From New York Times opinion, I'm Ross Douthad, and this is interesting times. Forget about the political drama for a moment.

What is the actual truth about Jeffrey Epstein?

Are there real secrets that haven't yet been revealed?

And what's it like to try to pull back the curtain on one of the 21st

century's most mysterious villains? My guest today brought Epstein's story fully into the public

eye with her dogged reporting for the Miami Herald in 2018. And she'll be our guide through

the big unanswered questions that are still with us today.

Before we dive in, I just want to note that we recorded this conversation just before, as in hours before,

the Wall Street Journal reported on a birthday letter sent by Donald Trump to Epstein,

and before the president then authorized the

Justice Department to seek the release of grand jury testimony in Epstein's case. So you won't

hear us discuss those developments, just everything else. Julie K. Brown, welcome to interesting

times. Thank you. So for the last couple of weeks,

ever since the Trump administration decided it was a good idea to tell the world that there was

nothing more to say about the Jeffrey Epstein story, which has not been true. I feel like we've had a lot of

these meta conversations about the case, conversations about Trump administration politics,

about MAGA infighting, about sort of theories, about conspiracy theories. And I just keep coming

back to the man himself and all of the weird

questions that to me, as a journalist and news consumers, still hang over this whole story.

So I'm really hoping that together we can sort of walk through the story, the actual story,

of how Jeffrey Epstein, the man, became Jeffrey Epstein,

the mythic villain of the early 21st century. And I want to start in the middle for him,

...