The American people need to understand that it isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.
Perhaps Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is right, given the high evidentiary bar required for prosecution.
But his comment Monday on Fox News cruelly disregarded victims of Jeffrey Epstein left with lifelong trauma after being trafficked into his sordid orbit. It doesn’t fully capture the broader implications of a new mountain of disclosures from the Department of Justice.
Several million documents peel open the rarefied upper echelon of Epstein’s globe-spanning social and business network. The disgraced financier was the curator and connective tissue of an elite circle open to those with wealth, fame, power, and influence. His contacts over the years included a former US president and a current one; a prince, a crown princess, cabinet secretaries and ministers; and titans of business, entertainment, the law, banking, and diplomacy.
Related scandals that threaten royal dynasties and governments are now raging in Europe.
Epstein’s former friends, associates, and dining companions have governed us and have built an economy that enriches them and sidelines many of us. They’ve appeared on our TV screens, owned sports teams, or sold us consumer goods. They’ve written software operating systems that power modern life and are imposing a future dominated by artificial intelligence.
While the beau monde partied with Epstein in the gilded age when the 20th century flipped to the 21st, many Americans not in the club were dying in foreign wars or struggling to stay solvent through the ravages of the Great Recession.
“You have some of the most wealthy individuals, tech leaders, finance leaders, politicians, all implicated in some way, having emailed him, wanting to go to Epstein’s island, knowing that Epstein was a pedophile,” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who helped force the release of the files, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Many prominent figures, including former President Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump, have said they cut off ties with Epstein years before his crimes and untried alleged offenses came to light and claim they knew nothing about them. Neither has ever been criminally charged with relation to Epstein, and authorities have lodged no evidence of wrongdoing.
At the same time, however, indictments filed against Epstein and the trial of his associate Ghislaine Maxwell painted a world of depravity; of dozens of girls enticed, exploited, abused, at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. Everyone who knew Epstein would have had their own experience. But it strains credulity to believe that some of the most sophisticated people in the …
