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AMY GOODMAN: Right here’s Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Friday is the closing date for the Division of Justice to launch its investigative files into the lifeless financier and serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The closing date used to be situation with the passage of the Epstein Transparency Act remaining month. One amongst the questions that’s remained largely unanswered till now may possibly possibly be: How did Jeffrey Epstein become so extravagantly successfully off, wealth that each enabled his crimes and shielded him from scrutiny and accountability for thus a few years?

Effectively, a brand new investigation by The Novel York Cases uncovered well-known points about Epstein’s upward thrust, previously unreported, and supplies an acknowledge. The investigation is headlined “Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Myth of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Effectively off.” Right here’s a video clip featuring a few of the journalists. It begins with enterprise reporter Jessica Silver-Greenberg.

JESSICA SILVER–GREENBERG: How did Jeffrey Epstein absorb the financial backing to abuse what turns out to be a complete lot of younger ladies folk and women?

DAVID ENRICH: The a complete lot of thousands and thousands of bucks that Epstein accumulated, the palatial estates and aircraft.

JESSICA SILVER–GREENBERG: Connections to a couple of the wealthiest, most established other folks round the globe. There’s been a immense sequence of conspiracy theories and myths.

DAVID ENRICH: From he used to be working a colossal blackmail operation to he used to be affiliated with overview agencies.

JESSICA SILVER–GREENBERG: Thru months of reporting and digging thru documents.

DAVID ENRICH: Folks’s diaries, letters, feeble photograph albums.

JESSICA SILVER–GREENBERG: The answer is: He stole it.

AMY GOODMAN: “He stole it.” The Novel York Cases investigation begins with Epstein in his early twenties, a college dropout, educating math at the extraordinary Dalton High Faculty here in Novel York. He’s launched by a student’s father to Ace Greenberg, the prolonged flee chief government of Undergo Stearns, an introduction that modified Epstein’s life.

For additional, we’re joined by Novel York Cases deputy investigations editor David Enrich, who co-wrote the brand new half.

We thanks loads for being with us, becoming a member of us from Dobbs Ferry. Can you name names? Lay out Jeffrey Epstein’s upward thrust, the excessive importance of the folk he connected with, and the lies, the thievery, all that you just lay out, after, what, months, years of this investigation.

DAVID ENRICH: Yeah, we’ve spent a in point of fact prolonged time on this one. And it in point of fact begins at Undergo Stearns, where Epstein is launched to a man named Ace Greenberg, who used to be a top government at the investment firm. And Greenberg and one more of his colleagues, Jimmy Cayne, who’s also a top government there, took Epstein below their wings and made him their protégé.

And Epstein proceeded to switch on roughly this spree of wrongdoing at Undergo Stearns, all the pieces from abusing his expense anecdote, mendacity on his résumé, giving a girlfriend early salvage admission to to roughly hot investment deals. And time and time one more time, Epstein’s protectors at the bank went to bat for him and in total obtained him out of effort. And this in total — this used to be the originate up of a lifelong pattern for Epstein, where he would push the envelope, injurious ethical, factual, customarily factual lines, and in total salvage away with impunity on anecdote of his in point of fact unbelievable skill to charm other folks in positions of strength and to make exhaust of his leverage over other folks in positions of strength.

And one in the total lot we heard about Undergo Stearns used to be that he used to be — and this used to be a time in the unhurried ’70s and early ’80s where there used to be reasonably a few medication and sex happening in the end of the firm itself, and Epstein, it sounds admire, used to be providing a few of the tip executives with capsules and with salvage admission to to ladies folk. And so, you realize, he had leverage, and he used to be no longer scared to make exhaust of the leverage. And one more time, we overview this repeatedly and all over one more time in the following a long time of Epstein’s life and profession.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, David, one in all the — one in all the necessary figures that he cultivated used to be the Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. May possibly possibly possibly well you discuss about how they obtained together and the importance of Dershowitz in his upward thrust?

DAVID ENRICH: Yeah, and Dershowitz is attention-grabbing, because he is each — he goes on to become Epstein’s roughly main defender and main protector, but Epstein connects with him thru — by doing this thing that he does on a long-established foundation, which is he leverages one connection to create one more to create one more.

And so, in the case of Dershowitz, Epstein, in the early ’90s, had become shut with a girl named Lynn Forester, who used to be this a hit telecom government who used to be very shut to Bill Clinton and the Clinton White Dwelling. Epstein befriends her. She is company with Dershowitz, and Forester asks Epstein if — or, I’m sorry, asks Dershowitz if Epstein can come over and check with him. So, Epstein and Dershowitz salvage together on Martha’s Vineyard, and Epstein convinces Dershowitz to hover out to Ohio with Epstein for a celebration for Les Wexner, who’s the billionaire retail magnate who owns manufacturers admire Victoria’s Secret. And here’s the originate up of a yearslong and very fruitful relationship for every Epstein and Dershowitz.

And Dershowitz will get reasonably a few notoriety and, I private, from his standpoint, potentially reputation from his representation of Epstein. And Epstein, for his half, will get this salvage admission to to a world-class attorney, who engineers a sweetheart deal for him in round 2007 that will get him, in total, out of effort when he used to be facing a sex trafficking and money laundering investigation in Florida. And Dershowitz, I imply, to in the mean time, is one in all Epstein’s main public defenders. And so, it used to be an investment that Epstein made on this man in a in point of fact roughly prescient formula early on. And that entailed no longer factual introducing him to other folks, but to boot getting him salvage admission to to make investments in very unfamiliar hedge funds, and, when these investments didn’t figure out, getting Dershowitz bailed out of these investments.

So, Epstein used to be factual absolutely masterful at leveraging one connection to support one more. And, you realize, it’s regularly been said that Epstein is this math genius and this pleasing refined financier. What we found out in our reporting is a lot extra ideal, which is that he can also absorb been these things, however the proof displays that what made a distinction for him in due route used to be his skill to charm and entrance and leverage extremely effective other folks off of every other.

AMY GOODMAN: And whereas it’s seemingly you’ll possibly possibly also discuss about the connections, as we’re about to witness the documents launched, if we’re, Friday, December nineteenth, the connections to Trump, to Robert Maxwell, the daddy of Ghislaine Maxwell, to Ghislaine Maxwell herself, serving a 20-yr sentence for — 

DAVID ENRICH: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — sex trafficking? Skedaddle forward, David.

DAVID ENRICH: Effectively, and we don’t know what’s going to be in these files, if certainly there are files launched by Friday. And I private it’s a lot extra most likely — I don’t assume it’s very most likely that we’re going to witness reasonably a few stuff that roughly plumbs thru Epstein’s earlier-fashioned historical previous, the formula we did on this text. That’s half of the reason we wished to attain this reporting, used to be to supply — roughly shine a lightweight on a half in his life that has no longer undergone reasonably as a lot scrutiny as his later years.

And I private what we’re more most likely to witness in these files in all fairness a runt about him in the 2000s, in point of fact, and in the 2010s. And that happens to be a length where he absolutely overlapped with Donald Trump for a length, he overlapped with Bill Clinton for a length, and that there are reasonably a few extremely effective, well-known figures roughly darting interior and out of his life. And, obviously, there is a substantial amount of interest, rightly so, in what these files indicate, if the leisure, about how Epstein’s sex trafficking operation ensnared these forms of roughly boldfaced names.

The true fact is — and I’m no longer looking out out for to be coy or evade the quiz — we factual in point of fact haven’t any thought what is in these files and what goes to in point of fact be launched in a mode that is legible. And I private there is an expectation or a relate that these can also very successfully be very, very closely redacted, if they salvage launched at all. And hopefully I’m fallacious about that, because I private all of the world is clamoring for some transparency here. And factual as someone who’s been covering this for admire six years, six-plus years now, with my colleagues at the Cases, we’re in point of fact keen to witness what’s in these files.

AMY GOODMAN: And lastly, what bowled over you most as you investigated him for all of these years? We factual absorb 30 seconds.

DAVID ENRICH: I private what bowled over me potentially the most used to be factual how pedestrian a few of his scams absorb been. Right here’s no longer someone who used to be hatching this, admire, extraordinarily elaborate assign of living to con refined other folks thru all these, admire, bells and whistles. He used to be factual grabbing other folks’s money and working with it. And for all of the distinction that’s been paid to the varied of Epstein being half of overview companies and products or working this in point of fact refined blackmail operation, the real fact that we found out — and there may possibly possibly be extra to it, but what we found out — used to be a lot extra flee-of-the-mill and roughly low-stage than that.

AMY GOODMAN: David Enrich, we’re looking out out for to thanks for being with us, deputy investigations editor for The Novel York Cases. We’ll hyperlink to your new investigation, “Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Myth of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Effectively off.”

At ease birthday to Jeff Stauch! And chuffed belated birthday to Renée Feltz! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Thanks for becoming a member of us.