How Jeffrey Epstein Turned a Routine Photo Shoot Into a Warning About His Power

0:00What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. One of the things I always found quite humorous about Jeffrey Epstein and his people was the fact that they thought that they were intimidating. Now you might be intimidating when you're dealing with people who are working for vanity fair or people that are working for the New York Times or when you're trying to assault young girls. But I assure you, you bitch ass clowns aren't intimidating any sort of real men. That's for damn sure, and they certainly have never intimidated me. Never once, in fact like I told you previously, after these idiots tried, I hopped on a flight to New Mexico and went to Epstein's house, and I was hoping that one of his goons at the very least would answer the door, but they just ignored me. So I stood out there for like 45 minutes talking hell of shit. But unfortunately they didn't send any of their goons out or anybody out to have a chat.

1:00But if you're a reporter or a photographer from vanity fair, Epstein certainly had no problem trying to flex on you, trying to intimidate you and threaten you so that you do what he wants you to do. And for somebody like Epstein, that was a very, very, very powerful tool for a very long time. And look, it works, right? Nobody wants to be intimidated. Nobody wants some goons showing up to their house, talking shit, trying to flight them or hurt their family or whatever. And unfortunately when you report the news, when you're somebody that's, you know, in the mix, that's certainly one of the dangers that comes along with it. There's a lot of crazy people out there, but a guy like Jeffery Epstein, he relied on shit like this. He knew that he could intimidate people. He knew that he could threaten their jobs. He knew they could threaten their livelihoods and people would back off. But the landscape has changed. And now with the way the media is conducted via social media, via independent journalism and the gatekeepers no longer hold the keys.

2:01That sort of strategy is not that effective anymore. And that's because people aren't going to be intimidated by you showing up and saying, well, we're going to get you fired fired from what? I run my own show. You're not going to get me fired. Oh, we're going to get you black bald. No access. Bitch. That's anyway, none of these people want to talk to me. So when you do away with all the things that they can hold over your head, all of the, you know, I'm going to get you fired or you're not going to get this gig or that gig, then it loses its teeth, right? And I think that's the point that we're at now. There's no more intimidation. There's no more fear tactics that are going to work on people. This story is so big now that you can't do it. But back in the day, before all of this blew up, before there was this gigantic following online and so many people interested in what was going on, that was the tactic that Epstein and his buddies used on a regular basis. And in this episode, we're going to hear from a photographer from Vanity Fair, who says

3:02that he was sweated by one of Epstein's bodyguards slash drivers named Merwin Delacruz. So let's dive into this article from the independent and let's see what they have for us. Headline, photographer who took White House Vanity Fair of Portraits shares terrifying Epstein, anecdote. This article was authored by Joe Summerlad. Christopher Anderson, the photographer, who shot members of Donald Trump's cabinet for a Vanity Fair feature last month, has taken to Instagram the post of Portrait he once took of Jeffrey Epstein, accompanied by a disturbing anecdote. Inside a stark black and white image of the late pedophile, and five more of them, and his lavishly furnished office, complete with stuffed tiger and framed photographs of the occupant's famous friends, Anderson wrote, yes, that's Jeffrey Epstein. He explained that he was assigned by New York Magazine to photograph Epstein in 2015 to illustrate an article by Michael Wolfe, the journalist and Trump biographer whose email

4:05correspondence with the disgraced billionaire was released last year by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. I'd say it's more than that. Now I know Michael Wolfe won't admit it, but I think him and Epstein were friends. You don't spend that much time with somebody if you're not friends. Oh, he was working on a piece. Cool, let's see it. Where's all that b-roll material? Where's everything you say you have? Now remember folks, Michael Wolfe has been crying wolf for a very long time. This guy's been talking about he has this, he has that, and then he never comes correct. It's always behind the paywall, it's always about the next drop, and just leading people on. And that's certainly a problem with people that cover this story especially. It's always about that drip, right? Oh, well, I have it on good authority. Blah blah blah. No, you don't. Let's see the documents to back it up. Because at this point, unfortunately, especially with this story, trust me, bro's not going to do it. People we're going to need to see receipts, especially from people like Michael Wolfe and

5:08that other dude Barry Levine, you know, to do that, wrote the spider. Another guy that is ill informed. I call people like that a tourist only pops in when the story is popular again. Only has something to say when he can make some money doing it and the crazy part is people like that. They don't even understand the real nuance here. They don't even touch the systemic issues, whether they don't have the courage to do so, or they don't want to lose their access, I'll leave that up to you to decide. But the facts are the facts, and they speak for themselves. I didn't know much about them. Other than the fact that he had heavy connections, the powerful men, Anderson Road of Epstein, he wanted to meet me before the shoot to negotiate buying out the pictures after publication. A young woman with an Eastern European accent, and through the door, I would later see the same girl setting up a massage table in a room, just off one of his offices, followed quickly by his private secretary, Leslie Groff. My guess is that it was Nadia Marcentkova that was the European woman with the accent.

6:14And that's who he probably was associating with when he got to Epstein's house. And then of course, Leslie Groff, she was in charge of all the logistics. Jeffrey Epstein even called her his brain, but she are Leslie Groff, not a cook and spiriter. She should have never been indicted, right? Right? Anderson continued when Epstein arrived, his eyes sized me up like someone always looking for the angles. He quizzed me about my pictures, and how the shoot would go, and how much I thought my pictures were worth. He said he didn't want anyone else to have the pictures after the magazine published them, and offered me $20,000 to own them after the publication. Look, I don't know how the photography world works, but if some guys offering to buy pictures from you for 20 G's, probably going to do it, right? The photographer explained that the offer amounted to all the money in the world to me at the time because he had a young family to support, and that he had already been granted

7:15permission by the magazine to make such an agreement with this subject. He was made to understand that he would not receive the images until they had been published. So he had this all worked out with the magazine prior, that he could sell the pictures. So it wasn't like he was doing anything that was wrong, right? Just trying to sell some pictures, make a few bucks. Well, unfortunately for him, Jeffrey Epstein had other plans. Several days later, he decided to pull out of the story, and started calling me to demand the pictures. Anderson resumed. I reiterated that the pictures were not his until after publication. Then the threat started. He sent his bodyguard driver, Merwin, a massive guy, and a long black overcoat, and black leather gloves to my studio to intimidate me, and it worked. Boy, I'll tell you what. You show up at this studio with that kind of bullshit, and you don't have a badge? We're going to have a big ass problem, because the only people I'm complying with is law enforcement. The rest of you, you're going to be in for it.

8:15Not going to be a fun time for anybody involved, I promise you that. As you show up at my studio looking for a problem, you're going to find one. The magazine killed the story too, so I cashed the check in Merwin, came by again, to collect the hard drive, and make sure I didn't have any more copies of the photos. Today, I found the copy on a very old hard drive. The Department of Justice is currently in the process of releasing all of its documents and investigative material on Epstein who died by suicide, allegedly, in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial and compliance with the Epstein Transparency Act. The deadline for full publication of the files was December 19, but the DOJ, so far, posted only around 1% of its total holdings by its own estimate. On its website, in two tranches, it has advised a federal judge that it's still more than two million documents to review before they can be posted. When we all know that's just a starting point, do you really think they're not going

9:18to find more documents that they have to review before they release them? Of course, they're going to, all part of the plan, folks. And that's what happens when you write a law that doesn't have any teeth. We're going to rely on the DOJ to be compliant when they've shown us there anything but when it comes to this issue. But sure, let's just count on the DOJ to do the right thing. More than 400 DOJ attorneys and 100 FBI analysts are set to spend the next few weeks dedicating all or a substantial portion of their workday to examining the files. Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote to U.S. District Judge Paul A. Ingolmeyer in an update this week. The legal experts are making redactions in the interest of safeguarding the sex offender's victims, protecting national security, and preventing ongoing investigations from being compromised, the DOJ has said, all of that's bullshit. A national security, I thought he was a lone predator.

10:20How is it that somebody like Jeffrey Epstein's considered a national security risk if he's just a lone predator who dittles people? Can somebody please answer that question? Anderson recently attracted attention for a series of portraits of members of Trump's center circle, like White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Press Secretary Carolyn Levit, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller. I'm surprised that it didn't give Stephen Miller horns, or maybe he just has them. You know, maybe they're like hidden still, but chances are Stephen Miller has some horns. Very close up portrait has been a fixture in a lot of my work over the years. He told the independent, particularly political portraits that I've done over the years, I like the idea of penetrating the theater of politics. I know there's a lot to be made with, oh, he intentionally is trying to make people look bad and that kind of thing, that's not the case. If you look at my photograph work, I've done a lot of close-ups in the same style with

11:23people of all political stripes, and look, I have no idea about any of that. I don't follow along with, you know, portraits of the president, or people that are making pictures for politicians, I don't give a shit, so I have no idea one way or the other. But what I do know is this. I have zero doubt that he's telling the truth about Epstein Pressonum. That's certainly the kind of shit Epstein was up to. And we've heard it time and time again, from journalists, and from survivors themselves, and the wildest part is, all of these legacy media outlets and all these outlets, let him get away with it. Imagine being the editor and somebody pressing you like that, and you just go along to get along? Zero chance, I'm causing all kinds of hell. And if you fire me cool, I'm just going to become more powerful after that, kind of like Obi-Wan Kenobi, right? So my advice to anybody out there covering the news, stand your ground, because people like this, overwhelmingly, are nothing but bullies, and we all know that if you stand up to a bully, they leave you alone.

12:26And the same goes for people like Jeffrey Epstein. The only reason he was flexing the way he was is because he knew he had so much power. Whether it was his friends in politics, his friends in law enforcement, or his friends in intelligence, he knew that he was basically untouchable. And he knew that during that climate, when it comes to the media, that nobody's going to go against him really, because they don't want to lose access. So these coward ass editors would play ball, and they'd kill stories, they'd hide shit, and they'd act like nothing was wrong. And now these same outlets are showing up to the party, acting like they're some kind of hero, acting like they've been around from the beginning, and going after Jeffrey Epstein, no matter the cost, but the real truth is, when the chips were down, most of these outlets pumped out. And I think this story by Mr. Anderson is just another example of the legacy media, bowing down to Jeffrey Epstein, and at some point there needs to be a reckoning with how the legacy media enabled Jeffrey Epstein's behavior for all those years.

13:27And as far as I'm concerned, the time for that reckoning has arrived. All of the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.