What Do the Epstein Documents Really Expose?

It’s easy to be distracted by the news of previously sealed lawsuit documents being released to the public involving the late and notorious Jeffrey Epstein.

Over a period of several days, documents relating to alleged victim, Virginia Guiffre’s lawsuit against Epstein paramour and now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell have been unsealed. Convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 20 years in prison, Maxwell continues to assert her innocence and is appealing her conviction.

The media headlines about the court documents are gossipy, salacious, and so far not surprising. It certainly has not been “a list of Epstein clients,” a description that many in the media shouted in their headlines. Instead, it was a collection of well-known names, throughout multiple depositions and documents, of people who were overheard being mentioned in some fashion by Epstein, or were observed at a dinner, used a plane, attended a meeting, or visited a residence.

Some, including actors Cate Blanchett, Leo DiCaprio, Bruce Willis, and Cameron Diaz, were noted in the context of their names being mentioned by Epstein during a phone call. Neither victim met them, nor are any of the individuals accused of wrongdoing. Epstein relied on networking, name-dropping, and manipulation. He used his influence in international business, money management, and his at least $500 million dollar fortune to create his own personal depraved galaxy. He was the sun around which many revolved. This is the story—that Epstein and this rarified world are part of the supposed class of experts, geniuses, leaders, and visionaries was not an outlier but an example of an informal club upon which our society relies.

The Epstein and Maxwell debacle is also as old as time: Who do we become when we can do whatever we want?

Fortunately for the majority, we’re decent people who have a set of values informing our choices and behavior. Yet, our problem as a society and as a country is we have a genuinely two-tiered system in our country where some people revel in not being held to account at all while others bear the brunt of a justice system that is increasingly weaponized against regular Americans.

The rich and powerful getting away with horrible deeds isn’t a new story. But as we live in an age where information can be shared quickly and widely, the club has adapted and continues to do its best to protect its own. Sometimes, they trip and fall—like with Epstein and Maxwell—and the previously protected have to be thrown into the volcano (or hang themselves in jail).

The Kennedy family provides a litany of getting away with almost anything, with an example from 1969 provided by U.S. Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy. Kennedy drove off a bridge, crashing into a tidal pond with Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old who had worked on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign. He escaped with his life, left the scene, and only called the police the next morning, who were then tasked with recovering Kopechne’s body from the submerged car. There were no criminal consequences, and Kennedy would serve in the Senate for 30 more years.

In 2017, as journalist Ronan Farrow was drilling down into the Harvey Weinstein sex trafficking/rapist allegations, there were efforts to stop him at almost every turn. Farrow recounts in his book on the matter that one effort was allegedly made by an aide to Hillary Clinton who attempted to pressure him into dropping his investigation. Weinstein was not just a film producer and now-convicted rapist, he also was a major Democratic donor with deep ties to Hillary Clinton and the Obamas. And then, of course, there is the Hunter Biden protection racket. We still do not know the extent to which our government was involved, but only after unrelenting investigative reporting from outlets like the New York Post did we uncover a massive effort to cover up and protect Hunter Biden.

Just this week, the Daily Mail and multiple other outlets reported that a prosecutor on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team, who is going after Donald Trump, had recommended in 2016 that the FBI stop investigations into the Clinton Foundation.

And speaking of the forever-protected Clintons, part of the newly released Epstein court documents include an allegation from Guiffre about Bill Clinton that is raising eyebrows. “A victim of Jeffrey Epstein once claimed that former President Bill Clinton tried to dissuade Vanity Fair from writing ‘sex-trafficking’ articles about the perverted financier, according to an email contained in a cache of newly released court documents,” according to the Daily Beast. Additional reports indicate staffers from Vanity Fair deny the allegation.

This entire sordid episode, and so many others, has pulled back the curtain on the extent of this establishment protection racket, and Americans don’t like it. When justice is thwarted to protect the anointed and powerful, the other side of that coin easily turns into a weapon to destroy those who do not pay allegiance.

For Maxwell to be convicted of sex trafficking, there had to be clients to whom the victims were trafficked. Epstein and Maxwell are the latest examples of how the protection racket can be overcome. And while the newly unsealed court documents remind us of the nature of the sordid lives and attitudes of our supposed betters, genuinely equal justice under the law is the least we deserve.