The Dictatorship

As Epstein’s longtime lawyer testifies, questions remain about what he knew

Published

3 months ago

March 19, 2026

As Epstein’s longtime lawyer testifies, questions remain about what he knew

Mar. 19, 2026, 2:27 PM EDT

The second of Jeffrey Epstein’s two estate executors is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. And after the other executor’s testimony last week raised serious questions about who knew what about Epstein’s abuse and when, the committee’s transcribed interview of Darren Indyke could be explosive.

Indyke served as the de facto in-house counsel to Epstein for decades and will appear in Washington, D.C., on March 19, just a week after Richard Kahn was deposed before the same group of lawmakers.

Kahn worked for Epstein for more than a decade as one of his New York-based accountants before becoming one of two co-executors of his estate upon his 2019 death.

In his opening statement, Kahn insisted that he never witnessed any sexual abuse or trafficking of women and additionally “never received a complaint — either by one of Epstein’s victims or anyone else — of such abuse or trafficking.” He also said that he never saw any minors in Epstein’s presence.

By the end of the deposition, however, at least some members of the committee, including ranking Democrat Robert Garcia, questioned Kahn’s blanket assertion that he never knew about or suspected Epstein of sexual misconduct with girls or women.

“Jeffrey Epstein’s massive sex trafficking ring would not have been possible without the consistent payments and services of his long-time accountant Richard Kahn,” Garcia said in a statement. “It’s not credible that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s activities, and his testimony today only raises more questions.”

MS NOW is unaware of any allegations that Kahn or Indyke participated in or witnessed any sexual abuse committed by Epstein.

And a lawyer for the estate, Daniel Weiner, told MS NOW in a statement, “Both Mr. Indyke and Mr. Kahn reject as categorically false the suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of that abuse while they provided professional services for him.”

But given the statements provided by certain alleged victims of Epstein and other witnesses to federal law enforcement, Indyke could have an even tougher time convincing Congress that he was ignorant of Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minor girls and women.

Those statements, which were made during FBI interviews and are included in memos known as “302s” and are found on the Justice Department’s website, have not been verified by MS NOW and are largely uncorroborated.

According to prepared remarks obtained by MS NOW, Indyke told the committee in his opening statement that he “had no knowledge whatsoever of Jeffrey Epstein’s wrongdoings.

“Had I known that he was abusing or trafficking women,” Indyke said, “I would have quit working for him at once and severed all ties to him.”

He added that both he and Kahn have made “extensive efforts … to address the wrongs committed by Mr. Epstein during his lifetime,” including distributing millions of dollars from Epstein’s estate to victims.

James Marsh, an attorney representing multiple survivors, said in a statement that Indyke’s “claimed ignorance … is deeply troubling.”

“His testimony only underscores how much still remains hidden about the vast network of enablers that allowed these crimes to persist for decades,” Marsh added. “Survivors — and the American people — deserve the full undistorted truth about who knew what.”

Several witnesses told federal investigators that Indyke either told them not to talk to law enforcement if questioned about their relationships with Epstein, or was someone Epstein had them directly deal with when it came to personal situations like their schooling or their immigration status.

In July 2019, just days after Epstein’s arrest, federal law enforcement interviewed a Polish ex-model who worked for Epstein as a traveling assistant between 2005 and 2006. She told the FBI and federal prosecutors that in fall 2005, Epstein shared with her that there was an ongoing investigation, that it had “something to do with visas” and that investigators were asking about her parents. According to the documents, she added that Indyke then called her into his office and “told her not to talk to law enforcement.”

That same woman spoke again to the FBI and prosecutors roughly two months later. She mentioned that Epstein encouraged her to seek Indyke’s assistance with her immigration status but that Indyke was unable to help. She reiterated that Indyke had directed her to contact him if she ever needed help and “never talk to the police.” According to the documents, she told investigators this interaction made her think something was “off.”

A second woman who talked to federal law enforcement about Indyke is known only as “Jane,” the pseudonym she used when she testified at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial.

According to a memo of her September 2019 interview with the FBI, Jane met Epstein and Maxwell in 1994, when she attended a summer program at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Jane told the FBI that when she returned to her hometown of Palm Beach, Florida, Epstein offered her mentorship and scholarship opportunities, only for him and Maxwell to begin sexually abusing her soon after. In her senior year of high school and with Epstein’s urging, she moved to New York City to attend a private performing arts-focused school and lived in an apartment that Epstein paid for.

Jane said she stopped communicating with Epstein and Maxwell in 2001, which angered him. He called her in anger, screaming about how ungrateful she was — and she said she also received a call from Indyke, who told her she owed Epstein $10,000 because Epstein had cosigned for her apartment.

According to documents, Jane also remembered that she would meet with Indyke to discuss paperwork that had to do with her schooling.

In the case of another woman, a foreign-born aspiring model interviewed by federal law enforcement had alleged sexual abuse by Epstein between roughly 2004 and 2007. During a February 2020 interview, she told the FBI that when Epstein told her in 2006 that he had been arrested, he didn’t share any of the details but gave her two instructions: Do not introduce him to anyone new for massages, and to call Indyke if she was contacted by law enforcement.

According to the documents, there were additional witnesses whose statements strongly suggested that Indyke could have — or should have — known that Epstein was involved in unlawful activity.

Lance Calloway served as Epstein’s personal chef between 2006 and 2009, the period when Epstein was under investigation by Florida federal prosecutors. It was also during this time that Epstein negotiated a nonprosecution agreement to serve just 13 months in jail, including home release, after pleading guilty to two state prostitution-related crimes.

When interviewed by the FBI and federal prosecutors in September 2020Calloway told them that in approximately 2008, he learned that Epstein was under investigation while he was living on Little St. James, the Caribbean island Epstein owned. At about that time, Indyke instructed Calloway that if he was approached with something, he should “not accept it because he could be getting served.”

Nearly a year earlier, in October 2019, the FBI interviewed an employee of Deutsche Bank’s asset and wealth management division who led its transaction monitoring team. She told the FBI that through a review of Epstein’s bank accounts, she observed that he was distributing payments directly to “women, who appeared to be models of legal age,” though she did not specify how she knew that. She also noticed that Indyke himself withdrew $7,500 in cash each week.

A now-settled lawsuit filed by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands against Indyke and Kahn, as executors of Epstein’s estate, among others, similarly alleged that between 2014 and 2016, Indyke cashed almost 45 separate checks, each in the amount of $7,500 and at a pace of two or three each month, from a single account belonging to Epstein. Although the lawsuit does not name the bank, it specifies that $7,500 was that bank’s limit for third-party withdrawals from any account.

The FBI interview documents from the Deutsche Bank’s employee show that she had filed a suspicious-activity information form on Indyke himself after witnessing the withdrawals.

That lawsuit also alleged that between June 2018 and February 2019, almost 100 individual withdrawals of $1,000 were made from one of Epstein’s bank accounts from an ATM that is a short walk from Indyke’s law office. The lawsuit did not specifically allege that Indyke personally made those withdrawals.

Julianne McShane contributed to this report.

Lisa Rubin is MS NOW’s senior legal reporter and a former litigator.

Madeleine Bimonte is a journalist with MS NOW, based in New York.

Sydney Reynolds is a senior assignment editor for MS NOW

The Dictatorship

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race

Published

4 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.

Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.

* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.

* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.

* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.

* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.

* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.

* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls

Published

4 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls

Jun. 22, 2026, 11:39 AM EDT

After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”

Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.

The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.

“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.

Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.

Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.

In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.

But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.

An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.

The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.

“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.

“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.

Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.

“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.

“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.

In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”

In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”

After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.

“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”

Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”

“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.

On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”

Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.

Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Fears of an ‘economic catastrophe’ helped push Trump toward an Iran deal

Published

4 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Fears of an ‘economic catastrophe’ helped push Trump toward an Iran deal

As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.

But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”

In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:

In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.

“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.

As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”

He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.

“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”

The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”

Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.

In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.