Yesterday Vance appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and said some things that indicate agreement with Carlson. Here’s a report:

JD Vance has claimed he is the target of an Israeli-funded propaganda campaign over his Iran peace push, and that Jeffrey Epstein had ties to the ‘highest levels’ of Mossad.

The vice president made the explosive allegations during a nearly three-hour sit-down with podcaster Joe Rogan.

Vance pointed to a Time magazine report he said proved American influencers were being paid to attack the Iran deal. The report notes that money has flowed through a former Trump campaign operative and is bankrolled by elements of the Israeli government.

‘My response to that is, well, go to hell,’ Vance said of those taking the cash to smear him. The vice president, who complained he has been branded an anti-Semite, declared that Israel is losing the public opinion battle in America.

He also said that ‘figures’ inside the Israeli government are manipulating American public opinion to keep the war going ‘indefinitely.’

Vance then shifted to the administration’s handling of the Epstein scandal, revealing that the disgraced financier ‘clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence’ and ‘Israeli intelligence.’

These are claims that have been aired by the Tucker wing for quite some time, and the evidence for them is extremely poor and mostly rumor and innuendo. The following is about Vance’s allegation about Israel sabotaging the peace negotiations, which he says he based on an article in Time:

… [T]here is apparently a “very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign” to derail negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, according to Vice President JD Vance on Joe Rogan’s show last night. Why is the Vice President perpetuating this dubious claim? The reason is simple: it benefits him too.

Much like other theories that find a home on Rogan’s podcast, this one is thinly sourced and vastly misinterpreted. The article Vance cites for this conspiracy does indeed point to an Israeli-funded influence operation—a FARA-registered, Israeli-government-funded campaign, run through political consultant Brad Parscale’s Clock Tower X, pushing pro-Israel content into the MAGA ecosystem, including through paid influencers who reportedly received suggested language via private group chats and compensation tied to engagement.

Where the article cuts against him is on the one point his whole story depends on: that this was a deliberate campaign built “to derail the negotiations” and keep the war going indefinitely. The Time magazine reporting establishes no such intent. Per the article, the contracted goal was preventing young conservatives from turning against Israel—a reputation campaign, not an anti-ceasefire operation. The sabotage motive is Vance’s attribution, not the reporting’s finding.

And the two people best positioned to know deny his version.

So, whatever you think of Vance’s using a Time story as support for his allegations, he’s not even citing it properly.

Vance was heavily involved in the negotiations with Iran. Now he’s indicating that he didn’t fail; Israel stabbed him in the back. I wonder if this sort of statement on Vance’s part represents a rift between Vance and Trump on this or whether Vance is doing this with Trump’s permission, to keep the Tuckeresque right in the GOP camp for the midterms.

Another statement of Vance’s is somewhat in the same vein:

Vance then shifted to the administration’s handling of the Epstein scandal, revealing that the disgraced financier ‘clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence’ and ‘Israeli intelligence.’

When Rogan noted that most people believe Epstein was working for Mossad, the vice president did not dispute it. Vance noted that it was Mossad ‘or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel or another country or both.’

Vance, who described himself as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ on Epstein, said that anything tying the pedophile to spy agencies was likely destroyed after 2006 – when the financier was first arrested.

Get it? Epstein was a Mossad agent but he conveniently destroyed the evidence, so we can never know.

Actually, Epstein had “connections” to a lot of people who had nothing to do with his pedophilia; he was a famous guy with a lot of money and influence. I would have hoped this sort of insinuation would be beneath Vance, but apparently not:

On Epstein, the vice president agreed with Rogan that the financier was running an operation to pressure or compromise powerful people.

‘I will go to my deathbed believing there’s a story there,’ Vance said, though he admitted he cannot prove it.

‘And I promise you there’s not some document, at least that I’m hiding, that allows us to prove exactly what was going on and how.’

There, Vance sounds like Candace Owens, who likes to say she doesn’t know-know but she knows.

More here:

Asked by Rogan how he was being attacked, Vance pointed to social media posts and leaks to reporters.

“They’re attacking me obsessively, saying that we should not be negotiating with Iran. We should just keep the military campaign going indefinitely,” he said.

Vance said critics had accused him of being influenced by Qatar and other foreign governments and of taking “marching orders from Tucker Carlson.” …

“When I open up the pages of Time Magazine and I see that there’s a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing, and, oh, by the way, many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me in completely dishonest ways, you know, my response to that is, well, go to hell,” Vance said.

Boo hoo, those Israeli-funded meanies were attacking him and that’s why Iran didn’t just give in to his brilliant negotiations.

It’s also of relevance that Vance chose the Joe Rogan podcast to air these grievances against Israel and these excuses for himself. Rogan is not Israel-friendly, nor is his main audience. I doubt Vance would go on Tucker’s show – Vance is smart, and he knows better than that. But Rogan’s show is the next best thing without being especially controversial.

For quite some time I’ve hoped that Rubio is the GOP presidential candidate in 2028. I’m certainly open to other possibilities, but so far Vance is not one of them.

[NOTE: When Carlson decided to split from the Republican Party, I wondered who he’d be supporting for the presidency in 2028. For a while I considered that Tucker himself might want to run. But now it occurs to me that it’s possible that he’d be supporting Vance for the head of a third party. This would be disastrous, IMHO, and could easily cause a Democrat to win if enough people ended up supporting Vance.

I’m not saying this will happen. I still think Vance wants to be the GOP nominee. But if he doesn’t get the nomination, I can easily imagine a situation in which he goes third-party to ally with Tucker and Tucker’s followers.]

The post Vance reveals himself, and it’s not pretty appeared first on The New Neo.

It’s the first arrest of a British royal in 400 years, although he’s not been charged with anything and he was released pending further investigation.

Well, at least they’re not planning to behead him. The charge carries a maximum possible life sentence, however.

You could read much of that article I just linked and come away with the impression that the arrest was for something sexual. It isn’t until paragraph numbers ten and eleven that you get this tidbit:

Earlier this month, the Thames Valley Police said it was looking into a claim that the former prince, while serving as U.K. trade envoy in 2010, had shared confidential documents with Epstein.

One email in the latest U.S. release appears to show Mountbatten-Windsor forwarding Epstein a report from his special adviser about the then-prince’s visit to Southeast Asia.

Easy to miss or gloss over that, but it appears to be the subject matter involved. Here’s more about it:

The Telegraph revealed last week that the former prince appeared to have forwarded a Treasury memo in 2010 about the Icelandic economy to a banker whose firm had just bought assets from a bank there.

At the time, Britain and Iceland were engaged in a diplomatic row over British deposits lost in the 2008 banking crisis.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor suggested the information might be useful to his friend “before you make your move”.

The Epstein files also appear to show that he forwarded official reports to the paedophile about trips to Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and China in November 2010.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor also appeared to have forwarded the paedophile a separate briefing on investment opportunities in Afghanistan’s Helmand province in December 2010.

I assume this was either classified information or at least information that Andrew was not supposed to be sharing in order to help someone make investment decisions. It also seems to me that someone – or many people – wants to make sure Andrew is punished for something. There’s little doubt in my mind that Andrew is a sleazebag in a host of ways, including sexually. But I don’t think there’s any evidence of sex with underage girls – although again, that could change.

He sure was a good friend to Epstein, though.

I can’t quite imagine what the royal family members are saying to each other behind closed doors.

See also this bit of backstory involving Starmer:

The latest document release included a number of new revelations about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, including more evidence of the pair’s yearslong friendship continuing after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution in 2008, and emails suggesting Mandelson shared sensitive government information with the financier.

Mandelson’s involvement with Epstein has more broadly threatened Starmer’s leadership—because he appointed Mandelson to be ambassador—with two of Starmer’s top aides resigning in the wake of the Epstein files’ release and the PM facing calls to resign.

I would wager it’s not so unusual for people in public office to be sharing that kind of information, but the Epstein files have allowed some prominent people to be caught. Perhaps Andrew’s arrest is meant to be a distraction from Mandelson/Starmer?

The post The man formerly known as Prince Andrew has been arrested appeared first on The New Neo.

… [T]he Epstein correspondence has shown that our “elites” are morally bankrupt clowns who exploit their connections. They don’t have to be in a pedo ring to be unfit for what they are trusted with. After Epstein was convicted in 2008 they were still sucking up to him, asking him for favors, wanting to party with him, asking for help with money or connections.

What they are showing us is that it doesn’t matter much what you do, when you’re in the big club (which we ain’t in) you’re in it forever, and they may pretend that they care about the morals of those they associate with but they really don’t.

[He then offers five examples] …

A lot of these people sucking up to Epstein were huffing and puffing about Trump’s low character.

Of course, we already knew that many people – and I’ll even amend that to most people – will make excuses for those on their side, and/or those of whom they’re fond or close, and/or those it might be advantageous to know. There are also many people who believe in forgiveness and believe that only those without sin should cast the first stone. I think most of those asking Epstein for favors, post-2008, were probably in one of those first groups rather than the latter. But I don’t think they’re unusual, nor do I think this is some special characteristic of elites – except for the fact that elites have access to other elites, and therefore are in this position more often.

Maybe I’ve become too cynical.

I also think that, rightly or wrongly, people differentiate sex with older teenagers from sex with pubescent children or children prior to puberty. It’s all offensive and it’s all a crime – and rightly so – but don’t most people consider the latter somehow worse than the former? And Epstein traded on that fact during and after his 2008 plea deal. From coverage in 2008 [my emphasis]:

One of America’s richest men, who holidayed with Prince Andrew and lent his private jet to Bill Clinton, has begun serving an 18-month jail term after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14. …

Florida authorities began tracking Epstein in 2005, when a young girl told of being recruited for massages and sexual encounters with the financier. The FBI got involved soon afterwards, reportedly digging through Epstein’s rubbish and monitoring his lavish mansion to track how many girls were going in and out.

Although Epstein pleaded guilty on Monday to soliciting prostitution, he has maintained that he thought the girls were over 18.

That last part gave people on out to consider him not so very awful. Because it was a plea deal with fairly lenient punishment – plus an agreement not to pursue federal charges against him – it was possible they really did believe him. It certainly was in their interests to believe him.

Am I making excuses for them? No. I’m simply explaining what I think may have happened with many of them. In general, people tend to believe what they want to believe, and interpret facts in ways that allow them to make excuses for people about whom they wish to make excuses. The world of the rich, famous, and influential runs on knowing others who are rich, famous, and influential, and the old “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” principle. To give up their relationships with Epstein was too costly, and if there was a way to rationalize keeping the status quo, most people probably took it.

NOTE: Trump actually did sever any ties with Epstein, which is laudable.

The post Consorting with Epstein appeared first on The New Neo.

Newly unsealed Department of Justice documents reveal that in July 2006, then businessman Donald Trump was one of the first to call police to warn them about sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

The documents include a previously unreported 2019 FBI interview summary with former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter. Trump had contacted the department shortly after reports of Epstein’s criminal sex investigation became public.

The future president contacted Reiter to express relief that authorities were finally acting, suggesting his associates in New York had described Epstein’s behaviors as “disgusting,” and advised investigators to focus on Ghislaine Maxwell, whom he described as “evil.”

The Epstein document dump isn’t working out quite as the left had hoped.

Nor is there evidence of a pedophile sex ring operated by Epstein, or videos of the perps, or blackmail.

The post Trump dropped a dime on Epstein way back when appeared first on The New Neo.

From an editorial in the WSJ:

The Justice Department’s release of the so-called Epstein files has gone pretty much as skeptics warned. The feds published another three million pages on Friday. Such investigatory materials are usually kept private to protect innocent victims and witnesses—a lesson that Congress will now relearn at their expense.

Though the Justice Department sought to redact sensitive information, Congress mandated disclosure in 30 days. The Journal reports that last week’s documents initially failed to black out the names of at least 43 victims of Jeffrey Epstein, “including many who haven’t shared their identities publicly or were minors when they were abused by the notorious sex offender.” Some of their addresses or email addresses were posted.

The files also included “dozens of unredacted nude images,” showing the faces and bodies of “young women or possibly teenagers,” the New York Times said. The Justice Department scrambled to fix the oversights. “You’re talking about pieces of paper that stack from the ground to two Eiffel Towers,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News. “We knew that there would be mistakes.”

Meantime, heinous accusations are circulating against prominent people, without any evidence they’re true. Since Epstein died in 2019, prosecutors have had time to chase real leads. The Epstein emails that show elites privately cozying up to a wealthy sex offender are embarrassing, but the government isn’t supposed to be in the business of posting scandalous raw evidence without a verifiable criminal case.

And yet this is what way too many people demanded. And now anyone who had dealings with Epstein is fodder for gossip and incorrect assumptions. Some are completely innocent. Some did smarmy and embarrassing but legal things. Casting the first stone is often so much fun, though, and good for clicks.

As Republican Representative Clay Higgins said when he voted to not release these files (apparently the only member of Congress to do so): the release “abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure” and “will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt.”

The only good result I can see is that it should shut down demands for more – although there probably are many people who, disappointed in the evidence of actual crimes, think there’s still a big coverup and more files exist that would really implicate the elites, the Jews, or whomever is their particular target du jour.

I don’t like any of this, and I’ve written as much many times before (a typical example of such posts of mine can be found here).

The post Completely foreseeable result of the Epstein files dump appeared first on The New Neo.

I’ve written before at some length on Epstein and the files, for example here as well as here. So I’m not going to go into the details of my position again, but I will add that the Epstein story gives people who are into wild conspiracy theories (about Israel or anything else) much fodder for their spinnings – not that any release of any files would shut them up. It wouldn’t.

But this related story is really quite something. It concerns Stacey Plaskett, a (non-voting) House member from the Virgin Islands who was receiving advisory texts during a House hearing in 2019 from none other than Jeffrey Epstein, a donor of hers (and yes, he was already a convicted sex offender). Epstein was doing the modern-day Cyrano thing via text, suggesting points for Plaskett to make as she questioned witness Michael Cohen before the House. The goal? To hurt Trump, against whom Epstein apparently had significant ire. Plaskett is a Democrat.

More:

At 2:34 p.m. (during the hearing), Epstein told [texted] Plaskett “Good work” — a minute after she finished her questioning.

The texts were released as part of roughly 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate made public Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee.

The documents redacted Plaskett’s name, but the newspaper analyzed the messages and compared them to hearing footage to report Plaskett was indeed texting Epstein.

You can’t make this up. At least, I can’t.

The post The tiresome Epstein files appeared first on The New Neo.

Hunter Biden, in an interview with British journalist Andrew Callaghan, stated, “Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep.” He doubled down with “Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania, and that’s how Melania and the first lady and the president met,” repeating these false remarks despite their glaring lack of credibility. These inflammatory claims hinge on assertions made by Michael Wolff, an author with a notorious reputation for fabricating stories.

Wolff gained some notoriety back in 2018 with a book on Trump; I wrote about him previously in this post as well as this one.

Hunter Biden is quite a piece of work. It occurs to me that one of his most salient characteristics is his utter lack of shame. The laptop revelations seem to have scarcely made a dent in his willingness to give public interviews and in his arrogance, and his previous protection from legal consequences have emboldened an already very very bold and very corrupt man.

As far as stopping the accusations against Trump and Melania go and apologizing, Hunter’s answer is succinct and characteristically profane:

Hunter responds: “fuck that. That’s not going to happen”https://t.co/0AMuDBqrYA https://t.co/2EubenB0HQ pic.twitter.com/2F986cAv3W

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) August 14, 2025

Note especially that duping chuckle at the end, and the pseudo-charming smile.

If it does come to a lawsuit, can Melania win? She’s a public figure – and so is Hunter Biden. As such, she has a high standard of proof over which to hurdle, because of Sullivan. She would have to prove Hunter’s actual malice, or knowledge that his assertion was a lie, or reckless disregard for the truth. Hunter is overwhelmingly malicious, mendacious, and reckless. But proving those things were operating in this case might be difficult.

Then again, Trump has long held that he wants to test Sullivan. So this case would test it, I suppose.

The post Melania Trump might be suing Hunter Biden … appeared first on The New Neo.

However, that’s a misunderstanding of the case. As I read it, as far as I can tell, the only client involved in the verdict was Epstein himself.

Here’s the legal document:

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that GHISLANE MAXWELL was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court by United States Circuit Judge Alison J. Nathan to 240 months in prison for her role in a scheme to sexual exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade. MAXWELL was previously found guilty on December 29, 2021, following a one-month jury trial, of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor. …

In the later phase, from approximately 2001 until at least approximately 2004, MAXWELL and Epstein enticed and recruited, and caused to be enticed and recruited, minor girls to visit Epstein’s Palm Beach Residence to engage in sex acts with Epstein, after which Epstein, MAXWELL, or another employee of Epstein’s would give the victims hundreds of dollars in cash. MAXWELL and Epstein encouraged one or more of those victims to travel with Epstein with the intention that the victim engage in sex acts with Epstein. Moreover, and in order to maintain and increase his supply of victims, MAXWELL and Epstein also paid certain victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused by Epstein. In this way, MAXWELL and Epstein created a network of underage victims for Epstein to sexually exploit.

You’ll find more at the link, but it’s all in that vein: Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.

The evidence against “clients” other than Epstein rests on the testimony of 2 women, one a proven liar (Giuffre), who sued in civil court to get lots of money mostly through settlements (like the one with Prince Andrew). Alan Dershowitz – who was one of the accused – fought back and won. I’ve written about this several times on the blog – for example, see these posts.

Now, it’s certainly possible there were such other clients, but I’ve seen no convincing evidence of it. Maxwell was convicted of trafficking, procuring girls who traveled across state lines to have sex with Epstein, not with anyone else. Maxwell is apparently giving testimony in connection with a Congressional investigation, and it’s certainly possible she will talk about other clients. If she does, it will be the equivalent of a jailhouse snitch trying to curry favors – unless, of course, she can come up with evidence other than her own statements. I would never say never about the existence of other clients. But I would have to see something fairly convincing and so far there’s been nothing of the sort.

The post Epstein and Maxwell: trafficking appeared first on The New Neo.

I see elements of this shaping up again.

There’s Musk’s third party effort, which can only help the left. There’s people who think Trump is covering up important information about Epstein’s supposed clients or his death. There’s the anger of the Tucker Carlson wing, who hate the fact that Trump aided Israel and is about to aid Ukraine. I’m probably leaving out other things, too, but those are the biggest ones I see at the moment. It’s the old circular firing squad routine into which people on the right fall so very easily. It’s depressing, because things are going rather well at the moment, and turning the House (or Congress as a whole) over to the left would be disastrous. And yet many people on the right seem determined to do that, in order to punish Trump or others who have disappointed them by not doing exactly what they want or everything they want.

In that last sentence, what do I mean by “many people” on the right? Ay, there’s the rub: I don’t know. It’s possibly a large group that could make a big difference. But it’s possibly a much smaller group that merely seems larger because it’s so vocal and active online. My gut feeling is that its numbers are magnified by bots and leftist trolls, and this article seems to be in agreement:

Hostile foreign actors are increasingly using social media to drive a wedge into Donald Trump’s political coalition. Using open-source intelligence and analyses of online activity, we explore this phenomenon, which we call “fake MAGA,” in a recent report for the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).

Our report defines fake MAGA influencers as those who use “Make America Great Again” or “America First” branding to target these audiences but are in fact linked to large-scale bot farms—as evidenced by the creation of massive numbers of such accounts at opportune moments on X. That is, our analysis reveals coordinated account-creation spikes (for instance, during Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition), followed by synchronized amplification of identical narratives by those same accounts during a crisis.

Typically, fake MAGA operations occur within 48 hours of a high-profile news event and use a consistent strategy. Accounts that appear to mimic MAGA sentiment and claim to put “America First” instead advance agendas aligned with hostile foreign states. For example, these networks have amplified Iranian state propaganda, claiming nuclear inspectors operate under Israeli control, and attacked Trump with accusations of pedophilia and ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

It’s not just on X, although that may be where these investigators focused their energies. And of course, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens aren’t fake and aren’t bots. But their messages, and the dissension they spawn, are almost certainly carried around the blogosphere by bots and/or trolls, and I’ve noticed it myself. Or at least, I’ve noticed something that appears that way. After so many years of blogging, I have a gut sense about what’s real and what’s manufactured, and I believe at least some of this is manufactured.

I have noticed it for years in the Instapundit comments, for example – comments that are placed through Disqus, which seems to be a big conduit for this sort of thing. For example, see how the comments on this thread devolve quite quickly into “Epstein is indeed a Mossad agent; Carlson is right about that”.

Some of this is heavily anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, and it has been going on for years. Now with Epstein it’s a twofer – they get to air all sorts of anti-Jew, anti-Israel garbage, and they get to hurt Trump as well. They also claim that they represent his base (or former base). But who appointed this group his base?

Here’s how Tucker Carlson rolls on this, and how the Epstein controversy and antisemitism feed into each other:

Within days of Attorney General Pam Bondi admitting that no evidence in the FBI’s files would allow the Justice Department to continue the investigation, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson doubled down on the idea of a government cover-up while speaking at the Turning Point USA conference in Tampa, Fla.

Not only was he willing to hurl such an accusation at an administration made up of his presumable political allies. He went further by claiming to an audience cheering his supposed courage in making such charges that Epstein was an agent of the government of Israel, whose vile actions were somehow part of an effort to blackmail politicians and celebrities. Unsatisfied with such slander, he also invoked the notion that the entire financial industry is some sort of scam—and attacked pro-Israel billionaire Bill Ackman for good measure.

Nor was Carlson alone in trying to make this about Israel and the Jews. Podcaster and former Fox News and NBC journalist Megyn Kelly, who is generally far more responsible than Carlson when it comes to flinging around conspiracy theories, echoed the allegation, also voicing the belief that Epstein was probably a Mossad agent.

I’m shocked at Kelly, if in fact that’s a fair representation of what she said.

For podcasters and social-media “influencers” who thrive only to the extent that they can feed their audiences’ hunger not just for simple answers to complex problems but the kind of conspiratorial thinking that confirms their desire to view every bad thing as a diabolical plot, the Epstein case is a gift that never stops giving. To attach Israel to this sort of topic is a guarantee not only of millions of clicks on videos and podcasts, but also gives those saying such things an instant mass audience that is always willing to believe anything awful that can be said about the Jewish state or the Jews.

Two main points need to be acknowledged in discussing this topic.

One is that neither Carlson nor Kelly—nor anyone else talking about this publicly—has any tangible, concrete evidence of Israeli government involvement in Epstein’s sex crimes. And they freely admit as much.

All they have got are circumstantial allegations that they claim that “everyone” believes. That consists of the fact that the criminal was Jewish, involved in Jewish philanthropy and knew prominent Israelis. …

There was never a chance that even the Trump administration’s admission that the case is closed was going to satisfy those who are up to their necks in wild theories. Telling them that there is no “there” there was, no matter the truth of the matter, never going to silence the doubters or stop scoundrels from seeking to link it to hatred for Israel.

As I said, I don’t know how big this group actually is. But it certainly isn’t non-existent. Carlson has long had a large following, and although there may have been a falloff it’s still large. Same for Candace Owens. These movements are very destructive, and I am convinced the left is very happy to use them to further their own ends – which include antisemitism and GOP losses in the midterms.

The post The bots and the Republicans: Epstein, Israel, and more appeared first on The New Neo.

Disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino reaffirmed Sunday, countering conspiracy theories that have lingered since Epstein died while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

“As someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who’s been in that prison system, who’s been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who’s been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that’s what that was,” Patel told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures,” adding that those who believe something nefarious happened “have a right to their opinion.”

“I have seen the whole file. He killed himself,” Bongino added in their joint interview at the FBI’s Hoover Building.

Of course, this won’t put to rest the very popular notion that Epstein did not kill himself. There’s no question his death was suspicious and that he was not properly monitored. The failure of the video surveillance system only intensified the suspicions that his death was not the result of suicide.

However, I’ve written many posts on this subject already, and I have always leaned somewhat towards the idea that Epstein was a suicide. My reasons are explained at length in those posts. If you’re interested, please take a look at this, this, this, and this.

I fully expect most people to disagree with me on this. But Patel and Bongino do not, and they are far more unequivocal in their statements about the chances of his suicide than I am – in fact, their statements are definitive. Plus, they’ve seen a great deal more about the case than I have, or than almost anyone has.

The post Kash Patel and Dan Bongino say that Epstein committed suicide appeared first on The New Neo.