The Real Epstein ‘Ring’
The disgraced financier’s ex-pals enjoyed his parties and vast network.
By Barton Swaim
Feb. 11, 2026 5:33 pm ET
The Epstein files were supposed to uncover Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking and blackmail operation. Instead they
highlight how America’s liberal VIPs in media, tech and politics enjoyed the disgraced financier’s parties and vast network.
Its nonexistence is, ironically, the main thing to emerge so far from the document dump. In the latest tranche, released late last month, is a memo from FBI investigators declaring that they found
no evidence in Epstein’s residences and bank accounts of a trafficking ring or of “sex videos” supposedly used for blackmail. This finding has the force of cogency, contradicting as it does the earlier conspiratorial claims of Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. Justice Department honchos, in other words, wanted to uncover a trafficking ring. Their investigators had to tell them the bad news.
Another revealing document - this one highlighted by the independent journalist Michael Tracey - is an 86-page memo from December 2019 by prosecutors with the Southern District of New York. The memo, intended to marshal evidence against Epstein’s associates, noted that
Virginia Giuffre, the accuser primarily responsible for stories of a sex-slave and blackmail ring, was in fact a fabulist and totally unreliable as a courtroom witness.
That Epstein’s crimes were confined to himself and a few enablers, chiefly Ghislaine Maxwell, was intolerable to influencers and politicos determined to attribute all bad things to the dark workings of cabals.
Tucker Carlson conjectured that Epstein worked with the Mossad to blackmail its enemies. A coterie of radicals in the House, including
Thomas Massie (R., Ky.),
Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) and
Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), relentlessly speculate that Epstein serviced the rich and powerful in odious ways. These exhibitionists have yet to receive any criticism from the anti-“misinformation” crowd.
Congress, in an act of cravenness whose consequences will last decades, mandated the release of these documents—and for nakedly political reasons. Democrats were certain President Trump would show up as an Epstein “client,” and Republicans hoped to remind the public of Bill Clinton’s lechery.
Alas for Mr. Trump’s enemies, the latest tranche of documents casts doubt on the idea that he ever cavorted with Epstein and his harem. An FBI document memorializes
a 2006 conversation in which Mr. Trump phoned the Palm Beach, Fla., police chief to say he knew about Epstein’s and Ms. Maxwell’s behavior and thought it vile. He was once around Epstein when teenage girls showed up, he recalled to the police chief, and he “got the hell out of there.”
The press purports to think the salient fact here is that Mr. Trump in 2019 claimed he knew nothing about Epstein’s creepy actions. But the salient point is that Mr. Trump in 2006 volunteered his view to the cops that Epstein’s behavior revolted him and is thus unlikely to have participated in it.
Mr. Clinton, though not unscathed by the files, doesn’t seem to have been a “client” whom Epstein could blackmail. He took four overseas trips on Epstein’s jet in 2002 and 2003, each credibly said to be about philanthropic work (the stops were all in Africa—not the Virgin Islands). That’s before Epstein’s 2006 indictment in Palm Beach for soliciting a minor. Among the released files are several undated photos, by appearances from the early 2000s, of Mr. Clinton with Epstein and a variety of celebrities and unidentified women, the latter’s faces redacted.
There was, in the end, no sex-slave ring, no blackmail operation, no cameras recording dalliances for later use, no client list. Just a deeply sick and rich predator with a few enablers.
Yet there was a ring of sorts - a circle of well-connected, wealthy and politically liberal men who looked past Epstein’s taste in girls and remained on friendly terms with this charming, lavishly generous and intellectually conversant epicure. Revilers of Epstein’s pals draw a fine distinction between those who continued to associate with him after the ’08 conviction and those who didn’t. I’m not convinced that’s all-important.
They all knew - just as everybody in Hollywood knew what Harvey Weinstein was up to, claims of ignorance notwithstanding. Some of Epstein’s former pals, now protesting that their dealings with him were “limited” - word of the year - may have accepted carnal favors, though perhaps not criminal ones. Many only enjoyed the parties, business opportunities and social connections.
For America’s liberal VIPs in media, tech and politics, the moment demands self-reflection. The
big-timers humiliated by association with Epstein - like the guys disgraced by MeToo allegations - almost all held conventional liberal opinions and gave lavishly to liberal causes and Democratic candidates. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed.
Today’s liberals spend a lot of energy discoursing on the American right’s pathologies, often justly. But it ought to bother them that 20 years ago the man they loathe most took a look at Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct and got the hell out of there.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-real...-ring-f07d7b9e
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