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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.
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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