Epstein Files Special Report

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1:02John Flannery:welcome to the beat i'm ari melber we begin tonight with a special report on a story donald trump has failed to disappear the secrets of jeffrey epstein now exposed in those millions of new files which journalists and experts all of us really are still reviewing since friday's release but these new files have enabled us to update our legal timeline which has reporting from the first 2005 Epstein probe into Epstein, his conspiracies, his bid to evade justice, and how the long arm of the law did finally catch up with him before his death in the custody of the Trump DOJ. So in our special report right now, this timeline, which we've shown you once before with our MSNOW reporting, is updated with the brand new revelations from the new files.

1:49John Flannery:Now, before I go into this timeline, I'll just tell you right now what you will see tonight. One, how the Bush DOJ dropped the tougher possible case against Epstein. Two, how the Trump DOJ identified Epstein's potential co-conspirators. We'll show you some of them tonight, but then didn't charge the vast majority of them. Three, how under both parties, the DOJ has clearly failed to follow those leads, which means the feds had paths to indict and stop this trafficking ring years ago, but they did not. Four, we'll show you how Trump's administration has top officials who falsely claimed that they had ended or limited their Epstein contact, and now they have been busted by their newly revealed emails in their own writing.

2:34John Flannery:That includes a Trump official who's still in the cabinet tonight. And five, we'll show you how the Trump administration lied about these files, fought their release, broke the law on releasing them, and still faces questions about what they're hiding and why Donald Trump is so personally haunted by his own Epstein links. From their own social time together to his government's demonstrated failures in this case. So, let's look at what we've learned. The very first key Epstein probe began in Palm Beach in 2005. That put public heat on Epstein in a new way. Trump's current Commerce Chief, Howard Lutnick, says that back then is when he cut all ties with Epstein, his one-time neighbor.

3:18John Flannery:So we'll return to that in a moment on this timeline. Now, others have asked why the DOJ didn't nail Epstein then. the brand new files actually show some prosecutors tried and they had so much evidence on him that in 2007 prosecutors internally said they had the goods that they had enough material evidence testimony on epstein for an actual sex trafficking case of not one or two but actually a dozen teenage girls and they wrote and this is new that we've learned this a 56 page draft indictment So back then, some inside government were ready to charge Epstein for that whole terrible alleged conspiracy.

4:06John Flannery:But here's what I want to show you tonight. And this is newly revealed. That was the draft indictment. But it was discarded. The Bush DOJ never allowed it to be filed. And that was the big case. Instead, the top prosecutor, later a notorious name, Trump official Alex Acosta, at the time he let Epstein off the hook with that controversial secret deal. And that meant just one year in prison for the lesser count of soliciting prostitution. Acosta and others have argued that this was basically the case they had, that these things are complicated. Well, it's taken all this time, but I can report for you tonight that now the new Epstein files released from Friday shows that's false, that there was a whole written draft indictment of the bigger case, and they just discarded it.

4:58So what happened?

5:01John Flannery:Some prosecutors had that case written up, ready to go. We've now seen it, but their bosses, this later Trump ally Acosta, or perhaps bosses in Washington, discarded it. Now, Epstein got out and he continued his activities. The difference at this point in time is the public was actually on notice of at least his conviction as a sex offender, even if it was, as I mentioned, lesser than the other potential case. And that gives us context new in this timeline of how Trump official Lutnick was secretly emailing Epstein at that time about visiting his island. This was while Lutnick's family was on a trip, seven years after he claimed to have cut ties or the mega donor and recent Trump employee, Elon Musk, emailing about visiting Epstein's island, asking what day slash night will be the wildest party.

5:53John Flannery:Now that shows, at a minimum, attempted proactive socializing, desiring to go to the island for what Musk called wild partying. And that's by Trump allies who have obviously claimed otherwise. Now Musk has responded to say that he did not actually go to the island. And Lutnick denying this again, although he has less credibility now that the emails are public. And one day after the planned visit that Lutnick emailed about, new from these files, an Epstein associate passed along an email to Lutnick that said, quote, nice to see you. The file suggests that for many, Epstein operated business as usual until 2018.

6:32John Flannery:This Miami Herald expose put heat on the DOJ. It had the goods again, which hadn't all been used. The DOJ had let Epstein off the hook before, but then he was indicted now on these tougher sex trafficking charges. The DOJ since then, I should mention, has only indicted one person related to what's been documented as this sprawling conspiracy. And so I'm going to get into this because we are learning new things. For the first time, the New Friday files show the DOJ was eyeing other suspects. it's a mob style chart and the feds made this of epstein's inner circle so let's take a look at this right now as part of our special report i just can tell you this is a rare view inside a normally secret federal probe you almost never see this type of thing before during or after a case and the federal laws protect that what's different here of course is congress changed the laws for this particular mess of Epstein and the secrecy.

7:35John Flannery:So we have questions stoked here about why the feds under first Trump and then the Biden DOJ did not apparently pursue and indict most of these men or the others who knew or partook in what the government also calls a broad sex trafficking ring. Which is it? A giant sex trafficking ring with someone at the center and other men involved in crimes, knowing and otherwise? Or not? And if it's not, then what were the feds doing with their chart and their leads? I can tell you we have redactions here, some of which may be for potential victims or those that the government viewed as more coerced into being a part of these crimes rather than being the ringleader or the proactive criminal.

8:18John Flannery:And the feds tracking Epstein's lawyer, accountant, financial advisor, and a man later indicted in Europe for sex offenses who died in prison awaiting trial, as did Epstein in 2019. But there's a lot of questions here about these leads. Some of these individuals, I should mention, are still being subpoenaed by Democrats in Congress to try to get more information where apparently the DOJ stopped. Now, I mentioned the death in prison. The Trump DOJ stated that the videos that were key around where Epstein was in that cell, the videos were lost. So I'm going to go all the way back here for round two of our timeline.

8:59John Flannery:Then Trump Attorney General Barr was defending the fact that videos were missing. The DOJ did go after one co-conspirator that now has become a bit of a household name, Maxwell. And she was convicted and sentenced here to 20 years. the public demands for transparency, the pressure on this case built over time. I think everybody knows that by now. And so Trump was eventually campaigning on declassification. We all lived through his attorney general saying she had a client list on her desk. Then Attorney General Bondi announced no client list, no more files, no more videos, no evidence of blackmail.

9:38John Flannery:this was where the Trump administration tried to stop all this. And this wasn't that long ago. They said there wouldn't be any other evidence to be disclosed. And that stoked outrage from victims, from experts, from members of Congress, as well as many people who were in Trump's MAGA base, who were promised very recently other things by Bondi and Trump himself. And Trump did something very unusual. He sent his loyal attorney, now at the DOJ, for this unusual interview with Maxwell. well, as I've reminded you, the only other person charged for anything. And she was upgraded to a better prison facility.

10:15John Flannery:As for Musk, whose emails had not been exposed yet, well, he was claiming that Trump was in the files when they had their fallout. Again, the timeline is striking because we now know what Musk knew apparently, but no one else did in public, which is that he was asking to go down to the island by email. Musk, who understands technology, knew or had reason to know he was in the files. As for Lutnik, well, remember, he claimed he wasn't involved or in contact. That is undercut by the emails. And at this time, whether he realized the files were ever going to come out or not, he was working for an administration that now was backing secrecy.

10:59John Flannery:he then was talking while in office about epstein being a blackmailer that's what his mo was you know get a massage get a massage and what happened in that massage room i assume was on video this guy was the greatest blackmailer ever blackmailed people that's how he had money not just a blackmailer says lutnik but one of the greatest that's like saying a greatest drug deal ever, a greatest criminal conspirator ever. It means that Lutnick is saying this guy did this a lot, even though his fellow cabinet official, Pam Bondi, was recently saying there was no blackmail and nothing else. And now the files suggest there was certainly a lot of people that there were leads for.

11:43John Flannery:So this is the tension inside the Trump administration with people that we're now learning, we're in the files, we're emailing with Epstein, we're discussing potentially visiting him while they talk about his blackmail operation. Then we get to recent history. Trump, of course, losing the battle to stop the Epstein law. It passed overwhelmingly. It required the DOJ to release the files. By the end of December, they started with basically under 1 % in heavy redactions. We'll see here. And then over 40 days past due and thus breaking the law after those 13 ,000 files, you get this new batch of 3 million.

12:20John Flannery:And many of the files have incriminating material that we've highlighted here, which can make more sense in the broader timeline. DOJ says this is the final drop. Epstein's accusers, though, note that after all of this delay, some lying, these errors, Trump keeping officials in his cabinet who now have been caught lying about this and had some tied Epstein while saying he's a blackmailer. After all of that, victims note that the DOJ still had redaction errors at a minimum that they exposed some identities at the very same time that they seemed so intent to go to great lengths to delay, deny, defy, or protect some people in the files.

13:03Ari Melber:I don't think that there's a single survivor who was like, no, we shouldn't have done this. No, So it needed to be done the right way. And it's just not. Everything was a power play. And now I'm feeling like this is a power play. Yes. My response to his comment is like the age old phrase, this isn't over until we say it's over. Meaning the 1 ,200 survivors fight for our right to see all the files. They really failed all of the survivors on this. It feels kind of in a way like additional intimidation, which is something that I think we all felt during our association with Jeffrey Epstein.

13:42John Flannery:The original crimes not dealt with, sometimes covered up by the government, the government lying, and then finally following the law that it was forced to follow because it was so overwhelmingly passed over any possible veto by the president who keeps trying to hide the Epstein files. So these are just some of the key points we've learned about some of the key players who are still in government, exercising power now, as well as the way we got here. So I want to be clear about what we're learning, because there have been all sorts of articles about what's failed, or how people are getting away, or whether there will be consequences in accountability, whether that's in the public sphere of civic life and business, or even legally.

14:23John Flannery:We know more than ever now about the lengths that federal authorities from different administrations and powerful men and their well-paid allies, lawyers, and others were willing to go to bury these secrets. the obvious implication is it was not only to protect a controversial then indicted and later dead sex trafficker but that they were trying to protect either themselves the people who may have been a party to these crimes including that chart of leads i showed you that we now know the government has had for years or as well government cover-ups which we've seen in many dimensions where because they failed to do the right thing or somebody overruled the right thing stopping that early case I showed you, you have powerful people in government and connected to their predecessors and successors who don't want to go back in and look at how these files show how the federal government has repeatedly failed victims and justice.

15:23John Flannery:These are millions of new files. Everyone is still going through and making sense of them. One thing I can tell you when the truth starts outing, it's not going to stop. It's not just going to go away. We are saying on this story, whether people in government like it or not. And I have a special guest right after this break.

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17:18John Flannery:Three million new Epstein files have given us new insights into government failures, the draft sex indictment that the Bush DOJ discarded. We're reading that for the first time and a lot more because of what we learned from the long sought and finally started release of the Epstein files. Three million on Friday. Many questions about how it's been done and what else may be held back. But a breakthrough by any legal or journalistic measure, which is why so many people, including, of course, victims and their advocates, had called for exactly this transparency. There's a new special report we're sharing tonight.

17:51John Flannery:I'm joined by former federal prosecutor and congressional counsel, John Flannery. John, your view tonight.

17:58Ari Melber:Well, my view is, first of all, your chronology gives the causality that everybody has to respect. That when you see, for example, Bondi, oh, I've got them, they're all on my desk, and then I don't have them at all, and then she comes back again. You have the sense that her overseer, Trump and whomever else, is telling her, ah, they won't notice, we can just deny it. And then they say, oh, we can't get away with that. And so this creeping cancer on their perfidy has caught up with them and now is undeniable. And we have a situation in which even with the legislation that passed that they dare not avoid, up to including Trump signing the bill themselves, that then they disregard it.

18:37Ari Melber:So there are like three big errors here. One, they didn't start on time. The order said it had to be within not later than 30 days, and it certainly has been two and a half, whatever, number of months, weeks. What's astonishing to me is that no one stood up and said this is wrong and went to court about it. The second thing is, of course, that they posted the survivors and concealed from us the bad guys. No man is above the law except all the guys that are involved in this conspiracy. And so here we have the survivors whom we're specifically supposed to protect according to the legislation, and they're the one exposed.

19:14Ari Melber:Why? They talk about doxing under other categories. That's what this is about, to discourage these people and punish them should they have the nerve to come forward. And the indictment that you spoke about in Florida fit into that early category.

19:27John Flannery:Let's talk about that. I'll only slow you down because we always report on what the folks involved say. We report on what subjects say. We can show the timeline again. That was very early on. And one of the defenses was, well, they didn't really have the whole case. That was the government defense on the far left there. We see the draft sex, draft sex trafficking indictment discarded. This goes beyond reporting. And he said, he said, John, the new files show they had the case so detailed that it was written with multiple counts over 50 pages. What does that tell you as a prosecutor about? And there could be disagreements within an office, but about whether the line prosecutors, the agents developing this, apparently they thought they did have the case on him.

20:12Well, the U.S.

20:14Ari Melber:attorney wanted it to be otherwise for whatever reasons. We don't have to go into those. And I respect what you're saying. An indictment, even when it's filed, is just a charge. It has to be proven. But the thing that's interesting is that we have the indictment now. I do not believe that anybody has the 82-page cross memo prosecuting the case. In other words, explaining why this indictment makes sense. They don't want that out, I believe. You know, and if somebody has it, then let's talk about that. But I don't believe they have it.

20:45John Flannery:Yeah. And you're speaking again. I'm only slowing you down because I just want to underscore the point. Right. When they say, oh, Bush era DOJ. Well, you know, it was complicated. This was the deal we could get. We learned as of Friday, first time ever. No, actually, people in your office had a lot more and they didn't just have it in their minds. Because sometimes we see cases where prosecutor has a grand idea, but they didn't really have it all here. It was not, as I mentioned, one or two alleged victims. It was a dozen victims, minors. I want to play Lutnick for you and then I'll let you get to your other points.

21:16John Flannery:But I just want to get this in. Sure. There is a very serious standard in this country, which we apply. We, unlike some people, try to apply fairly for all, which is we don't do guilt by association. The fact that somebody is mentioned does not mean they're automatically a part of the crime. That has to be researched and proven, obviously. But there is no constitutional right to serving in the cabinet of the United States. There is no constitutional issue with whether there's accountability about Donald Trump, who campaigned allegedly against Epstein's crimes, now keeping on people who are implicated and who publicly lied, which raises the question, why did Mr.

21:58John Flannery:Lutnick lie? And by the way, there have been people who said, hey, they ended up at a dinner party in New York. They didn't talk to Epstein. And they didn't lie about it. They gave the defense. And then people can assess that. I want to play again what we showed in the timeline. This is Lutnick, who's currently in the cabinet. Take a listen. All right. And there's a massage table in the middle of the room. He gets weirdly close to me. And he says, and the right kind of massage. my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy.

22:43John Flannery:That was the public claim this past year. The emails released Friday show him trying to arrange a visit to the island. There's following emails that I read in our timeline that suggest people on the Epstein side, suggesting it occurred. It's clearly more than he said. Musk, meanwhile, accusing others of being in the files when he's in the files. Given that you're a prosecutor, can you take us inside the mind of someone who's not only has that exposure, but knows there's emails and then still is out there saying these things?

23:13Ari Melber:Maybe he was trying to reassure his wife more than he was trying to reassure us. I mean, how many men would say, I don't go there because my wife doesn't want me to go there. There's only seven steps from my house. I didn't go back there. And then he slammed hard on the head because he has this arrogance people have who are already breaking the law. They'll never catch me. I can deny it. Who's ever going to know the truth? That's it. The guy is a liar. There's a deep, dark abyss within him without a soul. That's the key to all of these guys. Now, fact check.

23:44John Flannery:Fact check. I don't have a readout on whether he or others do or do not have a soul. Way above my spiritual pay grade, John. I promised you I'm running over on time with 30 seconds. You had a third point. What was that, sir?

23:55Ari Melber:Okay, well, the third point is a really important one because it's about the fact that in the document, January 30th, 2026, the Justice Department wrote a letter to the Senate and the House. And it said, yes, there are 6 million documents, but we only talk about 3 million because they're duplicates. The duplicates they claim are between the Southern District of New York and Florida, number one. And then they say there are 200 ,000 documents in this category. And in this category, they're blocking a large amount of them by privilege. What is the privilege to withhold from us? What that prosecutor, the discarded prosecution, that what she said that her boss nixed.