For the first time, the public has heard Jeffrey Epstein speak at length about the 2008 financial crisis, and what he reveals is stunning. A two-hour interview between Epstein and Steve Bannon, recorded in 2019 and released this weekend, shows the convicted sex offender describing in detail how he advised world leaders and financial institutions during the worst economic collapse since the Depression - all while sitting in a Palm Beach County jail cell.
As Zev Shalev explained on Sunday’s special edition, the footage is remarkable because we’ve never heard Epstein discuss anything at this length, and what he says confirms much of what The Greatest Heist investigation has been documenting about his central role in the financial crisis. The interview is believed to be Epstein’s last before his death later that year, and it was apparently part of a media rehabilitation campaign that Bannon was helping orchestrate.
The most striking revelation comes when Epstein describes September 14, 2008 - the night Lehman Brothers collapsed. Epstein was in an 8x10 cell in Palm Beach County Jail, wearing a brown jumpsuit, confined to a metal bed with a chrome sink and toilet. A guard informed him that Wall Street was crashing.
Epstein was allowed two collect phone calls per day, and he used both of them that night in a way that reveals the depth of his financial network connections. His first call went to Jimmy Cayne, the president of Bear Stearns, the firm that had collapsed six months earlier in March 2008, triggering the crisis everyone was now watching unfold. His second call went to a contact at JP Morgan, the bank that was trying to buy what remained of Bear Stearns. As Shalev described it, Epstein held both phones simultaneously, one in each hand, advising both sides of a major financial transaction from his jail cell during the worst financial crisis in 80 years.
But Epstein’s influence extended far beyond those two phone calls. In the interview, he confirms that he was in contact with the Treasury Secretary during the crisis, offering advice on how to handle the collapsing financial system. Even more remarkably, Steve Bannon at one point in the interview reveals Epstein’s client list for financial advisory work - a list that includes Vladimir Putin, the President of China, and the King of Saudi Arabia. Epstein doesn’t dispute this, and the exchange makes clear that world leaders were consulting with him about American financial decisions even as he sat in jail for sex crimes. Lev Parnas emphasized the significance of this timing, noting that in 2019, while Trump was in office, Bannon and Epstein had this level of interest, control, and influence over global financial matters. The interview also addresses whether institutions like Harvard should accept donations from a convicted sex criminal, with Epstein defending the practice by invoking the Derek Bok principle that taking money for good causes is a good thing, regardless of the source.
The interview comes at a critical moment as independent journalists continue to dig through millions of newly released Epstein files. @EllieLeonard, who first flagged the Bannon interview footage, has been working late into the night reviewing documents alongside researchers like Kait Justice Justice, and others in a crowdsourced investigation that could be the biggest of all time. Aaron Parnas and Joy-Ann Reid and Lev Parnas continue to advocate for greater transparency Parnas says the DOJ never anticipated would be so effective.
As Shalev noted, every single bit of evidence they find confirms they’re on the right path, showing clear connections between financial crimes, sexual crimes, and the network that helped elect Donald Trump. Parnas announced that he and others will travel to Washington DC on February 11-12 to meet with survivors, face Attorney General Pam Bondi, and deliver investigative packages to every member of Congress they can reach. The goal is to ensure that elected officials have the real proof they need to pursue justice, walking the halls of Congress to personally hand-deliver the evidence that has been painstakingly assembled by this growing community of investigators.
The full two-hour interview reveals Epstein as articulate and affable, which Shalev acknowledged was clearly the point of the media training exercise Bannon was conducting. While Epstein doesn’t confess to collapsing the 2008 market, he certainly confirms that he was involved and talking to all the key parties at the exact moment when the financial system was in freefall. The footage provides an unprecedented window into how Epstein presented himself, how he justified his actions, and how deeply embedded he was in the global financial and political power structure - right up until the end of his life.
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This is a special Sunday edition. For more investigative reporting on the Epstein network and the 2008 financial crisis, visit narativ.org.
Thank you Ellie Leonard, Cash Flow Collective, Lesley Jane Seymour, Cheech Previti, Debbie Hupp, and many others for tuning into my live video with Lev Parnas! Join me for my next live video in the app.
