Why the rich and powerful couldn’t say no to Epstein

It was one of the most important set pieces in Washington in 2019.

All eyes were on Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen as he testified before a House committee about his former boss.

Democratic committee member Stacey Plaskett was preparing to question Cohen and was seen on camera texting someone on her phone.

This week, the public learned the identity of the other man in that conversation: convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

According to emails released by his estate under a subpoena, he encouraged her to ask about a Trump Organization employee. After Ms Plaskett did this, Epstein responded to her: “Good job.”

In retrospect, the incident struck a chord with many who say it underscores the extent of his influence over the American elite.

Plaskett denies seeking advice from Epstein, saying she corresponded with many people that day, including Epstein, who was one of her constituents. She says that as a former lawyer, she learned to seek information from all sources – even from people she didn't like.

“I am disgusted by Epstein’s deviant behavior. I strongly support his victims and admire their courage. I have long believed and supported that all of Epstein's files will be made public,” she said in a statement sent to the BBC.

She says their exchange occurred before his arrest for sex trafficking. But this happened long after his conviction for prostitution in 2008.

His private island in the US was also mentioned in a damning Miami Herald investigation just a year earlier as one of the places where he sexually abused several underage girls.

Just six months after her exchange with Epstein, the disgraced financier would die in her prison cell – a suicide, according to a medical examiner. His death and the conspiracies that swirled around it would trigger a reckoning that would cause a ripple effect in Washington and Wall Street, as well as destroying some of his former friends.

Their exchange was just one of many in the latest trove of more than 20,000 pages of personal documents that showed Epstein's ability to maintain elite social circles even after his criminal conviction and Herald exposé.

How and why this relationship persisted while other friends broke it off tells us not only about Epstein's influence, but also about the social dynamics at the very top of American society.

“He was a diabolical monster, but he was also brilliant in the sense that he was able to maintain this incredible network of some of the most powerful people in the world,” said Barry Levin, author of “The Spider: Inside the Criminal Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.”

“He had a certain charisma that put him in a position where people would turn to him.”

Epstein considered himself a “people collector” who made connections for transactional purposes, Mr. Levine said.

“He will use the information that he has received…with the intention that he is going to end up getting a favor from them, finances, or in a darker sense, I think, blackmail from some of these people.”

The relationship between Epstein and Labor Lord Peter Mandelson has come under particular scrutiny in the UK since Lord Mandelson was eventually sacked in September as Britain's ambassador to the US.

Documents released by Congress show he remained in contact with the pedophile until late 2016, before the Herald revelations but after his conviction.

In one email from November 2015, Epstein wrote to him after his birthday: “63 years old. You did it.”

Lord Mandelson responds less than 90 minutes later, saying: “Simple. I decided to extend my life by spending more of it in the US.”

He categorically denied any knowledge of Epstein's crimes or any wrongdoing and expressed regret over their continued association with him.

Documents released by Epstein's estate reveal his eclectic social circle of prominent scientists, business giants and politicians.

Mr. Levin said it was not an exaggeration that some of Epstein's casual acquaintances may have been unaware of his abuses or were so impressed by his powerful connections that they paid it no mind.

“People forget things,” he said. “His standing among influential people was extremely high, and I think many people probably simply rejected the verdict against him.”

Others may have simply been blinded by his wealth, journalists and those who knew him have suggested.

“Prison doesn’t matter anymore,” David Patrick Columbia, founder of the New York Social Diary, told The Daily Beast in 2011, after Epstein’s first conviction. “The only thing that makes you shunned in New York society is poverty.”

Former US Treasury Secretary turned Harvard University President Larry Summers turned to Epstein for romantic advice, including an exchange in November 2018 – the same month the Herald investigation was published – where he appeared to forward Epstein an email from a woman to ask how he should respond.

Epstein responded: “She's starting to seem needy already 🙂 nice.”

Summers' interactions with his former confidant came back to haunt him last week, forcing him to announce that he was withdrawing from public engagements and quitting teaching at Harvard.

“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they caused,” Summers said.

Epstein also reportedly used his financial skills to help famed linguist Noam Chomsky, with whom he exchanged several messages over the years and invited him to stay at his home.

The flattery went both ways. In an undated letter of support included in multiple emails, Chomsky spoke glowingly of Epstein, saying they had “many long and often deep discussions.”

The 96-year-old previously told the Wall Street Journal that Epstein helped him transfer money between his accounts without accepting “a penny from Epstein.”

“I knew him and we met sometimes,” he said.

In the same article, he said: “Jeffrey Epstein was known to have been convicted of a crime and served his sentence. According to US laws and regulations, this means a clean slate.”

He did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

Chomsky was one of Epstein's high-profile financial clients, many of whom Epstein helped save billions of dollars, Mr. Levine said.

He was able to do this because he “understood the tax code and finances to some extent better than perhaps the highest paid people on Wall Street,” Mr. Levine said.

In Epstein's 23,000 pages of documents, one man's name appears more often than any other.

Trump did not send or receive a single message included in thousands of documents after severing ties with Epstein.

In 2002, Trump called Epstein a “terrific guy.” Epstein later remarked: “I was Donald's closest friend for 10 years.”

But the relationship eventually soured. According to Trump, they had a falling out in the early 2000s, two years before Epstein was first arrested. By 2008, Trump said he was not “a fan.”

Trump denies knowing anything about Epstein's sex trafficking. The White House also said Trump kicked Epstein out of his club “decades ago for abusing his female employees.”

Mr Levine said there were many people whose communications with Epstein after his conviction would embarrass them, although that did not mean they participated in any of his crimes.

“Of course, everyone regrets the day they interacted with Jeffrey Epstein or spent time with him,” he said. “This is one of the most incredible stories of our time – power, privilege, predation.”

But there was at least one person who said they knew right away that Epstein was “disgusting.”

Howard Lutnick, the president's Commerce Secretary, was Epstein's next-door neighbor for 10 years. He told the New York Post podcast that his first meeting with Epstein was his last.

Soon after Lutnick moved into his Upper East Side property in 2005, Epstein gave Lutnick and his wife a tour of his large residence, he said.

In Epstein's dining room, seeing a massage table surrounded by candles, Lutnick asked him how often he used it.

“He says, 'Every day.' And then he somehow strangely approaches me and says: “And the right massage.”

Mr. Lutnick said he and his wife exchanged glances, apologized and left.

“I decided I would never be in a room with that disgusting man again,” he said.