Monday, August 24, 2026
👀 THE FRONT PAGE
⚖️ BLANCHE FOUGHT TO SEAL WHAT DEESE POSTED
Todd Blanche told a federal judge the handwritten pages behind Jane Doe 4's FBI interviews could not come out — too duplicative of the typed reports, too dangerous to redact by hand. Reporters at three newsrooms already had them, unredacted. Rye Howard-Stone laid out the sequence at Document Zero: on March 6, Washington Examiner justice reporter Kaelan Deese uploaded the unredacted notes to his public Scribd account, called them classified, and left them there five months. The next day Deese published a story on what was still missing from the Epstein files. He never mentioned the pages he had posted the day before. Deese wrote a story for every other document on that account. Not for these. When a stranger cold-texted him, Deese moved to Signal and dug out a third file: "No credit needed. This is public now I believe." Howard-Stone cautions the screenshots "cannot be definitively identified as authentic without further investigation." Deese pulled the files this week. Judge Emmet Sullivan gave Blanche until Wednesday.
🍁 CARNEY REFUSES TRUMP'S FRIDAY NIGHT DRAFT
Trump's negotiators handed Canada an entirely new draft on Friday evening — days after he announced a deal, hours before it collapsed. They asked for a say in who else Canada may trade with, exemptions for US streamers from the Online Streaming Act and Quebec's Bill 109, and an end to Quebec's French-language protections. They tabled a snapback clause Trump could cancel any afternoon while Canada's concessions stayed put. Carney refused: "They asked too much and they offered too little." At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, 50 percent tariffs landed. He retaliates September 8, almost $30 billion Canadian.
💵 BESSENT LAUNCHES HIS ECONOMIC D-DAY
Scott Bessent takes a podium at 1 p.m. Monday to sever Iran from the world economy — "the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary." Hassan Qashqavi got there first. Iran's lawmakers priced the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday: maritime, insurance, safety, fuel, payable in rials or whatever currency Tehran picks. Bessent is selling isolation. Qashqavi is selling passage. One of them has customers.
🤝 TRUMP NAMES COHEN'S PRICE
Trump told Michael Cohen on Sunday why they are speaking again: "You took back, you recanted your testimony... I wouldn't even be talking to you right now if you didn't." Cohen has a pardon application sitting at the White House. He recanted nothing. For forty minutes he never said Epstein's name.
🇰🇷 MARINES CANCEL THE KOREA DRILL
The Marines cancelled Ssangyong, next month's amphibious landing exercise with South Korea, and told Seoul the Iran war took the troops. Xi Jinping arrives at the White House on September 24. Trump spent Sunday counting ballroom chairs.
🎯 THE BIGGER PICTURE
Todd Blanche told a federal judge that pages three newsrooms already had were too dangerous to release. Trump told Michael Cohen on the radio that recanting his testimony is what got him the meeting. Todd Blanche is Michael Cohen with an entire justice department behind him
🔴 LIVE TODAY ON NARATIV
Fivestack — 3:00 PM ET. Zev Shalev and Dean Blundell on the draft that killed the Canada deal.
📚 READ THIS ON NARATIV
Ellie Leonard published the handwritten FBI notes Todd Blanche told a judge nobody could see.
https://www.narativ.org/p/fivestack-bombshell-leaked-epstein
The Narativ in your inbox every morning — free. Full stories and Zev's take, before the rest of the news catches up. Know Sooner. → narativ.org
Oh Canada, it must be nice to have a president who isn’t an international mobster, adjudicated sex offender and tax cheat with execrable taste and delusions of Lord of the Continent.
Anyone with the correct software can redact properly. It's not rocket science.