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In Agatha Christie’s classic novel, Murder on the Orient Express, American businessman Samuel Ratchett is found dead one morning in his compartment on the Orient Express, a luxury train stalled in a Croatian snowstorm. On board the train, as it happens, is detective Hercule Poirot.
Poirot soon discovers that Ratchett is actually a gangster named Cassetti, wanted in America for an unspeakable crime involving a young girl. In time, Poirot comes to see that almost everyone on board is a suspect in Cassetti’s stabbing death for one very good reason: each of them wanted him dead.
Although no one is known to have died on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane, the so-called, “Lolita Express,” many of those who flew with Epstein, a man guilty of unspeakable crimes with uncountable young girls, had reason to rejoice at his death. That said, there is a huge evidentiary gap between listing possible suspects and indicting them.
As I have mentioned in two previous articles, I withdrew from an Epstein book deal in large part because I did not believe I could close that gap, a gap that yawned even wider without proof that Epstein was murdered. I could speculate until the cows came home—speculating now being the national pastime—but it was likely that the defamation attorneys would get to my home before the cows did.
Were Poirot on the Epsten case, he would have had no trouble listing those men who breathed easier upon hearing the news of Epstein’s demise. All of these men interacted with Epstein, after his 2008 plea deal, knowing well that he was a convicted trafficker of young girls. Not surprisingly, all of them were fellow travelers on the political Left.
If Kash Patel and Dan Bongino thought they could nail one of them for murder, I am sure they would have pursued the case. But to pursue them for getting a “massage”—the currency of Epstein’s realm—that may or may not have been sexual with a girl who may or may not have been underage would have been a waste of FBI resources. What all of these men do deserve, however, is a proper shaming.
Bill Clinton: According to flight logs, the former president took at least 26 flights on Epstein’s Boeing 727. On at least five of those flights Clinton was unescorted by his Secret Service detail. The patron/beneficiary relationship between Epstein and Clinton lasted long enough for the two men to share incriminating secrets.
Clinton's close friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s lover and principal procurer, implicates him even more deeply. In June 2010, two years after Epstein’s initial conviction, Maxwell was one of several honored guests to attend Chelsea Clinton’s intimate wedding in upstate New York. Had Epstein not been under house arrest at the time, he might have attended himself.
Actor Kevin Spacey, who flew with Clinton on the Lolita Express to Africa on a humanitarian mission, told Piers Morgan, “I felt he put the president at risk on that trip to South Africa, because there were these young girls. We were like, ‘Who is this guy?’” The trip culminated with a visit to England to meet Prince Andrew.
Prince Andrew: The Crown went into a tailspin after Conchita Sarnoff’s Daily Beast 2010 series exposed Epstein’s friendship with Prince Andrew. By 2011, HRH Prince Andrew was forced to step down as the UK Trade Envoy.
In 2019, hours after a calamitous interview with the BBC, Andrew was stripped of his patronages and removed from all royal duties. His relationship with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s lover and principal procurer, became a major British scandal and caused turmoil within the Royal Family.
Andrew’s legal troubles didn’t end there. In 2021, the then “ninth in line” to the British throne was forced to pay millions of dollars to settle a civil sexual assault case with Virginia Giuffre, a woman he claimed never to have met. Giuffre accused the Prince of sexually assaulting her in London when she was 17. Andrews denied any wrongdoing, but the photos (and lawyers) suggest otherwise.
Leslie Wexner: No one was more family to Epstein than his longtime friend and patron, Les Wexner, the founder of L-Brands formerly The Limited and one time owner of Victoria’s Secret. For decades the private lives and business relationships of the two men were linked in a bacchanal of high-living and secret dealings.
A month after Epstein’s 2019 arrest, Wexner decided to sever the family bond. He sent a letter to the Wall Street Journal accusing his protégé of stealing “vast sums of money,” $46 million to be precise. Wrote Wexner, “This was, frankly, a tremendous shock, even though it clearly pales in comparison to the unthinkable allegations against him now.” Wexner knew of those “unthinkable” allegations at least fifteen years prior. Two days after the Journal published the Wexner letter, Epstein was dead.
Jes Staley: During the 2008 financial crisis, prior to his plea deal, Epstein brokered the fire sale of investment bank Bear Stearns, his former employer, to JP Morgan Chase. That was one reason why from 2008 until his death in 2019, Epstein wielded extraordinary influence at JP Morgan.
Working through Jes Staley, the head of investment-banking and future CEO of Barclays—later fired and then sued by JPMorgan—Epstein pushed the bank to do deals with China and the United Arab Emirates among other shady players.
What Staley allegedly got from Epstein were girls, money, and plenty of high-powered introductions. Through Epstein, Staley befriended any number of influential power brokers. Among them were “Petey,” the current British Ambassador to the United States, Baron Peter Mandelson, and Prince Andrew.
In one of Staley’s depositions, he admitted to having a sexual relationship with an Epstein staffer during a period when Epstein was under increasing press scrutiny for trafficking young girls. Epstein and Staley both appear to have affirmed their commitment to each other as “family.”
That family connection came at a price. In November 2023, a federal judge approved a settlement of a class-action lawsuit in which JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $290 million to some 200 Epstein victims who claimed that the bank ignored warnings about the disgraced financier.
Ehud Barak Wexner had introduced Epstein to any number of important people, none more so than the former Israeli Prime Minister and leader of the leftist Labor Party, Ehud Barak. According to the Wall Street Journal, Barak met with Epstein dozens of times beginning in 2013, five years after Epstein was first convicted of sex crimes involving minors.
Alan Dershowitz: A member of Epstein’s defense team after his first arrest, Dershowitz helped negotiate the lenient plea deal. No one has fought the accusations against his involvement with Epstein’s girls more vigorously than Dershowitz and with good reason. His accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, dropped her lawsuit against Dershowitz and recanted. In April, Giuffre committed suicide in Australia where she lived, and yes it was a suicide.
Leon Botstein: Botstein, the president of Bard, one of the country’s most woke colleges, repeatedly pursued Epstein hoping to raise money. He made frequent visits to Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse, and Epstein helicoptered to Bard’s lush campus in the Hudson Valley.
Noam Chomsky: Chomsky, the celebrated MIT linguist and political activist, met with Epstein on occasion allegedly to discuss political and academic topics. In 2018, Chomsky asked Epstein for help regarding fund disbursement relating to his first marriage. In March 2018, he received roughly $270,000 from an account linked to Epstein.
Woody Allen: Allen, himself an accused pedophile, regularly palled around with neighbor Jeffrey Epstein. The controversial director arranged get-togethers with Epstein at least once a month throughout 2014 and 2015.
Larry Summers: The former Harvard President and Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Summers continued to meet with Epstein even after Epstein’s 2008 plea deal. Epstein also donated millions of dollars to Harvard during Summers’s tenure as Harvard president from 2001 to 2006. From 2013 to 2016, Summers met frequently with Epstein, often over dinner.
Yes, Epstein was Jewish as were many of his associates but any argument that begins with “The Jews…” is heading no place good. As much as I appreciate the freedom that X provides, a grand Zionist conspiracy with Epstein at its center should begin with actual evidence.
Epstein has long been a tabloid sideshow that AG Pam Bondi clumsily put on the main stage. President Trump wants him off. "This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking.… We have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people are still talking about this guy, this creep?" said Trump at his recent cabinet meeting. "That is unbelievable."
I’m with the president.
Recipients of JPMorgan’s $290M payout likely signed non-disclosure agreements with severe penalties for any breach of contract, so I doubt they would be of real help in prosecuting these cases — any one of which would consume vast resources with no guarantee of a successful outcome.
As a taxpayer, I want DOJ resources be used to put Jim Comey and John Brennan behind bars, and investigate the election fraudsters.
If, as Bondi, Patel and Bongino claim, that the only videos that Epstein had were ones he copied himself from the internet, and that he committed no crime—why is Ghislane Maxwell in jail?