I Don't Get The Epstein Conspiracy Theories

I've long been skeptical, most recently here in 2023, that Jeffrey Epstein was running a blackmail operation, or indeed that he was a spy. Only in James Bond thrillers do spies draw attention to themselves. Beyond that, by the time of his death in 2019, he had been yestersday's news for more than a decade. Whether it was a sweetheart deal or not, his 2008 guilty plea to two sex offenses severely cramped his style. His Lolita Express plane had been grounded since 2016.

The continuing allegations from MAGA that Attorney General Bondi has been covering for the deep state are based in some measure on the idea that Epstein was highly successful as a blackmailer, with tapes of high-ranking people to prove it, and her failure to release any such tapes or incriminating evidence like a client list just proves those allegations. The problem is that Epstein's heyday was certainly before 2008, almost 20 years ago at this point, and most such names, even if they existed on an actual client list, would now be dead or faded from prominence.

I also suspect that the names most closely associated with Epstein, like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Prince Andrew, have already been outed, mostly from other sources. Yes, Bill Clinton was on the Lolita Express, but he'd already been exposed by women like Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky. The same with Bill Gates: any escapades with Epstein had little or nothing to do with his divorce or his quiet departure from Microsoft. The same applies to Prince Andrew, whose various affairs and troubled marriage had been controversial throughout his adult life, though his association with Epstein didn't help at all.

As I've been saying for quite a while, Trump's judgment in the Epstein matter has been underrated. At the time of Epstein's death, Trump said he hadn't spoken to Epstein for 15 years, and he had apparently barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after his 2008i guilty plea. Just this week, in response to complaints about Attorney General Bondi's claim that there was no Epstein client list, Trump said,

Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years.

. . . The comments appeared to signal continued job security for Bondi and amounted to a striking rebuke of members of Trump’s base who have called for her resignation and mocked her for what they believe to be her failed commitment to release incriminating files from the Epstein investigation.

I think this reflects an understanding that any Epstein client list, if it existed, would be nothing but old news. If Epstein's heyday was before his 2008 guilty plea, then the biggest and most current names might be from the Dubya administration. Any cabinet secretaries from then, if their names turned up, would excite litle more than a yawn. Celebrities? I asked the web who were the biggest male celebrities in 2005 and got Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, George Clooney, and Tom Cruise. Frankly, I doubt any of them needed Epstein to find what they wanted. My bet is any actual client list would just be cheesy has-beens.

So if Epstein wasn't a blackmailer or a spy, how did he make his money? We can be pretty sure that part of it came from Les Wexner:

In a 2019 New York Times exposé titled “How Jeffrey Epstein Used the Billionaire Behind Victoria’s Secret for Wealth and Women,” a team of journalists found that in the 1990s Epstein served as an adviser to Les Wexner, Victoria’s Secret chief executive. (Wexner stepped down from the company in 2020.)

. . . The two were introduced by insurance executive Robert Meister in the mid-to-late 1980s, and the New York Times story noted that Wexner eventually “authorized [Epstein] to borrow money on his behalf, to sign his tax returns, to hire people, and to make acquisitions.”

A number of Epstein's estates appear to have belonged to Wexner but at some point were transferred to Epstein, for instance. Another source of income appears to have been via brokering donations to Harvard and MIT.

Harvard University received nearly $9m in donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein before his 2008 guilty plea to sex charges, but rejected a proposed gift after his conviction, according to the institution’s president, Lawrence Bacow.

The largest of Epstein’s gifts to the university was $6.5m in 2003 to support the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Other gifts totaled about $2.4m. Epstein did not attend Harvard.

. . . The disclosure that Harvard declined Epstein’s contributions after he was convicted for soliciting a minor are in marked contrast to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and its Media Lab, which has been rocked by revelations that it accepted more than $7.5m in donations from Epstein or people connected to the university through him after his conviction.

Amid a review of Epstein donations to MIT, the university’s president, Rafael Reif, acknowledged Thursday he apparently thanked Epstein in a note in 2012 in response to one donation.

Bacow, in his message, also noted that Harvard had recently learned that Stephen Kosslyn, a former faculty member and a beneficiary of Epstein’s philanthropy, had designated Epstein as a visiting fellow in the psychology department in 2005.

“We are seeking to learn more about the nature of that appointment from Dr Kosslyn, who no longer works at the university,” Bacow said.

As best I can determine, and as implied in the reference to MIT at the link, Epstein's strategy appears to have been to bundle donations to Harvard and MIT from third parties, apparently pitching his influence at the universities that might help the donors to get whatever else they needed there. In return, Epstein took some sort of a skim or management fee, so that figures like up to $9 million to Harvard probably represaent a larger amount paid to Epstein from third parties.

So the one worthwhile question remaining about Epstein is how he made his money, but as time goes on, it's less and less interesting. In my view, he definitely wasn't a spy, and anything he had on some prominent person would by 2019 have been stale information, not worth having him killed. Exactly how he snookered Harvard and MIT might be fun to learn, but those institutions are already in much bigger and much more current trouble.

Bondi and Patel have dropped Epstein and are now after Comey and Brennan. Trump clearly thinks this is a better use of everyone's time.