Tag: Jeffrey Epstein

Matt Gaetz’s campaign paid $25,000 to lawyer who represented Jeffrey Epstein

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The fee, for legal consulting, was paid to Manhattan criminal defense attorney Marc Fernich

Rep. Matt Gaetz’s campaign paid $25,000 in June to a Manhattan criminal defense attorney who lists Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who killed himself in prison, as a notable client, according to a filing Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.

The Florida Republican and acolyte of former president Donald Trump is under investigation for possible sex trafficking of a minor. A spokesman for Gaetz did not address the payment but touted the congressman’s fundraising haul, which totaled more than $1.3 million in the second quarter of the year.

The June payment, for legal consulting, went to the law office of Marc Fernich, whose website says he specializes in “subtle, novel and creative arguments that other attorneys may miss.” Continue reading.

One of Trump’s new lawyers declined to charge Bill Cosby. The other maintains Jeffrey Epstein was murdered.

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When Bruce L. Castor Jr. ran for district attorney in Montgomery County, Pa., in 2015, the campaign hinged on his decision years earlier not to charge comedian Bill Cosby with sexual assault. And after Castor lost the race, he sued the woman he blamed for the defeat: one of Cosby’s victims.

His suit, which was dismissed in 2018, made national headlines as the prosecutor who defeated him criminally charged Cosby, eventually sending him to prison.

Now, Castor is poised to represent another politician dismayed over a recent election loss: former president Donald Trump. Continue reading.

Fox cuts off Trump Jr. in middle of angry rant about dad’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein

Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo kept trying to end an interview with the first son about Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Donald Trump Jr. was abruptly cut off during an interview on Fox Business Wednesday morning, after he wouldn’t stop yelling about Donald Trump’s ties to accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

In the interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, Trump Jr. was trying to tie former President Bill Clinton to Epstein, while downplaying Trump’s relationship with the billionaire who died in prison while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking charges.

“I see the media every day they flash the two pictures that exist of two billionaires, Jeffrey Epstein and my father, in New York City and they try to make that association,” Trump Jr. said. Continue reading.

Before President Trump wished Ghislaine Maxwell ‘well,’ they had mingled for years in the same gilded circles

Washington Post logoThey were two larger-than-life wealthy businessmen — one trying to break into the New York scene, the other a symbol of the city’s brash excess.

So it was natural that when British media mogul Robert Maxwell threw a party in New York on the deck of his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine — named for his youngest daughter — he would invite Donald Trump, the city’s tabloid-friendly developer.

As guests mingled and drank during the 1989 bash, Maxwell greeted Trump privately in the wheelhouse and gave him a tour of the craft, recalled David Adler, who was then the head of public relations at Maxwell’s publishing house. Continue reading.

Fox News regrets ‘mistakenly’ editing Donald Trump out of photo with Jeffrey Epstein

AlterNet logoFox News on Monday confirmed that the network had edited President Donald Trump out of a photo in which he appeared with convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The incident occurred during a broadcast on Sunday covering the arrest of Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell.

In a statement to Raw Story on Monday, Fox News said that it regretted “mistakenly” excluding Trump from the photo. Continue reading.

Jeffrey Epstein caught Trump ogling a young woman in his office — then told him ‘she’s not for you’: report

AlterNet logoA new report from the New York Times features an on-the-record claim from a former associate of the late accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein about a disturbing interaction she had with President Donald Trump.

The Times report is about two sisters named Maria and Annie Farmer, who both allege that longtime Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell made inappropriate physical contact with them 24 years ago. At the time, Maria Farmer was 25 years old, while Annie was just 16.

The story is mostly about the sisters’ unsuccessful efforts to get law enforcement officials to believe their stories about the inappropriate behavior that Epstein and Maxwell exhibited toward them.

View the complete August 26 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

‘This is your house!’ Former federal prosecutor lays into Bill Barr over unanswered questions from Epstein’s death

AlterNet logoElie Honig, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, on Monday demanded Attorney General William Barr answer for Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide. The financier, who was awaiting trial for a host of federal charges including sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, died in his jail cell on Saturday. Details of his autopsy have yet to be released.

Speaking with CNN’s Brooke Baldwin, Honig explained that the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), where Epstein was held, is run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of Barr’s Department of Justice.

“Everything that goes into that prison comes out of that prison, moves within the prison is documented somehow … So there really should be a lot of clear answers that DOJ and the Office of Inspector General can and should get,” the former federal prosecutor said. “And if we don’t have answers, we should ask why not.”

View the complete August 12 article by Elizabeth Preza on the AlterNet website here.

The Day Jeffrey Epstein Told Me He Had Dirt on Powerful People

New York Times logoAlmost exactly a year ago, on Aug. 16, 2018, I visited Jeffrey Epstein at his cavernous Manhattan mansion.

The overriding impression I took away from our roughly 90-minute conversation was that Mr. Epstein knew an astonishing number of rich, famous and powerful people, and had photos to prove it. He also claimed to know a great deal about these people, some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.

So one of my first thoughts on hearing of Mr. Epstein’s suicide was that many prominent men and at least a few women must be breathing sighs of relief that whatever Mr. Epstein knew, he has taken it with him.

View the complete August 12 article by James B,. Stewart on The New York Times website here.

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein partied together. Then an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion came between them.

Washington Post logoFor the better part of two decades starting in the late 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump swam in the same social pool. They were neighbors in Florida. They jetted from LaGuardia to Palm Beach together. They partied at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and dined at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.

And then, in 2004, they were suddenly rivals, each angling to snag a choice Palm Beach property, an oceanfront manse called Maison de l’Amitie — the House of Friendship — that was being sold out of bankruptcy.

Before the auction, Epstein and Trump each tried to work the ref; the trustee in the case, Joseph Luzinski, recalls being lobbied by both camps.

View the complete July 31 article by Beth Reinhard, Rosalind S. Helderman and Marc Fisher on The Washington Post website here.