Support our truly independent journalism.   Watch now   Day 317: War Crimes Admitted, Courts Defied, and the Epstein Files Keep Dropping From Pentagon atrocities to Russian intelligence pipelines through Epstein’s modeling agencies Zev Shalev, Ellie Leonard, and Olga Lautman Dec 3 PENTAGON POINTS FINGER AT HEGSETH AND TRUMP The Spider-Man meme came to life at the Pentagon today. Spokesperson Kingsley Wilson was asked about the Caribbean strikes and made clear: these were “presidentially directed.” The chain of command “functions as it should.” The secretary and the president “are the ones directing these strikes.” Translation: the military brass is putting daylight between themselves and what increasingly looks like a war crime. Archive footage from Fox News shows Hegseth bragging about watching the strike live. “We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing.” The kind of thing you should not say on television while committing a war crime—but there he was. In 72 hours, the story went from “fake news” to both parties in Congress demanding investigations. Senator Wicker is involved. Republicans and Democrats are using the words “war crimes.” Britain has already stopped sharing intelligence because they don’t want to be complicit in extrajudicial killings. As Olga put it: “They’re all trying to put the liability on this.” The military is pointing at Hegseth. Hegseth pointed at an admiral. Everyone’s saying “he did it.” NOEM BRAGS ABOUT DEFYING FEDERAL COURT DHS Secretary Kristi Noem one-upped Hegseth by openly admitting she defied a federal court order on deportations to El Salvador. The judge reopened contempt proceedings Friday. By Monday, Noem was confessing. “This country has turned into such a banana republic,” Olga said. “I follow autocratic regimes. I’ve never seen anything like it.” KUSHNER IN MOSCOW WITH PUTIN AND DMITRIEV Meanwhile, Jared Kushner was in Moscow meeting with Putin alongside Steve Witkoff and sanctioned oligarch Kirill Dmitriev. This is the same Kushner who asked Russian Ambassador Kislyak for a back channel in 2016, who dined with Abramovich and Vekselberg, whose buildings were financed by Russian money. Olga traced his Russian connections back to 2014-15. It’s a business deal at Ukraine’s expense. PENTAGON BARS AP, REUTERS, CNN—INSTALLS LAURA LOOMER The Pentagon barred major news organizations from Hegseth’s briefings. Access now goes only to pro-Trump outlets and extremist influencers. Laura Loomer was broadcasting from inside the Washington Post’s former Pentagon office. Russia does this too, Olga noted—except their propagandists are trained professionals who receive morning briefings on what to push. E = MC²: EPSTEIN’S MODELING PIPELINE EXPOSED The second hour brought investigative researcher Ellie Leonard onto the show to discuss the House Oversight email dumps—and the picture emerging is darker than anyone imagined. MC2 Model Management wasn’t a modeling agency. It was E = MC², with E standing for Epstein. Three offices: New York, Miami, Tel Aviv. The Tel Aviv office provided visa cover, laundering Eastern European women into the United States on O-1 “Einstein” visas through Israeli modeling contracts. JPMorgan financed it all, despite their own employees flagging human trafficking red flags. RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE GRADUATES IN EPSTEIN’S ORBIT Olga traced the pipeline directly: Svetlana Pozhidaeva, a graduate of Russia’s foreign ministry academy (MGIMO), sent a lingerie photo to Maxim Russia, got picked up as a model, dropped out of diplomatic training, obtained an O-1 visa through Epstein’s network, and ended up as his assistant—with a mission to infiltrate American AI research. Her grandfather is buried in the Russian equivalent of Arlington Cemetery. He was GRU. Her father signed a lease listing his job as GRU. “There is only one explanation,” said KGB defector Yuri Shvets. “She was an agent infiltrated with the help of Jeffrey Epstein to penetrate the American network linked to supercomputers and artificial intelligence.” THE EMAILS THEY NEVER WANTED RELEASED Ellie has been combing through tens of thousands of emails. The names on her list: Bill Gates, Jean-Luc Brunel, Leon Black, Michael Wolff, the Dubins, Ghislaine Maxwell, Larry Summers, Cathy Rumler (Obama’s White House counsel). The Larry Summers exchanges read like “two 12-year-old girls talking to each other,” she said. “Geeky guys who can’t lay anybody” who suddenly had access to women they could never have gotten on their own. The emails reveal Epstein defending Woody Allen, ranting against Mia and Ronan Farrow, and joking with Michael Wolff about surviving the MeToo movement. “You and I are old news,” Epstein wrote. “Maybe we got missed.” Wolff’s response: “Let’s cross your fingers.” JUDGE BERMAN TAKES CONTROL OF FILE RELEASES Judge Berman is actively involved in ensuring the next document release contains the right materials. Files from as early as 2003 could drop before Christmas. The network connecting Trump, Epstein, Dershowitz, Ken Starr, and Wexner is becoming visible in the documentary record. Follow Olga Lautman at Trump Tyranny Tracker and Ellie Leonard at The Unpaid Panicked Writer on Substack. The Greatest Heist Chapter 4 is now available at narativ.org. Share our independent journalism with others.