New Epstein files dump strains denials of elites

What happened

Millions of files on Jeffrey Epstein released over the weekend show he maintained cordial relationships with numerous wealthy and powerful people — including Elon Musk and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — between his 2008-09 jail term for soliciting sex with a minor and his final arrest and suicide in 2019. Several of them previously denied ever spending time with Epstein.

Outside the U.S., “the fallout from the release of the files has been swift,” The Associated Press said. Slovakia’s national security adviser Miroslav Lajcak resigned over his Epstein links, former British cabinet secretary Peter Mandelson quit the ruling Labour Party to spare it “further embarrassment,” and Prime Minister Kier Starmer urged former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to testify before the U.S. House Oversight Committee.

Who said what

Musk and Epstein corresponded in 2012 and 2013, trying to meet up in Florida or the Caribbean. After Epstein asked about flying Musk and his partner out to his infamous private island, Musk replied, “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Last September, Musk said on social media that “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED.” Lutnick did apparently visit Epstein’s island with his wife and children in 2012, and had drinks with him in New York in 2011, despite saying last year that he cut off contact with “gross” Epstein in 2005.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Director Brett Ratner, who made the newly released Melania Trump documentary “Melania,” appears in several undated photos with Epstein and redacted women at Epstein’s New York townhouse. Ratner told The Wall Street Journal in 2023 that he had never met Epstein. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson told Epstein in a 2013 email he “would love to see” him again ”as long as you bring your harem!”

The “who’s who of powerful men” who make appearances in the Epstein trove “all have denied having anything to do with his sexual abuse of girls and young women,” the AP said. There are “a lot of emails” and “a lot of horrible photographs,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “But that doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.”

What next?

The tranche of new files identified at least 43 of Epstein’s victims by name, in violation of the law compelling their release, according to the Journal. It also contained “dozens of unredacted nude images” of “young women or possibly teenagers,” The New York Times said. The Justice Department said it was working to fix or redact the flagged files.