The Grooming Is The Grift
We learned last week that Microsoft monopolist Bill Gates had an affair with a Russian bridge player. Furthermore, we learned that this consensual affair was, according to Gates himself, the only leverage that Jeffrey Epstein had on him, and that he, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, is innocent of ever flying on Epstein’s jet or visiting his island or being anywhere near any underage person at any time, ever.
Not that I don’t believe Gates. He is probably telling the truth. It doesn’t matter, however, because the Epstein name will forever taint his own, now. Every conspiracy theory about Gates for all time, whether catastrophically dumb or well-founded in facts, will point to this story as an on-the-record confession to sinister shenanigans.
While [Mila] Antonova acknowledged that she was on friendly terms with Gates during a 2010 video about her love of bridge, the two allegedly had a brief romance while Gates was still married to his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, sources told the Journal.
Epstein, meanwhile, met Antonova while she was looking for financial backers for a bridge academy and later paid for her to attend software coding school, according to the report.
The spokesperson added that Gates never paid up over the threat and that he had “no financial dealings” with Epstein.
Assume that this is indeed all the ‘there’ there in Gates and Epstein. Damage is done regardless. Epstein wanted Gates to reimburse him for Antonova’s coding classes. Gates was apparently smart enough to recognize that giving Epstein any money was a bad idea.
Damage already done, Gates did his reputational arbitrage and declined to give him a dime. This was wise. Had he given Epstein change for the parking meter, his reputational costs would have multiplied. Gates — again, according to his own story — was wise to the con. He has paid the price in losing a wife. He wants to move on.
Other people were not as wise, but also want to move on. They flew on Epstein’s jet. They visited his island. Some of them likely did bad things at his invitation and facilitation. (‘They’ being men, of course.) Others did not do bad things, but were invited to do so.
A whole spectrum of experiences flows from this grooming behavior. Epstein wanted to be their friend. He wanted to give them a good time. Each of them, in varying ways and to different extents, got groomed. Many stopped well short of crime, others did not. Epstein was a predator. He developed skills for spotting someone easily damaged, as well as easy opportunities for damage, and lured his marks into snares.
Some marks succumbed, while others never even knew they were being groomed. All of them were being damaged. The more infamous Epstein became, the greater the potential damage — and the resulting damage, which served as leverage.
Commentary wonders: how did Gates, or other prominent people, let Epstein get anywhere near them after he had been convicted in that bizarre sweetheart arrangement with US Attorney Alexander Acosta, future Trump Labor secretary?
The answer is that Epstein simply had the access, and insinuated himself to get the damage by instinct, like a tick burrowing deep where the dog can’t scratch. He had offered to pay the tuition for Gates’s mistress in order to develop the leverage; there was no actual profit in asking Bill Gates to pay him back.
Small change would have turned into more than that, surely, like bait in a snare. And then the payoff might have been much bigger, for Gates ought to have better sense than be caught dead on Epstein’s jet, or on his island.
It was a long shot bet on Epstein’s part that simply failed to pay out. But how many such bets did he make? How many did pay out?
Here is where the Epstein story becomes a permanent element of conspiracy theories about globalist zillionaires with malign intentions for humanity. It’s not just silly memes. Scholars a century from now will likely look back on his (alleged) suicide as a milestone, like the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in the development of the paranoid style in American culture and politics.
This is not to dismiss Epstein’s victims or any particular commentary on his career as a grooming grifter. Rather, my point is that we don’t know the true extent of his grooming, nor which of his marks did what, therefore any name that is ever associated with Epstein will be guilty of conspiracy by association, forever.
Like a RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) charge, in which the Department of Justice need only prove a criminal conspiracy exist in order to prove many different people are guilty of taking part in the conspiracy, reputational damage works by association.
Except that the convictions take place in a kangaroo court of public opinion, such as Reddit or Twitter, where rules of evidence don’t apply.
Jeffrey Epstein got his money from somewhere. It was always a ‘mystery’ just what he brought to the investing world that made him such a supposed success. Of course, there is no real mystery, there.
Epstein groomed investors. Some of them were convinced to invest becasue he was persuasive that they would make money on the investment. Others were convinced to invest because they were leveraged with Jeffrey Epstein. Neither category of investor has any incentive to explain themselves, for they are both damaged by the association.