Rachel Abrams

to people in a way that does seem quite singular.

Favors like what?

He's taking advantage of the fact that other people are motivated by sex and they might do something for him if he does something for them, i.e.

send this woman out to meetings with them.

So, David, you've described a lot of the lessons that Epstein learned in his early years that allowed him to climb his way up the social ladder, that allowed him to amass great wealth and, of course, enabled his criminal activity over many, many years.

But one name that you have not mentioned is Donald Trump.

And pressure on the president is what led to the disclosure of these files, because people want to understand what evidence the government has about Jeffrey Epstein and his criminal behavior and the network in which he operated.

And so I wonder, then, how are we to think about where Donald Trump fits into Epstein's early years?

But at the same time, one of the things I've never quite understood about the Epstein files, as we have been calling them, is if there was evidence of criminal behavior on the part of Trump or any of these other notable figures, that has been in the possession of the DOJ across multiple administrations for years.

And so I don't mean to come off as naive and say, like,

If the DOJ had evidence of crimes, why would they not investigate it?

But I just don't quite understand why exactly we believe that it wouldn't have come out before now.

I guess the reason why I'm sort of lingering on this is that it feels like everybody is waiting for another shoe to drop.

Everyone is waiting with bated breath to see what's in these files.

And maybe these files will finally answer our persistent questions about Epstein's orbit and Donald Trump.

But it feels like the picture that's emerging, at least from your reporting, is

is that we already kind of know the answer about how Epstein became Epstein in some way, which is that he didn't need to be a secret spy or whatever these other conspiracy theories that have popped up in intervening years would suggest.

He just needed to be a remarkably savvy guy who learned very early on that he could manipulate people, he could commit crimes, and he could basically get away with anything he wanted as he climbed up the ladder.

Okay, but speaking of being held accountable, I do wonder if that's the takeaway here.

Because on the one hand, obviously, Jeffrey Epstein died in a jail cell.