The latest batch of Epstein files—over 3 million documents, only around half of what the Department of Justice reports to have amassed—has unleashed a new cast of characters, a list that includes tech titans, health influencers, litigation rainmakers, university leaders, sports executives, Hollywood moguls and international royalty. None of the those named in the latest tranche of Epstein files strike me as people I ever assumed possessed particularly stellar moral character, and their collective fall from grace doesn’t shock me.
But what does turn my stomach is how pathetically small the price of entry into Epstein’s world appears to have been.
The expressions of regret now surfacing—I am ashamed, this is not who I am!—read less like moral reckonings and more like the lament of those who simply got caught.
The emails reveal a tawdry economy of access: absurd favors, crude jokes, dating advice, shared handwringing about #MeToo, and giddy acceptance of gifts—Apple Watches, Prada bags, monogrammed sweatshirts—that these already powerful figures could easily have bought themselves.
Whether any individual named in the files participated in or witnessed Epstein’s crimes is only part of the story. Just as telling is the desperate desire to remain in his orbit—often long after his 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from girls.
That eagerness to maintain proximity, for so little in return, speaks volumes about how power protects itself—and what too many were willing to overlook to stay connected to it.