 Welcome to CN Live, I'm your host Elizabeth Voss. Today we talk about Jeffrey Epstein's accomplices and their fate as it stands today. It's been over two years since Epstein was arrested on charges of sex trafficking minors and his subsequent death in custody. Since that time, Glay Maxwell, Epstein's accomplice has been convicted of multiple sexual offenses, including sex trafficking of a minor in association with Epstein. Victims also accused Maxwell of directly sexually abusing them. After her conviction, Maxwell's lawyer sought a retrial on the grounds that a juror did not disclose during jury selection that he had been sexually abused as a child. We've now learned that Maxwell was denied a retrial after federal judge, Alison Nathan, ruled that the juror in question made an honest mistake in not disclosing their abuse history and did not display bias against Maxwell. She said the juror of 50s failure to disclose prior sexual abuse during the jury selection process was, quote, highly unfortunate for not deliberate. She also stated that the court concluded that juror 50 harbored no bias towards the defendant and could serve as a fair and impartial juror. The decision is likely to be appealed to a higher court. If unsuccessful, Maxwell is set to face sentencing in June. There is also the fate of another long-time Epstein associate to discuss, and that is French model scout, John-Luc Bernal, who was arrested in Paris Airport late last year on multiple charges, including sex trafficking before dying by apparent suicide in February of this year. To discuss all of this, we were joined earlier this month by journalist and author, Nick Bryant, who has covered the Epstein scandal closely for years. He was responsible for publishing Epstein's little black book in addition to his work on other sex trafficking cases, including the Franklin scandal centered in Omaha, Nebraska. The Franklin scandal, a story of power workers, child abuse and betrayal, is a chilling expose of corporate corruption and government cover-ups. It documents a nationwide child trafficking network in the United States and tells a sordid tale of corruption in very high places. The scandal originally surfaced in Omaha, Nebraska during an investigation into the failed Franklin Federal Credit Union, and it went beyond the Midwest, ultimately to Washington, DC, implicating the blackmailing of politicians and major malfeasants by the media, federal law enforcement and intelligence entities. The book is extensively researched and includes firsthand interviews with key witnesses as well as sealed grand jury testimony and exhibits. The Franklin scandal and the Epstein scandal are practically doppelgangers, and I think it's really important that we look at scandals like this that are parallels with each other over decades in order to really debunk the media representation of scandals like Epstein as aberrations from the norm, as something that happened once and will never happen again, as something where mysteriously people in high places like the Bill Gates, the Clintons, the Trumps of the world are connected to people like Epstein, and they presented as if this is something really new and different. So that's why it's so important to talk to someone like Nick Bryant because we see that there is a historical precedent for this and that it is something that is more of a continuation of the norm than an aberration from it. Welcome, Nick, thank you for joining us today. I'm glad to be with you, Elizabeth. So we're gonna tackle some broader questions before we dive into some of the details on these cases because there's so much that viewers may not know or may not remember because it's been a number of years now. So I wanted to ask you for those who are unaware, can you just speak for a little bit to the nature of the relationship between Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein and also Ghislaine Maxwell's father Robert Maxwell and speak about why Robert Maxwell is so significant in this case. Well, Ghislaine's father, Robert Maxwell, he was a nasty piece of work. He had a publishing empire and he took people's pensions, thousands of people's pensions. He was also an Israeli spy. He might have even been a triple threat. There's some information that has come out about that. And when his looting of his publishing empire was ultimately uncovered, he committed suicide off of, he jumped off of his yacht or ostensibly committed suicide. We don't really know. But he jumped off his yacht and which was called the Ghislaine. Do you have any comment on the case in Ghislaine Maxwell's situation? The Ghislaine Maxwell case is a travesty for one. She was indicted on one count of child trafficking. She trafficked children for 25 years. She should have been indicted on multiple counts of child trafficking. And the feds were really, they played this pretty nasty too. They only called witnesses that Epstein and Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell had molested. They did not call witnesses that had been flown around the country. They did not call witnesses that had been flown to different countries. They did not call witnesses that had been flown to Epstein's or the island. The whole, this case, nothing really makes any sense about this case except for the government, our federal government's collusion with child molesters. And I would call that state-affiliated child trafficking. That's such an important point. And I'd definitely like to come back to that later, especially when it relates to other child trafficking scandals. But I also wanted to ask you, how has the media sort of misconstrued Ghislaine Maxwell's role in this entire scandal when it comes to Epstein? Well, I mean, the media has been as corrupt as the federal government when it comes to all things Epstein. It's very interesting. The media loves to dig up salacious dirt on Epstein or Maxwell. But I've never seen anyone in the media come out and scream for justice. I wrote an article on Epstein that was published in the SHIR post. And I called for justice. And because Rodriguez was the house manager, he got Epstein's black book, which I initially got the black book in 2012. And I tried to solve it for three years and then finally I found someone. But he circled names of people that he said were colluding with Epstein. And Virginia Guffrey in one of her depositions named a bunch of the people whose names were circled. So in the Epstein case, if the media hadn't been asleep at the will, they could have had double corroboration on child molesters. But the media didn't really want any corroboration on child molesters. When Virginia's documentation got unsealed, it was treated almost humorously about when she named these rich and powerful men that had molestered her. So who were some of these men? Because I mean, we hear a lot about Maxwell. Obviously we talk about Epstein, but a lot of these names kind of have stayed out of the media. They really haven't gotten a lot of scrutiny. Do you wanna discuss any of those? We're free named Alan Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, New Mexico governor and energy designer, Clinton Bill Richardson. Glenn Dubin, a very wealthy financier, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and also a scientist named Marvin Minsky and Les Wexner and Jean Brunel. So those were the names that came out of the freeze deposition. And what's interesting is Alan Dershowitz and Epstein were definitely friends. It's kind of interesting when Epstein goes down, see how they run. Alan Dershowitz and Epstein have been buddies for a long time. And actually I wrote an article where Alan Dershowitz had said in 2015 that he only flew with his, he couldn't have been with Epstein and co-hosts with Epstein because he only flew with his wife. Well, I had a bunch of passenger manifests that showed that he did not fly with his wife. He flew with women by the name of Tatiana and Claire. And he tried to make a joke out of it, but he was busted right there in lies. And it's kind of interesting Virginia, her lawyers, Brad Edwards, when Dershowitz, when Virginia originally had a affidavit unsealed, it named three people, Jean Brunel, Prince Andrew and Dershowitz. And Dershowitz vowed that he was gonna get Brad Edwards license to practice law. He went on the offensive and he was on this station, on that station. He was gonna get Brad Edwards. Well, he didn't get Brad Edwards law, law license. He didn't get anybody's law license. He's good at suing. We'll see where these ultimately go. But it's very interesting. Gouffry sued Maxwell and got a bunch of money. She sued Prince Andrew and got a bunch of money and she sued Alan Dershowitz and we will see what's happening. But Alan was not very veritable when I interviewed him. And of course there's Prince Andrew. We all have seen that unfold. Virginia got millions of dollars from Prince Andrew. And he's, I mean, that BBC interview that he gave, where he said that he didn't sweat and made a bunch of really stupid statements. I don't know how one can account for his kind of stupidity except too much in breeding with the royal family. Bill Richardson, he was a high flyer in the Democratic Party, high flyer. And he was actually a presidential candidate material. And he was the governor of New Mexico and also as I said, Clinton's energy czar. And he harnessed a lot of Jews in the Democratic Party. And actually, Virginia named Bruce King, who was also a governor of New Mexico. Now Glenn Dubin, Epstein and Dubin go back a long way. Epstein, one of Epstein's former girlfriends had married Dubin. So they were, and although Epstein was a sex offender, they didn't mind inviting him to Thanksgiving. George Mitchell, he was one of the most powerful men in the country. He was the Senate Majority Leader and the Democratic Senate Majority Leader. So these people, and then Les Wexner, of course, I mean, there's a tremendous amount of evidence that there was tremendous malfeasance between Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein. And Wexner had to spend a bunch of money to distance himself. And of course, there was Jean-Luc Brinnell and he's a nasty piece of work. We know that he ostensibly hung himself, or apparently hung himself a couple of weeks ago. And I don't know, Jean-Luc Brinnell was a cokehead and he was used to the high life. So it's difficult to know whether or not he hung himself because he was gonna go to jail and he was gonna be able to do coke in the last girls anymore or there was something nefarious about it. I will say this, I think Jean-Luc Brinnell was in cahoots with Epstein with the black male and he knew who a bunch of the power brokers were that were molesting these girls. So I think that it's difficult to know with Brinnell. I mean, there's speculation that he didn't kill himself, but although he knew a lot and could have been troubled to a lot of people, I think that an equal argument could be made that he couldn't live the high life anymore and do coke and molest girls. So he just didn't see the point of living anymore. Yeah, and for the benefit of our viewers, can you describe just a little bit who Jean-Luc Brinnell was, like what was his role with Epstein? I believe he was a French model scout, correct? Yes, and he'd been a model scout forever and actually 16 minutes did a piece on him years ago because he would drug these models and molest them. And he and Epstein were actually buying girls in Eastern Europe. As strange as that, it seems that they were doing it. And Epstein gave him money to start MC squared, which was a modeling agency that was financed almost exclusively by Epstein. And that was just another modality for them to get girls underage girls. And there again, Brinnell under the auspices of MC squared would travel through Eastern Europe and find girls that he and Epstein wanted to molest. Pretty sorted, yeah. Right, so like Gillain, he was a procurer of girls for Epstein and his associates. And obviously he would know a lot of the clients that Epstein would imagine as well. Indeed. Okay. So again, so you say basically there's sort of a toss up as to whether this was truly a suicide or not. And we've talked about some of these associates that have been not focused on by the media, have not been prosecuted. And I wanted to ask you about some other scandals that kind of are parallels with the Epstein case because obviously Epstein has received a huge amount of media attention, although it has been kind of like myopic, it has focused on the high society, it has focused on Epstein's relationship with the high and mighty, but it hasn't looked at the intelligence ties. It hasn't looked at the government association with it, association with it, as you've described. Can you talk to us a little bit about the Franklin scandal and how that is a parallel scandal with the Epstein case? Well, the Franklin scandal is a book I wrote and it was published about 10 years ago and it is very similar to the Epstein case. In the Franklin scandal, you've got Republicans molesting little boys and then the Epstein scandal, you've got Democrats molesting little girls. There's a number of parallels between the two networks. The epicenter for that, the Franklin network was Omaha Nebraska, but many of the children were flown to Washington, DC and there was a person there named Craig Spence who was as sociopathic as John Lupinell or Epstein and he was a child molester, but he also was a CIA asset and his house was wired for audiovisual blackmail and he blackmailed people. He blackmailed people on his own and then he blackmailed people for the organization that was behind him and this is what people don't really understand about Epstein. There is evidence in every one of his homes that it was hidden cameras. Why would the guy have hidden cameras in all of his homes? And according to Maria Farmer and his mansion on the Upper East Side or his former ranch on the Upper East Side, every bedroom and bathroom was wired for audiovisual surveillance and with Spence and also with Epstein you've got two guys from the working class. Epstein was a college rep about Spence managed to get a college degree and they're blackmailing some of the most powerful men in the world. Now there's no way that they can do that without having an organization behind them. Especially when it comes to people like Les Wexner who has mafia connections. And the article I wrote for this year post I demonstrate that Wexner did have mafia connections and other power brokers definitely have access to thugs and leg breakers, et cetera. So Spence like Epstein needed an organization behind him to say, hey, no retribution on this guy. Although he blackmailed you, you can't, if you try retribution on him then watch what happens. So the people that are blackmail have because I believe that both Epstein and Spence were working for intelligence and Alexandra Costa, the US attorney when he ultimately became a labor secretary before when he was in the Trump administration early on and they were betting him that people in the Trump administration asked him why he'd been so light on Epstein why he just backed away from it. Cause he did have the names of the department of justice to have names of 32 victims. And he ultimately said, Costa ultimately said that he was told to back away from Epstein because Epstein was quote unquote intelligence. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that these were hiding traps and that people were blackmailed. Yeah, I would argue that the intelligence connections with Epstein where it was definitely the most obscured aspect of the situation that the media did not cover, you know, for obvious reasons. So it's really important to bring that up. I believe did Epstein actually brag about being associated with CIA at one point in the 90s? He did, according to an article that came out by the evening standard in the UK, Epstein at one time boasted about being with the CIA. That's a very interesting article. It came out I think in 2001 and we're hearing the Melinda Gates and Bill Gates breakup or divorce. We're hearing all kinds of things about that that she divorced Bill Gates because of Epstein. Well, according to that article, Gates and Epstein were doing business in the 90s. So she picked a rather lengthy process to ultimately divorce Bill. And I find that pretty interesting that it's right there in the evening standard article and no one in the mainstream media has brought any of that up, which is, I mean, just show us how corrupt the mainstream media has been with the Epstein story because there's so many angles that haven't been pursued. The black male angle, the intelligence angle, him doing business with Bill Gates in the 1990s. It's actually, it's a travesty that independent journalists like you and me have to dig this stuff up because the mainstream media refuses to do its job, refuses to be of public service as the fourth estate was initially planned to be. Absolutely. And I think it's amazing how people like Bill Gates, Dershowitz, they not only don't face scrutiny, but they're still, they still have major platforms in the mainstream media. They're still listened to as authorities in a lot of cases. So it's kind of mind boggling, for sure. Well, that's where the media has played it. Bill Gates is saving humanity with vaccines and I have no idea what Alan Dershowitz is up to. Alan Dershowitz wrote a really interesting op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that got published a number of years ago. And he said, I believe he said the eight year of consent should be 14 or 15, regardless of, might've been 15, regardless of how old the guy was. So that's where Alan Dershowitz is at. And I'd also like to ask you about the bigger picture as far as, again, as far as what these scandals, these multiple scandals, not just Epstein, but the Franklin scandal and others, what does that tell us about government involvement or association with child sexual abuse and sexual trafficking? Well, I'll give you a couple of examples. Initially, I interviewed a black male photographer for the Franklin network, kind of an unsavory guy, but he had a lot of information. And he said that once you're compromised, it's like you're on a yacht and it's a beautiful day and you can have anything you want while you're on the yacht. And, but if you decide to get off the yacht then the people on the yacht are gonna make sure that you drown. So there's zero incentive for getting off the yacht. Now, it's interesting that Dennis Hastert, the former Speaker of the House, was constitutionally the third most powerful man in the country was a pedophile. And actually, according to testimony from Sebel Edmonds in a deposition, the FBI whistleblower, the FBI knew about Hastert's shadow life and they only came after him after he had been Speaker of the House. And I have no idea why the feds came after him. I have no idea why he decided to get off the yacht the only thing I can think of is that he'd gotten really greedy and draconian. And I think that that's what ultimately got the feds to chase him. But that's really my speculation. One of my favorite examples, I wrote a book in addition to the Franklin Scanley co-author book called Confessions of a DC Man and the Politics of Sex Lives in Blackmail. And it was from the perspective of Henry Vincent who ran a gay escort service in Washington DC. And he used to provide gay escorts to Larry Craig. And Larry Craig had been in DC for 25 years. He'd been a representative and he'd been a senator, very conservative. And actually he had the most deplorable record against voting against gay rights as any senator or representative. And in addition to getting escorts from Henry Vincent, he was getting escorts elsewhere too. And there's a really good documentary called Outrage that was made by Trudeau that gets into Larry Craig's past. And what's really interesting, so here he is, Larry Craig, a senator, family values votes against every piece of gay legislation. And then he's in a bathroom in an airport in Minneapolis trying to pick up a vice squad copy in a stall. He's trying to pick up a guy in a stall. Now, how hard would he be to compromise? I mean, I think a kid doing an after school special with a smartphone could have compromised Larry Craig. So our politicians have this potent alchemy of power and lost and it really bends them and it makes them act in ways that make them highly susceptible to blackmail. That's why I, at this point, I've written two books on CIA sexual blackmail and I've certainly done a lot of work on the Epstein case, which I think is also intelligent based blackmail. And it's mind boggling the risks that these guys will take, but a lot of them are on the yacht already and they know that they will be protected. Now, Craig, he was busted picking up a guy in a vice squad in an airport bathroom. So I think Craig might have been out of his net of security or his fear of security and that's why he got busted. Yeah, and I think you describe this, use the analogy of this yacht. Do you think that there is any chance that something like this, that one of these scandals, whether it's Epstein or another one in the future will be fully exposed, maybe thanks to technology or do you think that the net's pretty firmly safely encapsulating these people and that they've got to figure it out where they will not be exposed? Well, I spent seven years on a researching interstate pedophile network that was intelligent, as I said earlier, the Franklin scandal. And I really thought that if another one occurred and was outed, and the only reason why this was outed is because of the tenacity of the Palm Beach police department, specifically the chief, Michael Ryder. But I really thought that if this occurred again and made the news again that heads would roll, but I was wrong. I mean, I'm still stunned about that, that the government and the media covered up Shum, Molestation and broad daylight. I mean, it's really demoralizing for me because I've put a lot of effort into this issue and to see all these, not only the perps, but the procurers, aka pimps, walk. We know who the procurers are because the New York Times named six of them. And we know who the perps are because of Alfredo Rodriguez in Virginia Bufrey. If this was any kind of, if there was any kind of justice involved here, and the case should have been prosecuted as a RICO case, which the Fed used to dismantle the mafia. But these procurers could have had multiple, they were responsible for trafficking multiple children. And a child trafficking carries 15 to life. So it's a heavy, heavy sentence. So they could have brought all these procurers in who the New York Times named and sweat them and said, you're going down. We're gonna get you on 10 counts of child trafficking. And then they would roll over on the perps. I mean, that's what happened. That's how the feds dismantled the mafia. But I find it mind-modeling that the feds aren't even going after the procurers. I mean, it's such a travesty of justice. It really turns my stomach actually that this emceeing coverup has gone down in broad daylight. Yeah, it is shocking. And I mean, the thing that I've kind of noted after reading your book, after looking at a number of these scandals is that the standard with all of them is that everything that should happen, everything that logically should unfold as far as prosecution, the rule of law, the operation of institutions to protect children in our country, and in other countries, it always seems to go the complete opposite way. And the only other, well, one of the other cases where that also seems to take place, not to go too far afield, is in cases like that of Assange where every single point at which justice could be served, it just goes the complete opposite direction. And I agree. I think that's a really sad statement about the operational, the value of our institutions and how they've failed us. They've failed us and they've failed American children. I mean, emceeing was molesting little girls. I mean, molesting, and another thing where the media has completely whiffed or excised. Emceeing was trafficking girls under 10 years old. I've got two sources on that that are solid. And he was also pandering girls to very sadistic pedophiles. And then the Franklin network that I wrote about, if you wanted a kid under 10, they would provide you with the kid under 10. And then I've got accounts of some of these perps being unbelievably vicious to the kids. I mean, that's how some of our leaders get off on being very sadistic to children. I mean, it's mind boggling to me. That's how some of our leaders get off. I mean, it's just really, it's really insane. Yeah, and I've not heard that he, that Epstein was responsible for tracking trafficking children under the age of 10. Do you have any more information about that that you can share? Well, I've got two sources that have told me that. And I think that they're both solid. And I know that one is really solid. So, I mean, I would have said that just with hurry information. So naturally they're anonymous. I mean, that was the deal that we made. But also, yes. And the media has decided that the age, the demarcation age of Epstein trafficking girls was 14 years old. And that's such a bunch of bullshit. The Virgin Islands law enforcement said that there were girls over 11 and 12. And other news entities have reported that too outside our mainstream media. So there's a tremendous amount of evidence. And actually one of the girls that sued Epstein was molested when she was 13. So there's a tremendous amount of evidence that Epstein was trafficking girls under 14 years of age. And it's interesting. And there's one case that I know of where a girl who was trafficked by Epstein under the age of 10 came forward and wanted to get a settlement from that fund. And the fund was only accepting teenagers. I mean, so even that has been a coverup. That is damning. I wanted to also ask about the differences in the ways that Epstein's kind of ring procured girls, which sounds like from what I understand is mostly through modeling agencies and things like that versus the way that the Franklin scandals procured children, which had more to do from what I understand with sometimes foster care situations, boys and girls clubs, that type of thing. Do you have any comments on that? Yeah, the Franklin network acquired children from Boys Town, which is the sacred orphanage outside of Omaha. A number of kids were. The number two guy at Boys Town, Father James Kelly, total pedophile. He was molesting kids in upstate New York. And then they moved them to Boys Town where he molested kids. And then he was in Las Vegas before he died. Total predator. And I believe that that's how this network was getting kids from Boys Town so easily is. I believe that Father Hub was kind of a titular head of Boys Town and probably a drunk. And they were and James Kelly was molesting these kids and he was probably giving a number of them to the network or making it possible so that Franklin network could number the children. And with both situations, you see lower socioeconomic kids kind of fall through the cracks. They don't have much parental support or the runaways. Those are the kids that are really easy to grant. Epstein had a different component, though. I mean, he was buying girls in Eastern Europe. So I didn't see that in Franklin so much. I mean, there was an anecdote that Lawrence E. King, who was one of the, it was Craig, the network is owned by Lawrence E. King, Craig Spence, had sold some children. I think that both networks produced child pornography. I mean, Epstein had a cache of child pornography. And also, I believe, Blackmail, DVDs, too. And this is kind of a yellow tumor, I guess. So after Epstein killed himself, we were told that the case was over. So I did a FOIA request on the documentation that was derived from all the DVDs that were stashed and Epstein's safe. And I was told that the investigation is ongoing. So we're not going to, we're really not, unless someone spills, someone very high up is just disgusted. Then we saw that with the finders. You wrote an article about the finders. And they were an organization that was a nefarious, seemingly a very nefarious organization that was trafficking children. And they got busted in talent. Two finders got busted in Tallahassee with six kids. And according to medical personnel, two of those kids had been molested by the finders. So and the US Customs Report went in and really did some heavy-duty investigation with that. And ultimately, what happened there was the CIA played the National Security Trump card. And those Customs Report agents were so, so angry about that that these purported Tallahassees were walking. I mean, the two finders had been, they were indicted on or ran on multiple counts of child abuse. And then they just ended up all those charges after the CIA intervened. All those charges were dropped. And they just walked out of jail. And some US Customs guys got together and they gave the report to some US representatives. And they were going to hold a hearing on the finders. But then that guy quashed. And I believe the three representatives that were really pushing for this lost their elections in the next term. Yeah, that's not surprising at all. And I do remember looking into the finders and noting how that evidence that Special Agent, a Customs Special Agent, Ramon Martinez, reports seeing conveniently disappears shortly after the Washington Metro Police Department got a hold of it. And similarly, as you say, with Epstein, we have the blackmail evidence just disappearing never to be seen again. I really think, as far as my personal opinion, unless somebody leaks this type of material to an organization like WikiLeaks or some sort of news organization that will be willing to actually, in some way, publish it or verify its existence, we're never going to see a scandal like this fully revealed to the public, unfortunately. When I was running the Franklin Scandal, I had some, like Epstein, it was covered up by the FBI. The Farmer Sisters went to the FBI in 1996 to report Epstein. And they were simply ignored. And the FBI played a real heavy hand in covering up the Franklin network. And I think that someone, in my situation, I was able to cultivate a relationship with two people in federal law enforcement. And it took me two years before they trusted me. And the deal was that I would not name them, but they would provide me with some information. And they did provide me with some good information. So there are people outside, there are law enforcement officers outside these investigations that know what's going on. But they've got their mortgages, their car payments, their kids to get through college. And I'm sure that they'd be afraid for their lives, too, if they came forward. So if you're a federal agent who is not in cahoots with covering this up, but knows about it, you would have to have just like bulletproof moral fiber to come forward. And I was fortunate that those two federal law enforcement agents helped me. But it took a long time to cultivate their trust. And I had to give them some information, too. But yes, I did get help. So if we could have all these federal agents who know about the cover up of these type of networks came forward, we'd have quite a juggernaut. But I don't think that's going to happen. But we'll keep covering it at the very least. Thank you again. OK, take care, Elizabeth. Bye. 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