Epstein Justice Director Nick Bryant, a courageous investigative reporter, child abuse expert, shares his analysis of Epstein Files revelations on the most recent edition of the District Insiders podcast.

 

District Insider hosts Andrew Kreig and Wayne Madsen, reporters long based in Washington, DC who have also covered aspects of the Epstein scandals and their huge implications, explore with Bryant, right, what the public most needs to understand about the victims’ fight for justice and the larger implications for both Americans and others impacted globally.

“This isn't about tabloid eyebrow-raisers or scandals,” Bryant, right, and his team are saying. “This is about seeking justice for real women — alive today — who were brutally victimized by corrupt people in power. Three million documents. Daily testimonies on Capitol Hill. Constant statements from politicians, proposed bills, interviews. The information is relentless and everywhere.”

 

Nick Bryant helps make sense of it all by connecting the dots between the document dumps, the latest developments, and the prosecutable cases that could actually bring corrupt, powerful individuals to justice.

Click and watch the Nick Bryant interview on District Insiders via one of the top-rated podcast sites below:.

 Apple Podcast, Podbean, Spotify and YouTube

  

Click here to join Join the Epstein Justice monthly webinar on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. EST

The webinar will feature Epstein survivors discussing how the FBI and Justice Department coverup has exacerbated their odysseys for justice and accountability, and the toll it's taken on them. They will also share their experience, strength and hope. So, please click on the link and join us!

About Nick Bryant and Epstein Justice:

Nick Bryant, right, Director of Epstein Justice (https://epsteinjustice.com/) is an activist and writer. His writing has recurrently focused on the plight of disadvantaged children in the United States. He's been published in numerous national journals, including the Journal of Professional Ethics, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, and Journal of School Health. He co-authored America’s Children: Triumph or Tragedy, addressing the medical and developmental problems of lower socioeconomic children in America.

He published Epstein's "Black Book" on the internet in 2015. The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and New York magazine have reported on his investigation into the Epstein child trafficking network.

Bryant has contributed a chapter on child trafficking to Global Perspectives on Dissociative Disorders: Individual and Societal Oppression, a book addressing various facets of dissociative disorders that features chapters from an international panel of psychiatrists and psychologists. He has also spoken about child trafficking at several conferences, including the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation’s international convention and the 2020, 2021, and 2023 Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Global Summits that are sponsored by National Center on Sexual Exploitation. He received the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation's 2022 Therese O. Clemens Advocacy Award.

 

 

“District Insiders” features experts on timely topics affecting “districts” globally that are in the news

Hosts

Wayne Madsen is a journalist, newspaper columnist, and author of more than 25books on intelligence matters, historical events, and the dangers of neo-fascism in threatening democracy in the United States and abroad. author and syndicated columnist based for many years in Washington, DC. A former U.S. Navy officer and NSA analyst, Madsen is also the third generation of Madsens who have opposed fascism in its varied forms. For more than two decades, he has published The WayneMadsenReport.com, an investigative news website now on Substack. His most recent books include “A Parade of New Sovereignties: A Post-Hegemonic World,” an encyclopedia-style, 380-page description of nearly 350 locales, and “Anti-Fascism: American As Apple Pie.”.

Andrew Kreig is non-profit executive, reporter and attorney who edits and otherwise directs the Washington, DC-based Justice Integrity Project (Justice-Integrity.org) and comments on the news via broadcasts, books and lectures. His most recent book Is The Complete Annotated Durham ‘Russiagate’ Report: A Corrupt, Cruel Fraud, which documents Russian interference in U.S. elections and efforts of denial or diversion by politically motivated Justice Department prosecutors.

 

Major Recent Epstein-Related Stories

 

A group of Jeffrey Epstein sex assault and trafficking survivors raise their hands to signal they’ve been ignored by Trump’s DOJ as Attorney General Pam Bondi, shown at right front wearing a gold crucifix as a neck ornament and backed by youthful Justice Department personnel seated to hear rear, refuses to look at the victims during a hearing before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 11, 2026. (Photo by Roberto Schmidt for AFP via Getty Images and Bluesky).

Visit the #MeToo/Trafficking link on the Justice Integrity Project site for near-daily updates of relevant news beyond the samples below: https://www.justice-integrity.org/metoo-news-all/metoo-news-posts

March 24

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From left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife) Melania Knauss, a former nude model and beauty contestant awarded U.S. citizenship on a special "genius" immigration grant, along with financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite and convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios via Getty Images).F

Lincoln Square Media, Commentary: No Escape for Trump, Rick Wilson, right, March. 24, 2026. Misery, humiliation, and shame await.

There’s a moment in every failed strongman’s story when the noise fades, the flunkies fall silent and slip from the throne room one final time before the shooting starts. There’s a moment where the court jesters stop laughing at the Dear Leader’s every joke, and when reality comes crashing through the gilded walls like a breaching charge. There’s a moment when the loyal bodyguard’s eyes flicker with some new signal, and the dictator wonders if the tools of oppression and brutality will be turned on him.

For Donald Trump, that moment isn’t coming someday.

It’s here.

Nothing will save you now, Donald.

Not the war. Not the lies. Not today’s loyalists, tomorrow’s traitors. Not the terrified little men orbiting your shrinking political sun. Not the algorithms, not the oligarchs, not the endless stream of garbage Fox and Twitter propaganda pumped into the veins of a movement that’s finally, visibly, unmistakably breaking apart.

 

You chose this.

You chose a foolish, off-the-rails war, launched in folly and haste, sold with the usual cocktail of bravado and bullshit, and already curdling into the kind of slow, grinding catastrophe that has buried presidencies before yours. You wrapped yourself in the flag, barked about strength, and promised an easy victory.

What you delivered instead was chaos.

The markets know it. The military knows it. Our former allies know you’ve handed the world to China with your ignorance and impulsivity. The American people, even the ones who once cheered your every move, can feel it in their bones.

And they’re feeling it at the pump and the grocery store. You’ve put a gun to the head of an economy you had already wounded with tariffs and delivered the coup de grace.

Gas prices are spiking, not in some abstract economist’s chart, but in the lived reality of millions of Americans who now wince every time they swipe their card. Every extra dollar per gallon is a reminder that your “easy war” isn’t easy, isn’t contained, and sure as hell isn’t cheap.

You can spin a lot of things in modern America. You can tell MAGA cultists we’ve always been at war with the planet Saturn, and they’ll spin up a billion memes about it just to own the libs, but you can’t spin the price on the sign at the gas station.

That number is your approval rating now.

And speaking of approval, let’s talk about the numbers that are keeping your political team up at night, staring into the void, whispering to each other that maybe, just maybe, the magic is gone. Chris and Tony know. They’re getting roasted by elected Republicans behind closed doors.

Your allies outside of deep-red districts are flailing, failing, and getting ready to spend more time on LinkedIn than on the floor of Congress.

Your poll numbers aren’t just slipping. They’re collapsing. The topline is bad; the demos with younger voters and independents are as radioactive as Chernobyl’s basement.

The coalition that once carried you, that strange and volatile alliance of grievance, nostalgia, and performative rage, is cracking under the strain of reality, economics, war, and your personal cover-up for yourself and your dear friend Jeffrey Epstein.

Wars have a way of doing that. So do empty wallets. So does the creeping realization that the showman has run out of tricks.

And then there’s Epstein.

You thought the war would bury it. You thought the noise, the spectacle, the sheer overwhelming force of headlines and explosions would push it off the front page, out of the conversation, into the memory hole where so many of your scandals have gone to die.

You were wrong.

Dead wrong.

Oh, you won a few days’ respite, but the Epstein story didn’t disappear. It metastasized. It seeped into the cracks of your narrative, into the corners of your coalition, into the minds of voters who may not follow every twist and turn but understand one simple, devastating truth:

Something is being hidden. What’s being hidden is a tale of your degeneracy, and his. Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche better get that pardon soon, because otherwise, they’re both going to prison.

The cover-up didn’t work. It failed. Spectacularly.

And now it’s fused, in the public imagination, with everything else people already suspect about you: the lavish, ugly corruption, the lies, the endless sense that there’s always another layer, another secret, more rotting, moldy wallboard beneath the gold leaf.

You can’t bomb that away, Donald.

And here’s the part that should truly terrify you: the people who are about to hold the gavel.

Even the hapless, often self-sabotaging Democrats are now staring at a political landscape that looks, to their astonishment, like opportunity. The House is in reach. The Senate is within reach. Not because they suddenly became political geniuses, but because you and your allies have spent months lighting their (and your own) credibility on fire.

You’re afraid of impeachment. Of course you are. It’s the word that haunts you, the specter you can’t quite outrun.

But impeachment is the least of your problems.

What you should fear, what should keep you pacing the halls of the Residence at three in the morning, is oversight.

Relentless, grinding, methodical exposure.

A Democratic House and Senate won’t just vote on articles of impeachment. They’ll open the books. They’ll drag the secrets into the light. They’ll subpoena documents, bank records, and communications. They’ll put your allies, your bagmen, your enablers, and yes, your crapulous, scumbag low-tier crypto criminal family members, on the hot seat.

Over and over and over again.

Televised. Streamed. Clipped. Shared.

Day after day, week after week, the American people will watch as the mythology of Donald Trump, the bullshit titan, the pretend mastermind, the untouchable force of ETTD, gets peeled back to reveal something far smaller, far weaker, and far more compromised than you ever let them see.

And it won’t just be you.

The tech-bro billionaire class that decided, in a fit of adolescent contrarianism and naked self-interest, to hitch their wagons to your movement? They’re next in line. Let’s see how Boy Elon does under the hot lights for 8 hours a day for two weeks.

They’ve been very comfortable lavishing you with swag and praise, funding, amplifying, and cheering on the chaos, convinced that they were too rich, too smart, too insulated to ever face real consequences.

Congressional oversight is about to disabuse them of that notion.

Subpoenas don’t care about your net worth. Hearings don’t care about your follower count. Under oath is a very different environment than a podcast or a tweet.

They’re about to find out.

And as all of this unfolds, as the war grinds on, as the prices climb, as the investigations widen and deepen, something else is happening, something quieter, but far more consequential.

Boomer MAGA is dying, mutating into a worse form, not in a single dramatic collapse, not in one decisive moment, but in the slow, inevitable erosion that comes when a movement built on spectacle and grievance runs headlong into reality. The younger generation of MAGA is more overtly, well…Nazi, and that, even in this fallen era, is a hard sell to American normies.

The energy fades. The crowds thin. We both know why you don’t do rallies; it’s hard to even fill the seats behind the stage, much less in front of it. The slogans lose their punch. The contradictions become impossible to ignore. The physical and mental maladies are more evident.

If you want to understand what kind of people would inflict a fresh round of suffering on the lives and souls of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their wealthy friends, look no further than Washington, where Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, Kash Patel, and the Department of Justice just abused Epstein’s victims to protect Donald Trump and his friends from accountability.

The specific kind of pain Jeffrey Epstein’s victims carry, a long, chronic pain that doesn’t fade, doesn’t “move on,” doesn’t get politely folded into a news cycle, was made more acute this Friday, the government pretended to give them transparency and distributed an incomplete tranche of documents and photos redacted to protect Donald Trump and his allies.

This week, the Trump Justice Department did what this administration does best: it performed concern for victims while practicing control over the narrative. They complied with the concept of accountability and the aesthetics of disclosure, then used wildly overbroad redactions, selective releases, and procedural gamesmanship to make sure the public learned as little as possible about the things that actually matter.

 

Vicky Ward from Vicky Ward Investigates, Inside Epstein's Non-Sexual Seduction Techniques, Vicky Ward, March. 24, 2026. Join Me At 5pm ET Tomorrow (Wednesday) with 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.

March 23

 

New York Times, How Epstein Helped Solve a Billionaire’s Problems With Women, Matthew Goldstein, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Steve Eder and David Enrich, March 23, 2026. The Wall Street titan Leon Black, above left, paid Jeffrey Epstein, above right, $170 million for what he said was tax and estate work. But his services went beyond that.

In October 2017, a yoga instructor emailed Jeffrey Epstein with a delicate question: When might she receive the tens of thousands of dollars she’d been promised by the billionaire Leon Black?

She and Mr. Black had been in a sexual relationship, and since at least 2009, hundreds of thousands of dollars had flowed to her from Mr. Black’s bank accounts. But in 2017, the setup changed. Now Mr. Epstein would wire the money — in this case, $100,000.

“He said that now he does it through you,” the woman wrote to Mr. Epstein in an email that the Justice Department released this year. Mr. Epstein wrote back, confirming the arrangement.

In the later years of Mr. Epstein’s life, after he was incarcerated and registered as a sex offender, no one did more to bankroll his opulent lifestyle than Mr. Black, 74, a towering figure on Wall Street and a fixture of the global art scene.

Mr. Black paid Mr. Epstein $170 million over six years for what Mr. Black has said were tax and estate-planning services. The sum dwarfed what elite law or accounting firms would have charged for similar work, baffling both his Wall Street peers and investigators on Capitol Hill.

The millions of pages of Epstein-related emails and other documents that the Justice Department released this year offer a potential explanation for the size of the payments: Mr. Epstein essentially served as a fixer whose services went beyond modernizing Mr. Black’s finances or reducing his taxes, according to a New York Times review of those records.

Mr. Epstein suggested ways to obscure millions of dollars that Mr. Black paid to women, as well as to Mr. Epstein himself. He brainstormed about how to avoid taxes on some of the payments. He took credit for defusing a government audit of a woman to whom Mr. Black had paid millions of dollars. He planned ways to surveil, intimidate and silence another woman who was threatening to publicly accuse Mr. Black of abuse. He even counseled Mr. Black to separate from his wife after she learned of his infidelity.

Mr. Black paid about $20 million to a dozen women, at least some of whom he’d had sexual relationships with, according to the recently released files and notes taken by congressional investigators and shared with The Times. Mr. Epstein was involved in figuring out ways to dispense a significant portion of that money.

Mr. Epstein summed it up to Mr. Black in a 2017 email: Mr. Epstein’s job, as he saw it, was partly about “saving you from yourself.”

In a statement, Mr. Black’s lawyers, Courtney Forrest and Susan Estrich, said the Justice Department documents “make clear that Mr. Epstein embellished, exaggerated and lied about Mr. Black.” They said Mr. Black was not aware of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking or that he paid any women on Mr. Black’s behalf.

The recently released documents, which include some of Mr. Black’s financial records, have intensified congressional scrutiny of his relationship with Mr. Epstein and whether it crossed ethical or legal boundaries.

The House Oversight Committee recently asked Mr. Black to sit for an interview. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has been investigating Mr. Black’s financial ties to Mr. Epstein for years, accused him in a letter last week of seemingly using Mr. Epstein to hide payments to women. He also questioned whether Mr. Black had complied with tax laws.

In an interview, Mr. Wyden said that he had never believed that Mr. Black paid Mr. Epstein $170 million solely for estate and tax advice. “I think this all comes down to hush money,” he said, as well as Mr. Epstein doing “the kinds of things that would keep Black ahead of the law.”

Ms. Estrich said that Mr. Wyden’s claims were “outrageous and false” and were meant to serve “his own selfish political interests.” She accused him of leaking Mr. Black’s confidential financial information and of trying to distract from the fact that Mr. Wyden’s son, a hedge fund manager, sought an investment from Mr. Epstein in 2016.

Mr. Wyden said his son’s presence in the Epstein documents would not change the course of his investigation.

March 22

Epstein Files, Trump Coverup

Lincoln Square, Commentary; The Day the Music Died in MAGA World, Kristoffer Ealy, right, March 22, 2026. Donald Trump has done almost everything imaginable to get Americans to stop talking about the Epstein files.

He has thrown chaos at the country like a man emptying every drawer in the house because he cannot find the one receipt that matters. He escalated attacks on critics. He cheered punitive action against late-night enemies. He watched Don Lemon get dragged into a federal prosecution tied to anti-ICE protest coverage. He sent troops into American cities. He lurched into a widening war with Iran. He has tried almost everything short of faking his own death and reappearing as someone who never met Jeffrey Epstein. Yet the files are still there, hanging over him like a chandelier made of guilt and bad decisions that nobody will let him redecorate around.

That alone tells you something important.

Other stories come and go. They are born with a chyron, peak with a panel segment, and die somewhere between a podcast clip and the next algorithmic panic attack. Journalism students learn early that one of the central elements of newsworthiness is timeliness. Stories are supposed to age out. They get replaced by fresher outrage, newer horror, shinier scandal. That is how the modern news cycle works. It is an industrial shredder for public attention. But the Epstein files have refused to obey the normal rules of political gravity. They became front-page news, stayed front-page news, and then did something even more dangerous for Trump: they became permanent background noise. They are no longer just a story. They are the ringing in the administration’s ears that no amount of noise elsewhere can drown out.

That is why every attempted distraction now lands with the same response. Trump picks a fight with another media enemy. That’s nice. What about the Epstein files? ICE agents kill civilians in the middle of a crackdown. Horrible. What about the Epstein files? Trump ratchets up martial posturing in American cities and dares critics to stop him. Noted. What about the Epstein files? The administration barrels deeper into war with Iran. People rightly panic over that, protest that, analyze that. And then they keep asking what is in those files and why the government still cannot seem to tell a straight story about them. Reuters reported in February that Americans overwhelmingly believe the files show wealthy and powerful people rarely face real accountability. Which is another way of saying the public understood the moral of this story perfectly well and did not need the ending explained to them.

Some scholars might call what happened next the Streisand Effect. There is truth in that. Trump tried to smother public fascination and instead poured gasoline on it. But what happened on July 15, 2025 goes much deeper than a textbook example of suppression backfiring. July 15, 2025 may not have been the day MAGA died.

But it was the day the music died.

It was the day one of the movement’s most emotionally loaded myths cracked in public, on camera, in Trump’s own words.

That day, Trump did something that would have been hard to improve upon if his goal had been to humiliate his own most conspiracy-minded supporters. Asked about the Epstein story, he called it “sordid but boring” and said, “I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going.” Reuters and other contemporaneous reports place those remarks on July 15, 2025. That date matters because it was the moment Trump stopped speaking to his followers as co-believers and started speaking to them like they were gullible little weirdos who should stop bothering him.

He could have said almost anything else and bought himself time. He could have said, “We’re looking into it.” He could have said, “The American people deserve transparency.” He could have said, “We’ll release whatever is credible.” He could have lied with craftsmanship. He could have done what politicians do every single day of the week and wrapped a non-answer inside a patriotic casserole. Instead he shrugged. He rolled his eyes. He treated one of MAGA’s sacred obsessions like a spam email he was tired of flagging. That was the mistake. And it was not a small one.

Because the Epstein files were never just another scandal inside MAGA world. They were a promise. More than that, they were a kind of secular scripture for a movement that had spent years marinating in Pizzagate-adjacent fantasies about a hidden elite of depraved Democrats, celebrities, financiers, fixers, and media ghouls. Trump was supposed to be the avenging hero who kicked the door open, turned on the fluorescent lights, and let the monsters scatter. He and the ecosystem around him helped build that expectation for years. The podcast bros fed it. The influencer class fed it. Republican politicians winked at it. Every half-literate fascist with a webcam and a supplement code fed it. For a significant portion of his base, exposing the Epstein network was not a side issue. It was the holy grail. It was the whole point.

That is why the right language here is not just political backlash. It is psychological rupture.

The first term is motivated reasoning. MAGA did not arrive at the Epstein files through a calm, neutral weighing of evidence. People wanted to believe Trump would expose the powerful and humiliate their enemies, so they interpreted everything through that desire. The second term is identity-protective cognition. The belief that Trump would reveal elite corruption was not merely an opinion; it became part of the group’s identity, part of what made them righteous in their own minds. The third term is cognitive dissonance. That is the mental discomfort people experience when two cherished beliefs collide. Trump is the man who will expose the truth. Trump is treating this like “pretty boring stuff.” Those two beliefs cannot sit comfortably in the same room. One has to move, and when it does, the whole house starts creaking.

That creaking is the story.

People tell me all the time that Trump still has plenty of loyal followers. Fair enough. He does. Loyalty, though, is not the story. The fractures are. It does not matter how many eventually crawl back into line if, for one long ugly stretch, they were scattered, defensive, and arguing with themselves in public. Once a movement built on certainty starts sounding confused, the crack matters more than the headcount.

You can hear the confusion in the arguments. “Democrats are in the files more than Trump.” Fine. Then expose them all. That is not the escape hatch they think it is. It is actually proof of how the ground shifted beneath them. Once Trump fumbled the issue on July 15, the files stopped being a right-wing revenge fantasy and became a broader transparency issue. Reuters/Ipsos polling in July 2025 found that 69 percent of Americans believed the government was concealing details about Epstein’s clients. Reuters polling in February 2026 found broad public belief that the files showed the powerful often escape accountability. That is not a narrow partisan demand. That is national suspicion with a mailing address in every ideology.

People also ask why Joe Biden and Merrick Garland did not blow the whole thing open when they had the chance. That is a fair question. Maybe they thought full disclosure would divide the country even more. Maybe they feared detonating a scandal that could touch powerful people across politics, media, business, and polite society’s preferred list of dinner guests. Maybe they simply lacked the nerve. At this point, though, their motives are almost beside the point. Once Trump shrugged the files off in July 2025, Democrats who had not initially treated the issue as central suddenly had every reason to care. The fractures inside MAGA made the story politically irresistible. What had been a grievance engine for the right turned into an accountability weapon for everyone else.

And the mishandling since then has only kept the bonfire lit.

The Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files has been, to use a technical term, a complete mess. The department released millions of pages under the law Trump signed in November 2025, but lawmakers soon complained of incomplete disclosures, over-redactions, and failures to protect victims’ identities while simultaneously obscuring information about prominent people.

A bipartisan group of senators asked the Government Accountability Office this week to review the DOJ’s handling of the files, and the House Oversight Committee has already subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi. Reuters reported last week that the Justice Department also had to release previously missing FBI interview summaries containing allegations against Trump after Democrats accused the department of withholding them. The Washington Post separately reported that the law required disclosure by December 19, but the department missed the deadline and did not release the bulk of the files until late January. Which is the kind of thing that happens when you are either incompetent or stalling, and in this administration the two conditions are not mutually exclusive.

Which brings us to the New York Times reporting that has poured fresh gasoline on this already raging fire.

In late July, FBI agents exchanged early-morning emails about a sensitive task. One agent listed the names of 14 prominent men with President Trump at the top, and issued instructions that read like something out of a mob drama: “Take these names and build out new spreadsheet w all the derog on them.” That same morning, agents prepared summaries of what the files called “salacious statements” made against Trump and others. The rundown on the president was two bullet points. One was an allegation from a woman who said he sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager. The other was a claim that Epstein once introduced a teenager to Trump saying, “This is a good one, huh?” with Trump replying, “Yes.” The Times notes the woman’s account lacked corroborating detail, and Karoline Leavitt called it “completely baseless.” The bulk of references to Trump in the FBI files did not suggest wrongdoing but did document his closeness to Epstein: people who recalled being introduced to Trump at social affairs, employees who described him visiting Epstein’s homes, multiple people who remembered hearing him on the phone with Epstein.

There is also the matter of the Palm Beach police chief. One FBI document described Trump calling Michael Reiter shortly after news broke that Epstein was under investigation for abusing girls. Years later, Reiter told the FBI what he remembered Trump saying on that call: ‘Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.’ That line does not prove criminal liability. What it does prove is that Trump knew. And it makes the ‘sordid but boring’ shrug of July 15 land considerably harder in retrospect.

These summaries were compiled the same day Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was in Florida interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell, and Trump came up in that interview too, alongside Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and Wall Street billionaire Leon Black. The FBI then converted the summaries into a slide for a 21-page internal presentation on the Epstein case, shared in unclassified form with FBI director Kash Patel. A draft of the presentation, released by the DOJ, exposed the names of alleged victims. In December, Blanche had pledged publicly that the administration would not redact information involving the president. What followed was over three million pages released late, 76,000 documents temporarily taken offline, witnesses’ names sometimes visible and sometimes blacked out, missing FBI interview memos that had to be forced out under political pressure, and a three-stage filtering process that somehow still managed to lose the documents the original investigators had treated as most significant.

That is not transparency. That is a bureaucracy trying to vacuum glitter out of carpet with a leaf blower and calling it a clean house.

None of the allegations in those files amount to proven wrongdoing in court. The Times is careful about that. But the story is not fundamentally about what Trump did or did not do with Jeffrey Epstein. The story is about what the government knew, when it knew it, and how it has handled the telling. Which is to say: badly, slowly, and in a way that has convinced a majority of Americans that something is still sitting just out of view.

That is also why the current war with Iran has not displaced the scandal so much as fused with it in parts of the public imagination. In some online corners, the conflict is already being reframed through the lens of Epstein, with propagandists pushing the idea that war itself is functioning as cover for elite crimes. The Washington Post reported this week on a pro-Iran disinformation network using AI-generated content and Epstein-related conspiracy claims to push anti-U.S. narratives. That does not validate the propaganda. It does illustrate something politically important: once a scandal becomes sticky enough, people start stapling it to every new crisis. The war becomes the backdrop. The Epstein files become the stain.

All of this helps explain why the Epstein issue has become such a corrosive force inside the right. It is not simply that some people think Trump mishandled a release. It is that he violated the emotional contract. He asked people who had spent years treating this issue like a moral crusade to suddenly accept that it was boring, fake, and overblown, or a distraction cooked up by bad people and fake news. That kind of reversal makes even committed loyalists feel played.

March 21

 

A PowerPoint published among the Department of Justice files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Miami Herald, Investigation: Documents reportedly shredded by BOP after Epstein's Death, Julie K. Brown,right, and Claire Healy, Updated March 21, 2026. A Miami Herald analysis of thousands of pages in the Epstein files found there were bags of shredded documents at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the days after Epstein’s death there. A Corrections officer called the FBI, then writes letter to judge about document cover-up.

A Miami Herald analysis of thousands of pages in the Epstein files found there were bags of shredded documents at theMetropolitan Correctional Center in the days after Epstein’s death there. Department of Justice TNS

Less than a week after Jeffrey Epstein was found dead inside his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, something was afoot inside an office where the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ After Action Team had set up a probe into what had happened to their most high-profile inmate.

The FBI was told that there were people shredding documents. Bags of them.

An inmate at the jail was ordered to take the bags of shredded material to MCC’s rear gate and throw them in a dumpster on Thursday, Aug. 15, and again on Friday, Aug. 16, days after Epstein’s Aug. 10 death, records show. The sheer volume of material seemed unusual, the inmate noted.

“They are shredding everything,” the inmate told one of the guards, adding that he was asked to give the officials, whom he did not recognize, a hand with the shredding.

“Make sure you get that box too,” one of the men allegedly told him.

The inmate wasn’t the only one who found it out of the ordinary. A corrections officer at the detention facility called the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center that same night, a Friday, at 6:28 p.m. to report that he had “never seen this amount of bags of shredded documents coming out to be put in the dumpster at the rear gate of MCC.”

A back gate corrections officer was also troubled by what he witnessed as the inmate brought down “bales” of shredded paper, according to a memo he wrote to investigators three days later, on Monday, Aug. 19.

“I believe that this conduct may be inappropriate for [an] investigative team to be shredding paperwork related to the investigation and you may want to investigate why BOP employees are destroying records,” the correctional officer wrote on Aug. 19 around 11 a.m.

“Can we take a look at the Dumpster ASAP to see if the paper is still there? Possible they didn’t dump it yet,” replied one of the federal agents whose name is redacted in the memo.

But it was already too late. The trash was picked up that very morning.

By that time, federal prosecutors had also found something else amiss: “We learned today that all institutional count slips for dates prior to August 10, 2019, which we requested on August 12, 2019, are apparently ‘missing.’”

The discovery was only one of many suspicious events that unfolded in the days and weeks both before – and after – Epstein’s death, the Miami Herald has found from an analysis of thousands of pages of documents released by the Justice Department. In fact, there were so many irregularities discovered at the Manhattan jail that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) opened three separate probes into the case, with different case numbers, records and emails show.

First, there was the probe into Epstein’s death, which the medical examiner concluded was a suicide by hanging. Despite the ruling, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s estate disputes the finding by Dr. Barbara Sampson, who was then the chief medical examiner of the City of New York.

Dr. Michael Baden, also a former New York City chief medical examiner, argued that the injuries found in Epstein’s neck and the ruptured capillaries in his eyes were more consistent with strangulation than suicide by hanging.

Baden, shown above in a photo used in a special by the CBS show 60 Minutes served for decades as a member of the New York State Correction Medical Review Board, an entity responsible for reviewing deaths of inmates in custody. Baden has conducted more than 20,000 autopsies including reviewing those of former President John F. Kennedy, and civil rights leaders the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers.

But there were also two corruption probes associated with Epstein’s death: one, an obstruction-of-justice case involving the shredding of documents and possible charges of dereliction of duty and other misconduct by correctional officers; and second, a blackmail-for-sex scheme involving a correctional officer that the DOJ labeled a “Color of Law” probe.

That investigation grew out of inmate and correctional officer interviews in the aftermath of Epstein’s death. It’s not clear why it was attached to Epstein’s case. The Herald could find no connection.

What stands out, however, is that at some point early on, the cases seem to have changed hands from being an FBI criminal case — to matters that were handled by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which has no criminal prosecution powers. The OIG is an independent agency that investigates allegations of fraud, waste or misconduct, but it must refer its findings to the DOJ for potential prosecution.

The reason for the OIG taking over the probes isn’t entirely clear. From the outset, on the day Epstein’s body was found, then-Attorney General William Barr, above, immediately announced that Epstein died of an “apparent suicide.” And then, six days later, on Aug. 16, Sampson confirmed the suicide ruling.

With the cause and manner of death already determined, and no foul play suspected, the only aspects of the case left unresolved – at least in the eyes of the Justice Department – was whether the actions of any of the officers contributed to Epstein’s suicide.

This seemed to color the investigation almost from the beginning, since Epstein’s death was never treated as suspicious. As a result, his cell was never considered a possible crime scene that would, under normal circumstances, be examined by experienced criminal and forensic experts who would take fingerprints, blood samples and other evidence. One thing that got lost as a result of the cell not being examined was that the piece of fabric that Epstein allegedly used to hang himself was never identified.

It also should have been looked at carefully because on July 23 — just 18 days before he died — Epstein was found unconscious on the floor of his cell. He initially told prison officials that his cellmate, Nick Tartaglione, had tried to kill him and that Tartaglione, a quadruple killer, had been threatening and extorting him. Tartagione denied he tried to harm Epstein, and Epstein later said he couldn’t recall what happened.

Prison officials concluded it was an attempted suicide. Still, the fact that Epstein had reported being threatened by inmates should have been enough for the DOJ to treat his death as suspicious.

Many, if not most, of the entities and investigators contained in the Epstein file documents reviewed by the Herald are redacted. This means that it’s impossible to fully understand which agents or agencies were communicating with each other about the various aspects of the Epstein investigations.

The Herald pieced some of the correspondence together in order to draw as complete a picture as possible of the various cases.

Separately, the Herald also found that the federal Bureau of Prisons wrote an “After Action Review” of Epstein’s suicide on Aug. 10, 2019. This 18-page report was conducted by an “After Action Review Team,” whose names are redacted from the report. This is likely the team that was in the prison in the days following Epstein’s death. The report refers to a review of “written documentation, electronic databases and limited staff conversations.”

The BOP said in a statement that the team is standard following prison suicides.

“These teams review such things as various background information for the inmate, health care and personality information, antecedent circumstances, and various other details surrounding the suicide. This team then draws conclusions and makes recommendations to the facility,” the BOP said.First call about documents being shredded

The first mention of document shredding was a call to the FBI’s Threat Operations Center from a corrections officer at 6:28 p.m. on Aug. 16, six days after his death. An FBI 302 form containing an interview with the officer noted that “Caller found it suspicious that an after-action team charged with investigating would be shredding huge amounts of paperwork” with all the officials from the FBI, BOP and OIG in the building.

The caller advised that if “anyone cares about what was shredded,” they needed to check the dumpster before it was collected at 8 a.m. on Monday. But that doesn’t appear to have happened.On Aug. 16, 2019, at 6:28 p.m. a correctional officer called the FBI tip line to report shredded documents.On Aug. 16, 2019, at 6:28 p.m. a correctional officer called the FBI tip line to report shredded documents.

Instead, about 11 a.m. Monday, a corrections officer wrote an email to the OIG reporting the shredding said that it appeared to be an unusually large number of trash bags at MCC’s back gate. It’s not clear whether the officer was the same one who had called on Friday.

Later that day, at about 7:30 p.m., an assistant federal prosecutor requested permission to interview the inmate who was identified as dumping the material. In the email, the prosecutor notes, “We are also investigating any efforts, following Epstein’s death, to obstruct justice by destroying relevant records at MCC. In particular, we learned today that all institutional count slips prior to August 10, 2019, which we requested on August 12, 2019, are apparently “missing.”

Two correctional officers on duty the night Epstein died, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, were both interviewed in 2021 by the OIG. Both were questioned about whether they knew anything about Epstein’s “missing” MCC file.

“Did you ever remove or destroy any of Epstein’s paperwork?” the OIG agent asked Noel and Thomas in each of their interviews. Both replied, “no.”The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General interviewed Michael Thomas on June 17, 2021.The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General interviewed Michael Thomas on June 17, 2021.

The inmate who was identified as removing the shredded documents was interviewed by OIG agents on Aug. 20. One report indicated that a prison lieutenant whose name is redacted may have been present during the time the inmate was questioned. It was clear from the transcribed interview, however, that the inmate was concerned about whether he would face retaliation for talking about what he saw.

The inmate’s interview was not transcribed until four months later, on Dec. 19, 2019, and the original handwritten notes are not included in the report. The interview was 15 minutes.

The inmate, Steven Lopez, did not explain what he saw, and the agents didn’t ask.

Instead, they gave Lopez questions that he could respond with either yes or no answers.

“Do you have any information about shredding documents?”

Lopez: “No.”

“Did you overhear anyone talk about shredding documents?”

Lopez: “No.”

“Do you know what, if any documents were shredded?”

Lopez: “No idea what if anything was shredded, just did usual trash bin runs.”

The report ended with the statement: “Lopez had no other information relating to Epstein or the tip and informed that he is just trying to stay out of trouble, keep his head down and do his work. Lopez informed that he enjoyed the position he has and doesn’t want to screw it up in any way.”

Eight days later, the corrections officer who sent the email to the FBI was interviewed. While his name is redacted in the interview, an email sent days later identifies the complainant as officer Michael Kearins, and a subpoena for Kearins by OIG agents is included in the files. He said he had been working for BOP for almost 30 years. He admitted he sent the email and provided a first-hand account of what he heard and saw, records show.

According to the report, Kearins said that about 10:30 a.m on Aug. 15, Lopez approached the post at the rear gate at MCC with approximately three bags of shredded paper. Kearins recalled that Lopez said “they are shredding everything back there.”

According to Kearins, Lopez described one of the men involved in the shredding as white, with a Southern accent. Kearins said he didn’t know anyone at the prison who fit that description, so he surmised that he must have been part of the BOP’s After Action team related to Epstein’s death.

Lopez told him that the man ordered him to “make sure you get that box over there too.” Kearins said that another inmate (whose name is redacted) was also asked to help shred the documents. Kearins admitted he did not know what documents were being shredded or where they originated.

New York City emergency workers remove Jeffrey Epstein from a federal prison in Manhattan with a gurney for transport to a hospital emergency room.

March 20

 

Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: March 19, 2026 [Blocking Epstein Files], Heather Cox Richardson, right, March 20, 2026. After yesterday’s revelation that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is blocking the release of a memo related to a Drug Enforcement Agency investigation into sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and 14 co-conspirators, Attorney General Pam Bondi added more evidence to the idea that the DOJ is engaged in covering up the relationship between members of the Trump administration, including President Donald J. Trump himself, and Epstein.

On March 4, 2026, five Republicans joined the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to agree to subpoena Bondi to testify before it under oath about how the DOJ handled the release of the Epstein files. Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) issued the subpoena on March 17, requiring Bondi to appear before the committee on April 14. Kyle Stewart and Kyla Guilfoil of NBC News reported yesterday that a DOJ spokesperson said the subpoena was “completely unnecessary” and said Bondi “continues to have calls and meetings with members of Congress on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which is why the Department offered to brief the committee.”

Yesterday, March 18, Bondi, left, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared at that “briefing,” a closed-door hearing before the committee in which they were not under oath. Democrats asked repeatedly if Bondi intended to comply with the subpoena; she refused to commit. When Summer Lee (D-PA) asked Comer if he would compel Bondi to comply and hold her in contempt if she doesn’t, Comer told her she was “bitching.”

Ultimately, the Democrats walked out of the briefing. Talking to reporters, Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL), who has been key to untangling the released Epstein files, said: “[T]o me, it’s very clear that the purpose of this entire fake hearing, this fake deposition, is the attorney general trying to weasel herself out of sitting in front of us under oath, under a bipartisan subpoena…. We asked her multiple times, ‘Are you going to come and speak with us under oath?’ She would not say yes.”

Frost pushed back on Republican colleagues who argued that the briefing should be enough. “We want her under oath because we do not trust her. Why don’t we trust her? Because she’s a liar.” He noted that in the recent hearing before the House Judiciary Committee about the files, Bondi’s documents revealed the DOJ is keeping track of what documents members of Congress are reading. He also noted the DOJ has put up documents related to Trump only when investigators called out that they were missing.

“We want her under oath because we don’t trust her,” Frost reiterated. “We want her under oath because she has shown that she is involved in a cover up…. So we see this for what it is. This is not a briefing; a briefing is when we sit down and we’re getting information from the person giving the briefing. That didn’t happen here. She sat down, they started the clock like a hearing. It’s a hearing. It is a fake deposition, where no one can see what’s going on, with zero transcription, where it’s not on C-Span or anything, and where no one is under oath, and they are allowed to freely lie to members of Congress.”

March 19

 

 

Four Jeffrey Epstein trafficking victims file suit against Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi, shown below right, with Epstein shown at center (March 10, 2026).

Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: March 18, 2026 [Epstein Trafficking Probe], Heather Cox Richardson, right, March 19, 2026. I was intending to take tonight off, but there’s big news—I mean, aside from all the other big news—that I want to make sure gets attention.

Back on February 23, Daniel Ruetenik, Pat Milton, and Cara Tabachnick of CBS News reported on a newly uncovered document in the Epstein files showing that beginning in December 2010 under the Obama administration, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was running an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen other people for drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering.

The document showed the investigation, called “Chain Reaction,” was still underway in 2015. But the investigation disappeared, although the document suggested that it was a significant investigation and that the government was on the verge of indictments.

As soon as the story broke, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said: “It appears Epstein was involved in criminal activity that went way beyond pedophilia and sex trafficking, which makes it even more outrageous that [Attorney General] Pam Bondi is sitting on several million unreleased files.”

Wyden has been investigating the finances behind Epstein’s criminal sex-trafficking organization: it was his investigation that turned up the information that JPMorgan Chase neglected to report more than $1 billion in suspicious financial transactions linked to Epstein. Wyden has pushed hard for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to produce the records of those suspicious transactions for the Senate Finance Committee, but Bessent refuses.

On February 25, two days after the story of the DEA investigation broke, Wyden wrote to Terrance C. Cole, administrator of the DEA, noting that “[t]he fact that Epstein was under investigation by the DOJ’s [organized crime drug enforcement] task force suggests that there was ample evidence indicating that Epstein was engaged in heavy drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy. This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions as to how this investigation by the DEA was handled.”

He noted that Epstein and the fourteen co-conspirators were never charged for drug trafficking or financial crimes, and wrote: “I am concerned that the DEA and DOJ during the first Trump Administration moved to terminate this investigation in order to protect pedophiles.” He also noted that the heavy redactions in the document appear to go far beyond anything authorized by the Epstein Files Transparency Act and that since the document was not classified, “there is no reason to withhold an unredacted version of this document from the U.S. Congress.”

Wyden asked Cole to produce a number of documents by March 13, 2026, including an unredacted copy of the memo in the files, information about what triggered the investigation, what types of drugs Epstein and his fourteen associates were buying or selling, when Operation Chain Reaction concluded and what was its result, why no one was charged, and why the names of the fourteen co-conspirators were redacted.

Today Wyden sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, saying: “It is my understanding that shortly after I requested an unredacted copy” of the document in the Epstein files, the Department of Justice “stepped in to prevent DEA from complying with my request. According to a confidential tip received by my staff, DEA Administrator Terry Cole was ready to provide an unredacted copy of the memorandum, but you stepped in to prevent him from doing so. My staff inquired with the DEA about the status of the production of this document and the DEA responded by directing questions to your office.”

The letter continued: “Your alleged interference in this matter is highly disturbing, not just because it continues the DOJ’s long-running obstruction of my investigation, but also because of your bizarrely favorable treatment of Ghislaine Maxwell, one of Epstein’s closest criminal associates. I should not have to explain the significance of the fact that Epstein was a target of [this high-level DEA] investigation. It suggests the government had ample evidence indicating he was engaged in large scale drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy and that Epstein was likely pumping his victims, including underage girls, with incapacitating drugs to facilitate abuse. I am at a loss to understand why you are blocking further investigation of this matter.”

Noting that the document in the files was “clearly marked as ‘unclassified’ at the top of every single page,” Wyden noted: “There is absolutely no reason to withhold an unredacted version of this document from the U.S. Congress.” He added: “In order to assist my investigation into this matter, I demand that you immediately authorize the release of this document.”

Wyden also posted today on social media: “HUGE: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—Trump’s former personal lawyer who was also responsible for Ghislaine Maxwell’s transfer to a cushy club fed—has intervened to block the DEA from providing details of a mysterious Epstein investigation to my Finance Committee team…. This is stunning interference. The document I’m after literally says ‘unclassified’ at the top. The investigation it details is closed. Given Blanche’s close personal ties to Donald Trump, this reeks of a continued coverup to protect key names in the Trump administration.”

Wyden’s post echoes the September 13, 2019, letter from then-chair of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff (D-CA) to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, in which Schiff called out Maguire for illegally withholding a whistleblower complaint.

In that 2019 letter, Schiff warned: “The Committee can only conclude…that the serious misconduct at issue involves the President of the United States and/or other senior White House or Administration officials. This raises grave concerns that your office, together with the Department of Justice and possibly the White House, are engaged in an unlawful effort to protect the President and conceal from the Committee information related to his possible ‘serious or flagrant’ misconduct, abuse of power, or violation of law.”

Schiff was right: the whistleblower had flagged Trump’s July 2019 phone call with newly elected Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding Zelensky smear Joe Biden’s son Hunter before Trump would release the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine to fight off the Russian invasion that had begun in 2014. That information led to the story that Trump’s White House was running its own secret operation in Ukraine, apart from the State Department, for Trump’s own benefit. That story led to Trump’s first impeachment by the House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Schiff was the lead impeachment manager of the impeachment trial in the Senate, and in his closing argument, he implored Senate Republicans to bring accountability to “a man without character.” “You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What’s right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.”

“You can’t trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country,” Schiff said. “You just can’t. He will not change and you know it.” “A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way.”

But Republican senators stood behind Trump. They acquitted him of abuse of power, by a vote of 48 for conviction to 52 for acquittal. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah crossed the aisle to vote with the Democratic minority. Senate Republicans were unanimous in their vote to acquit Trump of obstruction of Congress.

And here we are.

Politico, Epstein’s lawyer tells House Oversight investigators he had ‘no knowledge’ of Epstein’s crimes, Hailey Fuchs, March 19, 2026. Darren Indyke’s appearance is the latest in the Oversight committee’s string of closed-door depositions with people in Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit.

Darren Indyke, right, Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer and a co-executor of his estate, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he had no knowledge of the convicted sex offender’s crimes and rejected aspersions that he knowingly facilitated Epstein’s trafficking, according to a copy of prepared remarks obtained by POLITICO.

The attorney’s defensive posture in the closed-door deposition on Thursday comes amid mounting pressure on the Justice Department and lawmakers to pursue criminal accountability for others who could have played a role in Epstein’s scheme. In his prepared opening statement, Indyke noted that he was appointed a co-executor of Epstein’s estate in 2019 by the U.S. Virgin Islands probate court, has cooperated with the Justice Department and helped found the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program.

“Let me be clear: I had no knowledge whatsoever of Jeffrey Epstein’s wrongdoings,” Indyke told congressional investigators, according to the prepared remarks. “My complete lack of involvement in that misconduct is a matter of record: not a single woman has ever accused me of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she or anyone else reported to me any allegation of Mr. Epstein’s abuse.”

He maintained that his relationship with Epstein was not social in nature and that he was only one of the lawyers with whom Epstein consulted — a list that included Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated the fallout of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

“My primary role was to provide corporate, transactional and general legal services to Mr. Epstein and his companies, and I did so,” Indyke planned to say.

Only one person has been convicted as part of Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme: Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate now serving 20 years in prison for her role in the crimes. She is seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump.

Indyke is the latest in the Oversight committee’s string of closed-door depositions with people in Epstein’s orbit. Epstein’s onetime client and former Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner and another co-executor of Epstein’s estate Richard Kahn also testified. House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has also subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before lawmakers over her handling of the Epstein files.

Unlike Wexner and Kahn, Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment right when she was questioned by the Oversight committee in a virtual deposition as part of its investigation into Epstein.

According to his prepared remarks, Indyke also denied any involvement in the facilitation of so-called “sham marriages” for women around Epstein, an allegation that appeared in a complaint filed in court by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. He described his onetime client as being “extremely contrite” after his 2008 sex crime conviction and added that he believed Epstein when he said did not know the woman was a minor.

César Chavez #MeToo Scandal

New York Times, Cesar Chavez Investigation: ‘We’re Just Seen as Sex Objects’: Dolores Huerta’s Years in the U.F.W., Sarah Hurtes and Manny Fernandez, March 19, 2026. The co-founder of the United Farm Workers talked about her relationship with César Chavez, and the night he raped her.

In the days after Thanksgiving in 1986, Dolores Huerta, shown above and below left in file photos, was ready to celebrate. As one of the co-leaders of the United Farm Workers union, she had spent four months in Washington lobbying lawmakers to pass the Immigration Reform and Control Act, landmark legislation that granted amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants.

A news conference was scheduled to celebrate the victory, but Ms. Huerta said she was not made aware of the event. Instead, she said, her fellow U.F.W. leader, César Chavez, told her there was a crisis in Florida that required her immediate attention. Ms. Huerta flew to Florida, only to realize that the emergency was nonexistent and no one was expecting her. She spent the next few days speaking at senior centers.

“I realized afterward they just wanted to get me out of the way so they could take credit for the work,” she said of her male co-workers in an interview last week. “Straight male-chauvinist trick, and I was really upset about that.”

In the interview, Ms. Huerta talked about the challenges she had faced as a woman in the machismo culture of the movement, which Mr. Chavez had come to dominate with the sheer force of his personality.

And in a stunning disclosure, she said that Mr. Chavez had sexually assaulted her on one occasion and manipulated her into sex on another, encounters that produced two children. A New York Times investigation detailed strong evidence that Mr. Chavez had sexually assaulted several women in the farmworkers’ movement, including two young teenagers.

Ms. Huerta and Mr. Chavez, standing together with raised fists at rallies and marches, were the public face of the Latino-led union organizing movement that swept through American farm fields in the 1960s.

Now 95, Ms. Huerta is often referred to as Grandmother of the Resistance. Her portrait hangs in some American embassies. She fought for years for better wages, maternity protections and basic safety measures for women doing the backbreaking work of planting and harvesting crops.

But in the interview, Ms. Huerta described a culture in U.F.W. under Mr. Chavez that forced her to struggle to be heard and to suppress any negative feelings she felt about him and his leadership — including the trauma of rape.

Ms. Huerta said the assault occurred in the winter of 1966, when she was at the People’s Bar and Cafe in Delano, Calif. — a well-known hangout for farmworker organizers. She was having a beer when Mr. Chavez stormed in, tapped her shoulder and asked for a word.

Assuming that the matter concerned an upcoming strike, she said, she followed him outside. It was common for them to have meetings in the car — Mr. Chavez worried that his office was bugged. He drove her to a secluded grape field on the outskirts of town, she said, and assaulted her.

She also described an earlier episode in 1960 — five years after first meeting Mr. Chavez — in which she felt pressured and manipulated into having sex with him in a hotel room during a work trip in San Juan Capistrano, in Southern California.

After the assault in 1966, she was left in a numb, shocked state, she said, but told no one. Not her friends, not her family, not even her daughter born from the assault.

She said she believed that the work of advancing rights for farmworkers was more important, and worried that publicly criticizing Mr. Chavez would tarnish the movement’s legacy and be exploited by political opponents.

“I saw him, again, as my boss, as my hero, as, you know, somebody that would do the impossible,” she said. “I never talked about it to anybody and the reason I didn’t is because I just didn’t want to hurt the movement.”

Ms. Huerta said she viewed Mr. Chavez as a contradictory figure when it came to women. He believed in promoting them, she said, but only so far.

Women ran the credit union, the clinic, the field offices. They were trusted with the operational machinery of the movement. But making the decisions that shaped the union’s direction, she said, remained out of reach. “Cesar believed in promoting women as leadership, not at the policy level, but at the work level,” she said.

It was, she suggested, a reflection of something deeper. “Women are not seen as human beings. We’re just seen as sex objects. I think it’s an illness.”

 

Politico, Sexual assault allegations roil bills honoring César Chávez, Rylan DiGiacomo-Rapp and Heather Richards, March 19, 2026. California Democrats pursuing a national historical park to honor the activist said they would revise legislation to “respect the victims.”

Lawmakers are rethinking legislation that seeks to further honor the late activist César Chávez, shown above, after sexual misconduct allegations have now surfaced decades after his death.

President Barack Obama in 2012 created the César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene, California, and lawmakers have been wanting to turn the site into a national historic park. Those plans will now change.

Two California Democrats, Rep. Raul Ruiz and Alex Padilla, signaled yesterday they would no longer seek to advance legislation they previously championed, which would sought to “preserve the nationally significant sites associated with César E. Chávez and the farm worker movement across California and Arizona.”

Their companion bills also would have called for a study to create the “Farmworker Peregrinación National Historic Trail,” marking a 300-mile march that occurred in 1966.

“As the lead sponsor in House of the César E. Chávez and the Farmworker Movement National Historical Park Act, Congressman Ruiz will take steps to rename and revise the legislation in honor of farmworkers both to respect the victims and to serve as an initial step toward accountability,” a Ruiz aide said Wednesday.

Padilla’s office said that the senator supports the removal of Chávez’s name from any landmarks, institutions or honors, and plans to rework the Senate version of the legislation.

“There must be zero tolerance for abuse, exploitation, and the silencing of victims, no matter who is involved,” Padilla said in a statement. “Confronting painful truths and ensuring accountability is essential to honoring the very values the greater farm worker movement stands for — values rooted in dignity and justice for all.”

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus also issued a statement on social media calling Chávez “flawed beyond absolution,” while vowing to work to rename “streets, post offices, vessels and holidays” that honor Chávez.

A New York Times story this week detailed allegations that Chávez sexually assaulted women and girls, including Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with him. The existing 187-acre monument site includes the union headquarters.

Dennis Arguelles, the Southern California director of the National Parks Conservation Association, called the allegations against Chávez “deeply disturbing” but noted that the national monument is not about a “single person.”

“For many years, NPCA supported a national park site — the current national monument as well as a proposal that would include sites in several western states — that would honor the farmworker movement and those who fought for dignity, better working conditions, and fair wages,” Arguelles said in a statement. “This movement, which the National Park Service found to be nationally significant history, is not about a single person.”

He said the site, “the first to recognize contemporary Latinos, plays a critical role in ensuring that our country’s diversity and complex stories are shared.”

March 18

Associated Press, Democrats storm out of Justice Department leaders’ briefing on the Epstein files, Alanna Durkin, Richard and Stephen Groves, March 18, 2026. Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday stormed out of a closed-door briefing on the Jeffrey Epstein files by Justice Department leaders, and said they would push to force Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions under oath about the case that has plagued the Trump administration.

Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went to Capitol Hill to try to quell bipartisan frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of millions of files related to Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation.

But less than an hour into the briefing, Democrats walked out in protest of the arrangement and said they would press to enforce a subpoena for Bondi to appear for a sworn deposition next month.

“We want her under oath because we do not trust her,” said Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost.

Asked by reporters after the briefing whether she would comply with the subpoena, Bondi said, “I made it crystal clear I will follow the law.” She also defended the department’s handling of the Epstein files, saying officials are proud of their work to release millions of documents to the public.

The committee’s Republican chairman, Rep. James Comer, accused Democrats of political grandstanding.“This for us, for the Republicans, it’s about getting answers,” Comer said after the briefing. “For the Democrats, it’s a political game, and they just demonstrated that today. There’s no reason for them to walk out and clutch their pearls and act like they were offended and outraged.”

Justice Department leaders had hoped the release of documents tied to the disgraced financier would put an end to a political saga that has dogged the president’s second term, but the agency remains consumed by questions and criticism over Epstein’s case and its management of the files. Bondi has accused Democrats of using the furor over the documents to distract from Trump’s political successes, even though some of the most vocal criticism has come from members of the president’s own party.

Five Republicans on the committee voted with Democrats to support the subpoena for Bondi to appear for a deposition on April 14. Lawmakers have accused the Justice Department of withholding too many files and criticized the agency for haphazard redactions that exposed intimate details about victims.

The Justice Department has called the subpoena “completely unnecessary,” noting that members of Congress have been invited to view unredacted files at the Justice Department and that department leaders have made themselves available to answer questions from lawmakers.

The department has sought to assure lawmakers and the public that there has been no effort to shield President Donald Trump, who says he cut ties with Epstein years ago after an earlier friendship, or any other high-profile figures close to Epstein from potential embarrassment. Justice Department leaders have also rejected suggestions that they have ignored victims and insist that while there is no evidence in the files to prosecute anyone else, they remain committed to investigating should new information come forward.

March 17

 

 

President Joe Biden kept a bust of the late United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez, above center, in the White House Oval Office.

New York Times, Investigation:Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years, Manny Fernandez and Sarah Hurtes, March 18, 2026. An investigation by The New York Times found extensive evidence that the United Farm Workers co-founder groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the movement. The reporters interviewed several women who told their stories for the first time, as well as more than 60 other people, including Cesar Chavez’s top aides and relatives. The reporters also reviewed hundreds of pages of union records, confidential emails, photographs and other material.

Ana Murguia remembers the day the man she had regarded as a hero called her house and summoned her to see him. She walked along a dirt trail, entered the rundown building, passed his secretary and stepped into his office.

He locked the door, as he always did when he called her, and told her how lonely he had been. He brought her onto the yoga mat that he often used in his office for meditation, kissed her and pulled her pants down. “Don’t tell anyone,” he told her afterward. “They’d get jealous.”

The man, Cesar Chavez, one of the most revered figures in the Latino civil rights movement, was 45. She was 13. Ms. Murguia said she was summoned for sexual encounters with him dozens of times over the next four years.

Recently, more than 50 years later, Ms. Murguia learned that a street near her home in the Central California city of Bakersfield was in the process of being renamed. City officials want to name it in honor of her abuser.

Ms. Murguia and another woman, Debra Rojas, say that Mr. Chavez sexually abused them for years when they were girls, from around 1972 to 1977. He was in his 40s and had become a powerful, charismatic figure who captured global attention as a champion of farmworker rights.

The two women have not shared their stories publicly before, and an investigation by The New York Times has uncovered extensive evidence to support their accusations and those raised by several other women against Mr. Chavez, the United Farm Workers co-founder who died in 1993 at the age of 66.

The questions raised by The Times about Mr. Chavez, one of the most consequential figures in Mexican American history, set off immediate reverberations and alarmed and disturbed his allies. Even before this article was published, upon learning of the reporters’ inquiries, the U.F.W. canceled its annual celebrations honoring Mr. Chavez, a response to what the union he once led called “profoundly shocking” accusations.

Ms. Murguia and Ms. Rojas, both of whom are now 66, were the daughters of longtime organizers who had marched in rallies alongside Mr. Chavez. He used the privacy of his California office to frequently molest Ms. Murguia, she said. He had known her since she was 8 years old. She became so traumatized that she attempted to end her life multiple times by the age of 15.Editors’ PicksRead These Books Before They Hit Your Screens in 2026With Twin Babies, the Opera Star Lise Davidsen Wonders What Comes NextWhy Do Men Buy Shoes That Are Too Big?

“I wanted to die,” she said.ImageCesar Chaves marching alongside Ana Murguia, who is holding a flag, in a black-and-white photograph.Cesar Chavez, center, and Ana Murguia, right, in a black shirt, during the United Farm Workers’ 1,000 Mile March in 1975.Credit...Cathy Murphy/Getty Images

Ms. Rojas said she was 12 when Mr. Chavez first touched her inappropriately, groping her breasts in the same office where he’d meet with Ms. Murguia. When Ms. Rojas was 15, he arranged to have her stay at a motel during a weekslong march through California, she said, and had sexual intercourse with her — rape, under state law, because she was not old enough to consent. (Ms. Murguia said Mr. Chavez molested her but never had intercourse with her.)

The abuse allegations appear to be part of a larger pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Chavez, much of which has never been publicly revealed. The Times investigation found that Mr. Chavez also used many of the women who worked and volunteered in his movement for his own sexual gratification. His most prominent female ally in the movement, Dolores Huerta, said in an interview that he sexually assaulted her, a disclosure she has never before made publicly.

Many of the women stayed silent for decades, both out of shame and for fear of tarnishing the image of a man who has become the face of the Latino civil rights movement, his image on school murals and his birthday a state holiday in California.

The findings are based on interviews with more than 60 people, including his top aides at the time, his relatives and former members of the U.F.W., which he co-founded with Ms. Huerta and Gilbert Padilla. The Times reviewed hundreds of pages of union records, confidential emails and photographs, as well as hours of audio recordings from U.F.W. board meetings.

The accounts of abuse from Ms. Murguia and Ms. Rojas were independently verified through interviews with those they confided in decades ago and in more recent years. Elements of their stories were also corroborated in documents, emails, itineraries and other writings from union organizers, supporters of Mr. Chavez and historians.

The Times spoke at length with Ms. Huerta, the renowned Latina activist who helped run the farmworkers’ union with Mr. Chavez and coined the social-justice rallying cry, “Sí, se puede,” loosely translated as “Yes, we can.”

She said she has held on to a dark secret for nearly 60 years.

One night during the winter of 1966 in Delano, Calif., she said, Mr. Chavez drove her out to a secluded grape field, parked and raped her inside the vehicle. Ms. Huerta, who was 36 at the time, said she chose not to report the assault to the police because of their hostility toward the movement, and she feared that no one within the union would believe her. She also described an earlier encounter in August 1960, when she said she felt pressured to have sex with him in a hotel room during a work trip in San Juan Capistrano in Southern California.

Ms. Huerta later began a long-term domestic partnership with Mr. Chavez’s brother Richard, with whom she had four children. He died in 2011.

Ms. Huerta turns 96 on April 10. Her memories of the details of the assault that night in Delano are at times hazy. But she speaks of the attack in a startlingly matter-of-fact manner.

She described being stunned by Mr. Chavez’s aggression, and then numb to it. She framed her silence at the time not as an absence of pain, but as a kind of strategic necessity, particularly as a woman fighting for respect in the male-dominated world of 1960s union organizing. Now, her accusation shatters what was a widely celebrated — and seemingly egalitarian — bond between two of the most influential Hispanic activists in U.S. history.

“Unfortunately, he used some of his great leadership to abuse women and children — it’s really awful,” Ms. Huerta said.ImageDolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez smiling in a crowd.Dolores Huerta, left, and Cesar Chavez in Fresno, Calif., in 1965.Credit...Carl Crawford/Fresno Bee/ZUMA Press, via Reuters

More than 30 years after his death, Mr. Chavez has become only more revered in the Latino community, as President Trump’s efforts to limit immigration and scale back rights threaten to destroy many of the gains secured by decades of his work.

Through a series of grueling fasts, grape boycotts and marches that captured the world’s imagination, Mr. Chavez drew a spotlight to the plight of the American farmworker. He not only improved wages, living conditions and health care for generations of farmworkers and their families but also strengthened the political power of Latinos, giving their voice and concerns an urgency and moral authority on the national stage.

He was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 1994. When Joseph R. Biden Jr. entered the White House in 2021, he put a bronze bust of Mr. Chavez on display in the Oval Office.

The allegations of rape and sexual abuse are likely to have far-reaching consequences.

On Tuesday, the United Farm Workers issued a statement saying that the organization would not take part in any activities celebrating Mr. Chavez’s birthday on March 31. The union said the “troubling allegations” that were surfacing were incompatible with the organization’s values, adding that it did not have firsthand knowledge of any misconduct.

“We need some time to get this right, including to ensure robust, trauma-informed services are available to those who may need it,” the union said in its statement.

Mr. Chavez’s family said on Tuesday night that they were “not in a position to judge” the claims. “As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual misconduct,” they said in a statement. “These allegations are deeply painful to our family.”

A handful of Mr. Chavez’s relatives and former U.F.W. leaders have been aware for years about various allegations of sexual misconduct, but there is no evidence that they made efforts to fully investigate the accusations, acknowledge the victims or apologize to them. Instead, many of the women say they were discouraged from speaking out in order to preserve Mr. Chavez’s public image.

Internal emails dating back over a decade show union members discussing Ms. Murguia’s claims of abuse and the impact it had on her life. One of Ms. Murguia’s relatives confronted Mr. Chavez while he was still alive, in the 1980s. According to the relative, Mr. Chavez offered no defense and responded only by clearing his throat.

More than 10 years ago, members of a private Facebook group for longtime Chavez organizers and supporters were stunned to read a post from Ms. Rojas that she wrote in a fit of anger as they prepared to celebrate the holiday in his name.

Al Jazeera, Photos show ‘grave-like plots’ at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, tipster claims, John Power, March 17, 2026. Member of the public sent images to state lawmakers, claiming they showed dug-up burial sites, emails show.

A member of the public claims to have seen “grave-like plots” at Jeffrey Epstein’s former ranch in New Mexico and has shared photos of the purported burial sites with lawmakers investigating the late American sex offender.

The tipster shared the images with the two state lawmakers last month amid renewed scrutiny of Epstein’s activities at the Zorro Ranch.The claims, which have not been independently verified, have not been previously reported and do not appear to be included in the Epstein files publicly disclosed by the United States Department of Justice.

The department had releases millions of pages related to criminal investigations of the financier in late January, some of which referenced Epstein’s New Mexico ranch.

Al Jazeera obtained the tipster’s correspondence and photos via a public records request with the New Mexico Department of Justice.

In an email on February 16, a member of the public whose name has been redacted told Democratic Representatives Andrea Romero and Marianna Anaya that he or she had broken into Epstein’s former ranch in 2020 and come across multiple plots that “were dug up”.

The tipster, who included two photos of purported plots with the email, speculated that bodies had been “removed” from the sites.

“I realize this might be illegal,” the person wrote, referring to their act of venturing onto the property, “but men like that don’t deserve the protection of the law.”

Epstein ranchEpstein ranchA tipster claims these photos show ‘grave-like plots’ at Jeffrey Epstein’s former ranch in New Mexico [New Mexico Department of Justice]

The tipster also shared photos of the exterior of Epstein’s mansion and a white yurt located on the grounds of the property, as well as pictures of a defibrillator and a statue of a man of African appearance purportedly taken from inside the tent.

“In the White Yurt, they must have been doing rituals where they felt like they needed a defibrillator,” the person wrote.Get instant alerts and updates based on your interests. Be the first to know when big stories happen.

Romero, who is leading a bipartisan commission looking into Epstein’s activities in New Mexico, forwarded the correspondence to Kyle Hartsock, the director of special investigations at the New Mexico Department of Justice, who assured the lawmaker that the tip was “being looked into.” 

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, Exhibit 144: The JP Morgan Files, Escape Key, March 17, 2026. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase was forced to hand over its own internal files on Jeffrey Epstein as part of a lawsuit brought by his victims. The bank’s lawyers compiled a twenty-three-page summary of what they found.

It was meant to assess legal risk.

He managed the career of JPMorgan’s investment bank chief, designed a major financial product linked to Bill Gates, arranged private meetings with fourteen foreign ministers, deployed a British royal and a former EU trade commissioner as commercial assets, and held security clearance. He also designed a new type of ‘social good’ currency — initially called a ‘charitable currency unit’ — and sent the blueprint to Gates’s chief science adviser, eight years before the Bank for International Settlements began building the same thing.

The bank's compliance review — compiled specifically to assess exposure in a sex trafficking lawsuit — contains a handful of oblique references to young women. It devotes twenty-two pages to all of this.

A separate investigation by the US Senate found that JPMorgan reported just $4.3 million in suspicious transactions from Epstein’s accounts while he was alive — but reported $1.3 billion after he died. The bank paid $365 million in settlements.

This essay walks through the document line by line, and shows how it independently confirms everything documented in the previous Epstein essays on this Substack — from a source produced three years before those essays were written.

The ultimate implication here — beyond confirming Epstein's status as a switchboard operator — is that a significant portion of the development finance industry is built on a foundation it would prefer not to have examined.

On 25 July 2023, JPMorgan Chase filed Exhibit 144 in Case 1:22-cv-10904-JSR — the sex trafficking facilitation lawsuit brought by Jeffrey Epstein’s victims in the Southern District of New York. The exhibit is a twenty-three-page internal compliance summary of the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, compiled from internal emails and correspondence between Epstein and senior JPMorgan executives.

The bank produced it to assess institutional exposure. Its compliance lawyers had one narrow question: how deep was the relationship between Epstein, above left, and Jes Staley, above right, then head of JPMorgan’s investment bank, and what did senior management know?

Their answer runs to twenty-two pages of chronological, bullet-pointed evidence — and it reads, unintentionally, as independent corroboration of every major claim made in the essays published on this Substack since February 2026: the original trilogy — Epstein: The Switchboard Operator, Epstein II: The Development of a Digital Currency, and Epstein III: The Intelligence Channel — as well as Epstein’s Seven, The Epstein/Bannon Interview, and Agents for the Rothschilds.

Those essays drew exclusively on the Department of Justice’s 2025–2026 document releases — the Epstein side of the correspondence. This exhibit provides the other side: JPMorgan’s internal records. A November 2025 memorandum from the Senate Finance Committee, based on further unsealed records from the same litigation, adds a third independent source.

The three archives were produced by different legal processes, compiled by different lawyers, for different institutional purposes. None had any interest in confirming the others — yet, they interlock almost perfectly

The previous essays documented Epstein as a switchboard operator — a coordination node routing connections between finance, intelligence, and governance. The JPMorgan document confirms this and goes further, revealing something the DOJ releases did not: the depth of Epstein’s operational control over the bank’s own senior executive.

On 31 July 2008 — while Epstein was incarcerated in Palm Beach — Staley wrote: ‘Hey boss, We just got done with Jamie’s off site’. On 16 July, he had asked Epstein how much he should tell Jamie Dimon to pay him, describing the expected results and asking for guidance. Epstein replied with a precise negotiating strategy: ‘Tell him a one million dollar increase to 25 million... DO Not give in’.

Throughout September 2009, the document records Epstein managing Staley’s promotion to sole CEO of JPMorgan’s investment bank. On 3 September, Epstein wrote: ‘I am told you are on track’. On 11 September: ‘steves really a dead man walking. so little he can do’ — a reference to Steve Black, then head of the investment bank. On 25 September, Epstein scripted the message Staley should deliver in three numbered parts. Two days later, Staley forwarded a draft organisational announcement to Epstein as ‘FYI’ before it was released internally.

On 18 October 2009, Epstein wrote: ‘feel free to call often, it is difficult for the quarterback to see the playing field. That’s why he calls up to the box’. The man in the box, watching the entire field — that was the role he had assigned himself.

The relationship went well beyond advice. Jes Staley — the head of JPMorgan’s investment bank — called Epstein ‘boss’, sought his permission to visit properties, forwarded confidential internal documents, accepted detailed operational direction on hiring, compensation, strategy, and presentation — and reported back on his meetings with heads of state. III. The Dynastic Capture

The document also reveals a subtler dimension to the control. Epstein did not merely manage Staley’s career; he embedded himself in his family.

A separate section of the compliance summary records Epstein helping with the graduate school admissions process for Staley’s daughter. On 27 April 2009, Epstein emailed Staley with a list of scientists his daughter could meet: ‘seth lloyd mit quantum computing.. gell-man, santa-fe institute, quarks... brian columbia - string theory... leonard susskind... she can see the large hadron collider in switzerland. private tour’.

When Staley forwarded his daughter’s CV and expressed concern about her prospects, Epstein replied: ‘she can sit with Richard Axel when I get back, he won the Nobel prize.. he has guaranteed me’. Staley remained anxious. Epstein: ‘john kluge gave 4 billion to the school,, will you relax’.

In January 2011, Epstein wrote that Lee Bollinger — President of Columbia University and a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York² — ‘will come say hi, in davos as well’. Epstein was deploying Nobel laureates and Ivy League presidents to smooth a banker’s daughter’s path through graduate school.

The effect was to bind Staley to Epstein at a level beyond professional convenience. Career management can be replaced; the man who guaranteed your daughter’s future through the scientific establishment and the president of Columbia is a different category of obligation. IV. The Jailhouse Switchboard

In the Bannon interview — filmed in early 2019 and partially released in the DOJ’s 2026 document dump — Epstein described his role during the 2008 financial crisis with characteristic bluntness. He told Bannon he had been advising the US Treasury from a jail cell, calling the president of Bear Stearns on one phone and a contact at JPMorgan on the other: ‘I was actually going between two phones talking to Bear Stearns and JP Morgan at the same time’. The following day, he called ’another person in Washington... they were at the Treasury Department’.

The JPMorgan document confirms this was not an exaggeration. The July–October 2008 email sequence records Staley writing to Epstein while he was incarcerated, reporting on the crisis in real time. On 26 September: ‘Wamu is an unbelievable deal. But thus is still going out of control’. On 27 September: ‘What a deal Jamie did. I’m spending a lot of time with Treasury. The Private Bank has brought in $44 billion dollars in the last two weeks’. On 29 September: ‘I hope you keep the island. We all may need to live there’.

On 10 October, Staley wrote: ‘I am dealing with the Fed on an idea to solve things. I need a smart friend to help me think through this stuff’. The following day, he forwarded a term sheet that had been sent to Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

The switchboard was operational during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, run from a prison cell in Palm Beach — with JPMorgan’s investment bank chief as the reporting line.The Epstein/Bannon Interview The Epstein/Bannon Interviewesc · Mar 16Read full story V. The Sovereign Routing Function

The original essays documented Epstein routing sovereign contacts between intelligence, finance, and political nodes. The JPMorgan document shows the same function operating directly through the bank.

On 1 October 2010, Epstein forwarded an email to Staley with the subject line ‘this is nuts’ and the text: ‘jeffrey, please come. you may have private time with each. your security clearance is approved’. Below it, fourteen sovereign representatives:

Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Portugal, Qatar, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates.

Epstein had security clearance. He was arranging private audiences with foreign ministers and heads of state for JPMorgan’s investment bank CEO. This detail — Epstein holding security clearance — does not appear in any of the DOJ releases used in the original essays.

On 29 October 2010, Epstein wrote to Staley: ‘some of the bigger players, and now sheik mohammed from dubai, have asked for private talks. I need to decide how to gear up my advisory business. grab a group from ___? Hire 5-10 stars? Larry?, peter? andrew?’ The three names — Summers, Mandelson, and Prince Andrew — correspond exactly to the American, British, and intelligence channels documented in the trilogy, here being assembled into a formal advisory structure for Gulf sovereign clients.

On 28 July 2012, Epstein forwarded Staley an email from the President of the Maldives, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, seeking to borrow $500 million repayable over ten years³. One month later, Reuters reported that China had made a $500 million loan to the Maldives⁴. The switchboard had sight of sovereign borrowing requirements before they were fulfilled.

 

César Chavez Foundation, Statement from the César Chavez Foundation, Staff Report, March 17, 2026, The César Chavez Foundation has become aware of disturbing allegations that  César Chavez, shown above, engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with women and minors duringhis time as President of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

We are deeply shocked and saddened by what we are hearing.

The Foundation is working with leaders in the Farmworker Movement to be responsive to these allegations, support the people who may have been harmed by his actions, and ensure we are united and guided by our commitment to justice and community empowerment.

In partnership with the UFW, we are establishing a safe and confidential process for those who wish to share their experiences of historic harm, and, if they choose to, participate in efforts toward repair and reconciliation. In addition, we are investing time and resources to ensure the Foundation promotes and strengthens a workplace culture that is safe and welcoming for all.

We ask for our community’s patience as we learn more. Throughout this process, our organization and our partners in the movement will continue our work together to protect and uplift the families and communities that we serve.

Today, the Cesar Chavez Foundation impacts the lives of millions of Latinos and working families across the Southwest by inspiring and transforming communities through social enterprises that address essential human, cultural, and community needs.

March 16

New York Times, One of Epstein’s Levers of Power: Access to Elite Private Schools, Jan Ransom, March 16, 2026. Jeffrey Epstein used his money and influence in the world of elite private schools to assist friends and acquaintances.

After Jeffrey Epstein agreed to pay more than $14,000 in private school tuition for the children of a German artificial intelligence researcher, he followed up with a pointed request: “You have yet to tell me your insights into how people see me.”

It was the summer of 2017. Mr. Epstein had recently been sued by yet another woman who had accused him of having trafficked her for sex, and he was eager for the opinion of the researcher, whose work he was funding.

The exchange, which was included in the millions of files related to Mr. Epstein released by the Justice Department, shows how he wielded tuition payments to private primary and secondary schools, and the perception that he could sway their admissions processes, to build relationships and gain influence even after he was convicted of sex crimes in Florida.

A review of the Epstein files turned up dozens of mentions of the Trinity School in Manhattan, Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, the Masters School in Westchester and other elite academies across casual conversations, dashed off emails and other records. In some cases, hopeful parents contacted Mr. Epstein for help with tuition or gaining admission for their children. In others, he appeared to reach out to the parents on his own initiative.

Among the parents were the researcher, Joscha Bach; the media and real estate mogul Mortimer Zuckerman; Eva Andersson-Dubin, a former Trinity board member who dated Mr. Epstein before marrying the hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin; and Mr. Epstein’s private banker.

All the exchanges occurred after Mr. Epstein was convicted of sex crimes in Florida in 2008, and before federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused him of sexually abusing dozens of girls and indicted him on sex trafficking charges in the summer of 2019. There is no suggestion in the files that the parents aided Mr. Epstein in any wrongdoing.

But the messages underscore how deeply entrenched Mr. Epstein had remained in the circles of the powerful even after he registered as a sex offender.

Mr. Epstein had long associated with prestigious private schools. He served briefly as a math and science teacher at the Dalton School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side before he was dismissed for poor performance and went to work in finance, and in the years that followed he moved in the same circles as some of the school’s leaders and prominent alumni.

In doing so, and occasionally offering to call in favors, Mr. Epstein was following a well-worn path for Americans of wealth and privilege, said Adam Howard, an education professor at Colby College who has studied prestigious private schools.

“This issue is not simply about Epstein or one man,” Mr. Howard said. “It is that these elite institutions often operate in a culture of quiet sponsorship and leverage and social networks. Most of us in the U.S. have no way of accessing these kind of networks that have one function and one function only: to make and remake elites.”

For Mr. Bach, the tuition payments came as part of an agreement that Mr. Epstein would fund his research at M.I.T. and Harvard — and his family’s living costs in the United States — from about 2013 to 2019.

Mr. Bach, who studies theories of consciousness and artificial intelligence, said he was connected with Mr. Epstein by other prominent scientists. In all, Mr. Bach accepted more than $180,000 from Mr. Epstein and stayed in one of his Manhattan apartments for a time in 2015.

The payments included more than $31,000 in tuition for Mr. Bach’s children to attend the private German International School Boston in 2016 and 2017, emails show. School officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Editors’ PicksA TV Empire Built on Humor and HeartHow Gin, Wax and Heat Guns Make Onscreen Meals Look DeliciousCan You Really ‘Detox’ From Plastic?

In an email to The New York Times, Mr. Bach said he received advice from scientists he respected saying that he should accept funding from Mr. Epstein.

“However, if I had known or suspected the horrible things that Epstein had been accused of after he was arrested again, or that he might engage in any renewed criminal conduct, I would not have accepted his funding or associated with him in any way,” Mr. Bach said.

“When Epstein offered to fund my research,” Mr. Bach said, “I told him that this might be difficult, because I have two children and would have to move my family to the U.S., which I could not afford.”

“He told me that he would take care of our living expenses for the time of the project,” he added, and said of the tuition payments: “This was part of the research funding he gave me.”

The files do not include a reply from Mr. Bach in which he shared his views about Mr. Epstein’s reputation. In a post on the website Substack late last year, he described Mr. Epstein as a “high-functioning sociopath” who was “high strung, intensely curious and utterly devoid of fear, guilt or shame.”

In the case of Mr. Zuckerman, he and Mr. Epstein had a long association, socializing and even at one point investing alongside one another. But by early 2014, their relationship had become tense: Mr. Epstein was aggressively pushing for Mr. Zuckerman, a billionaire, to hire him for estate planning, and Mr. Zuckerman had decided against doing so, the files show.

March 14 

 

The Other 98%, Advocacy: This is the move everyone has been waiting for, March 14, 2026. Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, above top, just told every person connected to Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking empire that state prosecutors are coming for them, and there's not a thing Donald Trump can do about it.

"Hey Epstein class, you may think that whatever happened on that island or happened in Epstein's mansion is not going to haunt you," Krasner said. "Let me tell you who is going to haunt you. It's the prosecutors at the state court level who still care about the Constitution, the laws, and justice."

Because Epstein's operation was sprawling and transnational, it crisscrossed through countless local jurisdictions. That means state prosecutors across the country potentially have standing to bring charges. And here's the part that should have every powerful person on that client list losing sleep: state court convictions cannot be pardoned by any president. Period.

Krasner emphasized that the statute of limitations for crimes involving children extends for years, giving prosecutors a long runway. Any conviction at the state level means real time served, no matter who's in the White House.Krasner already founded the F.A.F.O. coalition, a network of progressive prosecutors from cities including Minneapolis, Dallas, Austin, and multiple Virginia jurisdictions, built specifically to hold powerful people accountable when the federal government refuses to.

He's not bluffing. He's building infrastructure.Under Pam Bondi, the DOJ has shown zero interest in pursuing Epstein's associates. The files have been buried. The investigations have stalled. The coverup is happening in plain sight.So if the federal government won't do its job, Krasner is saying the states will. And the beauty of this approach is that it only takes one indictment. One associate flips. Then another. Then the whole thing unravels.The powerful have spent years assuming they were untouchable. Krasner just told them they're not.

Other98 uses meme warfare and strategic coalition-building to challenge the corporations and billionaires that have hijacked our democracy. We're elevating stories from the front lines of crucial struggles for justice to fight like hell for an America that works for the other 98% of us.

March 10

 

Four Jeffrey Epstein trafficking victims file suit against Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi, shown below right, with Epstein shown at center (March 10, 2026).

The Search for Accountability, The Epstein Cover-Up: A Lawsuit Against Pam Bondi and the Fight for Justice, Duyen Elaine and Tháng Ba, March 11, 2026. In a shocking turn of events, dozens of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have filed a lawsuit against former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleging that she played a crucial role in shielding Epstein from a more thorough investigation.

This lawsuit, led by Maria Farmer—one of the first women to accuse Epstein publicly—has become a focal point for those who have fought for years to bring the truth about Epstein’s crimes to light.

The plaintiffs claim that critical details about Epstein’s activities were concealed during the initial investigation and that influential figures, including Bondi, may have deliberately allowed Epstein to avoid more serious charges. This explosive lawsuit has not only rekindled interest in the Epstein case but also raised serious questions about the role of powerful individuals in protecting one of the most infamous sex traffickers in modern history.

As the case gains momentum, it could reveal new, vital information about the way Epstein’s case was mishandled—and whether those who could have stopped him were instead complicit in his ability to evade justice for years.

Bondi faces pressure after first release of Epstein files fell short of expectations | PBS News

The Jeffrey Epstein case has become a symbol of corruption and the deep-rooted power dynamics that allow sexual abuse and trafficking to flourish within the elite circles of society. For years, Epstein’s wealth and connections seemed to shield him from prosecution, despite mounting evidence of his crimes. It was only in 2019, after Epstein’s arrest on federal charges of sex trafficking minors, that the full scope of his abuse began to unravel.

Before his arrest, Epstein had faced allegations of sexual abuse from numerous women, some of whom were minors at the time. Yet, his high-profile connections—spanning politicians, business leaders, and celebrities—allowed him to avoid serious consequences for years. The leniency with which his previous cases were handled raises unsettling questions about the extent to which Epstein was protected by those in power.The Role of Pam Bondi: A Controversial Figure

Pam Bondi, the former Attorney General of Florida, has come under intense scrutiny for her actions during the handling of Epstein’s case in the early stages. According to the lawsuit, Bondi, alongside other officials, played a role in covering up crucial information that could have led to more serious charges against Epstein.

In 2008, Epstein struck a controversial plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to two state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor. The deal, which many have criticized as a “sweetheart deal,” allowed Epstein to serve just 13 months in a county jail, with work release privileges. Despite the severity of the charges, the deal effectively protected Epstein from facing federal charges related to sex trafficking.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit argue that Bondi, as the Attorney General at the time, was part of a larger effort to protect Epstein. They claim that key details about his crimes were intentionally overlooked or suppressed, allowing him to continue his predatory behavior unchecked for years. The survivors believe that Bondi’s involvement in the investigation’s early stages helped Epstein avoid more severe charges and prolonged his reign of abuse.

March 6

 

The FBI released in redacted form this week its 2019 reports recording claims by a woman stating that she had been sexually assaulted and then threatened by Donald Trump and his friend Jeffrey Epstein in the period 1983 to 1985 when she was in her early teens.

Emptywheel, Analysis: The Alleged Trump Victim’s Claims about Blackmail Are as Important as Her Claims about Rape, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), March 6, 2026. Yesterday, DOJ released the three interview reports from a woman who alleged she was abused by Donald Trump that it had previously withheld.

As NPR notes, DOJ is still withholding a number of materials (notes from her interviews and, far more importantly, details about the handling of the interview) relating to the accusation. That matters because, it is now clear, DOJ withheld — and is still withholding — the originals of the interview reports.

And that matters given the timeline of the accusations and the fact that, just days before Epstein suicided, the victim claimed Epstein and Trump spoke about blackmail.

Here’s what the timeline looks like:

July 8, 2019: SDNY [Southern District of New York] announced arrest of Jeffrey Epstein and included a tip line for others who had been abused by Epstein.

July 8: The alleged victim’s friend called the tip line. She explained that the friend had recently told her about the Trump incident. And on the day of the Epstein arrest, the friend asked the victim if Epstein had also abused her, too, and the victim said yes.

July 24: 16 days later, the FBI interviewed the alleged victim for the first time. That interview (the one that did originally get released) focused almost entirely on Epstein. Trump only came up in the context of that conversation with the friend who called the tip line and one other friend. And she went to some (futile) length to crop Trump out of that picture.

August 7: On August 7, the FBI did a follow-up interview. The interview started with the alleged victim saying that she felt comfortable enough describing the other men who abused her, starting with a guy named Atkins (who also had a relationship with her mother). Nevertheless, more than half the interview focused on Epstein. At the bottom of page 7 of 10, the report begins to record her allegations about Trump: He didn’t like that she was a tomboy, he got her alone in a room and forced her down on him saying something to the effect of, “Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be.” She bit him. He said, “get this little bitch the hell out of here,” but in the telling, others came back in the room and a beautiful blonde lady told her to wear a bra, which is to say a description of the claim later produced in a power point is inaccurate — she described that he called for her to be removed, but she was not.

Another paragraph describes the victim describing further conversations between Epstein and Trump. Then the interview focused back on Epstein for six paragraphs, including a claim that Epstein came to trust her, that he spoke another language occasionally.

The interview ended with these two paragraphs — one mixing details of Epstein blackmailing her mother and discussing blackmail with Trump, with additional random details suggesting more contact with Trump than any other document, and a final paragraph describing she was afraid Epstein’s people would come after her.

August 9: The first interview report was finalized on August 9, two days after the second interview in which the victim claimed that she had heard Epstein and Trump talk about blackmail.

August 10: And then, three days after this woman described Epstein and Trump discussing blackmail and the day after FBI entered the first interview with this woman, Epstein suicided. There’s no public evidence the timing was anything but a wild coincidence. But at the very least, it must have made the treatment of these documents even more politically fraught.

August 20: The third interview with the woman took place at a time when Epstein could no longer be held accountable because he was dead, on August 20. After a completely redacted administrative paragraph, that interview report started by focusing on Trump, whose alleged abuse of the woman might have taken place in SDNY, or New Jersey, either of which would have given those FBI agents jurisdiction to investigate.

The next paragraph described her claim that her mother’s embezzlement conviction had a tie to Epstein and the Atkins guy she claimed had also abused her. It was followed by a reference to Epstein’s brother (which is pertinent not least because Mark Epstein says Jeffrey never spent summers in South Carolina, where all this allegedly started).

And then the remainder of the interview, nine paragraphs over three pages, focused on threats she believed arose from harassment from Epstein. In just one of those paragraphs, in which she explained why she attributed these threats to Epstein even though no one ever said they came from him, is she recorded as mentioning Trump.

August 22: The second interview — the one where the alleged victim claimed that Epstein and Trump talked about blackmail just days before Epstein suicided in prison — was entered weeks later, on August 22, two days after describing that she had been harassed for years and she attributed that harassment, with no evidence, to Epstein.

August 30: The third interview was entered on August 30.

October 16: The final interview took place on October 16. The attorney who had represented her to date was not present and she had, in the interim, told the FBI that she was working with what must be Lisa Bloom on a civil suit, which would be filed in December. She refused the FBI request to record the interview. They explained that they wanted to focus the interview on Epstein’s associates who abused her (which makes sense given that Epstein himself was dead). and asked her if she would provide more details about what happened with Trump. She said nothing could be done about it, which is why she stopped cooperating.

October 22: That final interview was entered on October 22, well into the focus on impeachment.

December 27: On December 27, a Jane Doe 4 made an allegation in a lawsuit that had not been shared with the FBI: that after hitting her in the face, a prominent businessman (who is not described as Trump, though Trump is mentioned elsewhere) vaginally and anally raped her. The lawsuit also states with certainty this happened in New York when, in her interviews with the FBI, the victim was not sure whether it happened in New Jersey or New York.

46. Jane Doe 4 was brutally and forcibly battered, assaulted, and raped by these other men she met through Epstein. On one occasion, one of these prominent men forcibly slapped Jane Doe 4 in the face after she was forced to perform oral sex on him. This same man forcibly raped her, penetrating her both vaginally and anally. On information and belief, Epstein was aware of and, indeed encouraged, the assault of Jane Doe 4 by these other men.

These interviews reveal several things. First, the victim’s allegations were not focused primarily on Trump; she was focused on a man she claimed to be Epstein. Indeed, in the first interview, Trump came up primarily in the context of explaining the role of the photograph used to ID Epstein, not Trump. Her second interview did include the Trump allegation amidst a much greater focus on Epstein, but her claim that the two discussed blackmail in front of her is every bit as inflammatory as the rape claim.

Remember, when Pam Bondi and Kash Patel attempted to dismiss this whole issue last July, they claimed, “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” That’s factually false; there’s clear evidence Epstein was pressuring Bill Gates. But given that, weeks later, the FBI listed the allegation from this woman first in what appears to be prep for Todd Blanche’s interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, it is exceedingly likely they had this claim in mind when they dismissed the credibility of all blackmail claims. The Alleged Trump Victim’s Claims about Blackmail Are as Important as Her Claims about Rape

This woman told the FBI that Epstein and Trump discussed blackmail, and days later he suicided in prison.

And after that, the FBI wanted to focus on Trump because, well, Epstein wasn’t around to be prosecuted anymore.

Then, years later, DOJ attempted to withhold documents recording all that.

When faced with overwhelming evidence that they had withheld documents implicating Trump, DOJ released them. But the excuses it gave are as suspect as the withholding.

As NPR explained, when caught withholding these documents, DOJ claimed they had withheld them because they were duplicates, and now is effectively saying, oops, they weren’t duplicates.

The Justice Department has repeatedly told NPR that any documents withheld were “privileged, are duplicates or relate to an ongoing federal investigation.”

Last week, after NPR’s initial story, the Justice Department said it was determining if records had been mistakenly tagged as duplicates and if any were found, “the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law.”

But in fact, these documents — every one of the documents released so far — are duplicates.

As NPR focused in their original story on the withholding, what got released was the discovery shared with Ghislaine. Both the original release and these includes three Bates stamps, including the series — 3501.045-003, here — tied to discovery to Ghislaine, along with stamps from that production.

The Ghislaine material is the definition of duplicate material, because everything that went to her should have an original copy in the FBI’s case file.

But we didn’t get any of those originals. We still haven’t gotten those originals. We can’t be sure if the originals still exist. DOJ certainly hasn’t given us the originals, they gave us duplicates after saying these were duplicates.

DOJ not only withheld documents documenting a claim that Trump raped a teenager, and with it, a claim that Trump and Epstein discussed blackmail, but they’re still withholding the originals of all that. 

 

  Visit the Justice Integrity Project #MeToo/Trafficking site for other daily updates.