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gossip trail—a story waiting to happen. A variety of the gossip that begins to circulate about Epstein—for instance, that he secretly films his guests—is seeded by Carter, who once advised me not to go to Epstein’s house or accept a ride in his car least I risk being blackmail. (“For what?” I asked Carter. “For you have no idea,” said Carter.) Epstein is playing a cat and mouse game with his own growing wealth and influence. He is private and secretive, but grandly so. He joins the board of Rockefeller University. He’s suddenly on the Trilateral commission, that cabal of business people who fancy themselves, and who are fancied by conspiracy buffs, as running the world. He acquires, from his client Limited Founder Les Wexner, the larges private house in Manhattan. He buys an airplane. He buys another. He expands his holdings in New Mexico. He begins a Zanadu refurbishment of his Caribbean Island. He befriends Bill Clinton in his new after-office life. And that’s quite the fatal pairing. The post-Monica Clinton, now having pardoned the on-the-lam financier Marc Rich, is suddenly being ferried around in the jet of...who exactly? The New York Post is the first to take formal media note of the Clinton-Epstein connection, hinting at a sex and money bromance. The instinctively private Epstein is not just increasingly exposed, but clearly curious about the nature of exposure. I met Epstein around this time. Epstein has become a more and more active backer of advanced scientific research—ultimately he will donate $30 million to Harvard for a theoretical physics research center—and in 2002 he was taking a small group of scientists out to the TED conference in Monterey. The TED organizers invited various other TED participants, including me, to join the flight. A small group assembled at the private plan terminal, most of us unfamiliar with our benefactor, and as we headed in the direction of the discrete private plans we were gently pointed to our ride: Epstein’s 727. It is some thoroughly updated drawing room set-up, all of us nervously ensconced in this luxury plane, waiting for our unknown host to arrive. Epstein, looking more like a Palm Beach bon vivant than it would have been possible to imagine anyone could, was accompanied by three young women. It would be unlikely, outside of a men’s magazine fantasy of the luxe life, to located this in reality. Epstein’s attentions, taking time with each of his passengers, seemed impossible to account for. The quiet of the plane, engineered into acoustic perfection, seemed spooky. Epstein’s companions HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022964