The Epstein Files
The Epstein Files

File 106 - Melania Was at the Party Where Trump Met Epstein. She Was Introduced as a Model.

2h ago26:564,743 words
0:000:00

Witness testimony and event records place Melania Knauss (now Trump) at a 1998 party hosted by publisher Kit Lay where Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were both present.Multiple accounts describe her...

Transcript

EN

Hey, it's the creator of the Epstein files.

Before we get into today's episode,

β€œI need to tell you about my brand new podcast, "War Desk".”

If you value how we fact-check the narrative and follow the raw data on this show, "War Desk" is built for you. It's a massive ongoing investigation into the rapidly escalating developments

happening in the Middle East right now. It is completely postpartisan and follows the facts. Instead of cable news talking points, we go straight to the source to explain the reality of global conflict.

Search for "War Desk" on Apple podcasts or Spotify right now, or check this episode's description for the links and hit follow. All right, let's get into the episode. (upbeat music)

Three million pages of evidence, thousands of unsealed flight logs, millions of data points, names, themes, and timelines connected. You are listening to the Epstein files.

The world's first AI native investigation into the case that traditional journalism simply could not handle. - Welcome to the Epstein files. Last time, we fact-checked the AI-generated Epstein lists that have gone viral, documenting

which claims are fabricated

β€œand what is actually in the authenticated files.”

Today, we are looking at witness accounts, placing Malani announced at a 1998 party where Trump and Epstein were both present, and what DOJ records say about Epstein's role and how their social worlds connected.

As part of our ongoing investigation.

- As always, every document and source we reference

is available at EpsteinFiles.fm. - So let us start with a New York Times account of the Trump Epstein Social World, the documented parties, the overlapping circuits, and what Less Wexner said in his deposition

about how Epstein used Trump as social currency. - Right, to really map this out, you have to look at the timeline. We need to ground ourselves in New York City in the late 1990s.

This wasn't just some random assortment of rich people bumping into each other. - No, it was a highly specific ecosystem. - Very insular. You had immense private wealth intersecting directly

with the high end modeling industry. - And the connective tissue there. - Exactly, the connective tissue between those two worlds were these highly exclusive social events. We were talking fashion week parties, private gallery openings,

the VIP rooms, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were operating right in the dead center of that exact overlap. - I have the reporting from the times of India right here. They dug into a very specific claim

that was circulating within that exact ecosystem back in 1998. - Okay, what does the report specify? - According to their historical investigation, Jeffrey Epstein actively boasted to his social circle

that he was the individual who introduced Donald Trump to his future third wife, Melania Nelson. - He was taking credit for the introduction. - Right, he claimed this introduction took place

in a 1998 fashion week party. - And we know Melania Trump's camp flatly refutes that version of events. - Completely. - She went on the record, sharing a chapter from her book,

Melania, stating unequivocally that her first interaction with her husband happened at a fashion week party thrown by an entirely different friend. - In November of 1998. - Yes, the official narrative from her camp

completely removes Epstein from their origin story. Which presents us with an immediate investigative question. We have the official claim from the former First Lady and we have the documented rumors spread by Epstein himself. - Right, and the official story doesn't match the data

we have on Epstein's psychological profile, at least not in a straightforward way. - How do you mean? - We have to ask why Epstein would fabricate that specific rumor.

A sum for a second that his claim was entirely false that he had nothing to do with it. - Okay. - What does that lie reveal about his methodology?

He utilized powerful men as literal social currency.

- Walk through how that currency actually works in that specific environment. - Well, in that late 90s Manhattan circuit, taking credit for a billionaires marriage is the ultimate flex of access.

- Because it proves proximity. - Exactly, it's not just about knowing someone, it is about signaling to everyone else in that elite circle that you are the gatekeeper. You are the ultimate broker of relationships.

- If you can claim you arranged the marriage of one of the most famous real estate developers in the city to a high profile model, you're telling the rest of the ecosystem that you controlled the board.

- He's operating as a social engineer. - Precisely. - And to understand how insulated this ecosystem was,

β€œyou have to look at the physical environments”

they controlled. I have the ABC News Report featuring Antoine Figlas. - The French photographer? - Yes, renowned French photographer, heavily involved in the New York fashion scene.

According to the document here, Verglads orchestrated a photo shoot for British GQ in the year 2000. - And the specific details of that shoot

are critical to establishing the pipeline

we are investigating. - They are.

The subject of the photo shoot was Melania Nows.

And the location for this British GQ shoot

was Donald Trump's private jet. - A very specific physical environment. - The reporting specifies that Melania posed new to board the aircraft and that Trump gave full permission

for this exact arrangement. - I'm looking at the document here. And it specifically says, "There seem to be a strong connection "between the two of them."

I think she was very mesmerized by him. - And Verglads noted she was perfect for that type of shoot. - He did.

β€œ- Just look at the overlapping circuits here.”

Map the nodes in that network. - You have a prominent French fashion photographer. - A high-end European magazine, an American billionaire's private jet, and a model who is about to become

a central figure in American politics. - It's a very tight circle. - This is the exact same circuitry Jeffrey Epstein wired himself into. We know from the files released

under the Epstein Files Transparency Act that he funneled millions of dollars into modeling agencies. - Yeah, he surrounded himself with fashion executives, scouts, photographers.

- And Donald Trump operated in the exact same pageants. The same VIP rooms, the same private jet, tarmac environment. - They are swimming in the exact same water. And it's not just abstract social circles.

It's physical locations. - Right. - The 1998 to 2000 modeling and private jet circuit connects directly to the properties these men owned and operated out of.

And the epicenter of that physical overlap wasn't just Manhattan. - No, it was Florida. - It was Trump's Marlaga Club in Palm Beach.

- Which brings us to a critical juncture in the timeline.

We have conflicting narratives regarding their eventual falling out. - Did you do? - And that official narrative requires rigorous cross-examination. - I have this script's news report.

Detailing a press gaggle, a board air force one. The president was facing direct questions from reporters about his historical relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. - We need to look at his exact words.

- I'm looking at the document here and it specifically says he took people and because he took people I said, don't do it anymore. People were taken out of the spa, hired by him.

- So he's claiming the rift happened over employment poaching at the club. - That's the claim. But what happened when the reporters pressed him on the specifics? - A reporter asked point blank

if that included Virginia Jiffer. The president's verbatim response was, I don't know, I think she worked at the spa. I think that was one of the people, yeah, he stole her. - And the White House officials later clarified this

by stating Trump kicked Epstein out of his club for being a creep. - That is the official alibi. - He claims he exiled Epstein from Marlaga for poaching spa workers.

But we have to apply investigative skepticism here. - Always. The official story doesn't match the data. Because when you look at the victim testimonies released under the Epstein files transparency act,

a massive glaring contradiction emerges. - This contradiction is meticulously documented

in an NPR investigation regarding a second accuser.

To understand the scale of this discrepancy,

β€œyou have to walk through this specific accuser's timeline,”

chronologically. - Let's lay out that timeline. We are talking about a young woman who is attending the interlocking center for the arts up in Michigan.

- She alleges that Epstein's abuse began when she was around 13 years old. - She's set for six separate interviews with the FBI between September 2019 and September 2021.

- And in those federal interviews, she testified that Epstein took her to Marlaga, specifically to meet Trump. - A 13-year-old girl. - Yes, I'm looking at the document here.

And it specifically says, Epstein told Trump, this is a good one, huh? In a subsequent 2020 civil lawsuit against Epstein's estate and gistling Maxwell, this same accuser noted that after that comment,

both men chuckled. - She stated she felt uncomfortable, but at the time, she was too young to fully understand why. - Right.

- Look at what they're leaving out of the official narrative. If the claim is that Trump kicked Epstein out in a righteous fury over stolen, spa employees being trafficked, how does that square with a witness account

of Epstein bringing a 13-year-old girl directly

β€œto truck inside Marlaga and sharing a joke about her?”

- It doesn't. I would a man you supposedly banished for predatory poaching, feel comfortable bringing a middle school student to your private club to show her off. - It's a massive timeline discrepancy.

The data points simply do not align. And when NPR pulled the metadata on this specific FBI interview report, they found something highly irregular. - Which was.

- That specific interview file was removed from the Department of Justice's public files after the initial publication. And then quietly republished weeks later. - The Justice Department claimed

it was temporarily removed because it had been flagged by Council for additional review. - That was their explanation. - But that temporary removal is just a symptom of a much larger disease regarding these records.

The timeline discrepancies at Marlaga are glaring, but what is infinitely worse is what the FBI documented and what the Justice Department subsequently attempted to bury entirely. - We have to outline the scope of this cover up.

We are looking at coordinated reporting

from NPR, NBC News, and Rolling Stone. - Right. - Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the EFTA mandating the release of these records.

Over 3 million pages were uploaded to the public database.

- The 3 million pages. - But independent journalists and congressional investigators

β€œdiscovered that over 50 pages of crucial FBI interviews”

are missing from that public release. - And let's be clear, these aren't just random administrative pages or redacted flight logs. - No, they are very specific evidentiary documents. I have the NBC News analysis of the unredacted logs.

These missing files include three at a four form 302 interview summaries. - We need to pause on the 302s. For anyone unfamiliar with federal law enforcement procedures, a 302 is the official form FBI agents used

to summarize an interview with a witness or a subject. - That's the standard. - It is the bedrock document of a federal investigation. If an agent talks to you, they write a 302. And these specific 302s were conducted by the FBI in 2019

with a South Carolina woman. - And her timeline predates the Marlago incidents we just discussed. It goes all the way back to the early 1980s. - Right. - This South Carolina woman alleges that around 1983,

when she was 13 or 14 years old, Epstein introduced her to Trump. And she alleges that Trump forced her into a sexual act. - This is documented internally. - We have the internal FBI PowerPoint slide deck

that summarizes the entire Epstein case, prepared by the FBI's Child Exploitation in a human trafficking task force. And the slide deck was released in the initial document dump. - Yes.

I'm looking at the document here, and it specifically says, subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis, which she subsequently bid. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out. - The official claim from the Justice Department

is that they withheld the underlying 302s for this specific allegation, because they fall into categories of duplicates, privileged or part of an ongoing federal investigation. - That's the excuse.

- But representative Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, and his investigative team, reviewed the unredacted evidence logs at the DOJ. He went on the record stating that the logs confirm

the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld these FBI interviews. - Because the law mandating the release, the FDA explicitly prohibits withholding documents on the basis of embarrassment,

reputational harm, or political sensitivity. - Including to any government official or public figure. - Exactly, so we have to ask the foundational investigated questions. Who benefits from these 50 pages missing?

- Right, why were 3 million other pages

deemed safe for public consumption, including horrific details about other prominent figures, but the specific 302s detailing a violent sexual assault allegation against a former president by a 13-year-old girl are scrubbed from the database.

- We have a piece of evidence that might speak to the pressure campaign behind that scrubbing. I have the transcript from a YouTube broadcast on the channel, MSNW, featuring Marjorie Taylor Green.

β€œ- She was a key figure in pushing the discharge petition”

that ultimately led to the release of these files. - Let's explain that discharge petition really quickly. For those who don't spend all day watching congressional procedure, a discharge petition is basically a parliamentary hail Mary.

- It's a way to force a bill out of committee and onto the floor for a full vote. - Even if the party leadership doesn't want it to see the light of day, it requires an absolute majority of members to sign it.

That shows just how much institutional resistance there was to releasing these files. - And Green detailed a phone call she received regarding that specific petition. - An angry phone call from Donald Trump.

- Pressuring her not to sign it. - Yes. I'm looking at the document here and it specifically says, "Marjorie, my friends will get hurt." - My friends will get hurt.

- That contradicts the evidence that he was a crusader against Epstein's network. - It does. - It suggests a deeply vested interest in keeping the ecosystem protected.

It is wild looking at these flight logs and these witness testimonies, because you realize very quickly that this isn't a left wing or right wing issue. You've got Donald Trump on one page

and Bill Clinton on the other. - Right. - I want to explicitly state to you, the listener, that our goal here isn't to play politics. It is just to follow the paper trail,

no matter who's backyard it leads into. We are strictly examining what the authenticated files in official records state. Importually, we are not endorsing the viewpoints of the allegations, just reporting the contents of the sources.

- And the records dictate that to understand how the justice department could execute a cover up of this magnitude, I mean, scrubbing 50 pages of 300 toues

out of an ocean of 3 million released pages.

β€œYou have to understand that Epstein's protection network”

was not a partisan operation. - No. - The shield protecting him spanned across the entire political spectrum. It was an institutional shield.

- Which brings us to the involvement of the democratic establishment. - The files reveal how the elite class, regardless of party affiliation,

Operated as a collective buffer for his operations.

- We need to look at the Clinton connection.

β€œ- I have the BBC News report detailing Hillary Clinton's testimony”

before a congressional committee investigating Epstein. - And her defense is the standard boilerplate denial we see across these files. It's the classic Washington, amnesia. - She released a statement claiming she did not recall

ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein and had no information whatsoever about his criminal activities. - And her husband, former president Bill Clinton, was scheduled to testify the following day.

- Let's cross examine that defense. They claim no substantive connection. But the flight logs and the authenticated files proved that Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's private jet in 2002 and 2003.

- He took tricks to Africa with actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker. - A trip to Africa on a private jet isn't a quick hop from New York to DC

where you might bump into someone in the aisle.

- No, that is sustained multi-day international travel on a privately owned aircraft. You are spending hours upon hours in a metal tube with the owner that is not a casual acquaintance.

β€œ- We have the deposition of Gisling Maxwell”

conducted by Attorney Todd Blanche to provide further context on this relationship. I have the Magna Legal Services document page 260. Blanche is pressing her on whether Epstein did any business transactions with the clins.

Watch her maneuvering in this transcript. It's very deliberate. - Maxwell testifies and I'm looking at the document here and it specifically says, I would, well, I'm not sure I can.

I'm not sure how to quite, I don't know the answer that strictly because I was part of the beginning process of the Clinton Global Initiative and that was something that I helped with and that was me and Epstein may have helped them.

- Epstein may have helped me help them.

- That phrasing. - Think about the scale of the Clinton Global Initiative. It was a massive, high level, philanthropic organization, brokering deals between heads of state and global corporations. Maxwell is testifying under oath

that she was part of the beginning process of this initiative and that Epstein was funneling assistance or resources through her. - That completely shatters the narrative

that he was just a guy with a plane that occasionally hits to ride with. - Right, he was embedded in the very foundation of their geopolitical charity work. - To understand why these figures allowed him so deep

into their inner circles, we have to look at his psychological methodology. I have the transcript from a YouTube documentary titled, "The Psychology of Jeffrey Epstein." Power, control, and grooming.

Featuring analysis from Dr. Jeff Killazewski. - Dr. Killazewski's analysis is vital here because it bridges the gap between the street level trafficker and the high society socialite. - He points out that Epstein groomed adults,

politicians, academics, celebrities using the exact same fundamental mechanics he used to groom his victims. - He stroked their narcissism. - He presented himself as a facilitator of their greatness.

Dr. Killazewski knows that Epstein would target academics, breath of a massive check after a lecture and then immediately offer an introduction to someone like Bill Clinton.

- He manufactured dependency through access and funding. - He was buying legitimacy. - And he didn't just buy it haphazardly. He used the heaviest hitters in the financial world to construct that legitimacy systematically.

- We see that mechanical structure in the Maxwell deposition as well. I'm looking at page 281, Todd Blanche asks Maxwell about Epstein's relationship with Harvard and MIT. - What did she say?

- I'm looking at the document here and it specifically says,

β€œ"So I think that that may have come with Wexner."”

I'm not sure, but that's something that I think that Wexner maybe had a relationship with Harvard and that he used that relationship to, I believe, he funded a lot. - She goes on to describe how less Wexner,

the billionaire retail mogul, who funded Epstein's early career, would organize these funding channels. - Look at the structural engineering of that relationship. - Wexner provides the capital and the institutional bridges

to prestigious places like Harvard and MIT. Epstein walks across those bridges, handing out checks to Nobel laureates and researchers. - Those academics then provide intellectual cover and prestige.

- Right, and Epstein takes that prestige and leverages it to get onto the ground floor of the Clinton Global Initiative. He takes that political access and brings it to Mara Logo to Impress Real Estate Billionaires.

- It is a self-sustaining loop of elite grooming. - And while this elite class actively nurtured his network, they simultaneously use the fallout for a political theater. - Both the state of the union.

- We have the MPR report regarding the guest list for the state of the union address. You have Democratic lawmakers deliberately bringing Epstein to serve fibers as their guests. - Representative Suha Subramaniam invited the brother

and sister-in-law of Virginia Roberts, D. Frey. - Representative James Walkin' Shaw brought Survivor Jess Michaels. Representative Rokana brought Haley Robinson. - Meanwhile, the Republicans brought guests completely unrelated to the investigation,

like conservative YouTubers. - The hypocrisy is staggering.

You have politicians using the victims

of the trafficking network as literal props for a televised political broadcast.

β€œ- While the exact same governmental apparatus,”

the justice department, continues to redact and withhold the full truth about the complicity of both political parties. - They parade the survivors in the capital gallery for the cameras while burying the form 302s in the basement.

- Which forces us to ask the ultimate question of his entire investigation. How did Jeffrey Epstein run a sprawling international,

multi-million dollar trafficking and intelligence gathering operation

for decades without federal intervention? - Well, the official story is that he slipped through the cracks. - Slicks of the cracks. - They claim a local law enforcement missed the signs and federal prosecutors in 2008 gave him

a sweetheart non-prossicution deal just because he hired high-trice lawyers. - That official story doesn't match the data. - No. He was not a local criminal who got lucky.

He was a protected asset of a massive institutional system. - We have the documentary proof of that federal complicity. I have the CBS news report on a newly uncovered document released in the files.

β€œIt is a 2015 drug enforcement administration memo.”

- The DEA memo. - It is 69 pages long and it is explicitly marked law enforcement sensitive. - The details of this DEA memo completely destroyed the narrative that the federal government was blind to his activities

between his 2008 conviction and his 2019 arrest. - The document proves that the DEA was investigating Jeffrey Epstein and 14 other unnamed individuals for over five years. - Five years.

- I'm looking at the document here and it specifically says DEA reporting indicates the above individuals are involved in illegitimate wire transfers, which are tied to a listed drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York City.

- Just look at the timeline and the scope of what they were tracking.

The DEA was monitoring $50 million

in suspicious wire transfers, moving through bank accounts and Switzerland, France, the Cayman Islands in New York. - Between 2010 and 2015. - They opened a formal investigation.

β€œThey requested information from the organized crime”

drug enforcement task force's fusion center in Virginia. - That is a massive federal clearinghouse. - Designed specifically for intelligence sharing across all federal law enforcement agencies. - The memo also reveals other federal probes

operating concurrently. An ICE investigation in West Palm Beach opened in 2006. An ICE investigation in Las Vegas opened in 2009. - An ICE investigation in Paris opened in 2013 titled Operation Angel Watch.

- An FBI investigation opened in 2006 that was still listed as active in 2015. - And yet, when the U.S. attorneys office for the Southern District of New York, finally arrested Epstein in July 2019,

sources involved in that specific case told CBS News that the prosecutors claim they were completely unaware

of this massive multi-agency $50 million DEA probe.

- A $50 million federal wire fraud and trafficking probe involving 15 targets doesn't just evaporate. - How does that vanish into the bureaucracy? - It vanishes because the system required it to vanish.

To understand the sociology of this blindness, we have to look at the philosophy of the people he surrounded himself with. - The ideology behind it. - I have the transcript from Douglas Rushcows.

He's a prominent media theorist who attended an elite dinner party funded by Epstein in the mid-1990s. Rushcows' account is a masterclass in understanding the cultural environment that allowed Epstein to flourish.

It explains the why. - Rushcows describes sitting at a table with world-renowned scientists like Richard Dawkins. They were discussing genetic determinism. - The philosophical stance that human beings

are nothing more than biological hardware executing code. - Exactly. Dawkins argued that humans are just survival machines blindly programmed to preserve genes. - Rushcows pushes back against this,

suggesting human consciousness and empathy actually matter. - And Dawkins ridicules him. - Calling him a moralist. - This is not just an academic debate over dinner. This philosophy is the foundation

of the permission structure. - Right, Rushcows explains that he was invited to bring a plus one to this elite dinner. He brought a brilliant female colleague. The host of the party pulled him aside and berated him.

- Telling him he was supposed to bring a hot date to help decorate the party. - I'm looking at the document here and it specifically says you're supposed to raise the quotient in the room.

- Quotient razors, think about that phrasing, women as quotient razors. - Not as human beings. - Not as intellects but as decorative assets to increase the perceived value of the physical space.

The Volkswagen's investigations synthesizes this perfectly. Epstein didn't just fund these specific scientists and thinkers because he liked science. - He funded them because their belief systems gave intellectual cover to a sociopathy.

- If human beings are just machines responding to DNA, then exploiting them is not a moral failure. It is just a biological transaction. - This was the culture of the moral log of VIP rooms,

The private jets, the Clinton Global Initiative meetings,

and the LIT media labs.

β€œThey viewed themselves as the apex predators”

of the genetic lottery.

- That is the core finding of our investigation

into the specific network. This was not a shadow conspiracy operating in the dark allies. - No, it was a culturally accepted permission structure, operating in the brightest, most expensive rooms in the world.

β€œThe politicians, the tech billionaires, the scientists,”

and the federal agencies, they didn't fail to stop him. - They allowed him to function because he service their ecosystem. - The system wasn't broken, it was working exactly as designed. The elite class viewed themselves as completely above the law, operating in a reality where the rules simply do not apply to them.

- That is why the 302s are missing. - That is why the DEA Prog vanish. That is why the files are still being hidden. We have moved from a rumor at a 1998 fashion party to conflicting alibis about Mara Logo,

to the DOJ illegally withholding 50 pages of FBI interviews, and finally to a documented bipartisan institutional cover-up that treated human beings as social currency.

β€œRemember, this is an ongoing investigation,”

and everything we cited is sourced at EpsteinFiles.fm. - Next time on the Epstein files,

file 107 Jeff Tube has 1.3 million views.

The DOJ still hasn't responded. (upbeat music) - You have just heard an analysis of the official record. Every claim, name, and date mentioned in this episode, is backed by primary source documents.

You can view the original files for yourself at EpsteinFiles.fm.

If you value this data first approach to journalism,

please leave a five-star review wherever you're listening right now. It helps keep this investigation visible. We'll see you in the next file. (upbeat music)

Compare and Explore