Trump Caught Spying on Reporter in Epstein Cover Up

0:00Ben Meiselas:How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy... How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. LifeLock, how can I help? The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't. One in four taxpaying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud. What do I do? My refund, though. I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this. LifeLock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to$3 million in coverage.

0:32Ben Meiselas:I'm so relieved. No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud-paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar. I've got good news and bad news. Here's the bad news. Most protein bars are packed with sugar and unpronounceable ingredients. The good news? There's a better option. I'm Will, and I created IQ Bar Plant Protein Bars to empower doers like you with clean, delicious, low-sugar brain and body fuel. IQ Bars are packed with 12 grams of protein, brain nutrients like magnesium and lion's mane, and zero weird stuff.

1:12Ben Meiselas:And right now, you can get 20 % off all IQ Bar products, plus free shipping. Try our delicious IQ Bar sampler pack with seven plant protein bars, four hydration mixes, and four enhanced coffee sticks. Clean ingredients, amazing taste, and you'll love how you feel. Refuel smarter, hydrate harder, caffeinate larger with IQ Bar. Go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20 to get 20 % off all IQ Bar products plus free shipping. Again, go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20. Whether you're solving murders during breakfast, cracking cold cases on your commute, or playing amateur detective at bedtime, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting.

1:55Just download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite true crime podcasts ad-free, included with Prime.

2:02Ben Meiselas:Another very disturbing finding in what has been released thus far in the Epstein files, and you know it's only been a very small percentage of files that have been released. it. Turns out that back in 2018, 2019, Donald Trump's DOJ, based on what we're reading, seems to have been engaged in spying of the main journalist who was breaking the big Epstein bombshells. Julie K. Brown, who was writing for the Miami Herald, is credited for reopening investigations into Jeffrey Epstein with her exposés that were published under the title Perversion of Justice in 2018 and 2019. Ultimately, when prosecutors charged Epstein in July 2019, they credited the investigative journalism work of people like Julie K.

3:00Ben Meiselas:Brown. But behind the scenes, it seems that Trump's DOJ and FBI were spying on her. They were monitoring her movements and her flights. Even her maiden name, which she said she rarely, if ever, uses in any public setting. The DOJ and FBI were watching her movements. Why would they be watching her movements? And then there's still some additional information here that is redacted. Julie K. Brown is horrified. The Democrats in the House Oversight Committee are demanding answers right now. Julie K. Brown posted the following this weekend. Does somebody at the DOJ want to tell me why my American Airlines booking information and flights in July 2019 are part of the Epstein files?

3:55Ben Meiselas:attached to a grand jury subpoena as the flight itinerary includes my maiden name. And I did book this flight. Why was the DOJ monitoring me? Laura Rosen says, this is disturbing. So the top reporter on the Epstein case, this occurred during the first Trump regime, a month before Epstein was found hanged. The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee just posted the following. The Department of Justice needs to explain why travel information and booking itineraries for a journalist are in the Epstein files. Now, Julie K. Brown explained that, of course, she expected her name to come up in some areas of the Epstein files, and she was the person breaking the big stories.

4:48Ben Meiselas:But she never expected that her movements before the DOJ ultimately indicted Epstein and before Epstein allegedly died by suicide, that she was being followed and spied on by Donald Trump's DOJ at that time. It should be noted as well, She's still doing incredible reporting on Epstein. Just the other day, she brought up the following email. Again, that was part of this small amount of files that the DOJ has released, and it's heavily redacted. She posted the following. This was just the other day. this photo of Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell that was found on Steve Bannon's cell phone should be made public.

5:35Ben Meiselas:There are prosecutors who are talking to each other in a heavily redacted email, and the photo is redacted as well. And the email between these prosecutors says the following, GM photo on Bannon phone. Ghislaine Maxwell on Bannon phone. Hi, redacted. Why is that redacted? I hope you're well. I'm helping out with the responsiveness review for WBTW. And I've been looking through, that's the We Build the Wall federal prosecution. And there was a state prosecution as well. I've been looking through Steve Bannon's iPhone cell phone on Cellbrite, his iPhone 7 on Cellbrite. As I was going through the images from that phone, I found an image of Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell on Bannon's phone.

6:25Ben Meiselas:See screenshot from Cellbrite attached. I discussed with Sonny and we wanted to flag this for you in case it was of any importance to you since you are on both cases. Please let me know if you'd like anything further done with this. Thanks so much. There is zero justification for this photo to be redacted. And that's what Julie K. Brown said. Now, going back to Julie Brown's reporting for the Miami Herald, the series of her reports are compiled under the heading perversion of justice. And back on November 28th, 2018 and that period of time, she was writing stories like this, how a future Trump cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime.

7:12Ben Meiselas:That broke the story about the sweetheart deal that Alex Acosta gave to Epstein when Acosta was the United States attorney, the top federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida in 2007. Here's another article from Julie K. Brown. Cops worked to put serial sex abuser in prison. Prosecutors worked to cut him a break. Yet again, she broke massive stories like that. How about this one? For years, Jeffrey Epstein abused teen girls, police say. Here is a timeline of his case. She spoke to dozens and dozens of 100 plus victims, and she, in painstaking detail, was telling their stories. She brought it back to the forefront, and that ultimately led to Epstein being prosecuted again, all the while Trump's DOJ was spying on her.

8:07Ben Meiselas:By the way, she published a book called Perversion of Justice, the Jeffrey Epstein story. And that's a compilation of her articles and a broader reflection on what she uncovered. One of the best investigative reporters being spied on, we now learn. Now, we had the opportunity to speak to Julie K. Brown through one of our programs on the Midas Touch Network called the Court of History. You can see why she was very, very concerning to the Trump regime. She knows a lot and she's got incredible recall and details. For example, she focused on the model agencies of Epstein and Trump and how these model agencies were used.

8:57Ben Meiselas:Here's what she told us on the Midas Touch Network, Legal AF, the Court of History. Play this clip. Epstein had a company, a modeling company. And he, so Brad Edwards deposed the accountant who worked for that company, worked for Epstein's company, modeling company. And in that deposition, she provided a lot of detail about what he was doing And it's clear that he was using that company, a modeling company as a cover in part for the sex trafficking that he was doing, because she was saying she was describing exactly what they would do. They would send the youngest girls down to Epstein's place in Palm Beach.

9:44And she, you know, she just gave more detail than we had had before, including the fact that when Epstein formed his that company, he said to her, I want it to be set up just like Donald Trump's modeling agency.

10:04Ben Meiselas:so so what that means in that record that she testified to that under oath right that epstein said that he wanted to model his modeling company that he would invest in on trump's that's right that's right and uh so i mean we don't know what that means whether that you know we can't say that that means that Trump's modeling agency was trafficking. But we do know that in some respects, Epstein's modeling company was used in part to recruit young girls from all over the world and send them to events and parties where ostensibly they would be expected to have sex with some of the party goers. Yeah, there are parties that are described of other people who organized models with both Trump and Epstein present.

11:11Ben Meiselas:There's one that was described where they're the only two guests for 25-some young models. Right. Yeah. Jean-Luc Brunel from Paris headed Epstein's company and he was arrested for rape and for sexual assault and hanged himself after Epstein's death. Right. The two were business partners. Yeah, they were business partners and... And close associates. Well, not only that, but Brunel was one of his top recruiters. and i'm not talking models i'm talking about girls and young women uh for sex i mean that's what he did um because they would make these promises to these women when they met them um we're going to get you into the modeling business you're going to make lots and lots of money um i have a very wealthy person he knows he has all the contacts uh etc and that's how they kind of um they all he He also, Epstein also had a lawyer working for him.

12:28The bookkeeper told us about this, or told Brad Edwards about this, is that they had lawyers that were helping women from overseas get visas so that they came here for those reasons.

12:43Ben Meiselas:So it was very common at the time of HB1 or H1B visas. is Trump's modeling agency depended upon those visas to bring over models mostly from Eastern Europe for his age. Right. Especially. Yeah. So it's interesting given his current views on immigration, to say the least. So, but you are on the case here. You're exposing this as this is going on, bringing it up all, again, reporting. Right. Yeah, even after Epstein's death, I continue to report the trail of people that helped him, including members of the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. He employed the governor's wife there. He tossed around a lot of money to a lot of people.

13:52Remember, he was a convicted sex predator, so he was supposed to be monitored by the U.S. Marshals Service. And he just wasn't monitored at all. This is all around the island of Little St. James that he was doing? Is that where we all got connected? Right, right. And, you know, it's a perfect, it's a remote island. You can only get there by boat or plane. um so it was the perfect locale for him to have some of these uh sex parties so to speak or um you know to to entertain his clients um and offer them uh food wine and and a young girl if they

14:35Ben Meiselas:wanted it um so you know it's wild we talk all the time about heart health gut health brain health but almost never about the most underrated organ in your body your liver it's doing over 500 functions every single day, filtering unwanted elements, supporting digestion, helping with energy, and we usually don't think about it until something is wrong. So what if we actually supported it before problems started? That's where Dose for Your Liver comes in. Dose for Your Liver is a clinically-backed liver health supplement. This isn't just another capsule or powder. Dose is a liquid supplement. You take it as a daily two-ounce shot, and it tastes like fresh-squeezed orange juice.

15:11Ben Meiselas:Dose cleanses the liver of unwanted stressors that are slowing your liver down and promotes daily liver function so your liver can do its job. Zero sugar, zero junk, zero calories. Your liver is your body's filter. It processes everything you consume and performs over 500 daily functions, energy production, digestion, fat metabolism, vitamin storage. And when it's overworked, you feel it. And when you drink Dose daily, you're going to reduce sluggishness, ditch those midday crashes, support your metabolism, and even aid your digestion. You can trust Dose. it's got real results with two double-blind placebo-controlled studies showing its positive impact on liver enzyme levels.

15:50Ben Meiselas:Ready to give your liver the support it deserves? Head to dosedaily.co slash Midas or enter Midas to get 35 % off your first subscription. Hey, your body does so much for you. Let's do something for it. That's D-O-S-E-D-A-I-L-Y dot C-O slash Midas, M-E-I-D-A-S for 35 % off your first month subscription. Now, here is what Julie Brown told us about Ghislaine Maxwell, who Donald Trump helped move to the minimum security facility in Camp Bryan after Trump's own criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanche, interviewed Ghislaine in Tallahassee, where she should be rotting in a Tallahassee prison for being convicted of child sex trafficking.

16:37Ben Meiselas:And Julie K. Brown in this portion of this interview also talks about Maria Farmer. And now you'll recall that Maria Farmer and Annie Farmer were our survivors, their sisters. And Maria Farmer's report to the FBI from 1996 about Epstein was ignored by the FBI in 1996. And a lot of people were trying to say, oh, Maria Farmer's making this up. She never really reported this to the FBI. Well, also in the Epstein files that have been released so far was her report to the FBI from 1996. But first, here she is talking about Ghislaine and also Maria Farmer. You're not going to want to miss this. Here, play this clip.

17:26The survivors believe that she, in a way, was a bigger monster than Epstein because she was the one that made them feel safe. She was the one that brought them in. She used fraud by saying, he's going to hire you. You're going to travel. You're going to be a masseuse. She sort of acted like a motherly, nurturing type, you know, English lady with her English accent. And they took it like, wow, she's a really smart and kind lady. And that's what kind of scenario got them in there. So in their mind, and by the way, you know, under the testimony that convicted her, some of these women were sexually molested by her.

18:21You know, so it wasn't even just that she brought them to Epstein. she was involved with some of the sex. She would groom them and tell them, this is what you do to pleasure him. You know, it would start out as a massage, but clearly then, you know, take off all your clothes and it would be a little further each time. So she was grooming them for sex and she participated in that.

18:51Ben Meiselas:Yeah. Yeah, so I wonder if you're in touch at all with Maria Farmer at all. With who? Maria Farmer. I've never interviewed her, and one of the reasons for – I tried a couple of times, but initially, you know, she was suffering from cancer, and she was going through chemotherapy. And she just wasn't healthy enough. And then I had an interview scheduled with her. I was going to fly to Arkansas. And that night, the night before I was scheduled to fly to interview her, Epstein was arrested. So I had to go to New York. So we never really were able to connect. So I've never interviewed her. Yeah. She wants to tell people who she is.

19:48I mean, I'm not sure everyone will know that.

19:50Ben Meiselas:And the connection to the relationship. Well, Maria Farmer worked for Epstein. She was one of those women that got recruited and worked for it, but in New York. She worked for him in New York. And she was an artist or is an artist, I should say. And he was connected to a lot of important museum people and people in the art world and was, you know, telling her that he would help her with her paintings and get people to look at them so she could sell them. In any event, she was, you know, she has accused Epstein and Maxwell of trying to have sex with her. She rejected them. But she was there during this period of time when they were recruiting other people.

20:47So she had information. She saw some of this. And she wanted to do an interview with Vicki Ward, who was writing for Vanity Fair. And she told Vicki her story. She also, by the way, went to the New York Police Department to report what was going on. They referred her to the FBI. The FBI did talk to her way back in the, you know, 2000s, early 2000s, but they never did anything about it.

21:24Ben Meiselas:So she encountered, didn't she? I'm sorry. She encountered Donald Trump. That's what she just said recently. Yes. you know Trump and Epstein were friends um you know there's no you know I don't know how you can um deny that I mean he was he was front they were friends maybe they had a falling out later but at one point they were very close they were friends so yeah it wouldn't surprise me that she encountered him she encountered other people too so you know in her um you have to understand she feels that if the FBI had listened to her back then and had truly investigated what was going on, it's possible that all these hundreds of women wouldn't have been, you know, raped or molested or abused, you know, in her mind.

22:18Now, as we now know, the portion about her talking about Epstein, it was a profile, by the way, Vicki Ward was doing a profile of Epstein and the editor decided to take out the part about about Maria.

22:37Ben Meiselas:The years ago, I remember this. It was Graydon Carter took that out. I think. Right. Yeah. Right. so um but you know she was around Maxwell you know she was in that orbit where she could see what Epstein was doing and by the way he molested both Maxwell and Epstein molested her sister who was younger than her who was a teenager um and um you know tried to ingratiate themselves you know What they would do is they would buy things for these victims. These victims were dazzled by Epstein and Maxwell because they had so much money. You would go into his home in New York and there are pictures of him with Clinton and other world leaders.

23:32He had tons of money. He had a big staff that was doing everything for him. So they were sort of in awe of him. And Maria and Annie in particular wanted to go to college. And they came from, you know, a family that didn't have means. And he was promising them that he would put them through college, you know, put at least Annie through college. Yeah.

24:02Ben Meiselas:Now, Caitlin Collins writes, months ago, Annie Farmer reminded us, and Annie Farmer is a survivor of Epstein, too. reminded us how her sister Maria filed a complaint with the FBI in 1996 and never heard back. She argued more girls were harmed that didn't need to because of FBI inaction. Farmer had told the FBI that Epstein, who assaulted Maria, a figurative artist, and Ghislaine Maxwell had stolen photos of her younger sisters. Today's release confirms the complaint. And you can actually see that Maria Farmer indeed made that complaint right here. Here's a quote from Maria Farmer, the original whistleblower who reported Jeffrey Epstein to the FBI in 1996.

24:48Ben Meiselas:As Thomas Volsko says, she's waited 30 years for this. This is a moment for which I have waited three decades over half my life. When I was ignored and hung up on by the FBI in 1996, my world turned upside down and I felt frozen in time. I faced death threats, ridicule, and mockery by some of the most powerful people on earth. When my FBI reports are finally made available, I am hopeful that I will be able to pick up where I left off at age 26. I am also hopeful that this will be an important step for many of these survivors and to hold the government accountable for their grotesque law enforcement failure, one of the largest in U.S.

25:29Ben Meiselas:history. Brad Edwards, a lawyer who has represented many Epstein victims, told Mike Baker and others that the FBI could have prevented hundreds of victims from being abused if they had listened to Maria Farmer. Shameful, he says, calling for an investigation. Here is what Maria Farmer said about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein during an interview she gave. here play this clip um the time that is most memorable to me is the time when he hit on me because i was in the office it was one of the first times i started working for um donald trump's a sleazebag okay yes um it was when i started working for epstein and it was nine o 'clock at night and jeffrey epstein's office was totally empty i told the new york times this but of course they don't do the whole thing right even though mike baker is amazing but they would would not allow him to tell the truth.

26:25So basically, I go into this office, it's nine o 'clock at night, and I sit down, and a few minutes later, and I'm wearing running clothes. Okay, so it was really weird. It's nine o 'clock at night, and I'm wearing running clothes because I didn't have money, so I had to jog up there. And so, I just struggled for so long. So I'm up there in the office, seated, and I've got my running clothes on, so my legs are showing. And in walks this man that when I called, when I reported him to the FBI said that game show host, Donald Trump, cause I thought he was a game show host. He's so cheesy, you know?

27:04But anyway, so I said, I mean, I said hello to, you know, he walks in and I just kind of acknowledged him like a head nod or something. And he immediately starts, he's standing across the room from me and I'm seated. And he's like, oh, Maria. I mean, no, he didn't. Sorry. I was just looking at something. He, he's standing across the room and he's looking at me and I'm like, oh, gross. You know, this guy's so gross. Anyway, he's just looking, glaring at my legs. Like, yum. I felt, I told my sister, I felt like I was his dinner or his lunch, you know, the way he was looking at me. So Epstein comes in and Epstein, and by the way, I did not look good.

27:46I was like, I'm not a pretty, I'm not exceptionally beautiful or anything like that. These are just gross people. You know what I mean? So I'm just like a normal person who went on a run and I'm seated there. So he assumed I was there for him. And this is how I know. Epstein walks up to him and he goes, no, no, she's not here for you. And they were smirking and Epstein whispered something. He goes, go in there. And so Trump at nine o 'clock at night goes in the other room. There's someone in there for him.

28:13Ben Meiselas:Right, right. I don't know who. But Epstein said, no, no, no, she's not here for you.