RSN: FOCUS: Jeffrey Epstein Believed He Could Make a Deal With Prosecutors by Revealing the Secrets of Donald Trump or Bill Clinton, a New Book Says

 

 

19 October 21

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FOCUS: Jeffrey Epstein Believed He Could Make a Deal With Prosecutors by Revealing the Secrets of Donald Trump or Bill Clinton, a New Book Says
Alia Shoaib, Business Insider
Shoaib writes: "In his new book, 'Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Damned, the Notorious – Twenty Years of Columns, Essays and Reporting,' Michael Wolff reveals Epstein's thinking in his final few months."

Jeffrey Epstein believed he could make a deal with prosecutors by revealing secrets about former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, according to a new book by Michael Wolff, reported by The Daily Mail.

The disgraced financier and convicted sex offender was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges, and died a month later in his jail cell by suicide.

In his new book, "Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Damned, the Notorious – Twenty Years of Columns, Essays and Reporting," Michael Wolff reveals Epstein's thinking in his final few months.

According to the book, Epstein believed that The Justice Department had arrested him, under the instruction of then-President Donald Trump, because they wanted information on Bill Clinton, who had flown on his private jet multiple times.

"The White House, through the Justice Department, was looking to press a longtime Republican obsession, and Trump ace-in-the-hole, and get Epstein to flip and reveal the sex secrets of Bill Clinton," Wolff wrote, according to The Daily Mail.

"Trump, if he was obsessed with Clinton, which he was, was also obsessed with what Epstein knew about Clinton.'"

Epstein also believed New York prosecutors who were investigating Trump's business affairs might have ordered his arrest to "pressure him to flip on Trump," Wolff reportedly suggests in the book.

Wolff said that there were "many likely holes in these theories," but Epstein believed that there could have been "a deal to be made," The Daily Mail said.

Wolff revealed that months before Epstein's death, he visited the billionaire at his infamous $75 million mansion in New York City, The Daily Mail said.

During Wolff's visit, Steve Bannon reportedly called Epstein on the phone and told him that he had feared him during Donald Trump's presidential campaign because he thought the financier knew secrets about Trump.

"You were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign," Bannon told Epstein.

"As well you should have been," Epstein reportedly replied.

Steve Bannon served as Donald Trump's campaign manager in 2016 and went on to become the president's chief strategist during the first seven months of his first term.

In his book, Wolff also claims that in 2019 Bannon gave Jeffrey Epstein media training for a possible 60 Minutes interview that did not end up happening.

Although Bannon confirmed he did spend over 15 hours recording practice interviews with Epstein, he disputed some of Wolff's characterizations of the conversations.

During his visit to Epstein's house, Wolff said the sex offender told him he thought Trump was a "moron" and believed that Attorney General Bill Barr was really in charge, according to The Daily Mail.

According to Wolff, Epstein said things had started to go wrong when he and Trump wanted to buy a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, which he lost to Trump.

After that, Epstein said he believed Trump had "cultivated" the Palm Beach police to look into him, the paper reported.

Wolff wrote that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was also present at Epstein's house when he visited, The Daily Mail said.

Michael Wolff has written several books about Donald Trump's presidency, including the bestselling "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House."

Some have questioned Wolff's journalistic credibility, arguing that his novel-like writing often obfuscates where he got specific anecdotes and information.

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Details on FBI Inquiry Into Kavanaugh Draw Fire From Democrats

Kate Kelly 

Tbu Jul 22, 2021 

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh speaks at the Federalist Society's Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner during the organization's National Lawyers Convention in Washington, Nov. 14, 2019. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/The New York Times)

Nearly three years after Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s tumultuous confirmation to the Supreme Court, the FBI has disclosed more details about its efforts to review the justice’s background, leading a group of Senate Democrats to question the thoroughness of the vetting and conclude that it was shaped largely by the Trump White House.

In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an FBI assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Kavanaugh’s past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear.

The letter left uncertain whether the FBI itself followed up on the most compelling leads. The agency was conducting a background check rather than a criminal investigation, meaning that “the authorities, policies, and procedures used to investigate criminal matters did not apply,” the letter said.

Tyson’s letter was a response to a 2019 letter from Whitehouse and Coons to the FBI director, Christopher A. Wray, posing questions about how the FBI’s review of Kavanaugh was handled.

In an interview, Whitehouse said the FBI’s response showed that the FBI’s handling of the accusations into misconduct by Kavanaugh was a sham. Tyson’s letter, Whitehouse said, suggested that the FBI ran a “fake tip line that never got properly reviewed, that was presumably not even conducted in good faith.”

Whitehouse and six of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the FBI’s letter on Wednesday with demands for additional details on the agreement with the White House that governed the inquiry. They also pressed for more information on how incoming tips were handled.

“Your letter confirms that the FBI’s tip line was a departure from past practice and that the FBI was politically constrained by the Trump White House,” the senators wrote. Among those signing the letter were Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the committee’s chair, Coons and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Donald McGahn, the White House’s general counsel at the time, and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Former President Donald Trump has long taken credit for Kavanaugh’s confirmation, which was almost derailed over allegations by a California professor that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her during a high school gathering in the early 1980s.

Despite widespread concern over the claims — which were followed by other allegations of sexual misconduct, all of which Kavanaugh has consistently denied — Trump steadfastly backed the judge. He deployed McGahn to shepherd Kavanaugh through the unusually fraught confirmation, which culminated in a heated, daylong hearing in September of 2018.

Both Christine Blasey Ford, the professor who said she was assaulted, and Kavanaugh were grilled by senators on the Judiciary Committee.

In a recent interview with author Michael Wolff, Trump put his handling of Kavanaugh into stark terms, asking “Where would he be without me? I saved his life.”

But in addition to offering shows of support, the Trump White House carefully controlled the investigations into Kavanaugh’s past. After Ford came forward, Trump’s staff tried to limit the number of people the FBI interviewed as part of that probe. Only after an outcry from Democrats over the president’s approach did the administration say the agency could conduct a more open investigation.

Ultimately, 10 witnesses were interviewed by the FBI, according to the FBI’s recent letter. Ford and Kavanaugh themselves were never interviewed by the FBI.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who signed Wednesday’s letter to the FBI, called the process “an injustice in fact orchestrated by the White House under Donald Trump, an injustice that frankly was a disservice to the FBI.”

Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, the lawyers who represented Ford, said in a statement that the nation “deserved better” when it came to the inquiry into Kavanaugh.

© 2021 The New York Times Company

 

Michael Wolff: ‘Trump Is Even Crazier Than I Thought.’

 

In his third book about Donald Trump, author Michael Wolff reports that Donald Trump made calls to U.S. attorneys in swing states to try to get them to investigate election fraud - Wolff wouldn’t be surprised if there are tapes: “I think that anyone who speaks to Donald Trump should be switching on their iPhone to tape what’s going on. Donald Trump is only half aware of what he’s saying, it just spews out.”