Post Mortem: The Jes Staley Congressional Farce (Part 1) (9/11/26)

0:00Hi, this is Dave Roberts. Heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, that's a risk. Summer colds can linger and getting sick on vacation can derail everything. That's why everyone needs a medical emergency kit. It includes Dr. prescribed medications to treat common and serious illnesses. So if you wake up sick, at home or on the road, you already have what you need. It's like having an urgent care and pharmacy at home. Say $45 with code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue urgent care kit.com slash blue. This is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world.

1:04And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes. Start at just $1,5. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous. Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have Exama. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let Exama take over when you can talk to your doctor about Epglyce? Epglyce, lubricism ab LBKZ, a 250-mg per 2-ml injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, who weigh at least 88 lbs or 40 kg with moderate to severe Exama. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin, or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. Epglyce can be used with or without topical corticosteroids.

2:06Don't use if you are allergic to Epglyce. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have newer, worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglyce. Before starting Epglyce, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lili. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about Epglyce and visit Epglyce.com or call 1-800-LiliRX or 1-800-545-5979. What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. There are certain people who seem to believe that if they put on an expensive suit, lower their voice, and answer questions lowly enough, the rest of us are supposed to forget how obvious the bullshit is. And yo, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of watching powerful men sit in front of cameras, and committees, and act like the whole world, is too stupid to connect to dots sitting three inches apart. I'm tired of hearing about what somebody supposedly did not know, while staring at years of evidence showing just how close they were to Jeffrey Epstein.

3:07And more than anything, I'm tired of the idea that we're all supposed to be polite about it. No. Look, there comes a point where politeness starts looking a whole lot like complicity. For years, the Epstein story's been buried under the same as Mountain of Excuuses. Nobody saw anything, knew anything, remembers anything. Everybody was around them, but somehow nobody was really with them. Everybody had a relationship with them, but somehow every relationship was misunderstood. Everybody benefited being in his orbit, but somehow nobody wants to explain what that orbit actually looked like once the door is closed. It's insulting. It's insulting to the survivors, the public, and frankly, it's insulting to anyone with enough common sense to know when they're being sold a load of shit. Because ordinary folk, me and you, don't get to testify like this. We don't get to forget every inconvenient detail and expect everyone to shrug. We don't get endless second chances to reshape the R story.

4:07We don't get to hide behind our status, money, lawyers, titles, or institutions, while everybody else is told to sit down and trust the process. Because as far as I'm concerned, there's a point where the excuses stop sounding complicated, and they just sound dishonest. The same people who were smart enough to run banks, companies, governments, foundations, and billion dollar empires, somehow become unbelievably stupid, the second you ask them what was happening around Epstein. And that is one hell of a coincidence. And I'm fresh out of patience for coincidences. Just daily sat in front of Congress and gave the kind of testimony we've heard over and over again in the Epstein mess. He knew Epstein, but apparently not that well. He visited his homes, but somehow never saw anything. He exchanged hundreds and hundreds of messages with the guy. But when the ugly ones come up, his memory suddenly starts coughing and sputtering. While he was close enough to Epstein to call their friendship profound, but not close enough to know what everybody else now knows Epstein was doing.

5:11While he was close enough to meet one of Epstein's assistants and eventually have sex with her. But we're supposed to believe that had nothing whatsoever to do with the world Epstein had built around himself. Come on, man. At some point you have to stop pretending that these explanations are reasonable, just because a rich guy in a suit delivers them calmly. The rest of us would never get that kind of benefit of the doubt. We'd be called liars before we even finished the sentence. Look, Staley wasn't some random schmuck who Epstein met twice at some fundraiser. He was a top JP Morgan executive and eventually ran the bank's private banking operation. Epstein was a valuable client of the bank and Staley was deeply involved in that relationship. Epstein was the kind of client banks love until the heat gets too hot. We had money, connections, access, and a black book full of people, most normal people, would never get in the same room with. And that made him useful. Staley wasn't standing outside that world looking in. He was right there in it. He visited Epstein's Manhattan townhouse repeatedly, traveled Epstein's private island, communicated with him for years, and continued the relationship.

6:19After Epstein had already been convicted in Florida. Nobody needs a PhD to understand why that looks awful. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 and became a registered sex offender. That should have been the point where anyone with a functioning moral compass and half a brain said, you know I'm done with this dude. Staley didn't do that. He kept talking to him. He kept visiting him. He kept treating him like somebody worth having in his life. He even stayed in touch while Epstein was serving his joke of ascendance in Florida. And that alone should tell you how little the conviction seemed to matter inside Epstein's elite social circle. For normal people, a sex offence involving a minor destroys your reputation and everybody runs for the hills. And for Jeffrey Epstein, it apparently meant some of his powerful friends just kept showing up. Listen, we're not talking about a guy who disappeared after 2008 and then popped back up years later claiming he had no idea what happened. Staley stayed connected to Epstein during the exact period when there was already a giant flashing warning sign over this man's head.

7:24Epstein wasn't hiding the fact that he'd been convicted. It was public. It was known. There had already been allegations involving underage girls yet somehow the friendship continued. Then years later, when people start asking questions, everybody suddenly wants to act like Epstein was just some weird finance here that they barely knew. You know, that dog does not hunt. You cannot have that relationship both ways. And the emails make the whole thing worse. There were roughly 1200 messages exchanged between Staley and Epstein over a period of years. We're not talking about casual contact. We're not talking about once in a while checking in. That's a relationship. Some of those messages were personal, strange, and in some cases, downright embarrassing. When they were eventually dragged into the light, Staley often fell back on the same old line. We hear from powerful people under pressure. He didn't remember. Funny how memory works when the emails are friendlier and harmless. It gets a whole lot fuzzier when the messages become difficult to explain.

8:27One exchange involving snow white and other fairy tale language has been picked apart for years because nobody outside that relationship can say with certainty what the hell they were talking about. Now Staley has denied that it has the sinister meaning that other people have suggested. Fair enough. But when you're communicating in cryptic language with Jeffrey Epstein, people are going to ask some questions. It's not persecution, my friend. It's common sense. Epstein wasn't a dentist, sending appointment reminders. He was a convicted sex offender surrounded by young women and girls. If you decide to exchange cute little coded sounding messages with that dude, you don't get to act offended when the rest of us want to know what they meant. Then we get to the part of Staley's testimony that's made a lot of people stop dead in their tracks. Staley acknowledged having sex with one of Epstein's assistants. He described it as consensual. He said Epstein did not arrange it. He said it develops separately. He said essentially two adults met, floored and eventually slept together.

9:30That's a nice clean story. A nice tidy explanation. The problem is that nothing about Jeffrey Epstein's world was clean or tidy. Epstein's so-called assistants were not working at a normal office where everybody punched a time clock and went home at five. Women around Epstein have been described for years as occupying overlapping roles. Some were employees, some were recruiters, some were victims, some were abused and then used to bring other girls in Epstein's orbit. Some were accused of helping Epstein while also existing under his control themselves. That's what people keep missing when they slap a label like assistant on somebody and think the conversation's over. An Epstein's world, the job title, did not tell the full story. The woman Staley described was reportedly somebody who later accused Epstein of abuse and received a settlement. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Almost Amos podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything.

10:30That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury, resort, day passes start at just $1,500. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. Shop vans and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop. This week at vans and Albertsons get fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $199 per pound limit 10 pounds.

11:31And locally grown grape-ere cotton candy grapes are $299 per pound with digital coupon. Plus 24 packs of Canada dry or 7-up 12-ounce cans are $499 limit 1 with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit vans or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Now it doesn't automatically prove that Epstein trafficked her to Staley and nobody needs to invent that claim. The facts are bad enough without making anything up. But it sure is all raises questions about what her life was like inside Epstein's operation and how free she was to really make choices.

12:42Staley calling the encounter consensual tells us how staley viewed it. That's one side of the story. Where's hers? And that's the question I keep coming back to. What did she say happened? What did she think about the encounter? Did she consider herself free and independent at the time? Did she feel pressure from Epstein? Or anyone else around them? Did she believe powerful men in Epstein's circle had access to women working for them? Did she ever discuss staley with Epstein? Those aren't crazy questions. Those are the first questions any serious investigator should be asking. Instead, we keep getting these carefully cut little pieces of testimony designed to answer exactly what was asked and not one inch more. Did Epstein arrange it? No. Did you see young girls? No. Did you witness abuse? No. Did you know what was happening? No. Remember this email, not really. Do you remember that conversation? Not clearly. Somehow the most connected people in Epstein's life were also the least observant human beings on the whole last planet. These guys apparently walk through Epstein's homes with blindfolds on. They never saw anything. They never heard anything. Nobody ever said anything strange. Nobody ever seemed too young.

13:52Nobody ever looked uncomfortable. Nobody ever made them suspicious. Look, we were just all there for dinner, business, conversation, or whatever innocent explanation happened to fit the moment. Epstein must have had the greatest ability in human history to hide his behavior from the exact people spending time inside his houses. Either that or a lot of people decided it was easier not to look too closely. Now, Staley's problems with credibility didn't start with Congress either. British regulators already went after him over the way his Epstein relationship was described. Barclays has represented the relationship is less close than the documentary record eventually showed. Regulators did not buy it. The financial conduct authority found that Staley had misled them about the nature of that relationship. He fought that finding and he lost. So, when people now listen to him describe Epstein in carefully measured terms, they're not starting from a blank sheet of paper. And I think that matters because Staley has already been caught minimizing the relationship. He can complain about the wording or the interpretation all he wants.

15:01The fact remains that regulators looked at what was said about Epstein, looked at the emails, looked at the history, and decided the description did not match reality. So, why in the hell should Congress treat every new Staley answer like it came down from Mount Sinai? Why would anybody? This is a man whose relationship with Epstein has already been the subject of a major credibility fight. That doesn't make every sentence out of his mouth false. It does mean nobody should be handing him automatic trust. The bank itself has plenty to answer for too. J.P. Morgan kept Epstein as a client for years. Internal people raised concerns, there were questions about his cash withdrawals, there were questions about suspicious activity, there were questions about exactly what kind of risk the guy represented. Epstein still remained there. At one point the bank eventually knew enough to suspect human trafficking concerns according to testimony and litigation records, yet somehow this relationship dragged on until 2013.

16:02Now, tell me what happens if you or I walk into a bank and start moving money around in ways that set off alarms? Our account gets frozen, we get questions, we get paperwork, we get treated like potential criminals before lunch. Jeffrey Epstein gets years of banking services while employees were raising red flags. Why? Well, because he was rich, because he was connected, because he was useful. And that's the part nobody in corporate America, like saying out loud. And then, once the lawsuits started flying, J.P. Morgan and Staley started pointing fingers at each other. The bank tried to shift responsibility towards Staley, Staley pushed back. Everybody suddenly became interested in drawing a line around their personal share of the disaster. That's how it always works, when the money is flowing, everybody's on the team, when the subpoenas arrive, nobody knows anybody. Epstein was valuable until being associated with him became more expensive than having him around. All right, folks, we're going to wrap up episode one right here and in the next episode, we're going to pick up with episode two. All the information that goes with this episode can be found in the description box.

17:10This is Ashley, I can Eddie from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $1,500. Once you post your day, you're going to have a vacation. People are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous.

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