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“The more Epstein documents get released, the more we see how he had so many powerful friends, and that’s ultimately what helped him,” commented the US lawyer Lisa Bloom in an interview with the Guardian this week. As Ms Bloom, who represents 11 of Jeffrey Epstein’s dogged and brave victims, drily notes: “That’s not the way the justice system is supposed to work.”
From the outset, the Epstein affair has offered a textbook example of the ability of the influential and well-connected to avoid scrutiny and intimidate those who would exert it. A ruthless pursuit of transparency, both institutional and personal, is the only way to combat such tactics and hold power to account. In the extraordinary days following the release of further Epstein files last week, the wheels of justice in Britain are belatedly beginning to turn on that basis.
Allegations that Peter Mandelson leaked Downing Street emails and market-sensitive information to Epstein, a convicted sex offender, following the financial crash, have now led to a criminal investigation. Wednesday’s events in the House of Commons showed that they have also unleashed a Westminster scandal which threatens to engulf Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership. The prime minister’s political future may rest on his ability to convince MPs that he is being transparent over the fateful decision to make Peter Mandelson the UK’s ambassador in Washington.
In the US too, an overdue “reckoning” may be taking place, to quote Melinda French Gates, the former wife of Bill Gates. Mr Gates has vehemently dismissed lurid claims about him in the latest tranche of files as false. But the broader significance of the drop has been to confirm the extent to which a wealthy, powerful elite chose self-interestedly to associate with Epstein long after his conviction.
The billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, for example, was in contact with Epstein, and reportedly an investment firm he co-founded accepted $40m from him. Howard Lutnick, the US secretary of state for commerce, visited Epstein’s private island with his wife and children in 2012. In a friendly email exchange in 2013, Richard Branson wrote in execrable taste: “Any time you’re in the area, would love to see you. As long as you bring your harem!” In Silicon Valley, the financier’s money funded salon-style dinners with the likes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The leftwing philosopher Noam Chomsky emerges in the emails as a sympathetic counsellor, advising Epstein on how to deal with “hysteria” over the abuse of women and his “horrible” treatment in the press.
Such ties have been minimised, and publicly regretted, following Epstein’s arrest and death in prison. But the gilded circles that gave him a free pass into networks of influence conferred, by doing so, an aura of untouchability, even as survivors battled to expose Epstein’s depravity. They owe it to those victims to account more fully for their actions.
Bill and Hillary Clinton, who will testify in the congressional investigation into Epstein this month, have expressed the hope that their appearance will set a precedent. His victims, who are demanding that the department of justice fully release the heavily redacted files, will not hold their breath. Immensely powerful people have had an interest in closing the book on the Epstein scandal. After a week that has felt like a potential tipping point, the moral imperative is for full disclosure.
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