Was he the world’s greatest pervert? Was he a spy or an asset for some clandestine organization somewhere? The simple answer is usually the right one, but there is nothing simple about the Jeffrey Epstein case. This week, the FBI and the Department of Justice let it leak that there is no “client list” and pretty much no one else is going to be charged with anything.
As you might imagine, this set off a whole new round of conspiracy theories about who had gotten to whom and what they might have on them. There is no shortage of ideas about “what really happened” floating around the Internet.
What is the truth? I have no idea. But neither does anyone else insisting they are the gatekeeper of truth or the only person who knows it.
Rather than rehash all the conspiracy theories – and I use that term because it is accurate and not meant in a derogatory way, there’s just no other way to describe the ideas floating around about this case.
But for any of those theories to be true, there would have to be more people involved than could populate a small town. Having worked and lived in the Washington, DC, area for a couple of decades, I can assure you that no one can keep a secret around here, especially if they think they could make a career advancement off it.
What’s amazing about this whole affair isn’t the end result, it’s the obstinance with which it was announced and the refusal to even try to explain the difference between what the principles said before they entered government service and what the official line is now. These people made a lot of money off the “story” of there being this massive conspiracy to silence Epstein and protect the powerful. They also propped themselves up by insisting they were one of the few around willing to stand up for what is “right” and “speak the truth.”
Now that the wheels have come off, and they’re no longer in a position to make money off it (at least not directly, as some of their family members still profit off old endeavors, which means they do too), there’s no serious discussion of how they got it so wrong. There should be a public eating of huge steaming pile of crow (or a huge steaming pile of something else), but that won’t happen. These people aren’t the type to hold themselves accountable, no matter how much they profess to be.
And that brings us to the real lesson of this debacle: stop believing people simply because they are on TV or are popular. “Fame” and attention does not imbue anyone with special powers to discern truth from fiction; it’s usually the opposite.
There is no room for nuance in today’s media, which means there no money in admitting you simply do not know for use. That leads to declarative statements based more on what the audience wants than what the facts indicate, with some going so far as to say they have “sources” who implicate a former President. Well, that person is now in a position to know, so were they lied to or just lying? Where is the accountability? What happened to integrity?
You hear a lot about how people “respect” some involved in this for reasons they can’t clearly articulate, but boil down to the idea that they say things their dedicated audience agrees with. A person saying all the popular things you agree with is not a reason to respect them, it’s a reason to doubt them.
There will never be any accountability for anyone associated with Jeffrey Epstein, either because they didn’t do anything or they’re too rich and powerful for it to happen to them. And there will never be any accountability for anyone who profited off telling you they knew what had happened when they did not.
A good rule of thumb is the louder someone insists they’re honest, the less honest they are, just like it’s only unfunny people who can’t shut up about how funny they are.
No matter what side of the theories out there you fell on, you were lied to. Whether it was done for attention or it was done for money or it was done for fame, the fact remains that it was done. There needs to be accountability for that or they or people exactly like them will just do it again.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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