Epstein Files Expose Trump's Pentagon #2 Tied to Billionaire Slush Funds
Interview with POGO Senior Investigator René Kladzyk
Working people already know the game is rigged, and René Kladzyk’s investigation at POGO into the Epstein files shows just how deep it goes inside Trump’s Pentagon.
On The Rick Smith Show, René lays out how Jeffrey Epstein’s newly released documents include around twenty references to Trump’s Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg and roughly 360 references to his firm, Cerberus Capital Management. That’s the number two at the Pentagon tied, on paper, into Epstein’s financial web. While Feinberg “divested” when he took the job, he did it by handing assets to heirs and charities, not just selling them off—meaning family wealth and influence likely stayed intact. For workers who get audited over a missed 1099, that double standard reeks.
Kladzyk explains that whistleblower materials in the file allege Cerberus-related entities were involved in money laundering schemes flagged in SEC filings. At the same time, Trump’s people have been gutting watchdogs and ethics offices—the very cops on the beat who are supposed to police this kind of behavior. When the Pentagon controls colossal budgets and a private equity billionaire with a checkered record sits in a top seat, every defense dollar looks a little more like someone else’s profit stream than our security.
Worse, the Epstein dump shows Trump’s own name reportedly ballooning from about 1,000 mentions in public documents to around a million in less-redacted material shown to Congress, while key elites—like the Victoria’s Secret CEO—get redacted protection. Flight logs riddled with blacked-out names plus “Secret Service” tags fuel conspiracy theories, but they also scream one obvious truth: there’s a class of people who are shielded by default.
Kladzyk ties this to a broader pattern: billionaires and senior officials across both parties entangled with Epstein, enjoying the sense that laws don’t really apply to them. That same mentality—never being told “no”—is what working people run into when bosses steal wages, bust unions, or cut benefits with impunity.
From a working-class perspective, the Epstein–Feinberg story isn’t just sordid gossip; it’s a case study in why we need strong oversight, real transparency, and aggressive taxation of extreme wealth. If billionaires can buy access, bury their scandals, and still land in charge of trillion‑dollar budgets, then the system isn’t “broken”—it’s working exactly as designed, just not for us.