New Details About Missing Epstein Evidence, What to Expect in Midterm Elections: AM Update 4/6
Megan Kelly reports on April 6, 2026, revealing that incriminating evidence from Jeffrey Epstein's Palm Beach home was removed in 2005 before investigators arrived, with a private investigator listing missing items in an email prior to the warrant. The segment details the disappearance of safe contents from his NYC mansion during the 2019 arrest and attorney Darren Indyke's testimony regarding hard drives. Mark Halperin analyzes how the Iran war and gas prices impact President Trump's approval ratings, suggesting Republicans may narrowly keep the Senate while Democrats take the House in an unusual midterm election, challenging traditional political narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Why Riverbend Ranch Matters00:02:10
Good morning, everyone.
I'm Megan Kelly.
It's Monday, April 6th, 2026, and this is your AM update.
These would appear to be incriminating photos and videos, some pretty ugly stuff that could have gotten Epstein a lot tougher sentence.
After years of mystery, new Epstein testimony and documents revealing what happened to key evidence that vanished from his Palm Beach home before investigators arrived.
Right now, the environment politically for Republicans is not good.
As the war in Iran stretches on and gas prices climb here at home, President Trump's approval reading takes a hit, and new polling raises fresh questions about what it could mean for control of Congress.
All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.
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Who Removed Epstein Files00:10:37
Newly released testimony from the House Oversight Committee investigation into the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case shed light on several long standing mysteries involving property tied to Epstein that disappeared before investigators could secure it.
The first dating back more than a decade ago to Epstein's Palm Beach home.
In 2005, as Epstein first came under scrutiny for his relationships with girls suspected to be underage, local authorities searching his house for computers.
Believed to contain evidence of his crimes, including home surveillance footage, but arriving to find key items had already been removed.
And now we know who took them.
According to documents released by the DOJ in February, a 2005 email from a private investigator working for Epstein outlined items in his possession that had been removed from the Palm Beach home prior to law enforcement's execution of the search warrant.
The inventory, including computers, multiple phone directories, DVDs, VHS tapes, And sexually explicit materials, including nude photographs of unidentified females and other pornographic content.
Federal investigators, too, later attempted to recover the missing evidence, even sending a subpoena to that private investigator, but those efforts abandoned in 2008 when Epstein received a sweetheart plea deal.
After the plea, a followup email in 2009 showing the investigator asking Epstein's lawyers what to do with the items after the case had concluded.
These emails raising new questions about whether Epstein may have had advance warning of the police search back in 2005.
Late last month, the Oversight Committee releasing testimony from Epstein's longtime attorney, Darren Indyke, as first reported by Business Insider, lawmakers pressing Indyke on two key questions whether Epstein had been tipped off about the impending search in October 2005, and what Indyke knew about the missing hard drives.
And during our first hour, I asked you if you had.
If you had any knowledge that anyone would have tipped off Mr. Epstein to the October 20th search warrant in Palm Beach, I believe that you testified no.
Is that right?
That's correct.
Did you subsequently learn that Mr. Epstein was tipped off to the search warrant?
No.
So during the course of some after Epstein's conviction, after he served jail time through conversations with defense counsel, I became aware that there were computer hard drives in the possession of private investigators.
Not having done them, not having been participated in that in any way, I don't know when they were moved, when they came in their possession, if they were removed, I just don't know how they came into possession.
But I knew of the existence of hard drugs.
So the lawyer claims he had no knowledge of Epstein being tipped off to the search, but somehow Epstein's private investigator wound up with the loot, and now no one knows where it all is.
Democrats on the Oversight Committee now want to talk to the private investigators involved, requesting interviews to determine what was removed, where it was stored, and whether it still exists.
Good idea.
Their deadline for responses is set for April 9th.
We spoke with MK True Crime contributor and former Florida state attorney for Palm Beach County, Dave Ehrenberg, who says this part of the story raises a major red flag.
Who tipped off Epstein?
That police.
We're going to raid his place back in 2005, just hours before they arrived.
He got a tip, and three investigators paid by Epstein removed his computers, and those hard drives went missing as well until apparently now.
Ehrenberg weighing in on why those materials may have been removed but not destroyed.
Now, I suspect you had a lot of really disgusting images on these hard drives, which is why they were removed because they would have been incriminating against Epstein.
They were just kept in a storage facility, and I think Epstein wanted.
Access to them.
He apparently made copies of them.
And so these would appear to be incriminating photos and videos, some pretty ugly stuff that could have gotten Epstein a lot tougher sentence.
But because investigators did not recover them, then Epstein got off pretty easily.
As for whether these materials could still have legal consequences or are simply relevant to understanding the full scope of the Epstein case, we asked Ehrenberg.
We don't know if it would lead to criminal charges.
Is there evidence of co conspirators?
But even if they're.
There was, it's hard because this happened years ago, and you need to be able to identify who the perpetrators are other than Epstein, and you need to find the victims.
So, if there is incriminating video on it involving other men, then that would be evidence that could lead to criminal charges.
Otherwise, it's important for us to be able to have full transparency to know what was going on and who were parts of it.
And yet another longtime Epstein mystery now has been solved.
This one relates to his New York City mansion.
Eleven years after Epstein's infamous plea deal, he was arrested again in July 2019, accused of sex trafficking multiple women.
The day of the arrest, FBI agents breaking down the front door of Epstein's 5,000 square foot Manhattan townhouse, at one point forcing open a safe with a chainsaw, discovering cash, passports bearing Epstein's photo under different names, Dozens of loose diamonds and multiple hard drives and CDs.
Lacking a warrant to seize those items, agents leaving them behind, unguarded, and stacked in a pile on the floor with the intent to return.
Five days later, the FBI came back with a warrant.
Surprise, surprise, the contents of the safe were gone.
The disappearance fueling years of speculation about how potential evidence in a federal investigation could be removed without the authorities knowing, the presumption being all along that the FBI never recovered the loot.
Now, congressional testimony from Epstein's longtime accountant, Richard Kahn, helping solve that piece of the story, telling the oversight committee what happened to the contents of the safe left by FBI agents on the floor of Epstein's home.
I received a call from Merwin, who's the property manager, telling me that.
I packed up two bags of Epstein's belongings or things that were safe, and I left them with your doorman in New York City.
I just wanted to let you know.
I said to him, I'm not home.
I'll be home in three or four days.
And, you know, at that time, I'll bring it up to my apartment.
When I arrived home three or four days later.
I arrived in my apartment.
I brought the two bags up.
I never touched them.
I never opened them.
I believe a day or two later, I got a call from Merwin that the FBI was at the house again, looking to collect things that they didn't take from their first visit.
So I went home.
I grabbed the two bags.
I brought them to the residence.
And I believe at that point in time, the FBI gave me a receipt for the two bags.
Investigators later indicating the contents appeared consistent with what had originally been found inside the safe.
So, the items inside the safe were only missing for a short time, it turns out, and then allegedly wound up back in the hands of the FBI all this time.
Dave Ehrenberg tells us even though leaving the materials behind might seem questionable, the decision was likely driven by legal constraints.
That's actually pretty typical police work.
If you don't have a warrant, you don't want to abuse your power because it can come back to bite you.
So, I don't take that as a real problem, especially because the FBI.
Got the material anyways.
There's no evidence that the material was tampered with.
There were a lot of mistakes made in this case.
And I think a lot of law enforcement decisions have come under scrutiny, and we're second guessing them.
But ultimately, when it comes to leaving the diamonds behind, that was not an oversight.
That was a deliberate legal decision because they didn't have a warrant.
And so, as a result, it's not that unusual to just leave it behind and not touch it and just come back for it once you get the warrant.
I guess FBI at the time probably thought that the people who were in charge of the apartment, the lawyer, members of the estate, would watch over it.
And if they did tamper with anything, they would be charged with a serious crime themselves.
Ehrenberg, originally a skeptic that the release of these files would amount to anything meaningful, now says the documents proved him wrong.
I will stand corrected that there have been lots of juicy things that came out.
I think I underestimated the amount of material that.
Had yet to be disclosed.
And it is juicy and it is worth talking about.
So I think that the Epstein Files Transparency Act was a good thing.
I'm glad it passed, but it's still full of loopholes that have allowed the administration to withhold millions of documents.
And that's something that Congress may want to address.
Congress wants to blame the Trump administration, but it was Congress in drafting the legislation that kept these loopholes in and didn't.
Put an enforcement mechanism in the law.
So there is no easy way to enforce a law.
They would need a new law, or at least they'll have to go to court now and stand in line to get a judge to do something about it.
Last Thursday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch telling Fox News, no more files will be forthcoming.
That, all of the files we're going to get now have been released.
The Epstein files have been a saga that's lasted for the entire, for the past year.
And what happened when the president signed the Transparency Act is the Department of Justice has now released.
Senate Debt And Economy00:06:54
All the files with respect to the Epstein saga.
And the Attorney General Bondi and I appeared in front of Congress voluntarily a couple weeks ago to answer any questions they had.
We have made every single congressman, senator available to come and see any document, redacted, unredacted, that they want.
And so I think that to the extent that the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward.
Coming up, as the war in Iran stretches on and gas prices rise, President Trump's numbers are slipping.
All of them.
Next up, host Mark Halperin breaks down what it means for the battle for Congress.
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The war in Iran now entering its sixth week, with what the president says is two or three more weeks to go.
In the last six weeks, support for this military action on the decline.
A CNN poll last week showing just 33% of U.S. adults approve of the war in Iran, compared to 67% who do not.
Those results repeated in multiple other polls.
At home, the economic impact of Operation Epic Fury also becoming a glaring issue for President Trump.
The national average for gas topping $4 a gallon last week, the highest level since 2022, and up more than a dollar from a month ago.
As costs rise, so does the political pressure.
On the economy, President Trump now deep underwater.
According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, just 37.2% approve of Mr. Trump's handling of the economy versus 60.1% who disapprove, a nearly 23 point spread.
CNN's chief data analyst, Harry Enton, putting those numbers into historical perspective.
How about the economy?
You know, you mentioned it was the worst in terms of the approval rating for Donald Trump in any poll we've conducted.
How about highest disapprovals on the economy about this point in term two?
Look at this.
These are the worst.
And our poll 69% disapproved of Donald Trump on the economy.
For George W. Bush, it was 57% in terms of the average.
Barack Obama, 56%.
Donald Trump is crushing him on a metric you don't want to be crushing anybody on, which is disapproval ratings on the economy.
The drop in approval coming as candidates ramp up for high stakes midterms, Republicans trying to hold on to narrow majorities, Democrats looking to flip control, with the fate of President Trump's agenda hanging in the balance.
We spoke to MK Media star and Next Up host Mark Halperin.
Who tells us the numbers point to a tough road for Republicans, but not a guaranteed win for the Democrats?
Right now, the environment politically for Republicans is not good.
That's expected when you control the White House.
But Democrats aren't particularly popular either.
So this is going to be an unusual midterm that should benefit the Democrats.
They should do well, but it's not a sure thing.
Halpern says for Republicans, what matters now is how they focus their message.
The president's approval rating is typically the one piece of polling data that political professionals look at most closely.
Present Trump's approval rating ain't great, but Democrats aren't doing particularly well in the polls either.
And Republicans' goal is to make this not a referendum on Donald Trump, but a choice between the Republicans and the Democrats.
Despite the negative polling, Halperin says the political impact of the Iran conflict remains uncertain.
Right now, Iran is just a huge wild card in this election.
I think there's a lot of analysis about whether it will help or hurt Republicans.
I think it is totally tied to how the war ends up.
If the war is considered a success by the American people, it will help Republicans if it's considered.
Something short of that, it'll help the Democrats.
Even as gas prices climb, Halpern says Republicans still have an opening on economic messaging.
If gas prices stay high, it is going to be a talking point for Democrats probably in every race in the country.
Republicans want to focus on other economic issues.
There are some positive signs in the economy, and Republicans can point to lower taxes and the tax cuts that people are going to feel coming up in April around tax time.
On the Senate map, Halpern says control will come down to a handful of races, but Republicans still have the edge.
There's about nine Senate races that are going to decide control of the Senate.
There's been talk that Democrats have a good chance of taking the majority.
They need to net four total wins.
And I think that's a taller order than a lot of people realize.
So right now, I favor the Republicans to keep the majority.
And I think it'll stay that way until we get clarity in the fall.
In the House, a different story, one where Democrats may have a much clearer path to power.
This could shape up to be a very good year for Democrats in the House.
They don't need to win many seats in order to take the majority because the narrow edge that Republicans have now.
But I think.
This is a year when money will matter a lot.
Right now, Republicans have more of it, and there aren't very many seats in play because of redistricting and because of the natural sorting that's taken place between red and blue America.
So, even if Republicans are wiped out, chances are they won't lose on the order of the kind of wipeout number of seats we've seen in the past.
So, where does it all land?
Halperin gives us his current forecast for November.
Right now, I forecast Republicans to narrowly keep the Senate, maybe even pick up seats in the Senate, given how things are shaping up, and Democrats to take control of the House, maybe narrowly, maybe by a lot.
Republicans are really more focused now on keeping the Senate because that is a possibility, dwindling possibility, maybe to the vanishing point of keeping control of the House.
And that'll do it for your AM update.
I'm Megan Kelly.
Join me back here for the MK show, live on Sirius XM's The Megan Kelly Channel, 111 at noon East, on youtube.comslash Megan Kelly, and on all podcast platforms.
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