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THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN SCANDAL IS A STAIN ON BOTH PARTIES  
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Ben Burgis
August 3, 2025
Jacobin
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_ Forget partisan finger-pointing. The Jeffrey Epstein scandal cuts
across party lines, indicting economic and political elites alike.
Epstein just enjoyed the perks of life in one of the very top tiers of
a society where laws are for little people. _

Former president Bill Clinton shakes hands with Jeffrey Epstein,
while Ghislaine Maxwell looks on, following an event for the White
House Restoration Project, in Washington, DC, on September 29, 1993.,
White House Photographer, probably Ralph Alswang / Wikimedia Commons
// Jacobin

 

At the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021, a woman identified in court
records as Jane Doe #3 testified
[[link removed]] that
she’d met the defendant, and Maxwell’s longtime boyfriend Jeffrey
Epstein, “in between classes at Interlochen Arts Camp in the early
’90s.” Epstein and Maxwell stopped to talk to her while she was
having ice cream with her friends. After she returned home from summer
camp, Jane Doe #3 and her mother “visited Epstein and Maxwell, after
which began a period of grooming and later sexual abuse.”

Located in a beautiful cluster of forests and lakes in northern
Michigan, Interlochen is an internationally renowned art and music
camp for teenagers and younger children. I worked there for several
summers during my late teens and early twenties (so about a decade
later), and I can attest that, in many ways, it’s a wonderful place.
But Epstein was a significant donor. Interlochen even named one of its
scholarship cabins after him. The information that he recruited at
least one of his victims there should be grimly unsurprising, given
how much time he seems to have spent on the campus.

More surprisingly, Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), seems to be unaware
of her state’s connection to the world’s most notorious pedophile
and sex trafficker. In a recent appearance
[[link removed]] on the YouTube
show _Breaking Points_, Slotkin explained her years of silence on the
case by saying that “there weren’t, to my knowledge, Michiganders
who were involved.”

She has called for the files to be released now, though — and she
took the opportunity to strongly suggest that Donald Trump doesn’t
want to release the files because the information in them would be
damaging to him. Slotkin isn’t wrong that Trump and Epstein were
closely connected for many years. But her explanation of Trump’s
behavior does raise an awkward question for Democrats. Why didn’t
Joe Biden ever release the files? Why did Democrats ignore this case
so thoroughly for years, to the point where they don’t even know
when their own states are implicated, only to come alive midway
through 2025?

And, for that matter, why have Republicans who screamed their heads
off about Epstein for years suddenly gone quiet, insisting there’s
nothing to see here?

There’s quite a bit we don’t know about Jeffrey Epstein’s
crimes. One thing we can be sure of, though, is that there are elite
figures on both sides of the aisle who wouldn’t want the files to
come to light. Likewise, both sides are weighing that knowledge
against the temptation to use Epstein as a battering ram against their
political opponents when conditions are right.

The whole spectacle exposes a deep rot in our society that transcends
partisan politics.

A Bipartisan Wall of Silence

At least
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accusers claimed to have been trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to be
abused by other prominent figures, including celebrity attorney Alan
Dershowitz and Britain’s Prince Andrew. (Both men have admitted to
traveling to Epstein’s private island, though they deny
participating in sexual abuse there or elsewhere.) Epstein traveled
around the world on a private plane nicknamed the “Lolita Express”
by locals
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the Virgin Islands due to the frequent presence of underage girls on
board. The publicly available flight logs include a long list of
prominent figures like Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Al
Gore, Kevin Spacey, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

None of these people, of course, have ever been charged with (much
less convicted of) any crime in connection with the Epstein scandal.
At the Maxwell trial in 2021, prosecutors stuck to the narrowest
charges on which they were sure they’d secure a conviction, so no
accusations were made about anyone but Epstein and Maxwell themselves.
As hard as it is not to speculate, there’s very little we can know
for sure.

It seems highly likely that a bipartisan group of wealthy and
influential people would, at the very least, be _embarrassed_ by
having all of the government’s files on Epstein released.

Perhaps Alan Dershowitz, for example, is telling the truth when he
admits to receiving a massage at Epstein’s island while insisting
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underwear on during the massage” and “I don’t particularly like
massages.” Perhaps Prince Andrew is telling the truth when he says
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a photo of him with his arm around Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre as
Maxwell stands in the background is a fake. (We do know that
he settled
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lawsuit against him for an undisclosed sum in 2022.)

Even on the most generous interpretation of these men’s association
with Epstein, though, it seems highly likely that a bipartisan group
of wealthy and influential people would, at the very least,
be _embarrassed_ by having all of the government’s files on
Epstein released.

This may explain why Joe Biden — who, as far as I know, has never
been accused of any personal involvement with Epstein — did not
release the files. Bill Clinton is still a major enough figure in the
Democratic Party that he spoke at the 2024 Democratic National
Convention and campaigned for Kamala Harris in swing states, and
several other known Epstein associates have been significant
Democratic donors.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that none of these people
participated in Epstein’s crimes. Even so, the potential stink of
the scandal threatened to hurt their reputations. Perhaps Biden
didn’t see the upside.

Trump, Epstein, and the “Wonderful Secret”

Democrats are starting to see plenty of upside now, however.

Epstein is on tape
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that he was “Donald Trump’s closest friend for ten years.”
An article
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earlier this month in the _New York Times _(“Inside the Long
Friendship Between Trump and Epstein”) reveals that in the early
’90s, Trump hosted a party for participants in a “calendar girl”
competition, where the girls were told that they would get to mingle
with VIPs, but the only other guest was . . . Jeffrey Epstein.

And according to a _Wall Street Journal _article around the same
time, Trump contributed a “bawdy letter” to an album assembled by
Maxwell for Epstein’s fiftieth birthday in 2003. (Other contributors
to the album include Dershowitz and Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie
Wexner.) Trump’s letter is surrounded by a crude drawing of the
outline of a naked woman, “and the future president’s signature is
a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.”

Even if you believe that Trump never participated in any of
Epstein’s crimes during the two men’s long friendship, the letter,
which takes the form of an imaginary dialogue between Trump and
Epstein, is deeply creepy.
 

Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw
you.

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every
day be another wonderful secret.

Trump claims that this letter is a “fake thing.” That seems
unlikely, given that the _Wall Street Journal _knew perfectly well
that its article would generate a lawsuit from our extraordinarily
litigation-happy president. They would have a strong incentive to
carefully check its veracity.

In light of Trump’s vulnerability, Democrats, who paid zero
attention to the case when they were in the Oval Office, are now
clamoring to force
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Justice Department and the FBI to release everything they have on
Epstein and his associates.

The Strange Evolution of the Trump Administration’s Position

Let’s assume for a moment that Trump is telling the truth — that
the birthday letter is fake and, in general, nothing in the Epstein
files would reflect badly on him. If so, shouldn’t he put the issue
to rest by letting the public see the files and form their own
judgments?

Trump’s failure to do this casts him in a suspicious light, as do
the flip-flops on the issue from several members of his
administration. The bizarre shifts in the Trump administration’s
approach to the case have been widely and brutally mocked
[[link removed]].

After Maxwell’s trial in 2021 (when Joe Biden was president), future
Vice President J.D. Vance tweeted
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interest would the US government have in keeping Epstein’s clients
secret? Oh…” Other figures like Trump’s FBI director Kash Patel
and his deputy FBI director Dan Bongino spent years beating the same
drum on right-wing podcasts.

After years of rampant speculation that Epstein was blackmailing
prominent people who participated in his sexual abuse, Trump’s
Attorney General Pam Bondi went so far as to claim
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she had an Epstein “client list” literally sitting on her desk
waiting to be reviewed. Back in February, the administration made
a show
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giving more than a dozen right-wing influencers binders labeled “The
Epstein Files: Phase One,” although these apparently contained
little new information. Bondi defended her actions on the grounds
that, while the information in the binders had previously been
“leaked,” it had never been “released in a formal capacity by
the US Government.”

A “Phase Two,” in which actually _new_ information was released,
never came. The administration announced that there was no client
list. This implies that Bondi was lying when she said the list was on
her desk. Nevertheless, Trump has insisted
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Bondi is doing a “FANTASTIC JOB!” and that everyone should stop
criticizing her. He’s also taken
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directly that some of the information in the unreleased files is
indeed about him, but is “fake” and a “hoax.”

What, specifically, is the content of this alleged hoax? Once again,
we’re left to wonder.

The Deeper Rot

Over the course of the last decade, all issues in American politics
have tended to be reduced to the central divide between pro-Trump and
anti-Trump forces. Thus, in this case, Democratic partisans and
Never-Trump conservatives who never called on Biden to release the
files are loudly demanding that Trump release them, while many Trump
loyalists who spent years urging that the files be released are
changing their tune.

Even some right-wing influencers who spent years using conspiracy
theories about Epstein to build up their personal brands, and who
initially expressed disappointment about the Trump administration’s
contortions on the issue, are mindlessly lining up behind Trump’s
claim that the _Wall Street Journal _story exposing his birthday
letter to Epstein is “fake news.”

The problem with this isn’t that the divide between pro-Trump and
anti-Trump forces is unimportant. (It’s not. Trump
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It’s that the significance of the scandal transcends partisan
divides. Similarly, it would be a mistake to dismiss the whole thing
as a distraction from bread-and-butter-issues. Instead, it should be
seen as a symptom of a much deeper rot in our profoundly unequal
society.

Was Jeffrey Epstein linked to either American or foreign intelligence,
as many have speculated? Was he blackmailing powerful people? Was his
alleged suicide really a murder?

If we assume that no strings were pulled through shadowy intelligence
connections to get Epstein’s sweetheart deal, that actually makes it
a _more_ disturbing indictment of American inequality.

I’ll admit to being pretty curious about some of these points, but
let’s go ahead and stipulate that the answer to all three questions
is “no.” Fine. Even when those issues are taken off the table,
here’s what we’re left with:

 

We live in a society where a single wealthy oligarch like Epstein can
buy his own island. He can buy a personal Boeing 727-100 to fly
himself and his guests back and forth from that island. He can tell
vulnerable young women that his wealth and his connections to powerful
people can be used to make all their dreams come true, and it can
sound pretty plausible. And such an individual can draw the fawning
attention of businessmen, celebrities, philanthropists, and
politicians like flies to honey.

When normal people are charged with major sex crimes, the consequences
for them are grim. An oligarch like Epstein, when he was first
arrested in 2008, got a sweetheart deal negotiated by his
world-famous lawyer friend
[[link removed]] Dershowitz,
whereby he served a little over a year in county jail and was able to
come and go from his cell in a “work-release” arrangement (as if
someone as wealthy as Epstein couldn’t simply have entrusted his
money to subordinates for a year while he sat in jail). 

And if not for subsequent years of persistent work by investigative
journalists, authorities might never have been shamed into reopening
their legal investigations of him. If we assume that no strings were
pulled through shadowy intelligence connections to get the initial
deal, that actually makes it a _more_ disturbing indictment of
American inequality. Epstein just enjoyed the perks of life in one of
the very top tiers of a society where laws are for little people
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Whatever else is true, these uncontested facts are enough to make the
scandal a disturbing window into what’s wrong with our social order.
And much worse may be waiting to be revealed. We don’t yet know. But
we should damn well find out.

_[BEN BURGIS is a Jacobin columnist, an adjunct philosophy professor
at Rutgers University, and the host of the YouTube show and podcast
Give Them An Argument. He’s the author of several books, most
recently Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong,
and Why He Still Matters.]_

_Jacobin‘s summer issue, “Speculation,” is out now. Follow this
link to get a discounted subscription to our beautiful print
quarterly. [[link removed]]_

* Jeffrey Epstein
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* Ghislane Maxwell
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* Sex Trafficking
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* child sex-trafficking
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* pedophilia
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* Donald Trump
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* MAGA
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* Pam Bondi
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* FBI
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* Bill Clinton
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* Party politics
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* Rich people
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* 1%
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* the 1%
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* Republican Party
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* Democratic Party
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* GOP
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* wealth inequality
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