Epstein’s reach was global
Was Trump involved? Of course he was. Are other Americans in the net? Damn straight. Does Epstein’s web extend outside the US? Yes. The man’s reach was global. Throw a dart at a world map, and it won’t land far from the home address of a name found in the Epstein emails. The man had his finger in pies from Norway to Dubai to the UK to Hollywood.
And that is just a warm-up.
I suspect that the reach of Epstein’s perfidy — from pedophile rings to blackmail — runs deep and wide. What first surfaced as the systemic abuse of minors by Epstein and his fellow child abusers in Florida will prove to be an international network of wealthy and powerful people caught in a gilded cesspit of depravity, greed, extortion, and self-dealing.
Here is some of what we know so far.
Norway
Trump lusts after the Nobel Peace Prize. The prevailing theory was that he wanted it because President Barack Obama had one. However, he may have thought the Prize valuable for another reason. Jeffrey Epstein used it as bait to lure big-ticket names into his swamp.
Unlike other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish organizations, the Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The Committee was chaired by Thorbjørn Jagland from 2009 to 2015. The latest release of the Epstein files shows that Epstein repeatedly touted his ties to Jagland in invitations to and in chats with the likes of Richard Branson, Larry Summers, Bill Gates, and Steve Bannon.
The economic crime unit of the Norwegian police has now charged Jagland, 75, for “aggravated corruption” in connection with an investigation prompted by information in the files. He is not alone.
Mona Juul, a Norwegian ambassador who was involved in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts in the 1990s and most recently served in Jordan, has resigned from that post amid scrutiny over her contacts with Jeffrey Epstein. That followed reports that Epstein left the children of Juul and her husband, Terje Rød-Larsen, $10 million in a will drawn up shortly before his death by suicide in a New York prison in 2019.
United Arab Emirates
Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem was the chairman and CEO of the UAE-based logistics giant DP World. The corporation is one of the world’s largest logistics companies. It operates more than 60 ports and terminals worldwide and handles about 10% of global trade.
Bin Sulayem, one of Dubai’s most powerful and well-connected people, resigned after his connections to Epstein surfaced. Declassified documents showed the pair had exchanged messages for years before and after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The United Kingdom
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the accused statutory rapist formerly known as Prince Andrew, is the most prominent British name so far ensnared in the Epstein scandal. He had been photographed with his arm around the waist of the underage Virginia Roberts (later Giuffre), who claimed he (as well as other middle-aged and older men) had sex with her, as if he believed, “it was his birthright.”
But sex was not Andrew’s only nexus with Epstein. British police are looking into a claim that he shared confidential trade documents with the convicted sex offender while serving as a U.K. trade envoy.
Andrew is not the only prominent Brit now being investigated by the rozzers. Peter Mandelson, a fixture in British politics and no stranger to scandal, resigned as British Ambassador to Washington last year after an early batch of the Epstein files revealed he had kept up friendly communications with the late sex offender after Epstein's conviction.
He is under a law enforcement microscope now that the latest released emails reveal he allegedly passed sensitive U.K. government information to Epstein. In addition, although British PM Keir Starmer is not implicated in the Epstein affair, he is facing questions as to why he appointed Mandelson to the prominent diplomatic post despite his checkered history.
Hollywood
Epstein's reach extended beyond politics and finance. Hollywood mega-agent Casey Wasserman, whose clients include Chappell Roan, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, and Kendrick Lamar, is selling his business after the Justice Department’s recent Epstein Document dump exposed his communications with Ghislaine Maxwell.
Wasserman was facing a client rebellion after suggestive communications with Maxwell in 2003 were released. In one, to give the reader a taste, Casey told Ghislaine, “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”
However, Wasserman remains the man in charge of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics—for now.
New York
Finally, as if to prove that a girl can be one of the boys, leading Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathy Ruemmler said Thursday night that she will leave the investment bank at the end of June. A decision that came after news articles highlighted documents detailing the former White House counsel’s often chummy email conversations with Epstein.
The end
This will not be the end. The reach and consequences of the Epstein affair have barely been explored. For years, conspiracy theorists have been scorned as paranoid, tinfoil-hat wearers. But perhaps the better analysis might be that even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Now there are legitimate and substantive questions about how the depraved man died. That’s another can of worms unsealed.
