IHIP News
Lead Epstein Reporter Claims "It's Worse Than I Thought" as More Victims Surface
18 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What insights does Julie K. Brown provide on the Epstein case?
Joining us today is Julie K. Brown, who, as everyone knows who's been paying attention, broke the Epstein files, Epstein probe wide open in 2017 with a series of articles and investigative journalism. Welcome, Julie. Thanks for being with us.
Great to be here.
Okay, so I want to start by asking you when this drop came from the Justice Department, which was limited redacted. But one interesting thing to me was that they were keeping tabs on you. What was that like in that moment? And has there been any follow up with the Justice Department on that?
well you know let me back up i had somebody point out to me that they saw my names in connection with a plane itinerary a flight itinerary so of course that sounded very odd i knew my name would be in there because the whole reason why the southern district of new york opened the case to begin with was because of my investigative story in the Miami Herald.
So, of course, they're mentioning my story throughout, you know, did you see this? Did you look at that? So I knew my name. But when someone called me and said, well, there's a flight itinerary with your name on it. And when they showed me a copy of it, it had my maiden name attached to it. And that's very odd because I don't use my maiden name professionally. So I thought, what is this now?
Everything is blacked out. of course, except for my name. So all I know when I first looked at it was this is my name because I have an unusual maiden name and I don't know why they're doing this because everything's all blacked out and you can't really tell. So it did take me a couple of days to unravel what it was about. And what they are saying is they weren't monitoring me.
they were monitoring one of the victims who I had purchased a flight ticket for. And the reason why, and I didn't purchase it.
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Chapter 2: How was Julie K. Brown monitored by the Justice Department?
Actually, it was the Miami Herald that purchased it. And I used my company credit card, which I guess at the time, this was a while back, had my maiden name attached to my company credit card. But anyway, what they were trying to say was, look, we weren't monitoring you. Now keep in mind, my name's the only thing on this page practically. For me to understand what it was.
So then of course I look at the itinerary, then I had to go back in my emails because this was from, you know, eight years ago. It was actually happened also on the itinerary happened to be a flight that I was taking the day before he was arrested.
So anyway, we had planned, my videographer Emily Michaud and I, to fly to Arkansas to meet with Maria and Annie Farmer, two victims, and interview them. Annie lived in Texas. Maria was in Arkansas. So in order to do the interview, we agreed to fly Annie to Arkansas so we could all do the interview in one place. So that was what it was. They were monitoring her itinerary.
And because I had purchased the flight, my name was attached to it. So they're saying, we weren't really following you. We weren't monitoring you. We were really monitoring a victim. who they didn't even really name on the record, but I knew who it was because that was the only person I had ever, a victim I had ever bought a flight ticket for.
So it took a bit, but it's interesting because Annie called me. I was so glad she called me because sometimes you kind of feel like you're in this together with this story. You know, you're in this sort of club you don't want to really be in, but you are. And in some ways, of course, she's been through, the victims have been through so much.
But in some ways, I feel their pain, you know, and I have to understand their pain in order to write what I write. So we're sort of in this club together where we can commiserate sometimes. And this was one of those cases because her it turned out her husband was also unredacted in one of those itineraries. So her husband's name was out there. I didn't know it was her husband at the time.
She told me she said that they had even gotten a flight itinerary for her husband when she I guess she was flying with him to someplace and they got his itinerary. And the whole thing didn't make any sense. because the itinerary, think about it, was from 2019, and Annie was involved with the Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell situation when she was young, when she was a little kid.
So it makes sense they would monitor her flights from back then because they wanted to show that they flew her to the ranch in New Mexico, for example. I'm sure they wanted to know her itinerary then. But why would they be wanting to know her itinerary in 2019? So it's still a little bit squishy, I think, about exactly what they were doing.
But I feel pretty confident it was a mistake on their part, that they didn't really mean to catch me up in this. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.
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