Would Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have continued their "enterprise"

[no_hypocrisy]

if Trump hadn't been nominated and elected POTUS in 2016?

While I can't prove it, I get the feeling they would be. Trump inadvertently put the spotlight on them.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Maybe someone took over the organization.

There was too much money flowing in for it to completely end?

[rampartd]

6. "someone" would have needed the "client: list and how much epstein was taking each for

easiest way to get that is to hold epstein in a cell with no nearby prisoners and a malfunctioning video system........

on edit. "someone" could have been Epstein's partner all along, providing girls from his pagents and wired suites in his hotels and casinos.

[Irish_Dem]

8. Exactly.

Maybe one of the things Trump is hiding is that he was running an active child rape ring
while in the White House the first time.

[travelingthrulife]

9. No doubt in my mind he was a partner. Trump would never pass up this opportunity.

[LymphocyteLover]

2. seems like Epstein kept his activities low key after his initial arrest in 2008

I'm not sure what enterprise you mean exactly. I'm sure he was committing financial crimes if not maintaining his pedo lifestyle

[Scrivener7]

3. There was blackmailing going on at high levels. He filmed everyone in all his properties doing everything.

I doubt those were home movies.

And he didn't really go low key after his conviction. The powers-that-be that were working with him and the people he was blackmailing weren't exactly going to go to the press.

[LymphocyteLover]

4. I meant low-key in terms of the active pedophilia-- my sense anyway

of course the blackmail continued. Why wouldn't it?

[Coldwater]

5. According to Epstein's former butler, Valdson Vieira Cotrin,

After the 2016 Presidential election, Trump offered Epstein a job in his new administration which he turned down.

So yes, either in the white house or out of his NYC mansion, they would have continued their nefarious activities.

[usonian]

7. Criminal enterprises never cease.

They just get a new "Don"

[karynnj]

10. Would the Miami Herald have pursued the story?

When Trump was elected, Epstein had been arrested, and had completed the jail required by the sweetheart deal. The charge he pled guilty to was a very small portion of what he was guilty of. Florida had swept its own investigation under the rug.

I don't know if the FBI continued any behind the scenes investigation after the GWB DOJ approved the sweetheart deal with its strange provision that if Epstein accepted the deal, several conspirators got immunity. It seems like those who designed that deal wanted to prevent any loose end being investigated and leading to exposing the entire operation.

I remember that when Epstein went to jail, many politicians he had earlier contributed to have an equivalent amount of money to charity. That action was what they did whenever any prior donor was shown to be bad. I don't remember reading anything that suggested he was leading a sex trafficking ring or even himself having raped many underage girls. I think the Miami Herald may have been the first to expose all of that.

From memory, the exception to that was that Epstein was key to the Katie Johnson story that Trump raped her which became public, but not completely mainstream in 2016 when Trump ran. Those accusations were about actions in NY. Even before the election, that woman withdrew the accusations and went into hiding.

The Miami Herald articles were about what Epstein and others did in Florida and were written in November 2018. Epstein was indicted and arrested in 2019 and Acosta, who gave him the sweetheart deal resigned as Labor Secretary then.

I suspect that had HRC been President, the exposure of Epstein by the Miami Herald would have led to the charges not just of Epstein, but of Maxwell and others. At least internally, the idea that Acosta and others above him in the GWB administration would have been investigated.

Without the MH or something else, it could have remained hidden. Consider that there did not seem to be any investigation of a plea deal with only one relatively minor charge granted by the Bush DOJ in the 8 Obama years. The deal may have very successfully hid everything until the newspaper exposed it.

So, whether Trump being president mattered, may go to what motivated Julie Brown to investigate and write the expose and the Miami Herald to publish it.