Whitney Webb@_whitneywebb
I just think it's really interesting that the leading outlet pushing the "Epstein Mythology" narrative is Compact Magazine, which is funded by Soros' Open Societies and Peter Thiel. Thiel has a lot of egg on his face with respect to Epstein given the releases of the last 12 months or so and Soros' nephew Peter is a circled name in Epstein's black book (i.e. accused of actively enabling sex trafficking by Epstein's former butler).
The Epstein case and all of its "conspiratorial" bents have been around since 2019, and in some circles before. Yet, only when the Epstein case became truly inconvenient for the Big Tech oligarchs like Thiel/Musk and for the Trump administration, did this narrative become so prominent so suddenly. Compact seems to be in the middle of most of it. Also notable is that a lot of the "independent" voices making the Epstein mythology narrative previously cultivated public trust in figures like Musk or Thiel as well as the incoming Trump administration or figures currently serving in it (e.g. Tulsi Gabbard). Never before it was a problem for those actors were they interested in questioning the Epstein case, even when there were many years to do so.
I don't think it's fair to say they have only noticed just now that something may have been "off" with aspects of the sex trafficking story or certain Epstein victim's testimonies. Those issues have been around for years and even those like myself have asserted that the sex trafficking case was intentionally being made to dominate the focus around the Epstein case so that it was only about the sex crimes, not about the financial crimes or about the clear existence of a supranational network (or networks) that Epstein was operating on behalf of. Yet, now that they question the sex trafficking narrative or the possible role of a government, they are uninterested in these other questions of power or of oligarchy. Instead it is about age of consent laws, or about pre vs post puberty minors, or about "anti-semitism" or a desire to see "conspiracy" where there is none. Go back to sleep. The real enemy is the woke mind virus and Elon and Peter are the "cool" billionaires.
Regarding the thread below, my problems with Shellenberger's specific views expressed in this tweet thread are as follows (at least these are the problems that came to me while I read it):
1. He assumes the released emails to date is all the evidence there is to see on Epstein and potential intelligence ties. The released emails don't cover all of his email addresses, they are unencrypted ones he obviously wouldn't use for sensitive comms, and what has been released by the DOJ is estimated to represent just 2% of all of its Epstein-related documentation.
2. He assumes that, if Epstein did have an intel affiliation, there would be an email saying "thanks so much for all your hard work jeff, much love, mossad/cia/mI6" or something similar
3. I don't think Shellenberger (or others making similar arguments) understands how intelligence agencies actually work. These agencies routinely serve oligarchs and their networks, intelligence agencies frequently use private companies and businessmen as cover or fixers and, as my books show, US and Israeli intelligence relied on the same close-knit group of actors with these affiliations over many decades and these actors, Epstein included, represented oligarch interests who have clear influence over national governments and their intelligence agencies.
Much of my work on intelligence agencies, particularly US intelligence, shows how they have sought to largely move into the private sector to work beyond the scope of federal oversight, this was their game plan beginning with Iran Contra and the creation of Thiel's Palantir to replace Total Information Awareness. Several big Silicon Valley companies are now so intertwined with intelligence agencies you can't tell where one ends the other begins. Israel has an admitted policy of using its tech companies, particularly in cybersecurity, for conducting Mossad and other intelligence ops they used to do "in house."
Intelligence agencies are useful to the elite because they are used to shield the criminality of the powerful by offering it state protection. They are used to help the powerful consolidate their control, they go after their competitors in arms, drugs and sex trafficking and make sure they have that shit buttoned up. They keep law enforcement from digging too far into billionaires' activities. They overthrow governments for billionaires and the multinational corps they control. They do not run the show and, oddly, the Epstein emails that have been released do actually shed light on some of these powerful billionaires who are running things, it just seems that these narratives, such as what you see from Shellenberger below, seem to conveniently ignore their existence.
Journalism, to me, is about holding the powerful to account, not trying to minimize the crimes of the powerful only when the billionaire you attached yourself to and whose reputation you helped launder gets outed for lying about his ties to Epstein.
