We are thinking still about Jeffrey Epstein. I first wrote of him in these pages days after his death on Aug. 10, 2019. Why does his story have such a hold on America’s consciousness?
To state the obvious, it is a moral horror show. From the federal indictment released on his arrest on sex-trafficking charges on July 6, 2019: “Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of underage girls by enticing them to engage in sex acts with him in exchange for money.” They “were as young as 14 when he abused them and were, for various reasons, often particularly vulnerable to exploitation.” Some “expressly told him they were underage.”
There is the conspiracy aspect: His background was known by the most powerful people in America, many of whom seemed to protect him with their presence.
There are the mysteries, only one of which is how he died. He was on suicide watch in a special cell, a high-value prisoner, internationally famous. But the guards somehow weren’t watching, the cameras not functioning. His death occurred in the middle of the night on a high-summer weekend, with Manhattan a ghost town. Meaning, essentially, that no one who was experienced and accomplished was on duty anywhere—on the news desks, at the jail. Exactly when a professional killer might kill someone. A suicide is usually a person in emotional extremis. A professional would game it all out.
It is a mystery why President Trump changed course and tried to thwart disclosure of information. Is it that his name was all over the files? But people would expect that, he was longtime friends with Epstein, everyone’s seen the pictures. His own reputation with women has always been gutterish. A scandal is when people are surprised. Is he afraid of the press, of the Democrats? Since when, that’s all factored in. An occasional aide to the president told me with no humor in his voice that Mr. Trump fears releasing all documents might reveal judicial proceedings such as grand-jury testimony, and Mr. Trump doesn’t want to appear to be usurping the judiciary. Oh please, I said, he has zero history of fearing to usurp judicial authority.
Mr. Trump doesn’t normally fear being bold—tariffs on everyone! Why no boldness here? I am making these files public, and doing it against my own interests, knowing my enemies will use it against me. But the truth matters more! Then go to Uzbekistan and solve a war. That’s a Trump move, not this stupid dragging stuff he’s done.
But I think the story stays for a deeper reason, something that pings on the national conscience—something barely articulable that’s just there, like a cloud we all operate in.
What the Epstein story is really about is unloved girls. It’s about the children in this country who aren’t taken care of, who are left to the mercy of the world. It’s about teenagers who come from a place where no one cared enough, was capable enough, was responsible and watched out for them. That’s how most of those girls wound up in a room with Jeffrey Epstein.
Here is what sexual abusers of children know: Nobody has this kid’s back. Mom’s distracted or does drugs, dad isn’t on the scene or doesn’t care. The kids are on their own. Predators can smell this, the undefended nature of their prey.
It’s what the Epstein indictment meant when it called the children “particularly vulnerable.”
It’s what Virginia Giuffre reports in her posthumously published memoir, “Nobody’s Girl.” She says she was sexually abused by her father starting at age 7, that she was later molested by a friend of her parents. She was a runaway at 14, lived on the streets and with foster families. You know who she says drove her to her first appointment with Epstein? Her father. (Giuffre’s collaborator reports in the memoir that Giuffre’s father “strenuously” denied her claims.)
You could see this kind of pain in the tears of Epstein’s victims on Tuesday morning on Capitol Hill, as they held up pictures of themselves at 15 and 16—how they looked when they were caught in Epstein’s net.
By coincidence the New York Times recently reported on newly released court documents containing new information about the girl involved in allegations against former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. Reporter Michael Schmidt’s lead: “She was 17 and a high school junior in Florida. She was working at McDonald’s. And she was living in and out of a homeless shelter.” Hoping to buy braces to fix her teeth, she went on a “companionship” website, lied about her age, and, it is alleged, in time met up with Mr. Gaetz at a party. The House Ethics Committee determined there was substantial evidence Mr. Gaetz had sex with the girl. He denies it, and denied it again to the Times. He went on to be chosen by Mr. Trump to be attorney general, and dropped out of Congress in the furor that ensued. The girl dropped out of high school and moved.
Regular, beat-up people know all this in the particular, the wealthy and successful only in the abstract. Even the worst of the latter who don’t have it in them to be good parents have the resources to erect protections around their children—therapists, counselors, nannies, trainers of all sorts. But those without resources give their children no structures or protections.
You know who they rely on to protect their kids, in a funny way? “The people who run things.” Schools, the businesspeople, “the establishment” that sees to society’s order. But in the past few decades those people have become embarrassed by the idea of moral authority, or that they should wield it. They no longer respect their own authority. Nobody wants to be the old guy saying, “What’s going on in that house with the teenage girls going in and out?” Nobody wants to be a Karen. Nobody wants to be unsophisticated, or a prude. So everybody looked away. They were busy, distracted, packing for a trip on Epstein’s plane.
The part of the story about the celebrities is that they weren’t just celebrities. They were the most powerful and successful people in America. And they maintained their friendship and association with him after June 30, 2008, when he first pleaded guilty, in Florida, to charges of solicitation of minors for prostitution. Before that date he was “millionaire playboy Jeffrey Epstein.” After that date he was a criminal who preyed on children.
You couldn’t know him, because if you are one of the most successful people in America it is your job to shun those who behave criminally against its children, not to add to his power: “There’s Bill Gates,” “That’s Bill Clinton.” “Jeffrey knows all the big people, there’s no escaping him.”
Part of what’s driving this story isn’t “conspiracism” or “mystery,” it’s a feeling of betrayal. “America gave you everything and you can’t even imitate standards that might protect our kids?”
The Epstein story was another failure of the 21st-century elite. It wasn’t Iraq or the 2008 economic crash or open borders, but it was of a piece, and it packs a cultural wallop we’ll continue to feel for years.