How Epstein threatened to "take down" President Trump

17:14Lewis Goodall:And I should say we're focusing on the relationship between Trump and Epstein today because it is the one that is the most highly political right now. But there are many, many other names in these. Businessmen, heads of universities, scientists who are being named and who we will be presumably chasing up in the days and weeks to come. Trying to work out what kind of relationship they had with Epstein.

17:41Emily Maitlis:And Donald Trump is trying to turn the screws on Republican congressmen and women who might be thinking of voting with the Democrats for the release of these documents. And he's had a woman called Nancy Mason, a woman called Lauren Bovard in trying to say to them, don't vote for this, don't vote for this. And at the moment they're saying, no, I'm sorry, the public want to know this. You guys have been the ones telling us this ought to be released before the elections. You were the ones who were saying it was the Democrats who were covering up. We can't just go back to our voters and say, I'm sorry.

18:16Emily Maitlis:Yeah, we've changed our mind. And so I think Donald Trump is going to get himself into a losing position in terms of the politics of whether this is released or not. If he is confident there is nothing in it, then just say, of course, it ought to be released.

18:30Lewis Goodall:Yeah.

18:30Emily Maitlis:But you just sense and we've put all the provisos in. You just sense there is something there that he doesn't want to emerge.

18:38Lewis Goodall:Now, stay with us for one little bit of detail, which is going to try and make sense of the timing of all of this. You will know that the US government has been in shutdown, essentially. The government has not been functioning for the last 50 days because the Democrats wouldn't sign off on the Republican spending plan because it didn't include measures to extend the Affordable Health Care Act. So nothing has happened in American government for the last 50 days. But yesterday we saw the chink of light as things started to turn again. And one very significant moment happened around 9pm last night, which was that a congresswoman, Adelina Grijalva, who has been waiting 50 days to be sworn in, finally got sworn in.

19:29Lewis Goodall:She's a Democratic congresswoman of Arizona, and she became the 218th signatory on what is essentially a petition to release those Epstein files. The moment her name is signed on that list, none of the Republicans can remove their own name. None of the Democrats can remove their names. And the Epstein files petition goes ahead.

19:53Emily Maitlis:And the irony of that vote is that far from it being a majority of one or two, I reckon if Republicans know that they've lost it anyway, many more will vote for it because they'll want to be on the right side of this with their voters. And so it's possible that Donald Trump, I mean, you know, look, you never know. Donald Trump may be able to exert enough pressure on enough people that the Republicans back away. But so far, it doesn't look like they are. And Democrats are expecting many more Republicans to vote for disclosure, vote for opening this up so that people can see for themselves what those Epstein files contain.

20:32Emily Maitlis:Which, as you've said, Emily, it's not just about emails from the Epstein estate. This is about the criminal investigations into Epstein. It's about the interviews that have been held with Epstein, with victims, with associates and all the rest of it. It's a big tranche of information that is about to come out.

20:49Lewis Goodall:So politically, the question that we're also asking, aside from what we still need to know about that relationship between Trump and Epstein, is whether Trump still has control of the MAGA wing of his party. You mentioned Nancy Mace. That is a woman who is going for governor of South Carolina. Trump told her not to put her name on this petition. she went ahead anyway. In other words, she's worked out that the voters of South Carolina right now care more about knowing the truth, getting to the bottom of the Epstein files than they do about an endorsement from Donald Trump. He may even stop her.

21:27Lewis Goodall:You know, he may even stop her from standing. But she has worked out the political cost of not calling for the release of the Epstein files. And I think this is a really interesting moment. I mean, Trump always comes back from the dead. We know that. He's very, very good at the Lazarus revival. But it could be a turning point for many in his party who say, actually, that's not the future anymore. That is not the future. And I cannot, for the sake of my voters, end up on the wrong side of somebody who was clearly friends with a paedophile for a lot longer than we have known.

22:02Emily Maitlis:Look, if this happens, it's more than just a little hairline fracture in the MAGA movement. This will be a breach where Donald Trump has put all his weight behind stopping something and the MAGA movement, whether it be the podcasters like Joe Rogan, whether it be all the other people that have been out there backing Donald Trump. The Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

22:22Lewis Goodall:Who used to be his biggest fan and now stands very independently on this particular issue.

22:28Emily Maitlis:Yeah. And so it will be quite a moment, not just about Epstein and the victims and justice and what really happened and who he associated with. It's also about whether Donald Trump controls the movement that has propelled him for the last decade.

22:44Lewis Goodall:We'll be back in a moment, speaking to one of the key lawyers representing Epstein's victims and asking whether this new tranche is opening the door to further prosecutions.

22:59Emily Maitlis:News you can trust and the conversations that matter.

23:02Lewis Goodall:With award-winning journalists at the heart of the stories from the UK and around the world. Breaking news here in Edinburgh. I'm Simon Marks. My American Week is next. Reporting from the heart of Cardiff.

23:13Emily Maitlis:Discover how today's story affects your life.

23:16Lewis Goodall:Listen on our free Global Player app or the new LBC app.

23:20Emily Maitlis:LBC, leading Britain's conversation.

23:27Emily Maitlis:The News Agents.

23:29Lewis Goodall:Well, joining us now is a man who has followed the Epstein saga from inside. The US Attorney Spencer Coven has represented victims of Jeffrey Epstein going back, I'm going to say, Spencer, probably two decades now, right? Just for our viewers and listeners who don't know your work, just take us up to date with what you have done with the victims of Epstein.

23:51Emily Maitlis:Sure. Thank you for having me on today. So I represented victim number one to step forward to police and bravely tell her story to the Palm Beach Police Department back in 2007. So, yes, we're almost going on 20 years now of representing victims. And ultimately, I represented nine total victims of Jeffrey Epstein. But that first victim was the one that started this snowball down the hill of investigating Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and sexual exploitations. And then I've stuck with these victims over the years through all of the different iterations of state prosecution, federal prosecution, Crime Victims Rights Act litigation and his subsequent death and all of the other proceedings therewith.

24:38Lewis Goodall:And I just asked you how many of the 23 ,000 emails that have been released overnight you've got through. And you're aware of all this stuff. This is all material that you know about already, right?

24:50Emily Maitlis:Yeah, sadly, there's a lot of information in my head that I cannot disclose and could not disclose until it's out in the general public. So yes, these emails that were disclosed, they're nothing new. These were emails and communications that were disclosed in the Crime Victims Rights Act case that was filed here in the Southern District of Florida many years ago. That lawsuit was filed because the federal government violated my client and others' rights with respect to their abilities to discuss any plea deal before it was entered with the federal government. And a federal judge here in South Florida found that the federal government did violate their rights.

25:30Emily Maitlis:So these emails were part of that discovery in that case. But as I said, they were subject to a protective order so none of the lawyers or clients could talk about them.

25:38Lewis Goodall:So now they're out, now they're public. Tell us what this changes. I mean, for you, what is the most explosive or potentially dangerous part of this whole tranche of emails? Where does it take us to in terms of future prosecutions?

25:54Emily Maitlis:Well, I don't know that it takes us anywhere in terms of future prosecutions, but what I think it does do is it gives the public more of an open sight into what we have known as lawyers and advocates for the victims for years. And that is the true scope and breadth of Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell's attempts at leverage on powerful, influential people around the globe. We've always known this and we've always talked about it in general terms. But I think now with the disclosure of at least these emails, the general public is seeing the evidence that supports why advocates for the victims were talking about this for so long.

26:35Lewis Goodall:A lot of the initial work has been concentrating on that relationship between Epstein and Trump, bearing in mind, of course, that Epstein was a prolific liar and a manipulator. Does it actually take us any closer to understanding Trump's role in all this?

26:54Emily Maitlis:I think it's one step in that direction. Now, you must remember, back when I was litigating one of the first cases to be filed here in 2008, we issued a subpoena for the deposition, the sworn testimony of Donald Trump back then. This was pre-Donald Trump political career. And we issued that subpoena because we knew he had information due to the close relationship he had with Jeffrey Epstein and the issues that were surrounding Glenn Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago and recruiting victims at that location. But our focus wasn't Trump. Our focus was getting more information on Jeffrey Epstein at the time. So, you know, I think that the breadth of that relationship between Trump and Epstein has yet to be fully disclosed.

27:42Emily Maitlis:And I think that the general public needs to see the videotapes, the surveillance tapes that the FBI have, and the photographs that I believe they have in their custody. And that will really truly start to begin to tell the story. Do you think we will see that now? Well, we know the FBI has them. And now it's just a matter of whether or not our government is brave enough to make them produce them. So, as I've always said, on behalf of victims throughout this process for almost 20 years, we are hopeful. But unfortunately, the government has let down my clients time and time again.

28:16Lewis Goodall:Do you believe Trump's own account, which is that he cut off contact, he cut off his friendship with Epstein in around 2004, 2005, more than 15 years ago, he said in 2019?

28:32Emily Maitlis:So I do believe that the relationship did terminate at some point. The evidence that we saw in the litigation did show that there was this break and split between the two in the late 2000s at some point. But what's important to remember is, is that Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell were abusing young girls and trafficking young women dating back to the early 2000s, back when Trump and he were still friends. We know that Virginia Giuffre, for example, was recruited directly out of Mar-a-Lago. And whether you believe Trump's story that that's why he ended the relationship or not, their friendship, Trump and Epstein, dated back to when Epstein and Glenn Maxwell were actively participating in sex trafficking.

29:18Lewis Goodall:So in that tranche of emails that we've been reading overnight, there are clear indications from Epstein that he was with Trump. He says that he was meeting with Trump on Thanksgiving of 2017. He says that he was in Trump Towers the week after Trump won the election in 2016. Epstein. I mean, these are not obviously corroborated from Trump's side, but do you think these are all fabrications or do you think the two men did stay in touch, did meet up in much more recent years?

29:53Emily Maitlis:Well, I think that from what I have seen, much like we saw with Andrew, when he attempted to say that he had cut off all ties and then he's caught in Central Park taking photographs, walking with Epstein and staying at his home in Manhattan. There are a number of individuals that were wealthy, powerful, politically connected individuals that stopped talking to Epstein for a while, but then when it seemed like the dust had settled, reestablished contacts with him for some unknown reasons. So I would not be surprised if Trump was one of those individuals that felt that it was getting too heated with respect to the investigations going on with Epstein and what he was doing, that he broke contact.

30:40Emily Maitlis:But then when things seemed to be dying down, they have re-established contact, especially when Epstein presented to him, hey, look, I've got information. And if I use this information, it could hurt your career. So you better talk to me and meet with me.

30:56Lewis Goodall:So it was like a yo-yo. He could just pull them back when wanted to.

30:59Emily Maitlis:We know that they use leverage. We see that in the emails that they were utilizing that type of leverage, or at least discussing the concept of utilizing that leverage to Jeffrey Epstein's advantage. You see that in the email with Steve Bannon and discussions about leverage and what can be used.

31:17Lewis Goodall:Yeah. And Spencer, we're talking a month after the publication of Virginia Dufresne's memoir, a young woman who went on to take her own life earlier this year. I guess for you, you want to do best by victims and there will be many women probably looking at what is happening over the coming weeks and months and thinking, am I going to fight this? Am I going to come forward? Am I going to am I going to get closer to justice now? Are you hearing from them? Are you are you thinking you want to take on more cases? Or I mean, is the lesson of all this that it's barely worth the price?

31:57Emily Maitlis:Well, I appreciate you raising the issue because it's an important one. My clients cross the gamut from individuals who have still yet 20 years later never been named publicly and choose to remain that way, and others who have chosen to speak out. I didn't represent Virginia Dufresne directly, but I was very close friends with the attorney that did represent her. We worked together on the cases at the inception of this litigation. and you know it definitely takes a toll on a victim when someone has the type of wealth and power that epstein did to attack these girls integrity and lifestyle and follow them with trucks and private investigators and dig into their personal lives to intimidate them of course it affects them but what i would say to victims everywhere is that there continue to be gladiators fighters like myself and other attorneys that will fight for you to make sure that the truth comes out.

33:00Emily Maitlis:And had the victims not been brave enough to come forward in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, he may still be trafficking young girls even today. So it is only but for the courage of these young girls that were brave enough to stand up and come forward that he was able to be stopped in his tracks eventually, as well as Glenn Maxwell. and we need victims to speak up, talk about what's occurring, because for it to stop in the future, we need the bravery of these young women to speak about what's happened to them.

33:35Lewis Goodall:That courage has been so noticeable and so remarkable with those who've come forward. And sometimes they've had the evidence to present to us to show us what they mean. And one of those was the photo that Virginia Dufresne had taken with Prince Andrew then's arm around her waist, a photo that he told me in 2019 was probably a fake because he was wearing the wrong clothes or wouldn't have been upstairs or he didn't recognise his own hand. I mean, from this tranche of emails, Epstein has confirmed that photo is real. It kind of makes you wonder why people would come towards an interview or come towards a testimony with a lawyer and just tell lies that are so easily disproved?

34:22Emily Maitlis:It's absurd. It's absurd. But I mean, look, time and time again, we have seen politicians and wealthy individuals and powerful individuals around the globe just try to completely gaslight the general public when the information is right in front of them. And, you know, what I would say is that if people buy into those lies, they will continue to do it. And unfortunately, there are a group of individuals that regardless of what these powerful or wealthy individuals say, will believe them. And they know that, you know, there is a certain group of individuals that follow Donald Trump, for example, that he said it himself in his own words, I could shoot somebody in the middle of New York and get out of it and not be convicted.

35:14Emily Maitlis:So there are these individuals that are going to believe whatever they say. We've got to stand behind the truth, though, and we have to see the facts for what they are. And unfortunately, you know, with the current administration we have here in the United States and the evolving news that I've seen develop over the last 20 years, that line between truth and false has been blurred.

35:42Lewis Goodall:Last question to you, and this will probably matter much less than much of the other stuff we've been talking about, but there are many now who look at the kind of information that's emerging and say, if these emails are even halfway true, if he did have this compromise material on many other people. Is it so unlikely that he was murdered in prison? Is it so unlikely that Epstein didn't, in fact, take his own life? Where do you sit on that?

36:11Emily Maitlis:Yeah, well, I have always been consistent about this issue. And I believe I gave a quote to one of the UK papers, in fact, when he was first arrested. And I was the first individual to say he's not making it out alive. And I knew that because of what I have learned over the years of litigating these cases, what he had and the information that was there. So I have never been convinced that he took his own life in jail. How and who has been a question, but whether it occurred has not, at least not to me based on the information I've found and what I've seen. So, you know, that question still remains.

36:53Emily Maitlis:At the end of the day, though, what's important to understand is this was either a massive failure by our US Department of Justice at the time to allow something like that to happen in its most secure prison, or someone killed him. Those are really the only two options. And I think that option two is frankly more likely.

37:15Lewis Goodall:Spencer Coven, great to speak to you today. Thanks for your time. Thanks for having me.

37:28Emily Maitlis:The News Agents. Well, yesterday we told you about the machinations that appeared to be going on within Downing Street and their briefings about a potential plot to oust the Prime Minister.

37:43Lewis Goodall:And today we've had an apology from Keir Starmer to Wes Streeting, his health secretary, over the Downing Street briefings. and the Prime Minister said he'd launched an investigation to find out where those briefings came from and he's told lobby journalists that he's pretty sure it wasn't from number 10. I have to say we had the finger very firmly pointed for us at Morgan McSweeney as being the author of those briefings against West Streeting. But it sounds as if Morgan McSweeney has the full confidence, at least, of the Prime Minister.

38:18Emily Maitlis:Yeah, but there are many voices who are much more critical of him. And apparently there are cabinet ministers who've said that he should be going. On tomorrow's episode of the News Agents, I speak to David Blunkett, Lord Blunkett, Labour grandee, former Home Secretary, former Education Secretary, one of the key people during the Blair years. He's pretty clear about what needs to happen to Morgan McSweeney. Should Morgan McSweeney go as chief of staff? well if I were Keir Starmer I would say to Morgan look you've got great skills you helped enormously with me in building a winning team before the election now's the time for me to find you another role that you're good at and I will bring someone in with the overall experience that we need to be the chief of staff.

39:11Emily Maitlis:It's a particular role. It's about knowing about government and managing. It's about having been in a senior position where you've had to not only run the show, but manage people well. And that isn't rocket science, but it's a particular skill.

39:31Lewis Goodall:So beautifully done, but he's essentially saying time for him to move aside.

39:34Emily Maitlis:Time for him to move aside. And also, you haven't got the skills to be the chief of staff. You don't have what it takes to be the chief of staff.

39:40Lewis Goodall:I mean, actually, chief of staffs do tend to kind of swap over quite often. I think Keir Starmer, I mean, we've talked to at least three of Starmer's chief of staffs, and some of them are very phlegmatic about the length of their role. They say, look, you know, you go and you do a specific job, whether it's in opposition, whether it's in getting somebody elected, whether it's on a campaign or whether it's now in government. And, yeah, I mean, maybe what Blunkett's doing is recognising that one period of government is over and a new one has to start pretty quickly.

40:08Emily Maitlis:One period of campaigning is over. Labour have won the election. Morgan, you did a great job then. But governing, you're just getting in the way. And that seems to be his message. And he's fascinating about the problems that this current government faces, the challenges ahead, how difficult it is. His slight contempt about the way the civil service is operating right now.

40:28Lewis Goodall:that's all on the news agents tomorrow bye bye bye for now this has been a global player original

40:34Emily Maitlis:production