Tag Archives: Jeffrey Epstein

“It appears Epstein was involved in criminal activity that went way beyond pedophilia and sex trafficking, which makes it even more outrageous that [Attorney General] Pam Bondi is sitting on several million unreleased files.”

Jeffrey Epstein talked a lot about pizza. That doesn’t mean pizzagate was real.

“Epstein argues that teaching children to write may be harmful because writing forces “linear” and “narrow” patterns of thinking, whereas the greatest thinkers never wrote.”

“Billionaires really like thinkers who see their exploitation of the weak as a good and natural thing.” — from a look at how Epstein came to influence the Edge intellectual conclave.

Edge member Stephen Pinker offers what he considers controversial ideas: “Do most victims of sexual abuse suffer no lifelong damage … Do men have an innate tendency to rape … Are Ashkenazi Jews, on average, smarter than gentiles because their ancestors were selected for the shrewdness needed in  money lending?” Got to say, I’ve never found ideas like these to be cutting edge (the rape thing, for instance, is bullshit) but I can see why a bunch of older white men might find them appealing.

“Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has claimed that the Department of Justice intervened to block a state investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch in 2019.”

“The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump.”

“Democratic members of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee told reporters that Bondi, who was joined by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, would not commit to complying with the subpoena for her sworn testimony April 14 to answer questions about the Justice Department’s handling of records related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”

“The 2014 visit to Newport was not the first time Epstein tried to get his “girls” onto a Woody Allen set. Emails from the latest DOJ document release show that between 2010 and 2017, he attempted to influence or aid Allen’s casting process.”

How predators like Epstein can manipulate their victims into believing they have agency.

Jeffrey Epstein’s circle included lots of scientists and lots of businessmen. And royalty. Some of whom, like Prince Andrew at the third link, are paying a price. As Paul Krugman says, this doesn’t mean they all committed statutory rape. They probably included people seeking money, people who wanted to hang out at a cool party, people who saw networking or business opportunities, people who found Epstein charming and flattering. And some how wanted to have sex with underage teenage girls.

As Anand Giridharadas puts it, “He was not only grooming teenage girls, he was grooming all of these people. This was all grooming, and it was a continuum of grooming from light consensual grooming of bankers all the way to the most depraved and criminal grooming of teenage girls.”

Some of them may not have known how bad Epstein was; some of them actively gave him advice on fixing his reputation. Some of them joked about how much he liked them young. Larry Summers asked for advice on picking up a younger (adult) woman; one correspondent recommended Epstein read Lolita. Others grumbled that young women were honeypots destroying the lives of older men. I find some of that stuff incredibly disgusting. I’m pretty sure that’s not criminal but it’s creepy enough some sortr of sanctions seems appropriate.

Some of the network, as Girirdharadas says, didn’t care: “These people are actually not that serious about character. In fact, character may be a liability for some of them, may be an unnecessary source of friction.” If you know the right people, well, soliciting a minor may seem trivial by comparison. Peter Attia (in the Girirdharadas piece): “At that point in my career, I had little exposure to prominent people, and that level of access was novel to me. Everything about him seemed excessive and exclusive, including the fact that he lived in the largest home in all of Manhattan, owned a Boeing 727 and hosted parties with the most powerful and prominent leaders in business and politics.”

Not everyone’s facing consequences — and to be fair, some of the people in the outer circles probably shouldn’t. Going to a glamorous party hosted by a notorious creep is bad judgment but not necessarily immoral. The further in you get, the worse it looks. The CNN article says lying about your ties to Epstein is currently a big Danger sign. Hanging around Epstein after his statutory rape conviction is another. In some cases it’s simply the fear that having damaged goods as the head of your firm will be very bad for business. In Andrew’s case, he did some insider trading with Epstein (Paul Campos: “Child rape is one thing, but manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate is going a bit too far, apparently.”). And some people knew Epstein but didn’t hang out, or went to one party and decided they’d had enough.

The Toddler of the United States has no interest in facing consequences. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, his solution is to start claiming he’s been completely exonerated. He hasn’t. And the Department of Justice is still hiding files that may say otherwise.

For bonus thoughts, Celeste Davis makes a good case the problem isn’t networking or glamorous parties, it’s patriarchy. Which includes a lot of contempt for women in STEM (” Epstein responded: “It’s the tail of distribution , no really smart women – none.” )

A friend of mine made a good point on FB recently: “The most depressing thing about the Epstein files is how very very boring billionaires are. All the money that ever existed and they use it to perv on 13-year-olds. If I were a billionaire, I would commission the *HMS Surprise* with 24 guns of confetti cannons, and I would require the crew to wear Lord Nelson-era uniforms. If I wanted a second yacht, I would build the *Queen Anne’s Revenge* and have the crew dress and talk like movie pirates.”

How Karen chooses to spend her billions is not the way I’d do it but her point is still valid. These are men who could probably find willing, attractive partners; in many cases they have the income to hire adult sex workers. They can travel around the world, afford to live pretty much anywhere — Paris, Cairo, London — trek up the Amazon. Pay $50,000 to charity so Bon Jovi or Bad Bunny will give them and their friends a private concert. Or simply sit on the beach with a piña colada and a good book and chill. Instead, they opted to hang out with a notorious pedophile on Statutory Rape Island, write smirking birthday cards about how Epstein liked ’em young or tell Epstein how underage girls are slutty temptresses.

As several women have observed online, sexualizing underage girls isn’t something Epstein came up with. It’s common. Epstein’s inner ring weren’t uniquely depraved slimeballs. Rape culture is a thing and plenty of other people in the same boat would have looked at those girls and said “yummy!” That is not an excuse. That other men do what Epstein did and get away with it is not a reason to shrug and not care about him or his cronies. Nor, contrary to Attorney General Pam Bondi, should we stop worrying about the victims because the economy’s doing well (as noted at the link, not as well as she implies). Hey, at least some of Epstein’s BFFs are suffering consequences.

The web of connections around Epstein keeps spreading wider. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for instance: “Lutnick has in the past vehemently denied having any association with Jeffrey Epstein, insisting that he severed all contact with the pedophile ringleader in 2005. But even the highly limited, extremely redacted release of the Epstein files — everything we’ve seen reeks of a major coverup — shows that he was flat-out lying. Not only did he stay in close contact with Epstein, the two men appear to have gone into business together.” Steve Bannon gave Epstein advice on rebuilding his reputation, such as “crush the pedo/trafficking narrative.” You can’t get much more morally bankrupt.

Paul Krugman: “I believe (and hope) that only a small minority of the hundreds and hundreds in Epstein’s extended circle received sexual favors. A larger number of people were probably receiving financial favors, but most weren’t … I believe that a lot of his reach came from his skill at seducing people by providing them with a sense of exclusivity and privilege. To be associated with Epstein meant receiving invitations to participate in fancy dinners or to stay at one of his many luxurious residences in all the best places, including his private island. If you were chums with Jeffrey Epstein, you felt that you were a member of a glittering set of insiders. And that was enough to make you look away when the young woman pouring your drink looked just a little bit too much like your teenage daughter.” C.S. Lewis makes the same point about the appeal of joining the cool kids: “It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected.”

Or consider Valeria Chomsky’s account of her husband Noah Chomsky (yes, the Chomsky) and how Epstein charmed him: “Epstein began to encircle Noam, sending gifts and creating opportunities for interesting discussions in areas Noam has been working on extensively. We regret that we did not perceive this as a strategy to ensnare us and to try to undermine the causes Noam stands for.” That I can understand. However Chomsky sympathizing with him over the “horrible way” the media had treated Epstein — that’s getting sucked in further than I think is excusable. It’s along the lines of refusing to believe your buddy/father/kid/roommate could possibly have done what that chick says he did, regardless of the evidence.

It’s possible some of the people in Epstein’s orbit were genuinely unaware of his activities beyond rumors — I certainly hadn’t heard of him until about eight years ago. But others, as Krugman says, were willing to turn a blind eye for the chance to hang out at glamorous parties or suck up to Epstein for research funding. And some, judging from the jokes or the chatter in their emails weren’t that blind. Knowing about it or suspecting it and continuing to hang out isn’t as bad as having sex with Epsteion’s underage victims. But it’s bad enough.

One of the standard takes on well, almost anything the Necrotic Toddler does is that it’s “a distraction from the Epstein files.” Or from the murder of Good and Pretti in Minneapolis. Or Good and Pretti are a distraction from whatever other atrocity he’s pulled lately.

Nope. The Felon of the United States doesn’t do distractions. Neither do his people. They want the world, they want it now, and they don’t seem to grasp their might be blowback. As Paul Krugman says about their strategy in Minneapolis, “the obvious answer is that there isn’t any strategy. These people aren’t evil masterminds — evil, yes, but masterminds, no. They’re just thugs too crude and undisciplined to control their own thuggishness. They were caught off guard by the strength of the resistance because the very concept of citizens standing up for their principles is alien to them, and they still can’t believe it’s real.”

As others have said, if you’re trying to figure out why the hell they’re doing X, the usual answer is going to be “They’re stupid.”

However it is very easy with everything going on to forget about the Epstein files, about Epstein’s long, horrible history of raping girls with impunity, and the horrifying number of people who seem to have turned a blind eye. Let’s not forget, and let’s not forgive. In that spirit, a few links:

“This fake Medvedev interview plays into that, suggesting that Russia has leverage because they have the Epstein files.”

“”Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected. That is outrageous.”

Still some embarrassing information is coming out. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick planned to visit Epstein’s island. Musk was apparently a good chum. Musk denies this but “even if you do your absolute damndest to read this guy’s freshly released Epstein emails in a positive light, what you get is the story of a tech tycoon stating unambiguously that he wanted to attend an absolute rager on a sex criminal’s private island.” Perhaps it’s no surprise Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wants us to know that partying with Jeffrey Epstein is not a crime. Because I’m sure Musk isn’t alone.

France, investigating Musk over Grok’s ability to make child porn, reminds him he’s not on Epstein’s island now.

“A Duke University professor appears in more than 700 of the newest Epstein files released by the Justice Department, one of which asks the convicted sex trafficker to provide the name and email of a “redhead” he wished to see again.”

Neither is attorney Brad Karp who had to step down from his leadership role at the Paul Weiss firm (he’s still employed) due to his gushing emails about fun parties with Epstein.

“Documents published last week by the U.S. Justice Department contain new revelations, including papers suggesting Mandelson shared sensitive government information with Epstein after the 2008 global financial crisis, and records of payments totaling $75,000 in 2003 and 2004 from Epstein to accounts linked to Mandelson or his husband Reinaldo Avila da Silva.” — from a still-unfolding British side to the story.

No wonder the Felon likes Kid Rock, with lyrics like “Young ladies, young ladies, I like ‘em underage/See some say that’s statutory/But I say it’s mandatory.” A reminder that as many people point out, Epstein was extreme but his attitudes weren’t an anomaly.

Oddities in the latest release.

““The essence of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is one man doing terrible things to girls – we can kind of understand that. But having so many powerful men who were enablers, who all just thought this was a joke – it’s so sad,” she says. “Everyone’s just laughing, it’s so funny how Jeffrey Epstein enjoys young women giving him massages. There are these secrets they all have together – it just makes my stomach turn.”

“Included in the documents released Friday was an exchange from 2015 in which Attia had written a note — redacted by the Justice Department — that bore the subject line, “Got a fresh shipment.” Epstein responded, “me too,” with a photo that was also redacted. Attia responded, “Please tell (me) you found that picture on line … bastard.”

Woody Allen’s wife Soon-Yi Previn corresponded with Epstein years after his perversions were known, complaining that MeToo had gone too far and saying the horrifying thing about Anthony Weiner, in his fifties, hitting on a 15-year-old, is that the girl was a “manipulative” predator. Um, no. I can’t help thinking of her sister Dylan Farrow, who accused Allen of assaulting her as a child and how much of a subtext to Previn’s comments that might be.

Prominent scientists were friends of Jeffrey too. And complained to him about how unfair it was they’d been accused of being lechers and sexual harassers. Creepy game apparently does recognize creepy game.

No, Zohram Mamdani is not Epstein’s son.

Dems say they’ll subpoena the Toddler over the Epstein files.

I’ll conclude with a quote from my friend Karen: “The most depressing thing about the Epstein files is how very very boring billionaires are. All the money that ever existed and they use it to perv on 13-year-olds.” Well said.

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.