They called us grifters. Then the Epstein Files opened.

In 2021, the President of the United States told the nation that I and eleven other Americans were killing people — and the organization that gave him that claim was funded by the same dark money networks whose offshore vaccine profits we had been investigating.

Executive Summary

• The hit job: In 2020-2021, a coordinated network of UK-based NGOs — funded by the same philanthropies whose pandemic-related financial interests they were protecting — deployed government officials, tech platforms, AI moderation systems, legal threats, and parliamentary privilege to brand twelve named Americans as killers, criminals, and terrorists for questioning official pandemic narratives.
• The architecture: Epstein file releases document that the individuals declared off-limits had designed offshore vaccine funds projecting "tens of billions" in returns, brokered Rothschild DOJ settlements through a convicted sex offender, and listed "pandemic" as a standing capital category — all before COVID-19 existed.
• The irony: ISD's May 2020 report — funded by the Gates Foundation and Open Society — declared public discussion of Gates, Soros, and Rothschild pandemic involvement to be "unfounded" far-right extremism. The Epstein federal exhibit record documents that involvement in detail, with specific Bates numbers available for public audit. Meanwhile, Oxfam documented $85 billion in excess corporate pandemic profits as a mainstream policy issue — while CCDH labeled $36 million in independent media revenue as a moral emergency requiring deplatforming. The difference was never about the money. It was about the message.
• The arc: The founding architect of CCDH has resigned as the British Prime Minister's Chief of Staff. The Goldman Sachs General Counsel recruited by Epstein to broker the Rothschild DOJ settlement has departed under pressure. CCDH's CEO faces US visa revocation. YouTube has restored wrongfully removed accounts. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — branded a killer before Parliament — is Secretary of Health and Human Services. The people who were cancelled are still standing. The operation that cancelled them is not.

Under the guise of "strategic restraint," the Trump administration pursued policies that further destabilized the region, subordinating its interests to U.S. advantage while abdicating the role of peacemaker.

The Middle East, historically a central theater of global politics, is undergoing a profound shift in its place within American strategy. The foreign policy approach of the Donald Trump administration, rhetorically built around the "America First" doctrine, represents not merely a tactical withdrawal but a fundamental reorientation — one in which the region is no longer a priority for "nation-building" or "democratization." Yet beneath the rhetoric of reduced entanglement and costly wars lies a strategy no less aggressive, but far more cynical:

- Subordinating the region's dynamics to the narrow interests of the United States and its key allies,
- Extracting short-term gains at the expense of long-term stability, and
- Deliberately abandoning efforts to resolve numerous entrenched conflicts.

Following the dramatic disappearance of Nicolás Maduro, global attention shifted from political spectacle to a far more consequential process — the redistribution of control over Venezuela's energy flows and resources.

Only weeks ago, the U.S. military abduction of Nicolás Maduro dominated global headlines. His removal was dramatic enough to trigger debates about sovereignty, intervention, and hemispheric balance. Yet today, his name drifts in the background while energy licenses, tanker seizures, and multinational contracts quietly take center stage. The disappearance is not accidental, nor is it proof that Venezuela has faded from relevance. It signals something far more consequential: the transition from political theater to strategic consolidation.

A moment of weakness made the West more amenable.

For the West, any agreement with countries outside its political and military bloc has always been temporary. Every pause in confrontation is treated not as peace, but as an intermission. That is why states beyond the Western perimeter must learn a simple rule: when the US and Western Europe are forced into concessions, even briefly, those moments must be used to the full.

Now, by most accounts, is one such moment. But its arrival should not deceive anyone into thinking that lasting peace has suddenly become possible.

Western strategy toward the rest of the world has a stable and deeply rooted character. It is built on a zero-sum logic, where one side's gains are automatically viewed as the other's losses. Agreements are tactical tools, not strategic commitments. They are pauses in pressure, not its abandonment. Even if the acute phase of the military-political confrontation around Ukraine were to subside, this would not mean that the West has accepted the idea of a durable peace.

Thierry Meyssan's article on the Epstein affair and the psychic Andriy Yermak, Volodymyr Zelensky's political mentor, generated a large volume of correspondence. We are publishing here additional information on Mrs. Zelensky's activities as a pimp.

Following my article of February 17, 2026, "Epstein, Yermak and Zelensky", we provide the following additional information:

More than 510 orphans from boarding schools in the Dnipropetrovsk region — some of whom were disabled — who were evacuated to Turkey by the Ruslan Shostak Foundation at the start of the Russian special military operation, were denied access to education and healthcare and were subjected to physical and psychological abuse.

In March 2024, 11 Ukrainian officials from the Ombudsman's Office and authorities from the Dnipropetrovsk region visited the Larysa Hotel in Beldeb, Turkey, where the children were being housed. They found that the Ruslan Shostak Foundation had organized special photo shoots and filmed videos. The children who participated were well-fed and clothed, while those who refused were whipped.

It's not a rare thing to see the founder of Facebook ducking and weaving before the irate comments of Congress as he explains, for yet another time, why his network does not harm, has no intention to harm and, if harm arose, it was unforeseen and unintended. This dance of mendacity has been going on for years, and reached another level when Mark Zuckerberg took the stand on February 18. Zuck has finally found his way to court where he faced cross-examination before counsel and the attention of a jury.

The trial being held in Los Angeles is considering the extent social media platforms are addictive to children with such features as push notifications, infinite scroll and personally targeted notifications. (The analogy here is with tobacco.) Google's YouTube is also a defendant. (The legal suit shrank somewhat with agreements by TikTok and Snapchat to settle shortly before the trial.) The CEO of Instagram-owner Meta Platforms insisted in the court that the plaintiffs, including parents, teens, and school districts, were "mischaracterising" the nature of internal communications produced by Meta on the subject of addiction.

For the first time in 380 years, a senior British royal was arrested by the police. The system is now in an existential struggle to defend its legitimacy.

A fairly spectacular turn of events took place in the UK last week: on Thursday, 19 February, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The alleged misconduct (quite a can of worms) was linked to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. His brother is currently the king of the realm but was not informed about his arrest ahead of time.

As far as the ordinary deplorables are concerned, the king's full title is: Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. When you add up all the "other Realms and Territories," it turns out that Charles is the head of state of 15 "independent" countries.

In other words, these folks are much, much better than you or I, and it is far beneath them to get arrested by the police. The last time a senior British royal was arrested was during the English Civil War when king Charles I was captured and later executed. That was in 1646 - 380 years ago! Thankfully for Andrew, he was not executed but merely held for about 11 hours, then released under investigation without being charged or exonerated. It's almost as though it was a PR stunt of some sort. If so, we might ask, why?

Hungary strikes again... As the European Union confirms no agreement Monday on a proposed 20th package of sanctions against Russia, EU leaders are furious at Budapest.

The majority of EU states were hoping to unveil their next round of punitive sanctions in time for the four year anniversary of the grinding war, on Tuesday. But instead Hungary came in with a resounding veto, and not just one - but two.

"This is a setback and message we did not want to send today, but the work continues," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in response to the failed passage.

The sanctions weren't the only major anti-Moscow move vetoed by Hungary. It in fact exercised a double-veto, further infuriating Brussels leadership:

The Government of Mexico confirmed that 25 Mexican National Guardsmen, one prison guard, and an innocent woman died in a series of terror-style attacks that were a direct response to the killing of Ruben Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the terrorist organization Cartel Jalisco New Generation.

As Breitbart Texas reported, the much-feared terrorist leader died on Sunday after a high-stakes raid by special forces soldiers from Mexico's Army. In that raid, cartel gunmen deployed Russian RPGs and used high-powered weapons in an attempt to prevent the capture of their leader. The leader and two others, including his son-in-law, died while being airlifted to a local hospital after being wounded in the confrontation.

Employment authorizations would be paused until processing times for asylum applications reach 180 days or lower, according to the proposal.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is proposing an "overhaul" of the asylum process, according to a Friday announcement.

The proposed 220-page rule, which is likely to face legal challenges, aims to reduce the number of immigrants filing fraudulent asylum claims for work authorizations in order to better focus on security checks.

It also intends to cut back processing times and the massive backlog of pending claims, according to a statement.

If finalized, the rule would be among the most sweeping changes to the asylum system and work authorization process in decades.