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Some things changed. While surprisingly few others dropped him, the Clinton’s did, an irony of the present tabloid interest in Epstein’s old address book with its many Clinton contacts. And his sex offender status has transformed him from libertine playboy to sex offender in tabloid parlance. While he has regularly entertained PR proposals aimed at his public rehabilitation, until Friends prodded him, and until this recent renewed tabloid fever, Epstein had concluded that he was perfectly satisfied living behind high walls and in his own exclusive club. Even the recent Dershowitz-Prince Andrew chapter seems like a parallel disturbance rather than something that is actually affecting him. His friends are as loyal as one could only hope for . In speaking to quite a few, without exception they stand behind their trust and like a christain chorus, all say , if you only knew the real story. but Jeffrey has not made any public statements But true or not, the story has taken on a life of its own, with the US and British tabloid press continuing, so far unsuccessfully, to search for a smoking gun connecting Clinton to underage girls, which could have—many obviously hope—the effect of derailing the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. It is a curious attribute of his character that, other than perhaps being more circumspect about what legal advice to follow, Epstein would have done little differently. (When I suggested recently to Epstein that one obvious way to blunt the animus bearing down on him would be to get married, he said he’d rather go back to jail.) His life, living it as he wants, seems to him to be an extraordinary accomplishment. Being on the wrong side of a groups morality, custom, politics, the media, that’s just a bit of bad luck. And it is perhaps this attitude of his that irks his critics the most. Although he has spent more than a year in jail and paid out what may be as much as $20 million, he yet seems somehow to have not been damaged as they would prefer. -thats worst sin of all. He is the unrepentant catchall of up-to-the-minute badness: the financier whose wealth is a product of Wall Street math rather than work; a rich good looking ,white man who not only parades his wealth and entitlement, but has a Peter Pan complex to boot; an insistent playboy (excuse me, sex offender ) in a correct and prudish world—someone who somehow didn’t get the memo about vast changes in mores and culture. But Epstein’s friends—and I think that 1s, in the end, the best word for the powerful people who orbit him—are willing to support him and are willing to expound on his virtues. Generous philantroppy, science funding at he highest levels and a freedom of discourse that borders on dissent but often is the inspiration for great ideas. . Epstein is their sole confidant in many instances, Not the only nexus of them, but one of them. Dr. Epstein. may i Lay on your couch. This is the back and forth, the power loop. His expertise is knowing what other people want to know, combined with a lightning fast mind . Which surely offers those who are a part of the conversations a unique sense of confidence that they too now can understand how the world of money works. And ina time of such radical flux and existential instability, everybody wants to seek out someone who might have some answers or at least make you feel like he does—even, and maybe especially, the rich. In the last days of my interviews with Epstein, he was called by a particular world-stage individual, among the richest and most powerful—proudly louche himself—who, feeling out of his depth in a world of crashing oil prices and wild currency fluctuation, had come to believe he might benefit from some private tutoring. Epstein welcomed him to the club. please note The information contained in this communication 1s confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may constitute inside information, and is intended only for the use of the addressee. It is the property of JEE Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023633