Sophia and Diego, Victor, Thomas, and Max, who produced the show. You can find me at cjs.substack.com.