This Is Why I Am Releasing the Epstein-Trump Tapes
ANGLO AMERICA, 11 Nov 2024
Michael Wolff | Daily Beast - TRANSCEND Media Service
Animated GIF by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
The Predator and the President: The author of Fire and Fury has caused shockwaves with his recordings of Epstein talking about Trump. Here is their true story.
2 Nov 2024 – Starting in the Summer of 2016 and then through the first year of the Trump administration, as I wrote my book Fire and Fury about the first months of the Trump White House, I spoke periodically to Trump’s longtime and now estranged friend, Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein, of course, would go on to be branded as among the world’s most famous sexual predators and, in 2019, died, most likely a suicide, under federal indictment and as a prisoner in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal prison.
But in 2016 and in the nascent days of the Trump administration, Epstein, although the subject of many allegations and lawsuits, was still a free man, living alone in extraordinary splendor in one of the largest private residences in Manhattan.
Among the reasons he agreed to talk to me was his own incredulity that Donald Trump, a man who, in their friendship, had displayed so many disqualifying attributes to high office, was on his way to becoming president—indeed, who became president. In short, even Jeffrey Epstein was appalled.
Our conversations took place in the dining room in the back of his house on East 71st Street, where he customarily conducted something like an ongoing colloquium with a long and now notorious list of the rich, powerful, and celebrated. Or we would sit, up a grand staircase, in the baronial study which ran the length of the mansion.
Epstein was, clearly, obsessed with Trump, and I believe personally afraid of him. He was not the only one who knew the real Donald Trump, he told me, but he did, surely, know him, really know him, he would emphasize.
Now, he was groping for a way to explain how the man he knew—a man who had hardly ever tried to hide his blatant moral flaws—had risen to the very top of American politics.
Last week, on the podcast I host with James Truman for iHeart, Fire and Fury—The Podcast, we first broached the Epstein-Trump subject after the model Stacey Williams came forward to discuss how Trump had abused her when she was Epstein’s girlfriend in the 1990s. The response to the podcast was immediate and overwhelming, suggesting a hunger to know about a story, the Trump-Epstein relationship, that has seemed for so long to hide in plain sight.
The Fire and Fury podcast has partnered with the Daily Beast, which has helped with the myriad technical difficulties of bad recordings (my fault here), to publish, in Epstein’s own words, some of the highlights of his experiences with and observations about what I think can be fairly described as his fellow predator.
During the podcast I noted the glaring and confounding circumstance that one of these predators ended up in the country’s darkest prison and the other in the White House.
We still need to understand how that came to pass.
__________________________________________________
Michael Wolff is the author of best-sellers including Fire and Fury, the explosive 2018 account of Donald Trump’s White House, and The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch. He appears regularly on his podcast, Fire and Fury.
Tags: Child protection, Children Prostitution, Corruption, Human Traffic, Jeffrey Epstein, Justice, Morality, Pedophilia, Politics, Sexual Violence, Trump
DISCLAIMER: The statements, views and opinions expressed in pieces republished here are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of TMS. In accordance with title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. TMS has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is TMS endorsed or sponsored by the originator. “GO TO ORIGINAL” links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the “GO TO ORIGINAL” links. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Join the discussion!
We welcome debate and dissent, but personal — ad hominem — attacks (on authors, other users or any individual), abuse and defamatory language will not be tolerated. Nor will we tolerate attempts to deliberately disrupt discussions. We aim to maintain an inviting space to focus on intelligent interactions and debates.