Listen To This Story

The following is for the benefit of new readers: Some of you may know that besides founding and serving as editor-in-chief of WhoWhatWhy, I have a long history as an investigative journalist. In addition to scores of globally published pieces, I put my all into my last book, Family of Secrets, on generations of the Bush family, the CIA, oil companies, the military-industrial complex, and more. And, for an upcoming book, I have spent years on a major dig into little-known and long unknown information on the JFK assassination.  

Some years ago I spent time looking into Jeffrey Epstein, but I set it aside when other responsibilities, including keeping WhoWhatWhy afloat, had to take priority.

Lately I’ve been asked why I haven’t said more about the new Epstein revelations, especially his deeper ties to Trump. But the endless bloviation on the topic, which often seems like a strategic effort to muddy the waters, made me hesitant to add my voice. Still, this feels like a place where WhoWhatWhy could help cut through the fog.

So… in the near future, be on the lookout here for fresh Epstein and Epstein-Trump content and analysis. And if you have information or insights that you feel have not been aired or explored, please drop me a line. 

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Today, I want to just begin exploring a topic where even raising it at all is controversial: Epstein’s death. 

As with so many controversies, people are split, some sure Epstein killed himself, others sure he didn’t. Most media quickly embraced the official narrative of suicide. My inclination has been to hold off, stay agnostic, and do the work. Too often the establishment settles on a consensus without really checking the facts.

A Suicide Attempt — or ‘Suicide Attempt’

For this discussion, I want to begin by introducing something that I don’t think has gotten the attention and further analysis it deserves: what Epstein’s lawyer David Schoen claims that Epstein told him. 

Schoen does not appear to have capitalized on this information in any way and I see no other reason to assume he would simply fabricate this account. Therefore, we must seriously consider that it’s true. And if so, it is extremely important. 

In Schoen’s account, Epstein’s cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, got him to hold still while Tartaglione intentionally created abrasions on his neck.

Epstein told Schoen that Tartaglione had put something around his neck, “a rope, or possibly a piece of cloth,” during what the cellmate said was just an “experiment” or “prank.”

After putting whatever-it-was around Epstein’s neck, Tartaglione “pulled” or “whipped it” — creating an obvious abrasion.

Epstein said he didn’t feel he was in a position to refuse cooperating with this “prank.” After all, Tartaglione was a tall, muscular former cop.

According to Schoen, Epstein told the prison officials that he couldn’t remember what had happened, and in any case he didn’t want to be seen as a rat. (According to The New York Times, Epstein did accuse Tartaglione. Unclear when, or if, this is true.)

Stranger Things Have Happened

Assuming for a moment that Epstein’s recounting of Tartaglione’s “experiment” is true — why would his cellmate do such a thing?  

Possibly because (at the direction of unnamed other people) he intended to create the impression that Epstein had attempted to hang himself — which would make more plausible the conclusion (when he was later found dead in his cell) that Epstein had committed suicide, and was not the victim of foul play.

And why might anyone planning to murder Epstein anticipate doubt about whether his death was in fact suicide?

Because Epstein had seemed so optimistic about his future. As Schoen put it, 

I had mapped out a kind of a four-prong defense approach that I thought we should take, and he was very excited about it, very upbeat.”

And, according to Schoen, he had been upbeat even earlier when he decided to add Schoen to his team of lawyers: 

It doesn’t seem logical to me that someone would actually hire me in a case nine days earlier and be excited up until the day of his death about fighting it, based on the strategy we had come up with, setting up meetings for me with the other lawyers.

(This version of events is the opposite of the official narrative that has been widely publicized. The legacy media tell us that Epstein’s lawyers, and others not named, reported that he was “deeply depressed, dirty, disheveled, unshaven, and often sleeping on the floor,” in the days leading up to his “suicide.”)

The day after his presumed suicide attempt, his physical exam revealed bruising around his throat — thanks to Tartaglione apparently — and his right arm was numb and dangling. He couldn’t even make a fist. 

He said, “Someone attacked me.” True to the prison code of not ratting out fellow prisoners, he did not name that someone. But the prison psychiatrist who interviewed him noted that he denied ever having any thoughts of suicide. 

Epstein told Schoen that he didn’t know what had happened. He knew what had caused the abrasions on his throat, but had no explanation for what had happened to his arm. (One possibility: He’d been drugged.

Deleted Videos Tell No Tales

Tartaglione said he found his cellmate unconscious and immediately summoned guards.

Surveillance video taken outside the jail cell was permanently deleted when the Metropolitan Correctional Center “inadvertently preserved video from the wrong tier.” The backup system that stores all video from that Special Housing Unit was also deleted — because of “technical errors.” What a coincidence.

We know of these deletions because Tartaglione demanded the videos be used, he said, to clear him of any involvement. Does this prove his “prank” really was only a prank? 

Or did he already know of those deletions and requested those videos as part of the show? And who put him up to creating this show, if that’s what it was?   

To be continued.  (Note: The story gets even weirder.)  

Trump and Stalin (er… Putin) in Alaska

Speaking of dubious characters and their relationships with our president, here are a few thoughts about the Trump-Putin whatever-that-was in Alaska.  

Why was the much-ballyhooed meeting held at all? What was the actual purpose?

In Trump’s brief remarks at a “press conference” after the meeting, and in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, the president devoted most of his energy to decrying the theory that Russia somehow had favored him in the 2016 election and had sought to influence the electorate in the hopes that a Trump victory would lead to policy decisions more in line with Putin’s interests. 

And yet the impression one got from both the “press conference” itself and at least the initial outcome was that… It all confirmed that Trump is under Putin’s thumb. 

One was struck by the fact that Putin spoke first, taking the lion’s share of the total time and launching into a long “history lesson” that emphasized the positive aspects of historic US-Russia cooperation, 

As for the invasion of Ukraine, Putin suggested it had been triggered by Joe Biden’s policies, and, more generally, Putin spoke in a way to negate the notion of Ukraine as a legitimate independent country. 

For his part, Trump claimed Putin expressed to him admiration for his accomplishments and that the autocrat opined that under Trump the US is suddenly “hot.” Trump also spoke admiringly of Russia’s tremendous natural resources, and stated that if the 2020 election had not been stolen from him the US and Russia would somehow now be cooperating in some sort of golden-age partnership. 

He challenged none of the many dubious things Putin said, seemed uninterested in or incapable of understanding what Putin was up to in his lengthy “history lesson,” and hinted that the negotiations had generated little of value — while also denying that dismissive view of the event that he in fact had set in motion. 

The day before the meeting, Trump had struck a tough negotiating stance, saying there would be “consequences” for Putin if there was no deal on a ceasefire. The next day there was no deal — and there were no consequences. 

In fact, by the morning after the meeting, Trump had essentially caved to Putin, dropping his requirement of an immediate ceasefire and essentially endorsing Putin’s demand that Ukraine cede some of its land to him. 

Putting a smiling face on this patently bizarre and disturbing outcome fell to the legacy media and to Trump’s media allies. Their analyses of what happened mostly ignored the fact that the encounter in Anchorage came across as a reckless distraction from Trump’s political problems — and especially the persistent suspicions that he had been deeply involved in Epstein’s trafficking of underage females to powerful people in the US and UK.

RFK Not So Tough After All?

Those who don’t agree with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s antiscience push against long-established vaccine policies nevertheless often justify their support of him on the grounds that he is standing up against the corporate world to ensure safer food and health practices. 

But is he? A draft of a new report from his own team shows signs that Kennedy is already pulling his punches on getting tough with the food and pesticide industries. 

The draft report says that environmental regulators will work with “food and agricultural stakeholders” to ensure that the public is aware of and confident in existing pesticide review procedures. It describes those procedures as “robust” and does not propose new restrictions. 

As for what Kennedy would do about regulating ultraprocessed foods (a focus of concern among scientifically credentialled nutritionists, mentioned in the context of a new government effort to define the word “ultraprocessed”): Dr. Marty Makary, the Trump-appointed commissioner of the FDA, said, “We do not see ultraprocessed foods as foods to be banned. We see them as foods to be defined so that markets can compete based on health.”

As for “cracking down” on Big Agriculture, Kennedy’s senior adviser, Calley Means, spoke at a Heritage Foundation event on the role of agriculture in public health and said, “We are not going to win if the soybean farmers and the corn growers are our enemy.” (Go here to see more on Calley Means.)

Meanwhile, those who do agree with Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism should worry about Trump’s reaction to Kennedy’s cancellation of nearly $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccines.  

Trump told reporters that the mRNA coronavirus vaccine development from his first term — Project Warp Speed — was “one of the most incredible things ever done in this country.” And he said he had scheduled a meeting with Kennedy to discuss those cancellations.

No word on this since.