[ad_1]
(Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Immediately after Judge Loretta Preska announced that she’d be lifting the seal on all the anonymized names in the Jeffrey Epstein files, both mainstream and social media non-lawyers started tittering with excitement. The court documents surrounding the federal case against the infamous financier cum sex trafficker included over 150 John and Jane Does, and while many of the names were not accused of any illicit activity, a whole lot of them were!
Republicans were convinced that this would be the ultimate undoing of Bill Clinton — a Democrat who even Democrats stopped liking a decade ago. Democrats were convinced that the files would add to the heap of legal troubles bogging down Donald Trump — as if this would somehow be a “last straw” for a guy who’s already been found a digital rapist. And the moment of truth came and went and… nothing really happened.
One commenter compared it to “teasing the Epstein list like an album release.” If that’s the analogy, it was almost entirely recycled tracks.
The thing about this “unsealing” that salivating non-lawyers never seemed to understand is that while the names were obscured the allegations of wrongdoing weren’t. So we were only going to learn something new if an unexpected name showed up as one of the Does. And most of the individuals of note in the documents were known to the public years ago.
Clinton’s use of Epstein’s plane was well-known because he publicly addressed the fact that he used the plane in 2019. And once we knew that, we all knew that he was John Doe 36 in the documents. We then also knew that throughout the Epstein investigation, no evidence turned up to suggest Clinton had any involvement or even awareness of Epstein’s criminal activity.
From CBS News:
In another of the documents, Maxwell testifies that Clinton never had a meal on Epstein’s island and that she does not know how many times Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane.
In the filing, Maxwell’s team attempts to debunk an article by journalist Sharon Churcher of the Daily Mail, who described a dinner on Epstein’s Little St. James island allegedly attended by Clinton “shortly after he left office.” Maxwell’s team claims, “Former FBI Director Louis Freeh submitted a report wherein he concluded that President Clinton ‘did not, in fact travel to, nor was he present on, Little St. James Island between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2003’,” and goes on to say Secret Service assigned to the former president would have been required to file travel logs.
The only really salacious allegation against Clinton is from Johanna Sjoberg’s deposition where she testified that Epstein said “one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.” Which is both hearsay and not a shocker for a guy who had sex with an intern.
Trump took pictures with Epstein but he’s only present in the files to the extent that witnesses said he did NOT have any illicit contact with Epstein’s victims. For his part, Trump seems to have partied with Epstein a few times and given a cabinet position to Alexander Acosta, the prosecutor who let Epstein walk in 2008.
While the documents formally concealed his name until now, we not only knew that Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre accused Alan Dershowitz of having sex with her… it sparked competing defamation cases and ended with Giuffre conceding that she may have mistakenly identified Dershowitz. When Epstein faced those sex abuse charges in 2008 — a critical juncture where a lot of future harm could’ve been prevented — Dershowitz helped him get a sweetheart deal from Acosta and, even after the full extent of Epstein’s crimes came to light, maintained that Epstein should’ve gotten a better deal. So Dershowitz deserves all the scorn in the world for his connection to Epstein… but not based on anything being unsealed here.
Prince Andrew’s connection to the case already ended in a big settlement and left him… still less hated by the royal family than Meghan Markle. Les Wexner’s name came up in the context of a question posed to Epstein’s accused enabler Ghislaine Maxwell — she said he had not been involved in the proposed illicit act — but we also already knew that. To the extent any new names show up, it’s almost exclusively “Does” prosecutors asked about once and the witnesses testified they’d never met.
It’s almost as if when Judge Preska cited no ongoing need to maintain anonymity when she decided to lift the seal, she meant there was no further need to maintain anonymity.
Not to shock the world. Not to blow the lid off of some sort of massive message board-driven conspiracy. And certainly not to help the media sell more papers.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
[ad_2]
