Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, Mike Baker here with some bonus content for you, because after all, it is the gift-giving holiday season. Well, have I got a gift for you. Look, recently I had the chance to sit down with the great Jillian Michaels on her excellent podcast called Keeping It Real.
Now, happily, Jillian didn't put me through one of her famously tough fitness workouts, but it was a mental workout, as she asked a whole series of smart, thoughtful questions on some very serious topics.
In this portion of our conversation, we focus on Jeffrey Epstein, yeah, him, how he built his influence, the shadowy network around him, and the unanswered questions about just how far his reach really went into politics and power. So, here's my conversation with Jillian Michaels.
Mike, how are you?
Doing good. Doing very well. Thank you very much and appreciate the opportunity to catch up.
Oh, my gosh. You're so kind for joining me. I got a lot on the docket for you today from Venezuela, narco terrorism to what Trump is doing in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Gaza and the ceasefire. What do we do about Iran? I cannot help but begin with Epstein. So I'm sure you expected this. You know, I just recently heard of him, too.
I want to start out by reading you what the average person is hearing about this guy and why the average person, of course, I'm referencing myself here, can't help but think there's a lot of nefarious stuff going on. So I want to read you this list and then I just just weigh in. Tell me what I'm getting right, what I'm getting wrong and what we can make of the things that are actually true.
So first thing you've got is Ghislaine Maxwell's father is Robert Maxwell, who had confirmed intelligence ties to Mossad. True or false? False.
Yeah, you know, it depends on what you mean by confirmed intelligence ties. Like there's everything from recruited asset to cooperative contact, right? To, you know, unwitting, you know, provider of information or insight.
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Chapter 2: How did Jeffrey Epstein build his influence?
There's a range here. And so typically when somebody says, oh, he's, you know, confirmed ties, you got to start defining what does that mean? I don't know what Robert Maxwell's specific definition connections meant in terms of his ties to Mossad, but there's no doubt that, you know, that there were linkages. I just don't know. It would be speculation to say to what degree, right?
Was he, did Mossad itself, right, as an intel service, because that's what you do, you categorize these people, right? So if it's a CIA, for example, you would say, okay, this individual is a recruited asset. That means you can task them. You can say, here's what we want to know.
You go out and get that information from your contacts because I've recruited the deputy foreign minister of a country. Now he's a recruited asset. He's on the hook. So I don't have to beat around the bush. I can tell him, I need the following information. There's the cooperative contact where, OK, he's not disinclined to chat with me, but I can't direct him. I can't task him. I can talk to him.
And if I phrase my conversations correctly,
right he may either wittingly or unwittingly provide me with the insight that i'm looking for you know and then there's then there's just the occasional contact there that you know you don't you kind of refer to them as a source but they're not taskable they're not controllable they're not recruited and so maybe you know you're hoping that one day you can strengthen that relationship and turn it in the direction of something that's more taskable so that's a long-winded way of saying people have to be careful when they start talking about these things because there's more you know
complexity to it than just, and there's a lot of folks out there that just, everything for them is black and white, right? So I'm just trying to be a little bit more nuanced, I suppose.
That's exactly what I'm wanting to know from you. That's exactly why you're the expert here. You talk about these different levels of recruiting someone and being able to utilize them. Why would they cooperate? And then it kind of leads me to the question of, is that actually what Epstein was supposed to be doing in jumping ahead?
Presuming he was an asset of some intelligence agency, would his gig be gain leverage to make them taskable, whoever he has gotten access to?
well yeah i've had this conversation before i remember i was i was talking with uh with uh joe uh rogan uh one time about this and you know i just got pilloried by one like slice of society that they're all they've got this unwarranted confidence that they know everything that's going on right so they they they say well of course you know epstein was a you know recruited asset of massad
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Chapter 3: What connections did Epstein have with global elites?
And no confirmed evidence that Ghislaine Maxwell herself was an intelligence officer.
Right. What I would say is this. Look, if I, you know, if I... Saw Jeffrey Epstein. He was a collector of people. Right. And so either he did that because there are there are people out there. Right. That love to be close to people of importance. It makes them feel important. And then they start portraying themselves as movers and shakers.
And that's and that's so, you know, again, carving this out and saying, OK, it could be one scenario or another. I'm not saying which which one it likely is because we don't have that evidence yet. Right. But right. If I'm an Intel service, and I've said this before, if I'm an Intel service, Jeffrey Epstein is a real person of interest, right? Would I want him as a recruited asset? Well, sure.
Because why? Because he's collected all these interesting people around him, right? Both in diplomatic circles and finance circles, government, media, all these people. From my perspective, some of them are probably people that I would like to know what the hell they're doing, right?
So if I'm Assad or I'm the agency or I'm anybody, right, as an intel service, Epstein's going to be the sort of guy I'm going to look at, right? So all we can do is look at the knowns here, which are coming out from the emails, and hopefully they just go ahead and release everything. I don't think they will because they're not going to release things where there's an active investigation.
But you look at it and go, sure, he had a lot of contact with Ehud Barak, as an example. Right. Well, yeah. And what did he do? Well, he had intelligence responsibilities there in Israel and IDF responsibilities. And if you know, so unless Ehud Barak was just in touch with Epstein for his own prurient interests because of Epstein's, you know, abuse and trafficking of young women, then
You know, maybe was there was something more. Well, again, I can only go by what I would do if I was an intel officer and Epstein crossed my path. I'd say, damn it.
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Chapter 4: How does the conversation address Epstein's intelligence ties?
You know, a lot of interesting people. Yeah. I'm going to push this relationship and see what this is all about.
Right.
Well, maybe one day all you are is an unwitting contact. because you have this desire to surround yourself with people of interest. And there are a lot of people like that in financial circles who love to pal around with the elite in society. So that's not unusual by itself. But again, would an Intel service be interested in them? Sure.
Would Epstein be a recruited asset or just an unwitting contact or a source? You know, who knows? But there's a range there of possibilities.
Yeah, you got this guy with the director of the CIA, William Burns. In 2014, apparently, they met multiple times. I'm going to butcher this woman's name. Catherine Rumler, former White House counsel for Obama, met with her. Ehud Barak, who you mentioned. Lawrence Summers, who everyone's talking about, former U.S. Treasury Secretary. Like...
he these are strange people that are you gonna drop william byrne's name at a party i know a lot of these billionaires and they they name drop just the way you're talking about oh and you know bill and hillary this and barack and michelle that and i understand all that but i very rarely hear i was hanging out with catherine rumler the other day and this is where you're just like
yeah but in certain circles that's got a lot of a lot of weight look in washington dc if you're carrying the bags even if you're the bag toady for you know some senior government official you're an important person in washington dc everybody goes oh it's got facetime with you know whoever it is so suddenly you're important um and look people fraudsters i will say this you know i've got a company that does an awful lot of fraud investigations
fraudsters, scammers, they have certain indicators. They do certain things over and over again. And one of them is using entree from one person to get credibility with somebody else that they're looking at or targeting or want to talk to or want to have pulled into their orbit, right? Of course. Of course.
My business partner does it in business all the time. He's like, okay, this guy knows this guy. And if I let this guy know that I know this guy, it's going to give me like I've been pre-approved over here. I watch you utilize that strategy.
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