Do We Really Need The Epstein Files? I Think We Know Enough - NBC Does.

How NBC Protected Its "Cash Cow," the Women Who Came Forward Anyway, and the Protection Racket Operating in Plain Sight Today

The phone call that changed everything came on a Tuesday in 2005. Billy Bush had just witnessed something that made his stomach turn—Donald Trump bragging about trying to seduce his co-host Nancy O'Dell with the casual cruelty of a predator describing his hunt.

"You're not gonna believe what Trump said," Bush told his producer at Access Hollywood. "He is going after Nancy. This is crazy. He's done it again! The guy's an animal!"

The producer listened. Then did nothing.

For eleven years, that tape sat buried in NBC's files—not because executives didn't know what they had, but because they knew exactly what it was worth. Trump wasn't just a celebrity to NBC. He was their "hundred million dollar cash cow," as Bush would later reveal. The king of ratings. Untouchable.

When the Access Hollywood tape finally surfaced in October 2016, it des…