JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It seems as though a day doesn't pass without new and different revelations in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Today, former President Bill Clinton gives a deposition to members of Congress about his relationship with a convicted sex offender. Earlier this week, NPR reported the Justice Department withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor. And on Wednesday, former treasury secretary and Harvard president, Larry Summers, ended his Harvard teaching career. The big picture is that Epstein associated with many wealthy and powerful people. Tina Brown was one of the first to report on Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of underage girls back in 2010. That was when she was running The Daily Beast, and Tina Brown joins me now to talk about this moment and what it tells us about money and power in America. Welcome back to the program.
TINA BROWN: So glad to be here. Thank you.
SUMMERS: As I mentioned, you were one of the first people, if not the first back in 2010, to cover some of this. How was that reporting received?
BROWN: Well, it's interesting. The piece was written by a fantastically intrepid, actually not a journalist, really, but she was a campaigner against human trafficking. We published the piece. Actually, I published about five consecutive investigations by Conchita Sarnoff on the story in a - over the series of about four months. But, you know, when they came out, it was pre-#MeToo. At that time, you know, Epstein, you know, he was just a kind of - it was really a sort of social story almost of New York society. He was not, like, this big, you know, figure of mystique that we now see him as at all. And so, you know, it came out. But then some other big story came, and it just sort of, you know, was drowned in the news cycle. So at that time, it didn't land with the kind of force that, you know, later on, Julie Brown's excellent investigations a few years later, of course, did then publish in a very different atmosphere and made a lot of noise.
SUMMERS: Why do you think that is, though? Why do you think it took so long for Epstein to face consequences but also, as you point out, for the public to start to pay attention?
BROWN: Because I think that, you know, as I say, until the story sort of could break through that news cycle, you see, he was not really a very well-known person. And, you know, - I mean, and, of course, he was back in the social swim. I mean, I - you know, I told a story in my book about how some months after I'd published these pieces, I was called by the PR woman Peggy Siegel to invite me to a dinner for Prince Andrew at Jeffrey Epstein's house. The other guests were Woody Allen, Charlie Rose. You know, I mean, I could not believe it. And at that time, I shouted across the newsroom, what on Earth is this, you know, the pedophiles' ball? I have no desire to come for dinner. But no, I mean, I think until the - Alex Acosta, who was the - you know, the DA who gave him this very light sentence...
SUMMERS: Right.
BROWN: ...It really broke open more when he was appointed into the Trump cabinet. And that's, I think, when Julie Brown began to investigate sort of Alex Acosta, his - you know, his end of it, and ask the questions about why he made this sweetheart deal with Jeffrey Epstein. That's when it became a far more sort of prominent national story.
SUMMERS: I mean, the Epstein files have arrived at this moment in our society where there are both conspiracy theories and also real anger at people of power in America, the so-called elites of big business, higher education and politics. Do you think that the case of Jeffrey Epstein reinforces those ideas?
BROWN: Absolutely. In an interesting way, Jeffrey Epstein has almost become sort of a focus of the sort of suppressed fury that has been there for sort of about, you know, really since the financial crisis. We didn't see any of those bankers go to prison. The idea that there are these people, again, of power, of wealth, who somehow can just, like, live this life where they just get a slap on the wrist or no, in any way, sort of losing any of their privileges or whatever, the Epstein files reveal a kind of Underground Railroad of, you know, high echelon, you know, depravity, essentially - all these people utterly, you know, impervious, it seems, to this climate of evil really around Epstein. And I just don't buy it when they keep saying, I knew nothing. I mean, I just don't buy it.
SUMMERS: I mean, Tina, we are having this conversation in 2026, nearly seven years after Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide, weeks after these millions of pages of documents were released by the Justice Department. And yet, there have been very few real consequences for people in the United States who were associated with Jeffrey Epstein. Why do you think that is?
BROWN: Well, I mean, I think that, you know, there's been a real genuine effort to bury it, hasn't there? I mean, Donald Trump, you know, didn't wish to have these files come out because he's in the files, as we know, thousands of times, I mean, many more times than, you know, most of the people who are being cast into kind of professional purgatory because they've been named. But now they've been released, it's almost become a situation where everybody's getting the blame, except, you know, for him and the major power figures in these files. I mean, there are some really heavyweight, big-time billionaires in these files. So, I mean, the interesting thing about Epstein was the way he was able to just sort of dominate people into kind of behaving their worst selves. I mean, you know, he tried to stop me publishing these pieces in The Daily Beast. And I had a very, very sort of spooky day where...
SUMMERS: Yeah, am I right that he threatened you at some point?
BROWN: Yes, he did. He did. He came into The Daily Beast office, uninvited. I will never know how he got past security. And I came into my office, and there he was sitting in my room. And he just looked at me and said, just stop. And he gave me this really sort of chilling, threatening stare. And I said, Jeffrey, you know, we're going to continue to publish, and, you know, you can speak to our lawyer if you want. And he left. He's a very sinister figure, in my view, and I just cannot understand how so many people could have ended up ensnared by him.
SUMMERS: Tina Brown, former editor in chief of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Daily Beast, and now you can find her Fresh Hell newsletter on Substack. Tina, thank you.
BROWN: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
