Why You (Yes, You) Should Care About the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal
The practical, liberal, and ethical cases for not letting this story wither on the vine of short attention spans.
I see you, putatively progressive reader of Both/And with Jay Michaelson, rolling your eyes at yet another mention of Jeffrey Epstein. I know what you’re thinking: there are more important things than this scandal. ICE is kidnapping Latinos and Asians off the streets regardless of their immigration (or in some cases, citizenship) status. Gaza is starving. The Trump administration is defying the rule of law, and has just appointed a corrupt personal lawyer to a lifetime federal judgeship.
But you should care about the Epstein files too. After a short recap of the scandal, I’ll go through three reasons why.
1. A Very Short Recap of a Very Gross Scandal
Jeffrey Epstein (1953-2019) made his money and reputation as a shady financier, first working at Bear Stearns but later as a self-described “bounty hunter” recovering embezzled funds for ultra-wealthy people (while also apparently helping others do the embezzling), then as a corporate raider involved in a massive Ponzi scheme, and then as a financial manager for high-net-worth individuals, including billionaire Leslie Wexner. Meanwhile, it appears, Epstein was also working for US intelligence services. He was a rich, highly connected member of America’s cultural elite. He socialized with everyone from Bill Clinton to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Richard Branson to Lawrence Summers, Prince Andrew to Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen to Ehud Barak — and, as evidenced in several photos, Donald Trump.
Epstein was also a pedophile and a convicted sex offender. With his sidekick Ghislane Maxwell, he trafficked teenage girls for sex over a period of many years. He was first investigated in 2005, after parents of a 14-year-old girl said he paid her to give him a massage and sexually assaulted her. Eventually, federal officials identified 36 girls, ranging in age from 14 to 18, who he had allegedly sexually abused and in some cases even raped. Yet astonishingly, in 2008, Epstein got a sweetheart plea deal from the feds, pleading guilty to state prostitution charges but getting a “non-prosecution agreement” (NPA) from the federal government, which was kept secret from Epstein’s victims. He served less than 13 months in jail, most of it in a cozy low-security facility with twelve hours of supervised release every day.
To be clear, most of the people who knew or met Epstein are not implicated in his conduct, though some have had their own sex scandals. But who did know? Were any of his famous friends also co-offenders? We may never know the answers to these questions, but over the next ten years, the scandal only grew. Numerous civil lawsuits were filed and settled. The NPA deal was exposed by the Miami Herald in 2018, leading to the resignation of Trump Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, who as U.S. Attorney had cut that deal. In the wake of mounting evidence, Epstein was arrested again in July, 2019, but on August 10, he died in a New York jail, his death ruled a suicide.
For fifteen years, Trump and his minions — including people now working for the regime, like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino — have insisted that there had been a massive cover-up of Epstein’s life, his crimes, and his death. Endlessly, obsessively, and usually baselessly, they blared on podcasts, Fox News and Newsmax, and everywhere else they could get a microphone that the convicted sex offender had a “client list” that included the most powerful members of our society. They said that Epstein didn’t die by suicide but was executed by someone in this vast conspiracy. There were, Trump’s base was told, Epstein Files” which made all of this clear.
But in the middle of this year: Poof! All gone! Suddenly, say Trump and his loyalists, there are no Epstein files, or if there are, Trump’s name isn’t in it (even though Pam Bondi told him that it was), or even if Trump’s name is in it, he couldn’t possibly be a pedophile because that’s just not his character (despite numerous vulgar comments about adolescent girls and a conviction for sexual assault). After fanning the conspiratorial flames for nearly two decades, Trump now suddenly says there’s nothing to see here, let’s all move on. Here’s John Oliver on the patent absurdity of this:
I want to come clean here: as someone who regularly studies conspiracy theories and is extremely skeptical of them, I might believe in some version of this one. Epstein abuses for years, in what amounts to a kind of open secret, and then less than one month after he is finally arrested for real, one day after 2,000 pages of previously sealed documents are released, he dies alone in a jail cell, complete with mysteriously malfunctioning cameras and prison guards who falsified records? Meanwhile, it appears to be true that Epstein’s homes in New York, Palm Beach, and on a private island were all filled with video cameras that recorded his guests, whether for Epstein’s personal enjoyment or for blackmail. I don’t know what I believe, but I can’t say that I don’t believe this stuff is weird.
But the last few months have been the weirdest of all, as Trump has pivoted from demanding the “Epstein Files” be released (presumably to the detriment of the Clintons and the rest of the ‘Deep State’) to insisting that they don’t even exist and acting like a caricature of someone very, very guilty.
First, the Trump administration released a supposedly unedited video footage from the jail where Epstein died – only then it came out that the tape was missing two minutes and fifty three seconds and showed signs of being edited. Just last week, DOJ officials met with Maxwell, who left the meeting with a mysterious box whose contents we do not know, and who was promptly transferred to a minimum-security prison nicknamed “Club Fed.” All the while, Donald Trump continues to transparently lie about his past friendship with Epstein, while insisting there’s nothing to see here and we should all move on.
At the very least, this is the dumbest, clumsiest cover-up in recent memory.
2. We Should Care About What Voters Care About
Here’s why we should care about all this.
First, unlike most of Trump’s tricks, this one hasn’t worked. Trump’s own base is furious, and divided. Yes, some of those who only six months ago were shouting about massive conspiracies – Charlie Kirk, Glenn Beck –now say there’s nothing to see here. But a lot of MAGA hasn’t. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, Roseanne Barr, and Mike Flynn publicly broken with Trump over the matter. Even the QAnon Shaman, Jacob Angeli-Chansley, has thrown Trump under the bus, despite being pardoned by him:
This should matter to anyone focused on resisting the Trump administration’s countless assaults on our country. If, like me, you believe this administration to be a profound threat to the American democratic order, then your top priority should be resisting it. And that means using whatever tools are effective, not just the ones that make us feel good. And that means keeping this story alive, because it might actually swing the congressional election next year (if it takes place in a winnable way) and limit Trump’s omnipotence over his political party.
Admittedly, this may not be fun. For many people, it’s more fulfilling to march in the streets about issues that affect millions of people. For others, it feels more fulfilling to talk with friends and neighbors, or post on social media, or show up at a town hall – all of which can be impactful. And for others still, it may be more fulfilling and impactful to give up on this broken system and try to bring about more radical change. Also fine, though as John Lennon sang in 1968, we’d all love to see the plan. Let a thousand flowers bloom, when it comes to resisting authoritarianism; we all have roles to play.
But the Epstein Files issue might actually do the job. The more congressional Republicans aid in this cover-up, the more they are vulnerable. And Trump himself is vulnerable, probably not to impeachment (and certainly not to investigation, since his “Department of Justice” is the least independent and honest in American history) but to plummeting approval ratings and loss of influence over his base and his party. Because as you probably know, Trump’s own base is furious about his about-face, and about the obvious cover-up taking place right in front of our eyes.
Now, I would like to live in a world in which Trump’s base was more concerned about, I don’t know, tax breaks for billionaires, the shredding of our nation’s scientific establishment, and masked goons on the street. But we don’t live in that world. And haven’t we learned from the 2024 election that Democrats need to talk about what voters care about, not what you and I care about? Kamala Harris faced perhaps insurmountable headwinds in her campaign, but it certainly didn’t help that she talked about democratic values when millions of Americans were having trouble putting food on the table, or that she preached joy when Americans were feeling anger and despair.
Honestly, this is how democracy is supposed to work, isn’t it? Politicians should lead, and also they should be responsive to what voters care about. Moreover, I don’t think it’s wrong for Americans to care that Donald Trump lied to them, even if I think there are more consequential lies than this one. Which brings me to my next point.
3. What if the Trust Dominoes Fall?
Two things have been transparently obvious to anyone not in the MAGA cult: first, that Donald Trump is a con man; and second, that because he speaks so effectively to the emotional grievances of his most ardent admirers, they are completely duped.
Until they aren’t.
For many of Trump’s voters, the trust dominoes have already begun to fall. The swing voters that won him the election were primarily motivated by economic concerns, and polling suggests they are pissed off as those concerns have not been addressed. But those voters were really just transactional voters anyway; they weren’t Trumpers through and through, they just voted for the guy they thought might help.
MAGA is a different story. This is the 20-30% of the American population that really believes all the fake crises that MAGA is built upon: immigrant crime, liberal hatred of America, radical “gender ideology”, DEI, Woke, the whole white-bread enchilada of right-wing nationalism (and, though they howl in protest, racism).
These beliefs aren’t intellectual propositions: they are affective ones, even spiritual ones. America has changed, that is true. It is more multicultural, the economic rules have changed, and social beliefs are changing too. The literally messianic belief that much of MAGA has in Trump is religious in nature. And if the messiah turns out to be a liar and a pedophile, the disillusionment could be profound.
What if — and I admit, this is some uncharacteristically optimistic speculation — these cracks in the MAGA foundation widen? What if Trump’s followers begin to doubt more and more ingredients of the nationalist enchilada? Might they also doubt that Haitian immigrants are eating dogs and cats, that trans women are really male sexual predators, and that immigrants are criminals destroying America, rather than hard-working people who came here in search of a better life and who are trapped in a broken immigration system. What if, once (some) MAGA voters see who Donald Trump is, they might start to doubt everything he says, including all of these lies?
What if, most optimistically, they see that they’ve been taken in, that their fears of a changing America have been weaponized by a demagogue? What if the spell could actually be broken?
I admit, I’m waxing a bit here. But I think it’s not impossible. This is a massive breach of trust on Trump’s part, and we need to keep it in the news, in our conversations, and in the public eye.
4. Let’s Remember the Victims
Finally, stepping back from all the politics for a moment, let’s remember what this scandal is fundamentally about: rich, powerful men sexually abusing teenage girls and using their power to insulate themselves from accountability. And in a moment of backlash against MeToo, this is a moment which could unite progressives and conservatives in believing the women who bravely come forward to share their stories. In fact, let’s listen to some of them right now, in statements given under oath at the August 27, 2019 court hearing shortly after Epstein’s death, at which the charges against him were dismissed:
Courtney Wild: “Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused me for years, robbing me of my innocence and mental health. Jeffrey Epstein has done nothing but manipulate our justice system, where he has never been held accountable for his actions, even to this day."
Jane Doe #4: “I met Jeffrey Epstein at a very vulnerable place in my life, and whatever the outcome is with everything, I just wanted to express that we, the victims, we will always carry irreparable damage and pain throughout our lives after this. It's something that's never going to go away. You know, whoever we marry in our life, whatever future we have in our life, it's always going to be something that's always there for us. And I'm very nervous right now. And Jeffrey Epstein, he took away the chance I had at having the future I had envisioned for myself as a young girl, and I think many of us here today will never fully heal from that pain and the heartache that we'll continue carrying with us. So I just wanted to say that. It's something that, it’s irreparable.”
Chauntae Davies (2019): “I began my massage, trying not to let him smell my fear and obvious discomfort, but before I knew what was happening, he grabbed onto my wrist and tugged me towards the bed. I tried to pull away, but he was unbuttoning my shorts and pulling my body onto his already naked body faster than I could think. I was searching for words but all I could say was meek, ‘No, please stop,’ but that just seemed to excite him more. He continued to rape me, and when he was finished, he hopped off and went to the shower... I cried myself to sleep that night. I spent two weeks vomiting, almost to death, in a Los Angeles hospital after that first encounter.”
This isn’t some gossipy pulp story; this is a horrifying tale of a powerful man abusing vulnerable women and girls. Even apart from the political consequences, these are real people and real stories that progressives should not dismiss. We don’t get to choose our moments of public reckoning, and those moments are rarely ideal. But this one is here. Let’s not let it wither on the vine of short attention spans.
You should care about the Epstein scandal for political reasons, patriotic reasons, ethical reasons, and feminist reasons. There’s no need to apologize for it or hold your nose; for all these reasons and more, this is a real story that progressives should care about. I don’t know what Donald Trump is so feverishly trying to hide here. But I do know he desperately wants us to forget about it and move on.
Don’t let that happen.
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Some things I’ve been reading this week:
There’s a great, viral post about those endless spam texts being sent on behalf of Democratic candidates. Did you know they are a scam? Read this thorough investigation/debunking by Adam Bonica on the ‘Mothership’ consulting outfit that’s responsible for those annoying text messages, and how only 1.6% of the money they get goes to candidates.
Meanwhile, Daniel W. Drezner did a great, depressing summary of Trump depredations
known and unknown. I find these things very helpful.
On Epstein, here’s a handy timeline from NPR, here’s survivor Sarah Ransome talking about the abuse she experienced, and here’s a useful BBC primer on what we know about the ‘Epstein Files.’
Finally, here’s yet another mind-blowing post by
on people believing their AI companions are sentient. If, like me, your first response is to dismiss those claims as ridiculous, read on. Just this flow chart has given me a lot to chew on:
Agree completely.