Epstein. *Sigh*

Why are so many people so interested in this story? For many in the MAGA movement, it was the secretive proof of perverse left-wing elites protecting themselves. They will not be happy until all the dirty laundry is dragged out into the streets, sure it will hurt the other side most. Democrats and Progressives mostly mocked the MAGA obsession with Epstein, until it became a seismic rift inside the MAGA world, and now they too are all about it. If you don’t believe me, ABC World News Tonight took to playing the same two-minute script (with the same videos) for five nights in a row, although of course there was nothing “new” about any of it.

So why am I joining in the fun? I do think there are lessons here worth considering. But first–as always–let’s review the facts.

Jeffrey Epstein was a rich pervert who died in custody awaiting trial on federal charges. He was undoubtedly rich based on his homes, private jets, and lavish lifestyle. No one is exactly certain how he became rich, but he was associated with several millionaires (especially Lesley Wexner of Victoria’s Secret fame and Leon Black from Apollo Global Management) who either rewarded him for great work, were victimized by his thievery, or fell prey to blackmail. All of those options are conjecture, but they remain the sole explanations for the fact of Epstein’s wealth, which was key to his lengthy criminal behavior.

He was a pervert because he plead guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18 (the youngest was apparently 14), and was sentenced to 18 months in a minimum-security state facility. He was eventually released and a decade later charged with one federal count of sex trafficking of minors and another of conspiracy to do the same. Under federal law, the last two charges were dismissed upon his death. At no time was the word pedophile introduced or used in his prosecution; it’s far easier to use the popularly-understood term “pervert.” That’s about as far as facts go, and that’s where the strangeness and conspiracies start.

It’s quite possible he got rich completely legitimately. No one knows for sure. He impressed people at Bear Stearns (investment banking firm) and rose quickly, then did the same when he left to start his own firm, where he got Wexner and Black as clients. Based on later behavior, some believe he must have run in perverse-elite circles, too, and anyone associated with him is therefore suspect.

Epstein did run in New York City’s high society circles, and as such, partied with the rich and famous. Who else knew about his depravity and what did they do about it? Watch American Psycho or read Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities. New York City in that era was a cesspool of whatever you can get away with. It was the ultimate expression of libertinism, and nobody was going to call “foul” or “disgusting.” All the while, Epstein engaged in elaborate grooming rituals with his former girlfriend-turned-accomplice Ghislaine (pronounced “hill-ane” with a hushed “g”) Maxwell, who was convicted of five federal counts around and including sex trafficking of a minor. She is currently serving a twenty-year term in federal prison. She assisted him in taking in vulnerable, underage women, and under the guise of arranging “massages,” implicating them in sex work with Epstein.

What is suspicious about all this? When Epstein was first tried in Florida, the federal prosecutor, Alex Acosta, was set to bring multiple charges. The two sides bargained down to a plea deal of one state charge each (as noted above) and remuneration to the victims. The bargain also included a further non-prosecution agreement (NPA) deal for Epstein and his colleagues, as well as confinement in a minimum security prison with a sentence of 18 months. In total, this was very lenient. Much is made of the latter provisions, but they are not unusual. Epstein’s legal team would have insisted on the NPA to prevent the government from coming back on the other charges they bargained away, and Epstein’s willingness to plead guilty, and lack of previous record argued for a lesser place of confinement.

But on top of that, the prison had a work-release program which allowed Epstein to leave for twelve hours a day to work at his office, and eventually reduced his sentence to thirteen months for good behavior! While sex offenders (and Epstein did have to register as such) are not normally allowed work-release, the judicial system did not treat his illegal behavior with the same seriousness as pedophiles or child rapists. Was that because he was rich, all the people involved were also pedos, or a moral failing when it comes judging another man’s sexual criminality? In any case, it was wrong.

Epstein left prison, only now two things changed: fewer of his former friends wanted to be seen with him, and more girls were coming forward claiming he abused them. Epstein had to settle a continuing series of civil suits to avoid testifying or perjuring himself. In 2021, the feds charged him with new counts of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. Shortly after being charged, Epstein was found hung to death in jail, a suicide according to the New York City Chief Medical Examiner.

What stinks here? Alex Acosta, the federal prosecutor who agreed to the lenient plea deal, later became President Trump’s Secretary of Labor, but he resigned as more people expressed outrage at the Epstein agreement. But no one has discovered any connection, bribe, or evidence against Acosta. And Acosta originally took on the Epstein case because state prosecutors thought the victims were too unreliable as witnesses and the case wouldn’t result in a conviction. So Acosta treated Epstein more, not less, rigorously than others.

What about the victims, or as they call themselves, “the survivors?” None of the women who originally came forward to accuse Epstein mentioned being trafficked to anyone other than Epstein. Later on, two women (Virginia Giuffre and Sarah Ransome) claimed to have been so trafficked. Under the rubric of #believethewomen, this ends the conversation. Why did no one follow up on these accusations?

• Giuffre claimed to have been trafficked to the Andrew-formerly-known-as-Prince, and American attorney Alan Dershowitz. The former settled with her with no admission of guilt, the latter sued her for defamation and she withdrew her claim, saying she “may have made a mistake” in her identification. She had a previous case of claiming to have been sexually assaulted dismissed for a lack of evidence, and later claimed she was rescued by the FBI in another case of abduction, although the FBI has no record of such an incident. Giuffre committed suicide recently, so the allegations she made will never be adjudicated.
• Ransome drew attention for claiming to have sex tapes with Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, which she later admitted was false. She also claimed to be the target of a shadowy international conspiracy, but said the “Russians. . . are coming to (her) aid.”
• Julliette Bryant , another victim, claims Epstein was a reptilian shape-shifter, and she witnessed him changing into a lizard or devil during orgasm. There’s a sentence no one should ever have to write.

Needless to say, one can see the problems with such people as witnesses. Other survivors have stepped forward to demand the federal government release all its Epstein files. This is a confusing request: if they know who did what to them, why don’t they announce it? Why is the government even involved? There is no doubt these women were sexually abused by Epstein; there is no evidence produced so far, by anybody else (journalists, victims, police, courts) that anybody else was involved. Was there perhaps someone else involved? Possibly. Was there a vast conspiracy? No. And if you fell for the anti-Semitic trope about Epstein as an intelligence asset, I feel sorry for you (and read this).

Now some of the “survivors” insist they want the full release of the files because it will disclose those who helped Epstein. The problem here is the difference between law and vengeance. Under the law, if there was evidence someone assisted Epstein in his felonious criminality, they would be subject to charges, too. But they weren’t, with the exception of Ms. Maxwell. Plenty of people were his friends, and while I am sympathetic with those who feel such people should suffer our contempt, I am not sure it is in the government’s rights or obligations to provide the content for such a popular action.

I am even more suspicious now, as the first release has shown the non-voting delegate from the US Virgin Islands, Democrat Stacey Plaskett, received funding from and was actively seeking the advice of Epstein well after his criminal behavior was confirmed. Did she seek culinary tips from Jeffrey Dahmer; inquiring minds want to know! Yet House Democrats succeeded in defending her from a simple censure vote, and she remains on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. How does that square with punishing Epstein’s “friends” or co-conspirators?

Will the material be abused for partisan purposes? Of course. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Hell, I mean Dallas) is a case in point. She took to the floor of the House to announce her intrepid staff had already determined that “a Jeffrey Epstein” had donated to several prominent Republican candidates. Turns out, not “the Jeffrey Epstein.” As Emily Litella would say, “nevermind.” I’m sure she’ll be far more professional with the rest of the Epstein files.

What about those Epstein files? People throw the term around like it’s the “X-files.” Every state and federal case results in a case file. This forms the basis of the prosecution, and much of it must be shared with the defense team. The case file does not get publicly released. It includes hearsay, irrelevant detail, things alleged but not charged, pretty much everything the investigating officers uncovered. If you’ve ever been a witness, a victim, charged, or a close relative of the same who was interviewed, your name is in a case file somewhere. It is absolutely no one else’s business, and such things are protected by state and federal privacy laws. Could you imagine if gangs or organized crime could get a hold of case files?

Some suggest there is a client list in “the Epstein files.” This is based on the assumption that Epstein partied with the rich and famous, so they must have partied with him, too (wink, wink). And so he kept a list in case he needed to blackmail them. And he got treated leniently, so he must have blackmailed someone (nudge, nudge). And he died suspiciously, so probably that same someone “rubbed him out” (choke, choke). If you’re in a red hat, you’re sure Bill Clinton spent some wild nights on Epstein’s private island and Epstein himself was victim #57 of the Clinton crime family. If you swing blueski (I know it’s Bluesky, but isn’t blueski funnier?), Trump’s number is up and you’ll finally catch the damn roadrunner (beep-beep).

In point of fact, if there was any hard evidence of other people engaging in the crimes Epstein was guilty of, the investigators would have brought charges against them. Few prosecutors would have turned up the opportunity to get Clinton, or Trump, or Andrew-what’s-his-name-now in exchange for an Epstein plea deal. As a result of leaks, acknowledgments and agreements, other names like Bruce Willis, Cameron Diaz, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Spacey, Naomi Campbell, Leonardo DiCaprio, Woody Allen (!), Les Wexner, Leon Black, Jes Staley (Barclay’s bank), Joi Ito (MIT), Glenn Dubin (Highland Capital), Steve Bannon, Bill Gates & Larry Summers (who both continued to see Epstein after his initial convictions) have shown up. None have been implicated in anything. While some of Epstein’s victims have cited specific incidents with specific famous people, those cases have either been dismissed or settled. Did some of the rich and famous join Jeffrey in his criminal endeavors? Undoubtedly. But little evidence exists. And state and federal prosecutors have been investigating for twenty years. Read that again: twenty years of different political parties, both state and federal judicial officers, and nothing.

Ahhhh, but that proves the conspiracy, no? So let’s entertain the conspiratorial mindset for a minute to understand just how far it goes. Epstein was tried and convicted, creating a case file history in 2008. So the conspiracy must start there, and include the investigators, the state and federal prosecutors, and probably the federal judge. Remember, the first tranche of the “Epstein files” has been sitting in prosecutors’ file cabinets/cloud storage for seventeen years, and probably thousands of people have had access. Nobody saw nuttin’.

Then Epstein got into more trouble. Numerous cases of civil litigation followed, with discovery and trial and . . . no additional evidence of a conspiracy. Or they were all bought off, or threatened, or brought into the conspiracy. At this point, the conspiracy is either as powerful and violent as a Mexican cartel, or as large as WalMart. But wait, hay mas (there’s more)!

The files are available to first the Trump administration, then the Biden administration, then finally again the Trump administration. Trump shows remarkable restraint and never drops a dime on Bill Clinton. Right! Biden has hard evidence of Trump with teenage girls but decides instead to go after real estate valuations in New York, instead? Right! What if both teams found incriminating evidence, so each decided not to expose it? And this grand conspiracy never got around to destroying the files? Right!

Finally, there is another federal case, under a different prosecutor. All those files are going to be shared again. Where were Epstein’s protectors? Maybe they turned on him? Or did the great conspiracy decide that if Epstein “killed himself,” it would all go away? Because there would be nothing suspicious about that, and no one would be talking about Epstein, would they? Right. Even Epstein might have been running low on funds, and he wasn’t going to get another part-time gig in Club Fed. So like the coward he always was, he likely hangs himself.

What do we take from all this? There is some poetic justice in watching President Trump hose down his most frenzied conspiracy-minded supporters. And we’ll never have to listen to anyone on the left seize the pulpit and moral high ground after they joined in a fake conspiracy they knew was nonsense, just to “get Trump.” I hope Progressives enjoy Marjorie Taylor Greene as much as MAGA has, and congratulations, you’re now on Team Jewish Space Lasers! Lesson One: Bad men and women did very bad things, and people looked the other way. Other people did not take these crimes seriously, and many victims’ lives were ruined and they never got justice. If you think this is limited to the rich & famous, think again. Next time there is a teacher at a local school caught in an inappropriate relationship with a minor student, google the accused and find their work history (it’s easy these days). You’ll find a string of other schools where the teacher came and left under questionable circumstances. Groups protect their own, and avoid calling disrepute upon themselves and their colleagues. Lesson Two: Many, many more people turned the affair into a a sex-stained, public rugby match, rolling around in the filth while disclaiming how dirty the other side was. I saw way too many of my educated friends falling into such speculation, when they should have known better. If you don’t want to be included in any of these groups, walk away fast and never come back. If I never hear the name Jeffrey Epstein again, it would be too soon.

Brings to mind a joke I heard on Ezra Klein’s podcast the other day. A conspiracy theorist dies and goes to heaven. At the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter says, “welcome to paradise. Now you may know the secrets to all the mysteries of all time. Do you have any questions?” “Just one,” the man replies, “who really killed Jeffrey Epstein?” “He hung himself,” Saint Peter replied nonchalantly. The conspiracy theorist shakes his head and says, “I had no idea how high the conspiracy went!”

PS: I wrote this back in September, hoping the whole story would go away and I would never need to publish about it. That’s why there is a *sigh* in the subject line. Now gobs of material have been released, with more pending. Nothing has changed. I could add many more names to the list of public figures who paled around with Epstein, some before his perversion was public, some even after. It goes to the point the rich and famous look past each other’s moral failings, which is only news if you lived your life in a cave. Whether you simply seek justice or had an ax to grind, none of it matters.

Did you see Epstein’s email to Maxwell saying “Trump spent hours with (Giuffre) at the house”? Yet she testified under oath to the contrary, and told the same story in her autobiography penned just before her suicide. Some will misquote Epstein’s email that “of course, Trump knew about the girls” without including the rest of the sentence, “he told Maxwell to stop.” Epstein alleged he knew all about “Trump’s dirty side” but also said “he never got a massage.” When the writer/bullshit artist Michael Wolfe tried to get dirt, Epstein offered “a picture of Trump with girls in bikinis in my kitchen.” Some fail to see the ridiculous humor in that. Wolfe claims he got close to Epstein to get information, but the emails expose a seedy relationship where one prostitutes himself to the other without getting payback. Perhaps it was another case of Epstein’s sexual abuse. Sure, Jeffrey Epstein went to prison (and death) without ever releasing the photos he had. Even after he claimed he was “the only one who could take (Trump) down.”

Epstein, his perversions, and his eponymous files are a modern Rorschach test: you see in them what you want to see. It tells you something about you, not Epstein, not Trump, not even the rest of us. All of this recalls for me a Friedrich Nietzsche quote: “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.“