Talking Teeth

On what the Epstein Files tell us.

Q: When did you first meet Mr. Epstein.”

A: When [REDACTED] brought me over there.”

Q: And who is [REDACTED]

A: A friend of mine who has disappeared.

- Page 112 of a random victim testimony I opened from 2009;

What are the Epstein Files, exactly? I’ve been dipping in and out of the latest batch since they dropped on Friday night. The Files a bit like rummaging through a haunted self-storage unit, except that the old boxes in question may contain mundane ephemera like a grocery list, references to “torture videos,” or casual explanations of why Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert, was likely murdered by the Russians (blackmail).

Then, of course, there’s the sex. Inputting the keyword “sex” into the search box produces 13,482 results, most of which are affixed to the words “trafficking ring” or “offender.”

I have no experience reading these sorts of massive, disorganized files and I don’t pretend to understand the story they tell. What they suggest to me, however, is one of two scenarios.

The best-case one is that the Epstein case is, fundamentally, about a limited number of extremely wealthy and/or well-connected middle-aged scumbags who enjoyed raping teenage girls recruited from local high schools by a network of other victims. The story begins and ends with this debauched friend group engaged in decades of sexual deviancy and abuse.

That’s the BEST-CASE scenario.

The other option is that the Epstein case is actually a global story of blackmail and human trafficking in which Epstein, backed by either Russia or Israel (or both), entrapped some of the world’s most influential people in a sprawling web of illicit sex for the purpose of extracting money, leveraging relationships, and, of course, the implicit threats of blackmail or worse if such men do not do as they’re told.

Both options also raise questions of how deep Epstein and his associates’ depravity actually went. The Files contain accusations of torture, snuff films, murder, and at least one act of cannibalism committed by George HW Bush. Do I believe George Bush dined on fresh baby while a fellated Henry Kissinger looked on? I do not. But just because some of the allegations are outlandish doesn’t mean they’re all false. Ask yourself: knowing what you know about Jeffrey Epstein, what limits is he likely to have placed on his own gratification or that of his associates?

I’ll tell you the limits I would guess he imposed: none.

Then again, Option 2 is SO crazy it doesn’t seem plausible. It’s way easier to believe that, over a number of years in the 90’s and 2000’s, a group of spoiled rich guys located primarily in New York and Florida indulged their sexual appetites in whatever ways they desired, with their good friend Jeff serving as pimp and master of ceremonies. As disgusting as these men were, their abuse extended only to debauched weekends of drugs and sex with underage girls. Maybe the tale begins and ends there.

The problem is, it doesn’t feel like the whole story. Not when so many questions remain about Epstein’s finances and relationships with emissaries and heads of state. If Option 2 proves to hew closer to the actual truth, then it’s also likely that Jeffrey Epstein is only one node in a global sex trafficking/blackmailing intelligence operation conducted across multiple decades and involving multiple nations and criminal organizations - some of which are likely to be the same entity.

Option 2 is obviously fantastical, but let me reframe it as a question: if a leader like Putin (ex-KGB, loves murdering people, etc.) could create a network to compromise some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential men exactly as I just described, would he? The question answers itself.

So then, assuming he was able to succeed in establishing such a network, how would he then leverage it? What sort of person would he recruit to run it? Maybe somebody like Mr. Epstein?

“The Illusion of Shame” by Sharon Harms

I’m absolutely NOT saying Option 2 will turn out to be true, I’m just saying if it is correct, or even partially correct, it would mean that the President of the United States and members of his Cabinet are irredeemably compromised. It would also go a fair way towards explaining Trump’s bizarre and bizarrely sycophantic relationship with Putin. Further, it might help us understand why Epstein was treated with kid gloves during his 2009 plea deal. Finally, it would give credence to those who believe Epstein’s death was something other than suicide.

So that’s bad.

Most likely the truth lies somewhere between Options 1 and 2. My hope is that competent researchers and journalists work together to untangle it because this so-called hoax is anything but. We know Epstein trafficked over a thousand women. There are also insane allegations involving boys, some of which I detailed in my last piece. When I say “insane,” I’m holding open the possibility that the people making these claims are literally insane; the problem is there’s more than one of them, and they seem to corroborate elements of each other’s stories so I’m unwilling to dismiss all of them out of hand.

Are we likely to ever get clarity?

I doubt it. What I suspect will happen in the coming weeks is that, barring further evidence, the Epstein story will slowly fade away. If there’s any truth to the Option 2 scenario, I suspect we’ll never learn what it is; instead, it’ll get tossed into our collective dirty laundry pile and forgotten.

The Epstein Files do make one thing clear. Some of the world’s most powerful people are sociopaths and rapists. If they are not personally implicated, they’re more than willing to look the other way if they think it’ll gain them a single dime. What they present is an unvarnished look at influence-peddling at the highest levels of our society. Those “highest levels” look an awful lot like a scene out of Goodfellas.

Here, arrayed before us, are three million pages of evidence confirming that the scales of justice are balanced with cash. Not law. Not ethics. Money and nothing but. The regular rules do not seem applicable to those whose bank accounts are more swollen than the shriveled apparatuses between their legs. The story will go away because fully confronting it will be too expensive for those whose interests depend on our imperfect continuing to gasp and sputter along. It will also go away because those who might bring it to light will find themselves either stymied or threatened or bought off. Large institutions like the New York Times have shown little appetite for the story’s more sordid perversions, probably figuring that its readers would prefer the whole thing just kind of go away. I bet they’re right.

I find myself having to regularly close the Files. They’re too much. Too overwhelming. Too shameful. They point to something so dark that most of us, myself included, would prefer not to know. But not knowing is how we ended up here, with a demented sexual abuser and former best friend of the world’s most notorious pedophile, in the White House for a second time. To fully confront the Epstein story is to full confront ourselves and the compromises we all make with our consciences. Most people, I suspect, would rather not.