Justice for Jeffrey Epstein’s 1,000-plus Victims

The issue that unites all decent Americans

Finally, bipartisanship.

The MAGA uproar around the Trump Justice Department’s efforts to bury the Jeffrey Epstein files represents a rare opportunity in American politics.

The FBI revealed in an unsigned memo released last week that Federal investigators have confirmed that “Epstein harmed over 1,000 victims,” each one suffering “unique trauma.”

The scale of the man’s evil horrifies. That number is far higher than was initially alleged in the 2019 indictment against Epstein, and far higher than the 150 individuals who had, as of August 2021, been paid compensation from a $120 million victims fund established for Epstein’s accusers.

All those llives. All those girls and women, each suffering her own “unique trauma.”

There are some wild and politically motivated conspiracy theories about Epstein out there. Some of those conspiracy theories have been peddled by MAGA leaders primarily to demonize Democrats and bring Donald Trump back to power. Trump himself—coyly at times, sometimes openly—has sought to use the political energy around the Epstein scandal to his own advantage.

All that may have clouded the picture for too many Democrats and liberals; on the left, it was clear that General Michael Flynn and his ilk simply could not be trusted, either morally or epistemically. Thus, again, the lesson: Polarization can ruin the best of causes.

But the scandal of Epstein’s crimes was never about politics. It was about class. Rich men got away with it. There are princes and presidents, corporate chieftains and celebrity lawyers, oil sheikhs and Hollywood icons and scions of famous families—so many rich men flying on the devil’s jet, dining with him, partying with him, visiting his island of terror for so many girls and women. These men, they are so familiar to us in so many areas of our politics, our economy, and our culture: the rich men who seem to glide through life beyond and above our systems of accountability.

This isn’t about partisan politics. This is a class issue. A gender issue. And, more than anything else, a decency issue.

I am of the firm belief that most Americans remain sane and decent. Normal. The crazies and corrupted have a lot of power, to be sure, and you can find them in every neighborhood in America. But the United States remains, at heart, a middle-class country with a middle-class temperament and middle-class values. (The origin of the political crisis we face lies in large part in the continuing and deliberate destruction of the middle class, but that’s another essay for another day).

So there’s a real opportunity here. The uproar in MAGA against Donald Trump himself over Attorney General Pam Bondi’s attempt to deep-six the Epstein files is a crucial moment, a way to find common ground and work together to get the full truth about Epstein’s crimes and his friends (as well as his possible ties to US and foreign intelligence agencies). I’m not saying we’re all going to be singing kumbaya; we have a lot to fight about in this country, and that fight must continue. But there is good work to be done across that gulf of polarization when it comes to bringing accountability to Epstein’s rich men, including, of course, his friend of 15 years, the current president of the United States.

Trump’s doing a good job of getting the ball rolling on that score. Have you ever seen a man more obviously proclaiming his guilt while attempting to deflect and deny it? Trump’s transparent nervousness about the subject, his telling rage about it on social media, his demanding that EVERYBODY STOP TALKING ABOUT EPSTEIN—it’s a Monty Python sketch (for those who remember). And it is damning.

But Trump, in this instance, isn’t the real problem. Impunity is. The abiding impunity of rich men in America, the impunity that has distorted so many of our institutions and demoralized so many of our people. And that is a winning populist issue that just might shift our politics a degree or so, back towards decency. These days, that is an opportunity that should not be squandered.