But if declarations about the use of nuclear weapons in the next 50 years sounds ominous, it’s worth keeping in mind another key piece of context for these geopolitical moves: the US/Israel regime change operations in Iran appear to be animated by widely held belief among US commanding officers that President Trump is following a divinely prophesied plan to usher in the End Times and a war of Armageddon. That’s the picture that has emerged in recent days thanks to a deluge of complaints sent to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which has reportedly received complaints from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations. And those complaints weren’t necessarily coming from a single soldier. For example, one non-commissioned officer (NCO) wrote to the MRFF on behalf of 15 troops, describing how their commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.” The NCO’s combat-unit commander also told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that President Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” and was reportedly grinning during his delivery of the message.

But the alarms over the Armageddonist orientation of the US military isn’t limited to zealous military officers. Let’s not forget that the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is himself an overt theocratic zealot and an open follower of the pro-confederacy far right pastor Doug Wilson. And as we’re going to see, Wilson isn’t the theocratic pastor guiding Hegseth on his political journeys. Hegseth and a number of other prominent Trump administration officials have been attending weekly White House Bible study group meetings. Other study group attendees include House Speaker Mike Johnson, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and key Project 2025 overseer Russ Vought.

All members with close ties to the same theocratic forces around the Council for National Policy (CNP) that planned the January 6 Capitol insurrection and went on to conceive of Project 2025 and most of the Trump administration’s second term agenda. As we’ve seen, Mike Johnson, was a lawyer for the theocratic Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) before jumping into politics. Johnson is also a Christian Zionist adherent to the End Times theology that assumes Israel and the Middle East will be consumed in an apocalyptic battle. Fellow Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee — who sparked outrage days before the US/Israeli attack on Iran by sharing his view that Israel should be allowed to annex effectively the entirely Middle East, according to the Bible — served on the board of the theocratic National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) and has been heavily involved with the theocratic American Renewal Project. Brooke Rollins has served in a number of key roles within the CNP-aligned institutions like the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) and the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). Then there’s Russ Vought, the key architect of Project 2025 who went on to replace Elon Musk as the head of DOGE.

But Doug Wilson isn’t the pastor leading those study group meetings. Pastor Ralph Drollinger is the one playing that role. Fascinatingly, the White House isn’t the only powerful institution hosting bible study groups led by pastors from Drollinger’s Capitol Ministries. It appears that Capitol Ministries has bible study groups in capitols around the world, which sure sounds A LOT like the same ‘ministry for the powerful’ mission from another organization that has been playing a similar role in DC for decades: The Fellowship, aka, the Family. As we’ve seen, the Fellowship was founded in the 1930’s by fascist-friendly businessman Abraham Vereide, with a focus on converting world leaders to the authoritarian form of Christianity Vereide advocated. The group went on to found the National Prayer Breakfast while also forming a network of elected representatives who literally lived together in The Fellowship’s ‘house’ in DC.

It turns out Drollinger had The Fellowship in mind when he opened up in Capitol Ministries congregation in DC in 2010. As Drollinger explained back in 2018, he felt the Fellow had “lost its marbles, Biblically,” and was candy floss Christianity — big, sweet, unsubstantial. In particular, Drollinger disapproved of how The Fellowship allowed legislators to conduct bible study among themselves without the guidance of a pastor like himself. Drollinger went on to claims that Trump not only received copies of his weekly bible study packets but would even reply back. And that was in 2018. How much more influence does this End Times death cult have inside the Trump administration today? A lot more influence, based on all available evidence.

This is a good time to recall that report from Sy Hersh back in 2011 about how all of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were either members of, or supporters of, the Knights of Malta, with many also being Opus Dei members. The notion that the US military’s leadership is filled with religious zealots isn’t exactly new news. What’s new is having someone as grossly irresponsible and bloodthirsty as Donald Trump in the White House, someone who has been repeatedly flattered by his supporters that he is on a mission from god, playing a role not unlike Cyrus the Great.

That’s all part of the disturbing context surrounding the announcement by France of a kind of post-NATO nuclear umbrella policy for its European allies. It’s an announcement that happened to get delivered at the same time the US military is being led by an End Times Armageddonist death cult that is apparently sincerely convinced that Jesus will return if they wage a bloody enough war. Which is the kind of context that suggests President Macron gloomy outlook isn’t gloomy enough:

BBC

France to boost nuclear arsenal and extend deterrence to European allies

03/03/2026
Hugh Schofield
Paris

France is to boost its nuclear arsenal and extend the deterrent to cover other European countries, in a major development of its nuclear defence policy.

In a speech in Brittany, President Emmanuel Macron explained the changes as the response to an increasingly unstable strategic environment.

“The next 50 years will be an era of nuclear weapons,” he said.

Speaking to naval officers in front of a nuclear submarine at the Ile Longue base near the port of Brest, he said the number of French nuclear warheads would be increased from their current level of around 300.

He announced the launch in 2036 of a new nuclear-armed submarine to be called The Invincible.

He said eight other European countries – the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark – had agreed to participate in a new “advanced deterrence” strategy.

Writing on X, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk referenced the decision, saying: “We are arming up together with our friends so that our enemies will never dare to attack us.”

Macron said the eight European countries could take part in exercises of France’s air-launched nuclear capacity – or force de frappe — and also host air bases where France’s nuclear bombers could be stationed.

...

He added that France’s partners would also share in the development of “auxiliary” capacities under the new nuclear doctrine: space-based alarm systems; air defence to shoot down incoming drones and missiles; and long-range missiles.

...

There will be no explicit “guarantee” given to partner countries, and it is the president of France who will retain sole decision-making power over when to fire a nuclear missile.

...

Until now there has been a deliberate vagueness about what France regards as its “vital interests”, an attack on which would trigger a nuclear response.

In recent years governments have hinted that “vital interests” could also include interests in Europe. With Macron’s “advanced deterrence”, this concept has been given further shape – though in accordance with the general theory of deterrence nothing is spelled out.

...

France already has a cooperation agreement with Europe’s only other nuclear power – the United Kingdom. Recently UK officials took part for the first time in exercises by France’s FAS.

Shortly after the speech, France and Germany jointly announced plans for “closer cooperation” in the field of nuclear deterrence.

The two countries will “take the first steps this year,including German participation in French nuclear exercises... and the development of conventional capacities with European partners,” according to a text signed by Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“This cooperation will complement, not replace, Nato’s nuclear deterrent,” they said.

———–

“France to boost nuclear arsenal and extend deterrence to European allies” by Hugh Schofield; BBC; 03/03/2026

““The next 50 years will be an era of nuclear weapons,” he said.”

Welp, let’s just hope President Emmanuel Macron is being overly cynical here. But that just brings us to the following set of stories that serve as a grim reminder that President Macron may not be cynical enough. Because if the warnings coming from the US military personnel are a sign of what’s to come, it would appear the Pentagon’s leadership sees the US/Israeli attack on Iran as merely the opening phase in an End Times war of Armageddon:

Jonathan Larsen’s Substack

U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus

Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military

Jonathan Larsen
Mar 02, 2026

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.

From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

The MRFF is keeping the complainants anonymous to prevent retribution by the Defense Department. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to my request for comment.

One complainant identified themselves as a non-commissioned officer (NCO) in a unit currently outside the Iran combat zone but in Ready-Support status, deployable at any time. The NCO said they were Christian and emailed the MRFF on behalf of 15 troops, including at least 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew. (Full email printed below.)

The NCO wrote to the MRFF that their commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has enshrined evangelical Christianity at the uppermost levels of the U.S. military, airing monthly prayer meetings throughout the Pentagon. Last year, the Pentagon confirmed to me that Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study. It’s led by a preacher who says God commands America to support Israel.

...

MRFF President and Founder Mikey Weinstein, a veteran of the Air Force and the Reagan White House, told me that since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran early Saturday morning, the MRFF has been “inundated” with similar complaints:

These calls have one damn thing in freaking common; our MRFF clients [service members who seek MRFF aid] report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times” as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.

Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.

Weinstein cited constitutional and Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) prohibitions against injecting religious beliefs into official military instruction or messaging.

...

Weinstein added that the MRFF receives similar complaints about Christian eschatology — end-of-the-world theology — “whenever this shit blows up with Israel in the Middle East.”

After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, for instance, the MRFF reported a complaint about an Air Force commander who said at a briefing that, “[T]he war between Israel and Hamas has all been foretold by the Book of Revelation in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and no-one can do anything about that.”

...

While Christian nationalism has simmered in the military for decades, Hegseth has ended even the pretense of official intolerance for it. Trump, too, has cast himself as a champion of Christian exceptionalism, embedding it within divisions of the executive branch.

As I revealed last year, Hegseth sponsors the weekly White House Bible study that preaches support for Israel.

Some Christians claim biblical prophecy requires Israel to exist for Jesus to return. But Hegseth’s Bible study leader, preacher Ralph Drollinger, teaches that the reason to support Israel is that God still blesses Israel’s allies and curses Israel’s enemies, even though Israel killed Jesus (this smear, the historic root of antisemitism, has been rejected by every major religion).

After Israel’s attack on Iran last year, Drollinger dedicated two weeks of lessons to preaching support for Israel. His lessons went out to White House cabinet members and members of Congress even as Israel, too, was lobbying for U.S. engagement.

Hegseth has also initiated monthly prayer sessions, most recently featuring Doug Wilson, the far-right Christian nationalist. He has also brought in other preachers from his personal circle, rejecting any attempt at making the meetings ecumenical.

Hegseth himself also speaks at these meetings, proselytizing his personal religious beliefs. “This is … I think, exactly where we need to be as a nation, at this moment,” Hegseth reportedly said, “in prayer, on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.”

While the MRFF historically has been able to get the Pentagon to swat down Christian incursions into the military, the Trump administration is openly disdainful of military norms and law. It remains to be seen whether and how wholesale Christianization of the Iran war will be opposed by officials inside the Pentagon, or political and legal advocates for secular values outside it.

************

NCO Email to MRFF

As redacted by MRFF:

From: (Active Duty Military NCO and MRFF Client’s email address withheld)Subject: Unit combat readiness briefing and ArmageddonDate: March 2, 2026 at 1:02:53 PM MSTTo: Information Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>

Mr. Weinstein thank you for taking my calls and the calls of some of my colleagues as to what happened earlier this morning with our combat unit.

Please protect my identity and the identities of those I’m speaking for as we discussed.

Our unit is not currently in the combat zone AOR regarding the Iranian attacks but we are in a “Ready-Support” function where we could be deployed there at any moment to join and augment the combat operations as participants.

I am a (NCO rank withheld) in our unit. This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be “afraid” as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”. He had a big grin on his face when he said all of this which made his message seem even more crazy. Our commander would probably be described as a “Christian First” supporter. He has been this way for a very long time and makes it clear that he desires all of us under him to become just like him as a Christian. But what he did this morning was so toxic and over the line that it shocked many of us in attendance at the ops readiness briefing. Besides myself I am reaching out to MRFF on behalf of 15 fellow troops. I know you asked me about the religious views of our group who has requested help from the MRFF. I can only tell you that I am Christian and at least 10 of the others are also Christians. One of the others is Jewish and one is Muslim. I don’t know the religious or non-religious status for the other three at this time.

I and my fellow troops know that it is completely wrong to have to suffer through what our commander said today. It’s not just the separation of church and state as we discussed Mr. Weinstein. It’s the fact that our commander feels as though he is fully supported and justified by the entire (combat unit’s name withheld) chain of command to inflict his Armageddon views of our attack on Iran on those of us beneath him in the chain of command.

I hope by sending this email to you that this will help expose these wrong actions which destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the constitution.

...

———–

“U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus” by Jonathan Larsen; Jonathan Larsen’s Substack; 03/02/2026

“A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.”

Donald Trump was anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth. Or at least that’s the sentiment reportedly being shared by commanding officers across the US military according to the dozens of reports filed with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations

...
From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

...

One complainant identified themselves as a non-commissioned officer (NCO) in a unit currently outside the Iran combat zone but in Ready-Support status, deployable at any time. The NCO said they were Christian and emailed the MRFF on behalf of 15 troops, including at least 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew. (Full email printed below.)

The NCO wrote to the MRFF that their commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”

...

MRFF President and Founder Mikey Weinstein, a veteran of the Air Force and the Reagan White House, told me that since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran early Saturday morning, the MRFF has been “inundated” with similar complaints:

These calls have one damn thing in freaking common; our MRFF clients [service members who seek MRFF aid] report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times” as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.

Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.

...

And, of course, the ominous nature of these warnings is, in part, due to the fact that Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is an open Christian Nationalist who follows the teachings of the theocratic far right pastor Doug Wilson. And as we can see, Hegseth has been drawing from another spiritual advisor while serving in his new SecDef role: Ralph Drollinger, leader of the weekly White House Bible study group:

...
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has enshrined evangelical Christianity at the uppermost levels of the U.S. military, airing monthly prayer meetings throughout the Pentagon. Last year, the Pentagon confirmed to me that Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study. It’s led by a preacher who says God commands America to support Israel.

...

While Christian nationalism has simmered in the military for decades, Hegseth has ended even the pretense of official intolerance for it. Trump, too, has cast himself as a champion of Christian exceptionalism, embedding it within divisions of the executive branch.

As I revealed last year, Hegseth sponsors the weekly White House Bible study that preaches support for Israel.

Some Christians claim biblical prophecy requires Israel to exist for Jesus to return. But Hegseth’s Bible study leader, preacher Ralph Drollinger, teaches that the reason to support Israel is that God still blesses Israel’s allies and curses Israel’s enemies, even though Israel killed Jesus (this smear, the historic root of antisemitism, has been rejected by every major religion).

...

Hegseth has also initiated monthly prayer sessions, most recently featuring Doug Wilson, the far-right Christian nationalist. He has also brought in other preachers from his personal circle, rejecting any attempt at making the meetings ecumenical.
...

And as we can see in Jonathan Larsen’s report from back in May on the attendees of this White House Bible-study group, the attendees of this weekly White House Bible study group include a a number of very influential members of the Trump administration. Members like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who served as a lawyer for the theocratic Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) before jumping into politics. Or Mike Huckabee — the current US ambassador to Israel who sparked outrage days before the US/Israeli attack on Iran by sharing his view that Israel should be allowed to annex effectively the entirely Middle East, according to the Bible. Also recall how Huckabee served on the board of the theocratic National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) and heavily involved with the theocratic American Renewal Project. And then there’s Brooke Rollins, now serving as the Agriculture Secretary, who has served in a number of key roles within the CNP-aligned institutions like the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) and the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). Along with Russ Vought, the key architect of Project 2025 who ultimately replaced Elon Musk as the head of DOGE. The attendees of these weekly White House Bible study meetings happen to be leading figures inside the theocratic movement that has an even tighter grip on the second Trump administration agenda than it had during the first administration:

Jonathan Larsen’s Substack

Pentagon Confirms Hegseth Joined Far-Right White House Bible Study

DOD statement doesn’t name group leader Ralph Drollinger, but confirms Hegseth is in

Jonathan Larsen
May 28, 2025

The Pentagon has confirmed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is part of a White House Bible-study group, which I first revealed on Monday.

Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell neither confirmed or disputed specifics of my reporting, namely that the White House Bible-study group is led by far-right evangelical Ralph Drollinger’s group, Capitol Ministries.

In a statement the Pentagon provided, Parnell said only, “The Secretary has attended Bible study with other cabinet members multiple times while in DC.”

As I reported Monday, Drollinger’s online study guides now list Hegseth and Speaker Mike Johnson (R‑LA) as sponsors of his study groups. Johnson is listed as a House sponsor while Hegseth is one of several top officials in the administration of Pres. Donald Trump newly named, along with former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, as sponsors of a group that meets weekly in executive-branch offices. The others are:

Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel

David Perdue, U.S. ambassador to China

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins

HUD Secretary Scott Turner

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought

Hegseth first appeared in Drollinger’s study guides this week, as a sponsor of what’s now referred to as the White House cabinet, ambassadors, and governors group.

Drollinger has run Bible studies in Congress for years, and distributes the study guides online. One member, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R‑SD) said in 2015 that Drollinger and his wife, who assists him, “instruct, admonish, encourage, exhort, and inspire elected officials to lead their lives and conduct themselves in a way that brings glory to God.”

...

The evangelical missionary has operatives in state capitols and around the world, working to bring political leaders to his interpretations of Jesus and biblical teachings.
...

————-

“Pentagon Confirms Hegseth Joined Far-Right White House Bible Study” by Jonathan Larsen; Jonathan Larsen’s Substack; 05/28/2025

“The evangelical missionary has operatives in state capitols and around the world, working to bring political leaders to his interpretations of Jesus and biblical teachings.”

It’s not just DC. Ralph Drollinger’s group, Capitol Ministries, has operatives in state capitols and around the world, focusing on ‘teaching’ political leaders the proper way to interpret the Bible! Which is fascinatingly similarly to another group that has been playing the same role for decades: The Family, aka The Fellowship. As we’ve seen, The Fellowship, the entity behind the National Prayer Breakfast, was established in the 1930’s by fascist-friendly businessman Abraham Vereide for the purpose of aligning world leaders with his authoritarian vision of Christianity. And as Ralph Drollinger makes clear in the following 2018 BBC article, he actually set up his organization as a kind of response to The Fellowship, which had claims has “lost its marbles, Biblically.” Candy floss Christianity, as he puts it. Big, sweet, unsubstantial. How so? Well, the Fellowship involves elected officials holding bible study among themselves, without a preacher like Drollinger to guide them. So his study group is apparently like a more controlling version of The Fellowship:

BBC

Inside the White House Bible Study group

7 April 2018
Owen Amos
BBC News, Washington DC

For the first time in at least 100 years, the US Cabinet has a bible study group. What do they learn? What does Donald Trump make of it? And why aren’t women allowed to teach?

Every Wednesday, some of the world’s most powerful people meet in a conference room in Washington DC to learn about God.

The location can’t be revealed — the Secret Service won’t allow it — but the members can.

Vice-President Mike Pence. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The list goes on.

In total, 10 cabinet members are “sponsors” of the group. Not everyone attends every meeting — they are busy people — but they go if they can.

Meetings last between 60 and 90 minutes, and members are free to contact the teacher after-hours. So who is the man leading the United States’ most-influential bible study?

Step forward Ralph Drollinger, a seven-foot tall basketball pro turned pastor. Or, as the 63-year-old describes himself: “Just a jock with some bad knees.”

...

In 1996, Drollinger’s wife, Danielle, was executive director of a political action committee in California. It tried — in her words — to unseat liberals from the state legislature and get Christians elected.

“But she was frustrated,” says Mr Dollinger. “They would send guys to California’s capitol — and she was great at getting them elected — but they would soon lose their Christian moorings.”

So they took over the existing ministry in Sacramento, changed the name, and offered weekly bible studies, support, prayer, and one-on-one ministry.

It proved “wildly successful”, so they expanded. Capitol Ministries is now in 43 US state capitols, and more than 20 legislatures abroad.

Each class is led by a local pastor, but none is led by a woman. Why not?

“There’s no [Biblical] prohibition of female leadership in commerce, there’s no prohibition of female leadership in the state, and there’s no prohibition of female leadership over children,” says Drollinger.

“But there is a prohibition of female leadership in marriage, and female leadership in the church. And those are clear in scripture… it doesn’t mean, in an egalitarian sense, that a woman is of lesser importance. It’s just that they have different roles.”

In 2010, Capitol Ministries arrived in Washington. There was already a ministry called The Fellowship, which runs the National Prayer Breakfast, but Drollinger felt it had “lost its marbles, Biblically”.

It was, he says, candy floss Christianity — big, sweet, unsubstantial. By contrast, he wants to offer a “high-protein diet”, teaching the bible book-by-book, one verse at a time. In Drollinger’s studies, it can take a year to finish one book.

“If you don’t have a spiritual coach that’s really driving you in the word of God — and driving you toward holiness rather than your own sinful, latent nature, and your own depravity — then you’re not going to grow into Christ’s likeness,” he says.

The Fellowship, he says, believes legislators can do bible study among themselves.

“I say no, technical foul. ‘How will they hear without a preacher?’ Romans 10:15.”

...

President Trump is not a member of Drollinger’s group — but he is a Christian, and does get Drollinger’s eight-page print-outs most weeks.

“He writes me back notes on my bible studies,” says Drollinger.

“He’s got this leaky Sharpie felt-tip pen that he writes all capital letters with. ‘Way to go Ralph, really like this study, keep it up.’ Stuff like that.”

******

Drollinger’s weekly bible studies are not private, or secret. Anyone can read them online.

...

———–

“Inside the White House Bible Study group” by Owen Amos; BBC; 04/07/2018

“In 2010, Capitol Ministries arrived in Washington. There was already a ministry called The Fellowship, which runs the National Prayer Breakfast, but Drollinger felt it had “lost its marbles, Biblically”.”

Yes, The Fellowship has apparently lost its way, Biblically. A group that has spent decades promoting a secretive, fascist-friendly vision of Christianity is actually candy floss Christianity — big, sweet, unsubstantial. Worse, the Fellowship allows legislator to how bible study among themselves!

...
It was, he says, candy floss Christianity — big, sweet, unsubstantial. By contrast, he wants to offer a “high-protein diet”, teaching the bible book-by-book, one verse at a time. In Drollinger’s studies, it can take a year to finish one book.

“If you don’t have a spiritual coach that’s really driving you in the word of God — and driving you toward holiness rather than your own sinful, latent nature, and your own depravity — then you’re not going to grow into Christ’s likeness,” he says.

The Fellowship, he says, believes legislators can do bible study among themselves.

“I say no, technical foul. ‘How will they hear without a preacher?’ Romans 10:15.”
...

Finally, and not surprisingly, it appears even President Trump reads the weekly bible study guides produced by Drollinger. Which raises the grimly fascinatingly question about what those guides have been telling Trump about the steps towards Armageddon currently playing out:

...
President Trump is not a member of Drollinger’s group — but he is a Christian, and does get Drollinger’s eight-page print-outs most weeks.

“He writes me back notes on my bible studies,” says Drollinger.

“He’s got this leaky Sharpie felt-tip pen that he writes all capital letters with. ‘Way to go Ralph, really like this study, keep it up.’ Stuff like that.”
...

And, again, let’s not forget that President Trump has been told he’s new Cyrus the Great, divinely ordained to carry out God’s will. So when he’s now surrounded with people telling him that God’s will is to see the bloodiest battle in history fought in the Middle East, try not to be surprised when that’s exactly what happens. Also try not to be surprised when Jesus doesn’t return and everyone backing this pretends like nothing horrific just transpired and instead insists we need to keep preparing for the real bloodiest End Times battle yet to come.

So with President Trump having just launched some sort of vague regime change military operation against Iran in concert with Israel, just days after that report about the accusations against him being repressed by the Justice Department, here’s a pair of articles that serve as a reminder that the devastating revelations we’ve been getting about the Epstein scandal aren’t limited to revelations about President Trump. As the articles make clear, the true scope of this scandal is likely much broader than we still understand. Starting with the fact that we’re now learning Epstein served as both a benefactor and admissions-‘fixer’ for dozens of students at elite universities around the world. Both for aspiring young students from humble backgrounds but also the children of the elite. It turns out to be another layer of Epstein’s influence-peddling. One offer after another to cover the tuition at elite private schools and even help gain admissions. And while it’s unclear of the children of the elites ended up becoming Epstein’s victims of sexual abuse, he was definitely abusing at least some of the students he patronized.

Epstein’s patronage of students at elite universities appears to have started in the early ’90s and was maintained all the way up to his death in 2019. In fact, money was even disbursed from his accounts for some scholarships months after his death. As we’ll see in the second article excerpt below, the early years are particularly informative in terms of how Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell exploited this form of patronage. It appears to have started with the prestigious Interlochen Center for the Arts boarding school in Michigan which Epstein himself attended when he was 14 in the late 60s. Epstein returned to the school in the early 90s as a wealthy patron eager to sponsor the next generation of students, giving over $400,000 over a 13 year period. According to the school, his donations ended in 2003, implying the donation around 1990.

Half of that $400,000 was reportedly spent on the construction of a lodge on campus in 1994. Notably, according to file “EFTA00097133” in the released documents, $185,000 of that $200,000 came from Lex Wexner, the billionaire who appears to be the real force behind the rise of Epstein and whose role in all of this has never really been adequately explored. In other words, like so much of what we’ve seen in this story, Epstein’s patronage of all these students was a Wexner-financed operation. Recall how Wexner financed the purchase of two adjacent prime Manhattan pieces of real estate — 9 and 11 E. 71st Street — in the late 80s and then effectively handed ownership of the properties to Epstein in 1992. And now we can add the construction of the Interlochen lodge to the list of Wexner’s still-unexplained gifts to Epstein.

But the construction of the lodge at Interlochen isn’t the only example of Epstein successfully ingratiating himself with the Interlochen administration. He was also made a member of the Interlochen’s President’s Club for high-level donors which entailed roles like “attending concerts, events and special meetings, identifying prospective students and providing counsel to the president on issues and policies of the institution.” Yes, Epstein was asked to find prospective students thanks to his generous Wexner-financed donations.

It also turns out Epstein and Maxwell were allowed to stay at the lodge during visits to the Interlochen campus. Epstein and Maxwell were allowed to stay in the lodge for up to two-weeks a year while still receiving a tax deduction for the donation. During these visits, the pair would stroll the campus with a small dog, striking up conversations with students. As we should expect, those conversations would lead to offers to finance the rest of their education, with further visits to follow. Numbers would be exchanged and the parents would get contacted about meeting with Epstein and Maxwell to arrange for the scholarship. When parents contacted the school to inquire about Epstein they would get assurances that he was very loyal and there was nothing to worry about. And when students did accept Epstein’s scholarships, they were expected to then meet with Epstein and meetings were arranged. Two former Interlochen students who recount how they accepted Epstein’s offers describe how they went on to be sexually abused by Epstein for years. They were 13 and 14 when they first met him. Epstein and Maxwell reportedly made annual visits to the school from 1994 through 2000.

One student even recounted how she was asked by Epstein to accompany a high-profile individual to an event in New York City. When she refused, Epstein cut off the scholarship. So it would appear Epstein was treating his student victims as potential escorts for his friends and associates.

And Interlochen is just one of numerous institutions where Epstein reportedly played this student-benefactor role. For over a quarter century. In one example, an international model, Ditè Anata, contacted Epstein back in 2013 to see if he would be willing to help a Juilliard student she knew cover her housing costs. Ominously, Anata requested that Epstein “be nice and behave your best :) If you feel like you can’t be official I would rather you not help her.” When asked by USA TODAY about whether or not she was aware of Epstein’s child sex charges from five years earlier, Anata explained that Epstein told her the investigation was “politically motivated and set up by his adversaries.” It appears Epstein did indeed manage to arrange for off-campus housing for the Juilliard student. A lawyer for the student confirmed that she ultimately “endured substantial abuse at the hands of Epstein.” Juilliard claims it never received any payments from Epstein, raising questions about how he may have been hiding himself as the financial source, keeping in mind that his jailing was a matter of the public record at that point.

And then there’s the children of the elite who received various gifts from Epstein. For example, in 2016, Epstein personally appealed to the president of Bard College to help with the admission of the daughter of Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn. She was indeed admitted, although the college insists that he was “accepted on the merits of her own qualifications for admission.”

But Epstein’s ‘gifts’ to the elite weren’t just with admissions. He was also making offers to pay for the expensive schooling to elite parents who could obviously afford it themselves. In 2018, Epstein offered to cover the tuition for the daughter of Caroline Lang, then a Warner Brother’s executive in France. “Waouh!!! I am spoiled!!!!! Great!!!!” Lang wrote back. Recall how how Caroline Lang happens to be daughter of Jack Lang, France’s former culture minister. And not only did Epstein meet with Jack, but it turns out Caroline founded an offshore company with Epstein in 2016 to invest in the work of young artists! Caroline didn’t need the money, but she accepted it. It’s an example of how relatively it was for Epstein to ingratiate himself into these elite circles. It turns out bribing wealthy people is pretty easy.

And not only were the children of prominent academics another target of Epstein’s largesse, but he was apparently well known enough for doing this that some academics approached him with requests to finance their children’s educations. Joscha Bach, a former MIT professor who now works as an AI researcher, repeatedly made such requests, ultimately receiving $48,000 from Epstein for education expenses. Bach explained to USA TODAY that, yes, he was aware of the Epstein’s past convictions when he made the request, but fellow academics assured him that Epstein had changed. Bach was also a postdoctoral researcher at the time, a role notorious for a relatively low salary. Bach added that Epstein never asked for anything in return, other than access to the “minds of individuals he found interesting.” This is a good time to recall how the Epstein Foundation sponsored the development of OpenCog, a software development kit for the building of ‘smart’ AI characters based on a model for how the mind works.

Another rather notable recipient of Epstein’s generosity was the husband of Peter Mandelson, the former UK ambassador to the US. Mandelson’s husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, had the 10,000 pound tuition for an osteopathic program covered by Epstein in 2009, the year of Epstein’s release from jail. Mandelson has subsequently not only been fired from his diplomatic post in September following the initial coverage of his ties to Epstein, but he has subsequently been arrested for passing sensitive government information to Epstein. Was that sensitive information handed to Epstein as a kind of ‘thank you’ for those tuition payments?

In other cases, Epstein was much more explicit about what he wanted in return for his ‘help’: In one email from April 2017, Epstein explained to the recipient of a $30,000 tuition gift that “You will need to provide three assistants. 10k per. If you don’t you will have to repay.” It’s not hard to imagine what Epstein had in mind when he was asking for “assistants”. So it would appear Epstein was turning the recipients of his benevolence into recruiters for his sex trafficking operations. Amazingly, in 2009, the year of his release from jail, he was arranging to cover the tuition for a student to attend a massage school. It’s unclear what exactly Epstein requested in exchange for his ‘generosity’ in this case, but given that the student wrote how, “I am of course more than happy to do anything for you in return. miss you a lot. Xo,” it’s, again, not hard to imagine how he was paid back.

That’s all part of the deluge of revelations, all pointing towards an influence peddling operation that was even more extensive than previously known. Epstein wasn’t just an infamous elite socialite with a rotating harem of abused girls typically plucked from under-privileged circumstances. He was a kind of elite sugar-daddy academic fixer too, heaping financial gifts and favors upon the already wealthy and powerful. With Lex Wexner playing a still under-explored role as Epstein’s own supreme sugar-daddy, essentially bankrolling Epstein’s ascension into his powerful role. Which underscores the necessity of getting a better understanding of the financier role Epstein was playing too this whole time. He wouldn’t have been able to do what he did if he hadn’t amassed a fortune, ostensibly for the financial services he was offering to billionaires. And yet, that explanation never really made sense. We’ve never gotten a picture of what those financial services might be. But whatever it was Epstein did for billionaires like Wexner, he was paid handsomely for it. So much that he could afford to finance the education of one elite child after another.

It’s worse than we realized. And much bigger. In other words, the perfect time to launch WWIII, so we can have more important things to worry about:

USA TODAY

Epstein pulled strings, paid tuition across world for kids of powerful

Chris Quintana and Jennifer Borresen
Updated Feb. 19, 2026, 12:48 p.m. ET

When she reached out to Jeffrey Epstein in 2013, Ditè Anata knew the Manhattan wealth manager could easily help a Juilliard student cover her housing costs. Anata, an international model with a top agency, also apparently knew Epstein well enough to implore him to avoid any less-than-professional dealings.

...

“I skipped all my experiences that shocked me so please,” she wrote on Aug. 20, 2013, “be nice and behave your best :) If you feel like you can’t be official I would rather you not help her.”

Anata did not know the student at the prestigious performing arts college in New York City, but she told USA TODAY she knew Epstein was a philanthropist who supported “talented individuals and artists.”

She also knew Epstein had been incarcerated for a criminal act involving a minor. He was sentenced to 18 months in custody after pleading guilty to solicitation of prostitution and hiring minors to engage in prostitution. But Anata explained to USA TODAY that Epstein told her the investigation was “politically motivated and set up by his adversaries.”

That same day, a person whose name is redacted wrote to Epstein that a family friend had come through with New York accommodations and she would not need to contact “Juilliard’s Residence Hall.” The email does not explicitly link the housing solution to the Juilliard student, but it references a conversation with someone named Ditè.

“It is wonderful to know, that there are still such kind and generous people in the world like you, who value and support Arts and Science” the Aug. 20, 2013, email read. “I was delighted to hear from Dite, that you yourself love playing the piano!”

Epstein kept the correspondence going, inviting his correspondent to dinner with a famous movie director and a prominent composer. The email correspondent replied that it would be a “great honor for me to participate.”

...

The former student’s attorney, Brittany Henderson, declined to answer questions about the housing situation but said her client “endured substantial abuse at the hands of Epstein.” Henderson requested anonymity for the former student, which USA TODAY granted, as it does not identify people who report sexual abuse.

Anata told USA TODAY she did not have any information about what transpired after she had asked Epstein for help. Juilliard said it did not receive payment from Epstein, and the student never lived in campus housing.

Among the millions of pages from the Epstein files the Justice Department released after a mandate from Congress, the email exchange between Anata, Epstein and the Juilliard student illustrates how the now-globally notorious sex offender served as an opportunity broker for powerful people. Emails show he arranged to help the relatives of celebrities like Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, or politicians like Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the United States. They also came from lower-profile people hoping to change their circumstances.

In exchange, the people asking favors told Epstein they felt they owed him and promised to reward him in various ways for his largesse. In the messages reviewed by USA TODAY, none of the people who appear to be currying favor with Epstein are connected to allegations of Epstein’s illegal acts, including sexual misconduct, and they have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law scholar and Democratic Maryland congressman, has been pushing the administration for more transparency about Epstein’s ties to America’s elite universities. In January, he requested documents be released showing how Epstein and potential coconspirators arranged for women to attend Columbia and New York University and paid their tuition after they were accepted.

...

The trove of documents released in January revealed Epstein’s largesse extended beyond these New York colleges. A USA TODAY review of hundreds of files shows Epstein or entities tied to him paid at least $840,000 to cover students’ costs at 28 different schools, according to a Deutsche Bank document in the Justice Department files. In addition, USA TODAY found Epstein arranged for tuition payments for dozens of people at other schools across the country, including large public universities, for-profit art colleges and elite private universities.

Marquee celebs, prominent academics sought with school costs

Sometimes Epstein covered school costs for his staffers or the children of his friends. In other cases, the Deutsche Bank report described the recipients as “Russian” or “Swedish” models. Their names were redacted. The newly released files also show that additional payments, beyond those shared by Deutsche Bank in September 2019, were made a few months after Epstein died in federal custody.

Epstein, for example, arranged to pay 10,000 pounds for Reinaldo Avila da Silva, the husband of British politician Peter Mandelson, to attend an osteopathic program.

...

The Health Sciences University, which houses the Uco School of Osteopathy, the former British School of Osteopathy, told USA TODAY the institution did not receive money directly, “from Epstein, his businesses, or any of his known business associates.”

The General Osteopathic Council, a regulatory body in Britain, issued a news release Feb. 2 saying it was “aware of media reports that the husband of Peter Mandelson, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, was in receipt of funds from Jeffrey Epstein to fund an osteopathy course in the UK in 2009.”

...

In 2018, he wowed Caroline Lang, then a Warner Bros. executive based in France, when he appeared to promise he would cover tuition for a person with the same name as her daughter.

Epstein writes: “to confirm her tuition is my treat.”

“Waouh!!! I am spoiled!!!!! Great!!!!” Lang wrote back.

...

In 2016, Epstein personally appealed to the president of Bard College, Leon Botstein, to help secure admission for Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn’s daughter.

David Wade, a spokesperson for Botstein, provided a statement saying, “Jeffrey Epstein was a serial liar who apparently took credit for the sun rising each day.”

The statement went on to say Allen and Previn’s daughter was “accepted on the merits of her own qualifications for admission.”

As for the university president’s connection to Epstein, Wade said Botstein “regrets enormously pursuing this fundraising connection,” but “seeking more philanthropy was the only reason that their paths crossed.”

...

Epstein was also known to broker openings for academics and their children. For example, Joscha Bach, a former MIT professor who now works as an AI researcher, asked Epstein repeatedly to finance his children’s private education at schools including Alef-Bet Child Care Inc., a “play-based day care” in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the German International School Boston, “a bilingual independent school serving students from preschool – grade 12.” The newly released emails show Bach received at least $48,000 to cover education expenses.

Bach told USA TODAY scientists he knew had introduced him to Epstein. He said that he was aware of Epstein’s past convictions, but fellow academics told him the financier had changed.

When he accepted Epstein’s help, Bach was studying artificial generative intelligence, a topic for which he told USA TODAY he struggled to find research funding. He was “confronted with the choice of accepting Epstein’s offer to fund the stay of me and my family in the U.S., or to leave academic research behind.”

“I decided to take his offer; I would not have been able to support the move, cost of living, day care or cost of the German school from my postdoctoral salary,” Bach told USA TODAY.

He added that Epstein “never expected anything in return” other than access to the “minds of individuals he found interesting.” He said he had never observed Epstein commit illegal activity or sexual crimes. Bach said Epstein’s second arrest “came as a shock.”

...

Where else did Epstein cover tuition?

The Deutsche Bank document in the Epstein files provides a concise accounting of the range of schools at which Epstein covered tuition.

They include many payments for Epstein’s staff members’ relatives: roughly $19,900 for one employee’s relative to attend Fairleigh Dickinson University, a private college in New Jersey; and $10,000 for another person’s relative to attend Mississippi College, a private Christian institution in a suburb of Jackson.

Dina Schipper, a spokesperson for Fairleigh Dickinson, said that the university was aware these expenses were reflected in the files and that it had records of three tuition payments from a Jeffrey Epstein account in 2015. She said the university had no records or knowledge of any connection to Epstein in any other capacity.

Beyond the Deutsche Bank report, USA TODAY’s review uncovered documents showing Epstein paid tuition at primary schools, private universities, for-profit colleges and a coding boot camp.

A correspondent whose name was redacted by the DOJ sought help in covering the tuition for massage school. The student had nowhere else to turn, the message said.

“I am of course more than happy to do anything for you in return. miss you a lot. Xo,” the aspiring student wrote in a 2009 message, written a year after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution and hiring a minor to engage in sex.

Another correspondent, whose name was also redacted, sought Epstein’s help paying for an education at Sotheby’s Institute of Art New York, a for-profit college, in 2019. In an email, Lesley Groff, identified as Epstein’s assistant, communicated with Sotheby’s about the student’s tuition payment.

Amanda M.F. Bakale, general counsel of Edconic, said the company that runs the institute had not been aware Epstein had sent the payment, but she subsequently confirmed its veracity.

...

The attorney said the school hadn’t received any inquiries from law enforcement tied to the payment.

Sometimes, Epstein’s quid pro quo was explicit

In dozens of exchanges where power brokering like this played out, Epstein’s motivations occasionally showed through. In some cases, he laid out explicit conditions for what he wanted in exchange for fronting tuition money. In April 2017, he wrote in an email to a person whose name was redacted that he would provide $30,000 for tuition, but it came with a caveat.

“You will need to provide three assistants. 10k per. If you don’t you will have to repay,” he wrote.

Even with this explicit condition, the person asking the favor seemed eager to push forward with the deal. The email correspondent said he or she was “crossing my fingers for” the student whose name was redacted. Separately, the correspondent noted that he or she was planning an ad campaign and would be hiring “females under 24 based in NY/Paris.”

...

————–

“Epstein pulled strings, paid tuition across world for kids of powerful” by Chris Quintana and Jennifer Borresen; USA TODAY; 02/19/2026

“The trove of documents released in January revealed Epstein’s largesse extended beyond these New York colleges. A USA TODAY review of hundreds of files shows Epstein or entities tied to him paid at least $840,000 to cover students’ costs at 28 different schools, according to a Deutsche Bank document in the Justice Department files. In addition, USA TODAY found Epstein arranged for tuition payments for dozens of people at other schools across the country, including large public universities, for-profit art colleges and elite private universities.”

It’s not a revelation at this point to learn that Epstein was interested gaining influence over academic elites, and scientists in particular. But paying the tuitions of to attend elite schools is a new twist. Especially since it sounds like he was using his patron status to sexually abuse them. Thus far, the demographic of girls recruited by Epstein and Maxwell appeared to be focused on girls from troubled homes with minimal support networks. Girls like Virginia Giuffre, whose own father allegedly abused her when she was younger and who may have even accepted hush money payments from Epstein to cover up the abuse of abuse of his daughter. To learn that Epstein was patronizing and then abusing students at elite schools, often with well-connected parents, adds a new dimension to this scandal. Especially since so many of these acts of ‘generosity’ by Epstein took place after his initial arrest and jailing. Although it sounds like some of the students recruited into Epstein’s orbit were recruited by women who were well aware of his abusive nature. Like the anecdote about a student at Juilliard who ended up with Epstein as a patron thanks to Ditè Anata, an international model with a top agency, who appeared to connect Epstein to the family of the prospective Juilliard student in 2013. Not only did Anata implore Epstein to “behave your best :)”, but this student was ultimately substantially abused by Epstein. And presumably wasn’t the only student at an elite university Epstein was patronizing and then abusing. It raises the question of whether or not Epstein was sexually abusing the children of the elites he was patronizing too. But when we see how Epstein made demands to a recipient of $30,000 that “You will need to provide three assistants. 10k per. If you don’t you will have to repay,” we can see how these donations could serve as a means of turning the recipients into recruiters for his sex trafficking operations, basically ‘pre-paying’ his victims for the upcoming abuses:

...
When she reached out to Jeffrey Epstein in 2013, Ditè Anata knew the Manhattan wealth manager could easily help a Juilliard student cover her housing costs. Anata, an international model with a top agency, also apparently knew Epstein well enough to implore him to avoid any less-than-professional dealings.

...

“I skipped all my experiences that shocked me so please,” she wrote on Aug. 20, 2013, “be nice and behave your best :) If you feel like you can’t be official I would rather you not help her.”

...

She also knew Epstein had been incarcerated for a criminal act involving a minor. He was sentenced to 18 months in custody after pleading guilty to solicitation of prostitution and hiring minors to engage in prostitution. But Anata explained to USA TODAY that Epstein told her the investigation was “politically motivated and set up by his adversaries.”

...

The former student’s attorney, Brittany Henderson, declined to answer questions about the housing situation but said her client “endured substantial abuse at the hands of Epstein.” Henderson requested anonymity for the former student, which USA TODAY granted, as it does not identify people who report sexual abuse.

Anata told USA TODAY she did not have any information about what transpired after she had asked Epstein for help. Juilliard said it did not receive payment from Epstein, and the student never lived in campus housing.

...

In dozens of exchanges where power brokering like this played out, Epstein’s motivations occasionally showed through. In some cases, he laid out explicit conditions for what he wanted in exchange for fronting tuition money. In April 2017, he wrote in an email to a person whose name was redacted that he would provide $30,000 for tuition, but it came with a caveat.

“You will need to provide three assistants. 10k per. If you don’t you will have to repay,” he wrote.
...

Not surprisingly, the elite parents whose children were patronized by Epstein with these offers of tuition and boarding costs included academics like Joscha Bach, a former MIT professor who now works as an AI researcher, who apparently repeatedly asked Epstein to cover his children’s schooling, including even pre-school costs. Bach’s children had at least $48,000 in education costs covered. And while it’s unclear what Epstein requested in return, other than access to the “minds of individuals he found interesting,” it’s worth recalling how Epstein had a keen interest in artificial intelligence and even sponsored the development of OpenCog, a software development kit that allows for the building of ‘smart’ AI characters based on a model for how the mind works. In other words, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that Epstein was allowed to meet all sorts of leading figures in the field of artificial intelligence thanks to his sponsorship of Bach’s children’s schooling. Also note how Bach explains that he was a postdoc at the time, which would explain his apparent inability to afford all of this schooling, which raises the question of how many other postdocs Epstein targeted:

...
Epstein was also known to broker openings for academics and their children. For example, Joscha Bach, a former MIT professor who now works as an AI researcher, asked Epstein repeatedly to finance his children’s private education at schools including Alef-Bet Child Care Inc., a “play-based day care” in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the German International School Boston, “a bilingual independent school serving students from preschool – grade 12.” The newly released emails show Bach received at least $48,000 to cover education expenses.

Bach told USA TODAY scientists he knew had introduced him to Epstein. He said that he was aware of Epstein’s past convictions, but fellow academics told him the financier had changed.

When he accepted Epstein’s help, Bach was studying artificial generative intelligence, a topic for which he told USA TODAY he struggled to find research funding. He was “confronted with the choice of accepting Epstein’s offer to fund the stay of me and my family in the U.S., or to leave academic research behind.”

“I decided to take his offer; I would not have been able to support the move, cost of living, day care or cost of the German school from my postdoctoral salary,” Bach told USA TODAY.

He added that Epstein “never expected anything in return” other than access to the “minds of individuals he found interesting.” He said he had never observed Epstein commit illegal activity or sexual crimes. Bach said Epstein’s second arrest “came as a shock.”
...

But another part of what makes Epstein’s patronage rather notable is the reality that so many of these figures were, themselves, quite wealthy and presumably able to afford the expenses for their children or relatives themselves. Like Woody Allen or the UK’s Peter Mandelson, who was just arrested for handing sensitive government documents to Epstein while he was serving in the government as business secretary. Now, in the case of Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi, it appears the service Epstein was offering was to personally appeal to the president of Bard College, Leon Botstein, to help secure admission for their daughter. But in Mandelson’s case, he was simply paying 10,000 pound for Mandelson’s husband to attend an osteopathy program. It’s an amazingly low bar for effectively bribing public officials. Which raise the question: did Mandelson hand over those documents to Epstein before or after Epstein agreed to finance his husband’s education? Either way, the fact this happened in 2009, right around the time Epstein was released from jail following his federal sweetheart deal, is itself quite telling regarding Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein:

...
Epstein, for example, arranged to pay 10,000 pounds for Reinaldo Avila da Silva, the husband of British politician Peter Mandelson, to attend an osteopathic program.

...

The General Osteopathic Council, a regulatory body in Britain, issued a news release Feb. 2 saying it was “aware of media reports that the husband of Peter Mandelson, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, was in receipt of funds from Jeffrey Epstein to fund an osteopathy course in the UK in 2009.”

...

In 2016, Epstein personally appealed to the president of Bard College, Leon Botstein, to help secure admission for Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn’s daughter.
...

And then there’s the ‘wowing’ of Caroline Lang, then a Warner Brothers executive in France, by offering to cover her daughter’s tuition. It’s hard to imagine a Warner Brothers executive couldn’t easily afford their child’s education. Again, just how low is the bar for elite corruption? Is this normal? Also recall how Caroline Lang happens to be daughter of Jack Lang, France’s former culture minister. And not only did Epstein meet with Jack, but it turns out Caroline founded an offshore company with Epstein in 2016 to invest in the work of young artists! So when Epstein made that offer in 2018, it was an offer he was making to someone who was already involved with his ‘investments’ in young artists:

...
In 2018, he wowed Caroline Lang, then a Warner Bros. executive based in France, when he appeared to promise he would cover tuition for a person with the same name as her daughter.

Epstein writes: “to confirm her tuition is my treat.”

“Waouh!!! I am spoiled!!!!! Great!!!!” Lang wrote back.
...

And note how the tuitions covered by Epstein included tuition for massage school. Which raises the question of how many of the young girls working for his under the pretense of being a masseuse were there, in part, as a form of repayment for his covering their massage school tuition. Also note how one of the released messages from an aspiring massage school student was sent in 2009, the year of his release from jail. So he was allowed to finance massage school students’ tuition right after being release from jail:

...
A correspondent whose name was redacted by the DOJ sought help in covering the tuition for massage school. The student had nowhere else to turn, the message said.

“I am of course more than happy to do anything for you in return. miss you a lot. Xo,” the aspiring student wrote in a 2009 message, written a year after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution and hiring a minor to engage in sex.
...

Also note how Epstein was not only engaging in this form of patronage even in 2019, but payments were still going out even months after his death. This was part of the Epstein story up to the point of his ‘suicide’ in jail:

...
Sometimes Epstein covered school costs for his staffers or the children of his friends. In other cases, the Deutsche Bank report described the recipients as “Russian” or “Swedish” models. Their names were redacted. The newly released files also show that additional payments, beyond those shared by Deutsche Bank in September 2019, were made a few months after Epstein died in federal custody.
...

And that highly disturbing string of revelations brings us to another story that has emerged in the recently released trove of files: it turns out Epstein managed to become a student patron at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, a prestigious boarding school Epstein himself attended when he was 14. At least $400,000 was given over a period of at least 13 years starting in the 90s. Epstein even became one of the members of the President’s Club for high-level donors, where members were to “assist Interlochen by attending concerts, events and special meetings, identifying prospective students and providing counsel to the president on issues and policies of the institution.” Yes, Epstein wasn’t a sponsor for individual student scholarships at Interlochen. He was a highly valued donor who helped identify prospective students and was ultimately afforded a range of privileges, including the privilege to stay a lodge on campus during his visits. A lodge built with an Epstein donation of $200,000. Although, as one document in the released files indicates, $185,000 of that $200,000 actually came from Epstein’s financial sponsor Les Wexner. And as we’ll see, Epstein and Maxwell would basically cruise the campus, walking a small dog, looking for students to interact with and assess, with at least two students describing how Epstein came to become their tuition sponsor starting at the ages of 13 and 14 and then using that status to start sexually abusive relationships that went on for years. One victim was even threatened with being cut off from her scholarship if she refused requests, like accompanying a high-profile individual to an event in New York. The school claims Epstein’s sponsorship ended in 2003. So given that Epstein was still playing this student benefactor role in 2019 and started in the early 90s, we’re looking at close to three decades of Epstein preying on students, including young teens, at elite institutions and even boarding schools:

National Public Radio

How Epstein and Maxwell used an elite Midwest arts school to prey on girls

February 19, 2026 5:25 AM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

By Ava Berger, Scott Neuman

Years before they were convicted sex offenders, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell used his wealth to gain access to a prestigious boarding school for young artists in Michigan, using a rental lodge Epstein donated to the school as a base from which to recruit some of their earliest victims, according to Department of Justice records and former campus administrators.

The idyllic, nearly century-old Interlochen Center for the Arts, tucked between two lakes south of Traverse City, features grade-school- and high-school-level programs in music, theater, dance and visual arts, among others. It’s famous as an incubator for young artistic talent and boasts alumni such as Josh Groban, Norah Jones, Chappell Roan, Felicity Huffman and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

NPR reviewed hundreds of pages of Department of Justice (DOJ) documents on Epstein, interviewed current and former Interlochen officials and spoke with a woman who says that as a teenager at the school, she was targeted by Epstein and Maxwell. What emerges is a portrait of Interlochen as an institution that celebrated openness but that, in accepting Epstein’s financial support, became unwittingly associated with his crimes.

Epstein’s association with Interlochen dates back to 1967, when as a 14-year-old bassoon player, he attended the school’s summer camp. When he renewed his ties to the school in the 1990s, Interlochen viewed him as a loyal alumnus and major benefactor, administrators said. He lavished the school with donations and used his power and influence to gain access to spaces where the administrators felt young kids and artists were safe.

...

A woman who testified at Maxwell’s 2021 criminal trial said in a lawsuit that she was 13 years old when she met Epstein and Maxwell at the school’s annual summer Interlochen Arts Camp in 1994. She says they began a relationship that started with grooming and led to sexual abuse. NPR does not name victims of sexual abuse.

A few summers later, Epstein and Maxwell met a 14-year-old student who said her first contact with them at the school was the start of a manipulative and controlling relationship that lasted years.

...

Interlochen says it has long maintained a policy that prohibits unsupervised contact between donors and students, but because of that open atmosphere, former administrators said that enforcing that rule was difficult or impossible.

However, since Epstein’s crimes have become public, Trey Devey, the current president of Interlochen, said no student is allowed to be unsupervised with any outside adult and the campus has significantly increased security.

How Epstein and Maxwell targeted students

Epstein visited the school for brief stays over several summers between 1994 and 2000, according to testimony from Epstein’s personal pilot found in DOJ documents.

In recent years, the two women who said he preyed on them related similar stories — one in court records and the other in an interview with NPR — about their initial on-campus contact with Epstein and Maxwell, saying the pair walked a small dog that they used to help break the ice. After getting to know the young artists, Epstein would then dangle the prospect of financial support for their education, according to the women’s stories.

The woman who met Epstein and Maxwell in the late ’90s and spoke to NPR recently said Epstein went on to pay her tuition for Interlochen’s year-round boarding school and offered to also finance her attendance at a top-tier conservatory after graduation.

To this day, the woman said, she isn’t sure what drew Epstein and Maxwell to her, but that she feels like there were some criteria she was being measured against — whether that was looks or talent.

Either way, she said the pair was able to gain children’s trust and enter their lives.

“Every kindness, every conversation, every moment you thought someone believed in you was calculated,” she said. “When you were no longer useful, you learned that none of it was real.”

Interlochen says Epstein’s last donation to the school came in 2003. In 2008, the school says, it severed ties with Epstein and removed “all donor recognition in his name” after he pleaded guilty in Florida to charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18.

Epstein was arrested a second time in July 2019 on sex-trafficking charges. He died in prison about a month later. Maxwell was also convicted on sex-trafficking charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence.

Contact with underage campers

The woman who spoke to NPR said that she felt that unlike the many other adults and donors who visited campus, Epstein and Maxwell had ulterior motives and used the camp “as a doorway to teenage girls without parents around.”

She described them as initially “very charming, very warm and interesting.”

On their first meeting, she said, the pair asked her probing questions and “gave each other little glances and little looks” in response to her answers.

The woman said she spent time alone with Epstein and Maxwell at Epstein’s lodge on campus. As an adult, she said that she now views their actions as the beginning of “grooming behavior,” designed to make her feel comfortable, and that they had taken a special interest in her and her aspirations.

The woman said she never reported the relationship to Interlochen officials.

Years after those meetings on campus, she said the relationship began to fray when she started saying no to some of Epstein and Maxwell’s requests. It came to an end when they asked her to accompany a high-profile person to a gathering in New York. When she refused, she was cut off emotionally and financially, with Epstein reneging on a promise to continue funding her education.

“It was keeping somebody on a leash. ... If you said ‘no’ to them, there was fallout,” the woman told NPR, describing the end of the relationship.

...

The woman who testified as “Jane Doe” during Maxwell’s 2021 criminal trial said she was approached by Maxwell in 1994 while sitting on a bench in the main campus area eating ice cream with classmates. Maxwell was walking a “cute little Yorkie” that the girls asked to pet, she said. After the other students returned to class, the girl stayed behind with Maxwell, who was then joined by Epstein, according to the woman’s testimony.

The pair asked for a phone number, contacted her mother and arranged a meeting with the mother and daughter at Epstein’s Palm Beach, Fla., home, the woman said in her testimony. During a 30-minute conversation there, Epstein hinted at the possibility of paying for the girl’s education, telling her mother: “ ‘I like to mentor young students who are artists. And I love music, and I love dance, and I give all kinds of scholarships,’ ” the woman said in her testimony.

In a 2020 interview with the FBI, the mother recalled phoning Interlochen to inquire about Epstein. It is not specified when the call took place. She told law enforcement she spoke with a receptionist who said of Epstein: “ ‘He is our guardian. … He is trustworthy around the kids, and there is no need to worry.’ ”

It is unclear whether the mother’s conversation with the receptionist was reported to administrators, but Tim Ambrose, who worked at the school as vice president for institutional advancement for a decade beginning in 1990, told NPR that he wasn’t aware of it at the time.

In December of last year, Interlochen said in a statement that the school conducted two internal reviews, one in 2008 and another in 2019, and found no report or complaint involving Epstein. It said Interlochen’s research “found no claim of him acting inappropriately on campus.”

Devey, the current Interlochen president, says, “It is possible” that a report was made of the mother’s phone call, but that the school’s policy in the 1990s had been to destroy paper records after 10 years. So when the school did both its reviews, “there wasn’t a record” of the conversation, Devey said.

According to “Jane Doe’s” testimony, her relationship with Epstein and Maxwell would go on to span years of grooming and sexual abuse that lasted until 2002.

...

Epstein’s donations allowed for access to students and campus

Ambrose’s time at the school coincided with a series of large donations from Epstein that eventually totaled more than $400,000 over a 13-year period.

Epstein funded the construction of the on-campus lodge where he and Maxwell later stayed, established a scholarship fund, hosted alumni events and, on one occasion, even allowed the use of his private jet to bring renowned concert violinist Itzhak Perlman to Interlochen.

...

“In the time that I was there ... there was nothing that made us aware of Mr. Epstein’s reputation,” Ambrose said, adding that while he had spoken to Maxwell on the phone, he only briefly met Epstein, who at the time “could have walked on campus and people wouldn’t have even known” him.

Ambrose told NPR that in November 1993, he began discussions with Epstein on funding a ski-lodge-style fourplex that Interlochen could rent out. But Epstein changed his mind, saying he wanted a simpler rental cabin, the proceeds from which were to fund a newly created scholarship in Epstein’s name, according to Ambrose.

In a February 1994 letter, Ambrose thanked Epstein for the $200,000 donation for the lodge and noted that Epstein could use it for up to two weeks each year and still legally get a full tax deduction for it. “Naturally, we would like you to visit the new lodge this summer,” he wrote, noting the upcoming Perlman concert in August.

How Epstein and Maxwell’s visits to Interlochen worked

Speaking to NPR this month, Ambrose referred to Maxwell as “the gatekeeper” in the school’s relationship with Epstein and said that most of his interactions were by letter; brief, businesslike phone calls with Maxwell; and later email.

Ambrose described Epstein as mysterious and aloof. “Ghislaine would call and say, ‘We’re coming in, and here’s the date and time, and is [the cabin] available?’ ” he said. Maxwell would ask for the lodge to be stocked with a few items, such as orange juice and organic bread, and Ambrose would “pick [up the items] and usually some flowers for the place. And I’d leave them” in the lodge, he said.

Ambrose said Epstein and Maxwell tended to arrive at the start of a weekend and “would self-check in and self-check out” from the lodge. Typically, he wouldn’t see them at all. When he tried to meet face-to-face with Epstein, he said, he was often rebuffed.

“They just want[ed] to be left alone. … I certainly didn’t want to impose on a visit to campus by being a fundraiser and saying, ‘What are you going to do next for us?’ ” Ambrose told NPR.

In the February 1994 letter, Ambrose wrote that when awards were made from Epstein’s scholarship fund, “Interlochen will notify you, with respect to the recipients.” The letter said, “The recipient will also be asked to communicate with the donor. If you would like to [meet] the students, we will help arrange a meeting on campus as well.”

That was common practice at the time, because it made big donors “feel good about making a charitable contribution of the size that they did,” Ambrose told NPR. “Obviously, you’d want to introduce that young student to a donor,” he said. Even so, Ambrose said: “I don’t know that I ever arranged, or did anybody ever arrange, a meeting between someone who received a scholarship from the fund and Mr. Epstein.”

Around the same time, Epstein was admitted into Interlochen’s President’s Club for high-level donors. Members were to “assist Interlochen by attending concerts, events and special meetings, identifying prospective students and providing counsel to the president on issues and policies of the institution,” according to a letter to Epstein from another school administrator.

...

———–

“How Epstein and Maxwell used an elite Midwest arts school to prey on girls” By Ava Berger, Scott Neuman; National Public Radio; 02/19/2026

“Epstein’s association with Interlochen dates back to 1967, when as a 14-year-old bassoon player, he attended the school’s summer camp. When he renewed his ties to the school in the 1990s, Interlochen viewed him as a loyal alumnus and major benefactor, administrators said. He lavished the school with donations and used his power and influence to gain access to spaces where the administrators felt young kids and artists were safe.”

Epstein returned to his old campus in the 1990’s, flush with cash and ready to become a loyal patron, giving at least $400,000 over a 13 year period, which included $200,000 for the financing of a lodge where Epstein and Maxwell would stay during their visits. As released documents have revealed, Les Wexner happened to pay $185,000 of that $200,000, which is a reminder that Wexner was a major source for Epstein’s lifestyle and largesse during this period. Recall how Wexner financed the purchase of two adjacent prime Manhattan pieces of real estate — 9 and 11 E. 71st Street — in the late 80s and then effectively handed ownership of the properties to Epstein in 1992. The financing of this lodge was apparently part of this still unexplained role Wexner was playing in establishing Epstein as a wealthy socialite:

...
Interlochen says Epstein’s last donation to the school came in 2003. In 2008, the school says, it severed ties with Epstein and removed “all donor recognition in his name” after he pleaded guilty in Florida to charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18.

...

Ambrose’s time at the school coincided with a series of large donations from Epstein that eventually totaled more than $400,000 over a 13-year period.

Epstein funded the construction of the on-campus lodge where he and Maxwell later stayed, established a scholarship fund, hosted alumni events and, on one occasion, even allowed the use of his private jet to bring renowned concert violinist Itzhak Perlman to Interlochen.

...

Ambrose told NPR that in November 1993, he began discussions with Epstein on funding a ski-lodge-style fourplex that Interlochen could rent out. But Epstein changed his mind, saying he wanted a simpler rental cabin, the proceeds from which were to fund a newly created scholarship in Epstein’s name, according to Ambrose.

In a February 1994 letter, Ambrose thanked Epstein for the $200,000 donation for the lodge and noted that Epstein could use it for up to two weeks each year and still legally get a full tax deduction for it. “Naturally, we would like you to visit the new lodge this summer,” he wrote, noting the upcoming Perlman concert in August.
...

And as we can see from the allegations made by two former Interlochen students, Epstein approached them when they were just 13 or 14 years old, grooming them and abusing them for years. Note how Epstein wasn’t just paying for the girls’ education at Interlochen. He was offering to finance their further education after they graduate. Which raises the possibility that some of the victims had their educations at multiple institutions covered by Epstein, with abuse presumably taking place as part of the exchange:

...
A woman who testified at Maxwell’s 2021 criminal trial said in a lawsuit that she was 13 years old when she met Epstein and Maxwell at the school’s annual summer Interlochen Arts Camp in 1994. She says they began a relationship that started with grooming and led to sexual abuse. NPR does not name victims of sexual abuse.

A few summers later, Epstein and Maxwell met a 14-year-old student who said her first contact with them at the school was the start of a manipulative and controlling relationship that lasted years.

...

Epstein visited the school for brief stays over several summers between 1994 and 2000, according to testimony from Epstein’s personal pilot found in DOJ documents.

In recent years, the two women who said he preyed on them related similar stories — one in court records and the other in an interview with NPR — about their initial on-campus contact with Epstein and Maxwell, saying the pair walked a small dog that they used to help break the ice. After getting to know the young artists, Epstein would then dangle the prospect of financial support for their education, according to the women’s stories.

The woman who met Epstein and Maxwell in the late ’90s and spoke to NPR recently said Epstein went on to pay her tuition for Interlochen’s year-round boarding school and offered to also finance her attendance at a top-tier conservatory after graduation.
...

And note how Interlochen allegedly assured the mother of one of victims that, “He is our guardian. … He is trustworthy around the kids, and there is no need to worry.” In fairness to Interlochen, this was long before Epstein was a known predator. Given that Epstein’s student patronage went all the way up to his 2019 death, you have to wonder how many of the other institutions where Epstein was preying on students made the same assurances even after his 2008 conviction. It’s not like parents couldn’t find all sorts of allegations about Epstein online at that point. Someone had to be assuring them:

...
The woman who testified as “Jane Doe” during Maxwell’s 2021 criminal trial said she was approached by Maxwell in 1994 while sitting on a bench in the main campus area eating ice cream with classmates. Maxwell was walking a “cute little Yorkie” that the girls asked to pet, she said. After the other students returned to class, the girl stayed behind with Maxwell, who was then joined by Epstein, according to the woman’s testimony.

The pair asked for a phone number, contacted her mother and arranged a meeting with the mother and daughter at Epstein’s Palm Beach, Fla., home, the woman said in her testimony. During a 30-minute conversation there, Epstein hinted at the possibility of paying for the girl’s education, telling her mother: “ ‘I like to mentor young students who are artists. And I love music, and I love dance, and I give all kinds of scholarships,’ ” the woman said in her testimony.

In a 2020 interview with the FBI, the mother recalled phoning Interlochen to inquire about Epstein. It is not specified when the call took place. She told law enforcement she spoke with a receptionist who said of Epstein: “ ‘He is our guardian. … He is trustworthy around the kids, and there is no need to worry.’ ”

...

According to “Jane Doe’s” testimony, her relationship with Epstein and Maxwell would go on to span years of grooming and sexual abuse that lasted until 2002.
...

Also note how Interlochen not only arranged for meeting between Epstein and the students he was sponsoring — likely meetings at the lodge — but he was even admitted into Interlochen’s President’s Club for high-level donors which entailed roles like “attending concerts, events and special meetings, identifying prospective students and providing counsel to the president on issues and policies of the institution.” Which is a reminder that playing this role as a student patron possibly served as a coverstory for his interactions with other underage girls:

...
In the February 1994 letter, Ambrose wrote that when awards were made from Epstein’s scholarship fund, “Interlochen will notify you, with respect to the recipients.” The letter said, “The recipient will also be asked to communicate with the donor. If you would like to [meet] the students, we will help arrange a meeting on campus as well.”

...

Around the same time, Epstein was admitted into Interlochen’s President’s Club for high-level donors. Members were to “assist Interlochen by attending concerts, events and special meetings, identifying prospective students and providing counsel to the president on issues and policies of the institution,” according to a letter to Epstein from another school administrator.
...

And as we can see from the allegations of one of the victims, Epstein didn’t simply extend his generosity in the hopes that the students would comply with his abuse. He would make requests of them, like accompanying a high-profile person to a gathering in New York, and would threaten to rescind the sponsorships if they didn’t comply. Which raises the question of how many other instances there were of Epstein loaning one of ‘his girls’ out to someone as a kind of elite escort service:

...
The woman said she spent time alone with Epstein and Maxwell at Epstein’s lodge on campus. As an adult, she said that she now views their actions as the beginning of “grooming behavior,” designed to make her feel comfortable, and that they had taken a special interest in her and her aspirations.

The woman said she never reported the relationship to Interlochen officials.

Years after those meetings on campus, she said the relationship began to fray when she started saying no to some of Epstein and Maxwell’s requests. It came to an end when they asked her to accompany a high-profile person to a gathering in New York. When she refused, she was cut off emotionally and financially, with Epstein reneging on a promise to continue funding her education.

“It was keeping somebody on a leash. ... If you said ‘no’ to them, there was fallout,” the woman told NPR, describing the end of the relationship.
...

Also keep in mind that we have been given zero explanation for why Epstein’s interest in Interlochen appears to have suddenly ended in 2003. He obviously wasn’t done with this form of patronage at that point. Why go from a President’s Club for high-level donors, with his own lodge, to no more scholarships after 2003? It’s the kind of sudden change in behavior that suggests there’s more to this story. Was Epstein caught abusing a student and allowed to quietly move on to other institutions? We don’t know, but it’s a reminder that we’re still looking at a cover up despite the flood of new documents. The kind of cover up that, if fully exposed, could shake the foundations of the world’s power structures.

WWIII here we come. It’s obviously the only option for a situation like this.

Great work, as usual. One VERY interesting passage in the Klarenberg article concerns Sharp and Company (pun intended) being present in Peking during the Tiananmen massacre.

Not only weren’t we told about, but we weren’t told about unarmed PLA soldiers being lynched and burned alive!

. . . . “Nonetheless, supposedly government-inflicted citizen deaths and ensuing “international reaction” have been core components of multiple Sharp-inspired revolutions and U.S. regime-change operations. Sharp was present in Beijing during the April-June 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and wrote an “eyewitness account” of “non-violent struggle in China.”

He neglected to mention that the George Soros-endorsed demonstrators who occupied the Square lynched and incinerated several unarmed People’s Liberation Army soldiers, actively seeking to provoke a savage counter-response from authorities.

As prominent student protester Chai Ling contemporaneously explained:

“The students keep asking, ‘What should we do next? What can we accomplish?’ I feel so sad, because how can I tell them that what we are actually hoping for is bloodshed, for the moment when the government has no choice but to brazenly butcher the people. Only when the Square is awash with blood will the people of China open their eyes. Only then will they really be united. But how can I explain any of this to my fellow students?”

Leaders of the Tiananmen Square protest had sought to maximize the propaganda effect of their actions and deliberately provoked violence, which was left out of Western media accounts that helped vilify the People’s Republic of China (PRC). [Source: bbc.com]

That “revolution” failed. An obvious lesson to draw from the experience is the best way “nonviolent” activists can produce bloodshed and a negative “international reaction” is to covertly carry out killings themselves. . . .”

This is not only relevant to the events of the time, but the Pandemic might well be viewed as a development of the same “Op.”

The Northwoods Virus, so to speak. In https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftrs-1404–1405-1406–1407-the-covid-i9-op-parts-1-through‑4/; https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr1410-the-covid-19-op-part-5-the-nazi-virus/; https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftrs-1411-the-covid-19-op-part-five-vaccines-as-offensive-biological-weapons/; https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr1412-pfizer-biontech-the-i-g-farben-vaccine/; https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr1413-the-covid-19-op-part-8-vectoring-scenarios-and-the-eugenic-virus/; https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr1414-the-covid-19-op-part-nine-the-pandemic-as-world-war-iii/

I not only unpacked the six articles I had written and which had been behind the paywall of my Patreon platform, but supplemented those with some very disturbing analysis in #1414 about the Pandemic as WWIII.

So people might think this was all “long ago and far away,” but it is only too relevant.

Best,

Dave

It’s been almost exactly twelve years since the events that shattered Ukraine. The Maidan sniper attacks against pro-Western protesters that triggered the collapse of the Yankovych government and civil war that soon followed. Twelve increasingly brutal and dire years for Ukraine, built off what was ultimately a wildly successful false flag provocation. As Professor Ivan Katchinovski has exhaustively documented, the sniper shots initially fired upon the Maidan protesters came from building occupied by the ultra-nationalist militias leading the protests. What is to this day portrayed as a massacre of patriotic protesters by an oppressive Russian-aligned government was, in reality, a false flag massacre.

Which makes this a good time to reflect on the fact that it’s also been 35 years since the “January Events” of 1991 precipitated the Soviet pull out of Lithuania, further propelling momentum towards the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of that year. As we’ll see Klarenberg’s piece, the official narrative about Soviet forces firing upon non-violent Lithuanian protesters outside the Vilnius TV tower, killing 14 and injuring ten times that number, has become a core memory in the founding of the modern Lithuanian state. Except, that’s not what actually happened. Protesters were indeed shot and killed. But it wasn’t Soviet forces doing the firing. Lithuanian ultra-nationalists fired on their own side. Yes, twenty three years before the false flag Maidan massacre at the hands of Ukraine’s own ultra-nationalists precipitated the end of the Yanukovich government, Lithuanian ultra-nationalist carried out a false flag attack that helped to propel not just the pullout of Soviet forces but the collapse of the Soviet Union later that year.

But this isn’t just a story about another still-unaddressed false flag event that has been an open secret for decades. As we’re going to see, not only has the leader of Lithuania’s ultra-nationalist forces who led the opposition to Soviets, Audrius Butkevicius, admitted that he intentionally placed his own forces in an area where he expected them to be fired upon by Soviet forces, but it also turns out Butkevicius was deploying a strategy of non-violent resistance advocated by none other than Gene Sharp, the US’s ‘color revolution’ guru who died in 2018. A strategy of non-violent resistance that required those non-violent resisters to be violently attacked by the state for the strategy to work. In fact, Butkevicius first established a correspondence with Sharp in 1987 and actually met him in Vilnius in February of 1991, weeks after the “January Events”. And while Butkevicius does admit that he intentionally positioned his forces in places where he expected them to be fired up by Soviet forces, the evidence points towards something much more deliberate: the shots came from ultra-nationalists on rooftops. Those protesters had to be shot, one way or another, for the strategy to work. Butkevicius went on to become the Defense Minister under the new Lithuanian government.

So how has Lithuania addressed the evidence that one of its seminal events? For years, the false flag nature of the events remain a largely unexamined open secret. In fact, in 2004, the head of the Red Army unit deployed to Vilnius TV tower recounted during an interview how “not a single shot was fired from our side,” pointing to the fact that none of their ammunition was spent. In addition, a Red Army officer was among those shot and killed in the crowd. But don’t expect to hear testimony of that nature today. At least not in Lithuania. In June 2010, Lithuania’s government passed a law criminalizing any questioning of the official story. It was followed a November 2010 radio interview of Lithuanian statesman Algirdas Paleckis who recounted how “our people were shooting our own” on January 13, 1991, the deadly last day of the “January Events”. Paleckis was prosecuted for “denying Soviet aggression,” becoming the first person charged under the new law. During his trial, Paleckis presented 12 witnesses who testified to seeing opposition “provocateurs” shooting from roofs of buildings at the crowd below. Beyond that, Paleckis’s defense included the official government reports showing at least six victims were killed by hunting rifle rounds fired from a vertical 50–60-degree angle. Paleckis was found innocent in January 2012, before being convicted upon appeal and forced to pay a 3000 euro fine. The witnesses in his trial who testified on his behalf were separately punished.

But the passage of that 2010 law didn’t entirely put an end to the talk of a suppressed false flag origin of the “January Events”. In 2018, journalist Galina Sapozhnikova published The Lithuanian Conspiracy and the Soviet Collapse: Investigation into a Political Demolition, a book containing interviews of leaders on both sides of the “January events” and included the kind of disclosures that effectively prove it was a false flag attack on the protesters was the plan by Butkevicius’s ultra-nationalist forces. The publication of Sapozhnikova’s book wasn’t exactly a surprise to the Lithuanian state. Sapozhnikova was declared persona non grata by Lithuania in 2015 for 5 years. And in 2017, the Lithuanian publisher of the book, Politika, was raided by armed police as part of the enforcement of that 2010 law.

Fascinatingly, the bombshell revelations in Sapozhnikova aren’t limited to the false flag nature of the events that unfolded. It turns out Gene Sharp wasn’t just an adviser to Butkevicius. Sharp was one of many “foreign specialists and political strategists” openly operating inside Lithuania and elsewhere inside the Soviet Union during this period. Hence him being able to meeting Butkevicius in Vilnius weeks after the “January events”. And Soviet leadership knew this was happening and allowed it. Numerous former Soviet intelligence officers interviewed by Sapozhnikova confirmed they were well aware of CIA-backed organizing taking place, and reported this up the chain of command. But the leadership seemed unconcerned. According to Alexander Osipov, a Lithuanian KGB counterintelligence specialist, that leadership was unconcerned about this revolutionary organizing. “There was a betrayal from [Mikhail] Gorbachev’s side,” according to Osipov, who went on to claim that, during a visit to Moscow, a senior KGB official informed him, “it has been decided to give up the Baltics.” As Osipov put it, the “new government of independent Lithuania needed just a bit more to tip the scales in their favor…In order to finally unite the Lithuanian people, they needed a little blood.” And blood was had.

To learn about the “January events” ultimately being a false flag massacre following Gene Sharp’s playbook isn’t exactly a shock. That the Soviet leadership, at least the Gorbachev-aligned faction, was aware of this at the time and did little to counter it is more of a surprise. Especially in light of the fact that it was in August of 1991 that the Soviet Union experienced the failed coup of the anti-Gorbachev hardliners only to have the entire Soviet Union dissolve four months later.

Another noteworthy fact that we’ll see in a Estonia World piece below is that Boris Yeltsin, the rebellious elected chair of the Russian Supreme Soviet, immediately flew to the Estonian capital of Tallinn on January 13 following the shootings to sign a joint declaration with the leaders of the Baltic countries recognizing on another’s sovereignty. A major act of open defiance of the Soviet order. That’s part of the context of the apparently deliberate nature of the massacre in Vilnius that day. It drove events so powerfully that the chair of the Russian Supreme Soviet was willing to defy the Kremlin and back Baltic independence.

But, again, what’s to be made of the claims that the Soviet leadership had already given up on the Baltics and knowingly tolerated the organizing of figures like Gene Sharp, who was allowed to operate inside the Soviet Union? Given the reality of a hardliner coup attempt against Gorbachev six months later, it’s the kind of remarkable overall dynamic that serves as a reminder that we still to this day do not really know what kind of behind the scenes negotiating took place during those pivotal months in 1991.

As we’re going to see in a 2016 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty piece, Nicholas Burns — the White House’s director for Soviet affairs at the time and who attended all seven US-Soviet summits between Bush and Gorbachev — claims that the US had no idea how close the Soviet Union was to breaking apart until the failed coup attempt. And it was in the following weeks that George Bush engaged in a behind the scenes diplomatic negotiation with Gorbachev for recognition of the independence of the Baltics, which came on September 6, less than three weeks after the failed hardliner coup.

That’s the kind of timeline Burns was willing to share. Intense behind the scenes negotiations over the fate of the Baltics following failed coup, leading up to the September 6 recognition. But when we learn how Gorbachev’s faction of reformists were apparently well aware of CIA-backed organizing like Sharp and Butkevicius but didn’t care, we have to ask when those behind the scenes negotiations over the fate of the Soviet Union really got the underway.

We also have to ask what behind the scenes promises were made and vision offered that we’ve never heard about. We know about the pledge famously made by James Baker to Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, about “no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east” of not moving NATO” during a trip to the Kremlin. It wasn’t law or part of a treaty. Just a pledge. A now broken pledge. What else was getting pledged behind the scenes at this time? What kind of economic pledges, for example, were made? The Soviet Union was collapsing primarily due to economics at that point. We know Russia experienced a decade of economic debauchery and the rise of a mob-like oligarch class during the 90s, a decade heavily shaped by US guidance and an embrace of capitalism and privatization. If economic pledges were made behind the scenes it would be fascinating to know about them.

It’s not just a historical curiosity. The West’s relationship with Russia remains on a I’ll ous downward trajectory. And it’s important to keep in mind that the US policy of economically sanctioning Russia and applying as much “pressure” as possible in the hopes Vladimir Putin somehow cracks and/or friendly internal regime change plays out is a policy predicated on the hope that we get a new Russian repeat of of the sudden collapse of the Soviet system, with Putin being replaced by a Western friendly regime. The US learned a powerful lesson with the collapse of the Soviets about what is possible under economic pressures become too unbearable. Empires can peacefully collapse under the right kind of pressure. The Soviets turned into friendly compliant Russians. It wouldn’t be a shock to learn the US is applying a similar strategy today with Russia to what was deployed at the end of the Cold War.

Recall how former CIA director James Woolsey made some interesting comments about the nature of US-Russian relations during this period when he spoke at that bizarre hearing in the US capital in 2016 where a US-backed Ukrainian oligarch, Sergei Taruta, leveled-corruption allegations against the National Bank of Ukraine, the nationalized version of Ihor Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank. The hearing was televised by two Ukrainian television stations. It was like a weird fake official being held in the Capitol with James Woolsey adding to the fake gravitas along with a handful of members of congress, being put on for a Ukrainian audience. Woolsey spoke of how compliant and friendly the Soviets were and how he desired a return to that state of affairs. “For the next three to four years, the Russians were very easy to get along with. They were sweethearts.” Woolsey went on to add how, “I would love to see the international events work out in such a way that we end up being able to do two things. One, is to deal with the existence of corruption in the way that you referred to and that many people here are experts on. And the other is to keep Ukraine and other states in the region, such as Poland, from feeling that they are constantly under pressure from Russia to do the wrong thing. Resuscitate the days of friendly Russia in the early ‘90s.” Woolsey was referring to this period when Gene Sharp could organize a false flag attack seemingly with the Gorbachev wing’s acquiescence. What haven’t we been told about how that remarkable friendliness was establish? Although we do know one major element that played a huge role in making the Soviets more compliant: losing an increasingly insane nuclear arms race and facing bankruptcy. A Cold War arms race dynamic with a number of parallels to today’s proxy war in Ukraine leading to the protracted economic isolation and decoupling with he West. A strategy that seems to be predicated on the hope that a 1991 miracle scenario somehow plays out again in Russia after things get bad enough..

Twelve years after the Maidan false flag and the thirty five years after Vilnius. Russia is now locked into a war in Ukraine that has it reorienting its economy away from the West. The well of Western-Russian relations has been thoroughly poisoned. Tragically and perilously. The threat of thermonuclear conflict always looming as the likely consequence of things getting too out of control. It would be nice to understand how behind the scenes pledges from waning days of the Cold War are shaping those poisoned relations today. We’ll likely never get to know, but it’s not hard to imagine plenty of secret pledges were made. And likely broken. It would be nice to know about all that, but that’s kind of the nature of behind the scenes negotiations. We don’t generally get to find out about them.

Similarly for false flag massacres. It would be nice to know which historic events were false flags, but that’s not how false flags work. Except when there’s all sorts of available evidence that it was a false flag:

Covert Action Magazine

Lithuania’s False Flag Counter-Revolution

By Kit Klarenberg -
February 16, 2026

From January 11 to 13, 2026, Lithuania marks the 35th anniversary of the “January Events.”

Three tumultuous days in 1991 culminated in a widely publicized mass shooting of protesters at Vilnius’s TV Tower, with 14 killed and more than 140 injured. Soviet forces purportedly, were responsible.

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It was a pivotal event in the USSR’s break-up, and today remains widely celebrated throughout the Baltics and beyond.

Officially observed as the Day of the Defenders of Freedom in Lithuania, in March 2019, a local court found 67 Russian defendants guilty—overwhelmingly in absentia—for the January 13th massacre.

Yet, for decades, suspicion has swirled that there was much more to the incident than met the eye. It has been openly admitted by ultra-nationalist figures at the forefront of the January 1991 unrest that the mass killing was a deliberate ploy in a wider conspiracy to secure Vilnius’s independence, and shatter the Soviet Union.

Audrius Butkevicius, who later became Lithuania’s defense minister, was a chief leader of Vilnius’s battle against Moscow. He has repeatedly acknowledged how, on January 13th, he deliberately directed nationalist activists to positions on the ground where they would be shot and potentially slain.

In conversations with exiled Baltic Russophone journalist Galina Sapozhnikova, Butkevicius declared: “I accept the responsibility solemnly for us using non-violent struggle techniques in a situation where people could die.” However, he has consistently blamed the Soviet Red Army for the slaughter.

In 2018, Sapozhnikova published The Lithuanian Conspiracy and the Soviet Collapse: Investigation into a Political Demolition. Her little-known book contains interviews with leading participants on both sides of the “January Events,” and individuals who have dared challenge the established narrative of the time.

That Soviet forces massacred innocent, defenseless Lithuanians is a fundamental facet of the country’s foundational mythos. In June 2010, Vilnius passed a law criminalizing questioning what precisely happened in January 1991, and many have since run afoul of its sweeping terms.

Politika, a Lithuanian publisher, was raided by armed police in March 2017 under the legislation as it prepared to release Sapozhnikova’s work. Computers and documents were seized, while the organization’s chief was arrested and interrogated. Subsequently, local stores were understandably “scared to sell” the book.

Given its contents, law enforcement’s heavy-handed response was inevitable. Multiple interviewees made bombshell disclosures unambiguously indicating the January 13th mass execution was a false flag, carried out by ultra-nationalists led by Butkevicius, to be bogusly blamed on Soviet forces.

Perhaps ironically, the most incendiary disclosures were made by Butkevicius himself. “We knew quite clearly what actions the opponent would take, and hoped for a conflict…for the army to arrive to restore order,” he told Sapozhnikova of the vast protests in Vilnius that triggered the Red Army’s January 1991 intervention, which led to the mass shooting. “But we outplayed them…the tanks rolled in and…foreign journalists and camera crews shot the whole scene,” having been invited by Lithuanian authorities to observe local events days in advance.

“Psychological Warfare”

Butkevicius was an avid disciple and close friend of Gene Sharp. Known as the “Machiavelli of non-violence,” Sharp was intimately enmeshed within the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment for much of his life. Along the way, he published a number of pamphlets on “non-violent” protest strategies that have inspired insurrectionary movements the world over, while providing in-person training to countless would-be revolutionaries. As Sapozhnikova writes, Sharp “openly taught” Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian nationalists “how to dismantle the Soviet Union,” giving lectures in Moscow throughout 1991.

At these conferences, Sharp’s Civilian-Based Defense was circulated to Baltic separatists. Butkevicius has said of the work, “I would rather have this book than the nuclear bomb.” Its contents directly informed their independence struggle.

Due to his “interest in psychological warfare,” Butkevicius began exchanging letters with Sharp in 1987. The pair’s connection quickly blossomed. They first met in February 1991 in Vilnius. Come the mid-1990s, Butkevicius worked “for a whole year” for Sharp’s AEI. He told Sapozhnikova of their bond’s origins:

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Sharp was one of many “foreign specialists and political strategists” openly advocating strategies for resisting Soviet authority, and collapsing the USSR, within the country itself in its final years. That this was permitted by Moscow is quite extraordinary.

Numerous KGB veterans consulted by Sapozhnikova confirmed they were well-aware of machinations by U.S. regime-change operatives locally, including CIA apparatchiks, but the Soviet leadership was unconcerned.

Alexander Osipov, a Lithuanian KGB counterintelligence specialist, summarized the situation bluntly: “There was a betrayal from [Mikhail] Gorbachev’s side.”

Osipov recalled how, from the late 1980s onwards, “information” on the activities of local counter-revolutionary elements, and their Western sponsors, was “sent to Moscow on a daily basis.” However, his superiors took no action, even when “traitors and treason” were uncovered.

If fifth columnists and spies were exposed in agencies and departments of the state, his superiors simply “[recommended] we fire them.” In the summer of 1989, the reason for this concerted inertia was reportedly “made clear” to Osipov.

Osipov claims that, during a visit to Moscow, a senior KGB official informed him, “it has been decided to give up the Baltics.” Thereafter, his role was reduced to simply “observing the situation” on the ground.

He witnessed “chaos and pressure” ratchet up in Lithuania with some velocity thereafter. Regular separatist protests steadily swelled in size to hundreds of thousands of people, while local TV was “methodically hammering” the message home to audiences that Vilnius must split from the Soviet Union.

In the days leading up to the “January Events,” Osipov and his co-workers “noted the mass arrival of a huge amount of press and assumed that something was about to happen.” A superior warned him to stay at home, “and it would be even better if you had witnesses watching you.”

In other words, the risk of local Soviet military and intelligence officials being fitted up for a planned, impending crime of some kind was significant, and well-understood by those in the loop.

Osipov is under no illusions about what occurred on January 13, 1991. “The new government of independent Lithuania needed just a bit more to tip the scales in their favor…In order to finally unite the Lithuanian people, they needed a little blood,” he told Sapozhnikova. “The picture is fairly clear…there are dozens of witness testimonies” indicating people were “shot from above and [nearby] roofs”—areas occupied by opposition elements, not the Red Army.

“Official Version”

For two decades, it remained an open, unexamined, unspoken secret in Lithuania that Soviet forces likely were not culpable for the January 13, 1991, massacre. Mikhail Golovatov, head of the Red Army unit deployed to Vilnius TV Tower, testified in 2004 how “not a single shot was fired from our side,” amply demonstrated by none of their ammunition having been expended during the operation. Moreover, an officer within their expedition was killed alongside Lithuanian civilians, as the unit came under fire from opposition-occupied sites.

It was not until November 2010, however, that the incident became subject of significant national controversy. During a radio interview, prominent Lithuanian statesman Algirdas Paleckis publicly declared “our people were shooting our own” on January 13, 1991. A “21st century inquisition” then erupted. Paleckis was prosecuted for “denying Soviet aggression,” the very first person to be charged under the June 2010 law prohibiting critical discussion of how Lithuania became an independent country. He was also subjected to relentless media attacks.

At his resultant trial, Paleckis presented 12 witnesses who saw opposition “provocateurs” shooting from roofs of buildings at the voluminous crowds below, contrary to the official narrative that Red Army soldiers on the ground opened fire. He also provided Lithuanian government forensics reports showing at least six victims were killed by hunting rifle rounds, from a vertical 50–60-degree angle. He was found innocent in January 2012, but then convicted upon appeal, and forced to pay a 3,000 euro fine.

Sapozhnikova notes, “there were separate punishments for the witnesses who supported Paleckis and told the court what they had witnessed with their own eyes.” Many people he personally knew from serving as Vice-Mayor of Vilnius, who were encouraged in January 1991 by “burly men” to approach the TV tower killing zone “fearlessly” as the Red Army “only have blanks,” were not called to testify. Thus, they evaded adverse consequences for the high crime of telling the truth.

In many conversations with Lithuanians who knew the reality of the “January Events” while traveling through the country, Sapozhnikova inquired “why did you remain silent for so many years?” They universally responded, “because we wanted independence.” Asked why only many years later were people willing to go on record about what they knew, her interviewees typically replied, “because independence turned out to be worse than the Russian yoke.” As Paleckis told the journalist:

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“Non-Violent Struggle”

There is a glaring paradox at the Lithuanian counter-revolution’s core. Butkevicius boasts of the centrality of “Sharp’s books and insights” to the success of the Baltics’ independence crusade, specifically “psychological warfare” and “civil disobedience.” Such was the supposed potency of these techniques, “I could have dragged all of Russia into a war on Communists,” he bragged to Sapozhnikova. Yet, far from being “non-violent,” the “January Events” that all but guaranteed Vilnius’s secession from the Soviet Union climaxed with a hail of bullets and many killed.

Strikingly, both Butkevicius and Sharp openly admitted to Sapozhnikova that “non-violent” revolutions require violence to succeed. Butkevicius downplayed the January 1991 “carnage” on the basis that “a lot more people would have died” if his separatist clique employed “old guerrilla warfare methods.”

The Baltics had a history of armed resistance against Communism. For more than a decade following World War II, Nazi collaborators and Holocaust perpetrators popularly known as the Forest Brothers waged a brutal, ill-fated insurgency against Soviet authorities, with CIA and MI6 assistance.

Sharp repeatedly spoke affectionately of the Forest Brothers. In conversations with Sapozhnikova, he framed the Baltics’ “non-violent” independence campaign as a modern version of their guerrilla war. “Non-violent struggle actually doesn’t mean that you are safe,” Sharp admitted. “It means less people might be killed, than when resorting to violence.” Given “authoritarian governments and dictatorships are very dependent on violence,” when mass movements “begin to threaten them, even using only non-violent action, you shouldn’t be surprised that the regime will be killing people off.”

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The shooting of protesters by unidentified snipers featured in the April 2002 CIA-backed attempted overthrow of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the initial stages of the 2011 Syrian “revolution,” and 2014 Maidan Coup in Ukraine. In October 2023, a Kyiv court ruling demonstrated beyond any doubt the massacre was an opposition-executed false flag.

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“Lithuania’s False Flag Counter-Revolution” By Kit Klarenberg; Covert Action Magazine; 02/16/2026

“Yet, for decades, suspicion has swirled that there was much more to the incident than met the eye. It has been openly admitted by ultra-nationalist figures at the forefront of the January 1991 unrest that the mass killing was a deliberate ploy in a wider conspiracy to secure Vilnius’s independence, and shatter the Soviet Union.”

It’s an open secret festering for decades. The modern origin story of Lithuania’s fight for independence was based on a lie. A violent lie that was turned an official state lie with the passage of a law in 2010 criminalizing any public questioning of that state lie. And this wasn’t an idle law never used. Prominent Lithuanian statesman Algirdas Paleckis was charged until the law just months after coming into effect after acknowledging that “our people were shooting our own” during a radio interview. And not just him. After Paleckis was brought to trial and successfully defended himself with the help of 12 witnesses who testified to seeing opposition “provocateurs” shooting from roofs of buildings, not only was Paleckis convicted upon appeal but those witnesses were punished too!

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For two decades, it remained an open, unexamined, unspoken secret in Lithuania that Soviet forces likely were not culpable for the January 13, 1991, massacre. Mikhail Golovatov, head of the Red Army unit deployed to Vilnius TV Tower, testified in 2004 how “not a single shot was fired from our side,” amply demonstrated by none of their ammunition having been expended during the operation. Moreover, an officer within their expedition was killed alongside Lithuanian civilians, as the unit came under fire from opposition-occupied sites.

It was not until November 2010, however, that the incident became subject of significant national controversy. During a radio interview, prominent Lithuanian statesman Algirdas Paleckis publicly declared “our people were shooting our own” on January 13, 1991. A “21st century inquisition” then erupted. Paleckis was prosecuted for “denying Soviet aggression,” the very first person to be charged under the June 2010 law prohibiting critical discussion of how Lithuania became an independent country. He was also subjected to relentless media attacks.

At his resultant trial, Paleckis presented 12 witnesses who saw opposition “provocateurs” shooting from roofs of buildings at the voluminous crowds below, contrary to the official narrative that Red Army soldiers on the ground opened fire. He also provided Lithuanian government forensics reports showing at least six victims were killed by hunting rifle rounds, from a vertical 50–60-degree angle. He was found innocent in January 2012, but then convicted upon appeal, and forced to pay a 3,000 euro fine.

Sapozhnikova notes, “there were separate punishments for the witnesses who supported Paleckis and told the court what they had witnessed with their own eyes.” Many people he personally knew from serving as Vice-Mayor of Vilnius, who were encouraged in January 1991 by “burly men” to approach the TV tower killing zone “fearlessly” as the Red Army “only have blanks,” were not called to testify. Thus, they evaded adverse consequences for the high crime of telling the truth.
...

But despite that 2010 law, Russian journalist Galina Sapozhnikova — who was declared persona non grata by Lithuania in 2015 for 5 years — published a book in 2018 that includes interviews with some of the leading participants on both sides of the “January Events” that defy that state-enforced narrative. The publication of the book was seen as such a threat that the book’s Lithuanian publisher, Politika, was raided by armed police in 2017 as it was preparing to publish. But the book was eventually published, filled with bombshell disclosures from participants on both sides of the “January events”, pointing towards a deadly false flag provocation organized by the ultra-nationalists led by Audrius Butkevicius, who went on to become Lithuania’s defense minister:

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In 2018, Sapozhnikova published The Lithuanian Conspiracy and the Soviet Collapse: Investigation into a Political Demolition. Her little-known book contains interviews with leading participants on both sides of the “January Events,” and individuals who have dared challenge the established narrative of the time.

That Soviet forces massacred innocent, defenseless Lithuanians is a fundamental facet of the country’s foundational mythos. In June 2010, Vilnius passed a law criminalizing questioning what precisely happened in January 1991, and many have since run afoul of its sweeping terms.

Politika, a Lithuanian publisher, was raided by armed police in March 2017 under the legislation as it prepared to release Sapozhnikova’s work. Computers and documents were seized, while the organization’s chief was arrested and interrogated. Subsequently, local stores were understandably “scared to sell” the book.

Given its contents, law enforcement’s heavy-handed response was inevitable. Multiple interviewees made bombshell disclosures unambiguously indicating the January 13th mass execution was a false flag, carried out by ultra-nationalists led by Butkevicius, to be bogusly blamed on Soviet forces.
...

And those stunning admissions happen to include admissions from Butkevicius himself. Like the fact that he really was actively attempting to deploy the kind of psychological warfare methods long championed by his close friend Gene Sharp. Non-violent protest methods developed by Sharp intended to provoke a violent state response. It’s crucial context for understanding the disclosures found in Sapozhnikova’s book and the allegations of false flag committed by the ultra-nationalists under Butkevicius’s command: the ‘non-violent’ protests being led by Butkevicius and the Lithuanian ultra-nationalists could only succeed if those protests resulted in a massacre:

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Audrius Butkevicius, who later became Lithuania’s defense minister, was a chief leader of Vilnius’s battle against Moscow. He has repeatedly acknowledged how, on January 13th, he deliberately directed nationalist activists to positions on the ground where they would be shot and potentially slain.

...

Perhaps ironically, the most incendiary disclosures were made by Butkevicius himself. “We knew quite clearly what actions the opponent would take, and hoped for a conflict…for the army to arrive to restore order,” he told Sapozhnikova of the vast protests in Vilnius that triggered the Red Army’s January 1991 intervention, which led to the mass shooting. “But we outplayed them…the tanks rolled in and…foreign journalists and camera crews shot the whole scene,” having been invited by Lithuanian authorities to observe local events days in advance.

...

Butkevicius was an avid disciple and close friend of Gene Sharp. Known as the “Machiavelli of non-violence,” Sharp was intimately enmeshed within the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment for much of his life. Along the way, he published a number of pamphlets on “non-violent” protest strategies that have inspired insurrectionary movements the world over, while providing in-person training to countless would-be revolutionaries. As Sapozhnikova writes, Sharp “openly taught” Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian nationalists “how to dismantle the Soviet Union,” giving lectures in Moscow throughout 1991.

At these conferences, Sharp’s Civilian-Based Defense was circulated to Baltic separatists. Butkevicius has said of the work, “I would rather have this book than the nuclear bomb.” Its contents directly informed their independence struggle.

Due to his “interest in psychological warfare,” Butkevicius began exchanging letters with Sharp in 1987. The pair’s connection quickly blossomed. They first met in February 1991 in Vilnius. Come the mid-1990s, Butkevicius worked “for a whole year” for Sharp’s AEI. He told Sapozhnikova of their bond’s origins:

...

Strikingly, both Butkevicius and Sharp openly admitted to Sapozhnikova that “non-violent” revolutions require violence to succeed. Butkevicius downplayed the January 1991 “carnage” on the basis that “a lot more people would have died” if his separatist clique employed “old guerrilla warfare methods.
...

But this isn’t just a story about a wildly successful false flag provocation, an open secret long suppressed by the Lithuanian state. As Alexander Osipov, a Lithuanian KGB counterintelligence specialist, put it, “There was a betrayal from [Mikhail] Gorbachev’s side.” As Osipov learned in the days leading up to the “January events”, the Soviet leadership had “decided to give up the Baltics.” At the same time, he witnessed a surge in press as if something huge was expected. And he even received a warning from superior to stay at home, “and it would be even better if you had witnesses watching you.” The picture that emerges is a kind of orchestrated massacre that even the Soviet leadership knew was likely coming. The Soviets had already decided to cede the Baltics and seemingly allowed Soviet forces to just walk into this false flag provocation. It’s the kind of revelation that serves as a reminder that we don’t really know very much about the behind-the-scenes diplomacy that was taking place in the lead up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. What sort of agreements were quietly made? And were those agreements adhered to in the years that followed? It’s potentially crucial context for the present-day animosity between Russia and the West. We’ve long known the agreement to not move NATO eastward was broken. What else?

...
Numerous KGB veterans consulted by Sapozhnikova confirmed they were well-aware of machinations by U.S. regime-change operatives locally, including CIA apparatchiks, but the Soviet leadership was unconcerned.

Alexander Osipov, a Lithuanian KGB counterintelligence specialist, summarized the situation bluntly: “There was a betrayal from [Mikhail] Gorbachev’s side.”

Osipov recalled how, from the late 1980s onwards, “information” on the activities of local counter-revolutionary elements, and their Western sponsors, was “sent to Moscow on a daily basis.” However, his superiors took no action, even when “traitors and treason” were uncovered.

If fifth columnists and spies were exposed in agencies and departments of the state, his superiors simply “[recommended] we fire them.” In the summer of 1989, the reason for this concerted inertia was reportedly “made clear” to Osipov.

Osipov claims that, during a visit to Moscow, a senior KGB official informed him, “it has been decided to give up the Baltics.” Thereafter, his role was reduced to simply “observing the situation” on the ground.

He witnessed “chaos and pressure” ratchet up in Lithuania with some velocity thereafter. Regular separatist protests steadily swelled in size to hundreds of thousands of people, while local TV was “methodically hammering” the message home to audiences that Vilnius must split from the Soviet Union.

In the days leading up to the “January Events,” Osipov and his co-workers “noted the mass arrival of a huge amount of press and assumed that something was about to happen.” A superior warned him to stay at home, “and it would be even better if you had witnesses watching you.”

In other words, the risk of local Soviet military and intelligence officials being fitted up for a planned, impending crime of some kind was significant, and well-understood by those in the loop.

Osipov is under no illusions about what occurred on January 13, 1991. “The new government of independent Lithuania needed just a bit more to tip the scales in their favor…In order to finally unite the Lithuanian people, they needed a little blood,” he told Sapozhnikova. “The picture is fairly clear…there are dozens of witness testimonies” indicating people were “shot from above and [nearby] roofs”—areas occupied by opposition elements, not the Red Army.
...

And that remarkable set of revelations regarding both the deployment of Gene Sharp-inspired false flag “non-violent resistance” strategies paired with the seeming cooperation of Soviet authorities who quietly had already decided “to give up the Baltics” prior to the “January Events”, brings us to the following piece in Estonian World describing the history of Estonia’s own independence movement that was playing out during this same period. It was a Baltic-wide independence movement with support from figures like Russian President Boris Yeltsin. In fact, Yeltsin flew to the Estonian capitol of Tallinn shortly after the shooting to sign a declaration recognizing the independence of the Baltic states on January 13, the day of the false flag attack:

Estonian World

Estonia celebrates the restoration of independence

By Estonian World / August 19, 2025

On 20 August 1991, Estonia declared formal independence during the Soviet military coup attempt in Moscow, reconstituting the pre-1940 state.

In the evening of 20 August 1991, Estonian politicians declared the nation’s independence – even as Soviet tanks were rolling through the countryside to quell the independence movement and the Soviet paratroopers were taking charge of the Tallinn TV Tower, preparing to cut off communication channels.

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Estonian volunteers surrounded the TV Tower and wouldn’t let themselves to be intimidated by the Soviet troops. Members of the Estonian Defence League – the unified paramilitary armed forces of Estonia – were ready to protect the strategically important buildings, such as the parliament at Toompea and the Estonian Public Broadcasting facilities in Gonsiori street.

Luckily for Estonia, the attempted coup d’état in Moscow failed and the more liberal forces, led by the leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Boris Yeltsin, prevailed – thus starting the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Estonia was free again.

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An important role in solidarity was the support of the central Soviet Union republic, the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, for the Baltic states. Russia itself, led by Boris Yeltsin, declared its sovereignty on 12 June 1990 and thereafter limited the application of Soviet laws, in particular the laws concerning finance and the economy, on Russian territory.

On 13 January 1991, Yeltsin arrived in Tallinn, and with the leaders of the Baltic countries he signed a joint declaration, recognising one another’s sovereignty.

But the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, tried to keep the Baltic countries in the Soviet Union. Moscow planned a referendum to preserve the Soviet Union. However, the Estonian authorities refused to take part.

Instead, a referendum on the country’s independence was organised in Estonia on 3 March 1991 – 77.8% of the participants voted in favour of the Estonian independence.

Soviet coup d’état attempt creates a window of opportunity

On 19 August 1991, eight Soviet hardliners, including the head of the KGB, made an attempt to take control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was on holiday in his dacha in Crimea. Gorbachev was placed under house arrest, the hardliners announced a state of emergency and tanks were rolled on the streets of Moscow.

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The Estonian authorities realised that this was a “now or never moment” for the country – however risky, the decided to act swiftly and proclaim independence from the Soviet Union. Under the pressure, the different political powers in Estonia managed to reach consensus – on the evening of 19 August, the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Estonia and the delegation of the Estonian Committee (the executive organ of the Estonian Congress) began talks about declaring Estonian independence.

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At 23.02 on 20 August, the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Estonia approved the declaration of Estonian National Independence, coordinated with the Estonian Committee – after lengthy discussions, the version of legal continuity was chosen. In addition, a Constitutional Assembly was formed to work out the draft bill for a new constitution of the Republic of Estonia.

Another nerve-racking day followed. On the morning of 21 August, Soviet troops occupied the Tallinn TV Tower and transmission was temporarily disrupted. However, the national radio remained free and continued to broadcast news about events in Estonia.

But by the afternoon of 21 August it was clear that the coup d’état in Moscow had failed – to a great degree thanks to the resolve of Boris Yeltsin – and after talks with the Estonian leadership, Soviet troops abandoned the TV Tower and left Estonia.

On 22 August, Iceland became the first country to establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of Estonia, followed by Lithuania, Latvia and Russia. France was the first major Western power to recognise the Estonian independence, on 30 August.

On 6 September, the Soviet Union officially recognised the Estonian independence and on 17 September, Estonia was admitted to the United Nations. Estonia was free again.

Responding to the failure of the August coup d’état, all Soviet Union republics achieved independence. The Soviet Union essentially ceased to exist and on 26 December 1991, it was officially dissolved.

...

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“Estonia celebrates the restoration of independence” By Estonian World; Estonian World; 08/19/2025

“Luckily for Estonia, the attempted coup d’état in Moscow failed and the more liberal forces, led by the leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Boris Yeltsin, prevailed – thus starting the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Estonia was free again.”

The coup attempt of August 1991 was undoubtedly a fateful moment for the fate of the Soviet Union, with Boris Yeltsin, who would go on to lead Russia through a drunken decade of disrepair with extensive support from the US, leading the opposition to the coup. But note the role Yeltsin played on January 13, 1991, the day of bloodshed during the “January Events” in Lithuania: Yeltsin arrived in the capitol of Estonia to sign a joint declaration of independence along with the leaders of the Baltic nations. This was following a June 12, 1990, declaration of sovereignty by Russia itself, asserting greater autonomy inside the Soviet Union. This was on the same day a deadly apparent false flag was taking place in Lithuania, seemingly with the Soviet leadership’s acquiescence. It’s the kind of culmination in major events that raises the question of how much behind-the-scenes negotiating was taking place between the US and factions of the Soviet leadership that we still don’t know about. What kind of secret arrangements were made?

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An important role in solidarity was the support of the central Soviet Union republic, the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, for the Baltic states. Russia itself, led by Boris Yeltsin, declared its sovereignty on 12 June 1990 and thereafter limited the application of Soviet laws, in particular the laws concerning finance and the economy, on Russian territory.

On 13 January 1991, Yeltsin arrived in Tallinn, and with the leaders of the Baltic countries he signed a joint declaration, recognising one another’s sovereignty.

But the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, tried to keep the Baltic countries in the Soviet Union. Moscow planned a referendum to preserve the Soviet Union. However, the Estonian authorities refused to take part.

Instead, a referendum on the country’s independence was organised in Estonia on 3 March 1991 – 77.8% of the participants voted in favour of the Estonian independence.
...

And as we can see, it was September 6, 1991, just a couple weeks after the failed coup attempt, when the Soviet Union officially recognized the independence of Estonia, along with Latvia and Lithuania. A few months later, the Soviet Union dissolves. Again, what kind of behind-the-scenes negotiations where there taking place at this point that we haven’t been told about?

...
On 19 August 1991, eight Soviet hardliners, including the head of the KGB, made an attempt to take control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was on holiday in his dacha in Crimea. Gorbachev was placed under house arrest, the hardliners announced a state of emergency and tanks were rolled on the streets of Moscow.

...

But by the afternoon of 21 August it was clear that the coup d’état in Moscow had failed – to a great degree thanks to the resolve of Boris Yeltsin – and after talks with the Estonian leadership, Soviet troops abandoned the TV Tower and left Estonia.

On 22 August, Iceland became the first country to establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of Estonia, followed by Lithuania, Latvia and Russia. France was the first major Western power to recognise the Estonian independence, on 30 August.

On 6 September, the Soviet Union officially recognised the Estonian independence and on 17 September, Estonia was admitted to the United Nations. Estonia was free again.

Responding to the failure of the August coup d’état, all Soviet Union republics achieved independence. The Soviet Union essentially ceased to exist and on 26 December 1991, it was officially dissolved.
...

And those questions about what kind of behind the scenes negotiating was taking place in the lead up to the January Events brings us to the following RFE/RL piece from 2016 about the August 1991 coup attempt against Gorbachev by Soviet hardliners eager to squash all of the independence movements that had been proliferating across the Soviet Union with the open of support Yeltsin and, less openly, Gorbachev. According to Nicholas Burn, Nicholas Burns — the White House’s director for Soviet affairs at the time — it wasn’t until the August coup that the US realized the Soviet Union was on its last legs. It was after the failure of the coup that George Bush worked “behind the scenes” to “pressure” Gorbachev on recognizing the independence of the Baltics. Which only further raises the question of when those “behind the scenes” negotiations really started and what kind of promises were made:

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

25 Years Ago: Failed August Coup Changed U.S. Diplomatic Approach Toward Soviet Union

By RFE/RL
August 18, 2016 17:57 CET

A member of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s administration says that until the attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, nobody in the U.S. government imagined the Soviet Union would collapse by the end of 1991.

Nicholas Burns — who was the White House’s director for Soviet affairs at the time and attended all seven U.S.-Soviet summits between Bush and Gorbachev from 1989 through 1991 — had an insider’s view of how the U.S. administration formed policies in reaction to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which culminated in late December 1991.

“The coup against Gorbachev on the 18th and 19th of August 1991 — when [Gorbachev] was caught in Crimea and the coup plotters in Moscow took over — was a shock to the rest of the world,” Burns, who also was a member of Bush’s National Security Council before later becoming the undersecretary of state for political affairs, told RFE/RL in an interview marking the 25th anniversary of the August coup.

...

He said the coup plot by hard-line members of the Soviet Communist Party revealed what no Western powers had understood just a month earlier: The Soviet Union was on its last legs.

“It was only after the coup, the attempted coup, that it became apparent that it was a possibility,” Burns said. “In August and September of 1991, we began to realize it was possible that the Soviet Union might break up — might cease to exist. It was unimaginable before that.”

“It was only after the coup against Gorbachev when we saw how weak [Gorbachev] was politically, when we saw that [Boris] Yeltsin was rising [in power as] the Russian republic president; that [future Ukrainian President Leonid] Kravchuk was rising; that [future Belarusian leader Stanislau] Shushkevich in Belarus was rising. [It was] when they became power centers unto themselves.”

Burns said that before the August coup, the big emphasis of White House policy from 1989 had been how to deal with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe — in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, and East Germany.

...

“We supported the democracy movements. We wanted them to succeed. We wanted to see an end of communism,” he said. “But because of the psychology of what happens when you are in a Cold War dynamic, it was really barely believable for a long time to think that the Warsaw Pact could die, cease to exist; that communism could end in a series of countries in Eastern Europe and then ultimately in the Soviet Union. It took time to believe that this was possible.”

Fears Of ‘Loose Nukes’

However, Burns said once it became apparent that Soviet power was weakening significantly, the policy of the Bush administration was driven by concerns of a violent breakup of the Soviet Union and the “fear of loose nukes” — that “nuclear weapons might end up in the hands of violent people.”

...

“That was a danger to all of us around the world if the nuclear weapons were not held securely by responsible authorities,” he continued. “We worried about who might have custody over nuclear weapons. We worried about whether warlords would emerge. Would there be a long-running civil war?”

Burns said that is why the August coup brought about a new diplomatic approach from Washington of dealing with both “a rising Yeltsin and a sinking Gorbachev.”

“You could see Gorbachev was losing power and authority,” he said. “Yeltsin was gaining it. So when President Bush was dealing with the leadership in Moscow between mid-August 1991 and December 1991, when he called Gorbachev he would normally call Yeltsin the same day just to inform Yeltsin what was happening.”

“If he called Yeltsin, he would call Gorbachev to say, ‘I’ve had this conversation.’ ”

“We didn’t want to divide them,” Burns said. “We didn’t want to choose. We weren’t trying to interfere. We had to deal with both of them — and the staffs of both of them. It was a balancing act.”

Burns also said President Bush worked hard “behind the scenes” in the weeks after the failed coup to try to “pressure” Gorbachev to allow and recognize the independence of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

That recognition by the Soviet Union came on September 6, 1991.

...

“We were hoping that communism would collapse. But we were also hoping and praying that it would not collapse in a violent way when thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people, might be killed.”

———–

“25 Years Ago: Failed August Coup Changed U.S. Diplomatic Approach Toward Soviet Union” By RFE/RL; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; 08/18/2016

““It was only after the coup, the attempted coup, that it became apparent that it was a possibility,” Burns said. “In August and September of 1991, we began to realize it was possible that the Soviet Union might break up — might cease to exist. It was unimaginable before that.””

The idea that the Soviet Union could collapse was inconceivable prior to the August 1991 coup attempt. That’s the narrative being pushed in this 2016 piece. A narrative that doesn’t exactly align with the apparent reality that the Soviet leadership decided to abandon the Baltics, seemingly allowing the January Events false flag to play out in Lithuania just 7 months earlier. And also precludes the fact that the hardliners attempted their coup in order to prevent what they saw as Gorbachev overseeing the dismantlement of the Soviet Union. But that’s the narrative Burns is going with:

...
“It was only after the coup against Gorbachev when we saw how weak [Gorbachev] was politically, when we saw that [Boris] Yeltsin was rising [in power as] the Russian republic president; that [future Ukrainian President Leonid] Kravchuk was rising; that [future Belarusian leader Stanislau] Shushkevich in Belarus was rising. [It was] when they became power centers unto themselves.”

Burns said that before the August coup, the big emphasis of White House policy from 1989 had been how to deal with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe — in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, and East Germany.

...

“We supported the democracy movements. We wanted them to succeed. We wanted to see an end of communism,” he said. “But because of the psychology of what happens when you are in a Cold War dynamic, it was really barely believable for a long time to think that the Warsaw Pact could die, cease to exist; that communism could end in a series of countries in Eastern Europe and then ultimately in the Soviet Union. It took time to believe that this was possible.”
...

Notably, we’re also told that a recognition of Boris Yeltsin’s rising authority paired with a diminished Gorbachev created a situation where the US was engaging in a kind of parallel diplomacy with both Yeltsin and Gorbachev simultaneously. It would be interesting to know more about when this dual-track diplomacy began:

...
“That was a danger to all of us around the world if the nuclear weapons were not held securely by responsible authorities,” he continued. “We worried about who might have custody over nuclear weapons. We worried about whether warlords would emerge. Would there be a long-running civil war?”

Burns said that is why the August coup brought about a new diplomatic approach from Washington of dealing with both “a rising Yeltsin and a sinking Gorbachev.”

“You could see Gorbachev was losing power and authority,” he said. “Yeltsin was gaining it. So when President Bush was dealing with the leadership in Moscow between mid-August 1991 and December 1991, when he called Gorbachev he would normally call Yeltsin the same day just to inform Yeltsin what was happening.”

“If he called Yeltsin, he would call Gorbachev to say, ‘I’ve had this conversation.’ ”
...

And those question bring us to this reference to the “behind the scenes” negotiations that took place between the Bush administration and Garbachev following the failure of the August coup attempt. That behind the scenes negotiations were happening at this point is hardly a revelation. Of course they were happening. But given the context of the seemingly orchestrated false flag “January Events” in Lithuania months earlier, we again have to ask when did these “behind the scenes” negotiations really start and what sorts of pledges were made?

...
Burns also said President Bush worked hard “behind the scenes” in the weeks after the failed coup to try to “pressure” Gorbachev to allow and recognize the independence of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

That recognition by the Soviet Union came on September 6, 1991.

“As I look back at 1990s and 1991, I think President George H.W. Bush achieved a balance between the Soviet leadership and the Russian leadership that was just about right,” Burns said.
...

We know how false flags happen. And cover ups. It’s not a mystery. But how did 1991 happen? That was a wild year. It remains incredible how it all came together. Soviet leadership really did seem to be willing to just go along with dismantling itself in a way that would have seemed unthinkable even a year earlier. The Soviet Union self-dissolved and even seemingly let the Lithuanian false flag happen. It would be fascinating to know more about how that actually happened. We’ll have to settle with knowing there’s plenty of evidence events like the Lithuanian and Maidan massacres were false flags and it doesn’t seem to really matter. Open secrets like this can fester for years and nothing will really change. It’s not a great lesson to learn, but better than not knowing.

Yes, the DOJ apparently ignored a witness who contacted the FBI in late October 2020, days before the 2020 election, describing a series of interactions he had with both the deceased girl and Trump in the 1990s. The witness, claiming to be limousine driver, told the FBI he first had an experience while working in the Dallas/Fort Worth area back in 1995. He happened to have Trump as a passenger and overheard a phone conservation where Trump continuously stated the name “Jeffrey” and made references to “abusing some girl.” He went on to tell the FBI he was “a few seconds from pulling the limousine over on the median and within a few seconds of pulling him out of the car and hurting him due to some of (the) things he was saying.”

Flash forward to 1999, days before Christmas, when the driver ended up speaking with a woman, days before Christmas, about how he met Trump. She allegedly told him Trump and Epstein had both raped. He encouraged her to go to the police, but she replied “I can’t. They will kill me.” He ended up hearing from her on Christmas Day that she had indeed called the police. But then, on Jan 10, 2000, the driver’s girlfriend informed him that the woman was dead. He also claimed officers on the scene stated there was no way it was suicide, but suicide was what the coroner concluded. The caller also told the FBI the woman died in Kiefer, Oklahoma.

Now, at this point we have no way of verifying the person’s claims to the FBI. Except, news reports do confirm that a 19 year old student was indeed found dead from an apparent suicide in the town of Kiefer, Oklahoma, on January 10, 2000. And while it’s possible this caller just concocted the whole thing, using a news report of an unrelated suicide to lend credence to the story, the fact of the matter is that the DOJ apparently never even interviewed this person. It’s the kind of story that suggests the worst of the Epstein crimes were likely systematically not investigated.

But there’s another angle to this story about the limousine driver that could be increasingly important when it comes to maintaining the cover up now that so much damning information has been released. Because it turns out the caller also told the FBI that he knew the identity of “John Doe #2” from the Oklahoma City bombing and that this person is connected to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Was that why the FBI never even bothered to interview the guy? Because, on the one hand, it’s the kind of claim the DOJ should, in theory, also be keenly interested in learning more about. But, obviously, it’s also the kind of claim that makes it easy to dismiss the caller as an unhinged kook. The caller effectively poison-pilled his own claims by brings up “John Doe #2”. Was that intentional?

And that story about the DOJ ignoring possibly poison-pilled allegations brings us to another story that should be entirely expected at this point: governments are now dismissing some of the new Epstein-related stories as simply ‘Russian and/or Chinese disinformation’. As we’ll see in a New York Times article below, the Dalai Lama is already insisting that he had never met or interacted with Epstein ever in response to a number of social media posts linking the Dalai Lama to Epstein that allegedly emanated from China. The NYTimes article treats the denials by the Dalai Lama as credible. And yet, as we’ve seen, there is ample evidence of the Dalai Lama’s ties to Epstein, including journalist Michael Wolfe recounting how he met the Dalai Lama at Epstein’s Manhattan residence.

The NYTimes report goes on to describe a series of stories about Epstein’s ties to various European government officials as similarly the result of a Russian disinformation campaign. As we’ve also seen, Epstein’s ties to European elites appear to be far more extensive than previously recognized based on the contents of the released files, including including Olivier Colom, a former diplomatic adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy. And yet, it does appear that someone decided to create a fake version of real French news website — http://france-soir.net instead of http://france-soir.fr — that was promoting fake stories tying Epstein to the Macron government. In other words, someone made it exceedingly easy to identify their disinformation campaign. A copycat website isn’t exactly subtle.

The French government agency tasked with monitoring foreign disinformation, Viginum has concluded that the disinformation campaign was likely the product of Storm-1516, which is presumed to be operated by Russian military intelligence. The fake website was linked “with a high degree of confidence to the CopyCop information operation.” And CopyCop is allegedly the product of John Mark Dougan, an American fugitive who has been living in Russia since 2017.

So we are told by the French government that Russian military intelligence is using an American asset, John Mark Dougan, to promote stories falsely linking Epstein to the Macron government. Conveniently, a fake website is involved so someone did engage in a hoax. A very easily identified hoax.

Intriguingly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Dougan’s name pop up in relation to Epstein. Dougan is someone who fled to Russia in 2016 after an FBI raid that he claims was politically motivated. What prompted that FBI raid? Well, Dougan happened to be a disgruntled former Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office officer who ran a website, pbsotalk.org, dedicated to revealing allegations of corruption in in Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. In 2016, pbsotalk.org posted a large number of confidential documents, resulting in an FBI raid on Dougan’s home. Dougan claimed he sold his website to associates in Russia back in 2013 and had nothing to do with posting the documents. As we’ve seen, Dougan ended up fleeing to Russia, where he resides to this day, while pbsotalk.org continued posting content. Those posts include allegations surrounding the efforts by Florida Sen Lauren Book to investigate the handling of Epstein’s lenient work release in 2008–2009 by the Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. In 2019, Pbsotalk.org posted information claiming Bradshaw’s office was using “imminent danger” excuses to gain access to Book’s emails and phone. Book confirmed that she had received numerous threatening phone calls warning her to stop her investigations. And the details surrounding Epstein’s lenient terms of release back in 2009 really are quite shocking. After preparing a 50-plus-page indictment on sex trafficking charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida shelved the charges and allowed Epstein to plead guilty to minor charges in state court. That’s how Epstein ended up in the Palm Beach County Jail — and then on work release approved by Sheriff Bradshaw. In July of 2019, Bradshaw announced the internal affairs investigation after reports emerged that Epstein — while on work release in Palm Beach — was allowed female visitors to his office, including at least one visit that led to a sexual encounter. It was Bradshaw who approved that work release, meaning his announced an investigation by his own department into his own actions. Bradshaw’s office is also the lead law enforcement detail assisting the Secret Service during President Donald Trump’s visits to Mar-a-Lago. John Mark Dougan isn’t exactly a credible figure. But there’s also no denying at this point that the fundamental claims he had been making for years regarding the alleged corruption of the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office does have a basis in reality.

And as we’re going to see in a Miami Herald report from July of 2024, the original investigation into Epstein by the Palm Beach prosecutors was itself so corrupt that two of the police officer involved actually went over the heads of the state prosecutors to bring in the US Attorney’s office. It was when the prosecutors told the police they didn’t plan to prosecute Epstein because they believed the girls were prostitutes that Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and the lead detective, Joe Recarey, took the case to the Attorney’s Office. That’s how the federal investigators got involved in the first place. Of course, in the end, federal investigators simply allowed Epstein to plead guilty to minor charges in state court and that was it. Epstein went on to serve 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, where he was allowed to work in his outside office and at his Palm Beach mansion. A work release policy that was so lenient that Epstein was allowed female visitors to his office which resulted in at least one sexual encounter. And that work release policy was, of course, approved by Sheriff Bradshaw.

The allegations are indeed getting pretty wild, and likely to get wilder should the remaining files ever get released. The attempts to spin it as simply disinformation are only going to get wilder, and more desperate, too. And that’s all why we should probably expect to see a lot more trumpeting about ‘Russian and Chinese disinformation’ when it comes to the ongoing public digestion of the Epstein files. And also why we should probably expect that glaring questions o remain unanswered for as long as possible. Like the question why the DOJ never even bothered interviewing someone who claimed to have information on a Trump/Epstein murder:

Raw Story

‘Later found dead’: Dem lawmaker flags explosive Trump allegation in Epstein files

Alexander Willis
February 13, 2026 7:08AM ET

Rep. Ted Lieu (D‑CA) flagged an extraordinarily explosive allegation against President Donald Trump Thursday night, one uncovered in the Justice Department’s release of files on Jeffrey Epstein, and demanded the the DOJ take immediate action in interviewing witnesses.

“Dear [Attorney General Pam Bondi]: Since you creepily spied on the unredacted Epstein files I read, you know I read this one,” Lieu wrote Thursday in a social media post on X, referencing reports that Bondi and her agency appeared to be tracking lawmakers’ searches in its Epstein files database.

“Witness calls FBI’s [National Threat Operations Center] and reports girl, later found dead, told him Trump and Epstein raped her. DOJ NEVER INTERVIEWS WITNESS. When will DOJ interview this witness?”

The file in question is an unverified tip submitted to the FBI in 2020 from a limousine driver who claimed to have driven Trump in the 1990s, and recalled Trump making “very concerning” comments about “abusing some girl,” while also “continuously” stating the name “Jeffrey.”

The tip also included unverified allegations that Trump and Epstein had raped a young girl who was later found with her head “blown off,” details of which were later partially corroborated by local news outlets.

...

———-

“ ‘Later found dead’: Dem lawmaker flags explosive Trump allegation in Epstein files” by Alexander Willis; Raw Story; 02/13/2026

““Dear [Attorney General Pam Bondi]: Since you creepily spied on the unredacted Epstein files I read, you know I read this one,” Lieu wrote Thursday in a social media post on X, referencing reports that Bondi and her agency appeared to be tracking lawmakers’ searches in its Epstein files database.”

Congress wants answers: what’s the explanation behind the 2020 claims made by this limousine driver? It’s an explosive allegation found in the released trove of Epstein documents, and hardly the only one. Is there evidence to back these allegations up? Well, as we’ll see in the following article from back in December, there was indeed a girl found dead in a small town in northeastern Oklahoma in an apparent suicide who does fit the description given by this limousine driver. Beyond that, we’re also learning that the driver made the call to the FBI with these allegations on October 27, 2020, just days before the 2020 election. According to the driver, not only had he advised the girl to go to the police when she first recounted back in 1999, days before Christmas, the abuse she experienced from Epstein and Trump, but he saw her again on Christmas Day and learned she had indeed called the police. On January 10, 2000, his girlfriend informed him that the girl was dead. He went on to claim that officers on the scene had stated there was no way it was suicide but the coroner stated it was suicide.

And while the allegations made by this anonymous limousine driver to the FBI are at least somewhat backed up by the available evidence, he went on to make another rather amazing claim: He knew the identity of “John Doe #2” from the Oklahoma City bombing, and this individual was connected to Bill and Hillary Clinton. It’s the kind of over-the-top poison-pilling claim that raises the question as to whether or not this FBI tipster intentionally attempting to co-mingle a real allegation about the abuse and murder of an Epstein victim with an allegation designed to be dismissed:

The Oklahoman

New Epstein documents include a claim of an Oklahoma ‘murder’

Portrait of Nolan Clay Nolan Clay

Dec. 23, 2025
Updated Dec. 24, 2025, 1:54 p.m. CT

The latest release of Jeffrey Epstein documents includes an FBI report about a caller’s claim of a suspicious death in Kiefer, Oklahoma, in January 2000.

The caller said a woman was found with her head “blown off” in the small town in northeast Oklahoma days after reporting to police she had been raped by Epstein and Donald Trump. The caller described the death as a murder.

The FBI report was in the nearly 30,000 new documents released by the U.S. Justice Department on Dec. 23.

...

The FBI got the call about the Oklahoma death at its National Threat Operations Center on Oct. 27, 2020, according to the three-page report. The presidential election that year was on Nov. 3.

The caller said he took Trump to the airport in 1995 while working as a limousine driver in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, according to the report. He said he overhead Trump on a cell phone continuously stating the name “Jeffrey” and making references to “abusing some girl.”

The caller told the FBI he was “a few seconds from pulling the limousine over on the median and within a few seconds of pulling him out of the car and hurting him due to some of (the) things he was saying.”

The caller told the FBI he spoke to a woman in 1999 in the days before Christmas about how he met Trump. He said she told him Trump had raped her along with Epstein, according to the report. He also said the woman told him “some girl with a funny name ‘took me into a fancy hotel or building, that’s how it happened.’ ”

The caller said he urged the woman to call the police, according to the report. He said she replied, “I can’t. They will kill me.” He said the woman told him on Christmas Day that she had called the police after all. He said he told her she had “done good.”

He said he learned on Jan. 10, 2000, from his girlfriend that the woman was dead, according to the report. He said officers on the scene had stated there was no way it was suicide but the coroner stated it was suicide.

He said his girlfriend later told him the woman committed suicide because she had gotten cocaine from a Mexican drug cartel.

The caller said he “feels the murder is a cover for” Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein associate, according to the report.

...

The Justice Department blacked out the names of the caller, his girlfriend and the woman who died.

A 19-year-old student from Kiefer died on Jan. 10, 2000, according to death notices in two newspapers, the Tulsa World and the Sapulpa Herald. The state’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Eric Pfeifer, told The Oklahoman on Dec. 24 that the death of Dusti Rhea Duke was ruled a suicide by a gunshot to the head.

Her body was found at an address in Sapulpa, which is near Kiefer, according to medical examiner records.

The caller also claimed to know the identify of John Doe No. 2 and said the person was connected to Bill and Hillary Clinton, according to the report. John Doe No. 2 was the name given to a possible suspect in the truck bomb attack on the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.

The FBI released sketches of two suspects based on the descriptions of a mechanic at a Kansas body shop where the truck was rented.

A sketch of John Doe No. 1 was identified quickly as Timothy McVeigh, who was executed in 2001 for the bombing. After a worldwide search, the FBI concluded John Doe No. 2 never existed and the mechanic mistakenly described an innocent Army private who had been helping a friend move.

————-

“New Epstein documents include a claim of an Oklahoma ‘murder’ ” by Nolan Clay; The Oklahoman; 12/23/2025

“The FBI got the call about the Oklahoma death at its National Threat Operations Center on Oct. 27, 2020, according to the three-page report. The presidential election that year was on Nov. 3.”

The timing sure is notable: A tip coming just days before the 2020 election. A tip that included both the limousine driver having witnessed a conversation Trump was having in 1995 with “Jeffrey” about “abusing some girl”, but also the interactions with an apparent victim of Trump’s and Epstein’s abuse four years later in 1999, days for Christmas. It’s also notable that it doesn’t appear to have been an anonymous tip. The Justice Department has the caller’s name blacked out in the released documents, but there’s no indication they weren’t willing to identify themselves to investigators:

...
The caller said he took Trump to the airport in 1995 while working as a limousine driver in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, according to the report. He said he overhead Trump on a cell phone continuously stating the name “Jeffrey” and making references to “abusing some girl.”

The caller told the FBI he was “a few seconds from pulling the limousine over on the median and within a few seconds of pulling him out of the car and hurting him due to some of (the) things he was saying.”

The caller told the FBI he spoke to a woman in 1999 in the days before Christmas about how he met Trump. He said she told him Trump had raped her along with Epstein, according to the report. He also said the woman told him “some girl with a funny name ‘took me into a fancy hotel or building, that’s how it happened.’ ”

The caller said he urged the woman to call the police, according to the report. He said she replied, “I can’t. They will kill me.” He said the woman told him on Christmas Day that she had called the police after all. He said he told her she had “done good.”

He said he learned on Jan. 10, 2000, from his girlfriend that the woman was dead, according to the report. He said officers on the scene had stated there was no way it was suicide but the coroner stated it was suicide.

He said his girlfriend later told him the woman committed suicide because she had gotten cocaine from a Mexican drug cartel.

The caller said he “feels the murder is a cover for” Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein associate, according to the report.

...

The Justice Department blacked out the names of the caller, his girlfriend and the woman who died.
...

And yet, it does appear that evidence does independently exist that is aligned with the claims made by this alleged limousine driver, at least when it comes to the young woman who was found dead on January 10, 2000. Is there further evidence of Dusti Rhea Duke interacting with Epstein and/or Trump? And is it her name that was blacked out in those released documents?

...
A 19-year-old student from Kiefer died on Jan. 10, 2000, according to death notices in two newspapers, the Tulsa World and the Sapulpa Herald. The state’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Eric Pfeifer, told The Oklahoman on Dec. 24 that the death of Dusti Rhea Duke was ruled a suicide by a gunshot to the head.

Her body was found at an address in Sapulpa, which is near Kiefer, according to medical examiner records.
...

But then we get to the other side of these claims by the limousine driver. Claims that seem like the kind of additional detail that would could imagine might be added to an allegation if one specifically wants it to NOT be taken seriously: the claim that the limousine driver also happened to know the identity of John Doe No. 2 and that this person is connected to Bill and Hillary Clinton:

...
The caller also claimed to know the identify of John Doe No. 2 and said the person was connected to Bill and Hillary Clinton, according to the report. John Doe No. 2 was the name given to a possible suspect in the truck bomb attack on the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.

The FBI released sketches of two suspects based on the descriptions of a mechanic at a Kansas body shop where the truck was rented.

A sketch of John Doe No. 1 was identified quickly as Timothy McVeigh, who was executed in 2001 for the bombing. After a worldwide search, the FBI concluded John Doe No. 2 never existed and the mechanic mistakenly described an innocent Army private who had been helping a friend move.
...

And that story about a tip to the FBI that, on the one hand, does seem potentially credible when it comes to the allegations against Trump and Epstein, but simultaneously poison-pilled with claims about the Clintons and “John Doe No. 2” brings us to the following story in the New York Times about the growing claims of foreign governments turning the release of the Epstein files into a global anti-West propaganda opportunity. With Russia taking the bulk of the blame but China too. And as we can see with the ready acceptance of this ‘foreign disinformation’ narrative around people like the Dalai Lama — who was reportedly quite chummy with Epstein according to Michael Wolfe, who met the Dalai Lama at Epstein’s Manhattan residence at least once — the ‘foreign disinformation’ explanation remains a potent defense against these allegations. Even when there’s ample evidence to the contrary:

The New York Times

Conspiracy Theories Only Flourish With More Epstein Evidence

The dump of millions of documents has fueled a new wave of speculation, A.I.-generated hoaxes and foreign disinformation.

By Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers
Feb. 13, 2026, 5:02 a.m. ET

The release of an enormous cache of files about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein might have been expected to quell conspiracy theories about his crimes and the government’s knowledge of them. Instead, it is spawning a generation of new ones.

Conspiracy theorists, foreign influence operatives and trolls armed with artificial intelligence are seizing on the millions of haphazardly redacted materials, released last month, to cobble together new, speculative stories.

One debunked claim, concocted using emails and receipts, suggested that Mr. Epstein was alive and playing video games in Israel. (He died by what the authorities said was suicide in 2019.)

A series of social media posts that emanated from China tried to connect the Dalai Lama with Mr. Epstein, based on emails in which Mr. Epstein discussed attempts to set up dinner with the exiled Buddhist leader. In a statement, the Dalai Lama’s office said it was “unequivocally” untrue that the two had ever met or agreed to interact.

Others are duping people with hoaxes on social media, where reality is easily masked or mimicked. While the files contain photos and videos of Mr. Epstein with children, fake ones that were altered or generated using A.I. are also spreading. So are spoof emails, made to look like those in the cache.

...

In the United States, new conspiracy theories are coming from across the political divide — continuing a cross-aisle fascination that intensified after President Trump’s attempts last year to deflect interest in the scandal.

On the right, high-profile accounts including former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and Tucker Carlson’s shared a wide variety of unproven conspiracy theories, including speculation about code words for pedophilia and cannibalism, Mr. Epstein’s death and Mr. Trump’s purported role in “taking down” Mr. Epstein.

Left-leaning accounts circulated different theories, often accusing the Trump administration of having a hand in Mr. Epstein’s death or of covering up his misdeeds to protect the president. The left-leaning users who amplified conspiracy theories were generally less prominent than the right-leaning accounts that did the same. Ms. Greene and Mr. Carlson did not respond to requests for comment.

The cache itself is unreliable; the Justice Department noted that it “may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos.”

Several conspiracy theories sprang from unconfirmed tips with dubious origins that were published in the government’s searchable database. Some of the documents include scanning errors and formatting quirks, such as an email that seemed to refer to a “sexy and cute, =9yo,” an abbreviation of “year old.” Three other copies of the email in the tranche identify the subject as “19yo.”

In an environment with bountiful data, conspiracy theories can thrive when believers are primed to see what they want to see, said Quassim Cassam, a philosophy professor at the University of Warwick in Britain and an author of a book about conspiracy theories.

“If you have already decided who the bad guys are or what is really happening, then informational overload makes your life easier because you have so much raw material to work with,” he said in an email.

...

The document dump also included hundreds of references to pizza, leading several popular conservative commentators to revive Pizzagate, a debunked conspiracy theory from 2016 about a child sex-trafficking ring operating out of the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C.

Foreign governments have also seized on the documents in an influence operation.

Days after the latest document drop, a network of bot accounts linked to a Russian disinformation campaign known as Storm-1516 began posting videos on X and TikTok. They impersonated real news organizations and tried to connect Mr. Epstein to France and its president, Emmanuel Macron, according to the French government and researchers who operate as an alliance known as Antibot4Navalny, after the former Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

Among the false posts: a fake report made to look like an article from Reuters claiming that a French territory in the South Pacific had become the new “Epstein Island” and a fake article made to look like one from France 24 claiming the recently deceased actress Catherine O’Hara had maligned Mr. Macron.

Another fake video, made to look as if it had come from Al Jazeera, said Mr. Epstein was the mastermind behind a Ukrainian child sex-trafficking operation. There is no evidence to suggest, as these posts do, that Mr. Epstein conspired with Ukraine’s government to run any trafficking operation.

The account that posted that one, which claimed to be based in Sugar Grove, Ill., had no followers but garnered more than 370,000 views on X in what researchers said was a sign of inauthentic bot activity. The posts have since been removed from TikTok but remain visible on X.

“Russian actors know very well what topics are making the news in our country, and their strategy is to instrumentalise and amplify this,” wrote Léa Surugue, a spokeswoman for Viginum, the French government agency that monitors foreign influence operations, in an email.

A new campaign linked to the same Russian network appeared on Tuesday, targeting Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany.

A.I. has turbocharged the false narratives about Mr. Epstein. In Britain, an apparently artificially generated image of him with Nigel Farage, a far-right politician, made the rounds and was posted and then deleted by a rival British political group.

Fabricated images also showed Mr. Epstein with Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, as a child with his mother, the filmmaker Mira Nair. Despite being debunked by researchers and the mayor, the content spread widely.

...

————-

“Conspiracy Theories Only Flourish With More Epstein Evidence” By Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers; The New York Times; 02/13/2026

“Several conspiracy theories sprang from unconfirmed tips with dubious origins that were published in the government’s searchable database. Some of the documents include scanning errors and formatting quirks, such as an email that seemed to refer to a “sexy and cute, =9yo,” an abbreviation of “year old.” Three other copies of the email in the tranche identify the subject as “19yo.””

Conspiracy theories of dubious origin. That’s how many of the allegations found in the released Epstein files are being framed in this article by the New York Times. And while some of the allegations are, no doubt, highly dubious, it’s rather notable how even established facts are being frame as some sort of disinformation. Like the fact that the files were filled with references to pizza parties. As we’ve seen, while the ‘Pizzagate’ narrative that was aggressively pushed by far right sources for years may itself have a dubious origin, the fact that the Epstein files were filled with pizza party references and Epstein himself personally met with Christopher Poole, the founder of 4Chan, right around the same time the /pol/ forum was launched suggests the possibility that ‘Pizzagate’ was, in fact, a kind of intentional deflection of something very real:

...
In an environment with bountiful data, conspiracy theories can thrive when believers are primed to see what they want to see, said Quassim Cassam, a philosophy professor at the University of Warwick in Britain and an author of a book about conspiracy theories.

“If you have already decided who the bad guys are or what is really happening, then informational overload makes your life easier because you have so much raw material to work with,” he said in an email.

...

The document dump also included hundreds of references to pizza, leading several popular conservative commentators to revive Pizzagate, a debunked conspiracy theory from 2016 about a child sex-trafficking ring operating out of the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C.
...

And then there’s the deflections regarding the allegations of the Dalai Lama’s relationship with Epstein. According to this report, that’s all Chinese disinformation and the Dalai Lama had never actually met Epstein. In fact, as we’ve seen, journalist Michael Wolfe claims to have met the Dalai Lama at Epstein’s Manhattan estate and Epstein even donated to the Prajnopaya Institute at MIT, which is led by a Dalai Lama disciple, Tenzin Priyadarshi. And yet here we find the casual dismissal of those reported ties between Epstein and the Dalai Lama as merely Chinese propaganda:

...
A series of social media posts that emanated from China tried to connect the Dalai Lama with Mr. Epstein, based on emails in which Mr. Epstein discussed attempts to set up dinner with the exiled Buddhist leader. In a statement, the Dalai Lama’s office said it was “unequivocally” untrue that the two had ever met or agreed to interact.
...

Nor should it come as a suprise to find that ‘Russian disinformation’ is now being blamed for the various reports on Epstein’s ties to European governments. As we saw, a shocking number of European government officials and elites have emerged in the released files, including Olivier Colom, a former diplomatic adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy. And yet it appears that someone has been generating fake websites designed to look like real news outlets where unsubstantiated allegations of ties to Epstein have been pushed. Conveniently, these fake websites have been attributd to “a Russian disinformation campaign known as Storm-1516.” So thanks to this alleged Russian disinformation campaign, it’s easier than ever for European officials to deny reported ties to Epstein. It was all just a Russian hoax, you see:

...
Foreign governments have also seized on the documents in an influence operation.

Days after the latest document drop, a network of bot accounts linked to a Russian disinformation campaign known as Storm-1516 began posting videos on X and TikTok. They impersonated real news organizations and tried to connect Mr. Epstein to France and its president, Emmanuel Macron, according to the French government and researchers who operate as an alliance known as Antibot4Navalny, after the former Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

Among the false posts: a fake report made to look like an article from Reuters claiming that a French territory in the South Pacific had become the new “Epstein Island” and a fake article made to look like one from France 24 claiming the recently deceased actress Catherine O’Hara had maligned Mr. Macron.

Another fake video, made to look as if it had come from Al Jazeera, said Mr. Epstein was the mastermind behind a Ukrainian child sex-trafficking operation. There is no evidence to suggest, as these posts do, that Mr. Epstein conspired with Ukraine’s government to run any trafficking operation.

The account that posted that one, which claimed to be based in Sugar Grove, Ill., had no followers but garnered more than 370,000 views on X in what researchers said was a sign of inauthentic bot activity. The posts have since been removed from TikTok but remain visible on X.

“Russian actors know very well what topics are making the news in our country, and their strategy is to instrumentalise and amplify this,” wrote Léa Surugue, a spokeswoman for Viginum, the French government agency that monitors foreign influence operations, in an email.

A new campaign linked to the same Russian network appeared on Tuesday, targeting Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany.

A.I. has turbocharged the false narratives about Mr. Epstein. In Britain, an apparently artificially generated image of him with Nigel Farage, a far-right politician, made the rounds and was posted and then deleted by a rival British political group.
...

And as we can see from the following report on the ‘Russia-link Epstein smears’ against the Macron government, France’s Viginum agency, which tracks foreign disinformation campaigns, claims to have attribute the fake news article about Epstein’s ties to French elites to John Mark Dougan, an American fugitive living in Russia who allegedly “maintains part of the digital infrastructure of the Storm-1516 information operation”:

France24

France detects Russia-linked Epstein smear attempt against Macron

Paris (France) (AFP) – France has detected a Russia-linked disinformation effort alleging President Emmanuel Macron’s involvement with convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a government authority said Friday.

Issued on: 06/02/2026 — 17:21
Modified: 06/02/2026 — 19:28

Politicians, celebrities and royals have been caught up in the turmoil after the US Justice Department last week published a new cache of nearly three million documents related to the investigation of Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

France’s Viginum agency, which tracks foreign disinformation campaigns, said it had on Wednesday detected a social media operation involving a fabricated video report alleging that “journalists had uncovered a compromising exchange implicating Emmanuel Macron”.

The posts cite an alleged email exchange between Epstein and late French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who was found dead in his cell in a Paris prison in 2022 after being charged with raping minors.

According to the posts, Brunel allegedly told Epstein in May 2017 that he would take “a few boys” to a party that Macron was organising, allegations Viginum described as false.

The Department of Justice’s files about Epstein do not contain the alleged email.

The story, allegedly by Le Parisien journalist Victor Cousin, was first posted on a website fraudulently using the identity of a French media organisation, France-Soir, Viginum said.

Writing for Le Parisien, Cousin, 26, said he had gone to a police station to file a complaint.

“I had to explain how pro-Russian individuals had stolen my identity to attack the French president,” he wrote.

...

‘Brand theft’

On Wednesday, France-Soir also sought to distance itself from the fabricated report.

“Warning: brand and content theft,” it said. “The website http://france-soir.net has no connection with France-Soir.”

According to the government agency, the disinformation effort was likely conducted by an information operation called Storm-1516 that is linked to Russian military intelligence.

The fake France-Soir website was linked “with a high degree of confidence to the CopyCop information operation”, it said.

CopyCop is in turn linked to John Mark Dougan, an American fugitive living in Russia. The latter “maintains part of the digital infrastructure of the Storm-1516 information operation”, Viginum said.

On X, the first account to share the fake video report was “@LoetitiaH, a frequent relay for Storm-1516 information operations”, the agency added.

...

The posts targeting Macron began appearing online on Wednesday, shared simultaneously by several social media accounts identified as regular sources of pro-Russian disinformation. The accounts have a following of several thousand internet users.

Like previous disinformation operations on social media, they rely on a video with audio dubbed by artificial intelligence, screenshots of altered documents, and links to a website impersonating another media outlet to lend credibility to their narrative.

The posts share a link to the clone of the France-Soir media site, launched on Sunday, whose domain name is registered as .net, instead of the .fr of the authentic site.

The French government has repeatedly warned the public over Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe, which have grown in intensity since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Missing link

According to Antibot4Navalny, a collective that monitors pro-Kremlin bot networks, Storm-1516 and a disinformation campaign known as Matryoshka launched simultaneous operations targeting Macron in early February.

However, the group said there was no proven “direct link beyond the timing and topics” between the two operations.

“No strong connections between sites or distribution accounts can give us grounds to make that claim,” Antibot4Navalny told AFP.

According to Viginum, Storm-1516 was behind at least 77 disinformation operations targeting Western countries between late 2023 and March 2025.

After the publication of the Epstein files, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also targeted by false posts.

...

———–

“France detects Russia-linked Epstein smear attempt against Macron”; France24; 02/06/2026

“France’s Viginum agency, which tracks foreign disinformation campaigns, said it had on Wednesday detected a social media operation involving a fabricated video report alleging that “journalists had uncovered a compromising exchange implicating Emmanuel Macron”.”

Viginum, France’s disinformation monitoring agency, is sounding the alarm. Russian disinformation is attacking the Macron administration with false Epstein stories. The fake stories were “likely” created by a group called Storm-1516, which “likely” linked to Russian military intelligence but also the “CopyCop information operation” that is linked to John Mark Dougan, and American fugitive living in Russia who “maintains part of the digital infrastructure of the Storm-1516 information operation.” It’s unclear how exactly Viginum arrived at all of these conclusions about who was behind the fake http://france-soir.net website, but what we can conclude with a very high degree of confidence is that whoever was behind this fake website clearly didn’t expect to not get caught. Their disinformation is being pushed from a fake website with a fake URL! The fake story might be taken seriously for a day or so but it’s not exactly difficult to debunk content from fake copycat website. Which makes this the kind of disinformation campaign that the Macron government is probably pretty happy to discover:

...
On Wednesday, France-Soir also sought to distance itself from the fabricated report.

“Warning: brand and content theft,” it said. “The website http://france-soir.net has no connection with France-Soir.”

According to the government agency, the disinformation effort was likely conducted by an information operation called Storm-1516 that is linked to Russian military intelligence.

The fake France-Soir website was linked “with a high degree of confidence to the CopyCop information operation”, it said.

CopyCop is in turn linked to John Mark Dougan, an American fugitive living in Russia. The latter “maintains part of the digital infrastructure of the Storm-1516 information operation”, Viginum said.

...

Like previous disinformation operations on social media, they rely on a video with audio dubbed by artificial intelligence, screenshots of altered documents, and links to a website impersonating another media outlet to lend credibility to their narrative.

The posts share a link to the clone of the France-Soir media site, launched on Sunday, whose domain name is registered as .net, instead of the .fr of the authentic site.

The French government has repeatedly warned the public over Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe, which have grown in intensity since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
...

And while it remains unclear if John Mark Dougan really was somehow involved with the fake site,he isn’t just some random fugitive. This is someone who has been involved with the publishing of allegations regarding the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office’s handling of the Epstein investigation for years. In other words, while there does appear to be ample evidence that John Mark Dougan really is involved with the operations of fake news sites and disinformation campaigns, we shouldn’t necessarily assume everything he’s been involved with exposing over the years is all fraudulent. On the contrary, Dougan appears to be someone perfectly situated to effectively taint very real stories, with an assist from media outlets eager to dismiss real stories as merely “Russian disinformation”. Stories like the following July 2024 story about how Palm Beach prosecutors involved with the original Epstein investigation effectively protected Epstein by treating his victims as prostitutes who knew who they were doing and not under-aged victims of sex-trafficking :

Miami Herald

Palm Beach prosecutor painted Epstein victims as prostitutes, grand jury records show

By Julie K. Brown

July 1, 2024 at 2:22 PM.
Updated July 1, 2024 8:07 PM

A Palm Beach County prosecutor painted two girls molested by Jeffrey Epstein as prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves and liars in front of a grand jury empaneled in 2006 to review the state’s criminal case against sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, newly released court documents show.

Palm Beach County Judge Luis Delgado unsealed the controversial grand jury records on Monday after years of legal action by the Palm Beach Post and other media, including the Miami Herald, CNN and the New York Times. Grand jury records are normally kept under seal to protect witnesses as well as the integrity of the case. But in the years since the Epstein case was closed in 2008, the Miami Herald uncovered evidence suggesting that Epstein and his battery of high-priced attorneys may have exerted undue influence over the state attorney.

The records have remained under seal for 16 years. Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, prodded by state lawmakers and Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Joe Abruzzo, signed a bill to release the files by July 1. The new bill provides for the records to be unsealed if the subject of a grand jury inquiry is dead or the investigation involves sexual activity with a minor.

...

The records contain nearly 200 pages, including the testimony of two girls who were molested by Epstein, the New York financier who abused hundreds of underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion between 1996 and 2008. Epstein managed to escape serious charges, in part because the Palm Beach prosecutor at the time, Barry Krischer, elected to charge him with minor prostitution and solicitation rather than bringing a felony sexual assault case.

The Herald reported in 2018 that both Krischer and the lead prosecutor in the case, Lanna Belohlavek, told Palm Beach police that they didn’t intend to prosecute Epstein because they believed the girls were prostitutes and a jury would never believe them. But Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and the lead detective, Joe Recarey, both protested the decision, noting that there were multiple victims, some as young as 14, who were lured to his home under false pretenses. Reiter and Recarey went over Krischer’s head and took the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, arguing that Epstein, who was in his 50s, was a serial sex predator who wouldn’t stop until he was put in prison.

“There was no reason to take this case to a grand jury in the first place,” said Spencer Kuvin, the attorney representing one of the girls who testified before the grand jury. “They had evidence of numerous victims to show that he was a serial sex predator. The only reason they gave it to the grand jury was to taint their own case and have an excuse not to prosecute.”

The grand jury and the girls

The actual audio recordings of the daylong proceeding were not released to the public Monday. The Herald requested the recordings, but was told that they were not available. The transcripts also seem to be missing key elements that would normally be part of a grand jury proceeding. For example, there is no record that Belohlavek introduced herself to the panel, explained what the case was about or told the jury what they were supposed to do. There’s no closing statement summarizing the case or any documentation of what the grand jury ultimately decided.

What is clear is that Belohlavek painted an unsympathetic portrait of the two girls, both of whom came from broken families. One of the girls and her sister had been passed back and forth between parents and were taken to a school for troubled juveniles. The girl ran away several times before meeting a group of older kids, one of whom brought her to Epstein’s mansion.

She described for the jury how she was ushered into a large bedroom and instructed to strip down to her underwear. Alone in the room with Epstein, and confused about what was happening, she reluctantly complied. After he molested her, he gave her $200.

In front of the jury, Belohlavek asked the girl: “You’re aware that you committed a crime?”

“Now I am. I didn’t know it was a crime when I was doing it,” said the girl, who was 14 at the time. “Like, I — I don’t know. I guess it was prostitution or something like that.”

Belohlavek also asked the girls questions about their parents, and allowed members of the jury to make statements to the victims.

“Did you have any idea that deep inside of you that you — what you’re doing is wrong?” asked one juror.

“Yea, I did,” the girl replied.

“Oh do you?” the juror said, pointing out that the girl should have known better.

Asked another juror “Did it ever occur to you that he could have hacked you up?”

“Yes,” she stammered. “I thought about it a lot.”

Said the juror: “[You] should give it a little further thought.”

David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, was astonished at the way the case was presented to the jury. He pointed out that the girls were under the age of consent, yet they were the ones treated like criminals.

...

Recarey, the lead investigator on the case, testified in detail at the proceeding about how Epstein and his assistants would recruit girls from local high schools, telling them initially that they were being hired to give him massages. While they were instructed to lie about their ages, many of them told Epstein their real ages and spoke to them about high school.

Recarey, who passed away in 2018, told the Herald in an interview prior to his death that he was frustrated by the state attorney’s handling of the case, claiming that Krischer and Belohlavek went to great lengths to discredit the girls — and failed to present to the jury the corroborating evidence that backed up the girls’ stories, including phone records.

...

The years that followed

Epstein’s case came under fresh scrutiny in 2018, following an investigation by the Herald into the secret negotiations that led Alex Acosta, the federal prosecutor who later oversaw a federal probe into the case, to approve a light jail sentence for Epstein.

Epstein would serve just 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, where he was given liberal privileges to work in his outside office and at his Palm Beach mansion. After his release from jail, he continued to assault and abuse women at his homes in New York, New Mexico, Paris and on his isolated island off the coast of St. Thomas.

Epstein befriended a host of famous and powerful people, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, Nobel-Prize winners, actresses, actors, hedge fund moguls and bankers. Some of his victims allege that he and some of his friends had sex parties with girls on his private island.

...

Kuvin, who came to represent nine Epstein victims, wasn’t surprised by how the jurors shamed his 14-year-old client.

“Think about this in the time frame this was happening,” he said. “That was the mindset back then. This is pre ‘Me Too’ movement. We have a come a long way as a society because of cases like this. We have matured as a society and hopefully look at this differently than we did back then.”

————-

“Palm Beach prosecutor painted Epstein victims as prostitutes, grand jury records show” By Julie K. Brown; Miami Herald; 07/01/2024

“The records contain nearly 200 pages, including the testimony of two girls who were molested by Epstein, the New York financier who abused hundreds of underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion between 1996 and 2008. Epstein managed to escape serious charges, in part because the Palm Beach prosecutor at the time, Barry Krischer, elected to charge him with minor prostitution and solicitation rather than bringing a felony sexual assault case.”

Long-sealed documents were finally unsealed, five years after Epstein’s death, following years of legal action by media outlets. And as we can see, Epstein managed to escape serious charges due, in part, to the fact that Palm Beach prosecutor, Barry Krischer, chose to charge him with minor prostitution and solicitation instead of felony sexual assault. He was treated as a sex customer, not the head of a sex trafficking operation:

...
Palm Beach County Judge Luis Delgado unsealed the controversial grand jury records on Monday after years of legal action by the Palm Beach Post and other media, including the Miami Herald, CNN and the New York Times. Grand jury records are normally kept under seal to protect witnesses as well as the integrity of the case. But in the years since the Epstein case was closed in 2008, the Miami Herald uncovered evidence suggesting that Epstein and his battery of high-priced attorneys may have exerted undue influence over the state attorney.

...

Epstein’s case came under fresh scrutiny in 2018, following an investigation by the Herald into the secret negotiations that led Alex Acosta, the federal prosecutor who later oversaw a federal probe into the case, to approve a light jail sentence for Epstein.
...

Notably, while Barry Krischer and the lead prosecutor in the case, Lanna Belohlavek, choosing to treat Epstein’s victims as prostitutes, others involved in the investigation were outraged by this. Specifically, Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and the lead detective, Joe Recarey, who both went over Rikischer’s head to take the case to the US Attorney’s Office. That’s how the federal government got involved in the first place. Of course, as we saw, after preparing a 50-plus-page indictment on sex trafficking charges, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida shelved the charges, instead allowing Epstein to plead guilty to minor state charges. That’s how he ended up with a lenient 13-month jail sentence that included the privilege to work in his outside office and at his Palm Beach mansion!

...
The Herald reported in 2018 that both Krischer and the lead prosecutor in the case, Lanna Belohlavek, told Palm Beach police that they didn’t intend to prosecute Epstein because they believed the girls were prostitutes and a jury would never believe them. But Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and the lead detective, Joe Recarey, both protested the decision, noting that there were multiple victims, some as young as 14, who were lured to his home under false pretenses. Reiter and Recarey went over Krischer’s head and took the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, arguing that Epstein, who was in his 50s, was a serial sex predator who wouldn’t stop until he was put in prison.

“There was no reason to take this case to a grand jury in the first place,” said Spencer Kuvin, the attorney representing one of the girls who testified before the grand jury. “They had evidence of numerous victims to show that he was a serial sex predator. The only reason they gave it to the grand jury was to taint their own case and have an excuse not to prosecute.”

...

David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, was astonished at the way the case was presented to the jury. He pointed out that the girls were under the age of consent, yet they were the ones treated like criminals.

...

Recarey, the lead investigator on the case, testified in detail at the proceeding about how Epstein and his assistants would recruit girls from local high schools, telling them initially that they were being hired to give him massages. While they were instructed to lie about their ages, many of them told Epstein their real ages and spoke to them about high school.

Recarey, who passed away in 2018, told the Herald in an interview prior to his death that he was frustrated by the state attorney’s handling of the case, claiming that Krischer and Belohlavek went to great lengths to discredit the girls — and failed to present to the jury the corroborating evidence that backed up the girls’ stories, including phone records.

...

Epstein would serve just 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, where he was given liberal privileges to work in his outside office and at his Palm Beach mansion. After his release from jail, he continued to assault and abuse women at his homes in New York, New Mexico, Paris and on his isolated island off the coast of St. Thomas.
...

It wasn’t just a federal sweetheart deal. It was federal and state sweetheart deal. A sweetheart deal we still have yet to be adequately explained to the public. Time will tell if we ever get an answer. But if so, try not to be shocked when you are told to ignore it because some random Russian or Chinese website is talking about it too. We’re in that phase of the cover up.

This time the horror unfolded in the small British Colombia community of Tumbler Ridge, where the shooter, 18 year old Jesse van Rootselaar, first killed their mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at home before traveling to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, killing six before turning the gun on themselves. Five students ages 12–13 were among the dead. Dozens more were injured. Authorities have confirmed that Van Rootselaar had attending the school before leaving the institution four years ago.

It also turns out that Rootselaar began self-identifying as female roughly six years ago. As we should expect, that’s the angle that much of the coverage has fixated on, as was the case with the 2023 school shooting in Nashville by Aiden Hale and the 2025 school shooting in Minneapolis by Robin Westman, both transgender former students. Given that Van Rootselaar began self-identifying as female six years ago but left the school four years ago, the question is raised as to whether or not there was some sort of very negative history at the school that contributed to the shootiong, but there’s no indication Van Rootselaar had any issues with bullying during their time there.

But we have heard of local authorities about a rather trouble set of details which are leading to all sorts of questions about Canada’s gun laws: it turns out authorities had visited the Van Rootselaar household multiple times in the past over concerns about their mental health, and was detained under British Columbia’s Mental Health Act for psychiatric evaluation one more than one occasion. The last visit was sometime in 2025. In addition, firearms were taken from the household two years ago but later return after the owner petitioned for their return. We are told Van Rootselaar never had a firearm license under their name at the time of the attack, but did possess a firearms license for minors, which expired in 2024. So it sounds like it might be technically possible that the owner of the returned firearms was indeed Van Rootselaar at the time the owner petitioned for their return, but we don’t have enough information.

What information we do have, however, provides ample information when it comes to a possible motive. Because as the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism has already discovered, Van Rootselaar’s digital footprint follows the same alarming patter that we see over and over: an apparent fascination with white supremacy, mass shooters, and gore videos. In other words, Van Rootselaar was another member of the 764/Com network of accelerationist nihilists. And while we don’t yet have confirmation that Van Rootselaar was directly a member of 764 or the Com, they do appear to have been a frequent visitor of WatchPeopleDie, a forum dedicated to gore videos and the celebration of mass shooters that has shown up repeatedly in the backgrounds of other mass shooters including Solomon Henderson and Natalie Rupnow. Recall how Henderson — an African American high school student who pledged fealty to the white supremacists Maniac Murder Cult before attacking his school in Nashville — and Rupnow both interacted with each other on the WatchPeopleDie forum, which raises the question of whether or not Rootselaar interacted with either of them too.

Another recent WatchPeopleDie school shooter was Desmond Holly, the Evergreen High School shooter who opened fire on his Denver area high school on September 10, the same day of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. As we’ve seen, one of the ongoing mysteries of that shooting is the remarkable coincidence that the shooting of Charlie Kirk and Holly’s attack on his high school happened within 1 minute of each other, with Kirk being killed at 12:23 pm and Holly opening fire at 12:24 pm.

Interestingly, the ADL has already retracted one of its other early findings on Van Rootselaar’s digital footprint: initially, the ADL reported that it found an X.com account attributed to Van Rootselaar that frequently posted antisemitic material and even had a picture of Christchurch shooter Brentan Tarrant superimposed over the image of a Sonnenrad on its profile, along with a trans pride flag. But it’s not like WatchPeopleDie isn’t filled with white supremacist content. Van Rootselaar was obviously very fine with Nazi content. Still, the fact that the X.com account initially identified by the ADL was apparently not Van Rootselaar’s is the kind of mistake that will undoubtedly be used to suggest investigators still have no idea what the motive could have been, further feeding trans-panic narratives:

Firstpost

Who was Jesse van Rootselaar, 18-year-old transgender behind Canada’s school shooting?

FP Explainers
February 12, 2026, 10:35:09 IST

Canada is confronting one of the gravest acts of school violence in its recent history after an 18-year-old carried out a coordinated attack in the small British Columbia community of Tumbler Ridge, killing eight people before dying by suicide.

The suspect, identified by authorities as Jesse van Rootselaar, had a documented history of mental health interventions and prior contact with law enforcement.

...

Who was Jesse van Rootselaar?

Police publicly named the attacker as Jesse van Rootselaar, 18. She had previously attended Tumbler Ridge Secondary School but left the institution four years ago. Law enforcement officials stated that she was born biologically male and began identifying as female six years prior to the attack.

Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, killed his mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at home before heading to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and murdering six more.

Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, who oversees the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in British Columbia, outlined the suspect’s prior interactions with authorities.

According to McDonald, police had responded repeatedly to the residence over concerns related to her mental well-being.

“Police had attended that (family) residence on multiple occasions over the past several years, dealing with concerns of mental health with respect to our suspect,” McDonald said.

He confirmed that on more than one occasion Van Rootselaar had been detained under British Columbia’s Mental Health Act for psychiatric evaluation.

Authorities last visited the home sometime in 2025. McDonald stated that police were unaware whether she was actively undergoing treatment at the time of the shooting.

In addition to mental health interventions, firearms had previously been seized from the residence approximately two years ago. However, those weapons were later returned.

Speaking about that process, McDonald said that at a later point in time, “the lawful owner of those firearms petitioned for those firearms to be returned and they were.”

Police clarified that Van Rootselaar did not have any firearms registered under her name. She had previously held a firearms licence, but it lapsed in 2024.

Investigators have not indicated that she was facing criminal charges before the shooting, nor have they provided evidence suggesting that she was targeted for bullying during her time at the school.

McDonald did not specify why she left Tumbler Ridge Secondary School four years ago.

Authorities have also stated that, at this stage, no clear motive has been established.

“We don’t have an idea yet as to motive,” McDonald said. “It is something that we are certainly passionately pursuing but it would be too early to speculate on motive at this time.”

In a separate briefing, he reiterated, “We do believe the suspect acted alone … it would be too early to speculate on motive.”

...

Shooter’s online activity and extremism investigation

The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism said its preliminary findings suggest that Van Rootselaar “followed a troubling pattern of online radicalisation” and maintained a significant digital footprint.

According to the organisation, her online engagement was “marked by engagement with white supremacist ideology and a self-described addiction to gore content.”

The ADL reported that she had used a website known for hosting graphic videos depicting extreme violence, including content involving beheadings, torture, rape and executions. The group has previously issued warnings about the platform.

At this stage, law enforcement authorities have not formally linked this online activity to a definitive motive for the shooting.

Shooter’s gender identity on the forefront

Van Rootselaar began transitioning six years ago. British Columbia, where the shooting occurred, has specific regulations governing gender changes for minors. Individuals under 18 require parental consent to change their gender, while children under 11 must provide documentation from a medical professional.

In neighbouring Alberta, recent legislation prohibits transgender youth from participating in women’s sports and requires parental notification if students change pronouns at school.

At the federal level, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government passed Bill C‑16, which added “gender identity or expression” to both the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, thereby extending protections to transgender and gender-fluid individuals.

Mark Carney, Trudeau’s successor, has not introduced a similar volume of transgender-focused legislation but has expressed support for the community. His non-binary child, Sasha Carney, has been publicly acknowledged.

...

How did the Canada school shooting occur?

The violence began inside the Van Rootselaar family home in Tumbler Ridge, a picturesque community situated in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains roughly 700 to 736 miles north of Vancouver and near the Alberta border.

According to police, Van Rootselaar first shot her 39-year-old mother and her 11-year-old stepbrother at the residence.

After the killings at home, she travelled to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, where she began firing inside the building. Law enforcement officials later indicated that one person was shot in a stairwell and that additional victims were attacked in the school library.

The individuals killed at the school included a 39-year-old female teacher and five students: three 12-year-old girls, one 12-year-old boy, and one 13-year-old boy.

...

Authorities said that officers reached the school within two minutes of the first emergency call. Upon arrival, they encountered gunfire.

Van Rootselaar fired toward the responding officers, and “rounds were fired in their direction”, McDonald said. Officers entered the premises while shots were still being discharged and subsequently located the suspect deceased from what authorities described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

At the scene, investigators recovered a long gun and a modified handgun.

In addition to the fatalities, dozens of people were injured during the rampage. Police said 27 individuals were hurt, including two victims — aged 12 and 19 — who sustained life-threatening injuries and remain hospitalised.

...

What are the gun laws in Canada?

Canada maintains stricter firearms regulations than the United States, though licensed gun ownership is legal nationwide.

Individuals must obtain appropriate licences to possess firearms, and minors between the ages of 12 and 17 may apply for a minor’s firearms licence after completing a safety course and passing required tests.

Authorities confirmed that Van Rootselaar previously held a firearms licence, but that it expired in 2024. Police also stated that no guns were registered directly in her name at the time of the attack.

The earlier seizure and later return of firearms from the family residence have raised questions about oversight procedures, although police have not indicated any procedural violations in that process.

...

In April 2020, a gunman disguised as a police officer killed 22 people over 13 hours in Nova Scotia before being shot by police at a gas station.

In December 1989, a shooter killed 14 female students at Montreal’s École Polytechnique before taking his own life. That attack remains one of the darkest moments in Canadian history.

—————

“Who was Jesse van Rootselaar, 18-year-old transgender behind Canada’s school shooting?”; Firstpost; 02/12/2026

“Police publicly named the attacker as Jesse van Rootselaar, 18. She had previously attended Tumbler Ridge Secondary School but left the institution four years ago. Law enforcement officials stated that she was born biologically male and began identifying as female six years prior to the attack.”

It’s the latest ‘trans school shooter’ story and, true to form, that’s the part of this tragedy that has been fixated on by much of the immediate press coverage. And given Canada’s recently passed federal laws on gender affirming care for minors, it’s not hard to how this story will be eagerly used as a political cudgel, framing trans youths as dangers to society:

...
Van Rootselaar began transitioning six years ago. British Columbia, where the shooting occurred, has specific regulations governing gender changes for minors. Individuals under 18 require parental consent to change their gender, while children under 11 must provide documentation from a medical professional.

In neighbouring Alberta, recent legislation prohibits transgender youth from participating in women’s sports and requires parental notification if students change pronouns at school.

At the federal level, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government passed Bill C‑16, which added “gender identity or expression” to both the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, thereby extending protections to transgender and gender-fluid individuals.

Mark Carney, Trudeau’s successor, has not introduced a similar volume of transgender-focused legislation but has expressed support for the community. His non-binary child, Sasha Carney, has been publicly acknowledged.
...

Remarkably, not only did local authorities have a history of visiting the shooter’s home due to concerns over their mental well-being, but those visits involved the seizure of firearms, which were eventually returned. In fact, Van Rootselaar even had a firearm license as a minor. And yet all indications are that no laws were violating with the return of those firearms despite the mental-health concerns:

...
Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, who oversees the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in British Columbia, outlined the suspect’s prior interactions with authorities.

According to McDonald, police had responded repeatedly to the residence over concerns related to her mental well-being.

“Police had attended that (family) residence on multiple occasions over the past several years, dealing with concerns of mental health with respect to our suspect,” McDonald said.

He confirmed that on more than one occasion Van Rootselaar had been detained under British Columbia’s Mental Health Act for psychiatric evaluation.

Authorities last visited the home sometime in 2025. McDonald stated that police were unaware whether she was actively undergoing treatment at the time of the shooting.

In addition to mental health interventions, firearms had previously been seized from the residence approximately two years ago. However, those weapons were later returned.

Speaking about that process, McDonald said that at a later point in time, “the lawful owner of those firearms petitioned for those firearms to be returned and they were.”

Police clarified that Van Rootselaar did not have any firearms registered under her name. She had previously held a firearms licence, but it lapsed in 2024.

...

Canada maintains stricter firearms regulations than the United States, though licensed gun ownership is legal nationwide.

Individuals must obtain appropriate licences to possess firearms, and minors between the ages of 12 and 17 may apply for a minor’s firearms licence after completing a safety course and passing required tests.

Authorities confirmed that Van Rootselaar previously held a firearms licence, but that it expired in 2024. Police also stated that no guns were registered directly in her name at the time of the attack.

The earlier seizure and later return of firearms from the family residence have raised questions about oversight procedures, although police have not indicated any procedural violations in that process.
...

And then we get to the motive. Officially, no clear motive has been identified. Van Rootselaar did previously attend the school, leaving four years ago which would have included the first couple of years of identifying as a female. And there was no indication of a history of bullying. But what has been already found by the ADL is an extensive online history of interactions with the exact same accelerationist extremist gore content that has been motivating one mass shooter after another in recent years, including Robin Westman, the ‘trans shooter’ behind the shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis back in August. Officials haven’t formally attributed the motive to this extremist content but it’s rather difficult to not suspect it played a major role here:

...
Investigators have not indicated that she was facing criminal charges before the shooting, nor have they provided evidence suggesting that she was targeted for bullying during her time at the school.

McDonald did not specify why she left Tumbler Ridge Secondary School four years ago.

Authorities have also stated that, at this stage, no clear motive has been established.

“We don’t have an idea yet as to motive,” McDonald said. “It is something that we are certainly passionately pursuing but it would be too early to speculate on motive at this time.”

In a separate briefing, he reiterated, “We do believe the suspect acted alone … it would be too early to speculate on motive.”

...

he Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism said its preliminary findings suggest that Van Rootselaar “followed a troubling pattern of online radicalisation” and maintained a significant digital footprint.

According to the organisation, her online engagement was “marked by engagement with white supremacist ideology and a self-described addiction to gore content.”

The ADL reported that she had used a website known for hosting graphic videos depicting extreme violence, including content involving beheadings, torture, rape and executions. The group has previously issued warnings about the platform.

At this stage, law enforcement authorities have not formally linked this online activity to a definitive motive for the shooting.
...

And as we can see in the that ADL report, Van Rootselaar happened to be avid fan of the WatchPeopleDie gore content forum, the same forum frequented by school shooters Solomon Henderson, Natalie Rupnow, and Desmond Holly:

ADL

Tumbler Ridge shooter had interest in gore and guns

Published: 02.11.2026
Updated: 02.12.2026

Extremism, Hate or Terrorism

From: Center on Extremism

On February 10, 2026, a shooter opened fire at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia, Canada, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 25 others. Two additional individuals were found dead at a nearby home. The shooter was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Preliminary research by the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) suggests the shooter, who police have identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, followed a troubling pattern of online radicalization marked by engagement with violence and gore content. Unlike recent school attackers, the Tumbler Ridge shooter does not appear to have left behind a manifesto outlining their motives. However, their extensive digital footprint across multiple platforms, including YouTube, Reddit, and WatchPeopleDie (WPD), displays a fascination with violence and weapons, along with an interest in previous mass shooters, including the 2024 Abundant Life shooter.

The Tumbler Ridge shooter appears to have been active on WatchPeopleDie (WPD), an online forum dedicated to hosting gore and violent death videos where glorification of mass shooters and extremist rhetoric is rampant. COE analysts located a WPD account believed to belong to the shooter that featured numerous images of guns and several videos of them firing these weapons, though the account has since been removed by site moderators. COE analysts also identified gun-related posts that are believed to have been posted by the alleged shooter on other platforms. For example, many of the weapons visible in a Facebook post believed to be made by the shooter’s mother appears to have been posted multiple times by the shooter on WPD. It is unknown if the shooter used any of these weapons in the attack.

...

Commenting on another thread featuring footage from a shooting, they wrote, “I love these first person perspective type videos, when the shooter records his or her own actions it’s always heat.”

Two months before the attack at Tumbler Ridge, they viewed the WPD profile associated with the 2024 Abundant Life school shooter, who regularly consumed, engaged with, and posted white supremacist content.

WPD has been linked to several school attackers, including the 2025 Evergreen, 2025 Antioch and 2024 Abundant Life shooters, among others.

In an August 2025 post on WPD, the alleged Tumbler Ridge shooter wrote that they found violent content “addictive,” writing, “I’ve tried to stray [sic] away from watching this type of thing before cuz it really sucks me in and is a massive useless time dump.”

“To say it ‘doesn’t effect [sic] me is likely naive,” they wrote, adding that “it just doesn’t feel like a big deal.”

Correction, 02/12/26: A preliminary investigation uncovered an X account appearing to belong to the shooter. Upon further investigation, that X account has been found not credible. References to it have been removed.

Update, 02/12/26: This piece has been updated with additional details about the shooter’s online activity.

————

“Tumbler Ridge shooter had interest in gore and guns”; ADL; 02/12/2026

“The Tumbler Ridge shooter appears to have been active on WatchPeopleDie (WPD), an online forum dedicated to hosting gore and violent death videos where glorification of mass shooters and extremist rhetoric is rampant. COE analysts located a WPD account believed to belong to the shooter that featured numerous images of guns and several videos of them firing these weapons, though the account has since been removed by site moderators. COE analysts also identified gun-related posts that are believed to have been posted by the alleged shooter on other platforms. For example, many of the weapons visible in a Facebook post believed to be made by the shooter’s mother appears to have been posted multiple times by the shooter on WPD. It is unknown if the shooter used any of these weapons in the attack.”

It wasn’t just random extremist gore content. Van Rootselaar was a consumer of the WatchPeopleDie gore forum. The same forum frequented by recent school shooters Solomon Henderson and Natalie Rupnow, both shooters who didn’t fit the ‘young white male’ typical school shooter profile, with Henderson being an African American high school student and Rupnow being a 15 year old female. And as we can see, it turns out the Evergreen school shooter was a WatchPeopleDie fan too. As we saw, not only was the 16 year old Evergreen high school shooter, Desmond Holly, inspired by this same nihilistic meme-driven online world, but one of the enduring mysteries of the assassination of Charlie Kirk is the fact that the shooting happened a roughly the exact same time, within a minute, of the shooting of Charlie Kirk. WatchPeopleDie just keeps popping up. Van Rootselaar even viewed Rupnow’s WatchPeopleDie profile at one point. All signs point towards the same nihilistic accelerations ideology popularized by online communities like 764 and the Com. But there’s officially no motive, at least for now:

...
Two months before the attack at Tumbler Ridge, they viewed the WPD profile associated with the 2024 Abundant Life school shooter, who regularly consumed, engaged with, and posted white supremacist content.

WPD has been linked to several school attackers, including the 2025 Evergreen, 2025 Antioch and 2024 Abundant Life shooters, among others.
...

Lastly, note the correction the ADL had to make: initially, the ADL identified an X.com account attributed to Van Rootselaar that featured an imagine of Brenton Tarrant superimposed over a Sonnenrad, along with a transgender pride flag. But now we are told the ADL has concluded that account was not credible. It’s an interesting updated given that some sort of white supremacist orientation is more or less expected for someone radicalized enough to do this. No details have been given about when this X.com account was created, although the initial report indicated the account was tweeting out antisemitic content days before the shooting, so it’s not a spoof account created after the shooting. It would be interesting to learn more about this pro-Nazi/pro-trans account:

...
Correction, 02/12/26: A preliminary investigation uncovered an X account appearing to belong to the shooter. Upon further investigation, that X account has been found not credible. References to it have been removed.

Update, 02/12/26: This piece has been updated with additional details about the shooter’s online activity.
...

Still, it’s not like we have no evidence Van Rootselaar was consuming white supremacist content. WatchPeopleDie is filled with white supremacist content. Natalie Rupnow reportedly posted it regularly, for example. The motive isn’t a mystery. The mystery is why investigators, and the broader media, have such a difficult time trying to understand why the members of online forums dedicated to celebrating mass violence and white supremacy go on mass killing sprees.

And we’re now learning the political strategies advocated by Epstein apparently included the promotion of 4chan as a means of promoting bigotry and a “hive mind” mentality. Yes, that’s the picture that has emerged from a series of now-released emails from back in late 2011-early 2012 involving a series of meetings Epstein had with 4chan founder Christopher Poole. It turns out Poole was introduced to Epstein in October of 2011 by Boris Nikolic, a former adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As we’ve seen, Bill Gates was particularly close to Epstein, especially in the 2011–2014 when he reportedly spent time at Epstein’s Manhattan estate dozens of times. Epstein ended up meeting with Poole, also known by his online handle “moot”, in late October 2011, with Epstein writing to Nikolic how “I liked mmot [sic] alot,” adding “I drove him home, he is very bright”.

Epstein’s interactions with Poole appeared to end in February 2012, but the fact he met with Poole in October of 2011 in the first place is either a remarkable coincidence or something far more significant to the history of the rise of MAGA and the ‘Alt Right’ than currently appreciated. Because October of 2011 also happened to be the month when the /pol/ forum was created on 4chan. This was after Poole shut down the predecessor to /pol/, the /new/ forum, in January 2011 precisely because it had become a dangerous breeding ground for far right conspiracy theories and radicalization. The /pol/ forum has gone on to become infamous for the promotion of memes like ‘Pizzagate’, a meme that emerged online days before the 2016 election pushing an ‘elite Democrat pedophiles control DC’ narrative that was instrumental is boosting Trump’s faux-populist credentials. In fact, it was December of 2016, just a little over a month after ‘Pizzagate’ first hit the internet, that a gunman walked into the alleged Comet Ping Pong pizza shot to free the captured children in a basement that didn’t exist. ‘Pizzagate’ really did take the internet by storm, and 4chan’s /pol/ was at the center of it.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that, four days after Epstein first met with Poole, Nikolic emailed Epstein with a link to a Washington Post article about 4chan users collectively hijacking Google’s top search lists, foment bigotry, launch cyberattacks and fuel a “hive mind” mentality. Nikolic commented how the “article describes why I find moot interesting. The potential for manipulation is huge.” The following month, Poole was coordinating another meet up with Epstein via one of Epstein’s subordinates. “Chris, Jeffrey has also said to feel free to bring anyone you think is clever!” the email reads. Poole responds, “Great! I’ll think of some people and get back to you.” So it would appear that Epstein had at least two meetings with Poole shortly after /pol/ was launched.

But there’s another angle to this story that makes the meetings with Poole all the more remarkable: it turns out the Epstein files are filled with weird references to pizza parties! Pizza shows up at least 911 times, with references going back to years before ‘Pizzagate’ was ever a thing! Not only did Epstein happen to meet with Christopher Poole right around the time /pol/ — the forum that would play a major role in popularizing ‘Pizzagate’ in 2016 — but it would appear he was having all sorts of creepy pizza parties too. Funny how that works.

Let’s also keep in mind another detail in this story: Donald Trump was ALWAYS very vulnerable to allegations regarding his relationship with Epstein. We may have only really started collectively focusing on those allegations in 2025 after Trump literally won reelection, in part, in the pledge to finally bring all the Epstein criminals to justice, but the reality was that Trump was always vulnerable to any kind of real Epstein-related scrutiny, especially given his extensive history of flagrant womanizing. So given how the original ‘Pizzagate’ was created as a means of framing Trump as a kind of populist outsider political figure, we have to ask: was Epstein’s own apprent history of throwing pedo-pizza parties the real origins of the ‘Pizzagate’ meme. Sure, according to our official understanding of how ‘Pizzagate’ emerged, the narrative came from a conspiratorial interpretation of the pizza references found in John Podesta’s hacked emails that had just been released by Wikileaks. But now that we know Epstein — one of Trump’s oldest and most infamous friends — was apparently literally running pedo-pizza parties for years, we have to ask if the emerge of the ‘Pizzagate’ narrative really was just a happy coincidence for the then-nascent MAGA movement.

And that’s just one of the revelations in the latest release of the Epstein files that raises the question: just how involved with Epstein in the rise of MAGA-style politics? And not necessarily just MAGA-style politics in the US. It turns out a slew of newly released emails between Epstein and Steven Bannon from 2018–2019 underscore Epstein’s interests in European politics. Nationalist politics, in particular. Bannon was repeatedly trying to solicit Epstein for funds to back his preferred far right European parties according to these emails. And while we don’t find a confirmation that Epstein did end up sponsoring Bannon’s preferred parties, it is very clear that Epstein’s interest in extending his spheres of influence included a number of European officials including extensive communications with Olivier Colom, a former diplomatic adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy.

But another part of what makes Bannon’s repeated requests for Epstein’s funds to back the European far right in 2018–2019 is that this was a period when Bannon and Epstein had reportedly grown quite close. Recall how Bannon was convinced Epstein was an intelligence asset and even reportedly became interested in Epstein as a source for intelligence after he was kicked out of the National Security Council during Trump’s first term. Far right activist Charles Johnson even claimed he was invited by Bannon to meet Epstein. While Johnson says he turned down the invitation, he also stated “What I was told about that meeting by people close to Bannon was that he was trying to replace Epstein as a source for information from various intelligence networks. He saw Epstein as a rival or a partner but he wanted what Epstein had.” And another billionaire Bannon was hanging out with at the time, Guo Wengui, allegedly used prostitutes and hidden cameras to compromise powerful figures as a means of clout and control according to lawsuit. And then there’s the fact that Bannon was even making a documentary about Epstein during this period that Mark Epstein claimed was intended to rehabilitate his brother’s reputation. Despite Bannon’s present day denials, the evidence strongly suggests that Bannon viewed Epstein has an important person who needed to get closer to in the year leading up to Epstein’s arrest and ‘suicide’. Which only further adds to the intrigue over what role Epstein may have been playing in helping to lay the groundwork for the MAGA movement in the first place.

Which brings us to some of the updates we just received regarding the absolute joke of an investigation into that ‘suicide’. First, we learned the identity of the materials manager working in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) on the night Epstein died. Recall how one of the initial mysteries involving the ‘missing minute’ of surveillance tape right before midnight — which Pam Bondi deceptively claimed was just normal to be missing — was the question of whether or not the materials manager happened to leave during that minute. Sure enough, after the missing minute was recovered, we learned that the materials manager did indeed leave during that minute, although that revelation only added to the mystery of identity of who was caught leaving the SHU five minutes later at 12:05 am. We still have no idea who that was. But we know how the identity of the materials manager, Ghitto Bonhomme, whose shift ended at midnight at which point he was replaced on his shift by Michael Thomas, who went on to discover Epstein’s body the next morning after skipping all of the mandatory welfare checks that evening.

We also learned that Bonhomme told investigator he was sleeping from 10pm to midnight, leaving him unable to help identify the ‘orange blob’ caught ascending the staircase at roughly 10:40 pm to the tier where Epstein was held. In addition, it turns out the FBI and Inspector General analyses of the evidence arrived at different conclusion about the nature of the orange blob, with the FBI concluding it was possibly an inmate while the IG determined it was an unidentified corrections officer carrying orange linen. But let’s not forget that someone ascending that staircase at all at that time was not part of the initial official record. Recall how Mark Epstein asserted that investigators never even considered the possibility of a fellow inmate doing the killing. Also recall there was the Daily Mail report from February 2023 that reconstructed the timeline of events of Epstein’s death based on the then-released FBI files and there was no mention of any activity at the stairwell at all at 10:40. There was a entry about Tova Noel walking towards and then away from Epstein’s cell at around 10:30 pm and the next entry is about the start of Thomas’s shift at midnight and Thomas and Noel falsifying the midnight count. The only reason we are talking about the orange blob at all was a CBS News analysis from July 2025 of a video released by the FBI that month. Someone ascending the staircase at 10:40 pm was never part of the official narrative until the FBI released that tape in July of 2025 and CBS pointed out the orange blob. So now we’re learning that one of the key possible witnesses of what went on during that period was allegedly sleeping during that period.

Other revelations involved what the two guards, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, initial witnessed when they found Epstein’s body at 6:30 am the next day. First, not only did Thomas tell investigators that he had no memory of tearing a noose off Epstein’s neck, but Noel also said she didn’t recall seeing a noose around Epstein’s neck. This is particularly notable for a number of reasons. First, recall how we were told that the noose found around his neck was fashioned from a torn bedsheet. We were also told that Thomas claimed Epstein’s body was “suspended from the top bunk in a near-seated position, with his buttocks approximately 1 inch to 1 inch and a half off the floor and his legs extended out straight on the floor,” and yet the noose marks were on the lower part of Epstein’s neck instead of the upper part of the neck that would have been expected had he really been hanging. Also recall how the noose appeared in different places over the course of 90 minutes while the medical examiner photographer surveying the scene. “It definitely appeared to me that the scene was, for lack of a better term, staged a bit,” according to a NY police detective. So staged, in fact, that some of the photos were clearly taken from a different cell based on the floor patterns in the photos. And the FBI forensic investigator showed up, hours after Epstein’s body was discovered, only to find that Epstein’s body had already been removed and taken the medical examiner’s office, destroying the ability of the FBI to recapitulate what happened. Evidence like clippings that could be used for DNA testing were never collected by the jail medical examiner and there’s no indication the FBI ever ran DNA tests of its own. Finally, recall how Michael Baden, the forensic pathologist hired by Mark Epstein to review the forensic evidence, concluded that the marks on Epstein’s throat were more consistent with strangulation than hanging. And now we learn that Michael Thomas didn’t recall taking a noose off Epstein’s neck and neither did Tova Noel recall seeing a noose around his neck either. A noose was indeed found in the cell, but determined not to be used in the alleged hanging. The alleged noose disappeared, further compounding the evidence pointing towards a non-hanging cause of death. And yet it’s hard to think about how Epstein could have been in a hanging position without a noose. But both Noel and Thomas appeared to be in agreement that he was not wearing a noose. You have to wonder if the person who carried out the execution was told someone else would piece together the scene to make it look like a suicide and that never happened.

Interestingly, we’re also told Thomas described Epstein as shirtless when he found him, and yet a shirt was returned by the medical examiner’s office with his body. Oddly, we aren’t told what Noel saw. She was standing there too and presumably saw whether or not Epstein was wearing a shirt. It’s one more example of the shoddy nature of this investigation.

The more we learn, the worse it looks. It’s the enduring theme of this story. It just keeps getting worse. And now we’re not only learning new details about the profoundly corrupt nature of the investigation into Epstein’s ‘suicide’, but it’s starting to look like Epstein may have been for much deeply involved in the mainstreaming and popularization of ‘Pizzagate’, the far right conspiracy theory that was instrumental in the rise of the Trump-era of politics. Oh, and that no one will be punished and the true scope of Epstein’s involvement in the world of power politics will never be adequately explored. We’re learning that too.

Ok, first, here’s a new CBS report on the array of stunning new revelation regarding the ‘investigation’ into Epstein’s ‘suicide’, including both Noel and Thomas finding Epstein without a noose around his neck:

CBS News

Who entered Epstein’s jail tier the night of his death? Newly released video logs appear to contradict official accounts.

By Daniel Ruetenik
February 5, 2026 / 1:49 PM EST /

Newly released Department of Justice documents show that investigators reviewing surveillance footage from the night of Jeffrey Epstein’s death observed an orange-colored shape moving up a staircase toward the isolated, locked tier where his cell was located at approximately 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019.

That entry in an observation log of the video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center appears to suggest something previously unreported by authorities: “A flash of orange looks to be going up the L Tier stairs — could possibly be an inmate escorted up to that Tier.”

It also appears, according to an FBI memorandum, that reviews by investigators led to disparate conclusions by the FBI and those examining the same video from the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General.

The FBI log describes the fuzzy image as “possibly an inmate.”

The inspector general logs it as an officer carrying orange “linen or bedding,” noting it in their final report as “an unidentified [corrections officer].”

The final report by the Inspector General stated: “At approximately 10:39 p.m., an unidentified CO appeared to walk up the L Tier stairway, and then reappeared within view of the camera at 10:41 p.m.”

...

In an in-depth analysis of surveillance video from the jail, CBS News previously reported on the figure on the stairs and consulted independent video analysts who said the movement was more consistent with an inmate — or someone wearing an orange prison uniform — than a corrections officer.

The new records raise more questions about activity near Epstein’s tier late that evening. Official reviews of Epstein’s death make no mention of the figure in orange, and later pronouncements from authorities including the attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, were that no one entered Epstein’s housing tier the night of his death. Last summer in an interview on “Fox & Friends,” then-deputy FBI director Dan Bongino said, “There’s video clear as day, he’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.”

Prison employees interviewed by CBS News said escorting an inmate at that hour would have been highly unusual. The identification of the individual could have been crucial to reconstructing the events, given that the sighting occurred within the estimated window of Epstein’s possible time of death.

The staircase leading to his cell tier was captured by the only camera known to have been recording that night, positioned in a way that partially obscured the approach to Epstein’s tier. Government investigators relied heavily on that footage in reconstructing the timeline of events. But because of the camera angle, it was not possible to rule out whether someone could have climbed the stairs and entered the tier without being clearly visible. CBS News’ analysis of that video found additional contradictions between what the video showed and official statements.

Inside the SHU

Thousands of pages released last week as part of a broader Justice Department disclosure of Epstein-related files, totaling more than 3 million documents, provide additional detail about the hours between the evening of Aug. 9, when Epstein was last seen alive on camera, and the discovery of his body the following morning.

Records and interviews describe a largely quiet night inside the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, where Epstein was being held. Several inmates told investigators they were using drugs inside their cells, including marijuana and K2, a synthetic substance that multiple witnesses said was common on the tier.

Among those interviewed were the two corrections officers assigned to the unit that night, Tova Noel and Ghitto Bonhomme, a materials handler who had not previously been publicly identified. Documents show Bonhomme was interviewed twice in September 2019 in sessions conducted in lieu of a grand jury subpoena.

According to Noel’s account, Bonhomme had been working multiple consecutive shifts and slept while on duty for a period between approximately 10 p.m. and midnight.

Investigators also questioned Noel about an unexplained change in the recorded number of inmates in the SHU, which appeared to drop from 73 to 72 sometime between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. Noel said she was “probably” mistaken about the discrepancy and told investigators she had no memory of a count changing.

Neither officer was specifically asked about the orange-colored figure noted in the video observation log. Bonhomme told investigators he did not remember the period between 10 p.m. and midnight and said he had no recollection of anyone walking up the stairs toward Epstein’s tier at around 10:30 p.m. He added that a jail employee entering a tier alone would have violated policy.

A separate internal presentation included in the document release described a corrections officer, believed by investigators to be Noel, carrying linen or inmate clothing up to the tier. The 2023 inspector general report did not identify Noel as the figure seen in the footage. In her interview, Noel told investigators distributing linen was not part of her duties. “I never gave out linen. Ever,” she said. “Because that’s done on the shift prior.”

An early morning discovery

Bonhomme ended his shift at midnight and was replaced by another corrections officer named Michael Thomas, who would discover Epstein’s body hours later. Noel continued on for a second consecutive 8‑hour shift.

...

Thomas and Noel were later charged with falsifying records certifying the inmate counts had been completed. Federal prosecutors eventually dropped the charges in exchange for cooperation agreements that included interviews. A transcript of Thomas’ interview, conducted two years after Epstein’s death and released in the recent document disclosure, shows significant gaps in his recollection of the morning Epstein was found.

Thomas told investigators he discovered Epstein in his cell shortly after 6:30 a.m. on Aug.10 and that he “ripped” Epstein down from the hanging position.

Investigators asked what happened to the noose.

“I don’t recall taking the noose off. I really don’t,” he replied. “I don’t recall taking the thing from around his neck.”

Noel, who remained standing at the cell entrance, told investigators she saw Thomas lower Epstein to the floor but did not see a noose around his neck.

The noose Epstein allegedly used has never been definitively identified. According to the inspector general’s report, a noose collected at the scene was later determined not to be the ligature used in Epstein’s death.

Thomas also described Epstein as shirtless when he found him. Evidence records indicate a shirt believed to have been cut from Epstein’s body was later returned from the hospital in a bag of personal belongings.

The new documents also show that New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reviewed the jail surveillance footage six days after Epstein’s death as part of its investigation and concluded the video was too blurry to identify any individuals. Hours later, the office publicly ruled Epstein’s death a suicide. The medical examiner did not provide an estimate of how long Epstein may have been dead before his body was discovered. CBS News had previously reported on the office’s unorthodox handling of the crime scene.

Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist retained by Epstein’s brother, previously told CBS News Epstein had likely been dead for several hours before he was found but because the body had been moved, determining the time of death was impossible.

...

———–

“Who entered Epstein’s jail tier the night of his death? Newly released video logs appear to contradict official accounts.” By Daniel Ruetenik; CBS News; 02/05/2026

“The new records raise more questions about activity near Epstein’s tier late that evening. Official reviews of Epstein’s death make no mention of the figure in orange, and later pronouncements from authorities including the attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, were that no one entered Epstein’s housing tier the night of his death. Last summer in an interview on “Fox & Friends,” then-deputy FBI director Dan Bongino said, “There’s video clear as day, he’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.””

It’s hardly news at this point to learn that the official investigation into Epstein’s death is a legal farce. But it’s still notable that the official coverup appears to remain in place, as was evident by then-deputy FBI director Dan Bongino comments last Summer about how there’s “video clear as day, he’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.” As we’ve seen, not only was the view of the stairway to Epstein’s tier almost entirely obscured in the lone functioning camera that covered that part of the SHU, but it was even possible for someone to have entered the SHU, ascended the stairway to Epstein’s tier, and left without ever appearing on camera at all. And then there was the pair of mysteries related to the ‘missing minute’ of surveillance tape right before midnight. But then the ‘missing minute’ was recovered, revealing that, yes, the materials manager did leave during that missing minute. But that revelation only added to the mystery of the unidentified individual caught leaving at 12:05 am. A mystery that remains entirely unexplained to this day. So when we see in this latest report how the official narrative asserting that the orange blob seen ascending that staircase at approximately 10:39 pm was merely an “unidentified CO [corrections officer]” and not a a fellow prisoner, keep in mind that this wouldn’t be the only corrections officer who remains unidentified from they eventing. We still have no idea who it was that left at 12:05 am and there doesn’t appear to be any official interest whatsoever if identifying them:

...
The FBI log describes the fuzzy image as “possibly an inmate.”

The inspector general logs it as an officer carrying orange “linen or bedding,” noting it in their final report as “an unidentified [corrections officer].”

The final report by the Inspector General stated: “At approximately 10:39 p.m., an unidentified CO appeared to walk up the L Tier stairway, and then reappeared within view of the camera at 10:41 p.m.”

...

In an in-depth analysis of surveillance video from the jail, CBS News previously reported on the figure on the stairs and consulted independent video analysts who said the movement was more consistent with an inmate — or someone wearing an orange prison uniform — than a corrections officer.

...

Prison employees interviewed by CBS News said escorting an inmate at that hour would have been highly unusual. The identification of the individual could have been crucial to reconstructing the events, given that the sighting occurred within the estimated window of Epstein’s possible time of death.

The staircase leading to his cell tier was captured by the only camera known to have been recording that night, positioned in a way that partially obscured the approach to Epstein’s tier. Government investigators relied heavily on that footage in reconstructing the timeline of events. But because of the camera angle, it was not possible to rule out whether someone could have climbed the stairs and entered the tier without being clearly visible. CBS News’ analysis of that video found additional contradictions between what the video showed and official statements.
...

And those still ongoing mysteries about who ascended that staircase to Epstein’s tier at 10:40 pm and who left the SHU at 12:05 am — along with the mystery of who may have entered and left Epstein’s tier without ever being seen at all — bring us to the newly revealed identify of the materials manager, Ghitto Bonhomme, who allegedly slept while on duting between 10 pm and midnight. Remarkably, it sounds like like neither Bonhomme, nor Tova Noel, were ever asked about the orange-colored figure seen ascending the staircase at 10:40 pm, although we are told Noel indicated that it wouldn’t have been her carrying orange linens ecause “I never gave out linen. Ever.” Once again, ‘everything went wrong’ in the just the right way to ensure no one could provide an answer:

...
Among those interviewed were the two corrections officers assigned to the unit that night, Tova Noel and Ghitto Bonhomme, a materials handler who had not previously been publicly identified. Documents show Bonhomme was interviewed twice in September 2019 in sessions conducted in lieu of a grand jury subpoena.

According to Noel’s account, Bonhomme had been working multiple consecutive shifts and slept while on duty for a period between approximately 10 p.m. and midnight.

Investigators also questioned Noel about an unexplained change in the recorded number of inmates in the SHU, which appeared to drop from 73 to 72 sometime between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. Noel said she was “probably” mistaken about the discrepancy and told investigators she had no memory of a count changing.

Neither officer was specifically asked about the orange-colored figure noted in the video observation log. Bonhomme told investigators he did not remember the period between 10 p.m. and midnight and said he had no recollection of anyone walking up the stairs toward Epstein’s tier at around 10:30 p.m. He added that a jail employee entering a tier alone would have violated policy.

A separate internal presentation included in the document release described a corrections officer, believed by investigators to be Noel, carrying linen or inmate clothing up to the tier. The 2023 inspector general report did not identify Noel as the figure seen in the footage. In her interview, Noel told investigators distributing linen was not part of her duties. “I never gave out linen. Ever,” she said. “Because that’s done on the shift prior.”
...

Then we get to the absurd inconsistencies in the testimony of Michael Thomas, who took over Bonhomme’s shift at midnight, on the details of his discovery of Epstein’s body at 6:30 am that morning. Michael Thomas didn’t recall taking a noose off Epstein’s neck and neither did Tova Noel recall seeing a noose around his neck either. A noose was found in the cell, but determined not to be used in the alleged hanging. It’s a weird shoddy cover-up that keeps getting shoddier, with people like Thomas, Noel, and Bonhomme comprising the lower levels of the cover-up along with the prisoners who may have been wrangled in, including carrying out the murder. There’s potentially quite a few people involved, in vastly different positions of power and influence, ranging from prisoners to prison employees, to potentially all sorts of then-senior Trump administration officials up to and including Attorney General Bill Barr and Trump, of course. Jeffrey Epstein had to die and the cover-up was apparently more or a secondary consideration:

...
Thomas and Noel were later charged with falsifying records certifying the inmate counts had been completed. Federal prosecutors eventually dropped the charges in exchange for cooperation agreements that included interviews. A transcript of Thomas’ interview, conducted two years after Epstein’s death and released in the recent document disclosure, shows significant gaps in his recollection of the morning Epstein was found.

Thomas told investigators he discovered Epstein in his cell shortly after 6:30 a.m. on Aug.10 and that he “ripped” Epstein down from the hanging position.

Investigators asked what happened to the noose.

“I don’t recall taking the noose off. I really don’t,” he replied. “I don’t recall taking the thing from around his neck.”

Noel, who remained standing at the cell entrance, told investigators she saw Thomas lower Epstein to the floor but did not see a noose around his neck.

The noose Epstein allegedly used has never been definitively identified. According to the inspector general’s report, a noose collected at the scene was later determined not to be the ligature used in Epstein’s death.

Thomas also described Epstein as shirtless when he found him. Evidence records indicate a shirt believed to have been cut from Epstein’s body was later returned from the hospital in a bag of personal belongings.
...

And that latest update on the woefully corrupt ‘suicide’ investigation brings us to some of the latest revelations about Epstein’s previously unknown political interests. Including an interest in the 4Chan. Why 4Chan? Because of it’s ability to promote bigotry and a “hive mind” mentality. That was the sentiment Epstein expressed back in 2011 right around the same time 4Chan’s /pol/ forum was created. A forum that went on to become synonymous with the ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory. Which makes it all the more relevant that references to “pizza” and “pizza parties” shows up in the Epstein files 911 times:

Vanity Fair

The New Epstein Files Are Reopening the Pizzagate Box

The documents contain nearly 900 references to “pizza.”

By Clara Molot
February 5, 2026

Nearly a decade ago, a 28-year-old man named Edgar Welch walked into Comet Ping Pong, a popular pizza restaurant in Washington, DC, carrying an AR-15 rifle and a revolver. He fired several shots, damaging a door, a closet lock, and the restaurant’s computer equipment. Welch had driven from North Carolina on a mission: to rescue children he believed were being held in the restaurant’s basement as part of a child sex trafficking ring run by members of the Democratic Party.

...

The episode marked the violent real-world culmination of Pizzagate, a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that had metastasized online in the final weeks before the 2016 election. Born on 4chan’s anonymous political message board, /pol/—short for “politically incorrect”—the theory alleged that Hillary Clinton, her 2016 campaign chairman, John Podesta, and other Democratic elites were running a pedophilia ring out of Comet. Digital sleuths pored over prominent Democrats’ correspondence made public by Wikileaks that fall, and certain phrases—mentions of pizza and hot dogs—were isolated, screenshotted, annotated. “Cheese pizza,” or “c.p.,” users insisted, was code for “child pornography.” A theory snowballed through Reddit, YouTube, and Rumble. Donald Trump, believers argued, would enter office and expose the network.

...

Then on Friday, the Department of Justice released roughly 3 million new documents related to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Buried in all the email correspondence was a detail complicating the cultural archaeology of Pizzagate: The word pizza appeared 911 times as of February 2, though 60 references have since been removed.

The references span years—from long before Pizzagate existed to long after it was broadly considered debunked.

“What time do you want to get pizza and grape soda tomorrow?” one associate asks Epstein in 2018.

A 2015 subject line reads: “Your Pizza Is YUMMY YUMMY!!”

“This is better than a Chinese cookie!… lets go for pizza and grape soda again. No one else can understand,” a redacted sender writes to Epstein in 2018.

...

Christopher Poole—better known by the handle “moot”—founded 4chan in 2003, creating what would become one of the internet’s most influential and socially corrosive forums. Its current events board, /new/, eventually emerged as a breeding ground for far-right conspiracies, meme warfare, and radicalization. The board became so volatile that Poole ultimately took it down in January of 2011.

According to the newly released documents, Epstein met with Poole in late October of 2011.

“There is a cool guy (KID) that you should meet,” Boris Nikolic—a doctor, biotech investor, and former adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—writes in an email to Epstein on October 20. In other messages, Nikolic describes Poole as “one of the greatest hackers” but also “very sensitive.”

“I liked mmot [sic] alot,” Epstein writes to Nikolic on October 24 after his and Poole’s introduction. “I drove him home, he is very bright.”

October 2011 is also when the /new/ replacement board, /pol/, was launched.

The timing may well be a coincidence. There is no evidence that Epstein influenced /pol/’s birth or 4chan’s moderation decisions, or that Poole, who stepped down as the administrator of 4chan at the beginning of 2015, had any direct involvement with Pizzagate the following year. One email does show that Poole hoped to meet Epstein again in 2012, but beyond that, the trail goes cold.

Still, this kind of overlap shovels coal into the conspiracy engine. Pizzagate migrated quickly from 4chan to Reddit, where the then new subreddit r/Pizzagate saw 2,294 posts in 15 days in November 2016 before being shut down. Redditors also speculated that a powerful user, u/MaxwellHill, was secretly Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The theory lacked evidence, but the recent Epstein files drop includes both a tip to the FBI that u/MaxwellHill is Maxwell and an FBI evidence log listing a screenshot of a Reddit post from the same user. (The username has since been redacted.)

...

———-

“The New Epstein Files Are Reopening the Pizzagate Box” By Clara Molot; Vanity Fair; 02/05/2026

“The timing may well be a coincidence. There is no evidence that Epstein influenced /pol/’s birth or 4chan’s moderation decisions, or that Poole, who stepped down as the administrator of 4chan at the beginning of 2015, had any direct involvement with Pizzagate the following year. One email does show that Poole hoped to meet Epstein again in 2012, but beyond that, the trail goes cold.”

Jeffrey Epstein happened to have a set of meetings with Christopher Poole, the founder of 4Chan, shortly before the birth of the infamous /pol/ forum that became synonymous with the promotion of the ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory a few years later. A conspiracy theory about elite child abuse that happened to exclusively finger Democrats as the culprits. So when we see how the Epstein files contain the word “pizza” and references to “pizza parties” 911 times, including the years prior to and after the emergence of the Pizzagate meme, it’s hard not to suspect that ‘Pizzagate’ was a kind of insider reference to very real elite ‘pizza parties’ hosted by none other than Jeffrey Epstein:

...
The episode marked the violent real-world culmination of Pizzagate, a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that had metastasized online in the final weeks before the 2016 election. Born on 4chan’s anonymous political message board, /pol/—short for “politically incorrect”—the theory alleged that Hillary Clinton, her 2016 campaign chairman, John Podesta, and other Democratic elites were running a pedophilia ring out of Comet. Digital sleuths pored over prominent Democrats’ correspondence made public by Wikileaks that fall, and certain phrases—mentions of pizza and hot dogs—were isolated, screenshotted, annotated. “Cheese pizza,” or “c.p.,” users insisted, was code for “child pornography.” A theory snowballed through Reddit, YouTube, and Rumble. Donald Trump, believers argued, would enter office and expose the network.

...

Then on Friday, the Department of Justice released roughly 3 million new documents related to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Buried in all the email correspondence was a detail complicating the cultural archaeology of Pizzagate: The word pizza appeared 911 times as of February 2, though 60 references have since been removed.

The references span years—from long before Pizzagate existed to long after it was broadly considered debunked.

“What time do you want to get pizza and grape soda tomorrow?” one associate asks Epstein in 2018.

A 2015 subject line reads: “Your Pizza Is YUMMY YUMMY!!”

“This is better than a Chinese cookie!… lets go for pizza and grape soda again. No one else can understand,” a redacted sender writes to Epstein in 2018.
...

And note who introduced Epstein to Poole: Boris Nikolic, a former adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As we’ve seen, Bill Gates is now known to have hung out with Epstein, mostly at Epstein’s Manhattan estate, dozens of times in the period of 2011–2014. But also note how the creation of the /pol/ forum was actually preceded by Poole taking down its predecessor, the /new/ forum, in January of 2011, over concerns about the radicalizing nature of the content. So it’s not just that Epstein happened to meet with Poole the same month /pol/ was launched. It’s also the case that the /pol/ predecessor had been taken down earlier that year over concerns about its extremist nature:

...
Christopher Poole—better known by the handle “moot”—founded 4chan in 2003, creating what would become one of the internet’s most influential and socially corrosive forums. Its current events board, /new/, eventually emerged as a breeding ground for far-right conspiracies, meme warfare, and radicalization. The board became so volatile that Poole ultimately took it down in January of 2011.

According to the newly released documents, Epstein met with Poole in late October of 2011.

“There is a cool guy (KID) that you should meet,” Boris Nikolic—a doctor, biotech investor, and former adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—writes in an email to Epstein on October 20. In other messages, Nikolic describes Poole as “one of the greatest hackers” but also “very sensitive.”

“I liked mmot [sic] alot,” Epstein writes to Nikolic on October 24 after his and Poole’s introduction. “I drove him home, he is very bright.”

October 2011 is also when the /new/ replacement board, /pol/, was launched.
...

And that brings us to the following MSNOW piece that includes a very interest additional piece of information regarding Epstein’s possible interest in Poole and 4Chan: As Nikolic explained to Epstein in an email just days after Poole first met with Epstein, the reason Nikolic was so interested in meeting Poole is precisely because 4Chan’s “potential for manipulation is huge”, while linking to an article discussing how 4chan had been used to foment bigotry, launch cyberattacks, and fuel a “hive mind” mentality. So Jeffrey Epstein was introduced to Poole by some excited about 4Chan’s potential to operate as a ‘Pizzagate’-style far right meme machine, which is exactly what /pol/ was most known for:

MSNOW

Epstein met with 4chan’s founder just as the site’s infamous political thread began

Newly released Epstein emails offer clues to meetings with the founder of 4chan, the site known as a hub for far-right propaganda and QAnon conspiracy theories.

By Ja’han Jones
Feb. 5, 2026, 3:01 PM EST

As I examine Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to far-right politics, one of the more intriguing threads to emerge from the recently released files places him in the orbit of 4chan’s founder at a fateful moment years before that platform helped to give rise to QAnon conspiracy theories. Could the notorious child predator have had any influence on the platform that gave rise to a whole mythology centered on outlandish claims about sexual perversion among elites?

In October 2011, years after Epstein pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct with a minor, an adviser to Bill Gates named Boris Nikolic emailed Epstein about wanting to introduce him to a “cool guy.”The message included a link to the Wikipedia page for 4chan founder Christopher Poole (who also goes by “moot”). Poole oversaw the platform until 2015.

...

Four days after Epstein met with Poole, Nikolic emailed Epstein again with a comment on 4chan’s potential. “This article describes why I find moot interesting. The potential for manipulation is huge,” Nikolic wrote, linking to a Washington Post article that discussed how 4chan had been used to foment bigotry, launch cyberattacks and fuel a “hive mind” mentality.

Poole’s name appears in Epstein emails later as well, including the next month, when Poole coordinates with one of Epstein’s subordinates about meeting up in New York. “Chris, Jeffrey has also said to feel free to bring anyone you think is clever!” the email reads. Poole responds, “Great! I’ll think of some people and get back to you.”

Poole’s correspondence with Epstein (or at least what’s in the currently available files) does not appear to extend past the following February. MS NOW’s efforts to reach Poole for comment were not successful.

...

———–

“Epstein met with 4chan’s founder just as the site’s infamous political thread began” By Ja’han Jones; MSNOW; 02/05/2026

“Four days after Epstein met with Poole, Nikolic emailed Epstein again with a comment on 4chan’s potential. “This article describes why I find moot interesting. The potential for manipulation is huge,” Nikolic wrote, linking to a Washington Post article that discussed how 4chan had been used to foment bigotry, launch cyberattacks and fuel a “hive mind” mentality.”

As we can see, Boris Nikolic wasn’t just a fan of 4Chan. He was seemingly serving as a kind of architect for the kind of cultural zeitgeist that culminated in MAGA. That was the sentiment shared days after Epstein’s initial meeting with Poole, which was apparently followed up with another meeting between Epstein, Poole, and who knows who else the next month:

...
Poole’s name appears in Epstein emails later as well, including the next month, when Poole coordinates with one of Epstein’s subordinates about meeting up in New York. “Chris, Jeffrey has also said to feel free to bring anyone you think is clever!” the email reads. Poole responds, “Great! I’ll think of some people and get back to you.”

Poole’s correspondence with Epstein (or at least what’s in the currently available files) does not appear to extend past the following February. MS NOW’s efforts to reach Poole for comment were not successful.
...

What are the odds Epstein didn’t share Nikolic’s enthusiasm over 4chan’s ‘potential’ for mass manipulation? It’s the kind of revelation about Epstein’s interests that suggest he was serving as a kind of pre-MAGA visionary for exactly the kind of politics championed by Donald Trump. Politics that conveniently project ‘pedophile pizza party’ narratives onto Democrats at the same time Epstein was apparently engaging in exactly that kind of criminality!

And as the following article reveals, Epstein political interests weren’t limited to the US, especially in the final years of his life. Europe was very much on his radar, with Steve Bannon frequently courting Epstein seeking funds for his own European political ambitions. Recall how Bannon was convinced Epstein was an intelligence asset and even reportedly became interested in Epstein as a source for intelligence after he was kicked out of the National Security Council during Trump’s first term. Far right activist Charles Johnson even claimed he was invited by Bannon to meet Epstein. While Johnson says he turned down the invitation, he also stated “What I was told about that meeting by people close to Bannon was that he was trying to replace Epstein as a source for information from various intelligence networks. He saw Epstein as a rival or a partner but he wanted what Epstein had.” And another billionaire Bannon was hanging out with at the time, Guo Wengui, allegedly used prostitutes and hidden cameras to compromise powerful figures as a means of clout and control according to lawsuit. Bannon was even making a documentary about Epstein that Mark Epstein claimed was intended to rehabilitate his brother’s reputation. It’s hardly a surprise at this point to learn that Bannon had a keen interest in cultivate Epstein as an ally in his European far right ambitions. But it’s notable that Epstein’s own ties to European politicians was far more extensive than previously known. He really was an international man of mystery. Scummy mystery, but real mystery:

The Guardian

Epstein files shed more light on Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence European politics

Donald Trump’s former adviser told Epstein in 2019 that he was ‘focused on raising money for Le Pen and Salvini’ before European elections

Angela Giuffrida in Rome, Deborah Cole in Berlin and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Thu 5 Feb 2026 11.43 EST

Dozens of messages contained in the latest tranche of Epstein files lay bare the attempts by Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon to tap Jeffrey Epstein for support and funding to bolster European far-right parties.

The messages mostly date to 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being sacked by Trump, regularly visited Europe in his quest to forge a movement in the European parliament uniting ultra-rightwing and Eurosceptic forces from several countries including Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and Austria.

Bannon especially set his sights on Matteo Salvini, the Italian deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, who at the time was at the height of his political power. Italian opposition parties this week urged Salvini to clarify whether Epstein influenced the rise of the League after Salvini’s name was cited several times in messages exchanged between Bannon and Epstein.

In France, the leftwing party La France Insoumise also called for a cross-party parliament inquiry after several French figures including Jack Lang, a former culture minister, and his daughter appeared in the latest Epstein release, as did exchanges between Epstein and Bannon in which Bannon spoke of his desire to raise money for the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

In Germany, the files revealed exchanges between Epstein and Bannon promoting Alternative für Deutschland while denigrating the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

In texts from 2018, Bannon bragged about his influence as an “adviser” to the new rightwing populists and saw the parties’ gains in Europe as a chance to use them to his and Epstein’s benefit.

There is no evidence of any direct relations between Salvini and Epstein, nor any suggestion that Salvini was involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking network. But what the messages do reveal is Epstein’s interest in European nationalists.

...

There is no evidence that Epstein financed the League, which returned to government in 2022 as an ally in Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition, and other European far-right parties. However, it appears that Bannon tried to tap him for funds.

Andrea Casu, a politician with the centre-left Democratic party who raised questions about the subject of funding in the Italian parliament on Tuesday, said: “We are asking the government – not just Salvini – for clarity and transparency … we must first understand if there is a link, not only with Bannon, but with those who today play a political game with these rightwing forces at the European level.”

Riccardo Magi, president of the leftwing party Più Europa (More Europe), claimed the Epstein files “implicate Matteo Salvini in alleged funding that Bannon had promised to provide for his election campaign”, an allegation that “raises concerns about potential external influence affecting the second-largest party in the current majority”.

Bannon has declined to comment to US media about the exchanges in the latest Epstein files. Salvini’s League party dismissed speculation that Epstein might have contributed funds as “unfounded” and “serious exaggerations”. It added that the party has “never requested or received funding” and would defend itself and Salvini “in every way possible in the event of insinuations or associations with disgusting figures”.

In France, Lang, who heads the Institut du Monde Arabe, a cultural organisation, features in emails discussing meetings and holidays. He admitted knowing Epstein, saying it was “at a time when nothing suggested Jeffrey Epstein was at the heart of a network of criminality”.

His daughter Caroline, a film producer, resigned this week from France’s Union of Independent Producers after the emails showed she had founded an offshore company with Epstein in 2016 to invest in the work of young artists. There was no suggestion of illegality. She said she had resigned from the company when Epstein’s criminal acts were revealed.

The emails also showed extensive communications between Epstein and Olivier Colom, a former diplomatic adviser to the former rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy. One email exchange with Colom in 2018 suggested that the former finance minister Bruno Le Maire had gone to Epstein’s house in New York at an unspecified date. A person close to Le Maire told Politico that Le Maire had not known whose house he was visiting in September 2013, before he was finance minister, and quickly left when he saw Epstein at the residence, never seeing him again.

...

————

“Epstein files shed more light on Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence European politics” by Angela Giuffrida, Deborah Cole and Angelique Chrisafis; The Guardian; 02/05/2026

“There is no evidence of any direct relations between Salvini and Epstein, nor any suggestion that Salvini was involved in Epstein’s sex-trafficking network. But what the messages do reveal is Epstein’s interest in European nationalists.”

It wasn’t just Steve Bannon trying to coax Epstein into becoming a sponsor of European politics. Epstein was already doing that on his own. And while it doesn’t appear that his relationships were exclusive to far right politicians, it does appear that he did have a desire to see Europe’s far right parties take power:

...
Bannon especially set his sights on Matteo Salvini, the Italian deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, who at the time was at the height of his political power. Italian opposition parties this week urged Salvini to clarify whether Epstein influenced the rise of the League after Salvini’s name was cited several times in messages exchanged between Bannon and Epstein.

...

There is no evidence that Epstein financed the League, which returned to government in 2022 as an ally in Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition, and other European far-right parties. However, it appears that Bannon tried to tap him for funds.

...

In France, Lang, who heads the Institut du Monde Arabe, a cultural organisation, features in emails discussing meetings and holidays. He admitted knowing Epstein, saying it was “at a time when nothing suggested Jeffrey Epstein was at the heart of a network of criminality”.

His daughter Caroline, a film producer, resigned this week from France’s Union of Independent Producers after the emails showed she had founded an offshore company with Epstein in 2016 to invest in the work of young artists. There was no suggestion of illegality. She said she had resigned from the company when Epstein’s criminal acts were revealed.

The emails also showed extensive communications between Epstein and Olivier Colom, a former diplomatic adviser to the former rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy. One email exchange with Colom in 2018 suggested that the former finance minister Bruno Le Maire had gone to Epstein’s house in New York at an unspecified date. A person close to Le Maire told Politico that Le Maire had not known whose house he was visiting in September 2013, before he was finance minister, and quickly left when he saw Epstein at the residence, never seeing him again.
...

And as with so much of this story, we can expect to get a glimpse into the true state of affairs at best. We’ll almost certainly never get the full story. How deep was Epstein’s influence across Europe? Don’t forget he’s presumably an intelligence asset, as Steve Bannon also believed, so the deeper the influence the better as far as his sponsors would be concerned. Sponsors who are presumably already have an Epstein 2.0 up and running for the next generation of corrupted leadership. Because why wouldn’t they? It’s not like there are consequences.

And this change in Starlink’s privacy policy appears to be part of a much larger reorganization of Musk’s companies. Because not only is Starlink’s parent company, SpaceX, slated for a massive IPO later this year, but it appears SpaceX and xAI are slated for a merger before that happens. Yes, xAI — a company that developed Grok, the AI that triggered investigations over its production of images that border on child pornography — is going to be part of the upcoming mega-IPO. SpaceX alone was expected to reach a valuation over $1 trillion. What kind of valuation will a merged company have?

But that wasn’t the biggest announcement related to both SpaceX and xAI in the last week. No, the biggest announcement has to do with what Musk is apparently envisioning for the future of his AI empire: orbital data centers. Yep. Musk wants to launch a new satellite cluster, this time dedicated to AI-related computations. SpaceX and xAI are getting into the data center market, it would seem. But why put data centers in orbit? Power. A steady supply of solar power, specifically. It’s Musk’s answer to the growing terrestrial challenge of powering the electricity-hungry data centers currently running the AI revolution. As we’ve seen, alternative approaches to powering the expected deluge of data centers includes building large numbers of small nuclear power plants, a ‘solution’ with plenty of problems of its own including the using of uranium fuel that’s enriched enough to potentially build a nuclear weapon or at least a dirty bomb. Solar powered orbital data centers do sound rather nice in comparison a proliferation of nuclear-powered data centers here on earth.

But, of course, there’s the issue of getting those data centers up into orbit, and the general question of how many orbital data centers Musk has in mind. This is where it goes from ambitious to absurd: Musk is requesting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) grant his company the right to launch up to 1 million orbital data centers, which will all operating as a kind of giant AI cluster. Keep in mind that there’s currently around 15,000 satellites in total in orbit, with around 9,500 of them being Starlink satellites. So Musk is proposing a 67-fold increase in the total number of satellites in orbit, with almost all of those satellites serving as AI data centers for his company. Also keep in mind that the planned scale of Starlink is 42,000, so Musk’s satellite constellation ambitions have grown substantially.

It’s hard to say how realistically we should treat the orbital data center concept. On one level it sounds like hype for the SpaceX/xAI IPO. But it’s also a warning that the problem of space congestion and hazardous space junk is poised to explode in coming years. As we’ve seen, Kessler syndrome, the out-of-control orbital junk chain-reaction nightmare scenario, has been a growing concern with the existing 9,500 Starlink satellites, let alone a million more. Starlink has so many satellites in orbit they aren’t even put in independent orbits. Instead, collisions are avoided through routine collision-avoidance-maneuvers when two satellites are about to collide. In the first half of 2024, more than than 50,000 collision-avoidance-maneuvers had to be deployed by Starlink’s satellites. And we’re not even a quarter of the way to the planned 42,000 total satellites. But here’s Musk talking about getting FCC permission for 1 million more. What could possibly go wrong?

Also keep in mind that the lifespans of Starlink’s satellites is only 5–7 years and, currently, roughly 1–2 Starlink satellites are falling out of orbit every single day. Launching replacement satellites is an absolute necessity for this platform for function. How many AI-satellites are we going to see falling out of orbit on a daily basis? And don’t forget how these satellites pose a potential threat to the ozone layer, with the aluminum burning up upon reentry, generating ozone-destroying aluminum oxide. In addition, just putting the satellites in orbit poses an ozone layer risk because, while most of the rocket components get reused, the 4‑ton upper stages of the rockets become space junk before descending back down and burning up in the atmosphere, releasing aluminum oxide in the process. Scaling up the number of satellites in orbit means scaling up the ozone layer destruction too, at least using current technologies.

And let’s not forget that part of what makes the risk of a Kessler syndrome space junk scenario loom so large in our new age of satellite clusters is the fact that Starlink is already being militarized and used by Ukraine in its war with Russia. Starlink no longer just civilian infrastructure, despite SpaceX building the military-grade Starshield satellite constellation too for the Pentagon. The US Navy already adopting Starlink for its surface fleets. And Starlink is proving to be absolutely crucial military infrastructure for Ukraine, especially for drone warfare. There were even Ukrainian drones being fitted with Starlink terminals, allowing for strikes deep inside Russian territory, which led to SpaceX issuing a policy in February 2023 banning Starlink from being used for military strikes inside Russia. Also recall how Musk was widely criticized not allowing Starlink to be used for a drone boat strike against a Russian port in Crimea, the kind of attack that would have been seen by Russia as a major assault on their territory, which was the kind of episode that revealed how large segments of the US national security state are eager for Starlink to become a much more provacative military asset. Not surprisingly, Russia has warned that “quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike”, a clear reference to Starlink. China is working on anti-Starlink technologies too (in addition to satellite clusters of their own). AI is likely at the heart of the future of warfare. What are the odds Musk’s proposed AI satellite constellation wouldn’t be utilized for military AI computations too?

And that ongoing threat posed by the militarization of this ostensibly civilian infrastructure brings us to another pair of stories underscoring the growing threat of a Kessler syndrome-style catastrophe: first, Starlink just announced that it detected Russian forces utilizing Starlink for drone attacks of their own inside Ukraine. Starlink has now successfully blocked Russian forces from continuing the practice.

And then there’s a report that came out back in December making a pretty remarkable, yet predictable, claim: Russia is apparently developing an anti-satellite weapon seemingly designed for incapacitating Starlink and other satellite clusters. The weapon is believed to involve the release of large numbers of tiny dense pellets in the orbital space of the targeted satellite cluster, with the satellites’ solar panels being particularly vulnerable. The pellets are feared to be too tiny to be tracked, making it a potential stealth weapon.

So what is the sourcing for this report on the new Russian anti-satellite weapon? It’s based on anonymous statements from two NATO-nation intelligence agencies who only spoke to reporters on a condition of anonymity. It’s the kind of sourcing that should probably lead to some skepticism regarding the veracity of the claims. In fact, Victoria Samson, a space-security specialist at the Secure World Foundation, suggested this could be an attempt by some nations to illicit an international response. “Often times people pushing these ideas are doing it because they want the U.S. side to build something like that or ... to justify increased spending on counterspace capabilities or using it for a more hawkish approach on Russia,” as Samson put it. Samson went on to assert that Russia would likely be highly cautious about the deployment of such a weapons simply because the consequences could include effectively making space
inaccessible to Russia too. Using such a weapon “would effectively cut off space for them as well,” Samson said. ”I don’t know that they would be willing to give up that much.”

Brig. Gen. Christopher Horner, the commander of the Canadian military’s Space Division, had a similar assessment, warning that clouds of pellets would be unlikely to only strike Starlink and that debris from such an attack could get “out of control in a hurry.” He may not have used the term “Kessler syndrome”, but that’s what he was referring to. Out of control debris creating even more out of control debris. So, in addition to the questionable and likely propagandistic nature of this report, the other main argument against the idea that Russia is actually developing an anti-satellite weapon of this nature is the catastrophic consequences if such a weapon was ever to be used. Kessler syndrome consequences.

That’s the slew of recent Starlink-related updates. Updates that, taken together, point towards an absurd future, where hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of satellites are launch into orbit, and inevitably weaponized and turned into a dual-use platform and a major military asset. A military asset long touted as robust against attacks against individual satellites. And all of this is going to happen with the full recognition that, should any country decide to really attack this platform and disable a large number of satellites, a catastrophic out-of-control space junk scenario could unfold that would cut off access to space for everyone. Militarized satellite clusters will be deployed for military purposes and we’re just going to bet that no one will be aggressive enough to attack it because the consequences would be too severe. The world’s orbital space is becoming a giant game of chicken. Orbital mutually assured destruction. With the world’s wealthiest fascist calling the shots, but the broader US national security establishment clearly on board with this agenda.

Ok, first, here’s a report on the new Starlink privacy policy. A new privacy-shredding policy seemingly designed to maximize the potential synergy for the merger of SpaceX and xAI ahead of the massive upcoming SpaceX IPO slated for later this year:

Reuters

Musk’s Starlink updates privacy policy to allow consumer data to train AI

By David Jeans and Joey Roulette
January 30, 2026 5:09 PM CST
Updated January 30, 2026

Starlink privacy policy allows AI training with user data
Privacy advocates concerned over data use for AI training
Potential xAI merger could enhance AI services with Starlink data

NEW YORK, Jan 30 (Reuters) — SpaceX revised its Starlink privacy policy to allow the use of customer data for AI training, a shift that could bolster Elon Musk’s AI ambitions.

Ahead of a blockbuster IPO planned for later this year, SpaceX is in talks to merge with Musk’s AI company, xAI, a deal first reported by Reuters on Thursday. SpaceX, already the world’s most valuable private company, could reach a value of more than $1 trillion after the IPO.

Starlink updated its Global Privacy Policy on January 15, according to the Starlink website. The policy includes new details stating that unless a user opts out, Starlink data may be used “to train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models” and could be shared with the company’s service providers and “third-party collaborators,” without providing further details.

A previous version of the privacy policy, an archived version from November and reviewed by Reuters, did not contain language about AI training on Starlink data.

...

STARLINK OFFERS TREASURE TROVE OF DATA

Starlink collects vast amounts of user data, spanning location information, credit card information, contact information and user IP addresses. It also collects so-called communication data, which includes audio and visual information, data in shared files, and “inferences we may make from other personal information we collect,” according to its global privacy policy.

The policy did not make clear exactly what data would be used to train AI. The move has raised concerns among privacy advocates and consumer rights groups, which argue that using personal data to train AI risks expanding surveillance and creates new avenues for misuse.

“It certainly raises my eyebrow and would make me concerned if I was a Starlink user,” said Anupam Chander, a technology law professor at Georgetown University. “Often there’s perfectly legitimate uses of your data, but it doesn’t have a clear limit to what kind of uses it will be put to.”

...

The potential merger with xAI would turbocharge the space company’s deployment of AI-powered services, while giving xAI vast new data sets to train its models on, including communication data. Starlink, a network of more than 9,000 satellites, currently provides internet connection to more than 9 million users.

———-

“Musk’s Starlink updates privacy policy to allow consumer data to train AI” By David Jeans and Joey Roulette; Reuters; 01/30/2026

“Starlink collects vast amounts of user data, spanning location information, credit card information, contact information and user IP addresses. It also collects so-called communication data, which includes audio and visual information, data in shared files, and “inferences we may make from other personal information we collect,” according to its global privacy policy.”

The vast trove of data transferred over the Starlink network — from credit card and contact information to audio and video files — will now be used to power xAI’s products, unless the user opts out. Yes, Grok should have plenty of additional video content to help hone its feature for making sexually charged altered photos of adults and children. But not just that. Inferences made from this collected data will also be generated and shared with “third-party collaborators”, with no clear limits on how this data will be used. What kind of inferences will xAI make and then sell to third-parties? We have no idea. Sure, things like sexual orientation will obviously be potentially inferrable from video content but it’s not going to be limited to that. It’s also worth recalling how DOGE employees installed in the White House reportedly set up a Starlink terminal for transmitting data in a major violation of White House cyber security practices. You have to wonder if that Starlink terminal is still set up and, if so, how all that transmitted data will be handled. Will White House data be ingested into xAI’s next generation of models? These are some of the stupid questions we have to ask thanks to our absurd state of affairs:

...
Starlink updated its Global Privacy Policy on January 15, according to the Starlink website. The policy includes new details stating that unless a user opts out, Starlink data may be used “to train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models” and could be shared with the company’s service providers and “third-party collaborators,” without providing further details.

A previous version of the privacy policy, an archived version from November and reviewed by Reuters, did not contain language about AI training on Starlink data.

...

The policy did not make clear exactly what data would be used to train AI. The move has raised concerns among privacy advocates and consumer rights groups, which argue that using personal data to train AI risks expanding surveillance and creates new avenues for misuse.

“It certainly raises my eyebrow and would make me concerned if I was a Starlink user,” said Anupam Chander, a technology law professor at Georgetown University. “Often there’s perfectly legitimate uses of your data, but it doesn’t have a clear limit to what kind of uses it will be put to.”
...

And this sudden change in Starlink’s privacy policy is coming at the same time SpaceX is in talks to merge with xAI head of the placed SpaceX IPO later this year. So it isn’t just SpaceX going public this year. It will be SpaceX and xAI going public as one. Keep in mind that xAI is still dealing with investigation into its production of images that are border on child pornography

...
Ahead of a blockbuster IPO planned for later this year, SpaceX is in talks to merge with Musk’s AI company, xAI, a deal first reported by Reuters on Thursday. SpaceX, already the world’s most valuable private company, could reach a value of more than $1 trillion after the IPO.
...

And that troubling update on the terms of use for Starlink customers brings us to another recent update for the newly combined SpaceX/xAI behemoth: Elon Musk is requesting permission to launch a new satellite constellation dedicated to AI computations. The idea being that they will be perpetually powered by solar power, thus bypassing the growing issue of how to power all of the new terrestial AI data centers that are increasingly straining electricity supplies. Solar powered AI would be a lot more preferable than, for example, the rush into small, potentially unsafe, nuclear power plants. But there’s a catch: Musk isn’t talking about another constellation on the scale of Starlink’s planned 42,000 satellites (from the roughly 9500 in orbit today). No, no, Musk is talking about a constallelation of 1 million satellites, over 23 times larger than Starlink will be once it’s completed:

Reuters

SpaceX seeks FCC nod for solar-powered satellite data centers for AI

By Reuters
January 31, 2026 11:14 AM CST
Updated

Satellites to harness solar power for AI data centers
SpaceX relies on Starship for satellite deployment

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 — Elon Musk’s SpaceX wants to launch a constellation of 1 million satellites that will orbit Earth and harness the sun to power AI data centers, according to a filing at the Federal Communications Commission.

The filing on Friday was posted a day after Reuters exclusively reported SpaceX and Musk’s xAI are in discussions to merge ahead of a blockbuster public offering planned this year. A merger would give fresh momentum to SpaceX’s effort to launch data centers into orbit as Musk battles for supremacy in the rapidly escalating AI race against tech companies Google, Meta and OpenAI.

...

“By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will achieve transformative cost and energy efficiency while significantly reducing the environmental impact associated with terrestrial data centers,” the FCC filing said. Musk would need the telecom regulator’s approval to move forward.

While it is unlikely SpaceX will put 1 million satellites in space, where only 15,000 satellites exist currently, satellite operators sometimes request approval for higher numbers of satellites than they intend to deploy to buy design flexibility; SpaceX sought approval for 42,000 Starlink satellites before it began deployment of the system. The growing network currently has roughly 9,500 satellites in space.

SpaceX’s request bets heavily on reduced costs of Starship, the company’s next-generation reusable rocket under development.

...

Starship has test-launched 11 times since 2023. Musk expects the rocket, which is crucial for expanding Starlink with more powerful satellites, to put its first payloads into orbit this year.

———-

“SpaceX seeks FCC nod for solar-powered satellite data centers for AI” By Reuters; Reuters; 01/31/2026

“While it is unlikely SpaceX will put 1 million satellites in space, where only 15,000 satellites exist currently, satellite operators sometimes request approval for higher numbers of satellites than they intend to deploy to buy design flexibility; SpaceX sought approval for 42,000 Starlink satellites before it began deployment of the system. The growing network currently has roughly 9,500 satellites in space.”

Is SpaceX serious about launching a million satellites into orbit purely for the purpose of solar-powered AI computations? Who knows, but either way, the request for FCC approval has already been made. Things are in motion. And even if the 1 million satellite goal is never even remotely achieved, it’s clear that the Musk’s satellite ambitions aren’t limited to Starlink’s planned constellation of 42,000, a number that is almost triple the 15,000 satellites currently orbiting the planet. Also keep in mind that SpaceX obviously isn’t the only entity that’s going to have huge plans for massive new satellite constellations. Also keep in mind that the satellites of Starlink need to be routinely replaced as they fall out of commission and literally fall out of orbit, having only 5–7 year lifespans. Imagine how many satellites that will have to be continually launched to maintain clusters of this proposed scale.

And that plan to fill the earth’s orbits with millions of new satellites brings us to the following update on the ongoing risk associated with SpaceX’x decision to make Starlink a key military tool to be used exclusively by Ukraine. A decision that, as we’ve seen, risks turning Starlink from a civilian platform into a ‘dual use’ entity that is a legitimate military target, as Russia has warned: Musk announced that SpaceX has stopped the unauthorized used of Starlink by Russian forces:

Reuters

Musk says steps to stop Russia from using Starlink seem to have worked

By Reuters
February 1, 2026 2:18 AM CST
Updated

Feb 1 (Reuters) — Elon Musk said on Sunday that moves by his SpaceX company to stop the ‘unauthorized’ use by Russia of its internet system Starlink seemed to have worked, while Kyiv’s defence chief said officials were working on ways to prevent any future use by Moscow.

Kyiv’s military relies on tens of thousands of satellite-based Starlink internet connections for battlefield communication and for piloting some drone missions, but said this week it had found Starlink terminals on long-range drones used in Russian attacks.

Ukraine said it was working with SpaceX to stop Russia from guiding drones with Starlink.

...

In a separate statement on Sunday, Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Kyiv was developing a system that would allow only authorised Starlink terminals to work on Ukrainian territory.

...

“The next step is implementing a system that will allow only authorized terminals to operate on the territory of Ukraine.”

In a social media post in February 2024, SpaceX said it does not sell or ship Starlink to Russia, and “does not do business of any kind with the Russian Government or its military”.

...

———–

“Musk says steps to stop Russia from using Starlink seem to have worked” By Reuters; Reuters; 02/01/2026

“Kyiv’s military relies on tens of thousands of satellite-based Starlink internet connections for battlefield communication and for piloting some drone missions, but said this week it had found Starlink terminals on long-range drones used in Russian attacks.”

Starlink will continue to be used heavily by Ukraine. But not Russia. At least not after this hacking by Russia was thwarted. How will Russia respond? Time will tell. But according to the following report, Russia is developing a “zone-effect” weapon designed to flood orbital space with thousands of high-density satellite-destroying pellets. That’s the warning we’re getting from two NATO-nation intelligence agencies that refuse to be named. It’s a report that comes with the warning that such a weapon, if used, to cause catastrophic collateral damage to other orbiting systems, including potentially Russia’s. Uncontrollable chaos. In other words, Kessler syndrome. Keep in mind that a weapon of this nature — large numbers of small projectiles — was always an obvious option for military rivals to develop the moment Starlink became used for military purposes. Also keep in mind that one of Starlink’s sales pitches to the military is that it would be resistant to direct attacks because of all the redundancy. And now we have an apparent threat of exactly this kind of weapons, and experts are warning that the consequences could be so catastrophic that it probably wouldn’t ever be deployed. It’s not exactly a consistent narrative.

Interestingly, one expert, Victoria Samson, a space-security specialist at the Secure World Foundation, insists she doesn’t believe the report is accurate and then goes on to suggest this alarmism is actually an effort to elicit an international response. “Often times people pushing these ideas are doing it because they want the U.S. side to build something like that or ... to justify increased spending on counterspace capabilities or using it for a more hawkish approach on Russia,” according to Samson. “I’m not saying that this is what’s happening with this,” Samson added. “But it has been known to happen that people take these crazy arguments and use them.” So we have a report about a new Russian anti-satellite-cluster weapon that is seen as potentially so devastating that its use is seen as unthinkable:

Associated Press

Starlink in the crosshairs: How Russia could attack Elon Musk’s conquering of space

By JOHN LEICESTER
Updated 11:08 AM CST, December 22, 2025

Two NATO-nation intelligence services suspect Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation with destructive orbiting clouds of shrapnel, with the aim of reining in Western space superiority that has helped Ukraine on the battlefield.

Intelligence findings seen by The Associated Press say the so-called “zone-effect” weapon would seek to flood Starlink orbits with hundreds of thousands of high-density pellets, potentially disabling multiple satellites at once but also risking catastrophic collateral damage to other orbiting systems.

Analysts who haven’t seen the findings say they doubt such a weapon could work without causing uncontrollable chaos in space for companies and countries, including Russia and its ally China, that rely on thousands of orbiting satellites for communications, defense and other vital needs.

...

“I don’t buy it. Like, I really don’t,” said Victoria Samson, a space-security specialist at the Secure World Foundation who leads the Colorado-based nongovernmental organization’s annual study of anti-satellite systems. “I would be very surprised, frankly, if they were to do something like that.”

But the commander of the Canadian military’s Space Division, Brig. Gen. Christopher Horner, said such Russian work cannot be ruled out in light of previous U.S. allegations that Russia also has been pursuing an indiscriminate nuclear, space-based weapon.

“I can’t say I’ve been briefed on that type of system. But it’s not implausible,” he said. “If the reporting on the nuclear weapons system is accurate and that they’re willing to develop that and willing to go to that end, well it wouldn’t strike me as shocking that something just short of that, but equally damaging, is within their wheelhouse of development.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t respond to messages from the AP seeking comment. Russia has previously called for United Nations efforts to stop the orbital deployment of weapons and President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear space weapons.

Weapon would have multiple targets

The intelligence findings were shown to the AP on condition that the services involved were not identified and the news organization was not able to independently verify the findings’ conclusions.

The U.S. Space Force didn’t respond to e‑mailed questions. The French military’s Space Command said in a statement to the AP that it could not comment on the findings but said, “We can inform you that Russia has, in recent years, been multiplying irresponsible, dangerous, and even hostile actions in space.”

Russia views Starlink in particular as a grave threat, the findings indicate. The thousands of low-orbiting satellites have been pivotal for Ukraine’s survival against Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its fourth year.

...

Russian officials repeatedly have warned that commercial satellites serving Ukraine’s military could be legitimate targets. This month, Russia said it has fielded a new ground-based missile system, the S‑500, which is capable of hitting low-orbit targets.

Unlike a missile that Russia tested in 2021 to destroy a defunct Cold War-era satellite, the new weapon in development would target multiple Starlinks at once, with pellets possibly released by yet-to-be launched formations of small satellites, the intelligence findings say.

Canada’s Horner said it is hard to see how clouds of pellets could be corralled to only strike Starlink and that debris from such an attack could get “out of control in a hurry.”

“You blow up a box full of BBs,” he said. Doing that would “blanket an entire orbital regime and take out every Starlink satellite and every other satellite that’s in a similar regime. And I think that’s the part that is incredibly troubling.”

System is possibly just experimental

The findings seen by the AP didn’t say when Russia might be capable of deploying such a system nor detail whether it has been tested or how far along research is believed to be.

The system is in active development and information about the timing of an expected deployment is too sensitive to share, according to an official familiar with the findings and other related intelligence that the AP did not see. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the nonpublic findings.

Such Russian research could be simply experimental, Samson said.

“I wouldn’t put it past some scientists ... to build out something like this because it’s an interesting thought-experiment and they think, you know, ‘Maybe at some point we can get our government to pay for it,’” she said.

Samson suggested the specter of a supposed new Russian threat may also be an effort to elicit an international response.

“Often times people pushing these ideas are doing it because they want the U.S. side to build something like that or ... to justify increased spending on counterspace capabilities or using it for a more hawkish approach on Russia,” she said.

“I’m not saying that this is what’s happening with this,” Samson added. “But it has been known to happen that people take these crazy arguments and use them.”

Tiny pellets could remain undetected

The intelligence findings say the pellets would be so small — just millimeters across — that they would evade detection by ground- and space-based systems that scan for space objects, which could make it hard to pin blame for any attack on Moscow.

Clayton Swope, who specializes in space security and weaponry at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based security and policy think tank, said if “the pellets are not trackable, that complicates things” but “people would figure it out.”

“If satellites start winking out with damage, I guess you could put two and two together,” he said.

Exactly how much destruction tiny pellets could do isn’t clear. In November, a suspected impact by a small piece of debris was sufficient to damage a Chinese spacecraft that was meant to bring three astronauts back to the Earth.

“Most damage would probably be done to the solar panels because they’re probably the most fragile part” of satellites, Swope said. “That’d be enough, though, to damage a satellite and probably bring it offline.”

‘Weapon of fear’ could threaten chaos

After such an attack, pellets and debris would over time fall back toward Earth, possibly damaging other orbiting systems on their way down, analysts say.

Starlink’s orbits are about 550 kilometers (340 miles) above the planet. China’s Tiangong space station and the International Space Station operate at lower orbits, “so both would face risks,” according to Swope.

The space chaos that such a weapon could cause might enable Moscow to threaten its adversaries without actually having to use it, Swope said.

...

Samson said the drawbacks of an indiscriminate pellet-weapon could steer Russia off such a path.

“They’ve invested a huge amount of time and money and human power into being, you know, a space power,” she said.

Using such a weapon “would effectively cut off space for them as well,” Samson said. ”I don’t know that they would be willing to give up that much.”

————

“Starlink in the crosshairs: How Russia could attack Elon Musk’s conquering of space” By JOHN LEICESTER; Associated Press; 12/22/2025

“Analysts who haven’t seen the findings say they doubt such a weapon could work without causing uncontrollable chaos in space for companies and countries, including Russia and its ally China, that rely on thousands of orbiting satellites for communications, defense and other vital needs.”

Uncontrollable chaos is the unavoidable consequence of the use of such a weapon. Which sure sounds like an admission that these satellite clusters are actually a lot more fragile than originally advertised. Also keep in mind that the destruction under such a scenario presumably isn’t limited to immediately destroy caused by the pellets released by this hypothetical anti-satellite weapon. As those satellites are hit and knocked out of commission they’re going to create new debris of their own. That’s how Kessler syndrome works. That’s the warning delivered to the AP by two unnamed NATO-nation intelligence agencies who insisted on anonymity, apparently due to the extreme sensitivity of the intelligence:

...
Two NATO-nation intelligence services suspect Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation with destructive orbiting clouds of shrapnel, with the aim of reining in Western space superiority that has helped Ukraine on the battlefield.

...

The intelligence findings were shown to the AP on condition that the services involved were not identified and the news organization was not able to independently verify the findings’ conclusions.

The U.S. Space Force didn’t respond to e‑mailed questions. The French military’s Space Command said in a statement to the AP that it could not comment on the findings but said, “We can inform you that Russia has, in recent years, been multiplying irresponsible, dangerous, and even hostile actions in space.”

...

The system is in active development and information about the timing of an expected deployment is too sensitive to share, according to an official familiar with the findings and other related intelligence that the AP did not see. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the nonpublic findings.
...

And while they don’t use the term Kessler syndrome in this report, it’s pretty clear that’s what they are referring to when they talk about an attack getting “out of control in a hurry” and would ““blanket an entire orbital regime and take out every Starlink satellite and every other satellite that’s in a similar regime.” It’s also a reminder that Kessler syndrome doesn’t have to be a slow accretion that slowly but steadily gets worse. Man-made weaponized Kessler syndrome is an option too, one that becomes all the more self-fulfilling with each new militarized satellite cluster:

...
Russia views Starlink in particular as a grave threat, the findings indicate. The thousands of low-orbiting satellites have been pivotal for Ukraine’s survival against Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its fourth year.

...

Russian officials repeatedly have warned that commercial satellites serving Ukraine’s military could be legitimate targets. This month, Russia said it has fielded a new ground-based missile system, the S‑500, which is capable of hitting low-orbit targets.

Unlike a missile that Russia tested in 2021 to destroy a defunct Cold War-era satellite, the new weapon in development would target multiple Starlinks at once, with pellets possibly released by yet-to-be launched formations of small satellites, the intelligence findings say.

Canada’s Horner said it is hard to see how clouds of pellets could be corralled to only strike Starlink and that debris from such an attack could get “out of control in a hurry.”

“You blow up a box full of BBs,” he said. Doing that would “blanket an entire orbital regime and take out every Starlink satellite and every other satellite that’s in a similar regime. And I think that’s the part that is incredibly troubling.”
...

But then there’s the take from Victoria Samson, a space-security specialist at the Secure World Foundation. As Samson sees it, the whole scenario sounds more like scare propaganda designed to illicit an international response. And note part of Samson’s reasoning in arriving at that conclusion: she warned that using such a weapon “would effectively cut off space for them as well.” It’s quite an admission from Samson given how incredibly blasé Western governments have been about the risks of deploying these militarized satellite clusters:

...
“I don’t buy it. Like, I really don’t,” said Victoria Samson, a space-security specialist at the Secure World Foundation who leads the Colorado-based nongovernmental organization’s annual study of anti-satellite systems. “I would be very surprised, frankly, if they were to do something like that.”

...

Such Russian research could be simply experimental, Samson said.

“I wouldn’t put it past some scientists ... to build out something like this because it’s an interesting thought-experiment and they think, you know, ‘Maybe at some point we can get our government to pay for it,’” she said.

Samson suggested the specter of a supposed new Russian threat may also be an effort to elicit an international response.

“Often times people pushing these ideas are doing it because they want the U.S. side to build something like that or ... to justify increased spending on counterspace capabilities or using it for a more hawkish approach on Russia,” she said.

“I’m not saying that this is what’s happening with this,” Samson added. “But it has been known to happen that people take these crazy arguments and use them.”

...

Samson said the drawbacks of an indiscriminate pellet-weapon could steer Russia off such a path.

“They’ve invested a huge amount of time and money and human power into being, you know, a space power,” she said.

Using such a weapon “would effectively cut off space for them as well,” Samson said. ”I don’t know that they would be willing to give up that much.”
...

So was this report just more propaganda from the military industrial complex? Perhaps. But with the ongoing militarization of these satellite clusters, it’s hard to imagine Russia isn’t working on an effective response. The only reason Starlink isn’t still being used for drone strikes deep inside Russia is because Starlink cut off access for those kinds of attacks. What if that policy changes? Do we really expect Russia to just accept that situation without responding? Apparently so. It’s not the best strategic policy. Although it might be great for Elon’s upcoming IPO. Priorities.

Discussion of the Rat Lines on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/hundreds-of-swiss-bank-accounts-with-suspected-nazi-links-found-by-investigators/ar-AA1VzIyl?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=698255bbfb7641daaaaa2d8ac61f2d15&ei=13

Obviously, modified limited hangout, but still.

And as FBI director Kash Patel made clear with his recent announcement of an FBI investigation into the Signal chat groups of anti-ICE protesters, the next phase of the planned authoritarian chaos appears to involve treating anti-ICE protesters as illegal conspirators. That was the planned Patel announced on The Benny Show, a podcast by far right influencer Benny Johnson where Patel made frequent appearance before becoming the head of the FBI. As we’ll see, the whole story got kicked off after another far right influencer, Cam Higby, claimed to have “infiltrated” the Signal chat group of some anti-ICE protesters and claimed that the chats have “the sole intention of tracking down federal agents and impeding/assaulting/and obstructing them”. Benny Johnson went on to state that “This is clearly a coordinated infrastructure, and we’d like for the feds to take a crack at trying to get rid of this infrastructure the way they approach the mob or cartels or other terrorist networks, right?” Patel agreed, while adding that he opened an FBI investigation “as soon as Higby put that post out”. And while legal experts agree that it would be illegal for a group to attempt to obstruct legal law enforcement actions, those who have reviewed the posts made public by Higby concluded they saw nothing illegal.

But beyond the fact that this appears to be another attempt at wielding government power for the purpose of intimidating and persecuting MAGA’s political enemies, let’s not forget that, if Higby or his associates really have “infiltrated” one or more Signal chat groups, that’s a recipe for all sorts of bad faithed stoking of even more violence on the streets of Minneapolis. And yet, the FBI is apparently proceeding with this ‘investigation’.

Don’t assume the investigation will be limited to Signal chats. This is the age of the 21st century surveillance state, after all, with almost no regulations constraining how governments and private parties can use and explode the sea of digital information being generated by each and everyone one of use. Especially those of us with smartphones, with is almost everyone. For example, according to recent reports, ICE is now utilizing the services of companies that compile and sell the location histories of millions of smartphones. It’s hardly a surprise. The explosion of the geo-location data market is hardly new. So will people who just happen to be in the general location of the activists targeted in this FBI ‘investigation’ end up getting investigated too? We’ll see, but it’s hard not to suspect that simply raising these questions in the minds of activists in part of the agenda here too. Chaotically impose a militarized federal presence seemingly designed to generate protests and then make people too scared to communicate, or even gather in person.

Palantir will presumably also be heavily deployed by the FBI and ICE as this public intimidation strategy gets fleshed out. After all, we know ICE has been using Palantir’s services for years. ICE even subscribes to the LexisNexis giant database of personal information. The range of data sources ICE can deploy on individuals is staggering. And the FBI presumably has access to even more.

As we’ll see, another technology used by ICE, Tangles, creates a day-in-the-life profile of individuals based on mined social media data. Which is a reminder that the kind of mass weaponized internet-scraping and profiling we saw in the Cambridge Analytica scandal is only continuing to be developed and commercialized. And it’s also a reminder of the even more powerful profiling data mining treasure trove ICE has been exploiting for years now: Clearview’s facial recognition service. A service co-founded by Hoan Ton-That and Charles Johnson, among other. Ton-That happens to be a neoreactionary anti-democracy pro-eugenics ideologue who expressly built Clearview with the idea of screening immigrants for ‘anti-American’ (anti-MAGA) attitudes and weaponizing it against left-wing individuals like activists and academics. As we’re going to see in the following Mother Jones piece from back in May, not only is Ton-That’s ties to extremist networks even more extensive than previously reported but both ICE and the FBI are enthusiastically and using Clearview’s services. Not just facial recognition services. Clearview is a compilation of an enormous volume of scraped information about billions of people. Which frequently includes copious information about political views, who someone associates with, and where they spend their time. And there’s almost no regulation on its usage.

Beyond that, the piece discusses how Ton-That and others in Clearview’s inner circle, like Peter Thiel and Naval Ravikant, both early Clearview investors, subscribe to an ideology that champions the idea of using technology to subvert and ultimately hijack and replace democracy. Ravikant reportedly imagines a neofeudalist future of “small free cities with drone armies and skill-based immigration policies” and a “one bitcoin, one vote” system of government. As we should expect, Ton-That’s a big fan of Curtis Yarvin, the ideological strategic architect of Project 2025.

But there’s another set of details in the Mother Jones piece that’s important to note: many of these government contracts for Clearview came during the Biden administration. This is well after the New York Time’s January 2020 report exposing Ton-That as a tech fascist. Which is a reminder that a rise of the neofeudal tech oligarchy currently subverting democracy in partnership with the Trump administration really was a bipartisan affair. So when it comes to the question of what’s to be done about the hijacking and subversion of democracy by fascist tech oligarchs, how about not giving them more and more lucrative government contracts? Why does this keep happening? Open fascists like Thiel and Ton-That getting one major contract involving highly sensitive national security-related services after another. Thiel is even waging a bizarre public crusade warning technology regulations are the literal Antichrist. How is he not seen as a threat to the republic?

It’s also all a reminder that, despite the apparent pull back in Minnesota, the Trump administration’s public intimidation campaign is not just going to continue but is poised to expand. With Kash Patel’s laughably corrupt FBI looking to play a bigger role too. Openly corrupt chaos and authoritarianism, now turbo-charged with fascist oligarch technology. In Clearview’s case, technology built by fascists precisely for this kind of corrupt authoritarian situation. Laughably corrupt too when it comes to Kash Patel, but the kind of power he is wielding is no joke:

The Guardian

FBI to investigate Minneapolis activists after far-right claim about Signal chats

The FBI director, Kash Patel, said the inquiry followed a far-right influencer’s post about anti-ICE Signal chats

Aram Roston
Tue 27 Jan 2026 11.47 EST

The FBI director, Kash Patel, announced on Monday he was launching a criminal investigation into group chats used by Minneapolis protesters on the Signal messaging app, based on a social media post by the far-right personality Cam Higby.

Patel used the podcast of another rightwing personality, Benny Johnson, to break the news.

Higby had posted on Sunday on X that he had “infiltrated” a group chat on Signal, the widely used communication app that offers effective encryption, populated by anti-ICE organizers in Minneapolis. Higby’s posts appear to show communication between Minneapolis activists in vehicles trying to locate and share the descriptions and license plates of potential ICE vehicles. He argued that the chats have “the sole intention of tracking down federal agents and impeding/assaulting/and obstructing them”.

Higby pushed his disclosures on Johnson’s podcast, The Benny Show, where Johnson demanded a federal investigation.

“This is clearly a coordinated infrastructure,” Johnson said, “and we’d like for the feds to take a crack at trying to get rid of this infrastructure the way they approach the mob or cartels or other terrorist networks, right?”

Patel himself then joined Johnson’s podcast – where he made frequent appearances before becoming FBI director – and confirmed that he would act as suggested.

“As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it,” Patel said.

...

Patel was careful to say he was not investigating peaceful protests or first amendment activity, but added: “You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts law enforcement in harm’s way.”

Kevin Goldberg, vice-president at the Freedom Forum, told the Guardian that impeding or obstructing law enforcement would be illegal, but that when he reviewed the Higby posts he saw nothing obviously illegal.

“I got the sense the [Signal chat] group has been organized for purposes that are fully protected by the first amendment: to observe, to speak and to alert others of possible dangers. I didn’t see anything that impedes or obstructs justice. The claimed ‘doxing’ of law enforcement is not necessary illegal.”

Goldberg said the supreme court in 1958 established the right to organize even in secret as long as there is no illegal activity. “I would want to know what the illegal activity is in this case,” he said.

Patrick Eddington, of the libertarian Cato institute, said the FBI had no business investigating. “The use of encryption is as American as apple pie. The founders used it before during and after the revolution,” he said.

“The notion that Kash Patel, who clearly failed to investigate the criminal conduct of Pete Hegseth now want to go after people for utilizing first amendment protected activity and technology to warn their neighbors about violent out-of-control so-called federal agents policing their neighborhoods is beyond outrageous.”

...

————

“FBI to investigate Minneapolis activists after far-right claim about Signal chats” by Aram Roston; The Guardian; 01/27/2026

“The FBI director, Kash Patel, announced on Monday he was launching a criminal investigation into group chats used by Minneapolis protesters on the Signal messaging app, based on a social media post by the far-right personality Cam Higby.”

The FBI is on the case, cracking open the insidious far left plot to disrupt ICE operations in Minneapolis. Antifa basically forced those agents ICE to shoot and kill protestors! And it was all exposed in a social media post by far right influencer Cam Higby, who allegedly “infiltrated” a group chat on Signal. That’s the gross spin being actively pushed by none other than FBI head Kash Patel during an appearance The Benny Show. “As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it,” according to Patel:

...
Higby had posted on Sunday on X that he had “infiltrated” a group chat on Signal, the widely used communication app that offers effective encryption, populated by anti-ICE organizers in Minneapolis. Higby’s posts appear to show communication between Minneapolis activists in vehicles trying to locate and share the descriptions and license plates of potential ICE vehicles. He argued that the chats have “the sole intention of tracking down federal agents and impeding/assaulting/and obstructing them”.

Higby pushed his disclosures on Johnson’s podcast, The Benny Show, where Johnson demanded a federal investigation.

“This is clearly a coordinated infrastructure,” Johnson said, “and we’d like for the feds to take a crack at trying to get rid of this infrastructure the way they approach the mob or cartels or other terrorist networks, right?”

Patel himself then joined Johnson’s podcast – where he made frequent appearances before becoming FBI director – and confirmed that he would act as suggested.

“As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it,” Patel said.
...

Patel was careful to say he was not investigating peaceful protests or first amendment activity, but added: “You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts law enforcement in harm’s way.”
...

So with the FBI apparently now following the leads of far right activists who claim to have infiltrated left-wing Signal chat groups, it’s important to note that FBI’s ability to ensnare and prosecute protestors is going to extend well beyond just Signal chats. Starting with the fact that ICE is now reportedly deploying tools for mass location-based tracking which will allow the agency to obtain the location histories of hundreds of millions of phones:

The New Republic

Very Soon, ICE Will Know Exactly Where You Are All the Time

ICE is planning on buying a tool that will let it see hundreds of millions of phones’ location data.

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
October 2, 2025 4:09 pm ET

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will soon be tracking cell phone data.

The immigration law enforcement agency has bought access to an “all-in-one” surveillance tool that gives it updated location data from hundreds of millions of phones, according to ICE documents obtained by 404 Media. ICE reportedly prefers the service because it also peels information from social media accounts.

Redacted documents make reference to two products, both produced by the contractor Penlink. They are known as Tangles and WebLoc. Both were created by an Israeli company called Cobwebs, which merged into Penlink in 2023. ICE has reportedly spent upwards of $5 million for access to the software, Forbes reported last month.

Previous attempts to monitor consumers’ location data for immigration enforcement were found to be illegal. A sweeping records request by the ACLU in 2022 found that DHS had obtained more than 336,000 location data points across North America by scraping app user data on hundreds of millions of phones during Donald Trump’s first term.

...

The decision to invest in Penlink’s products was informed by market research conducted in May and June by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, according to the documents.

WebLoc monitors the trends of mobile devices that have location data activated, and “how often they have been” to those locations, according to a government case study. Tangles creates a day-in-the-life profile of individuals based on mined social media data. It combines “posts, contacts, locations, and events they attended, combining it with any information leaked about them online,” Forbes reported, as well as captured images of a subject’s face that can then be searched for in databases by using Tangles’s AI-assisted tools..

...

Read the full report at 404 Media.

———–

“Very Soon, ICE Will Know Exactly Where You Are All the Time” by Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling; The New Republic; 10/02/2025

“WebLoc monitors the trends of mobile devices that have location data activated, and “how often they have been” to those locations, according to a government case study. Tangles creates a day-in-the-life profile of individuals based on mined social media data. It combines “posts, contacts, locations, and events they attended, combining it with any information leaked about them online,” Forbes reported, as well as captured images of a subject’s face that can then be searched for in databases by using Tangles’s AI-assisted tools.”

It’s not exactly a surprise. Of course ICE is utilizing location data. The phone-based geo-location data-harvesting industry has been growing for years. It would almost be weird if ICE wasn’t heavily exploiting this data by now.

And, of course, it’s not just location data and Signal Chats. When it comes to identifying and intimidating ICE protestors, the government already has an insanely powerful tool at its disposal: Clearview, the facial recognition service that isn’t just designed to identify individuals. As we’ve seen, Clearview is designed to scrape as much information as possible from the internet on everyone so Clearview’s clients can build a robust profile that includes political and ideological orientations and activities, along with all their associates. But it’s not just that Clearview has these capabilities. As the following Mother Jones piece reminds us, the company was built by neoreactionary far right individuals, closely aligned with Peter Thiel, for the expressed purpose of serving as a tool to be wielded against left-wing individuals:

Mother Jones

The Shocking Far-Right Agenda Behind the Facial Recognition Tech Used by ICE and the FBI

Thousands of newly obtained documents show that Clearview AI’s founders always intended to target immigrants and the political left. Now their digital dragnet is in the hands of the Trump administration.

Luke O’Brien
May+June 2025 Issue

One evening in March 2017, Hoan Ton-That, an Australian coder building a powerful facial recognition system, emailed his American business partners with a plan to deploy their fledgling technology. “Border patrol pitch,” the subject line read. He hoped to persuade the federal government to integrate their product with border surveillance cameras so that their newly formed company, later named Clearview AI, could use “face detection” on immigrants entering the United States.

An immigrant to the United States himself, Ton-That grew up in Melbourne and Canberra and claimed to be descended from Vietnamese royalty. At 19, he dropped out of college and, in 2007, moved to San Francisco to pursue a tech career. He later fell in with Silicon Valley neoreactionaries who embraced a far-right, technocratic vision of society. Now Ton-That and his partners wanted to use facial recognition to keep people out of the country. Certain people. Their technology would put that ideology into action.

Clearview had compiled a massive biometric database that would eventually contain billions of images the company scraped off the internet and social media without the knowledge of the platforms or their users. Its AI analyzed these images, creating a “faceprint” for every individual. The company let users run a “probe photo” against its database, and if it generated a hit, it displayed the matching images and links to the websites where they originated. This made it easy for Clearview users to further profile their targets with other information found on those webpages: religious or political affiliation, family and friends, romantic partners, sexuality. All without a search warrant or probable cause.

A diehard Donald Trump supporter, Ton-That envisioned using facial recognition to compare images of migrants crossing the border to mugshots to see if the arrivals had been previously arrested in the United States. His Border Patrol pitch also included a proposal to screen any arrival for “sentiment about the USA.” Here, Ton-That appeared to conflate support for the Republican leader with American identity, proposing to scan migrants’ social media for “posts saying ‘I hate Trump’ or ‘Trump is a puta’” and targeting anyone with an “affinity for far-left groups.” The lone example he offered was the National Council of La Raza, now called UnidosUS, one of the country’s largest Hispanic civil rights organizations.

By the end of Trump’s first presidential term, Clearview had secured funding from right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel, one of Elon Musk’s earliest business partners, and signed up hundreds of law enforcement clients around the country. The company doled out free trials to hook users, urging cops to “run wild” with searches. They did. Many departments then bought licenses to access Clearview’s faceprint database.

Since Clearview’s existence first came to light in 2020, the secretive company has attracted outsize controversy for its dystopian privacy implications. Corporations like Macy’s allegedly used Clearview on shoppers, according to legal records; law enforcement has deployed it against activists and protesters; and multiple government investigations have found federal agencies’ use of the product failed to comply with privacy requirements. Many local and state law enforcement agencies now rely on Clearview as a tool in everyday policing, with almost no transparency about how they use the tech. “What Clearview does is mass surveillance, and it is illegal,” the privacy commissioner of Canada said in 2021. In 2022, the ACLU settled a lawsuit with Clearview for allegedly violating an Illinois state law that prohibits unauthorized biometric harvesting. Data protection authorities in France, Greece, Italy, and the Netherlands have also ruled that the company’s data collection practices are illegal. To date, they have fined Clearview around $100 million.

...

In December, Ton-That, the face of Clearview since it was forced from the shadows, quietly stepped down as CEO and took on the role of president. In February, he abruptly resigned his new position, though he retains a board seat. When Mother Jones wrote Ton-That, who is now the chief technology officer at Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, with questions for this story, he replied: “There are inaccuracies and errors contained in these assertions. They do not merif [sic] further response.” Ton-That refused to elaborate. Clearview declined to comment.

Replacing him as co-CEOs were Richard Schwartz, a co-founder of the company and a former top aide to Rudy Giuliani, and Hal Lambert, an early Clearview investor who runs a Texas financial firm known for its “MAGA ETF”—an exchange-traded fund that screens companies for their political contributions and buys into those that vigorously back Republicans. A top Trump fundraiser who served on the president’s 2016 inaugural committee, Lambert told Forbes in February that he planned to help the company pursue “opportunities” with the new administration, citing Trump’s mass-­deportation agenda and anti-immigration policies.

Clearview is already well positioned to capitalize on Trump’s xenophobic plans. Today, one of the company’s top customers is US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a relationship cemented during Joe Biden’s presidency, as the agency inked bigger deals with the startup. Under the Biden administration, ICE records show, the agency deployed Clearview widely, even as officials there charged with monitoring the technology were in the dark about how it was being used and by whom. As the agency executes Trump’s emboldened mission—“Border Czar” Tom Homan has vowed to unleash “shock and awe” against undocumented immigrants—the dragnet surveillance outlined by Ton-That during the company’s earliest years may already be underway. (ICE did not respond to a request for comment.)

During Biden’s presidency, the trappings of oversight still existed. But Trump has fired many of the inspectors general who review the use of technology such as Clearview and guard against abuse. And Trump’s early actions have shown his administration has little regard for the legal, congressional, and constitutional guardrails that have constrained his predecessors.

...

No federal laws regulate facial recognition, and many federal agencies have deployed Clearview for years with little accountability. Consider that the FBI—now run by Kash Patel, who has claimed FBI agents incited January 6, pledged to target journalists, and penned a book containing the names of officials he planned to settle scores with—is another major federal customer. Patel’s new deputy director, Dan Bongino, is a conspiratorial right-wing influencer who has used violent rhetoric about liberals and called for jailing Democrats. (The FBI declined to comment on its use of Clearview or on Bongino’s extremist views.)

I’ve reported on Clearview for years. This story, based on interviews with insiders and thousands of newly obtained emails, texts, and other records, including internal ICE communications, provides the fullest account to date of the extent of the company’s far-right origins and of the implementation of its facial recognition technology within the federal government’s immigration enforcement apparatus. It reveals how Ton-That, who obsessed over race, IQ, and hierarchy, solicited input from eugenicists and right-wing extremists while building Clearview, and how, from the outset, he and his associates discussed deploying the tech against immigrants, people of color, and the political left. All told, this new reporting paints a chilling portrait of an ideologically driven company whose powerful surveillance technology is now in the hands of the Trump administration, as it bulldozes democratic institutions and executes an authoritarian takeover.

Ton-That knows better than most how a picture posted online can come back to haunt you. As Clearview took off, he was confronted with a snapshot from his past that clashed with his effort to present himself and his company as apolitical. It showed him partying on election night in 2016 with far-right activists in MAGA hats. One fellow reveler, Charles “Chuck” Johnson, a political agitator with wide-ranging connections to Republican politicians and right-wing billionaires, was also Ton-That’s business partner. Smartcheckr, the company they founded with Schwartz, would later relaunch as Clearview.

In early 2021, Ton-That told the New York Times’ Kashmir Hill that his extreme views and associations were confined to a brief period in his life when he was “confused.” He offered a similar explanation a few months later when a documentary crew from France 24 asked him about his far-right ties. “I’m not a political person,” he said. “It’s wrong to assume my political beliefs just from a photo…That was a different time in 2016, a long time ago.”

But Ton-That’s path to radicalization began earlier than he let on, and his extremism was no fleeting dalliance. By 2015, he was interacting online with alt-right activists, including Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich. Deleted social media posts also show him chatting with extremists such as Andrew “weev” Auernheimer, the longtime webmaster of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. (Auernheimer, who has a large swastika tattoo and has repeatedly called for a genocide of Jews, denied to Mother Jones that he holds neo-Nazi views and claimed he was no longer involved with the Daily Stormer. He also said he never interacted with Ton-That but declined to address evidence of their communications.)

By early 2016, Ton-That described himself as a lifelong libertarian who’d shifted further right over time. Along the way, he discovered the “Dark Enlightenment” neoreactionary movement, a fascist outgrowth of Silicon Valley’s radical libertarianism. He read the work of Steve Sailer, a longtime contributor to white nationalist publications and a proponent of “human biodiversity,” a racist pseudoscience favored by neoreactionaries. Like white nationalists, neoreactionaries reject egalitarianism and view America as weakened by feminism and diversity initiatives. But they make room within their elitist hierarchy for Jewish, Asian, and gay men—demographics, conveniently, common in Silicon Valley’s leadership class. Neoreactionaries consider themselves a high-IQ natural aristocracy and long for a corporatist strongman—a CEO monarch—to usher in what Thiel calls a “futuristic” version of the past, one in which technocrats rule as an ennobled caste. They view technology as the engine to remake society on their terms, an ambition that Thiel has never disguised.

“We were going to use technology to change the whole world to overturn the monetary system,” Thiel said in 2010, explaining the impetus for PayPal, the e‑payment company he co-founded with Musk. “The basic idea was that we could never win an election…because we were in such a small minority. But maybe you could actually unilaterally change the world—without having to constantly convince people and beg people and plead with people who were never going to agree with you—through a technological means.” (Thiel did not respond to questions.)

As Ton-That radicalized, he grew friendly with Curtis Yarvin, an intellectual muse to Thiel, Vice President JD Vance, and other prominent right-wingers. Ton-That thought Yarvin was “brilliant” and spoke often and admiringly of “Curtis,” one source told me. The godfather of neoreaction in America, Yarvin (who did not respond to questions) believes democracy is a “dangerous, malignant form of government” and has argued for a soft coup and a purge of civil servants in favor of political loyalists. This “butterfly revolution,” as Yarvin called it in 2022, looks eerily similar to Trump and Musk’s blitzkrieg against the federal bureaucracy.

Neoreaction also led Ton-That to Johnson, a Thiel confidant who ran a far-right site called GotNews that published dirt on Black victims of police violence and Black Lives Matter protesters. “Am a reader of yours, like your work,” Ton-That wrote Johnson in May 2016, asking to be added to a Slack group Johnson had set up around a different project he had launched, ­WeSearchr, a crowdfunding platform that raised money for neo-Nazis and far-right causes. The Slack group was an online watering hole for a likeminded crowd, according to Peter Duke, another business partner of Johnson’s at the time who participated in the chat and who described it to France 24 in unaired footage.

...

Ton-That and Johnson quickly bonded. They brainstormed “alt-tech” ideas and a few months later, in early 2017, launched Smartcheckr, Clearview’s predecessor. Ton-That also got to know Duke and other radicals associated with Johnson, including Marko Jukic, a self-described extremist Catholic traditionalist who once argued that diversity is “corrosive to civilization”; Tyler Bass, a white nationalist who, according to his former girlfriend, attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; and far-right influencer Douglass Mackey, who used a pseudonymous social media persona to disseminate Nazi propaganda and advocate for “global white supremacy.” (Jukic told Mother Jones that he now considers himself a centrist and that his neoreactionary writings were “exercises in theatrical hyperbole and comedic satire.” Bass did not respond to a request for comment. Mackey said he identifies today as a “moderately conservative Republican” and previously promoted white supremacy “mostly for shock and trolling.”)

Jukic, Bass, and Mackey would all go on to work for the facial recognition startup in some capacity. Jukic pitched Clearview to potential law enforcement customers. Bass oversaw a project with a real estate firm whose CEO was considering investing and wanted to test the tech, which the team piloted using a surveillance camera in the lobby of an apartment building to secretly harvest images of tenants and visitors. Mackey, who was later convicted of federal election interference for trying to dupe women and people of color into voting by text, did contract work for Clearview’s predecessor firm and briefly handled outreach to political clients interested in using what company promotional material characterized as “unconventional databases” for “extreme opposition research.” In 2020, while reporting on Clearview for HuffPost, I contacted the company to ask about Jukic and Bass’ roles. Clearview parted ways with both soon after.

Ton-That sought to recruit other extremists, too. He wrote in a November 2016 email that he wanted to “totally hire” Emil Kirkegaard, a Danish eugenicist who had scraped OkCupid and published the data of nearly 70,000 users. Kirkegaard, who did not respond to questions, had infamously advocated to legalize child porn and lower the age of consent to 13 or the onset of puberty.

Ton-That called him a “total talent.” Emails show the CEO bounced facial recognition ideas off Kirkegaard, hoping to figure out how to identify gay people, or even predict criminality, from facial features.

Ton-That was fascinated by eugenics and admired the field’s founder, Francis Galton, who inspired Nazi “racial hygiene” programs. After digesting a letter by Galton that argued for Chinese immigrants to move to Africa and supplant the “inferior” Black race, Ton-That declared in an email that Galton was a “true prophet.” Among friends, he spoke often about IQ and race, wondering aloud about the intellectual superiority of half-Asian, half-white people like himself. He also consulted with Michigan State University physics professor Steve Hsu, a human biodiversity devotee who associates with Holocaust deniers and has spent years researching genetic differences among populations. In a 2017 email, Ton-That thanked Hsu (who did not respond to questions) for his work to “reverse dysgenic trends.”

Emails from the time show Ton-That reading and sharing articles from far-right publications such as Counter-Currents, VDARE, and Unz Review as he collaborated and socialized with a range of extremists and pro-Trump authoritarians. At an October 2016 event co-organized by future Stop the Steal leader Ali Alexander, Ton-That partied with Islamophobe Laura Loomer, right-wing sting artist James O’Keefe, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, who initiated new members into his gang as Ton-That watched. Ton-That huddled at this event with Jeff Giesea, a Thiel lieutenant who helped the tech investor vet candidates for the first Trump administration. This was the far-right elite.

Re: Clearview’s Agenda

A revealing sampling of internal email subject lines:

“Gayface predictor is 80 accurate”
“There is no association between wider faces and the rate of convictions for violent offenses”
“Tenant screening product”
“Smartcheckr proposal/specs for Hungary”
“Send this to thiel”
“Faces and criminality”
“Face & IQ” (edited)
“Smartcheckr for security + Pokemon Go”
“Fwd: Using Smartcheckr on voter fraud in New Hampshire”

In a June 2017 email to Thiel seeking seed funding, Ton-That reported that he and his partners had landed their first facial recognition client: JPMorgan Chase. “We helped their security team vet each person attending their shareholders meeting to make sure there were no protestors,” Ton-That wrote. (JPMorgan denied using Smartcheckr.) But even as the company attempted to make inroads in the corporate world, its founders remained active in extremist circles. The same evening as the JPMorgan shareholders meeting, Johnson asked Ton-That to tackle another assignment. A technical error had fouled up a campaign on Johnson’s WeSearchr crowdfunding platform set up by the Daily Stormer’s Auernheimer to raise money for Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi site’s editor, who’d been sued for waging a harassment and intimidation campaign against a Jewish woman. Ton-That seemingly fixed the problem. Auernheimer and Anglin ultimately raised more than $150,000.

For at least the next year, Ton-That moonlighted as tech support for Johnson’s sites, sometimes helping extremists make and move money, usually cryptocurrency. When a co-founder of Johnson’s crowdfunding venture quit and left the team without a way to access the bitcoin they’d collected, Ton-That recovered the cryptocurrency, worth more than $150,000 at the time. Underscoring how vital Ton-That was to their operation, Duke wrote in a 2018 email, “Hoan is the only resource that has complete access and understanding of WeSearchr.”

As they grew their facial recognition company, Ton-That, Johnson, and Schwartz brought in investors such as Thiel and Naval Ravikant, an Indian-born technocrat who had encouraged Ton-That to move to the United States and became his first Silicon Valley mentor. Ravikant, who did not respond to questions, imagined a neofeudalist future of “small free cities with drone armies and skill-based immigration policies” and a “one bitcoin, one vote” system of government.

Another early backer was Hal Lambert, a former finance chair for the Texas GOP who runs Point Bridge Capital, the investment firm behind the MAGA ETF. Lambert, who served on Clearview’s board before becoming co-CEO with Schwartz, harbored his own fringe views. He claimed the George Floyd protests had turned into “George Soros funded riots” on social media and passed around a screed about how Floyd died from drug-induced “cardiopulmonary arrest,” rather than the knee of a cop on his neck. Like his business partners, Lambert wanted to deploy facial recognition to support a conservative agenda. In September 2017, after reading a Breitbart article that suggested out-of-state Democrats had flipped a close 2016 Senate race in New Hampshire, he emailed Johnson and Ton-That, urging them to use the tech to “identify exactly who the 5,000+ out of state fraud voters are.”

...

Paranoia about the “radical left” seemed to infuse their business decisions. As part of their plan to use facial recognition in apartment lobbies, they intended to scan the faces of tenants and compare them to mugshots. But Ton-That noted in an email that he also wanted to run them through “any criminal database we have (antifa)” or to see if they were “friends with criminals.” He assumed a link between leftist politics and criminality. “I think every real estate firm will sign up,” he told his co-founders. “Especially ones in diverse areas.” Schwartz, a 67-year-old New Yorker who ran Giuliani’s welfare reform program, which invasively profiled needy people and deprived them of assistance, loved the idea. “Quite Brilliant!” he replied. After Rudin Management, one of New York City’s largest real estate companies, signed on, the team reportedly collected about 70,000 videos from a lobby surveillance camera. “We beta tested their product for a brief period at one of our buildings nearly a decade ago,” a Rudin spokesperson said. “We chose not to deploy their software at the conclusion of that pilot.”

During Trump’s first term, Clearview made little distinction between bad actors and people exercising their First Amendment rights. Pitch decks the company sent to potential investors and customers, including scores of local law enforcement agencies, touted Clearview’s ability to surveil protesters and target people involved in “radical political or religious activities.” A pitch deck from April 2019 showed how Clearview grouped photos in its faceprint database, including a category it called “Protesters & Agitators.”

...

Journalists were another target. In May 2017, Bass emailed Cassandra Fairbanks, a far-right activist whom the first Trump administration allowed into press briefings, to ask for the names and emails of reporters in the White House press pool. This would potentially enable Ton-That and his partners to surface social media accounts, pull photos, and, as Bass put it, investigate the “leanings” of the journalists. Fairbanks quickly sent the names and emails of eight reporters to Bass, who forwarded the details to Ton-That. “These shills are high-priority,” Bass wrote. “Dope this is going into smartcheckr,” Ton-That replied. The company later created a “Politicians – Academics – Journalists” category in its biometric database.

Smartcheckr and later Clearview shunned public attention. Clearview’s website was blank for a year. Eventually, it displayed a fake address and a cryptic tagline: “Artificial Intelligence for a better world.” Ton-That and Schwartz cautioned people using the tech to keep Clearview secret. They and Johnson preferred to hawk their product to their political network. They offered Clearview to anti-Muslim activist Robert Spencer and gave access to Sean Fieler, an anti-trans, right-wing Catholic hedge fund manager. They courted the family office of Shafik Gabr, a tycoon close to Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and solicited venture capital in Beijing. They approached William Je, the financial adviser to Steve Bannon ally Guo Wengui, who was found guilty alongside Guo last year in a sprawling $1 billion fraud case.

While one former Clearview employee said the company tried to expand its potential customer base by courting “anyone they met,” including Democrats and progressives, the firm found few takers outside of the founders’ MAGA milieu. The Clearview team’s connections reached deep into Trump’s inner circle. They reportedly set up a free account for Rep. John Ratcliffe, now the CIA director. And Johnson met with Wilbur Ross, Trump’s first-term commerce secretary, and discussed facial recognition. The Clearview partners also pitched the Republican Attorneys General Association and the right-wing Club for Growth, offering its chairman what Ton-That described as “a motherlode of information that can help with oppo-research.”

During this stealth phase of its existence, Clearview’s most fruitful relationship was with the NYPD, thanks largely to Schwartz’s high-level connections, including to former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, an instrumental figure in the post‑9/11 expansion of police surveillance programs. Emails show that Ton-That planned a meeting with Bratton for August 2018. The NYPD began trialing Clearview shortly afterward. Although the department never signed a formal contract with Clearview, NYPD employees evangelized the tech throughout the law enforcement community.

Johnson, Ton-That, and Schwartz each owned a third of what was then still called Smartcheckr. But Johnson’s outré behavior—including publicly denying the Holocaust—had become a liability to his partners, who also contended that he wasn’t pulling his weight in their venture. In 2018, they formed a new company, Clearview, that initially excluded Johnson from ownership, according to court records. “I went from being a third owner of the company to being, like, written out of it entirely,” Johnson said in response to questions from Mother Jones. “And I said, ‘Well, I will just sue you guys.’” Eventually, Ton-That and Schwartz gave Johnson a 10 percent stake in the new company in exchange for his signing a November 2018 “wind-down and transfer agreement” that recognized his “good and valuable advisory services” but also required him to keep his mouth shut about his new ownership stake and prior work for the startup.

The narrative established by Clearview and most media coverage is that Ton-That and Schwartz excised Johnson from operations at this point. But Johnson continued to assist and advise his co-founders for nearly two more years, according to emails I obtained, connecting them with other potential investors and customers. When the Department of Defense scheduled a meeting in January 2020 for Clearview to pitch its services, the invite included Johnson. The following month, Ton-That sent his friend a proposal to compensate Johnson in Clearview stock for advisory services he provided to the company “with respect to developing, marketing and selling its technology.” In July 2020, Johnson helped Schwartz draft a letter for Rep. Matt Gaetz—a personal friend of Johnson’s—to send to top officials at the Department of Homeland Security, lobbying them to use Clearview to smoke out spies among the “400,000 Chinese nationals who enter the U.S. every year as foreign students.”

A February 2020 dinner in Los Angeles highlighted the company’s significance within the far-right movement. The dinner was one in a series of neoreactionary salons Johnson arranged for “young men of ability and distinction to talk about controversial or provocative topics openly, without fear of reprisal,” according to an invite he sent. Phones were to be checked at the door, unmarried women forbidden. When reached for comment, Johnson said Ton-That had attended a few of these events, including one where he met Steve Sailer, the human biodiversity writer whose articles about race and IQ Ton-That had read for years. Johnson could not remember if Ton-That had attended the Los Angeles dinner. But Sailer was the guest of honor. The next day, Sailer emailed Johnson some advice about Clearview. “One thing to look out for is cops abusing your system,” he warned, presciently. “Another thing: Hoan is a star, so the question is whether you want to ruin his cover and put him on TV.” (Italic Sailer’s. Reached by phone, he acknowledged knowing Clearview’s founders and then hung up.)

Ton-That was a star, at least among the far right. And he would soon be all over TV anyway, the result of a blockbuster January 2020 Times story that revealed Clearview’s existence and explored the privacy-­shattering implications of the technology but did not examine its founders’ politics. While follow-up reporting, including the article I wrote for HuffPost, excavated Ton-That’s links to Johnson and other far-right figures, these associations didn’t stand in the way of Clearview landing its first big federal contract, in August 2020, with ICE.

But Johnson and Ton-That’s relationship finally unraveled. In October 2020, enraged by Ton-That’s comments to the media about his involvement with the company, Johnson erupted. “Effective immediately I no longer support the direction of the company nor its leadership,” he emailed Ton-That, Schwartz, and Lambert. It was a bitter parting. Johnson later sued Clearview and his former partners, who filed a still-pending counterclaim. (Lambert’s financial firm has also sued Johnson.)

...

Clearview kept rolling without Johnson. The breakthrough at ICE gave the company a foothold in the federal government. It also brought Johnson and Ton-That’s original vision closer to fruition. As Johnson bombastically described their early mission on Facebook, they were “building algorithms to ID all the illegal immigrants for the deportation squads.” Now, the company had found a willing partner in ICE, which has a history of racial and religious profiling, violating constitutional rights, and invasive data gathering and surveillance.

Since 2016, the agency’s employees and contractors have faced hundreds of internal investigations for misusing various databases of personal information. Department watchdogs investigated ICE employees and contractors for allegedly looking up each other and former lovers, giving information to friends and neighbors, and accessing databases in order to threaten and harass people or sell information to criminals, according to a 2023 Wired report.

Experts believe Clearview is likely already involved in deportation. “If Clearview AI tries to scrape all social media from all around the world, and there is a picture of an immigrant to the United States, then ICE could try to find out who that person is,” says Jack Poulson of Tech Inquiry, a watchdog group. “The company emphasizes the use within human trafficking and drug trafficking, but it’s highly unlikely that they would not be actively supporting deportation.”

Indeed, starting in mid-2019, ICE clandestinely­ piloted the tech through, among other units, its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division, which arrests and deports undocumented immigrants. A BuzzFeed News investigation found that ICE agents ran more than 8,000 searches during this period.

Records obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and shared with Mother Jones indicate that ICE has mainly used Clearview in its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division, which traditionally conducts criminal probes into human trafficking and drug smuggling. But during Trump’s first term, HSI agents were deeply involved in deportation actions alongside ERO teams, participating in aggressive raids in sanctuary cities and sometimes arresting hundreds of undocumented workers in a day. Now, the units are teaming up again to round up immigrants.

In Trump’s first term, ICE also dispatched HSI agents to racial justice protests that erupted around the country after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. HSI monitored other liberal or left-leaning events, labeling them in an internal document published by the ­Nation as “anti-Trump” protests, including a peaceful 2018 rally in Manhattan organized by a Democratic congressman to protest a white nationalist hate group.

The EPIC records reveal a culture of indifference at ICE about Clearview’s privacy and civil rights implications. It was a fancy toy that promised a low-cost investigative shortcut. “This can find faces in a crowd and/or it can show a photo in a crowd if you want to ID people he/she may associate with. It was amazing!” one ICE employee marveled. But Clearview spooked some people, including a Customs and Border Protection employee who emailed a colleague at ICE after learning the agency had the tool. “You guys use this?” the CBP staffer wrote. “Looks creepy as hell.” It was. An email from an ICE privacy officer noted that the agency “wants to use facial recognition to track people threatening its agents online.” Only after the Times broke news of Clearview’s existence, according to the records, did ICE conduct a privacy assessment that should have taken place before the agency deployed the tech.

...

During the Biden administration, demand for Clearview surged within ICE. On March 25, 2022, the agency held a “Clearview expansion meeting.” Lambert has said the bulk of the company’s $16 million in annual recurring revenue still comes from local law enforcement, but ICE has been Clearview’s steadiest customer, paying the facial recognition firm nearly $4 million.

...

Between April 2018 and March 2022, Clearview was used by more federal law enforcement agencies than any other privately owned facial recognition system, according to US Government Accountability Office reports and public reporting. It was deployed by agencies including CBP; the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Even the US Postal Inspection Service used Clearview, targeting Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. Many of the agencies failed to comply with privacy requirements. Some told the GAO they didn’t use Clearview, only to be caught later by BuzzFeed News, which cross-referenced the report with a leaked list of federal agencies whose employees had run searches.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of local law enforcement departments have also embraced Clearview with even looser oversight. Clearview’s user code of conduct states that its search results are “not intended nor permitted to be used as admissible evidence in a court of law or any court filing.” But cops have used the search results, and nothing else, to secure warrants, rather than as leads to support further investigation. This practice has led to wrongful arrests and risks putting every American, not just every immigrant, in a permanent police lineup.

...

In March 2024, the US Commission on Civil Rights convened experts at its headquarters near the White House to discuss the dangers of facial recognition. While immigrants were most at risk, privacy advocates told the commission, they were just the initial target. “[They] are canaries in the coal mines on civil liberties because they are positioned as test cases for policies that roll back all of our shared liberties,” explained Laura MacCleery, a senior policy director at UnidosUS, the same civil rights organization Ton-That mentioned in his 2017 Border Patrol pitch. Something had to be done, the privacy advocates agreed, before it was too late. But it was already awfully late. Facial recognition technology was thoroughly embedded in the nation’s surveillance infrastructure.

Sitting placidly at the panelists’ table, his long black hair spilling to the shoulders of his gray suit jacket, was one of the people most responsible for that outcome.

“As a person of mixed race,” Ton-That told the commission, “it is especially important to me that this technology is deployed in a way that protects and enhances civil rights.”

Information about Clearview’s ties to extremists was already public, but Ton-That faced not a single question about his background. Nor was he asked how, as a class-action lawsuit against the company alleged, violating Illinois law by collecting the “biometric identifiers and biometric information” of citizens without informing them was compatible with civil rights. In September, the commission issued a 194-page report that failed to mention Clearview’s radical associations.

The report did acknowledge, however, one of the achievements that Ton-That has trumpeted the most, including before the commission. Clearview, he said, had “played an essential role” in helping investigate the violent insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, an incident he described elsewhere as “tragic and appalling.” The attack had proved an enormous publicity boon for Clearview—and an opportunity to scrub the far-right taint from its image. In media interviews, Ton-That touted Clearview’s ability to track down MAGA criminals. The company published a case study on its website highlighting its role in the “arrest of hundreds of rioters in a short amount of time.”

The boasts struck a discordant note. The politics of Clearview’s founders aligned more closely with those of the rioters. Almost a year after the insurrection, Peter Duke, the founders’ neoreactionary ally, hosted Stop the Steal ringleader Ali Alexander on his podcast to push a conspiracy theory that the attack was a false flag operation by undercover FBI agents. Duke, who was in Washington on January 6, had photographed dozens of rioters at the Capitol who he suspected were federal provocateurs. “They’re not in the Clearview database,” he told Alexander. “I’ve checked.” Duke, who has said he once worked for Clearview as a consultant, took their absence as a sign of a coverup. He later repeated this claim on camera to France 24, explaining that he had friends at Clearview “run the faces.”

It was a startling admission. Clearview’s code of conduct prohibits use of the tech for “personal purposes.” But here was Duke talking about running off-the-books searches in an effort to whitewash an attack on American democracy.

“All of the evidence we have is that [Clearview] is a corporation that cares not at all about civil rights and that their founders have a potentially ideological agenda inconsistent with democracy,” says Emily Tucker, executive director of Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology. “None of that has seemed to slow down their ability to get government contracts in the US or abroad.”

Nobody in a position to hold the company accountable seemed to care about its far-right DNA—and few wanted to consider that the threat to privacy and democracy might not be an unfortunate by-product of the tech, but rather a feature. Tucker said her organization discussed Clearview’s extremist ties with several Biden administration officials, as well as congressional staffers, and she was surprised and concerned by the lack of follow-up. Most media coverage of the company left the issue unmentioned or, worse, downplayed what was known—one interviewer for the financial magazine Inc. described the extremists at Clearview as “rogue employees” who had “infiltrated the company.”

...

In the emails I obtained, Lambert expressed a desire to “take down these lefties” and railed against the “communist academia left.” Unlike his predecessor, who at least paid lip service to the rule of law after January 6, Lambert helped to gin up unscientific and inaccurate analyses of voter data that Republicans used to back false claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election.

Even before the leadership shakeup became public, it was evident to the careful observer that changes were afoot at Clearview in anticipation of the new administration. Days before Trump was again sworn in as president, vowing to pardon the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol in his name, the company updated its website. Deleted were any references to its role in identifying the far-right marauders who had laid siege to democracy.

———–

“The Shocking Far-Right Agenda Behind the Facial Recognition Tech Used by ICE and the FBI” by Luke O’Brien; Mother Jones; May+June 2025 Issue

“I’ve reported on Clearview for years. This story, based on interviews with insiders and thousands of newly obtained emails, texts, and other records, including internal ICE communications, provides the fullest account to date of the extent of the company’s far-right origins and of the implementation of its facial recognition technology within the federal government’s immigration enforcement apparatus. It reveals how Ton-That, who obsessed over race, IQ, and hierarchy, solicited input from eugenicists and right-wing extremists while building Clearview, and how, from the outset, he and his associates discussed deploying the tech against immigrants, people of color, and the political left. All told, this new reporting paints a chilling portrait of an ideologically driven company whose powerful surveillance technology is now in the hands of the Trump administration, as it bulldozes democratic institutions and executes an authoritarian takeover.”

Again, it’s not a surprise to discover ICE has been heavily using Clearview’s facial recognition technology. It would be shocking if that wasn’t the case. But as this article makes clear, the shocking part of the story of Clearview is the fact that this company has been acquiring one major government contract after another for years now despite being run be anti-democracy far right lunatics. It’s part of a broader pattern that remains largely overlooked in our neo-gilded age of anti-democracy technology billionaires successfully seizing the reigns of power and hijacking society. Whether we are talking about Peter Thiel or Elon Musk, their business empires are built on government contracts, primarily made with democratic governments.

But as the article also makes clear, Hoan Ton-That and the other founders of Clearview saw it as a tool of political persecution from the very beginning. Clearview isn’t just a facial recognition tool. It’s a personal biography tool that scrapes and collates all of the available information about everyone online. And look at the first target Clearview had in mind for the US government to target: immigrants:

...
One evening in March 2017, Hoan Ton-That, an Australian coder building a powerful facial recognition system, emailed his American business partners with a plan to deploy their fledgling technology. “Border patrol pitch,” the subject line read. He hoped to persuade the federal government to integrate their product with border surveillance cameras so that their newly formed company, later named Clearview AI, could use “face detection” on immigrants entering the United States.

An immigrant to the United States himself, Ton-That grew up in Melbourne and Canberra and claimed to be descended from Vietnamese royalty. At 19, he dropped out of college and, in 2007, moved to San Francisco to pursue a tech career. He later fell in with Silicon Valley neoreactionaries who embraced a far-right, technocratic vision of society. Now Ton-That and his partners wanted to use facial recognition to keep people out of the country. Certain people. Their technology would put that ideology into action.

Clearview had compiled a massive biometric database that would eventually contain billions of images the company scraped off the internet and social media without the knowledge of the platforms or their users. Its AI analyzed these images, creating a “faceprint” for every individual. The company let users run a “probe photo” against its database, and if it generated a hit, it displayed the matching images and links to the websites where they originated. This made it easy for Clearview users to further profile their targets with other information found on those webpages: religious or political affiliation, family and friends, romantic partners, sexuality. All without a search warrant or probable cause.

A diehard Donald Trump supporter, Ton-That envisioned using facial recognition to compare images of migrants crossing the border to mugshots to see if the arrivals had been previously arrested in the United States. His Border Patrol pitch also included a proposal to screen any arrival for “sentiment about the USA.” Here, Ton-That appeared to conflate support for the Republican leader with American identity, proposing to scan migrants’ social media for “posts saying ‘I hate Trump’ or ‘Trump is a puta’” and targeting anyone with an “affinity for far-left groups.” The lone example he offered was the National Council of La Raza, now called UnidosUS, one of the country’s largest Hispanic civil rights organizations.
...

And while Ton-That’s ties to MAGA-aligned personalities like Charles Johnson and Richard Schwartz was established back when the NY Times first reported on Clearview back in January of 2020, his ties to extremist networks clearly included many more people. Like Marko Jukic, Tyler Bass, and Douglass Mackey. Amazingly, Mackey did work for Clearview’s predecessor on outreach to clients who wanted to use Clearview for “extreme opposition research”. That’s an amazing fact given how Paul Nehlen was kicked off Gab in 2018 over doxing Mackey, who was then-posting as a racist troll named Ricky Vaughn, after Nehlen was given access to Clearview. Which raises the question of whether or not Nehlen used Clearview as a means of identifying Mackey’s pseudonym (or just happened to know). Either way, it’s a reminder that Clearview isn’t exclusively going to be used against left-wing individuals. Anyone targeted by Ton-That’s clients and allies is a potential target. It’s also a reminder that the infighting fascists are notorious for could become much more pervasive thanks to technologies like Clearview:

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Ton-That and Johnson quickly bonded. They brainstormed “alt-tech” ideas and a few months later, in early 2017, launched Smartcheckr, Clearview’s predecessor. Ton-That also got to know Duke and other radicals associated with Johnson, including Marko Jukic, a self-described extremist Catholic traditionalist who once argued that diversity is “corrosive to civilization”; Tyler Bass, a white nationalist who, according to his former girlfriend, attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; and far-right influencer Douglass Mackey, who used a pseudonymous social media persona to disseminate Nazi propaganda and advocate for “global white supremacy.” (Jukic told Mother Jones that he now considers himself a centrist and that his neoreactionary writings were “exercises in theatrical hyperbole and comedic satire.” Bass did not respond to a request for comment. Mackey said he identifies today as a “moderately conservative Republican” and previously promoted white supremacy “mostly for shock and trolling.”)

Jukic, Bass, and Mackey would all go on to work for the facial recognition startup in some capacity. Jukic pitched Clearview to potential law enforcement customers. Bass oversaw a project with a real estate firm whose CEO was considering investing and wanted to test the tech, which the team piloted using a surveillance camera in the lobby of an apartment building to secretly harvest images of tenants and visitors. Mackey, who was later convicted of federal election interference for trying to dupe women and people of color into voting by text, did contract work for Clearview’s predecessor firm and briefly handled outreach to political clients interested in using what company promotional material characterized as “unconventional databases” for “extreme opposition research.” In 2020, while reporting on Clearview for HuffPost, I contacted the company to ask about Jukic and Bass’ roles. Clearview parted ways with both soon after.
...

And as we can see with Ton-That’s ties to neoreactionary luminaries like Curtis Yarvin — the ideological architect of Project 2025 — and Peter Thiel, Clearview’s mission of using facial recognition and mass internet scraping to build profiles of everyone on earth isn’t just an amoral business model. It’s part of a broader agenda of using technology to achieve elitist anti-democratic goals that couldn’t be achieved democratically. Weaponizing Clearview against MAGA’s political enemies is part of that broader agenda:

...
By early 2016, Ton-That described himself as a lifelong libertarian who’d shifted further right over time. Along the way, he discovered the “Dark Enlightenment” neoreactionary movement, a fascist outgrowth of Silicon Valley’s radical libertarianism. He read the work of Steve Sailer, a longtime contributor to white nationalist publications and a proponent of “human biodiversity,” a racist pseudoscience favored by neoreactionaries. Like white nationalists, neoreactionaries reject egalitarianism and view America as weakened by feminism and diversity initiatives. But they make room within their elitist hierarchy for Jewish, Asian, and gay men—demographics, conveniently, common in Silicon Valley’s leadership class. Neoreactionaries consider themselves a high-IQ natural aristocracy and long for a corporatist strongman—a CEO monarch—to usher in what Thiel calls a “futuristic” version of the past, one in which technocrats rule as an ennobled caste. They view technology as the engine to remake society on their terms, an ambition that Thiel has never disguised.

“We were going to use technology to change the whole world to overturn the monetary system,” Thiel said in 2010, explaining the impetus for PayPal, the e‑payment company he co-founded with Musk. “The basic idea was that we could never win an election…because we were in such a small minority. But maybe you could actually unilaterally change the world—without having to constantly convince people and beg people and plead with people who were never going to agree with you—through a technological means.” (Thiel did not respond to questions.)

As Ton-That radicalized, he grew friendly with Curtis Yarvin, an intellectual muse to Thiel, Vice President JD Vance, and other prominent right-wingers. Ton-That thought Yarvin was “brilliant” and spoke often and admiringly of “Curtis,” one source told me. The godfather of neoreaction in America, Yarvin (who did not respond to questions) believes democracy is a “dangerous, malignant form of government” and has argued for a soft coup and a purge of civil servants in favor of political loyalists. This “butterfly revolution,” as Yarvin called it in 2022, looks eerily similar to Trump and Musk’s blitzkrieg against the federal bureaucracy.
...

And as is so often the case these days when it comes to neoreactionary scheming in the technology space, we find Peter Thiel operating in the background. The same Peter Thiel who is currently leading some sort of bizarre public relations campaign arguing that technology regulations are the literal Antichrist. Which is a reminder that the rise of Clearview, thanks heavily to extensive government contracts, is just one part of a much larger story of anti-government/anti-democracy technology oligarchs accruing massive fortunes from government contracts that are then used to subvert and hijack democracy. This is all Thiel’s playbook:

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By the end of Trump’s first presidential term, Clearview had secured funding from right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel, one of Elon Musk’s earliest business partners, and signed up hundreds of law enforcement clients around the country. The company doled out free trials to hook users, urging cops to “run wild” with searches. They did. Many departments then bought licenses to access Clearview’s faceprint database.

...

Neoreaction also led Ton-That to Johnson, a Thiel confidant who ran a far-right site called GotNews that published dirt on Black victims of police violence and Black Lives Matter protesters. “Am a reader of yours, like your work,” Ton-That wrote Johnson in May 2016, asking to be added to a Slack group Johnson had set up around a different project he had launched, ­WeSearchr, a crowdfunding platform that raised money for neo-Nazis and far-right causes. The Slack group was an online watering hole for a likeminded crowd, according to Peter Duke, another business partner of Johnson’s at the time who participated in the chat and who described it to France 24 in unaired footage.

...

In a June 2017 email to Thiel seeking seed funding, Ton-That reported that he and his partners had landed their first facial recognition client: JPMorgan Chase. “We helped their security team vet each person attending their shareholders meeting to make sure there were no protestors,” Ton-That wrote. (JPMorgan denied using Smartcheckr.) But even as the company attempted to make inroads in the corporate world, its founders remained active in extremist circles. The same evening as the JPMorgan shareholders meeting, Johnson asked Ton-That to tackle another assignment. A technical error had fouled up a campaign on Johnson’s WeSearchr crowdfunding platform set up by the Daily Stormer’s Auernheimer to raise money for Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi site’s editor, who’d been sued for waging a harassment and intimidation campaign against a Jewish woman. Ton-That seemingly fixed the problem. Auernheimer and Anglin ultimately raised more than $150,000.

For at least the next year, Ton-That moonlighted as tech support for Johnson’s sites, sometimes helping extremists make and move money, usually cryptocurrency. When a co-founder of Johnson’s crowdfunding venture quit and left the team without a way to access the bitcoin they’d collected, Ton-That recovered the cryptocurrency, worth more than $150,000 at the time. Underscoring how vital Ton-That was to their operation, Duke wrote in a 2018 email, “Hoan is the only resource that has complete access and understanding of WeSearchr.”

As they grew their facial recognition company, Ton-That, Johnson, and Schwartz brought in investors such as Thiel and Naval Ravikant, an Indian-born technocrat who had encouraged Ton-That to move to the United States and became his first Silicon Valley mentor. Ravikant, who did not respond to questions, imagined a neofeudalist future of “small free cities with drone armies and skill-based immigration policies” and a “one bitcoin, one vote” system of government.
...

And that abundance of government contracts for Clearview — contracts ripe for mass abuse — brings us to the unsettling fact that these contracts with the government weren’t just established during the Trump administrations. The Biden administration was apparently more than happy to partner with Clearview, including contracts with ICE where demand surged. This despite the fact that Clearview’s far right ideology was already well established with the NY Times’s January 2020 report on the company. Just as DC has long seemed to have an inexplicable bipartisan love affair with Peter Thiel’s fascist Palantir, it’s the same case with the Thiel-backed Clearview:

...
Clearview is already well positioned to capitalize on Trump’s xenophobic plans. Today, one of the company’s top customers is US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a relationship cemented during Joe Biden’s presidency, as the agency inked bigger deals with the startup. Under the Biden administration, ICE records show, the agency deployed Clearview widely, even as officials there charged with monitoring the technology were in the dark about how it was being used and by whom. As the agency executes Trump’s emboldened mission—“Border Czar” Tom Homan has vowed to unleash “shock and awe” against undocumented immigrants—the dragnet surveillance outlined by Ton-That during the company’s earliest years may already be underway. (ICE did not respond to a request for comment.)

During Biden’s presidency, the trappings of oversight still existed. But Trump has fired many of the inspectors general who review the use of technology such as Clearview and guard against abuse. And Trump’s early actions have shown his administration has little regard for the legal, congressional, and constitutional guardrails that have constrained his predecessors.

...

During the Biden administration, demand for Clearview surged within ICE. On March 25, 2022, the agency held a “Clearview expansion meeting.” Lambert has said the bulk of the company’s $16 million in annual recurring revenue still comes from local law enforcement, but ICE has been Clearview’s steadiest customer, paying the facial recognition firm nearly $4 million.

...

Between April 2018 and March 2022, Clearview was used by more federal law enforcement agencies than any other privately owned facial recognition system, according to US Government Accountability Office reports and public reporting. It was deployed by agencies including CBP; the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Even the US Postal Inspection Service used Clearview, targeting Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. Many of the agencies failed to comply with privacy requirements. Some told the GAO they didn’t use Clearview, only to be caught later by BuzzFeed News, which cross-referenced the report with a leaked list of federal agencies whose employees had run searches.

...

“All of the evidence we have is that [Clearview] is a corporation that cares not at all about civil rights and that their founders have a potentially ideological agenda inconsistent with democracy,” says Emily Tucker, executive director of Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology. “None of that has seemed to slow down their ability to get government contracts in the US or abroad.”

Nobody in a position to hold the company accountable seemed to care about its far-right DNA—and few wanted to consider that the threat to privacy and democracy might not be an unfortunate by-product of the tech, but rather a feature. Tucker said her organization discussed Clearview’s extremist ties with several Biden administration officials, as well as congressional staffers, and she was surprised and concerned by the lack of follow-up. Most media coverage of the company left the issue unmentioned or, worse, downplayed what was known—one interviewer for the financial magazine Inc. described the extremists at Clearview as “rogue employees” who had “infiltrated the company.”
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Will the bipartisan love affair with Peter Thiel-backed companies ever end? Time will tell. Presumably tell in the form of an news about more and more government contracts handed out to tech fascists. Eventually followed by news about the dissolution of the government and our new national CEO. Along with lots of new rules about what you can say, who you can communicate with, and everything that comes with a neofeudal new order.