Melania Trump, Epstein — and the Photographer in Between

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We've all seen that Hillary and Bill Clinton have to sit down and testify before the House Oversight Committee. And it's got everyone thinking, well, if Hillary and Bill Clinton have to sit down, then what about Melania and Donald Trump, right? After all, they too knew Galen and Jeffrey Epstein. In my latest piece in Vanity Fair, which just dropped on Friday, I explained one degree of

separation between Melania and a fashion photographer who made her career who remained close to Jeffrey Epstein after his 2008 conviction. He's found in the files hundreds of times, 600 times, to be precise. His name is Antoine Vergloss. He was a huge photographer in the '90s.

He photographed Cindy Crawford, Stephanie Seymour, Claudia Schiffer, Tyra Banks. He also made Melania, Trump in the late '90s. He was the one who photographed her for that Racy GQ shot, the nude one where she's lying on.

“I think nothing but fur in Donald Trump's plane.”

He also photographed her in nothing for golf maximum. She just covered in golf balls in a bathtub. He did some of her most iconic shoots. He did a dozen with her, actually. He shot her between, it was 1999 and 2011.

There's a hoat living shot that he did with her. But he's very much apart. The ecosystem of modeling that brought Melania into the place that she is now. President Trump was proud of her that she was an elite model.

And it was this man Antoine Vergloss who basically made it happen.

Now Antoine, the emails show an uncomfortably close relationship between Antoine and Epstein. For example, Epstein hired Antoine to shoot, to do photo shoots of his girlfriend, Karina Shuliac, and other girls. We don't know their ages. He says they were not minors.

He pays them. And one email, it says that they won't need styling because it'll be nude. He claims that it wasn't nude. He also sends a file that says Antoine Vergloss, nude black and whites. He also sends in just like almost 65 files of, we don't know what they're all blanked out.

He asks him for help with his son, Julian getting an internship in finance. Julian went on to be a day trader and according to the emails, Epstein met with him. In return, Vergloss actually helped Epstein's girlfriend, Karina Shuliac get visa. So there was certainly a symbiotic relationship between the two of them. Epstein reached out to him, saying that Woody Allen was looking for a girl for his movies between

20 and 24 and then Vergloss responded with some ideas. What is probably one of the most chilling emails in their correspondence is about a drug called Scopoline, a lethal drug that eliminates free well. Now, there's an email from Vergloss that is forward into Jeffrey Epstein.

And it's a, it's quoting a daily mail article that explains Scopoline and how it basically eliminates.

Like I said, free well, it leaves you extremely suggestible almost like a zombie. They actually say a childlike state.

“Well, that email, why is it in Jeffrey Epstein's inbox?”

For, and it was originally a Vergloss email, also Jeffrey Epstein just so happened to be growing the plant that creates that drug Scopoline. It's called a trumpet plant. It's known for its beautiful bell shape. It is seen in a number of gardens, but it's just a little convenient, right?

It's seen in two emails that Jeffrey's asking about these plants. Now, Vergloss says he doesn't recall what this was all about. He says that he was alarmed by this drug and he doesn't remember how it ended up in Jeffrey Epstein's inbox. He claims that their contact was limited, that they only met a number like a few times. Maybe a dozen or so contacts between the two of them and that is the extent of it all.

It's really downplayed at all. But I really think that it's another example of the very thin line between the White House

President, First Lady, and Epstein in his world.

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and go to tarropalmarry.com and sign up for my newsletter or the red letter. It's where you get great reporting like this straight to your inbox. And it supports independent journalism. Take a listen to this episode about Katie Turche on MSNow. We discuss Bill Clinton's testimony. We talk about what that means for President Trump. There's been an asked about it whether he should testify.

Seems a little scared actually. And I share my reporting about Antoine Varigloss and his relationship with Melania Trump. And then his subsequent post relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. He says that he did not know Jeffrey Epstein when he was working with Melania. Take a listen here and thanks again for listening to the show.

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Aldi. Good afternoon for Aldi. The American public deserves to hear and see these answers for themselves. And ultimately this demonstrates that nobody is above the law. And my top concern at this moment is the ongoing White House coverup. It is deeply concerning that we are seeing a very coordinated machine from the president

of the United States continuously repeating that he has been exonerated. He just repeated that today to members of the Republican Party on the oversight committee repeating that lie as well. There are very credible allegations that have been looked and investigated by the FBI that the Department of Justice is illegally withholding.

Please do not stop asking about this. Why is the DOJ continuing to defy the Epstein files transparency act by refusing to release the full Epstein files by illegally withholding information, by deleting photos and videos of people like Howard Lutnik. This is unacceptable. Donald Trump must be deposed immediately in front of this committee as do many senior level officials from this administration.

Congressman Sue Hoss of ammonium from Virginia. If there was any doubt before today that oversight Democrats are treating this investigation in a non-partisan way, I will be put to rest when the transcripts come out. We have been asking the former president or the hard questions. To his credit, he has answered every single question.

He's not taking the fifth amendment. He's been actually quite comfortable. And he's actually given very long deliberate answers to all these questions. And so we appreciate the former president being here today. And we would like to see the current president come before us as well and give the same kind

of transparency that President Clinton has given us today. And we're going to continue to demand the release of the files and continue to demand transparency of this administration.

Two quick points, Wesley Bell, Congressman Missouri's first district.

First and foremost, President Clinton came here and answered tough questions.

“I think the victims and survivors, the American public deserve those deserve a serious investigation”

because that's far what we're seeing from Republicans as a very non-serious as one of my colleagues referred to it as a clown show. And having led a serious investigation, I can't disagree when we hear members from the other side coming into a deposition with conclusions, get no evidence to support those conclusions and then announce to the world that these conclusions must be true.

That is unprofessional, it's unethical. And at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is get to the bottom of what actually happens so that we can help hold any offenders accountable. Democrats are doing that.

The president and former First Lady have done that.

And now it's time for President Trump to do the exact same thing. Under oath, not when you can just make statements randomly on an ex or true social, but under oath where your right hand is in the air and their consequences if you don't tell the truth. And so we're going to continue to push for transparency, we're going to continue to push

“for justice because that's what the American people and the survivors deserve.”

I think I'll just make a couple of brief comments and then I'll answer one or two questions

hours of questioning by both the Democratic side and the Republican side as the afternoon goes on. I want to just reiterate a couple of things that have been made to our important. The first is that we're thankful that President Clinton came in and answered tough questions from both the minority party and the majority party. We also think it's important to note that and he made some of these statements in his opening statement.

He made it clear once again that he does not understand nor do we, why we spent so much time yesterday grilling Secretary Clinton when she obviously had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein

and had never met Jeffrey Epstein.

We also want to reiterate, I want to think it's important for us to know our call yesterday because of transparency, it is so important that we continue to release both Secretary Clinton's deposition and President Clinton's deposition. Both of the Clintons are committed to these records getting out as soon as possible and over

“side Democrats agree. The best way of going forward is for there be transparency and a full public”

record and we're demanding that that record not be edited but just a full recording of what transpired yesterday and what will continue to transpire today to the course of the day.

And finally let me just also say once again that we have a new president in this country

where we can now demand President and former presidents to testify in front of the oversight committee. So we are once again demanding that now President Trump was in the Epstein files almost more than anyone else besides Galane Maxwell answer our questions. This is not a hoax. He has not been exonerated and we have serious questions for President Trump. Well that wants a couple questions.

I think I think the best response of that is for you to to view the complete record of what actually he said which look we're not going to disclose what was said because it's not in the rules.

Republicans keep breaking the rules but I think to what Mr. Frost said earlier there was

I think that the president president Clinton did bring up some additional information about some discussions with President Trump. I think that the way Chairman Comer describe it. I don't think is it complete accurate description of what actually was said. So let's release the full transcript. Then you can get all get a full record of what actually was said which brings up some very

“important new questions about comments that President Trump has actually said in the past. Any other questions?”

Congressman. Yes. Mr. is the member of the I know in the former President's statement. He says that I know you can't really give a lot of details about what was said in the deposition but I wouldn't even characterize what you think is being cooperative. I think everybody would agree that he's been very cooperative and he's actually answering the questions fairly. I mean the best of his ability. He has not taken a pass on cleaning the fifth for any questions. He's been very

thorough. He's been asked some questions multiple times over. I think you'll see that in the transcript. So he's been very cooperative and in fact is I don't think he's given any sense that he's been uncomfortable to be there. In fact I think he's been he's been pretty interested in answering.

“I think all the questions of both the Republicans and the Democrats. With that we're going to wrap”

up up. Everyone's going to break and then I'm a Republican. All right. You were just watching. Just there is the Democrats giving a bit of a gaggle to reporters in the middle of a break in the Bill Clinton testimony regarding Jeffrey Epstein. I'm Katie Turr. Thanks for joining us. It is 207 right now. An interesting back and forth there with Congressman Comer and an indirect back and forth between Congressman Comer and Congressman Garcia regarding

something that Bill Clinton said about Donald Trump. Let's get into that joining us. I must now see in your Capitol Hill reporter Ali Vittali and Chappaqua. I must now see in your legal reporter Lisa Rubin and host of the Terrapomary podcast and author of the Red Letter Unsubstack Terrapomary. All right. So Ali, let me play what Comer said just a few moments ago regarding some testimony from Bill Clinton. I want to make a statement because they'll probably

quote should President Trump be called the answer questions from this committee. And President Clinton said that's for you to decide. And the president went on to say that the

president, Trump, has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved.

Okay. So Ali, that was Comer's characterization of what President Clinton said. Congressman Garcia just was speaking a moment ago and he said that's not quite accurate. That's exactly right. And I think there's two things that struck me because this was also the

“exchange that I think I pulled out as the most important and like substantively impactful of what”

we just heard from lawmakers as they gagged with us and then went into a deposition break. To me, it says two things. First is that Democrats keep trying to respect this idea that they are not supposed to talk about the substance of what's happening in these depasitions, like truly specifics about what's happening in these depasitions until the transcript and video are released. But we've seen now is Republicans in Comer doing a pretty good job of trying to set the narrative

of what is said inside. And the reason that I think what Comer said there is important and also gives us some insight into how he might be thinking about the future of this investigation is that they are trying to use Bill Clinton as a way to rebut claims from Democrats and others who say, okay, if you've got a former president in Bill Clinton, why are you not asking President Trump, who has mentioned hundreds of times in the files potentially more than any

other person in there or one of the top mentioned people in the files. And Comer, by trying to

use Clinton to say, well, Clinton says he never had any reason to think that Trump was involved

with Epstein, they're basically trying to cut that line of inquiry off at the past. Obviously, Garcia and Democrats were not going to just let that go. They very much want to use the fact that Clinton is here before the committee as leverage for why Trump himself should be called before the committee. But to me, it tells me that Comer is aware of the door that he may have opened by getting the Clinton's giving the conservative red meat of these favorite villains for

Republicans putting them back in the deposition spotlight that he's also now aware of the door that it opens for people to say, okay, if you've got Clinton, why are you not asking for Trump? Or even more than that, if the committee wants to ask spouses who don't have insight into their husband's actions, for example, as Hillary Clinton didn't intend to bill, then why are you not also asking Melania Trump, who, by the way, is actually pictured in some of the Epstein files

and has at least one correspondence with Gillian Maxwell, right? So that opens up this sticky line

“of partisan questioning. And that's what I saw in Comer there, trying to remember.”

Or frankly, or frankly, Marla Maples, who is said to have found Epstein to be off and odd, why would she, he was at her wedding as well, and at Melania Trump's wedding to Donald Trump. So if the spouses are now fair game, what about those two women? I want to get to that in a moment because Terry, you've got some interesting reporting regarding somebody else linked to Melania

Trump and Epstein, and I do want to drill into that. But first, let's talk a little bit more about

Bill Clinton. He had an opening statement today that laid out, I guess, the parameters of what he thinks he had to offer the committee, and he says, I'm going to paraphrase it, I didn't see anything, I didn't know anything, I didn't do anything wrong. I think that's a pretty good distillation of what both Bill and Hillary Clinton have each said previously, Katie, and not just said it, they swore to an in-declarations that they offered to the committee mid-month last month in

lieu of testimony. And he said, in his declaration, I'm going to read to you, to stay plainly, I had no personal knowledge of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein or Miss Glee Maxwell's criminal activities, including those to which Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008, those for which he was investigated and charged in New York in 2019, and those for which Miss Maxwell was found guilty in 2021. However, I do think that there were some legitimate questions to be asked of President

Clinton notwithstanding that statement. And those include questions not limited to, but those include questions about his 2002 travel with Jeffrey Epstein and Glee Maxwell. They traveled together on multiple occasions that year, including sort of an infamous trip to Africa on Jeffrey Epstein's

“plane, where many other notable people were present. One of the things that I think we need to”

better understand about that trip as an emergency room physician who accompanied them on the trip to ensure that Bill Clinton as the former president was adequately taken care of. He said, "Look, everybody else on the trip," and he said this in a statement to the FBI, "Everybody else on the trip had a designated purpose or a reason to be there." You could explain why they were on that plane. And yet, there were four women there whose presence I could not explain. They were

all in the early 20s, appear to be 20 to 22, one was described to me as a ballerina, another a former model. But everybody else was there for philanthropic reasons because they had policy expertise.

something that I think is legitimate to ask Bill Clinton about. What did you think those four

“girls were doing on the plane and should you have asked more questions or disassociated from”

Jeffrey Epstein as a result of that? I'm sorry, I misspoke a moment ago. He was not at Melania's wedding to Donald Trump. My bad on that, but he was at Marla Maples wedding. But back to Bill Clinton and the the women on the plane. Okay, he's got four young women on the plane. They're not, they don't appear to be under age. And maybe he thought this guy is a playboy fine. But Bill Clinton was around Jeffrey Epstein more than that. And Jeffrey Epstein had a certain reputation

even in 2002 and before about liking. I mean, we've saw the birthday book about liking younger. Well, let's talk about the infamous New York magazine profile. I mean, again, if you want to draw some connective tissue about Clinton and Trump, both of them were aware of that

reputation. How do we know? Because in 2002 in New York magazine wrote one of the first sort of

now infamous profiles of Jeffrey Epstein, there's that quote from Trump where he says, it's been said that Epstein likes beautiful women as much as I do. And then he flags that he likes them on the younger side. So that was part of Epstein's reputation that was trailing him around Palm Beach and certainly New York Society. At the time Hillary Clinton was obviously a senator from New York. The Clinton said, "Arty set up base in Chappaqual," even if that was not yet his national reputation.

Anybody who operated in the New York circles in which the Clinton's as a former president and first lady were then active, would have sort of known the scuddle about around him.

“Okay, did Clinton see up here in the files post Epstein conviction?”

I have not seen any showing that Bill Clinton himself in relation to an ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or going Maxwell appears in the files after that period of time. However, I want to flag. We are all aware of the fact that Glenn Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton's 2010 wedding after Epstein's original conviction and after he was done serving his time, as the guest of a Clinton-friendly Ted Wait. We understand from both Clinton's that she was

there solely in the capacity as Ted Wait's plus one essentially. But again, there is no indication that Epstein was maintaining a correspondence with Glenn Maxwell. That Epstein was maintaining correspondence with Bill Clinton or that he was maintaining a correspondence with Glenn Maxwell independently after that time. All right, let's talk about the slippery slope here and the the president being set. Democrats say Tara that the Republicans are calling in a former president.

They're calling in his spouse, who says she didn't even know Jeffrey Epstein. Aren't you setting a precedent? They say to allow us to interview Donald Trump, to allow us to interview potentially his spouses. You've done some reporting about another person that links Melania Trump to Jeffrey Epstein. We've seen her in photos, obviously. We keep showing them. We've also seen that correspondence between her and Glenn Maxwell, which was shortened in

an Oculus, at least on the outside. Who is this guy that you're writing about and what link does he have? So this is Antoine Berglass. He was a huge fashion photographer in the 1990s. He photographed Cindy Crawford, Stephanie Seymour, Claudia Schiffer, all of the biggest models. And in fact, he propelled Melania Trump's career. He is the reason that she became famous. He did that famous

GQ spread of her naked in Trump's plane. He also did a few other photographs of her maximum golf, or she's again naked, just covered in golf balls. They did about 12 sessions together. And he is responsible for her fame. And he was, you know, found through her modeling agent. This is around the same time that she was getting a visa. Now, at the same time, he maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein from 2012 to 2017. That's after his conviction.

He was photographing Epstein's girlfriends and their friends and some of the pictures in some of the emails. It suggests that they were nude. He sent nude photos to Jeffrey Epstein. He sent many photos to Jeffrey Epstein. They worked together on shoots a number of times. And then there's a really concerning email that was forward to the Jeffrey Epstein that was sent by him about this drug scopoline that takes away free will. It's basically a zombie drug almost like leaves a person

“basically incapacitated. He said he doesn't remember the context of that drug. And that”

he said that they never did anything together with it. But there are a number of very concerning

in 2008. And so, you know, this is someone who made Melania Trump's career. And while it doesn't

suggest that, you know, Melania did anything wrong. It does show one degree of separation between the world, Melania and the world that made her this elite modeling world. And Jeffrey Epstein, a world that he was easily exploited through Lisa. I mean, actually, this photographer

“Julian Vergless helped Epstein's girlfriend, Karina Shulia Gettavisa. That's how close they”

they appear to be in these emails. So, he's a recurring character who shows up almost 600 times in the Epstein files. And he is just so happens to be the man who made Melania. Well, I mean, he would be interesting to question. Melania would be interesting to question about that as well. Ali, one last question to you regarding the politics here. I think it's just kind of sad to insert politics into this. And it's something that Marjorie Taylor Green was doing a

good job of having some dignity with. She was talking about everybody needing to come and answer questions regardless of political parties. I don't feel like I'm seeing much of that right now among the lawmakers who are questioning these witnesses. You have Bill Clinton there today, lots of Republicans showed up, lots of Democrats. Less Wexner, the other day who was, you know, arguably the source of much of Jeffrey Epstein's wealth, lots of Democrats, but only Republican

“staffers showed up to interview him. So, what is the actual desire to get to the bottom of this?”

Or is this just another round of partisan politics? You know, I think these members Katie have been trying to use the word that this is nonpartisan and certainly when I've talked to the survivors when they've come up repeatedly to Capitol Hill to urge members just for transparency and accountability and justice. Some of these women have been so clear about the fact that they've given statements over the years or they've tried to talk to law enforcement. And some of

them don't even know what has happened to them. They want clarity on their own situations and

on their own traumas that they are healing from, right? And so that is as always at the center of

this. And I think that all of us keep coming back to that, but what should be a nonpartisan quest is then immediately bogged down in partisanship. And I think I've been thinking about that often because over the last two days, I asked Chairman Comer about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, right? And the idea that Lutnik himself has offered up details about living next order Jeffrey Epstein for a time, about seeing things in Epstein's apartment, about cutting ties

“with him when he really didn't cut ties with him. And I think that's why I asked the following”

line of questions this morning. I just want to play for you a small part of the conversation I had with Comer and Mace earlier. Watch. Yesterday you both told me that you were planning on asking about an email that Howard Lutnik sent to Jeffrey Epstein. I presume about a theory that just pondered about his one. If he's worth asking about, is he not worth asking in to talk about what he might know?

I think it'll be interesting when we hopefully get that video out later today or tomorrow's quick as we can get it out. I think it'll be interesting what Hillary Clinton said about Howard Lutnik. And how should you set it? We're going to continue to ask questions of everyone that shows up in photos on the island and things like that. I will be asking for him. Yes.

So we're going to see this substance, Katie. I don't want to dwell too much on that. Though we're starting to get a little bit of a clue as to what they might have been asking in regards to a Lutnik Hillary Clinton relationship of some kind that might have revolved around Clinton as a senator trying to help with 9/11 victims and the company and bank that Lutnik worked with that was centered at the World Trade Center. But I want to focus on the result of

that exchange, which is that Congresswoman Nancy Mesa Republican said that she wants to call Lutnik and Democrats that I've spoken to since now say, "Okay, they think they have the votes to do that." And that would be significant. You talk about the partisan politics. It's one of the things that's gumbed up the process, but should we see the Commerce Secretary, the current Commerce Secretary, to this Republican administration come in at a Republican-led committee?

I do think that would be significant. It's not the president, but it is significant.

Yeah, I agree. Alibut Halley, thank you so much. Terrible Mary, always good to have you. And

those else will be in. Robin. That was another episode of the Terrible Mary Show. Thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you appreciate this investigative reporting. It takes time. And that's why I need your support.

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