All posts tagged "jeffrey epstein"

Epstein enjoyed humiliating Trump for needing to 'hitch rides' on his plane: biographer

Sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein enjoyed mocking Trump because he would constantly ask to "hitch rides" on his plane, a biographer revealed.

During an episode of Inside Trump's Head, biographer Michael Wolff, who spent years interviewing Epstein and then chronicled Trump's political career, said that Trump bumming plane rides off Epstein was a "constant point of friction."

Wolff and co-host Joanna Coles were talking about the Boeing 747 gifted to Trump by Qatar, and Wolff explained that Trump has "always invested in his planes." To illustrate how Trump overspent on his planes, he talked about how he had to start relying on Epstein for plane rides.

"This constant point of friction between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump was that Trump often could not afford to fly his own plane, so he had to hitch rides with Epstein," Wolff said. "Epstein would constantly remind him of this, so that became Epstein's dominance over Trump."

Wolff said Trump "becomes invested" in his planes because "it is that stand-in for his power, his dominance, his ability to be the commander," but he noted that other billionaires are the same way.

"Whenever you are with billionaires, one of the subjects that always comes up is their airplanes, and often that their airplanes are broken and the maintenance requirements of these airplanes," Wolff said. "So it apparently gets under the skin of all people who own their own airplanes, but particularly this is a Donald Trump thing."

Wolff said he's heard "countless stories" that are "worrisome" about Trump getting upset about his planes. Trump notably subpoenaed four New York Times journalists on Friday after he was humiliated by their reporting on the security concerns of his Qatari jet.

Trump FIFA scandal echoes of secret call that ties him to Epstein's world: biographer

A Trump biographer flagged how a secret call Donald Trump made to an NFL owner ties him to Epstein's Palm Beach world.

During an episode of Inside Trump's Head, Trump biographer Michael Wolff explained how Trump made a call to get New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft off the hook after he was caught in a massage parlor sting in 2019.

"This would be in the first administration," Wolff explained. "His friend Bob Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots, is in trouble because he's been busted for frequenting Korean massage parlors in Palm Beach, and it's not a good moment for Bob."

Wolff explained that in addition to "legal difficulties," Kraft was dealing with the threat of losing his team at the hands of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

"A commissioner can threaten sanctions or remove you from team ownership," Wolff said. "This was a major moment."

While Kraft was going to massage parlors in Palm Beach, Jeffrey Epstein was operating in West Palm Beach, Wolff noted. Around the time Kraft's scandal came to light, the public was learning about Epstein. Wolff also recounted a joke he heard from Epstein, who said, "Bob Kraft gets take-out, and I get take-in."

Wolff also remembers Trump stepping in to help "his friend, Bob Kraft," and a moment where "Donald Trump is on the phone with him" while sitting as the president.

"Donald Trump is advising him on how to handle a sex scandal, which he's got some experience with," Wolff recalled. "And Trump says, 'Don't worry about Roger. I'll take care of him.'"

When co-host Joanna Coles asked what happened, Wolff explained, "Well, nothing," and Kraft continued to own the Patriots while the scandal faded.

"He still is Bob Kraft, has been returned to being a respected member of the billionaire community," Wolff said. "He married a shrink much younger than him, and they live happily in the summer in the Hamptons."

Trump DOJ stumbles in Epstein files case with 'embarrassing' excuse: legal expert

The Trump Justice Department stumbled in an Jeffrey Epstein files case with an "embarrassing" excuse flagged by a legal expert on Saturday.

In a recent episode of the Legal AF podcast, analyst Michael Popok discussed the DOJ's response to an injunction requiring it to translate foreign-language documents in the Epstein files. The injunction stems from journalist Katie Phang's lawsuit demanding translation and a published redaction log, which has seen early success, Popok noted.

"It's not like the World Cup. It's not like there's 48 different countries of languages," Popok said. "What is it? Four or five languages. We know who was involved in the Epstein scandal. Maybe French, maybe Italian, certainly English, not a foreign language, but you know the way the Brits speak."

Even though the DOJ responded to a judge's injunction "in the nick of time," it refused to translate parts of the Epstein files, saying reviewers "could not translate it on the fly," according to Popok.

"They could use an app, an AI app, that would do the initial cut of translation," Popok said. "It's embarrassing that they think they can get away with this."

Popok summed up the DOJ's response as "you're not getting it, judge. We're not translating it." However, Popok added that the judge in the case, Emmet Sullivan, "doesn't suffer fools" and predicted that he'll be "p----- off" with the DOJ's excuse for not complying with the injunction.

"You're gonna see it in his next order," Popok said. "Remember we're talking about Epstein survivors and sexual abuse victims, many of them who were girls at the time."

Read on Substack

'Piece of meat': Beauty queen reveals Trump's disturbing question after alleged assault

A former beauty queen says President Donald Trump asked her a disturbing question after an alleged sexual assault she says occurred decades ago, according to a new report.

Former Miss Europe contestant Beatrice Keul, 55, told PunchUp on Wednesday that Trump — whom she accuses of sexually assaulting her at the Plaza Hotel in 1993 — proceeded to grill her about Jeffrey Epstein.

“Have you spoken to Jeff?” Trump allegedly asked.

Interviewer Tom Latchem added, "Keul told PunchUp that this suggested to her that he and Epstein were coordinating which young women would be invited to private parties, including at Mar-a-Lago."

Keul, then 23, says she received a personal invitation from the then-real estate mogul to participate in the Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant, according to reports.

On Wednesday, Keul described the pageant as a “playground” for Epstein, the convicted sex criminal who died in a New York City jail cell before he could face sex trafficking charges, and the men who wanted his help securing access to her fellow contestants.

“They knew exactly what they wanted,” Keul reportedly said. “I was fresh meat.”

Epstein promised young women flights, hotel stays and invites to parties at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, Keul told PunchUp.

But White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson denied Keul’s claims.

“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” Jackson said in a statement to PunchUp. “And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”

Keul is hardly the first person to levy such accusations against Trump. When Keul first revealed her accusations to the Daily Beast in 2024, she became the 28th person to accuse him of sexual assault.

An explosive FBI interview buried in the Epstein files aligns with Keul’s description of her encounter with Trump. That witness accused Trump of orchestrating a team of recruiters to search Trump Tower for women to have sex with, the files show.

In 2020, former contestants of Elite Model Management’s Look of the Year competition in 1991 and 1992 told the Guardian Trump appeared backstage as they changed clothes.

“Every time we changed, it was like Trump would find a reason to come backstage,” said Stacy Wilkes, then 16. Another contestant recalled similar instances. “I remember thinking, what have I got myself into?”

MAGA billionaire's secret society list looks a lot like Epstein files: columnist

A recently leaked list of the members of a MAGA billionaire's secret society looks a lot like the Epstein files, one columnist warned.

Wired published a list of more than 200 of the world's elite who are part of a secret society, Dialog, run by tech billionaire Peter Thiel. A list of events at a retreat for the group included sessions on "Navigating WWIII" and "How's Your Sex Life?" Wired reported.

However, progressive writers Wajahat Ali and Danielle Moddie said in a recent episode of "The Left Hook" podcast that they were more freaked out by how names from the secret society had connections to Jeffrey Epstein or appeared in the Epstein files.

"When you look at the list, all you have to do is then like cross-reference it with people in the Epstein files," Moddie said. "Looking at it and reading it, I was just like, 'Of course.'"

Ali pointed out that Peter Attia, the physician and longevity expert, is listed as part of Thiel's secret society, adding that Attia allegedly "did horrible things with Jeffrey Epstein." He also called out author Jonathan Haidt and venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale as being in both Thiel's secret society and the Epstein files.

On top of that, Epstein himself was invited to the 2014 Dialog retreat, Wired reported, and Thiel is also named in the Epstein files as he exchanged emails with the sex criminal until early 2019. "It's all a big club, and you ain't in it," Ali said. He and Moddie also noted how the Epstein files and Thiel's secret society list are both "bipartisan."

Moddie said it's proof "these people have no problem with each other," while Ali called both lists proof of "the Epstein class and how the world's worst people all know each other."

"Dialog": A Secret Society of Bond Supervillains Who Are Part of the Epstein Class and Intent on Destroying the World by THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali

Techno-fascist friend of Epstein, Peter Thiel, has assembled a bipartisan club of elite influencers and CEOs from around the world to strategize world domination.

Read on Substack

Epstein bomb drops on 'Real Housewives' as Carole Radziwill grilled over Maxwell ties

"Real Housewives of New York City" cast members clashed after Sai De Silva called out Carole Radziwill for her connection to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, TMZ reported on Wednesday.

Radziwill, who returned to the show after years off-camera, was reportedly questioned during filming by De Silva after her name was in the Epstein files, according to TMZ. Maxwell was also the photographer for Radziwill's photo on her 2005 memoir "What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love."

"Our sources tell us Sai and Carole beefed throughout the season … after Sai decided to grill Carole about the Epstein Files … telling people she felt the need to speak up because she has children," TMZ reported.

Carole Radziwill is a former ABC News producer and author turned reality television star. She married Anthony Radziwill, the son of Polish prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł and Lee Radziwill. He died after a battle with cancer in 1999, just weeks after his cousin and best friend John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy died, according to The New York Times.

Her name appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, and she has acknowledged knowing Ghislaine Maxwell in social circles. She described the moment she learned of Maxwell's crimes.

"Imagine knowing someone and even being friendly with them and then they turn out to be, like, a monster," Radziwill told The Times in May.

Prison staff at Ghislaine Maxwell's facility evade questions during lawmaker visit: report

The officials running Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell's prison dodge questioning from visiting congressional staff, according to reporting by Politico.

Maxwell transferred from a prison in Florida to the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas. Politico noted that Democrats have wondered whether her transfer to a "cushier" facility was part of a deal to keep her quiet about Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Whistleblowers have alleged that officials running the Texas prison have gone out of their way to make Maxwell's life easier behind bars, and staff for the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees paid a visit to the facility on Tuesday to find out.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking members of the two committees, said in a statement that their staff was there for "answers about Ms. Maxwell's unprecedented transfer and VIP treatment," Politico reported.

However, during the three-hour visit, congressional staff weren't able to gather much from the warden or facility staff. The warden argued that Maxwell wasn't really given special treatment, according to Politico.

"The lawmakers added that they received little in the way of new details," Politico reported, adding that those lawmakers "doubted the truthfulness of the information that they did receive."

"Bureau of Prisons leadership repeatedly shut down our lines of questioning or could not provide basic information about our central concerns, including Ms. Maxwell's extraordinary treatment, allegations of sexual assault at the facility, and retaliation against inmates who tried to blow the whistle," Raskin and Garcia said in their statement, per Politico.

Raskin and Garcia also promised to investigate Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's "role in ensuring Ms. Maxwell remains comfortable and quiet."

Ghislaine Maxwell forms 'highly secretive' prison crew as rumors swirl behind bars: report

Ghislaine Maxwell has reportedly assembled a "highly secretive" prison group behind bars as more details behind her incarceration at a minimum security facility have been revealed, The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.

The former partner and co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein has befriended three women and allegedly sees them as the "finest and best educated" among the population at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, according to The Mail. These friends include Bethany Cataldi, 54, "a disgraced doctor serving eight years for charging the government for non-existent procedures." Another is former CFO Antonietta Nguyen, 58, "who plundered $9 million from company funds to splurge on purses and luxury vacations."

Maxwell's reported best friend is Jennifer Bengston Cook, 58, a former bookkeeper who "wrote checks worth $1.6 million to herself."

"They are highly secretive. They whisper to one another and cover their mouths so nobody can understand what they are saying," a source told The Mail.

There are also reports of special privileges for Maxwell behind bars, including the decision over who she bunks with at the location. She has also only had one roommate, while most other prisoners have to bunk with two other people.

"The cozy arrangement caused a stink because it's normally up to prison counsellors to decide who sleeps where inside the 37-acre compound that accommodates 635 women," The Mail reported.

One source told The Mail the former socialite has sway inside the prison.

"Max had a different bunkie to begin with but as soon as that girl was released, Jennifer took her place," a source told The Mail.

"If the rumors are to be believed, Max picked her because they are so close. Nobody else gets to choose who they live with," the source explained. "It's typical of the sort of special treatment she enjoys."

Epstein survivors hit Trump with a birthday gift he won't want to open

Jeffrey Epstein survivors are marking Trump's 80th birthday with a pointed gesture that he will not want to see.

Marina Lacerda and Andrea Sterling called out Trump's ties to Epstein as his 80th birthday present in a recent interview with journalist Aaron Parnas.

The two women walked Parnas through a space filled with the voluminous Epstein files known as the Jeffrey Epstein Reading Room. Lacerda said that part of Trump's birthday present is calling attention to what she renamed "The Trump Epstein Reading Room."

"He wants his name everywhere. His name is here. This is his birthday present," Lacerda told Parnas. "What better present can we give the president of the United States right now than what we have here?"

In addition to the new name for the reading room, the two survivors said that their sardonic gift for the president will also be to continue "to fight and give awareness" about Jeffrey Epstein, and push for Congress to release more from the Epstein files.

'Damning' omission in NYT's massive Epstein report flagged by journalist

A veteran national security blogger is calling foul on the New York Times' latest sprawling Epstein dive over one curious omission.

The name "Melania" does not appear anywhere in Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's roughly 8,000-word piece detailing the White House's panicked response to the Epstein files, longtime legal commentator Marcy Wheeler pointed out on her Emptywheel blog on Thursday.

Wheeler argued the absence was "especially damning" because Haberman herself co-wrote a July 2019 NYT story noting that Epstein had bragged since Trump's election that he was the one who introduced the future president to his third wife. The 2019 piece, co-bylined by Annie Karni and Haberman, plainly mentioned Epstein's claim.

"Instead, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan give us t---, a bulls-- claim that the White House was panicked about the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files primarily because a woman had claimed Trump abused a girl’s nipples until they hurt," wrote Wheeler.

The Melania question has since become a legal battle.

Earlier this year, an FBI document from a 2019 witness interview stated that "Epstein introduced Melania Trump to Donald Trump," an accusation Melania aggressively pushed back against, insisting in an April news conference that she met Trump "by chance" at a 1998 party. The first lady has threatened multi-billion-dollar defamation suits against journalists and authors who repeat the Epstein connection, including biographer Michael Wolff and Hunter Biden.

Wheeler argued The Times piece pursued other detail-rich angles, such as a passage on the strategy of having acting Attorney General Todd Blanche interview Ghislaine Maxwell, while leaving the explosive personal Trump-Epstein link untouched.

"With Maggie especially, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether she is deliberately crafting her narrative in service to clients, or whether she is just easily snookered by her sources," Wheeler railed.