As the debate rages over the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, Foundation for Freedom Online founder Mike Benz took a close look at Epstein’s history with the intel community talking to host Jesse Kelly. Benz has promised a deep dive on the topic soon.

Mike Benz: Epstein was working with the CIA in the early 1980s at the very start of his career after he left Bear Stearns. In 1981, right after leaving Bear Stearns, Jeffrey Epstein created a one-person for-profit company in his one-bedroom New York apartment. It was called the Intercontinental Assets Group, and it held itself out as an international bounty hunter for high-net-worth individuals to both recover money and shield money internationally. Right away in 1981, he starts this company that basically helped royalty and high-net-worth individuals basically recover loan debts or assets owed to them that were held in cryptic offshore bank accounts, as well as helping them structure their own assets in a way that would make it difficult or impossible for others to collect those assets.

And in 1982, just one year into that, he got a fake passport, an Austrian passport, listing his residence as Saudi Arabia. This is a fake passport. This was recovered by the FBI in 2019 when they drilled a hole in Jeffrey Epstein’s safe and recovered this. Prosecutors held this passport up at the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. Now, this fake passport was so good that it was able to go through four different country checkpoints. It had a false name, but Jeffrey Epstein’s photo, so that he could get back and forth. And why Saudi Arabia? Well, because Jeffrey Epstein, one of his main clients for the group that he set up in 1981, was Adnan Khashoggi.

Adnan Khashoggi was the CIA arms runner for the Iran-Contra affair when Congress blocked the U.S. federal government through a congressional law called the Bolan Amendment, with the Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, banning any U.S. funds from being directed to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. And the Reagan White House and National Security Council and Central Intelligence Agency wanted to do it anyway. They were left with a problem, which was that the CIA had been neutered during the Jimmy Carter years. There had been prohibitions on the categories of covert activity it could do, and the Bolan Amendment from Congress blocked them from using U.S. aid funds or State Department funds to run the operation.

Enter Jeffrey Epstein and Adnan Khashoggi, his client. During the Iran-Contra affair, which dogged the entire Reagan administration when all this came out, the U.S. was selling arms together with Israel to Iran, which is kind of ironic as the current geopolitics of Israel-Iran play out around missiles flying overhead earlier this month between those two countries. Israel and the U.S. were selling weapons to Iran at that time through Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer who had been working with the CIA for 30 years.

In fact, this all came out in formal, under-oath testimony from the Paris office of BCCI, which was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, one of the largest banks in the world, which was effectively a CIA proprietary bank for running arms to the Mujaheddin when the CIA was creating the Islamo-terrorist network that would later become Al Qaeda and then ISIS. Adnan Khashoggi was a client of that bank, together with the CIA, and the head of the head of the Paris branch said that Adnan Khashoggi personally told him that he was working for the Central Intelligence Agency and Jeffrey Epstein was his money bundler. This is at the height of the Cold War, mind you.

And so you see this relationship going back to the early 1980s. In 1985, Jeffrey Epstein becomes linked up with Les Wexner in Columbus, Ohio. Les Wexner was the head of what at the time was the largest retailer in the entire United States, limited brands, famous for Victoria’s Secret and many, many others. Les Wexner’s tax attorney, Arthur Shapiro, was murdered in a gangland style assassination in 1985, the day before he was set to testify in an IRS grand jury investigation. The IRS had been looking into the Wexner empire’s finances and failure to, I think, file taxes for something like five years and seven years of investigation. Arthur Shapiro, who ran that, was supposed to testify to the IRS grand jury just one day before he was gunned down.

It was right after that that Jeffrey Epstein appears to meet Les Wexner and then go on to have durable power of attorney over the entire Wexner enterprise. In 1993, Jeffrey Epstein personally negotiated the sale, the transfer of Air America, which would then become Southern Air Transport, a CIA proprietary airline straight from Miami, where it got busted as part of the Iran-Contra gun trafficking and narcotics trafficking in order to run this illicit operation in Iran-Contra. That very airline used Jeffrey and that Jeffrey Epstein was a critical part in the structuring of this CIA operation. He then negotiated the transfer of that CIA airliner straight to Columbus, Ohio, where the Wexner empire was based for the primary purpose of transporting the limited cargo between Ohio and Hong Kong, which is another one of these narco states. Hong Kong was won by the British during the opium wars and has been kind of a lawless gun and drug running zone ever since.

How does one get to be the financial bundler for the CIA’s main arms, illicit arms trafficker in the Middle East without having any scrutiny from the Central Intelligence Agency? How does one personally negotiate the transfer of a CIA proprietary airline? By the way, Southern Air Transport declared bankruptcy in Columbus, Ohio, the very day the CIA put out an acknowledgement of Air America’s role in the gun running and narco trafficking in Iran-Contra. Subsequent to that, the US State Department personally made Jeffrey Epstein the tenant on the lease for one of the second largest residents in all of New York City. This residence was seized from the government of Iran as the US was putting sanctions on it and then personally leased out to Jeffrey Epstein. How do you have the State Department as your personal landlord? Do you think you or I, Jesse, could score something like that?

The State Department then ended up in a legal dispute with Jeffrey Epstein because Jeffrey Epstein subleased that apartment to the defense lawyer for the “French Connection” and “Pizza Connection” drug scandals (Ivan Fisher), where you had CIA involvement in narco trafficking that was effectively dealt, you know, hushed over in this trial through this very defense lawyer that Jeffrey Epstein then leased the State Department building seized from Iran from. What I’m trying to communicate here is that every aspect of the Jeffrey Epstein story is part of the restructuring of intelligence work after the scandals of the 1970s when the CIA was barred from doing activity directly. And that’s when USAID came into the picture and took the baton from CIA and these and the NGO apparatus that we’re now living under with the National Endowment for Democracy and Internews and the US Agency for US Institute of Peace and the web of private contractors and private financiers in order to be the front men for CIA operations. Jeffrey Epstein was present at creation of that entire apparatus. There is zero chance on God’s green earth that there are no CIA files on this guy.

And the fact that this justice department has effectively pointed us to the FBI when this is a CIA job is not a good look for transparency.

 

The post Mike Benz: “Jeffrey Epstein Was Working With the CIA Since 1981” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels and a longtime New York City activist, is once again the Republican nominee for mayor, running unopposed in the GOP primary. Known for his signature red beret and decades of volunteer crime-fighting, Sliwa casts himself as the only candidate seriously addressing public safety, quality of life, and the needs of the outer boroughs.

His platform calls for restoring NYPD budget cuts, hiring 7,000 new officers, deploying 500 undercover cops in the subways, and reinstating qualified immunity. He proposes funding these initiatives by forcing institutions like Madison Square Garden and NYU to pay property taxes.

Sliwa also supports repealing the “City of Yes” zoning plan, capping the number of migrant and homeless shelters, and blocking the construction of lithium-ion battery storage sites in residential neighborhoods. A staunch animal welfare advocate, he created a separate “Protect Animals” ballot line to underscore his commitment to the issue.

Though not always in step with Donald Trump, he voted third-party in 2020 but backed Trump in 2024, Sliwa maintains he’s not the “Trump pick,” preferring to present himself as an independent-minded street-level leader. He was arrested (but not prosecuted) during a 2023 protest against illegal immigration outside Gracie Mansion, and he continues to reject political theater in favor of what he calls real solutions to crime, fare evasion, and urban decay.

Mamdani, by contrast, is running on a democratic socialist platform that proposes a $10 billion tax increase on businesses and high earners to fund free city bus service, rent freezes on stabilized apartments, city-owned grocery stores, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. He supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide.”

His support for BDS and refusal to affirm Israel’s right to exist have drawn strong backlash from Jewish groups in New York City. During the campaign, Mamdani also sparked controversy for refusing to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan associated with violent anti-Israel protests since the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023. Pressed repeatedly in interviews, Mamdani defended the phrase as a “desperate desire for equality” and claimed that mayors should not “police speech.”

Critics argue that Mamdani’s proposals are economically reckless. His plan to open city-run grocery stores, one in each borough, has been widely condemned as unrealistic and wasteful. Experts note that grocery retail is one of the most competitive, low-margin industries in the economy, and even companies like Amazon have struggled to turn a profit in the sector. Government-run stores would face higher costs due to civil service rules and would likely operate at a loss, undercutting private stores, distorting the market, and subsidizing wealthier consumers who don’t need help.

Meanwhile, his rent freeze proposal, one of his most radical and potentially destructive ideas, could worsen the city’s already distorted housing market and drive small landlords out of business. His free bus plan would blow a $700 million hole in the transit budget, and his tax hikes could trigger an exodus of high earners who fund most of the city’s services.

Mamdani supports eliminating qualified immunity for police officers and advocates for sweeping “public safety reform,” though he has not called for abolishing the NYPD. His campaign is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

While his platform has energized some progressive voters, his radical economic proposals, hostility toward Israel, and market-interventionist instincts have made him a deeply polarizing figure in the broader electorate.

Curtis Sliwa offers a clear policy contrast to Zohran Mamdani on core issues. On public safety, Sliwa calls for expanding the NYPD and restoring funding, drawing on 46 years of crime-fighting experience with the Guardian Angels.

Mamdani, by contrast, has supported defunding the police and proposes replacing traditional law enforcement functions with a new Department of Community Safety. Sliwa highlights practical concerns like the city’s $8.7 million annual loss to fare evasion and rising subway crime, while Mamdani pushes for a $30 minimum wage, city-run grocery stores, and rent freezes.

Eric Adams, the incumbent mayor now running as an independent, campaigns on what he calls a record of “practical accomplishments,” claiming that violent crime has dropped to historic lows, 500,000 new jobs have been created, and affordable housing has expanded during his tenure.

But many critics, including law enforcement veterans, dismiss the crime statistics as misleading. While official reports show decreases in shootings and murders, these figures reflect changes in policing and reporting rather than any real improvement in public safety. Many crimes are no longer being reported or prosecuted, artificially lowering the numbers. Meanwhile, shoplifting and recidivism are both up, and petty crime remains a daily concern for many residents.

As mayor, Adams rejected the defund-the-police movement and increased NYPD presence in the subways. Yet transit crime surged in 2023–2024, with spikes in robberies, assaults, and grand larcenies. Despite occasional monthly dips, violent crime rose overall in early 2024, with high-profile incidents fueling public concern.

MTA data shows rising rider-reported crimes and declining perceptions of safety, especially at night and in poorly patrolled areas. Fare evasion cost the MTA over $700 million in 2023, nearly double the 2018 figure, and 2024 losses may surpass $800 million. Patrols have increased, but enforcement remains inconsistent. Officers now issue fewer summonses and arrests, and fare evasion has become routine in parts of the system.

Some wealthy business figures, including Bill Ackman and real estate executive Marc Holliday, support Eric Adams despite the fact that his policies are not pro–free market capitalism. He has not cut taxes, reduced regulations, or shrunk the size of government. Instead, his economic agenda relies on public spending, subsidies, and public-private partnerships, hallmarks of socialism, corporatist or technocratic governance rather than free enterprise.

He backs government-led zoning reforms, subsidized housing, city-run job training programs, and business grants, all of which reflect state-managed intervention. Nonetheless, Adams maintains cross-party appeal that Sliwa lacks, polling better with Republicans and independents than with Democrats. President Trump has praised Adams as the better alternative to Mamdani, and business leaders see him as the only viable firewall against the socialist left.

Despite these advantages, Adams carries significant baggage. In 2024, he was indicted on federal bribery and fraud charges stemming from his time as Brooklyn Borough President, charges the Trump administration later dropped, but which sparked mass resignations in his administration.

His mayoralty has been rocked by allegations of political favoritism, NYPD corruption, and internal lawsuits accusing him of steering promotions to allies and silencing whistleblowers. He has gone through four police commissioners in less than four years, and internal turmoil has plagued key agencies.

Adams is a former Republican who rejoined the Democratic Party after what he described as a “personal protest” over crime, but many see his ideological flexibility as political opportunism. While he positions himself as the rational center between Sliwa and Mamdani, his governance has leaned toward establishment Democratic priorities.

For conservatives, this makes him an unreliable ally, useful in blocking the far left, but ultimately committed to big-government solutions. His appeal is rooted less in policy consistency than in incumbency, name recognition, and his ability to frame himself as the least radical option.

Despite offering a stark policy contrast to Zohran Mamdani, Curtis Sliwa remains a long shot in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one. He lost to Eric Adams by nearly 40 points in 2021, and current polling shows similar weaknesses. In a hypothetical three-way race, Mamdani leads with 33%, Adams follows with 19%, and Sliwa trails at 16%. In a head-to-head matchup, Adams beats Sliwa 40% to 30%, dominating among Democrats while Sliwa retains support from 70% of Republicans.

Conservative strategists see Mamdani’s radical platform as a major vulnerability, but they doubt Sliwa can capitalize on it. Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA called Mamdani “stoppable” but dismissed Sliwa as “a little bit of a novelty candidate,” urging him to drop out so voters can consolidate behind a stronger alternative. Sliwa has refused, saying, “The only way you get me out of this race before Nov. 4 is in a coffin.”

Adams faces significant electoral challenges due to multiple scandals and low approval ratings. According to a July 2025 Slingshot Strategies poll, he trails far behind other candidates with only 11% overall support, polling at 26% among Republicans, just 9% among Democrats, and only 16% among his core base of Black voters.

With a 62% unfavorability rating, Adams has drawn praise from President Trump but struggles to maintain broad appeal. While some in the business community may view him as preferable to Mamdani’s socialist agenda, his weak polling across all demographic groups suggests he may not be the viable alternative to Mamdani that some hoped for.

Sliwa’s only realistic path to victory relies on a fractured opposition. With Adams, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, and attorney Jim Walden all running as independents, Sliwa hopes to win with a narrow plurality if the vote splits evenly. He has argued that “a third of the city’s voters” could be enough to secure victory under the right conditions.

The post New York City Mayoral Race: Curtis Sliwa—Better than Mamdani but Less Electable than Adams appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Trump administration border czar Tom Homan had a message for anti-ICE protesters and hecklers during his speech at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit Saturday night: “You want some? Come get some.”

Homan’s speech was interrupted by hecklers, but it just made his remarks even more fiery.

The immigration enforcer began by telling the crowd, “Sometimes, I’m harsh. But if I offend anybody here tonight, I don’t give a sh-t.”

“Tom Homan is going to run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen. Take it to the bank,” the border czar said.

Responding to the anti-ICE protesters, including the ones who were at the speech and outside, Homan said, “You want some? Come get some.”

“I’m tired of it,” Homan asserted. “For the men and women of ICE, I deserve your respect. They’re the finest 1% this country has. And Tom Homan isn’t going anywhere. Tom Homan isn’t shutting up.”

After a heckler bizarrely asked Homan if he was a member of MS-13 about five minutes into his speech, Homan replied, “This guy wouldn’t know what it’s like to serve this nation. This guy ain’t got the balls to be an ICE officer. He hasn’t got the balls to be a border patrol agent.”

Homan drew massive cheers from the audience, who also chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!”

As the heckler was dragged out of the building, Homan added, “This guy lives in his mother’s basement. The only thing that surprised me is [he] doesn’t have purple hair and a nose ring. Get out of here, you loser.”

Homan told the heckler to meet him outside and declared, “I guarantee you this guy sits down to pee.”

JUST IN: Tom Homan DEMOLISHES a heckler interrupting his speech at TPUSA

HOMAN: “This guy doesn’t have the balls to be an ICE officer!”

“The ONLY thing that surprises me is that he doesn’t have purple hair and a nose ring”

“I GUARANTEE you this guy sits down to pee” pic.twitter.com/tEQEyGICS3

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 12, 2025

Homan told the audience that ICE will not be intimidated by the protesters or their violent rhetoric and will continue “to do the job that President Trump gave us to do.”

The post MUST WATCH: Tom Homan BRUTALLY Roasts Anti-ICE Heckler During TPUSA Speech — ‘I Guarantee You This Guy Sits Down to Pee’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

A 62-year-old woman has been charged after driving through a crowd of anti-ICE protesters who surrounded and began pounding on her car in New Jersey.

Linda Roglen, 62, of North Bergen, was driving past the Noches De Colombia on Fairview Avenue in the borough of Fairview when she encountered a group protesting ICE raids on Saturday.

One of the protesters confronted her car, and she sped up, allegedly running over his foot.

The man falls to the ground, Roglen stops, and the protesters swarm her vehicle and begin banging on the windows.

At this point, the car is surrounded, and Roglen slowly drives through. At least one protester can be seen throwing something at her vehicle as she leaves the scene.

The incident was captured on video from multiple angles and shared on social media, where leftists expressed outrage over her actions.

Newly obtained video footage shows a driver striking protesters twice during a July 12 immigration rally on Fairview Avenue in Fairview, New Jersey. pic.twitter.com/rlnYBRatU0

— HudPost (@hudpost) July 12, 2025

Those with common sense asserted that she did the right thing as she was in the middle of a dangerous situation.

According to a report from the New York Post, Roglen has been charged with “careless driving, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and four counts of assault by auto resulting in bodily injury.”

Three of the protesters sustained minor injuries.

In New Jersey, no statute or law specifically immunizes or protects drivers from civil or criminal liability if they drive through a group of protesters who are surrounding and banging on their vehicle.

Several states, such as Florida, Oklahoma, and Iowa, have enacted or considered laws that provide limited protections for drivers in specific scenarios involving blocked roadways. New Jersey has not passed any similar legislation.

New Jersey does not have a “stand your ground” law; instead, there is a general duty to retreat if it can be done safely before using force. However, self-defense may apply if you reasonably believe force is immediately necessary to protect against unlawful force or retreating is not possible.

The post WATCH: 62-Year-Old Woman Charged for Driving Through Anti-ICE Protesters Who Were Surrounding and Pounding on Her Car in New Jersey appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Three and a half years after the start of the war, Russian forces have an edge over the defending Ukrainians in almost every aspect.

And Moscow is pushing the envelope with ever-bigger drone and missile attacks targeting military infrastructure all over Ukraine, including in the western regions in the deep rear.

At the same time, Russian forces are exerting pressure all over the frontline: against Sumy, Kharkov, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson.

Out-manned, out-gunned and out-maneuvered, the Kiev regime defenders in many places are hanging by a thread – and the overextended reserve troops have to run ‘to and fro’ to gap holes in the defense lines.

In the peace process front, the positions of Russians and Ukrainians were incompatible, and negotiations have stalled.

As the great sponsor of peace, US President Donald J. Trump is understandably dissatisfied with the ongoing conflict, and his comments increasingly highlight ‘his frustration’ with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Financial Times reported:

“Over the past week, Trump has said he will be providing additional weapons, including Patriot air defense systems, to Ukraine; signaled his willingness to embrace much tougher sanctions against Moscow; and blasted the Russian president. He also vowed to issue a ‘major statement’ on the war in Ukraine this coming Monday, without elaborating.”

Watch: ‘A lot of bullshit’ – Trump on his frustration with Putin.

President Trump: “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” pic.twitter.com/VMnXSTuCiK

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 8, 2025

“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

This is a change in tone from months ago, when most of his criticism was reserved for Zelensky.

But many see that this does not represent a deep shift in favor of the Kiev regime.

“’This is a shot across Russia and Putin’s bow that he’s sick of being strung along’, said Max Bergmann of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank. ‘But it doesn’t actually mean that the US is going to shift to being suddenly a big ally and backer of Ukraine, or more significantly than it has been’.”

Zelensky seems convinced that things are looking up for him, saying that he received ‘good political signals at the highest level’.

“But while Trump’s rhetoric has raised some hopes in Europe of a potential shift in his attitude, two senior officials involved in defense and security negotiations with Washington said there was still little tangible evidence of the White House taking a more pro-Kiev stance.

Western allies of Ukraine were still assuming Trump was predisposed to seeing Putin as his main negotiating partner in any settlement and Zelensky as the primary obstacle to a workable peace deal, the officials said.”

Read more:

‘A LOT OF BULLSH*T’: Trump Vents His Frustration With Putin, Lack of Progress in Peace Process in Ukraine, Announces New Defensive Weapons for Kiev, Floats New Sanctions on Moscow

The post Despite His Change in Tone, Trump Still Sees Putin as a Negotiating Partner and Zelensky as the Main Obstacle to a Peace Deal: REPORT appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.