The “boys club” that protected Epstein

The Department of Justice has released more than 3 million files tied to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. The rollout has been chaotic.

Many documents were heavily redacted, while others appeared to expose victims’ personal information and photos that were not supposed to be public.

Officials say this is the full set of materials that will be made public and that additional criminal charges are unlikely. So now that the files are out: What have we actually learned, and will anyone be held accountable?

To find out, Today, Explained guest host Jonquilyn Hill spoke with Business Insider reporter Maddie Berg, who covers wealth and power.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full episode, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

What have we learned from this latest document dump?

I think the overarching thing I’ve really taken away is it’s a really rare look about how rich and powerful people — mainly men — communicate, how the network works, how they do favors for each other. 

And they talk about women in a way that is really scary. That’s kind of the overarching theme I’ve taken away, is how permissive this rich and powerful class has been or was to Epstein. 

Additionally, there have been revelations about figures. People like Elon Musk, who have said: I have cut ties with Epstein, I didn’t know him, I never went to the island, etc., but we’re seeing that he was emailing Epstein, asking for an invite to the island to go to a “wild” party.

We’re seeing Howard Lutnick. He said he cut ties with Epstein in 2005, but their emails, which indicate he seemingly went to Epstein’s Island in 2012.

We’re seeing Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, the law firm, step down overnight as chairman. He’s still working as a lawyer there.

There’s a lot of Woody Allen/Epstein overlap in this. He actually helped Woody Allen’s daughter, one of them, get into Bard College, it seems like. So again, there’s so much overlap in terms of who you think of as kind of creepy men.

Who are other powerful people mentioned in the files? 

The man formerly known as Prince Andrew has been connected to Epstein for years. In these emails, the evidence seems like sex trafficking. It seems like him asking Epstein to be set up with women. 

Additionally, we’re seeing Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife. Prince spoke to Epstein in a very friendly way. Same with the Crown Princess of Norway — and this is all, by the way, after 2008, when he was convicted of prostitution with a minor. 

We’re also seeing Peter Mandelson. He was the former British ambassador to the US. He resigned from his position in the House of Lords, and we’re seeing fallout for that. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the UK, is under fire at the moment because he apparently knew about some of Peter Mandelson’s ties to Epstein when Starmer named him ambassador. 

We’ve seen more repercussions to foreign leaders than to Americans. Why do you think that is?

A lot of the leaders in America, the names that are jumping out are business leaders. We’re kind of going to see how that plays out.

We’re seeing the NFL is looking into Steve Tisch, the owner of the Giants. We’re going to really kind of see how the pieces fall as we learn more and more. 

“I found it interesting how much these people put into writing. It was almost like they believed they were above the law or above repercussion.”

I also think that, repercussions-wise, the whole point of the document dump is not to find new evidence. It’s for the Department of Justice to prove that it did not leave any stone unturned. It looked into everybody. It thought about prosecuting these people. It went down those rabbit holes. It couldn’t find enough to criminally prosecute anyone else other than Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein. 

Some of these correspondents might be creepy, it might be sleazy, it might be gross, it might be unethical; but there wasn’t enough criminal goods in this to prosecute anyone else named. 

What do consequences look like if they’re not criminal charges? 

I think a lot of it is up to the public, if we’re not okay with something that we read in this, whether it’s from a politician or a business leader, to really push back and to say, This is not okay. We want this leader out. We want them out of government, out of their business, whatever it is. It’s kind of up to the court of public opinion. 

Now, that said, we are going to see some of these people testifying in front of Congress later this month. The Clintons are going to testify. Les Wexner, who was listed in a draft document by the DOJ as a co-conspirator or potential co-conspirator of Epstein’s, will too. So we are going to see these people questioned by the government. 

We might get more answers, and we might then, it won’t be criminal charges necessarily, but we might get repercussions from the public, and there might be more consequences in that way.

What should the public take away from all of this whole thing?

I think it’s important to understand how the very, very, very wealthy, the very, very powerful interact with each other. How they speak about women, how they use each other. 

And also how many people can’t be taken at their word. So many people denied having a connection to Epstein or visiting his island or talking to him after his conviction in 2008, but they were lying. And I think it’s really important that we hold people to account, and we don’t take their word at face value. 

I found it interesting how much these people put into writing. It was almost like they believed they were above the law or above repercussion. And not everybody, obviously, but some very rich and powerful people think they’re immune to consequences. And it’s really up to the public now that this is out there, what consequences they face.