THEY KNEW EPSTEIN WAS GUILTY OF TRAFFICKING UNDERAGE GIRLS. THEY STUCK WITH HIM ANYWAY. EXCEPT TRUMP. In 2014, the journalist-turned-adviser Michael Wolff wrote an unpublished profile of Jeffrey Epstein. This was a few years after Epstein served a prison sentence for sex trafficking a minor girl. Epstein gave Wolff, who had once hoped to go into business with the financier, access to his “absurdly vast house” in Manhattan and his life in it. We have the profile Wolff wrote because he emailed it to Epstein — not the sort of thing most journalists would do — and it was made public in the 20,000-plus documents House Republicans released last week.
The theme of the profile is that many prominent and accomplished people decided to maintain their friendships with Epstein even after an investigation showed he lured a number of underage girls to his house for sex. He then pleaded guilty to one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of procuring a minor for prostitution. In an infamous sweetheart deal, Epstein received an 18-month sentence that allowed him to come and go freely while spending nights in “jail.”
“He got out of jail in 2009, serving 13 months, and moved seamlessly back into his life, to the shock-shock of tabloids whenever they are reminded of his existence,” Wolff wrote. “Some things changed. While surprisingly few others dropped him, the Clintons did, an irony of the present tabloid interest in Epstein’s old address book with its many Clinton contacts. And his sex offender status has transformed him from libertine playboy to pedophile in tabloid parlance.”
The article is a long list of people who hung around with post-prison Epstein. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, “for whom Epstein has become a key adviser,” was helping Epstein deal with his image problems. Mort Zuckerman, “the real estate billionaire and owner of the Daily News.” PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel. Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard University. Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel. Then-Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim. The lawyer Reid Weingarten. Thorbjørn Jagland, then-head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Nathan Myhrvold, a former top executive at Microsoft. Harvard professor Martin Nowak. Richard Axel, a Nobel Prize winner. Investment fund manager Ron Baron. Josh Harris, owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils. And then: “A high ranking official from the Obama White House, whose name I am asked not to use.”
They all came to Epstein’s house in New York. “These meetings, and this lifestyle, have somehow stayed private or secret — or apart — not out of any formal or stated restrictions, but because, in some sense, it would be very hard to explain just what you’re doing there with a brazen sex offender in a guffaw-inducing home flaunting all moderation,” Wolff wrote. “And yet, defying disgrace, and tolerating his tone deafness — or mocking attitude toward the zeitgeist — so many come. Gladly. Willingly. Feeling that his invitation is quite an extraordinary privilege.”
Wolff went to some length to note the constant presence of young women around the Epstein house. Wolff described them as being “in their twenties and thirties” — he did not say any were underage — and acting as “Epstein’s support staff and companions.” The “Hefnerian prurience” in the house, Wolff said, was “somewhere between Daddy Warbucks and ‘Eyes Wide Shut.'” Wolff concluded that the atmosphere “may be part of the appeal for the men who come to visit Epstein.” After trying to explain the situation, Wolff ended up saying, “The constant attendance of so many comely young women seems so outside of conventional living or staffing or social or romantic relationships that it is hard to describe in a straightforward or straight-faced way.”
Given today’s political situation and the things Wolff has been saying recently, here is something interesting. Out of all the names dropped, one is conspicuously absent: Donald Trump. The billionaire developer, reality TV star, and future president, who had a falling out with Epstein around 2004, did not even merit mention as a former friend. Wolff saw fit to name former President Bill Clinton as absent, but Trump, who at that point had not yet entered national politics, was just not there. Some years later, of course, after Trump became president, his adversaries saw Epstein, like they once saw Russia, as an opportunity to bring him down, and the Epstein story became all about Trump. But in 2014, when Epstein was alive and active and Wolff wrote the profile, Trump wasn’t part of the picture.
TRUMP CALLS ON HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO PASS BILL RELEASING FULL EPSTEIN FILES
Maybe that tells you something is wrong with the way the story is being reported today. Whenever new information is released, such as the thousands of documents recently made public by the House GOP, and when that new information contains nothing to incriminate Trump, the usual suspects loudly proclaim that more new information is still being hidden that will incriminate Trump. It must all be released! One prominent Democratic senator, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, literally said recently, “Clearly, Donald Trump was at the center of a child sex ring. That is heartbreaking that the President of the United States was involved in that kind of gross, craven immorality.”
That is a positively surrealistic read on what we know about Epstein so far — and we know a lot. But do not expect Murphy or any of his allies to stop. In their world, the absence of evidence is simply more evidence of Trump’s guilt. As long as they believe they can benefit politically from the story, they’ll keep pushing it.
|
