This is an FBI investigation document from the Epstein Files collection (FBI VOL00009). Text has been machine-extracted from the original PDF file. Search more documents →
FBI VOL00009
EFTA00042963
1000 pages
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Tugboats manuever a container ship last week at a port in eastern China's Shandong province. (Chinatopix via AP) "We are worried," Bank of America Merrill Lynch chief economist Michelle Meyer wrote Friday. "We now have a number of early indicators starting to signal heightened risk of recession. Our official model has the probability of a recession over the next 12 months only pegged at about 20 percent, but our subjective call based on the slew of data and events leads us to believe it is closer to a 1-in-3 chance. ... Three out of the five economic indicators (auto sales, industrial production, and aggregate hours worked) which track the business cycle closely are near levels consistent at the start of the previous recessions." -- More dark mood music: • Inflation in the United States was slightly higher last month than expected: The Labor Department announced yesterday that the consumer price index rose 0.3 percent in July. That's modest but was above analyst predictions. • U.S. mortgage debt reached a record in the second quarter, exceeding its 2008 peak as the financial crisis unfolded. "Mortgage balances rose by $162 billion in the second quarter to $9.406 trillion, surpassing the high of $9.294 trillion in the third quarter of 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Ti icacriaw " npr thin \A/all Ctraat Int imal Page 12912 EFTA00043423
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j , 1.0,0I %A 1‘.., • • VIII 'V IA VS.", ..." W.,. I 0..... • China's economy is faltering: "The jobless rate in Chinese cities again rebounded in July to its highest level since regular reporting on the data began, as employers turned cautious," today's Journal reports. "Other key economic readings for the month, including factory production, consumption and property investment, came in much lower than expected." • Germany's economy shrank slightly last quarter. Europe's biggest economy suffered from falling exports, and the auto industry is struggling to adjust to new emissions standards, per the AP. • The British economy also unexpectedly shrank, for the first time since 2012, because of uncertainties surrounding Brexit. -- Finally, some good news: We're hiring! I'm looking for an ambitious reporter to help me write The Daily 202. This is a demanding job that requires a news junkie and a creative thinker who is skilled at connecting the dots about news developments in Washington, around the country and the world. The ideal candidate will have a track record of writing conceptual scoops in the political arena, examining key developments in the White House, Congress or on the campaign trail in a fresh and original light. That candidate should be able to identify key themes and story lines from the slew of news that breaks on a daily basis, and skillfully synthesize those events in a meaningful and revelatory way for readers. This position is based in our Washington newsroom. (Read the full job posting here.) Page 12913 EFTA00043424
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Trieiti me at Jarnes.nonmannewasnposi.com II you nave questions or ideas. Subscribe on Amazon Echo, Gdogle_Home, Apple HomePod and other podcast players. Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost's morning briefing for decision-makers. Sign up to receive the newsletter. WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: Rod Blagojevich, with his wife, Patti, at his side, speaks to reporters in Chicago before reporting to federal prison in 2012. (M. Spencer Green/AP) -- Trump appears to have backed away from what had been imminent plans to commute the sentence of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in the face of massive Republican blowback, CNN reports: "Several Republican lawmakers called acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone. At least two of them, Reps. Darin LaHood and Mike Bost, made their case directly to the President on Thursday night, urging him not to go forward. ... Another White House official said that while Blagojevich's pardon CPPMPri imminpnt later last NA/PPk thprp hart hppn nn Page 12914 EFTA00043425
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movement on the matter since Trump spoke with the two congressmen. It appeared to be on ice, the official said, while offering the caveat that Trump could change his mind and decide to move forward. "Multiple sources familiar with the calls said Trump and Mulvaney both did not seem aware of the details of Blagojevich's case, even though the president had decried the former governor as being treated 'unbelievably unfairly.' ... Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner had been funneling messages of support for Blagojevich's commutation to the president ... Trump adviser and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also made it clear to Trump that Blagojevich's sentence was too harsh. Bernard Kerik, a former NYPD commissioner who served time in prison on a tax fraud conviction and has been advocating for Blagojevich, slammed the opposition." Jeffress celebrates Freedom Sunday with his congregants in Dallas on June 30. (liana Panich-Linsman for The Washington Post) 2020 WATCH: -- Opinion columnist Elizabeth Bruenig went to her home state of Texas for a deep dive into why Trump seems poised to fare even better among evangelicals in 2020 than he did in 2016. Partly this is because they are Page 12915 EFTA00043426
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culture warriors and want to get another ally on the Supreme Court, of course, but she concludes that it's also because "the backlash against them has cemented so much of what they already suspected about liberals' attitudes." "Overall, American culture is hardly trending toward adherence to evangelical beliefs, with approval of same-sex marriage steadily rising among all religious groups (even evangelicals), religious affiliation quickly dropping, and support for legal abortion lingering at all-time highs," Bruenig writes in a thoughtful essay. "In some sense it seemed that Trump is able, by being less Christian than your average Christian, to protect Christians who fear incursions from a hostile dominant culture. But that paradox also supplies a handy solution to the question of whether Christians should direct their efforts to worldly politics or turn inward, shunning political life for spiritual pursuits. By voting for Trump — even over more identifiably Christian candidates — evangelicals seem to have found a way to outsource their fears and instead reserve a strictly spiritual space for themselves inside politics without placing evangelical politicians themselves in power. In that sense, they can be both active political agents and a semi-cloistered religious minority, both of the world and removed from it, advancing their values while retreating to their own societies." -- For a separate story, religion reporter Julie Zauzmer interviewed more than 50 evangelical Christians in the battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania and Page 12916 EFTA00043427
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Wisconsin: "In conversation, evangelical voters paint the portrait of the Trump they see: a president who acts like a bully but is fighting for them. A president who sees America like they do, a menacing place where white Christians feel mocked and threatened for their beliefs. A president who's against abortion and gay rights and who has the economy humming to boot. ... The allegations that Trump sexually assaulted numerous women are not a moral concern, many Christians say. ... Opponents decry his attitude toward people of color, his approach to immigrants detained at the border, his answers to violence in American cities, and on and on. But in Appleton, Wis., the Rev. Dennis Episcopo hasn't felt the need as a religious leader to denounce any of it in front of his congregation, which includes more than 5,000 attendees on a typical Sunday. The megachurch that he has led for 22 years is almost entirely white and conservative, like the lakeside region where it is located. Episcopo has not seen any behavior from Trump in the past three years that would prompt him to openly dissuade churchgoers from supporting this president. 'There could be something, where society really crosses the line on something, that I feel as a pastor I have to get up and say something,' he muses. But it hasn't happened yet.- -- Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper (D) is considering ending his presidential bid to run for the Senate. From_the New York Times: "Hickenlooper, who is mired at the bottom of public polling of the presidential race, hnnntari intn RPnatnr Mirharal Ronnrafc rar nn Fririaw ninht in Page 12917 EFTA00043428
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[Iowa] to discuss his impending decision. [They drove around together for 20 minutes in Clear Lake before the Wing Ding dinner.] ... Officials who have been in discussions with the Hickenlooper campaign said Tuesday that the former two-term governor is giving serious consideration to switching to the Senate race but stressed that a final decision has not yet been made. Short of a massive change in political momentum, Mr. Hickenlooper is certain to fail to qualify for the next round of presidential debates in September, an additional blow to a campaign struggling to attract attention and financial contributions. ... "Recent days have brought unsubtle messages that high- ranking Democratic officials in Colorado and Washington believe Mr. Hickenlooper is in the wrong race. The Denver Post on Sunday published polling done on behalf of 'a national Democratic group involved in Senate races' that showed Mr. Hickenlooper holding a 51-point lead over two other Democrats in the state's 2020 Senate race. On Monday, the 314 Action Fund, a super PAC that backs candidates who are scientists, announced a `Draft Hick for Senate' campaign along with a poll it commissioned showing Mr. Hickenlooper leading Senator Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican seeking re-election, by 13 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup." Beto O'Rourke, who returned to his hometown of El Paso after the mass shooting there, may resume his 2020 campaign as early as this week amid persistent calls for him to run for Senate instead. Su000rters of the Page 12918 EFTA00043429
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former congressman want him to challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R). (Politico) -- Republican donors are being advised by allies of Mike Pompeo to hold off on contributing to any of the current Senate candidates in Kansas as the secretary of state weighs whether to run for the open seat of retiring Sen. Pat . From Bloomberg News: "A Pompeo ally has been advising potential contributors to wait until after the secretary of state makes his decision ... The top U.S. diplomat and former CIA director, who served as a congressman in Kansas's 4th district from 2011-2017, has until June to enter the race." -- Trump is trying to turn Joe Biden's gaffes into a major liability. Matt Viser reports: "Over the last few days, Biden has made a string of small missteps while campaigning during a crucial stretch in Iowa. ... He has bungled oft-repeated lines, saying `truth over facts' rather than truth over lies. ... He spoke of meeting with Parkland students when he was vice president, even though the Florida school shooting occurred a year after he left office. ... On their own, none of these mistakes significantly alter the race. ... Some say the gaffes pale in comparison to things Trump says. ... That hasn't stopped Trump and his allies from seizing on Biden's comments. ... On Friday, he said `Joe is not playing with a full deck' and that `something's going wrong with him.- -- can learn a few lessons from Mitt Romney's Page 12919 EFTA00043430
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2012 presidential campaign, writes Dan Balz: "He continues to lead in the polls, nationally and in early states. He has led those polls from the start of the year to today. Still, he is treated as being in a precarious position, a vulnerable candidate not at his best and a few mistakes away from a real fall. Just like Romney through much of 2011. Romney was the disrespected front-runner in the 2012 Republican field. He could be awkward as a candidate and paid a price for it in the coverage of his campaign. But as with Biden, he led in most — not all — surveys ahead of the primaries and caucuses." -- A new survey finds support for abortion rights remains steady, despite a growing partisan divide. Ariana Eunjung Cha and Scott Clement report: "No more than a quarter of residents in any state supports a total ban despite the increasing political divide on the issue. The Public Religion Research Institute survey released Tuesday involves an extraordinarily large sample of 40,292 interviews measuring abortion attitudes throughout 2018, allowing it to produce nuanced results for individual states and for very small demographic groups. It found that Americans remain generally supportive of abortion rights, with 54 percent saying it should be legal in all or most cases and 40 percent saying it should be illegal." A chaotic day in Hong Kong ends with specter of more violence to come THE NEW WORLD ORDER: -- The Hong Kong protest movement is facing a tipping Page 12920 EFTA00043431
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point as demonstrators seek the sympathy of the international community. Gerry Shih and Timothy McLaughlin report: "After late-night mob scenes marred a demonstration that paralyzed this city's airport, protesters on Wednesday issued apologies seeking the international public's sympathy and forgiveness as they fought to regain control over a narrative that seemed to be tilting in Beijing's favor for the first time. The appeals, which included apologies to the police force, come as the struggle over public opinion reaches a climax. While Hong Kong's protest movement has become steadily radicalized and fractured, the Chinese government has sharply ramped up a propaganda effort in state media and on social networks to discredit and deflate a movement that to this point enjoyed wide support across Hong Kong society. "Hong Kong's airport ground to a near-halt for a second day Tuesday after protesters assailing police brutality and government indifference occupied departure halls, sparking tense but largely peaceful confrontations with frustrated passengers, many of them stranded. The mood turned darker by nightfall after protesters seized two men — one a reporter for Chinese state media, another they claimed to be a Chinese government agent — and clashed with police and paramedics who tried to evacuate the pair. At one point, protesters surrounded and kicked a police van, sparking hand-to-hand clashes with riot police who fired pepper spray near the departure terminal. "On Wednesday, police warned that protesters arrested Page 12921 EFTA00043432
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during the terminal fracas could face life in prison. Seven men aged 17 to 28 years old were detained, five for unlawful assembly and two for assaulting police officers and possession of offensive weapons, said Mak Chin Ho, assistant police commissioner. ... Threats of such severe punishment fit with an approach by Beijing, and its supporters in the Hong Kong government, to dramatically raise the potential cost for taking part in demonstrations." -- China is threatening to use military-style force in Hong Kong, hoping that threats alone will disperse protests, as students plan to continue protesting once universities resume classes next month. Anna Fifield reports: "That would take the protests uncomfortably close to celebrations planned on Oct. 1 to mark the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the People's Republic of China, which was established with the goal of unifying greater China under the leadership of the Communist Party. ... That concern, combined with increasingly strident rhetoric from Chinese officials, has raised fears about the possibility of military intervention in Hong Kong. This week, state-affiliated media outlets tweeted ominous videos of Chinese tanks carrying out exercises in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city that borders Hong Kong, while authorities in Beijing portrayed the protests as `terrorism.' China already stands accused of sending in thugs from local gangs to try to deter the protesters in Hong Kong, and there are growing concerns that it will send in the People's Armed Police, a paramilitary force responsible for internal security and `stability maintenance.' Or perhaps Page 12922 EFTA00043433
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even the People's Liberation Army." How an eye patch became a symbol of the Hong Kong protests -- Bloody eye patches have become the latest symbol of the Hong Kong protests after a young woman was hit in the face with a projectile that many protesters believe was fired by police. Kati_e_MettLer rep_orts: "Authorities said at a news conference that there was no proof to back up that claim. From the tension, a new rallying symbol was born. `Eye for an eye,' some protesters shouted as they continued their sit-in ... Demonstrators also spray- painted `eye for an eye' throughout the airport in Chinese and in English and covered their faces with mock eye patches made of gauze. Some colored them red, to signify blood." -- China asked the Trump administration to back off after U.S. lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), condemned the violence against pro- democracy activists. From Reuters: "The United States has denied Chinese suggestions that it has a hand in the unrest. But China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the lawmakers' comments have `provided new and powerful evidence to the world.- -- Meanwhile, Trump said the "thing" in Hong Kong — which he called a "riot" last week — is "very tough" but stopped short of criticizing China. From the Page 12923 EFTA00043434
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I II I ICJ. II I UUI I II I ICI IlJ LU I cpui lel J CII IU II I CI Jet ICJ Ul afternoon tweets, Mr. Trump took no strong position on the demonstrations that have gripped Hong Kong for weeks and have drawn an increasingly brutal response from local security forces. He echoed none of the defenses of freedom and democracy coming from both Democrats and Republicans. ... `We'll see what happens. But I'm sure it'll work out,' he said. He added: `I hope it works out for everybody, including China. I hope it works out peacefully. I hope nobody gets hurt. I hope nobody gets killed.' The president later tweeted that intelligence reports indicated that China's government `is moving troops to the Border with Hong Kong.- Mitch McConnell walks to his Senate office earlier this year. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post) -- Follow the money: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had quarterbacked the effort on Capitol Hill to lift sanctions on Russia's largest aluminum producer, a company that soon afterward backed the creation of the first new aluminum-rolling mill in the U.S. in nearly four decades — built in McConnell's home state. Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman report: "In January, as the Senate debated whether to permit the Trump administration to lift sanctions on Russia's largest aluminum producer, two men with millions of dollars riding on the outcome met for dinner at a restaurant in Zurich. On one side of the table sat the head of Page 12924 EFTA00043435
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sales for Rusal, the Russian aluminum producer that would benefit most immediately from a favorable Senate vote. ... On the other side sat Craig Bouchard, an American entrepreneur who had gained favor with officials in Kentucky ... By the next day, McConnell had successfully blocked the bill, despite the defection of 11 Republicans. "Within weeks, the U.S. government had formally lifted sanctions on Rusal, citing a deal with the company that reduced the ownership interest of its Kremlin-linked founder, Oleg Deripaska. And three months later, Rusal announced plans for an extraordinary partnership with Bouchard's company, providing $200 million in capital to buy a 40 percent stake in the new aluminum plant in Ashland, Ky. — a project heralded by Gov. Matt Bevin (R) `as significant as any economic deal ever made in the history of Kentucky.' A spokesman for McConnell said the majority leader did not know that Bouchard had hopes of a deal with Rusal at the time McConnell led the Senate effort to end the sanctions. ... Democratic senators have called for a government review of the deal, prompting a Rusal executive in Moscow last week to threaten to pull out of the investment." -- Russian villagers were told to leave their town following a missile test explosion. Will Englund reports: "It took most of Tuesday for officials to realize how damaging this looked given the nuclear materials involved in the accident. Arkhangelsk Gov. Igor Orlov insisted it wasn't an evacuation but a 'routine measure.' ... About 450 people Page 12925 EFTA00043436
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are said to live in the village, which abuts a military testing range. ... A resident of Nyonoksa told ArkhangelskOnline that the village has been evacuated before, presumably because of the hazards of tests or other military activity nearby. ... Local officials conducted a study of soil, sand, river and seawater samples from several points in the region and reported no excess levels of radiation, according to media reports." -- Russia said the explosion caused a 16-fold spike in radiation. From the BBC: "Readings for gamma radiation at six testing stations in Severodvinsk, a city of 180,000 people, ranged from 4 to 16 times the normal rate of 0.11 microsieverts per hour," Russia's weather sevice said. -- Donald Trump Jr. visited Indonesia to tout his family's new resorts and defend his father. Stanley Widianto and Joshua Partlow report: "'We have turned down a lot of deals,' Trump Jr. said at a news conference in the capital city of Jakarta. 'We made a very conscious decision of the family not to do that right now.' The Trump Organization has promised it would make no new foreign deals during President Trump's time in office. Plans for the two Indonesia resorts predate the Trump presidency but appeared to have stalled in recent years. Trump Jr. called it 'nonsense' that the president's foreign policy might be swayed by his business interests. `He wouldn't make decisions that affect a country based on a real estate deal,' Trump Jr. said of his father." -- Pakistan movari to han sinola-iisa nlastio hails Page 12926 EFTA00043437
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Anyone in the capital region of 1.5 million who uses, sells or manufactures the bags will face a fine. Pamela Constable reports: "The ban is the latest project in Prime Minister Imran Khan's green initiative, which began last year with a campaign to plant 10 billion trees to fight deforestation. ... The fines in Pakistan will also be steep — $31 for using a single bag, $63 for selling one and up to $31,000 for manufacturing them. The national per capita income is $1,200 per year. Shoppers are not likely to be aggressively pursued, but companies that make and supply the bags have been warned that they will be inspected to enforce the ban." -- In a bid to retain power, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is cracking down on his own military. From the Times: "Top military leaders have repeatedly declared their allegiance to the Maduro administration. But over the past two years, as the oil-rich economy crumbled and a majority of Venezuelans were left without sufficient food and medicine, factions within the security forces have staged at least five attempts to overthrow or assassinate the president. The government claims to have foiled at least a dozen more plots in that period ... Mr. Maduro's Socialist Party is resorting to this siege mentality to justify ubiquitous surveillance, arbitrary detentions and the torture of perceived enemies, including those inside Venezuela's 160,000-strong armed forces." Trump wants 'full investigation' into Epstein's death Page 12927 EFTA00043438
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THE DOMESTIC AGENDA: -- The Justice Department reassigned the warden of the federal detention center where sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died. Two staffers were placed on leave. From Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky and Aaron C. Davis: "The move to transfer , who had only recently begun working as the MCC's warden, came a day after Attorney General William P. Barr decried `serious irregularities' there and a `failure' to keep Epstein secure. ... Barr appointed , who has been running a federal prison in nearby Otisville, N.Y., as the facility's new acting warden. The MCC is run by the Bureau of Prisons, which is part of the Justice Department and falls under Barr's authority. ... Epstein was being held in a special housing unit of the MCC called Nine South and should have been checked on by the staff every 30 minutes. But correctional officers had not done so for `several' hours before he was found by staff as they delivered breakfast to inmates, a person familiar with the matter said ... "To those who have worked in or around the MCC, Epstein's death is viewed as a symptom of long-term problems there and, more broadly, within the Bureau of Prisons. Hood, a former chief of internal affairs for the bureau, said the MCC has had longtime problems with overcrowding and understaffing. But in recent years, he said, the bureau has been afflicted by a lack of leadership, with a significant number of senior positions filled by temporary appointments. ... Sometimes, incompetence in Page 12928 EFTA00043439
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the building reaches alarming proportions, observers said. In May 2017, for instance, a bank robber named David Evangelista was accidentally released from the MCC, even after he told staff he still had years left on his sentence ... Still, the MCC is considered one of the safest and most secure lockup in the federal system. When Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, the drug kingpin better known as `El Chapo,' was brought to New York, he was jailed there." -- The two prison staff members who were guarding Epstein fell asleep and failed to check on him for three hours, per the Times, which adds that the staffers — both working overtime — falsely recorded in a log that they had checked on the financier every 30 minutes, as was required. The paper notes that such false entries in an official log could constitute a federal crime. -- The news of Epstein's death was posted on 4chan more than half an hour before it became public, leading the New York City Fire Department to look into whether an employee shared the details improperly. From BuzzFeed News: "Almost 40 minutes before ABC News first reported Epstein's death on Twitter, someone posted still- unverified details on 4chan, the anonymous message board popular with far-right trolls and white nationalists. ... After publishing the post, other 4chan users egged on the author. When they expressed doubt, the original poster added more information to the discussion thread, including a detailed breakdown of the procedures allegedly used to resuscitate Epstein, which suggest the poster may have been a first Page 12929 EFTA00043440
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responder, medical worker, or otherwise privy to details about efforts to resuscitate the disgraced financier. ... After telling BuzzFeed News the post was `under review,' an FDNY spokesperson said authorities `determined this alleged information did not come from the Fire Department.- -- Trump defended his promotion of the baseless conspiracy theory connecting the Clintons to Epstein's death. John Wagner reports: Trump said he "retweeted a 'very highly respected conservative pundit' who is a `big Trump fan.' On Saturday, Trump retweeted a message from conservative actor and comedian Terrence K. Williams that suggested former president Bill Clinton might have been involved in the death of Epstein, the politically connected financier who had been facing multiple charges of sex trafficking involving underage girls. `He's a very highly respected conservative pundit,' Trump told reporters in New Jersey, referring to Williams. `He's a big Trump fan. That was a retweet, that wasn't from me. That was from him, but he's a man with half a million followers, a lot of followers. And he's respected.- -- England's Prince Andrew is facing fresh scrutiny for his past friendship with Epstein. Adam Taylor and Karla Adam report: "Buckingham Palace has never explained the photograph. It shows a middle-aged Prince Andrew, Duke of York, smiling with his arm around the bare waist of , then 17, who claims she was later paid by Jeffrey Epstein for sexual encounters with the prince. In the background stands Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite _ Page 12930 EFTA00043441
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wno accusers say was Lipstein s ginmena ana maaam. i ne photo was reportedly taken at Maxwell's London home in 2001. ... With Epstein now dead after a suspected suicide Saturday and Maxwell apparently outside the reach of investigators, hiding from the limelight she once embraced, the Duke of York may be the highest-profile member of Epstein's circle from the time of the allegations against him. On Friday, newly unsealed legal documents from a defamation suit brought against Maxwell resurfaced old accusations and elaborated on the account of inappropriate behavior. In the documents, , now , says she was 'trafficked' to Andrew, with whom she claims to have had three sexual encounters." -- David Boies, the Democratic lawyer who once worked for Al Gore but who has been criticized for the methods he used to defend Theranos, will once again confront Alan Dershowitz, the intellectual bulwark on O.J. Simpson's defense team, in a separate legal fight over Epstein's actions. From Tom Jackman, Deanna Paul and Manuel Roig-Franzia: "In this long-running melodrama, Boies and his partners at Boies Schiller Flexner represent one of Epstein's accusers, — who was a teenage locker-room attendant at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort when she met Epstein. has alleged that Epstein demanded that she have sex with him repeatedly when she was underage and lent her for sex to his friends, including Dershowitz. ... Dershowitz's effort to counter the accusations has been made all the more nettlesome because his long-ago representation of Epstein Page 12931 EFTA00043442