9/9/25: Korea Furious After ICE Hyundai Raid, Trump Epstein Birthday Letter Revealed

23:45Jeremy Scahill:So really quick, just as a mention, because we want to we've actually got Weigel standing by and I want to bring him in to talk about Zoran and abundance and national conservatism and all the rest. But there was a significant, significant SCOTUS. I don't even know if you call this a decision. It was a shadow docket decision. You can put this up on the screen. A5, they lifted the restrictions on L.A. immigration stops that have been imposed by a lower court. So effectively, the lower court said, what you're doing is tantamount to racial profiling, and you can't do it. You can't just detain people or stop and frisk them effectively based on what they look like or whether they're, you know, around a job area that you think is high in immigrants.

24:26Jeremy Scahill:And the Supreme Court, without giving any sort of window into their thinking and their logic, lifted that restriction. And, Sagar, this is very consistent with a pattern we have seen with this Supreme Court under Trump 2.0, where kind of quietly, I don't know if this has gotten as much attention as it should, the Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration on the shadow docket something like 16, 17 separate times. They've mostly been, I mean, just racking up the victories. And the reason it's called the shadow docket is because as in this instance, it's not a ruling on the merits. So it's not like you get this long brief, oh, here's our thinking and here's what it means, blah, blah, blah.

25:07Jeremy Scahill:It's not a final decision on it. But in the meantime, they're lifting the injunction. And so the Trump administration can do what they want. We've seen similar things with regard to like the ability to fire whoever they want without giving cause at these agencies that are supposed to be independent. We've seen similar things with regard to, you know, they basically dismantled the Department of Education. Previously, you would have assumed that seems like something that Congress has to do, not the executive. Well, the court has allowed that to go forward. And so it truly has allowed the Trump administration to consolidate a massive amount of power without us getting any real logic or reasoning from the Supreme Court about how they're thinking through these things or whether even they would rule ultimately on the merits in this direction.

25:50Jeremy Scahill:So this is just the latest in what has been an extraordinary series of victories for the Trump administration with the Supreme Court. Yeah, you're right to explain on the shadow docket. It's a bit complicated, like you said, because they did not rule on the merits. It was Justice Kavanaugh writing, I believe, for the majority. It was 6-3 to come through on the shadow docket to allow the injunction to be lifted without ruling on it eventually. It is also a consequence of a lot of the extraordinary legal action and extraordinary behavior that's been taken on the part of the Trump administration.

26:22But it's certainly something to watch.

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28:26that no such letter ever existed. They said that it never even showed them the letter. Well, the letter has now been released to the House Oversight Committee. It is part of several pages now released by the Oversight Committee from the so-called birthday book directly from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein. So let's make that very clear. This was from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, this so-called birthday book that was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. Has a lot of other luminaries and other interesting people. But the allegation from the White House now is that it's a fake letter, which was actually planted in the Epstein estate, I guess, from the year 2003.

29:02And since that time has bubbled up, that forgery to where we are right now. So just presenting that. We'll get to some of the White House denials in a second. But let's take a look at the letter, which was described for us only by The Wall Street Journal. Let's go and put B4, please, up on the screen so you can all see it now for yourself. There it is. And I'll remind you kind of the weird cryptic poem that was written there in typeface voiceover. There must be more to life than having everything. Donald, yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is. Jeffrey, nor will I since I know what it is.

29:37Donald, we have certain things in common, Jeffrey. Jeffrey, yes, we do come to think of it. Donald, enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? Jeffrey, as a matter of fact, it was clear to me since the last time I saw you. Donald, a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday. May every day be another wonderful secret. Donald J. Trump with a signature there listed. So B5, please, just to go and show everybody the initial understanding and statement from the White House is, quote, time to News Corp to open that checkbook. It's not his signature. Defamation in all caps. That is from Taylor Budowich.

30:11He is the deputy White House chief of staff and a cabaret secretary there over at the White House. A little bit of an issue, though, because in The New York Times story in The Wall Street Journal, they've actually released other side by side photos of Trump's signature from that time period. And they do appear to look very similar. So not a signature expert, obviously, or any of that. You can judge it all for yourselves, but certainly some of the story about how allegedly this is a fake doesn't pass some of the smell test, considering that it does come from the Epstein estate itself. By the way, in terms of who leaked this, it's very interesting originally because, Crystal, some of the things that have now come out from the Epstein estate that were released by the House Oversight Committee appear to actually have been a part of some exhibits in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial.

31:03So that birthday book has probably had access both by U.S. prosecutors and the FBI, some since 2019, but also obviously available to the Ghislaine Maxwell legal team. So still lots of speculation as to who originally leaked it, but we can all go read it for ourselves. I was reading some of it this morning. It's unbelievably creepy. It's disgusting. And this is like – I'm taking Trump out of this. Trump was one of many included with lewd and creepy, disgusting messages from literally some of the world's richest, most powerful people. They're all writing in some sort of secret code. We have little children cartoon drawings.

31:44I mean, I'm not exaggerating. Emily and I will fully go through some of this stuff tomorrow. But obviously the headline here is specifically about Trump and his denial. and as part of the reason why, you know, immediately they started saying that all the Epstein files themselves were a hoax. But you can see here, the story's not going away and it's becoming more inconvenient for the White House and for everybody else who has touched this man over the years.

32:09Jeremy Scahill:That was an interesting choice of language there at the end. I used it correctly. Well, with regard to who leaked it, I mean, it is worth noting that since Ghislaine Maxwell got her little cushy move to her low security club fed and she had her nice little conversation with the deputy AG. We haven't gotten any more leaks now, have we? So that is an interesting thing to note. Can we put the B4 back up on the screen? Because many people are noting this did not look the way that we expected it to look. It is even more disturbing to see in person. And, you know, I thought that there's sort of an assumption when you think of, like, a grown man drawing a female shape.

32:54Jeremy Scahill:You expect giant boobs. That's what I'm trying to say. Now, listen, I appreciate the inclusive inclusivity of the small breasted woman community. Okay. However, many are also pointing out this actually looks like a prepubescent girl. So when you have some, the president of the United States writing in this creepy ass code about the secrets they have in common and enigmas, etc. May every day be another wonderful secret. On this image, it is very hard to come up with what an innocent explanation of what he is referring to is. Especially, Sagar, to your point, when you put it in context of the rest of the book, which is fucking disgusting, can put B8 up on the screen to give you a little taste of what we're talking about in this book.

33:47Jeremy Scahill:You can see here a cartoon drawing of Jeffrey Epstein handing balloons to little girls in the year, they say, 1983. And then in 2003, the present day, him receiving massage from, you know, girls who are unclothed or barely clothed. And it says, what a great country. So seemingly a cartoon depiction of his grooming. literally i mean it's a literal cartoon version of grooming yeah including one of the girls with a je uh tattoo oh i didn't even notice that one on her ass yeah and i mean if you look at all of these many of them are indecipherable because they are all speaking in this weird like eyes wide shut code so the impression you come away with is a whole friend group of extremely powerful and wealthy individuals les waxner has his contribution in here many others besides who all know what's going on and are at the very least aware, if not directly participating.

34:47Jeremy Scahill:That is very much the impression you come away from if you spend five minutes looking at this disgusting book. Yeah, look, it's all public. You can all go read it for yourselves. I encourage you to do. I mean, we'll just pick the craziest image. Tomorrow, I'll actually co-late some others. By the way, some other interesting information that we can connect. We also have the Trump one that you mentioned. B7, please, we can put on the screen. This just goes to show, you know, the kind of the crass nature that all these guys were talking to each other. So here it appeared to be some check, like one of those large novelty checks for twenty two thousand five hundred dollars signed by somebody who signs a DJ Trump for to Jeffrey Epstein.

35:31And the letter that was written is Jeffrey showing early talents with many women, sells, quote, fully depreciated blank to Donald Trump for twenty two thousand five hundred dollars showed early people skills to presumably in both of these cases. Michael Wolff has pointed to the fact that Epstein and Trump shared a girlfriend, which may be their wonderful secret and or their enigma slash the depreciation. But this is the tone that they're using. Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of what I want to highlight is that every person in his orbit just very obviously was in on the, quote, secret. And look, I mean, many of these girls like, I don't know.

36:12I mean, in some cases, they're pointing to like 18 to 22 year olds, which is creepy, legal. But, you know, there is a children's section actually of the book with handwritten notes literally from children, including one of what appears to be a teenage girl of literally just folks. photos of her like playing the piano. I mean, very, very disgusting to be included in the birthday book. I don't know if it was submitted by a parent. I don't know what it is, but like handwritten stuff also written to him in crayon and other types of drawings. So, I mean, I don't even have words for all of this. It is really, really gross.

36:53Jeremy Scahill:It's disturbing. It's so disturbing. It connects to the political story as well as the Republicans kind of scramble on how exactly to respond to this. My personal favorite was a new claim by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson that Trump was actually an FBI informant on Jeffrey Epstein. Let's play B1, guys. Take a listen. He's not saying that what Epstein did is hoax. It's a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mara Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down. The president knows and has great sympathy for the women who have suffered these unspeakable harms.

37:30It's detestable to him. He and I have spoken about this as recently as 24 hours ago. That's an extraordinary claim that Trump was an FBI informant. We have not yet ever seen a single document or a release from the White House about that. By the way, remember, Trump himself said that he was mad at Jeffrey for stealing somebody from the massage, what did he say, from the spa, which we believe is Virginia Gouffre, who was one of the individuals who said that she was...

37:55Jeremy Scahill:He was asked about it, and he said, yeah, I believe so. He said, yeah, I believe that's who I'm talking about. Okay, so, you know, he said it, all right? I'm just taking that away. He's never mentioned being an FBI informant. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson now, though. He was a white hat pedophile, actually. It's like, what? Like, what? B2, please, because Mike Johnson is now saying, guys, I misspoke, actually, about that. Let's take a listen. What did you mean by that? What I was referring to in that long-term conversation? The first conversation was what the victim's attorney said. More than a decade ago, President Trump kicked Epstein out of Marilago.

38:30He was one of the only people, one of the only prominent people, as everyone has reported, not President Trump, but everybody about him, that he was willing to help law enforcement go after this guy who was a disgusting child abuser, sex trafficker, all the allegations. That's what they heard. So the president was helpful in that. I don't know if I use the right terminology, but that's a common knowledge, and everybody knows that. So this is much ado about nothing. Did the president tell you this specifically about his role? No, I've said, I was recounting what others have said. The president and I have talked about the Epstein-Benz many times.

39:04He's as disgusted by it as everybody else. He has long had a history of acknowledging that, and he has said repeatedly he wants everything to come out, all credible information, everything for the American public to decide. Was he ever asked to wear a wire or anything like that? I have no idea. No, I'm not saying that. I have no information about that whatsoever. I was repeating what has been common knowledge for a long time. The president was helpful in trying to get Epstein for the law enforcement to get out of Epstein. That's always been my understanding. That's common knowledge. It's the public's understanding.

39:36I was not breaking news there. Common knowledge. Not to me. And I follow this thing pretty damn closely, don't I? And literally. So look, apparently this all stems from the attorney Brad Edwards, who, quote, confirmed that Trump had offered helpful information during the investigation. But that is a basically side quote from the Epstein victim lawyer. I don't even know what he's referring to. There's no detail or any of that. And Mike Johnson spinned it into some sort of like grand gesture. But look, broadly, I mean, I think what this needs to fit into is every time that you think you know, because everyone knows to a certain extent.

40:21Oh, of course, everybody knew around him knew. But to see it in the cartoon, in the way that these guys all talk to him, it's really sickening. And especially when I pair it, look, I mean, the pedophile stuff and all the other and the creepy grooming behavior, et cetera, that Epstein was up to, that's the most salacious part. And that's kind of what everybody focuses on. But the part that I focus on is his connections to power, which enabled potentially, you know, the sweetheart deal of 2007. And the heart of it is all in the money and potentially in intelligence connections, which remain totally unexplored by the vast majority of the mainstream media.

40:58To their credit, they did actually publish a new investigation here. Can we put B3 up there? I highly recommend everybody go and read this because this is really what I've been talking about now for several months about the Epstein case. This is the heart of all of it. The New York Times expose, B3, please, to put it up there on the screen. And what we learn from it is just the – and look, a lot of this was already public. So I knew not much of this was new information to me, but they kind of put it all together. And it's, quote, how J.P. Morgan enabled the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. It details – people have heard me reference before the Department of Financial Services fine of Deutsche Bank previously and their relationship to Epstein.

41:38But, you know, the central character is this guy, Jess Staley, former CEO of Barclays, a J.P. Morgan executive previously who worked hand in glove with Epstein over the years. I mean, Epstein was just enormously influential at this bank. He got away with stuff that nobody, not even high net worth individual people are getting away with. Hundreds of millions of dollars. They processed nearly a billion dollars in transactions in and out of his account. He's withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. He's wiring money all over the globe for human trafficking purposes, according to their own internal review.

42:11JP Morgan executives and others who work on a human trafficking squad are like, we need to shut this down. And they're like, no. And the reason why is, you know, at certain points, Epstein is enormously influential to introducing them to the highest and most powerful people in the world, including Bibi Netanyahu. I've released that email before and for reference, but, you know, they reference it here. At one point, you know, that Jess Daly is like, hey, we were able to secure a meeting with Netanyahu. This is, by the way, after Epstein has been convicted or has had the 2007 non-prosecution agreement that he, you know, pleads guilty to.

42:48And Epstein is like, surprise, surprise, you know, basically saying that he brokered the meeting. Obviously, that also includes his previous relationship with the Israeli prime minister, Ayyud Barak, which is well known and which we have explored here on this show. But this is the heart of everything. And I want to give a shout out to Senator Ron Wyden, who has been at the forefront of this and talking about the suspicious activity reports and other documents that are held right now by the Treasury Department. This is the heart of the real Epstein story. Where did the money come from? Who was he sending it to?

43:18For what purposes? Why did Leon Black pay him$170 million? Why? Nobody can answer that question seriously. And it's the it's the unexplored nature that potentially holds the key to this entire thing.

43:29Jeremy Scahill:Yeah. Wexner had an entry in the birthday book. He said, I wanted to give you what you wanted for your birthday. I need you a picture of some boobs. So that was his contribution. It could go deeper with Jess Daly, too. There were many people at JPMorgan who ultimately protected Epstein. I don't want to say it was just this one dude, but this one dude was one of the, if not the most influential. and we've also talked about this on the show previously. These emails between them were revealed. Let me read you the relevant section from the New York Times. They say Staley emailed Epstein while sipping white wine in the hot tub on the island.

44:06Jeremy Scahill:Quote, next time we're here together, he wrote, I owe you much. Other messages were littered with apparent sexual references. That was fun. Say hi to Snow White, Staley emailed in 2010. Epstein responded by asking which character he would like next. Beauty and the Beast, Staley answered. So it could be that certainly part of how Epstein is allowed to remain a J.P. Morgan customer, even after all of his transactions are being flagged and even after the non-prosecution agreement where he starts time in prison, whatever, is because of the money that he's bringing in. He's introducing them to Netanyahu.

44:43Jeremy Scahill:He's introducing them to Elon Musk, all of these big business deals, Bill Gates, etc. That's certainly part of it. But part of it could also be, what did Epstein know about Staley? What activities was he involved in? And that could have been part of the modus operandi. And certainly Epstein's collecting of these powerful people, that was another thing is they would say to each other internally within the bank, well, if all these rich and powerful people trust him, then who are we to throw him out on the street? So he that actively was used as a protection mechanism. Lastly, just to go back to the Republican Party, the Mike Johnson thing, which is wild.

45:20Jeremy Scahill:You know, it strikes me as just they're so desperate to get out from under this to somehow jujitsu this into like Trump is actually the good guy here somehow, even though he's longtime friends with Epstein. We've got this birthday book thing and he won't release the files and we know his names in the files, all of this stuff. They're just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. So Mike Johnson put this thing out here. People were like, what are you talking about? That's ridiculous. And then he had to be like, oh, I misspoke. I didn't mean it that way. OK, Mr. Speaker of the House, you don't know what it means to be an FBI informant.

45:51Jeremy Scahill:Sure. But we also need to recall the way J.D. Vance originally responded to the birthday book revelations. He was not the only one, but he went particularly hard in the paint. Can put B6 up on the screen. This is when the first Wall Street Journal story came out that just described the birthday book. And he says, forgive my language. This story is complete and utter bullshit. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed for publishing it. Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?

46:21Jeremy Scahill:They went hard on this story, Sagar, as you'll recall at the time, adamant that this was fake, that it was a forgery, that the letter doesn't exist, et cetera. And now we have it. We can all see it with our eyes. And they're desperately trying to go with this. Oh, well, that's not his real signature. It's just unbelievable the way they will lie to people and think that you are so dumb that you will actually believe that, you know, this was all invented and, you know, it's a plant and it was Hillary or Comey or whatever. And it's just, it's just wild to me, the brazen nature of the way they will lie and spin and obfuscate and grasp at straws in order to make not just this story, but any story that's uncomfortable for them go away.

47:03There's only one defense and it's not a good one is that they shared a 22 year old legal, but creepy girlfriend. And that's what all the things were about. And he was aware of it. And, uh, he was connected to him for many years. And then they fell out over a stolen spa employee and, uh, who he then groomed. And, you know, according to Virginia Gouffre, uh, you know, obviously was abused for many years. Not exactly a tale of a white knight, exactly. And so, you know, they have to resort. Their highest and best defense is just to release everything because then you're just one of many people kind of caught up in the web and we can look for all sorts of connections that may or may not just include Donald Trump, but include everybody.

47:43But, you know, that's the tack that they've chosen. A lot of people can see through it. A lot of people who are interested in this story are extremely fed up with the Trump administration's handling it, and they should be. They absolutely should be.

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