By Wayne Madsen and Andrew Kreig

A woman whom Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein allegedly sodomized and raped at the age of 12 along with at least one other underage girl at a midtown Manhattan townhouse in 1994 is alive and trying to maintain obscurity from alt-right operatives who have identified her and her current residence.

The Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) and Justice Integrity Project (JIP) are revealing here for the first time the story of “Maria,” who was identified as such in two 2016 federal civil lawsuits brought against Trump and Epstein by another underage victim of the pair, Katie Johnson (aka, "Jane Doe").

The product of a month-long investigation that took us to the site of the girl’s kidnapping in Waterbury, Connecticut, this information comes from confidential sources in multiple states. They have been pursuing the “Maria” story since the 1994 incident was first referenced in Johnson’s lawsuits. Johnson dropped the suit after she became the victim of physical threats by individuals who claimed to be Trump supporters, according to her account in court records.

The original tip came to WMR, which can report exclusively that a Waterbury girl, “Maria,” was the 12-year old alleged to have been a child rape victim of Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, shown at right. The crimes allegedly occurred at a midtown Manhattan mansion then owned by Epstein’s friend Les Wexner, a billionaire retailing mogul.

Maria was kidnapped on March 19, 1993, when she was 11-years old from the front of Nash’s Pizza in Waterbury. The girl's kidnappers were involved in a child trafficking ring that provided abductees to wealthy individuals like Trump and Epstein in Manhattan, according to our information.

Comprehensive 2019 Epstein, #MeToo coverage updated daily here.

July 2019 Update: Whitney Webb, writing for the Mint Press News, published a remarkably in-depth report congruent with this column's findings and making many larger links in Mint Press News, Government by Blackmail: Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s Mentor and the Dark Secrets of the Reagan Era (Part II), July 25, 2019.



Jan. 13 and Jan. 18, 2018 Updates: The Wall Street Journal reported (Trump Lawyer Arranged $130,000 Payment for Adult-Film Star’s Silence) a hush payment just before the 2016 election to porn actress Stormy Daniels to deny an alleged affair in 2006 with the married Trump. This 2016 time period was about the time that Katie Johnson withdrew her lawsuit. Among follow-ups, the New York Daily News published a cover story focused on an alleged comment Trump made referencing his daughter. Also, the Washington Post wrote, Why are we only now hearing of a porn star’s tale about Trump?

Regarding the 1993 kidnapping of Maria: The Waterbury Police Department has refused to provide us with a copy of the original police report on her abduction. It defers to Linda Wihbey, the city’s Corporation Counsel.

On December 12, 2017, Wihbey made her views known in a phone call with Andrew Kreig of JIP, as Wayne Madsen listened. She said that she was ready to “welcome us to Waterbury” until she decided that our investigation was “hostile” to her and Waterbury’s interests. These suffered greatly some 17 years ago over a high-profile pedophilia incident involving the city’s Republican mayor.

Waterbury’s stance emerged from our request for the 1993 police report on Maria’s abduction, including any relevant witness statements provided to the police.

The site of “Maria’s” kidnapping in 1993, then known as Nash’s Pizza restaurant, since relocated [WMR photo]

Things Seemed 'Strange'

Waterbury (shown in a photo via Wikimedia) reported 110,000 in population at the last census and is located 77 miles northeast of New York City.

In 1993, Maria lived with her mother and nine siblings in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in Waterbury, which is nicknamed “The Brass City” for its once-booming brass and clock factories. It is now suffering from urban blight, like many New England cities with abandoned factories.

Maria, whose father died in 1991, was reportedly abducted just moments after her mother entered the pizzeria while asking Maria to wait outside. The precise circumstances are among the secrets that police are withholding, thus limiting news coverage. The mother died in 2015.

One resident of the kidnapped girl's close-knit neighborhood told us that the circumstances always seemed strange to the family and neighbors, and yet almost no police or other interest has been apparent for many years. Our source also stated that Maria’s mother always felt that her daughter was alive and, at one time, was in New York City. Another source in Waterbury said that it was the belief by many neighborhood residents at the time of Maria’s abduction that she was kidnapped by a ring operating out of New York. “Those who took her [Maria] were not from Waterbury,” said one longtime Puerto Rican resident familiar with the case.

In the interest of responsible journalism, we are withholding Maria’s actual full name. A June 25, 2010 paper, titled “Protecting victims’ identities in press coverage of child victimization,” which was published by the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, spells out the concerns of releasing the identities of child sex victims without prior precautions being taken. The authors of the paper contend, “When the names of child victims and other identifying information appear in the media it can exacerbate trauma, complicate recovery, discourage future disclosures and inhibit cooperation with authorities for the children involved.”

Maria is still listed as a “missing person” by the Waterbury Police Department. The police missing person notification states that Maria was last seen at the corner of Walnut Street and Walnut Avenue at Nash’s Pizza. It adds that the girl “was 11-years-old when she went missing.”

Here is a development that proved startling in Maria’s neighborhood, including to at least one family member: She is alive.

Maria has been avoiding any public limelight since the Trump Organization discovered her actual identity, according to our sources. During the 2016 presidential campaign, there was some interest in the Maria story by major corporate media outlets, but they were intimidated by Trump Organization legal threats.

The incident helps illustrate the institutional cowardice and greed of many of the major news organizations and the danger that unprotected whistleblower/victims face when they share their stories with such journalists. Although the initial reporters and producers are usually very well-intentioned they work for conglomerates whose top executives realize that it’s typically safer not to antagonize the power structure.

That would be in this case a litigious billionaire Trump, who now influences, if not controls, a vast “law enforcement,” national security and broadcast federal regulatory apparatus.

The federal government delivers (or withholds) merger and tax approvals, for example, scrutiny over a host of other legal and regulatory issues, plus discretionary grants that can be vital to local authorities, particularly those with financial struggles like Waterbury. Beyond that, monied interests in the power structure have fostered private goons and trolls — sometimes equipped with the trappings of legitimate law enforcement or journalism — who can seek out whistleblowers, victims and reporters alike to set them up for vicious legal or extra-legal reprisals.

In the case of Katie Johnson, she alleged in lawsuits filed in federal courts first in California and then in New York that Trump knew that she was 13-years old when he assaulted and raped her in 1993. Johnson said that it was Trump who initiated contact with her at four different parties at Epstein's residence in Manhattan. The mansion, shown below in a photo via Google Maps, was owned by the billionaire retailing magnate Les Wexner, who controls such companies as Victoria’s Secret.

Here is Johnson’s account, taken from her most recent lawsuit filed in Manhattan’s federal court:

She said that she was inveigled into the “party” scene after she was approached by an Epstein party “recruiter” while she was at the New York-New Jersey Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street in Manhattan. The recruiter suggested that she might become a model if she met the right people at a fashionable party. That was a typical approach used by Epstein’s recruiters, who leveraged his high-level contacts with fashion, modeling, photography, travel, political and entertainment figures to entice girls, tweens and teens, according to court records.

The Johnson lawsuit states that at their fourth encounter at an Epstein party: "Defendant Trump tied Plaintiff to a bed, exposed himself to Plaintiff, and then proceeded to forcibly rape Plaintiff. During the course of this savage sexual attack, Plaintiff loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to stop but with no effect. Defendant Trump responded to Plaintiff’s pleas by violently striking Plaintiff in the face with his open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted."

Johnson (shown in a screenshot with her face obscured) claimed that at two parties Epstein raped her once after she had been raped by Trump. During the second encounter with Epstein, Johnson stated that Epstein raped her "anally and vaginally despite her loud pleas to stop." She stated that Epstein attempted to strike her on the head "with his closed fists," while he angrily screamed that he [Epstein], rather than Trump, should have been the one who took the girl's virginity.

According to the suit, Trump told Johnson that if she ever revealed the sexual encounter with Trump, the girl and her family would be "physically harmed if not killed." Johnson also stated that Epstein periodically reiterated to her Trump's earlier threat that if she were to "reveal any of the details of his sexual and physical abuse of her or else," she and her family would be "seriously physically harmed, if not killed."

Trump Fights Back: All 'Lies' and Fake News, He Says

Trump and his representatives have repeatedly insisted that any woman who alleges that he harassed or sexually assaulted her is lying. The Washington Post, among other outlets, reported that stance in All of the women who have accused Trump of sexual harassment are lying, the White House says, a story published on Oct. 26, 2017.

After filing her first complaint against Epstein and Trump in California on April 26, 2016, Johnson said that she began receiving threatening phone calls on her cell phone from blocked numbers. She refiled in New York. A courtroom hearing was scheduled for mid-December 2016 in federal court for the Southern District of Manhattan. U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams [pictured at right] said that she was requiring Epstein and Trump to appear before her in the Johnson lawsuit, an unusual requirement for a pre-trial hearing, especially in a civil case. Because of the threats, Johnson pulled her lawsuit just prior to the 2016 presidential election and no hearing occurred.

There are many pundits who will say from their comfortable perches that the withdrawal of this and similar lawsuits means there is nothing further to examine, especially if any flaw can be found or alleged involving the personality of a plaintiff, the supporting witnesses or lawyers. But that blame-the-victim conventional wisdom is being upended by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements — and is especially wrong-headed in this case for several important reasons.

First, there is substantial evidence that Epstein and Trump are notorious sexual predators and billionaire litigants who use threats and the legal system to their advantage. Epstein is a convicted pedophile who targeted junior high and high school girls, as described below. Epstein was required to register as a convicted sex offender [pictured at left]. Trump has long been notorious as a lecher, telling ABC’s “The View” in 2006, “I've said if Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her."

More recently in November, The Washington Post published in “President Trump and accusations of sexual misconduct: The complete list extensive details of thirteen women (not including those alleging crimes only on social media or those like Katie Johnson who had withdrawn lawsuits) making accusations against him, along with names and details of corroborating witnesses. Wikipedia, under a heading Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations, lists 15 claims as of this writing.

After underage sexual abuse allegations began surfacing during the failed campaign of GOP Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, Ivanka Trump (shown on her Twitter portrait) said of Moore, “there’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children. She added, “I’ve yet to see a valid explanation and I have no reason to doubt the victims’ account.” Bannon, who supported Moore’s campaign, replied to Trump’s daughter in a December 2017 interview with Vanity Fair, “What about the allegations about her dad and that 13-year-old?” Bannon was referring, of course, to Katie Johnson.

Second, the vulnerability of sex abuse victims in their early teens from poor families requires special attention. Nowhere is that more poignant than in the case of the girl “Maria.” Police reports say that she was kidnapped at age 11 from her own neighborhood and, to all outward appearances, then disappeared off the face of the earth. In sum, the track record and power of these two particular defendants requires a deeper look at the allegations, particularly in light of the lessons learned from the #MeToo harassment and assault revelations this past fall regarding other powerful predators.

A Deeper Look

So, we return to the allegations in the “Jane Doe” (aka Katie Johnson) lawsuit despite the practice of pundits, lawyers, trolls, fanatics and thugs, many well-paid or fanatically ideological, using their varied skills to claim that there’s nothing to see or know. You be the judge, based on these lawsuit claims:

On July 23, 2016, "Joan Doe," a classmate of Johnson during the 1994-1995 school year, signed an affidavit avowing that Johnson had told her during the summer of 1994 about the sexual assaults by Epstein and Trump.

Another witness, “Tiffany Doe,” signed an affidavit in support of Johnson's suit on June 18, 2016. Tiffany Doe stated that she had been hired in 1990 by Epstein when she was 22 to "provide entertainment" for his various "guests." She further stated that Epstein hired her in 1991 as a "party planner" to, among other duties, entice "attractive adolescent women" to attend Epstein's parties. Tiffany Doe stated that she personally witnessed Trump's sexual assault and rape of Johnson during four encounters.

Johnson also stated in the suit that Trump told her that she "shouldn’t ever say anything if she didn’t want to disappear like Maria, a 12-year-old female that was forced to be involved in the third incident" with Trump. Johnson said she had not seen “Maria” after the third sexual encounter with Trump. Tiffany Doe said that she witnessed Johnson and 12-year old “Maria” perform oral sex on Trump.

Vendetta Against Puerto Rico?

There’s a larger story here. Trump's psychopathy of disinterest in Puerto Rico and its post-Hurricane Maria problems may stem in part from Maria's roots in Puerto Rico. Trump’s addled ego may have reacted when Puerto Rico was struck by Hurricane Maria. It could well have reminded him that a victim whom he knew as Maria knows details that could very well bring down him and his administration.

The Trump administration’s extreme disinterest in Puerto Rico’s recovery — especially in comparison to post-hurricane rescue efforts for continental U.S. sites this fall — has been reported by many news organizations, including last week, for example, in After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico Faces Indifference. The national media reported it visually by showing his contemptuous hurling of paper towels to Islanders at a photo op soon after the disaster.

Waterbury's Secrets

In terms of solving the 1993 kidnapping, Waterbury Corporate Counsel Wihbey did reveal to us that about four or five years ago — she said “around 2012 or 2013” — there was some interest by “law enforcement” and “a few journalists” in the Maria missing person police report from 1993. Wihbey told us that the case remains under “active” investigation even though it has been a dormant “cold case” for several years. Originally, spokespersons for Waterbury Police Chief Vernon Riddick Jr. expressed no real opposition to releasing the police report, claiming that all that was needed was the chief’s concurrence.

Wihbey is pictured above at a Connecticut Freedom of Information hearing defending Waterbury’s insistence on retaining secret documents in another matter. It involved the details of a largely secret arrangement whereby Waterbury taxpayers paid former Republican Connecticut governor and ex-con John Rowland, a former Waterbury state assemblyman and congressman after he had been imprisoned on a federal political corruption charge in 2004.

Waterbury’s Democratic Mayor Neil O’Leary may continue to have good reason to be concerned about public interest in the abduction of Maria to provide sex for pedophiles like Trump and Epstein in New York.

Waterbury Mayor Neil O'Leary, center, was a witness in a high-profile Freedom of Information complaint in 2013 by Connecticut journalist and author Andy Thibault, right.

O’Leary was the Waterbury police chief (as shown below) when now-imprisoned Republican Mayor Phil Giordano (nicknamed “Pedo Phil”) was arrested by the FBI as part of their investigation of payoffs to the mayor by Mafia building contractors. During court-authorized wiretaps of Giordano’s phones, the FBI became aware that the mayor was paying a female Puerto Rican prostitute named Guitana (“Gigi”) Jones for sex with her 10-year old niece and 8-year old daughter. Giordano and Rowland were once close political allies and Rowland’s cozy relationship with Mayor O’Leary has raised eyebrows in Connecticut.

Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, center, a former Waterbury assemblyman later imprisoned on corruption charges, and then Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano, at right, meet in October 2000 at the exclusive Burning Tree Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

According to federal court records: The trysts between Mayor Giordano and the children took place over nine months in 2000 and 2001 in the mayor’s office, his official car, his home, a friend’s home, and his private law office. Giordano paid Jones $40 to $60 per visit. Giordano made special requests for the two girls on days when he knew they were off from school.

During 2000, Giordano, a former U.S. Marine and state assemblyman representing Waterbury, was the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate against then-Democrat Joe Lieberman. Giordano, married to an attractive heiress, also made no secret of his desire to become the vice president of the United States. In 2003, Giordano was sentenced to 37 years in a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona after his conviction of violating the civil rights of the two female children, using interstate devices (cellphones) to arrange the meetings, and conspiring with Jones to supply the children for sexual purposes.

Mafia Connections

It is not known how long Giordano [pictured above right in police mug shot] was using his mayoralty and other political influence to arrange for sexual encounters with girls. In 1993, when Maria was abducted, Giordano had been a Republican state representative for Waterbury. Giordano’s mob-linked friend, Joseph Pontoriero, owner of Worth Construction Company, Inc. of Bethel, Connecticut, was also tied to a Mafia syndicate’s numerous concrete-pouring construction contracts in Manhattan and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Pontoriero provided Giordano with $8,300 in designer clothing and a $12,000 loan for a minivan in return for Waterbury contracting favors, federal authorities showed.

Trump's Genius

According to several major biographies, Trump grew his businesses while maintaining relationships with Mafia chieftains Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno (shown at right), the Genovese family crime underboss, and Paul Castellano, chief of the Gambino family. The Genovese and Gambino organizations, named after leaders in their heyday, have historically been the most powerful and dangerous of the New York City metro region’s five Mafia families. The construction firms they controlled, including S & A Concrete, poured concrete for Manhattan’s Trump Tower, Trump Plaza, and other Trump building projects in New York and Atlantic City. Trump’s Atlantic City construction projects also involved Philadelphia and South Jersey Mafia chief Nick “Little Nicky” Scarfo, who was regarded as vengeful and murderous at a level reaching psychotic proportion.

Trump’s association with Mafia bosses resulted from intermediary services provided by the infamous mobbed-up lawyer Roy Cohn (shown at left), someone also known for his prurient sexual interests involving young men. Cohn, who represented leaders in both the Genovese and Gambino mobs, died in 1986 from complications from AIDS. Before that, however, as Trump’s business attorney, friend and mentor, Cohn made the right “introductions” for Trump in the organized crime underground of the New York City area, including Connecticut.

It is very likely that Trump’s focus on girls and young women involved compromising him with “favors” that were provided by mob elements in New York and elsewhere, such as Waterbury. And, considering Waterbury’s current obfuscation on providing official information on Maria’s abduction and Giordano’s mob ties and pedophile problems, concerned citizens might reasonably demand answers regarding basic information about the kidnapped girl — as well as how those secrets relate to the city’s troubled past and current politics.

In Waterbury, federal authorities broke up the massive corruption scheme and documented Giordano’s compulsive sex obsession with teens and pre-teens. Meanwhile, Waterbury authorities apparently proceeded in an oblivious manner that, in the most charitable interpretation, resembled the acumen of Inspector Clouseau in the movies.

Eventually, the Italian Mafia would introduce Trump to the even more nefarious Russian Jewish mob, which was nestled around Brighton Beach, also known as “Little Odessa,” in Brooklyn.

WMR has reported extensively that it was from these quarters that Trump would be introduced to the money-laundering services of shady Eastern European gangsters. These included Felix Sater, David Bogatin, Vyachelsav Ivankov, and the most dangerous mobster of them all —Semion Mogilevich. These mobsters specialized in not only money laundering, but the other big threat to Trump’s presidency — sex trafficking, including of underage girls. WMR's findings are summarized in a visual relationship chart of "Trump-Kushner-Sater-Manafort Global Syndicate Road Map" showing persons and entities that was first published last spring and is updated.

Helping to confirm the importance of this illicit network was former Trump Chief Strategist Steven Bannon’s remark quoted by author Michael Wolff in the Fire and Fury best-seller that Trump and his associates are highly vulnerable to money laundering charges in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe.

Epstein’s “Lolita Express”

Trump’s pedophile problems also extend to his Mar-a-Lago private estate and club in Palm Beach, Florida. In 2005, when a Florida mother accused Trump’s “good friend” Epstein with having her underage daughter “Mary” strip down and “massage” Epstein for $300, a barrage of subsequent civil lawsuits was brought against the billionaire investor, who started out his career as a seventh-grade teacher at the exclusive Dalton School in Manhattan from 1973 to 1975.

In a 2002 interview with New York Magazine, Trump said of his friend Epstein, “I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Trump’s 15-year relationship with Epstein put the alleged rapes of Katie Johnson and Maria well within the timeframe of their friendship.

Palm Beach police detectives led by Det. Joe Recarey and the FBI built up a criminal case against Epstein that soon involved over 100 “Jane Does” who accused the Palm Beach resident Epstein, a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, with sexual assault.

One victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, claimed that she was 15 when Epstein’s chief procurer of young girls, Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late newspaper press lord and Mossad operative Robert Maxwell, recruited her into “service” while she was a towel girl at Mar-a-Lago.

Giuffre said that the adjoining photo of her with Maxwell and Prince Andrew of Britain's royal family when she was 17 illustrates the time when she was being trafficked. Epstein, Maxwell and Buckingham Palace denied improprieties, and Giuffre settled a lawsuit against Epstein.,

Some of the girls were 14-years-old at the time of Epstein’s alleged assaults at these venues: his Palm Beach El Brillo Way mansion (which is just a mile away from Mar-a-Lago), Epstein’s private Little Saint James Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, his private Boeing 737, and his huge ranch in New Mexico. The other “Jane Does” in the civil cases against Epstein were identified in court documents with the initials of "L.M.," "E.W.," and "M.J."

The Sweetheart Deal Protecting Pervert Pedophiles



Under the Bush administration, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta (shown at right), arranged a sweetheart plea deal for Epstein, who pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution. The billionaire pervert served merely 13 months of a nighttime-only sentence in a minimum-security wing of the Palm Beach County prison for his felony guilty plea of soliciting prostitution from a minor. The New York Post reported (Massage Maven out of prison) that Epstein was permitted to have a mistress whom Epstein had described as his "sex slave" visit him in jail 67 times.

Most shocking, Epstein was spared from any further Florida or federal charges. The non-prosecution agreement was approved by Acosta in coordination with Epstein’s high-powered legal team, which included Florida attorneys Jack Goldberger and Roy Black, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz and former President Clinton's Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who was dean of Pepperdine School of Law beginning in 2004.

And, in yet another free ride for those VIPs who were present at Epstein’s orgies with underage girls, Acosta’s plea deal stipulated that neither Florida nor the federal government would charge anyone else for having sex with underage females. Normally, sweetheart plea deals are to encourage small fry to rat out higher-ups, not to protect everyone except one miscreant receiving a slap on the wrists.

The honest police in West Palm Beach were so outraged by the sellout that they risked firing by anonymously posting on the web details (redacted to remove names) of the shocking specifics of Epstein’s crimes against the girls, who were primarily of junior high and high school age. WMR has inspected the court record in criminal and civil cases, and identified 104 separate “Jane Doe” victims of Epstein and his ring in one case alone.

Ironies abound. Clinton and Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom's royal family were among Epstein's social circles. The former president while involved with Clinton Foundation activitiestook many documented flights on Epstein's luxury airplane, although no abuse claims have yet surfaced against him. Starr (shown in a portrait) would go on to become chancellor of Baylor University, where he would intone on the importance of moral instruction for college students, as we reported in the 2015 column Moralist Ken Starr Explains His Help For Billionaire Pervert Jeffrey Epstein. However, a massive sex scandal in football player recruitment, whereby students reported being raped after serving as hostesses for prospective student athletes, festered under his nose and would ultimately cost him his job,

Trump ultimately rewarded Acosta for his “deal” with Epstein by nominating him last year to become U.S. Secretary of Labor. Acosta was approved on a near-party line vote. Most Democrats were too timid to grill him on the Epstein plea deal. Republicans touted his Hispanic and “law enforcement” backgrounds. From this Trump post where Acosta serves as the supposed watchdog over the employment rights of workers, the Labor Secretary continues to serve as an ostensibly decent public servant and rare minority face in the Trump cabinet.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, with his hand on a Bible and surrounded by family members, is sworn into office by Vice President Michael Pence last year.

What's Next?

Let's think about the high stakes involved and the apparent lack of sustained scrutiny and public disclosure despite the #MeToo movment.

In this instance, the trail of Trump’s and Epstein’s pedophile sexual assaults on young girls is a long one. It extends from the greater Palm Beach area in Florida to Manhattan and, we believe, at least as far north as Waterbury, Connecticut. In most instances, substantial evidence points to law enforcement investigations that have been stymied by government cover-ups, witness intimidation, and monetary pay-offs to victims.

And now there are two new factors: One is an array of zealots, trolls and thugs determined to attack vulnerable victims, particularly to protect President Trump, the leader of their alt-right movement. Also, we see that an entire U.S. territory, Puerto Rico, is suffering from continued storm damage, loss of life and lack of normal federal rescue efforts — and perhaps it's at least in part because an addled but vengeful Trump conflates a 12-year old Puerto Rican girl whom he knew as Maria with the devastating hurricane of the same name.

To be continued…

Editor's note: The column above was updated in several respects, including a corrected date of Maria's abduction, which was on March 19, 1993, not the date of March 20 originally listed in one official report.

Updated Coverage:

Justice Integrity Project, Trump’s multiple sex scandals endanger U.S. national security, Andrew Kreig and Wayne Madsen, Jan. 24, 2018. Recent claims that Donald Trump paid hush money before the 2016 election to porn star Stormy Daniels to cover up a 2006 affair underscore far more sinister events.

Such a payoff would show not simply Trump’s low morals and high arrogance — but also his propensity for outright crime in ways potentially damaging to the United States and many of its residents.

These grim possibilities are especially relevant to our recent exposé “Welcome to Waterbury,” which drew on 2016 lawsuit allegations that Trump and his billionaire friend Jeffrey Epstein in 1993 raped “Maria,” age 12, and “Jane Doe,” age 13, also known as Katie Johnson, in a New York City luxury townhouse then being used by Epstein).

The Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) (and concurrently at Justice Integrity Project), New information emerges in "Maria" story, Wayne Madsen and Andrew Kreig, Feb. 15, 2018. New information has emerged in the joint WMR/Justice Integrity Project investigation of the "Maria" case. As we previously reported, Katie Johnson alleged in federal law suits that Donald Trump and his friend, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, raped her, when she was 13, and a 12-year old girl — only identified as "Maria" — in New York in 1994. Our investigation discovered that Maria, 11 years of age at the time, was abducted from Waterbury, Connecticut in March 1993.

Contact the authors This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

JIP Editor's Note On Additional Research, Resources

The non-partisan Justice Integrity Project (JIP) and the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) each have exposed wrongdoing by prominent leaders of both major U.S. political parties and their administrations.

Here are inks to sections on the JIP website showing official probes of the Trump Administration and also a #MeToo section of noteworthy harassment, assault and blackmail/extortion news stories. Each section includes original reports by JIP at right, plus at left a separate archive of other major U.S. stories and commentaries since Jan. 1, 2018.

Immediately below that are releveant Trump-Epstein-related columns from the subscription-only WMR website, which are excerpted here with permission. Below that is a section of additional materials about allegations regarding Trump and Epstein, as well as the City of Waterbury. The excerpted materials contain only some of the trove of materials between 2018 and 2020. Most are in this site's aforementioned #MeToo section.

Excerpted immediately below is an OpEdNews treatment of a 2020 conference whereby Madsen described how he went from a U.S. Navy officer to a whistleblower because his commanding officer was engaged in trafficking underage victims, in part with the complicity of high profile officials in what would ultimately be exposed as part of a pattern exposed years later in the Epstein scandal.

Aug. 1



"You never volunteer to be a whistleblower; it falls into your lap."

-- Wayne Madsen

OpEdNews, 2020 Annual Whistleblower Summit Features "Telling Stories Almost Too Big to Hear," Marta Steele, Aug. 1, 2020. This year's annual Whistleblower Summit, held on Zoom in combination with a dynamic film festival, featured a world-class panel, "Telling Stories Almost Too Big to Hear," organized by the well-known activist and attorney Andrew Kreig,

The four panelists, all expert whistleblowers who have spoken truth to power, included Charlotte Dennett, author of The Crash of Flight 3804 (shown above), the story of her investigations into the death of her father in a 1947 plane crash en route to report on his work investigating the huge oil industries in the Middle East.

Wayne Madsen, left, author of 18 books and master investigative reporter, began this segment of his career with "an A to Z encyclopedia of covert groups focused on the most sensitive issues on Earth, encompassing the intelligence backgrounds of U.S. politicians and judges before they were elected to office."

Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, right, told his story of a meteoric career up the political ranks in the bright red state of Alabama despite his extremely progressive background and how Karl Rove and his cronies stepped in to ruin him even as he was being short-listed as a Democratic candidate for president in the 2004 general election. He has recently published an amazing memoir, Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation.

Dr. William Pepper, a close associate of both Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. (with whom he is shown below) in the 1960s, told an amazing life story of investigating the assassinations of both, risking his life in the process.

WMR Column, Follow-ups On 'Welcome To Waterbury' Above

2020

July

July 30

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Investigative commentary: Formerly sealed documents in Maxwell-Epstein case ordered released, Wayne Madsen, July 30, 2020. Judge Loretta Preska of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ordered released of sealed documents from a 2016 defamation lawsuit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, the now-indicted former assistant to international underage female sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Although the civil case was settled in 2017 it generated a number of documents, including emails, as well as depositions by Giuffre and other abuse victims. Maxwell sought to block the release of the sealed documents on the grounds that they would embarrass her. Judge Preska ruled, "the court finds any minor embarrassment or annoyance resulting from Ms. Maxwell's mostly non-testimony ... is far outweighed by the presumption of public access."

The sealed documents reportedly provide additional details concerning the activities of Epstein; Maxwell; and Jean-Luc Brunel, right, the French owner of two Epstein-financed modeling agencies, Karin Models and MC2 Model Management. Brunel is the subject of an international criminal investigation involving the FBI and French National Police. Brunel has not been seen in public since the suspicious Manhattan jail cell death of Epstein in August 2019. Brunel was named in Giuffre's lawsuit against Maxwell. Giuffre said Epstein had bragged to her in claiming that he had slept with over 1,000 of "Brunel's girls."

In 1989, Brunel and his brother, Arnaud Brunel, founded the Next Management Company modeling agency, a subsidiary of the Next Management Corporation, which was founded the previous year as a New York corporation.

The individual listed as the New York Department of State process or agent for the Next Management Corporation is none other than Steven Mnuchin, Donald Trump's Secretary of Treasury. Mnuchin, in typical Trump administration fashion, has denied knowing that he was the agent for the Brunel brothers' company or even having ever met either of the Brunels. However, WMR conducted a search of the New York Department of State (DOS) corporation filings and discovered Mnuchin listed as the DOS Process for not only Next Management Corporation but its follow-on identity, Next Time Corporation. Mnuchin cannot honestly claim he had no knowledge of a business relationship with the Brunels that spanned at least a decade.

July 20

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Trump's dirty secrets closet slowly opening, Wayne Madsen, July 20, 2020. The more one peers into Donald Trump's closet of past and present relationships, the more one discovers that Trump's association with the late pedophile and investor Jeffery Epstein and his consort, Ghislaine Maxwell, went beyond the mere social and involved shady business operations.

July 17

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Investigation: The Goya Foods-Jeffrey Epstein-Donald Trump connection? Wayne Madsen, left, July 17, 2020. While government ethics experts railed against Ivanka Trump and her father, The Donald, shamelessly tweeting endorsements for Goya Foods, the media missed the confluence that exists between Goya Foods and Mr. Trump's one-time partner in sodomizing underage girls, the late Jeffrey Epstein.

On July 10, at a White House event, Goya Foods chairman Robert Unanue heaped praise on Trump. That, in turn, resulted in Trump and his daughter using the taxpayers' money to tweet product endorsements for Goya Foods in exchange for Unanue's pro-Trump comments.

On July 14, Ivanka tweeted a photograph of her holding up a can of Goya black beans, with the bi-lingual comment, "If it’s Goya, it has to be good. Si es Goya, tiene que ser bueno." (Excerpted from full investigative column.)

There's more, much more hidden among the relationships....

2018

June 20

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Investigation / Commentary: Trump is a serial child abuser; efforts to force him to stop are ineffective, Wayne Madsen (shown at left), June 20, 2018 (subscription required). Wayne Madsen is an investigative reporter, syndicated columnist, author and former Navy intelligence officer once temporarily deputized by the FBI to help investigate pedophilia by a fellow Navy officer.

Court filings and witness accounts show that Donald Trump is nothing more than a serial child abuser. This antipathy toward children has taken on many forms over the decades and it includes mental, physical, and, in some cases, sexual abuse.

Jan. 9

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Welcome to Waterbury: The city that holds secrets that could bring down Trump, Wayne Madsen and Andrew Kreig, Jan. 9, 2018 (Reprinted above with permission). A woman who was allegedly sodomized and raped at the age of 12 along with at least one other underage girl by Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at Epstein’s midtown Manhattan townhouse in 1993 is alive and trying to maintain obscurity from alt-right operatives who have identified her and her current residence.

Jan. 11

Down With Tyranny, Welcome To Waterbury: The City That Holds Secrets That Could Bring Down Trump, Guest post by Andrew Kreig and Wayne Madsen, Jan. 11, 2018 (republished)

Jan. 16

American Freedom Radio, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, interview of Wayne Madsen and Andrew Kreig by Pearse Redmond, host of the Porkins Policy Review and an expert on the Epstein pedophilia case and its larger importance, Jan. 16, 2018 (120 mins.).

BBS Radio / John Barbour's World Radio Show, Implications of 'Welcome To Waterbury' Scandal, Host John Barbour, Jan. 22, 2018. Film maker and five-time Emmy Award winner John Barbour (shown at right), creator and co-star of the nation's top-rated prime time television show Real People in the 1970s, interviews authors Wayne Madsen and Andrew Kreig about their story about Donald Trump.

Earlier WMR Alerts On Trump, Epstein, Pedophiles, 'Fake News'

Investigative reporter Wayne Madsen (shown at left) is a widely published journalist and author. He edits the Wayne Madsen Report, appears frequently as a broadcast commentator, and has published 15 books. Previously, he worked 14 years as a Navy Intelligence officer, including a year as an NSA analyst. He later worked as chief scientist with a major defense contractor and as a privacy expert at a think tank. When Madsen was in the Navy, the FBI named him to be a temporary special FBI agent to help follow up his tip that his commanding officer, later imprisoned, was sexually assaulting underage victims.

In 2006, he published a three-part series on the WMR website revealing for the first time that then-U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, shown at right, was a gay pedophile who had assaulted students as a high school wrestling coach before being forced out and campaigning in Illinois as a Republican advocate of family values. A decade later, Hastert, the longest-serving GOP speaker in U.S. history, was federally indicted and then imprisoned on federal charges arising from cover-up money that he was paying to hide those assaults.

Madsen has written many such reports on the WMR site naming names to document how powerful entities use pedophilia and other hidden sex scandals to install, blackmail or otherwise influence high-ranking government officials.

2017

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Trump has the real "Pizzagate" scandal on his tiny hands, Wayne Madsen, Dec. 18, 2017. (Subscription required; excerpted with permission.)

On December 15, Donald Trump, Jr. raised eyebrows when he "liked" a tweet sent by far-right conspiracy monger Mike Cernovich citing a New York Times op-ed calling pedophilia a mental illness and not a crime. The 2014 article was written by Rutgers University Assistant Law Professor Margo Kaplan.

Kaplan argued in her op-ed that "about half of all child molesters are not sexually attracted to their victims." That argument might have some merit if half of the children assaulted by pedophiles did not experience some form of sexual abuse. However, that is far from the case. Pedophiles attracted to children are not merely taking them to baseball games, county fairs, or the movies.

Cernovich's and Trump Jr.'s endorsement of pedophilia as a mental disorder rather than criminal predation by adults on children came after the revelations that Alabama GOP failed Senate candidate Roy Moore had been charged by several women claiming the disgraced former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice had sexually harassed them when they were in their teens.

Cernovich's defense of pedophilia is all the more ironic since it was Cernovich who helped concoct and disseminate a libelous false story about Hillary Clinton, two pizza restaurants in Washington, DC, and former White House chief of staff John Podesta being involved in a child trafficking ring involving pizzerias, pizza-oriented code words, and child torture chambers. After the fake story was amplified by the lunatic rantings of nutrition supplement salesman Alex Jones, Edgar Welch, a 28-year old man from North Carolina, shot up Comet Ping Pong in northwest Washington with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Welch believed that children were being held and tortured in the basement of the pizza restaurant, even though there is no basement. The accusations against Comet Pizza and another nearby pizzeria were groundless and they resulted in an on-air and written retraction by Jones.

It appears that Cernovich's idea for the pizza story was derived, in part, from his cousin's Cerno's 1898 pizza restaurant in Kewanee, Illinois. However, the phony story about pizzerias and pedophilia has another, much more sinister, beginning....

April 24

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), It's Trump that has the real "Pizzagate" problem, Wayne Madsen, April 24, 2017. During the 2016 presidential campaign, disreputable websites attempted to tie Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff to a fantasy tale about a network of pedophiles who trafficked in child sex slaves using, of all things, pizzerias. Members of Donald Trump's inner circle trafficked in the "Pizzagate" myth using such social media networks as Twitter.

Although there was absolutely nothing to the tale of pizzerias and pedophiles, an actual network of pedophiles in the Trump campaign has emerged.

The Trump campaign pedophile story begins on March 9, 2017, with Oklahoma Republican state senator Ralph Shortey checking into a Super 8 Motel in Moore,

Oklahoma. Shortey was not alone. Entering the room with him at 12:30 am was a 17-year old teenage boy. Shortey was arrested and charged with three felonies: engaging in child prostitution, engaging in prostitution within 1000 feet of a church, and transporting a minor for prostitution.

Shortey, a six-year veteran of the state senate, resigned after his arrest. Shortey was the chairman of the Trump campaign in Oklahoma and was chief among Trump's campaign officials in the state to organize Trump's appearance at the Oklahoma State Fair. Police were tipped off about Shortey and the boy by a relative requesting a "welfare check" on the minor.

After the police "got Shortey," the Republican Party tried to remove the photographs and postings from Facebook and Twitter, but to no avail. The Internet never forgets.

Feb. 17

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Labor pick Acosta part of Epstein-Trump underage sex crime cover-up, Feb. 17, 2017. Alexander Acosta, President Trump's pick to replace failed nominee Andrew Puzder as Labor Secretary, has his own political baggage stemming from his actions as U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida in the sweetheart plea deal involving billionaire pederast Jeffrey Epstein.

Feb. 8

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Trump's Jane, Tiffany, and Joan Doe problem, Wayne Madsen (shown in a screeshot from a TV appearance), Feb. 8, 2017. President Trump has a problem hanging over his head. During the presidential campaign, Trump and his phalanx of attorneys pressured a California woman to drop her lawsuit against Trump and convicted Palm Beach, Florida pederast Jeffrey Epstein for sexually assaulting her when she was 13 years old.

Child-Trafficking, Abuse (General News, Commentary)

National Human Trafficking Awareness Day is observed annually on January 11. Beginning in 2010, by Presidential Proclamation, each January has been designated National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Following the start of National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, with the help of non-government organizations, National Human Trafficking Day began and is observed annually on January 11.

Jan. 19

Washington Post, In this #MeToo, moment, let’s not forget abused children, Adam Rosenberg and Joyce Lombardi, Jan. 19, 2018. In this #MeToo and #TimesUp moment, just as we’ve been shocked by the abuse, we are also disturbed by the enablers, the seemingly good people who either knew or strongly suspected that something foul was afoot but chose not to act.

It is utterly human for otherwise good people to look away and to give themselves a dozen reasons (such as disbelief and self-interest) for doing so. This is especially true — and damaging — in cases of child abuse. Unfortunately, predators do not stop until they have to. And that is precisely why every state requires adults, especially front-line workers such as teachers and nurses, to report suspected child abuse.

Even when they don’t want to.

Adam Rosenberg is executive director of the Baltimore Child Abuse Center. Joyce Lombardi is director of government relations and legal services at the Baltimore Child Abuse Center.

Huffington Post, Dylan Farrow: Woody Allen Sexually Abused Me While I Played With Toys, Hayley Miller, Jan. 18, 2018. The filmmaker’s adopted daughter leveled molestation allegations in her first TV interview. Dylan Farrow is opening up about what she says was sexual abuse by her adoptive father, filmmaker Woody Allen, when she was 7 years old.

In her first TV interview, Farrow, 32, alleged Allen sexually assaulted her in the Connecticut home of actress Mia Farrow, her adoptive mother.

“I was taken to a small attic crawl space,” Farrow said in an interview with “CBS This Morning” that aired Thursday. “He instructed me to lay down on my stomach and play with my brother’s toy train that was set up, and he sat behind me in the doorway. And, as I played with the toy train, I was sexually assaulted.”

She continued: “As 7-year-old, I would say he touched my private parts. As a 32-year-old, he touched my labia and my vulva with his finger.” Allen has denied the allegation.

Other Trump-Related Coverage, News Sources (Latest at top)

2020

July 31

Washington Post, Epstein accuser alleged in newly unsealed deposition that Ghislaine Maxwell was his partner in abuse, Rosalind S. Helderman and Shayna Jacobs, July 31, 2020. Maxwell, a longtime companion of the now-deceased financier, has called accuser Virginia Giuffre a liar. A woman who has accused deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein of years-long abuse that began when she was a teenager alleged in a newly unsealed deposition that his former partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, was both his chief accomplice and a participant in the sexual abuse.

Maxwell, who was arrested earlier this month and charged with trafficking minors, had fought unsuccessfully to keep the court documents under seal. She has pleaded not guilty.

The unsealed court documents stem from a defamation suit she settled for an undisclosed sum in 2017 with the woman, Virginia Giuffre, who has alleged that she was forced to have sex with Epstein and his friends. She has claimed that Maxwell recruited her to serve as a traveling masseuse for Epstein after spotting her working a summer job as a locker room attendant 20 years ago at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private estate.

Ghislaine Maxwell, right, with the United Kingdom's Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts (married name Giuffre, a former Mar-a-Lago towel girl), center, in 2001.

Giuffre’s deposition was among several hundred pages of records unsealed by judicial order late Thursday.

In her testimony, which she gave in 2016, Giuffre describes Maxwell and Epstein as a toxic team that repeatedly exploited her, emphasizing that Maxwell “brought me in for the purpose of being trafficked.”

“You have to understand that [Epstein] and [Maxwell] are joined at the hip, okay?” Giuffre said, when asked about who Maxwell sent her to for sex.

“Jeffrey was just as a part of it as she was,” Giuffre said. “[Maxwell] was just as a part of it as he was.”

At another point, she said of Maxwell: “She’s the one who abused me on a regular basis. She’s the one that procured me, told me what to do, trained me as a sex slave, abused me physically, abused me mentally. She’s the one who I believe, in my heart of hearts, deserves to come forward and have justice happen to her more than anybody. Being a woman, it’s disgusting.”

Maxwell, the daughter of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell, has denied her claims.

“Virginia is an absolute liar and everything she has said is a lie,” she said in a 2016 deposition. “Therefore, based on those lies I cannot speculate on what anybody else did or didn’t do … everything she said is false.”

The unsealed documents also included emails exchanged between Epstein and Maxwell in January 2015. The timing of the missives appear to contradict a claim from her lawyers earlier this month, who in seeking to have released from jail on bond, told a judge that she’d had no contact with Epstein in a decade.

In the emails, Epstein wrote to Maxwell that [she] had “done nothing wrong” and urged her to “start acting like it.”

He told her to “go outside, head high, not as an escaping convict,” adding: “go to parties. deal with it.”

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have alleged that Maxwell recruited and groomed victims and participated in abusing them with Epstein. She was also charged with lying in a deposition in her lawsuit with Giuffre about whether she knew Epstein was having sex with minors. A judge has ordered that deposition also be made public, but Maxwell has appealed the decision.

Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, charged in sex abuse case

Epstein was arrested last year on federal sex trafficking charges for alleged abuses of underage girls in New York and Florida, but he died by suicide in a Manhattan federal detention center before he could stand trial.

July 29

Palmer Report, Opinion: New turn in Jeffrey Epstein – Ghislaine Maxwell case, Bill Palmer, July 28, 2020. The arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell isn’t just putting Jeffrey Epstein’s hideous crime spree back into public focus. It’s also serving as something of an opportunity to carry out the criminal case that should have played out against Epstein – perhaps having the potential to finally bring some measure of justice for his victims. It could also take down Epstein’s co-conspirators, whoever they may be.

To that end, a judge has ordered that by tomorrow, several documents must be unsealed from an old lawsuit between Epstein and one of his victims. That evidence will include Maxwell’s testimony and her communications with Epstein. Interestingly, it’ll also include testimony from Epstein’s lawyer and friend Alan Dershowitz, who has been accused of participating in Epstein’s sex crimes.

It’s still not entirely clear where this is all headed. But Ghislaine Maxwell is facing seven felony counts related to underage sex trafficking, and she could end up cutting a deal against everyone else involved if the evidence gets ugly enough against her. So this is all headed somewhere.

July 6

Palmer Report, Opinion: Ghislaine Maxwell’s silver hammer, Robert Harrington, July 6, 2020. When I look at photos of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein the phrase “the banality of evil” comes to mind. It doesn’t seem possible that two such normal and ostensibly high functioning-looking people could be as wretchedly wicked as those two were in fact. One expects instead to see Jabba the Hutt with Cruella Deville. But there can be no doubt, they were evil to their very bones. I will even credit that the people who knew them glancingly might have been fooled. I understand why.

Even so, apparently Ghislaine has some mighty dirt on some mighty people, and I don’t doubt that she will use it to save her skin, if she can. Rumor has it that her erstwhile boyfriend’s luxury jet, “The Lolita Express,” was wired for sound and video. (I can’t help but wonder, what was the first clue for some of the great and near great on board “The Lolita Express” that Epstein might, just might, be a pedophile?)

Whether or not Ghislaine has privileged access to some of the more damning private tapes from “The Lolita” and elsewhere is anyone’s guess. But if she does it just might mean the difference between her being L-WOPPED (Life Without Possibility of Parole) at a SuperMax and an ankle bracelet.

If she has something substantial and she has it on the right people then we’re in for one hell of a news cycle. In a world of hellish news cycles that’s saying quite a bit. The anticipatory hand-rubbing has already contributed significantly to global warming. Look out, evil-doers, here comes Maxwell’s silver hammer.

The big question of what dirt she has and on whom, and how many she has it on, has many delighted and some terrified. As for me — and I’m going to tell you something that just might surprise you — I don’t care. I don’t care one whit if the perps are Republicans, Democrats, left or right. I don’t care if they ever “felt the Bern” or wanted to make America racist again. I just want the bastards caught, humiliated, ruined and jailed. And let the chips fall where they may.

In any case, is it hardly surprising who Epstein and his personal Pandarus hung out with and who they didn’t? I mean really, isn’t it funny that Epstein’s Rolodex included people like Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton, Bill Barr, Ken Starr, and a host of other people who you couldn’t exactly knock-me-over-with-a-feather revealing? Notice also who’s missing: the Bidens, the Obamas, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, people like that. Again, is anybody surprised?

Of course, the wheels of justice must grind ahead at their own maddeningly slow speed, and I’m content to await the day when the Final Separation of the sheep and the goats arrives at an American court of law. My number one goal is justice, and I hope that’s your goal too. This should be a distinctly nonpartisan search for the truth. If there is a hell then Dante missed his chance to set aside a particularly nasty part of it for people who despoil children and animals, for people who prey on the helpless, the voiceless and the innocent.

One thing I do know for certain, Donald Trump is among the guilty. That burden has more than adequately been met by available court documents and contemporaneous testimony, and I am convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Jeffrey Epstein made it possible for the viscous buffoon usurping the Oval Office to rape a child, and Trump’s day of reckoning is near. Let’s unite to take the first step, and vote the bastard out of office this November.

DC Clothesline, Opinion: Hollywood Producer Who Was Part Of Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express Circle” Dead – Falls Off 27th Floor Of Building, Tim Brown, July 6, 2020. I’m sure this is just a coincidence, right? Just prior to the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell this week, Hollywood producer and long time friend of Jeffrey Epstein and Bill and Hillary Clinton, Steve Bing, is alleged to have thrown himself off his apartment building. Of course, this alleged suicide is claimed to have been due to depression.

Fox News reports: "Steve Bing, the film producer and wealthy financier who fathered a child with actress Elizabeth Hurley, has died. He was 55."

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office listed Bing as deceased on its website on Tuesday. His cause and manner of death are still pending an autopsy report.

“The decedent was pronounced dead at the scene on 06/22/2020 at 13:10 hours,” a spokesperson for the coroner’s office wrote to Fox News in a statement on Monday.

The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed to Fox News on Monday that authorities were investigating the death of a man in his 50s in the 10000 block of Santa Monica Boulevard in Century City.

Early reports claimed Bing died in a fall from his posh Los Angeles, Calif. apartment building. The Los Angeles Times, citing a law enforcement source, reported that foul play is not expected.

Former President Bill Clinton tweeted, “I loved Steve Bing very much. He had a big heart, and he was willing to do anything he could for the people and causes he believed in. I will miss him and his enthusiasm more than I can say, and I hope he’s finally found peace.”

Vanity Fair produced an article about billionaire pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in which they mentioned Bing as being part of Epstein’s “Lolita Express Circle.”

“They were always the most beautiful girls in the room, usually models or former models, with a slightly aloof Stepford Wives aura that masked a deeper vulnerability. Several names came up when they were around: Epstein, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, film financier Steve Bing, and former president Bill Clinton, then in the prime of his postpresidential career and flying around on Epstein’s jet, dubbed the Lolita Express, or Burkle’s jet, dubbed Air F*ck One.”

Of course, they aren’t expecting foul play, right? But the timing here is uncanny, don’t you think?

Vigilant Citizen adds: "Although no suicide note found, Bing’s death was quickly ruled as a suicide by law enforcement. The reported reason for the suicide: He was depressed about the lack of human contact during the quarantine."

In other words, this exceedingly rich man, who has bought “human contact” his entire life, killed himself right as COVID lockdown measures are loosening. The circumstances behind this death are as bizarre and illogical as those surrounding Epstein’s “suicide”.

Is it possible that Steve Bing was killed by being pushed off a building, Russian Mafia-style? Did he know too much? Was he at risk of squealing on his elite buddies? Here’s a quick look at this rarified environment.

At age 18, Steve Bing inherited an estimated $600 million from his grandfather Leo S. Bing – a real estate developer who made his fortune in New York in the 1920s. After inheriting his fortune, Bing dropped out of Stanford University in his junior year to pursue a career in Hollywood.

I”m sorry, I’m just not buying that he was depressed from lack of contact. People are moving all of California.

Finally, consider that Bill Clinton had a thing for Elizabeth Hurley and now, Bing’s fortune seems to be up for grabs.

The death of millionaire socialite Steve Bing could revive a family feud over whether his two children – a son with actress Liz Hurley and a daughter with tennis player Lisa Bonder – will inherit the family wealth.

Bing, 55, took his own life in Los Angeles on Monday, leaving the remnants of his $600million fortune and a tangled legacy involving two children he had hardly met.

Paternity tests proved that Bing was the biological father of Hurley’s son Damian and Bonder’s daughter Kira Kerkorian, but neither grew up in his home.

Bing’s father, Dr Peter Bing, last year tried to cut Damian and Kira out of a trust he had set up for his heirs – arguing in an affidavit revealed by DailyMail.com that ‘I do not consider them my grandchildren’.

However, Steve Bing and Liz Hurley joined forces to oppose Dr Bing’s gambit, which was dismissed by a US judge – leaving Damian and Kira in line for a share of the reported $480million fund.

Hurley had rejected Bing’s money in 2002 but said yesterday that they had ‘become close again’ recently and spoken on Damian’s 18th birthday.

It is not yet clear who will inherit Steve Bing’s own fortune, or whether he made a will. California law says that the surviving children – in this case Damian and Kira – will normally inherit an estate if there is no will.

July 4

Washington Post, Opinion: Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly turned an intuitive female bond into a tool for abuse, Monica Hesse, July 4, 2020 (print ed.). Having a woman in the room can make things seem okay, even when they’re not.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2005 (Joe Schildhorn / Patrick McMullan,via Getty Images)

New York Times, Ghislaine Maxwell, Associate of Jeffrey Epstein, Is Arrested, Nicole Hong and Benjamin Weiser, July 2, 2020. Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday on criminal charges linked to his alleged sex-trafficking operation, according to a law enforcement official.

Ms. Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire, officials said.The arrest came nearly a year after Mr. Epstein, right, was charged in a federal indictment with sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of underage girls at his mansion in Manhattan, his estate in Palm Beach, Fla. and other locations between at least 2002 and 2005.

The indictment said he paid the girls — at least one as young as 14 — to give him massages while they were nude or topless, in encounters that typically included sex acts.Mr. Epstein hanged himself in August in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan, where he was jailed pending trial on the federal sex-trafficking charges.

Ms. Maxwell, a longtime confidante and companion of Mr. Epstein’s, had for years been accused of helping to procure and groom young girls for the financier, including instructing them on how to pleasure Mr. Epstein sexually.

The daughter of the British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, Ms. Maxwell also helped manage Mr. Epstein’s properties and introduced him to the high-profile celebrities and business executives who would form his social circle. She is shown in a photo at left with the U.K. royal Prince Andrew and Epstein-Maxwell accuser Virginia Roberts, center, a onetime pool girl at Mar-a-Lago who was 17 at the time and now uses her married name of Giuffre.

Civil lawsuits have accused Ms. Maxwell of managing a network of recruiters that Mr. Epstein relied on to entice young and often financially strapped girls and women into his scheme, promising he would help them with their education and careers.

Donald Trump, Melania Knauss [Trump], Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein's friend Ghislaine Maxwell, (left to right at Mar-A-Lago.

Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty Images

Palmer Report, Opinion: The real reason the SDNY Public Corruption Unit is handling the Ghislaine Maxwell case, Bill Palmer, July 2, 2020. Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested today and hit with half a dozen charges in relation to Epstein’s rape of underage girls, meaning today is a good day for justice, and a bad day for Maxwell. As it turns out, today is also a bad day for at least one public official.

Former SDNY employee and current CNN legal analyst Elie Honig has pointed out that the SDNY Public Corruption Unit doesn’t take up these kinds of sex trafficking cases “unless there is some potential angle against a public official.” This means someone in high office is a suspect or target in the Epstein-Maxwell crime spree.

Former FBI Assistant Director and current NBC News legal analyst Frank Figliuzzi responded to Honig and stated his expectation that the public official in question is former Trump Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, the former prosecutor who helped let Epstein off the hook years ago, and who may have obstructed justice in the process.

Of course there is also the possibility that the “public official” in question is Donald Trump himself. He had a suspicious decades-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which became even more suspicious when Epstein died while in the custody of Trump’s Department of Justice.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2005 (Joe Schildhorn / Patrick McMullan,via Getty Images)

New York Times, Ghislaine Maxwell, Associate of Jeffrey Epstein, Is Arrested, Nicole Hong and Benjamin Weiser, July 2, 2020. Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday on criminal charges linked to his alleged sex-trafficking operation, according to a law enforcement official.

Ms. Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire, officials said.The arrest came nearly a year after Mr. Epstein, right, was charged in a federal indictment with sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of underage girls at his mansion in Manhattan, his estate in Palm Beach, Fla. and other locations between at least 2002 and 2005.

The indictment said he paid the girls — at least one as young as 14 — to give him massages while they were nude or topless, in encounters that typically included sex acts.Mr. Epstein hanged himself in August in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan, where he was jailed pending trial on the federal sex-trafficking charges.

Ms. Maxwell, a longtime confidante and companion of Mr. Epstein’s, had for years been accused of helping to procure and groom young girls for the financier, including instructing them on how to pleasure Mr. Epstein sexually.

The daughter of the British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, Ms. Maxwell also helped manage Mr. Epstein’s properties and introduced him to the high-profile celebrities and business executives who would form his social circle. She is shown in a photo at left with the U.K. royal Prince Andrew and Epstein-Maxwell accuser Virginia Roberts, center, a onetime pool girl at Mar-a-Lago who was 17 at the time and now uses her married name of Giuffre.

Civil lawsuits have accused Ms. Maxwell of managing a network of recruiters that Mr. Epstein relied on to entice young and often financially strapped girls and women into his scheme, promising he would help them with their education and careers.

Donald Trump, Melania Knauss [Trump], Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein's friend Ghislaine Maxwell, (left to right at Mar-A-Lago.

Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty ImagesPolitical Sex Scandals

Daily Beast, ‘Villian’ Ghislaine Maxwell Lived ‘Life of Privilege’ as FBI Hunted Her, Emily Shugerman, New York authorities announced criminal charges against Jeffrey Epstein’s right-hand woman Ghislaine Maxwell Thursday, saying the British heiress “slithered” away to a beautiful New Hampshire home and “continu[ed] to live a life of privilege” as authorities steadily built a case against her for her alleged participation in the late financier’s abuse of minor girls.

The socialite was arrested around 8:30 a.m. in Bradford, New Hampshire, by agents from the FBI and New York Police Department, after months of speculation over where she could be hiding. At a brief appearance in federal district court in New Hampshire Thursday afternoon, Maxwell requested all further hearings be transferred to the Southern District of New York.

Authorities declined to say why they had waited nearly a year since Epstein’s arrest to bring charges against his alleged madam, revealing only that the indictment had recently been voted by a grand jury and that law enforcement “moved when we were ready.”

“We have been secretly keeping tabs on Ms. Maxwell’s whereabouts as we worked this investigation,” Bill Sweeney, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office said at a Thursday press conference. “More recently we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted on them years ago.”

The six-count indictment against Maxwell alleges she “assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse” underage victims dating back to at least 1994.

Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, described the counts as a “prequel” to the charges her office brought against Epstein before he apparently died by suicide in his jail cell last year. She added that her office is seeking detention for Maxwell, reigniting questions about the Bureau of Prison’s inability to keep Epstein alive.

A booking memo filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in support of Maxwell’s detention claims the heiress poses an “extreme risk of flight” because of her wealth and “extensive international connections.”

Maxwell, according to the memo, has maintained at least 15 different bank accounts in the last four years, with balances ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $20 million. She also reported at least one foreign bank account holding more than a million dollars last year. In 2016, she reportedly sold a residence in New York City for $15 million, and recently purchased a 156-acre property in Bradford—the same town where she was arrested—in cash.

The memo also claims Maxwell has three international passports and has taken at least 15 international flights in the last three years to places such as the U.K., Japan, and Qatar.

2019

Oct. 16

Explosive Trump Teen Rape Claim



Newsweek, Trump Teen Rape Allegation Resurfaces, Ronan Farrow Claims National Enquirer Tried to Protect Him in New Book, Tufayel Ahmed, Oct. 16, 2019. Amid behind-the-scenes details of his explosive reporting on Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct, Ronan Farrow's new book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators claims that American Media Inc. (AMI), the former publisher of the National Enquirer, tried to help Donald Trump bury allegations he raped a teenager in 1994.

Farrow claims in the book that AMI CEO David Pecker was in close contact with Trump when the rape allegations were made public in a 2016 lawsuit, and that then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard assured Trump's personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, "that they would track down the woman with the rape allegation and see what they could do about her." An AMI spokesperson told Newsweek Tuesday that Farrow's claims are "completely untrue."

AMI has been accused in the past of purchasing potentially damaging stories about Trump in order to keep them from becoming public—a practice known in the industry as "catch and kill." Last December, AMI admitted that in 2016 it made a $150,000 payment "in concert" with Trump's election campaign to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who allegedly had an affair with Trump a decade earlier. The publisher made the pact with McDougal "in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election," the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

At the crux of the lawsuit filed against Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election were claims that Trump raped a woman when she was 13 years old in 1994. At the time, Trump's lawyer Alan Garten responded to the lawsuit saying that the allegations are "categorically untrue."



The anonymous plaintiff — identified only as "Katie Johnson" in an initial legal filing that was dismissed in California, and "Jane Doe" in two subsequent legal filings in New York —said that she was raped by Trump during a party hosted by the now-deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein at his New York City apartment. In the third and final lawsuit, Doe (shown at right with her face pixilated) alleged she had numerous sexual encounters with Trump and Epstein at the latter's parties and said she was also raped by Epstein, as BuzzFeed News reported at the time.

Among the lurid details of the lawsuit, Jane Doe alleged Trump tied her to a bed, "forcibly raped" her and threatened her and her family with physical harm, if not death, if she told anyone about the assault. "I understood that Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein knew that I was 13 years old," Jane Doe wrote in an affidavit.

Farrow alleges that after the suit was filed in September 2016, Enquirer editor Howard and Trump lawyer Cohen were in contact frequently. (Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison last December on charges including campaign finance violations for his part in hush payments to McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels.)

Editors' note: The Justice Integrity Project and Wayne Madsen Report wrote extensively about this case in a joint investigation and three-part series first published in January 2018, with the themes illustated by the graphic below.

July

Mint Press News, Government by Blackmail: Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s Mentor and the Dark Secrets of the Reagan Era (Part II), Whitney Webb, right, July 25, 2019 (Excerpted; Click link for full story]. Appalling for both the villainous abuse of children itself and the chilling implications of government by blackmail, this tangled web of unsavory alliances casts a lurid light on the political history of the U.S. from the Prohibition Era right up through the Age of Trump.

Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire who now sits in jail on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors, has continued to draw media scrutiny in the weeks after his arrest on July 6. Part of the reason for this continued media interest is related to Epstein’s alleged relationship to the intelligence services and new information about the true extent of the sexual blackmail operation Epstein is believed to have run for decades.

As MintPress reported last week, Epstein was able to run this sordid operation for so long precisely because his was only the latest incarnation of a much older, more extensive operation that began in the 1950s and perhaps even earlier.

Starting first with mob-linked liquor baron Lewis Rosenstiel and later with Roy Cohn, Rosenstiel’s protege and future mentor to Donald Trump, Epstein’s is just one of the many sexual blackmail operations involving children that are all tied to the same network, which includes elements of organized crime, powerful Washington politicians, lobbyists and “fixers,” and clear links to intelligence as well as the FBI.

This report, Part II of this series titled “The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big To Fail,” will delve into Cohn’s close ties to the Reagan administration, which was also closely tied to the same organized crime network led by the infamous mob figure Meyer Lansky, which was discussed in Part I. Of particular importance is the “Iran Contra” network, a group of Reagan officials and associates who played key roles in the Iran Contra scandal. Though it has remained relatively unknown for years, many key figures in that same network, and several fronts for the CIA that were involved in funneling money to the Central American Contra paramilitaries, were also trafficking minors for their sexual exploitation and use in sexual blackmail rings.

Several of these rings made headlines at one point or another over the years — from the “call boy ring” run by Washington lobbyist Craig Spence, to the Franklin child-sex and murder ring run by Republican operative Larry King, to the scandal that enveloped the Catholic charity Covenant House in the late 1980s.

Yet, as this report will show, all of these rings — and more — were connected to the same network that involved key figures linked to the Reagan White House and linked to Roy Cohn — revealing the true scope of the sordid sexual blackmail operations and sex rings that involved the trafficking of children within the U.S. and even in Central America for their exploitation by dangerous and powerful pedophiles in the United States.

Appalling for both the villainous abuse of children itself and the chilling implications of government by blackmail, this tangled web of unsavory alliances casts a lurid light on the political history of the United States from the Prohibition Era right up to the present day and the Age of Trump, a fact made increasingly clear as more and more information comes to light in relation to the Jeffrey Epstein case.

“Roy could fix anyone in the city”

Since Donald Trump burst onto the political scene in 2015, the legacy of his mentor, Roy Cohn – as well as Cohn’s influence on his most famous protege — have begun to garner renewed media attention. Many of the profiles on Cohn following Trump’s rise have focused solely on certain shadowy aspects of Cohn’s history, particularly his association with major figures in New York organized crime, his corrupt dealings, and his eventual disbarment. Some of these portrayals even went so far as to label Cohn as politically impotent. While Cohn was known to deal with a sizable amount of sleaze in his career, such depictions of the man fail to note that he had created an influence machine of unrivaled power that included some of the most prominent people in media and politics as well as a cadre of celebrities.

Cohn was closely associated with numerous celebrities, famous politicians and political operatives. Many of his birthday parties over the years attracted such famous figures such as artist Andy Warhol, fashion designer Calvin Klein, and comedian Joey Adams, as well as notable political figures including former Mayor of New York Abraham Beame and then-Assemblyman from Brooklyn and future Senator Chuck Schumer, among others. In 1979 Margaret Trudeau, mother of current Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, attended Cohn’s birthday party, where she famously toppled his custom birthday cake; and of course Donald Trump, who became Cohn’s protege in the mid-1970s, was a frequent fixture at social events held in Cohn’s honor.

The politicians, journalists and celebrities invited to Cohn’s exclusive parties were said to be those who “had open accounts in Cohn’s ‘favor bank,’” his nickname for his unofficial balance sheet of political favors and debts that was surely informed and influenced by his extensive involvement in sexual blackmail operations from the 1950s well into the 1980s.

Many of Cohn’s celebrity friendships were cultivated through his relationship with and frequent appearances at the famous and famously debaucherous New York nightclub Studio 54, which was described by Vanity Fair as “the giddy epicenter of 70s hedonism, a disco hothouse of beautiful people, endless cocaine, and every kind of sex.” Cohn was the long-time lawyer of the club’s owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager.

Among Cohn’s closest friends were Barbara Walters, to whom Cohn often referred as his “fiancee” in public, and whom he later introduced to the head of the U.S. Information Agency, Chad Wick, and other high rollers in the Reagan White House. Yet, Walters was just one of Cohn’s powerful friends in the media, a group that also included Abe Rosenthal, executive editor of the New York Times; William Safire, long-time New York Times columnist and New York Magazine contributor; and George Sokolsky of The New York Herald Tribune, NBC and ABC. Sokolsky was a particularly close friend of both Cohn and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, whose involvement in Cohn’s sexual blackmail operation is described in Part I of this investigative series. Sokolsky ran the American Jewish League Against Communism with Cohn for several years and the organization later named its Medal of Honor after Sokolsky.

Cohn was also the attorney and friend of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and, according to New York Magazine, “Whenever Roy wanted a story stopped, item put in, or story exploited, Roy called Murdoch;” and, after Murdoch bought the New York Post, Cohn “wielded the paper as his personal shiv.” According to the late journalist Robert Parry, the friendship between Murdoch and Cohn first began thanks to their mutual support for Israel.

Cohn also leaned on his life-long friend since high school, Si Newhouse Jr., to exert media influence. Newhouse oversaw the media empire that now includes Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, The New Yorker, and numerous local newspapers throughout the United States, as well as major interests in cable television. New York Magazine also noted that “Cohn used his influence in the early ’80s to secure favors for himself and his Mob clients in Newhouse publications.” In addition to Newhouse, Cohn’s other high school pals, Generoso Pope Jr. and Richard Berlin, later became the owners of the National Enquirer and the Hearst Corporation, respectively. Cohn was also a close friend of another media mogul, Mort Zuckerman, who – along with Rupert Murdoch – would go on to befriend Jeffrey Epstein.

Cohn’s media confidants, like journalist William Buckley of The National Review and Firing Line, often attacked Cohn’s political enemies – particularly long-time Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau — in their columns, using Cohn as an anonymous source. Buckley, whom historian George Nash once called “the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure,” received the George Sokolsky medal alongside Cohn’s mob-linked client and “Supreme Commander” Lewis Rosenstiel from the Cohn-run American Jewish League Against Communism in 1966. Buckley later got a heavily discounted $65,000 loan to buy a luxury boat from a bank where Cohn held influence and whose president Cohn had hand picked, according to a 1969 article in LIFE magazine.

Cohn, Murdoch and the Contras

Though Cohn’s influence in the Reagan administration and his friendship with the Reagan family and their inner circle has been acknowledged, less well-known is how Cohn aided the CIA’s covert propaganda efforts that were part of the larger scandal known as Iran-Contra.

Cohn, whose influence over the press has already been detailed, forged close ties with the director of the U.S. Information Agency, Chad Wick, even hosting a luncheon in Wick’s honor that was widely attended by influential figures in the conservative press, as well as senators and representatives. Soon after, then-CIA Director and Cohn friend William Casey was spearheading an extensive PR campaign aimed at shoring up public support for Reagan’s Latin American policies, including support of the Contra paramilitaries.

This domestic propaganda effort was technically illegal and required that the CIA outsource the job to the private sector to minimize the risk of fall-out. As Robert Parry reported in 2015, Wick took the lead in obtaining private funding for the effort and, just a few days after Wick promised to find private support, Cohn brought his close friend, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, to the White House.

“The man in the black tuxedo”

Roy Cohn was not the only one close to the Reagan administration who was simultaneously running sexual blackmail operations that abused and exploited children. In fact, there were several figures, all of whom shared direct connections to CIA Director William Casey and other close friends and confidants of Cohn.

The downfall of “Washington’s Jay Gatsby”

After having left his job as an ABC News correspondent in the 1980s, Craig Spence found success as a prominent conservative Washington lobbyist. Spence would soon find his fortunes shift dramatically when, in June 1989, it was revealed that he had been pimping out children to the power elite in the nation’s capital throughout the 1980s in apartments that were bugged with video and audio recording equipment. Much like Jeffrey Epstein, who ran a similar operation, Spence was often likened to Jay Gatsby, the mysterious, wealthy figure from the well-known Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby.

A 1982 New York Times article written about Spence said that his “personal phone book and party guest lists constitute a ‘Who’s Who’ in Congress, Government and journalism” and stated that Spence was “hired by his clients as much for whom he knows as what he knows.” Spence was also known to throw lavish parties, which the Times described as “glitter[ed] with notables, from ambassadors to television stars, from senators to senior State Department officials.” Roy Cohn, William Casey and Roy Cohn’s journalist friend William Safire were just some of the other attendees at Spence’s festivities.

Spence later stated that his contacts within the White House, which allowed him and his “call boys” access, were “top level” officials and he specifically singled out George H.W. Bush’s then-National Security Advisor Donald Gregg. Gregg had worked at the CIA since 1951 before he resigned in 1982 to become National Security Advisor to Bush, who was then vice president. Prior to resigning from his post at the CIA, Gregg had worked directly under William Casey and, in the late 1970s, alongside a young William Barr (emphasis added) in stonewalling the congressional Pike Committee and Church Committee, which investigated the CIA beginning in 1975. Among the things that they were tasked with investigating were the CIA’s “love traps,” or sexual blackmail operations used to lure foreign diplomats to bugged apartments, complete with recording equipment and two-way mirrors.

Barr would later become Bush’s Attorney General, rising to that post yet again under Trump. Furthermore, Barr’s father worked for the precursor to the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and recruited a young Jeffrey Epstein, then a high school drop-out, to teach at the elite Dalton School, from which Epstein was later fired. A year prior to hiring Epstein, Donald Barr published a science fiction fantasy novel about sex slavery. Notably, the same year Donald Barr hired Epstein, his son was working for the CIA.

Bill Barr has refused calls to recuse himself from the Epstein case, even though he worked at the same law firm that has represented Epstein in the past.

Whitney Webb, right, is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets, including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

July 7

Epstein Arrest, Trump Connection

New York Times, Jeffrey Epstein, Billionaire Long Accused of Molesting Minors, Is Charged, Patricia Mazzei and William K. Rashbaum

July 7, 2019 (print ed.). Jeffrey E. Epstein, a billionaire New York financier long accused of molesting dozens of girls, was arrested on Saturday and charged with sex trafficking by federal prosecutors, an extraordinary turn of events in a long and sordid criminal case. Mr. Epstein, right, who was charged with sex trafficking, had avoided federal criminal charges a decade ago in a widely criticized plea deal.

Mr. Epstein, 66, had avoided federal criminal charges in 2007 and 2008 in a widely criticized plea deal whose lenient terms continue to roil the Justice Department and are facing new scrutiny in the #MeToo era.

Before the plea deal, Mr. Epstein, a former hedge-fund manager, had been friendly with Donald J. Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.

He pleaded guilty to lesser state charges of soliciting prostitution, served 13 months in a county lockup and registered as a sex offender. His jail arrangement allowed him to get out of the Palm Beach County Stockade six days a week to work out of his office.

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Epstein busted by feds at New Jersey airport, Wayne Madsen, July 8, 2019 (subscription required). Epstein, who, according to a joint report by WMR and the Justice Integrity Project in Washington, allegedly raped a 12-year old girl named Maria and a 13-year old, Katie Johnson, the latter a pseudonym, has been charged by federal prosecutors in New York with one count of sex trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

Secret UK View Of Trump Revealed

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump gets slam dunked by UK Ambassador to the United States, Bill Palmer, July 7, 2019. The Daily Mail published secret memos in which UK Ambassador to the United States Kim Darroch used words like “inept” and “insecure” and “incompetent” to describe Trump. The Daily Mail is a tabloid, but the UK government has since confirmed to CNN that the leaked memos are in fact the real thing. So now what?

Darroch is a professional diplomat, so it’s literally his job to pretend in public that an idiot like Donald Trump is not an idiot. He’s the last person who would publicly criticize Trump, no matter how he felt. These memos reveal that he felt compelled to document Trump’s idiocy in private, while discussing with his government how to deal with Trump. Darroch may or may not lose his job over this leak, as it could be difficult for him to continue interfacing with the U.S. government now that it’s been exposed that he thoroughly insulted the President of the United States. But to be clear, Darroch was just doing his job.

This incident serves as the latest reminder that Donald Trump is so uniquely and cartoonishly bad at this, America’s allies have been placed in a no-win situation when it comes to trying to work with him or work around him. On the other hand, America’s enemies have had little problem figuring out how to use Trump’s ineptness and idiocy to gain a leg-up on the United States.

2018

Accused repeat pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, left, with Donald Trump in a 1990s photo at Mar-a-Lago held up last weekend by a protester (Getty images)

Raw Story, Protester targeted by Trump for his 'long hair' calls him out again for palling around with a pedophile, Noor Al-Sibair, June 25, 2018. The man-bunned protester singled out by Donald Trump for his hairstyle at a rally in Minnesota on June 20 has spoken out against the president once again for his known ties to billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

“Sorry for interrupting your little rally in Duluth,” activist and comedian Sam Spadino (shown in a screenshot from the rally) wrote in an open letter to Trump for the Minneapolis – St. Paul alternative weekly City Pages. “My friend and I just wanted to ask you a question, and figured in person was the best way to do it since you’re a busy guy, and no ‘fake news’ reporters have brought it up lately.”

“My question, in case you missed it on the sign, is ‘Who is Jeffrey Epstein?'” he continued. “You answered the question once in the October 28, 2002 issue of NY Magazine, saying: ‘I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it: Jeffrey enjoys his social life.'”

“When you said that ‘he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,’ did you mean younger than 16?” Spadino continued. “Did you know that at least one of his victims was 14 years old?”

He went on to detail Epstein’s insidious resume: a billionaire who, as The Daily Beast pointed out after the Duluth, MN rally, has been accused of “a pedophile ring of dozens of underage girls, whom he groomed and then loaned out to powerful friends.” He was charged in Florida and spent 13 months in prison there for “Procuring Any Person Under Age Of 16 For Prostitution,” and is considered a Level Three sex offender in the state due to his likelihood for re-offending.

Though Epstein has also been connected to other famous men (and alleged abusers and assaulters) including Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen and Bill Clinton, Spadino noted that “none of them were named in a lawsuit together, like [Trump was], in Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein, filed in New York in June 2016.”

“That lawsuit goes into great detail about what you and your buddy were allegedly up to with two female children ‘on the younger side,'” he wrote of the suit detailing the two powerful mens’ alleged assault of a girl who was 13 years old at the time.

“Every time Jeffrey comes up I have more questions, but the only response you gave me was in the form an insult,” Spadino wrote. “I know seeing a picture of yourself next to a convicted pedophile is probably not a great look for someone who has recently been putting immigrant kids in cages, but I expected a better comeback from you than a ‘cut your hair, hippie’ knockoff. Weak.”

“I am glad you mentioned my “man-bun” however,” he wrote, because “this story would have gotten no press if you had just held your tongue.”

Jan. 21

Washington Post, What should scare us about Trump’s porn star scandal, Molly Roberts, Jan. 21, 2018 (print edition). It’s not the sex, it’s the secrecy.

The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday that a lawyer for Donald Trump paid an adult-film actress $130,000 one month before the 2016 election in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with the then-candidate 10 years earlier.

Adult performer Jessica Drake accused Trump of offering her $10,000 for sex the same year he allegedly slept with Daniels, and she claims she can’t say more because of a nondisclosure agreement. And, according to a separate Journal story from just four days before the election, the company that owns the Trump-friendly National Enquirer awarded a former Playboy centerfold model $150,000 for the rights to her story of an affair with Trump in, yes, 2006 again. Then, the tabloid quashed it.

The problem here isn’t Trump’s repeated ethical lapses alone, although they do induce a certain squeamishness. The problem is the possibility of blackmail against a presidential team willing to pay big to cover up misbehavior.

New York Times, Congressman Combating Harassment Settled His Own Misconduct Case, Katie Rogers and Kenneth P. Vogel, Jan. 21, 2018 (printed edition). Rep. Patrick Meehan, a Pennsylvania Republican who has taken a leading role in fighting sexual harassment in Congress, used thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to settle his own misconduct complaint after a former aide accused him last year of making unwanted romantic overtures to her, according to several people familiar with the settlement.

A married father of three, Mr. Meehan, 62, had long expressed interest in the personal life of the aide, who was decades younger and had regarded the congressman as a father figure, according to three people who worked with the office and four others with whom she discussed her tenure there.

As a member of the Ethics Committee, Mr. Meehan was tasked with being a part of the solution. The panel has initiated investigations into sexual misconduct claims against at least four congressmen in recent months. Two have resigned: Trent Franks, Republican of Arizona, and John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan. The other two, Blake Farenthold, Republican of Texas, and Ruben Kihuen, a freshman Democrat from Nevada, remain in office but have said they will not seek re-election.

Jan. 20

Washington Post, The case for taking the Trump-Stormy Daniels saga seriously, Aaron Blake​, Jan. 20, 2018 (print edition). It's salacious, yes. But the story seems to have gone beyond tabloid fluff and it’s worth asking some very serious questions.

By Friday, the magazine InTouch published what it said was a previously unpublished 2011 interview with Daniels (shown with Trump in a publicity photo) in which she describes having sex with Trump in 2006, when he was newly married to Melania Trump, who is now first lady.

What's perhaps most notable about the interview is how many of the details deal with things that weren't and aren't widely known about Trump.

Jan. 19

Washington Post, ‘I’ll give her a week’ to lose the baby weight, Trump said of Melania, months before alleged tryst with porn star, Callum Borchers, Jan. 19, 2018. Seven months before an alleged tryst with porn star Stormy Daniels, Donald Trump told radio host Howard Stern that he would give his pregnant wife, Melania (shown at a 2017 Inaugural ball), a couple of days — or maybe a week — to regain her model figure after giving birth.

“You know, Howard, she’s got the kind of a body and makeup where, about one day after the baby, it’s going to be the same as it was before,” Trump said during an appearance on Stern’s show on Dec. 7, 2005.

“You’re giving her one day?” Stern asked.

“One or two,” Trump replied.

Vox, Stormy Daniels: Donald Trump’s alleged porn star affair and hush money scandal explained, Dylan Matthews, Jan. 19, 2018. In July 2006, Donald Trump allegedly had a “sexual encounter” with adult film star Stormy Daniels (shown with Trump in file photos) following a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe, and, the month before the 2016 presidential election, reportedly sent her a $130,000 payment through his la