The Atlantic – no paywall – The Razor-Thin Line Between Conspiracy Theory and Actual Conspiracy – “A conversation with Julie K. Brown, the investigative reporter who knows more than almost anyone else about Jeffrey Epstein…The Epstein saga hits on practically every theme of every major conspiracy theory, going back for centuries: It entails allegations of horrific child abuse. There are multiple mysterious deaths involved. Missing tapes. Hidden documents. Claims about a shadowy cabal. Backtracking politicians. Celebrities. Plus, Epstein was Jewish—so the whole affair is inevitably laced with anti-Semitism, a key feature of conspiracism since the Crusades. The thing is, only some parts of the Epstein story are conspiracy theories, and it’s surprisingly difficult to suss out which ones. Epstein really did commit awful crimes. People in positions of tremendous power really did let him off easy back in the Bush administration…Jeffrey Epstein abused probably at least 200 young girls, some of them reportedly as young as 12 years old, over a span of decades. He also sexually abused young women who are in the area of 18 to 25 years old. But this is a case about a man who used these women as pawns to further his own ambition and finances, in that he used them not only for his own sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification of others that he had hoped to do business with. And this was all part of the sex-trafficking operation. He had several different offices, so to speak, with this operation. He had a whole staff that helped him with this. He had legal people that helped him with this. So this was just not Epstein having sex in his mansion with a couple of underage girls. This was a whole operation. And I think people sometimes lose sight of the fact that he was able to continue doing that because our federal government and our criminal-justice system failed these victims, and never really pursued this case with the seriousness and intensity that they should have from the very beginning. And that’s why he got away with it. It’s why he was released way back in 2009, and he was able to continue doing the same things all over again after his release from this plea deal that he initially negotiated two decades ago with the federal government…”