Back-peddling on Epstein

I spoke far too soon

Earlier this week, after the Trump administration announced that there was no Epstein client list, I exploded in a piece called “The End of The Orange Crush”, concluding that “what appeared apathy has proven justified intuition, as Trump and his lackies have proven themselves to be but more of those who won’t bring to justice the worst that humanity has to offer.” As the days have passed, I’ve asked myself if I truly had a level of evidence at my disposal sufficient to confidently accuse so many people of covering for a massive child-rape scheme, and I concluded that I most certainly did not. It’s one thing to say “this seems suspicious”, it’s quite another to exclaim that the denial of the supposed client list existing “leaves us only to conclude that not only do networks of rich and powerful monsters get away with raping children in our country - but that their escaping justice is not an aberration of the system. Rather, that the system serves to protect them.” Frankly, the piece I wrote was ridiculous in the absence of incredible levels of evidence. Evidence it turns out I don’t have. What follows is an exploration of why I remain suspicious about the Epstein case writ-large, what I have learned that challenged my suppositions, and why I feel the Trump administration needs to face the public backlash they’re getting head-on.

I’m finding that each time I look deeper than memes that speak to the zeitgeist of supposition surrounding Epstein, I find more and more reason to think I allowed myself to be swept up in a hysteria. While the circumstances of Epstein’s death are certainly suspicious, it takes an almost comical level of confidence in the infallibility of prison safe guards to deeply believe Epstein committing suicide is beyond the possible. Let’s not forget that despite layers and layers of security, prisons are famous for being hotbeds of illicit drugs. People slip things by the preverbal goalie all the time. That certainly doesn’t mean Epstein did kill himself, but it suggests that my confidence in the near impossibility of his having done so was built on shakier ground than I’d appreciated prior to recent reconsideration.

Epstein’s wealth turned to be not nearly as “out of blue” as I’d previously believed. Epstein was a financial advisor managing an estimated $2B portfolio - which at even a 1% fee could have netted him $225M over that span of roughly 20 years. Properly invested, $225M grows into an obscene amount of money. The reason Epstein was gifted an extravagantly expensive apartment in Manhattan is a mystery but considering that the “gift” was from the billionaire whose portfolio Epstein managed, it’s not beyond the pale of reason to presume the apartment was part of a payment arrangement, and the method of transfer a means of exploiting a tax loophole. The long and short of it, the common refrain that Epstein was simply a failed math teacher who inexplicably got wealthy is complete bullshit. In fact, it seems to be embarrassingly easy to explain Epstein’s wealth.

What about Ghislaine Maxwell? The prevailing myth (and attendant memes) holds that Maxwell is in jail for trafficking minors to “nobody”. Surely, if she’s in prison for trafficking, there must be clients to whom these victims were trafficked, right?

There are clients. Maxwell was convicted of trafficking minors to two “clients” - herself, and Jeffery Epstein (and Epstein’s houses were definitely raided by the FBI). Maxwell was not even charged with trafficking minors (or anyone for that matter) to anyone beyond herself and Epstein. She’s in prison because she trafficked minors for herself and Epstein to rape. While that doesn’t prove no one else was involved, it proves that she can absolutely be rightfully in prison in the absence of anyone else being involved. Frankly, the notion that Maxwell’s conviction proved there MUST be a client list was incredibly stupid for me to have bought. There doesn’t need to be a “client list”, if she and Epstein were the clients.

While the circumstances around Epstein’s death seem remarkably suspicious, it is not beyond imagination that a man facing his second conviction for child rape would kill himself, nor that he could manage to do so in a prison system notorious for its ineffectual security. Epstein’s wealth is not at all inexplicable; and Maxwell is most certainly not in prison for trafficking minors to “no one”, betraying the fact that the presumed existence of a “client list” is definitely premature. Given all the holes in what I’d previously believed about this case, I absolutely cannot let my previous piece stand. While my having learned things I hadn’t previously known about the case doesn’t absolutely prove the administration isn’t lying, it certainly proves I have no reasonable ground to stand on accusing them (or the previous administration) of something has horrendous as covering up a child-trafficking pedophile ring.

The administration has some explaining to do of its own. It’s no secret that Bongino, Patel and Bondi routinely made outsized claims about their certainty that a “client list” existed prior to their having come to office. And in office, Bondi seemed to keep pushing the notion that something akin to “the kraken” would soon be released. Trump demonstrated a gross lack of understanding of what Epstein’s case and the news that there was no “client list” meant to his base. Trump could not have responded more poorly than he did, showing offense and dismissiveness of a reporter’s question about the newly announced lack of a client list. The truth is, this conspiracy theory is so deeply engrained in the American consciousness that unless the administration (Bongino, Patel, and Bondi in particular) both publicly discuss their findings with tremendous transparency, and admit that they irresponsibly contributed to the mythology that grew around the Epstein case, they will be responsible for tens of millions of Americans coming to the conclusion that the US government is in the business of covering for massive pedophile rings. That is a degree of damage to our national psychology that Beijing and Moscow can only dream of causing. There is a particular irony in an administration elected in part to bring final light to the JFK question tripping bungling hard enough to create a new national myth far worse than what was alleged to be true about the killing of Kennedy. I don’t think one can overstate the damage that letting the Epstein case sink into perpetual “cover-up” myth status will do to this country. The administration - Bongino, Patel, and Bondi specifically - need to take the egg on the face, and settle in for several hours long press conferences where they can speak in great detail and with full transparency about their findings in this case, and they were individually wrong in making outsized promises about what they could deliver prior to having the case files in their hands. Of course, they’re surrounded by armies of PR nerds advising them to “never admit fault” with eyes exclusively on the next election - but far more important than saving face or the next election, is avoiding the catastrophic national fall-out of having given Americans reason to suspect their government is helping elites get away with raping children.