Via America’s Lawyer: Mike Papantonio and Trial Lawyer Magazine editor Farron Cousins bring us up to speed on new revelations surrounding the hotly-contested death of Jeffrey Epstein. Also, a wide-angle snapshot of the media frenzy engulfing escalations between the U.S. and Iran. Hawks are back to business as usual beating war drums across mainstream media. Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: There’ve been quite a few new developments in the Jeffrey Epstein case in just the last few days. I have Farron Cousins from the trial lawyer magazine with me now to talk about those new developments. Farron, you know, this story is really never going to go away. You understand, we’ll still be reporting on the Epstein saga, but this is, this story comes to me. I, Sun Magazine is a, it’s a UK product and they had a picture of Bill Clinton on an airplane, not with just Maxwell, who was the pimp for Epstein, but with one of the women who says that she was abused and raped by Epstein. Give me your take on this story.
Farron Cousins: It’s a phenomenal story and The Sun did a great job with it. They actually talked to Chauntae Davies, who was the victim of Epstein for, for years and years and years, a victim of Epstein. And she told the story of how, you know, she, she was on this flight, flown out there to get on this particular flight.
Mike Papantonio: Lolita Express.
Farron Cousins: Right, and Bill Clinton walks in. Kevin Spacey walks in. Chris, not Chris Tucker, or I believe it was Chris Tucker and she said the whole time she’s, you know, chatting it up with Bill Clinton, she’s being forced to dress in a pilot’s uniform so that she looks professional. But she did say, you know, Bill Clinton was a total gentleman, a gentleman. They got to Africa. She went shopping with Bill Clinton. They chit chatted. She helped pick out a present for Chelsea Clinton while her and Bill were out shopping. But she swears nothing happened between the two. But at the same time, we know who Epstein is. Bill Clinton claims he didn’t know at the time. We know who Maxwell is now. Clinton says he didn’t know. And this, this young woman who was a victim, a sex slave for all practical purposes, palling around in Africa with Bill Clinton, the former president, and you don’t bring it up. I mean, I wish she would have.
Mike Papantonio: Here, here’s what bothers me about this story. It’s not, look, she can say whatever she wants about her day with Bill Clinton. But the truth is, Bill Clinton made more than 20 trips on the Lolita Express. On this one trip, we don’t know a lot of, you know, we don’t have all the facts, but we do have her, his arm around her, his arm around the pimp who worked for Epstein, Maxwell. And the real issue to me is do you really think it’s credible that Bill Clinton says, I didn’t know anything about what happened in South Florida. I had no understanding about the fact that, that he spent time in jail for this.
Although it was, it was a ridiculous, he had to, he had to show up for jail for I think four or five hours a day and then he could go home. Something ridiculous like that. But to say, I just didn’t know any of, any edge of the story. Everybody in the country knew the edge of this story, including the people that Epstein was giving money to, like MIT and all of these social elite types up in New York who would have Epstein giving money to their favorite charity. All the cats in LA that would just embrace Epstein. They were part of his family after they clearly knew that the guy was a serial pedophile.
Farron Cousins: Well and to me another part of the Bill Clinton story that’s very odd is this is a guy, again former president. He has secret service protection with him 24 hours a day. How is he walking around in this little African village with this woman who he doesn’t know? What, what did bill think was happening? What did he think her role was? Because I think, you know, for me personally there’s a lot of pieces missing from this story. Bill Clinton doesn’t just pick up or hang out with random people he met on an airplane five hours ago. That, that’s not normal behavior.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, the report on this actually suggests there’s more to the story.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: We don’t know more of the story but to say that the president, a onetime president of United States just didn’t know that this guy had been arrested for raping teenagers. Literally raping teenagers, had been arrested and is put in a cell that is like a free get out of ticket, it’s a get out of jail free, because all he has to do is show up for the cell six or seven hours and then leave. This story about the deletion of the video though. I mean, come on.
Farron Cousins: I, you know, at this point I almost feel like they want everybody to think this is a conspiracy theory because everything’s playing out that way. What we’ve learned now is that prosecutors in the Epstein case said, listen, we wanted this video from outside, outside Epstein’s jail cell from the first alleged suicide attempt. And so the prison said, okay, we’re going to give you the video. Oh, oh, it looks like that video was deleted because we accidentally in the file system.
Mike Papantonio: Well, the computer did it.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, the computer changed the name of the floors somehow. But don’t worry, we’ve got a backup system in place. Oh darn it. It was deleted out of the backup system too.
Mike Papantonio: Here’s where it gets weird. Now, that computer deletion of the video that, that showed what was going on in Epstein’s cell, that was the first time he supposedly tried to kill himself. And so there is a character that’s on, his cell, cellmate who is a murderer and a, you know, he, he potentially could get the death penalty. So his lawyer says, I’d like that video to show that my client had nothing to do with that and that video is missing. But the point is, everything around this, around this case right now, it just invites the conspiracy types to say there’s something going on. There may be something going on. I mean, the new coroner’s report that comes out, new coroner says, look, I can’t conclude that this was just a suicide. There are other things that lead me to believe there might’ve been other people involved.
Farron Cousins: You know, I, I agree with you 100%. Everything about this story smells fishy from, from a huge contacts that Epstein had. The friends he had, the report that Bill Barr may have visited the prison a few days before the suicide, the footage being deleted, the, the guards conveniently being asleep and nothing makes and sense.
Mike Papantonio: Well, it’s either a Confederacy of Dunces, of complete drooling fools, or there’s something to this story.
Farron Cousins: Well, you know, and I do want to add real quick, if I can, just a anecdote about the Bill Clinton thing and this young woman, because you and I, there’s a TV studio we used to have to go to, and they had Bill Clinton come in and they told us how the secret service came and swept the whole place. Ran background checks on everyone there. And so I just, I’m sorry, I refuse to believe that.
Mike Papantonio: He’s walking around the place.
Farron Cousins: He was just allowed to do this. I’m sorry.
Mike Papantonio: War with Iran might be averted for now, but it’s not for a lack of trying by, by corporate media. My God, it just is like Iraq all over again, isn’t it? I mean, who are these people? I remember Wolf Blitzer, when the big lie about Iraq was told, it wasn’t just Wolf Blitzer, it was Joe Scarborough, it was virtually everybody on MSNBC, everybody on CNN trying to drum up a war. So here we got Melber who used to be a fairly credible journalist. I mean, we actually did some work with him early on. He is bought just like, just like Rachel Maddow has bought into this war machine and it’s like, here are these liberals, these so-called liberals trying to churn up a war because CNN is going to die without a war. MSNBC, their numbers keep dropping without a war. But you get a war there, things get better. Right? Advertisers come in with the big weapons manufacturers, they come in with their money. People tune in because they’re scared as hell that they’re going to get bombed. That’s the only that’s going to save CNN.
Farron Cousins: Right, you know, it would be interesting, I know still waiting on the numbers at this point, but I would love to see what CNN’s ratings were during that time between the death of Soleimani and then the alleged, you know, kind of ceasefire, everything dies off because I guarantee you CNN went through the roof during that particular time. And as you pointed out, Wolf Blitzer in the lead up to Iraq had the big map on the floor. He was walking around showing bases here, this is a potential line of attack. They did the exact same thing, I believe it was last Monday.
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: With Iran. Wolf Blitzer back out there, he had the big map of Iran on the floor and he’s walking around that.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, how about this? This is what’s really driving me crazy. MSNBC is parading every weapons whore they can through the studio. If they’re a war pig, they’re at MSNBC or they’re at CNN. Ari Melber has four of them coming through, every one of the people that he has coming through his show, are directly working for the weapons industry. Not one time does he mention or ask the question, gee, what’s your contact with the weapons industry? That guy wants a war. So they’ll watch more Ari Melber. So they’ll watch more, you know, I guess Rachel Maddow. So Joe Scarborough’s show will have something to talk about besides Trump. And so now all of a sudden this whole thing is getting out of control because of the media. I mean, they want a war and there’s no question why they want the war. It’s a money issue. And if you don’t think Phil Griffin or what’s our, our luck, with, with Lack, with MSNBC, if you don’t think they want a war, because they make more money with war, you’re kidding yourself. CNN, they won’t live without a war.
Farron Cousins: Oh absolutely. All of these, you know, corporate media networks are watching the ratings go down. Fox obviously the exception, but the rest of them, they don’t have anything to stand on. They don’t really have a brand. They don’t really have an identity. All they know is that war is good for ratings. War is good for advertising. So if we can sell this just like we did in 2001 and 2002 we can be back on top, even if it’s only for a year. Even if it means thousands of us troops die, we can be back on top and that means more money for everybody.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, Farron, how do you bring, how does Ari Melber bring in guests like, like McAfee, we all know what the guy is. He’s a, he’s nothing but a war pimp. He is a war pig. Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, all of these people who got us involved in Iraq, Ari Melber knows exactly who they are. Rachel Maddow knows who they, how do you put them on the show and say, oh by the way, let me at least disclose to the viewers that McAfee, Melber, that these folks have a direct interest in war. How do you not at least do that? They didn’t do that with Ari Fleischer, who was my God, look at what he did with Iraq. He, he was willing to go on as a press secretary for Bush, willing to go on the air every single day and lie like hell to get us involved in a war. And now you’ve got the Ari Melber, and virtually everybody on CNN saying, yeah, we need a good war.
Farron Cousins: Well, and it’s ridiculous too, because even if you assume for a second, suppose none of these people even had ties to the weapons industry, if they didn’t have that, they still have no credibility because these are the same folks and Michael Chair, toss in there as well. Ari Melber had him on. These are the same people that lied us into Iraq.
Mike Papantonio: Did, did he disclose?
Farron Cousins: Absolutely not.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So, so not only are they tied financially to the weapons industry that stands to make a lot of money off this, they also have zero credibility. They have proven themselves repeatedly to lie the United States into war, and we still welcome them with open arms.
Mike Papantonio: And corporate media says, oh my God, people are cutting the cable. Why are they going to social media? Ari Melber, you know, this is the problem. That’s why the credibility issue with modern corporate media is in the can. Farron Cousins, thank you for joining me. We’re going to be doing a lot more of this story, I can tell you.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
