On Friday, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) opened its bowels and dumped another tranche of the so-called Epstein files on the public. And it is a lot this time. To be precise, it consists of three million pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos from the two criminal investigations into financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. All of which comes on top of the hundreds of thousands of documents, emails and photos already publicly available, thanks to previous releases from the Epstein files in November and December last year.
Over the past 48 hours, news outlets have been eagerly picking through the effluent, looking for anything that scandalises those mentioned in the files – from Lord (Peter) Mandelson, who’s now resigned from the Labour Party over his appearances, to the artist formerly known as Prince Andrew.
We continue to see the political weaponisation of the Epstein files, as is to be expected. Many are hoping that this latest dump finally does for their political opponents, whether that be Donald Trump or Bill Gates or one of the Clintons. These are the emails, supposedly, that establish those people’s guilt by association with Epstein’s wickedness. At the most extreme, we’re told these files reveal some sort of conspiracy, with an allegedly blackmailing and bribing Epstein at the centre of some plot to control the world – orchestrated, no doubt, by Mossad / the KGB / Lizard Men (delete as appropriate).
Unsurprisingly, there is plenty that is tawdry, sordid and worse amid all the recently released documents and images. They provide us with yet another glimpse into Epstein’s world, in which rich, powerful men are given free rein to exploit women, and where silly European aristocrats trade their status for girls and cash handouts. It’s grubby, entitled and morally repellant, for sure. In Mandelson’s case, his sharing of sensitive political and financial information with Epstein, all while serving in government, has rightly earned him yet more disgrace and censure. That Prince Andrew appears, yet again, to have lied about when he broke off his friendship with Epstein is also deserving of scorn. But crucially, nothing revealed offers new evidence of criminal wrongdoing, or proof of certain individuals’ complicity in Epstein’s sexual depravity, let alone evidence of some sort of global conspiracy.
This is certainly the case with US president Donald Trump, the target of so much of the scandal-mongering around the files. A sometime friend of Epstein, he is referenced in emails, videos and other files more than a thousand times. Most of the references are utterly unremarkable, but there is an FBI file listing sexual-assault allegations, including an accusation he raped a 13-year-old. But these were allegations only, none of which the FBI deemed credible. According to the DoJ, these were submitted to the FBI before the 2020 election and were adjudged to be ‘unfounded and false’.
And what of Bill Gates, the subject of plenty of salacious headlines as soon as the files were released on Friday? These centre on a claim in the files that Epstein had facilitated countless illicit trysts for the married Gates, including one with some Russian girls, from whom the Microsoft founder allegedly contracted an STI. Yet the claims originate in emails sent by Epstein to himself in 2013, in which he pretends to be a disgruntled employee resigning from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It has been suggested that these draft resignation letters were written on behalf of Dr Boris Nikolic, a senior employee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who did actually leave. Perhaps Gates really is a sleaze. He wouldn’t be the first mega-rich guy to be so. But again, there’s not much actual evidence of anything here.
Then there’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the non-sweating ex-prince. From this latest raft of half-baked revelations, we learn that he was happily inviting Epstein over for tea at Buckingham Palace in 2010, two years after Epstein had been found guilty of soliciting a minor. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of his judgement. There’s also a new, disturbing photo of Andrew kneeling on all fours over a fully clothed, prostrate female, in what looks like a demonstration of how not to perform CPR. If you’re really looking for further proof that Andrew is a fool and a creep, it’s all in the files. But being foolish and creepy are not yet criminal offences. Even the BBC – which has revelled in Andrew’s fall ever since its now infamous 2019 interview with him – admits that there is little in the latest files dump ‘to indicate any wrongdoing’.
Again and again, those feasting on this latest Epstein files dump use it to hint at some deeper scandal. They exploit it to cast those named and referenced under a vague pall of suspicion. But when you push through the lurid claims and innuendo, it’s difficult to see very much at all. As Gertrude Stein once put it, there’s no there there. No real proof that those rich and powerful men in Epstein’s orbit were more directly involved in his crimes, let alone that they shared his proclivities for underage girls. And there is certainly no evidence at all of some sort of deep global elite conspiracy, a Protocols of the Elders of Epstein Island.
The obsession with the Epstein files is damaging public life. Yes, it reflects a well-earned distrust of the political class and our ruling elites more broadly. It speaks to a very true sense that they live lives that are utterly estranged from ours. But it ends up painting politicians, businessmen and others as not just as detached, self-serving and often immoral, but as evil – indeed, as paedophile-adjacent. It risks channeling righteous anti-establishment fury into the dead ends of cynicism and conspiracy theory.
We are now swimming in the outflow of the Epstein files and the grubby gilded world it invokes. Yet for those hoping that a smoking gun will still be found, implicating their opponents in some grim orgy of sexual abuse, even this is not enough. They want all the remaining Epstein files to be released. They are convinced that the ‘truth’ is out there, in that still-to-be-released trove of badly spelt emails and seemingly endless images (whatever else Epstein was, he was an unusually keen photographer).
Challenging the misdeeds and crimes of the powerful is what journalism and politics should be all about. But for some time now the Epstein obsession has morphed into an affront to due process – tarring people by innuendo and association – and a never-ending feeding frenzy. Going on this latest release, there is clearly not much more to be revealed, beyond yet another snap of Peter Mandelson in his undies. And who, after all, wants to see that?
Tim Black is associate editor of spiked.
