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Epstein DID kill himself. Also there's no client list. Stop asking questions
Well, there you go. It's been almost 6 years since Epstein did/didn't kill himself, and now we can close the book on the whole sordid mess (his primary accuser also happened to die by suicide (?) a few months ago). Epstein just wasn't a diligent record keeper. In unrelated news, Netanyahu nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Uggh, everyone always debunks the strawmen and never the more nuanced and realistic takes.
The real Epstein list (people who are actually guilty, not merely visitors) was in his head. We lost it when he died. They needed to keep him alive.
Epstein very likely killed himself in a physical sense, but there's a non-zero chance he was coerced/blackmailed/bribed into doing this, and substantial chance that the powers that be deliberately turned a blind eye to allow him to do it. And there's a 100% chance that negligence was involved and someone should be punished. Why wasn't he under direct supervision 24/7? Everyone knew he had dirt on important people. Everyone knew he was going to die under mysterious circumstances. Whoever had custody of him should have been extremely paranoid and gone above and beyond to keep him alive.
Any theory made after even event occurs to retroactively explain it lacks credibility because there's lots of degrees of freedom and ability to cherry-pick random events. Almost all conspiracy theories fall afoul of this. Epstein didn't kill himself does not. This was a theory that started before he died and predicted his death and then it happened despite the fact that people knew it would happen and could have stopped it.
Yes, Epstein probably did the deed. But they let him do it, and they probably let him do it on purpose because he knew things they didn't want public. If everything he knew was written down on physical lists that people had access to there wouldn't have been a benefit to letting him die.
This investigation does literally nothing to change my mind, it was already consistent with the theory I've held for six years, and I need no epicycles to explain this.
One would think that if they went to all the effort of making him commit suicide instead of just murdering him, they would have made the scene of the suicide less suspicious.
Did they need to? From their perspective, it doesn't matter whether conspiracy theorists suspect them or not if the authorities don't and they get away with it. Regardless of whether it truly was a conspiracy or merely negligence, clearly we live in a world where Epstein dying under the circumstances he did die under doesn't lead to heads rolling.
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I did some self-interrogation on why I was dissappointed with this outcome, and I think a lot of the issue is that there wasn't a clear definition of what people wanted to see from this investigation.
There's at least two, maybe three 'generally accepted' definitions of the "Epstein Client List."
The literal list of people who appear in Epstein's notes and logs and such. This we kind of know exists, and it has been released, at least in part. Not dispositive proof of any actual wrongdoing.
The list of people that Epstein kept of those he had compromised directly and trafficked women/girls to for purposes of blackmail, and who thus would be at risk of legal consequences if discovered. This would be pretty decent proof of wrongdoing.
The list of people that the FBI has constructed via corroboration of details in the above notes and evidence and established some cause to believe were actually complicit in Epstein's activities either because they benefited from them or were trying to keep their own activities under wraps. THIS one would be the grounds for actual legal action.
And I find that I wanted them to release #3. I don't want a bunch of disparate notes and papers that people have to comb over and construct elaborate theories around, I wanted the designated law enforcement officials to do their job and actually zero in on the people 'involved' in the conspiracy (look, we KNOW there was a conspiracy, its beyond 'theory' at this point) and thus would be truly culpable, even if there wasn't quite good enough evidence to convict. The FBI is very good at rolling up whole organized crime groups at the same time. There's a reason the Mafia is not really a major force in the U.S. anymore. If there was a larger group of people at work its impossible that they COULDN'T trace their activities. It is possible they traced them and realized it would be a fruitless exercise to attempt prosecution.
So people who wanted lists 1 or 2 released are disappointed because they're being told such a thing technically doesn't exist. Which may be true! Maybe the only true list of co-conspirators existed in Epstein's brain. Which, if so, definitely bumps up my personal odds of him being murdered.
But I think the real issue that is pissing people off is the lack of #3. As in, we know there were girls being trafficked, we KNOW there must have been people they were trafficked to, and there's significant reason to believe some of them were high powered politicians, celebs, and other elites. If the FBI has exonerated such people, fine. But what it feels like is that they just kinda shoved it all in a drawer and decided there was no reason to dig deeper. Or were told to do so by some other power.
Anyhow, I genuinely expect that the truly salacious, explosive details will be kept under wraps until most of the involved parties are old and all but immune to prosecution, or dead. We'll get a declassified Epstein report in about 10-20 years that reveals the full extent of the coverup, but by then it'll be hard to gin up the public ire enough to actually take any action, and obtaining justice against the involved parties will be impossible, so it'll just fade into status as a historical scandal.
That's just how it goes. Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown
As I understand it -- and this is largely from reading through the "new" materials released last year, and looking through the flight logs before that -- all we really "know" that Epstein did wrong was inviting teenage girls to his dwellings and coercing them into sexual massages. There are lots of Miami police interviews with girls who give exactly the same account of this happening. This is what he was arrested for and subsequently put on that weird house arrest arrangement. All of the more salacious accusations came from two witnesses, Virginia Guiffre and Sarah Ransome, both of whom have erratically made and then withdrawn wilder claims, hurting their credibility. This is not to say that their claims of debauched, star-studded island sex parties are incorrect, but they have yet to be substantiated by credible witnesses or evidence. Since all we know about Epstein is that he enjoyed criminally procured sex for personal gratification, there may well be no clients, and there for no "client list" to speak of.
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Most of those people are already old.
The most plausible theory remains that the Clintons/Mossad/whoever else wanted to kill Epstein destroyed thé evidence and the FBI would be chasing shadows to roll up a blackmail network that no longer exists(so far as anyone knows, Epstein‘s MO was to lie about his girls’ ages to collect blackmail material, theres no reason to believe these people are like actual pedophiles).
I’m not doubting that if you really wanted to prosecute some people for statutory, you could- but the FBI probably thinks this is beneath launching a major investigation.
I mean, sure. But you'd really hope that such people would want reassurances that the woman was there willingly and weren't coerced, drugged, or blackmailed into it themselves. I think most 'normal' people would be sketched out, even if they don't immediately go to the cops.
That he was able to get away with it for quite a while hints that people were willingly turning a blind eye. Not the same as being complicit, but it still reads like a moral failure.
And of course we can go AKSHULLY there's no pedophilia involved whatsoever b/c all the girls were post-pubescent and in their teens. I am sure some people think there's documented proof of like, children being raped or something.
Though of course the more conspiratorial element is that the really nasty stuff occurred on the jet or on the private island.
Do I think there was literal child sacrifice or something going on? No.
But my priors on someone who is involved in pimping underage women out being involved in even more depraved activities are... reasonably high.
It is genuinely harder for me to believe that almost all global elites diligently avoid taboo and socially abhorrent/illegal behaviors. Especially with the more recent dominoes falling WRT to P. Diddy and that whole circle. That said, I don't think they're going around consuming human flesh or bathing in virgin blood, I doubt the very worst of the theories are at all accurate.
What can I say, ensuring there are consequences for elites misbehavior is one of my pet issues.
This is topical again because of Diddy but, when people see people hanging around a rich, powerful guy and being used for sex, they assume "whore" not "sex slave".
Because, y'know, there are a lot of whores out there.
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I assume that escorts and drugs are a fairly common entertainment at the sorts of parties Epstein was hosting, and telling the difference between a 17 year old who wants you to think she’s ~20 and an actual 20 year old is at the very least thé sort of thing that comes with a high error rate- and that’s before you take into account that presumably all of these guys had at the very least a beer or two.
I do not think bill gates was doing good at these parties. I think that there is no moral difference on his end between what he did and hiring an of-legal-age escort. This is not good, but it is not a productive use of police time to try to crack down on the Johns here.
Now Epstein recruited underaged girls into prostitution. This is seriously bad and the full weight of the law should get involved- but he’s dead.
Right. But I'm pointing out that if you were approached by Epstein and he said "hey that girl you banged was actually 15/16. We can keep it under wraps but you'll have to do some favors going forward", aren't you a LITTLE morally culpable for not taking the hit and blowing the whistle? Yes, you acted with reasonable propriety, you were lied to, you weren't intentionally doing the illegal thing, but now you're buying into it.
It beggars belief that nobody attending the parties came into knowledge that he was bringing around underage girls. Its uncertain how many sought out the parties because there were underage girls there, but the claims of "oh yeah, everybody heard the rumor that this was going on" only come out once the truth is already known.
Sure would be nice for someone to proffer these facts before they become public knowledge.
No. And while 'buying into it' implies/generally comes at a cost to the public at large, this is the same public perpetrating the hysterics around an action that isn't immoral (hence the need for the hysterics).
So it's on the same moral level as dodging any other tax is. No more, no less. [Which is why you want harsh consequences for elite misbehavior in this way: it's dodging the tax every other member of the public has to pay to its hysterical members.]
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I don't know how long did the scheme last, but this quote from the Don himself was from 2002:
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Ok, if we take the 'Epstein was murdered in prison to prevent him spilling the beans' hypothesis seriously, and assume that the Clintons/Mi6/Mossad are competent actors, this is exactly what we should expect. Prison guards are cheap to bribe and want lakehouses/retirement, not notoriety(they're also not going to cop to a felony like accepting bribes because of what would happen to them on the inside), and 'leaving a detailed list' defeats the point of murdering him.
I'm not too fussed about it; everyone who went to it could have a different bikini model spend the night with him on her eighteenth birthday every day if he wanted to, there's no evidence they picked Epstein's girls because they wanted 17 1/2 year olds instead, more like because escorts were provided as part of the island experience, and the pimp is dead(deservedly so).
Isn't it important to determine if Mossad has blackmail material on the US elites, given that US and Israeli interests may not be one and the same? Indeed the mere fact that blackmail is going on indicates that they're not the same.
Like if Russia really did have blackmail material on not just Trump but a huge swathe of the US power structure, then wouldn't that be significant? Imagine if the US was sending tens of billions in military aid to Russia, sanctioning and bombing Russia's enemies, damaging its international image for the sake of Russia?
Also, where's the MI6 angle? Prince Andrew? Given Ghislaine Maxwell's heritage and the lack of subtlety, this whole affair reeks of Mossad.
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Okay, so maybe there's no convenient list of Epstein clients in the files. Who was doing the raping? Look at the videos. Who is fucking the teenage girls in the videos? This is knowable information.
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Yeah there was no 'list', but there were passenger manifests. Also Maxwell's 'Little Black Book' of contacts (Trump's in there, but this is meaningless).
But there's no definitive records of conversation, nor lists of guest attendance for events. Releasing un-curated manifests would lead to identification of relatively innocent people like caterers and escorts (under and overage) which would include victims. Also, just because you've been to the island as a guest doesn't mean you participated in or witnessed sex crimes. It would be a complete shitshow if things were released. That said, there's a large public interest in this, and closing the book on the whole affair with 'we won't be investigating this further' is just throwing gas on the dumpster fire.
I was talking to discord types about this. They think its a complete coverup, particularly the 180 turn of Patel and Bondi after an administration 'campaign promise' of sorts to get to the truth of things. Kash Patel's Joe Rogan appearance started the backpedaling with things like 'oh I didn't know the cell camera's were broken, but I've reviewed the footage'. Then there was the 'Epstein List - Phase 1' debacle.
The whole thing stinks really.
Edit: I watched the press conference question on this. Worst Trump blunder I've seen for a while. Could he say something that makes him look more guilty?
"I am pre-emptively pardoning any person who might be connected to this case whatsoever."
(i.e. what Biden did with the Hunter situation).
I'd immediately assume he was directly involved if that happened.
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Are they fingering Trump too, or is it a case of good Czar, bad boyars?
They were anti-Trump to begin with, so they're absolutely on the 'Trump's on the list' bandwagon.
I've got to say, I don't know what to think after the 'nothing to see here' answer to the press.
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The reason people thought there was a "client list" to begin with was because of people using "Epstein list" to refer to the lists of everyone who ever flew to a party hosted on his island or were mentioned in the court documents in any context.
The Independent: The Epstein List: Full list of names revealed in unsealed court records
BBC: Jeffrey Epstein list: Who is named in court filings?
Newsweek: Jeffrey Epstein List in Full as Dozens of Names Revealed
Yeah of course it didn't exist, I personally saw the rumor of its existence develop from people saying "Epstein list" to imply things that the actual Epstein lists clearly did not imply.
It's broader than that. The flight logs are mostly (IIRC) NY <--> FL. Epstein seemed to be very generous in flying celebrities and other notables around the continental U.S. on his plane. He was an avid networker. Only a fraction of the total guests in his logs flew to LSJ or the ranch in the western U.S. where some rumored dirtiness went down.
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We know from the Israeli defector ben Menashe that Maxwell was working for Mossad ..that was corroborated when (iirc) Mossad guys carried his coffin and so on. Not a stretch that his favorite daughter was also involved.
And as to what Epstein did.. Whether there is a list or not is irrelevant, we know he was recording blackmail material. I strongly doubt he was e.g. into porn of Alan Dershowitz and people like that. And I can't believe intelligence services ,even if they didn't create him, would have allowed someone like that to operate an influence operation without wetting their beaks. No way, absolutely no way.
The stuff about Epstein potentially working for Israeli intelligence (or U.S. intelligence) seems fairly plausible to me, though I haven't followed the case that closely. The idea of a secret "client list" that the police retrieved from his documents but haven't released or been leaked across multiple administration (coincidentally matching the "Epstein list" meme that developed for other reasons) is much less so, especially when people respond to the continued non-release by assuming "it must incriminate high-level politicians on both sides" over "it doesn't exist". Israel is fully capable of storing their own blackmail documents. If he was a blackmail tool they probably wouldn't be "clients" anyway, it would be "turns out that girl you had a one-night-stand with was under the age of consent".
Epstein got his big break by being a private school teacher who seduced his students and blackmailing their dads by threatening to reveal their daughter was no longer a virgin. We should probably assume someone like that was running intentional blackmail.
The only way that works is "your 14 or 15 year old daughter is no longer a virgin" and then the parents get him for having sex with minors. Besides, I thought he got his real start in the whole "getting accepted as part of the social circle of extremely wealthy people, not just the hired staff managing their money" by being a very good friend of a rich gay guy? (Not stated outright that he's gay but he didn't get married until he was in his mid-fifties and handing over everything to a young man seems a little too trusting for a guy who made his money, not inherited it:
Epstein was a creep, no doubt about it, but he was probably more of a "guy in the same social circles who throws lavish parties where pretty young women are very attentive to important men" than "yeah he'll fill your order for three fifteen year old blondes".
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Rich New Yorkers (WASP or Jewish) in the mid-1970s with daughters at Dalton were under no impression their daughters were certainly virgins whatsoever. That’s a ridiculous suggestion and would have been questionable even 20 years earlier (which would have been before it went co-ed lol).
Dalton was the most classically progressive of the old NYC prep schools (and still is), only outflanked to the left by the mid-late 20th century hippie outfits. It was explicitly built on the model of early 20th century progressive English schools that wanted to overturn the orthodoxy of the classical English public (private) school education.
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If this was true I have no idea how this didn't get him killed. There seems to be two outcomes. You go to jail, or someone is going to flip out because you didn't go to jail and murder you.
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..what?
Source?
Possibly the same sources as the Wikipedia article:
But at the same time, this doesn't say how old the underage girls were, and if the kids were holding drinking parties then they must have been around 17. This was the 70s in a progressive school, he was being the cool hip young teacher who was more like a friend than an authority figure. Yes, still creepy, but he isn't the first or the last teacher to be too attentive to certain pupils. See Don't Stand So Close To Me by The Police.
That makes sense. Yeah, I think so. I read a fair about Epstein even before his second arrest and untimely death. He seemed to be into 15-18 yr girls but was hiring adult girls too and there may have been some 14 year old. I don't recall coming across any suggestion of actual pedophilia.
If he's the kind of risk-taking ambitious guy and he's into teenagers, it'd make sense he'd be creeping on them.
This still seems very odd because come on.. 1980s New York? That'd make sense in I don't know..some very traditional place, not NYC in 80s.
I think the "getting girls when they're young" was less about actual paedophilia and more about "get them while they're impressionable, groom them to accept that you're helping them build careers as models or whatever, then have a stable of pretty young things to be arm candy at the parties you're throwing".
It's an old racket, people have been picking off girls since the days of stage coaches. They arrive in London looking for work, or are recruited by those who go into the country looking for girls, and are tricked into joining brothels by a procuress.
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Depending on how thorough he was, it's likely he had a list of all the people he had dirt on and which also specified what dirt he had on them. But at the very least if he was a little organized he had a list of people he taped having sex etc.
How did the whole thing work? I recall hearing about people whom he invited to his properties and who accepted it bc famous guy/free vacation/there'll be interesting people there and who didn't join in on the 'fun'.
Then I imagine there were people who would come specifically for the 'fun'. Maybe he had a list of people who liked his illicit entertainment and all the provided favors and sought him out? He'd probably have the most material on those guys.
Something like that could be the 'client list' I guess..
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