\n<\/p>\n
Looking back, I don\u2019t know what exactly I was expecting when I opened \u201cRequest No. 1,\u201d the PDF file containing the contents of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s 50th-birthday book. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein\u2019s former girlfriend and co-conspirator, created the book in 2003 by soliciting tributes from the financier\u2019s friends and associates. Given the crimes Epstein was convicted of, I steeled myself before scrolling. Somehow, my internet-addled imagination failed me. This book is a nightmare.<\/p>\n
The book was released yesterday by Congress after Epstein\u2019s estate, which was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee, provided a copy. It is the same book that contains the now-infamous letter and \u201cbawdy\u201d sketch from Donald Trump that ends: \u201cMay every day be another wonderful secret.\u201d When The Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported on the letter\u2019s existence in July, the newspaper described it but did not republish the letter itself, so Trump vehemently denied that it was real and sued for defamation. But the now-public letter certainly looks real, and so does Trump’s signature. Many of the people who encountered it for the first time yesterday made a similar observation: Its creepy prose is framed by a markered sketch of what looks like the caricature not of a woman\u2019s body, but of a girl\u2019s. (The White House can no longer plausibly deny that the letter exists, but it now insists that Trump did not write or sign it.)<\/p>\n The Trump letter makes the birthday book inherently newsworthy. But it is far from the most disturbing or lecherous of the book\u2019s contents. A section titled \u201cBrooklyn\u201d includes recollections of Epstein\u2019s horrible sexual escapades, apparently including making a maid watch people have sex and holding a knife up while telling women to take off their swimsuits on a boat\u2014a story told in the book under the heading \u201cGirls on My Boat.\u201d Given what we know about Epstein\u2019s sex crimes, including his sex crimes against minors, the birthday book is a sickening document. Over its 238 pages, Epstein\u2019s friends, \u201cgirlfriends,\u201d and business acquaintances offer lurid tributes to the pedophilic multimillionaire in the form of acrostic poems, drawings, and letters extolling him as \u201ca liver, a lover\u201d and, affectionately, the \u201cDegenerate One.\u201d Individual contributions vary but it is the sheer volume of sexual references and jokes that ends up being most shocking. So much so that I suggest you read the document yourself.<\/p>\n The book\u2019s contributors apparently include former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, the billionaire retailer Leslie Wexner, and, of course, Maxwell herself, as well as a prominent fashion designer, financiers, and a media magnate. Clinton, Mitchell, and Wexner did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Clinton referred The Wall Street Journal<\/em> to a previous statement that said, \u201cThe former president had cut off ties more than a decade before Epstein\u2019s 2019 arrest and didn\u2019t know about Epstein\u2019s alleged crimes.\u201d Wexner declined to comment to the Journal<\/em> but previously told reporters he cut ties with Epstein in 2007.<\/p>\n Not all of the entries in the book allude to sexual activity, and it\u2019s plausible that not all of the contributors knew about Epstein\u2019s crimes. Still, the document is conspiracy jet fuel\u2014visual and textual confirmation of the long-held suspicions that Epstein\u2019s sex pestery was an open secret, enabled by powerful people who may have participated in it themselves or laughed it all off as a friend\u2019s roguish quirk. Of course, discerning who knew what is impossible from this document alone, but it also forces the question. For roughly the past five years, the Epstein conspiracy has become a load-bearing pillar of online conspiracy culture\u2014a shorthand for a global, elite \u201ccabal\u201d of sex traffickers on private islands and planes. The web of theories surrounding his crimes was based on plenty of truth, including Epstein\u2019s past conviction, but also extensive investigative reporting from the Miami Herald<\/em>\u2019s Julie K. Brown. Questions about the specific details of his network, however, have kept speculation alive. The birthday book seems likely to supercharge these theories. The PDF is but the tip of the supposed \u201cEpstein files\u201d iceberg, but it is nonetheless a validation of the most potent idea within the broader conspiracy: It suggests that the theorists were at least partly correct.<\/p>\n Sanitizing this document would be wrong, so I\u2019ll be blunt: The Epstein birthday book is full of contributions from wealthy and powerful people who appear fully aware of Epstein\u2019s attraction to \u201cgirls.\u201d In fact, they seem to celebrate it and, in some cases, allude winkingly to Epstein\u2019s predatory lifestyle. There is, for example, a seven-page letter attributed to Nathan Myhrvold, a multimillionaire and former Microsoft executive who illustrated his thoughts with graphic photographs of wildlife sex. (Myhrvold did not respond to my request for comment but told The Wall Street Journal <\/em>that \u201che didn\u2019t recall the submission and that he is a wildlife photographer who \u2018regularly shares photos of and writes about animal behavior.\u2019\u201d) Another man, listed in the \u201cfriends\u201d section of the book, refers to Epstein as \u201cyou very dear boy,\u201d before disturbingly recounting a night in London that \u201chad you howling with laughter.\u201d In the story, a man named Toto \u201creached down and pulled [redacted] skirt up to her panties and put his hand on her pussy,\u201d he writes, noting, \u201cThe old man smiling sweetly leaned over stuffed his hand into her pants.\u201d The letter also chronicles the \u201cgood times that we had together,\u201d the pair \u201cinspecting the Royal School girls dorms.\u201d<\/p>\n Wexner, the retail billionaire, apparently wrote a short message that said, \u201cI wanted to get you what you want \u2026 so here it is,\u201d and then drew a pair of breasts. Stuart Pivar, a chemist and art collector, apparently wrote a poem to Epstein, part of which declares, \u201cJeffrey at half a century \/ with credentials plenipotentiary \/ though up to no good \/ whenever he could \/ has avoided the penitentiary.\u201d Pivar told me in an email that he recalled Maxwell having invited him to contribute to the book even though he and Epstein \u201cwere no longer that close.\u201d He also described Epstein as \u201cvastly misunderstood\u201d and a \u201cteenophile\u201d rather than a \u201cpedophile.\u201d (In 2019, Pivar called Epstein \u201cprofoundly sick\u201d in an interview with Mother Jones<\/em> and said he cut ties with Epstein once he heard from Maria Farmer about \u201ca terrible thing, too terrible to utter, having to do with Jeffrey Epstein.\u201d)<\/p>\n Joel Pashcow, a real-estate executive and Mar-a-Lago Club member, offered a drawing of Epstein giving a lollipop to a group of young girls in 1983, juxtaposed with another drawing of Epstein in 2003 being fellated and massaged by another gaggle of women. The implication is that Epstein has groomed them from an early age. Paschow did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But his most startling contribution is a photo of him holding a novelty check bearing what appears to be a doctored or rendered version of Trump\u2019s signature. The photo appears alongside a handwritten note suggesting Epstein sold him a \u201cfully depreciated\u201d woman for $22,500. The New York Times<\/em> reports that the check was a stunt meant as a joke about a woman in her 20s who dated both Trump and Epstein. But this is remarkable enough that it bears repeating: Inside the 50th-birthday book for Jeffrey Epstein\u2014a man charged with sex trafficking\u2014is a photo of a massive, novelty sized check, seeming to reference the sale of a human being from one powerful man to another. The man whose supposed signature is on the check is the current president of the United States.<\/p>\n One of the illustrations in Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s birthday book (U.S. House Oversight Committee)<\/p>\n I\u2019ve written before that the Epstein story is a test of exactly how strong Trump\u2019s grip is on the MAGA faithful. Exposing depraved elites and bringing them to justice has been a core tenet of many Trump supporters\u2019 politics, and those people have just been served more details of Trump\u2019s association with Epstein. Two things are converging here: A conspiratorial crowd is getting the kind of evidence it craves, on an internet that supercharges conspiratorial speculating. At the same time, this is happening in a media ecosystem that makes it easier than ever for people to ignore, dismiss, or spin evidence to justify their prior viewpoints. The birthday book is not just a test of Trump\u2019s influence but also a test of the power of our current, broken media ecosystem, as well as a rare look at what happens when conspiracy theorists actually get what they want.<\/p>\n So far, the right-wing media ecosystem appears to be doing a good job dismissing the story. MAGA pundits have avoided talking about the documents or outright denied what they seem to depict. Alex Jones, who has been so obsessed with the Epstein story for years that he broke down in tears when the administration said it wouldn\u2019t produce the late financier\u2019s client list, had no mention of the book on his Infowars website as of midday. Fox News\u2019s article about the birthday book, which was on its front page earlier this evening, mentions Clinton in the headline but contains zero mention of Trump at all. MAGA pundits including Charlie Kirk are suggesting that Trump\u2019s signature is fake. Benny Johnson, another MAGA personality, suggested on his YouTube show today that Epstein forged Trump\u2019s signature.<\/p>\n Curiously, Elon Musk\u2019s X, which thrives on conspiracy theories, did not have any Epstein mention in its \u201cTrending Topics\u201d page this morning and early afternoon. Anecdotally, my \u201cFor You\u201d page on X, a reliable hotbed of rampant speculation and Epstein obsession, surfaced almost nothing about the book. There\u2019s no hard evidence to suggest that X is suppressing this content, and yet Musk has previously put his thumb on the algorithmic scales, suppressing links to articles across the platform, for example. (X and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n Images from the birthday book are littered across numerous threads on 4chan\u2019s \u201cpolitically incorrect\u201d messageboard, and some users have suggested that Democrats are spamming the site. Overall, though, the reaction to the book feels somewhat muted, given its contents. Despite the volume of posts, the tone across social media feels disproportionately apathetic. \u201cSo what do you want to do about it?\u201d one poster wrote in response to the Trump letter. Even in communities such as Reddit\u2019s r\/conspiracy, there seems to be a broad feeling of not knowing what exactly to do with this information. Some threads contain the usual amateur sleuthing and theorizing. There is also a good bit of anger toward Trump and Epstein. But among those who have engaged with the document, much of the reaction has a \u201cdog that caught the car\u201d vibe. The conversations aren\u2019t spiraling in the ways I\u2019ve witnessed before. It is the closest thing to a forum being satisfied that I\u2019ve seen in a long time. \u201cUmm what in the fuck,\u201d one popular post on r\/conspiracy reads. What else is there to say when the awful subtext becomes text?<\/p>\n So much of the potency of the Epstein conspiracy is that it speaks to a core feeling for many Americans that the alienation, stagnation, and fear they experience is all the result of a genuinely evil class of elites. The feeling is tied to distrust in institutions and to any person or thing that could potentially be labeled as part of a vague establishment. (And, as with many conspiracy theories, there is also a strong thread of anti-Semitism that emerges in many Epstein discussions.) The sexual deviancy of Epstein, just like the obsession among QAnon adherents with pedophilia, provides a moral framework for this hatred and disgust. It suggests that the people keeping you down are evil, doing sick things\u2014and joking about it.The book is not the smoking-gun proof of the pedophile ring that many theorists were looking for, but it is proof of the conspiracy\u2019s overarching worldview: There is a festering rot among at least one group of powerful elites with an abiding belief that their money and power make them invincible.<\/p>\n And yet it is not clear that any of this will go away, no matter what happens next. The dynamic of conspiracy theories is that they build, in scope and in tension. In doing so, they become a limitless repository for people\u2019s excitement, fears, and resentments. Because of this, conspiracy theories are not really supposed to resolve. Resolution, in fact, can be the most unpredictable outcome. It is the point at which highly invested people find out whether the reality they\u2019ve been clinging to actually exists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Looking back, I don\u2019t know what exactly I was expecting when I opened \u201cRequest No. 1,\u201d the PDF file containing the contents of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s 50th-birthday book. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein\u2019s former girlfriend and co-conspirator, created the book in 2003 by soliciting tributes from the financier\u2019s friends and associates. Given the crimes Epstein was convicted of,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[9573,1980,7296],"class_list":{"0":"post-20218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-birthday","9":"tag-book","10":"tag-epsteins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}