Epstein Secrets

t’s coming.” HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020050 17 ABROAD AND AT HOME n May 12, Roger Ailes was scheduled to return to New York from Palm Beach to meet with Peter Thiel, an early and lonely Trump supporter in Silicon Valley who had become increasingly astonished by Trump’s unpredictability. Ailes and Thiel, both worr

with Peter Thiel, an early and lonely Trump supporter in Silicon Valley who had become increasingly astonished by Trump’s unpredictability. Ailes and Thiel, both worried that Trump could bring Trumpism down, were set to discuss the funding and launch of a new cable news network. Thiel would pay for it an

hed from the network, or find it too inhospitable to stay on. And yet he was pained by Trump’s slavish attentions to Murdoch, who had not only ousted Ailes but whose conservatism was at best utilitarian. “He was for Hillary!” said Hannity. Ruminating out loud, Hannity said he would leave the network and

he network seemed held in a peculiar Murdoch family limbo between conservative father and liberal sons. A few hours after the O’Reilly announcement, Ailes, from his new oceanfront home in Palm Beach—precluded by his separation agreement with Fox from any efforts to compete with it for eighteen months—se

do it. He wasn’t a tough guy. He was “a big warm-hearted monkey,” said Bannon, with rather faint praise. PayPal cofounder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel—really the only significant Silicon Valley voice to support Trump—was warned by another billionaire and longtime Trump friend that Trump would, in an

ilicon Valley voice to support Trump—was warned by another billionaire and longtime Trump friend that Trump would, in an explosion of flattery, offer Thiel his undying friendship. Everybody says you’re great, you and I are going to have an amazing working relationship, anything you want, call me and we'l

tically described some of the possibilities for coming up with the billion or so dollars he thought he would need for a new cable network. Both men, Ailes and Bannon, fancied themselves particular students of history, both autodidacts partial to universal field theories. They saw this in a charismatic s

ng into, “When I am president ...” The top Trump donors from 2016 were in his camp, Bannon claimed: Sheldon Adelson, the Mercers, Bernie Marcus, and Peter Thiel. In short order, and as though he had been preparing for this move for some time, Bannon had left the White House and quickly thrown together a rump

SE_OVERSIGHT_020135 Syria, 42, 183-84, 188-93, 219, 226, 265 Taliban, 267 tax reform, 87, 167, 224, 290 Tea Party, 5, 18, 26, 33, 58-59, 128, 161-63 Thiel, Peter, 21, 222, 309 Thrush, Glenn, 91, 277 Tillerson, Rex, 4, 21, 86, 211, 225, 229, 265, 267, 296, 304-6 Time magazine, 50, 56, 93, 130, 147, 276 T

, 14 Trump, Don, Jr., 17-18, 27, 204, 252-61, 271, 278-79, 307 Trump, Donald Abe meeting at Mar-a-Lago and, 106 Afghanistan and, 263-68 Ailes on, 2-8 Ailes’s funeral and, 222-24 Alabama GOP Senate run-off, 301-4 Apprentice and, 30, 76 Bannon and, 1-8, 31-32, 35, 52-53, 59-65, 93, 122, 146-47, 158, 187, 1