Hey Everyone,

I am back from an invigorating and inspiring time in Norway as a guest of SKUP, the Norwegian Foundation for Investigative Journalism, which was holding its annual conference in Tønsberg, outside Oslo.

The weekend and its concluding awards dinner was the journalistic equivalent of the US’s Oscars weekend. I had not anticipated how enormous (there were 600 attendees) and high-profile this conference is internationally. I am not sure I have ever learned so much useful stuff on a wide variety of important, pressing topics in such a short amount of time. (There was always one English-speaking session throughout the weekend.) I kept wondering how it is that here in the US, we haven’t thought to do the same. We have a lot of catching up to do. SKUP board member Kristoffer Rønneberg told me SKUP has been at this for 30 years.

So, what happened? Yours truly kicked it off. I was interviewed on stage by Gry Veiby of NRK (the Norwegian equivalent of NPR) about my experience reporting on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The subject has particular significance in Norway. As I mentioned last week, you could easily make the case that of all countries, Norway’s upper echelons have been hit hardest by the revelations in Epstein’s emails.

Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit has apologized for continuing a close friendship with Epstein for years after his conviction as a sex offender. Norway’s former Prime Minister, Thorbjørn Jagland, is under investigation “on suspicion of aggravated corruption” because the files revealed Jagland planned a visit to Epstein’s island in 2014. The trip was canceled, but the back-and-forth over the arrangements raised questions about conflicts of interest, given that Jagland was Secretary-General of the Council of Europe and chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee at the time.

And two married Norwegian senior diplomats, Terje Rød-Larsen and Mona Juul, have had to step down from their respective posts because it emerged that 1. Terje Rød-Larsen had accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from Epstein’s foundations on behalf of his think tank, the International Peace Institute [IPI], and 2. Rød-Larsen had ccepted a $130,000 loan from Epstein in 2013 that was not disclosed to IPI's board.

Below is a photograph of the couple’s home in Paxos, Greece, that Epstein’s loan helped purchase.

Investigative journalist Gard Oterholm of Dagens Næringsliv, Norway’s leading financial publication, joined us on stage after 30 minutes. It was Oterholm who broke the story that Rød-Larsen had accepted the money from Epstein, leading to Rød-Larsen’s resignation from IPI in 2020.

There was hilarious video and audio played on the screen behind us showing Oterholm catching up to Rød-Larsen in the street and asking about his ties to Epstein. “Can you please respect I don’t speak to Dagens Næringsliv. Is that understood?” Rød-Larsen says. (Which is like saying: “I don’t speak to the Financial Times.”)

Separately, there was audio of Oterholm cornering Jagland at a drinks reception. When asked to explain his relationship with Epstein, Jagland starts speaking abstrusely about a Chinese proverb advising one not to speak about things one doesn’t know. (Many of the journalists I spoke to concurred with Epstein’sview of Jagland, which was that he was “not bright” but “offered a unique perspective. “He failed up professionally,” one of them said. )

Some Norwegian journalists at SKUP told me they don't expect significant results from the government investigations because they say they will take a very long time and events will likely overtake them.

Jagland is reportedly ill, in hospital. Crown Princess Mette-Marit suffers from chronic pulmonary fibrosis and has said she is considering not becoming Queen on the grounds of her ill health. She recently showed up to an event wearing a nasal cannula. (Although there was a rumor going around the conference that she had taken up smoking again, due to the stress of all this.) Rød-Larsen is 78 and not in the best of health. Juul is now retired. Still, though there remain unanswered questions. Who introduced them all to Epstein in the first place? They met in Strasbourg in 2011, it is believed. Oterholm, for one, would like clarity and specifics and is continuing to report.

There was also a tremendous amount of talk about the Crown Princess’s 29-year-old son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, who is awaiting the verdict of a trial in which he was charged with 39 offenses, including four rapes. The four alleged victims have not been publicly identified, but sensationally, one of them appeared at the conference, unannounced, in an off-the-record interview after dinner on Friday night.

I have been wondering why we have heard so little about the Høiby trial over here, given his mother’s friendship with Epstein, and the made-for-TV storyline about a young man who grew up as the troubled Black sheep and only non-Royal in his extended family. Turns out that’s because in Norway, the courts decide which foreign journalists get access to the hearings - and, beyond that, which tiny minority of those journalists get even deeper access to the in-camera testimony of the victims.

I was astonished to learn during a session featuring three European journalists who covered the case, that the victims’ testimony is not public record. In Norway, it's entirely left to the discretion of the journalists who hear it as to what to report. (Which, I would argue, puts too much responsibility on the shoulders of the press and paves the way for allegations of corruption and cronyism by the courts.)

Most stunningly of all, however, I learned that the maximum sentence Høiby can get, if he is convicted, is seven years in prison. That is: Four years for one rape, and then only one year on top of that for each of the other rapes.

Wow! Can you imagine if a man in the US were convicted of four separate rapes? In the US, the average sentence for one rape is sixteen years. If someone committed four, they’d almost certainly go to jail for life.

But in Norway, the penal system is heavily weighted towards rehabilitation. The maximum sentence, except in cases of extreme mental illness, is 21 years. And, I was told that in this small country of 5 million, this system works. Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world, often cited at approximately 20% within two years of release and 25% after five years.

That was just one of the many fascinating things I learned this past weekend. I also learned what Masaana Egede, the CEO and editor-in-chief at Mediehuset Sermitsiaq, Greenland’s only newspaper, felt when Donald Trump Jr, and co, landed on his shores.

I also sat through a riveting, emotional seminar from a team of British Guardian journalists who investigated the new, troubling “Free Birth” movement in the US. Why, I wondered, is this important topic under-reported here? (As if on cue, the New York Times reported on it yesterday.)

And I sat through illuminating sessions from Dylan Freedman, the New York Times’ AI editor, and Foeke Postma from Bellingcat. I learned about OSINT. And the BBC’s undercover journalism. And much, much more.

Most of all, I learned that the Norwegian press is vibrant, energetic, and engaged.

And, yes, I also did get to see Verdens Ende [The End of the World] on a glorious sunny day.

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Hey Everyone,

Today at 5pm, I won’t be hosting my usual live video chat because I will be in transit. I am headed to Norway, to speak at Norway’s annual SKUP conference in Tonsberg, Norway’s oldest city, on the coast, about 100km from Oslo.

SKUP is the Norwegian Foundation for Investigative Journalism, so I am honored to have been invited to be a keynote speaker.

To be honest, what I am most looking forward to - apart from having lunch at the beautiful restaurant, Verdens Ende (The End Of The World) photographed above - is learning the details about the fall-out of the Epstein Files in Norway from some of the country’s top journalists.

Of all the countries in the world, you could easily make the case that Norway’s upper echelons have been hit hardest by the revelations in Epstein’s emails.

It emerged in the files that Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit continued a close friendship with Epstein for years after his conviction as a sex offender. She is mentioned over one thousand times in Epstein’s emails between 2011 and 2014. She stayed in his house in Palm Beach in 2013. And, In 2011 she emailed him: “Googled you after the previous email. Agreed, it didn’t look good :).”

She and her husband, Crown Prince Haakon, recently sat for a televised interview in which she apologized for her “poor judgment” and said she had not known of Epstein’s sex offender status. Nonetheless a Norwegian sexual health organization has severed ties with her and questions remain as to whether or not the country will allow her one day to become Queen. (Also on her plate, is the fact that her 29 year old son, Marius Borg Høiby is awaiting the verdict after the conclusion of a trial in which he was charged with 39 offenses, including four rapes, which he denies).

Then there is former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland, (above) who is under investigation “on suspicion of aggravated corruption”. The files revealed he planned to visit Epstein’s island in 2014. The trip was cancelled but the back and forth about the arrangements raise questions about conflicts of interest, given that Jagland was Secretary-General of the Council of Europe and chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee at the time. I must say I stopped in my tracks when I read an email from Epstein to Steve Bannon in the files, joking that he could get Bannon a Nobel Prize for his work on “China’.

Troublingly, Epstein used his relationship with Jagland as a calling card to try to get to Putin’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. He told Jagland that Lavrov (and by extension, Putin) should think of him as someone who could provide useful “insight” into President Trump. Of course, Epstein and Trump had not spoken since 2004, but no matter. We know that Epstein had extraordinary chutzpah. That’s what made him such a successful con artist.

Then we get to the married senior diplomats Terje Rød-Larsen and Mona Juul.

Rød-Larsen (above) is a political scientist who was the architect of the Oslo Accords. He was later President of the International Peace Institute (IPI), a major global think tank.

In 2020 he had to resign from IPI when it emerged he had accepted donations of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Epstein’s foundations.

Much worse, though, in the Epstein Files it emerged not only that were the two men extremely chummy, but that Rød-Larsen had accepted a $130,000 loan from Epstein in 2013 that was not disclosed to the board of IPI. Because of this, his wife Mona Juul, Norway’s ambassador to the UN felt obliged to step down from her post this year.

What a mess!

BUT the Norwegian government is wasting no time in investigating all this. And therein, one could make the case, lies the great difference between their country and ours.

I am greatly looking forward to learning what Norway’s media feels about the US’s handling of the files, by comparison to theirs.

So, stay tuned!

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As ever, former deputy assistant secretary for the State Department, Joel Rubin, provides incredibly useful analysis of the fragile moment we find ourselves in.

What does this “ceasefire” with Iran really look like?

Is peace attainable, realistically?

How likely is the US to agree to Iran’s right to enrich uranium?

How likely is it that fighting will resume?

Why is JD Vance involved in the talks in Pakistan?

How annoyed with us are our allies? Why does it matter?

How come no one considered the strategic importance of the Straits of Hormuz before we went to war?

What is the state of US munitions currently?

We address all this and much more in this riveting conversation.

And, Happy Birthday, Joel!

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Abril and I have had quite the day! We spent the morning in federal court in downtown Manhattan, where Judge Margaret Garnett said she’d delay Luigi Mangione’s federal trial by a month to late October in order to ensure that there was a clean break between the state trial proceedings and jury selection in the federal case.

BUT shortly before 5pm we got an email from the state court. Judge Gregory Carro has pushed the state trial back three months to September 8.

Which means that there is now still the same problematic log jam and issue of potential jury tainting in the federal case.

The idea that Mangione is facing two trials for the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson is already highly unusual; this scheduling conflict each only adds to the complications.

I am exhausted and we haven’t even started the first trial!

Abril is a staunch Mangione supporter, as I think most of you know.

So, in our conversation, we discuss why Gen Z is pretty much united behind him. And, also why they are so angry and disillusioned in general. I was stunned when Abril told me that her parents who are first-generation immigrants, like me, have apologized to her, for moving to Trump’s America.

When one hears about the challenges Abril and her peers face, it makes me question if we are sufficiently equipped, politically and culturally, to think outside of the box and make necessary systemic changes quickly enough.

In our conversation we touch on AI; jobs; social media; legacy media; academia; foreign policy; and much, much more.

Enjoy!

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Do watch this very interesting conversation with my old friend, author and journalist, Holly Peterson.

As I mentioned yesterday, Holly wrote a piece in the WSJ addressing why it was that so many interesting people with pristine reputations allowed themselves to accept hospitality, money and favors from Jeffrey Epstein.

“Sometimes you have to be nice to people you don’t like. And sometimes you have to be in some little community that’s a little shady in order to get what you want,” she explains.

In our discussion, Holly illuminates how philanthropy is beneficial for this country’s elite, yes - but also the rest of us. And she has done research into how much people who have Leon Black’s net worth pay their accountants to handle their taxes. The answer? Two and a half million dollars maximum. This is obviously, a tiny fraction of the extraordinary $160 million Black paid Epstein “for tax advice”.

So, I will be parsing Black’s testimony to congress in May very closely. I hope the Oversight Committee does its homework before questioning him.

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Hey Everyone,

Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5pm ET I will be joined by the author Holly Peterson to chat about Epstein’s seduction of the moneyed class.

You can read Holly’s WSJ Piece on the subject here.

Holly has spent her life among the billionaire class. So she can talk fluently about the psychology of members of the so-called elite Epstein club. And she can explain why the “clubbiness” of the thing encouraged so many of them to drop their guard and snuggle up (metaphorically) to a convicted sex felon.

I also want to get into the latest reporting on the billionaire financier Leon Black, who is of course a platinum member of Epstein’s elite concierge service. Black met extra-marital girlfriends through Epstein, yes. But the biggest outstanding question about their relationship is why on earth Black would pay Epstein over $170 million for “tax advice”. The New York Times has an excellent piece on the breadcrumb trail regarding that in the Epstein Files, that you can read here. And I encourage everyone to also read a letter, sent last week from Sen. Ron Wyden to Black, here. No one has been more diligent investigating Black’s financial ties to Epstein than Wyden.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the Daily Telegraph’s Abigail Buchanan has written a piece on how I tried to get the Farmer sisters’ allegations into Vanity Fair in 2003 and failed.

See you tomorrow (Wed) at 5pm ET!

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I am grateful, as always, to Joel Rubin for providing a nuanced analysis of where we are in the war with Iran - and how he thinks things might unfold.

Warning: Not everyone will agree with Joel’s take. His view is that Iran is a real threat - despite intelligence reports saying it was not an immediate threat - and that partisan politics have clouded many Democrats views on this.

“Democrats weren’t freaking out when Obama was bombing Libya without authorization,” he points out.

Personally, I wish that President Trump would focus his energy on dismantling our broken healthcare system, which is, frankly, a national disgrace.

That is what I am spending my time thinking about, as I write my upcoming tome (with James Patterson) on Luigi Mangione.

I have also noted that the House Oversight Committee has yet to release the deposition of Jeffrey Epstein’s accountant Richard Kahn. Frankly, that is deeply troubling. They have released all the other testimonies. Why not Kahn’s? His is the one I think could/should be the most revealing.

See you all next week!

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I was honored to chat with the great Julie K. Brown this morning - our second interview in recent weeks, discussing our takeaways from the Epstein Files. You can subscribe to Julie’s substack here.

As usual, Julie makes many great observations:

1. According to her reporting, the male investigators in the Epstein case have seemed averse to pursuing any potential co-conspirators besides Ghislaine Maxwell. The few women prosecuting or investigating the case felt differently.

2. We discuss the “messiness’ of this story. Julie feels it’s unfair of Congress to call Sarah Kellen to testify, because, yes Kellen recruited and groomed other victims, but she was a victim herself.

3. Both us of think the testimonies so far are a “side-show.” But we hope that the depositions of Richard Kahn, Epstein’s accountant and Darren Indyke, his lawyer, will be more fruitful. We wonder why Lesley Groff, Epstein’s long-time assistant has not been asked to testify. Julie notes that her lawyer made a proffer to the government at one point.

4. Julie tells me Sen. Ron Wyden is getting push-back from the Treasury as he continues on his push to uncover Epstein’s money-trail. That is too bad.

5. Unlike me, she didn’t get any push-back from Epstein himself when she was reporting her brilliant 2018 series “Perversion of Justice”. She thinks it was because he didn’t consider The Miami Herald a publication of national importance. How wrong he was! We discuss the importance of local news.

6. We discuss how the Files show that there is friction between some of the lawyers and their clients: the survivors. Also friction between some survivors and journalists, as I’ve written about here before and talked about in my podcast series Chasing Ghislaine.

7. We get into what it’s like in our own lives trying to stay on top of this. Some of the crank calls and emails we get. And we get into how now more than ever - it’s so important for journalists to push for objective truth - and refrain from political partisanship.

8. Julie’s wifi cuts out at the end!! But we shall be back with more.

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You want to watch Mikhail Zygar explain the many ways in which Russian President is connected indirectly to Jeffrey Epstein.

If any story calls for some deep-dive investigative journalism, this one does.

A housekeeping note: I will see you earlier than usual - at noon - on Wednesday. My guest will be Julie K. Brown and we will discuss the latest in the Epstein Files.

Meanwhile, Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with !

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Hey Everyone,

This afternoon at 5pm ET I’m doing a live video chat to answer/all questions you may have about the Epstein Files. You can get my thoughts on the testimonies of Bill and Hillary Clinton and also the documents I’ve posted here in the Files that are from Epstein complaining about me!

Feel free to fire away with questions.

Meanwhile, if you want to listen to a slightly different take on the Files, here’s a podcast I recorded last week with Jena Friedman and Elise Hu.

See you later!

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The Briefing Book

Explaining the intersection of foreign policy and politics.

By Joel Rubin

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Moreover:

If you look at the Ground News “News about Iran” page right now, the numbers and headlines tell you how big and fast this story is moving: over 10,000 articles aggregated from dozens of sources in the past three months, and coverage from every corner of the political spectrum. That visual, with top stories on U.S. fighter jets, President Trump’s war timeline, and U.S. military casualties, isn’t just a snapshot of events, it’s a snapshot of how narratives are being framed differently across outlets.

Across the U.S. and global press, coverage varies widely. Some headlines focus on President Trump saying the Iran operation could take weeks, others highlight the latest reported deaths of U.S. service members, and still others broaden the picture to region-wide escalation and diplomatic fallout.

That’s exactly why I rely on Ground News. It lets you compare coverage side by side, not just headlines, but also bias, ownership, and how different sources present the conflict’s scope and stakes. In a story this consequential and complex, that context matters.

If you want to understand the full picture, not just the loudest narrative, Ground News is a powerful tool. You can get 40% off the unlimited Vantage Plan at groundnews.com/vicky or by clicking below.

Subscribe to Ground News

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Today Bill Clinton is answering questions about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Unlike yesterday’s farcical hearing with Hillary Clinton, which she rightly turned into an own goal for the Republicans, given that she’d never met Epstein, this hearing matters.

Clinton has insight into how both Epstein and Maxwell wormed their way into the lives of the global elite, which wound up protecting him (consciously or not) from facing justice for decades. He needs to be pressed on all aspects of his relationship with both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell - because, based on my reporting, he was closer to the latter than the former.

However, there’s one new aspect of their relationship that is bothering me: the role of a Clinton aide, Jim Kennedy, in discrediting the Farmer sisters (and me).

I had never heard of Kennedy until a few weeks ago.

But I have discovered that in 2002, when Epstein went behind my back to my then boss Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, the person advising him and Maxwell on strategy, and even composing “letters’ to me and the magazine was Jim Kennedy, a former aide to Clinton’s White House Counsel, who went on to work for the Clinton Foundation.

WTF? It appears from the above email it was Kennedy who drafted the letter below, then sent to me and to Vanity Fair. I don’t know if I ever received the “revision” mentioned in Maxwell’s email to him. But I do know that it was after the magazine received all these and after Epstein visited Graydon Carter in his office, that the Farmer sisters were dropped. (And, incidentally, I found this note from Epstein to Carter in the files alluding to that meeting and the photographs he provided for the article).

And also:

Congress: Please ask Bill Clinton what the heck he knew about this!

If the Farmer sisters had been included in my story, history would look very, very different.

Next week I will do a live video session for my paid subscribers where I will take questions about any of these documents and explain the context of them.

.

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Meanwhile:

If you look at Ground News’ coverage page for Bill Clinton right now, you’ll see something fascinating.

In just the past three months, 337 stories have been aggregated about him. The media bias breakdown is almost evenly split — 32% from the left, 32% from the center, 36% from the right. You can also see which outlets are covering him most: Raw Story on the left, USA Today leaning left, The Hill and KMIZ in the center, and Fox News on the right.

Even the headlines tell a story. One outlet spotlights Hillary Clinton saying she has no new information about Jeffrey Epstein. Another focuses on Bill Clinton testifying before a House committee. Another shifts attention toward calls involving Donald Trump. Same ecosystem. Different emphasis.

That’s the point.

Ground News doesn’t tell you what to think — it shows you how the narrative is being constructed across the spectrum. You can compare coverage side by side, filter by political lean, see ownership structures, and quickly identify where a story is getting the most traction — and where it’s barely being touched.

On politically sensitive stories like this, that context is everything.

If you want to see not just the headlines, but the architecture behind them, Ground News is an invaluable tool.

You can get 40% off the unlimited Vantage Plan at groundnews.com/vicky or by clicking below.

Subscribe to Ground News

Last night Joel Rubin and I went on a whistle-stop world tour, taking stock of where the US is positioned, for better or worse.

We kicked off, of course, with Iran, because that’s the cliffhanger of the moment. As I type this Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are in Geneva for talks with both Iran - and Ukraine.

Joel’s analysis of how we got to this moment and what the problems are, is worth listening to. I was particularly struck by his comparison to the daring military capture of Nicolas Maduro in the middle of the night in Venezuela. “That was a clean win,” he explained.

But, he says there is no possibility of a “clean win” in Iran. The likelihood of the Iranians agreeing to give up every nugget of nuclear possibility is almost zero.

“Then what?” asks Joel. What will that Armada sitting on Iran’s doorstep do?

Also, the US is alone in picking this fight. We do not have the support of the other members of the UN Security Council.

He also reminds us that Witkoff and Kushner are not experience Iran experts. Unfortunately the Trump administration didn’t see the point of keeping any of those around, it seems.

We move on to discuss the latest news out of Israel: The US embassy is providing services for US citizens in West Bank Settlements - a first.

We get to Marco Rubio’s speech in Munich and its meaning.

And the lack of emphasis on Ukraine in Trump’s State of the Union Speech.

I was about to get to Epstein and the fallout around the globe that’s happened following the release of the Epstein files and suddenly I was cut off the chat!

I had high-speed internet, so I am getting to the bottom of why. My apologies. It was very annoying.

Joel and I will be back! Fear not! And I will give you an updated Epstein report shortly. You can read Joel’s substack here.

Meanwhile:

A reason I value Joel Rubin’s insights is that I think he’s particularly balanced and nuanced. He sees the world in shades of grey, not black and white.

As you know I like to mix up viewpoints here and make up my own mind as I listen, and push back if someone says something I disagree with, or I know to be incorrect.

That’s why I’m happy to partner with Ground News, a website and app I use constantly to see how stories are being pushed — and by whom. Ground News aggregates reporting from over 50,000 sources worldwide and shows you each outlet’s ownership, factuality rating, and political bias. You can compare coverage side-by-side and even filter by whether a publication is owned by private equity, a major corporation, or is independent — like this Substack.

Ground News shows you how the same story — like the aftermath of Nicolás Maduro’s capture — is reported and framed differently across various news outlets. By presenting multiple perspectives side by side, and letting you filter by left‑leaning, center, or right‑leaning sources, it makes it easier to understand not just the events themselves, but how they are being presented.

If you care about seeing the full picture — beyond just the headlines — Ground News is a valuable tool for understanding the news from all angles. This is exactly what Joel and I were talking about. A so-called “clean win” in Venezuela can be presented as decisive justice — or as legal controversy and overreach — depending on where you look. The facts may overlap, but the framing often does not.

If you value understanding not just the news — but how it’s being framed — I think you’ll find it useful.

You can get 40% off the unlimited Vantage Plan through the link at www.groundnews.com/vicky or click below.

Subscribe to Ground News

And don’t forget please:

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We’ll have to see what trajectory this Royal arrest follows.

Meanwhile:

• Why was Andrew arrested?

• What are the allegations?

• And what might be the repercussions this side of the Atlantic?

Adam and I get into it.

Standby for more analysis from us as the story unfolds.

Remember you can subscribe to Adam’s substack All Rise News, here.

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This interview was a breath of fresh air for me.

Instead of discussing Jeffrey Epstein, I discussed some of the things I have learned as I’ve gotten older with Gretchen Rubin, an old friend, and very successful writer and sociologist.

Her most recent book is called “Secrets of Adulthood,” as is her substack, which I highly recommend.

I always learn something when I chat with Gretchen. No one has studied the modern human condition more.

My two secrets are:

“Your friends are your family, too.”

and

“If a project scares you, you should probably do it.”

I hope you enjoy!

And, fear not, I’ll be back with more Epstein news. I have found some more revealing documents in the Files….

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Tomorrow, please tune in for something different.

Gretchen Rubin is, as you probably know, the country’s expert in happiness, sociology and much more.

She’s also an old friend of mine.

We will have a conversation around “Secrets of Adulthood,” the title of both her substack

Secrets of Adulthood

Reflections on self-knowledge from New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin.

and her new book.

See you at 5pm ET Tomorrow!

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Thank you for tuning in.

Adam and I were stunned that we had so many viewers: 2,800.

We greatly appreciate your support.

For those who missed our conversation, you can watch it above.

We drill down on what was so very wrong with AG Pam Bondi’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee.

Where was her humanity? Why did she not once turn to acknowledge the brave Epstein survivors sitting behind her? Why not promise them that she will do everything in her power to ensure that the system never allows what happened to them to happen again?

There’s something very galling about watching a woman in power not just ignoring women who have suffered unimaginable injustices, but using her platform to avoid answering valid questions about the Epstein files and instead instead hurling personal and political insults that she’d appeared to memorize ahead of time.

Adam and I also get into what we each are looking for in the Epstein Files.

We discuss what’s there that we’ve found interesting. And what’s interesting about documents that appear to be missing.

Adam is looking into the sham marriages that Epstein used to bring women into the country. I can’t wait to read his findings on that.

We are both following the money trail and Epstein’s tentacles into foreign governments.

As always, I am so grateful to Adam for his intelligent, knowledgeable and careful insights. Do subscribe to his substack All Rise News, if you have not already.

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We talked about my experience of dealing with Jeffrey Epstein in 2002, when I was working for Vanity Fair, before Epstein was a bold-faced name. I also focus on how these latest documents show what a brilliant manipulator he was, not just of young women and girls, but also of wealthy men interested in his vast network and the insider knowledge of markets and much else he could give them. But what this latest tranche of Epstein files also has shown is surely that very few of them can plausibly deny knowing what Epstein was up to in his private life.

I also talk about what’s missing from the Epstein timeline in the Department of Justice document releases. An addendum on this: I mention that I couldn’t find anything on Epstein’s one time beneficiary Les Wexner. But I now see that according to the New York Times, there’s a draft email from Epstein to Wexner that is both threatening and emotional, harking back to when “You and I had ‘gang stuff’ for over 15 years,”. A spokesman for Mr. Wexner told The Times that he never received the letter, and that it “appears to fit a pattern of untrue, outlandish, and delusional statements made by Epstein in desperate attempts to perpetuate his lies and justify his misconduct.” He and Epstein reportedly severed ties in 2007 shortly before Epstein went to jail in Florida.

But Epstein’s language triggers memories of allegations made by a local journalist, Bob Fitrakis, who maintained to me, both in 2002, and years later when I made the podcast and docuseries, Chasing Ghislaine, that the kind of control and influence that the Wexner/Epstein partnership was wielding was indeed mob-like. Fitrakis mentioned the expansion of New Albany’s huge development project in Ohio, as an example. And also the alleged use of planes to ship lingerie that were previously linked to Iran-Contra arms smuggling. He even referenced the murder of lawyer, Arthur Shapiro, who represented The Limited. I thought some of this was a little far-fetched at the time…now, of course, nothing seems completely off the table.

I get into why I think President Trump is not so much embarrassed by the Epstein Files as ticked that they are a bigger story than he is; and why it’s unlikely Epstein was working for the CIA or Mossad, as conspiracy theories have suggested. Epstein didn’t need to be an asset for a foreign government. We can see from the emails, that he had tentacles into the leaders of countries all around the globe. He was his own intelligence operation, all by himself. Not an entirely dissimilar business model from that of Robert Maxwell, father of Ghislaine, who traded information between multiple governments.

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