By Donald Jeffries
With the most recent pronouncement from Donald Trump’s Justice Department that there actually was never any “list” associated with billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, it is reasonable to ask why he was prosecuted. Or why his cohort Ghislaine Maxwell was tried and convicted of trafficking minors to unknown parties.
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When Epstein died in his jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019, virtually the entire world was dubious that he had actually taken his own life. Then Attorney General William Barr claimed to have initially been suspicious himself, but would laughably tell the Associated Press that:
I can understand people who immediately, whose minds went to sort of the worst-case scenario because it was a perfect storm of screw-ups.
The “screw-ups” included the two guards assigned to watch Epstein’s cell, who would be charged with falsifying prison records and sleeping on the job, as well as the prison security cameras not working at the time.
Epstein was awaiting trial on charges that he abused girls as young as 14, in New York and Florida in the early 2000s. But Barr would also claim to have viewed security footage that showed no one entered Epstein’s cell that night. This was presumably the same footage recently released by Donald Trump’s new Justice Department, which doesn’t actually show Epstein’s cell, was taken from an odd angle, and is missing several minutes.
Epstein had been found lying on his cell floor with bruises on his neck on July 23, and was placed on suicide watch. However, he was taken off suicide watch a week before his death, and had no roommate at the time. His previous roommate was an ex-cop who had killed four people, an odd choice to be housed with Epstein.
Judge Jeanine Pirro would tell Tucker Carlson in an interview that there had been a “rush to judgment,” to declare his death a suicide, and that she believed that made no sense:
We don’t know why the cameras weren’t working. We don’t know why everybody was asleep. Why they lied.
Regarding Epstein’s violent cellmate, Pirro stated:
[Epstein] said Nicholas Tartaglione, the cop in the cell, originally beat the hell out of him. I knew that probably was true because I knew Tartaglione. He was a cop when I was a district attorney in West-chester. Would it be like him to slap [Epstein] around? Without a doubt.
Epstein’s last known roommate, Efrain Reyes, was found dead in his mother’s apartment in December 2020, at just 51 years old, allegedly of Covid. Evidence found in a safe at Epstein’s New York apartment contained video tapes and other items, but the government nonsensically claimed they were “lost.”
Epstein was first targeted by the justice system in 2008 but, instead of facing the stiff penalties mere mortals would have for trafficking underage girls to his Palm Beach estate, he was given a slap on the wrist by then Miami U.S Attorney Alexander Acosta. It was Acosta who arranged an agreement that inexplicably shielded Epstein and his accomplices from federal prosecution.
Epstein pleaded guilty to two prostitution charges and served a mere 13 months in Palm Beach County Jail, but could have faced life in prison with a federal sex-trafficking conviction. His accomplices were never charged.
In 2019, U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra of the Southern District of Florida ruled that Acosta was wrong to set up such a clandestine non-prosecution agreement with Epstein. Trump would go on to raise eyebrows by appointing Acosta as his first secretary of Labor.
Acosta would claim that he made the unusual sweetheart deal with Epstein because he was told to “go easy” on Epstein, who “belonged to intelligence.”
Online news outlet “Daily Beast” reporter Vicky Ward wrote a profile on Epstein in 2003 for Vanity Fair but disclosed later that her editor had deleted many of the most tantalizing details in her story, despite the willingness of victims to go on the record.
I tried to expose Jeffrey Epstein for what he is and I was silenced. Everyone who knew about Epstein was … silenced by people with more money, power and influence.
Critics naturally speculate that Trump’s behavior was due to fear his own name would appear on the Epstein client list.
Attention has now focused on Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison on sex-trafficking charges. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche stated recently that he had communicated with Maxwell’s counsel:
… To determine whether she would be willing to speak with prosecutors from the department. … I anticipate meeting with Ms. Maxwell in the coming days.
Blanche indicated. he was acting at the behest of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
With supposedly no Epstein list, and no evidence implicating any clients, critics have asked why Maxwell was convicted. Trump’s recent comments have only served to further muddy the waters in this case.
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