Recent document and photograph releases from the ongoing investigation into the life of Jeffrey Epstein have produced little new information about his crimes, but they have filled out the ever-growing roster of his notable associates: Woody Allen, Larry Summers, Noam Chomsky, Donald Trump, and many more. The steady drip of investigative proceeds has brought about a remarkable degree of cross-partisan condemnation. Anyone who spent time with this evil person, the implication seems to be, must also be evil, and quite possibly in the same way that Epstein was evil. But though association with Epstein is certainly worthy of scrutiny, not everyone in his network is guilty of participation in his abusive sexual enterprise—or necessarily guilty at all.
The entire Epstein story is hellish from top to bottom, an almost-Gothic tale of the appalling deference society pays to the rich and powerful. At the lowest rung of this inferno is Epstein himself, always amused or impassive in photographs, a blithe and shallow cipher of a man. His main hobbies appear to have been defrauding people and having sex, which is empty and fleeting enough in its own right. But his fixation on minors meant that the objects of his desire were always slipping away as time conveyed them past the point of his interest, and the fact that he offended so consistently for so many years suggests that he was indeed never satisfied, but was rather driven by a malevolent lust. He was a pedophile, a scoundrel, and a coward.
Accordingly, what emerges from the paper trail of Epstein’s life is not a portrait of deep friendships, but a web of transactional, superficial relationships, designed for mutual enablement. It appears that there was no one in his life with whom he was vulnerable or honest; even his interactions with his closest confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, read as generally businesslike. Maxwell was his procuress at the very least, and, according to victims’ testimony, was sometimes an active participant in sexual abuse herself.
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Anyone who directly facilitated Epstein’s abuse—and there were apparently many such people beyond Maxwell—or participated in sexual exploitation themselves belongs on the same rung as Epstein; by their own deeds are they condemned, not simply by association. Britain’s former Prince Andrew, for instance, stands accused of sexually abusing one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, when she was 17 years old. (He has vigorously denied these allegations.) Where Trump fits into this picture is an open question and the subject of furious debate. Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of or engagement in Epstein’s illicit sexual activities, and has claimed that he was not in touch with him after the early 2000s.
On the next rung are those among Epstein’s massive network of associates who knew about his sex crimes or suspected something was amiss, but decided that whatever was happening was none of their business, or that it wasn’t their problem, or that it wasn’t their place to intervene, or that interfering would frustrate the transactional opportunities that had brought them into Epstein’s world in the first place. Contained in this group are scores of people who seem mainly to have been interested in ingratiating themselves with Epstein in hopes that he would grant them large sums of money for their various projects, or that his putative financial acumen could make them even richer (though in many cases Epstein was instead scamming them). These people can be distinguished from the prior set by the fact that they themselves neither committed sex crimes nor aided Epstein in doing so. Though, to the degree that Epstein used these relationships to insulate himself from the consequences of his crimes so that he could continue to offend, they are something like accessories after the fact.
In the furthermost reaches of Epstein’s orbit there are people who seem genuinely not to have known about his criminal activity, and who are therefore the least guilty of all of his associates. Consider, for example, Princess Sofia of Sweden, who met with Epstein on several occasions in social settings 20 years ago, when she was a 21-year-old swimsuit model. Epstein’s emails show that Barbro Ehnbom, a Swedish business executive, had effected an email introduction between Epstein and Sofia, sending along a picture of the future princess. Epstein replied with interest, and offered to send her a ticket to visit him in the Caribbean. The role she played in the exchange seems more analogous to the experience of some of Epstein’s victims than his accomplices, in that she was a young and beautiful woman presented to Epstein by a wealthy friend and then invited to an island in the Caribbean. (The Swedish royal palace has stated that Sofia declined the invitation.) Given that context, it seems perfectly plausible that Sofia was not responsible for any crime or for any effort to shield Epstein from accountability. Nevertheless, her reputation has been tarnished by the Epstein affair, which brings with it a strong presupposition of sexual depravity. Again, there is no reason to believe that the princess did anything especially wrong. Her case appears to be a genuine instance of guilt by association, because it seems she is guilty of nothing more than some minor failure of prudence, meaning that she ought to have been more careful with her company.
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But many of those moneyed and prestigious Epstein orbiters innocent of sex crimes may be implicated in another category of offense: conspiracy to hoard and entrench wealth. The Epstein affair has produced evidence confirming that many of the people who control society’s wealth, politics, and prestige move in the same small circles, and may work together in private to make consequential decisions about the movement of money through society. This is hugely demoralizing; in a recent NBC poll, 54 percent of Americans now agree that “when it comes to politics and society, nothing really matters because powerful people will always do whatever they want.” They have ample reason for thinking so. It’s hard to imagine how the Epstein narrative could ever conclusively end, because it has also triggered a legitimation crisis.
Evil often presents a front of sophistication and implies a great deal of depth, when in fact it is almost always pathetic, stupid, and meaningless. Epstein was connected to some of the world’s most significant figures and had apparently unlimited resources at his fingertips, but his life seems to have amounted to very little. That is perhaps why one category of Epstein associate appears to have no known members: real and true friends, Ghislaine’s superficial closeness to him notwithstanding. Was there anyone Epstein bared his soul to, anyone he cared for beyond their practical use to him, or anyone who saw underneath his slick veneer, if there was anything there to see? This would be a more morally defensible group than his existing crop of allies, because complete isolation from human relationships is never a just penalty (which, among other reasons, is why solitary confinement is a fundamentally inhumane practice: Even the wicked are due a friend or two, supposing they can win them and keep them). And, insofar as those relationships can serve as a kind of tether to the moral community, cutting them off could conceivably be counterproductive. But all of that is likely beside the point, because no such person is evinced in the known fragments of Epstein’s life. He was little more than a hungry ghost.
*Sources: ZUMA Press Wire / Reuters; House Oversight Committee / Sipa / Reuters
