Jeffrey Epstein Was The Unofficial Advice Columnist For The Elites | Defector

"Ever since it was disclosed that financier Leon Black had paid Jeffrey Epstein over $150 million for tax and estate planning in 2014, six years after the latter pleaded guilty to child prostitution charges, I have been fascinated by the notion that the disgraced sex offender, who made little outward intellectual contribution to the world, had all these highly valuable forms of expertise. Many powerful people have claimed that Epstein was some sort of charismatic polymath."

"Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz once said that Epstein had a "probing, inquiring mind." He also relayed that Larry Summers-the economist who over his career ran the World Bank, the U.S. Treasury, and Harvard-admired Epstein's economic thinking. A spokesman for former President Bill Clinton said in 2002 that the former president admired Epstein's "keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science.""

"And yet, even after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution of a minor, plenty of people still held the same sentiment-they just took it to private correspondence. The trove of documents released by the House Oversight Committee this week shows that a staggering variety of high-profile figures were hitting up the sex criminal for expertise on a range of topics. The effort Epstein put into his responses may disabuse a reader of the notion that he was some kind of operative genius."

Financier Leon Black paid Jeffrey Epstein over $150 million in 2014 for tax and estate planning, six years after Epstein's 2008 guilty plea for child prostitution charges. Prominent figures praised Epstein's intellect, with Alan Dershowitz calling him to have a "probing, inquiring mind," Larry Summers reportedly admiring his economic thinking, and associates noting a "keen sense of global markets." Despite criminal convictions, high-profile individuals continued private engagement with Epstein. Documents from the House Oversight Committee reveal numerous requests to Epstein for expertise across many topics, and the effort in his responses challenges perceptions of him as an operative genius. The document collection spans roughly 20,000 pages.

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