The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Taya Graham:

For most of 2025. One story and one story alone dominated the cultural and political discourse in America, the Epstein files. This phenomena was remarkable, all but more so for President Trump’s response. This was the first time in Trump’s decade long political career that we saw a significant rift in his fiercely loyal MAGA movement. By late July, 47% of Trump supporters disapproved of how he was handling the issue. Now, given Trump’s controversial association with the dead man, his obfuscation seemed like it could be the only thing to finally chip away at his political capital. Since then, a lot has happened in the American news from a major ice crackdown in blue states to the illegal bombing of ships in the Caribbean to an attempted ceasefire in Gaza, and yet Epstein’s case still looms large, large enough, some believe to have played a significant role in the October government shutdown.

Now ostensibly, the shutdown was triggered by congressional Republican and Democrat’s inability to meet a consensus about funding the government, but some believe Republicans are using it to stall developments on the Epstein issue. Indeed, how speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to swear in newly elected Arizona representative at Grava. Though there is recent precedent for doing so crucially, Reba has said she would provide the 218th signature needed to force a house vote on whether or not to release the entirety of the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein. But if the Epstein files are really playing a role, large or small in the entire shutdown of the federal government, it’s worth asking how and why. Because if that’s the case, then it fits a familiar pattern, those in power bending over backwards to protect a wealthy serial sex criminal and his elite circle of powerful conspirators and that can tell us something much bigger about how justice works or more accurately doesn’t work in America because despite the truly shocking magnitude of his crimes, what if Epstein isn’t that much of an outlier? What if he’s just the most potent example of something deeply sinister, yet totally normal about how billionaires are allowed to behave in America? Let’s find out in this video, are billionaires above the law.

The biggest question that invariably comes up about Jeffrey Epstein is this, how was he able to abuse over 1000 victims by the Justice Department’s own estimations over the course of several decades? The short obvious answer is he was rich, is Harrowingly documented in Virginia GRE’s new posthumous memoir Nobody’s girl Epstein’s. Immense fortune and extensive network of prominent allies were key to his ability to prey on young underage girls like her when she met Epstein’s criminal collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell as a teenage employee at the Mar-a-Lago Spa, grie Harbor dreams of becoming a professional masseuse. Maxwell immediately promised that if the young girl impressed her friend, he would pay for her entire masseuse training. No small boon for someone likely earning minimum wage. GRE describes how intimidating it was even being inside a mansion as opulent as Epstein’s and how desperate she was to conceal her working class background.

The first time she visited as her first interview with Epstein went from unprofessional to invasive to an all out assault. Gire blamed her own lack of experience for her discomfort, she blamed herself. From there, Epstein convinced Gure to quit her job and offered her $2,500 to pay for her apartment. This generosity was darker than it even sounds. At first. Epstein also showed her a grainy photo of her brother and said, we know where your brother goes to school. You must never tell soul what goes on in this house. He added that he owned the Palm Beach police force implying he could hurt her family with impunity. Gure continued acquiescing to his increasingly horrific demands, culminating in being regularly, often violently sex trafficked to world leaders. She feared she would die a sex slave. In her book Gure notes that this was a pattern of Epstein’s identifying young women who had dreams bigger than their pocketbooks and promising to fulfill them either through paying for their schooling or introducing them to important people in their chosen field.

Epstein’s network of famous and powerful people was mutually enforced by his immense wealth, and the nexus of the two enabled his criminal enterprise. Epstein apparently built his fortune offering tax advice to the likes of Leslie h Wexner. His resulting wealth made him one of JP Morgan’s most valuable clients. He was also the kind of guy who quote drops 50 names in an hour long conversation. According to one JP Morgan exec, this was seen as an asset. Epstein proved himself even more valuable when he started introducing the bank to influential potential clients including Microsoft, bill Gates and Google Founder Sergei Bryn. This meant the bank didn’t bat an eye when he withdrew more than $1.7 million in cash in 2004 and 2005, most of which he spent procuring women and girls. Despite such an amount being far more than enough to warrant filing suspicious activity reports with the US Department of the Treasury.

Over the years, JP Morgan opened 134 accounts for Epstein, supporting everything from companies that handled his private islands where many of his sex crimes took place to providing financial backing for French modeling scout and fellow sex criminal Jean-Luc Purnell’s modeling agency. Epstein regularly used his wealth to ingratiate himself to his ever-growing network. One spreadsheet from his accountant sent in a 2007 email details, $1.8 million in gifts and payments between 2003 and 2006 alone, including a $35,000 watch to a senior aide to former President Clinton and a $71,000 Lexus. To his lawyer, Alan Dershowitz. His planes flew everyone from Prince Andrew to Bill Clinton to model Naomi Campbell. Less discussed than his affiliations with world leaders though is how Epstein painted himself as a philanthropist. Though he did not attend the school, he established the image of himself as a Harvard man and donated $9.1 million to the university between 1998 and 2008.

According to its own reports, Gure describes Epstein’s determination to mingle with high-minded men of science, including hosting a 2006 conference at his private compound that was attended by astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and along with 20 other physicists at the event. Epstein was reportedly always seen with three to four young women in tow. Though much is made of Epstein’s political connections, GRE underscores how his reputation amongst intellectual luminaries was just as crucial to his ability to operate with impunity and some respectability. She writes, don’t be fooled by those in Epstein Circle who say they didn’t know what he was doing. Epstein not only didn’t hide what was happening, he took a certain glee in making people watch because he could and people did watch scientists fundraisers from the Ivy League and other Herald institutions, titans of industry, they watched and they didn’t care, but not even Epstein could keep this act up without some chips beginning to fall back in March of 2005, a woman alerted authorities that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been sexually assaulted by a wealthy man in West Palm Beach At the time the world would later learn Epstein had been systematically preying on girls as young as 11 for years.

The peculiar fallout of these accusations was recounted in a Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald report by Julie K. Brown published in 2019. The first thing Epstein apparently did offer the girl a cash payment if she would only shut up. She’s apparently told that those who help Epstein will be compensated and those who hurt him will be dealt with. This was just the beginning of his intimidation campaign that included hiring a team of private investigators to follow his accusers, their current and former boyfriends and even their parents, including running one father off the road. Another father said one investigator was photographing his family and chasing visitors who came to the house. The investigators often called the girls immediately before or after they were questioned by authorities about their accusations. Gure recalls being so frightened that when she received a call from the FBI, she assumed it was a ruse from the Epstein camp and hung up.

Later she recalled I was still scared to death. I just didn’t want my family harmed. She recalls outside her family home, a mysterious car approached slowly then stopped and stayed put in the front seat idling with the high beams trained on our see-through front door. If intimidation wasn’t enough to shut the whole thing down, Epstein had other roots. By the end of 2005, Epstein had also assembled a veritable football team’s worth of the country’s most powerful lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, Roy Black and Kenneth Starr. Spencer Coven, an attorney four three accusers recalls. He had this team of maybe six to eight lawyers all pressuring not only the state’s attorney but the feds to drop all this saying that they were going to make these girls’ lives miserable. Meanwhile, his lawyers conducted an aggressive investigation into his victims whom they painted as gold diggers using their MySpace pages to argue that the girls were liars or partier whose testimony couldn’t be trusted due to drug use.

Being able to spend lots of money does more than buy you a team of strong arming lawyers. In her new posthumous memoir, Epstein survivor Victoria GRE recalls receiving a call from Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2007 who said Grie would be taken care of if she didn’t cooperate with investigators and even explicitly offered to pay for GRE’s own legal representation. Now, this is a common tactic that the uber wealthy employee by paying legal fees for potentially problematic witnesses, someone like Epstein can all but ensure that they won’t flip, and this is perfectly legal in the us despite the obvious conflict of interest it creates. Epstein had also used his vast wealth to recruit prominent attorney Jack Goldberger, whose law partner just happened to be married to Delilah Weiss, then the toughest child sex crime prosecutor in Florida. Weiss was forced to recuse herself due to this super convenient conflict of interest in another stroke of definitely random luck.

Yet another lawyer on Epstein’s team, Jay Lefkowitz was a friend and former colleague of Alexander Acosta Florida’s attorney General, basically their chief legal officer. In October of 2007, the two old pals met for breakfast at a West Palm Beach Marriott, 70 miles away from Acosta’s office. There they hashed out the broad strokes of what the Miami Herald calls Epstein’s deal of a lifetime. This was a non-prosecution agreement that effectively halted the FBI’s sprawling investigation into dozens of Epstein’s victims. We’d later learned that the agreement was essentially written by the defense team in it. Epstein pled guilty to two counts of soliciting prostitution from a minor said minor was 14 years old. You didn’t actually hear that wrong. The state actually labeled a 14-year-old child a prostitute. At the time, local police had heard the same sickening story about Epstein’s abuse from about 50 some young women.

The Herald would eventually find 80 women abused by him from 2001 to 2006 alone. This wasn’t the only shocking concession Acosta made. He also promised to keep the deal a secret from the dozens of victims who had already come forward. This denied them the chance to contest the agreement in court. They only learned that their abuser had been all but absolved after the judge had approved the deal. This is in blatant violation of the Victim Rights Act. One victim’s attorney actually had shown up at court the day the sweetheart deal was certified prepared to serve the billionaire with papers for a civil suit. He was flabbergasted to learn in real time that his client’s criminal case was essentially being thrown out that very same day. Many of his other victims learned about the Epstein’s deal from media reports, but they had been so misled that they assumed it was separate from the ongoing FBI investigation.

They had been aiding and had been aiding at great personal cost that despite the fact that the agreement that Epstein signed effectively put an end to all federal efforts to investigate his crimes. Most cruelly labeling Epstein’s crime as prostitution related effectively implied that the other victims who had come forward were also sex workers rather than simply vulnerable children. Despite all of this Epstein’s disgraceful deal was swiftly put into action. Epstein registered as a sex offender, paid restitution to three dozen victims and served 13 months in the nicest private wing of the county jail, usually reserved for government informants rather than a state prison like any other child sex offender. And this is particularly wild because Florida has some of the country’s toughest sex crime punishments consider a case from earlier this year, an Ohio man whose sole crime was soliciting sexual images from a 14-year-old South Florida girl was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

On top of all this, while Epstein was serving his blink and you’ll miss it jail time, he was granted generous work release privileges and thus spent six days a week working in a nearby fancy office building. That’s even though sex offenders explicitly do not qualify for work release under local law. Epstein paid officers from the Sheriff’s Department undisclosed amounts to act as his personal security guards, and he was allowed to receive male and female guests without screening. This arrangement seems to have further enabled Epstein’s cycle of abuse with two additional victims’ claiming they were coerced into performing sexes in his office during his work release, all while his security staff waited outside after he was released on probation, Epstein was permitted to travel by private jet traipsing from Florida to New York to his private island in the Caribbean where he is known to have regularly abused minors.

Gure says he once joked that girls who didn’t speak English were the easiest to get along with. Importantly, as part of the deal, Epstein and four of his accomplices also received immunity from all federal criminal charges, and so did any potential co-conspirators. A very unusual stipulation, which has understandably done plenty to stoke conspiracies. Most evidence in the case was promptly sealed and redacted. So how on earth did a man credibly accused of assaulting dozens of children get a slap on the wrist? One internal email shows a prosecutor worried that the officer was simply intimidated by Epstein’s lawyers. An attorney for three of the victims agreed saying prosecutors weren’t up for the fight they were afraid. This speaks to the way prosecutors are allowed to exercise enormous discretion when it comes to seeking and setting punishments. Years of research shows how subconscious bias inevitably plays a role in their choices with factors like class and race influencing the outcome, but sometimes their choices aren’t subconscious at all.

Consider a stockbroker, Deborah Kelly, who pled guilty in 2017 for bribing a New York official with a hundred thousand dollars worth of gifts including sex, drugs, trips and concert tickets facing up to five years in prison. Kelly was instead sentenced to home confinement and probation. Why? The judge said she seemed like a good person. As legal scholar Jennifer Taub notes such empathy rarely extends to the burglar or small time drug dealer. The lack of similar concern for poor offenders is astonishing. In Epstein’s case, the leniency provided was less about empathy than pure cowardice in the face of his legal muscle, but the facts remain. If Epstein wasn’t wealthy and white, he would’ve been treated very differently. Of course, just when you think you understand Epstein’s case, there’s always a unique coda. The Harold speculates that Epstein’s plea may have been related to you guessed it, his enormous wealth and network.

Specifically his role as one of Bear Stearns largest investors. He ended up being a crucial witness in the case against the investment bank Bear Stearns for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. The timing on this adds up as Epstein had signed the plea deal just as America was plummeting into a recession. If true, the prosecutors inked the ultimate deal with the devil. All of this makes Epstein really just the most striking example of a truism being rich can offer near total immunity from the justice system. This reality is ingrained in every phase of the justice system. Poor people are more likely to be arrested than wealthy people for the same crime. There are also more likely to be charged for those crimes, more likely to be convicted, more likely to get prison time, and more likely to get longer prison terms than their wealthier counterparts.

We even see it in the treatment of others in Epstein’s orbit. For example, Epstein served less time for his crimes than his former butler. Alfredo Rodriguez served for obstruction of justice charges in the case against Epstein Rodriguez’s crime not giving prosecutors his former boss’s little black book, which supposedly listed his crimes and his associates. He later attempted to sell it to a lawyer for one of Epstein’s victims for $50,000. Shady behavior, of course, as bad as serially trafficking Underage girls, not hardly yet. Rodriguez received an 18 month sentence just like his boss. Unlike his boss, he actually served full sentence or here’s another comparison. One of Epstein’s underage victims who fell into addiction as a means of coping after years of abuse served twice as long in prison as Epstein for drug crimes. And around the same time as Epstein’s case in Tennessee, Santoya Brown ate child survivor of sex trafficking was condemned to life in prison for killing the man she was being trafficked to.

And of course, as I mentioned earlier, a man was sentenced to 30 years for soliciting images from a 14-year-old. On the face of it, Epstein’s cushy treatment looks revolting, but when you compare it to the way our carceral system treated these other people, none of whom can hold a candle to Epstein’s criminality, it really puts into perspective that the rich and powerful live in a different justice system than the rest of us. And so Epstein was allowed to continue to commit his crimes and brought daylight for many more years. While testifying in front of the House oversight Committee, Acosta remarkably stood by his actions in the Jeffrey Epstein case. He said that a billionaire going to jail sends a strong signal to the community that this is not right, that this cannot happen. His registering as a sex offender puts the world on notice. Well, despite the world supposedly being put on notice, Epstein would go on not only to rebuild, but expand his power and influence because his network and friends, they weren’t going anywhere.

He had spent years cultivating a network of wealthy and influential friends. One spreadsheet from 2008 itemized 2000 gifts, luxury items and cash payments, nearly tolling, $2 million. Powerful British politician, Peter Mandelson, who later became the UK ambassador to the us, even urged his Powell Epstein to push for an early release and wrote, I think the world of You and I feel hopeless and furious about what happened months after Epstein’s release, Mandelson helped him cinch a $1 billion banking deal with JP Morgan. Soon Epstein was hobnobbing around New York and comparing his criminal behavior to stealing a bagel because another important aspect of being a wealthy criminal, you can control the narrative. While his lawyers worked hard to clamp down on media coverage of Epstein’s arrest at the time it happened, it was after emerging from prison that the PR campaign to rehabilitate his image began in earnest. He launched websites like Jeffrey Epstein science.com and Jeffrey Epstein education.com and posted photos of himself with Stephen Hawking.

He and his staff paid a number of journalists to call him things like one of the largest backers of cutting edge science while upping his donations to Harvard, which put up a page on their website honoring his philanthropy and sponsored other prestigious science conferences. Famed event planner, Peggy Siegel threw him a party attended by everyone from Katie Cork to George Stephanopoulos. He attended huge movie careers. His contacts continued to span the ranks of the wealthy, influential folks. He scheduled a dinner in 2013 with former Prime Minister of Israel, a Hood Barack and Larry Summers, former treasury secretary and Harvard University president Tech billionaire. Elon Musk was scheduled to visit Epstein’s Island in 2014 while Peter Thiel met with him in 2017 and Steve Bannon had meetings with him in 2019. Now, Epstein’s reputation management also included intimidation when necessary sex, and the city writer, Candace Bushnell tried to interview Epstein about the sexual predator rumors, but was thrown out of his townhouse and threatened until she dropped the story.

As Palm Beach Police Chief Michael re notes journalists start working on the Epstein story only to end up being transferred to the papers real estate department. Virginia Gire gave an interview to a BC, but shortly before its air date, Dershowitz called the network and urged them not to air it. The journalist behind the interview was caught on hot mics, speculating that the role family had also put pressure on A, B, C, not to air the special, which would implicate Prince Andrew in sex crimes so as not to generate negative publicity before William and Kate’s royal wedding. At any rate, the story was killed. As Epstein’s crimes continued, he kept his legal enemies close. The Miami US attorney’s office, chief Criminal Prosecutor, Matthew Mitchell, the man who signed that sweetheart deal, apparently went with Epstein on a ski trip at some point in the two thousands, had meetings and dinners with him in 2011, 2013 and 2017 and after the bombshell Miami Herald story broke about his crimes, Epstein apparently wired $350,000 to two co-conspirators in exchange for their silence.

We all know what eventually happened to Jeffrey Epstein, though the more conspiratorial we’ll continue to debate how he died. It’s fitting that our corrosive system of justice, which sees wealthy criminals as careless millionaires and poor criminals as subhuman never actually forced him to publicly reckon with the enormous extent of his crimes. Though getting true justice for Epstein’s victims is now impossible. Some of the folks who enabled him along the way are facing consequences. More than 40 women sued Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan for facilitating their abuse, settling for 75,000,200 90 million respectively. JP Morgan settled an additional lawsuit accusing a former executive of personal involvement with Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. Now the Bank of New York Mellon is being sued for processing a total of $378 million in payments to the women. Epstein Trafficked Bank of America is also being sued for its alleged complacency in helping Epstein financially manage his criminal network. Jeffrey Epstein is a flashpoint in this cultural moment because his crimes are so galling. But digging into the real weeds of how he got away with so much criminality for such a prolonged period of time really clarifies a lot about the US justice system after Epstein’s absurdly short sentence. Peggy Siegel told the New York Times that he said he served his time and he assured me that he changed his ways and now there’s the director of the FBI Cash Patel. Why don’t we hear him in his own words?

Speaker 2:

Who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic? These young women too, besides himself

Kash Patel:

Himself, there is no credible information. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals and the information we have again is limited.

Speaker 2:

So the answer is no one

Kash Patel:

For the information that we have

Speaker 2:

In the files

Kash Patel:

In the case file. Okay,

Taya Graham:

No other names. That’s what FBI, director Cash Patel told Congress. But if that’s true, then why do so many people tied to Jeffrey Epstein keep turning up dead Epstein’s modeling recruiter and alleged sex criminal. Jean-Luc Brunell was found hanged in a Paris jail cell while awaiting trial. Movie producer Steve Bing fell from his 27th floor LA apartment just weeks after talking with investigators. Clinton advisor, mark Milton was found hanged and shot in Arkansas, and that was officially ruled a suicide. And Deutsche Bank executive Thomas Bowers, who oversaw Epstein’s accounts was also found hanged in his home and it didn’t stop there. Two other outspoken accusers, Carolyn Adriano and another alleged suicide and Lee Sky, Patrick, an alleged accidental overdose. They also died under questionable circumstances. Even Epstein’s last cellmate, Afra Stone. Reyes conveniently died of COVID just weeks after meeting with federal investigators. And now of course, the death of Virginia Giuffre, his most outspoken accuser speaking out even now through her book, her death was also determined to be a suicide, and this is just a few of the nearly 22 suspicious deaths listed by reporters of the enquire.

But if the public record looks like this and the FBI insists, there’s nothing to see. Ask yourself what are they really protecting and why? And considering that Mark Epstein, his brother, believes he was murdered, maybe the question should be, who else are they protecting? On the face of it, Epstein’s cushy treatment looks revolting, but maybe exceptional. But when you compare to the way our carceral system treated those other people, none of whom can hold a candle to Epstein’s criminality, it really puts into perspective that the rich and powerful live in a different system of justice than the rest of us. There’s just one last way that wealthy people are treated differently by the justice system. People without Jeffrey Epstein’s absurdly fat bank account are likely to face homelessness difficulties with employment, mental health issues, and more struggles after being in prison. And I’m not usually one to scream for more incarceration, but this sweetheart deal of the century actually makes me feel ill because it effectively facilitated Epstein’s future abuse of so many more children and his co-conspirators and wealthy fellow predators to evade justice. If you want to commit hideous crimes in America, it seems your best bet is to be hideously wealthy and hideously well connected. We have more billionaires like Epstein in this new Gilded age. Are they going to help the rest of us have nots? Maybe take the reins of government, make it more efficient, beneficial for all Americans as they assert, or will they pillage and rape like robber barons in the oligarchs of old? If Epstein is any indication, it’s the latter.