This one is going to be the subject of conspiracy theories For decades. I'm stickin' with the Mossad agent one, for now. The CBS headline yesterday Shrieking Heard From Jeffrey Epstein's Jail Cell The Morning He Died was enticing... but I thought the dirty deed was done Friday night. Barr investigating this is like having Al Capone investigate the Mafia. Why does this not instill me with confidence? "We will get to the bottom of what happened and there will be accountability. I was appalled and frankly angry to learn of the MCC's failure to adequately secure this prisoner... Let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with Epstein. Any co-conspirators should not rest easy. The victims deserve justice and they will get it." (Unless you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.)And Congress? The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee will say one thing and the Committee Republicans-- and remember, they have a virtual 5-ring circus there between Gym Jordan (R-OH), Matt Gaetz (R-Trump's Ass), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), John Ratcliffe (R-TX) and Doug Collins (R-GA)-- will blame the Clintons. (Now that they may have something, I bet they wish they haven't been crying wolf for over two decades.)Has anyone found ex-girlfriend turned procurer Ghislaine Maxwell yet? Or her body? Antonia Noori Farzan, reporting for the Washington Post yesterday, introduced a new character in the drama: octogenarian and "celebrity pathologist" (JFK, Martin Luther King, Tsar Nicholas II, Josef Mengele, John Belushi...) Michael Baden, a Fox News personality hired by Epstein’s representatives to independently watch the autopsy.
“The famous and infamous, the celebrated and notorious, do not bleed and die as the rest of us do,” Baden wrote in the first chapter of his 1989 memoir, Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner. “They have scenarios, intricately plotted dramas. Buried villains still stalk the earth, hidden in other guises, and news of their obscure ends in faraway villages only brings disbelief.”Perhaps proving his point, when New York City Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson announced on Sunday night that Baden had witnessed Epstein’s autopsy at the request of the deceased financier’s legal team-- a routine precaution in high-profile cases-- the news further inflamed some online conspiracy theorists. After all, how was it possible that one doctor could be linked to so many high-stakes trials and controversial deaths?...“Michael never saw a camera he didn’t like,” Lowell Levine, who served alongside Baden as co-director of pathology for the New York State Police, told NBC News in 2014. “He used to yell at me about the press: ‘They’re just trying to make a living-- why don’t you help them?’”It was O.J. Simpson’s 1995 trial, and subsequent acquittal, that ultimately cemented Baden’s reputation as a “celebrity pathologist.” Hired by the defense team, Baden challenged prosecutors’ narratives about the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, and questioned the accuracy of the Los Angeles County coroner’s findings.As the conspiracy-minded were quick to point out this week, Simpson’s legal team also included Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor and defense attorney who once defended Epstein in court. It wasn’t the only time that Baden and Dershowitz ended up on the same side of a high-profile trial: Dershowitz defended Claus von Bülow, the socialite accused but ultimately acquitted of trying to murder his millionaire wife by injecting her with insulin. Baden, who testified on behalf of the defense in two subsequent trials that gripped the country during the 1980s, later wrote in his memoir that he had concluded that Sunny von Bülow had wound up in a coma because of her own drug and alcohol use.Baden met with some controversy in 2007, when he testified as a defense witness during the trial of record producer Phil Spector, who was accused of murdering actress Lana Clarkson. As prosecutors revealed on cross-examination, Baden’s wife, Linda Kenney Baden, was an attorney on Spector’s defense team, presenting a potential conflict of interest. Baden adamantly rejected the suggestion that his wife’s role could have influenced his testimony, saying that he had come to his own conclusions before she was hired, the Pasadena Star-News reported. (The case ended in a mistrial, and Spector was later found guilty of second-degree murder.)When he wasn’t testifying in highly publicized trials, Baden’s willingness to go on television and talk about gruesome murder investigations-- especially those involving celebrities-- proved to be a highly marketable asset. He hosted the HBO documentary series Autopsy for nine seasons, and became a contributor to Fox News, where he still regularly discusses prominent cases. He also worked as a consultant for the NBC crime drama series “Crossing Jordan” and co-wrote two novels, both forensic thrillers, with his wife.In 2005, Baden left the New York State Police and went into full-time private practice, according to NBC. About a decade later, the Black Lives Matter movement resulted in a slew of new, controversial cases, as activists began questioning official narratives about the deaths of black men at the hands of the police. Baden was hired to conduct independent autopsies in the 2014 deaths of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a chokehold by a New York City police officer, and Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by an officer in Ferguson, Mo. In both cases, his findings were largely consistent with the local authorities, and neither of the police officers was criminally charged.
Meanwhile Trump is still pushing the Clinton connection to Epstein's death. Asked if he really believes Clinton was involved with the death, Trumpanzee told a media gaggle, "I have no idea. I know he was on his plane 27 times and he said he was on the plane 4 times. But when they checked the plane logs, Bill Clinton, who was a very good friend of Epstein's , he was on the plane about 27 or 28 times. So why did he say 4 times? And then the question you have to ask is 'did Bill Clinton go to the island?' because Epstein had an island that was not a good place, as I understand it and I was never there. So you have to ask 'did Bill Clinton go to the island?' That's the question. If you find that out, you're gonna know a lot. Thanks you very much, everybody."Trump, a germaphobe, used Epstein's to procure underage virgin girls but only in Epstein's U.S. party houses. Here's one of the former virgins talking about how Trump raped her at Epstein's place in NYC when she was 15.Let's close the Epstein Case today with the explosive testimony-- in the New York Times-- from reporter James Stewart, who visited Epstein at his cavernous Manhattan mansion on August 16, 2018, a year ago. "The overriding impression I took away from our roughly 90-minute conversation," he wrote yesterday, "was that Mr. Epstein knew an astonishing number of rich, famous and powerful people, and had photos to prove it. He also claimed to know a great deal about these people, some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use."
So one of my first thoughts on hearing of Mr. Epstein’s suicide was that many prominent men and at least a few women must be breathing sighs of relief that whatever Mr. Epstein knew, he has taken it with him.During our conversation, Mr. Epstein made no secret of his own scandalous past-- he’d pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from underage girls and was a registered sex offender-- and acknowledged to me that he was a pariah in polite society. At the same time, he seemed unapologetic. His very notoriety, he said, was what made so many people willing to confide in him. Everyone, he suggested, has secrets and, he added, compared with his own, they seemed innocuous. People confided in him without feeling awkward or embarrassed, he claimed.... I initially walked past the building, on East 71st Street, because it looked more like an embassy or museum than a private home. Next to the imposing double doors was a polished brass plaque with the initials “J.E.” and a bell. After I rang, the door was opened by a young woman, her blond hair pulled back in a chignon, who greeted me with what sounded like an Eastern European accent.I can’t say how old she was, but my guess would be late teens or perhaps 20. Given Mr. Epstein’s past, this struck me as far too close to the line. Why would Mr. Epstein want a reporter’s first impression to be that of a young woman opening his door?The woman led me up a monumental staircase to a room on the second floor overlooking the Frick museum across the street. It was quiet, the lighting dim, and the air-conditioning was set very low. After a few minutes, Mr. Epstein bounded in, dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt, shook my hand and said he was a big fan of my work. He had a big smile and warm manner. He was trim and energetic, perhaps from all the yoga he said he was practicing. He was undeniably charismatic.Before we left the room he took me to a wall covered with framed photographs. He pointed to a full-length shot of a man in traditional Arab dress. “That’s M.B.S.,” he said, referring to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. The crown prince had visited him many times, and they spoke often, Mr. Epstein said.He led me to a large room at the rear of the house. There was an expansive table with about 20 chairs. Mr. Epstein took a seat at the head, and I sat to his left. He had a computer, a small blackboard and a phone to his right. He said he was doing some foreign-currency trading.Behind him was a table covered with more photographs. I noticed one of Mr. Epstein with former President Bill Clinton, and another of him with the director Woody Allen. Displaying photos of celebrities who had been caught up in sex scandals of their own also struck me as odd.Mr. Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend.He said this was something he’d become used to, even though it didn’t stop people from visiting him, coming to his dinner parties or asking him for money. (That was why, Mr. Epstein told me without any trace of irony, he was considering becoming a minister so that his acquaintances would be confident that their conversations would be kept confidential.)If he was reticent about Tesla, he was more at ease discussing his interest in young women. He said that criminalizing sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration and that at times in history it was perfectly acceptable. He pointed out that homosexuality had long been considered a crime and was still punishable by death in some parts of the world.Mr. Epstein then meandered into a discussion of other prominent names in technology circles. He said people in Silicon Valley had a reputation for being geeky workaholics, but that was far from the truth: They were hedonistic and regular users of recreational drugs. He said he’d witnessed prominent tech figures taking drugs and arranging for sex (Mr. Epstein stressed that he never drank or used drugs of any kind).I kept trying to steer the conversation back to Tesla, but Mr. Epstein remained evasive. He said he’d spoken to the Saudis about possibly investing in Tesla, but he wouldn’t provide any specifics or names. When I pressed him on the purported email from Mr. Musk, he said the email wasn’t from Mr. Musk himself, but from someone very close to him. He wouldn’t say who that person was. I asked him if that person would talk to me, and he said he’d ask. He later said the person declined; I doubt he asked.When I later reflected on our interview, I was struck by how little information Mr. Epstein had actually provided. While I can’t say anything he said was an explicit lie, much of what he said was vague or speculative and couldn’t be proved or disproved. He did have at least some ties to Mr. Musk — a widely circulated photo shows Mr. Musk with Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s confidante and former companion, at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscars party.“Ghislaine simply inserted herself behind him in a photo he was posing for without his knowledge,” Ms. Sulprizio, the spokeswoman for Mr. Musk, said.It seemed clear Mr. Epstein had embellished his role in the Tesla situation to enhance his own importance and gain attention-- something that now seems to have been a pattern.About a week after that interview, Mr. Epstein called and asked if I’d like to have dinner that Saturday with him and Woody Allen. I said I’d be out of town. A few weeks after that, he asked me to join him for dinner with the author Michael Wolff and Donald J. Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon. I declined. (I don’t know if these dinners actually happened. Mr. Bannon has said he didn’t attend. Mr. Wolff and a spokeswoman for Mr. Allen didn’t respond to requests for comment on Monday.)Several months passed. Then early this year Mr. Epstein called to ask if I’d be interested in writing his biography. He sounded almost plaintive. I sensed that what he really wanted was companionship. As his biographer, I’d have no choice but to spend hours listening to his saga. Already leery of any further ties to him, I was relieved I could say that I was already busy with another book.That was the last I heard from him. After his arrest and suicide, I’m left to wonder: What might he have told me?
