Epstein and politics
Zelensky, Chomsky, Slovakia, Abramovich, Vilkul
We all know that Epstein did bad things to little girls. But what exactly was he up to in the world? Why was he constantly discussing high (geo)politics with the world´s most powerful men?
Anyway, the western press is naturally running with the narrative that he was a spy for the all-powerful Putler. Naturally, the Polish PM concurs.
One often wonders why exactly the west hasn’t collapsed already, given such a level of deep infiltration of its political elite by the erstwhile enemy. But I’ll leave such paragraphs for the journalists at the Times to grapple with.
The reality, of course, is that almost all of the thousands of mentions of ‘Putin’ in the Epstein files are from the news articles he obsessively sent himself. When it comes to heads of state, the only person that Epstein was emailing personally on a (very!) regular basis was Ehud Barak — former prime minister of Israel, as well as ex-head of the Israeli military intelligence.
So Epstein was an Israeli agent? It’s certainly more likely than the alternatives. But I would push back on one popular narrative. This is the idea that Epstein entrapped public figures, sexually blackmailing them into abandoning any stances against the state of Israel.
To begin with, if this were true, one would see sex scandals targeting prominent anti-zionists. But most of the elite sex scandals I hear about don’t involve particularly anti-Israeli figures. Peter Mandelson wasn’t exactly a partisan of the Palestinian people. But he just left his post in the house of Lords due to the latest Epstein revelations.
And besides, if we’re talking about the sexual abuse of children by members of the elite, this is something like nuclear weapons in geopolitical terms. Mutually assured destruction.
Assume Epstein was taking videos of politicians violently abusing children with the intent of releasing them under certain conditions. If such videos really were released to the public, this would entirely shatter any public trust in their governments as a whole. Sure, the Epstein affair has already had such effects. But so far, there is still no smoking gun evidence that, say, Hillary Clinton ate a toddler. These aren’t weapons that can be used in inter-elite disputes, since it would destroy the elite as whole.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not doubting that the power elite does terrible things to vulnerable people. And I do think such actions have real functions.
My view is that such activities act to solidify the elite, even to initiate one into it, so to speak. Acts of absolute transgression in the presence of others act as a powerful bond for the perpetrators. A deadly secret becomes shared. Each person involved knows at a deep personal level that he is just as bad as his peers. Moral reflection becomes entirely impossible, if it ever was for such people.
Besides, top members of the business and political class often have to do rather illegal things. A speculative financial deal impoverishing much of their own populations. Illegal arms sales. Secret negotiations with terrorists. Organizing a bloody false flag operation.
Having shared dark secrets after Epstein’s dinner parties further consolidates those involved in managing this world’s savagery. In that sense, figures like Epstein and the activities they organize are certainly crucial to the political fabric of the world.
But there isn’t just symbolic significance here. The emails show that Epstein was also involved in giving financial advice to figures of power. His putative expertise in this field also extended beyond the world of finance.
As Epstein said in a 2015 email with Noam Chomsky, modern politics is becoming increasingly similar to financial trading. As such, Epstein discussed events in Ukraine (and other global hotspots) with the former prime minister of Norway, head of the European Court of Human Rights, and general secretary of the council of Europe, Thjorborn Jagland:
Politics as financial trading. When people rightfully point out Epstein’s obvious stupidity, the same is true of the polished politicians who respected him. Indeed, many of the actions of contemporary world leaders can be described little other than as the behavior of ‘inexperienced short term traders’.
Epstein’s powerful interlocutors seemed ready to put up with all his crackpot ideas. In another email, Epstein even boasts that Jagland appreciated hearing about Chomsky’s heterodox ideas on western imperial hypocrisy.
Epstein as operator
Epstein doesn’t exactly strike the tone of an ideologically puritan Atlanticism. I doubt he was much help in organizing broader NATO strategy towards eastern Europe. As his friend Alex De Rothshchild remarked to him in 2014, Ukraine’s pro-western revolution was merely beneficial to Epstein in terms of instability and poverty. As we saw yesterday, Epstein was more enthusiastic about snapping up untrustworthy Ukrainian real estate assets than even his friend, Jean-Luc Brunel (the pedophile that committed suicide in prison in 2022).
So what was his function? I think it’s fair to speak of at least two.
First and probably foremost, as an intermediary. Epstein’s provision of sexual services to the rich and powerful of the world offered him a wealth of contacts. If American diplomats wanted a back channel with the Russians or with pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, Epstein was one of those to call. In this respect, one could rightfully draw parallels between Epstein and Chabad, the Jewish sect which keeps popping up as intermediaries for Trump’s shadow diplomacy in Ukraine and Russia.
An example of the type of useful contacts Epstein could boast of comes, for instance, in an early 2013 email. Here, seemingly one of Epstein’s ‘girlfriends’ tells him about her current destination:
Roman Abramovich is one of Russia’s richest men. Though certainly a figure with a line to Putin, this is hardly a militarist opponent of the west. On the contrary, Abramovich was prominent in the March 2022 negotiations with Ukraine, as well as the grain deal that came a few months later. Abramovich was kind enough to fly Ukrainian POWs back from Russian captivity in his own private jet later in 2022 — he even gave them free iphones.
In other words, this is a typical member of the Russian economic elite that would much prefer close economic ties with the west to anything else. That’s where his bank accounts lie, after all. This is someone considered a traitor by Russian patriots. A very important figure for western intelligence to have a line on, a line through which to send confidential messages. A way to coordinate negotiations. No doubt Epstein wasn’t the only such possible way into figures like Abramovich, but I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to have numerous options.
Second, Epstein surely functioned as a source of information. Epstein knew many and heard many things. In his emails, he was clearly a great fan of telling other powerful individuals interesting intel. I find it hard to believe that he wasn’t communicating even more explosive things through more secure channels to, say, his good friend Mr Barak.
Now we’ll examine Epstein’s likely designs on Zelensky, Epstein’s ‘pro-Russian’ (but actually quite the opposite) contacts in Ukraine, the geopolitical nature of his Slovakian friend, and much more.
