{"id":191917,"date":"2019-07-21T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=191917"},"modified":"2019-07-23T06:21:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T06:21:53","slug":"jeffrey-epstein-wall-street-pimp-and-maybe-blackmailer-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=191917","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Epstein: Wall Street Pimp and Maybe Blackmailer Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s Going to Be Staggering, the Amount of Names\u201d: As the Jeffrey Epstein Case Grows More Grotesque, Manhattan and DC Brace for Impact<\/h2>\n

Gabriel Sherman — Vanity Fair July 17, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Jeffrey Epstein ran a blackmail operation for the Mossad. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The Jeffrey Epstein<\/strong> case is an asteroid poised to strike the elite world in which he moved. No one can yet say precisely how large it is. But as the number of women who\u2019ve accused the financier (at least, that\u2019s what he claimed to be) of sexual assault grows to grotesque levels\u2014there are said to be more than 50 women who are potential victims\u2014a wave of panic is rippling through Manhattan, DC, and Palm Beach, as Epstein\u2019s former friends and associates rush to distance themselves, while gossiping about who might be ensnared. Donald Trump<\/strong>\u2019s labor secretary, Alexander Acosta,<\/strong> architect of the original 2007 non-prosecution agreement that let Epstein off with a wrist slap, has already been forced to resign.<\/span><\/p>\n

The questions about Epstein are metastasizing much faster than they can be answered: Who knew what about Epstein\u2019s alleged abuse? How, and from whom, did Epstein get his supposed $500 million fortune? Why did Acosta grant Epstein an outrageously lenient non-prosecution agreement? (And what does it mean that Acosta was reportedly<\/a><\/strong><\/span> told Epstein \u201cbelonged to intelligence\u201d?) But among the most pressing queries is which other famous people might be exposed for committing sex crimes. \u201cThere were other business associates of Mr. Epstein\u2019s who engaged in improper sexual misconduct at one or more of his homes. We do know that,\u201d said Brad Edwards,<\/strong> a lawyer for Courtney Wild,<\/strong> one of the Epstein accusers who gave emotional testimony at Epstein\u2019s bail hearing. \u201cIn due time the names are going to start coming out.\u201d (Attorneys for Epstein did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Likely within days, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will release almost 2,000 pages of documents that could reveal sexual abuse by \u201cnumerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders,\u201d according to the three-judge panel’s ruling. The documents were filed during a civil defamation lawsuit brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre,<\/strong> a former Mar-a-Lago locker-room attendant, against Epstein\u2019s former girlfriend and alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.<\/strong> \u201cNobody who was around Epstein a lot is going to have an easy time now. It\u2019s all going to come out,\u201d said Giuffre\u2019s lawyer David Boies.<\/strong> Another person involved with litigation against Epstein told me: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be staggering, the amount of names. It\u2019s going to be contagion numbers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Epstein remained a fixture in elite circles even after he was a registered sex offender. A few years ago, for example, he was a guest at a dinner in Palo Alto hosted by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman<\/strong> for the MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden.<\/strong> At the dinner, Elon Musk<\/strong> introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg.<\/strong> (\u201cMark met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner honoring scientists that was not organized by Epstein,\u201d Zuckerberg spokesman Ben LaBolt<\/strong> told me. \u201cMark did not communicate with Epstein again following the dinner.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

In an email, Elon Musk responded: \u201cI don\u2019t recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don\u2019t know the guy well enough to do so, Epstein is obviously a creep and Zuckerberg is not a friend of mine. Several years ago, I was at his house in Manhattan for about 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon with Talulah [Riley]<\/strong>, as she was curious about meeting this strange person for a novel she was writing. We did not see anything inappropriate at all, apart from weird art. He tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined.\u201d A Musk spokesperson also emailed: \u201cElon never introduced Jeffrey Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg and does not know either person well enough to do so. They simply happened to be guests at a neuroscience dinner organized by Reid Hoffman.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One source who\u2019s done business with Epstein told me that Epstein\u2019s 21,000-square-foot townhouse on East 71st Street welcomed a steady stream of the Davos crowd in the past decade. The source said Bill Gates, Larry Summers,<\/strong> and Steve Bannon<\/strong> visited the house, which has been called one of the largest private residences in Manhattan. \u201cJeffrey collected people. That\u2019s what he did,\u201d the source said. Gates and Summers did not respond to requests for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus far, the name most publicly associated with Epstein\u2019s alleged crimes is famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz,<\/strong> who\u2019s been waging a public battle with David Boies for years. In April, Boies\u2019s client Giuffre sued Dershowitz for defamation after Dershowitz called her a liar (a strategy similar to that of seven of Bill Cosby<\/strong>\u2019s accusers<\/a><\/strong><\/span>). In the days since the FBI arrested Epstein at Teterboro Airport a week and a half ago, Dershowitz has been going on television and dialing up friends and reporters to profess his innocence and label Giuffre and Boies liars. \u201cI want everything to come out! I\u2019m not afraid of anything because I did nothing wrong,\u201d Dershowitz told me on the afternoon of July 15.<\/span><\/p>\n

He called me a minute after I had emailed him for comment. He said he\u2019d been friends with Epstein since 1996, when they were introduced at a party on Martha\u2019s Vineyard by Lynn Forester de Rothschild.<\/strong> \u201cShe begged me to meet him. She told me, \u2018here\u2019s this smart academic.\u2019\u201d A few days later, Epstein invited Dershowitz to Les Wexner<\/strong>\u2019s 59th birthday party at Wexner\u2019s mansion in New Albany, Ohio. \u201cIt\u2019s a tradition that Jeff invited the smartest person he met that year. He told them I was the smartest.\u201d They remained close for years. Dershowitz strenuously denied ever participating in Epstein\u2019s underage sex ring and said he\u2019d only been in Epstein\u2019s presence with his wife. \u201cI got one massage!\u201d he told me. \u201cIt was from a 50-year-old Russian woman named Olga. And I kept my shorts on. I didn\u2019t even like it. I\u2019m not a massage guy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dershowitz said he secretly (and legally) tape-recorded settlement conversations with Boies and that the phone calls capture Boies admitting that Giuffre\u2019s allegations aren\u2019t true. \u201cBoies is a bad person,\u201d he told me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI never said that,\u201d Boies responded when I asked about Dershowitz\u2019s version of the phone calls. \u201cWhat Alan does is he plays a second or two out of context; he never lets anybody listen to the whole thing.\u201d Boies also dismissed Dershowitz\u2019s claim that he never met Giuffre at Epstein\u2019s house. According to Boies, Epstein\u2019s former employees said in sworn depositions that they saw Dershowitz at the house multiple times without his wife. \u201cThis Olga woman doesn\u2019t exist. Epstein\u2019s barely kept women around who were over 25. It\u2019s a figment of Alan\u2019s imagination,\u201d Boies said.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Wall Street, Epstein is a subject of mystery\u2014and fear. \u201cI knew Jeff. He came across as very smart, very sophisticated,\u201d one hedge fund manager told me. \u201cHe always had a good read on people. But manipulative people are good at that.\u201d Another person who\u2019s been in meetings with Epstein told me: \u201cHe\u2019s very clever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

How Epstein obtained his fortune is a matter of feverish speculation. His claim to a billionaire-only client list now seems laughable to the bankers I spoke with. One Wall Street source with direct knowledge of Epstein\u2019s business said one source of Epstein\u2019s income was providing \u201ctax advice and estate planning\u201d to rich clients, like Apollo Global Management founder Leon Black<\/strong>, presumably because Epstein had experience with offshore funds after basing his office in the Virgin Islands. In 2015 Black made a $10 million donation<\/strong><\/span><\/a> to Epstein\u2019s foundation. (Black declined to comment.)<\/span><\/p>\n

In the absence of much other information, the reigning theory on Wall Street currently is that Epstein\u2019s activities with women and girls were central to the building of his fortune, and his relations with some of his investors essentially amounted to blackmail.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, DC is on edge. \u201cEpstein bragged about his contacts in Washington,\u201d Boies said. Reporters are likely to dig into why the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Epstein and kept the deal secret from his victims. One theory circulating among prominent Republicans is that Epstein was a Mossad agent. Another is that the George W. Bush<\/strong> White House directed Acosta not to prosecute Epstein to protect Prince Andrew<\/strong> on behalf of the British government, then the U.S.\u2019s closest ally in the Iraq war. \u201cThe royal family did everything they could to try and discredit the Prince Andrew stuff,\u201d Boies told me. \u201cWhen we tried to follow up with anything, we were stonewalled. We wanted to interview him, they were unwilling to do anything.\u201d (Prince Andrew could not be reached for comment).<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, the two Epstein friends that people are most curious about are Donald Trump and Bill Clinton,<\/strong> both of whom have denied anything untoward. During the 2016 presidential race, Hillary Clinton<\/strong>\u2019s campaign consulted Bill\u2019s post\u2013White House Secret Service logs because they were worried Trump would bring up Bill\u2019s close association with Epstein and wanted to get ahead of the story, a source told me.<\/span><\/p>\n

For those in Epstein\u2019s orbit, the stakes of exposure are bound to get higher as more and more women come forward. Every day seems to bring new horrors about Epstein\u2019s alleged depravity. At a press conference on Tuesday, Courtney Wild\u2019s lawyer Brad Edwards said that after interviewing dozens of Epstein\u2019s accusers, it appeared Epstein spent almost all of his time abusing underage girls. \u201cIt was his full-time job,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cWe have not found anyone who has provided information about a legitimate business he was engaged [in].\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reigning theory on Wall Street currently is that Epstein\u2019s activities with women and girls were central to the building of his fortune<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historic-sexual-abuse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191917"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191920,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191917\/revisions\/191920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}