Tag Archives: Jeffrey Epstein

As you may have heard, leaks of the Epstein emails have begun and a vote to release the files is on the way. Empty Wheel has a good post on some of the details and their significance; Mother Jones covers the nuts and bolts of the process ahead.

The Necrotic Toddler is whining this is all a political tactic, and there’s truth to that — any investigation into a political figure will be tinged with politics. Though not as political as the Felon ordering AG Pam Bondi to investigate Clinton (as the Felon’s equivalent of a mob mouthpiece, she’s done as she’s told). Despite politics, digging into Epstein’s connections is the right thing to do. Epstein was a monster. Anyone who participated in victimizing young girls with him should go down. And yes, that includes Democrats. The Felon declaring Bill Clinton’s the pervert, not me! does not convince me (as noted at the link, the emails indicate Clinton was not, in fact, on Epstein’s island), but if there’s genuine evidence, the government should act on it.

Now, some links:

“Jeffrey Epstein said in an email that Trump ‘knew about the girls.’ That’s not a smoking gun it’s a bonfire,”

“The Epstein affair brings to light a much larger problem,” Oreskes wrote at the time. “It undermines the integrity of the research enterprise when individuals can pick and choose lines of inquiry that appeal to them simply because they can pay for them.” — From a Scientific American article about Epstein’s chumminess with multiple scientists.

Former Harvard president Larry Summers told Epstein it’s so unfair how people are judged because they “hit on a few women 10 years ago.” I’ve no idea if he’s talking about himself, Epstein or someone else but it does show the rancid nature of some of the powerful men whining about cancel culture.

“The correspondence reveals that Epstein had planned to donate $500,000to Poetry in America — a television show and digital initiative spearheaded by Harvard English professor emerita Elisa F. New, who is married to Summers. In 2016, Epstein donated $110,000 to Verse Video Education, the non-profit organization which funds the initiative.” — excellent reporting from Harvard Crimson.

Fox propagandist Megyn Kelly has a defense: Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t raping eight-year-olds! She also refers to Epstein’s 15 year old victims as “barely legal” which is a lie — it isn’t legal anywhere.

“As every journalist knows, it’s always the right move to offer your sources advice on how to blackmail their co-conspirators re charges of sexual predation and child trafficking” But Epstein was very good on manipulating and bribing the media.

“He’s a provider of access to money, connections and beautiful women and girls — everything that these people need to affirm their own status. being rich and powerful is a grift which requires other to bolster & buy in. That’s the service Epstein provided.”

“Epstein replied, “you see , i know how dirty donald is. my guess is that non lawyers ny biz people have no idea. what it means to have your fixer flip.”

“Maxwell’s meals have been customized and delivered to her, and the warden has awarded her special privileges – including arranging guests to visit with computers, a security risk not typically allowed – and is sending documents and emails on Maxwell’s behalf. For other inmates, mail can take weeks to arrive or is often lost, Raskin said in the letter, which was reviewed by CNN.”

“Perhaps even more so than the appallingly light sentence, the most remarkable and telling thing about the deal Trump’s future Secretary of Labor cut with Epstein is that it immunized any friends and associates who were involved in his crimes. I’m not sure you could come up with anything else that better defines where American politics has ended up in 2025.”

“And yet it has still been shocking and appalling to see how many conservatives, most of them men, wrapping Trump and by extension Epstein in a protective shield. “Trafficking underage girls for sex” should be the kind of principle that transcends politics, but here we are seeing that the rule on the right is more like “trafficking underage girls for sex is bad if Democrats do it” (and before anyone yells about the Clintons, I don’t see any collective effort on behalf of the Democratic Party to prevent the Epstein documents being released in order to protect Bill Clinton or any other Democrat, and if Clinton was involved then he deserves to be exposed and held accountable).” — From Jill Filopvic’s look at the fundamental misogyny in play. I see some of the same in the new revelations about Matt Gaetz.

Paul Campos, who has been pessimistic about things lately, sees some cause for optimism: “That it’s no longer deniable to even the most delusional denizens of MAGAland that Trump is obsessed with doing everything possible to cover up his own dealings with Epstein.” As he said in another post, just because past scandals don’t stick to the Felon doesn’t mean this one can’t. And he’s not someone to get hopeful about such things.

(I wrote this before the release of the Epstein birthday letter so I added that discussion at the bottom)

“In a video posted online on Thursday, Schnitt is recorded telling the woman that the department would “redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, leave all the liberal, Democratic people in those files, and have a very slanted version of it come out.” He also told his date that the decision to move Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower security prison went against Board of Prisons policy because she was a convicted sex offender, “which means they’re offering her something to keep her mouth shut.” “

“The White House has warned Republican rebels in Congress that pushing for the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein pedophile abuse files would be seen as “a very hostile act.” Speaker Mike Johnson is on the Felon’s side, though, insisting the president really, really cares about the horrible things Epstein did to those girls.

“They’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president,” — the necrotic toddler himself, followed by the usual lies about how he’s performed miracles since getting elected. And ignoring that it was his administration that announced it would release the files. And that there’s been no success, only monstrous decline and deterioration.

The Felon seems very upset that he can’t control things and that he’s actually enduring criticism over alleged sexual assaults on some girls he thinks nobody should care about (he certainly didn’t). Some in the media are on board: misogynist homophobe pundit Michael Knowles insists Epstein’s victims were really sex workers so no big (that’s how Alex Acosta and some of the other sellouts in the 2008 Florida case preferred portraying them — and once again I recommend Julie Brown’s Perversion of Justice about Epstein and his enablers). I won’t be surprised if someone adopts Epstein’s own argument that laws against child sex are irrational — I’ve seen that argument before, though I don’t have a handy link. And we have Greg Kelly on Newsmax declaring that maybe Epstein’s right hand, Ghislane Maxwell, is an innocent victim.

But the brag by the DOJ staffer mentioned in the first paragraph? That was released by the Project Veritas right-wing group. It seems some people on the right really do care about busting rapists who prey on kids (I am pleased). Fox News on the other hand, cut away from a press conference where Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was calling for the truth to come out. And Rep. Thomas Massie says the Felon is covering for rich and powerful Republicans in the files (whom he suggests are siding with rival candidates for his seat).

While I’m delighted to see the Felon suffer, I’m also willing to see everyone named in the files pay a price. If Bill Clinton or Obama or anyone on my side of the aisle is documented as a statutory rapist, they should go down alongside the Felon. And so should anyone who covered it up. As Donna Ladd says in the Mississippi Free Press, this isn’t a game of “gotcha.” What happened to Epstein’s victims was monstrous and it’s not unique. Few men were as horrific as Epstein but every rape, every cover-up is just as awful for the victims. That shouldn’t be complicated.

Ladd: “I mean, where is the debate? These are child rapists—probably raping adults, as well, as Trump is already adjudicated to have done—or their protectors (the same thing, once removed). Why the hell would we want any of them walking the streets free, coming into contact with children, serving in political office, running media companies, giving motivational speeches at conventions, whatever? I’ve asked myself many times over the years: What kind of person wants to cover for these monsters who get their kicks from stalking and trapping prey?”

Rebecca Solnit likewise reminds us not to lose sight of the bigger picture: “in another sense the whole society is hiding something: that this violence is everywhere and it deeply shapes – or misshapes – our society. The statistics I cited above address the victims of specific crimes. But all girls and women are impacted by the reality that so many men want to harm us and these crimes could happen to any one of us. This violence affects the choices we make about where to go and when, what jobs to take, when to speak up, what to wear.

“The threat of violence and actual violence by some men against some women and girls establishes female vulnerability and fear and disempowerment far more broadly. Society has largely required us to alter our lives to avoid this, rather than society being altered to make us free and equal. This violence is an engine of inequality that benefits all men, insofar as being “more equal than others” in this respect is a benefit. The piecemeal stories – “here is this one bad man we need to do something about” – don’t address the reality that the problem is systemic and the solution isn’t police and prison.”

No argument here.

Then there’s the recently released birthday book (I believe this is an accurate copy), which is stuffed with jokes and tributes from many of Epstein’s friends besides the Felon (“One friend compared him to the main character in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” except instead of fish, Jeffrey Epstein caught women, “blonde, red or brunette.”). As Scott Lemieux says at the link, it’s full of so many nudge-nudge, wink-wink jokes about Epstein’s lechery, it’s impossible to believe they didn’t know — they just didn’t care.

That would include the Felon. Unsurprisingly Speaker Mike Johnson, having briefly tried to claim the Felon had been an FBI informant on Epstein, now says the book is fake. So does Kremlin-financed podcaster (allegedly he had no idea where the money came from) Benny Johnson.

But it is real. And that’s chilling. As Cheryl Rofer puts it, “When that many people know, someone who only rode on his plane and didn’t fuck children had to know. But that camaraderie certainly would have urged men to join in the fun.”

That’s a horrifying thought because it means accepting that so many prominent, influential, intelligent people knew and not only did nothing — they applauded. Even if they didn’t take advantage of what Epstein was offering, they weren’t troubled enough to report it.

I think a big part of the problem is what Celeste Davis blogged about a while ago, that some men simply don’t like women: when push comes to shove, “bros before hos” becomes what passes for a moral guideline. Why harsh the party buzz and point out that the other guys are cracking jokes about statutory rape? Why call out people you respect over a bunch of teenage runaways and illegal immigrants who are doing it for the money (note: if you pay an underage girl for sex, it’s rape)? It’s my old 80 percent argument: the majority of men aren’t predators but they aren’t heroes either; in practice they can go either way depending on the people around them.

In this case they went the wrong way. All of them broke bad.