Saturday, December 14, 2019

The Epstein Puzzle


Pieces to a puzzle...


From the link...


The other donation from Epstein’s charity to Kuhn’s group came in 2017 for $150,000 and that, too, was part of Epstein’s investment into “Closer to Truth,” the series founder explained.

Epstein’s first engagement with Kuhn came a year before the multimillionaire sent in his first donation for the episodes. The two spoke on the phone and met numerous times at his apartment in New York, the shows creator says, after being introduced through a group of scientists, although he declined to name who those scientists were.

Kuhn said he had no knowledge of any of the accusations that were later levied against Epstein at the time of their first introduction in 2016 and in the future encounters he had with him. He called his behavior “reprehensible.”

“The obvious answer is that it’s totally reprehensible what’s been reported and it’s an example of how corruption can be used in human control,” he told CNBC. “It is an example of the corruption of power distorts your own reality and then exercises this power over people who are psychologically defenseless.”

Kuhn later explained that he cannot give away the money Epstein contributed because he’s already spent it on crafting some parts of the episodes but guaranteed he would, in the future, not use donor money to complete the project.

“I wouldn’t take money from anyone else to do this and if I do finish this, then I would do it with my own money,” he said. “I feel an obligation to finish it and wouldn’t ask anyone to fund it with this baggage.”

The discovery that Epstein was funding a science-based TV show is the latest example of how many who met him overlooked the financier’s previous legal disputes, which included being sentenced to a Florida jail in 2008 for soliciting a prostitute. He was sentenced to 18 months and ended up serving 13 months.

Epstein’s group finished 2018 giving out $891,000 in contributions, according to tax documents, including $10,000 to the New School in New York and $100,000 to a nonprofit called Humanity +, which describes itself as a group “dedicate[d] to elevating the human condition.”

The financial support for Kuhn’s show also gives a glimpse into how Epstein, behind the scenes, used his wealth to invest in nontraditional projects and to get access to leaders in various intellectual communities. Epstein donated regularly to Harvard and was known to have scientists as allies within the university.

Epstein had ties to a variety of scientists. According to a report by Buzz Feed News, Epstein had links to Martin Novak, a Harvard mathematical biologist, Lawrence Krauss, a legendary physicist, and George Church, a genetics professor at Harvard.

Outside of the close allegiances he had with scientists, Epstein was known to have clients in the business community, including longtime investor Leon Black. Epstein also came into contact with billionaire Bill Gates, who has since called the meetings a “mistake.”

Another past associate of Epstein’s was Donald Trump. Before he became president, Epstein and Trump reportedly used to party together but the two later had a falling out.

I came upon this link a few hours later...

ABC’s Epstein Story Didn’t Kill Itself
December 12, 2019

Epstein’s crimes shocked the public, and his arrest, trial and mysterious death were major stories for much of 2019. But last month, leaked footage emerged showing that corporate media knew much about these crimes years previously. Discussing one of his accusers, ABC News anchor Amy Robach was caught on camera lambasting executives at her network for killing her investigations into the sex offender because of Epstein’s connections. The clip was originally leaked to infamous right-wing troll James O’Keefe, who has a long history of producing bogus stories, but ABC employees, including Robach herself, have confirmed its authenticity. In the video, Robach complains:
I’ve had the story for three years. I’ve had this interview with [Epstein complainant] Virginia Roberts. We would not put it on the air. First of all I was told, “Who is Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.” Then the palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew, and threatened us in a million different ways. We were so afraid we wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that it also quashed the story. And then Alan Dershowitz was also implicated in it because of the planes.   “The planes” is a reference to the celebrity attorney’s frequent trips on Epstein’s infamous private jet, which he used for trafficking. 
More at the link, ending with this:
ABC’s decision to spike the Epstein exposé in order not to embarrass or implicate his powerful associates, thereby effectively enabling his crimes, is a perfect example of the danger of access journalism. Robach predicted, “There will come a day where we will realize Jeffrey Epstein was the most prolific pedophile this country has ever known.” Thanks to our corporate media system, that day was delayed by at least three years.

~~~~~

I came across another piece of the puzzle sometime in July with this story headlined Real Hedge-Fund Managers Have Some Thoughts on What Epstein Was Actually Doing.

For decades, Epstein has been credulously described as a big-time hedge-fund manager and a billionaire, even though there’s not a lot of evidence that he is either. There appears little chance the public is going to get definitive answers anytime soon. In a July 11 letter to the New York federal judge overseeing Epstein’s sex-trafficking case, Epstein’s attorney offered to provide “sealed disclosures” about Epstein’s finances to determine the size of the bond he would need to post to secure his release from jail pending trial. His brother, Mark, and a friend even offered to chip in if necessary. 
Naturally, this air of mystery has especially piqued the interest of real-life, non-pretend hedge-funders. If this guy wasn’t playing their game — and they seem pretty sure he was not — what game was he playing? Intelligencer spoke to several prominent hedge-fund managers to get a read on what their practiced eyes are detecting in all the new information that is coming to light about Epstein in the wake of his indictment by federal prosecutors in New York. Most saw signs of something unsavory at the heart of his business model. 
To begin with, there is much skepticism among the hedgies Intelligencer spoke with that Epstein made the money he has — and he appears to have a lot, given a lavish portfolio of homes and private aircraft — as a traditional money manager. A fund manager who knows well how that kind of fortune is acquired notes, “It’s hard to make a billion dollars quietly.” Epstein never made a peep in the financial world.
There is more at the link, but this is the most interesting part:
Given this puzzling set of data points, the hedge-fund managers we spoke to leaned toward the theory that Epstein was running a blackmail scheme under the cover of a  
How such a scheme could hypothetically work has been laid out in detail in a thread on the anonymous Twitter feed of @quantian1. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but in summary it is a rough blueprint for how a devious aspiring hedge-fund manager could blackmail rich people into investing with him without raising too many flags.

Here is what appears at the anonymous blogger's link:

Let's take as our starting points two givens.
(A.) You are a committed, unrepentant pedophile
(B.) Because of your old job in private banking, you are very connected to lots of very, very wealthy people
We'll also assume a goal:
(Z.) You want to become very rich
The obvious route is, well, obvious: you could just be a pimp, offering underage prostitute services to very rich people. This has two problems: you're very disposable (see: DC madam), and it's also not super lucrative. You can't charge millions of dollars up front.

The second level though follows instantly: You don't need to charge up front, just get them to have underage sex, and then blackmail them afterwards for hush money. Better ROI, but you're still a liability, and producing and receiving big bribe money raises big questions.
So, what to do? Well, the second idea has some merits.
•  First, you need to recruit people in. Have lots of massive parties at your spacious home (check), 
•  invite top academics, artists, politicians to encourage people to come (check), and
•  supply lots of young women (check)

You don't even have to do anything, and most people invited might even be totally unaware of the real purpose of the parties! But, sooner or later, some billionaire will get handsy, she'll escort him to a room with a hidden camera, things happen. Morning after, you strike.
You inform him she was really 15, but you offer him a nice, neat way to buy your silence:
•  a large allocation to your hedge fund, which charges 2/20 (check).
• To ensure nobody else asks questions, you also take the extraordinary step of demanding power of attorney (check)
• The fund is offshore in a tax haven (check) and
•  nobody will see the client list (check).
• Of course, you don't really know anything about investing, instead making up some nonsense about currency trading (check), and
• nobody on Wall Street has ever traded with you (check)
The fund itself doesn't need investment personnel (check),
• only some back office people to process the wires (check).
• You don't want to money from non-pedophiles, or they'll notice you've just put it in a S&P 500 fund, so you reject all incoming inquiries (check)

A $20 million wire from Billionaire X to you with no obvious reason will raise many questions, and the IRS will certainly want to know what you did to warrant it. A $5 million quarterly fee for managing $1 billion in assets? Nobody bats an eye.
•  Because of this structure, you're extraordinarily secretive about client lists (check)
•  because they aren't clients, they're pedophiles paying you bribes, and they also are very secretive, which is why no letters or return streams ever leak (check)

Occasionally you may also try this trick on other people: important political figures, mayors, prosecutors, etc. They don't invest in the fund, but it's nice to have them in your pocket. Others (academics, artists, etc.) can just be bought with money as a PR smokescreen.
And, of course, the scam can be kept going as long as people are willing to pay, which is forever. If you're ever caught, just lean on some of your other friends in government to lean on the prosecutor to get you a sweetheart deal. There's almost zero risk.

And the last piece of the puzzle is the evidence. You'd want it somewhere remote, but accessible: a place the US can't touch but you have an excuse to visit all the time to update. Remember that offshore fund?
I bet there's a *very* interesting safe deposit box there.
Two small points of clarification:
  1. This scheme works just as well if the billionaires are in on it from the getgo as a way to buy sex; I assumed that was obvious but I guess not.
  2. There’s no need to invoke the Mafia/Russia/Mossad/CIA/etc, that’s just needlessly overfitting.

Via Middle East Monitor
The deceased American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell were Israeli spies who used underage girls to blackmail politicians into giving information to Israel, according to their alleged Mossad handler. 
The couple reportedly ran a “honey-trap” operation in which they provided young girls to prominent politicians from around the world for sex, and then used the incidents to blackmail them in order to attain information for Israeli intelligence. 
The claims are being made by the alleged former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe in a soon-to-be-released book “Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales” in which he said that he was the handler of Ghislaine’s father Robert Maxwell, who was also an Israeli espionage agent and was the one who introduced his daughter and Epstein to Mossad. 
“See, f**king around is not a crime. It could be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime,” Menashe wrote in the book. “But f**king a fourteen-year-old girl is a crime. And he was taking photos of politicians f**king fourteen-year-old girls—if you want to get it straight…They [Epstein and Maxwell] would just blackmail people like that.”
The statements made by Ben-Menashe are so far unsubstantiated, but if proven true they would provide significant evidence of Israel being involved in the blackmail of senior and prominent politicians and figures in the US.

This would only add to the state’s already-revealed track record of manipulating Western nations’ political systems, as was seen in the revelations of the Israeli lobby’s attempt to “take down” British and US politicians revealed in the past few years.

Addendum, July, 2020...


Addendum, June, 2022...

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1533082314321842179.html

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