It was hardly necessary to google Epstein to know he was a child molester.
Yeah, this is a bit disingenuous. I actually might give a pass to folks like Jack Horner who may have been as he claimed just soliciting donations in a short window of time. They weren’t regularly socializing with him and may not have been paying attention when he was first in the news and found guilty 2007-2008. It was moderately big, sensationalist news when it happened, but it is entirely possible for some people to miss moderately big news about some CEO being convicted a few years later.
But anyone who semi-regularly socialized with him over multiple years like Bill Gates, gets a lot less benefit of the doubt from me when it comes to knowledge of his unsavory reputation. Woody Allen (not exactly Mr. Sterling Reputation himself) regularly had meals with Epstein, purportedly because Epstein was charming and surrounded himself with fascinating people at said meals like a variety of academics. Per Allen apparently Epstein was not shy about talking how he had been “set up” and “railroaded” in 2008.
People knew. Did everyone know? Probably not, but most would have and anyone in his social circle (as possibly opposed to his philanthropic one), which was wide, almost certainly would.
Agreed. And, eh, I’ve seen enough people, even people who “should know better”, go through life oblivious to things you’d think worth paying attention to, that if it’s like a one-off exchange or an occasional legit-business transaction/social interaction, I can buy it. If anything I’d be giving a greater benefit-of-doubt to any less-prominent figures. I mean I can see someone thinking “a business associate of mine introduced me to this Jeffrey dude at his fundraiser and says he can help organize mine” and just exchanging innocuous communications, trusting that Business Associate A would not knowingly introduce you to a bad guy.
But if it becomes ongoing repeat business there’s a point at which you really should do due diligence. And if you’re the founder of a multibillion-dollar multinational, a former or aspirant POTUS or a Royal, I thought you were supposed to “have people” that look into what those trying to get close to you are up to.
Still doesn’t automatically make you a criminal accomplice, but people will have a right to question your judgement and your ethical look-the-other-way flexibility.
(Regular folk don’t background-check or run Google on everyone we deal with. It usually is a matter of whether someone gives us a heads-up about them.)
In his circle, probably most would have. The guy’s house always to have been decorated with “sex maniac” as the prevailing theme so, whether you understood that he was dipping into the kiddie pool or not, it would still have been clear that you don’t want to hang out with the dude.
Outside of his circle, probably not.
Just looking at my workplace at medium and large companies, where we have educational and presentational events constantly to try and keep people informed of what’s going on, generally no one has much of an idea.
Hell, just in this thread, most of everyone heard the DOJ say in January/February of last year that they were busy preparing all the Epstein documents for release. Just a few months later, the DOJ released a document saying that, after a through review of all the documents that they’d determined that there’s no reason to investigate anyone that hasn’t already been arrested.
Despite that, no one here and no one in the press has particularly noted that the DOJ should have had ample time to prepare the documents for the December 2025 release date; they can’t claim that they need to withhold documents in order to protect ongoing investigations. Everyone forgot and moved on. Journalists have an obligation to remember this stuff and yet they’ve basically all forgotten it.
Donald Trump’s defense during his first impeachment was that he was trying to fight corruption in Ukraine. You can find interviews of him talking about how he hates the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, he’s written about bribing politicians, and one his first acts in his first term was to appoint Elliott Broidy - a man who had been convicted of bribing politicians - to head the RNC Finance Committee. None of that was ever mentioned by the impeachment managers. They hadn’t barley done any research and they didn’t remember any of these items that clearly pointed to the lack of merit of the defense. That was their one job.
In general, I can’t speak to an experience in my life where I found the 90th percentile person or even the 99th percentile person to have much space in their mind outside of the current moment and largely as concerns their own matters. Everything outside of that is chaos and fantasy, and not of too much import. I’m bizarre for still remembering Reagan about as much as Obama.
But, generally, any idea that humans are aware of what’s going on and remember it doesn’t match any evidence. Even when that is people’s primary occupation it can still be hit and miss.
The Dino group should investigate. Telling people of concern to not come, when they haven’t had time to look through the documents, is reasonable. Denouncing those people as pedophiles is probably unreasonable.
You should investigate concerns. You shouldn’t presume everyone to be omniscient and you shouldn’t presume yourself to be omniscient either.
Omniscience is fantasy.
So on another note, it seems the DOJ is tracking what the members of Congress search for in the unredacted files:
Is this where Congress decides its had enough and puts the WH in check?
(rhetorical question)
I currently have a thread about a magical black box that can kill anybody…and that scenario is more likely than yours.
I would give him a pass.
Hmm, I wonder whose name has been redacted in this email?
You know, I really dont like this “guilt by association” thing. I dont care if someone was best buds with Epstein, or got free jet rides or got a donation from him. Even the most horrific mass murderer had people who associated with them- their layer, cell mates, psychiatric sessions, etc. But as long as they didnt help him murder people, they are fine.
What is important is those who used Epstein to have sex with underaged girls- you know- criminals.
This whole Epstein files thing has done no good and has harmed many innocent people- including victims. No one else has been indicted, and according to experts who read the files- no one could be. trump isnt going to be impeached and removed from office.
If you were best buds with Epstein, or got free jet rides or donations from him, then you knew he was trafficking children and you did nothing to stop it.
They are ALL complicit.
No, you did not.
You couldn’t have not known. He wasn’t making any effort to keep it secret.
We know that because of the files you’re bemoaning the release of.
I’m not personally surprised. I mean, Trump’s administration members keep ending up being members of Epstein’s circle. The easy line from Howard Lutnick to Jeffrey Epstein is through Donald Trump.
There’s so many of them, we sort of have to assume that Trump was telling them to go consult the guy.
There are five people that that email could potentially be from, based on who got more votes in Iowa than Jeb! did - Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Rand Paul.
It’s not Trump, because Trump doesn’t use email. It’s probably not Cruz, because he won the caucus and he’d be bragging about that instead of that he beat Jeb!. I’m leaning towards Lil’ Marco.
“I went scuba diving” is enough to know it’s not Trump.
“still like Trump” should be a clue that it isn’t Trump but Trump would refer to himself in the third person.
Who’s excited for the Epstein Olympics?
Though the sender could mean that he/she got more votes in some other election than Jeb! got in Iowa. Perhaps it’s a congressperson who won re-election? (“I only had one congressional district”)
Since they only got votes in “one congressional district”, it was a House candidate. I have no opinion as to which one, but I did check and confirmed that in 2016 the Iowa caucuses addressed U.S. House races.
EDIT: Q. Q. Switcheroo just beat me to it.
My money’s on Gwendolyn Beck, who has known ties to Epstein and indeed received slightly more votes in her Virginia congressional election than Jeb! did in the Iowa caucus.