The Epstein Timeline
Exploring Justice in an Unjust and Uncaring Environment
So it’s been quite a while since I said that I would chat Epstein, and that’s because I was working through an idea that I’m releasing today: I made a timeline project for crowd sourcing and tracking information related to Jeffrey Epstein, available here. I encourage you to give that website a crawl if you have a moment: it’s a reverse chronological list of major events related to public figures involved with the Epstein scandal. To be clear, it is not remotely complete (with genuinely weeks worth of work, it’s maybe 2% of even the important stuff, the sheer amount of content surrounding this guy is insane), and if you want to contribute, it’s open for contributions! (I would encourage having a peek there.) But this all is a separate initiative from this newsletter; an initiative meant to be objective and not subjective.
So let me then give my opinions here, after a few months of trudging through the muck and unfortunately probably becoming one of the world’s most prolific readers of Epstein-related documentation: let me editorialize my findings to you in this piece, and why it’s so important that we make the Epstein scandal another Watergate moment.
Jeffrey Epstein was a former money manager, a felon convicted of “procuring a child for prostitution” and “sex trafficking” who, at the time of his death, was in federal jail again facing new charges in New York for “sex trafficking of minors” and “conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors.” He sticks around in discourse both because of his social status and because of how well-connected he was, keeping personal correspondence with such recognizable figures as Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, (former) Prince Andrew, and Noam Chomsky. The overwhelming question around Epstein has been in whether these figures knew about his illegal dealings, and even more importantly, whether they engaged with him in them. Evidence for some (e.g. Trump and Andrew) indicates that it seems very likely to be both.
This series of events has enraptured many on the Internet, but has seemingly failed to persistently penetrate mainstream media unlike other, similar governmental moral failings. And this is despite reeking of cover-up after misinformation after incompetence spawning conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory. Public outrage over this is almost certainly because of a lack of perceived or real consequences for potential offenders over a severe moral failing. As I said in my last piece, state actors in America have notoriously historically not been punished appropriately for their actions.
Much of the world is acting like the Epstein files are at least mostly accurate:
Melinda French Gates cited her ex-husband Bill Gates’ personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein as a contributing factor in their divorce.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (formerly the United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew) was stripped of his titles and royal privileges.
Lord Mandelson, former U.K. ambassador to the U.S., resigned from his position in the Labour party.
Miroslav Lajčák, former President of the U.N. General Assembly and until a few days ago Slovakia’s Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor, resigned from his position.
And yet… the U.S. seems to be struggling yet again to punish state actors. What effort does exist seems to be extremely partisan, e.g. holding votes for contempt of Congress for the Clintons but not for Pam Bondi, who also failed to show for proceedings. The Department of Justice did not adhere to the letter of the law (bipartisan and signed by Trump) and yet the Department of Justice so far has seemed to evade any sort of justice, to say little of President Trump.
To say more of President Trump, he most certainly is not “cleared of any wrongdoing” by the Epstein files and if anything, he’s one of the most implicated. But frankly, it should not take the Epstein case for him to never get out of testifying on the stand for the rest of his life. And this man wants to “nationalize” the elections. I don’t want to talk of him. I want to speak of the many, many victims.
At far too many points were tips and leads completely ignored. Even if few of the claims surrounding President Trump are true, what the Epstein files reveals is a disturbing lack of follow-through on the part of the FBI. Even tips not involving Trump seem infuriatingly ignored and repressed… much like exactly how Epstein’s victims have continued to be treated the entire time. American apathy failed these women and children again and again.
And for their part, I cannot imagine having years of my life stolen from me, trapped in a cycle of abuse, only for the abuser to never meet any real justice, then to find out that many of these abuses were known before my abuse and never properly investigated, and then on top of all of that, only have my opinions be considered when it is politically relevant. Those that have spoken up and continue to speak out are people truly worthy of respect. At every level: city, state, federal, America owes these people an earnest and honest apology. And yet that apology will probably never come, because a true apology requires one to do better.
Consider what that means for a second: America needs to care. Not about political retribution, which is annoyingly the direction that the majority of the House Oversight Committee seems to be currently leveraging towards the Clintons. Or on the flip side, that the Democrats seem to want to use as momentum to oust a poorly-qualified and poorly-performing Pam Bondi. Despite this being the seeming moral Titanic of America, I fear that the one-two combo of years of delays (seemingly intentional on the part of Republicans and apathetic on the part of Democrats) and desire for political retribution will mean that the political capital needed to achieve meaningful justice for the victims will be wasted.
America needs to learn a lesson from the victims the hard way and it simply refuses to. An actual apology requires acknowledgement, understanding, and change. And we’re already moving onto the next thing, fear about the independence of the midterm elections and already seemingly moved on from the last thing of the ICE killings in Minneapolis. I submit to you that America needs to dwell upon the Epstein matters for a long time for there to even be the possibility of meaningful change, and that this administration is the #1 cause of why America won’t take the time to dwell. Individuals will learn lessons for sure, but I’m talking about institutional change.
For those of us on the ground, we can’t deliver justice. That would normally be the role of the legal system, which is slow at the best of times and glacial here. And in many cases, there’s little justice even left to be delivered. Epstein is dead, Maxwell is getting preferential treatment, some people are missing, and some are unlikely to ever see prosecution. So what is left? I believe that the strongest way that we can help the victims of such horrific crimes is to cheer them on from the sidelines and support them however they need it. Though there’s much to protest right now, obviously, yes, protests, but maybe more important is helping people keep perspective on what the endgame is for the victims: restorative justice. Making sure that this isn’t happening now and can’t happen again. Until we prove to Epstein’s victims that we live in a better country than the one that didn’t protect them, their fight isn’t over, and ours can’t be.