5️⃣ Bloomberg Reveals Secret DEA Probe of Epstein
Bloomberg’s Jason Leopold dropped a bombshell: the DEA opened a secret investigation into Jeffrey Epstein in 2015 centered on money laundering, drug trafficking, and procuring Eastern European women for high-profile clients. The probe grew out of Operation Chain Reaction, a long-running investigation targeting associates of the Genovese crime family. An informant told agents Epstein was funding and distributing ecstasy, ketamine, and methamphetamines. Former congressman Denver Riggleman, who joined today’s show, put it simply: “Criminals that crime usually do other crimes because they like to crime.” Dean Blundell connected it to Trump’s pardoning of the former Honduran president, a convicted Sinaloa cartel kingpin, and the administration’s dismantling of OCDETF, the very task force that built the Epstein case. As Riggleman noted, “Whether you get shot on purpose or shot on accident, you’re still getting shot” — the investigations are gone regardless of why.
4️⃣ America Begs Ukraine for Drone Help
In what Dean Blundell called “schadenfreude at its fucking greatest,” the United States is now turning to Ukraine for help defending against Iranian drone strikes — the same country the Trump administration abandoned. Riggleman, a former Air Force intelligence officer who runs AI targeting company Rig, explained that Russia is providing Iran with specific coordinates and imagery to target American installations, while the U.S. military is burning through munitions firing hundred-thousand-dollar missiles at twenty-thousand-dollar Shaheds. Ukraine, out of desperation, built the world’s most advanced drone warfare capability — and during a recent NATO exercise, took out American troops with drones while the U.S. had no idea what to do. Riggleman warned that AI-powered drone swarms with no humans in the loop are coming next, and “America is not prepared because we’re shortsighted.”
3️⃣ Epstein and the Oslo Accords
Zev revealed new reporting connecting Epstein to the derailing of the 1990s Middle East peace process. Between the famous Rabin-Arafat handshake and the collapse of negotiations, Epstein made 17 visits to the Clinton White House. The Norwegian prime minister who helped negotiate the Oslo Accords was arrested last week for corruption tied to Epstein. Zev argued this isn’t ancient history — the same network, the same players including Netanyahu, who opposed the peace talks then and encourages war with Iran now, have controlled American foreign policy for decades. “We would never have gotten here,” Zev said, “if the peace talks back in the 90s had been successful.”
2️⃣ Michael Wolff: Epstein’s Double Agent
Investigative journalist Ellie Leonard joined the show with explosive findings from 1,800 pages of emails between Michael Wolff and Jeffrey Epstein. Wolff signed an NDA to read an advance copy of James Patterson’s Epstein book — then sent the entire email thread to Epstein. He killed a New York Magazine piece by forwarding the photo editor’s correspondence directly to Epstein. Emails show Epstein telling Wolff about sending something to Bill Barr with the subject line “Mueller” — and Wolff never reported any of it. Zev posed the key question: if Wolff had unlimited access to both Trump and Epstein, was he serving as a go-between for two men who couldn’t be seen talking to each other? Leonard confirmed she’s only through 100 of the 1,800 pages. There’s much more to come.
1️⃣ DOJ’s Vanishing Epstein Files
The DOJ reposted thousands of Epstein files after Congress subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi — but not all of them. Of 53 missing pages containing allegations against Trump by a woman interviewed by the FBI four times, only 16 have returned. The longest interview — 37 pages — is still missing. Leonard described the returned documents as containing details so specific they’d be nearly impossible to fabricate: particular concerts, the population of a small island, a cologne that triggered the victim years later, traceable to the exact period described. Leonard and Zev noted a mysterious “Mr. Atkins,” described as an Ohio university financial administrator connected to Leslie Wexner’s territory, whose name cannot be found in any faculty records.
The Fivestack runs deep on Fridays. Two guests — former congressman Denver Riggleman and investigative journalist Ellie Leonard — helped connect the DEA’s Epstein drug probe to Trump’s cartel connections, Ukraine’s drone supremacy to American military incompetence, and Michael Wolff’s double life to the DOJ’s desperate scramble to hide what’s in those files.
The FiveStack is available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The FiveStack is a co-production of deanblundell.substack.com and narativ.org.
Thank you Jim Bourg, Robin Payes, Cathy Orten, Grace Lovelace, Andy Collen, and many others for tuning into my live video with Ellie Leonard and Denver Riggleman! Join me for my next live video in the app.
