At a glittering 2002 gala in Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel, world leaders, Nobel laureates and cultural icons rubbed shoulders. Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Mikhail Gorbachev were in the room. Quincy Jones presented an award to Bono. Chuck Berry played. And Jeffrey Epstein slipped in—not to be honored, simply to be there. A quarter-century later, the “Epstein files” are forcing that world of proximity and prestige into a reckoning.
Those Dublin snapshots capture the financier’s method: relentless, targeted networking conducted from a private jet—the Boeing 727 that became known as the “Lolita Express.” The newly released Department of Justice documents, part of what Congress has mandated under the Epstein Transparency Act, are surfacing hundreds of brush-by relationships. Being named in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing. But in politics and business, optics harden into judgment—especially for anyone who stayed close after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
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The gravity of this political moment is plain. Later this month, Bill and Hillary Clinton have been asked to appear before the House Oversight Committee as lawmakers sift the Epstein files and probe what the former president and former secretary of state knew. They say they saw nothing untoward. Suzy Wiles, chief of staff to President Donald Trump, told Vanity Fair she has seen no evidence in the files that the Clintons were aware of wrongdoing. Bill Clinton would be the first former president since 1983 to testify in committee; his spokesman has said the appearance could set a precedent for others.
Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted in 2022, is expected to testify by video link to the same committee this week. And starting Monday, members of Congress can examine the files in unredacted form—an extraordinary step prompted by bipartisan distrust that the full truth would otherwise remain buried.
The reputational costs are already cascading. Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell has had his name removed from a scholarship and a bust taken down at Queen’s University Belfast, and he stepped aside as honorary chairman of the University of Maine’s Mitchell Institute. In a statement to RTÉ News, his spokesman called a renewed allegation a case of “mistaken identity,” said Mitchell never met Virginia Giuffre or any underage women, and added that he “profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein.”
In sport, Casey Wasserman—sports-rights mogul and chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics—has faced calls to resign after the files disclosed flirtatious emails with Maxwell in the early 2000s, including a 2003 message asking, “so what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” Wasserman said he “deeply” regrets the correspondence, emphasized he never had a personal or business relationship with Epstein, and noted a 2002 humanitarian trip with the Clinton Foundation aboard an Epstein plane. He is not accused of wrongdoing.
Epstein’s talent for proximity also ensnared governments. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been battered over his appointment of Peter Mandelson as U.K. ambassador to Washington, where Mandelson struck a 10% tariff deal with President Trump. Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned over vetting questions. The broader focus, as the files roll out, is who associated with Epstein after 2008 and what due diligence was done—questions that extend back to Gordon Brown’s 2008 appointment of Mandelson as trade minister. Brown has said he knew nothing of Mandelson’s Epstein links at the time.
In the U.S. legal world, Brad Karp stepped down as chairman of Paul, Weiss, one of the country’s most powerful law firms, after internal pressure tied to his name surfacing in emails. Those messages appear to show social interactions with Epstein, including dinners and attending a Woody Allen premiere. Karp said the attention had become a “distraction.” There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Karp or that he knew more than what was public about Epstein’s 2008 conviction.
America’s most watched sport is not immune. Steve Tisch, a part-owner of the NFL’s New York Giants, appeared in emails described as sleazy exchanges about women. The league said it will investigate. Tisch said he had a “brief association” with Epstein involving emails about adult women, never visited Epstein’s island, and deeply regrets the link.
The fallout is global. Poland has opened an investigation into Epstein’s trafficking routes, saying many victims appear to have originated from or transited through the country. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there are growing suspicions that “this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services”—a charge Moscow has not addressed publicly and which remains unproven.
In Slovakia, Miroslav Lajcak, national security adviser to Prime Minister Robert Fico and twice foreign minister, resigned after emails showed banter with Epstein about women and references to meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Lajcak also suggested a meeting between Steve Bannon and Fico—an encounter he says never occurred. He denies knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
France accepted the resignation of Jack Lang as chair of the Arab World Institute. Lang, a former culture and education minister, has previously said his links to Epstein were primarily financial and that he had no knowledge of the sex crimes. French finance police are examining an offshore vehicle in the Virgin Islands jointly held by Lang’s daughter and Epstein. In his resignation letter, Lang said the accusations were inaccurate and vowed to prove it.
Even academic eminence has not insulated reputations. Emails show famed linguist Noam Chomsky met Epstein, traveled on a private jet and corresponded with him during Epstein’s final years. In one note sent months before the 2019 arrest, Chomsky advised Epstein to stay silent, writing that “what the vultures dearly want is a public response.” Chomsky has previously said the relationship mainly involved financial advice; he has not commented on the latest disclosures and has remained publicly silent since a 2023 stroke.
Perhaps the most politically delicate turn involves Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Last October, he told the New York Post he severed ties with Epstein in 2005 after a visit to Epstein’s mansion. But CBS News last week published documents indicating business ties as late as 2014, including 2012 signatures from both men relating to an investment in the ad-tech firm AdFin. Emails also reference a planned 2012 family lunch on Epstein’s island and a $50,000 donation from Epstein to a 2017 dinner honoring Lutnick. None of this suggests wrongdoing, but it undercuts Lutnick’s earlier timeline. The Commerce Department dismissed the scrutiny as a “failing attempt by the legacy media to distract” from the administration’s accomplishments, while saying Lutnick’s interactions were limited.
These ripples illustrate Epstein’s business model: deal-making networks fortified by philanthropic façades and exclusive travel. The files, comprising roughly 6 million documents, were generated by the original 2005–2008 Florida probe and the renewed federal investigation that followed a legal challenge by Virginia Giuffre, who successfully argued that victims were not informed of the 2008 plea deal. Epstein was arrested again in 2019 and died in jail awaiting trial. Maxwell was convicted in 2022.
The central test now is not simply who appears in an inbox. It is whether public officials and institutions enforced a basic standard after 2008: vet the associations; disclose the risks; make hard calls about appointments and honors. For many, the answer will be uncomfortable. The Clinton testimony, Maxwell’s appearance before the House, and lawmakers’ access to unredacted files will sharpen those lines of accountability.
Two cautions should guide the next phase. First, the files are swollen with ordinary business and social correspondence. Guilt by proximity is an unreliable compass. Second, proximity after 2008 is not the same as proximity before it. In an era of effortless background checks, claiming ignorance is a weaker defense for those who engaged, partnered with or promoted Epstein in the years that followed.
Amid the headlines—about Olympics leadership, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, billionaires and professors—the original point risks disappearing. The avalanche of emails cannot be allowed to bury the women and girls whose testimony and persistence forced the truth into view. Congress demanded transparency because faith in quiet deals and private assurances had run out. By its own admission, the government has more to release.
The shadow from that Dublin ballroom stretches further still. As more documents, photos and videos emerge, more reputations will be tested. What matters most is not whose name surfaces, but whether the institutions that sit in judgment prove they have learned the difference between proximity and predation—and whether the victims finally see the full record made public.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
