The unveiling of deep moral rot

WHAT has the long overdue release of the Jeffrey Epstein files exposed?

The short answer: The deep moral decay of the United States and the Western ruling class and their immunity from wrongdoings, which the mainstream media has typically ignored or downplayed.

The files cover more than six million pages of documents detailing the American financier and convicted child sex offender’s criminal and other related activities with his social circle of public figures.

On Jan 30, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released three million pages of emails and texts, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos.

And what has been unveiled so far is absolutely appalling: a paedophile network implicated in savage crimes on Epstein’s private Caribbean island and beyond – with monstrous orgies, abuse of minors, allegations of murder and even cannibalism; and a disturbing web of blackmailed plutocrats, politicians and celebrities who exploited and abused women and young girls – including preteens and one aged just 10 – while indulging in ­dubious insider trading, war-­mongering arms deals and even profiting from a real or artificially created pandemic.

Epstein was 66 when he died in an apparent suicide on Aug 10, 2019 at a prison in New York while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The range of the abominably debased perverts run the gamut from royalty and billionaires to a host of powerful politicians across the globe.

US President Donald Trump, who signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law on Nov 19 last year, is himself on the list.

Trump is reportedly mentioned more than 30,000 times in the latest dump. Many of the links are from what Epstein shared while others are based on yet unverified allegations, including participation in or awareness of sexual abuse.

They also reveal information on members of his inner circle who were interacting with Epstein years after he was arres­ted and sentenced to 18 months’ jail in June 2008.

Trump has claimed that he cut ties with Epstein long ago and has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the latter.

Last Tuesday, Trump said the United States should move on and get on to something else, “like healthcare, or something the people care about.”

Among the notable names publicly shamed over the past two weeks include former Prince Andrew, the 65-year-old brother of King Charles III who is now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and the United Kingdom’s senior Labour Party stalwart Peter Mandelson, who was appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as ambassador to the United States.

The files also uncover how close former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was to Epstein. One audio recording exposes Barak and Epstein discussing the “gigantic sums” paid to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for his “consulting work”.

Epstein is heard speculating that the money was not all going to Blair but also to other parties.

The files also show that former US president Bill Clinton travelled on Epstein’s private jets at least 16 times on local and international trips.

Epstein’s longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell also played a big role in supporting the creation of the Clinton Global Initiative, one of the former president’s post-White House missions.

She became involved in 2004 before Epstein’s 2006 indictment and 2008 guilty plea for conspi­ring to prostitution with a minor.

Ghislaine, daughter of the media baron Robert Maxwell, was herself sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for conspiring with Epstein to sexually exploit underage girls.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who also features prominently in the latest release of the DOJ’s files, has apologised for spending time with Epstein.

“Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologise that I did that,” Gates said in an interview with Australia’s Nine News last week.

The release includes a set of emails written by Epstein descri­bing alleged requests from Gates.

In one message drafted by Epstein, he accused the tech founder of asking him to delete emails about a sexually transmitted disease and requested antibiotics that he could “surrepti­tiously” give to his then wife, Melinda French Gates.

Epstein also alleged in another email sent to himself in 2013 that Gates had “sex with Russian girls” and “illicit trysts” with married women.

“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is false. I don’t know what his thinking was,” Gates told Nine News.

Gates has also been linked to an email dated March 20, 2015, headlined “Preparing for Pandemics”, which was sent to Epstein by someone whose name was redac­ted in the release.

The email contains a draft agenda for a meeting on pande­mic preparedness and suggests the involvement of the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as the International Com­mittee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The message reads: “As reques­ted, I am attaching a draft agenda for a meeting on pandemic preparedness,” and “Let’s discuss next steps, including how to formally involve the WHO and the ICRC.”

According to Russian media outlet Izvestia, the files contain discussions regarding pandemic modeling and biomedical projects, fueling claims that the uniden­tified person in the 2015 email may have been Gates.

It claimed that the email was allegedly originally sent to Gates in 2017 and then forwarded to Epstein.

In another twist, the billio­naire’s ex-wife, who divorced him in 2021, said she felt “horribly sorry for the Epstein victims”, and that the people mentioned, inclu­ding her ex-husband, had some explaining to do.

“I think we’re having a recko­ning as a society, right? No girl, no girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him,” French Gates said during a NPR podcast show.

“It’s beyond heartbreaking. I remember being those ages, I remember my daughters being those ages.”

Media consultant M. Veera Pandiyan likes this quote by Mark Twain: “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”

The views expressed here are the writer’s own.