Trump and DOJ Blindsided as Epstein Emails Leak

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1:30Michael Popok:I found something buried in the newly discovered leaked emails of Jeffrey Epstein that Bloomberg is running with. Tens of thousands of emails in his email box. Forget the client list. Focus on the gift list. There's a spreadsheet of gifts that Ghislaine Maxwell helped Jeffrey Epstein acquire and give to his victims. and some rich and powerful people as well. We'll do separate hot takes on that, but buried in there was the key to something we've been talking about on the Mitest Session Network and Legal AF for a while. That the reason, the true reason that Donald Trump fired his BFF, the sexual predator, child predator, pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, wasn't because he knew it or learned of it and found out he was a creep.

2:16Michael Popok:It's over a simple real estate deal. It's over money. We've talked about it. that there was a bidding war in the bankruptcy courts of West Palm Beach, Florida, where I used to practice. And in that courtroom, there were three bidders, and one was Jeffrey Epstein, and one was Donald Trump, and one apparently was Mark Pulte. Of course, we got to suck in more people in Trump's administration. The father of Bill Pulte, who Donald Trump is currently using to go after people, accusing them of mortgage fraud. Sit down for this one, everybody. I found the email that ties it all together. I'm Michael Popak.

2:54Michael Popok:You're on the Midas Dutch Network and Legal AF. We've been reporting about this deal, about a property in West Palm Beach on the 500 block of North County Road on Billionaire Row. It was known as Maison de la Matisse, or the Mansion of Friendship. It was a land deal. It was owned at one time by Les Wexner, Epstein's other BFF who ran the limited and victorious secret. It was sold to a guy named Abe Gossman. Remember the name Abe Gossman. I'm going to come back to it in this hot take. Abe Gossman at one time was a super successful billionaire healthcare magnet, nursing home magnet, who fell on hard times.

3:42Michael Popok:He had originally bought the property in the 1980s from Les Wexner for$12 million. He built some houses on it, some properties on it. And then from there, he went into bankruptcy, right? So by 1990, he had built a 64 ,000 square foot set of mansions on the property. Trump coveted it. He wanted it. It goes into bankruptcy and Trump then goes as a bidder. He's on the phone, according to reporting by the Palm Beach Post and the Washington Post, he was on the phone during the auction. That's how bankruptcy auctions work. Let's do a teachable moment about bankruptcy auctions. When a person in a state goes into bankruptcy, it's administered by a federal bankruptcy judge.

4:32Michael Popok:They marshal all of the assets. they line them up against the creditors who are owed money, and then they start liquidating the properties and the assets to pay the creditors. A major component of Abe Gossman's bankruptcy estate was this giant piece of land in Palm Beach. So it goes up for auction over in West Palm Beach, which is the seat of the federal courthouse for Palm Beach County, just over the bridge from where Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago is. So the auction is conducted. Now it's usually conducted electronically. But back then in 2004, it was conducted in person with the bankruptcy judge presiding as effectively the auctioneer.

5:17Michael Popok:Mark Pulte is one bidder. Jeffrey Epstein is another bidder. And Donald Trump is a bidder. And then it ends up being a fight as Pulte pulls out between Epstein and Donald Trump. It goes for$41.63 million because Epstein bid it up along with Pulte, meaning Donald Trump had to pay more because Epstein was competing with him, which he didn't like. Donald Trump then gets the property, does some cosmetic changes to the mansion, and ends up selling it to a Russian oligarch named Dmitry Rybabolov for, get this,$95 million. So he more than doubled his money. Now, let me tie it how I know from the Bloomberg emails that this was a major reason and major concern, because even Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell thought it was as well.

6:13Because there is an email that I spotted, had to do a little bit with my background, having lived and practiced in West Palm Beach at one time.

6:22Michael Popok:But there's an email in which Ghislaine Maxwell on August 23rd, 2007, remember the auction was in 2004, as Epstein is negotiating with Alan Dershowitz, his lawyer, a non-prosecution agreement. So he gets very little jail time for all of the child sex predator behavior and conduct that he did. All the raping of girls. He goes to jail for a very short amount of time because he cops a plea for soliciting prostitution from a minor, which implicates Ghislaine Maxwell in that transaction as well. But in there, Ghislaine Maxwell, and I'll put it up on the screen, says to Jeffrey Epstein, August 23rd, 2007, at 5.31 p.m., Maxwell to Epstein, you have to assume they went to Donald Trump, then Gossman, the docs in West Palm Beach that doesn't refer to doctors, and Pashkow, etc.

7:29Michael Popok:Now, let me translate that. The transaction I just described was Abe Gossman's estate, which Epstein and Trump competed over. And then the docs in WPB is obviously to me, the documents meeting the court files in West Palm Beach in the bankruptcy court to get to the bottom of this land transaction between Trump and Epstein. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack sponsor. IQ Bar is the better for you plant protein based snack made with brain boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. Now look, I've tried a lot of energy bars over the years and most of them are either packed with sugar or taste like cardboard.

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8:50Michael Popok:hydration mixes and mushroom coffees. And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20 % off all IQ Bar products, plus get free shipping. To get your 20 % off, text Legal AF to 64 ,000. Text Legal AF to 64 ,000. That's Legal AF to 64 ,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. And then Pashkow is a little-known real estate magnate of his own, who's also been on the board of lots of different things, that put a disgusting birthday card, along with Donald Trump's, in this 237-page birthday book that we've been talking about, that Donald Trump claims his and his alone, his entry, was forged.

9:42Michael Popok:Nobody else claims it was forged. Paschkow had an entry that was just as disgusting, which was a picture of, I'll put it up on the screen, a picture of Epstein and Trump with a giant charity check for$22 ,000 with the line about, this is an example of Epstein selling used women as an asset to Donald Trump depreciated to$22 ,500. You see how they talk about women in a misogynistic way, indicating that Donald Trump, of course, knew or was willfully blind about the fact that Jeffrey Epstein was chasing after as a sexual predator children. So that's the connective tissue right there. Out of all the emails, you've got the—now, funny, Bloomberg reports it as sort of a non-consequential email.

10:29Michael Popok:I saw it. I was like, this is proof positive for me that the land transaction is the reason Donald Trump stopped talking to Epstein. Because Trump tries to rewrite history, starting with Epstein's conviction, to back away from the fact that he was BFF with Epstein, partied socially around a lot of scantily clad women and girls, both at Epstein's mansion in New York, at Mar-a-Lago, on the plane back and forth from the Hamptons to Palm Beach. I mean, these guys hung out together and chased girls together, if you know what I mean. But Donald Trump didn't like that look as he was preparing his first run for the presidency.

11:16And he was grilled a lot by people in his inner circle at the time about his relationship with Epstein, sort of doing their due diligence.

11:25Michael Popok:And he always he started to deny at that point Trump that he had a close relationship. You know, you see Alan Garten, the lawyer for the Trump Organization, saying that denying in 2009, 2010 that Donald Trump had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which is why all the reporting that we're doing with the videos and the audio and the photos puts a complete lie to that new myth that Donald Trump has been promoting that he didn't know, didn't know him well. And when he found out he was a creep, I mean, Stephen Chung, the communications director, said recently, well, it's very clear that as soon as Donald Trump knew he was a creep, Epstein, he fired him, he got rid of him, and he broke ties with him.

12:09Michael Popok:That's a lie. The reason he broke ties with him is over money, that Donald Trump had to overbid for the property in Palm Beach County that Epstein was bidding with him on against even Mark Pulte, part of the Pulte family real estate fortune. That's where Nepo baby Bill Pulte comes from, who bought his way into a position to head Freddie May and Fannie Mac and start sending nasty emails about people like Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor, Letitia James, the New York attorney general and and Senator Adam Schiff. That's the same Pulte family. Now, ironically, or coincidentally, after Trump sold the property to the Russian, of course, Russian oligarch and doubled his money in 2008 to a guy named Dmitry Rybabolov, that guy developed the property into three separate mansions.

13:09Michael Popok:And Mark Pulte bought one of the mansions for$122 million. I think it was the largest land sale in the history of Palm Beach back in 2022. But you see the connection? Epstein even thinks the land deal is the reason. Because there's just this stray email about, oh no, they're going to go talk to Abe Gossman. They're going to go talk to Trump. They're going to go check the bankruptcy files in West Palm Beach. What are we to do? I mean, we talk a lot about Epstein as a child sex trafficker and predator. He was also a money launderer and committed financial fraud and got away with it over and over again, where others around him got sent off to prison.

13:53Michael Popok:That's why people have always suggested, was he in the Mossad? Who's protecting him? Until he finally got caught. Who gets a sweetheart deal like go to jail for a few months when people knew or should have known if they'd done their investigation that he was raping girls for years? So there's a lot. That's for another day. But I wanted to point out this email, which for me is proof positive that Epstein knew that the falling out with Donald Trump was over the piece of property and was concerned about the prosecutors and others sniffing around about that. We're going to cover this. There's so much in this mother load of emails, thousands and tens of thousands of emails.

14:36Michael Popok:We'll cover them here. We'll cover them on Legal AF. We'll cover them on Midas Touch. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Hit the free subscribe button there. And as I get my hands on the emails, I'll post them to Substack Live for you to get your hands on as well. And then until my next report then, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF.

15:14Michael Popok:What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Wear Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.

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16:36Michael Popok:If you love this episode, make sure you're subscribed to the Intersection Audio Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. It's my solo ride, and we release new episodes daily, all completely free.