Ezra Klein discusses the Magaworld Epstein freakout with Conspiracy theory analyst Will Sommer.
This audio podcast is definitely worth one of my 10 free NYT shares per month.
EK:
…But I want to stay on what’s strange about Epstein for a couple of minutes. Epstein is really well connected. He is friendly — not just with Donald Trump. He’s friendly with Bill Gates. He’s friendly with Bill Clinton. He hosts these dinners for scientists and innovators. He has lots of friends who are very, very rich.
So the idea that begins to emerge, as I understand it, is that Epstein is running something like what we would now describe as the Diddy parties — but for the most powerful people in society.
That on his island, he is flying back and forth with the most powerful and most wealthy people in the world for these pedophilic orgies. And that it is in the union of these two things that the cabal begins to take a shape.
Epstein knew everybody. He knew what they had done. Maybe he’s doing it in part for blackmail, for intelligence reasons, or maybe just he has the files on them.
So Epstein is a threat to them and the whole cabal. When he begins to get brought down, now this whole thing is endangered. And the fact that he ends up dead in a cell reportedly by suicide begins to look very fishy to people. Is that basically the structure of the theory here?
WS:
That is the crux of it — the idea that he finally has this federal case in which he could potentially flip, or maybe all of his evidence will, at minimum, come out at trial. So perhaps either he’s killed in his cell or — which I think is maybe more believable — someone says: Hey Jeffrey, we’re going to create the circumstances for you to take things into your own hands.
That is the Epstein story summed up.
EK:
I want to hold on that last bit because, again, there are things that are weird. Epstein has already tried to kill himself in prison. The psychologist or the person in charge of mental health has said: This guy should not be allowed in a cell by himself. He’s a suicide risk.
He is left in a cell by himself.
There are irregularities around which cameras are on and off and whether or not they’re working, irregularities around whether or not the guards are watching or not watching.
On the one hand, I think that if you don’t believe D.M.V.s are run well, you should not believe prisons are run well. I think all evidence we have about prisons is that they’re run, in fact, terribly.
On the other hand, for such a high-value prisoner, in whom there’s a lot of interest — it’s strange. I get why people think it’s strange. I think it’s strange…