AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Last week, the House Oversight Committee released thousands of documents from Jeffrey Epstein's estate, which included emails from rich and famous men and Epstein's thoughts about President Trump. All of this has kept the White House on the defensive about the president's relationship with the late pedophile. And now Trump has ordered the DOJ to investigate Democrats with ties to Epstein, including President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. None of the men have been charged with any crimes connected to these relationships. Joining us now is Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who's been covering Epstein for nearly a decade. Julie, welcome to the program.
JULIE K BROWN: Thank you.
RASCOE: What do these latest documents actually reveal about how Epstein operated?
BROWN: First of all, there are tens of thousands of these documents. Many of them are emails, but there's other things in here. There's book manuscripts that people sent him to read. There are news articles. There's even poetry in here. It shows that he had a lot of connections with a lot of different people who wanted his opinions, who wanted his help on various problems they were having or wanted him to connect them with other influential people. There are world leaders in here. President Vladimir Putin of Russia is even mentioned in here.
RASCOE: Everyone, in particular, has been talking about Epstein's mentions of Trump in these emails. What do you think is really significant in these emails about the relationship between these two men?
BROWN: Well, the most significant thing here is the volume of the mentions of Trump. There is no one that Epstein mentions in these tens of thousands of documents more than Trump. We estimate that Trump's name appears more than a thousand times. It's probably double of any other figure that is in these documents. It's almost as if Trump has been living rent-free, as they say, in Epstein's brain because he was constantly talking about him, and people were constantly emailing him about Trump. So there's an awful lot of talk about what Trump is doing, when he's doing it, who he's hiring as Cabinet secretaries, etc.
RASCOE: But was Jeffrey Epstein a reliable narrator? Obviously, a lot of his emails about Trump were written after their falling out, and some during Trump's first term while Epstein was under federal investigation.
BROWN: Right. Well, there's really two answers to this question. Yes, Epstein was not a reliable person. He was known to be somewhat of a fabulist and to lie about - obviously lie about a lot of things. So that's true. But two things can be true at the same time. He also did have a very close friendship with Donald Trump for many, many years. We're just now beginning to get a handle on exactly how close their friendship was. Now, these particular group or batch of emails that we received were post the period when Trump and Epstein had a falling out. So when you really think about it, if his name is still mentioned over a thousand times after their falling out, you could imagine how many times Trump was in his vocabulary prior to their falling out, which we don't really have a handle on because we haven't received those portions of Epstein's communications.
RASCOE: What has this kind of trove of information added to your understanding about how Epstein conducted and viewed his relationships?
BROWN: I think that it shows that he's a great manipulator, and that also, could you imagine if he's able to manipulate some of the top people in the world, could you imagine what he must have done with these young girls who were 13 and 14 years old and how he must have been able to manipulate them into believing somehow that he was going to help them with their lives? I mean, that is the sad part about it. He was the mastermind behind this sex trafficking network that led to the abuse of hundreds of women and girls and girls that came from troubled backgrounds.
RASCOE: You talk with survivors. You talk with law enforcement investigators. What does accountability look like for Epstein's crimes at this point? He's dead. His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in prison for 20 years for her role in helping Epstein traffic young teens. How can justice really be served here?
BROWN: Well, I think a couple of ways. Number one - it's important to note that Ghislaine Maxwell has been moved to a minimum security facility, and she is getting a lot of privileges there, and the victims are quite disturbed and fearful that this is just a precursor to her getting a pardon. Number one.
I think that they want to feel that the Justice Department and the FBI takes these crimes seriously and really does make an effort to find out who else was involved in them. Maxwell and Epstein were not alone. There were other people who helped them. There were other men who were involved in these crimes, and I think everyone, not only the victims, but probably the American public as well, wants to see who else was involved and see them prosecuted.
And number three - there were mistakes made by the Justice Department along the way, particularly here in Florida, where they gave him this sweetheart deal, and these prosecutors now enjoy - most of them enjoy very successful careers in law, and I think that they would like to see some of these prosecutors also held accountable for dropping the ball because, after all, had they prosecuted him in 2008 and sent him to federal prison, we wouldn't be sitting here right now, and who knows how many women and girls would have been spared the abuse that they suffered after 2008?
RASCOE: As someone who's followed this for so long, what unanswered questions remain for you?
BROWN: For me, the biggest question, which is why I began working on this story in 2016, is who allowed him to get away with this? Because we know that there was a lot of evidence about what he did. I mean, they didn't just have a handful of girls say he did this. They had corroborating evidence. They had message pads. They had phone records. They had witnesses. They had plenty of evidence to put him away for a very long time. And then after he served that sort of sweetheart deal, slap on the wrist, and got out, there was even more evidence and more evidence that came forward over the years. So quite a number of presidential administrations really didn't do their due diligence in directing the FBI to continue to follow this man. So to me, the biggest question is, how does that happen in our country?
RASCOE: That's Julie K. Brown, reporter with the Miami Herald. Thank you so much for speaking with us today.
BROWN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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