Latest news on Epstein, as well as some history

Tomorrow, I will post a powerful video on child sex trafficking in the United States, which I highly recommend.

First, let’s see what is happening with the Jeffrey Epstein case after his death on Saturday, August 10, 2019.

The day before, 2,024 pages of court documents were released to the public.

Suspicions

As I write on Monday morning (BST), it is no wonder that people suspect there is a two-tiered justice system.

The story is being covered here in Britain as well as France.

If you missed my post yesterday, London’s Paul Joseph Watson summarises the Epstein death on Saturday, August 10, 2019 and the questions that have arisen as a result. This video is around four minutes long:

https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1160252261974630400

People are questioning the orange prison uniform shown in a photo circulating in various media outlets, because in many US prisons, inmates wear brown:

#OrangeIsTheNewBrown? pic.twitter.com/Sfm9X9prWV

— Tracy Beanz (@tracybeanz) August 12, 2019

In addition, they don’t sell orange in the commissary. https://t.co/TGYMGAmTTa I’m still looking but I’m curious why he is wearing orange. pic.twitter.com/bE729sH1Rz

— Tracy Beanz (@tracybeanz) August 12, 2019

Others also question whether he could have committed suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Manhattan:

https://twitter.com/CoreysDigs/status/1160608695434264578

A former MCC inmate spoke to two reporters from the New York Post and said that suicide would be impossible:

There's 'no way' Epstein killed himself: Former MCC inmate https://t.co/TOZk0VFhvD

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) August 10, 2019

An excerpt follows from the article. He, too, refers to brown uniforms (emphases mine below):

Between the floor and the ceiling is like eight or nine feet. There’s no way for you to connect to anything.

You have sheets, but they’re paper level, not strong enough. He was 200 pounds — it would never happen.

When you’re on suicide watch, they put you in this white smock, a straight jacket. They know a person cannot be injurious to themselves.

The clothing they give you is a jump-in uniform. Everything is a dark brown color.

Could he have done it from the bed? No sir. There’s a steel frame, but you can’t move it. There’s no light fixture. There’s no bars.

They don’t give you enough in there that could successfully create an instrument of death. You want to write a letter, they give you rubber pens and maybe once a week a piece of paper.

Nothing hard or made of metal.

There’s up to 80 people there. They could put two in cell. It’s one or two, but I’ll never believe this guy had a cellmate. He was too blown up.

An autopsy has been performed, but results are being withheld ‘pending further information’:

https://twitter.com/docdhj/status/1160750370311876608

Here is the preliminary statement in full (click on blue text to read it in full):

#BREAKING: #JeffreyEpstein autopsy: “The ME's determination is pending further information at this time.” Full statement: pic.twitter.com/BwB0HvNMye

— Marta Dhanis (@MartaDhanis) August 11, 2019

The ZeroHedge article linked to in Dr Janda’s tweet says:

On a side note, the private pathologist, demanded by Epstein’s attorneys, Dr. Michael Baden, was the city’s chief medical examiner in the late 1970s and has been called as an expert witness in high-profile cases including by the defense at O.J. Simpson’s 1994 murder trial.

Of course, this unusual delay will merely spur further uncertainty and the all around ‘conspiracy theory’ feel to this whole debacle.

What are the odds that Epstein’s body gets misplaced? Or accidentally cremated?

On Sunday, August 11, the New York Post (NYP) reported:

Sources tell The Post that a determination will likely come by early next week.

“Today, a medical examiner performed the autopsy of Jeffrey Epstein,” said Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson in a statement Sunday night …

Attempts to reach Dr. Baden, the city’s former chief medical examiner and a deputy chief medical examiner for Suffolk County, were not successful Sunday night. It was not immediately clear who he was working for at the time of the autopsy.

Another NYP article, ‘Epstein’s guards were working “extreme” OT at short-staffed lockup’, states:

The two Manhattan jail guards who allegedly failed to monitor Jeffrey Epstein before he died had been working “extreme” overtime shifts amid a severe staffing shortage at the facility, reports said Sunday.

The unidentified jailers at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center violated procedure by failing to check on Epstein every 30 minutes before he apparently committed suicide in his cell, sources told Reuters.

One guard was working his fifth straight day of overtime and the other was toiling under mandatory overtime, a person familiar with operations at the lower-Manhattan lockup told The Associated Press.

The guards also violated procedure by leaving the convicted pedophile without a cellmate, the New York Times reported.

There’s no surveillance video of Epstein’s death, which apparently occurred when the 66-year-old pervert appeared to hang himself Saturday morning, law-enforcement officials told The Post.

Although there are cameras in the 9 South wing at the MCC, they are trained on areas outside the cells and not inside, according to officials familiar with the setup.

According to Reuters, Epstein’s victims are allegedly preparing to sue his estate this week:

https://twitter.com/CoreysDigs/status/1160671935413608448

Two of Epstein’s lawyers are allegedly lawyering up themselves:

https://twitter.com/alexsalvinews/status/1160647049051660289

Literally last paragraph:

"In a sign that the attorneys are bracing for government scrutiny of Mr. Epstein’s companies, Mr. Indyke and Mr. Schantz both recently hired criminal defense lawyers."https://t.co/blwPKBPC1C

— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) August 11, 2019

Trump tweets

On Saturday, President Trump retweeted this …

https://twitter.com/BreakingNLive/status/1160298731192881152

… and this:

https://twitter.com/TheRightMelissa/status/1160318343968120833

He followed those retweets with one of his own:

Think how wonderful it is to be able to fight back and show, to so many, how totally dishonest the Fake News Media really is. It may be the most corrupt and disgusting business (almost) there is! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2019

Media

President Trump was correct in tweeting about the media.

Google ‘trends’ showed this:

https://twitter.com/ThatTrumpGuy/status/1160299151239892993

I suspect you are correct!

— Eric Spracklen🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) August 11, 2019

And while a sensible editorial from Bernard Kerik, the first deputy and commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, 1995-2000, appeared on The Hill: ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide makes no sense’ …

The fact that one of the country’s highest-profile federal prisoners could even commit suicide defies all logic and belief. 

His death raises doubts about officials’ actions. The FBI says it will investigate; Attorney General William Barr says he is “appalled” by what happened; members of Congress such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are demanding answers. Indeed we all need answers, before we lose all faith in our justice system.

But the most basic question, in my mind, is why Epstein was in solitary confinement in the first place — something so totally inappropriate for a prisoner already at risk of suicide …

… the rest of the media denounced ‘conspiracy theories’ surrounding the high profile prisoner’s death, as Sohrab Amari reported for the NYP:

Within hours of the story breaking, writers at mainstream outlets went patrolling the Internet for “conspiracy theories” to debunk, usually with that tone of superiority and self-satisfaction that so endears the blue-check Twitterati to the American public.

“Suicide is the leading cause of death in US jails,” scolded The Daily Beast’s Justin Miller. “ ‘Suicide watch’ is just that, ‘watch,’ or observation, usually periodic. Stop speculating Epstein was murdered.” The headline on a story by Miller’s colleague Kelly Weill read: “Conspiracy Theories Erupt After Jeffrey Epstein’s Death.” (Talk about begging the question.)

“It would be easy to treat this frenzied reaction to Epstein’s death as a sad case study in how conspiratorial thinking has bled into mainstream discourse,” lectured The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins. “But finger-wagging feels inadequate at this moment.”

Among other examples of this lamentable rise in paranoia, Coppins cited one of my tweets. In it, I had recounted how a Manhattan restaurateur I know predicted that “they’ll never let Epstein live” — “they” being our shady ruling class. “Regular people,” I added, “are wiser than us pundits.”

If Coppins had bothered to contact me for comment before writing critically of my remarks — as is standard journalistic practice — I would have told him that, of course, I don’t necessarily believe the restaurateur was right. But at the time I heard him say it, I was inclined to dismiss the restaurateur’s cynicism about our system. “What does he know?” I thought. “Of course, Epstein will live to testify.” …

Speaking of which, shouldn’t the reporters who are busy lamenting our nation’s conspiratorial cast of mind wait for the facts to come out? After all, at least three local and federal probes have just gotten underway. The Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons have been careful to append the adjective “apparent” to the noun “suicide” in their statements on the matter. As Will Chamberlain of Human Events noted, the no-conspiracy journalists are “ahead of the facts.”

It’s all especially rich, given the fact that many of these same journalists have spent the past two years feverishly promoting the “collusion” theory. Here’s Coppins writing in 2017: “As evidence piles up pointing to the possibility that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, Republican lawmakers have largely ignored Democrats’ calls for urgent action.”

Trump and Epstein

The Left are hard at it promoting the idea that Donald Trump, well before running for president, was a close friend of Epstein’s. There is no convincing them of the contrary.

That, too, is conspiracy theory, isn’t it?

On Monday, July 9, two days after Epstein’s arrest, ZeroHedge posted an article stating the contrary: ‘Trump Was “Only One” To Help Prosecutor In 2009 Epstein Case’.

That year, Epstein began serving 13 months in prison for sex with a 14-year old girl. He was released in 2010. Florida attorney Bradley Edwards was the man who was serving subpoenas which resulted in Epstein’s conviction. Edwards says that Donald Trump never had to be subpoenaed. He spoke freely to Edwards. From the ZeroHedge article (emphases in the original):

Following a 2018 financial settlement between Florida attorney Bradley Edwards – who represented one of Epstein’s accusers, only to be later sued by Epstein, Edwards claimed that Donald Trump was the ‘only person’ who provided assistance when Edwards served subpoenas and notices to high-profile individuals connected to Epstein.

Edwards: The only thing that I can say about President Trump is that he is the only person who, in 2009 when I served a lot of subpoenas on a lot of people, or at least gave notice to some pretty connected people, that I want to talk to them, is the only person who picked up the phone and said, let’s just talk.  I’ll give you as much time as you want.  I’ll tell you what you need to know, and was very helpful, in the information that he gave, and gave no indication whatsoever that he was involved in anything untoward whatsoever, but had good information. That checked out and that helped us and we didn’t have to take a deposition of him in 2009.

However, the Left was — and is still — sure that Trump had a nefarious connection to Epstein. Contrast that with Bill Clinton’s known 26 flights on Epstein’s plane.

As much as they wanted to find incriminating evidence, Fusion GPS, Vice.com and Radar came up with nothing Trump-related:

While trying to tie Trump to Epstein in an attempt to push the narrative to at least two reporters, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS – the firm behind the unsubstantiated “Trump-Russia” dossier, found that the Trump-Epstein link appears purely social, according to the Washington Times, which writes “Journalist sources told The Washington Times that Simpson pushed the idea of a close relationship between Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein,” adding “Ken Silverstein, the reporter who ultimately wrote an Epstein-Trump report, confirmed to The Times that Fusion had sourced the story.”

Mr. Silverstein, who wrote the Vice.Com story, was asked by The Washington Times if Fusion pushed the Epstein-Trump story.

Since you asked, yes, they helped me with that, Mr. Silverstein said. But as you can see, I could not make a strong case for Trump being super close to Epstein, so they could hardly have been thrilled with that story. [In my humble opinion], that was the best story written about Trumps ties to Epstein, but I failed to nail him. Trump’s ties were mild compared to Bill Clinton’s. –Washington Times

In January 2016, Vice.com ran Silverstein’s story on Trump’s ties to Epstein, which framed them as more social – including dinner parties, two plane trips, and Epstein hanging out at Trump’s Mar-a-lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. As Radar reported last April, “According to an investigation by Radar, Trump was among dozens of renowned New Yorkers who knew Epstein socially but ostracized him after Palm Beach police uncovered the financiers sleazy double life,” adding that Trump “once barred child molester Jeffrey Epstein from his famed Mar-a-lago club after the presidential candidate caught him hitting on a young girl.”

Epstein’s is not a ‘So what?’ story

Some do not care whether Epstein died.

However, Epstein had no co-defendant named in his latest case. Effectively, his case is dead, although victims can still sue his estate.

Epstein received a short sentence ten years ago as Trump’s former Secretary for Labor, Alex Acosta, explained during his confirmation hearing before he got the job. On July 9, Vicky Ward, a journalist who followed Epstein’s activities for years, wrote an article for the Daily Beast, ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s Sick Story Played Out For Years In Plain Sight’. In it, she discusses Acosta (emphases mine):

Epstein’s name, I was told, had been raised by the Trump transition team when Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who’d infamously cut Epstein a non-prosecution plea deal back in 2007, was being interviewed for the job of labor secretary. The plea deal put a hard stop to a separate federal investigation of alleged sex crimes with minors and trafficking.

“Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” Acosta had been asked. Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about this.) …

After the one meeting with then-U.S. Attorney Acosta, where presumably “intelligence” was mentioned, the indictment was shelved and, instead, Epstein signed a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, pleading guilty to one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of procurement of minors for prostitution, which earned him a cushy 13 months in county jail, from where he was allowed to leave to work at his office and go for walks. 

The deal granted immunity to “any potential co-conspirators.” Most significantly, federal prosecutors agreed to keep the deal secret from Epstein’s victims, which meant they would not know to challenge it in court. As it turned out, this actually broke the law, because victims have a right to know of such developments, under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

The Miami Herald — and independent journalist Mike Cernovich — were successful in getting the case reopened this year. Vicky Ward explains the Miami Herald‘s role:

So kudos, then, to the Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown, who many years after the fact went back and interviewed some of Epstein’s alleged victims in her brilliant three-part series “Perversion of Justice.” It was Brown who told the stories of teenagers in trailer parks outside Palm Beach who needed money for shoes or just to live, who went to give Epstein massages and so much more. Brown and her editors actually took the women seriously.

It was that heart-wrenching series that caught the attention of Congress. Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska, joined with his Democratic colleagues and demanded to know how justice had been so miscarried.

Given the political sentiment, it’s unsurprising that the FBI should feel newly emboldened to investigate Epstein—basing some of their work on Brown’s excellent reporting.

The story in the indictment that was unsealed earlier Monday was eerily familiar to all of us who have been paying attention to Epstein’s sick story. What is different, finally, after 16 years, is the reaction, which is, at last, appropriate. 

One of the young women who spoke to me 16 years ago emailed Monday evening. “Shocked and elated,” she said. “Fingers crossed they all finally go down.” Amen to that.

Yet, going back to Epstein’s release in 2010, celebrities and journalists attended a dinner at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, as Alexandra Wolfe wrote for Real Clear Politics on April 2, 2011, in ‘Celebs Close Ranks Around a Pedophile’:

Alexandra Wolfe is a former contributing editor to Conde Nast Portfolio. She has written for publications including the New York Times, New York magazine, the New York Observer, and the Wall Street Journal, where she wrote design and lifestyle features for the Weekend Journal section. Before that, she was a reporter at the New York Observer. She is currently working on a book called American Coddle, about America’s culture of entitlement.

Despite the pedophile mogul’s conviction for soliciting underage prostitution, his circle—a who’s who of the rich and powerful, from Bill Clinton to Katie Couric—is standing by their man. Renowned scientists whose research Epstein funded also back the billionaire, writes Alexandra Wolfe.

On the evening of December 2nd, 2010, a handful of America’s media and entertainment elite—including TV anchors Katie Couric and George Stephanopoulos, comedienne Chelsea Handler, and director Woody Allen—convened around the dinner table of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. It wasn’t just any dining room, but part of a sprawling nine-story townhouse that once housed an entire preparatory school. And it wasn’t just any sex offender, but an enigmatic billionaire who had flown the likes of former President Bill Clinton and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak around the world on his own Boeing 727. Last spring, Epstein completed a 13-month sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in Palm Beach. Now he was hosting a party for his close friend, Britain’s Prince Andrew, fourth in line to the throne …

Sure enough, that December night no one mentioned that their handsome host, a gray-haired 58-year-old financier with tanned skin and a joker smile, had just doled out millions of dollars in civil settlements to 17 [Published reports say 7…LS] girls who allege that he paid them to perform erotic massages and demeaning sexual acts when they were underage. They are among the 40 victims turned up by an FBI investigation. But at the time, this particular swath of Epstein’s elite Rolodex had no idea that the feted royal would soon renounce Epstein as a friend, nor that the royal’s ex-wife, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, would hysterically apologize for letting Epstein pay off some of her debts.

Oh, my.

Let’s look at Epstein’s destinations, which extended to cities in Europe:

The full scope of Epstein's international sex trafficking ring. pic.twitter.com/LQi4aMY3md

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) July 7, 2019

Does anyone now not think that this is part of the reason these same people oppose Donald Trump, who made the issue of human trafficking, especially for sex, one of his campaign issues on which he has been acting during his presidency?

Three years ago, I wondered, ‘Is human trafficking really a thing?’ Trump, ever sober, knew then that it is a very serious thing, indeed.

More on child sex trafficking tomorrow.