Lever Time Premium

The following is an unedited, automated transcript:

David Sirota: From The Lever's reader supported newsroom, this is Lever Time. I'm David Sirota. The disgraced financier and notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is breaking news again, this time from beyond the grave. After Epstein's mysterious death in a jail cell in 2019, all of the so-called Epstein files about his finances, his life, and his associates, have been kept under lock and key.
[00:00:28] David Sirota: Donald Trump and his MAGA movement promised to release them if they won back power in the 2024 election. But now, less than a year into Trump's second term, he and his administration are suddenly insisting that the Epstein client list doesn't actually exist and that it's all a nothing burger. Today on Lever Time, I'm talking to the award-winning investigative journalist who broke open the original story about the Epstein coverup and what she thinks is still being kept secret.
[00:00:58] David Sirota: This is a tale not [00:01:00] only about one horrific case. It's also about a larger societal problem in America, elite impunity. It's a story of a two tier justice system that continues to offer one set of lenient rules for the rich and powerful and another set of harsh rules for the rest of us. What exactly is being hidden in the Epstein files? That's coming up next.
[00:01:31] Virginia Roberts Giuffre: It kind of worked like a pyramid scheme. Ghislaine brought me in. I brought other girls in. 
[00:01:36] David Sirota: That's the voice of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's victims in 2019. Giuffre died from suicide earlier this year after dedicating her life trying to expose the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein when she was 17 years old.
[00:01:53] David Sirota: In 2000, Giuffre met Ghislaine Maxwell. Jeffrey Epstein's close accomplice in none other than Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach resort. There she was recruited and initiated into an international sex trafficking ring where she suffered years of sexual abuse 
[00:02:10] Virginia Roberts Giuffre: …and no matter what, Jeffrey constantly had that open revolving door of young women, young teenagers, children, I like to call them, coming through his door for one purpose and one purpose alone.
[00:02:22] David Sirota: Giuffre eventually accused Epstein associate Prince Andrew of sexual abuse, an allegation he's denied. Meanwhile, local law enforcement in Florida was starting to investigate the salacious parties at Epstein's Mansion in West Palm Beach, Florida. 
[00:02:37] Julie K Brown: He lived in this mansion in Palm Beach right off the beach, but it was sort of this dead end road, so you couldn't miss these cars.
[00:02:45] Julie K Brown: Taxis coming 3, 4, 5 times a day, and these girls, kidding out. 
[00:02:49] David Sirota: That's Julie K. Brown, the investigative reporter at the Miami Herald who brought this story to light. She's also the author of the book. Perversion of justice, the Jeffrey Epstein [00:03:00] story. The story starts with a child, 
[00:03:02] Julie K Brown: a young girl who was 14, who had been there and claimed that she had been sexually assaulted.
[00:03:08] Julie K Brown: So it started with that, and then it kept going because once they interviewed one girl, the one who brought you there, this girl brought me there. Then they went to that girl. This girl brought me, it was like this pyramid scheme almost, because what he was doing was using the, paying the girls. That he assaulted.
[00:03:27] Julie K Brown: Look, you don't have to do this ever again as long as you just bring me more girls. So eventually the police did get wind. That's something that, you know, I don't know whether it was the neighbors, but there were reports that this was happening. 
[00:03:39] David Sirota: From there began a series of backdoor deals and coverups as Epstein assembled a legion of doom to defend him.
[00:03:46] David Sirota: An army of famous politically connected super lawyers. Pushing prosecutors to back off. 
[00:03:52] Julie K Brown: They were star struck, I think, by these lawyers. And e Epstein also did something else. Very smart. [00:04:00] Almost every lawyer he hired had a tie to one of the prosecutors 
[00:04:04] David Sirota: amid pressure from Epstein's legal team in the mid two thousands.
[00:04:07] David Sirota: It looked like local prosecutors might not follow through with a state grand jury's charges, which is when the case was taken over by the FBI and federal prosecutors led by George w Bush's, US attorney appointee, Alexander Acosta. Eventually Acosta agreed to give Epstein the deal of a lifetime in 2008 convictions on just two state charges for soliciting prostitution, including to a minor under 18 in exchange for no federal charges and 13 very comfortable months in prison in which Epstein got to leave.
[00:04:44] David Sirota: During the day on work release, 
[00:04:46] Julie K Brown: he was getting his chauffeur to pick him up and take him to his office in his home. Flaunt everything. He was above the law 
[00:04:55] David Sirota: when Acosta was nominated to be US Labor Secretary, overseeing the [00:05:00] nation's anti-sex trafficking laws. In 2017, journalist Julie Brown started looking back into his handling of the Epstein case focusing especially.
[00:05:09] David Sirota: On Epstein's Federal deal, she uncovered new details about how Epstein's lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, convinced Acosta not to pursue federal charges and seal information about the case from the public. 
[00:05:23] Julie K Brown: It was really a carefully orchestrated plea deal, and they did it on purpose to keep it from the public, keep it from the press, keep it from the victims.
[00:05:35] David Sirota: Meanwhile, Virginia Giuffre and other victims started speaking out about their stories and pursued civil and criminal suits against Epstein and his associates. 
[00:05:44] Julie K Brown: Remember, one of his lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, was accused of being with one of these girls. Of course, he vehemently denies it, and he has really, he sued her.
[00:05:56] Julie K Brown: She sued him. It was really, really ugly. 
[00:05:59] David Sirota: The national [00:06:00] attention from Julie Brown's reporting was enough to land Epstein back in a jail cell. In 2019, that's when the Unthinkably obvious happened. Some breaking news 
[00:06:10] Steve Bannon: right now. Disgrace financier. Jeffrey Epstein has taken his own life while he was behind 
[00:06:15] David Sirota: bars.
[00:06:15] Steve Bannon: Epstein's 
[00:06:16] David Sirota: death ended the federal investigation into his dealings, but it ignited new unanswered questions, mainly. Who else was involved in his schemes and should be held accountable? Ghislaine Maxwell faced trial and was found guilty for conspiring to sexually abuse minors. Thanks to key witness testimony.
[00:06:34] David Sirota: But what about the others? What about the powerful men who allegedly enjoyed Epstein's services? And all these questions were rekindled by Epstein's death. MAGA saw an opportunity to fuel conspiracy theories about a so-called Deep state coverup. It was sort of a replay of a 2016 tactic. Back then, the so-called alt-right had manufactured a fake sex [00:07:00] trafficking scandal known as Pizzagate, a fantasy story about Hillary Clinton and top Democrats operating a pedophilia network linked to a DC pizza joint.
[00:07:09] David Sirota: This time in the lead up to the 2024 election. It seemed the same. MAGA Wright had a real sex trafficking scandal to focus on one that made for a perfect MAGA tale, especially because Epstein had hung around with the kind of elite liberals that Maga loved to hate. People like Bill Clinton and Larry Summers and Bill Gates.
[00:07:30] David Sirota: This was soon to be FBI Director Cash Patel. Back then, 
[00:07:33] Kash Patel: you don't think that Bill Gates is lobbying Congress reignite and day to prevent the disclosure of that list. What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority, you can't get the list. 
[00:07:45] David Sirota: But on the campaign trail in 2024, Trump seemed to uncharacteristically equivocate caught between MAGA pressure and his fears of, well, something he seemed a little shy about the fact that he and Epstein were [00:08:00] once friendly.
[00:08:00] David Sirota: In fact, Trump once called him quote, a terrific guy. 
[00:08:04] Lex Fridman: There's a moment where you had some hesitation about Epstein releasing some of the documents on Epstein. Why the hesitation? 
[00:08:11] Donald Trump: I don't think I, I mean, I'm not involved. I never went to his island. Um, fortunately, but. A lot of people did. 
[00:08:20] David Sirota: That's Trump on Lex Friedman's podcast in 2024, suggesting that he may or may not release the Epstein files if he won the election.
[00:08:28] Lex Fridman: The list of clients that went to the island has not been made public. 
[00:08:32] Donald Trump: Yeah, it's It's very interesting isn't it? Probably will be by the way. 
[00:08:38] Lex Fridman: So if you are able to, you'll be, 
[00:08:40] Donald Trump: I'd certainly take a look at it. 
[00:08:41] David Sirota: When Trump was asked on Fox News in 2024 whether he would release those Epstein files, he seemed to say yes.
[00:08:48] David Sirota: But also maybe no. 
[00:08:50] Virginia Roberts Giuffre: Would you declassify the Epstein files? 
[00:08:53] Donald Trump (2): Yeah. Yeah, I would. All right. I guess I would. I think that less so because you know, you don't know if you don't [00:09:00] wanna affect people's lives, if it's phony stuff in there. 'cause there's a lot of phony stuff with that 
[00:09:03] David Sirota: whole world. When Trump took office in 2025.
[00:09:07] David Sirota: MAGA seemed to win the day. Trump's new Attorney General, Pam Bondy, released the first of what the Justice Department promised would be multiple batches of files related to the Epstein case. The files were heavily redacted, although in an accompanying press release, FBI Director Cash Patel stated quote, there will be no coverups, no missing documents, and no stone left unturned, and anyone from the prior or current bureau who undermines this.
[00:09:35] David Sirota: Will be swiftly pursued. If there are gaps, we will find them. Bondy herself told Fox News that a client list of Epstein conspirators was in her possession. 
[00:09:46] Pam Bondi: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. Um, that's been a directive, um, by President Trump. 
[00:09:51] David Sirota: The FBI reportedly had an army of agents work uninterrupted to review the files.
[00:09:57] David Sirota: But that all changed on July 6th [00:10:00] when the Justice Department released an unsigned memo claiming that there is no incriminating client list, and asserting that Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide. It was the equivalent of the famous scene from Naked Gun. Alright, 
[00:10:13] Steve Bannon: move on that thing to see here. 
[00:10:16] David Sirota: Only somehow it wasn't a joke.
[00:10:19] David Sirota: The memo linked to an enhanced nearly 11 hour recording of Epstein's cell during his death in an attempt to prove there was no interference. But reporters have already discovered that the metadata proves the video was likely modified and is a composite of two video files fueling more conspiracy theories that the Trump administration is complicit.
[00:10:41] David Sirota: In a coverup. And of course, Elon Musk also suggested on X that the reason Donald Trump doesn't want these files released is because he may be in them. Meanwhile, Maha's reaction to this reversal has been a bit dramatic, to say the least. 
[00:10:58] Alex Jones: I'm gonna go throw up, actually, my [00:11:00] mouth is watering right now.
[00:11:01] David Sirota: That's right. Wing conspiracy guy, Alex Jones. 
[00:11:04] Alex Jones: You know, I just really need the Trump administration to succeed in the safest country, and they're doing so much good. And then for them to do something like this. Tears my guts up. 
[00:11:15] David Sirota: It's great to know the dude who once outrageously claimed the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, still has tears to shed over sex trafficking victims.
[00:11:23] Alex Jones: I mean, I'm physically depu 
[00:11:24] David Sirota: probably right now, and Trump's reaction to his bases cries for transparency. 
[00:11:29] Donald Trump (3): Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. This guy, this creep that is unbelievable. 
[00:11:38] David Sirota: In a truth, social post, Trump insisted the entire Epstein coverup is Democrat's fault writing quote.
[00:11:45] David Sirota: Their new scam is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax and my past supporters have bought into this bullshit hook, line and sinker, but it turns out. Even Trump can't quiet the outrage from his base. [00:12:00] FBI. Deputy Director Dan Bonino, a former Secret Service agent and conspiracy loving podcast host.
[00:12:06] David Sirota: Before last year's election, he reportedly ex-communicated himself from the agency after the Trump administration's reversal, and there's more. Here's Tucker Carlson. 
[00:12:16] Tucker Carlson: The fact that the US government, the one that I voted for, refused. To take my question seriously and instead said, case closed. Shut up.
[00:12:26] Tucker Carlson: Conspiracy theorist. It was too much for me. 
[00:12:29] Steve Bannon: And here's Steve Bannon. This the Epstein is some the question's very simple. Who governs this country? The American people 
[00:12:38] David Sirota: or the deep state seeing a huge opportunity to split Trump from his MAGA base house. Democrats are now joining the fray, pushing Trump's justice department to release more information on the Epstein case, including a list of names.
[00:12:54] Ro Khanna: There were billionaires. And millionaires and powerful heads of state who basically were paying folks for, [00:13:00] uh, for, for sex. Some of it may have been underage. 
[00:13:02] David Sirota: That's California Democratic. Congressman Roanna, who talked to us this week before he forced a full house vote that would compel the release of all information on Jeffrey Epstein.
[00:13:13] Ro Khanna: Their identities aren't being revealed, and that somehow if a government is willing to protect rich and powerful people who did something so heinous. Then how can we trust the government to be on our side? 
[00:13:25] David Sirota: And yet, Republicans used house rules to block Kane's legislation 
[00:13:30] House Speaker: on this vote. The Zer two 11, the nays are two 10.
[00:13:32] House Speaker: The previous question is ordered. 
[00:13:36] David Sirota: The vote was yet another brick wall blocking Americans from seeing the full picture of what happened in the Epstein affair when you step back. This case is not just about the odd politics of the moment where MAGA and the Democrats are weirdly on one side and politicians like Trump and Republican lawmakers in Congress are on the other.
[00:13:57] David Sirota: This case is also something bigger. [00:14:00] It's become this generation's version of the JFK assassination, an endlessly discussed saga revolving around a horrific set of events whose coverups and obstructions have fueled all sorts of wild conspiracy theories. 
[00:14:15] House Speaker: Who did the president who killed it? It's, it's a mystery.
[00:14:19] Julie K Brown: It's a mystery wrapped inside an enigma. 
[00:14:22] David Sirota: But in the Epstein case. It's even more than just a Rorschach test for whatever conspiracy theory you happen to believe. At the core of this scandal are both horrible events and a rigged legal system that's continued to side with political power and secrecy over victims and justice.
[00:14:39] David Sirota: This case reflects a huge American problem that's not much talked about. But that's at the center of almost all of the crises in our country. The problem of elite impunity. In the last few decades, our society has allowed rich and powerful villains to face zero accountability for their villainy, whether they were [00:15:00] lying America into a war.
[00:15:01] David Sirota: Knowingly creating a financial crisis or corruptly abusing their powers in public office, the politicians screwing us over are routinely buying reelection. The media elites who cheer on all that corruption and get everything wrong are being rewarded with ever bigger platforms. In essence, America has become an accountability free zone for the rich, powerful, and famous.
[00:15:27] David Sirota: There simply are no consequences for. Or deterrence against bad behavior that harms people and there is a cone of silence around their crimes. What the mob calls Erta never 
[00:15:39] Donald Trump (3): ran on your friends and always keep your mouth shut. 
[00:15:46] David Sirota: It's the same thing for the Epstein case. There are nearly 2000 known names in his black book.
[00:15:52] David Sirota: There are firsthand allegations of abuse and yet even in death. Jeffrey Epstein, and almost all of those [00:16:00] who are around him are still enjoying impunity, still having so many of the salacious details hidden from view. In this case, I keep coming back to the big questions. Why don't we know the full story of Jeffrey Epstein's entire monstrous operation?
[00:16:17] David Sirota: Is an Epstein client list real, and if so, is it being covered up? What about all the redacted information in the so-called Epstein files and the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death? Why are the details so sketchy and most important of all, what would actual justice for Jeffrey Epstein's victims look like?
[00:16:40] David Sirota: To answer these questions. I called up journalist Julie K. Brown. I wanted her to explain to me what information hasn't yet been released to the public. 
[00:16:50] Julie K Brown: They're absolutely hiding something. What they are hiding, we don't know. 
[00:16:54] David Sirota: To. Julie Brown. This case is far from closed. More on that after [00:17:00] the break.
[00:17:01] David Sirota: Welcome back to Lever Time. I'm talking to journalist Julie K. Brown, who broke open the coverup of the Jeffrey Epstein case. So you are probably the nation, the world's leading expert on Jeffrey Epstein. So the question I have is. It seems simple, but I don't think it is simple, is what are the Epstein files?
[00:17:23] David Sirota: Are they, are they documents? Are they about the girls he allegedly abused? Are they about so-called clients in a sex trafficking ring? What do we know of what they are? 
[00:17:36] Julie K Brown: Number one, let's start with what we do know, okay? Yes. What we absolutely do know is that there are FBI files and anyone in the public can look them up if they Google the FBI vault and put in Jeffrey Epstein's names a whole slew of files.
[00:17:53] Julie K Brown: Part one all the way to part, I don't know what the last number is, 25 different parts, and each one of [00:18:00] those contains probably hundreds of pages of files. Uh, I've taken the time so you don't have to going through them all, and there's really hardly anything in there because they're in code and they are heavily redacted and they're ridiculously redacted.
[00:18:19] Julie K Brown: They are, they have things in there that are redacted. In some cases, Jeffrey Epstein's own name is redacted and we know that they're his files, so it's, it's absurd. The number of redactions and the coding that they have in there. They're essentially useless. To make sure that the public can't see. Now, these are largely case files from the FBI from its 2005 slash 2008 investigation that ended in that, uh, suite, uh, heart plea deal.
[00:18:47] Julie K Brown: Now, there's other FBI investigations that occurred after. Epstein went to prison because, um, Virginia Giuffre, who is one of his main victims, continued to [00:19:00] press the FBI and the Justice Department to reopen the case, and as well as the victims who subsequently filed a federal lawsuit against the US government alleging that they illegally gave him this deal because they failed to under law, federal law at the time called the victim's rights.
[00:19:19] Julie K Brown: They were supposed to tell them. So there was a lot of litigation over the years and pressure from the victims and their attorneys for the DOJ to reopen this case. And as a result, I, there was some work that was done in the subsequent years. We don't have those files. We don't know where they are, but we know that there was.
[00:19:42] Julie K Brown: Further investigation down the road into some of the allegations and some of the victims that came forward. So we don't have those. Another thing that we do know is that because of all this litigation, there's a lot of documents, discovery documents that are contained in civil [00:20:00] lawsuits, some of which the Miami Herald has sued to unseal because.
[00:20:05] Julie K Brown: Judicial documents, for the most part are supposed to be public record. But we had a judge in New York who handled one of the cases involving Virginia Giuffre and, and Maxwell, and he decided from the outset, we're gonna seal everything and you're not supposed to do that. So we sued and we were still suing six years later to try to unseal.
[00:20:26] Julie K Brown: And we did get a lot of information about Epstein and the other people that were involved as a result of that. But still. Are still suing. There are still judicial court documents that are sealed. There. There are other files from, for example, the FAA who monitored his plane. They haven't released his, a lot of his plane records.
[00:20:48] Julie K Brown: The US Marshal Service Service, which comes under the Department of Homeland Security, the marshals were the people that were supposed to board the plane when he arrived [00:21:00] from overseas. And get and find out who all these people were on his plane, and they supposedly kept records. I did a public records request for those files and I was told.
[00:21:12] Julie K Brown: You know, it's an open investigation. We're not giving them to you. They just gave me a, a, the files, but they were completely redacted, so we don't have those files. So there's an awful lot out there. And then you come to the 2019 case when it was reopened after my investigation. We don't really have any of those files, those prosecutorial files, so we don't know.
[00:21:35] Julie K Brown: We do know that he did a search of their, of his Manhattan residence during Maxwell's trial. They showed video of his residence and some of the piles of videotapes they found, which curiously had FB. Tapes around them from 2005. So, you know, he got all those original tapes and computer records all back after he pla had that sweetheart plea, plea [00:22:00] deal.
[00:22:00] Julie K Brown: And he still had them. You'd think he would've destroyed them, but it looks like he kept them. So there's an awful lot of material that we haven't seen. Now, of course, they would have to protect the names of victims, but they could release some of this material. And just redact the things that they should redact, which is the names of the victims, and possibly some witnesses.
[00:22:23] Julie K Brown: There's no reason to just say. We're not gonna release anything. There's nothing here, folks. This case from the beginning has been one of that's been the opposite of transparency. And in fact, I would argue there was a coverup from the very beginning. And because we know that it had a history of, uh, very powerful people attached to it, and there being a coverup, that's even one reason why I think the Justice Department owes it to the public to at least try to release some of this material.
[00:22:56] David Sirota: That brings us to all the conspiracy theories floating around this. I mean, [00:23:00] the conspiracy theory that you, you hear a lot about thrown around is that Jeffrey Epstein was not only, uh, soliciting sex, assaulting people, underage girls, uh, for himself. That the conspiracy theory out there is that he was running a kind of sex trafficking ring with, with famous clients.
[00:23:23] David Sirota: That's what's thrown out there. And there's this plane, and we know he has his own island, Epstein Island. Donald Trump, according to Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly said he talked to Donald Trump and says that Trump doesn't want to. Necessarily release more of the files. Uh, because, and I'm paraphrasing here because there were a lot of people that Jeffrey Epstein associated with who had nothing to do with sort of the bad side of Jeffrey Epstein.
[00:23:50] David Sirota: I'll, I'll cut to the chase right now. We talk about conspiracy theories or, or prognostication about what might be in these files. This whole idea that he was [00:24:00] running a kind of prostitution ring. For other people beyond himself and his own sexual gratification. Is there evidence that you've seen, that we've seen that's in the, in the public domain that substantiates that or, or hints at that?
[00:24:18] Julie K Brown: Well, I mean, you have to define what a ring is. A ring to me sounds like mob, like this was really a, a big thing. I don't think it was. I think that it, it was, he kept a circle of people, uh, that he would lend these girls to, and I know who some of these men were. We know, for example, that Virginia alleged that she was.
[00:24:40] Julie K Brown: Taken to certain of these men's homes and asked to give them massages. That was the code word all the time. You go here and you give, I want you to give this guy a massage. He didn't say, you go here. And that's what he told with Prince Andrew. I mean, it was like, you can now go up and give Prince Andrew a [00:25:00] massage.
[00:25:00] Julie K Brown: So it wasn't this. What people traditionally think of as sex trafficking in that it wasn't like some man in a trench coat that was organizing young girls and sending them here and sending them there. It wasn't that like that, but it was nevertheless something that Epstein was doing sort of for I think some of his inner circle closest friends that he was sending girls to them when they requested it to give them massages and then he would.
[00:25:30] Julie K Brown: He would pay them. He would pay them. The guys didn't pay 'em. So then the, the men really, Epstein had it on them. He didn't have, I don't think he had a list per se, but they knew that he knew what he, what they were doing. So just. By the implication they owed him something. They knew they had to do whatever he wanted to do, and it was usually financial.
[00:25:56] Julie K Brown: He wanted them to invest in certain projects and to [00:26:00] invest and give him money so that he would make a great percentage of money. 
[00:26:04] David Sirota: It seems to me that this, this story is a conspiracy theorist dream. You ha you have a well connected Wall Street guy flying around with celebrities and politicians soliciting sex from underage girls.
[00:26:14] David Sirota: It takes place a few miles from Mar-a-Lago. You know, as we mentioned, the sort of, uh, Jeb Bush, George w Bush's their state, their prosecutor, who the prosecutor lets Epstein offer the slap on the wrist, shuts down. Probe, the redactions that you mentioned, the, again, the non-prosecution agreement. And then Alex Acosta, the prosecutor who issued the non-prosecution agreement, is rewarded with an appointment to be Donald Trump's labor Secretary Trump, who had been friendly with Jeffrey Epstein.
[00:26:49] David Sirota: Epstein gives this guy the. The position of US labor secretary administering and overseeing the nation's anti-sex [00:27:00] trafficking laws. I mean, you could not write this into a novel if you wrote this into a script, the Hollywood suit would say, this is, this is too on the nose. It's, it's too Well, and not to mention 
[00:27:08] Julie K Brown: then his death, the way he died.
[00:27:10] Julie K Brown: His 
[00:27:10] David Sirota: death. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. So it, it seems to me that that. If the average person hears all that and thinks this is all too coincidental, what do you say to that? Like, like the, and then they hear that the, that the files aren't being released. 
[00:27:27] Julie K Brown: Yeah. 
[00:27:28] David Sirota: What do, what do you say to a person who says, look, there's gotta, they gotta be hiding something.
[00:27:32] David Sirota: Do you think they're hiding something? 
[00:27:33] Julie K Brown: Well, they're absolutely hiding something. Uh, what, what they are hiding? We don't know. I mean, we really don't know, but they're absolutely hiding something because look, it, it, the memo. It it, I mean, for no other reason. They could have just instead said, because this is so sensitive.
[00:27:52] Julie K Brown: We're going, we're going to do our due diligence and we're going to investigate. We're going to reopen. I mean, think about that. [00:28:00] That would be something that maybe someone could buy, but instead they say, Nope. There's nothing here. We're closing the whole thing. That to me doesn't make any sense because there's been a lot of new stuff that has come out.
[00:28:12] Julie K Brown: More women came forward, so I don't understand Their perfect out would've been, look, we're, we can't release it because we're reopening it. We're going to look at this even closer because there's some questions we have. They could have even blamed Biden and said, you know, Hey, Biden didn't do this, that, or the other thing.
[00:28:31] Julie K Brown: He could have, I mean, there's a million things they could have done other than to just say, there's nothing here. I don't wanna talk about it anymore. And to me, that's the thing that's missing here is the victims. I mean, the victims deserve to know what happened and, and why he was allowed to do this for so long, and.
[00:28:52] Julie K Brown: I just think that if for no other reason an examination should be done about how our criminal justice system failed these [00:29:00] victims. 
[00:29:00] David Sirota: Coming up next, I'm asking journalist Julie Brown about the deal that protected Jeffrey Epstein's associates from prosecution and the debate around whether or not Jeffrey Epstein really committed suicide.
[00:29:13] David Sirota: That's after the break.
[00:29:17] David Sirota: Welcome back to Lever Time. Let's talk about for a second, uh, his death. 'cause you just mentioned that, and I think it's important. He had a non-prosecution agreement. He ends up back in jail, uh, in New York, uh, because of your reporting and, and what we know about his death is it's deemed a suicide. There's a suspicion that it wasn't a suicide.
[00:29:38] David Sirota: Uh, there's a video of the cell, uh, that he was in that was, uh, recently released by Donald Trump's Department of Justice. Some reporters are questioning if the video was modified and what that means, and whether it'll be fodder for more conspiracies. Uh, and, and I think a point that you mentioned before is really important [00:30:00] and that you've done, you've said in your reporting that the death ends up.
[00:30:04] David Sirota: Ending the federal probe, the new federal probe into his case, which ends up making it harder to find out what happens. My, my point in raising that is that suggests a motive If somebody was going to try to kill him in prison. If you kill this guy, you end the probe of him, you end more discovery, you end ultimately more disclosure, much less justice.
[00:30:31] David Sirota: What's your response? What is your thinking about the death of Jeffrey Epstein? Knowing what we know about the video, knowing it was deemed a suicide, but knowing people have raised real questions about whether it was actually a suicide. Like what is, you've been reporting on this, what is your gut saying?
[00:30:50] Julie K Brown: Well, well, let's just go back a minute. He, before he was found dead, he, something happened and they put him on a suicide watch. When we [00:31:00] go to try to get those records about what happened, they don't exist. They're gone. So he's on suicide watch. Ostensibly initially, he actually, there is a little bit of reference in the investigation into that, where initially he claimed that his cellmate, who was this big beefy, uh, former New York City cop accused of murdering four people.
[00:31:20] Julie K Brown: Now, first of all, why would you put a frail looking epstein in a cell with a giant, beefy steroid kind of cop who was accused of murdering four people, but nevertheless, they put him in a jail cell with this guy. And when he first comes out, when there's something evidently wrong, like there's something wrong with his neck, he claims that the guy, his cellmate tried to, to do him in.
[00:31:44] Julie K Brown: So then he changes, Epstein changes his story and he says, no, that isn't true. I don't remember what happened. So we never really find out exactly what happened. But he's on, you know, of course the cellmate says he tried to do it. Do himself in, so they put him on suicide watch. So [00:32:00] they release him on suicide watch and he's supposed to go in with another cellmate who he had been with before.
[00:32:06] Julie K Brown: And they curiously take out this guy right before he comes back and they take him to a special pri separate prison for people that have information. Like he has important information and he wants to trade in exchange for getting a lighter sentence. So, so Epstein gets put in this cell by himself. Then you have these guards who are on duty, who allegedly fall asleep or they're too busy on their computer paying attention.
[00:32:37] Julie K Brown: Then you, if you look at the re, and I'm getting all this from records, we do have records of this. Then you have the situation where. Every camera in that whole cell block was not recording except for one camera. They were all. Uh, showing pictures and video in real time, but none of [00:33:00] them had the capability.
[00:33:01] Julie K Brown: They were broken to record anything except for one camera. And that camera, that footage is the one that the, uh, justice Department released. That camera is not of his cell. It, it's away from the, it's not even in his wing. It shows a little glimpse of what they call the common area, but not none of this is of his self because the.
[00:33:24] Julie K Brown: Camera and it's in the report. The camera that was in his wing wasn't recording. So there's catwalks around these areas. There's other ways to get in here. So even if you say this, the common area didn't show anybody. Down there, they could have come in from the other side. So you have that problem. So the cameras aren't working, the guards are asleep, the cellmate is taken out.
[00:33:48] Julie K Brown: Uh, what else you have? The fact that he was given, which they're not supposed to when you're on suicide watch, he was given this machine that had all these wires on it for his sleep apnea. He [00:34:00] was given two mattresses to sleep on the floor, which they were not allowed to have mattresses, and he was given extra blankets.
[00:34:07] Julie K Brown: So he's all these things that they're doing, it just doesn't make any sense, logical sense at all. Then after that, they, they find his body and instead of really just. Taking photographs of his body or leaving it as a crime scene. They cut him down, they take him outta there, and they then conduct an autopsy.
[00:34:33] Julie K Brown: The New York State Medical or City Me Medical Examiner is the one that spearheads it, but Epstein's Brother Mark hires Dr. Michael Baden. To oversee, to attend the autopsy. So Michael Boden, who is a pretty renowned forensic pathologist who has years of experience with prison deaths. His specialty was on the New York State Prison Review Board, death [00:35:00] Review board.
[00:35:00] Julie K Brown: He knows about how these deaths operate, and he concludes that it wasn't a suicide. He believes that because two. Bones in his neck, the way that they were broken. He said that's highly unusual. He also pointed out to me that if Epstein did this, as they said he did it, which was pulling forward from, he from the top bunk, all the stuff that was on that top bunk was still in place.
[00:35:26] Julie K Brown: So if you're pulling against a bunk, you would think that stuff would all fall over. And he pointed out that that stuff was all upright. So. So what do you say when they say, well, we concluded the suicide. So you say, well, why? Can you give us a reason why? Who'd you interview that? That said that he was suicidal?
[00:35:43] Julie K Brown: They don't have anybody that said he was suicidal. In fact, both Maxwell and his brother say there's no way that this was a suicide. So you have to question. Given everything else that we know about what Epstein knew and the [00:36:00] information he had, it's not a conspiracy to question how this was investigated, release the autopsy report.
[00:36:07] Julie K Brown: What did the other inmates say? Did they hear anything? I mean, we don't know. So I, I think that while it's possible that he did do something to himself, I, I think it's fair to question whether that conclusion was accurate. 
[00:36:24] David Sirota: What do you make of all the U-turns that's gone on in the, in the last, uh, week or so?
[00:36:29] David Sirota: I mean, you have the Trump MAGA movement. Campaigning for Trump saying that Trump and and Trump's people are going to release all of this information. You have Pam Bondy saying, I've, I've got the Epstein files right on my desk. They made a big spectacle of giving various of their friendly reporters these binders, and then all of a sudden there's this turnaround.
[00:36:56] David Sirota: Of saying, actually there is no, there are, there is [00:37:00] no epstein list there, there are no Epstein files. There's nothing to see here. Move along. When you heard about the, the, essentially the abrupt reversal, and now Donald Trump saying now is apparently calling up sort of MAGA voices that's telling them, you know, please stop criticizing me over this, this Epstein thing.
[00:37:18] David Sirota: Please stop focusing on it. What was your reaction, uh, to that? What, what do you make of it? 
[00:37:24] Julie K Brown: Well, when I first heard it, I thought, oh, boy. I knew right away when, when she, when Pam Bondi released the, I was waiting, waiting for that binder that she said she had. I knew there was gonna be nothing. I knew there was gonna be nothing in that binder.
[00:37:40] Julie K Brown: I just knew it because there's no way you could put what they were expecting in one binder. Yeah. You know, not without, um, I mean, it would just take you a very long time to figure out what to put in that binder unless you were putting old stuff, unless you were regurgitating what we already knew, which is exactly what happened.
[00:37:57] Julie K Brown: I mean, I, it, it, the only thing I [00:38:00] can think of is there must be something in there that, you know, because why would you? This is so harsh to just say, we're closing the whole thing down. Why would you do that? Because there's plenty of other avenues that you could have taken, so you have to really ask what is in there.
[00:38:19] Julie K Brown: They finally had a chance, I guess, to go through it and they probably went, wow, maybe we better not do it. I do think that the conspiracy theorists go over the top and they kind of. Just make it. For example, uh, when Trump was running for, for, you know, election, again, they were putting stuff out there, you know, and they still do this of him with, you know, his daughter and young girls, and then they put misinformation out there.
[00:38:54] Julie K Brown: There hasn't been any evidence. Right now that we know of [00:39:00] that ties him to Epstein's sex trafficking. Okay. He was friends with him, but there's no evidence that he was involved with the sex trafficking and I was the only voice, and I got attacked many times during the election for, for finally coming out and saying, whoa, you know, you guys are going a little crazy here.
[00:39:18] Julie K Brown: There's no evidence. That's the bottom line. But now I'm thinking, you know, after all this time and me sort of saying over and over again, look, there's no evidence to tie him to anything and there still isn't, obviously. But you have to wonder why he would take if he's not in there. Why he would do this.
[00:39:36] Julie K Brown: Now, it's, it's also possible that there's some people in there that are friends of his, you know, there's a lot of very wealthy hedge fund people and banker. There's bankers. There's a lot of people like that he might know very well and maybe was told, look, it's not worth it to open this up because unnamed named and I didn't do anything wrong.
[00:39:57] Julie K Brown: You know? Do you, 
[00:39:58] David Sirota: do you think there's, there's something in [00:40:00] there that. That we might learn about Jeffrey Epstein himself, that we, that hasn't been corroborated. For instance, there's a theory out there, seems kind of outrageous that Epstein had some intelligence ties. Uh, Alex Acosta reportedly, I wanna underscore reportedly said that he told Trump officials when he was appointed US Labor secretary, that he was told.
[00:40:29] David Sirota: That Epstein had a relationship or quote unquote, belonged to intelligence that is had a relationship with intelligence agencies. There's been a conspiracy out there that Jeffrey Epstein had ties to Israeli intelligence, Mossad. Again, none of these things have been confirmed, proved, but they're thrown out there as if they are true or could become true.
[00:40:52] David Sirota: I think my question is not. Whether any of these specifics are true, because I think we don't know. My question is, do you think there's something about [00:41:00] Jeffrey Epstein himself? That we, that we don't know that hasn't been revealed that would explain all of this bizarre behavior about trying to cover it up.
[00:41:11] Julie K Brown: Yeah, I do. I think that there's probably a lot more that we don't know about Jeffrey Epstein and what he was doing, especially when it concerns his money. I think that that, that the justice depart. At least from what I've seen, I don't feel like they pursued that angle. You know, journalism 1 0 1 is follow the money and it should also be prosecutorial 1 0 1.
[00:41:33] Julie K Brown: It's common sense that you would try to follow the money and see Exactly, because all this was about money. It was really about money. Even the sex trafficking part, I think was about money because he was using the girls to ingratiate himself with. People that he wanted to cultivate for financial reasons.
[00:41:54] Julie K Brown: So it was all about money for him. And I think that that, [00:42:00] I think that's maybe what's lost sometimes in this story because we get. By the way, the reason why I took up this case to begin with was because I felt that the media had focused too much on the celebrityism of this story. The Lolita expressed the sex and not enough on the justice system and how they had failed and why they failed, and that's what I did, that that hadn't been done before.
[00:42:27] Julie K Brown: And I, you know. Got the, some of the victims to finally speak out and they, it showed, I was just astonished at how corrupt the whole case was. And probably to this day there's probably some of that in the Justice Department that maybe people, they don't want people to see because they were all influenced by him one way or another.
[00:42:51] David Sirota: And that gets to some of the bigger picture takeaways here, which it seems to me that this case is at minimum. An example of the two tiers of [00:43:00] justice in this country. One for the rich and powerful one for the rest of us. I wonder if you think this scandal has made more Americans aware of that and potentially, I, I'm trying, I'm trying to find some silver lining here.
[00:43:15] David Sirota: Potentially made some prosecutors and judges and people operating inside of these, these justice systems. Made them more hesitant to offer these kinds of sweetheart deals. I mean, you'd like to believe that people working in state, local, federal justice systems are like, wow, this, this is really how it can go bad and you know, we gotta fix this.
[00:43:39] David Sirota: Do, do you, do you sense that? Do, do you sense this is at least raised that awareness? 
[00:43:44] Julie K Brown: No. That's a simple answer. Uh, no, because when I was, I was trying for some optimistic when the case broke, I remember a Justice department, uh, a couple of them actually telling me. Because of the, you know, it was [00:44:00] just so, it was like this, it was crazy how the world aw awake awoke to this whole story.
[00:44:06] Julie K Brown: And someone in the judge said, well, you, your work really made it so that, you know, these prosecutors are gonna rethink, for example, the Victims of Rights Act. They're not gonna try to hide these deals anymore from victims, you know, and they're still doing it. I mean, there's still, people's memories are short.
[00:44:25] Julie K Brown: And they're still doing the same kind of thing and powerful people are still getting away with crimes. And every day I, I read about another case of a powerful person just really getting away with, because they're able to hire attorneys who are not only really shrewd and good attorneys, but they're also usually politically connective connected.
[00:44:47] Julie K Brown: And. That's the way the legal community works. You hire a lawyer. I know from even personal experience, if you have a prob a legal problem, you wanna hire a lawyer in the jurisdiction where the legal [00:45:00] problem is. So that's just the way it is in our legal system. Unfortunately, I wish there was a better, I will say the one thing though that I find maybe a silver lining, is that this case is one of the few.
[00:45:15] Julie K Brown: Cases or instances out there where I think everybody can agree on something. In a way we are fighting and so divided on so many things right now in our country, but I think everybody pretty much agrees that the Jeffrey Epstein, what he did was a horrible, horrible crime and that the government needs to be more transparent about.
[00:45:40] Julie K Brown: You know what happened or what didn't happen? Well, I would 
[00:45:43] David Sirota: like to believe that everyone agrees, but as we're talking about this, literally as we're talking about this, the Republicans are in Congress. 
[00:45:50] Julie K Brown: Yeah. 
[00:45:51] David Sirota: Blocking legislation. I 
[00:45:53] Julie K Brown: heard that like 
[00:45:53] David Sirota: as we're talking they are, yeah, they are blocking legislation to force.
[00:45:58] David Sirota: Yeah. The release of at least [00:46:00] some of the so-called Epstein files. I think at a rank and file level in terms of like people in the country, I think there's broad agreement that there, that this was very bad and there needs to be a lot more disclosure, but still at the top of our political system. There is this stonewalling, and it really does, I think it doesn't just fuel conspiracy theories, but it fuels this sense that there is a deliberate effort to hide things.
[00:46:28] David Sirota: That that is what is really going on here. That's the through line. What that thing is, we, we don't, or those things are, we don't yet really know. We may never know, and it reminds me so much of the. Situation, the horrible situation with the Catholic Church, right? Where there's a lot of reporting about the political intrigue, the conspiracy theories, what's being hidden, which power brokers are involved, not involved, but there's not as much focus.
[00:46:57] David Sirota: There's really, frankly, not enough focus [00:47:00] on the victims themselves. What you did in your reporting, in tracking down those victims is, is really, really critical. And it really does seem the true tragedy in all of this, in, in, among so many tragedies, is that the legal system seemed to fail to protect the victims and the survivors when they were abused after they were abused by powerful individuals, I mean.
[00:47:30] David Sirota: Talk to us. For those who don't know in this final couple of minutes here about what those victims suffered. How this wasn't just a sort of a momentary, horrible thing in their lives, but actually changed their lives in many cases, ruined their lives. Because I think that's forgotten. And I think it, it, it's important to end on that note to, to remind everyone what this case is really all about.
[00:47:56] Julie K Brown: Well, let me start by reminding people about something. These were [00:48:00] children. They were, he preferred them. The younger, the better they were 14, 13, 14, 15 years old. Okay. They were young. They came from disadvantaged homes. Uh, for the most part, he, he preyed on certain types of vulnerable people because he, as one of the victims told me, he preyed on people that he thought no one would believe, and he was right.
[00:48:26] Julie K Brown: Because in the beginning, as we said earlier, uh, the prosecutor didn't wanna prosecute, and then of course the feds didn't prosecute. So they preyed on, he preyed on the most vulnerable people, young children, and children for the most part, who came from, uh, troubled families, and he didn't. Here's the other important piece that a lot of people don't understand or don't know, is that he didn't go to these girls.
[00:48:53] Julie K Brown: Like you would for a prostitute and say, I want you to do this and I'm gonna give you money for this. He didn't do [00:49:00] that. He promised them that he was going to help them go to college. He, he dangled whatever it was that they needed in their lives. He dangled that in front of him. The, the money came after he, he tried to nurture them, especially the ones he really liked.
[00:49:18] Julie K Brown: He gave them a car, he sent them flowers. He let them buy things. These were, I, I know that one the best quote my whole series that I'll never forget 'cause it haunts me. It was a, a girl, uh, who's now a woman obviously who said all we were stupid, stupid children. All I remember was that I wanted to buy a new pair of shoes because I'd been wearing the same pair of shoes for three years, and she got swept up in that because she just wanted a new pair of shoes.
[00:49:51] Julie K Brown: These were the kinds of victims there were. And, um, sorry for getting emotional, but. People are forgetting that that's who [00:50:00] we're talking about here, that, that we're victimized. And to be honest with you, if we don't do something about this and change our system, it's gonna keep happening. Other powerful men are gonna still keep getting away with doing these kinds of things to our children.
[00:50:16] Julie K Brown: And I do think that it gives carte blanche when things are covered up in this way. It gives carte blanche to other people to try to do the same things. 
[00:50:25] David Sirota: That's a really, really good point. It, it really does say to every, every other horrible predator out there. You can do whatever you want. If you have enough money to hire the right lawyers, if you have enough political connections, if you can bring enough political pressure to bear on the justice system and look, that's why you're reporting is just so important.
[00:50:46] David Sirota: So I really appreciate you taking time with us. I really appreciate your work and I really encourage you obviously to keep at it, to keep, to keep up the work because it's so important. Julie, thanks so much. 
[00:50:57] Julie K Brown: Thanks for having me. 
[00:50:59] David Sirota: [00:51:00] Thanks for listening to another episode of Lever Time. To learn more about Julie k Brown's reporting, check out her book, perversion of Justice, the Jeffrey Epstein story, which we'll link to in the show notes.
[00:51:12] David Sirota: Lever Time is a production of the Lever. This episode was produced by Ariella Markowitz. It was edited and mixed by Ron Doyle. You can subscribe to Lever Time on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, the PRX mobile app, or wherever you get your podcasts. And one more thing. For ad free episodes, exclusive bonus content and access to the lever's, entire archive of investigative journalism, please consider becoming a premium subscriber.
[00:51:41] David Sirota: Head over to lever news.com to learn more about becoming a paid subscriber, or click the link in the episode's show notes. I'm David Sirota. We'll be back next week with another episode of Lever [00:52:00] Time.