The Real Story of the Epstein Files: An Industry Disguised as Media Dedicated to Buying & Burying the Secrets of the Rich & Criminal

When is MAGA going to realize the call is coming from inside the building?

Don’t give me any of that “It was the best of times” crap. This is the worst of times, because there truly is so little joy. Amidst the real horror and brutality, it has to be said that the stupid and ridiculous things that are happening right now, presented in a dark comedy, would be hysterically funny if the clowns and lunatics involved weren’t also terrifying and in charge of nuclear weapons. Everything is a shock, but not a surprise.

The latest insanity is related to Elon Musk exploding like one of his rockets after Trump shitcanned him. Musk went on a tirade, which included some incredible assertions. One, which deserves a lot more attention, is Musk’s claim that if it weren’t for him personally, the Democrats would have won the senate.

The other, more salacious one, was that Trump was in the “Epstein Files.”

Trump’s feud with Musk came to a head last month, when the Tesla chief executive said it was time to drop “the really big bomb.”

As reported in The Hill:

“[Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk wrote on X at the time.

“Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out,” he followed up minutes later.

It’s clear that there has been a huge push from Trump against this charge. First, the latest cover story of the National Enquirer is a story exonerating Trump, quoting Epstein’s lawyers, including Allan Dershowitz.

The other is the sudden claim that there are no Epstein files, when previously Attorney General Pam Bondi said they were sitting on her desk and they were said they were getting ready to distribute copies.

It reminds me again of the cautionary tale of Matilda - “Matilda told such dreadful lies, it made one gasp, and stretch one’s eyes.”

While there are certainly myths and conspiracy theories around Epstein, you really don’t have to exaggerate. His reputation is well-earned, bearing in mind there are plenty of other figures who face accusations worse than Epstein, like Canada’s Peter Nygard.

I saw someone say they didn’t care about this story, because he felt it would never make a difference to the MAGA base that supports Trump and will believe him no matter what.

There’s still an important stoty to tell that’s related to the ways that the wealthy and powerful - and Trump in particular has been able to warp the media to his benefit: that’s what he his 34 felony convictions were for.

The other is that people looking for connections between Trump and an Epstein cover-up do not have to go far.

I’ve written a piece on the very clear connections between Trump, Epstein and a third individual who knew them both well: Conrad Black, and Black has been accused of interfering to get an Epstein story suppressed.

Here is Black at an event in Alberta, with a who’s-who of cross-border alt-right disinformation merchants. Tucker Carlson, Keean Bexte, Jordan Peterson and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Trafficking in conspiracies is what they do.

Keean Bexte is a far-right propagandist who play acts at being a reporter. At a conservative party policy convention, Bexte proposed ending birthright citizenship in Canada, ran a website selling Rhodesian military paraphernala, has been a reporter for Rebel News, and has shared podcasting space with U.S. podcasters charged with taking money to spread Russian Disinformation.

Bexte’s father, David Bexte, is the newly elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Bow River.

It could be that Black has escaped scrutiny because he never obtained real fame in the U.S. His presence there was in Chicago, not New York, and he was a multi-millionaire, not a billionaire. His media empire at one point was vast - hundreds of daily newspapers around the world, in Canada, the UK, Australia and Israel. He got into trouble with and was charged with self-dealing when it came to his publicly traded company, Hollinger. Black said he had done nothing wrong, since it was all approved by the board - which included Epstein’s major billionaire benefactor, Les Wexner.

One example of one of Black’s more creative schemozzles when he and his business partner David Radler sold themselves a media organization, then paid themselves not to compete with themselves, which upset some shareholders.

Black was named as an Epstein Associate by New York Magazine.

Epstein had more than a dozen phone numbers and e-mails for Black and his wife in his black book, which you can see online here.

Journalist Vicky Ward who wrote the first profile of Epstein for Vanity Fair, that Epstein and Black were buddies, and has stated several times that Black was involved in trying to suppress the story. Here she is commenting on Trump’s pardon of Black.

Trump and Black were more than acquaintances: they were business partners. Trump was an investor in Hollinger, and they owned the Chicago Sun-Times building. Black wrote a fawning biography of Trump. Trump pardoned Black for the lesser charge of obstruction of justice, and Black has continued to boost Trump from his perch at the National Post. That’s the flagship publication, founded by Black, and owned by Postmedia.

Postmedia is Canada’s largest newspaper network, owning many of the largest newspapers in the country, sometimes two newspapers in a single city. It’s owned by Chatham Asset Management, a U.S. Investment fund, which also owns the National Enquirer

Two of the American appointees to Postmedia’s Board were the two individuals who ran the hush money scheme that got Trump convicted. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, went to work at Chatham after the 2016 election,

David J. Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer, made payments to two women Donald Trump had sex with.

In the case of the 34 felony charges, the crime was the cover-up.

This summary sets it out:

She [McDougall] was paid $150,000 (£121,000) in 2016 by the parent company of the National Enquirer for the rights to her story about the alleged relationship.

The story never ran after the newspaper suppressed it until after the election.

American Media Inc has acknowledged that its payments to Ms McDougal were done specifically to assist Trump's election bid and were made “in concert” with his campaign.

This is a practise known as “catch and kill”: catch the story, and kill it. It wasn’t just a one-off by AMI and David J. Pecker, it’s one of the ways that Pecker ran several of his publications - not just the Enquirer, but Health Magazines as well, for years.

Pecker was the lead witness for the prosecution.

Pecker was appointed to the Board of Postmedia in October 2016, the same month that these hush-money payments were being made.

Pecker bought the rights to the women’s stories, with the intention of keeping them secret. Since the women had signed exclusivity agreements and NDA,s they could not share their story with anyone else.

The invoices flowed through another AMI executive, Daniel Rotman. They had just been appointed to the board of Postmedia in the fall of 2016, and were running the “catch and kill” scheme on the board. Pecker resigned from Postmedia’s board after he was named, and was later the star witness in Trump’s trial.

All of this puts the latest cover - and content - of the National Enquirer in a different context. It’s beyond transparent that the Enquirer is still doing Trump’s bidding, with three major stories that attack his opponents and support his agenda.

There’s the attack on Tucker Carlson on the cover. Carlson broke with Trump over the bombing of Iran, eviscerating Ted Cruz in an interview that showed a glimmer of what is possible when an interviewer doesn’t let the subject off the hook, and questions their mindless assertions. The National Enquirer has therefore sprung to Trump’s defense, calling Carlson fat.

There’s also a spread that paints protests over ICE in L.A. as “migrant chaos.”

It’s the Enquirer’s Epstein story itself that tells the most - and the least. The big reveal, according to the Enquirer, is that Epstein exonerated Trump. Roger Stone, who worked with Trump for years as an architect of sleazy political skulduggery, is in there, as are Epstein lawyers Alan Dershowitz and David Schoen.

The headline to the story is “EPSTEIN’S TRUMP CONFESSION” but the damp squib that follows is “Perv told lawyer he had no dirt on the prez.”

“Billionaire pervert and suspected blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein is said to have made a stunning admission to his criminal defense attorney before his mysterious jailhouse death - that he had NOTHING to hold over Donald Trump!”

So the Enquirer’s front page scoop hinges on hearsay - hearsay that requires us to believe Epstein himself - a pedophile, serial rapist, and “suspected blackmailer” was scrupulously honest when it came to telling the truth.

Epstein’s lawyer, David Schoen said “I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!” He told TMZ “I discussed this subject at a time when it would have been in his best interest to implicate others, and he made clear that Donald Trump had done nothing wrong and that he had no damaging information against him.”

How do we know whether we can believe Schoen? “Multiple sources tell the Enquirer that Schoen’s statements are the most definitive revelations concerning Trump’s involvement in the Epstein affair.”

Who provided the exclusive to the Enquirer that Trump cut ties with Epstein and “did not engage in any inappropriate activity with Epstein?” Roger Stone. Who said “I have seen virtually everything in the Epstein files, and there is nothing there incriminating of Donald Trump.” Alan Dershowitz. Case closed? Not so fast!

The Enquirer appears to have gotten out over its skis and put the article out before the administration’s sudden reversal and claim that there are no “Epstein files” to be released.

“U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the release of all classified government files on Epstein - however, documents and tapes about his dealings are said to remain under seal by the FBI.”

It used to be said after Nixon and the Watergate scandal “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up,” - and what has been revealed in all of this is something much more sinister.

There’s plenty of high-minded talk about the media, and the freedom of the press, and holding the powerful to account, complaints about legacy media failing, and social media being a cesspool, AI, deepfakes and how hard it is to get at the truth.

What has been revealed is that the National Enquirer in particular have functioned not as news organizations, but as private surveillance agencies who gather information and bury it. In 2015, in a meeting with Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen, Enquirer publisher and Postmedia Board member David J. Pecker said he would be “the eyes and ears” of the Trump campaign. They would watch for stories that were a threat to the campaign, buy them, and bury them.

This was not a one-off. It was David J Pecker’s business model. He used it to protect Harvey Weinstein. He confessed in court to using it to protect Trump. It’s so brazen that it’s on the racks when you check out your groceries. It’s not a newspaper: it’s a dark-arts reputation management company that has protected predators and liars for pay, while smearing their accusers.

Beneath and beyond the Epstein scandal, that is the reality of the media we are dealing with. The collapse of traditional media means it has been snapped up by people who are using it to elect criminals while concealing their crimes - and billionaires can buy their own justice.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s the real story.

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DFL