LIVE w/ Michael Wolff: Don Lemon's Arrest Sparks New Epstein Cover-Up

Michael. Well, we were not expecting to do an emergency podcast this morning, and when we woke up, we had Don lemon had been arrested. He's a frequent visitor to the Daily Beast podcast. And an old friend of mine. Right. And in fact, he's a neighbor of yours. I mean, he lives in SAG Harbor much of the time he does. when he's not in the city. So, Oops. I'm just turning down the volume of my phone. So we're not echoing here. So let's just talk about Don lemon first.

And of course, as we decided to do this, Todd Blanch suddenly pops up, with a dump of 3 million of the Epstein files. So, of course, we haven't. possibly been able to go through very many of them, but. we have a couple which seems significant that we want to talk about. But. But, Michael, what were your thoughts on hearing Don had been arrested? Well. Well, let's let's just give the background here that, Don was in Minneapolis. and he was filming outside of a church.

where there was a protest because, because, you I actually don't know what denomination. of the church of church this was, but the, the pastor of the church, and I'm assuming that it's a Protestant denomination, and not a priest, has been very vocally. on the side of the Trump administration and Ice agents. So there has been a there was a big protest outside of.

which Don was was broadcasting. from that location, I assume, interviewing people on the street, doing what is what what. journalists commonly do, television journalists getting, getting, getting pictures and speaking to people and, trying to, trying to give viewers a sense of what was happening on the ground.

He was at that point, hassled, jostled, confronted by Ice agents. And then subsequent to that, threatened to be arrested, threatened his his arrest was threatened. They said, we're going to arrest you. And in fact and in fact, they tried to they went before. a, a judge, I believe they went before a magistrate. Magistrate, I think. Yeah. Who said, you know, I, you know, go away, get out of my court.

This is ridiculous. And, but nevertheless, he. Yesterday or this morning, I'm not sure. when he was arrested in he was covering. the Grammys, I believe, and was arrested in LA. on a federal charge. So, I mean, this is this is pretty extraordinary. I, you know, I mean, a journalist in the middle of a news story.

being arrested for covering the news story, and, I mean, I think that there's, the federal government is has is there's some smoke about. He was a protester or he had joined the protest. Anyway, the usual kind of, you know, sort of observation kind of stuff. What? So the I mean, the curious thing is, why would they do this?

I mean, this isn't good for them. There is I mean, there are many judges who are going to, as they have before, thrown this out. In from a media standpoint, it gives Don lemon. and a much more attention than he would otherwise have. There is no reasonable logic for the white House. to have to have authorized this, and to have gone. before the Justice Department to have actually pursued this.

So, I, you know, and I my only interpretation. is that these are, you know, again, nobody knows what they're doing. Nobody knows why they're doing. It's everybody is in a is in a panic. Everybody is is trying to do what they think the president wants them to do. But nobody knows exactly what the president wants to do. And the president seems to be changing his mind on a minute by minute basis. So I would chalk this off to I mean, this is a terrible thing,

and it sends a terrible message and it is a frontal free speech assault, all of that. But at the same time, I would I would chalk this off to the. the chaos, the no nothingness, the, you know, the the absolute, lack of plan. and strategy of any kind, which we have seen repeatedly in this instance.

and in so many other instances of the Trump White House. Well, it sounds like Don is still in custody. Obviously, we're we're doing this live. And as far as we know, we spoke to someone who spoke to his husband. Don is still in custody. He's got Abbe Lowell as his, lawyer, here, who also interestingly represented. Jared and Ivanka and Hunter Biden, among others. So we send Don, very best wishes. And as you say, this is a really alarming sign,

but it may be nothing more than just the cock up theory. rather than some deep conspiracy. And I can't help thinking, I mean, of course, this distraction. and and perhaps it's a distraction. from the Epstein files that they know that if they, arrest a journalist, the. media's attention will be turned to trying to figure out what's going on. And, of course, yeah, I would, I would, I would discount this actually, actually,

because we just know it's a total cock up by Pam Bondi. Yeah, I would, I would think so. Yes. Because I mean it's not going to distract from the Epstein files. The Epstein files are actually going to distract from Don. from Dover or Don at, you know, his, his, his moment is, being stolen. by, 3 million Epstein documents. Well, and it's not which is which is an ask another question.

Why are they released? Why would they release the Epstein documents on the day. when the Melania film is being released? Again, if there was any plan here, that would not have happened, because this is going to distract from the Melania film. and that's going to make Melania angry, and Melania. is going to be angry with her husband and then her husband. The president is going to be angry with everybody in the Justice Department. Well, it does seem crazy timing and we've both been looking at some of the.

Epstein files, which actually include. emails from Melania to Guillén. Do you want to do well, yes, because this is I mean, this is particularly relevant for me, remember, because I am the first lady, Melania Trump threatened to sue me for $1 billion for. And one of the reasons is that I said, I said that she was part of Jeffrey Epstein's social circle.

Or that's how they knew each other. They were in the same social circle. I think is is what I said. So, there appears now an email from, from, well, two and this is, this is two is redacted here. But it, but it does say, dear G. So repeat that, dear G.

Keep g in mind. Right. How are you? Nice story about G in NY mag. You look great on the picture. I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you are back in new in NY. Have a great time. Love, Melania. G of course.

Although, although the two line in the email is redacted, we can safely. assume G is Ghislaine Maxwell and and it's it's it's curious. And when I read this, I, I also remembered that when that. when Ghislaine Maxwell was interviewed by Todd Blanch, you will recall that, that that blanch went down to. interview,

Ghislaine. She served she was serving time in prison in Florida. He went down to Florida to interview her in extensive, an extensive two days of interviews. Yes. And that and that those that interview was released and Melania was not asked. He did not ask about Melania. So just a word of advice to the, to the House Oversight Committee, who is apparently they have. said they are calling Ghislaine Maxwell.

Well, they ought to ask about. her relationship with Melania Trump. Yes, they should. And for those who didn't understand Michael's reading of the email, I thought I might add a frisson. just by adding it in her voice, because it might seem more familiar. I can't resist it. Dear G, how are you and I story about GE in. New York mag you look great on the picture.

I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you are back in NY. Have a great time. Love, Melania. And then of. course we have a response from Ghislaine Maxwell. Can I read this one? Yeah, I didn't see this one. Oh okay. Well it's just been handed to me actually. And I can do this one because Gillian, you know, and just, just let's note here. that these that there are 3 million files. So we're we are we are classically cherry picking.

I mean, this is just a sort of search and, search and grab mission. So. Yeah. Yeah. This is where the over the next coming days, people will sort. this will I hope, sort this in a more organized fashion. Yes. And I will say that when we were searching for things, after the DOJ had released them, there were all sorts of issues with the search function. So it's possible that the site was just completely overwhelmed. But when we were putting in requests for search for Melania.

or Donald or Ellen, nothing was coming up. And I think that's because so many people were logged into the site. Anyway, we have found some. But here's the response from Gillian, which I can read justifiably. in a British accent, because as we know, Gillan grew up in London. Sweet pea, thanks for your message. Actually, plans changed again, and I'm I'm now on my way back to New York. I leave again on Friday, so I still do not think I have time to see you. Sadly, I will try and cool though,

so that does sound like they are in the same social circle. Certainly does, doesn't it? Doesn't it? And we've also got, emails. from Ellen trying to get to the island. I'm just going to sift through those. His brother is also trying to meet Jeffrey Epstein. We should point out that the emails between Gillian and Melania took place in 2002.

And do I. have the emails that I was looking for? I think they're here. This is the problem with all these things that just. And there's a good one. There's a good one here. And we don't really know the, the, we we really don't know. who this one is from, but it's, tantalizing. And I love this one. Yes. Go ahead. You read this one and it says, in this. this is, this is November 9th. So that's a day after, after Trump, December 9th, 2016.

So a day after Trump is elected president of the United States. And we have no idea who this is from, but it's two Jeffrey Epstein. Right. And, it reads, I simply cannot believe the victory. No one called it. And we all thought she'd win. She'd be, Hillary. Hillary. Yeah. You must be happy, though. I remember flying back with Donald on his plane.

the first weekend I went to visit you in Florida was the weekend he met Melania. And he kept on coming out of the bedroom saying, wow, what a hot piece of ass nuts. Anyway, hope you're enjoying sortie. And I know that in that period, Epstein. was in, Riyadh often advising MBS. Oh, interesting.

And we've got so many comments here. I mean, one from a user 5JY3 and J3T. What the hell kind of life we living? I mean, extraordinary, but, we've also got another one here. This is a note to Jeffrey Epstein from someone called Leslie Groff. Did Lesley Groff work for Jeffrey Epstein? Yes. Leslie Groff was his receptionist assistant. When you came into the house, there was a.

an office on the right as you went up the stairs. And that's where Leslie Groff, that's where she was always situated. And she was the welcoming person and the organizer, and. and you would hear from her, she would do all of his scheduling. Okay, so this is the top of this email list. And a woman just to just the in the context of this. So a woman, I would I would have put her in her mid 40s.

Okay. So the her email to Jeffrey Epstein, it's just a. two liner, but then I'm going to read the, the email from Elon Musk. The subject matter is Elon Musk Christmas and New Year. And it's, dated the 31st of December 2013. Just a reminder, Elon. Musk was asking about coming to your island on January the 2nd. And then we have from Elon to Jeffrey Epstein copying Leslie.

Actually, I could fly back early on. The third will be in some parts, but would we head to your island on the second? And then he says, I need to fly back to L.A. on the night of the second, Jeffrey Epstein writes back, the second or third would be perfect. I will come and get you. And then Elon goes, oh, probably the first them. And then Jeffrey Epstein writes back any day. First apes play it by ear if you want. Always got space for you. And then Elon writes back, we'll be in the BVI,

British Virgin Islands, Saint Barts area over the holidays. Is there a good time to visit? That was at the beginning, so a fascinating insight. There into just the you know, first of all, the ease of travel. If you have a private plane and you'd have to worry. about booking a flight like the rest of us, but that sense of Elon having nowhere to go on Christmas Day. and New Years and wanting to spend it with his friend Jeffrey Epstein. And that was after Jeffrey Epstein had spent time in prison for,

for soliciting underage prostitutes. Oh. Oh, God. I'm always getting that terminology wrong for soliciting, for soliciting. underage girls, for prostitution. There, I mean, one of the things that I was going. going through, and I think that will make this. obscures rather than clarifies, and there's lots of material and has been in all of these releases, material.

I mean, the, the net net effect is to obscure. probably more than clarify, but this is particularly so. because it's a appears to be a schedule of complaints. made by anonymous sources or information from anonymous sources, and you can almost imagine, imagine, that the FBI was taking phone calls. You call up the FBI and say, Donald Trump, raped me.

Which is what a lot of this is. And it's everything is logged here, a caller. and then identified in limited ways. described the following scene with Elon Musk. and Bill Clinton and Donald Trump and, and and a whole list of people. rape, raping the who. raping this, whoever the caller is. And there there are instances, one instance after another. I mean, I, I haven't finished scrolling through there, but I, I'm,

I've already gotten to the point where you can't look at any more of this. and it all. I mean, the effect is to say. to undermine everything here because this is all probably. I mean, it's certainly nothing has the ring of truth to it. And, and there's so much of it that, that Donald. Trump and Jeffrey, as well as Donald Trump, particularly in this instance,

would be able to do nothing else but, have a, have a nonstop sex party. Well, happy to say, well, that man does have a lot of energy, but I think what you're seeing. is the mixture of real emails and real communications. and then accusations that nobody knows if they're false or not. They certainly read very fanciful, some of them. And you realize the difficulties the FBI, in having a job.

where they have to take every call that comes in seriously. at the beginning and then figure out if this happened. And this is of course, of course, the problem with a. with an unknown, unfiltered dump of information. Right? Which is what they're hoping to do flood his own, flood the Epstein's own. So it makes it impossible to go through. But I am exactly I mean, I saw there's, some phenomenal number of, of of images. and 100,000 video is 2000.

videos, $3 million, 3 million pieces of paper. So just a phenomenal amount of information for people to be combing through. And of course, a lot of names redacted, and all sorts of theories and conspiracies. going on which we will do our best to get to the bottom of will be. Yeah. And it's, and it's already hard to understand. what would be the nature of this of of this redaction. You know, I mean,

I mean, I suppose, I mean, in theory, they're redacting the names of victims. But clearly they've redacted, what's in that one? One email? They they've they've redacted Glenn's name. I mean, obviously, she's not a victim. She is a victimizer. I wonder why why did Todd Blanch not ask him about Melania Trump. when he went down to interview her in Tallahassee?

I don't know, I mean, he spent a day and a half interviewing her. And then of course, shortly after, I think three days later, she got moved to, Camp Bryan in Texas. No. Well, I think I think we we. we forget you're overlooked because she's she's the first lady. She's just the wife. She's, And, we overlook the fact that she. was clearly a player in this,

this culture. She was a model. Jeffrey Epstein and both Donald Trump were obsessed with models. involved with modeling agencies, involved. with with, beauty pageants, Victoria's Secret and that is the world in which Melania Trump comes out of. Well, I do think it's extraordinary. that they've managed to dump 3 million Epstein files. literally on the day that the movie she claims to be so proud of.

And I'm sure she's proud of the economics around it. Let's not forget $40 million, $38 million spent on marketing. I think she got 28 million. of the $40 million Amazon paid for it. And who knows? We'll we'll find out. I'll find out this afternoon. Yeah, I think that that's that that's not true. That figure, by the way, you see I mean, you know, she got. she got much more I mean, this this movie that costs, it costs. about probably 4 or $5 million to make liberally.

So, well, if I were her, I would be livid. The emails between me and Glenn Maxwell were coming out on the day of my movie. I almost won a hostile gesture from. Well, I was thinking, yes, I was, yes, I was thinking, what? Who's going to get fired over that? Right? Or and did they do it deliberately in the way that, I mean, I just interviewed Jen Welsh of the. I've Had It podcast and she made the very good point.

You know, imagine what the environment like. And certainly we've talked about how all Donald Trump secretaries hate each other. But given how bad they are. to the population, imagine how bad they are to each other. So maybe this has been done as a hostile gesture, a very passive aggressive hostile gesture that theoretically, every every piece of paper was vetted by somebody in the Justice Department.

And so you don't know who's hostile gesture this was. How did this how did this one how did the Melania references slip through? Right. I obviously no idea. Well, I'm sorry we haven't had more opportunity to go through. and select more, emails for people, but we'll certainly be doing that. And I know we have a team at the beast railing, railing, raking through them as we speak.

I wanted to give a shout out to Dick Huger and B crumbs nine, three seven, both of whom have gifted five chat memberships each. So thank you very much for doing that. D and B crumbs. And Michael and I will be back tomorrow. We'll be back tomorrow. Our usual time, 2 p.m. in the afternoon on YouTube and at midnight, wherever else. you get your podcasts, with a deeper brief on what's going on here. And I am going to see the Melania movie this afternoon, so you don't have to.

Not you, Michael, you have to. But the two of us, I actually can't. It's not playing anywhere on, in the Hamptons. The Hamptons is a, a free Melania Zone of. Oh, interesting. Or is it a forum or Melania free zone? Yeah, well, it should be. You don't want a free Melania. I think it's a free double lemon of Melania. Right? It's a free Don lemon zone. Well, I will be going to see the movie this afternoon.

So the rest of you don't have to. And I'll give you my debrief tomorrow. I'm intrigued, but I actually I don't so much sympathy. for the first lady, but I bet she's fed up at this. This. Well, this is what this is what I. This is what I want you to look for in the film. So in my lawsuit, one of the, one of the, initially very. pertinent questions is where she lives. So let me know if you know. I mean, this is this is a supposedly a candid look at these first,

of the 20 days before she gets into the white House. I think she's in Mar-A-Lago. She wouldn't be at the white House, so it might not be much use as well. And see if she if she is in Mar-A-Lago or if she is in Trump Tower. Okay. Well, I will do my best. I I'll, I'll take my, I'll take my reporter's house in there and see what I can deduce from Melania. the movie, which I am seeing this afternoon, though interesting,

and I couldn't get any of my friends to come and see it with me. I thought it would be an intriguing ticket 4:00 in the afternoon, but no notice you're alone in the theater. I well, I may be alone in the theater. I'm forcing a colleague to come with me so that we can do it together. But we'll be back tomorrow. If you have been. Thank you for joining us. And again, we just didn't have enough time to go through the Epstein files. Nobody's got enough time to go through all 3 million of them. Not even really why we were here in the first place. No, we will if.

we don lemon free. Don lemon. Anyway, I'm sure he will be freed. He's got great legal representation with that below. And Michael and I will be back tomorrow at our regular time. Thank you for your comments. I wish that I could have seen them slightly more, slightly more clearly. Some of them, but we are perfecting the art of YouTube live, are we not? Michael? I I'm I'm not. I hope you are. I'm.