Why Is the Epstein Client List Still Secret?

The FBI says Epstein “killed himself”—but insider Mike Benz and a former mob boss just blew that story wide open.

Former mob boss Michael Franzese sat down with Mike Benz, a former State Department official and executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, for a hard-hitting episode of the Sit Down with Michael Franzese podcast titled “From JFK to Epstein: The Plot That Connects It All.”

The conversation opened with a jolt. Franzese quickly dismissed the official narrative surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s death, stating unequivocally that he doesn’t believe it was a suicide.

Franzese, who served time on the same tier as Epstein in federal lockup, says the layout alone makes the story unbelievable.

“I was on the exact same tier, in the exact same cellblock that Epstein was,” he said.

“There’s NO WAY in my estimation that that guy committed suicide.”

He walked through the reasons one by one.

“No way. Cameras don’t go out all at once. People don’t stop walking the tier. There’s no method in there to commit suicide, to hang yourself like he did.”

“You couldn’t do it,” he said.

“You just couldn’t do it.”

Mike Benz didn’t argue—and then took it a step further.

“I don’t think we’re going to be getting transparency on Epstein any time soon,” he said.

Even long term, he wasn’t optimistic.

“It’s possible that in the long run we will. I don’t know how long that run will be, whether that’s a year from now, two years from now, or sixty years from now, like we’re starting to finally get these JFK declassifications.”

Benz explained that the Epstein case is still far too fresh—and the people involved are very much alive.

“The fact is—the Epstein case is very, very, very recent.”

“The people involved are all alive and well, and many of them in very powerful positions in the U.S. government and internationally.”

That led into one of the more damning revelations of the conversation: the role of Bill Barr.

According to Benz, it was no coincidence Epstein died while Barr was in charge of the Justice Department.

“Who was the head of the Justice Department at the time that that happened under? It was Bill Barr.”

And that’s just the surface. Benz dug into Barr’s background and found a web of intelligence ties going back decades.

“Bill Barr was the CIA’s mop up man,”

“He told his high-school guidance counselor—that his dream job was to run the CIA. His first job was working for the CIA. His first seven years of his career, he spent at the CIA.”

It didn’t stop there.

Benz pointed out that Barr’s first legal assignment out of law school involved shielding the agency from scrutiny during the Iran-Contra investigation—one of the most notorious scandals in CIA history.

And then came the kicker.

“Not only that, Bill Barr’s father, Donald Barr, was the mentor to Jeffrey Epstein. He literally was a student of Bill Barr’s dad at the same high school.”

That backstory opened the door to a much broader—and darker—theory about Epstein’s true role.

According to Benz, Epstein’s ties to intelligence networks didn’t begin with his alleged financial career—they began with covert operations stretching back decades.

“Jeffrey Epstein was involved in arms trafficking during Iran-Contra,” he said.

“He negotiated the resettlement of Southern Air Transport from Mena, Arkansas, which was the main CIA airbase under Bill Clinton—where they were running the cocaine from the Contras to the U.S.”

Benz argued that Epstein wasn’t just a lone predator—he was plugged into a vast web of global intelligence.

“There’s also all the international networks,” he said.

“There could also be a role of Israeli intelligence, there could be a role of UK-British intelligence, there could be a role of Saudi intelligence because he was working with Adnan Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia. He appeared to have deep ties to the Royal Family in the UK.”

And that, Benz suggested, is why the truth still hasn’t been told.

“Part of the reason that I think the Epstein case is too big to fail,” he said, “is because it’s not just about embarrassing our own intelligence capacities—but there may be higher level talks at the international layer that Trump wants to maintain an alliance with.”

That pressure is being leveraged at a very high level.

“That are putting pressure on the Justice Department, that are putting pressure on various levels of the White House to not disclose them.”

The question then turned to Ghislaine Maxwell. Why hasn’t she met the same fate as Epstein?

Franzese offered a chilling theory.

“People said, well why didn’t she get killed or why didn’t they try to do something with her?” he said.

“And I said maybe they went to her and said listen, you saw what happened to Epstein—if you don’t keep your mouth shut the same thing is going to happen to you.”

He added, “She has to probably have some good intel also.”

Benz agreed—and pointed to her family history.

“Ghislaine not only a key figure in this with her relationship with Epstein,”

“But Ghislaine’s father, Robert Maxwell—it came out at the end of his life after he died under mysterious circumstances—he had belonged to Israeli intelligence his whole life and that was something that he had denied.”

But unlike Epstein, Benz believes eliminating Maxwell now would be too risky and would cause an uproar within the public.

“I think it would be too suspicious, frankly, if Ghislaine were to die after everything that’s happened with Epstein,” he said.

“I think that this would go from a cold anger into a very hot one in terms of the international demand.”

Instead, Benz believes a behind-the-scenes deal may already be in play—one designed to keep her quiet without triggering backlash.

“There could have been back channel agreements,” he said.

“If I were, for example, the intelligence community in this situation, I would lean on the Justice Department to try to propose something to her. That we’re not going to touch your family.”

“If you keep your mouth shut on this, we will limit the disclosures that go forward publicly.”

Benz says this type of deal is actually the most probable scenario.

“I would not be surprised,” Benz concluded, “if that’s exactly what’s happening with Maxwell—and Maxwell’s going to keep her mouth shut in order to see through some sort of back channeled, quasi-plea deal.”

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