Via America’s Lawyer: Mike Papantonio and Trial Magazines Editor Farron Cousins break down the latest indictment of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who is being charged with sex trafficking of girls as young as 14. Much controversy has erupted over the ‘sweetheart deal’ he was given years ago, brokered by current Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, but this latest arrest is sending shockwaves across the political landscape by proving Epstein’s financial clout does not in fact put him above the law. What does this mean for prominent figures that have proven ties with Epstein, including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump?
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: A lot of powerful people in America are shaking with fear after billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was arrested this past weekend. The convicted pedophile has already served an insulting lenient prison sentence. But his latest arrest could land him behind bars forever, we hope. Joining me to talk about this and why so many of DC’s most powerful people are terrified is Farron Cousins from the Trial Lawyer Magazine. Farron, let me start off by saying this, you were covering this story when nobody else was. The, the, our, our journalist was to cover the story.
We were talking about the story before anybody would talk about it and what did we find out? We found out they wouldn’t talk about it because Bill Clinton’s name was all over it. Just along with a bunch of insiders. Trump’s name now comes up. Interesting. Interesting. I gotta, I gotta ask you this. The Trump message now is, well look, I was so, this is Trump, I was so offended by Epstein that we don’t allow him at Mar-a-lago anymore. I mean, you, did you follow that part of the story?
Farron Cousins: I did see that.
Mike Papantonio: He said, was apparently a decade ago. You can’t come here. Is that true?
Farron Cousins: Look, it’s it, it’s not. We know it’s not, I mean, obviously and Epstein actually recruited one of the girls, a 15 year old who was working at Mar-a-lago at the time. Trump has always up until now, had wonderful things to say about Epstein. You know, remarked one time he likes to party with younger girls. He’s a fun guy. But Bill Clinton also 26 trips on this guy’s plane over the years. I mean, they, this, this story. And of course Alex Acosta, labor secretary was the prosecutor. Worked out that sweetheart deal. This touches everybody. This is not a left or right issue. This is a corrupt people.
Mike Papantonio: No, well how about Christine Pelosi saying today. Hey Democrats, you better hold on because you’re going to have a lot of people who you really love being brought into this mess. Number One, Bill Clinton 20, is it 26 trips that he made.
Farron Cousins: 26 trips.
Mike Papantonio: To Lolita Island, I guess they call it, where all the girls would be taken.
Farron Cousins: Oh, and, and other places. Other continents on this jet.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Yes. France.
Farron Cousins: Africa.
Mike Papantonio: Africa. Okay. So let’s talk about what happened here. What happened is the Fed’s again, dropped the ball. Now we, here’s what we see time and time again. Unless it’s low hanging fruit and it’s a slam dunk case, the Fed’s don’t get involved. It’s almost as if their prosecutors don’t have the ability to do what a trial lawyer should do, so they pass on the case. In this situation, it was more than that. In this situation the Fed’s absolutely knew that the names at the top of the list were people like Bill Clinton and they had been told that. They had been given these names. They understood exactly who was involved. They didn’t want to take the political heat, so they took a pass on it. Did I get that right?
Farron Cousins: Absolutely. And, and listen, that’s the part of the story that I think most of the media has completely ignored. Not just that he got the sweetheart deal, but why? Because none of that makes any sense. Just looking from the outside. What was it, 13 months in prison he got for sex with underage girls. Got to leave every day for 10 to 12 hours. Basically they said your sentence is stay in this crappy hotel for 13 months.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Well, it was a, it was a private wing of the jail.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Where he would come in for six hours a day. He had telephone, fax machines, telephone, a television. Had, It was just like an apartment that they gave Epstein. Now let me run this by you because you covered it a little bit, I think early on. You were, I remember when you came up with, with the, the list, it was the, the air, the pilot has to keep a manifest of who flies and when they fly. So you did a show, what was it five years ago on that manifest.
You showed the names of the people that were on and it was almost as if the rest of the media was sound asleep on this. Why? Because Bill Clinton is their darling and Hillary Clinton is their darling and they knew what kind of impact that would have on the election. Talk about that. What you had early on, the information that you got from, by the way, the lawyer who broke this was Brad Edwards.
It wasn’t David Boies. You’re seeing David Boies. David Boies did not break this story. Brad Edwards, a law, a lawyer down in South Florida, along with Miami Herald, he did a superb job. But Brad Edwards is the guy that got this all started. Again, the guys a brilliant trial lawyer down in Miami. He’s not getting any credit for what he’s done here.
Farron Cousins: Right. He was representing victims several years ago, you know, trying to get this reopened, trying to get some justice for these women that Epstein had abused over the years and allowed other people to abuse. But as far as these flight logs go, we saw there was a one flight in particular was Bill Clinton, another individual and then two girls. That’s it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And…
Mike Papantonio: In other words, two girls on the plane, on the plane with Bill Clinton and another person and Epstein going to what I call Lolita Island, where they have sex with underage children.
Farron Cousins: And they made the special stop to pick up those two girls. The person who was traveling with Bill Clinton left the plane, brought the two girls, got them on the plane, plane takes off. We don’t know what happens. We don’t know who these girls are there. They’re essentially, I, I don’t mean this derogatory, but, but they’re nobodies and nobody’s don’t get on private jets with Bill Clinton.
Mike Papantonio: Well, here’s the way it’s characterized. They had parents that weren’t keeping up with their kids. Okay? The kids leave school, by the way, in their school uniforms, I mean dressed up. Some of them were actually in school uniforms. And, and so here’s what, here’s what they have to overcome to defend themselves. It’s not just one person that’s saying this went on. It’s five, six, seven people who were eye witnesses to the what was going. Dershowitz. Let’s talk about Dershowitz just a little bit. Dershowitz acts like, well I want all this unsealed and as, as if he was carrying the sword for unsealing. No that doesn’t sell cause he’s the one that got it sealed.
He’s the one that talked a judge who sealed this from the American public. Like so many of these federal judges do, the state judges do. It’s a huge mistake. That, the American public has a right to understand what happens when a pharmaceutical company is killing somebody with dead, with a deadly pharmaceutical. When a corporation is killing an environment with, with their toxins or when a criminal like Epstein commits the kind of awful kind of conduct he does. We have a right to know. But judges are this idea of, no, we’re going to be the gatekeeper with what we allow and don’t allow. This judge sealed this because Dershowitz asked him to.
Farron Cousins: Well and Dershowitz has taken a lot of heat over the last few years for, for some reason defending Donald Trump at every turn. And Dershowitz the past has not been a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. But for him to come out and always defend Trump. And now it makes a little more sense when you consider the fact that Dershowitz himself by some of these women has been accused of engaging, you know, in these activities. He is also somebody, they have said, this guy, I walked in on him with this underage girl. There’s been no charges against him right now. It’s just accusations.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So what did, what do the feds know? The feds know and what they knew way back, a decade ago. They knew that there wasn’t just one person making these. The feds knew. The federal prosecutors knew it wasn’t just one person. It was five, six and seven people. They had evidence that was very clear evidence, pictures of these girls in other countries with Epstein, with all of these folks that are going to be uncovered here. They understood exactly what they were up against and they didn’t have the guts. They didn’t have the courage to do what they were supposed to do. Acosta, who now is a Trump appointee. Acosta was the guy who made the decision to make all this go away, didn’t he?
Farron Cousins: Yes. He was the prosecutor in this case. He worked out the sweetheart deal, gave Epstein, you know, the 13 month, you know, sort of prison sentence I guess you’d call it. Because if you leave most of the day, you’re not really in jail. But when we look at the, the new charges right now that New York came up with, you know, thankfully just in the last few days, the amount of news that has come out has been astounding.
Mike Papantonio: What’s out there? Let’s talk about it.
Farron Cousins: One of the latest things we discover is that Epstein in a locked safe in his New York penthouse had cd’s with the, they had it said young and then the girl’s name plus another name. Now, right now we don’t know who those other names are, but these are in a locked safe. They contain naked images of these girls and we’re…
Mike Papantonio: With somebody.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, we’re going to find out who these people are. That’s one of the reasons this is so important.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So…
Farron Cousins: Not just getting them off the street.
Mike Papantonio: So Epstein, Epstein basically had this for black male. He says, if you push me too far, I’m going to release this. We’re going to see who the release of these people are going to be. I gotta tell ya, a federal judge understands now, do not seal this or if you do, you do it at your own peril. Because this idea of a federal judge sua sponte making a decision that, oh, I can’t let this out. It’s going to harm somebody. You realize that the Fed’s, in this situation, the federal prosecutors argued to the judge, don’t unseal this old information because if you do, somebody is going to be hurt by it. Really, really? Well they knew who was going to be hurt by it.
Epstein knew who was going to be hurt by it. Epstein has this in recordings now. He has it in recordings. Those recordings are going to tell us a lot. Where, you know, where does this case go? I, I mean I see it going in different ways. I see Epstein’s business being looked into whether or not he was legitimate, you know, whether he was legitimate even about how he was handling all of his investment business. I think that’s going to open up a whole new can of worms. Where else do you see this going?
Farron Cousins: Well, right now what we’re looking at is, this is obviously and he’s been charged with at this point, conspiracy. There is no way this man could have carried all of this out by himself. We know some others were definitely involved.
Mike Papantonio: Maxwell, for example.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, Maxwell who acted as his madam. Went out, recruited the girls, basically turned it into this horrid pyramid scheme where those girls would then have to recruit other girls to be his sex slaves, is what he called them. But this is going to stretch far and wide and we are going to find out whose names are on those cd’s.
Mike Papantonio: Let, let, let me tell you…
Farron Cousins: Somebody’s gotta leak it, even if they try to seal it.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, it’s going to be.
Farron Cousins: We’ve got to know, we have to know.
Mike Papantonio: It’s going to be leaked, even if the Fed’s don’t allow it, even if a judge says no, it’s going to be leaked. Okay, so here, here’s what we know. Here’s what the Fed’s new. Farmer, a woman by the name of Farmer had been basically held captive on their property. Maxwell, this, madam Maxwell and Epstein were accused of raping the woman and holding her prisoner. She goes to, she tells the story. It’s like a big yawn. The prosecutors down in, the state prosecutors choose to do nothing. The sheriff’s department does nothing.
Later the, the, the, the, the sheriff himself comes out and says, look, this whole thing’s wired. It’s wired to protect Epstein. We can’t even do an investigation that we knew that we needed to do because of the political conflict. Farron we’ve got to cover this story. I hope you’ll go to New York. Let’s, let’s do it on, let’s do it on site. Cover what’s going on day to day. Thank you for joining me.
Farron Cousins: Absolutely.
