The Greatest Heist

Part 3: The White House Is Working Overtime to Deny a Scandal the President Claims Doesn't Exist.

Narativ's investigation has uncovered what appear to be interconnected financial interactions spanning four decades between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump—a partnership hidden in offshore accounts that reveals systematic coordination far beyond their known social relationship.

The frantic White House effort to cover up what the president calls a hoax includes the DOJ's categorical denial of Jeffrey Epstein's intelligence ties and a massive internal effort to scrub the president's name from the FBI's Epstein Files. Plus nine hours of testimony elicited from Ghislaine Maxwell in private last week. The obstruction of justice would, in normal circumstances, trigger impeachment charges.

The cover-up pales beside what our investigation has learned about the Epstein Files themselves. Our timeline reveals a four-decade pattern of manufactured crises designed to extract maximum profits for network operatives while saddling American taxpayers with the bill.

The Black Monday Acquisition: When Crisis Becomes Opportunity

The Plaza Hotel came into Donald Trump's hands through what sources describe as a "white wedding deal" orchestrated during 1987's Black Monday crash. Trump's mutual friend Thomas Barrack purchased the Plaza during the worst market crash since 1929, acquiring Manhattan's crown jewel at fire-sale prices, then flipped the hotel to Trump at a modest markup—nowhere near the property's actual value.

Trump leveraged even more debt against the Plaza until his 1992 bankruptcy. The timing reveals disturbing coordination: Barrack capitalized on advance market knowledge—potentially through Epstein's rumored involvement in the Drexel Burnham Lambert collapse that triggered the crash—to acquire distressed assets at unprecedented discounts.

The Khashoggi Yacht: Arms Dealing Assets in Plain Sight

Even more unconventional was Trump's acquisition of Adnan Khashoggi's yacht. Trump and Epstein both met Khashoggi separately in 1981. Six years later, Trump purchased the 282-foot Nabila—which had served as Khashoggi's floating headquarters for Iran-Contra arms dealing—with 100% financing, putting no money down.

When prosecutor Rudy Giuliani engineered Khashoggi's legal troubles, the yacht needed movement through intermediaries to prevent seizure. The transaction revealed Trump's willingness to serve as a front for compromised assets, establishing a pattern that would define his relationship with the arms dealing network for decades. The Nabila had hosted Iranian operatives, Saudi royals, and American intelligence officers during Iran-Contra's height.

November 24, 1991 The Handover

The most critical transition occurred nineteen days after Robert Maxwell's mysterious death. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell met at Robert Maxwell's memorial dinner at the Plaza Hotel on November 24, 1991—inheriting the media mogul's espionage infrastructure that had successfully "infected" Western capitalism with Soviet collapse money.

The timing was perfect: one month before the USSR's formal dissolution, the network was already operational in American markets. According to Ari Ben-Menashe, Robert Maxwell's alleged Israeli intelligence handler, Maxwell had already introduced Epstein to intelligence operatives, telling him "your Israeli bosses have already approved."

Maxwell's death wasn't the end—it was systematic handover. As the Soviet Union died, Maxwell had positioned himself to capture wealth hemorrhaging from the corpse. KGB officers, Communist Party officials, and Eastern Bloc intelligence agents all needed Western bank accounts for stolen assets. Within weeks of the failed August 1991 coup attempt, at least seven Communist Party finance officials died under suspicious circumstances—they knew where the money was hidden.

Premium Subscribers can get a much deeper dive including the most shocking revelation of our investigation. Find out why only one bank was willing work with Jeffrey Epstein and Donald J. Trump, and its scandalous ties to Russia. Plus the secret code Russia’s intelligence services used to confirm their operation.

August 19, 2013: The Smoking Gun