July 18, 2025
Partisan politics is making a travesty of justice.
The contours of the continuing Jeffrey Epstein scandal are outlined by two suicides: one well-known, and one comparatively obscure—however the true ethical coronary heart of the controversy. Epstein’s obvious suicide in jail in 2019 is course a serious purpose his scandalous life continues to be the topic of sizzling political debate. Given all of the mysterious particulars that encompass this occasion (the falsified records, the altered video tapes purporting to point out that nobody entered his cell, and the disputed autopsy results), many individuals fairly refuse to just accept the official verdict, not too long ago reaffirmed by Donald Trump’s administration, that Epstein killed himself.
However Epstein’s loss of life is in the end a forensic matter, one in every of settling the factual query of homicide or suicide. Far more morally troubling was an occasion that obtained far much less press consideration: the suicide earlier this year of Virginia Giuffre at age 41. In 2000, when she was 17 years previous and dealing as spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago (Donald Trump’s resort), Giuffre was recruited and groomed by Ghislaine Maxwell to be a part of Epstein’s sexual entourage. Epstein and Maxwell recruited not simply Giuffre however numerous different kids and younger teenagers. Giuffre was a central determine within the felony case towards Epstein in 2008 (which ended with a sweetheart non-prosecution settlement), the 2009 victims’ go well with that stored the case alive, and the second felony case towards Epstein in 2019. Giuffre additionally accused Prince Andrew of the UK of abusing her, which ended within the prince paying a settlement, though Andrew continues to disclaim the costs.
As Giuffre typically insisted, her story was removed from distinctive. One Justice Division memo estimates that there have been more than a thousand victims.
Though Giuffre was exceptionally courageous in standing as much as Epstein and different males who assaulted her, the trauma she skilled unquestionably blighted her in ways in which defy comprehension. Her suicide is itself a testomony to why the Epstein case mattered. Giuffre’s story is soul-crushing—and it occurred a whole lot of instances in numerous methods to different women.
One putting facet of the Epstein case is that crucial individuals—victims reminiscent of Giuffre—are probably the most rapidly forgotten. Even because the case now dominates political discourse, the main target has been not on the crimes dedicated however the way more trivial matter of the partisan political fallout and the varied methods politicians are adopting to use the controversy.
If the Epstein case has turn out to be a ghastly circus, a lot of the blame belongs to that the majority sinister of ringmasters, Donald Trump. Due to his long-standing ties to Epstein, courting again to the Nineteen Eighties, Trump himself was generally cautious concerning the case—though he did speculate in 2019 that Epstein’s loss of life was not a suicide. Trump’s private closeness to Epstein is a authentic topic for investigation. On Thursday, The Wall Avenue Journal reported that in 2003 Trump despatched Epstein a “bawdy” letter as a part of a fiftieth birthday celebration. In that letter Trump mirrored, “We have now sure issues in frequent, Jeffrey.”
Present Concern
However Trump rode to political energy as an avatar of anti-system anger, which meant elevating conspiratorial suspicions that have been wholly absurd (QAnon and Pizzagate) in addition to these with extra grounding in actuality (the peerlessly correct perception that the CIA has not been forthright about what it is aware of relating to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and the various unresolved questions concerning the Epstein case). Definitely, many main figures in Trump’s circle—starting from Vice President JD Vance to Legal professional Common Pam Bondi to FBI Director Kash Patel—have been more than willing to air the extra lurid Epstein conspiracy theories.
Now that the Trump White Home needs to maneuver on from the Epstein scandal and declare it a closed case, the president is discovering he’s dealing with an intense backlash from his personal base. This is perhaps seen as a type of poetic justice: Dr. Frankenstein being attacked by the very monster he created. On Reality Social on Wednesday, Trump even explicitly lambasted his supporters, writing, “Their new SCAM is what we’ll endlessly name the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have purchased into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker.”
But when Trump deserves the backlash for his cynical conspiracy mongering, elite Democrats additionally deserve criticism for not taking the Epstein matter critically till they noticed political benefit in it. The long-standing line of the Democratic Social gathering management has been the identical as Trump’s present place: There may be nothing to see right here, people, so transfer alongside. In 2019, the DNC attacked Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway for defending “Trump retweeting baseless conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein’s loss of life.” On Thursday, former Home majority chief Nancy Pelosi described the Epstein case as a “distraction” from the intense debate about Trump’s price range.
Responding to Pelosi’s feedback, former Barack Obama adviser Tommy Vietor tweeted, “The Epstein information debacle is NOT a distraction. It strikes on the coronary heart of Trump’s attraction, which is that he operates outdoors of a system that MAGA needs to burn down. He’s their hero with gasoline and a torch. If Trump seems like he’s protecting up for the elites, he’s screwed.” It’s onerous to not imagine that Pelosi’s weird remark was motivated by the truth that some high Democrats, together with former president Invoice Clinton, belonged to Epstein’s social circle. As Pelosi’s personal daughter Christine Pelosi wrote in 2019, “a few of our faves are implicated.”
With polling displaying Trump dealing with a public backlash from even his personal supporters on his dealing with of the Epstein case, Democrats have gotten extra vocal on the problem. However right here once more, we see a cynical angle at play. On Wednesday, Politico reported:
Interviews with a dozen Democratic elected officers, strategists and aides solid the controversy as useful not solely in dividing Trump’s base but in addition illustrating the president’s flip-flopping tendencies, even on his core marketing campaign points…. However the opening could also be short-lived. Democratic strategists stated they don’t count on Epstein-related conspiracies to point out up of their TV adverts or dominate the celebration’s midterm messaging, with the GOP megabill more likely to take heart stage.
It’s onerous to not be sickened by the concept that the Epstein case ought to solely be used as fodder for short-lived polling achieve. As soon as once more, the victims have been sidelined from the story.
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One one who has by no means forgotten the victims is Miami Herald journalist Julie Okay. Brown, whose 2019 reporting on the unique felony case reopened the scandal and led to Epstein’s arrest. In her reporting, Brown highlighted the voices of victims reminiscent of Virginia Giuffre.
On Wednesday’s The Lever’s podcast, Brown spoke eloquently of the human injury Epstein and his cronies did—in addition to the various unresolved questions surrounding the case. Brown stated, “They’re completely hiding one thing. What they’re hiding? We don’t know.”
Other than the questions revolving round Epstein’s loss of life, there may be the nonetheless unresolved matter of his wealth. How did a school dropout who taught at a non-public faculty turn out to be so rich and collect round himself a community of the richest males on the earth? As Brown notes, “There’s in all probability much more that we don’t learn about Jeffrey Epstein and what he was doing, particularly when it issues his cash.… Journalism 101 is observe the cash and it also needs to be Prosecutorial 101.”
Fortuitously, not each political determine has handled the Epstein case cynically. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has been pushing precisely the type of investigation into Epstein’s funds that Brown requires.
On Thursday, The New York Occasions reported that Wyden
has been digging into Mr. Epstein’s monetary community for the previous three years. Some members of his workers have considered confidential information that make clear the immense sums of cash that, they are saying, Mr. Epstein moved by means of the banking system to gas his huge sex-trafficking community.
Specifically, filings by 4 massive banks flagged greater than $1.5 billion in transactions—together with 1000’s of wire transfers for the acquisition and sale of art work for wealthy associates, charges paid to Mr. Epstein by rich people, and funds to quite a few ladies, the senator’s workplace discovered. The filings got here after Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal intercourse trafficking fees.
On Tuesday, California Consultant Ted Lieu told reporters, “That is the case of the highly effective defending the highly effective.” This will get to the guts of the political controversy. Past partisan wrangling, the Epstein case is about whether or not the ultra-wealthy take pleasure in absolute impunity or whether or not they are often held accountable by the legislation.
Virginia Giuffre in her quick life by no means obtained the justice she deserved. The one method to honor her reminiscence is to push for accountability and transparency within the Epstein case.
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