“We cannot properly address the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein unless we grapple with the covert power structures that have long wielded blackmail, bribes, and assassinations as their weapons of choice to corrupt and control public institutions while manipulating and looting the public.”
– One Nation Under Blackmail
In January 2023, a newly empowered Republican House majority set up an investigatory panel to probe the weaponization of the federal government against conservatives. By then, an independent analysis of Twitter files confirmed their suspicions of a collusion, of sorts, between social media companies and federal agencies, including intelligence, to curtail speech based on ideology. This isn’t the first time, however, that governmental institutions have misused the authority vested in them by the Constitution of the United States. In 2022, the Ghislaine Maxwell trial judge would justify the continuing coverup of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual crimes by withholding the list of clients over “needless namedropping”. But as we will soon find, Epstein’s blackmail scheme was only a replication of earlier state-sponsored tactics to trap powerful people for nefarious ends.
While Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes get most of the headlines, financial corruption beginning with a Ponzi scheme he not only masterminded but was never held responsible for, is the bigger story. With claims of ties to both the US and Israeli intelligence agencies, Epstein’s corruption is laid bare in two little black books, a virtual who’s who of powerful and influential people in sports and entertainment, corporate business, the fashion industry, royalty, finance, and government. Epstein’s rise began innocently enough as a mathematics teacher but quickly escalated to include a vast array of crimes from financial fraud, arms dealing, drug trafficking, and money laundering, resulting from his connections to several corporations and charitable foundations.
In Whitney Webb’s 2022 books, “One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1 and 2”, Webb tells the story of the ongoing collaboration between American intelligence agencies and the criminal element that began during World War II but continued to endure following its wartime successes. Sexual blackmail was borne of this odd relationship where a web of businesses linked to organized crime and intelligence worked hand in glove to elicit damaging information on important people and was a prevalent aspect of intelligence operations. Bursting with a panoply of names, dates, and places, Webb’s story reads more encyclopedic than a novel, as she details the system that gave cover and credibility to Epstein’s notorious life. Volume 1 provides the backstory while Volume 2 focuses on Epstein’s criminal enterprises.
The partnership between the US and Israeli intel and a transnational group of mobsters who peddled in guns, drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, and surveillance, gave unlimited opportunity to government officials to override the rule of law and collect data through corruptible means. Highlighted was the MEGA group of prominent Jewish businessmen with deep ties to organized crime who assisted oligarchs and large corporations with covert operations. Parties at the Plaza Hotel in New York in the 1950s outed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover over his gay escapades and cross-dressing. This information was used to neutralize the FBI and neuter Hoover’s leadership. This is just one of many sex extortion rings that used minors to target politicians and would inspire Epstein’s development of his own espionage operation.
Epstein’s entry into sexual blackmail began at an art school he attended as a child, where it is believed he himself may have been groomed, and would later recruit young, gifted females for his own sordid enterprise. A job at Bear Stearns gave him access to an endless supply of wealthy individuals anxious for his skills in tax avoidance. After meeting up with Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of British spy, Robert Maxwell, the duo used modeling agencies, auction houses, and galleries as feeder programs to procure young women. In a twist of fate, Robert Maxwell was known to groom Ghislaine in his espionage activities that ended with a Jeffrey Epstein acquaintance. Along with videotaping beds and toilets, girls were expected to describe their sexual encounters for information on proclivities and preferences. In a parallel operation, the pair groomed, trained, and educated women to be the wives and girlfriends of elites. Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton were believed to be two of Epstein’s earliest blackmail plots in the early 1990s.
In 2005, Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of state prostitution on only two indictments despite nearly three dozen victims. He would serve only 13 of an 18-month sentence, much of it on work release outside the walls of the prison. As part of the arrangement, Epstein was given a non-prosecution agreement (NPA) by a US attorney that ended any further investigation and averted more serious charges. The NPA was approved due to Epstein’s association with intelligence, suggesting he was operating within the knowledge of the state. Arrested again in 2019, the onetime billionaire pedophile would end up EPSTEINED in a New York jail. On the night in question, his cellmate was removed, two guards fell asleep, and both cameras malfunctioned. A year later, Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, would be arrested for trafficking and abuse of minors. She would be convicted and sentenced to 20 years in a country club facility.
We watched as Epstein’s collaborators went free with the help of a complicit media. In 2019, ABC anchor, Amy Robach, lamented the quashing of a 2015 interview she had with prominent Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts, which included allegations against former President Bill Clinton. ABC apparently sidelined the segment after the British palace threatened the network with withholding future interviews with royal superstars, William and Kate. Video evidence of ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos and then NBC anchor Katie Couric emerging from Epstein’s New York manse following a social event, in 2010, may have also influenced their decision.
Epstein’s crimes are a symptom of a corrupted system, a government borne of organized crime. Unfortunately, the labor-intensive blackmail of the past is quickly being replaced with a modern means of extortion with a much larger reach. By planting evidence on digital devices, unsuspecting targets are ripe for manipulation and abuse, promising a future of more Epsteinesque operations compromising more victims.
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