A Clear Epstein Backgrounder and Where We Are Today

A protest group holds up signs of Jeffrey Epstein in New York on July 8 (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

By Thomas Neuburger

“The elite classes have for a long time distinguished themselves from ordinary people by their adherence to a different code of morality.” —Darryl Cooper, paraphrasing the New York Times

The Epstein story is both complicated and evolving.

It’s complicated in the same way the JFK murder is complicated — some facts are undeniably true (in the JFK case, that there was more than one shooter), yet there are gaps in the fabric that are both important and may never be filled. It’s evolving in the sense that more of the tale is being written as we speak.

So it’s difficult to write about Epstein without authoring a book; there’s almost that much material. But I want to get you started. So here I’ll present three interviews, all of them containing significant parts of the story and angles for seeing them.

I don’t expect everyone to listen to all of these hours. But I found them valuable as resources, and so I offer them to you. If you have to pick just one, my suggestion is, pick the first.

Darryl Cooper: Epstein’s Origin and Life as a Money-Launderer

Let’s start with a recent interview of researcher Darryl Cooper by Tucker Carlson, as it’s the most complete and listenable backgrounder on Epstein’s history that I could find.

Yes, I know — both of these people can be highly politized commenters of a stripe some don’t like. If you’re among those people, feel free to skip this video.

But don’t. While Carlson gets a little “Christian” near the end — annoying to those who aren’t, or aren’t of his brand — Cooper is rigorous about sorting evidence from supposition, even likely supposition, and he stays away from dogma, even regarding “Pizzagate,” on which he has an interesting take. And Carlson, to his credit, keeps his intrusions to a minimum and his questions on point.

By the way, I found the discussion I labeled “Who are these people?” very much worth thinking about, especially given the facts that Cooper presents.

Here are audio and video versions of the interview. A rundown follows below. Be warned: the audio version contains embedded commercials.

Main sections:

• Who was Jeffrey Epstein? An excellent detailed intro — 1:04 video (1:20 audio) Epstein hired as teacher at Dalton School Epstein and Donald Barr (Bill Barr’s father)

  Epstein at Bear Stearns, his first money-laundering job Epstein and Douglas Leese, arms broker and “fixer” Leese, Epstein and Robert Maxwell

• “Epstein belongs to intelligence” — 18:35 (21:35) Epstein, Iran-Contra, Adnan Khashoggi and the “system we have now”

• Bio of Robert Maxwell — 45:22 (52:44)

• Epstein, his wealth, blackmail and sex crimes — 1:06:22 (1:13:36)

• Epstein busted the first time — 1:35:04 (1:42:20)

• “Who are these people?” — 1:52:44 (2:00:10)

• Epstein’s death and the death of Jean-Luc Brunel — 2:25:08 (2:32:24)

• Summary — 2:36:00 (2:43:13)

Clickable chapters can be found at the YouTube site. This is a must-listen if you have the time and the story matters to you.

Michael Wolff: Epstein and Trump

This interview focuses on Donald Trump, with a lot of material I hadn’t encountered before. Michael Wolff has written much about Trump and regularly appears on the Daily Beast podcast.

A taste:

[WOLFF:] The view within the White House is that this [birthday] letter came to the Wall Street Journal from the Maxwell side[.] … And they interpret this as a, quote, shot across the bow, which is to say that Ghislaine Maxwell, who at this point in her life has nothing to lose and I am sure is seeking leverage in any way she possibly can, that this is an announcement, a threat, and an announcement that she has damaging material on Donald Trump, hence a full scale panic [in the White House].

The gossipy points about Rupert and Lachlan Murdock are interesting, as is Trump’s negotiating strategy. Note also Wolff’s explanation of the “secret” mentioned in Trump’s birthday letter. There’s fascinating material throughout.

Clickable chapters via YouTube:

00:00 - Introduction 02:32 - Trump Genuinely Concerned 06:05 - Trump's Bad Boy Years 09:10 - Trump Epstein Shared Girlfriend 11:30 - Maxwell Sent Trump's B-day Note For Epstein 13:06 - Trump Breaks Lawyers 17:45 - Trump Corrupted DOJ 19:34 - Bondi Tells Trump He's In Epstein Files 21:16 - Ghislaine Revealing Her Trump Cards 24:50 - How MAGA Reacts To Ghislaine Pardon 26:36 - Melania Very Involved With Epstein 28:20 - Trump Sues Murdoch 32:35 - Tulsi Gabbard On The Outs 35:08 - Trump Can't Escape Epstein 38:36 - Wrap Up

John Kiriakou: Ghislaine Maxwell’s Strategy

Former CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou discusses two aspects of the Epstein story in the short video below. I’ve cued it to the first part of the discussion. For fun, stay for the final segment, a story about Henry Kissinger and Mao Zedong that touches on today’s Xi Jinping. You won’t be sorry.

A taste (Kiriakou’s emphasis):

But we also know from a mountain of testimony by Virginia Giuffre, God rest her soul, and other victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his friends, that there were recordings, there were computer hard drives, there were probably DVDs, and there were human beings monitoring the recording equipment at the island. So why haven’t those people been deposed?

John Kiriakou is the only person jailed for the Bush torture program, because he blew the whistle on it, prosecution courtesy of the Obama administration, of course, who set a new bar for putting whistleblowers in jail.