New Epstein Documents Reveal Details About His Life
The tranche of pictures and letters from well-known artists and politicians offers a glimpse into the New York financier's life and relationships in the years leading up to his arrest for sex trafficking in 2019.
They include messages for his 63rd birthday in 2016 from director Woody Allen, former prime minister of Israel Ehud Barak, real estate billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, along with linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky.
'Being neighbors, my wife Soon-Yi and I have been invited for dinner many times. Always accept, always interesting. Wide variety of interesting people at every dinner just about Politicians, scientists, teachers, magicians, comedians, intellectuals, journalists…' Allen's letter reportedly says. He then likens the dinners to those at the castle to the 1931 movie adaptation of Dracula Dracula, where 'where Lugosi has three young female vampires who service the place.'
Read More: A Timeline of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein's Relationship as It Draws Renewed Attention
Another letter from Barak and his wife reportedly describes Epstein as a 'collector of people.' The Times did not publish a scan of this letter as it did with Allen's, but reports that it concludes with a refrain that Epstein's friends may "enjoy your table for many more years to come.'
TIME attempted to reach Barak, Chomsky, Zuckerman, and Allen for comment.
The New York Times also published photographs from inside Epstein's mansion showing him with powerful global and financial figures Pope John Paul II, Mick Jagger, Elon Musk, Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro. They photograph a framed dollar bill signed by billionaire Bill Gates, with the caption 'I was wrong!' written on it. Also framed is the now-infamous photo of Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Epstein and Maxwell, taken in 2000, but with Maxwell not in frame.
Epstein's relationship with the rich and powerful has been the subject of intense speculation in the years since his arrest and death by suicide in 2019.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump had sent his own letter to Epstein in a book for his 50th birthday in 2003—long before his crimes became public knowledge. Trump has denied writing the letter and accompanying 'bawdy' drawing that the Journal reports is in the book, and the President sued the newspaper's parent firms Dow Jones and News Corp, its owner Rupert Murdoch, and two reporters over the report.
The President has sought to play down his connection to Epstein over the years. He has said consistently that he broke off his friendship long before any allegations of his crimes came to light. He recently gave more details about the split when he said he fell out with the financier after Epstein 'stole' Virginia Giuffre, who later became a victim of Epstein, from the President's spa at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where she worked as a 16-year-old in 2000.
The Trump Administration has faced criticism for its refusal to release the so-called 'Epstein files,' after many within Trump's inner circle claimed for years that their contents would expose serious crimes by powerful people.
The case has consumed both Republicans and Democrats as both parties search for answers.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee, led by Republicans, subpoenaed the Justice Department on files related to Epstein, calling for the DOJ to turn over all investigative materials related to his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking operation. Just last week, Maxwell was quietly moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas, soon after she met with the DOJ's Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, prompting anger from Democrats.
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Time Magazine
17 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
August 18th, 2025 Vol. 206, No. 5
Photograph by Greg Kahn for TIME Speaker Johnson in his office at the U.S. Capitol on July 18, 2025. Podcast ID – Short Length: 3ec4b06e-d7a0-4638-9c81-c446510919c1 Podcast ID – Long Length: 3ec4b06e-d7a0-4638-9c81-c446510919c1 'Don't you ever want revenge?' Donald Trump asked Mike Johnson. It was late May, and the President was in the Speaker's office venting about House Republicans who were standing in the way of his signature tax-and-spending legislation, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. Trump was half-kidding, but he expected allegiance, not agita. Johnson explained that seeking vengeance cut against his Christian faith. When the President gave him a stone-faced look, the Speaker offered a more practical reason: with a narrow majority, vendettas aren't an option. 'We don't have the luxury,' he told Trump. Johnson became Speaker of the House in October 2023, emerging from relative obscurity to take what one of his Republican predecessors, John Boehner, calls 'the toughest job in America.' It requires managing a conference that has for years been nearly ungovernable, while pleasing a President who expects total obeisance and tends to turn on congressional leaders who don't deliver on his demands. Expectations for Johnson in Washington were low. But he has defied them. Since Trump's Inauguration, Johnson has shepherded a series of wins for the White House: thwarting a vote blocking Trump's sweeping tariffs, passing the Laken Riley Act expediting the deportation of arrested migrants, averting a government shutdown, and delivering pro-crypto legislation that blesses certain digital assets tied to the U.S. dollar. [video id=ObiX7D4N autostart="viewable"] Trump's megabill was on a different scale, a nearly $4 trillion supply-side bet that lower taxes for Big Business and the rich can stimulate enough economic growth to offset dramatic cuts in basic services for the poor. It slashes support to states for their Medicaid and food-stamp programs, and enforces work requirements that could strip health care coverage from an estimated 11.8 million people. It allocates $170 billion to complete a southern border wall and turbo-charge Trump's deportation operations. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) -estimates the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add $3.4 trillion or more to the national debt over the next decade. (Johnson argues it will do the opposite.) In the weeks before it came to a vote, polls showed that more than half of Americans opposed it. But Johnson got it done. 'It was very methodical, step by step,' the Louisiana native tells TIME on July 8, sitting in his ornate Capitol office, where a framed LSU football jersey with Mr. Speaker on the back hangs behind his desk. It took quiet negotiations with competing House factions; a high-stakes roll of the dice on the House floor; and, most of all, leveraging Trump's popularity to pressure dissenters. 'Getting the One Big Beautiful Bill across the finish line,' Vice President J.D. Vance tells TIME, 'was a defining moment of his speakership.' As Speaker, Johnson is not a pugilist like Newt Gingrich, nor an iron-fisted vote counter like Nancy Pelosi. As he sees it, Trump won the presidency with a mandate to reshape government, and his role is to execute that vision. Johnson has given the President what he previously lacked: a Speaker willing to turn the House into an instrument of Trump's agenda. 'We are a well-oiled machine now,' Johnson says. 'That's a very different dynamic than what took place in the first term.' Buy a copy of the Mike Johnson issue here That dynamic, critics say, compromises traditional Republican principles and surrenders the independent power of Congress to placate the President. 'Is he a rubber stamp, or Speaker of the House?' Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tells TIME. Johnson has handed Congress's constitutional authority to impose tariffs and approve acts of war to the White House, while looking the other way as Trump ignores the law it passed banning TikTok in the U.S. He also sent his members home a day early to defuse a fight over releasing files about the deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, whose past relationship with the President has led to a rift within Trump's base. But Johnson has succeeded in Trump's GOP in part by aligning the Legislative Branch behind Trump's goals. It's a collaboration that is changing America. Not long before he squeaked Trump's megabill through the House, Johnson feared it all might fall apart. Trump and Johnson had set a July 4 deadline to sign the measure into law. Around 2 a.m. on July 3, the Speaker was still nine votes shy of clearing a major hurdle: passing a rule setting terms for consideration of the bill on the House floor. Tucked in his private hideaway office in the Capitol, Johnson got word from a lieutenant that they might be able to win over an unlikely agitator: Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Johnson was skeptical. Massie was such a perpetual thorn in the side of the GOP that House leaders didn't bother to whip his vote anymore. But when Representative Tim Burchett brought him into Johnson's office, Massie was willing to deal. He told Johnson that the attack ads Trump's super PAC had been running against him in his own district were devastating, according to multiple sources familiar with the exchange. He was open to advancing the bill, though not voting for its final passage, in exchange for a truce. Johnson got Trump on the phone, and the trio struck a compromise, the sources say: Massie would vote for the rules package, and Trump would stop the ads. (Massie's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) With Massie on board, the procedural motion passed on the House floor an hour later, setting the stage for the bill to pass. Johnson had prayed for such a breakthrough hours earlier, in the Capitol chapel with his wife. For the Speaker, the product of an unplanned pregnancy, religion has long been a cornerstone of his life. His parents, who were high school sweethearts raised in the Catholic Church, rejected the advice of friends to have an abortion. When Johnson was a 12-year-old growing up in Shreveport, his father Pat, a firefighter, was called to a cold-storage plant because of an anhydrous ammonia leak. An explosion erupted inside the facility, engulfing both Pat Johnson and his partner in flames. Pat Johnson suffered severe burns; at the hospital, doctors gave him a 5% chance of survival. His son dropped to his knees to pray that God spare his father. After dozens of surgeries, Pat Johnson defied the odds. 'God kind of miraculously saved his life,' the Speaker says. 'Faith became a very real thing to me.' Johnson became the first member of his family to attend college, and stayed at LSU for law school. He became a constitutional lawyer, working on religious-liberty cases and causes connected to the Christian right. In 2004, for instance, he defended a -Louisiana -constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Then, in 2015, a Louisiana state representative called to say he was leaving his office for a judgeship, and suggested Johnson make a bid for the seat. Johnson ran unopposed. He had been in the gig for only a few months when then Congressman John Fleming called to say he was running for the U.S. Senate, and urged Johnson to replace him. Johnson emerged from a field of seven opponents, entering Congress in January 2017, the same month Trump first took the oath of office. One morning that April, Johnson answered a call from an unknown number. 'Is this Congressman Johnson?' a woman asked. 'The President would like to speak with you.' Johnson braced for a tough exchange. Trump had been trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Earlier in the week, Johnson told Speaker Paul Ryan that he wouldn't support the measure because it was projected to raise health care costs in his district by 30%. Trump didn't wait to get past the pleasantries. 'Mike, you're going to be a yes on this bill,' he said, according to Johnson. As the freshman tried to explain his position, Trump cut him off. 'Mike. You're going to be a yes.' But Johnson refused until his amendments were added. Far from starting a feud with Trump, Johnson says the episode laid a groundwork for their future partnership. 'I think he actually respected that I had that resolve,' Johnson says. Because of his legal background, the freshman secured a spot on the House Judiciary Committee. When Trump faced his first impeachment in 2019, he offered Johnson a place on his legal defense team. The next year, Johnson was one of the 147 Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn the result of the 2020 election and declare Trump the winner. When Trump was impeached a second time for inciting the Jan. 6 attack, Johnson again served on his impeachment defense team. His profile in Congress was rising, having served as chair of the Republican Study Committee, a powerful group of House conservatives, and then becoming vice chair of the Republican conference. But he was still relatively unknown until Florida Representative Matt Gaetz orchestrated the ouster of Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October 2023. One by one, ambitious House Republicans stepped up and took their shot to succeed McCarthy. Conference leaders rallied around Steve Scalise, then Jim Jordan, then Tom Emmer. None could muster enough votes. For three weeks, the job remained open. The situation was becoming untenable. Democrats and Republicans alike wanted to send aid to Israel after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, but they couldn't pass legislation without a Speaker. Johnson emerged as an unlikely unity candidate—a low-profile figure with few enemies in a fractious conference. After winning an internal poll by the GOP caucus, Johnson went on to win the speakership on the fourth round of voting. One of the least-tenured members to ever hold the job, he was suddenly third in line to the presidency. Becoming Speaker, Johnson says now, 'was like being elected mayor of a town that had been hit by a nuclear bomb.' The challenges came immediately. Johnson passed an aid package to Israel and Ukraine, overcoming objections from members of his own party. Despite teaming up with Democrats to deliver the requisite votes, he pacified an obstreperous group that had booted his more seasoned predecessor after only 10 months. 'His temperament has served him well. He's a patient guy. He listens and members trust him. That is the essential ingredient to being a successful speaker,' says Boehner, who knows as well as anyone the challenges of corralling the House GOP. 'For a guy who doesn't drink, smoke, or cuss, he's a very affable guy.' Representative Andy Ogles, Johnson's Capitol Hill roommate before he became Speaker, notes that he is hands-on: 'Taking the criticism, taking notes, and then trying to come to a solution.' It doesn't hurt, Ogles adds, that Johnson can defuse tension with a good Trump impression. In February 2024, Johnson traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump and his top advisers and devise a playbook to advance his goals through Congress if he won the election. The key was to package Trump's agenda items into reconciliation bills—budget-related measures that need only a simple majority to pass. In the months that followed, as Trump hit the trail, Johnson and his aides worked on the details. 'We planned this very carefully, over that long period,' Johnson says. Weeks after Trump's election, on New Year's Day 2025, Johnson joined congressional allies and campaign advisers in one of the dining rooms of Trump's Palm Beach mansion. Trump wanted to move quickly to make his 2017 tax cuts permanent, finish the southern border wall, and deport millions of migrants. He went around the room soliciting reactions. Trump's inner circle, including incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, close confidant Stephen Miller, and Vance, were among those who floated breaking up this sweeping legislative agenda into two or three separate bills, according to three people present. Senate Republican leaders, such as majority leader John Thune and Senator Lindsey Graham, were also publicly pushing for multiple measures. Johnson argued the opposite. 'If we break it up, we will do parts of it, and the other parts will never get done,' he told Trump. The President sided with Johnson. He wanted the bill passed in the House by Memorial Day. Trump and Johnson quickly cleared procedural hurdles that had blocked past Congresses, funding the government in March and passing a budget framework in April to advance the reconciliation bill. To win over moderate Republicans in purple districts, they raised the cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes (known as SALT) to $40,000 a year. But blue-state Republicans were hardly the only impediment. The bill irked various GOP factions, from deficit hawks to economic populists. The CBO said it would balloon the deficit, offsetting a fraction of the costs through deep cuts to Medicaid, food benefits, and clean-energy investments. Even many diehard Trump supporters grimaced, fearful of punishment at the polls. 'There's a lot of MAGA on Medicaid,' says Stephen Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist. The world's richest man was another wild card. Johnson says he collaborated with Elon Musk on the legislation during Musk's tenure running the Department of Government Efficiency. Then Musk called in early June, Johnson says, as electric-vehicle tax credits were on the brink of being eliminated. 'He was concerned about the EV mandate going away,' Johnson recalls, saying Musk asked for a reprieve. 'Elon, it's a little late,' Johnson says he told him. 'We've already passed the bill out of the House, and I was under the impression that you had fully endorsed all this.' Musk did not respond to multiple requests for comment. When Musk called the President, it did not go well, according to sources familiar with the discussion. The day after, Musk unleashed a tirade against the President on social media. Johnson says he was in the Oval Office when Musk lobbed the first round of attacks, and tried unsuccessfully to dissuade Trump from responding in kind. With Musk threatening to fund primary challenges against Republicans who voted for the bill, the fate of the legislation hung in the balance. 'It complicated things initially,' Johnson says. Many Republicans shared Musk's concerns, but in the end, few wanted to get crosswise with Trump. After the Senate tweaked the bill, Johnson rushed it back onto the floor. 'The longer it delayed, the more negotiation, the more demands of everybody, it would have been impossible,' he says. Johnson and Trump's aides began working the holdouts who were led by Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, the chair of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. The talks were no longer about the specifics of the legislation. They were about what the members could get in exchange for supporting it. Most wanted Trump to commit to signing a suite of cost-cutting orders. Then they wanted Johnson to codify them. Others wanted more bills to cut the debt down the road. By midnight on July 2, they were still deadlocked. Johnson made a gamble, scheduling a procedural vote on the rule before he had the numbers to pass it. The high-stakes tactic had worked before on Trump's budget resolution and Ukraine aid. The thinking, he says, was to put the holdouts in a pressure cooker, facing the threat of Trump's ire. 'He's willing to really play hardball with his own internal dissenters,' says Frances Lee, a congressional scholar at Princeton University. 'He uses Trump's popularity and his own procedural authority to really put the screws to them.' The deal with Massie was the last hurdle. At 3:23 a.m., the vote passed, effectively assuring the bill would get to the President's desk for his signature. Inside the Speaker's lobby outside the House chamber, Representative Rick Allen of Georgia lifted Johnson off his feet in a bear hug. 'Only you can do this job!' Allen cried. After 14 months of planning and preparation, Johnson had gotten Trump what he wanted. When Trump signed the bill into law on July 4, Johnson gave the President a memento to mark the triumph: his Speaker's gavel. Two weeks later, Johnson delivered more wins for Trump: a $9 billion rescissions bill gutting foreign aid and public broadcasting, and the first-ever law regulating cryptocurrencies, a win for the tech-bro constituency that had helped sweep Trump back to power. Johnson quashed a rebellion from his right flank over the crypto bill: some Republicans wanted additional legislation to give crypto oversight to a friendly regulatory agency and ban the Federal Reserve from issuing its own digital currencies. To win them over, Johnson passed the first on the floor, sending it to the Senate, and promised to include the second in must-pass legislation later in the year. For now, he told them, they needed to give Trump something to herald 'Crypto Week' at the White House. There are other battles still to come: funding the government ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline and passing the National Defense Authorization Act. But the heavy lifting is done for now. The 2026 midterms will test whether voters reward or penalize Johnson's loyalty to Trump. While many of the safety-net cuts in Trump's signature legislation won't take effect until after the next election, some conservatives are skeptical that the popularity of tax cuts can overcome the unpopularity of less money for Medicaid and the economic disruption Trump has created through his tariffs. By reducing revenue and increasing spending on marquee MAGA priorities, critics say, Trump's Big Beautiful Bill comes at a steep cost to both the social contract and the nation's long-term economic health. Over time, fiscal conservatives warn, the federal government will spend more on interest paying down the debt than on national defense, with taxpayer dollars covering past borrowing rather than funding current needs. While Democrats plan to run against the legislation in the midterms, Lee says the verdict remains an open question: surveys find that most respondents disapprove of the bill, but that it has components that are popular, from tax breaks to enhanced border security. Johnson argues it will help Republicans on the campaign trail. 'We're going to be talking about it,' he says. 'We can defend it.' Johnson anticipates more challenges from his cantankerous colleagues. Already, there are signs of cracks. Even after Johnson brokered a truce between Trump and Massie, the Kentucky Republican has ramped up his attacks on both men—accusing them of suppressing the Epstein files. 'He's the only guy that could do this, because he's a nice guy,' the President said of Johnson recently at a White House meeting, according to two sources present. 'I couldn't do this.' Trump couldn't tolerate the criticism or the insubordination; he couldn't take a punch without counterpunching. In contrast, Johnson is willing to absorb the opprobrium, mediate the meltdowns, and hold together a fractured conference. He is both a punching bag and a psychiatrist for House Republicans who face the choice of either backing the President's agenda or losing their job. As always, Trump's favor has limits. Johnson has the President's backing only as long as he is loyal and productive. If the Speaker stumbles—if he fails to deliver votes, stifle dissent, or make chaos work to Trump's advantage—he risks the same fate as his predecessors. And even if Trump doesn't turn on him, voters may. A blue wave, or maybe even a ripple, would force him out of the Speaker's office. On July 18, Johnson hopped into the back seat of his armored car for the brisk ride to the White House for the bill signing. Sirens blared as the motorcade whizzed down Pennsylvania Avenue. 'It's cool for about half a day,' Johnson says of the spectacle. In the aftermath of the vote on Trump's megabill, he recalls, one of his colleagues said to him: Are you proud that you made history? Johnson laughed. 'No,' he said. 'I'm so tired of making history.'
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell Planned 'Dossier' on Accuser
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell's emails showed them working together on a dossier to "leak to the media" about Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, according to a new book. Andrew Lownie's biography of the prince, Entitled, is due out on Thursday, August 14, in the U.K. and has already generated headlines with its account of Andrew's relationship with Epstein and Maxwell. It also gives detail on some of the work done behind the scenes by the BBC to land an interview with the prince in 2019 that ultimately led to him stepping back from public life. And it reveals BBC producer Laura Burns and assistant producer Olivia Davies had gathered emails between Andrew and Maxwell shedding light on how they responded to the allegations. Prince Andrew puts his hand around 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre's waist alongside Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001, in a photo Giuffre includied in her lawsuit against Andrew. Prince Andrew puts his hand around 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre's waist alongside Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001, in a photo Giuffre includied in her lawsuit against Andrew. Virginia Giuffre Why It Matters In a series of lawsuits and media interviews, Giuffre said she was trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell aged 17 to London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands in order to have sex with Prince Andrew. Eventually, she would sue Andrew in 2021, a case the prince settled out of court in 2022 for an undisclosed sum without admitting liability. He has always denied her allegations. Maxwell was jailed for 20 years in 2022 on sex trafficking charges for her role in grooming girls for Epstein to abuse. The case has returned to the limelight with the re-election of President Donald Trump, whose MAGA base has long pushed the narrative that the deep state hid the names of rich powerful co-conspirators to Epstein's crimes. The Trump Administration ordered a review of the Epstein files while senior figures, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, appeared to encourage the belief bombshell new details would emerge. The Department of Justice and FBI released a memo in July stating Epstein did not blackmail prominent individuals and there would be no new cases, sparking a major MAGA backlash. What To Know Andrew gave the car crash interview that ended his royal career to the BBC's Newsnight but another BBC show, Panorama, had also been investigating him. And Burns and Davies had traveled around America "checking police reports, interviewing Epstein staff, tracing victims of both him and Prince Andrew, and persuading Virginia Giuffre and her legal team to be interviewed on camera," according to Entitled. Burns told Lownie they "found personal email discussions between Ghislaine and Andrew discussing Virginia. "The emails between Ghislaine and Andrew didn't exclaim 'it's a fake,' 'I've never met her' or any other questions, instead they worked together to build a dossier about Virginia to leak to the media." Newsweek approached representatives of Andrew and Maxwell for comment. Prince Andrew's Newsnight Interview Andrew's palace team had originally been in talks with Panorama about giving an interview to them but pivoted to Newsnight at the last moment, the book said. "How the interview moved from Panorama to Newsnight is debatable but the suspicion remains that the Palace preferred a straight interview to a right of reply after a hard-hitting investigation," Lownie wrote. "Contrary to the narrative that has been presented, Newsnight, which had only previously discussed an interview to promote [Andrew's royal project] Pitch@Palace, had just seventy-two hours' notice of what would prove a seminal television event. "It was Burns who was required to prepare them. She factchecked their video insert, shared Panorama's script, research, contacts, legal documents and detailed timelines, fact-checked their questions and wrote some of the most significant questions of her own." Andrew's interview with Newsnight's Emily Maitlis proved to be the end of his royal career after he was ridiculed for his answers to questions. Among them, he said Giuffre's account of him sweating while they danced at a London nightclub could not have happened "because I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don't sweat or I didn't sweat at the time and that was…was it…yes, I didn't sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the Falkland's War when I was shot at and I simply…it was almost impossible for me to sweat." Another statement that went viral was his alibi, that he was at a Pizza Express restaurant for a birthday party attended by his then teenage daughter, Princess Beatrice. "On that particular day that we now understand is the date which is the 10th of March, I was at home, I was with the children and I'd taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party at I suppose sort of 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon." He was also asked if he regretted his relationship with Epstein. "Now, still not and the reason being is that the people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful," he said. What People Are Saying Lownie described in the book's introduction the research that went into it: "Some three thousand people were approached researching this book. Fewer than a tenth replied. It is understandable that from loyalty or deference to the Crown many should do so and so I am grateful to those who did talk to me, many of whom had never spoken before. "Those almost three hundred people included childhood friends, schoolmates, work colleagues, former staff (in spite of the NDAs), diplomats, charity workers, business associates, journalists who investigated the Yorks but were not allowed to publish their findings, friends and people who had encountered them in daily life. "My information came not only from a long list of interviews—some on the record but many not—identified using social media, electoral rolls, LinkedIn and Who's Who, as well as over sixty years of media coverage, comments to newspapers and closed royal and navy forums. "I was also able, having gone to court, to secure closed files from the National Archives as well as consult private diaries and letters." He did though get on the wrong side of Prince Harry over passages suggesting there was a fist fight between Andrew and Harry in 2013, which were serialized in the Daily Mail on Saturday. Harry's spokesperson told Newsweek: "Such are the gross inaccuracies, damaging and defamatory remarks made in the Daily Mail's story, I can confirm a legal letter from Prince Harry's counsel has been sent to the Mail." What Happens Next Lownie's book will be published on Wednesday, August 14, by William Collins, an imprint of Harper Collins. Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page. Do you have a question about King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate, Meghan and Prince Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@ We'd love to hear from you.
Atlantic
an hour ago
- Atlantic
The Epstein ‘Client List' Will Never Go Away
Jeffrey Epstein's 'client list' is the conspiracy theory that may never die. A secret document detailing all of the elite clients that Epstein allegedly sex-trafficked minors to—it's something of a grail for QAnon adherents, TMZ watchers, and serious news readers alike. There is no proof that such a thing exists. Yet President Donald Trump himself suggested that it did during his campaign, and pledged to release it before a disastrous backtrack from the Department of Justice last month. Now, in a poll released Monday, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they believe that the Trump administration is hiding something, and 71 percent said they still believe that the list is real. Meanwhile, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has demanded that the list be released, Democrats are pushing the narrative that the Trump administration is orchestrating a cover-up, and yesterday the House subpoenaed the DOJ for additional files related to the case. To be clear, many unanswered and valid questions remain about Epstein. Before his death, he was charged with trafficking and abusing, as it read in the indictment, 'a vast network' of dozens of underage girls. Many still wonder why he was permitted to carry on with his crimes for so long, whether other people who were complicit in them have escaped justice, and how much President Trump may have known while the two were friends. Trump's name reportedly appears in files that have been redacted by the FBI, though he has repeatedly denied personal knowledge of Epstein's crimes and says their relationship ended in 2004. David A. Graham: Donald Trump doesn't want you to read this article The specific idea of a client list, though, has taken on a life of its own. No one can demonstrate that the list doesn't exist, so people will continue to insist that it does—that it is being kept from them. There's a certain logic to their belief, because a similar document has been seen already. In 2015, Gawker published Epstein's address book, which was full of names of celebrities and politicians. He apparently kept meticulous records and liked putting all of his famous contacts together in one place. And so the idea of a client list feels plausible to many people because they've had a mental image of it for 10 years now. Moreover, Trump has created a 'where there's smoke there's fire' effect in the past several weeks. The president has vacillated among suggesting that he has no obligation to talk about Epstein, speculating that political foes may have fabricated parts of the Epstein file, attempting to placate his supporters by ordering the release of grand-jury testimony about the case (which cannot be unsealed, a federal judge ruled), and deflecting (' you ought to be talking about Bill Clinton '). There's a useful parallel between the government's handling of the Epstein case and its investigation into the John F. Kennedy assassination. That assassination, of course, launched a million conspiracy theories: Most Americans still believe that the shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, did not act alone. One theory holds that the CIA was somehow involved, which has led people to search for hidden evidence within the government's own records—much as we've seen with the Epstein case. In 1967, Jim Garrison, the district attorney of New Orleans, ended up going down this road. He was re-investigating the case after receiving tips that Oswald, a New Orleans native, had worked with locals in a plot to kill the president. Long and complicated story short, Garrison would eventually subpoena CIA Director Richard Helms, demanding that he produce a photograph that purportedly showed Oswald with a CIA officer in Mexico City in 1963—cementing a link between the killer and the intelligence agency. There was only a slim reason to think such a photo might exist. Garrison was extrapolating from an existing controversy over a photo that the CIA had provided to the Warren Commission years before. That photo showed an unknown man in Mexico City; it was labeled as a photo of Oswald but was clearly not him. Garrison's theory was that there had been a swap. 'It's perfectly clear that the actual picture of Oswald and his companion was suppressed and a fake photo substituted,' he said. The government had no way to prove that he was wrong—to prove that there was no such photo. Garrison took his accusations all the way to a highly publicized trial in 1969. His theory of the case fell apart in court for unrelated reasons, but his many notions linger to this day. (He is the hero of the 1991 blockbuster film JFK.) The Kennedy assassination still features many unknowns, and information is still being released about it in drips and drabs—previewing, perhaps, the future of disclosure around the Epstein case. Last month, the CIA released assassination files that researchers had been requesting for more than 20 years. They pertained to a specific CIA officer who some think may have known or worked with Oswald in New Orleans. In the 1970s, the same CIA officer was assigned to work with the House Select Committee on Assassinations and help them in their re-investigation of Kennedy's death. He was using a different name by then, and the committee did not know it was the same person. He blatantly deceived Congress and actually thwarted their efforts to understand whatever had happened in New Orleans. The latest batch of files still didn't reveal a direct connection between this officer and Oswald, but that hasn't put the issue to bed. That the CIA maintained its secrecy around the officer for decades is what has made curiosity linger. The historian Gerald Posner was one of the public figures (along with the novelist Don DeLillo and the writer Norman Mailer) who'd signed an open letter asking for the release of these files back in 2003, a decade after he wrote a definitive book affirming the theory that Oswald acted alone. He recently told me that he's disgusted with the CIA for taking so long to provide them—not because he thinks they shed new light on the Kennedy assassination but for just the opposite reason. He thinks they really don't, but that hiding them encourages people to speculate ever more darkly. The CIA drags its feet, and when the documents are finally released, they usually have 'nothing to do with the assassination,' Posner said. 'But it's often too late to explain that.' This dynamic—in which defensiveness and reflexive secrecy lead to prolonged struggles over information that may or may not be important—has been a recurring problem throughout modern U.S. history. In her 2008 book, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War 1 to 9/11, the historian Kathryn Olmsted argues that selective opacity is one of the key reasons that Americans distrust their government. The passage of the Freedom of Information Act in 1966 democratized access to information, she argues, yet also left citizens baffled and frustrated when documents were refused to them or granted only with heavy redactions. The government's 'ambivalence' about providing information 'sometimes had the effect of frightening citizens rather than reassuring them,' Olmsted writes. There are good reasons that not all of the Epstein files can be released—chief among them, the privacy of victims—but Americans are not wrong to think the government is being less transparent than it could be. The administration could release more than it has, which Congress is currently pressuring it to do. Within that context, why would people believe Trump or the FBI when they say that a client list doesn't exist? I posed this question to Mark Fenster, a professor at the University of Florida's law school who often writes about government transparency and conspiracy theories. Can you ever convince people that there is no list? 'No, you can't,' he said. 'You can't convince people that all of the pertinent JFK-assassination documents have been released. You can't convince people who believe otherwise that all the truth is out on Jeffrey Epstein.' (Especially because it currently isn't.) 'That's just a flat no,' he went on. 'Rarely do I say flat no s, but that's just a flat no.' Like the Epstein case, Kennedy-assassination skepticism demonstrates two opposing impulses. The first, to speculate wildly. The second, to doggedly pursue more and better information, sometimes so stubbornly that it approaches irrationality in itself. These past few weeks have also brought to mind the Kennedy researcher Harold Weisberg, whose early books were a countercultural phenomenon and who was known for his diligent, insistent filling of FOIA requests. He wanted a specific report that he thought must exist about the spectrographic testing used on the Dallas crime-scene bullets; he was told that the FBI had looked for such a report and couldn't find anything. He appealed four times before the D.C. Circuit ruled in 1983 that he had to stop. The decision stated that if an agency could prove it had conducted a thorough search for the requested material, it did not also have to prove the negative—that the material never existed or had previously been destroyed. Yet, of course, the court couldn't compel him to stop wondering. Nobody can make Americans stop wondering about a 'client list' either. It can't stay on the front page indefinitely, but people won't forget about it. Epstein will become part of the American cultural backdrop, like Hunter Biden's computer, 9/11 trutherism, Kennedy, chemtrails, Roswell, and QAnon. At certain times, such conspiratorial thinking and refusal to accept the evidence will become dangerous—people will spin up fantasies that result in acts of defamation or threats of violence. At other times, it will just be part of the daily chatter.
