Today, Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson sat down with Ellie Leonard of The Panicked Writer Substack and Kait Justice of the Downwind of Truth Substack. Ellie and Kait are two leading independent researchers covering the Jeffrey Epstein saga who have been digging deep into evidence most legacy outlets still haven’t touched. They’re also in regular contact with Democratic members of Congress who would be leading Epstein-related investigations should Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives in November.
Gibson, Leonard and Justice covered multiple topics including:
New evidence suggesting Epstein was at Trump Tower in November 2016 while then-President-elect Donald Trump was putting together his Cabinet
The deep ties between Epstein, Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
Recently confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche’s efforts to stop the release of millions of pages of Epstein files
Wall Street executives’ alleged role enabling Epstein’s human trafficking over many years
Epstein’s ties to foreign governments and as-yet untranslated foreign-language documents in the Epstein files
Former Attorney General Bill Barr long-standing family’s connections to Epstein
Katie Phng’s ongoing lawsuit against the DOJ and a federal judge’s contempt threat against Blanche
Lingering questions about the circumstances of Epstein’s suspicious 2019 death in federal prison in Manhattan
The stalled investigation into Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico
What personally drives both journalists to pursue the truth in the Epstein files
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Was Epstein Spotted at Trump Tower While He was Picking His Cabinet?
Gibson began the interview by asking about Leonard’s reporting that Jeffrey Epstein may have been at Trump Tower on November 13, 2016 — the same day then-President-elect Donald Trump was meeting with prospective nominees for his first-term Cabinet. Leonard explained how she pieced together the timeline from various email threads referencing Epstein’s whereabouts that day, then cross-referenced it with public photography from the building.
“Until we have proof of him walking in the building, the assumption is he was there on [November] 13th, in the morning, sometime between nine and 11, and he was there while Trump was picking all his Cabinet picks,” Leonard said, noting that Epstein likely would have used a private elevator from the parking garage that went directly to Trump’s office, rather than risk being seen in the public lobby.
Justice added that her own research corroborated the timeline.
“He was definitely in New York,” she said. “That’s for sure without a doubt that day, and he was around that area for sure without a doubt because there’s other emails from that day of him coordinating meetings and things.”
The fact that Epstein may have been in Trump’s company is newsworthy, with both Leonard and Justice pointing out that Trump has publicly said he kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago after his 2007 plea deal for sex trafficking was publicly announced.
Was the Trump-Epstein Relationship Blackmail or Mutual Complicity?
Gibson then asked whether Epstein’s apparent close access to Trump’s inner circle was the result of blackmail or of a genuinely close friendship. Leonard said the evidence shows that both Trump and Epstein had plenty of mutual contacts both from a business standpoint and on a personal level. Leonard observed that people like current Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have had deep ties to Epstein and ran in the same circles for years.
“I think it’s not so much that they were like best friends, but they were, like, complicit, and they knew they had to protect each other to protect themselves,” Leonard said, pointing to an investigation called Operation Chain Reaction that led to allegations of human trafficking tied to modeling agencies used by both Epstein and Trump’s businesses.
Justice noted how thoroughly Lutnick’s public denials about his relationship with Epstein — who was his longtime next-door neighbor in Manhattan — have been contradicted by documents released by the Justice Department.
“You have this, like, long email thread of all the planning for him to come to the island,” Justice said, referring to Lutnick’s 2012 visit to Epstein’s island despite years of denying it ever happened.
She also noted that Lutnick has been caught lying publicly about when he cut off ties with Epstein, at first saying it was after a 2005 visit to Epstein’s home. Documents eventually revealed that Lutnick not only visited Epstein’s Little Saint James Island, but bought a business with him shortly after that trip.
Will Todd Blanche Succeed in Burying the Epstein Files?
With roughly two million pages of Epstein-related documents still unreleased in direct defiance of the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, Gibson asked if there’s concern that Attorney General Todd Blanche may succeed in destroying or burying the files before a future Democratic administration can bring them to light.
“I mean, of course,” Leonard said. “I think that’s his pipe dream. He’d love this all to disappear.”
Justice connected Blanche directly to a blocked investigation tied to the Chain Reaction case, saying Blanche “specifically personally stopped that from happening.”
“We do not have that investigation that is related to Epstein because of Todd Blanche,” she said.
Did Wall Street Banks Know What Epstein Was Doing?
Gibson brought up the recent report by the office of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who appeared on Raw America earlier this month — about how major Wall Street banks looked the other way while Epstein was making millions of dollars in suspicious payments through various accounts for shell companies. He then asked whether Leonard and Justice had “smoking gun” evidence that big bank CEOs had direct knowledge of Epstein’s international human trafficking ring.
Justice called the U.S. Virgin Islands’ forensic investigation into J.P. Morgan Chase one of the most damning pieces of evidence in the entire Epstein case.
“Here’s in the first year, here’s the red flags, here’s all the red flags in the second year, and you kept this guy here for like 13-plus years,” Justice said, describing how 134 bank accounts were tied to Epstein with only first names and countries of origin attached. She added that this is typically a glaring trafficking indicator that bankers are trained to catch.
Leonard agreed, saying there is already “more than enough evidence” to support the criminal indictment of former Barclay’s CEO Jes Staley and “many many more” Wall Street executives who allegedly ignored Epstein’s crimes while making millions.
Could New York State Prosecutors Step In if Trump Pardons Everyone?
Gibson pointed out that Trump has a habit of pardoning those close to him, and that there’s a significant possibility that he would issue preemptive pardons to anyone remotely connected to Epstein before he leaves office in 2029. He then asked if there was a chance that prosecutors in New York could move forward with criminal investigations of their own, since a president can’t pardon state-level offenses.
Justice said there’s ample ground for a state investigation. However, one caveat is Epstein’s well-documented ties to the Southern District of New York, meaning there may not be the political will to do so given the possibility of what names may emerge as investigations unfold.
“All of this could be investigated in New York, but somebody has to want to do it, and I feel like that’s where the compromise is,” she said.
Leonard added that a probe by the New York Attorney General’s Office could delve into foreign intelligence angles. She said both Epstein and some of his closest associates appeared to be gathering compromising information on powerful men.
“I think a lot of those missing files that we don’t have would clarify a lot of that,” she said.
Was Epstein Working as a Foreign Intelligence Asset?
In one exchange, Leonard revealed that her own research — which she forwarded directly to the office of Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — found evidence Epstein was helping Saudi officials design an oil-backed currency and associated “stablecoin” cryptocurrency to move the nation away from the U.S. dollar and Western banks.
“[Epstein] absolutely was working with the Saudis to help them get their own currency going,” Leonard said, adding that Epstein even filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain his own FBI and/or CIA file. She noted that those agencies denied his request without confirming if such a file even existed.
Justice raised the largely unreported detail that entire batches of foreign-language documents in the Epstein files still have yet to be translated as of this writing.
“That’s going to be all your Russian information. That’s going to be all your Saudi information. That’s going to be all your Israeli information,” she said. “So that is also being hidden in the Epstein files.”
Could Todd Blanche’s DOJ Actually Be Held in Contempt?
Gibson asked about the status of journalist Katie Phang’s ongoing lawsuit against the Justice Department, in which she claims that Blanche and DOJ leaders are intentionally violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
He also noted that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton appointee, even threatened to hold the DOJ in contempt for withholding documents. This includes 37 missing pages of notes from the Jane Doe Four case, which pertains to the woman who accused Donald Trump of assaulting her when she was just a teen.
Justice walked through the latest hearing and revealed that the missing notes in question actually surfaced online shortly after the contempt threat, thanks to a conservative journalist.
“So now it becomes this narrative of how did we get access to them because they were released through a conservative journalist who posted them quietly online in a public forum,” Justice said, pointing out the DOJ must produce its official versions by this Thursday, August 27.
What Really Happened the Night Epstein Died?
Gibson remarked that August 10 marked the seven-year anniversary of Epstein’s death, and asked Leonard and Justice to help make sense of conflicting accounts, including a claim from Epstein’s brother, Mark, that his death was a homicide and not a suicide.
Justice acknowledged that there are two popular theories that have circulated to contradict the federal government’s claim of a suicide, in that Epstein was believed to have either been murdered or removed. However, she said the timing of Epstein revising his trust documents just before his death suggests the notorious sex trafficker likely died by suicide.
Leonard reminded viewers of the multiple failures at the Manhattan Detention Complex (MDC) that night. Nine of eleven security cameras malfunctioned during. scheduled “update,” Epstein had no assigned cellmate, and was even taken off suicide watch just one day before his death.
“It was allowed to happen in a way that for other criminals who are in there, especially high-profile ones, would have had a lot more oversight,” Leonard said.
DOJ Told New Mexico to Stop Digging Into Epstein’s Human Trafficking
Gibson asked the two for updates about New Mexico’s lawsuit against the DOJ and Attorney General Blanche over documents pertaining to Epstein’s Zorro Ranch property that the state says the Justice Department is intentionally withholding. Multiple Epstein survivors have alleged that serious abuse occurred at the ranch, and there’s also been speculation that Epstein may have buried the remains of some girls at the sprawling New Mexico property.
Leonard said the property remains “incredibly under-investigated” despite years of testimony from survivors, and said there have been multiple suspicious changes to the property’s ownership records.
“All they’re asking is to just be able to investigate it. It’s been what, seven years since [Epstein] died?” Leonard said.
At one point, Justice revealed she had discovered an email from federal investigators explicitly telling New Mexico prosecutors to de-prioritize human trafficking-related inquiries tied to Jeffrey Epstein and Zorro Ranch.
“They were reaching out to the officials in New Mexico and asking them very specifically to stop investigations as far as trafficking is concerned,” Justice said.
What Motivates Leonard and Justice to Stay on the Epstein Story
Gibson closed by asking both Leonard and Justice what motivated them to pour so many hours into this story. Leonard, a mother of four, told the Associated Press in February she wants to contribute to a world where human trafficking survivors are believed and protected, and where the men who abused them are held accountable.
“Nobody was standing up for them when they were 13 and 14 and 15 years old,” Leonard said. “All that I can do... is creat[e] a world where this doesn’t happen again, and that’s really, really important to me.”
Justice, who herself is a mother of three girls, recalled how she partnered with Leonard’s Substack after multiple late-night message exchanges comparing their findings.
“I call myself an average informed citizen,” Justice said. “It’s not your job to know everything, but it’s important that we make sure that we’re asking questions and paying attention.”
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