What the heck happened with those Epstein files? (02-28-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Okay, so let's let's talk about the the Epstein Files. What the heck? What's going on? Yesterday? I was not following all of this as it was occurring in real time yesterday, but apparently the White House brought a couple of I don't know, about a dozen of I don't know social media influencers. I don't know. I don't like the uh not a big fan of the term. I mean because technically I'm one too, I guess, although I don't identify as one, but I don't like the I don't like the name for people, particularly those that are you know, engaged in politics and journalism and such, and they just they publish, you know, self publish on social media. And that's where they've built their their following. Now to be sure, there are people that are simply influencers and that's all they try to do is influence opinions and to try to make money doing so. I understand the model there, and there are you know, various iterations of it. There are extremes of it where people just sort of engagement farm and same thing. By the way, in radio radio you could say is sort of the original the og on some of this stuff, and you know, like shock jocks for example. But the problem I've always said with that model is that eventually it leads to the only conclusion that it can, which is you getting fired. Because if your whole shtick is to shock, that means you have to constantly push the envelope, you know, further and further and further, and then eventually you go too far, because that's what has to happen. You're testing the boundaries and at some point you're going to cross the boundary, and when that happens, you're out of work, even though that was specifically what you were hired to do. So I don't like and you know, people have all sorts of It's always interesting when I hear what people think about, well, what they believe this job is about for me, and every host is different, by the way, so I only speak for myself on this. You know, I came to the radio hosting world from the world of reporting. Was I was a radio news reporter here at WBT for almost a decade and that background. I went to college with a mass Colm broadcast journalism degree minor in political science, had enough credits for a minor in philosophy, but they did not allow double minors. I'm not bitter, but I totally am. But I don't even know. I don't even know what to but I actually have another minor in philosophy. Oh why why didn't you say so? Like we weren't going to hire you, but that philosophy minor. That But uh, anyway, that background informs how I do the hosting gig, and everybody comes at it from a different perspective and different approaches. And you know, content is king. That's what I've always believed. And if you produce good content, people will find you. And uh, that's how I do. That's how I approach my gig. I look at the news and I think what is important for people to know about and let's do a deep dive and let's examine sort of the underlying philosophy and politics behind a particular news story. There are others though, that approach, you know, in social media, and they are simply engagement farming, which is sort of the equivalent of shock jockery, if you will, and they don't really care about anything specifically except keeping their numbers up. And it is it's a treadmill I have. When I first started doing the podcast, this was twenty twenty, and I sort of did a crash course in the podcast industry to learn, you know, what it was all about and how people can actually make a career doing it and that sort of thing. Very very very few people can actually make make a career, make a living as a podcaster, as a social media influencer, and one of the biggest challenges is that you have to keep creating content, which, just to be honest, in doing the research on the podcasting industry, there wasn't a whole lot I didn't already know. I was kind of surprised. It's basically radio, okay. The stuff that you learn that makes good content and makes for a successful radio career are the same sort of things that apply in the podcast world, there is a constant need to fill the content whole. Right, you have to keep putting stuff in. You got to keep putting stuff out. And for a lot of people that rely on high engagement numbers, it's a very difficult treadmill to keep pace with. I totally understand that. And in the pursuit of that, they will end up putting stuff out that, you know, increasingly shocks or is increasingly false, and they don't they don't care because they have to keep running on that treadmill in order to keep the money coming in. And this is a pressure that every media outlet deals with, every one of them. I've often said, right, the old you know kid on the corner with the newspaper, you know, extra extra, read all about it. Right. They didn't sell newspapers by screaming that absolutely nothing happened today. Read all about it. Nobody would buy your paper. Right. So there's always a pressure to have breaking news, to have scoops, exclusives and that sort of thing. And how how an outlet balances that is how you build trust. Right, you don't exaggerate things, you don't lie about stuff, you don't pretend that things are a bigger deal than they are. You don't make up stories, right, You don't become mouthpieces for you know, for a particular political campaign. Right. People have to trust you, The audience has to trust you. So that's been my approach, that's been my philosophy and doing this gig. I only speak for myself. Everybody else can speak for themselves. So I'm not trying to impugne all of the quote influencers that that it went to the White House to get their copies of the social or of the the Epstein files. Right, Jeffrey Epstein, this monster ran the you know, pedophile island down there with the Lolita Express, and uh, you know, trafficked young girls, underage girls, trafficked them to the island where they were essentially forced, if not coerced, into having relations with all sorts of powerful men and women to I don't want to be exclusive, but it was predominantly men. There are a lot of people that Jeffrey Epstein had in his rolodex, a lot of famous names and numbers and such, Okay, And it was promised under the Trump administration that they would release all of the Epstein files because it is well, I haven't seen polling on it. If I have, it's been a very long time. But the general consensus I kind of feel like at this point is that Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself. Now, isn't that where kind of I feel like that's where most people are. It was just a little too convenient, you know, that the camera's malfunction, the guards fall asleep, and then the guy is dead and he's got all of these secrets. And I have said for years also ever since this stuff hit the news, there is way more to this story than and uh then I know then I think anybody knows at this point, which is why people want the files. Right. It seems to me as if there are there are ways that the intelligence community could benefit from a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The operation that Epstein was running where he had everything, you know, wired up in his house with mics and cameras and all that stuff, it seems to me like a honeypot. We talked about it the other day with James Comey, you tried to run a honeypot operation on the Trump campaign. He put two you know, attractive women into the Trump campaign, uh, you know, orbit to try to get them into the uh, you know, to get them into relationships with the with Trump allies and advisors and such, and then you essentially flip them. Right, it's spycraft. So why would I think that the Epstein story would not have any kind of connection to the intelligence community that uses this very kind of an operation and has for a very long time. Right, you set up these operations and then you ensnare powerful people and once you get them, now you got them, and you can make them do stuff. You can you can coerce them, you can blackmail them, you can get money from them, all sorts of things. So that's what it seems like to me. And so when Jeffrey Epstein dies in jail before he can face charges and maybe rat out people and blow the lid off the whole thing or whatever, that was really suspicious. When his right hand man or woman, Gislaine Maxwell, when she gets convicted serving you know, twenty plus years in prison for you know, trafficking and acting as a as a madam for the you know, underage coerced prostitutes, Well it kind of is weird that none of the people that ever use the services ever got charged like she ran this whole operation and there were no clients. That seems weird, right, So a bunch of these social media people get invited to the White House to get the files. They pose outside with the binders that are supposedly filled with all of the information, and then it turns out no, not really, not all the information, and it's just been an embarrassing mess. So what actually happened? All right? If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, and you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. 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Alrighty, so what all went down with the release of the Epstein files to these quote unquote social media influencers? And I keep saying that because I don't consider some of these people to be simply, you know, influencers. They're not out there just like oh I tried some nail polish, you know, oh, this is the brand of vegetable supplements that I take it like. That's not that's not really what they're doing. These aren't people that are just talking about, you know, fashion trends and such. One of them was libs of TikTok for crying out loud. I wouldn't like, I don't classify that person as an influencer. Tia I forget her name, But Liz Wheeler is another one, like she does. She's a host, she's a podcast host anyway, and she was one of them. You're going to hear her explanation as to what actually went down yesterday. So here is how the Miami Herald, and tip of the hat to the Miami Herald, because without them, the Epstein story would have basically gone away. But it was through their reporting of a local story that had international implications right that the Miami Herald covered that we became aware of Epstein in what was going on and the way that his first case was basically covered up in a sweetheart deal. So they have a rite up as to what occurred. But then Liz Wheeler will explain what actually happened because she was in the White House. She got one of the binders and came outside had the picture taken, which, in case you hadn't seen it, it was flying all around the interweb yesterday where you got like a dozen of these people out there and they're holding up the binders and they're like posing with it, and then it turns out there's nothing in there that we didn't already have publicly available, and so everybody's like they're posing and they got trolled, ha ha ha and all this, and then the House Judiciary Committee sends out a tweet with the Rick Astley never gonna give you up. They like the Rick roll. And so what the message was apparently that they were trying to convey was that we are getting rolled, that the FBI from the Southern District of New York is rolling us, They are gaslighting us, they are obstructing. That was the message that they were trying to get out but couldn't. But why well, because apparently the calm shop at the White House was like, well, Trump's got another meeting. We don't want to bigfoot that. We don't want this to be the main question that he's asked. So we're just going to ask you to embargo this for like an hour or something. And the influencers were very upset. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. 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Miami Herald reports quote after making an explosive announcement that the Trump administration was releasing long awaited secret documents containing shocking new details of crimes by child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and others. US Attorney General Pam Bondi posted less than two hundred fewer then actually two hundred pages of previously released flight logs, an evidence log, and a heavily redacted list of contacts. She then blamed the FBI for withholding the rest of the documents. What did I say the other day, By the way, in the Trump era, it is wise to just give it a minute. Just give this a minute, right. We'll find out a little bit more as things develop. So this was the initial story. Mainstream legacy outlets rushed to, you know, spike the football and rub the right wing media influencers faces in it and all that, like, oh my god, you got sucker. There's nothing new here at all. They lied to you. Everybody's lying you guys, stink right. That's been the focus of the coverage. In an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, Bondi claimed that the Epstein files were quote on my desk and would be released Thursday. It wasn't until later that she admitted that the information she had was dated. In fact, some of it was already widely published years before. Late Thursday, Bondi sent a letter to FBI director Cash Patel, criticizing the agency for failing to turn over all the files. In the letter, she claimed she had been misled. She called for an investigation and demanded that Patel turn over everything by eight am Friday. So several things can be true here. Number one, If Bondi was out there saying that she has seen the files and they're shocking and all of this when she hadn't actually seen them, then that means that somebody along the way told her, oh yeah, the stuff in there is shocking, or she decided to make that up right. If that's if that's how that happened. Now you're saying you don't have the files. Why'd you say you had the files. Here's what Liz Wheeler, who got one of the binders, went outside, and then after all of this happened, she well, actually, here, let me do this first, because she did a video from the airport. Here's what she told Glenn Beck this morning on his radio show that the photo shoot at the White House quote unquote photo shoot was intended to be which by the way they walked out of the White House, the media was there and so they started taking pictures of them, and so that all of the people were like, hey, what's up. We got, you know, holding up the binders and stuff. It wasn't intended to be a message sorry. It was intended to be a message to the legacy media that they no longer had power to manipulate the truth. However, it got spun into something else. She said, quote, it was our impression at that moment when they came out with the binders, that within about two minutes we would be able to break the story that the Southern District of New York was stonewalling Pambin. Apparently Bondi told them this at the meeting when she gave them the binders and said, we didn't get the information from the SDNY Southern District of New York, which, if I recall correctly, took a whistleblower to confirm right that Hunter Biden, the laptop and the investigation, all that stuff, that they had this information, they had confirmed, the laptop, all of that. It took a whistleblower inside the Southern District of New York to expose the corruption at the office. She says, So when the legacy media was so sour and bitter that we had gotten the binder, and they didn't. We were laughing at them. We were holding up the binder saying, you know what, you've been relegated to the bushes because they were hanging out like behind these bushes at the White House. Because you lie in, you smear, and you gaslight the American people, and we are the media. Now within about two minutes of the picture being taken, we are then told please don't report on the binder itself or the story about the Southern District of New York until three point thirty because the White House did not want the press conference between Trump and the UK Prime Minister to be solely focused on the SDNY Epstein files story. So all of a sudden, we're in a situation where the press has gotten photos of us with these binders that appear to be real Epstein files, and yet we knew they were not. We begged for the embargo to be lifted. It appeared to be a bait and switch, and my goodness, that's the last thing that was ever intended. So they were because they had promised these people to give them what they had regarding the Epstein files. They followed through and said, here's what we have. But we know this isn't all of it, and so here's what you like. We promised we would give you stuff. This is all we've got because this is all the FBI turned over, but we know there's more, and so we smell a rat. And so the influencers walk outside with these binders, fixing to tell the story that the FBI is still covering this up, and the White House says, don't talk about it. We don't want to bigfoot the President with his UK meeting. We don't want that to be the topic of the conversation. He's there with the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and we want that to be the focus of that event. And that jams up the influencers who walk outside. Media jumps out of the bushes, takes their pictures and they're like, haha, we're the media now and they're getting their pictures taken. And then the next thing they're like, oh yeah, don't talk about any of this. And so it presents this image which the media is very happy to run with that you guys were the victims of a bait and switch. Look at how the Trump administration rolled you, when in fact it's the FBI that is rolling. That's the story that Liz Wheeler is telling. We'll hear it from her. From her, she shot a video after she walked out of the White House and then went to get on an airplane, and while she's waiting on her plane, she does a live stream where she answers questions and all this. But I took a part of that where she explains what all went down. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are visit creative video dot com. All right, So this is Liz Wheeler after she got the binder yesterday of the quote Epstein files. She then is, you know, going to the airport, gonna fly home, I assume, and she goes live on her YouTube channel and tells her audience, her followers, what all happened with these files that they were given by Pambondi, the US Attorney General, saying is we're. All waiting for bombshells. We're all waiting for juicy stuff. And that's not what's in this binder. That's not what's in this binder at all. And that's exactly how the Attorney General presented it to us. She handed us this binder, and she said, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has given me an order to declassify the Epstein files, and I have been quickly working on doing just that because we want to be the most transparent administration in history. We know that as of a week ago. She went on I believe it was Fox News and said that she had the Epstein files on her desk, and when I think was Jesse Waters asked her, well, is there anything Have you found anything juicy yet? She said not yet. So her message to me when she handed me this binder was, we expected to release bombshells. We expected to find the dark stuff, the dirty stuff, the names of the people that were involved in what Epstein was doing. And when these files were put on my desk and I and she was relating how she looked through them. She was relating how she looked through them. She said it wasn't what I was expecting. And I said, is this it is this? This is it? And she said, something is not right here now. Just because she had that feeling, she still wanted to not only fulfill the president's order to release these she wanted to do it in a timely manner. And so they prepared this binder. They were going to release what's in this binder, and I'll show you what's in it. It's also going to be available online here shortly so that all of us can go through it. And we're going to talk about too, how this is bypassed the legacy media, and how this is the Trump administration is harnessing new media to release this sort of exclusive, which is a good thing. But late last night, after Attorney General Pambondi and FBI Director Cashputel prepared this binder the Epstein files, a source called Attorney General Pambondi a source from within the FBI, from within the Southern District of New York, and this source told Pambondi that even though she had been told that this was the extent of the Epstein files, it's not the extent of the Epstein files. That there were hundreds, if not thousands of other documents and files and pieces of evidence that the s d n Y, the most corrupt district in the United States, was hiding. They were hiding from President Trump, they were hiding from Vice President Advance, they were hiding from Attorney General Pambondi, they were hiding from FBI Director Cash Patel. They were hiding from you, And so you should is it okay? I'm I apologize that it's buffering so badly. That's really frustrating. Issues. We are sitting in an airport terminal here because I didn't want I didn't want you to think that I was trying to hide something. The story here is quite remarkable. The story here is this letter from Attorney General Pambondi, and I want to read a little bit of it to you. It says, dear Director Patel, before you came into office, I requested the full and complete files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In respect to this request, I received approximately two hundred pages of documents, which consisted primarily of flight logs, Epstein's list of contacts, and lists of victims names and their phone numbers. I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request, and was repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents. Late yesterday, I learned from a source. Is it too bad to him or is it okay? Okay? Is late yesterday Attorney General Bondi rights, I learned from a source at the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files. When you and I she's talking to Director Patel spoke yesterday. You were just as surprised as I was to learn this new information. By eight am Tomorrow, February twenty eighth, the FBI will deliver the full and complete Epstein files to my office, including all records, documents, audio and video recordings, and material related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients. Regardless of how much information was obtained, There will be no withholdings or limitations to my or your access. The Department of Justice will ensure that any public disclosure of these files will be done in a manner to protect the privacy of victims and in accordance with law, as I have done my entire career as a prosecutor. I'm also directing you to conduct an immediate investigation into why my order to the FBI was not followed. You will deliver to me a comprehensive report of your findings and proposed personnel action within fourteen days. I appreciate your immediate attention to this important matter. I know that we are both committed to transparency for the American people, and I look forward to continuing to work with you to serve our president in our country, sincerely, it signed Pamela Bondi, Attorney General. This is the story. This is the story right here that the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI, when they were given what they had ordered, they had ordered the full Epstein files to be delivered to them. When they were given what they ordered, they smelled a rat. They knew that it was not the full and complete file, and yet they were committed to transparency giving you these files, which is why they compiled this binder. And the real story is that there are deep state agents in the FBI, especially in the Southern District of New York, who are, as we speak, working to subvert the Trump administration, working to subvert you, trying to cover up what Jeffrey Epstein did and who he was associated with, which is beyond despicable. So don't allow the legacy media, who right now are chagrined because they were not given an exclusive. Don't let the legacy media convince you that there's not a story here. The story here is incredibly important that not only is the Trump administration trying to give you transparency, but that the deep state agents are trying to hide it. So again, this is how the Miami Herald covered what occurred. Right By late afternoon, Bondi had apparently given binders of documents to a group of Trump social media influencers, many of whom posted photos of themselves on Twitter gleefully holding up gleefully holding up the binders they were given ahead of the American public. So they got a scoop basically, which is what all of these other media outlets try to do themselves and publicize, and they give themselves awards for scooping others, right, but it's different when they do it. They quickly soured after opening the binders, realizing that they contained pages of redacted material and flight logs that were already made public in twenty twenty one as part of the criminal trial for Epstein associate Gislaine Maxwell. So, but they quickly soured after opening the binders. You just heard Liz Wheeler say they knew that this was that this was not a complete accounting of all of the files. Bondi told them in that meeting. So how does the Miami Herald know that they soured after they opened the binders, that they didn't realize this before they had the picture On Wednesday night, Bondie told Fox News that she said, what you're going to see, hopefully tomorrow is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information. It's pretty sick. What the man did along with his code offended. It was after that segment that she recorded with Jesse Waters on Fox News or did live. That's when she was contacted by somebody inside SDNY who said, you don't have all the documents. We're sitting on thousands of them and they didn't give them to you. That's apparently what happened. The optics looked terrible, almost as if there was some sort of a strategy employed here. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.