Vanity Fair’s Dan Adler on Jeffrey Epstein and What Ghislaine Maxwell Knows

Vanity Fair journalist Dan Adler joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his coverage of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of minors. Adler explains how Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence and was just interviewed by the Department of Justice, has recently emerged as a key figure in unlocking the puzzle of Epstein’s broader network. He recalls covering Maxwell’s trial in 2021 and analyzes her social circle, British background, and supporters, as well as the timeline and nature of her involvement with Epstein. He talks about her creation of a book celebrating Epstein’s birthday, a volume that reportedly includes a suggestive note from President Trump. He also reflects on Trump’s base’s intensifying interest in the rumored existence of the “Epstein files.” Adler reads from his recent Vanity Fair article, “How Ghislaine Maxwell Is Riding the New Jeffrey Epstein Wave.”

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray, Janet Reed, and Moss Terrell.

Dan Adler

How Ghislaine Maxwell Is Riding the New Jeffrey Epstein Wave | Vanity Fair

Others:

Trump’s Name Is on Contributor List for Epstein Birthday Book – The New York Times

EXCERPT FROM A CONVERSATION WITH DAN ADLER

Whitney Terrell: Did you attend the trial itself?

Dan Adler: Yes, I was there.

WT: So I wonder if you could just—for listeners, because this is something that you don’t get on the reporting, and one of the reasons we asked you to be here—just to describe what she acted like in person. You know, was she brassy? Was she quiet? I assume she speaks with a British accent. How did she dress? Like what was she just like as a figure?

DA: One of the frustrating things about covering any criminal trial is that the defendant really doesn’t say anything.

WT: Okay, and did she get you dressed how she wanted? I was thinking, oh my God, maybe she’s just in the jumpsuit. So that was a dumb question.

DA: She wore civilian clothes. And, you know, as with all things Maxwell and Epstein, there’s, again, this pop psychology aspect of it. She was wearing all white at one point and people speculated about whether she wanted to communicate a certain image of herself as innocent, I think. And this is something that she’s done a couple of jailhouse interviews in the time since she was convicted, she’s always carried herself with, you know, a stiff upper lip, this British aristocratic bearing. And to the extent that you could observe anything about her behavior during the trial, that was the sense I got, that she was very much trying to put on an even face and carry herself as someone who had nothing to hide and did nothing wrong.

V.V. Ganeshananthan: So, bringing us up to the present day, on July 7, just earlier this month, the Justice Department and the FBI released this two-page memo, and—I’m quoting from NPR here—that they have found no evidence that disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had a client list or that he blackmailed prominent associates. And they also said that Epstein died by suicide, which many people don’t believe. And this satisfied no one, in part because there’s been all this speculation about these so-called Epstein files. Pam Bondi being like “what file?” But I would think that a lot of the evidence at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial came from those files. So what evidence comes up [in] this trial? If this was the tip of the iceberg, what does the rest of the iceberg look like?

DA: Yeah, I think this is part of the reason for the enduring intrigue.Who can say, right? We’re talking about documents that we haven’t seen. I also think just the phrase Epstein files just conjures this air of mystery.

WT: Like The X Files.

DA: It’s like The X Files and yeah, also, also the idea of “the Epstein list,” which you know, doesn’t seem to exist. But so the Epstein files, if you take it in the most serious sense, are the files related to the federal government’s investigations of Jeffrey Epstein. So that could involve everything from messages that he sent to friends, communications with victims, flight logs, there are videotapes and people speculate about whether those videotapes have something to do with a blackmail ring. Those videotapes could well be child pornography that the government doesn’t want to release for very understandable reasons. So what is actually in the Epstein files, by virtue of the fact that they’re not being released, is something that remains an unknown.

I think one thing that I really took away from the Maxwell trial is that there are two avenues of inquiry into this kind of case. There’s a criminal investigation. And when prosecutors bring a criminal case against someone, it’s not to answer every single question about a celebrity that any curious onlooker might have, it’s to secure a conviction. It’s a very narrow criminal process. So I think a lot of people came to the Maxwell trial feeling like this is when we’ll finally get the answers about who Epstein was [and] who Epstein was providing minors to. And the trial was not about that. It was about a very specific set of victims, and Maxwell and her role in facilitating these victims coming into Jeffrey Epstein’s home.

WT: So did those victims testify? And what did they say that she did?

DA: They did. And, it probably goes without saying, but it was harrowing. The aspect I remember the most vividly is hearing the victims talk about their backgrounds and what would happen in, if not all, most of the cases was that should be someone who came from some sort of troubled background—history of drug abuse, history of being sexually abused, someone who who needed someone to look out for them. And Ghislaine Maxwell, in these accounts, will come along. This was not part of the trial, but this is another famous instance, Virginia Giuffre, who passed away recently is the most prominent Epstein victim. She’s recalled how her father was a janitor at Mar-a-Lago and Maxwell approached her there. Maxwell, in the accounts given during testimony, was someone who would take a 14-15-16-year-old girl under her wing and bring them into the fold. She has this posh, polished bearing, and she’s saying, as victims outlined in their testimony, that Maxwell made them feel like it was okay to be where they were and do what they were doing.

WT: She would have tips on how to have sex with Jeffrey Epstein, right? I mean, very specifically.

DA: Yes, but before that, the grooming process, as outlined at the trial, was a socialization. This is a girl as young as 14 who was looking for something, and then again, this elegant woman coming along and saying, “This is how you can live.”

VVG: The people I know are now divided into two sets: people who listen to Epstein coverage constantly, and people who can’t bear to and the level of comprehension obviously ranging there. So one of the things that my own husband was trying to explain to me was about the non-prosecution agreements. And you also talk about this in your coverage, about the notion that she wasn’t given a fair trial. So can you talk a little bit about like, what are non-prosecution agreements, and in the context of this case, how do they pertain to her? Why does she think she should not be in jail?

DA: You know, it feels to me and to, I assume, most people, like a very recent phenomenon, because it’s only since 2018 that it’s become this national obsession. But you can go back and read reports dating back to the early 2000s about investigations taking place into Jeffrey Epstein, and the main thing that happened towards the end of the 2000s is Epstein signed what is probably the most infamous non-prosecution agreement in history, which is that he was able to plead guilty to soliciting a child for prostitution. And one thing that let him do, I assume, is to be able to say, “I was in this sticky situation. I pleaded guilty to this one thing.” There was not a sense following that agreement that he was the serial predator that we later learned that he was. Maxwell is claiming right now the non-prosecution agreement he signed at that time should also shield her from prosecution, because one of the stipulations of the agreement was that Epstein’s co-conspirators would be immune as well. And one thing the Department of Justice has done recently in refuting that claim from Maxwell is say, “Well, that was an agreement signed in Florida and you were convicted in New York.”

WT: I wanted to say this earlier, but just to be clear, Jeffrey Epstein’s the prime bad dude in this. But Ghislaine Maxwell did some terrible things, as we’ve just outlined, and she is really at the center of what’s happening right now in terms of the Epstein case because she’s still alive and may have information. So after the Justice Department said “nothing to see here,” then on July 17th, Wall Street Journal published an article which [is] about this infamous birthday card that Trump allegedly created for Jeffrey Epstein, including a drawing of a naked woman and a weirdly suggestive dialog that everyone can look up—we’re not going to repeat it here—referencing their wonderful secret. And it appears that that book was put together by Ghislaine Maxwell and is now held by Epstein’s executors. I read that somewhere, I don’t know if that’s correct or not. And then just last night, The New York Times published an article confirming that Trump’s name is on the list of its contributors. So do we know if Ghislaine or her counselors or supporters showed this drawing to the Journal? If so, why would they have done that? How did the Times find out about what’s going on here?

DA: Yeah, unclear on the sourcing, because these are good reporters who, if they could disclose that, I assume they would have. But yeah, so as you mentioned, Brad Edwards, who’s a lawyer for many Epstein victims, has said that Epstein’s estate is in possession of this birthday book. Ro Khanna, the congressman, has said that he intends to subpoena Epstein’s estate for that book. It’s possible, again, we haven’t seen the so-called Epstein files. It’s possible that book is part of that cache of files. It’s unclear. There’s also a report in the Times recently that Trump was told during his briefing with Pam Bondi that his name appeared in these files. It’s unclear if it’s in reference to that book or something else. I think part of the reason for the confusion, again, is just the sense of- the Epstein files, what does it actually mean if you’re mentioned in them? What does it imply, if anything? Epstein files could mean that “I went to the same middle school as Jeffrey Epstein.” You could be mentioned in any capacity, in relation to this person. And your name could come up in these files. It doesn’t mean that you did anything untoward.

VVG: So, of course the White House’s first response to this is just to be like “this document is a lie. It doesn’t exist. Fake, fake, fake.”

DA: Trump sued.

VVG: Yeah, right, he sued. And then also, right, he’s suing the Wall Street Journal. And then last night I, prepping for this episode, read your article, thinking about Ghislaine Maxwell and I opened the Times website, and there’s this letter in her handwriting. It is scanned and uploaded to this Times article, and it’s just channeling the description that you gave. I was imagining her reading it in this posh voice, like Jeffrey darling. I hope you have had such a splendid birthday. It’s so creepy. It’s so creepy and horrible. So The Wall Street Journal published another article, and Trump had had these denials, and then the DOJ interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell yesterday, and they kept interviewing her, apparently, today. What do you think they’re asking her? What would you ask her?

DA: So just just a few minutes before the three of us got on this call, Maxwell’s lawyer addressed reporters, and he said that Maxwell answered questions about, I don’t want to misquote him, but something like 100 Epstein associates and again, that that could mean any number of things if you believe the most extreme version of the speculation around Epstein, maybe you think that referring to a so called client list, but it could also mean, again, people who Epstein has communicated with, who he knew, who he was making money with, however many other things. So we do not know what specifically was discussed in those two days of meetings.

And as far as what I would ask Maxwell, where to start? I’d want to test the, assuming we’re in some setting where she is speaking truthfully, which, by the way, before she was convicted on the charges of facilitating absence abuse, she was also charged with perjury. So this is not someone who I am, or I ever think anyone should necessarily take at face value. But the thing that I think has caused and will continue to cause this to be a[n] American International preoccupation is the notion that there was a broader trafficking operation happening outside of Epstein’s crimes. So I think you’d want to ask her, if that’s the case. She was charged with trafficking victims to Epstein, which, of course, is a terrible thing, and she was convicted, and she’s in jail for that. The speculation continues to be that that’s only a slice of it, that she and Epstein were also trafficking underage victims to a larger list of high profile men.

Transcribed by Otter.ai. Condensed and edited by Hunter Murray.