In 2008, convicted billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein received a shockingly light prison sentence in his sex-trafficking case, and many details of the legal proceedings involved have been wrapped in court-mandated secrecy for years. Renewed efforts to lay bare the facts are now underway. It stands to reason that his cohorts want this case to remain hushed up.
Jeffrey Epstein
Epstein reached an inexplicable plea bargain deal with prosecutors that allowed him to serve only 13 months in Palm Beach County jail – spending most of that time on “work release” in his plush office – for running a sex-trafficking ring involving underage girls. President Trump’s Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, serving as a U.S. attorney for Miami at the time, green-lighted that deal. In November 2018, the Miami Herald published a powerful exposé on the sordid tale, giving newfound vigor to attempts to uncover just how Epstein was able to mock justice.
The newspaper is now investigating a 2015 lawsuit in hopes of unmasking information previously unrevealed about Epstein. At the same time, many Democrats – who had good reason to keep their distance from the Epstein affair – now sense a golden political opportunity in bringing to light specifics, all the way back to the original 2008 conviction.
Secrets About Secrets
The Herald has filed a court appeal to have court documents from a 2015 civil suit involving Epstein unsealed and made public. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked by Epstein as a young girl, sued his partner Ghislaine Maxwell for libel after Maxwell called her a liar. The case was eventually settled, and Maxwell paid Giuffre a hefty sum.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre
Giuffre claimed that prominent Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz is one of the men she was forced to have sex with during her time as an Epstein slave. Accordingly, Dershowitz’s legal team has asked the judge hearing the Herald’s plea to consider barring the media from court during arguments because material currently under court seal will be cited.
Thus Dershowitz asks that the public be kept in the dark during a procedure to learn the details of Epstein’s shady deals. Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation says the maneuver is a “veiled threat” meant to keep things under wraps.
“It’s like ‘if you don’t keep out the media, then we are going to reveal stuff and let the chips fall where they may,'” Petersen told the Herald. “They don’t want it to come out and they don’t want to make a motion and ban the media, so they are hoping the judges do it for them.”
Kill Bill
What’s interesting is that Democrats have been leading the charge to expose the details of Epstein’s sweetheart plea to the sunlight ever since the Herald’s blockbuster series of articles on the subject in November. Fourteen Democratic members of Congress have urged Attorney General William Barr to reopen the criminal investigation against Epstein.
Bill Clinton
These Dems have spotted an opportunity to take political shots at Trump over his Labor secretary’s alleged disgraceful conduct in the affair. As a result, Epstein and Dershowitz find themselves in the uncomfortable position of seeing their powerfully connected efforts to keep Epstein’s crimes quiet come undone by Trump Derangement Syndrome. Dems’ irresistible urge to attack Trump every chance they get apparently overrides consideration for the reputation of a two-term Democrat president who happens to be implicated in the Epstein drama. Bill Clinton took at least 26 trips on the notorious Lolita Express, the plane that flew Epstein associates to his private island filled with underage girls.
Many observers believe that Epstein’s Clinton ties have helped shield him from the scrutiny his criminal behavior so sorely deserved. This does not seem to be the case anymore. Epstein and his team have conducted an elaborate legal campaign to keep the facts of his sex trafficking out of the public eye. Over the years, the game plan has been wildly successful. Now it is seriously threatened in no small part because Democrats yearn to land another blow on their despised sitting president. In service to that cause, one-time party giant Clinton is nothing more than collateral damage.
