HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022898.tif

conversations with me. He hoped that, six years after his release from prison, he could begin to rebuild his public reputation. Then, just before the New Year, Epstein forwarded me a heads-up email that Alan Dershowtiz, one of Epstein’s longtime friends and occasional legal advisors—they have a bickering brotherly relationship— had received from a reporter at Politico. The Politico reporter had been following Epstein-related court filings and found a new one added to an old lawsuit with some rather jaw-dropping claims. The civil filing, based on claims of one of the plaintiffs, purported to connect a catch-all of bold-faced names associated with Epstein more than a decade ago, including Dershowitz and Britain’s Prince Andrew, to a “sex slave” ring. Indeed, she claimed that she had been forced to have sex with Dershowitz and the Prince at Epstein’s command. Epstein, who sometimes seems to have an out-of- body attitude toward his own fate and bad press, said that while the claims were ludicrous—putting Dershowitz in a sex slave ring, he said, ought to point out just how ludicrous—he thought it might provoke “quite a show.” In short order, Prince Andrew’s alleged involvement sent the U.K. into tabloid frenzy (even the normally sniffy Guardian, in full anti- royal and anti- billionaire fever, joined in), which then effectively exported the story back to the U.S., where Epstein’s HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022898