Epstein was a money guy

Jeffrey Epstein’s job was not primarily as a procurer of young women or blackmailer of the rich and powerful. He was a money guy. This does not make the story less interesting.

You have to understand, if you read Wall Street memoirs that go back to the 1970s, that the financial sector was absolutely tiny and remarkably informal compared to what it is now. The amount of money involved was much lower, and entry-level jobs were handed out on the most stereotypical boomer “just go up to the manager with a firm handshake” basis.

(This was also the case for the Dalton teaching position Epstein happened into at the age of 21. Consider that at the age of 21, you have essentially no reputation or credibility beyond “he seems smart”. You simply don’t have the ability to commit to some hypothesized scheme involving procuring students, of an elite school mind you, in any way that has any likelihood of success. The idea that a deranged boomer might in the mid 70s hire a bright math semi-prodigy without a college degree to teach high school physics says more about boomer hiring instincts than any sort of conspiracy. The idea that in the mid 70s a 21 year old math teacher might be hitting on 17 year old students is not exactly earth-shattering. The past is a horny country.)

It certainly helped that Epstein was of the same ethnic background as Alan Greenberg, the guy who placed him as an assistant floor trader at Bear Sterns, ie, someone who would be running back and forth making sure order tickets got physically collected in the appropriate location in the back office so they could be settled. Evidently he did well, because he was promoted (as was expected) to an options trader, and then, finally, got to talk to clients. There is an implication in many news articles covering this period that he became a specialist in using options to generate paper tax losses for (legal) tax avoidance.

One of his clients post promotion at Bear Sterns was Edgar Bronfman, heir to the Seagram’s liquor fortune. There is nothing particularly sketchy about this - Bear Sterns was a respected firm with a number of wealthy clients sticking their money there. In other words, Epstein wasn’t trading on his own brand or reputation, except in as much as clients liked him as well as the next best guy at the firm. Remember the name - Bronfman comes up later.

Epstein has to leave Bear Sterns in 1981 in the midst of what seems to be some kind of hushed-up scandal, immediately after making partner; plausibly insider trading that is covered with a less than plausible story about a loan to a friend that would have nominally been in violation of SEC regulations and subject to a minuscule fine.

(“Hushed up scandal? Sounds like he was trafficking teens!” This was ~1980 in New York City. It was essentially legal to bang coked-up teens in the disco bathroom - the only thing that would get him canned from his position, immediately after making partner, was the possibility he would mess up everyone else’s money.)

This is when he makes the shift from a fairly standard Wall Street career path to “sketchy money manager”. He is moving around money for Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms broker who gets involved in the Iran-Contra scandal (which, importantly, had as a large component moving money and goods in and out of Israel, with payoffs handled via third parties). He runs across Steven Hoffenberg, who nominally runs a giant debt collection agency and pivots to corporate takeovers, but in reality runs a giant ponzi scheme (ponzis and debt collection both notably involve managing money flows to keep plates spinning).

And the coup de grace, which seems to have supported him for the rest of his life - in 1986 or so he runs across Les Wexner, billionaire founder of Victoria’s Secret et al. Wexner supposedly has tangled finances at the time, which Epstein straightens out - and then in 1991 Wexner effectively nominates him as his viceroy, granting him full power of attorney.

Wexner has some interesting side projects - namely, the “Mega Group” he founds in 1991, comprised of Jewish billionaires who want to pursue extracurricular support of Israeli / Mossad influence operations. Amongst other people, this involves Edgar Bronfman, his client from the Bear Sterns days. And Epstein had previous experience, via his relationship with Adnan Khashoggi, in moving money and goods around the Mideast. Some time between 1986 and 1991, Epstein is introduced to Ghislaine Maxwell, who may still have some of her late father Robert Maxwell’s connections with the Israelis.

Honestly, this all looks rather straightforward - Epstein develops an expertise in discreetly moving money around without paying taxes or triggering money laundering concerns, and ends up getting hired to do this for his clients’ project to funnel money into Mossad operations. You’ll notice that as of the mid 1990s, no nubile teens have made an appearance in force, and no politicians or scientists are implicated; it’s a series of introductions that happens, to all appearances, because he is good at his job.

But there is an interesting meta here - how do you know you can trust your sketchy money manager? You’re giving him fairly large amounts of money for strategies that are, eh, borderline in their legality or ability to legally effect their intended purpose; you’re giving him cash to move around with the pretense that you aren’t really involved or aware of the transaction (this is why Wexner gives him power of attorney, despite the obvious danger of giving away the keys to the kingdom - it’s a rolling Shaggy defense). What happens if the money they’re supposed to move just… doesn’t show up? What if they decide the IRS is onto them, and they’d rather get ahead of the game and open the books to lessen their penalty at your expense?

It’s quite plausible that, rather than Epstein somehow blackmailing billionaires into giving him cash to manage, his clients were the ones who believed they had dirt on Epstein. As somewhat of an exhibitionist (cf his public behavior at parties, noted by of all people Donald Trump) and an egomaniac, his indiscreet tastes were on one hand a red flag for his judgment, but also provided a deadman’s switch for his clients should the relationship go south. If he embezzles from you more than a reasonable cut, well, you dig up one of the girls and he becomes no longer your problem. Any transactions that come to light get retroactively attributed to his instability - whoops, he came highly recommended, but turns out he had some issues with teens and drugs and whatnot and started trying to cover the hole with this Israeli business, which I had no part in - if anything, your honor, I’m the victim here.

The plausibility of this is enhanced by the fact that this is exactly what happened, in the end - having brought dozens of underage girls to his own house, complete with photo evidence, one of their stepfathers finally dropped a dime on him.

None of this precludes the possibility of bad sexual behavior by Epstein’s clients (nb - his money management clients). In a very slightly less refined environment, this would be the rough equivalent of your commercial real estate broker, who might or might not have done some payoffs to make the permits happen, taking his clients out to the strip club, and hey, who’s to say what happened in the champagne room. Jeff, who you can trust implicitly, because he’s a little bit of a piece of shit and everyone knows it, is inviting you to hang out with some scientists, some teens, David Copperfield and Tony Blair, huh, that’s an interesting juxtaposition, hey man you want a massage before the party starts, I think she likes you, wink. Of course this is all rather gross, but the chance it turns into sexual blackmail is not really a concern compared to the fact that you just wrote the guy a check as part of an international bribery / influence peddling / arms trafficking / etc scheme. At worst it turns into mutually assured destruction - the stuff long lasting partnerships are made of.

If you look at the list of Mega Group donors plausibly associated with the broader Epstein money flows, it’s apparent why the Trump administration is trying to bury this. If there is no cinematic child trafficking ring, what you are left with is a bunch of Jewish billionaires funneling money through Epstein as part of a huge Israeli influence operation - and plausibly, once the CIA becomes aware of this, the same people financing some US operations as their price for being allowed to do business (hence the claim that Epstein “belonged to [US] intelligence”). Intermittently, someone gets a handjob from a 16 year old. Considering Trump’s domestic and foreign policy priorities, the composition of his high end donor base, and how hard it was sat on during every administration since at least George W Bush, this makes absolutely no one look good.

Unfortunately there’s not a great way to triage this - without lurid sexual disclosures that some fraction of the MAGA base seems to think exists in this context (the dumber ones conflate the Epstein affair with “pizzagate”, which is a whole other far more concerning ball of yarn), elaborating on the actual contours of what Epstein was up to just pisses off a bunch of people Trump is depending on for political and policy support, and changes absolutely no one’s opinion about anything.

This is why it would be nice if we had an attorney general competent enough to manage a good old fashioned limited hangout - slap the original abort button, and imply, eg, that Epstein was swindling Wexner and Wexner alone, btw we determined the girls were mostly bait that wasn’t taken except by a couple fall guys, btw an alligator ate the camera footage of his suicide, we’re very sad about this whole thing, but at least he’s dead, whatever. Instead we’ll just have to try to enjoy the shitshow.