"Don's Best Friend": Jeffrey Epstein

 

As we await release of the Epstein-Trump files from the convicted sexual abuser Malignant Fascist's DOJ, the New York Times (!) published a long feature, "'Don's Best Friend':  How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over The Pursuit Of Women" yesterday (gift link).  Here are a few excerpts, but please take advantage of the free link and read the whole feature:

Mr. Epstein had a talent for acquiring powerful friends, some of whom have become ensnared in the continuing scrutiny of his crimes. For months, Mr. Trump has labored furiously to shift himself out of the frame, dismissing questions about his relationship with Mr. Epstein as a “Democrat hoax” and imploring his supporters to ignore the matter entirely. An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minors. [Ed.: nice cya, Times legal counsel!]

But the two men’s relationship was both far closer and far more complex than the president now admits.

Beginning in the late 1980s, the two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other’s closest friend, The Times found. Mr. Epstein was then a little-known financier who cultivated mystery around the scope and source of his self-made wealth. Mr. Trump, six years older, was a real estate scion who relished publicity and exaggerated his successes. Neither man drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.

Over nearly two decades, as Mr. Trump cut a swath through the party circuits of New York and Florida, Mr. Epstein was perhaps his most reliable wingman. During the 1990s and early 2000s, they prowled Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel, at least one of Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and both their Palm Beach homes. They visited each other’s offices and spoke often by phone, according to other former Epstein employees and women who spent time in his homes.

With other men, Mr. Epstein might discuss tax shelters, international affairs or neuroscience. With Mr. Trump, he talked about sex.

"I just think it was trophy hunting,” Stacey Williams, who rose to fame as a star of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions during the 1990s, said in an interview with The Times. In social media posts and interviews with news outlets in recent years, Ms. Williams has described how Mr. Trump groped her in 1993 at Trump Tower while Mr. Epstein — whom she was then dating — watched. “I think Jeffrey liked that he had this Sports Illustrated model who had this name, and that Trump was pursuing me,” she said. Mr. Trump has denied her account.

To shed light on their friendship, The Times interviewed more than 30 former Epstein employees, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with the two men over the years. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship and scoured court documents and other public records. (our emphasis)

There follows a detailed and lengthy accounting of the various  "escapades" of the two best friends, summarized by one victim thusly:

“It was like a pissing contest — who had the most women,” she recalled. She requested anonymity to describe her experiences in detail, saying she feared for her family’s safety after Mr. Trump said some of his critics could be executed for sedition.  (our emphasis)

In later years as the MF began to entertain political ambitions, he tried to distance himself from his former best friend and wingman:

Whatever the cause of their later falling-out, Mr. Epstein remained obsessed with Mr. Trump. In the years after their last known contact, he exchanged hundreds of emails with others mentioning his former friend. As Mr. Trump’s political career took flight in the mid-2010s, Mr. Epstein’s umbrage seemed to grow. Even as he maneuvered to regain influence within Mr. Trump’s world, he mocked and criticized him in private, calling him “nuts” and “evil beyond belief,” according to the emails released by Congress.

He resented Mr. Trump’s efforts to distance himself, the emails show. His older, smoother former friend seemed untouchable, while he was enveloped in scandal once again, as more and more victims came forward with their accounts of abuse. In an interview taped by Mr. Wolff in 2017 and published by The Daily Beast last year, Mr. Epstein described what he said was Mr. Trump’s technique for trying to bed the wives of friends. Mr. Wolff asked how he had such intimate knowledge of Mr. Trump. “I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years,” Mr. Epstein replied. (our emphasis)

In emails, he hinted to friends that he could take Mr. Trump down. He didn’t say how.

Then we have Epstein's (supposed) suicide in prison.

With that distasteful "appetizer," we're ready for the "main course."  If the "main course" has page after page of redactions, we know that's where the MF's name would have been found.

(Gif:  the best friends in happier times)