Jeffrey Epstein: how US media - with one star exception - whitewashed the story

[Kid Berwyn]

Not fake news. The Guardian brings up a major threat to democracy: corrupt news media.

Jeffrey Epstein: how US media – with one star exception – whitewashed the story

The Miami Herald exposed a vast criminal network and a government cover-up – but why the silence elsewhere?

Ed Pilkington
The Guardian, July 19, 2019

EXCERPT...

Reiter warned Brown what would happen were she to continue digging: “Somebody’s going to call your publisher and the next thing you know you are going to be assigned to the obituaries department.”

Brown did not heed his warning. She flung herself at the investigation and eventually persuaded Reiter to go on record. Her resulting, award-winning three-part series last November exposed a vast operation in which 80 potential victims were identified, some as young as 13 and 14 at the time of the alleged abuse. She persuaded eight to tell their stories.

Brown also exposed a government cover-up in which Epstein got away with an exceptionally light sentence that saw him serve only 13 months in jail. She discovered that a “non-prosecution agreement” had been negotiated secretly in 2008 by the then top federal prosecutor in Miami, Alexander Acosta, that gave Epstein and his co-conspirators immunity from federal prosecution.

In 2017, Acosta was appointed by Donald Trump as labor secretary, a post that ironically is responsible for combating sex trafficking.

CONTINUES...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/13/jeffrey-epstein-alex-acosta-miami-herald-media

We likely wouldn’t know squat about Epstein & Associates without the Miami Herald.

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[Kid Berwyn]

11. This should not have happened, per Harry Littman, former DoJ dude.

DUer Swag posted this in GD:

Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide is unfathomable

By Harry Litman

...

First, consider the MCC itself. It is a high-rise, forbidding administrative detention facility in the south of Manhattan. Its population consists almost entirely of prisoners, like Epstein, awaiting trial in federal court in Manhattan. It has been referred to as the “Guantanamo of New York” for its stringent security measures. It is the facility of choice for notorious federal defendants, often in special administrative segregation units, having previously housed John Gotti, Bernard Madoff, Omar Abdel Rahman and, recently, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

In other words, it is the very place to put a high-profile and potentially suicidal defendant such as Epstein.

Second, consider the BOP’s suicide prevention protocol. Epstein was found last month unconscious in his MCC cell with marks on his neck. If he was not on suicide watch, it would be astonishing. Yet if he were on suicide watch, his death would be virtually inconceivable.

The BOP’s suicide prevention protocol entails, first and foremost, human eyes on the prisoner 24 hours a day. It also requires a strict deprivation of anything — shoelaces, sheets, pillowcases — that could possibly be used to hang oneself. It also requires disabling anything that could be used to tie a noose — vents, sprinkler heads, etc.

CONTINUES...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/10/jeffrey-epsteins-apparent-suicide-is-unfathomable/

Unfathomable.

[PatrickforO]

19. In my opinion, and it is just that - I have no proof, but

Epstein was killed because he had 'the goods' on too many powerful people. If he went down, dozens of others would also.

He was just too dangerous to the powers that be to leave alive.

Not getting the tinfoil hat out, you all understand. But I am profoundly un-surprised to hear of his death.

[Kid Berwyn]

20. Agree. The DC Madame came to mind yesterday on DU.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=12365093

The only thing we really know is the guy’s been reported dead. No one I know has seen the body. In the pictures, he looked dead. We certainly can’t state for history, were he dead, if it was from suicide. Nor can we rule suicide out.

Now, to be unfair to the lone nut school of happenstance by pointing this out, for the same Jeffrey Epstein who was first-name buddies with untold numbers of Republican and Democratic bigwigs and uberwealthy creme de la creeps of all nationalities to all of a sudden die after apparently trying to kill himself (or killed by someone else) a week or two back is really too convenient.

If I were about to go on trial for being pimp to the rich and powerful, I’d talk and bring them all down with me. I also would detail my relationships to Barr and Trump.

[murielm99]

2. K&R.

This reporter may end up in Woodward and Bernstein territory. I hope so!

Keep investigating, Miami Herald. This thing is far from over.

[Mystery sage]

4. She may need protection

As the rich and powerful and others seemly are starting operation mop up evidence.

[Pacifist Patriot]

10. I have feared that since Part 1 was published.

[thegoose]

15. Yes, because the "suicide" of Epstein was ordered by Dump

And carried out by Barr. I fucking believe that.

[3Hotdogs]

16. Yeah, Gropenfuhrer has a new fixer. A federal employee named Wm. Barr.

[Kid Berwyn]

12. Ms. Brown said she was most surprised by the number of people who knew...

...and did nothing about Jeffrey Epstein’s operation.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/08/10/jeffrey-epstein-found-dead-new-york-jail-julie-brown-reaction-vpx.cnn

Thank you for caring, murielm99. She has the public aware of her situation.

[2naSalit]

3. K&R

[Kid Berwyn]

14. Bill Barr's father once hired Jeffrey Epstein.

The Ties That Bind Jeffrey Epstein, William Barr & Donald Trump

Todd Neikirk
Hill Reporter, May 19, 2019

During Attorney General, William Barr’s confirmation hearing, he was mostly peppered with questions about how he would handle the Mueller Report. Senator Ben Sasse’s (R-NE) questioning, however, diverged from the pack. Sasse asked Barr about the lenient sentence given out to billionaire pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. The future Attorney General told Sasse that he would look into the matter.

This, however, was not the first connection between Barr and his family and the disgraced pedophile. In 1973, Barr’s father Donald, the headmaster at Manhattan’s Dalton School, hired Epstein as a calculus and physics teacher.

While hiring Epstein, a noted mathematics genius, was not strange on its face, the hire was unusual for a number of reasons. Epstein had not earned a college degree as he dropped out of New York’s prestigious Cooper Union. The other odd circumstance was that the new teacher was only 20 years of age.

Apparently, the hire was a successful one. The New Yorker wrote in a 2003 profile on Epstein, “he was something of a Robin Williams–in–Dead Poets Society type of figure, wowing his high-school classes with passionate mathematical riffs.” Epstein’s mathematical skills caught the eye of Bear Stearns’ chairman, Alan “Ace” Greenberg, whose son attended the Dalton School. Greenberg hired Epstein as an options trader and the former teacher was able to amass a fortune.

Continues....

https://hillreporter.com/the-ties-that-bind-jeffrey-epstein-william-barr-donald-trump-34107

——————————

For the sake of justice, I hope Mr Barr Jr recuses himself. Mr. Rosenstein, too.

[gademocrat7]

5. K&R!

[Kid Berwyn]

17. Similar suicide: US Attorney John David "Roy" Atchison

This guy was a pillar of the community, an Assistant US Attorney in Florida, yet he wanted sex with a child.

The Strange Tale of a Pedophile in the U.S. Justice Department

Legal Schnauzer, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2010

The U.S. Department of Justice generated plenty of strange stories during the George W. Bush years. But one of the strangest involved John David "Roy" Atchison, an assistant U.S. attorney in Pensacola, Florida, who committed suicide after being caught in a pedophilia sting in Detroit.

Atchison's sad story has many connections to Birmingham and Alabama. And it raises this question: How did a guy with a shaky work record and a history of run-ins with the law get hired by the world's supposedly foremost crime-fighting organization? Did Atchison attain his lofty position because he had connections to powerful figures in the Alabama legal world?

Investigative journalist Margie Burns examines these questions, and much more, in a series of posts about the Atchison case at her blog, margieburns.com.

Burns begins with the actions that turned Atchison into a national figure in fall 2007:

This is not the story of a man who engaged in pedophilia for years or decades before being caught. It is the story of a man whipsawed by the strain of living up to a high-achieving family rooted in Birmingham, Ala., whose high-functioning connections assisted him for years in developing a career for which he turned out not to be suited. On Sept. 16, 2007, Assistant U.S. Attorney John David Roy Atchison, serving as a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Florida, was arrested on credible charges of basically pedophilia. Atchison committed suicide in federal prison Oct. 5.

A dead pedophile might not sound like a tragedy. But Atchison was thought to be participating in a pedophile ring, and his death removed a useful informant from law enforcement resources. The question of how he was enabled to kill himself rather than being preserved for justice is one of the loose ends left hanging in his case.

CONTINUED 'though I wish it didn't...

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2010/09/strange-tale-of-pedophile-in-us-justice.html

———-

Margie Burns detailed how the guy rose up through the GOP ranks, warts and all. When former wife beating Judge Fuller and pedophile Atchison are given authority to put people behind bars on behalf of Uncle Sam, these are worse than NAZI times.

Just another lone nut child molester.

[Glorfindel]

6. K&R n/t

[Kid Berwyn]

21. President Cheat-oh appointed Epstein's dream DA to his Cabinet.

Excerpt from Salon.com:

Upon his resignation, Trump praised Acosta as a "great labor secretary — not a good one" and a "tremendous talent."



"This was him — not me," Trump said of the resignation decision. "I said to Alex, 'You don't have to do this.'"

Although Trump has claimed he "was not a fan" of Epstein, video footage recently resurfaced by NBC News revealed that he partied with the billionaire financier and registered sex offender in November of 1992.

The archival footage shows the future president partying at Mar-a-Lago, where he is surrounded by NFL cheerleaders from the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins teams. On the tape, Trump is seen joking with Epstein, who at one point doubles over in laughter. The future president appears to point to one of the women at the party as he tells Epstein, "Look at her back there — she’s hot."

Continues...

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/10/jeffrey-epstein-the-billionaire-awaiting-trial-on-sex-trafficking-charges-found-dead-in-jail-cell/

[KPN]

7. K&R. This stuff exposed by the Miami

Herald frankly makes Game of Thrones look real. This is real folks. We have a depraved, immoral and self-gratifying aristocracy pulling all the strings. It’s more than just income inequality ... and far worse. Or so it seems.

[Kid Berwyn]

22. "They should be ashamed of themselves."

"Before a show, I'll go backstage and everyone's getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it...You know, they're standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that." — Trump on the Miss America pageant

[FakeNoose]

8. Julie K Brown is a hero

... and Alex Acosta knows more than he's saying right now.

[Kid Berwyn]

23. Heroic. Plus she got to the heart of the matter...

From the Mary Sue:

What Brown uncovered about that plea agreement is astounding. It’s not just the light jail sentence in a case that should by all accounts have come with a life sentence. The deal included immunity for any of Epstein’s “co-conspirators” in these crimes, despite the fact that those conspirators were not named in the case. That clearly seems to indicate that there were some powerful people who were concerned their names might come out later, and Acosta was issuing them protection as well as Epstein.

Source w/ links, details...

https://www.themarysue.com/julie-k-brown-praised-on-twitter/

[SunSeeker]

9. Yep. nt

[Kid Berwyn]

24. Without Miami Herald, Epstein-Acosta plea deal sounds like "conspiracy theory."

From Ana Navarro-Cárdenas:

@jkbjournalist identified +80 Epstein victims, spoke to many of them & cops who worked on case. She discovered Acosta led team which cut illegal deal. She revealed new info, revived case. At times, she paid expenses out of own pocket.

Who could have imagined a global child sex trafficking ring would involve the “President of the United States”? Besides the Secretary of Labor, who is in charge of protecting children from sex traffickers.

Acosta, Who Cut Deal With Epstein, Tried to Slash Anti-Trafficking Program by 80 Percent

[moondust]

13. What did Barr know and when did he know it?

I'd be curious about the timeline *possibly* connecting Julie K. Brown's investigation and Barr's 2018 "AG audition memo" ruling out obstruction of justice. If Barr got news that she was closing in on Epstein, he might *guess* that some very fat pigs were going to need some high-level cover--perhaps including a fat pig named Donny.

[Kid Berwyn]

25. Barr's connection to Epstein is personal and professional.

Attorney General William Barr’s Personal Ties to Jeffrey Epstein

By Emily Bicks
Heavy.com, Aug 10, 2019

Excerpt...

While it was once thought that Barr would be recusing himself from having oversight on the Epstein prosecution, on July 9, it was clarified that Barr consulted with career ethics officials at the department, and concluded that he only needed to recuse himself from the internal Justice Department probe of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, and his involvement of approving a highly controversial no-prosecution deal with Epstein back in the 2008.

Barr did not recuse himself from Epstein’s current prosecution in Manhattan, and is now instructing the Department of Justice’s inspector general to open a probe into the disgraced financier’s death. Before Epstein’s alleged suicide, he was facing 45 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy and sex trafficking dozens of underage girls in New York and Florida.

There is concern over William Barr’s involvement in Epstein’s case, not only for the way he handled Robert Mueller’s testimony over the Russian probe, but because of his personal ties with Epstein himself.

Barr Worked at the Law Firm which Represented Epstein in 2008

AG William Barr: "I'm recused from that matter because one of the law firms that represented Epstein long ago was a firm that I subsequently joined for a period of time." — The Hill (@thehill) July 8, 2019

In 2009, Barr joined the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, the same law firm that represented Jeffrey Epstein in 2008 which ended in a no-prosecution. During Barr’s confirmation hearing in January, when Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse asked Barr whether he would conduct a “full and thorough investigation” into the Justice Department’s handling of Epstein’s case, Barr responded, “Senator, I have to recuse myself from Kirkland & Ellis matters, I am told. And I think Kirkland & Ellis was may be involved in that case, so I need to sort out exactly what my role can be. I will say that if I’m confirmed I’ll make sure your questions are answered on this case.”

Continues....

https://heavy.com/news/2019/08/william-barrs-personal-ties-jeffrey-epstein/

————

Great questions, moondust. Hope they get answered under oath.

[farmbo]

27. Keep posting on this Kid...

We’ll need help wading through the incoming tsunami of Trump- Barr Bull$hit on this in the upcoming months.

[Duppers]

18. K & R - for whole thread.

[Kid Berwyn]

29. Thanks, Duppers! Did you see who Epstein was calling?

Who Was Jeffrey Epstein Calling?

A close study of his circle — social, professional, transactional — reveals a damning portrait of elite New York.

By The Editors
Reporting by Brock Colyar, Kelsey Hurwitz, Charlotte Klein, Ezekiel Kweku, Amy Larocca, Yinka Martins, Adam K. Raymond, Matthew Schneier, Matt Stieb, and James D. Walsh
New York magazine, July 22, 2019

Excerpt...

This project is meant to catalogue how Epstein’s secure footing in elite spheres helped hide his crimes. It includes influential names listed in his black book, people he flew, funded, and schmoozed, along with others whose connections to him have drawn renewed attention. Certainly, not everyone cited here knew of everything he was up to; Malcolm Gladwell told New York, “I don’t remember much except being baffled as to who this Epstein guy was and why we were all on his plane.” Some said they never met Epstein at all, or knew of him only through his ex-girlfriend and alleged accomplice, the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Others backed away from him after the scandal. But all of the influential people listed here were attached in some way to Epstein’s world. The sum of their names constitutes a more concrete accounting of Epstein’s power than could any accounting of his disputed wealth. Consider this a pointillist portrait of enablement that all too chillingly overlaps with a significant slice of the Establishment.

—Frank Rich

Snip...

Bannon, Steve: Former White House chief strategist.
In August 2018, the New York Post reported that Bannon had been seen entering Epstein’s townhouse. Neither Bannon nor Epstein has commented on the substance of their meeting, but when Ivanka Trump condemned Roy Moore’s campaign in Alabama, saying, “There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children,” Bannon, who backed Moore, responded, “What about the allegations about her dad and that 13-year-old?” It was a clear reference to the woman who had accused Donald Trump and Epstein of raping her when she was 13.

Barr, Donald: The headmaster who offered entrée.
Barr was ousted shortly before Epstein, 21 and without a college degree, showed up for his first day of work teaching math and physics at the Manhattan’s elite Dalton School in the early 1970s. Barr announced his resignation soon after, in February 1974: “He was disliked by the faculty, he was highly controversial, he hadn’t raised much money, he was very conservative,” said the board’s chairman. Barr’s leadership style was described as “authoritarian” and “undemocratic” at the time. Memorably, several former students told the New York Times that Epstein was overly familiar with teenage girls at the school. Donald’s son William would intersect with Epstein’s orbit while serving as a counsel at Kirkland and Ellis in 2009. The law firm secured Epstein his obscenely lenient 2007 non-prosecution deal, which the Justice Department is now reviewing. In July, Barr the son refused to recuse himself from the ongoing Epstein investigation.

Snip...

Carter, Graydon: Former editor of Vanity Fair.
According to journalist Vicky Ward, he killed portions of a 2003 story that accused Epstein of pedophilia after an office visit from Epstein. (Carter says there wasn’t enough on-the-record sourcing.) “I didn’t invent the system. I just lived by the system,” he said when The New York Times Magazine questioned him about the story last week.

Continues...

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-high-society-contacts.html

It’s like “Eyes Wide Shut” was a reality show.

[Duppers]

30. Wow. A virtual who's-who.

Quite a number on the left there too. Surprised that those on the left could all be that naive. Some may have accepted a free plane ride, but I have doubts about those who repeatedly flew with Epstein.

The investigation should not be shut down. But AG Barr will make sure it is and along with making sure that any Congressional investigation cannot subpoena the information it needs.

Thanks again, Kid.

[underpants]

26. 👀

Reading later

[Kid Berwyn]

31. Without Miami Herald, most mainstream media are AWOL

NOW they start paying attention.

One of the few media organs on the ball:

Everything We Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s Death

By Chas Danner and Margaret Hartmann
New York magazine, Aug. 12, 2019

Excerpt...

Epstein had been taken off suicide watch, then left alone and under-monitored

Three weeks before his death, on July 23, Epstein had been found semiconscious in his cell with marks on his neck — though it was not clear if he had tried to harm himself or had been attacked. Prison officials investigated the injury as a possible suicide attempt and put Epstein on suicide watch, which would entail placing him in a special cell where he could be constantly monitored by prison personnel and prevented from having access to any means by which he could take his own life. Epstein was also subject to a daily psychiatric evaluation during this time, according to the New York Times.

But Epstein was taken off of suicide watch on July 29 and returned to the MCC’s special housing unit after a psychiatric evaluation determined he was no longer at risk of harming himself. It is not yet clear who made that evaluation and (clearly incorrect) judgment.

In addition, it appears that MCC personnel failed to follow proper procedures following Epstein’s removal from suicide watch, procedures that MCC officials had apparently assured Justice Department personnel they would follow.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that it is standard practice at the facility for inmates who have been on suicide watch to then be housed with other inmates. Epstein was placed in a cell with another inmate at first, but that inmate was later transferred out of the special housing unit, leaving Epstein alone in the cell, which reportedly had a metal door and a small glass window. It is not clear why Epstein was not immediately assigned another cellmate.

In addition, MCC guards are supposed to check on inmates in the special housing unit every 30 minutes, but reportedly failed to do so on Friday night. It is not yet confirmed how that was allowed to happen either.

Continues...

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/jeffrey-epstein-dies-by-suicide-report.html

PS: Thanks for giving a damn, underpants.

PPS: Anyone still remember how the investigations into the Octopus — the nexus of the Iran Contra, BCCI, and the S&L scandals — took a different turn after Danny Casolaro was suicided? They fell off the radar PDQ.

[Mc Mike]

28. The repugs are vampires, live off the tears and suffering of children.

There's the ones who are sobbing because they lost their parents to mass shootings.

There's the ones who are sobbing because they lost their parents, when the government rounded them up for being 'illegal'.

There's the ones who are sobbing because the gov separated them from their asylum seeking parents, charging the parents with child trafficking.

And there's the ones who actually have been child trafficked by the repugs so they can criminally rape them. I bet they cried, too.

Repugs suck up all that terror and sadness. Nectar of the gods.

Doesn't seem to be making twitler any younger, though. He seems to be getting fatter, instead.

[Kid Berwyn]

32. Well stated. The cruelty must make the fascist stronger.

The United States under Trump not only ignores the sobs of CHILDREN, the nation now is a major cause of their tears. Lindsey of Leningrad even campaigns on taking away health insurance.

Were it not for the greedheads and racists, the GOP would be empty, apart from the child molesters.



Their life is Absolute Vampirism. Thank goodness no blood transfusion or stem cell implantation in Switzerland can trump Dorian Gray. The reality show makes clear ugly slices to the bone.

[Mc Mike]

35. Dorian Gray.

Playing golf, in a suit.

[Blue_Tires]

33. As with so many stories, all media left/center/right

Lost interest when they discovered after extensive digging that there was no smoking gun to bury the Clintons with... See Also: Panama Papers

[Kid Berwyn]

34. Nicholas Tartaglione doesn't sound Clintonish.

Epstein’s first cellmate, Tartaglione is an ex-police officer charged with quadruple homicide and drug trafficking.

Jeffrey Epstein feared cellmate, a muscle-bound ex-cop charged in murder who was moved before financier's death: report

By Nicole Darrah | Fox News, Aug. 12, 2019

A hulking ex-cop facing the death penalty on federal murder and drug charges was reportedly Jeffrey Epstein's cellmate at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center — and an official says Epstein might have feared the former police officer, who was questioned after the disgraced financier's apparent suicide attempt last month and who was transferred out of Epstein's cell shortly before the 66-year-old died early Saturday.

Nicholas Tartaglione, who'd been a Briarcliffe Manor cop in Westchester County, N.Y., was charged in 2016 with the deaths of four men stemming from an alleged cocaine drug conspiracy. Epstein was housed at the MCC federal lockup with the 51-year-old former cop after his July arrest for sex trafficking, Tartaglione's attorney told Fox News on Monday.

Tartaglione was transferred out of Epstein's cell in the facility's Special Housing Unit — a heavily secured part of the MCC that separates high-profile inmates from the general population — after Epstein was placed on suicide watch, Tartaglione's attorney, Bruce Barket, said. It was not clear why he was transferred.

The most recent inmate assigned to Epstein's cell was transferred on Friday, just hours before his death, a source said.

Continues...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/jeffrey-epstein-former-cellmate-apparent-suicide-attempt

I wonder why the Feds would lock up a 66-year old, short, skinny guy with a big body builder facing charges on capital crimes in the first place. I also wonder who was his second cellmate and why was he moved?