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The public now has access to another 3.5 million pages of documents related to the dead financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Thus far:
We still have no evidence of the existence of the infamous “client list,” or a single Epstein “client,” for that matter. Then again, there’s never been any proof Epstein trafficked in underage women for anyone other than himself.
We still have no evidence that Epstein was the head of a worldwide blackmail ring. The notion that dozens of world leaders, CEOs, and actors are all hanging out procuring young girls is a brainworm of the modern conspiracist.
There’s no evidence, either, that Epstein worked as an asset for Israel, or Russia, or Arab sheiks, or the CIA. It’s a good bet none of those entities would have tapped one of the most conspicuously unscrupulous people in the world to spy for them.
I know, I know — that’s exactly what they want us to think.
We also have no evidence that Epstein ever affected policy decisions in the United States or any other country. The best he could do was the nonvoting delegate from the Virgin Islands.
There is evidence of what we already knew:
Epstein was a wealthy degenerate, criminal brown-noser, fixer, and high-level networker who had ingratiated himself with famous people. Or as Ted Frank has written, the financier “used money (philanthropy, plane, ranch, island) to attract models and celebrities and academics and politicians (and to a lesser extent, rich people). Epstein used models to hold raucous parties and celebrity academics to hold midwit-intellectual parties. Epstein used these connections and parties to make himself seem (and in effect be) well connected and attract rich people.”
We know that some of those rich people remained friends with Epstein, and even championed him, after his conviction for sex crimes in 2009, among them slimeballs such as Steve Bannon, Noam Chomsky, Bill Gates, Ehud Barak, Reid Hoffman, among others.
That’s a scandal, but it’s not criminal.
Then again, the Epstein files are “build your own adventure.” Most people obsessed over Epstein couldn’t care less about his victims. It’s just a means of connecting the dead criminal to their favorite hobbyhorse or existing prejudice. For them, Epstein can be an indictment of all rich people or all “elites” or maybe Russians or Israel or even “neoliberal governance.” Hey, why not? For antisemites, it’s the perfect time to reignite medieval conspiracies about world Jewry. For leftists, it’s a way to smear their least favorite politicians as rapists. For right-wingers, it’s just proof that the “deep state” is connected to pedophilic death cults.
We all knew there would be a mass outbreak of apophenia when the government released millions of pages of uncorroborated accusations, contextless emails, and third-hand accounts, theories, and rumors. Investigators write down everything. That doesn’t make everything they write down, or even most of it, true. This is why grand jury files, which contain inaccurate and unsubstantiated information, are almost always sealed.
To believe Epstein was a mastermind Svengali pulling the strings of entire governments, uber-wealthy celebrity perverts, a person must work backward from assumptions rather than forward from the evidence. And many of those assumptions were formed by some of Epstein’s unreliable accusers.
In the files, for example, we find an accuser contending that former President George W. Bush or George H.W. Bush — it remains unclear which one — not only raped a young boy on Epstein’s yacht but then watched as he was ritualistically dismembered and sacrificed. Anyone with an atom of common sense understands this is insane, even if it’s a “file,” and yet it is all over social media.
Simply because other alleged victims have made somewhat more plausible accusations doesn’t make those real, either. The late Virginia Giuffre threw around all types of wild allegations, later apologizing for some when she was sued. The FBI noted that her “lack of credibility” meant “no substantial likelihood of success at trial.” Sarah Ransome, another Epstein accuser, claimed she was in possession of sex tapes featuring Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Richard Branson, later withdrawing the claim.
One of the many blockbuster finds in the Epstein files, spread across social media by popular left-wing influencers, revolves around a woman who alleges that Trump was involved with Epstein in the sale of young women to a sex trafficking ring run by Saudis. The reason, one imagines, investigators failed to follow up on the blockbuster charge is that it’s alleged to have taken place in 1967, when Trump was 21 and at the Wharton School and Epstein was 14 and collecting baseball cards.
Not that this fact has stopped partisans from sharing it.
Epstein conspiracists will accuse anyone who refuses to participate in the orgy of unhinged speculation of trying to cover up or diminish crimes against children. Who is really doing that? Those who deal in existing evidence or those who create a circus by entertaining every harebrained theory they can cobble together from some contextless email? Releasing unverified claims has done more to dilute the tragic stories of the real victims than anything.
The latest document dump, incidentally, initially failed to black out the names of at least 43 alleged victims of Epstein, “including many who haven’t shared their identities publicly or were minors when the incidents happened.”
The files have also sparked a witch hunt. We also know that dozens of innocent people have been slandered for merely having contact with Epstein, even though there’s no evidence linking them to a whiff of wrongdoing. Take the smearing of journalist Nellie Bowles by a New York University journalism “professor,” who spoke to Epstein once for a story. Or those contending as fact that Melania Trump was introduced to the future president by Epstein. Or the smearing of guys named “Mike Lee.”
MR. TRUMP, TEAR DOWN THE KENNEDY CENTER
Many of Epstein’s victims are still around and free to share names and their stories. And journalists are free to substantiate them through evidence. Prosecutors are free to file charges. It is certainly not beyond belief that Epstein engaged in yet-to-be-uncovered acts of criminality. And perhaps others were somehow involved. We should always be open to seeing more evidence.
But we see no deep mystery being unfurled in the Epstein files. No demonology at work. No new world order. Occam’s razor almost always wins. This time is no different. In the age of conspiracy, people will believe anything, and I mean anything. It’s become a serious societal problem.
