Since Richard Nixon was forced to resign, powerful people in both political parties have worked assiduously to ensure that their leaders would escape the consequences of their actions. Trump has evaded punishment for crimes both low (campaign-finance violations, for which he was convicted, though he will serve no time thanks to his 2024 victory) and high (his attempted overthrow of the federal government in the aftermath of his 2020 election loss, for which he was spared by the Supreme Court's decision to grant him a kingly immunity).
We knew everything we needed to know about the art world before the Epstein Files dropped. Before heinous allegations against Museum of Modern Art trustee Leon Black emerged, or School of Visual Arts chair David A. Ross's sympathetic endorsement of Epstein came out, we knew about the intimate connections between institutional heads and donors and trustees. The exchanges of money, donations, or favors that bind them.
When Leah Marx began visiting Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles in 2010, it did not immediately raise alarm among the people who ran it. Most of the time, jailers just looked at her federal ID and let her in without asking why she was there. If they did, she said she was investigating a human trafficking case. It was a good-sounding story. Believable. Perfect to deter further questions.