Diabolical - The Epstein Files (2026) Movie Script

Before we get into
the deep stuff, let's just talk,
let's give some basics.
Remember, when you're answering
these questions,
I'm not in the shot
and they're never gonna hear
my voice.
Oh, boy. OK.
The first
word that I would use to
describe Jeffrey Epstein
other than a predator
is 'mysterious'.
How did he become so wealthy?
How did he ingratiate
himself into the exact
right social circles?
How did he get away without
being caught for so long?
I never
could have anticipated
how diabolical
Jeffrey Epstein was.
There's something
deeply fucked up with you.
At least something.
We know there are things
deeply fucked up
you will get through
in this film, right?
Where I come from
you don't kill my brother
and walk away from that.
What are the Epstein files?
The Epstein files
are all the information
that the government has
regarding Jeffrey Epstein
and his co-conspirators.
Photographic evidence,
interviews of victims.
Emails written to him,
text messages.
Court
documents, FBI reports.
And it is much more expansive
than you had ever even imagined.
People want to see names.
They want to know
who the sex traffickers are.
They want to know who
the paedophiles are
and they want vengeance.
Do you know the names
of powerful people
who have not yet
been named publicly?
Yes.
Congressman Khanna!
Hello, I'm Grace Tobin...
Nice to see you.
...from Australia.
Why do you think
it's a fight that has united
a very divided
political spectrum here?
You can't rape underage girls.
You can't cover that up.
Trump opened
up Pandora's box.
He thought that he could crack
it open slightly and shut it.
But the curse
is not going back into the box.
I don't understand why
the President fought it so hard.
Releasing the Epstein files
is about revealing
all of that dirty, nasty,
horrible things that happened.
Why would he cover this up?
I think he's protecting
rich and powerful men
who participated
in sex trafficking.
3 million pages,
180,000 images.
The latest dump
from the Epstein files
after weeks of
political pressure.
That moment
created global shock waves.
A day of extreme
jeopardy for Sir Keir Starmer.
Norway's
Crown Princess is
facing intense scrutiny.
Extraordinary news
out of the UK.
The former Prince Andrew
has been arrested.
The Epstein files
are part of the Epstein story.
You have to understand how
the Epstein files fit in
to what Epstein was doing,
and the failures of the US
government in doing their job.
The Epstein story
has one man at its centre,
one spider in the
centre of the web.
But that web could not
have been constructed
without complicity.
Do you think
you're the devil himself?
No. But I do have a good mirror.
We are going to turn
now to the debate in Washington
over the release
of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Today, a group of survivors
of the Epstein controversy
will be here on Capitol Hill.
Urgent new calls for
transparency from
Epstein survivors,
24 of whom are now
re-upping their demand
that Congress release
all of the Epstein files.
It's an
honour to stand here
for something America
is finally united on -
the immediate release
of the entire Epstein files.
There's approximately
1,200 women that were
victims of Jeffrey Epstein
and they say other men.
They've wanted justice and
they fought very hard for it.
We are more than victims.
We are mothers, daughters,
sisters, friends.
And we will not be erased.
Some of these women
have been at this 20 years.
Some of them had, I believe,
almost given up.
But the fact that they
were invited to the capital
of the United States
to speak truth to power,
and that every media outlet,
you know, showed up, they're
renewed in their efforts.
This is me when I met
Jeffrey Epstein in 1991.
This is me when I met
Jeffrey Epstein.
A lot of us, it was
the first time that we
had spoken publicly.
My name is Dani Bensky.
This was me at 17 years old.
So we were just kind of standing
in solidarity with each other
and saying to the world,
like, "There's more of us
than you thought."
My name is Marina Lacerda.
I was minor victim one.
My name is Gena-Lisa Jones
and I was only 14 years old.
My name is Chauntae Davis.
My name is Laura Bloom McGee.
My name is Haley Robson.
My name is Anoushka De Georgiou.
My name is Courtney Wild.
My name is Lisa Phillips.
My name is Ashley Rubright
and I am a survivor of Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
When you're a survivor of abuse
from a serial predator,
you just have this bond
with the other survivors.
We understand each other
like nobody else can.
It's been a tremendous
mountain to move to get here.
It took an incredible outcry
from the public,
huge political will,
and it took the blood, sweat
and tears of the survivors.
And that's many, many tears
from the survivors to get here.
So we're just heading in
to meet with Ashley Rubright,
who is a survivor
of Jeffrey Epstein.
And she's only just started
speaking out publicly
about what happened to her.
We're this house here.
Hi, Ashley. How are you?
Good. How are you?
It's nice to meet you.
So nice to meet you. Come in.
Thank you so much for having us.
Of course.
Oh, it's still very Christmassy
in here, isn't it?
Yes.
When did you meet
Jeffrey Epstein?
So it was about 2002 to 2003
and I would have
been... about 15.
I was going to
Summit Christian School.
I was a cheerleader.
I was in dance,
like jazz, hip-hop, ballet.
Um, I was working
at a barbecue restaurant
and one of my coworkers,
he asked me one day
in the restaurant
if I would like to give a man
a massage for $200.
I thought about it for a second
and said, "Sure."
I just remember pulling
into his house in Palm Beach.
And we were led
into the kitchen.
And then Sarah Kellen came in,
his assistant.
Said it was time.
Then Sarah, she's the one
that led me upstairs.
I didn't look around.
I was just looking down.
So all I remember was the pink
carpet on the spiral staircase.
And she opened the door
and said, "Alright, I'll
be back in an hour."
I was shocked when I walked
into the bathroom.
But then I calmed myself down,
thinking,
"Of course, he's naked because
that's how people get massages
"and I should just
not be so shocked."
He just kind of
laid on the table.
And then he told me
how to massage him.
Then he flipped over.
And...
That's... Things got...
...really way more inappropriate
there.
And he asked me to...
...to take off my bra and...
...to pull up my skirt
and...
He was touching himself
the whole time.
I was just trying not to look.
And he would grab me,
grab my behind and...
I was just trying to
not be there, you know,
at that time.
And...
...he finished and hopped up.
And...
...then Sarah came in
and led me back downstairs.
I felt shocked.
And then I remember...
...trying to rationalise it.
It had to have just been
like a fluke, a one time...
...thing that he just
couldn't control.
I did go back one more time.
The second time, it escalated.
I just remembered Jeffrey
bringing over a basket
and asking me to pick
one and asking me if
I knew how to use it.
And...
...he had me sit
on the bathroom floor
and he sat on the edge
of the massage table.
And I remember what happened.
A basket of sex toys?
Yes.
Thank you for saying that.
Yeah. That's OK.
So this was 2000.
And these are all just,
like, happy messages.
I read some of my yearbooks
and it was such
a drastic change.
Right after Jeffrey,
the messages, even my face.
Everything had started
to just look darker.
This one says, "We had fun
when you're not so mad."
or, "You're sweet
when you're not mad." Yeah.
I was angry, and I...
...I didn't care who got
the brunt of it, at all.
Yeah.
I stopped cheerleading,
I stopped dance.
And I kind of went from, like...
...trying to do good
to just not caring.
Did you tell anyone
what happened to you?
Just my friend Sean
but nobody else.
I didn't think there was a story
to tell, really, you know?
Mr Epstein, is it true you
were born January 20th, 1953?
Yes.
Where?
New York.
Where in New York.
Brooklyn.
Hey, Adam.
Hi, Grace.
How are you?
Pleasure to meet you.
Nice to meet you too. Thanks
so much for doing this with us.
My pleasure, my pleasure.
Adam, can you tell me
a bit about yourself?
Well, I've been a legal
journalist for close
to two decades now,
and the Southern District of
New York was my long-time beat.
So you see a lot of cases
of national and
international significance
going into that court.
And one of them just happened
to be Epstein's.
We are in Coney Island.
Coney Island, Brooklyn.
We're right near
where Jeffrey Epstein grew up.
And this is actually
the Sea Gate community
in the distance right there,
Jeffrey Epstein's
childhood home.
Jeffrey Epstein had
a modest upbringing
in an immigrant community
in Brooklyn.
His father worked at the New
York City Parks Department.
His mother worked at a school.
And he had a younger brother,
Mark.
He had a lifelong fascination
with math
and by all accounts,
was pretty good at it.
This is The Dalton Prep School.
It is where he
got his first job.
Even though he was
a college dropout,
his first job was at
a very prestigious school
where he was a math teacher.
One of the parents of a student
introduced him to
the CEO of Bear Stearns,
a man named Ace Greenberg,
where he got his first job
on Wall Street.
We are on Wall Street,
where Jeffrey Epstein
made his fortune.
He was, by all accounts,
very charming.
Jeffrey Epstein tried to,
throughout his life,
make connections with people
with money and power.
He was able to get people
to trust him very quickly.
He won the trust of billionaires
like Leslie Wexner,
who gave him power of attorney.
He won the trust of Leon Black,
who paid him
hundreds of millions of dollars,
far above the market rate.
And from there, uh,
there is a lot of mystery,
but we're getting a picture
more and more
of him finagling people,
uh, wheeling and dealing,
and ultimately became
fabulously wealthy.
This is Jeffrey Epstein's Upper
East Side townhouse mansion
and the famous, uh,
lantern over the door.
He had a massage room in there.
He had the dining room,
where he entertained.
I mean, the photos
really do tell the story.
Jeffrey Epstein met Ghislaine
Maxwell in the early 1990s.
As the daughter of a media
tycoon, with a British accent,
she brought something that
Jeffrey Epstein didn't have -
access to the elite.
Have you got drinks?
They socialised with politicians
with big names in academia,
finance, you name it.
Whether it was the man known
at the time as Prince Andrew.
Or whether it was
former president Bill Clinton.
He had his private island
in the US Virgin Islands,
a ranch outside of Santa Fe,
property in Palm Beach
and in Paris.
He was flaunting his
jet-setting lifestyle
and his massive wealth.
Look at me
like you love me.
I can't wait.
OK, so now I'm walking towards
the lily pond.
I'm here on the beach by myself.
This is my swimming
pool - my beach.
No-one's allowed to dock here.
The luncheon place.
The nursery.
At the point there
is the library.
It's an honour
to stand here again
for something
America is finally united on.
The immediate release
of the entire Epstein files.
So these are just
my modelling pictures.
Mm-hm.
Like, when I started out.
This is when I was 17.
I would send these to modelling
agencies to get started.
I was a fashion
model in New York,
had worked my way up
since I was 15 or 16 years old.
So this was from the actual week
I met Jeffrey.
Ah.
The year 2000 and I had booked,
like, a really big job.
Our agent at the time, Jeff,
sent us to Tortola
on the Caribbean Sea.
Tortola was a small island.
There was really not that much
to do there.
So the other model was
like, "You know, we have
a free day tomorrow."
She suggested we
go see her friend, you
know, Jeffrey Epstein,
that owned an island nearby.
Yeah, we were both,
like maybe 22 years old.
Spent the day just,
like, playing in the
pool, in the ocean.
And there I met
two other young blonde girls.
Went to dinner that evening,
and I met Jeffrey Epstein.
He was laser focused on me
and asking so many questions
about my childhood
and my dreams and aspirations.
I had told him in that time
that we had shared on the island
that I wanted to
be a Ford model,
and I kind of built up
this trust with this man.
Getting ready to go to
sleep, there just was
a knock at the door,
and one of the other young girls
poked her head in and was like,
"Jeffrey's ready
for his massage now."
And I'm just like, "OK, well,
you go ahead, I'm going to bed."
And she was just like,
"No, he said for you
to give the massage."
Long story short,
like, I just had to go.
And so I experienced, you know,
sexual abuse that evening, um,
from Jeffrey and the other girl
that was there.
I think when you're younger,
you always blame yourself.
Like, "What did I do?
Was I flirting with this guy?"
Like, I went home and
I wanted nothing to do
with him after that.
And a few months had passed
and he called me.
A lot of my modelling castings
would be here in Soho.
Right up here, when I was
walking, right up here
was where I got the call
from Jeffrey.
He was very brief and to the
point that he had remembered,
you know, my goals and ambitions
that I told him on the island -
that I wanted to be a Ford
model, big dream of mine,
and that he knew the owner
of the Ford Modelling Agency
and for me to go over there
and meet with her.
And I was just thinking,
whatever happened to me
on the island wasn't good,
but maybe he was trying
to make up for it,
you know, by saying,
"I remember your goal,
"well, I can help you out."
During that time,
were you ever abused
by Epstein again
or any men in his orbit?
So, yeah, I was
abused by him again.
And through his connections
where he would sent me
on auditions and things.
But back then, I wasn't aware
that I was trafficked.
Can you explain a bit more
about how the trafficking
operation worked?
Well, auditions are castings
by Epstein.
So it's like,
"Oh, let me just send you.
"My friend is casting
a really big film right now."
And you're sent somewhere
where all of a sudden
you're propositioned for sex
and the people around you
are enforcing it.
Just thought it
was the business.
Just thought I was going to a
casting and audition, working,
and that's kind of how some of
the older men were, just creepy.
And I never connected it
to a more nefarious ring
that involved modelling agencies
and Epstein.
There were hundreds of
girls from these Eastern
European countries
sent to Paris, sent to New York.
You know, they were doing quite
abusive things to these models.
It was like a
well-oiled machine.
Fast forward a few years later,
I had a girlfriend who was also
involved in this Epstein world.
She had came to me one evening
and said that
Jeffrey had made
her go into a room,
made to go have
sex with somebody
and so she at that
time was scared.
I became scared,
and we kind of...
...both kind of moved out
of New York at that time
and I never saw him again after
that 'cause I was scared.
Jeffrey
Epstein's trail of sexual
abuse happened globally.
However, Palm Beach
was the centre, in many
ways, of the sexual abuse
and where his crimes
were originally investigated.
Hey there. We're just
driving around Palm Beach.
Is there any way to get through
or no?
No, not...
Is this closed?
Yeah. OK. Alright.
Just wanted to check.
Why is it closed?
Because Trump's in town.
So I'm Holly Baltz.
I'm a retired investigations
editor from the Palm Beach Post.
Just newly retired.
We, as in the Post, covered
Epstein from the very beginning.
I never could have anticipated
how big this case got to be.
Palm Beach Police first started
investigating Jeffrey Epstein
when the stepmother
of a ninth grader
at Royal Palm Beach High School
reported
that a wealthy man had molested
her daughter in March of 2005.
This is the east/west route
that goes past
Royal Palm Beach High School.
You know, it wasn't just
the one girl.
Police found that a number
of victims were recruited here.
They started
interviewing more girls,
and every time they did, it was
like peeling back an onion.
Not only were the girls getting
sexually abused themselves,
but he also offered to pay them
if they'd bring their friends.
Um, and these were girls
who didn't have a lot of money.
During
Jeffrey Epstein's first
criminal investigation,
many of the survivors
started finding lawyers
who were willing to bring
their stories forward
and file lawsuits.
I first got involved
in the Epstein matter
back in about 2006.
I was working at a litigation
firm here in Palm Beach County
and a young girl walked
into our office with her parents
and told a crazy story about
a rich man on Palm Beach Island
that had paid her about $200
to go to the home
and give him a massage
that turned into a
sexually explicit and
inappropriate massage.
Initially,
I didn't quite believe her,
to be perfectly honest,
it sounded pretty incredible.
But once I interviewed
the police detective
that was conducting
the investigation,
I realised that this was real.
Michael Reiter was the chief
of police back at the time.
And Joe Recarey was
the lead investigator.
Correct?
OK. You were like the houseman?
What can you tell me about that?
So he can massage in
the morning, massage
in the afternoon.
And besides that...
OK.
And actually...
As police officers
gathered the evidence,
Epstein put together
a huge team of...
It was like a dream team.
All really well-known attorneys
and attorneys who,
uh, were very aggressive.
It is widely
reported that Jeffrey
Epstein and his legal team
had some of the victims
followed by blacked-out SUVs,
uh, you know, showed...
showing up at their houses.
But they were also investigating
the lead investigator, Joe.
And I asked to meet him.
So he picked a Starbucks
in downtown West Palm Beach.
And when I sat down and
I started talking to him,
his head was on a swivel
and he kept looking around.
And I said, "What are you...
what are you doing?"
And I'll never forget,
he looks at me and he says,
"You have no idea
what they're doing to me."
They had been digging
through his personal trash,
and he said to me,
"I've never seen this kind
of an operation before."
But Palm Beach Police, they were
very dogged in pursuing Epstein.
We're police officers
of Palm Beach County, Florida.
They kept amassing victims.
The premises occupied or under
the control of Jeffrey Epstein.
White male. Date
of birth 1/20/53.
When the first
criminal investigation
of Jeffrey Epstein
was going on,
it had originally seemed like
something that could sustain
an indictment with
dozens of counts,
that Palm Beach Police were
building a very strong case.
But when the entire case
was packaged up
and given to the
state attorney...
...the state attorney here
in Palm Beach at the time
decided not to file charges.
Chief of Police Michael
Reiter was so upset at
the lack of prosecution
on the state level
that he elevated this
to the federal level.
The FBI was keen
to prosecute in the
beginning, for sure.
And they found very much similar
things as Palm Beach Police,
but new victims.
And what came of that was
a draft indictment, 60 counts.
However, this giant case
that Palm Beach Police
spent so much time investigating
pleaded down to
a slap-on-the-wrist plea deal
after intense lobbying
by Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers.
The charges
that they ended up bringing
were solicitation
for prostitution of a minor.
It's basically calling
these victims prostitutes.
The deal was approved
by then US attorney Alex Acosta
and then kept secret
from the victims.
And I think that
the sweetheart plea deal
was, in many ways,
the original sin of this.
It was one of the most
awful deals I've ever seen.
There isn't a plea
deal before or since that
I've ever seen like this.
It gave complete immunity
to not just Epstein,
but it included
and not limited to
potential co-conspirators
Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross,
Lesley Groff, and
Nadia Marcinkova.
And so these
are some of the women who
helped recruit other girls?
Yeah, in the sexual
pyramid scheme,
these were the people that were
really at the third level,
right below Ghislaine Maxwell.
Jeffrey Epstein
went to jail just before
10:00 this morning.
He pleaded guilty in open court.
He agreed to serve
a total of 18 months
in a Palm Beach
detention facility.
People who commit sex crimes
against minors
go to prison for
a very long time.
Not Jeffrey Epstein.
He was sentenced to
18 months in jail.
He could get work release for 12
hours a day, six days a week.
He wound up
being in a cushy jail
where he was the only person
in that wing.
He could go out, go
to his office, take
a walk on the beach,
do whatever he wanted
during the day.
That's no kind of punishment.
We had been litigating
against Epstein
on behalf of one of my clients.
He was being allowed out
during days.
So we noticed Epstein
for deposition.
Could you please give us
your name? Jeffrey Epstein.
So I wanted him to realise
I didn't care who he was,
what his power was,
what his status was,
I was gonna ask him
the most embarrassing
possible thing I could.
Is it true, sir, that, um...
...you have what's been described
as an egg-shaped penis?
He hears me ask the question,
watch him look at his lawyers,
like, "Can you believe
he's asking me this?"
And I'm going to give you
the first warning, Mr Kuvin.
I had been the first lawyer
to ask him any questions
in the cases that
had been filed.
One witness described your penis
as oval-shaped,
thin and small towards
the head portion.
See, he's angry.
He's ready to walk out the door.
And then he sees that the
attorneys are gonna talk.
That serves no other purpose
other than embarrass Mr Epstein.
It's just totally unethical.
It's improper.
The purpose of that question is
how could a 14-year-old
know what his private
part looked like?
That question was
directly relevant to
the claims in the case.
The deposition is terminated
at this point.
OK. Thanks a lot. I
appreciate it. Thank you.
Shortest deposition I've
ever taken.
Ever.
Ever.
Wow. So he probably is feeling
pretty confident at this point
that he's gotten away with this.
Pretty much. Yeah.
I mean, he had done his deal,
and now he was just
getting through the civil cases,
thinking that it was
all over and all done.
A few steps,
a smile and a wave to
the deputy at the door.
We watched Jeffrey Epstein
walk out of jail.
Epstein served 13 months
of an 18-month sentence.
He's very happy that
his jail sentence is over
and he can begin
a new chapter in his life.
When Jeffrey Epstein
got out of jail,
the fact that he was prosecuted,
the fact that he was
a registered sex offender
didn't seem to stand in the way
of his re-entry into high
society, wealth and power.
The power and influence he had
convinced a lot of people
to look the other way.
Prince Andrew looked
the other way.
We also saw Bill Gates meeting
with Epstein, despite his past.
He was some sort of
soothsayer, apparently,
to a lot of these men
that were asking him for advice.
I think that a lot of people
probably knew
that everything
was not on the up and up,
but for whatever reason,
they wanted to be a part
of his inner circle.
I had a reporter who
was covering Epstein
every step of the way.
It was difficult
to get people to pay attention.
They felt like he had served
his time and there you go.
Epstein's conviction
wasn't even a speed bump.
I've been researching and
writing about child trafficking
since 2002, 2003,
and I had this intuition
that Jeffrey Epstein
was very similar to the network
that I'd investigated,
and I just felt that
something was seriously wrong.
So in 2012, I went
down to Florida
and I had the good fortune
of getting the black book.
The black book is just a list
of Jeffrey Epstein's contacts.
It has billionaires,
some people in showbiz,
captains of industry.
Um, and multiple girls
were in the black book.
I started talking
to some of the girls,
and they told me that they'd
been flown here or flown there
and then one told me that
she'd been flown to an island.
So in 2012,
I believed Jeffrey Epstein
was running a network.
And I also had the flight logs.
So were these
the flight logs just for
his private plane, then?
Yes.
Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz,
Kevin Spacey, Larry Summers.
I mean, there were a number
of very powerful people
that were flying with
Jeffrey Epstein.
And there were a number of girls
on the flight logs,
and I assumed that
some of them were minors.
I worked on getting that story
published for three years,
and finally Gawker stepped up
and published my work.
The mainstream media
just didn't want to embrace it.
After
that point, we would get
glimpses of information.
Virginia Giuffre, one
of the Epstein survivors
from Palm Beach,
had moved to Australia
after escaping Jeffrey Epstein.
She claimed that she was
trafficked to then-Prince Andrew
when she was a minor.
She was 17 at the time.
Can you tell me about
the photo that she provided
to a newspaper in 2011?
Virginia Giuffre had produced
a now infamous photograph
of her, then-Prince Andrew
and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Andrew claimed
that it was a fake
and denied criminal wrongdoing.
Thing about Virginia is
she'd been with Epstein
for a couple of years
and he had taken her everyplace.
So she was pretty knowledgeable
about his network
and she was launching
civil suits,
and she named Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine
Maxwell as perpetrators
who trafficked her
to his rich and
powerful cronies.
But she wasn't being taken
seriously by the media.
Jeffrey Epstein very
aggressively bullied
media organisations
that tried to look
under that rock.
Things remained kind of dormant
for a number of years,
until another story came out
of the Miami Herald
and a reporter that went back
and looked at some of the deals
that were struck
with Jeffrey Epstein.
Julie Brown, her reporting
really opened up the case.
One second.
Oh, you're calling Julie?
Good morning. How are you?
I'm wonderful.
I have a very pleasant
Australian reporter
here in my office
uh, that would like
to chat with you
if you could give her time.
Hang on.
OK.
Hi, Julie.
I've been contacted by a lot
of people...
Yeah, I can imagine. ..hard
to keep it straight but...
Yeah.
Yeah, give me a call. But
this week is not a good week.
So we can talk about it later.
OK. Yeah, sure.
Hey, Julie. I'm so glad
we could make this happen.
Yes.
Persistence pays off, right?
Yep. It's OK.
Especially since you
were willing to come all
the way to Philadelphia.
I thought, "Oh, my God.
This girl's never gonna give up.
"I might as well
just get it over with."
Tell me how you came to
investigate Jeffrey Epstein.
Well, I started
investigating it right
before the election in 2016.
Most journalists in
America knew, you know,
something about
the Jeffrey Epstein case,
especially Epstein's
sweetheart deal.
Very lenient plea deal.
And there was a lot of stories
about,
"How did he get this deal?
This doesn't make any sense."
But nothing that I could find
really showed me
how he got away with this crime.
And so I just started
requesting the records,
not knowing
where it was going to lead me.
Somehow, I got a list
of almost a hundred victims.
In the end, I had like
four victims that were
willing to go and talk.
And in the middle
when I was doing that,
Trump nominated Alexander Acosta
to be Labor secretary.
I want to thank President Trump
for the privilege of serving.
Acosta was the US
Attorney in Miami
that signed off
on Epstein's sweetheart deal.
I, Alexander Acosta,
do solemnly swear...
So then I pitched a story
that we would go to the victims
and ask them, you know,
what they think about the man
that let their predator
off the hook,
who is now, by
the way, in charge
of one of the largest government
agencies in the country
with oversight
of human trafficking.
It was a high pressure story
because it involved
a lot of important people.
It was going to be put online
very early in the morning,
so we sort of braced ourselves,
I guess you could say.
And at the time that morning,
there was a funny story
that was at the top
of our leaderboard.
My story was at the very bottom.
And so I packed everything up. I
thought, "That's it for the day.
"You know, I'm going to take
the day off."
And I was getting all ready
and another reporter said to me,
"Julie, look at this story."
And it was going
boom, boom, boom.
We are going to begin
with a much closer look
at the disturbing case
of Jeffrey Epstein.
Joining me this morning is
Julie Brown of the Miami Herald.
Investigative reporter behind
the Miami Herald expose...
Julie Brown, let me ask you,
set the scene for us.
This story uncovered
this underbelly of society,
of the rich and powerful
and what they were doing to
people who were less powerful.
The
Miami Herald series
drops in November 2018.
It had such an impact that by
July of the following year,
Jeffrey Epstein is arrested and
charged with sex trafficking.
Billionaire Jeffrey
Epstein has been arrested
for alleged sex trafficking
of young girls,
and agents have been coming in
and out of his Manhattan mansion
all morning.
Epstein is charged
in a two-count indictment.
First - conspiracy
to commit sex trafficking
and second, sex trafficking
of underage girls,
beginning in at least 2002
and continuing until 2005
at his mansion in New York
and in Palm Beach, Florida.
I'm not going into any dealings
with main justice,
I will say that we were assisted
from some excellent
investigative journalism.
I just got a call
from the news desk saying,
"We just got something
over the wire
"that said that Epstein's
been arrested."
I was like, oh, you know,
it was incredible.
I was just... I
couldn't believe it.
Hi, Mark. It's Grace Tobin.
Thanks so much for taking
the time to talk to me today.
Sure.
When your brother was arrested,
can you tell me what that
was like, that moment?
Jeffrey gets arrested, you know,
we spoke the night before.
He called me from Paris.
Just a normal, you know, "What's
new? How you doing?" call.
And then he flies home the
next day and he gets arrested.
I wanted
to be at his first court
appearance the next day.
He looked like such a small man.
You know, small, frail,
you know, human being.
Um, just looked
lost, quite frankly.
I don't think he ever thought
he was going to be rearrested.
Now, yesterday,
we were there in court.
His attorneys are arguing
that Epstein struck a deal
with federal prosecutors
in Florida over similar crimes,
granting him immunity
after he pleaded guilty
to a lesser charge.
The US attorney who struck
that deal is Alexander Acosta.
At that point,
the media started in
Washington asking Trump,
"What's going to happen
with Alexander Acosta?"
Good afternoon.
And I remember that Acosta
did have a press conference.
We believe that
we proceeded appropriately.
There was value to
getting a guilty plea and
having him registered.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
And I just remember
listening to him,
thinking, "These
are all excuses.
"They don't work anymore."
And apparently it didn't work
because he then,
um, you know, resigned.
And so I called the President
this morning.
I told him that I thought the
right thing was to step aside.
Finally, it seemed like
the government
was actually taking
this seriously
by charging Epstein
with serious crimes,
sex trafficking.
And after that,
other victims started to
realise, "I'm not alone."
When he was arrested,
a lot of us were happy
that there was a second
chance for possibly
some actual justice,
because what happened in 2008
wasn't justice
or him being held accountable.
And at that point,
I reached out to the FBI
and I was like, uh...
..."Here's another one
of us," you know?
Um, "And I-I want to be
a part of bringing him down."
Jeffrey Epstein
was staying at
the rather notorious prison
where people await trial
on serious offences
in the Southern District
of New York.
The Metropolitan
Correctional Centre in Manhattan
is an environment completely
foreign to Jeffrey Epstein.
The conditions were filthy.
Rodents, cockroaches
all over the place.
I agreed to represent him
and I met with him.
But just before that,
there was this incident
in which there was a suggestion
that he tried to commit suicide.
The multi-millionaire
and convicted sex offender
is now on suicide
watch after he was found
injured in his jail cell.
I met with Jeffrey
Epstein on August 1st
for about five or six hours.
He denied that he had
tried to commit suicide.
The story that he told
about what had happened
was that the cellmate he had
forced him
to put a rope around his neck,
something, and pulled it, um,
just to see the reaction
Epstein would have.
But he told the
correctional officers
that he couldn't remember
what had happened
because he was afraid
if he got that guy in trouble,
that he would have
trouble himself.
How was Jeffrey
Epstein's mood that
day when you look back?
Good. I mean, he, again, he
didn't like being in the jail.
Um, but he was adamant
about wanting to fight the case,
and he was energised
by our meeting.
I think he thought
he had a strong legal argument,
for example, on the agreement
that he had made
that he felt would have
barred his prosecution.
But nine days later,
the last thing I would have
imagined at the time happened.
NBC News has learned
that disgraced financier
Jeffrey Epstein is dead.
Sources
telling ABC News
that accused sex
trafficker Jeffrey Epstein
has died by suicide.
It appeared that
he had hung himself
We're trying to figure out if
he was still on suicide watch.
It was astonishing.
This is someone who is being
prosecuted for historic crimes.
The world's
attention is on this.
How is this man
allowed to turn up dead?
And then the next
thing I know, I hear on the news
that Jeffrey was found dead
from an apparent suicide.
And at first, I had...
I had no reason to doubt it,
because, you know,
he was in jail
and was facing a long time
in jail, potentially.
And I knew he wouldn't want to
live that way in jail.
So, I had no reason to doubt it
and I accepted that
he committed suicide.
Anyway, the next day,
I had to come back to New York
to identify his body.
As a family member,
I had the right
to have my own pathologist
at the autopsy.
You know, just to see
everything was done right.
I spoke to his brother,
I insisted that the
person I consider to be
the top forensic pathologist
in the world
participate in
an independent autopsy.
So, his name is Michael Baden.
I was medical examiner
for the New York State
Police for 25 years
and did more than
20,000 autopsies.
In this instance, I was
asked to attend the autopsy
that was going to be done
the next day.
The history was that he was
found having committed suicide
by hanging in his jail cell.
When looking at
the body, there was
a little odd situation there
because the ligature furrow
around the neck was horizontal.
In a suicidal hanging,
the ligature mark is usually
up the high part of the neck
and goes upwards.
And then the moment of surprise,
there were three fractures -
two of the thyroid cartilage,
which is the Adam's apple,
and one of the hyoid bone.
In 50 years of doing this,
I've never seen that.
That's much more common,
a crushing injury,
in a homicidal strangulation.
So, I think, at that point,
there was concern as to
whether it was suicide
as thought or not.
So, the medical
examiner of New York
City, who conducted it,
she said that it
was inconclusive -
she couldn't say it was suicide.
But then her boss,
three or four days later,
changed it to suicide.
And then,
OK, now all kinds of
questions start coming up
and wheels start turning.
Barbara Sampson,
the chief medical examiner -
and she was not at the autopsy -
and so she comes up
with the conclusion of
suicide based on what?
Tonight, Jeffrey
Epstein's attorneys questioning
whether his death was a suicide,
saying they will even
pursue, quote:
And it turned out somehow,
magically,
the cameras malfunctioned
that day
or was in a place where
the camera didn't reach.
So, this is now a correctional
officer taking an inmate down.
This is supposed to be
Jeffrey Epstein now.
You're talking about August 9th,
at almost 8:00 in the evening.
August 10th is when he was dead.
Do you think it's suspicious
that there's only this
one camera angle available?
That that's the only image?
If that's accurate, yes, I do,
I think it's suspicious.
And, um, you might
say coincidental that the
cameras are malfunctioning,
you know, around that time,
but pretty unbelievable.
There were so many anomalies
that night.
His cellmate had been taken out,
the guards were sleeping,
the cameras were down.
All of these mysterious
things fuelled a lot
of conspiracy theories.
There's just no way
you can hang yourself
off of a bunk bed
at that height.
I think we have found
Jeffrey Epstein's killer.
And it's the most secure federal
lockup in the United States,
and he got murdered in it.
Who has the power to do that?
I've been studying conspiracy
theories for 15 years.
When I polled Americans
asking them what they
thought about his death,
half the country
thought it was a conspiracy,
that he was killed by people
who were trying to cover up
their involvement with him.
And you don't normally get,
uh, conspiracy theories getting
half the country to buy in.
Yeah, I don't believe
any conspiracy theory,
but the fact that
he wanted to fight this case,
uh, until the day
before he died,
um, says to me that it's
unlikely he committed suicide.
I believe
he was murdered.
And if they do a real
investigation and they
talk to the right people,
they could figure out
what actually took place.
Do you believe that
Epstein committed suicide?
No. No, I just don't believe it.
Um... no.
He had only been there
for a month.
I just think it was too soon
for him to throw in the towel.
From the Jeffrey
Epstein that I knew,
no, I don't think he killed
himself, I just don't.
And I believe he always thought
he was going to get out of it.
He knew that he wasn't
going to get the slap
on the wrist this time.
Uh, very damaging documents
in the case came out,
two days before,
he changed his will.
A lot of people think
he might have been killed,
others think he killed himself.
I really think
he decided to take his life.
That was the last bit of control
that he had.
When I heard about that,
I just... I was heartbroken
for these girls.
A federal judge
has officially dismissed
the criminal case
against Jeffrey Epstein.
They have never
gotten justice,
and, you know,
they didn't deserve this.
I was going
through my own feelings
in 2019 when he died.
Uh, he was kind
of a mentor to me,
but he was also my abuser.
Um, so, it was
a very confusing time for me,
and I wanted to know answers
about my life.
So I reached out at that time
to other survivors
and called Virginia.
I had my first
conversation with her.
There's just something
that she had in her
that I looked up to
and I really thought
was very brave.
We are here
in Loxahatchee Groves,
which is a rural part
of Palm Beach County,
in which Virginia
Roberts Giuffre grew up.
Not terribly affluent.
I was recruited
at a very young age
from Mar-a-Lago
and entrapped in a world
that I didn't understand,
and I've been fighting
that very world to this day.
And I won't stop fighting.
I will never be silenced.
And here we
have Mar-a-Lago, President
Trump's, uh, private club.
Virginia Giuffre was
a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago,
and Ghislaine Maxwell
used to go there for massages.
Ghislaine Maxwell asked
her if she wanted to
learn to be a masseuse
and to come to Epstein's house,
and that was where
she suffered the first abuse.
Do you know
Virginia Roberts?
So, she's... Say again, who?
Virginia Roberts.
Can you spell it?
Common spelling.
Can you spell it for me, please?
R-O-B-E-R-T-S.
And, just for the record,
I can only spell it the
way that it was spelled
in your flight logs
from your airplane.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre
was instrumental
in this story coming forward.
She is the reason,
to a very large extent,
that Jeffrey Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell
were even prosecuted,
because of the trail,
of the public record
that she left in
her civil lawsuits.
Virginia Giuffre
was not only key in
exposing Jeffrey Epstein,
you know, she named names
of other people,
such as Prince Andrew.
Abuse
allegations that have
been plaguing the Prince
for years now laid bare
on prime-time TV.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre
alleges Prince Andrew
first sexually abused her
at Ms Maxwell's London home.
Ghislaine woke me
up in the morning and said,
"You're gonna meet
a prince today."
I didn't know at that point
that I was going to be
trafficked to that prince.
And Ghislaine said,
"He's coming back to the house,
"and I want you to do for him
what you do for Epstein."
One of Epstein's
accusers, Virginia Roberts...
Yeah. ..has made
allegations against you.
It's been six years now...
Yeah.
...since that famous, infamous
interview with Prince Andrew.
Did you ever think
that you would still be
talking about it now?
In a way, I wish the
whole conversation
had started earlier.
You know, we knew when we did it
that it had to be a document,
a public record,
in case it was ever useful.
He was in the room
when I arrived.
He looked ready for it.
He looked like a man
who had waited a long time
to kind of get it off
his chest, frankly.
There is no good time
to talk about Mr Epstein.
My sense is that he thought
he was his own best weapon
in terms of killing
the story dead.
She says she met you in 2001,
and she went on to
have sex with you
in a house in Belgravia
belonging to Ghislaine Maxwell.
Didn't happen.
Do you remember her?
No.
He tried to tell me
that it was a fake photo.
We can't be certain as
to whether or not that's
my hand on-on-on her,
uh, whatever it is,
left... left side.
He'd worked out his, um, alibi.
I'd taken Beatrice to
a PizzaExpress in Woking.
His team had thought
it had gone pretty well.
Britain's Prince
Andrew is facing backlash
after a widely criticised
television interview.
One UK
paper calling the Prince
entitled and obtuse.
Four days
after Newsnight broadcast
its interview with
Prince Andrew, he's
made this announcement.
"I have asked Her Majesty
if I may step back from
"public duties
for the foreseeable future,
"and she has given
her permission."
The interview
that he gave the BBC,
that was beyond disingenuous.
He started his slow decline
to ultimately being
stripped of his princehood.
And I think that that was
the beginning of the end.
It's... it's an eye for an eye,
a scar for a scar.
No matter how much
I go through therapy,
I'm embedded with scars
that will never leave me, ever.
Virginia Giuffre
was also instrumental to
the downfall of the other
person in that photograph
- Ghislaine Maxwell.
In 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was
sentenced to 20 years in prison
for sex trafficking
and other crimes.
But there was
a growing public outrage
that she was the only
person to face consequences
in the Epstein scandal.
People were asking,
"What about the men?"
No-one had brought charges,
and this was across Republican
and Democratic administrations.
When and how did
concerns about Epstein's crimes
start spilling over into
the territory of the public
really wanting to see the files?
Donald Trump really was the one
who prompted that.
Then he got to be embroiled
in it himself.
Donald Trump's name
is all over these files.
Flight logs show
Trump travelled on Epstein's
private jet many more times
than prosecutors were aware.
Have you ever had
a personal relationship
with Donald Trump?
What do you mean by
"personal relationship", sir?
Have you socialised with him?
Yes, sir.
Yes?
Yes, sir.
Have you ever socialised
with Donald Trump
in the presence of females
under the age of 18?
Though I'd like to answer
that question, at least today,
I'm going to have to assert my
Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth
Amendment rights, sir.
It's indisputable
that Trump had
a long-term friendship
with Epstein.
He told the world about it.
Do you still think Jeffrey
Epstein is a terrific guy?
Well, I knew him, like everybody
in Palm Beach knew him.
I mean, people
in Palm Beach knew him.
He was a fixture in Palm Beach.
There was
the infamous interview
where he called
Epstein a great guy,
likes women "on
the younger side".
Jeffrey Epstein's
50th birthday book in 2003
has a drawing of
a nude female figure
with Trump's name on it.
He denies that
it's his signature,
we have multiple
handwriting experts
saying that it is.
I don't do drawings.
I'm not a drawing person.
The fact
that he had such a long,
personal friendship with Epstein
raises questions about
what he knew about
Epstein's behaviour.
I had a falling out with him
a long time ago.
I don't think I've spoken to him
for 15 years. I wasn't a fan.
When do you think it was
that the Epstein files
actually started becoming a big
problem for President Trump?
I think it became a problem soon
after he assumed office again.
We are going to drain the swamp,
and we're going to do it
once and for all.
Prior to his re-election,
he had been asked point-blank,
would you support
releasing the files?
Would you declassify
the Epstein files?
Yeah. Yeah, I would.
And many of the people
around him, they said yes.
Seriously, we need to release
the Epstein list.
That is an important thing.
How is it that my father
can be convicted of 34 crimes,
but no-one on Epstein's list
has even been brought to light.
So, this was a campaign promise
that they had made
to their supporters.
Ghislaine. Look into her father,
Robert Maxwell.
All the answers are right there.
Yeah. Because he was a spy.
Trump built a
coalition of followers
who are very conspiratorial
in their world views
and were already
Epstein conspiracy theorists.
You don't know that she's 16,
and she takes you in a room
and that room is filled
with cameras, that's...
Blackmail.
Yeah.
So, there were fantasies about
massive sex-trafficking rings,
views about blackmail rings,
and that Epstein was controlling
all sorts of rich
and powerful people.
I believe very strongly
he was a spy, yes.
And who do you think
he was working for?
The Israelis.
Trump cosied
up to QAnon, and it
created a lore around him
that he was bringing down
these evil, powerful people,
'cause the establishment
was entirely corrupt
and he was the outsider
who was going to come in
and drain the swamp.
So, early in
Trump's second term,
he appoints Pam Bondi
as Attorney-General,
and she runs with the Epstein
story almost immediately.
This is something Donald Trump
has talked about.
The DOJ may be releasing
the list of Jeffrey
Epstein's clients?
In February of 2025,
Bondi goes out and says
that she has the Epstein files
and the client list on her desk.
It's sitting on my desk
right now, to review.
That's been a directive
by President Trump.
Then there's a
180-degree reversal.
There's the release
of the July memo
from the FBI
and the Department of Justice.
And the July memo says
an extraordinary thing.
It says that there are more than
a thousand survivors of
Jeffrey Epstein's abuse,
and then says there's
nothing to investigate,
there's nothing to release,
turn the other way.
There was, quote,
"No client list
"or evidence that he blackmailed
prominent figures,"
according to a memo
detailing the findings.
The review also concluded
that Epstein died by suicide
while in custody at a Manhattan
correctional facility.
That memo just sent shock waves
throughout the American ether,
especially with the MAGA base
who was so invested.
All those videos are saying,
"Yeah, she's seen the videos,
"it's all coming out."
And then now it doesn't exist.
I mean, what? What?!
Joe, wanna check the tweet
that Elon just put out?
"Time to drop the
really big bomb.
"Donald Trump is
in the Epstein files.
"That's the real reason
they have not been made public."
The Jeffrey Epstein case
has caused backlash
within President Trump's base,
fuelling conspiracy theories
that more details exist
but are being hidden
from the public.
I'm not gonna
play with these anymore.
MAGA hats are off.
Burn, baby, burn.
And this is a great
representation of
what's left of MAGA.
I think the President
always felt like he could
control his MAGA base,
but it's the influencers
who have also really
kept this story alive
and have been very
critical of him.
We voted for Trump
because we wanted justice,
and justice involves
actually holding accountable
the people who committed
that wrongdoing.
It just continued and continued,
and the President himself
kept calling it a hoax.
Well, I haven't been
overly interested in it.
You know, it's something...
It's a hoax that's been built up
way beyond proportion.
I know it's a hoax.
It's started by Democrats.
When you call something a hoax,
and yet people know that there's
a tremendous amount of evidence
out there that it's not a hoax,
it makes them only want to
know more about it.
The President
writing on social media:
Some stupid Republicans
and foolish Republicans
fall into the net.
I call it the Epstein hoax.
Hello? Hi.
Come on in. Hi.
Marjorie.
Yes, hello.
Hi, I'm Grace Tobin.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, too. Grab a
seat under this big ball light.
Yeah, that's quite a light.
I know, isn't it?
Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Do you think that these
supporters are losing
heart and losing trust
in President Trump now
because of the Epstein files?
Many of them, yes.
It was a line in
the sand for them.
They couldn't understand
it the same way I
couldn't understand it.
Why would he cover this up?
And that was, um...
That was something that
none of us ever expected
from President Trump.
I'm Rick Frazier,
and I presently live
in St Marys, Ohio.
Mmm. It's good.
Mm. Strong?
Good coffee.
I'm a front-row Joe,
and I'd show up five,
six days ahead of time
to one of his rallies.
It's very quick,
but it's brutal.
I still worked hard to help
Trump, you know, get elected.
But, to be honest with you,
it pisses me off that -
if I can use that language -
that on one hand,
we were promised
by the President that
this is gonna happen.
Then, on the other hand,
he turns around
and it didn't happen.
I can't see why he...
who he's protecting.
I honestly, in my mind,
don't think he's involved.
You can be in
pictures with anyone,
but until we got transparency,
how do we know?
There is
new pressure on the
Trump Administration
from Republicans looking into
the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Donald Trump
is aimed at one of his own,
Republican congressman
Thomas Massie.
This moron Thomas Massie,
there's something
wrong with him.
When did you first start
becoming concerned
about what's now known
as the Epstein files?
So, it started
a couple years ago for me,
and it really came
to the forefront
when President Trump
and people in his Cabinet
promised that they were going to
release these files.
But none of them followed
through on their promise,
which became suspicious to me.
My Democrat colleague
Ro Khanna, from California,
cares about the victims,
and so I reached out to him
and said,
"Ro, um, if I do
a discharge petition,
"do you think you
could get every single
Democrat to sign it?"
And he did deliver
on that promise.
Democrat Ro Khanna
and Republican Thomas Massie
are leading a bipartisan push
in the House
for the release of
the Epstein files.
People feel that
the rich and the powerful
have been not held accountable,
that they have
a different set of rules,
and that there may be
government officials involved.
Thomas Massie
just filed a discharge petition
to force this vote
on releasing the files.
That's something that
Speaker Mike Johnson
has really been trying to avoid.
The White House
has warned Republicans
not to side with Massie.
Even a White House official
telling reporters last night
that this would be viewed
as an act of hostility.
Well, I have a 98% voting record
with the President,
was one of his most
loyal defenders.
Marjorie Taylor Greene,
please come up. Come.
MTG! MTG!
Thank you, Mr President.
Alright, Georgia, we know
what we're going to do in 2024.
He was angry at me
for siding with Thomas Massie
and signing on
the discharge petition.
To me, it was a matter of
right and wrong
and standing up for these women.
The greatest president
in United States history,
Donald J. Trump, right, Georgia?
Marjorie Taylor Greene,
she's the female version
of Donald Trump.
She was full-blood MAGA.
So, for her to be one of the
people to stand up against him
is very significant
in American politics.
He was losing control of
the situation.
When you sign
that discharge petition,
afterwards you took a phone call
with President Trump.
He said that it was going to
hurt people that he knew.
What people?
I don't know. I still don't know
that to this day.
But the way he treated me
and the names that he called me,
sent death threats upon me
and then my children.
This is my
fifth year in Congress
and this is the largest
press conference
that I've seen since
I've been here.
As people like
Marjorie Taylor Greene
started getting involved,
the snowball started rolling.
This is not about politics,
this is a boiling point
in American history.
We see some
very effective advocacy
on behalf of the
victims themselves.
Why did he get away
with it in 2008?
Why was Jeffrey Epstein
so protected?
Why was Maxwell the only one
held accountable
when so many others
played a role?
Let the public know the truth.
I speak today not only
in service of my own recovery,
but to honour the lives,
the courage and sacrifices
of Virginia Giuffre
and others who
could not continue.
Victims
of the convicted sex
offender Jeffrey Epstein
have paid tribute
to Virginia Giuffre
at a rally in Washington, DC.
She took her own life
in April this year.
It made me very sad
when she passed.
This sort of damage,
you can stuff it down
for years and years,
but the effects
will always catch up.
Virginia said it
best, and I quote,
"They say time can heal,
but this won't.
"Not until the justice
system makes an example
out of these people
"with so-called privileges.
"I just call it money."
People believe her now.
I mean, she won...
...in a sad way.
So we gather here
on the steps of the Capitol
to confront these
corrupt forces.
We know we have 212 Democrats
and we have four Republicans,
courageous Republicans.
The only supporters that I got
from my discharge petition
on the Republican side of
the aisle were all women.
Marjorie Taylor Greene,
Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace.
They were woken up at
5am in the morning with
the President saying,
"F this, F that.
"Get your effing name
off of this thing."
But, to their credit, all three
of those women stayed strong.
There was a time
when few believed
that they would actually
be able to get the
passage of these files.
And it was only after
it became very clear
that Trump was going
to lose on this vote,
then finally
he claimed to support it.
We've done a great job,
and I hate to see that,
uh, deflect from
the great job we've done.
So I'm all for it.
What eventually happened
was a nearly unanimous vote.
The yeas are 427,
the nays are one.
The bill is passed,
and without objection,
the motion to reconsider
is laid on the table.
Mr Speaker, today
is an extraordinary
day in this chamber.
This is about the powerless
taking power away
from the very powerful.
When Trump backflipped on it,
the survivors won.
The Senate has passed the bill
under unanimous consent!
The bill forces
the Justice Department
to release Epstein file
documents within 30 days.
Once the Epstein Files
Transparency Act became law,
there was a deadline -
December 19th -
for the release of everything.
Deputy
Attorney-General Todd
Blanche says, however,
several hundred thousand pages
of records will be made public,
with more to come
in the coming weeks.
Hundreds of thousands...
I could sit at home
and just stay on the couch
and not be involved,
but being here is historic.
We got a few hours
till we find out.
But we're talking
about a tonnage of information
that may take some time
just to process.
The Justice Department
has now begun
the release of
the Epstein files.
The first release was a blip
on the radar, not even that.
There was a picture
of Bill Clinton.
There was very little
about Donald Trump.
It was widely regarded
to have few major revelations.
At least 550 pages
were fully redacted.
We have
just a fraction right now
of what is believed to exist.
It
failed, in our book.
We haven't received
full transparency,
and it's an incomplete
release of the files.
That must be his...
his prison cell.
I'm pretty disappointed
since we were told transparency,
and we're not really seeing it.
And if that's the best
they're gonna do,
I don't think we're ever
gonna get to the truth.
This was a slap in the face
of survivors.
They're flouting the spirit
and the letter of the law.
People kept
trying to push for the
release of the files,
and six weeks later,
all of a sudden,
3.5 million documents
hit the public.
3 million
pages of documents,
180,000 images and 2,000 videos.
The latest release
of files related to
the paedophile
Jeffrey Epstein is shocking
in its size and its content.
Of the 180,000
images released,
these pictures of
the King's brother
seem to be what everyone
is talking about.
Police are
assessing claims Andrew
Mountbatten-Windsor
shared confidential reports
with Jeffrey Epstein.
All of a
sudden, there are global
investigations in Europe.
Active
investigations are now under way
in at least 10 countries.
Poland has launched a probe
into the Epstein files
in a search of any potential
victims from that country.
In Europe, the
former prime minister of Norway
has been charged
with gross corruption.
Poland's prime
minister also says his country
would investigate
possible links between
the convicted sex offender
and Russian
intelligence services.
The
people who maintained a
friendship with Epstein,
communications that
they thought were private
are now filling the pages
of newspapers internationally.
My gosh,
was this embarrassing?
Can we start with Peter Attia?
Good Lord,
another very prominent person
caught up in all this
is Bill Gates, of course.
Claims that he picked up
a sexually transmitted disease
from a Russian woman.
He's denied that publicly.
We have this footage
where Steve Bannon
is interviewing Epstein to try
to rehabilitate Epstein's image.
At the same time,
people are making sense
of the 3.5 million files,
there's Congress, who is
continuing to investigate this
and continuing to
call witnesses,
including the Attorney-General.
Alright, getting
back to our breaking news,
Attorney-General Pam Bondi
is set to testify
before the House Judiciary
Committee at any moment now.
Survivors say
their identities were exposed
because of inadequate redaction.
Well, right now, we're
heading over to the Capitol.
I have a meeting with
Congressman Lou Correa.
After that, we'll be heading
over to Pam Bondi's hearing.
We have Congress
working on our side,
and, you know, they want answers
just as much as we do.
Hi. Nice to meet you.
Hi.
Hi. Lisa. Nice to meet you.
Pleasure meeting you.
Come on in. We have a
camera guy following us.
Oh, my, I should
have put my tie on.
I wanna take a
moment to acknowledge
the Epstein survivors
who are here today.
I am deeply sorry
for what any victim,
any victim has been through.
Attorney-General Bondi, will you
turn to them now and apologise
for what your Department of
Justice has put them through
with the absolutely
unacceptable release of
the Epstein files
and their information.
I was pretty
shocked that she just
didn't even turn her head,
just not even just a little bit
just to acknowledge.
It doesn't even have to be
an apology,
but to acknowledge
that we were there
and that we represent
1,200 survivors.
To my right is an email
that was sent by
the victims' lawyers to the DOJ.
It was a list of names
not to release.
They released this email!
Literally the worst
thing you could do to
the survivors, you did.
And we know you touched
the document
because you redacted
the lawyer's name,
but you left
the survivor's name there.
So, I really have
just one question for you.
How many of Epstein's
co-conspirators
have you indicted?
How many perpetrators
are you even investigating?
First, you showed a...
I find it...
How many have you indicted?
Excuse me,
I'm gonna answer the question.
Answer my question.
No, I'm gonna
answer the question
the way I want to answer
the question.
No, you can answer
the question... Your
theatrics are ridiculous.
...the way I asked it.
I really got to see,
like, in the flesh, in person,
like, wow...
...they really are
turning a blind eye to
this for whatever reason.
And it only makes you
think that there's got
to be a real reason why,
right?
Madam Attorney-General,
will you meet with survivors
after this?
You're a disgrace to the
legal profession and to women.
What a shame you are!
Shameful person!
Are you looking at
the reaction
in Europe and the UK
and other parts of the world
and scratching your head
with what's going on here?
Yes. And I see
a different attitude overseas.
The untouchables
are touchable now.
Breaking news about
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
The BBC understands that he
has been arrested on suspicion
of misconduct in public office.
It comes weeks
after the Justice Department
released emails
Andrew allegedly sent to
the late sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein, in 2010.
I think for several years
we'd always imagined
that it could come to this place
and he was arrested,
and I still found myself
absolutely speechless
for the first couple of hours.
Andrew was serving
as a UK trade envoy at the time,
and appears to have
forwarded Epstein
British government documents
on trade policy.
But this wasn't the story
that we were following at all,
this was something
completely different.
Now Peter
Mandelson, who was the
UK ambassador to the US,
has also now been arrested.
And, you know, it's
fascinating to see how
far this chain will go.
We are probably
only at the very beginning.
Over two dozen people
have resigned -
CEOs, members of
government worldwide -
but I haven't seen
any arrests or investigations
here in the United States
from this Department of Justice.
As an American journalist
looking at everything
happening in Europe,
this is how
sophisticated democracies react
to alarming information -
they investigate.
I have nothing to hide.
I've been exonerated.
I have nothing to do with
Jeffrey Epstein.
What we're seeing
in the United States is
Trump's Justice Department
trying to say
that there is
nothing to see here.
Is there evidence
that Jeffrey Epstein
was trafficking girls
to other powerful men?
According to the Associated
Press's review of the files,
the FBI says no.
In regards to the sex
trafficking and the abuse,
do you personally
know of evidence
that exists within
the Department of Justice,
within the FBI,
that has not come out yet?
I do. I do.
You know,
when you have different girls
telling the same stories,
corroborating each other...
...that's powerful,
really powerful.
So, and again,
I think we have to believe
victims and survivors
of this sort of thing.
I know of people
that girls were traded out to
that have not come out.
I tend to believe that
this story
is going to outlive me
because it's filled with
so many mysteries,
things people don't know.
We don't know the depth
of the cover-up yet,
but I think this will
eventually rank up there
with, uh, Watergate.
Hopefully
the American public's
going to continue
to care about this story
and continue to demand
that we get all of the answers.
We're done
laying down and being quiet.
Now we're screaming in public.
It's a serious question.
Oh, sorry.
Do you think
you're the devil himself?
I don't know.
Why would you say that?
Because you have all
the attributes. You're
incredibly smart.
You remember, the devil...
Is the devil smart?
The devil's brilliant.
Jeffrey Epstein
was the true epitome of evil.
Very polished,
wealthy, well-spoken,
very intelligent man.
And he used all
of that for evil.
We do not
do this story justice
if we think
it starts and ends with Epstein.
Of course it doesn't.
There is so much further to go.