Epstein's brother urges Trump to reopen investigation into disgraced financier's death
Loading
Theories about the death and the contents of the so-called Epstein files have long been pushed by far - right influencers, and during last year's presidential election campaign, a group of Trump allies publicly called for the documents to be released. Trump said at the time he would declassify the files, but added, 'you don't want to affect people's lives if there's phoney stuff'.
Trump was friends with Epstein in the 1990s, and they mixed in the same New York social circles before falling out in the 2000s, according to Trump. Law enforcement agencies have not accused Trump of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, and he has never been identified as a target of any associated investigation.
Mark Epstein said his brother and Trump were 'really good friends' who would fly in each other's planes.
'In the early 90s, I know Trump was in Jeffrey's office a lot when he was in financial trouble'.
In Scotland this week, Trump claimed the pair fell out and did not speak for 14 years because Epstein 'stole' staff from his Mar-a-Lago estate to work for him instead.
'He did something that was inappropriate. He hired help, and I said, 'Don't ever do that again,'' Trump said.
Since coming under pressure over the Epstein files, Trump has been accused of running a distraction campaign. Earlier this month, he posted about a football team changing its name; floated new ingredients of Coca-Cola; and released more than 230,000 pages of files on civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Parts of his MAGA base have fractured over what is being perceived as a broken promise, with popular podcaster Joe Rogan describing the refusal by the administration to release any more information as a 'line in the sand'. Amid frustration that the outcry has persisted, Trump has called the Epstein matter 'boring' and said he doesn't understand why people are still interested. Only 'pretty bad people' wanted to keep fuelling the story, Trump said earlier this month.
Mark Epstein said while he didn't know what was in the Epstein files, he didn't object to anything being released.
Loading
He said he and his brother had spoken regularly but did not see each other in person for years – 'He had his circle of friends and I had mine.'
Mark Epstein said his brother admitted to him in the late 2000s to being involved 'with underage girls'. 'He told me he was stupid,' he said.
In 2008, Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a minor to engage in prostitution, as part of a plea deal. In July 2019, he was arrested again and charged with sex trafficking, but was found unresponsive in his cell the following month and died.
Mark Epstein said the accusations against his brother didn't change their relationship.
'He's my brother, that's all that needs to be said.'

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Perth Now
11 minutes ago
- Perth Now
Donald Trump lauds Sydney Sweeney's controversial American Eagle campaign
Donald Trump has hailed Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle advertising campaign. The US President has lavished praise on the Euphoria actress - who has been identified as a registered Republican in Florida - for featuring in the "hottest" commercial for the brand's jeans, even though it has been criticised on social media and sparked a debate about beauty standards. Trump wrote on Truth Social: "Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the 'hottest' ad out there. It's for American Eagle, and the jeans are 'flying off the shelves'. Go get 'em Sydney!" The White House chief compared the advertisement to car manufacturer Jaguar's ill-fated rebrand last year, which he branded as a "seriously woke advertisement" and a "total disaster". Trump, 79, also used his post to take aim at Taylor Swift - whom he clashed with previously after she endorsed his rival Kamala Harris in last year's presidential election - as he described her as a "woke singer". He said: "Ever since I alerted the world as to when she was by saying on TRUTH that I can't stand her (HATE!). She was booed out of the Super Bowl and became NO LONGER HOT. The tide has seriously turned - Being WOKE is for losers, being Republican is what you want to be. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" A public database in Florida shows that Sweeney, 27, was registered as a Republican voter in the state last June - with the matter being discovered by a YouTuber who came across it as she put together a profile of The White Lotus star. American Eagle defended the actress last week after the campaign's tagline 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans' was criticised because the phrase "great genes" is associated with eugenicists - who argue that humanity can be improved genetically through selective breeding. The company wrote in an Instagram post: "'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. "We'll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone." Sydney revealed that she was "freaking out" when she was approached to star in the campaign. She said: "I was freaking out because I was like, 'This is perfect', and I was so excited. "When they were like, 'We want it to be a denim campaign', I was through the roof. I was like, 'This is it. This is Syd. I will be able to bring this to life. You have no idea.'"

Sky News AU
11 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Diehard soccer fan kicked out of St. Louis stadium for wearing MAGA cap: ‘Trump is not welcome here'
It was a red card offense. A diehard Major League Soccer fan was kicked out of a Missouri stadium for wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat during a match, according to shocking footage from the game. Michael Weitzel was sporting the signature red cap inspired by President Trump's campaign slogan at the July 26 St. Louis City SC soccer game at Energizer Park when security approached and asked him to leave with about 25 minutes remaining. The brief incident, which Weitzel filmed and posted on social media, unfolded after someone filed a complaint with stadium police mid-game. 'I didn't think there'd be any issue with wearing that to the game, but with about 25 minutes left in the game, I was basically told they'd received a complaint about my hat,' the season ticket holder told KFTK's Marc Cox Morning Show. 'They told me I could either hide the hat or take it out to my car or leave. I'm not gonna take my hat off for anybody. I live in America, which is the land of the free and the home of the brave, I thought. So you do what you have to do.' The 32-acre St. Louis stadium prohibits political banners, flags, images, and signs inside the arena unless pre-approved, according to the Fan Code of Conduct listed on the soccer club's website. In Weitzel's video, he's seen wearing the MAGA hat and a red shirt as four security guards approach and calmly explain that the club doesn't allow political symbols inside the stadium and ask him to leave. 'I'm being asked to leave by police. I am being threatened with arrest. They are asking me to leave,' Weitzel said as he's being escorted out of the match, with some onlookers jeering and booing behind him. 'I am being evicted from the premises because of Donald Trump – because we can't wear Donald Trump hats in public. Now I am being evicted from the premises. Trump is not welcome at St. Louis City SC club. Trump is not welcome here.' An officer leading Weitzel out of the building told him he was also a Trump supporter, but said he was simply enforcing the club's rules. 'He gets it, he's just following the rules,' Weitzel said, the footage shows. 'It's not his fault. This is the stadium's rules here. So that's what happens if you wear a Donald Trump hat to a St. Louis City Soccer Club game.' Weitzel told KFTK he was minding his own business during the game – ignoring attendees who were 'flipping him the bird' – and was stunned that today's political climate has sparked incidents like this. He's now reluctant to return to Energizer Stadium, even after purchasing three years' worth of tickets to support the St. Louis team. 'I do want to see them do well,' Weitzel told the morning show. 'I don't really want to let the actions of a few small-minded people or a few angry complainers stop me from enjoying something that I love.' Originally published as Diehard soccer fan kicked out of St. Louis stadium for wearing MAGA cap: 'Trump is not welcome here'

The Age
11 minutes ago
- The Age
Trump wants to be sole arbiter of truth ... just like a real dictator
But without an objective scorekeeper, how can we know the score? That's the point. Trump wants to be the sole arbiter of truth. As the name of his social media company, Truth Social, implies. So part of Trump's agenda is about silencing competing voices, especially expert ones. That's one of his key motives for intimidating America's elite universities, for pursuing media companies for outlandishly large sums, for shutting down America's public broadcasters PBS and NPR, for unleashing an anti-science health secretary, RFK Jr, against the US National Institutes of Health and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. But Trump's goal is much bigger than merely strangling voices speaking inconvenient truths. All dictators are censors. Xi Jinping, for example, has instructed the Chinese Communist Party that 'control over the internet is a matter of life and death for the Party'. Trump goes further. His original campaign mastermind, Steve Bannon, famously set out the MAGA philosophy. Rather than conduct endless debates with the enemy in a contest to win an argument, simply 'flood the zone with shit'. Not with counterarguments or factual rebuttals. Just shit. Loading It's a method uniquely suited to the age of the conspiracy theory, which is not new, amplified by 'social' media, which is. Trump is perhaps the world's most effective creator and promoter of conspiracy theories. There's a Wikipedia entry titled 'List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump'. As of Monday, it contained 87 separate theories. It has an addendum of other conspiracy theorists whom Trump has either supported, endorsed or hired. The conspiracy theory that first brought Trump to mainstream political attention was the 'birther' claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and therefore disqualified from the presidency, and a secret Muslim, to boot. He accused the 'mainstream media' of refusing to report the theory. To the conspiratorially minded, this confirmed that the media must be part of the conspiracy. Such internal consistency is key to the conspiracy theory; it's self-confirming. 'The function of conspiracy theories,' writes Yale professor of philosophy Jason Stanley, 'is to impugn and malign their targets, but not necessarily by convincing their audience that they are true,' he writes in his 2018 book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Loading Hannah Arendt, he points out, argued in her work The Origins of Totalitarianism that a characteristic of modern masses is that 'they do not believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own experience; they do not trust their eyes and ears, but only their imaginations'. Stanley suggests that the birther claim was obviously far-fetched, but that it was nonetheless effective even among people who didn't fully believe it. Because conspiracy theories 'provide simple explanations for otherwise irrational emotions such as resentment or xenophobic fear in the face of perceived threats'. This is comforting for an anxious people, and once the comfort is accepted by a public 'its members will cease to be guided by reason in political deliberation'. Amplified by the staccato cognitive bombardment of 'social' media, this is a people ripe for mass confusion, delusion and doubt. The leader, in this epistemology, becomes the sole source of truth. Is unemployment going up or down? Is it American carnage or the golden age? Who knows any more? The Washington Post 's slogan is 'democracy dies in darkness'. But Bannon and Trump aren't trying to make America's screens go dark; they are lighting them up with disorienting flashes of non-stop nonsense. Democracy, they believe, dies amid induced dementia. Bannon promised a reporter in 2016 that the coming era would be 'as exciting as the 1930s', the time of tyrants rising. So far, so good.