A list by any other name, even if it’s not a formal list titled ‘Powerful People I Can Blackmail”, or simply a collection of records and pictures and video in a safe is still a list. Much as today the media is falling all over itself to say it is NOT a list, per say. But damn if they aren’t doing their level best, including freaking MSNBC since early this morning isn’t backing up AG Pam Bondi’s contention there is no Epstein List. Never was. And that those of us who think otherwise are a bunch of dumbass rubes. I call bullshit.
MAGA is furious. For once I agree with them. (That eerie, weird sound you hear is hell freezing over) So much so they are criticizing their Lord God Orange Turd Emperor Donald Trump. (Hey, the dude DOES paint his ugly face orange every day!) Don’t get me wrong, in MAGA minds the gap between their Trumpty and Jeffrey Epstein is wider than the Grand Canyon. For them any unsavory stuff about Trumpty never existed so HIS name won’t be on that “Client List” that’s been the subject of so much speculation. AG Bondi and Trump now claim there is no list. Never was. However as I’ll keep asking as I write this how does one define ‘list?’
Well, how about the journal Epstein’s Florida house manager got busted peddling almost fifteen years ago that contained details of Epstein’s activities. One investigator who saw it said had they been allowed to run down the information it would have been a valuable investigative tool. Or how about when Epstein got arrested the second time after Trumpty was in office? Investigators had to force their way into his NYC residence, which unlike the first case in Florida he hadn’t had a chance to have an assistant remove incriminating evidence. In addition to thousands of photographs of fully or partially nude females there was a locked safe. Chock full of compact discs having handwritten labels describing the contents, i.e.: “Young [Name] + [Name]”, “Misc nudes 1”, and “Girl pics nude” For more information on the ugly details of both investigations and prosecutions here’s a link to Wikipedia if you’ve got the stomach for it.Â
See why I ask the question of how does one define a “list?” That records were kept, including photos and videos is beyond doubt. Those records contain names of people Epstein collected damaging information on. For damned sure he had a list in his head of who to call with a “you’d better step up and save my sorry ass and fast, or else” and it stands to reason that he secured attorneys who had names to call. Lawyers have their way of learning and communicating graphic details about who did what and when without actually speaking them plainly. Hell, inbuilding both cases prosecutors developed lists. Of victims and the men they were trafficked to! But whether a printed list or a collection of records/videos/pictures Epstein collected names of people he could expose if he wanted to blackmail them. For money. Business help. Staying off LE’s radar etc.
How else could Epstein have gotten away with so much and for so long if he didn’t have people empowered with information to get investigators/prosecutors to back the hell off? And, not for nothing how the hell after the national scandal the Heidi Fleiss became wasn’t the Epstein story blown up into an even bigger scandal? I say two reasons. The operative word in the Hollywood Madam (Fleiss) was Hollywood. With Epstein we are talking about people he had the goods on at the upper reaches of NYC society. Banking/Finance. Corporate types. Politicians including international ones given NYC’s place in the world. DC too. Epstein was someone they didn’t want to rile up.
So, what do we have? Rumors have flown for years about Epstein having his own version of Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss’ little black book. If memory serves she did and boy did it prove embarrassing to some famous people. I lived in the DC area for almost twenty years and another ten not far away in the eastern panhandle of WV. I recall another scandal and another list regarding an escort service that catered to married men. It was reported detailed records of not just who booked appointments but even those who simply contacted it existed. Lots of powerful people in DC were holding their breath. We are told the “Madam”, about to go to trial (where she would have been convicted given the evidence against her) ‘committed suicide’ too. CT about THAT became a small cottage industry for a while.
I want to return to the larger point I want to make. The days of little black books, or some written ledger or file folder with a sheet(s) of names are long gone. For several decades we’ve been in the digital age, and computer records. And videos, both regular surveillance and those of an illicit nature. AND the ability to record all that video, including converting it to digital format as technology improved. There are independently available records of travel too. All kinds of information was there for investigators to build their original case against Epstein. The one that suddenly got turned over to the state of FL for that sweetheart plea deal with virtually no punishment.
The feds had Epstein cold. Yet he walked and I for one don’t think a person should be fitted for a tinfoil hat for suggesting Epstein posed a question that stopped prosecutors, their bosses at DOJ and a LOT of very powerful people in their tracks. Something like ‘Take a look at all the evidence you’ve got. Yes, you can lock me up and throw away the key but a LOT of rich and/or powerful people are going to see their names dragged into a very ugly and bright public spotlight. Are you REALLY ready for what they will have done to YOU and YOUR careers for ruining theirs? And though you’ve got tons of evidence, are you REALLY sure you have it all? And that there aren’t records/video out there you don’t know about?”
No wonder Epstein essentially walked. The ONLY reason the feds went after him again was public pressure, and the fact in 2016 Trumpty was running against Hillary Clinton. MAGAs were SURE they could finally “get” Bill Clinton because he knew Epstein. Somehow the fact there was sooooo much more video of Trumpty and Epstein partying and leering than there were even mere pictures of Clinton and Epstein in the same place never registered. All these years later I think much of this is being driven by that unfulfilled desire to “get Clinton” and an irrational insistence that Trumpty has always been a wholesome family man.
The thing is, Trump flogged the Epstein/Clinton connection for all it was worth. I figured that when his first DOJ wound up brining charges he knew he could count on Biliruben Barr to run the case and keep the name Trump, and that of most of Trump’s friends well out of it. Which Barr strove mightily to do. It might have seemed to be playing out that way, but prominent U.S. dudes weren’t the only ones caught up in the whole mess. So was British Royalty as in Prince Andrew! Yikes. Still, I want to focus on here in the U.S. We have the Brain Bleach inducing image of Trump mouthpiece/attorney Alan Dershowitz in his tighty-whities for example. Yuck. I don’t even want to think about what Rudy G. is on tape doing but an awful lot happened on HIS watch and Epstein never missed a beat.
A lot of rich and powerful people (mostly men but not all) were at risk of exposure once this got into court. Epstein might well have developed an ‘if I’m going down I’m taking them with me’ attitude. It’s my understanding that when a defendant intends to mount an ‘affirmative defense’ their discovery obligations to prosecutors isn’t always as great as that prosecutors have which is to share everything. If word got out to some who didn’t want to be exposed I’m not sure Barr could have kept Epstein safe even if he wanted to.
Still, it’s worth wondering just how many of New York City’s, D.C.’s and other major place’s elites were in Epstein’s records or worse on video doing all kind of nasty stuff at his brownstone in NYC, or his island or that place out west to hell and gone from nowhere? Here’s an interesting question to ponder – given how furiously journalists and even pundits who go on news shows are promoting the ‘their was NO “list”‘ line how many men in corner offices or boardrooms of major news outlets indulged themselves in the brand of appalling ‘entertainment’ Epstein provided?
I’ll be honest. I think that on multiple computer and flash drives IS an actual list, With “receipts” in the form of records and maybe just enough video to scare the living hell out of a lot of very rich and powerful people. Even if it had never been organized it’s all there. Or was. Bondi wouldn’t have any qualms about personally having all of the records piled up, spraying them with gasoline and tossing a match. But even if Epstein himself didn’t create a written list of names and transgressions, or create a computer file of the same (with attachments of course) he collected it. As I’ve noted he got wind decades ago ahead of the search of his Florida residence and a lot of stuff was removed before the feds got there. No such luck with his NYC residence. So HELL YES Epstein kept a list, or sort of list!
I’ll begin how I started by saying a list by any other name, even if not organized into a formal list but has all the information in one place a formal list would have is a f**king list.
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