Sandip Roy: The Epstein files and the dangerous attraction of exclusivity

There have basically been three kinds of responses from the people whose names have popped up in the three million documents that are part of the Epstein files.

“My interactions had nothing to do with his sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone. Anyway I only met him a couple of times.”

“Poor judgement on my part but I didn’t do anything criminal.”

“I unequivocally condemn all abuse of women and minors.”

For the record, financier Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of sex crimes with minors in 2008. He was released on bail in 2009. He was charged with sex crimes again in 2019 and died in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial that year. His story wasn’t exactly hidden from public view. Many of those named in the files were corresponding with him long after it was public knowledge that he was a registered sex offender.

Many have gone to great lengths to claim that they in good faith believed a very clever manipulator. Others have sought to create two classes of Epstein associates—those who knew nothing and cut Epstein off when his crimes first came to light and those who still associated with him afterwards. And most plaintive of all those who say “I never went to his island.” The island of Little St James in the United States Virgin Islands was Epstein’s private island and allegedly the base of operations for his sex crimes.

The list as we all know now is like a who’s who of our times. Presidents. Ministers. Diplomats. Tech moguls. Business magnates. MacArthur geniuses. Nobel laureates. New-age gurus. Scientists. Deans. Public intellectuals. Even magicians. As an internet meme goes, the only people not mentioned in the files are those the current Trump administration rails against—drag queens, transgender athletes, librarians and Sesame Street characters.

A few of those named have resigned from posts they held, apologising for poor judgement. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor was just arrested on suspicion of misconduct while holding public office. To be fair, no one should accuse them of sex with minors just because they were corresponding with a convicted sexual predator. But it beggars belief that some of the smartest people of our times were all taken for a ride by Epstein. Actually they were. And it was such a fabulous ride that they decided to collectively overlook anything that might have spoiled it.

The great lesson from the Epstein files is this: All of us, irrespective of ideology and principles, are susceptible to the temptation of being invited inside the gilded circle. We all want to feel special. We all want to be the people behind the velvet rope. There is almost something plaintive in the protestations of those who say they were never invited to Epstein’s private island. Even the most famous, the most wealthy, the most powerful clearly want to feel extra-special.

Ellis Rubenstein, then president of the New York Academy of Sciences, says the food on the island was “better than any we’ve had at the Ritz.” The French orchestral conductor Frédéric Chaslin says Epstein’s Santa Fe ranch was so “totally voluptuous” that he felt “drunk from the beginning to the end without a drop of alcohol.” Peter Attia, longevity guru, tells Epstein enviously that the biggest problem in becoming friends with him is “the life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul…”

What it really tells us is not that these people were fooled by a charming con man but that they also protected him. Silence was their price of admission into the exclusive club. And they were more than happy to pay it.

In Epstein these people, apparently of such diverse world views, found common ground. The list includes people as ideologically apart as Noam Chomsky and Donald Trump. Ken Starr was the man who was the face of the investigation against Bill Clinton that led to his impeachment. Both Clinton and Starr are in the Epstein files. Starr would sign off his messages to Epstein with “hugs” and “love”.

The list feels like nothing less than a wholesale indictment of the elite as all eventually being rotten, all up for sale or at least ready to be seduced. What’s astonishing is not just how many people were seduced by Epstein to enter into his charmed circle but how few stories there are of people who recoiled when they found out what was going on. It was known even in 2008 that he would recruit teenaged girls to come home and undress and then “massage” him. In 2010, Epstein tells Boris Nikolic, science adviser to the Gates Foundation, he was finishing a massage, to which Nikolic responds, “With happy ending I hope.” And a winking emoji. In 2013 Richard Branson, the airline owner, tells Epstein to bring his “harem”. Now Branson calls Epstein’s actions “abhorrent”.

Yet hardly anyone seems to have spoken up at that time. No misgivings. No protests. No shock. One person, whose name was redacted, merely warns Epstein his actions could be interpreted as “a powerful man taking advantage of powerless young women”. Bill Gates calls his lifestyle “very different and kind of intriguing” and says it would not work for him. Chomsky, infamously, advises Epstein to remain silent after he is accused of sex trafficking given the “hysteria that has developed about abuse of women.” This was all about managing the PR fallout.

That’s why these pious protestations claiming respect for women ring rather hollow. Deepak Chopra now apologises for “poor judgement in tone.” That’s in reference to his messages to Epstein saying “Bring your girls” and “God is a construct. Cute girls are real.” Now he has issued a public statement: “My focus remains on supporting accountability, prevention, and efforts that protect and support survivors.” Sadly for Chopra the private emails sound far more genuine than the public statement.

In that sense the Epstein files reveal and affirm what most of us have known. The world of the elite is just as crass as any other. Powerful men still talk like hormonal college students. So London-based hedge fund manager Tancredi Marchiolo is discussing the size and shape of women’s breasts. Steven Tisch, chairman of the New York Giants, and Epstein are grading women on a scale of 1-10. And when Chopra complains about having a crazy day, Epstein says, “I’m in Florida, but would like to send two girls.” The reason this rings more true than the public statements of many of these people is that we see this language in the “safe space” of school alum WhatsApp groups everyday.

In that sense Epstein was just living out that fantasy. And that’s what makes his story so dangerous. He was the epitome of the kind of man who says rules do not apply to him and those he invites on to his island. That is the real seduction. Indians understand the appeal of that mindset only too well. We see snippets of that in the news all the time. A film star runs over pavement dwellers but walks free. A powerful man shoots a woman in a bar for refusing to serve him a drink and now is partner of an award-winning whisky brand. Politicians make the rules for the rest of us to live by. But they want to live on Epstein’s island where the rules don’t apply to them. And perhaps deep down so do the rest of us.

And even as we are shocked and aghast by the revelations coming out in the Epstein files, what really scares me is wondering if we had been invited to that gilded island, how many of us would have had the willpower to refuse.

Cult Friction is a fortnightly column on issues we keep rubbing up against.
Sandip Roy (@sandipr) is a writer, journalist and radio host.