THE FIRST PART OF TONIGHT’S SHOW ABOUT MICHAEL WOLFF WITH Ellie Leonard CAN BE SEEN HERE.
PART 2 IS ABOUT THE CRYPTO CAPTURE AND THE GREATER NORTH AMERICA STRATEGY WITH Jacob Kaarsbo.
In 2013, Jeffrey Epstein wrote to Norwegian diplomat Thorbjorn Jagland with a pitch for Vladimir Putin. The idea: Russia could do to global finance what Sputnik did to the space race. Instead of competing with Silicon Valley, copying startups, playing catch-up to Microsoft and Google, Russia could leapfrog the entire Western financial system by reinventing money itself. Epstein claimed he had helped craft the derivative markets in the 1970s and told Jagland that a new form of currency — cryptocurrency — could hand Russia dominance over the global economy. Jagland negotiated the approach, telling Epstein he would pitch Putin by saying he had a friend who could help attract the foreign investment Russia had failed to secure on its own. The day after the exchange, Epstein’s Google Calendar contained a single entry: “Prepare Putin Paper.” He demanded any meeting with Putin last two to three hours, away from the crowds of St. Petersburg. We don’t know if the meeting happened, but Epstein visited Russia multiple times, held Russian visas, and met with deputy economic ministers on several occasions.
Now look at the map. Brock Pierce, a former child actor turned crypto billionaire who co-founded Tether, was Epstein’s personal advisor on all things crypto. Pierce told Epstein he “had a great time with the girls” and Epstein instructed him to “find him a present.” Pierce’s creation, Tether, is now a $133 billion stablecoin backed by U.S. Treasury bills held in custody by Cantor Fitzgerald — the firm owned by Howard Lutnick, now Trump’s Commerce Secretary. When Lutnick had to divest from Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether financed his family’s purchase of the company, creating a closed loop where the same entity that sells the cryptocurrency also secures it. Lutnick, whose name appears more than 250 times in the Epstein files, who brought his children and nannies to a bespoke lunch on Epstein’s island in 2012, now sits in a position where he could authorize a bailout of his own company if the Tether bubble pops. That bubble — $133 billion in Treasury bills that would flood the market in a panic redemption — could spike interest rates and crash the U.S. economy overnight.
The Gulf money pipeline completes the picture. Trump’s World Liberty Financial sold 49 percent to Sheikh Tahnoun of the UAE for $500 million. MBS and Qatar are also backers, with Qatar providing $2 billion to establish a stablecoin competitor to Tether. Epstein was directly connected to all three — he visited the Louvre with MBS during a private closed viewing, maintained direct ties to Sheikh Tahnoun, and cultivated Qatari contacts throughout the Gulf blockade. The network is running the same play it ran before 2008: pump a bubble they control, sell at the top, crash it, and buy American assets for pennies on the dollar. Except this time the derivative is crypto, the Commerce Secretary is a member of the network, and the wealth is flowing directly from the American treasury into the hands of Gulf monarchies, Russia, and their partners. The blueprint Epstein pitched to Putin thirteen years ago is playing out in real time.
The broadcast closed with former Danish intelligence senior analyst Jacob Kaarsbo responding to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement of “Greater North America” — a Pentagon strategy declaring every nation from Greenland to Ecuador a U.S. security perimeter. Kaarsbo called it an elaboration of the December national security strategy, warning that Denmark has already deployed combat-ready troops to Greenland and that nine European nations have signed nuclear deterrence agreements with France. He noted that if the Iran operation deteriorates, the administration could pivot to a full-throttle Arctic approach. The scenario — two NATO allies facing off with live weapons over Greenland — would have been unimaginable a few years ago. Denmark’s prime minister has drawn the line. Most of Europe, with the possible exception of Orban’s Hungary, stands behind her. Kaarsbo, joining from the French Alps within kilometers of the main French Arctic forces base, observed that when countries are already discussing nuclear sharing, you know the alarm is at the pinnacle. Everything else trickles down from there.
THE FIRST PART OF TONIGHT’S SHOW ABOUT MICHAEL WOLFF WITH Ellie Leonard CAN BE SEEN HERE:
Narativ Live streams on YouTube, Substack, and narativ.org. The full crypto investigation is available at narativ.org in The Greatest Heist Book 2.
