With a sex trafficking, flesh peddling empire of favours, logistics and the good time to be had by the powerful, the gigantic scale of Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal network continues to disturb. The least savoury digital library on the planet, available through the offices of the US Justice Department as the Epstein Library, is being combed through with its 3.5 million items comprising 180,000 images, 2000 videos, email and text correspondence, not to mention an assortment of miscellaneous material.
The combing process has come to displace the sheer gravity of Epstein’s dehumanising enterprise. Like a gold mine of ill-repute, slime and crime, researchers, journalists, political hacks and the purely voyeuristic are fossicking for material about the next public figure to be tainted. Agendas abound. The central agenda – ruined lives and the despoiled innocence of young women and girls, and their retraumatising with shoddily redacted files – has been eclipsed.
On February 17, a panel of United Nations experts appointed by the Human Rights Council issued a sharp statement on the Epstein files urging a return to a focus on the victims. The members include, among others, Reem Absalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, George Katrougalos, independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, and Ana Brian Nougrères, Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy.
The documents revealed, according to the statement, “disturbing and credible evidence of systematic and large-scale sexual abuse, trafficking and exploitation of women and girls.” The panel members took note of crimes “committed against the backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption, extreme misogyny, and the commodification and dehumanisation of women and girls from different parts of the world.” A “global criminal enterprise” had “raised terrifying implications of the level of impunity in such crimes.”
The panel further proposed that the severe nature of the crimes required stern reclassification. “So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls, that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity.” Acts such as sexual slavery, rape, enforced prostitution, trafficking, persecution, torture or murder can fall within such a determination, and if so, would deserve prosecution in international and domestic courts.
Unfortunately, the Department of Justice shows little interest in pursuing any of those named in the files, let alone conducting genuinely impartial investigations. (Impartiality is not a strong suit of the Trump administration.) Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche, in dismissive remarks made early this month, observed that, “There’s a lot of correspondence. There’s a lot of emails. There’s a lot of photographs. But that doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.” Just because the victims wanted “to be made whole” did not “mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up with a case that isn’t there.”
The bountiful nature of the Epstein files would suggest no evidence of any sort needs to be created, with the late financier and convicted paedophile most prolific in communicating with various associates on meetings, rendezvous and logistical matters. And there is that troubling failure to disclose the remaining 3 million files or so that remain sealed.
The panel experts relevantly insist that the allegations were so “egregious in nature” as to require “independent, thorough, and impartial investigation, as well as inquiries to determine how such crimes could have taken place for so long.” States were under an obligation to prevent, investigate and punish instances of violence against women and girls, including inflicted by private perpetrators.
Strong words were also reserved for the slipshod process of disclosure that left unredacted the identities and details of a multitude of victims while sparing the powerful, participating members of Club Epstein. “The grave errors in the release process underscore the urgent need for victim-centered standard operating procedures for disclosure and redaction, so that no victim suffers further harm.” That ship had sailed well before, given the utter lack of interest shown by the DOJ in involving victims in the process. Six survivors in a September 2025 interview confirmed that fact.
In the view of the panel, failing “to safeguard [the victims’] privacy puts them at risk of retaliation and stigma. The reluctance to fully disclose information or broaden investigations, has left many survivors feeling retraumatised and subjected to what they describe as ‘institutional gaslighting’.”
To date, promised investigations, such as those into former UK ambassador to Washington Lord Peter Mandelson, focus less on the victims than commercially and politically sensitive information he allegedly disclosed to Epstein when occupying public office. The standard formula used by those trapped in the web has been the fool’s defence, the implausible bliss of ignorance. There have been resignations aplenty, and cataracts of apology.
The UN panel had harsh words for such woeful responses, insisting on a few courses of action. Lift the statute of limitations preventing the prosecution for grave crimes linked to the Epstein enterprise. Provide full remedies and reparations for the victims. Government failures to “effectively investigate, and prosecute those responsible for these crimes, including by complicity or acquiescence, where jurisdiction exists, risks undermining legal frameworks aimed at preventing and responding to violence against women and girls.”
The Trump era of crude, vulgar might as the sole indicator of worth does not augur well for human rights advocates demanding investigations and prosecutions into the victims of Epstein’s predation. Even before President Donald Trump got the keys to the White House, there was impunity, complicity and permissiveness in the depravities of Club Epstein, a state of affairs tolerated, even encouraged by a ruling class bankrupted and soiled. If you were not in it, as the reprehensible socialite Lady Victoria Hervey scorned, you were a “loser.”
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B-b-but…the Donald says HE is the victim!!
WTAF???
Like some in indie media who defer to US ‘indie’ sources, there is much hay being made and claims of a ‘scoop’ over alleged Rudd connections (plausible indirect via IPI NGO) and Israel.
The latter had credible direct links to Epstein via Barak & Israeli tech sector, but nada on Esptein’s links to both Russia and Silicon Valley inc Thiel and Musk?
Locally some indie media is getting push back from readers on the obsession over Rudd ignoring inner circles of perps, then suspicious framing that ignores victims* and Russian links?
*In fact UK indie investigative outfit ByLine Times spoke about an Australian victim Giuffre, whose brother requested a dozen of print copies of their investigations for the victims’ and their legal teams; request is being fulfilled.
Australia? Too busy waffling and grandstanding on outer circles avoiding anything contentious or litigious?
Thank you Dr Kampmark for the update on the UN Human Rights Council Panel.
Good to see some integrity somewhere.
There must be a great deal of sorrow among women generally that others of their sex – such as child trafficker Maxwell – might not only be complicit in international power-broking sex crimes and staggering abuses of power but also in the repackaging of the heinous crimes of the Trump administration, pronouncing to a gobsmacked world that black is white and wrong is right with the prettiest of smiles.
The best housekeepers are alchemists capable of changing shit into gold. These confected clones are still doing the dirty work of moral sanitisation for the world’s most powerful men. A cowardly Bondi turns her back on the victims bravo enough to come forward. What an endless nightmare for those struggling to survive this sadistic, drawn-out shitshow.
What sort of enslavement is this that they must sell their souls?
‘Barbie’ dolls indeed.
Can we also remember that being named in the files is not necessarily in reference to the trafficking and abuse of minors? Epstein had a lot of contacts and was some sort of powerbroker. Some mentions are purely about trying to drag people into his web and failing (Rudd, apparently, for instance). Some may be no more than business associates unconnected with the seamier side of his network – although it’s hard to believe that those still unconcerned about their involvement with him after his initial conviction were totally ignorant of it.
Anyone shown to be involved with the trafficking and abuse, however, needs to be prosecuted and locked up for the rest of their slimy little lives.
Just when in the history of our world, has there been a time when old, rich/powerful men and young females haven’t used and abused each other?
Somewhere, right now, this unsavory intercorse is taking place, it’s in our DNA.
jonangel:
“used each other”? “men … females”?
Those girls, those children, were not “using” the bastards who groomed, abused, trafficked and raped them.
Leefe, once again you know more than I, “used, abused,trafficked and raped them”, do you have any evidence for that claim?
Based on all I’ve read and seen, many of these young women did very well out of their encounter with Epstein.
Currently, many are trying to milk even more out of the systm.
Reality Leefe, none of this is new, the film world has had the “casting couch” for many years.
jonangel:
At the age of 15, or 14, or 13, or younger (and according to the files those were the ages of the victims in question) you are a minor. A child. You cannot consent to sexual intercourse (or, for that matter, enter into a legal contract). Now, find a legal dictionary and look up the term “statutory rape”.
I’d rather not have to say this on this site, but you asked for it – whenever someone says the sort of things you’ve just said, I immediately tend to think that they’ve done some version of this sort of thing themselves. I sincerely hope not, but why the fuckittyfuck else would you blame the children – the victims – for what was done to them? And as for “did very well out of their encounter with Epstein” … they were children when it happened, and a lifetime of PTSD is not “doing very well”. You want evidence for the claim of trafficking, abuse and rape? Read the files and the victim testimony. And if that’s not enough evidence for you, what evidence do you have that they “did very well” out of it all? What evidence do you have that any are “trying to milk the system”?
The casting couch? You mean where men in power used that power to coerce women into sexual activity that would not otherwise have occured? And you think that’s alright?
I have never had a positive opinion of you, but you just trashed it to LJH levels. Possibly lower.
jonangel, you’ve written some pretty weird stuff in these pages over your relatively short tenure here, but I have to agree with leefe in this respect, that you should seek to rationalise the behaviour of the notorious paedophile Epstein, and that you should posit for whatever incomprehensible reason apart from the weirdness that posits itself as reality inside your mind that the girls were in it for what they could get out of it is about as fucked as it gets. One can only surmise that you are a very strange man, possibly the type of creature that gets his jollies from the darker recesses of society and the web.
Honestly, you need to take a long hard look at yourself and ask yourself for what reason you think it’s appropriate to write the sort of abhorrent drivel that sits above this post. You should recognise, I hope, that not a single reader here would agree with you or have sympathy for your views and attitude on this matter.
Paedophilia, for all the right reasons, is universally condemned as being among the worst of behaviours, and yet here you are trying to rationalise it and gaslight the victims, most of whom will endure the trauma of their experiences at Epstein’s hands for years to come.
The “weird stuff” you claim I post, is nothing when compared to the inane rubbish you post. This latest effort on your part is at the level of the dunny walls, do you draw effigy’s as well?
Leefe, the age of sexual consent varies country to country and in the USA state to state. I don’t know your source, but the only age I’ve seen quoted is 17, please tell where your 13,14 and15 came from?
I’d point out in some countries girls are married and mothers at 13 and 14 are these countries immoral in your view?
I repeat, none of this is new, such instances are going on every day.
So, lets discuss the issue of that other fellow who thought that he was ‘untouchable’.
If you understand how this works, you may learn something about yourself into the bargain, and what and why you made the decisions you did….
Pay attention to the planets, progressions and how they work….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYLd0yBMotY
I’d point out in some countries girls are married and mothers at 13 and 14 are these countries immoral in your view?
Laws and practices which permit that are immoral. At 13 the body is for too immature, nor is the child mentally or emotionally mature enough to make that sort of commitment. It is done solely for the gratification of revolting older men. Children are not things to be used at whim. Girls and women are people, not a convenient resource for the powerful and the entitled.
Legality is not the measure for what is acceptable or ethical.
You haven’t heard of anyone younger than 17? Which rock have you been living under? There were multiple claims from now adult women who were as young as 12 when they encountered Epstein and Maxwell. Do a search on Katie Collins and Trump.
none of this is new
So? That things have happened in the past is no justification for continuing to do them when you know how much damage they do.
You really are a thoroughly revolting excuse for a person. I’d suggest you crawl back into whatever primeval pit of slime you oozed your way out of and see if another few million years of evolution might not turn you into a facsimile of a decent human being but, given the raw material, it would probably be a complete waste of time.
Leefe, I love when expose your real self, such a grasp of language. but please tell, do you still pull the wings off flies?
If you an example of a “decent human being”, I don’t want to be one.
For the record, I stand with Virginia Guiffre on the matter of the Epstein sex trafficking, the security information honey-trap shop, and the blackmail enterprise recently exposed with the Randy Andy matter.
However, as a long-standing chronic bibliomaniac and former second-hand book dealer, over the years of this ”addiction” I have discovered several first-hand accounts of similar sex ring operations based in NYC where upon indictment the organisers (or ”Madams”) declare that they will give the names of their most politically & socially prominent ”clients”, and so avoid prosecution after the DoJ withdraws the case.
This indeed, is ”standard operating procedure” in the US legal system, where equality under the law is part of the myth generally known as ”the American Dream” which in 21st century TACO Trumpery America is ”the Nightmare on Main Street”.
@ jonangel: I agree with leefe, Canguro.
If you an example of a “decent human being”, I don’t want to be one.
Coming from you, that’s a compliment.
do you still pull the wings off flies?
I’ve always left that sort of thing to people like you. When annoying critters start buzzing around me, I just swat them and feed them to the fish and/or skinks … btw, my resident bluetongue looks a bit peckish. Want to get a bit closer … ?
@ jonangel we all agree with leefe, Canguro et al.
Heather, you either run with the herd, or hunt with the hounds. Yes, I know, it is safer to run with the herd, isn’t it?
Leefe, any comment I made to that, would be hurtful, so I’ll just wish you well, I think you’ll need it.
I am surprised you are unaware of the Profumo case, the similarities are outstanding.
Two last remarks and I’m out:
First, for anything you say to be hurtful, I’d have to care about your opinion. So, do your worst.
Second, saying that predation on children is bad is not groupthink.
jonangel’s presence is to be welcomed on these pages, as it serves to remind that intelligence, maturity, insight, empathy, wisdom, consideration or generosity are not givens in the spectrum of human behaviours.
His default recourse to ad hominin attack along with the saccharine falsities of ‘I wish you well’ and ‘I think you need it’… vomitous really, reveal floundering, out of depth, incapacity.
Just as one, when walking in the bush, learns to look out for snakes, spiders, bull ants, tangled vines and other nasty biting things, so it is that jonangel’s litany of toxic drivel serves as a clear reminder of the risks of engaging with shallow, immature dullard personalities.
As always, the age-old advice stands: don’t get into the gutter to argue with fools & simpletons, for you’ll never succeed.
Canguro, I thank you for your welcome, to be welcomed to a group in close contact with their incongruous view of todays world, is interesting., it highlights the problems of our world.
You have of course contributed what to improving the situation?
Just shufferlong, you may wake up, when it’s too late.
Leefe, I happen to be kind and for you I have sympathy, but again, I wish you well, you need it.