Will the truth escape again?
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The files have been out long enough for a second story to form around them: not what was released, but who is now fighting over the parts that remain hidden.
Amanda Ungaro After the Interviews: More Claims, Still No Answer
The Amanda Ungaro story did not end with the interviews. Her claims only became harder to sort out after them. What changed after the interviews is that more of the surrounding record started to matter: her place inside the Trump-Zampolli social circle, her account of the Epstein flight, the ICE detention dispute, and Paolo Zampolli’s own response to her claims.
The Miami Herald reported that Ungaro was part of Donald and Melania Trump’s social circle for years and published a 2019 White House photo showing Ungaro, Zampolli, the Trumps, and the child at the center of the custody dispute. The same report said Ungaro confirmed that she posted the remarks directed at Melania and felt betrayed after a two-decade friendship.
One of those posts said, “I will tear down your corrupt system, even if it’s the last thing I do in my life.” Another warned, “Maybe you should be afraid of what I know … of who you are, and who your husband is.”
That is the line that everyone expected her to explain, but she hasn’t done so yet with any specificity.
Newsweek reported on Ungaro’s written interview in which she said Melania Trump “knows that I witnessed highly compromising interactions” during the years Ungaro was with Zampolli. She added, “She does not know the full extent of what I know — for I lived with Paolo for 20 years.” When asked whether she would testify before House Oversight, Ungaro answered, “Absolutely.”
The problem, from a reporting standpoint, is that the most explosive phrase remains undefined. Ungaro alleged a category of information, but not the underlying facts. She challenged the Zampolli introduction story, calling it a “false narrative,” and said: “I don’t know what the specific agreement was behind the creation of this narrative, but Paolo was an associate of Epstein, and they did business together.”
Zampolli has denied those claims and has said he, not Epstein, introduced Melania to Trump.
The deeper thread is older than the White House fight. The Daily Beast reported that Zampolli was the conduit between the two women (Ungaro and Melania). The same article noted Ungaro’s account that she flew from Paris to New York as a teenager on Epstein’s private plane while traveling with Jean-Luc Brunel.
El Pais added more texture to the custody and deportation side. Ungaro told the paper, “Now it’s war. We’ll see who wins,” and said of Zampolli, “It was not enough for him to destroy me during 20 years of relationship: he wanted to destroy me again when I started a new life, when I got married.”
Zampolli denied wrongdoing to El Pais.
After the interviews, Zampolli moved from denial to counterattack. Newsweek reported that he described Ungaro as “out of control” and suggested she was motivated by attention. In another Newsweek piece, he drew criticism after telling Italy’s RAI that Brazilian women are “programmed to cause confusion.” Those comments do not answer Ungaro’s central claim. They make the personal dispute uglier and keep the story attached to the same unresolved question.
The report no one seems to be treating seriously enough is the one published by the Miami Herald. Ungaro is not just a social media voice making a vague threat from outside the story. She’s a former member of the Trump-Zampolli social world, a former partner of the man credited with introducing the Trumps, a woman who says she traveled on an Epstein-linked aircraft as a minor, and a deported mother fighting a custody battle against a Trump-appointed envoy. None of that proves her sensational comments, but it does explain why they have not disappeared.
Bondi Now Has a Contempt Resolution Attached to Her Name
Pam Bondi’s missed deposition turned into a contempt fight this week. On April 29, Oversight Democrats filed a resolution to hold the former attorney general in civil contempt of Congress after she failed to appear for her April 14 deposition on the Epstein investigation and the file release.
Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) said Bondi “illegally defied our committee, skipped her deposition, and has refused to cooperate.” The committee’s Democrats also accused the Justice Department of lying when officials said Bondi’s counsel had communicated with them about a deposition date. Their response was blunt:
Saying that Pam Bondi, her counsel, or Oversight Republicans communicated with Oversight Democrats about her scheduled deposition is a bald-faced lie.
After a long, drawn-out battle, Bondi agreed to testify in front of the Oversight Committee next month to avoid contempt charges.
A Journalist Sued Todd Blanche Over the Files
The enforcement fight also moved into federal court. Katie Phang, an investigative journalist and legal analyst, sued Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in Washington, DC, alleging that the Justice Department violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act by withholding records, over-redacting documents, missing deadlines, and failing to explain its redactions.
The lawsuit calls Blanche’s conduct a “brazen, shocking, and ongoing violation” of the law. It asks the court to order full compliance and seeks an outside special master to oversee the release. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), one of the law’s authors, called it “a historic lawsuit” and said, “This is one of the biggest coverups in the history of our nation. There must not be two tiers of justice.”
That makes the transparency law no longer just a political fight between Congress and the department. It is now a live court fight over whether the DOJ can declare compliance while millions of pages remain disputed.
A Possible Epstein Note Is Still Sealed
One of the strangest developments this week came from the jail story. Multiple reports, citing The New York Times, said a possible handwritten note by Epstein remains sealed in court years after his death.
The note was allegedly found by former cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione after Epstein’s July 2019 jail incident and before Epstein’s death the following month. People reported that Tartaglione recalled language from the note including, “What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye.” The Daily Beast stated that the note could surface through a court fight seeking to unseal it.
The note has not been publicly released and was not part of the Epstein materials the government has published. A death that has already generated years of suspicion now has a reported document sitting outside the public release system.
Local New Mexico Survivors, Including Men, Are Coming Forward
The New Mexico investigation took a more serious turn this week because the state is no longer talking about people flown in from elsewhere. Reuters reported that authorities are now trying to determine how many local women and girls were abused at Epstein’s Zorro Ranch.
New Mexico state Rep. Marianna Anaya (D), who co-sponsored New Mexico’s Truth Commission probe, told Reuters, “I can confirm that we have been reached out to by local alleged victims.” She also said the commission is working with the New Mexico Department of Justice to help survivors with viable criminal cases bring charges against Epstein co-conspirators.
The New Mexico story moved again this week with new allegations tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) described an account by a man who said he was invited to a party there, drugged, and raped. And he said he saw “multiple young men… raped at the ranch in front of him after he was drugged.”
That is a different kind of pressure, with the ranch now no longer only a remote property in the files. It’s becoming a state-level investigation with potential local victims, and a commission now acknowledging contact with people who say they were abused there.
British Police Want the Unredacted US Files
The United Kingdom track is moving from embarrassment into criminal procedure. The Guardian reported that British police investigating Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson are preparing witness interviews in royal and government circles, but fear prosecutors will struggle to bring charges without unredacted records from the United States.
The Justice Department has told British police it will not consider handing over original documents without a formal mutual legal assistance request. The Metropolitan Police have now sent one. A source told The Guardian, “It is difficult to make anything stick without those documents.” Another said, “A lot rests on having the originals.”
The same documents Congress is fighting over may now determine whether British prosecutors are willing to move on allegations involving former public officials.
London Flats Entered the Record
The British story also widened around Epstein’s London footprint. The Guardian, citing BBC reporting, said Epstein housed some alleged victims in flats in Kensington and Chelsea after the Metropolitan Police declined to investigate Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 allegation that she had been trafficked to London.
The BBC reportedly found evidence of four flats in receipts, emails, and bank records contained in the Epstein files. Six women who stayed in the properties have since accused Epstein of sexually abusing them.
Leon Black’s Accuser Was Sanctioned, But the Case Is Not Over
The Leon Black litigation took a significant turn on April 24 when a federal judge sanctioned a woman who accused Black of raping her inside Epstein’s Manhattan mansion more than two decades ago. District Judge Jessica Clarke said the woman falsified and potentially destroyed evidence in the case.
The judge barred the woman from using certain journals as evidence after finding that sonograms in them were falsified, writing that the alterations showed “a clear intent to mislead.” The judge also sanctioned the woman’s former lawyer, Jeanne Christensen, and said Christensen “lied repeatedly” about her interactions with another judge. Black denies the allegations and says he never met the woman.
The case can still proceed, but the sanctions give Black a major credibility argument. It also shows how the Epstein-related civil litigation continues to produce developments far outside the document-release fight.
Norway’s Epstein Scandal Turned Even Darker
The Norway story, already one of the most disturbing international offshoots of the files, worsened this week. European outlets reported that Norway and France are now cooperating in an investigation involving married diplomats Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen over alleged corruption tied to Epstein.
Euronews stated that investigators are looking at financial assistance connected to an Oslo apartment purchase, a 2011 trip to Epstein’s island, and home-care payments for Rød-Larsen. The couple denies wrongdoing. Separate reports this week said their 25-year-old son, Edward Juul Rød-Larsen, who had reportedly been left $5 million in Epstein’s will, died by suicide on Wednesday.
Wexner Foundation Alumni Started Their Own Survivor Fund
The Wexner story moved in a different direction this week, away from congressional testimony and into institutional repair. Religion News Service confirmed that more than 100 alumni of Wexner Foundation programs have started a fund to aid survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation.
Rachel Faulkner, a Wexner alum, told RNS, “The reality is that [Wexner’s] money was mixed up with Epstein’s, and it’s the same money that I benefited from through this program.”
Faulkner and other Wexner alumni have established the ASHRU (Advocacy for Survivors, for Healing, Repair and Understanding) Fund, which has set a goal to raise $100,000 for two nonprofits that help victims of sexual trafficking. RNS reported that it had raised more than $46,000 as of Tuesday.
This is a quieter development, but it is not small. The people who benefited from a prestige pipeline attached to Wexner are now publicly acknowledging the moral problem created by Epstein’s money, Wexner’s foundation, and the institutional respectability built around both.
What We’re Watching
The next pressure points are Bondi’s deposition date, the civil contempt resolution, Phang’s lawsuit against Blanche, the court fight over the possible Epstein note, and the unredacted files British police say they need. The Ungaro thread also remains open because the most direct claim she made still has not been matched with the underlying facts. The pattern this week is not closure. It is enforcement.
