Epstein's Enemies [Trenchant Edges]
Epstein's Enemies [Trenchant Edges]
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes, 32 seconds. Contains 1507 words
Welcome back to the Trenchant Edges, a newsletter about things with a schedule! I promise!
Anyway, we unpack weird bullshit here. Last time we picked apart Jeff Epstein’s life.
Now we’re gonna do his death.
Before we start, I do want to make it very clear I don’t think people who don’t believe Epstein killed himself are bad or wrong. For the most part, I just think there are some details that got lost in the shuffle most people missed that recontextualizes his final acts.
We’re not gonna get to that today, but we still have a lot to go over here.
Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself
There may never have been a conspiracy adopted so quickly in so many places. News came out that Epstein was dead and tens of millions of people, maybe more, immediately decided that his “suicide” was suspect as all hell.
And I, uh, don’t disagree.
Famous rich blackmailer pedophile dies in jail? I mean, come on. Cops “find” all kinds of people who “committed suicide” in jail. Often with injuries inconsistent with taking their own life.
I don’t dispute any of that.
And this wasn’t even just random people. Then NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio declined to back the medical examiner’s report a month after Epstein’s death.
And as we’ll see, there are a LOT of inconsistencies. Way more than most petty conspiracies, frankly.
We’re not even going to go into all of them, because different details were reported in different news outlets and I am *not* going to reread all the journalism done on the most famous death of 2019.
In this section, though, we’re not going to get totally in the weeds. That’s for the timeline. Here we’re going to focus on the narratives around the didn’t kill himself thing.
So, this kinda sums it up. Epstein was a blackmailer & child trafficker, there’s a satanic child trafficking ring at the highest levels of establishment (read: Democrat) power. Yes, it’s the Qanon version.
Meme courtesy of 30 seconds on telegram. It took almost 40 seconds to run into nazi shit this time!
Anyway, these folks don’t seem to know much about Epstein beyond the broad details and, for some of the more nazi among them, some of his connections to Mossad.
It’s honestly kind of weird, I could write a conspiracy way the hell better than almost anything I’ve seen from them (and if you read part 1 of this, so can you!).
I’m trying not to post more of their shit, but let’s just go into one more image ‘cause it’s wild:
Anyway, let’s move on.
Naturally, there are some Blueanon types who allege that Epstein’s death was an execution ordered by the Trump administration.
Which I’d normally dismiss, but let’s take a second and consider: Epstein and Trump partied together for a few decades. Remember that pin from last time about Attorney General Barr’s dad giving Epstein his first job?
Let’s pick that up. The Dept of Justice runs the Metropolitan Correctional Center where Epstein died being run by a guy who’s dad gave Epstein his first job. Who’s boss had a decades-long relationship with the man.
A man known to collect blackmail on everyone he could.
In the realm of “Means, motive, opportunity” these are pretty interesting connections. Could the AG have someone killed in a federal prison? It’s hard to imagine what would stop him if he was smart about it.
And Trump’s reaction to the Ghislaine Maxwell trial had some real… off moments. First, he wished her good luck, which seemed off-brand. And second, he really wanted to know if she mentioned anything about him.
All of this is very… tenuous. It’s much more likely that someone down the chain took a bit of you know, initiative.
And Trump is far from the only person sleeping easier now that Epstein is dead.
The other big target to blame Epstein’s death on is the English Royal Family. Which, OK fair Epstein has pretty much ruined Prince Andrew’s reputation. And if you buy that they killed Princess Di (and who doesn’t? ;-) ), why not?
And then you have your usual run of institutional actors. The CIA, FBI, Mossad, blah blah blah.
The big problem with all of these is there’s… not really any evidence to prefer one over another. People die in prisons all the time. Some of them are even suicides.
I have no doubt that if you want someone in prison dead, it’s pretty much just a matter of money and time. And Epstein had no shortage of people with plenty of both who might have preferred him unalive.
Now there’s one last thing we need to discuss before moving on: What if *hits blunt* Epstein merely faked his death?
And, ok, I think that’s technically a possibility. It’s difficult. But all you really need is enough money to bribe people to do it or the clout to do the same.
Most of the “evidence” for this is pretty low-quality image comparisons of the body & Epstein while he was alive. And, hell, maybe it’s true.
But it’s the hardest logistically and requires the most moving pieces. It’s true that the absence of evidence here is not evidence of absence. After all, if Epstein is still alive there’d be no reason for him to look the same or even be anywhere near people or cameras ever again.
Ultimately, IMO, the damning thing about all of these is that all they really have is insinuation. There’s no proof and probably never will be, even if one is correct.
So where does that leave you? Why believe in any of them?
For me, the answer is, “No point in believing in any of them.”
For those attached to some conclusion already, of course, the math is different.
Interlude: How Not To Talk About Epstein
The one thing everyone we’ve discussed so far has in common is using Jeffery Epstein as what Marx might have thought of as a commodity fetish: A product abstracted away from the systems that produced it and imbued with mysterious power.
The Qanon digital soldier holds up Epstein as if his existence proves every other claim they make.
But we must resist this temptation.
Just as with Marx’s commodities, we must return a full view of the social relationships of Epstein’s crimes to see them clearly. OK, enough bullshit: I’m talking about Epstein’s victims.
You know, the people he did crimes against.
Content warning here, of course, in case it wasn’t obvious.
It’s unlikely we’ll ever know anywhere near all Epstein’s victims. Of the ones we do know, the pattern is pretty clear: meeting teenagers and then bribing/pushing them to do things, maybe then bribing them to procure others for him. Lots of promises of access to high society and the good life or taking it away.
And for some, he did come through on that. That doesn’t make it any better.
Courtney Wild, Michelle Licata, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Jena-Lisa Jones, Sarah Ransome, Maria Farmer, Annie Farmer, and Jennifer Araoz were some of the first to come forward. Dozens have since.
Each of them had their own reasons and life and plans and Epstein threw a wrench in all of that. Having read much of their testimony in the civil suits before Epstein’s arrest, it’s all pretty heartbreaking shit.
But I do think you should read it if you can.
For one thing, it sounds nothing like what anyone who hasn’t taken the time to listen portrayed it as.
For another, it gets across the… permanence of Epstein’s crimes. And that’s way the hell more important than his role in yet another blackmail ring.
I didn’t intend to make some kind of statement about this, but the more I’ve read the more clear it is how often the women who survived Epstein are cut out of the story.
You can read a bit here.
If folks want, I can take the time to do a thorough collection of victim stories. Understand that includes thousands of pages of court documents. It’s kind of its own thing. I’ll do it. It’s worthwhile.
But you gotta ask, lol.
Calling For A Recess
Alright, it’s almost 9:45 pm, and while I got a lot more cleaning done than I planned, I started late and it’s almost 10 pm and holy shit I keep opening more tabs to nail down everything on the timeline.
I’m up to 70 tabs and I keep opening more.
So I think it’s safe to say I’m not finishing this tonight. But, hell, this is still a solid bit of content so let’s just call it a whole newsletter rather than ending up with a 4,000-word monster.
This would be a LOT easier if journalists gave dates for everything, but they’re all very vague about that shit so I have to comb through article after article just to nail down exactly when something happened.
*twitch* *twitch*
But enough of that.
I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.
-SF
P.S. All typos provided as a courtesy free of charge.