solrize , 6 hours ago

I don’t see anything in those articles that’s particularly in conflict with the stuff that was all over the press around the time of the Epstein and G. Maxwell busts. Everyone knows Robert Maxwell was an obnoxious Rupert Murdoch type who nonetheless did a lot of philanthropy. Epstein also did philanthropy. The articles don’t say Robert “trafficked” kids in the sense that Epstein did. He got a bunch of them taken to Israel (per the article–I hadn’t heard this story before but it doesn’t seem sensational) and lent his personal plane for the operation, no big deal. The stuff about him abusing Ghislaine is new to me but I guess it fits the general picture.

I don’t particularly remember about Epstein committing financial fraud though I didn’t pay much attention. It sounded to me more he had a bunch of ultra rich people investing with him and he also trafficked teenagers to them and maybe blackmailed them too. Those are very serious crimes but not financial fraud per se. The investments themselves made money, which was very easy to do in that era as financial markets in general were doing very well. I saw a news article claiming that Epstein pretended to be an investment genius and his clients treated him as a wizard, but in fact he just put everything in index funds like a common sense retail investor would. It sufficed for him to just not be an idiot in that regard. The index funds made money so the clients were happy.

Ghislaine is of course still with us and making noise from prison, so if the questions in the article are important, they could presumably ask her. Otherwise it just comes across as a bit voyeuristic.