State Probe Begins Into Epstein’s New Mexico Ranch

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1:01Ari Melber:Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber, and we are following actual investigative developments in how Congress is dealing with the Epstein files. There's a billionaire, and if you don't know his name, you certainly know his business background. Les Wexner will be grilled tomorrow. This is part of what has become a bipartisan rebuke to Donald Trump over and over on the Epstein files. He said no new files. Congress made him release them. That's the story we've been following. He said, let it go. It's an old story. Congress said, no, there's more to do. And so it stays in the news because of these actual investigative developments.

1:36Ari Melber:Now, Wexner had a long and very big kind of business relationship with Epstein. The question is what kind of business? But tens of millions of dollars were exchanged. This deposition will occur in Ohio. That's part of an accommodation of the witness who is 88 years old. Now, when I mention business, what these two men did in business is part of what's under investigation. So on the one hand, we could tell you that Wexner was a successful businessman, a billionaire, and that he was also a benefactor of Epstein, that he helped him financially. And maybe that's all there was to it. We want to be careful and follow the facts.

2:12Ari Melber:But lawmakers, investigators, and independent journalists have raised the question of just why so much of Wexner's money ended up in Epstein's pockets. At one point, Epstein was managing Wexner's finances. Then they did sever ties. And that was in 2007 as more heat came on Epstein. What we're learning from the files, though, is that Wexner is in there over a thousand times. Emails, lawsuits that seem to involve potentially both of them. And the DOJ has even modified some of the redactions to the 2019 FBI file that showed they were looking at whether Wexner had exposure related to the crimes they were investigating Epstein for.

2:52Ari Melber:Now, we want you to understand what Wexner has said, and this is prior to even the new files release. He maintains that they had a kind of professional relationship and that ultimately, he became disenchanted with what he viewed as Epstein's failures or misconduct with regard to finances. Now, Wexner will be only the second person to speak before Congress since the files were released. You can see a lot of the pressure on many of these individuals we've been tracking, while Trump Commerce Secretary Lutnick, caught lying to minimize his visit to Epstein Island, remains in the cabinet. So there is a kind of a clash between accountability for some and not others.

3:28Ari Melber:Congress has some efforts to investigate, and we've seen that in a, at times, bipartisan way, while there's also been an effort to distract or look at certain individuals, for example, the calls to investigate powerful men, some of whom might be implicated in this, are a long ways from going after Hillary Clinton. Here's what she's saying. What we're seeing, I think it's fair to say, is a continuing cover-up by the Trump administration. There's something about this administration's attitude toward this, which I think really leads us to conclude they have something to hide. They are slow walking it.

4:10They are redacting the names of men who are in it. They are stonewalling legitimate requests from members of Congress that has nothing to do with us. Something is going on. They know it. I know it.

4:25Ari Melber:That's Hillary Clinton, who, of course, as I mentioned, has been targeted by some of the Republicans. Although when you go looking for rich, powerful men who may have gotten away with something, she wouldn't really be on the list, not based on the files or the information we have. Now, Republican Thomas Massey, who has been really seen as a good faith bipartisan collaborator here, working with Democrats to get to the bottom of this, says on any given day, I need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done. Once we get past Republican primaries, I think you're going to see defections.

4:56Ari Melber:That's his reference to the fact that Trump still has, of course, more sway in primary season, but there is a lot more that they can do if they get the votes. Now, what's happening out there? What has happened in places where we've seen that the files show prosecutors and investigators might have been pressured out of doing a full investigation or fallen down on the job and the things we've shown you on our timeline? Well, this is interesting. the state of New Mexico now has a new probe into Epstein's ranch there. Survivors have said they were abused. That ranch has been known for a long time.

5:29Ari Melber:What we're seeing is how information, investigation, and public pressure can lead to investigations that otherwise were not going to happen. Colombia has now sanctioned two individuals that they think helped Epstein's girlfriend gain admission there, again, through how his largesse may have distorted things long, far away from his own accused sex crimes, but just the sort of way he wielded influence. Two prominent business people facing consequences over their ties to Epstein. We reported, for example, on the Wasserman issue, his ties to Maxwell, not to any alleged crimes per se, have led to him having to sell off his entire talent agency.

6:06Ari Melber:Others across the spectrum facing subpoenas or these pressure points we've shown you. The New York Times asked, why didn't anyone say something? And that what we're learning, again, from this unusual transparency effort shows how a group can collude with dark secrets if they serve their interests. The price of admission to Epstein's world was, the Times says, silence. And so when you look at this entire issue, it has really gone topsy-turvy. It started as something that was so under-investigated, with so little accountability that that became part of the scandal. And the question over years, would he really get away with it forever?

6:44Ari Melber:And then, of course, he was ultimately, Mr. Epstein was indicted. He died in prison, awaiting trial. Maxwell, later indicted and convicted. So you had some baseline accountability, though very delayed. And the idea was, well, leave it there. And Donald Trump repeatedly said, leave it there. It's old news. Nothing more to see here. But he was overruled. by some of his own supporters who, for whatever their reasons, wanted to get to the bottom of this and agitated, put pressure on Congress, which then, late but finally, came up with this bipartisan effort to get the files out. And one of the questions, remember, it's very easy to stand in judgment and look at things in hindsight, what they call, of course, Monday morning quarterbacking, but what you see now is that there was important information in the files.

7:35Ari Melber:Doesn't mean it's going going to lead to a bunch of indictments or convictions. We have a process that we have to follow in this country under the rule of law, even if some wish it otherwise. But what I showed you in the accountability that having learned information about some of these individuals, other people in the public marketplace of accountability said, no, I don't want to be in business with them. Or no, that's not okay. Or no, short of indictment, which is a government process, the public said, we are reacting. And that's in the early days. As I've told you, we and other outlets have been going through these files, it takes time to do it right.

8:07Ari Melber:There are millions of revelations. We are seeing a move for accountability, and this isn't a screenplay. This isn't a movie. If it were a movie, you'd say it's a little rich that there's accountability everywhere, but in the White House of the president who claimed in his most recent election that he wanted to get to the bottom of this and finding that the bottom or the involvement of this includes people in his own cabinet, he won't lift a finger to even publicly say they shouldn't have consorted with Epstein, let alone fire them, which is a far, far lower level than whether you're ever going to have a wider calls for accountability as mentioned.

8:51Ari Melber:So there is something happening, and the information is having real-world consequences. It's just everywhere but in Trump's administration. We're going to get into exactly these issues with civil rights lawyer Nancy Erica Smith when we return in about 90 seconds.

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10:21The names of billionaires, the names of folks that could be co-conspirators, that helped fund Jeffrey Epstein, that could have actually been involved in the terror and rape, as we know, abuse of women and children. Some of those names continue to be redacted and protected.

10:36Ari Melber:Lawmakers speaking out as they prepare to put one of Epstein's, at least associates, clients under oath. I'm joined by Nancy Erica Smith, a civil rights attorney who's represented numerous victims of sexual harassment and assault. Welcome back. When you look at this and the Congress going forward, this is the continued work that Trump didn't want for his own reasons, but he was very public in saying that. And this sort of reflects a late effort to get more information, whatever the relationship may be with Wexner. Your thoughts on this work, however tardy. Well, I think that Thomas Massey is a hero here and he's paying for it.

11:17He's described the threats he's receiving. He calls this the Epstein administration, which certainly seems true. Not only has Representative Raskin told us that Trump was mentioned, there were a million hits in the three and a half million documents that have been released. But the DOJ has violated the Epstein Transparency Act. So who knows what's in the other two and a half million documents? And the redactions have not been cleaned out. So it just seems that Epstein ran an international ring of trafficking young girls, information, influence and connections with the highest levels. And we see indictments in other countries and a prince is stripped of his princedom or whatever.

12:03So why aren't we moving forward and why is it so difficult to get Congress to act? Well, thank goodness for Thomas Massey, but we don't have a Department of Justice. We can't even call it a Department of Justice anymore. When Todd Blanche, Trump's former lawyer, was asked, will you investigate the tips that have not been followed up on in the files? He said, no, there's going to be no investigations because they're unfounded. Well, how do you know they're unfounded if you don't investigate them? It's absurd. And meanwhile, we see this hampering Ghislaine Maxwell after Todd Blanchett meets with her.

12:43Ari Melber:And let's dig into this new part with Wexner, because one question is, oh, did Epstein just get away because he was rich and powerful, could hire the best lawyers? As you know, there are individuals who've hired pricey lawyers and not gotten away with as much as Jeffrey Epstein. So another investigative question, I want to be very precise about this, not proven. Pam Bondi said they didn't see any leads to go after potential blackmail, which could be of powerful people or even people inside the government. And now we have the files and they might paint a different picture and Congress is going to make its own judgment.

13:18Ari Melber:So I want to read from, again, what we're only learning because it's come out without presupposing the whole story. but illicit trysts is how the New York Times headlined their coverage of this part of the files and what they call quote leverage with the wealthy quoting what we now have learned where you have Epstein telling Wexner who's going under oath tomorrow you and I had gang stuff for over 15 years I owe a great debt to you as frankly you owe to me and Epstein says he has no intention of divulging any confidence of ours. I'm curious how you, as someone who's dealt in these fields, interpret that.

14:00Ari Melber:Would investigators want to look at that as just a statement? Hey, we're good. We're secrets are safe. Or sometimes people say those things as a veiled threat. Is that worth looking into when he's under oath tomorrow? I definitely think that is a veiled threat, not so veiled threat, actually, of blackmail. And there are other emails like that where I'll always keep your secrets. There are other emails in the in the three and a half million that have been released. So, yes, to me, it looks like blackmail should be investigated. And we also have Trump on the birthday card saying, may every day be a wonderful secret.

14:39What secret? What has to be kept secret here? So not investigating what's going on means we don't have a DOJ. Thank goodness we have Congress waking up a little bit. I don't have a whole lot of confidence in Mike Johnson's Congress, House of Representatives right now. But maybe if you look at the polls, people are not real happy with the Trump administration right now. And this is a concern to people. And he created this concern by talking about the Epstein files all the time as if it was part of the ridiculous conspiracy of a Democratic pedophile ring run out of a pizza place in Washington, D.C.

15:20He created this in his own base. And now he has to say, I've been exonerated, which is what he said yesterday, which is completely false, just absolutely false. Yeah. So they have a problem. They created.

15:35Ari Melber:Yeah, exactly. I validated it. And again, tomorrow we're going to see what Congress gets out of this, but certainly leads that were not followed. Nancy, Erica Smith, thank you as always for joining us. Thank you. Absolutely. We have Al Sharpton coming up later. Donald Trump, big government censorship. What he and apparently his CBS's parent company didn't want you to see. We were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers who called us directly that we could not have him on the broadcast. And because my network clearly doesn't want us to talk about this. Let's talk about this.

16:23Ari Melber:Democrats are pushing harder and wielding more potential powers, including a partial government shutdown, to try to hold Trump accountable. And that's before the midterms, which if they win, there are already clues as to what they're going to do in governance. Subpoenas are coming if they win. That's according to a bipartisan firm that studied this, discussing a tsunami of congressional oversight, including not just Trump, but how corporate America may have broken rules or even betrayed their consumers and shareholders all to cave to Trump. A strategy where Democrats say, why send a subpoena to a cabinet agency that might produce documents in three years when one to a company produces them in three weeks?

17:04Ari Melber:Donald Trump has brought corporate America deep into his type of agenda. We will see how they react to being scrutinized that way. I am joined on a special day today. It is, again, Che Day right here on The Beat. Che Comandori, a political strategist, veteran of several campaigns, including Obama's. Did you know it was Che Day, Che? You usually have a clue. I did not know it was Che Day, but I am pleased to see Che Day back in force. Back in force. It's the same great channel we like to believe. We work just as hard. We are now MSNOW, and we still have not only Che, but Che's cartoon visage. And not every guest gets a bespoke cartoon.

17:49Ari Melber:You know that, Che. Absolutely. And it's great that MSNOW is choosing to adopt me and my cartoon. Yes, and your cartoon. So that's fun. This is more about the serious politics at play. and you see this kind of excitement among some, perhaps concern among others, about Democrats wielding those powers. How do you look at that going towards the midterms and the fact that Dems, who are so often portrayed, sometimes fairly, maybe sometimes over the top, as, oh, they don't fight as hard as Republicans, they are using these powers on DHS. Our colleague Rachel Maddow has been reporting on other citizen efforts, basically treating this like the emergency that they always say it is on the campaign trail.

18:33Yeah, I think that this is going to be a stark departure from the way Democrats have handled Trump in the past. If you think about what happened under Joe Biden, you know, there was a real belief that Trump was an aberration. You know, there are endless number of Maureen Dowd columns about how Hillary had run a bad campaign. That was something a lot of Democrats believed. Joe Biden himself thought that just passing legislation would show to people that democracy worked. You could have a nonpartisan, apolitical figure like Merrick Garland is AG, and that would be something reassuring to people.

19:09All of those bets were completely wrong. What Democrats now realize is Trump and the Trump movement is a real movement. It is a real force in America. It is an authoritarian movement that is now on offer to American voters. and that requires a response that is commensurate to the threat to democracy.

19:34Ari Melber:Democrats have often been associated with preserving the traditions and norms. Traditionally, you don't start at the most escalated version of oversight. But the Trump folks now across two terms have said, we're not going to comply with subpoenas. We're going to resist. They had people who were even willing to go to jail rather than show up and do an interview where you don't have to answer the questions even. You could take the fifth, et cetera. And so I'm curious how you think that could change as well, because there is obviously a case for impeaching multiple cabinet officials when you look at the blatant admitted targeting of political opponents, which is unconstitutional.

20:10Ari Melber:The allegations around grift and crypto. I asked Ty Cobb about this, who represented the Trump White House. And he said in Bondi's case, of course, there's a substantive case to impeach her if they win the midterms. Certainly with regard to Bondi, obviously unfit for office. The multitude of cases that we've had now certainly provides a wealth of evidence that could be used to impeach Pam Bondi. Kristi Noem, you know, who's supervising the execution of American citizens and lying about them. All of those people should be impeached for sure. one substantively should democrats do that i mean if if bondi is fit for office and they just sleep on that i don't know what message that sends and then two as the political strategist you are uh is that something they should actually be running on or just get to it substantively if they win yeah look substantively there is certainly a case to impeach pam bondi that's 100 percent uh I, you know, I personally I think that should happen.

21:17I, you know, Pam Bondi probably should be disbarred. A lot of the people underneath her, you know, there will be legal discussions about whether they should be disbarred for what they have done. Kristi Noem, Pete Hegsett for the Signal Chat, etc. There is a substantive strong case for the impeachment of any number of officials in Trump Trump's orbit. However, I would say politically, there is something I remember from 05-06, which is there was a move among Democrats to impeach Donald Rumsfeld for the failures of the Iraq war. Several Democrats said, you know, we should impeach Donald Rumsfeld for the Iraq war.

21:56Politically, it went nowhere. The reason was that the American people held George W. Bush responsible for the Iraq war. They did not hold Donald Rumsfeld responsible. They didn't even know who Donald Rumsfeld was. In their minds, George W. Bush was in charge. He was the person who should be held accountable for the failures of the Iraq war. And I think that's the same case here. Donald Trump is in charge. And yes, gloves should be off coming in terms of Donald Trump. But the American people and Democrats have to face, you know, aim their target directly at him. That is what's most politically viable.

22:34Ari Melber:Yeah, it's interesting nuance. And though So those of us who follow the news closely have all these cabinet members names, you know, top of mind, Bondi, there's Lutnik. It's like shorthand. As someone who's done campaigns, you're reminding everyone that when you talk about the voters, particularly the ones that might be on the margins, not just the hardcore. You might have to come at them with a message that resonates, not, hey, let me tell you about someone you've never heard of. And then substantively, again, Ty Cobb telling us as a Trump White House veteran that legally there is the impeachable case there because she's got open probes in that they admit are abuse of power.

23:09Ari Melber:They admit they're going after their opponents, not following the evidence. So pretty striking. Jay, thank you. I'm going to tell folks Stephen Colbert says they tried to censor him. We're going to show you that interview next.

23:24Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba here for Realtor.com, the Pro's number one most trusted app. Finding a home is like dating. You're searching for the one. With over 500 ,000 new listings every month, you can find the one today. Download the Realtor.com app because you're nearly home. Make it real with Realtor.com. Pro's number one most trusted app based on August 2025 proprietary survey. Over 500 ,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental listings, July 2024 to June 2025. We optimize everything about our health routines, except the air we breathe. And when your air is off, your body feels it first.