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first to take formal media note of the Clinton-Epstein connection, hinting at a sex and money bromance. “I suppose travel with Clinton changed the arc of my life,” Epstein tells me. “There were, I knew, lots of obvious reasons not to do it, but having the ability to spend 100 hours with a former president just doesn’t happen to many people.” I met Epstein around this time, on the flight out to TED. (Epstein had become an active backer of advanced scientific research and a TED fixture.) A small group assembled at the private plane terminal at JFK, most of us unfamiliar with our benefactor, and as we headed in the direction of the discreet private plans we were gently pointed to our ride: Epstein’s 727. It was like something out of a men’s magazine fantasy of the luxe life. The quiet of the plane, engineered into acoustic perfection, seemed spooky. Epstein was accompanied by three young women who were witty, poised, helpful, as well as powerfully alluring. And Epstein, tanned, relaxed, with a wide open smile, was an attentive host, soliciting every guest’s story and views. (One more thing about this trip: Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with their company still in its infancy, came out to see the plane on the Monterey tarmac and, with a few other Googlers, literally ran whooping from one end of the plane to the other. Then they described for Epstein, in what I cannot now remember was a put-on or entrepreneurial brainstorm, a brand extension in which they would HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022885