Ghislaine's Life Is At Risk Behind Bars: Author | The Daily Beast Podcast

She was the mastermind and she was really just as evil, if not more evil. than Epstein was. I'm Joanna Coles, Chief Content Officer of the Daily Beast, and I hope you are drinking your new Chinese import, Luckin Coffee. As you listen to The Daily Beast podcast, or hopefully watch us on YouTube. where you can leave us a comment. Today we're talking to Julie K Brown about what else but the Epstein affair. We know from Michael Wolff. that the white House is still in full panic about this story.

No matter what the president does, he's unable. to create a distraction that will let his MAGA base walk away. They sense a cover up. You will remember Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said she was going to release the Epstein files in February. She released some stuff to some influencers, but in fact it was already out there anyway, online. And then earlier this month in July, she said she wasn't going to release. anything because there was nothing there yet. We know that the president appears in the Epstein files or the Epstein information.

several times, something that Elon Musk. tweeted out in June and then deleted. So there's clearly something going on. Nobody knows this story better than Julie K Brown, and no one has followed the Gillian Maxwell of it all. Then Julie, she sat throughout the trial. She has spent years working on this story, and she's astonished that the number two.

in the Justice Department, Todd Blanch, who of course, was Donald Trump's. personal lawyer, would himself go down to interview Gillian. So let's talk about the list of names that Gillian apparently. provided Todd Blanch what she could possibly have to say. Why on earth anybody would believe her at this point. And also, given the ambiguity around. Jeffrey Epstein's death, that Ghislaine Maxwell may be in danger.

now two and will probably be forced to move jails. Julie, let's get into it. Julie K Brown first of all, what does the K stand for? You're always described as Julie K Brown. I know it's my, maiden name instead of using Brown, which is what I used to use. And I put so hard for people to, spell because it's not spelled. like you would think. It's spelled with a p, as in Paul.

There's always a story behind an initial. Yeah, yeah. Just to differentiate between all the other Julie Brown's in the world. Well, there's no other. There's no other Julie Brown that has had as much impact on certainly. on this Epstein case as you have an extraordinary reporting career. Your journalism obviously led to the re-arrest. of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019, which was actually a story. the Daily Beast managed to get a heads up on. That's right.

You have spent years of your life reporting the Jeffrey Epstein story. What did you think when you heard that Todd Blanch, the president's former personal lawyer and now number two at the Justice. Department, was himself going down to a Tallahassee court. to interview Glenn Maxwell, who I just want to remind. people, was sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking, for being Jeffrey Epstein's partner in crime,

in soliciting. schoolgirls to attend to his endless sexual needs. Well, I, I thought that it's a little too too late, to be honest with you. I don't know why the Justice Department didn't find out what she had before. It also struck me as being somewhat odd. that it would send the second in command at the Justice Department to interview. someone like her on a case that has spanned two decades.

You have to this case is very, very complicated, and you really have to know everything that she has said. previously in order to gauge whether what she's saying now. is, consistent with what she has said in the past. And I sense from everything that's happened under the Trump. administration that they have not fully, looked at this case. You know, and the history the way they should, or they wouldn't have been stuck with binders full of dated material.

that they released as if it was some big new information, dump here. It was all, you know, information that we had already had in the public eye for years. So they don't fully grasp how big this case is and how complicated it is. So it gives me my doubts that they know you know, that they know what to ask. And and how to, I guess, obtain the information that they need. But isn't that presupposing that they actually want to get to the bottom of it?

Isn't what's going on here that actually what they want to do. is see the extent to which Donald Trump and his friends are implicated. in what Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were doing. Well, I think that they probably want to know both. You know, I think it's also possible they're looking for people. who might not have the same political, bent as they do. You know, like Clinton, for example.

They might be doing, the opposite as well, trying to get information on Democrats. Look, I always say when I talk about this story. because people inevitably bring up the political issue. Sexual assault doesn't discriminate based on political party. There were bad people on both sides of this story. Democrat or Republican. This has to do with power and money and to some degree, politics. But the politics was on both sides. What do you think she told Todd Blunt with?

We're told that he came away with a list of 100 names. Well, I mean, it's hard to know. I mean, she she claimed, remember during trial. that this was all a farce, that she. It was no sex trafficking operation? She didn't know who these women were. I mean, she denied. Denied, denied. And also bring you back to the things she has said. in the past and in sworn to a positions, she has claimed that,

this whole thing was just, invented, you know, that this was. invented by the media and by the lawyers representing the victims. So now she's saying, oh, by the way, here's all the men or people that were involved. I mean, you can't have it both ways. She's she's on one hand saying there was no sex trafficking operation. And on the other hand, when it comes to offering her a pardon, or some kind of a deal, she's saying, oh, yeah, I've got names for you.

So it's it's hard to understand why, you know, they wouldn't question her. Her mode. It's obviously. she's going to say what she has to say because she wants to get out of jail. I suppose for the trial, she just decided to do a full not guilty. Just deny, deny, deny. Otherwise, she could have come up with these names at her own trial. Right? I you know, it's hard to know. I think that I'm sure her lawyers were telling her this was the tact to take.

You know, you you follow the advice of your lawyers. To be honest with you, I thought I sat through the whole trial. I thought there was a good chance she was going to get off. Her lawyers did a very good job of trying to discredit these victims. It's common for victims, especially if they were children. when the trauma happened to not remember things exactly correctly.

And her lawyers were very adept. at poking holes in, you said this then. Now you're saying this now, they would bring out statements. like these victims had given police years ago, and they compared them with statements they gave more recently. And these are just watching these, young women go through this again was very hard, to, to watch. And maybe that's what swayed the jury, the emotion of the whole thing.

But I do think that this the the case. that they presented was somewhat weak. So I think it's possible that Keelin and her attorneys. thought that she was. going to get a not guilty verdict or be convicted of something very minor. Right. But she wasn't. She was convicted of sex trafficking. She was sentenced to 20 years. Her appeal was turned down in November. Mike Johnson, the leader of the House yesterday on Face the Press. We're recording this on Monday morning,

said he thought she should have got life imprisonment. The crimes were so horrible. So yeah. What are you hearing from victims in terms of their response. to Todd Blanch rushing down to Tallahassee to talk to her father? They are. angry, frustrated, retraumatized, you know, disappointed. It's it's just devastating to them to hear that they're doing this, because in many ways, they believe she was the mastermind.

and she was really just as evil, if not more evil that Epstein was. And I'm saying this is what I've heard from not only the victims, but their attorneys that that this was, something that she he may not have ever done it. She didn't come up with this pyramid scheme that she came up with. She was the recruiter that went out with, his houseman and his butler, his drivers.

to spas and gyms across South Florida. to to give them these young women or, and in some cases, teenagers. Her business card saying, I have a very wealthy man. He's looking for a masseuse. You know, they. they didn't go out and he didn't do go out and get prostitute boots. He made a concerted effort, and she was part of that. to go out and manipulate young girls, many of them in vulnerable situation. where they had very little money or they were homeless or they just.

were just getting by. They made a. concerted effort to go after girls that they could entrap. And that's exactly what they did. And they used fraud because once the girl got in, it was very hard for her to get out. because he made it very clear he was a very powerful man. and would make their lives and their family's lives very difficult. if they did not go along with this sexual, sex trafficking that he was doing.

And of course, they weren't sophisticated enough to know that, actually, he had limited impact. Yes, he could have people sit outside their houses as he did. So private detectives sort of tracking girls and things. But I think we often imbue powerful men with more power than they actually have. But they were obviously scared of him, like many of them didn't have parents who could help them. And certain of them had parents who reported the behavior to the police. and then they weren't believed. Well, let's just fast forward a little bit to what's happening right now.

I just had a victim tell me, for example, that about the power thing. She said, this is very scary to me. because if the president of the United States can cover this up, could you imagine, who is involved with this? And this is the words of a victim to me. They believe that is this is now squashed, for example, that that there's so many,

people that are in this fight in these files. that they and they must have a lot of money and a lot of power. So it's it's the, idea of it. I think that terrifies them. It's not necessarily reality. And we don't know what the truth is, but. releasing those files, at least a good portion of them would help. I think, it would be it would show. some transparency on on the part of our government.

Right. But, I'm not sure we can expect transparency. on behalf of our government, but I would love to talk to you about the. the Pam Bondi of all this, because obviously she was. the attorney general 2011 to 2019, in Florida. So she would have inherited the files on Jeffrey Epstein, who as we know, there was both the local police and the FBI. had massive amounts of information about him. He went to jail for one,

on one charge. of underage solicitation of prostitution in 2008. It was a sweetheart deal, as we all know. She would have picked up the papers. Then what was her role? Because he continued this behavior. in Florida, in Palm Beach, as well as his houses elsewhere. Right under her nose. Right. Well, I mean, you know, there wasn't a lot of information, to be, Frank, there.

wasn't a lot of information about his, sexual, predation until Bondi became age. He was sent to prison in 2008 before she became, attorney general. But by the time she became attorney general in 2011, a lot of civil lawsuits had been filed. And in the course of all those lawsuits and depositions and, discovery, they found that there were a lot more victims, you know,

and that this was an ongoing network. of, of predation, involving other people. Virginia Giuffre, who was the most, vocal victim, filed an affidavit, I believe, in. 2015, saying that she was traffic to some very prominent people, including, Prince, Prince Andrew. And that was a court document. So, Julie, just sorry, but you're right. This is a complicated story.

Did she file that in Florida? Yes. So Pam Bondi would have been aware of that. Well, yeah, she had to be aware of it. because it was written about extensively, especially by the British media. But the American media covered it as well because Alan Dershowitz. also came into the picture. And then he started suing, her lawyers. So there was coverage of it back then, and as I said, it was such a, you know, high profile case, at least during that period of time, one would think she would have looked at it.

Now it's possible she did. And she decided not to do anything about it. And she she didn't look at it. What I'm saying is that it did. Part of it did, come become public under her tenure. So what do you think happens now? Well, what do I think happens or what do I think should happen? I mean, those are two different questions. Well, it yeah, very good point. I mean, what do you think may happen now and then?

What do you think should happen now? Well, I think they're going to move her out of, out of the prison that she's in in Florida. I'm sure. that there's some concern or at least on her part, of her safety, because she's, you know, she's really in the news right. now, and she believes that Epstein was murdered. His brother believes he was murdered. What, do you agree with that or not? I'm sure she has some safety concerns, so they might move her,

especially maybe to a place that's a little bit more conducive to, Washington, maybe closer to Washington, where they're going to be, I guess, having more talks with her. You know, I. it's hard to say whether they're going to offer her some kind of deal. My guess is they're going to try to find her something, you know, because this story isn't going away for Trump. So my guess is they're going to try to figure out some way. to have her make public,

a statement of some sort that Trump wasn't involved. So do you think that Ghislaine Maxwell is at risk? Do you think her life is at risk in the current jail she's in in Tallahassee? And we know Florida jails are a difficult places, and you've had a a lifetime of reporting on her. On Friday. Night as well. And I was going to say is, jails are just. prisons and jails are just dangerous places, period. And it is so easy to cover up a crime in jail.

You know, the cameras are broken. You know, guards fall asleep. I mean, they are, for the most part, very corrupt. And so, yes, it's possible, but she wouldn't necessarily be safe anywhere. Look at Epstein. You know, he he was he was the probably one of the most high. profile, prisoners that we've ever had. And he still was managed to be found dead. So, anything's possible.

And I know you're not a conspiracy theorist, but you haven't. You can't quite figure out how he died. Do you want to talk us through that? Well, you know, I there's just too many problems. with the story that they're using to justify the suicide. I'm not saying he didn't commit suicide. I'm just saying that there are too many holes in the whole story. And, you know, I can go through the litany of problems, but. for the most part, they.

haven't answered why the cameras weren't working. Why is it that he was able to have two mattresses and all that, or the blankets and the material that he had in there? Why wasn't the pot in the scene secured after his death? That should have been treated as a suspicious death from the get go. He was pretty much dead when they got there, you know, but they removed his body and they, you know, God knows what they did with the crime scene. You know, his brother,

firmly believes that this was a situation. where Epstein had a lot of information on a lot of powerful, people, and that it's possible that the death didn't happen. They took out his cellmate, for example, right before this happened, and he was on suicide watch. Allegedly. You're supposed to have someone in there. I mean, there are all these protocols that were broken. So I think that, you know, the autopsy itself hasn't been released. So the the all these things lead to people coming up with conspiracy theories.

I mean, I spoke with one victim last week who thinks he's still alive. Okay, well, that that does seem to be pushing it. There was a picture of him dead, actually, on the New York Post on the front page. of the New York Post. But you make the point that the video they released actually didn't. Wasn't the video of his cell door? No. And for them, they kind of try to imply. that it is and this is evidence is absurd. because it's the wing where where his cell was.

That camera was not recording in real time. So they have no video from that. And these were various wings, and none of the cameras in that whole unit were working. except for the one that they showed us, which doesn't really show anything. So, you know, it it's like I said, there are so many things like this that don't make any sense. Although you can imagine that if you're Jeffrey Epstein, you're in there for a second child.

I mean, the photos of him, from jail make him look really rough. I can't I don't find it difficult to imagine. that you would want to commit suicide in that situation. He was doing exactly what he did in Florida, though. He wasn't spending a lot of time in that cell during the day. He was doing what he same pattern. He would hire all these lawyers. He would go out in the morning and he would go into an office. with his lawyers, and he would stay there for almost all day.

And then he would just go back to his cell to sleep. He was using his lawyers so that he could get out of jail, so to speak, and just be able to be in a comfortable. environment where he was allegedly speaking to his lawyers. He was setting up things, that that he had done in Florida. in order to make his, jail time a little bit more comfortable. But he also knew he was guilty. I don't think so. I don't think so.

I think he always thought he was above the law. And in his mind, he was trying to help these girls by. In some cases, he did. He helped one of the victims become, you know, an actress. And he is he did pay for some schooling for others, he fancied himself. as this intellectual father figure, giving them advice.

He always thought of himself as above the law. I don't think he ever really thought he did anything wrong. But he must have known that his behavior was. completely abnormal. Did he not have an understanding of that? Was he so sociopathic. that he literally thought he was above the law and anything? Yes. Right. Yes. I that's what I think he really was. And, it's, you know, it is possible. that he could still two things can be correct at the same time.

And it's possible that he didn't believe he did anything wrong, but still could see that he was in a jail, and that the publicity at the time surrounding. a story would make it very hard for him to get out. So two things could be correct there. So if he were killed in jail, who is like I mean, I take it. I understand that jails are difficult and dangerous places. and they're often very badly run and they're corrupt, as you say.

How would you murder someone in jail? Well, you just you know, you have a lot of people in jail. who have no hope of getting out. And just because in general, when I am covering, deaths that happen in prison, it often involves. other inmates that you make promises to, whether it's, a financial incentive or even, you know, I know of deaths. that have happened just because, they got some cartons of cigarets.

I mean, they're in there and they're not getting out. Number one. So they have nothing to lose. And the other thing to remember is that pedophiles. are on the lowest of the low in any jail. They do not last long in jail. because they have a target on their backs. So, you know, I'm not saying that he she was killed, but I'm saying that,

there are a lot of questions. There's no evidence that the even authorities even questioned. all the inmates that were all in that way. Is it common in your experience that if people do get killed in jail, that it's staged to look like a suicide? Yes. Oh, it's always staged. Always staged, whether it's, a drug saying or, the person tried to, you know, commit suicide.

I mean, there has been plenty of, you know, cases, of the inmates who, are found hanging, but there's some question about. whether they did it themselves. I mean, it it's it's an easy place to get away with that kind of crime. So, Julie, where does your reporting take you next? Well, you know, Senator, Ron Widen is looking. into the financial aspect of Epstein's crimes.

And there are some evidence. that he was doing business, overseas. And I think that's the next front that we have to look at. is to follow the money of how he made his money, who he was paying, who he was getting money from. He's, the senator's getting some resistance from the, from the justice Department as well as from the Treasury Department. in order for him to get the information that he needs. about Epstein's bank accounts, for example.

Well, good luck with that. The oversight committee. has, required Ghislaine Maxwell come and give evidence in front of them. And that's in, I think, around August the 10th. So that will also probably throw up more questions, than it answers. But who doesn't want to see who's on that list? And of course, the people on the list aren't necessarily. accused of being involved in his sex trafficking. But the proximity to Jeffrey Epstein. has felled many a powerful man's career.

That's right. I actually don't believe there is one list unless the FBI compiled its own. But I do think that I've seen kept files on people. I just don't think he kept one running list of people. But there's still. I'm sure he kept files. Now, whether the DOJ ever got their hands on it is another matter, because they weren't very adept at getting his computers the first time around. They never got their hands on them. And so one has to wonder what they actually have.

And that was because he'd been he'd been tipped off that they were coming. Right. So he had actually cleared out the hard drives. That's correct. Well, and also, one can assume that Ghislaine Maxwell is sitting there. every day in prison trying to figure out. what she's got that would get her some lenience. Such a long sentence. Yes. I'm sure she's trying to figure out ways to perhaps back up this, you know, whatever information she's providing,

I would think that the Justice Department would need some, you know, evidence in a way of phone records or computer records. or just regular paper, records, that she may have. Well, you're right, though. She spent her entire trial denying any of this happened, that she was completely not guilty. So the idea that she's got a list of people now that the Justice Department. should take seriously seems completely at odds with what she said before.

Right? And, you know, she's going to have to provide a justification for that, given. I'm in is, in essence, she's going to have to sort of walk. that line between implicating other people but not implicating herself. because she was convicted based on the testimony of three young women. There were probably a lot more victims. So once you open that door, you're also opening the door to more.

the potential of implicating yourself in more crimes. Right. And who do you think the names are most at risk in, in the supposed list or the list of 100 names? Who do you think is in there? We've heard of Bill Clinton, the Dalai Lama, the list goes on. But, are there any people in there that you think we're going to hear. about or not? Anybody that we haven't already known about, like with Clinton and Trump or they're all in there?

The the question is that, you know, does this what does this mean? I mean, in, in what context? Because just because you're in there. on its phone list doesn't mean that you were involved in his crime. So that's the second part of this. She can provide a list of all of Epstein's so-called friends, but. that doesn't mean that they're guilty of. Anything, right? Except bad judgment and being his friend. That's correct. All right. Julie Brown, thank you very much. Congrats again on your extraordinary dogged reporting and just. having the sheer energy to keep going when you are meeting so much resistance.

Congratulations. Keep going. Thank you. Well, this story is clearly not going away. The president's usual attempts at distraction. I haven't actually worked on this particular one. It's an easy story to understand. There appears to be a cover up. So let's see the Epstein files. Let's see the names and let MAGA. come to its own conclusions. If you liked this podcast, please share it with your friends,

write us a comment on YouTube, and I'm going to respond to some of your comments. Because many people we got thousands of comments on Michael Wolf's, podcast over the weekend about Melania's involvement in all this. Many of you accused me of interrupting Michael, which I do do. It's true. From time to time. To be fair, I only try to interrupt him when I think. he's referring to something that the audience in general might not know. I worry sometimes that he takes our knowledge of the Epstein affair,

which we're not following quite as myopically as Michael for granted. So I like to just make sure that people know who we're talking about. Anyway, I take your point. And when he's on the podcast next, at the end of the week, we'll ask him. if he thinks I interrupt him too much. Anyway, don't forget. Share the podcast, write a comment, beast, and join me in applauding our producers, Devin. Roger Reno and Anna Von Ersan and our editor, Jesse Millwood.