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Comment by albatross13 | Hacker News Reader

> There are basically two mysteries regarding Jeffrey Epstein - the first is how he died, and the second is how he managed to get the plea bargain wherein he served twelve months in para-prison for creating a network of dozens of underage prostitutes.

Weird, I would have thought the third mystery was "How have all these billionaires, who are listed on the Lolita Express' flight logs, escape arrest and prosecution thus far?" or maybe "Why did the judge seal all information away?" OR MAYBE "Why did 'conspiracy theorists' know about these flight logs since the early 2000s and just now something happened?"

I'm sure there are plenty of rational conclusions that don't involve a global shadow cabal of kid fuckers throwing 2 of their idiots under the bus. Remember how #metoo stopped after harvey weinstein? lol me too, I'm sure hollywood is fixed now.

THE WORLD IS A STAGE, THIS IS ALL THEATER

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Being on the flight log doesn't prove a crime.

Situations like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Giuffre_v._Prince_And...

which are one person's word against another are the most frustrating cases when it comes to getting justice.

> Being on the flight log doesn't prove a crime. Nah but it sure as shit warrants an investigation, something we won't get. I'm sure billy gates and willy clinton never did anything nefarious though :^))))

There is what's probably true and then there is what can be proved.

I don't think we're going to see another Clinton run for public office again.

Aye, you and I agree there- "letting the facts get in the way of the truth".

Probably not, but not having them run for office means little when they can use the clinton foundation to continue to sway public and private sectors. Alas, I'm going down a rabbit hole here.

While you are correct that we likely cannot prove a lot of what is true, the OP article is playing a dangerous game. Anyone who claims to take a complex geopolitical underage sex trafficking cabal and boil it down to "two blase 'mysteries'" is doing nothing more than acting as controlled opposition. It's akin to saying "Don't look under the rug bro, let me just tell you what's under there. It's just two old m&m candies we swept under there. Don't look. let me tell you how boring it is".

Turns out that rug has a lot of nasty shit under it.

Do you believe Trump's name being all over Epstein's flight logs and his decades of ties to Epstein means Trump did something nefarious?

Do you believe The Trump Foundation "continues to sway public and private sectors?"

Absolutely. Anyone on that list has to be a huge piece of shit, and yes I believe the trump foundation continues to do the same shit.

Liberalism and its "HAH BUT TRUMP, GOTCHYA" mentality is such poison- you're a cancer unto yourself. All of these people run in the same circles, they use their money for the same or similar agendas (control), and ultimately they want all of us poor and enslaved (debt) for eternity. They're all mostly kid fuckers, too- look at trump's slew of weird comments about his daughter.

I am not your ally, but both of these groups are definitely our enemy. I hope you figure it out sooner rather than later :)

May not be tactful, but, difficult to disagree.

I don't recall defending the Clintons.

Maybe if you didn't think everything was black and white, you wouldn't need melodramatic all-caps text so often.

At this point the odds-on favorite to win the Republican nomination in 2024 is Donald Trump, a man with extensive ties to Epstein going back decades, and who is on record issuing vague compliments about his sexual predation.

Think we're going to see another Trump run for public office again?

Look objectively. He's already running. God help us. (That's a genuine prayer, not gratuitous swearing.)

Oddly, though, at the moment he's still running for the election of 2020, even though it's 2022.

What if the crime was violating house arrest? What if you say, while under oath, you weren't at some of the manifests destinations, and the crime was perjury?

Being on a flight log is evidence you were on a flight. Jury's (or Judges if you don't want a Jury) decide guilt.

With everything known surrounding the destination of some of these flights, It is surprising the logs didn't lead to investigations into some of the serial passengers.

>> Being on the flight log doesn't prove a crime.

> What if the crime was violating house arrest? What if you say, while under oath, you weren't at some of the manifests destinations, and the crime was perjury?

OK then: being on the flight log doesn't prove the type of crimes alleged here. It can prove other types of crimes that aren't relevant to this discussion.

Perhaps the types of crimes the that deal with underaged trafficked girls on planes and/or islands?

This wasn't the manifests of a grand canyon sight seeing plane.

> "Perhaps [...]"

Suspicion of crime isn't crime.

Actual crimes without enough evidence are not prosecutable.

Lots of people come into association with crimes, criminals, or simply suspicious circumstances, who have not actually committed a crime.

Your quote used the one unnecessary word and converted the rest to an ellipsis. (I do find it funny that you did "Perhaps [...]" rather than "Perhaps . . . ." or "Perhaps [anything]", it's like, the point I was making can be reduced to the abstract notion of trailing-off dialogue lol)

"Perhaps" is a cheeky way to introduce my response to the "being on the flight log doesn't prove the type of crimes alleged here" part by providing the obvious types of crimes it would provide evidence for. (Like, if someone asks "Why isn't the elevator moving" and someone responds "perhaps it is because you didn't press the floor button"). I wasn't using it as some sort of way to convey support of action based on mere suspicion.

Perhaps you missed that?

> With everything known surrounding the destination of some of these flights, It is surprising the logs didn't lead to investigations into some of the serial passengers.

Perhaps I do misunderstand.

What I get from rereading the thread is you entertained the possibility of investigative action based on suggestive association (people riding on a plane associated with crimes).

If that isn't a correct characterization, please correct me!

That low of a bar for investigative action would give prosecutors quite a weapon to harass almost anyone they wanted to target. Even a clearly dead end investigation can seriously impact someone's life and reputation.

The phrase "probable cause" isn't "suggestive association with cause" for a reason.

We kind of went on a tangent because my response was a bit too pedantic. I am just surprised, to my knowledge, nothing came of the manifests. I don't think they were a nothing burger.

Epstein's "Lolita Express" plane had a manifest of passengers for years of trips. Certain figures show up many times on flights with Epstein and his girls. Certain people on the list, or at least their spokesmen, publicly denied flying there (at least at first, eventually, the denials started including more and more caveats).

A lot of celebrities went to Epstein's New York parties, but the private plane is different. You have a select few individuals on a convicted pedophile's plane, a plane used to transport the underaged women. Like, if it was Pablo Escobar's drug plane flying back and forth from his drug island, is it there probable cause to investigate the passengers activities on the plane and island? Perhaps that is too extreme of a comparison, I do not know what the investigators know. Maybe they did investigate and determined it to be benign. I am just saying I am surprised nothing came of it.

I am also surprised nothing came of Epstein's hundreds of cameras at his properties... I read Giuffre's book draft (when it was in evidence in one of the cases). I know it is just her word, but it just seems like Epstein recorded so many things, that I am surprised that no one was prosecuted including no-named people. Also, it is an extremely disturbing read, a lot of it is even pre-Epstein, I had no idea she was trafficked multiple times (google FBI Ron Eppinger)

Outside of the legal investigation, I am not even sure what Occam's razor would suggest here. The FBI seized computers and camera systems from his properties. I think it is unlikely everything found was benign. Only the recruiter of sex trafficked minors was prosecuted (outside Epstein). This probably biases my view, I feel there was a lack of investigating going on, so maybe I am too biased to have a reasonable opinion on the manifests.

I agree - it seems unlikely that incriminating recordings or other records were not found.

But perhaps he was as careful to avoid storing anything incriminating, as he was at avoiding any hint of blackmail that would have killed off access to new powerful people, in all his social engineering.

He was evil, but he was very smart. He seems to have preferred using carrots, good and evil, to expand his influence. Not sticks.

>>>> Being on the flight log doesn't prove a crime.

>>> What if the crime was violating house arrest? What if you say, while under oath, you weren't at some of the manifests destinations, and the crime was perjury?

>> OK then: being on the flight log doesn't prove the type of crimes alleged here. It can prove other types of crimes that aren't relevant to this discussion.

> Perhaps the types of crimes the that deal with underaged trafficked girls on planes and/or islands?

It's a crime to traffic an underaged girl, it's also a crime to have sex with one, it might even be a crime to knowingly fail to aid one, but it isn't a crime to be on the same plane as one or on a plane that previously transported one.

The manifest only proves the thing that isn't a crime.

It's also weird that you responded to me with crimes like statutory rape, when I already addressed that the manifest wasn't evidence of that, and the comment of yours I was responding to was talking about crimes (e.g. skipping house arrest) that aren't relevant.

Also, in the US at least, crimes have to be "proven beyond a reasonable doubt," and "he was on the plane of guy who was guilty" doesn't even come close to meeting that standard.

> What if the crime was violating house arrest?

Were any of the people on the logs under house arrest at the time?

> What if you say, while under oath, you weren't at some of the manifests destinations, and the crime was perjury?

Then the log is evidence, but alone pretty weak evidence, definitely not sufficient for a conviction and likely not even enough, on its own to meet the probable cause standard ton sustain a charge.

> Being on a flight log is evidence you were on a flight.

Which generally isn't a crime.

> Jury's (or Judges if you don't want a Jury) decide guilt.

But, long before that, judges decide whether there is probable cause to even sustain charges, and you haven't really painted a map of anything that would suggest that that exists for anyone.

> With everything known surrounding the destination of some of these flights, It is surprising the logs didn't lead to investigations into some of the serial passengers

Making criminal investigations of particular individuals public prior to charges is generally a breach of protocol. Maybe they were investigated, and insufficient evidence to charge was found. Maybe there are still notionally open investigations stuck at dead ends waiting for a break.

You are surprised by something that is completely your own assumption.

I responded below to a different comment if you want to continue the conversation.

We may have to just agree to disagree, because I think your perjury point is, at best, a bad guess, and at worst, disingenuous because we are not a jury with this fact pattern and thus cannot come to a conclusion either way.

I'll add I think it is a bad guess because, all things being equal, if under oath you said you weren't on a plane, and the flight's manifest comes to evidence with your name on it in one or more flights... if I was a juror, that is enough evidence for me (without counter evidence as I implied with "all things being equal". There are ways to argue against it, like dementia/Alzheimer's for intent or someone with the same name for the underlying fact, but that is adding information to the situation). This is particularly subjective, but I have a hard time putting myself in the shoes of someone who reasonably doubts the accuracy of a passenger manifests. I am a lay person when it comes to manifests, so perhaps they are casually-written documents that aren't taken seriously. I view them as quite the opposite (mistakes are possible, but evidence of the contrary would be needed).

I wonder if it’s sensible to make a distinction between private and public air travel. For private, I could see it being more of a “who is allowed to fly on this jet” rather than actual attendance.

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