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ultimate sleaze ball—was suddenly being ferried around in the jet of... who exactly? The New York Post was the 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. Not long after this trip, Epstein’s assistant called to invite me for tea at his house in New York, where Epstein, with what seemed to me little understanding of the subject, began to ask me about media—the upside, downside, and nature of media coverage. (Epstein’s flirtation with the media would result in his backing an unsuccessful effort, of which I was a part, to buy New York Magazine in 2004.) New York magazine was then soliciting him for a profile, as was Vanity Fair, who had assigned the British tabloid journalist, Vicki Ward, to the job. Both profiles—New York’s by Landon Thomas—pivot on the Clinton connection and detail the same quandary, how a man without clear institutional bona fides nevertheless achieved such wealth and influence. Epstein, sensing that he might be exposing himself, called Carter and said he was having second thoughts about being a public figure. “Then you should have lived in a two bedroom HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_024246