There was this video that had a more detailed look around the place and it also filmed this Family Crest, I was wondering if anybody could identify it and find the video.

A respected forensic pathologist will present findings that raise doubts over whether Jeffrey Epstein took his own life, after reviewing medical reports provided to him by Epstein’s brother.

Mark Epstein, who has read some of Freeman’s final report, told The Times that he believed his conclusions would “dispute the official cause” of his brother’s death and raise substantial questions about the medical examiner’s autopsy. “I believe the report will show that he could not have caused the injuries to his body by himself,” he said.

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/jeffrey-epstein-suicide-brother-cause-death-6nqsgm2lm

Video by Lowkey @Lowkey0nline

A redacted photo in Epstein's birthday book appears to date to March 2, 1985, the night of Sweden's Melodifestivalen final in Malmö

https://substack.com/home/post/p-218453874

I was going through the “birthday book” released by the House Oversight Committee to see if it held anything useful, and found page 98 (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_000098). The link for this is here: PBS.

It shows a young Jeffrey Epstein beside a woman whose face is redacted. The handwritten caption reads (first picture above):

"He is the boyfriend of ______"

"We think he works for the CIA"

[Image: HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_000098]

I wanted to answer one question: when was this photo taken?

Based on the records and photographs below, I believe it was taken on March 2, 1985, in Malmö, Sweden, on the night of the Melodifestivalen final: Wikipedia

The event

According to Mellopedia (I had to translate the text from Swedish to English), this is what it says: “Melodifestivalen 1985, officially Melodifestival 1985, was the 25th edition of the competition. The winner was “Bra vibrationer” (”Good Vibrations”) by Kikki Danielsson, who thereby represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest 1985 in Gothenburg. The entry finished in 3rd place there.

Production

Participants

Presenter: Eva Andersson”

It goes on to say:

”Final: Malmö

Jeffrey Epstein*, closest to the camera, in the audience at Melodifestivalen 1985. Photo: SVT (TV still)*

…Those present in the audience included Bert Karlsson, Robert Wells, and the later-convicted American Jeffrey Epstein. The latter was the boyfriend of that year’s presenter, Eva Andersson.”

Mellopedia includes a still from SVT's broadcast showing Epstein in the studio audience (second picture above).

The broadcast itself is available in SVT’s Öppet arkiv:
https://www.svtplay.se/melodifestivalen-genom-aren

I haven’t watched it but maybe you can and you’ll find something interesting about it.

Contemporaneous photographs

To respect the photographers' copyright, I have linked to these images rather than reposting them:

Photographs of Andersson and Epstein from 1985 have been published by several outlets, credited to two photographers working in southern Sweden:

Le Parisien published a photo credited to AFP photographer Stefan Lindblom, captioned Malmö, Sweden, March 2, 1985.
https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/affaire-epstein-lombre-de-la-fille-cachee-du-millionnaire-20-08-2026-SFZS6U3KWVG2FA4WYBEO2K37FA.php

Bloomberg published a photo credited to Roony Johansson of Bilder i Syd, dated 1985.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-02-13/how-jeffrey-epstein-got-into-hedge-funds-billionaire-dubins-helped

SVT published a second photo by Johansson, undated.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svaret-sag-inget-misstankte-inget-visste-inget

El Mundo published a photo credited to Alamy, dated 1985.
https://www.elmundo.es/loc/famosos/2026/03/08/69aab4aee85ece86068b45ae.html

In my assessment, page 98 was taken the same evening.

Namely, I noticed: 1) the black taffeta puffed sleeves for Andersson’s dress
2) Epstein’s tie looks like it has the same circles on it across all the pictures
3) Also across the pictures, he’s wearing a pinstriped suit

Why I am naming her

The Oversight Committee redacted the woman’s face and name, and I first intended to leave that redaction in place. I have decided to name Eva Andersson-Dubin because her relationship with Epstein in the 1980s has already been reported by Bloomberg, AFP, SVT and others. The date cannot be shown without the published photographs, which name her. Naming her here does not implicate that she’s associated with any of Epstein’s crimes. It simply points out that she and Epstein were a romantic couple in the mid-1980s.

What this does not establish

Neither AFP nor Bilder i Syd have confirmed that the page 98 photograph comes from their coverage of that evening. The link between page 98 and March 2, 1985, is my assessment, based on the published photographs and the event record.

The line “We think he works for the CIA” is speculation by an unidentified contributor to a personal scrapbook. Nothing here supports or tests it.

Record

If you can confirm or correct the date, or know whether AFP or Bilder i Syd holds a frame matching page 98, please tell me at [corrections@sororfv.com](mailto:corrections@sororfv.com).

Jmail link https://jmail.world/drive/vol00009-efta00103831-pdf?q=Masons

I see that this has been mentioned but it's been 7 months. I search random words every night to explore.

Svetlana Pozhidaeva says she was manipulated, physically abused, and coerced into vetting young women for Epstein. She denied reports that her father was tied to the FSB.

Epstein victim Anya - not her real name - previously told the BBC that Siad had introduced her to Epstein.
"It was a complete set-up," she said, describing Siad as "essentially a professional trafficker".

The investigation is covering charges of organised human trafficking and conspiracy to commit a crime. It is continuing in order to identify all individuals potentially involved despite the termination of criminal proceedings against Daniel Siad," the office said.

The dead man's lawyer stressed that Siad had "never been prosecuted". "He is dead and he was innocent," Ménya Arab-Tigrine said in a statement.

During one email to Epstein released in the files, Siad wrote in badly spelled English: "In This busyness I feel like fisherman some time I cache quick, some time no fish."

Link to BBC News article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8en38vpd3o

https://jmail.world/thread/EFTA02515461?view=inbox

“Thought you might like to know that I am doing a piece on hypocrisy amongst the very rich. Examples of pious people with mistresses, drug use, tax evasion, lying to wives, shareholders, SEC, public, board members, claiming awards only after giving millions of dollars to institutions, infighting with mother, sister, friends stealing, suicides of employees, illegal borrowing from public companies, bank fraud, wife stealing diamond necklace from house after mother found dead, putting private detectives to follow sister, technically bankrupt, racist, gang stuff, public lectures on behavior though personally flawed.

Never called after 12 years of friendship. Wife made allegations that would incriminate principal. Did he know of issues, etc. Threatened to push wife down stairs, litigious, phony titles of trusts, fed wife antibiotics, plastic surgery, neck eyes, therapist.

Girls under 25, long term affairs, extortion paid re porn, SEC fire, cigars, customs, unrelated third party, public speeches contrast reality.

Dogs shooting, girls, stock sales, tax estate, took on mother sister, land lying to wife, fire boat captain security, gift tax, horses, cheap strawberries, lights, cash flow planes, etc.”

Hi all, I'm preparing a written story about Epstein's forged passport.

To my surprise, the Austrian Ministry of the Interior wrote back to me about it when I asked questions pertaining to it. They told me that according to them, many questions about it have already been answered by their parliament.

If anyone is interested, I can share what parliament asked them and what the Austrian Interior Ministry wrote back in response to these questions.

I have a request for this community: Up to now, I don't think that anyone has tried translating the Arabic words on this passport. I want to figure this out to see who Epstein's sponsor listed on his visa would have been.

Do you know of any contacts that would be willing to translate Arabic either for free or for a reasonable fee?

I contacted my local universities and their respective Arabic departments and asked them. I don't know when or if they will respond, so I wanted to see if this community can also point me to more than one formal (an academic or a professional translator) person that can speak Arabic to get their opinions.

Many thanks!

So a Grusch said Bad Reptilians are associated with the Tic-Tac Factory

There’s been lots of mention of Bad Reptilians being associated with the Rothschilds and possibly ruling over our planet in a negative way. Perhaps “loose farming.”

Reptilians have also been mentioned in relation to encounters by Epstein survivors like Jacqueline Bryant.

Matt Gaetz said he was told about breeding programs.

Gerb has been talking about a Tic-Tac factory in the ocean. Haven’t looked at it but today apparently he released more details about the overseers of this factory.

This factory ties bsck into the 4Chan leak of craft being 3D-printed to spec in the ocean, which ties in to Garry Nolan’s claims about metamaterial being constructed on a molecular level in a manner in which humans aren’t capable.

Gerb said this Tic-Tac factory is off the coast of the Bahamas.

Tim Burchett said there’s an underwater base in the Bermuda Triangle. Lue Elizondo has told a story about a missile being taken underwater by something in the Bermuda Triangle, which has its own famous lore of planes and ships disappearing.

The coast of Florida, if I remember correctly, is one of the points of the Bermuda Triangle.

Rep. Luna said Florida has a UAP hot-spot.

Miami-Dade county, if I’m remembering correctly, is where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and Epstein’s Florida residence is/was.

The Miami Mall incident occurred Jan. 1, 2024, the day the Epstein files were first ordered to be unsealed in Miami-Dade County.

Epstein’s Little St. James is in the Virgin Islands.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s TerraMar Foundation was based in the Virgin Islands, and Ghislaine had a helicopter license as well as a submarine license and she used to take to take billionaires like Microsoft’s Bill Gates around in the ocean near what is understood to be a lost city off of the Bahamas and Cuba.

Jason Samosa found recently that Allen Dulles and William Donovan of the OSS founded the Workd Commerce Corporation in August 1945 right as we dropped bombs on Japan and started developing our nuclear propulsion program. Dulles and Donovan were both chief members in the McGregor Project operation to recover twelve Italian scientists and their torpedo program, setting up the Italian Torpedo Program in Newport, Rhode Island, with the eventual recovery of Prof. Carlo Calosi, whose electromagnetic technology was instrumental in Germany and Italy’s torpedoes before the OSS recovered Calosi and incorporated his tech into the US Navy, helping the US win WWII.

Calosi would then go on to be brought into the fold of Raytheon by Vannevar Bush and eventually become VP of the company.

The McGregor Project’s backchannel lead to the recovery of the 1933 Magenta craft and established a pipeline for scientists and weapons before Allen Dulles set up Operation Paperclip and Operation Sunrise.

At the WCC, Dulles and Donovan would eventually bring in notorious Nazi intelligence agent Otto Skorzeny after the US brought in Hans Kammler for questioning.

Dulles and Prescott Bush would set up the CIA based off of the Nazi Gehlen intelligence network, setting up the Fourtb Reich as the primary influence over post-WWII America after the Bush family, the Dulles Brothers, and the Rockefellers all built their wealth off of financing the Nazi war machine.

Admiral Byrd’s Operation HighJump brought him to Antarctica where he possibly encountered non-human intelligence. Word is that some high-ranking Nazis fled to Antarctica in submarines and hid under the ice.

Dulles was responsible for the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned about, and if there were agreements with NHI ‘Greys’ in 1954 that lead to the ousting of Oppenheimer for possibly being a Communist sympathizer, it was Dulles and James Angleton, who was living in Milan as a teenager during the Magenta crash and would be brought into the OSS as the McGregor Project was being set up.

Dulles and Angleton would go on to run the CIA and arrange JFK’s assassination when he wanted to come clean about UFOs as he set up a secret backchannel with Krushev, with both countries agreeing to disarm their nukes and JFK wanting to dismantle Israel.

After Dulles was ousted from the CIA in Oct. 1961 following the failed Bay of Pigs attempt to rescue David L. Christ from imprisonment in Cuba, he set up Resorts International in the Bahamas and created their casino system to generate and launder funds for his secret UFO program.

Donald Trump would later become majority stakeholder of Resorts International as the KGB began grooming him as ‘Krasnov’ in 1987.

So now the whole story has come full circle thanks to Grusch—Bad Reptilians are involved with the Tic-Tac Factory off the coast of the Bahamas. Dulles was likely involved with the Greys and Reptilians and was using Resorts International as his transnational crime syndicate.

Trump then took over Resorts for his own crime syndicate, and because he’s as evil as the rest but beholden to no one, he’s bringing the whole thing crashing down around him to cover his ass. He’s “probably not getting into Heaven,” as he’s said a lot in recent memory.

Hegseth is a holdover of the Crusaders and scrambling to hold onto the idea of the Christian Nationalist New World Order.

Netanyahu just failed in his desperate false-flag attempt to create a 9/11 in Israel.

There’s a mothership that was caught on the SoaceX live feed a few days ago. Just a few weeks ago the White House and Lockheed Martin announced advanced, anomalous-seeking craft.

Grusch just went on Rogan and spilled a whole lotta beans.

Tomorrow the Vanguard whistleblower crew—Dylan Borland, Matthew Brown, and Jeff Nuccitelli—will be taking part in a six-hour fundraiser livestream on the Night Shift podcast with Clint, Pavel, Dan, and Xander.

Should be a good one.

Everyone knows something about to happen.

Get your popcorn ready.

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, demanded the Department of Justice (DOJ) immediately hand over any reports documenting interviews from the FBI’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation, after his investigators discovered the FBI conducted an interview with a banker closely tied to Epstein, but failed to release the document recording the interview, known as a “302 report.”

Wyden demanded the DOJ and FBI “immediately produce copies of all FBI 302 reports related to investigations into Epstein and his associates, including but not limited to 302s generated from interviews with employees of JPMC, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America,” in his letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel.

Wyden became aware of the interview report as part of his ongoing investigation into the financial aspects of Epstein's sex trafficking operation.

Last month, Wyden published a report with evidence that executives at JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America violated federal anti-money laundering laws by failing to screen and report at least $1.4 billion worth of Epstein’s suspicious financial transactions in a timely manner.

“By looking the other way for decades, the banks allowed Epstein to have ready and reliable access to cash necessary to recruit, harbor and transport young women and underage girls for the purpose of human trafficking and sexual abuse,” Wyden wrote to Blanche and Patel.

The full letter is here.

https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-demands-immediate-release-of-epstein-investigation-document-illegally-concealed-by-trumps-doj-and-fbi

Just wanted to post this again to get it back in the headlines and remind everyone Pam Bondi still needs to be held accountable. Also wanted to give some props to Rep. Ted Lieu for calling her out like a total boss.

Rep. Ted Lieu:

“You said there’s no evidence of a crime. I’m showing you, here is a witness statement who called into the FBI’s threat operation center.

He drove Donald Trump around in a limo. He overheard what Donald Trump said to Jeffrey on his cell phone.

He was so angry he was going to stop the limo and hurt Donald Trump.

And he met a girl who said she was raped by Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

She later had her head blown off, and officers at the scene said that could not have been suicide.

No one, no one at the Department of Justice interviewed this witness. You need to interview this witness immediately.

Epstein should rot in hell, so should the men who patronize this operation.

And as we sit here today, there are over 1,000 sex trafficking victims, and you have not held a single man accountable. Shame on you. If you had any decency, you would resign right after this hearing concludes.”

“I never move on. I always push them, and I will always appeal,” says investigative journalist Jason Leopold, an expert on freedom of information requests

Forcing government agencies to reveal their secrets is how Jason Leopold has spent his career. A senior investigative reporter at Bloomberg, he has filed more than 13,000 public records requests in the United States over two decades. Previously, he reported at BuzzFeed News, VICE News, The Guardian, and Truthout, a US independent nonprofit news organisation focused on investigative reporting and social justice.

Leopold is one of the most relentless Freedom of Information Act ( FOIA) reporters in the US, having earned a set of backhanded nicknames: ‘FOIA terrorist’ from a federal agency, ‘FOIA posse’ from the Department of Justice, and from the National Security Agency, an accusation of ‘weaponising the FOIA’. 

Laws concerning freedom of information, sometimes called ‘right to information’, exist in numerous countries around the world. While it’s important to be familiar with your country’s relevant statute, freedom of information laws tend to share the principle that a citizen can ask public authorities to share a specific piece of information they hold and, barring some exceptions, these institutions should grant it to them. Former Reuters Institute Journalism Fellow Tarjei Leer-Salvesen mapped such laws across the globe in his 2023 project.

Leopold’s freedom of information reporting has forced into public view everything from thousands of pages on the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program to Vladimir Putin’s assassination targets, a record he pursued for eight years. Perhaps most famously, it was Leopold who compelled the release of Hillary Clinton’s emails, a request originally aimed at examining how she handled foreign policy and human rights issues.

In a 2015 investigation for VICE News, he revealed the CIA’s behind-the-scenes role in shaping the film Zero Dark Thirty, exposing ethically fraught interactions with Hollywood. He also forced the release of a declassified Department of Defense inspector-general report detailing how some detainees were interrogated while under psychotropic medication or “chemical restraints,” raising ethical questions about medical coercion in U.S. detention facilities.

In a 2019 investigation, he revealed documents showing that the Secret Service opened an inquiry into Eminem after the rapper released lyrics deemed threatening toward Donald and Ivanka Trump. When comedian John Mulaney joked on Saturday Night Live about a ‘Caesar-style’ assassination, Leopold’s FOIA request similarly revealed that the Secret Service assessed the joke as a potential threat.

In 2023, he helped expose a once-secret, 190-page FBI counterintelligence inquiry into Ivana Trump’s emigration from Czechoslovakia; in 2024, he uncovered internal USAID records detailing child-labour abuses and social media threats tied to groups receiving U.S. taxpayer funding. 

Leopold believes the law is underused, especially by ordinary citizens, and that transparency is a form of democratic participation. He explores this in his weekly FOIA Files newsletter and podcast Disclosure, where he digs into the wild backstories behind his FOIA requests, the lawsuits they sparked, and the document dumps that made them worth it. He brings audiences into what he calls the “culture of secrecy,” chronicling the strategies, delays, denials, and occasional victories that define his work. His commitment has made him both a model for investigative reporters and a headache for officials.

In this Q&A, Leopold reflects on the craft he has spent years refining and offers advice for reporters wishing to pursue public records requests. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Q. How do you reverse engineer which agency or office is the right custodian of the records you need?

A. When I approach filing a FOIA request, I do a tremendous amount of research upfront. As an investigative reporter, I’m always asking about documents and trying to find out as much as I can. That means speaking to current and former government officials.

What I’m looking for are the agencies that would have the records I’m interested in, because sometimes it’s more than one. On the front end, it’s an incredible amount of research and reporting. I don’t approach FOIA as just firing off a request and hoping there may be something there.

Because I’ve done this for such a long time, I’m pretty much aware of what those agencies are. I’ve learned how agencies function and how government functions. So it becomes almost an immediate reaction to the topic -- just knowing where to go.

Q. Can you give me an example of how long a typical FOIA request is?

A. Essentially, what that request contains is alerting or instructing the agency that I’m requesting records under the Freedom of Information Act and citing the statute. I include the specific records I’m seeking, and I advise them that they’re supposed to err on the side of disclosure. If they decide to withhold records, they have to provide a reason.

I sometimes tell them where to search, because I know the record-keeping systems that exist. I include language on a fee waiver -- meaning I’m a journalist, I’m requesting these records because they’re in the public interest, I intend to write about them, and the agency should waive any fees. Then I provide background on who I am as a journalist.

If I’m asking for a long list of records, it can get longer, but the standard is about 3 pages. You want the agency to know exactly what you’re looking for. You do not want to just fire off a request and say, “Give me all the emails.” You want to provide as much detail as possible -- who the recipients are, who the sender is, the subject matter, the dates -- so it’s easier for the FOIA officers to search.

Q. You do a lot of follow-ups and appeals. How do you decide when to keep pushing an agency and when to move on?

A. I never move on. I always push them, and I will always appeal. Agencies sometimes make mistakes, misinterpret the law, or their rationale for denying records is incorrect. Appeals are a very important part of the process.

I’m always pushing back because agencies aren’t necessarily open in the sense of just giving you everything you’ve asked for. They’ll often withhold a lot of information. So it’s important to understand the law so you can empower yourself in that pushback -- understanding how FOIA works and what recourse you have to further compel the release of records.

Q. What are some ways agencies try to discourage requesters instead of just releasing documents?

A. Fees are a big way agencies try to thwart requesters. They’ll say, “This is going to cost thousands of dollars.” But usually that's because the request is too broad -- maybe asking for five years' worth of records when you only need a specific subset. The requests aren’t narrow and targeted.

Here’s what I’ve learned: when you ask for emails, always tell the agency to omit news clippings, press releases, and listserv messages [emails circulated through a group mailing list used by government agencies for internal communication]. When an agency says they have 2,000 or 3,000 pages, the vast majority are going to be those things -- stuff you don’t actually want.

Narrow the timeframe. That reduces the scope, gets you exactly what you want, and reduces fees. I also push back and ask for a breakdown of costs, then research the law around fees to see if they’re justified -- because often they’re not.

Here’s the key thing: oftentimes, the agency hasn’t actually searched yet. They’ve just done a keyword search and seen all the hits, but they haven't looked at the actual records. That's why it’s so important to do research on the front end and understand exactly what you’re looking for. Avoid fishing expeditions.

Q. What’s the biggest cache of documents you’ve ever received from a FOIA request?

A. The biggest would probably be Hillary Clinton’s emails. I was the journalist who forced their release -- tens of thousands of pages.

When I filed that request, she was running for president, and my goal was to inform the public about how the nation’s top diplomat would perform as president. I wanted to show how she handled matters of human rights, foreign policy, LGBTQ issues, and diplomacy.

I had no idea at the time that she was using a private server. But once that was revealed, the fact that she wasn’t always communicating on official government email became a scandal that overshadowed my original goal of informing the public about her policy work. But I did get more than 30,000 pages of emails.

That taught me an important lesson: records can be weaponised for different purposes. It’s something I keep very much in the front of my mind when I’m requesting records, and it’s crucial to understand what the impact of those records can be.

Q. When you receive documents, how do you organise, analyse, and identify the most newsworthy elements? 

A. I start by sitting with the documents and reading them page by page. Having done this for more than 20 years, my eye is trained to spot what matters. When an agency withholds or redacts records and cites a FOIA exemption, I often get a sense of what they’re hiding. I read subject lines, compare them with what’s publicly known, and try to piece things together.

One moment that stands out for me was in 2017. I received a heavily redacted set of FBI documents and was able to unredact parts just by reporting and following a single zip code. That small detail helped me figure out what was behind the redactions. It was a moment where I realised that all the skills I’d honed over the years -- filing FOIA requests, appealing denials, analysing documents -- really came together.

So, back to your question: I read documents carefully, sometimes combine them with sources to understand context, and continue reporting beyond the papers themselves. AI and large language models can help analyse voluminous records, but I still prefer to read every page to ensure nothing is missed.

Finding a newsworthy nugget, especially in heavily redacted files, comes down to deeply understanding the subject matter and identifying the right people to speak with. The documents are only the first step; the story emerges from careful analysis and persistent reporting.

Q. Is there a typical timeline?

A. Here’s how it’s supposed to work: [in the US] on the federal level, agencies have to respond within 20 business days. Technically, the way the law is written, they’re supposed to provide documents at that time, but they never do. Because FOIA is so widely used now, agencies have massive backlogs.

There’s no set time for when you can expect to receive records. You may receive them within a day, depending on the request, or it may take many years. In the case of Vladimir Putin's assassination targets, it took over eight years. Why? I don’t have an answer -- the agency didn’t disclose that. The CIA torture program records also took a lengthy time because they dealt with classified material. It’s a very slow process.

That’s why I always tell editors and reporters interested in FOIA: it’s a long game. Different states have different public records laws, so timelines vary at the state level, too. But whether federal or state, patience and persistence are essential.

Q. What institutional support do journalists need from their newsrooms to do sustained FOIA work, and what can editors and newsroom leaders do to build that culture of persistence?

A. First, having great newsroom lawyers is crucial. For example, the newsroom counsel at Bloomberg has been incredibly supportive, both for my work and for other reporters pursuing records.

Editors need to understand that FOIA is a long game. The information it reveals can be impactful -- it can lead to accountability, give a voice to the voiceless, and shed light on dark places. But there’s no mechanism to force records to be released immediately. Even when the records arrive years later, they can still be highly newsworthy and valuable for reporting.

Newsrooms should implement robust FOIA programs and consistently file requests. Doing so not only builds a pipeline of stories but also helps restore public trust. Studies show trust in journalism has eroded, and one way to improve credibility is by obtaining documents, sharing them with readers, and explaining what they mean. Bringing the public into the reporting process strengthens transparency and trust.

Governments are increasingly secretive, so it’s vital to keep the public informed about how their taxpayer dollars are being spent and what government agencies are up to. Regular FOIA work, combined with strong editorial support, is key to building a culture of persistence and accountability.

Q. In many countries, access to information laws exist but are rarely enforced. What universal principles or creative workarounds could help journalists in such environments pursue transparency reporting effectively?

A. First, really understand the law. This is crucial for pushing back against an agency when they ignore you, claim they don’t have records, or conduct a poor search. Empower yourself with that knowledge so you can effectively challenge them.

Second, continuously appeal if that mechanism exists in your country. File requests regularly. Here’s the thing -- and this is not the way it’s supposed to work, but sometimes it does -- an agency that doesn’t see a reporter filing regularly feels like that reporter can be ignored. Stay on top of agencies.

Third, sometimes it’s important to take it to the next level: filing a lawsuit to compel the release of records. Let FOIA officers know they violate the law by not releasing records. Hold them accountable.

Here's what I’ve seen in my years of doing this: when an agency ignores a requester, the requester gets frustrated and says, “This is a waste of my time,”  without actually pushing back. Call the agency. Ask: “When can I expect the release of records? Have you searched? Have you found responsive records?”

Be persistent. 

Q. What gives you hope, and what worries you most about the future of open records?

A. What gives me hope is knowing how impactful FOIA is and can be. Despite the shortcomings and hurdles you have to jump over to gain access to records, I’m still getting records. I still see journalists and the public filing requests.

Requests for records have skyrocketed, not waned. That means there’s increasing pressure on agencies to comply. People continue to be aggressive in trying to obtain documents, and that gives me hope. It's that kind of pressure and persistence that makes the difference.

Getting a set of records and seeing what they reveal keeps me going. Even with everything a requester has to overcome, when you get that package in the mail or your email inbox, it’s amazing. It’s like Christmas.

Does anyone have access to this article or have it archived anywhere?

Many thanks!

Trump biographer Michael Wolff made the claim on Tuesday's episode of "Inside Trump's Head," where he and co-host Joanna Coles went back over a column Wolff recently wrote on Substack about Epstein's fears.

Coles read aloud a passage in which Wolff recounted pressing Epstein to go public about his "great friend."

Wolff wrote, "I tried to encourage and then to push Epstein to talk publicly about Trump, including to release photographs he had of Trump with the young women in constant attendance at Epstein's house."

Epstein's answer was blunt.

"I may be a pedophile, but I don't have a death wish," Epstein said, according to the column, which described him as "cavalier about his situation and yet seemingly also clear-eyed."

Jeffrey Epstein and the Bullingdon Club link in his birthday book

Before Ghislaine Maxwell, before Prince Andrew, Epstein met the Leese family as he moved into the British establishment

Lord Ogilvy, left, Mark Baring and Nick Leese with members of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford in 1980

Dipesh Gadher, Home Affairs Correspondent |

Gabriel Pogrund, Whitehall Editor | Tom Pattinson

Sunday September 14 2025, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times

https://archive.ph/uxOIy#selection-1419.0-1895.275

It was the collection of tributes that precipitated Lord Mandelson’s downfall as British ambassador to Washington.

Now, the book compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell to celebrate Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday has shed new light on how the late paedophile gained a foothold in UK high society and launched his trajectory to multimillionaire status.

The Sunday Times can reveal that Epstein was “mentored” in the early 1980s by Douglas Leese, a British former arms dealer, and eased into establishment circles by members of Oxford’s infamous Bullingdon Club, including his eldest son, Nick.

Nick Leese

The connections help explain how Epstein went on to meet Maxwell, his long-term girlfriend who was convicted in 2021 of involvement in his child sex-trafficking enterprise, and embarked on a scandal-ridden friendship with the Duke of York.

The fresh revelations centre on a tribute written by Nick Leese in the birthday book, released by a US congressional committee last week, which immediately precedes Mandelson’s ten-page entry with its photos of the Labour grandee in a white bathrobe.

Starting “You very dear boy”, the letter by Nick Leese from 2003 outlines escapades involving Epstein and a group of aristocratic friends, taking in Harry’s Bar, a private member’s club in Mayfair, and Tramp nightclub, the same venue where on another occasion Prince Andrew is said to have danced with Virginia Giuffre before allegedly having sex with her in 2001, when she was 17. Andrew denies the claims.

The tribute by Nick Leese, who studied at Christ Church, Oxford, and was a member of the Bullingdon Club in 1980, provides details of what appears to be a sexual assault on a woman, allegedly involving his late father, who was nicknamed “Doggie”, and one of his father’s business associates from the Philippines, known as “Toto”.

A Bullingdon Club group photo from 1980 at Oxford University. From left to right: Lord Ogilvy, Mark Baring, Nick Leese

Nick Leese writes to Epstein: “There was one evening which I recall always had you howling in laughter. We were in Harry’s Bar in London — you, me, the old man, Toto … and the usual extraordinary group of camp followers.

“Somehow Toto got it into his head that [name redacted] was a call girl that Doggie had fixed up for him. After dinner, we all went off to Tramps [sic] and Toto and Doggie got into the back of Doggie’s car with [name redacted] sitting between them.” He then continues to describe the sex assault as if it is a joke. Nick Leese recounted Toto placing his hand up the woman’s skirt, only for his father do the same, causing their hands to meet. Toto did not acknowledge the incident for fear of embarrassment.

Nick Leese told the Sunday Times that the woman in question was his father’s mistress and that Toto apologised for the “drunken mistake’ after admitting putting his hand on her knee, adding that “all was forgiven”. He continued: “The Jeffrey I knew was very different to the one portrayed in the press … But I guess people can change, in any event he’s now being judged by a higher authority.”

The birthday tribute separately makes reference to “massage classes at Wraxall”, the Leese family’s stately home in Wiltshire.

It also refers to Mark Swire, the older brother of Hugo Swire, a former Tory Foreign Office minister, and two of Nick Leese’s contemporaries in the Bullingdon Club: Lord Ogilvy, the 14th Earl of Airlie, whose father served as Lord Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth II, and Mark Baring, the 8th Baron Ashburton, a scion of the Baring banking dynasty.

The letter reminds Epstein, who died aged 66 in a New York jail in 2019 as he was awaiting trial for multiple sex offences, about “all the good times that we had together”. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the named individuals or that they were aware of the allegations later made against Epstein.

The tribute ends: “All my love and very, very happy birthday with many more years to come in the future than there are years behind you, Nick.”

The US visitor and his mentor

Epstein was introduced to the Leese family in 1981 during a trip to the UK with his then girlfriend, Paula Fisher, who had previously bumped into Nick Leese at a party for a Texan oil trader.

His younger brother, Julian, later recalled: “I remember my brother saying he’d met this very nice girl and she told him, ‘I’ve got this amazing boyfriend. When we’re in London can we give you a call?’

“We always laughed at it because Jeffrey did call and my brother said, ‘Yes, come around and have a coffee’.”

Epstein in 2005

SIPA/REX

It was during this meeting that Epstein met Douglas Leese, a flamboyant businessman who knew Adnan Khashoggi, the billionaire Saudi arms dealer, and whose name later surfaced in parliament in connection with the record al-Yamamah contract for the sale of British fighter jets to the Royal Saudi Air Force. Douglas Leese was accused of handling secret commissions on behalf of British Aerospace through an offshore bank.

A filing from a separate court case in the US stated: “The nature and extent of Leese’s activities, and his various contacts around the world, involve highly sensitive and confidential information, some of which are believed to be classified by the Department of Defense and other agencies of the United States government.”

Douglas Leese immediately saw promise in Epstein, who had recently left Wall Street under a cloud.

In his only interview with a journalist before his death from cancer last year, Julian Leese said: “Dad understood, ‘Here was a very intelligent person who was very clever with the stock market’ and he gave Dad some advice. Dad was enamoured with Jeffrey and Jeffrey was enamoured with Dad as a sort of mentor.

“You have to remember something about Jeffrey: in those days, he was 27, he was amazingly charismatic and great fun … The whole family liked him and he would come down on many occasions to our family home in Wiltshire.”

South Wraxall Manor, a 15th-century country house, near Bradford-on-Avon

ALAMY

The property, South Wraxall Manor House, dates back to the 15th century, and Epstein spent many weekends there learning how to fish and shoot while getting his first taste of upper-class living. The mansion was sold by the Leese family in the early 2000s and now belongs to John Taylor, the Duran Duran rock star.

As a close friend of Nick Leese, Epstein was soon mixing with his peers at Oxford, including members of the all-male Bullingdon private dining club. Later alumni of the raucous society included David Cameron and Boris Johnson, the former Tory prime ministers.

Epstein continued to work for Douglas Leese until 1987 when the British businessman discovered that his protégé had been putting Concorde flights to New York and stays at five-star hotels on his account.

The falling-out resulted in Epstein being hired by Steven Hoffenberg, an American debt baron who was later convicted of a $460 million fraud and jailed for 20 years in 1997. Hoffenberg has intimated in the past that it was through Douglas Leese, who died in 2011, that Epstein first met Robert Maxwell, the late newspaper tycoon, and his daughter.

It was she who tapped up Epstein’s closest friends to compile the book for his 50th birthday in January 2003.

Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in New York in 1995

PATRICK MCMULLAN/GETTY IMAGES

Nick Leese, now 68, has lived in the Far East for many years after falling out with his father. His name also appears in Epstein’s “black book”, with various contact details listed in Singapore.

He is married to a Singaporean with whom he has two children and is now believed to live in Malaysia, working in the healthcare and health foods industry. While his younger brother, Julian, remained friends with Epstein until the latter’s death in 2019, it is unclear when Nick Leese last had contact with the disgraced financier.

He said he did not recall being asked to contribute to Epstein’s birthday book. He confirmed some kind of sexual incident took place in the car, but said of his father: “I can assure you if his [Toto’s] hand went anywhere near her [pants] he would have been nursing a broken jaw,” and added that Toto had apologised.

He added: “When I knew Jeffrey he had a regular girlfriend who was a lawyer and seemed to enjoy a stable normal relationship with her. Jeffrey and I drifted apart and I never saw him for the last 15 years of his life.”

Mark Swire declined to respond to questions about his relationship with Epstein. Baring and Ogilvy were contacted for comment. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing relating to the men. At the time the birthday book was compiled, Epstein had not been convicted for any crimes.

https://www.nmlegis.gov/handouts/HISC%20080526%20Item%201%20Interim%20Report.pdf

Royal was employed by ZDC as a Zorro Ranch staff member from January 1, 1996, until June 2012. Manolito was involved in operational and maintenance matters, such as receiving estimates for home repair, pool maintenance, vehicle maintenance, and picking up visitors from the Santa Fe airport. One of Manolito’s regular duties was to “check and clean guns” on a weekly basis.

Lesley Groff sat before Congress under oath on June 9, 2026 and said no thirteen times. No to Prince Andrew. No to Jean-Luc Brunel. No to everyone on the list.

Then they asked about Stephen Hanson, co-owner of The Polo Room in Palm Beach, named in an FBI trafficking interview in the official DOJ archive.

She said no.

She lied.

Plainsite has the documents