Jack Hopkins’ latest piece captures why the Epstein story won’t fade: it’s not gossip—it’s structural. History shows that powerful networks protect themselves through secrecy, from Watergate to Iran-Contra, managing exposure to preserve leverage and alliances. Epstein wasn’t just social with elites—he was strategic. Former CIA officer John Kiriakou called him an “access agent,” and reports link Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, to Israeli intelligence. Epstein’s contact with figures like former PM Ehud Barak, plus allegations of surveillance infrastructure at his properties, suggest potential intelligence value, not merely influence.
Trump’s clampdown on the archive fits this pattern. When allegations intersect with intelligence networks, transparency risks operational fallout, diplomatic friction, and exposure of leverage-rich connections. Public anger isn’t about scandal alone—it’s the predictable reaction when accountability is suspended while elites profit. Hopkins’ analysis reminds us that understanding the architecture—access, leverage, and intersecting interests—is key to making sense of why this story remains unresolved.
If you try to read this story as “good guys vs bad guys,” it never makes sense. But when you look at the architecture...who had access...what leverage existed...and how incentives overlapped across institutions...the unresolved nature of it stops being mysterious and starts looking almost designed.
You nailed the lens: map the structure...and the outcomes get a LOT easier to predict.
I think Epstein was a quadruple agent, thanks mainly to inheriting Robert Maxwell’s vast espionage network via his daughter Ghislane. Her father was a Russian asset, recruited by Chebrikov in the mid 1970’s. Her father was friends with Gorbachev, Yitzak Shamir, George Bush Sr., Margaret Thatcher. Her dad partnered with Semion Mogilevich in the Iran Contra arms scandal. When her father died in 1991, she inherited his ‘black book’ of contacts and kompromat. Epstein bragged how he could provide the Russians with information on how to handle Donald Trump during his first term. I think Epstein was on the payrolls of Britain’s MI6, Russia’s KGB and its latter forms, Israel’s Mossad, and the USA CIA and/or FBI. In reading and re-reading ‘The Greatest Heist’ by Zev Shalev on Substack, I am stunned by the inter-connectivity of this vast web. I don’t care who goes down with the Epstein ship. They all deserve to sink, for enabling such a monster to metastasize his depravity to so many others and cause so much pain and suffering for the survivors. Karma will deliver the appropriate punishment, it’s up to all of us to enable her with plenty of information so the correct measures will be guaranteed. It’s coming folks, whether mango Mussolini likes it or not. Get ready for fireworks…….🧨 #HOLDFAST
Elizabeth, you’re not crazy for seeing a web here.
Whether or not “quadruple agent” is the exact label...your core read is strong: Epstein operated like an access-and-leverage broker...inside a protection ecosystem...the kind of environment where multiple power centers can benefit...without ever sharing a single “control room.”
You’re also right to keep the moral center in view: this isn’t an intrigue novel. Survivors are living with the consequences of elite insulation...and institutional cowardice.
The most effective move...now...is what you’re already doing...follow the connective tissue, stick to patterns that can be documented (access, protection, enforcement anomalies, financial conduits, gatekeepers), and keep PRESSURE aimed at ACCOUNTABILITY, not spectacle.
I have wondered 1) why did they release enough to show the thousands upon thousands of times he is in the Epstein files, 2) since I view Dept of Injustice as incompetent, how did they decide what to release and 3) could they have just destroyed a lot of evidence? SO MUCH FOR THE DEEP STATE
Jane B..you’re asking the exact questions a serious person asks when they’re not buying fairy tales.
Why release anything at all? Because selective release can be a pressure valve. It signals “transparency” while still controlling what the public can actually prove...connect...or litigate.
How did they decide what to release? Even “incompetent” agencies can be highly capable at process: risk review...redactions...privilege claims...protecting ongoing matters...protecting people...protecting themselves.
So, we can't confuse bureaucratic clumsiness...with an inability to manage exposure.
Could evidence have been destroyed? It’s always a reasonable concern in any high-stakes case ...which is why chain-of-custody...audits...court filings...and independent FOIA litigation matter.
The antidote isn’t vibes; it’s paper trails...and adversarial scrutiny.
Your punchline lands, Jane: the “deep state” story collapses fast when you watch how often power’s real instinct is self-protection...delay...and damage control...NOT omnipotence.
Keep pulling on the process threads. That’s where the truth leaks. And NOTHING pulls at the threads better than questions that keep becoming more and more refined. Nothing!
Thank you for connecting important dots in your article. The manner in which Epstein gained control of so many seems to have included the people / countries you explained. Of course Donald Trump and Les Wexner were in too. I do not buy that deposition as his being victimized at all. We need to stay the course and keep our angry momentum. No wonder the moral compass in our nation and elsewhere dropped to minus 0.?
Pam Bondi was Florida AG during the unraveling of Epstein. Alex Costa was US Attorney. Both were either complicit or simply incapable of doing their jobs. Both ended up serving trump. quid pro quo for services rendered back then?
And Melania is in it up to her squinty eyes. Good friends with Maxwell according to their email history.
I wish I had the stamina to tackle the files. I don't so will wait for the independent journalists and substacks to open the flood gates. And they will open, no matter how tight trump's chokehold on them is.
And I don't believe for a minute that the cabal of depravity ended.
You’re not just naming people; you’re noticing patterns...proximity...timing...who benefited...who somehow kept landing on their feet. It’s fair to ask hard questions about competence...judgment...and downstream alignments...those are structural questions, not gossip.
On the “I don’t have the stamina to tackle the files” part...you don’t have to. Division of labor is how accountability works.
Independent journalists and researchers dig...the rest of us keep attention...amplify receipts...and apply pressure so it can’t be buried.
You’re also right to suspect these networks don’t simply vanish...because ONE figure does. They morph.
#HoldFast
Keep the questions precise. That’s how this stays strong.
This has many layers, but in the end it is Trump and his complicity. He is deeply involved in this whole structural system created via Epstein with the ‘class’ of people who traverse the same orbit. He most assuredly acted as an agent, probably double or more agent. Very transactional, which is Trump’s mein. He is as transactional as it comes. He is protecting himself and his assets by holding the documents close. It makes me think back a million years ago or maybe 6 months, when he met Putin in Alaska, Russia. The visibly shaken demeanor of the Trump team leaving the very great meeting and bowing to Putin at every turn and his deferential treatment to Bibi, sounds the alarm that this is multinational.
Thanks for the analysis of this continuing Epstein Class Saga.
Have to skip some of my reactions to this for now, but the “why” of it can only be described as pure, unadulterated evil. After I read Ellie Leonard’s piece yesterday all bets are off. She couldn’t even describe some of what they found, things I could not have ever imagined. It could turn out to be a smokescreen but the details were fairly explicit.
And this is only half. She and her helpers had to delete most of what they saw, immediately. It reframed it for me in such a way I could totally get why the fight continues. The implications are staggering. Zorro Ranch should turn up some of the worst. Unless it doesn’t. Now that most of the world is onboard, the train has left the station.
Blanche already said there are no investigations. Grand jury transcripts were already unsealed. 98 percent is not being held back on victim privacy, zero chance that is true. I find it unlikely predators are rare in that class, more likely statistically normal. I find it odd that the connectivity of money, sex, drugs, guns, gems, art, and anything that moves in commerce seems strange to the general public. I am not sure what world everyone thought we were living in, it is just daily life on steroids. We know the interconnectivity of our smaller worlds, that one degree of separation, this is just that with more money involved.
Jack Hopkins’ latest piece captures why the Epstein story won’t fade: it’s not gossip—it’s structural. History shows that powerful networks protect themselves through secrecy, from Watergate to Iran-Contra, managing exposure to preserve leverage and alliances. Epstein wasn’t just social with elites—he was strategic. Former CIA officer John Kiriakou called him an “access agent,” and reports link Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, to Israeli intelligence. Epstein’s contact with figures like former PM Ehud Barak, plus allegations of surveillance infrastructure at his properties, suggest potential intelligence value, not merely influence.
Trump’s clampdown on the archive fits this pattern. When allegations intersect with intelligence networks, transparency risks operational fallout, diplomatic friction, and exposure of leverage-rich connections. Public anger isn’t about scandal alone—it’s the predictable reaction when accountability is suspended while elites profit. Hopkins’ analysis reminds us that understanding the architecture—access, leverage, and intersecting interests—is key to making sense of why this story remains unresolved.
#holdfast
Jane...yep, exactly. That’s the whole point.
If you try to read this story as “good guys vs bad guys,” it never makes sense. But when you look at the architecture...who had access...what leverage existed...and how incentives overlapped across institutions...the unresolved nature of it stops being mysterious and starts looking almost designed.
You nailed the lens: map the structure...and the outcomes get a LOT easier to predict.
#HoldFast!
-Jack
He is deeply guilty & the rabbit hole is expansive for sure.
MoonDancer, that's a rabbit hole....that turns into a BLACK HOLE...rapidly. For sure!
-Jack
I think Epstein was a quadruple agent, thanks mainly to inheriting Robert Maxwell’s vast espionage network via his daughter Ghislane. Her father was a Russian asset, recruited by Chebrikov in the mid 1970’s. Her father was friends with Gorbachev, Yitzak Shamir, George Bush Sr., Margaret Thatcher. Her dad partnered with Semion Mogilevich in the Iran Contra arms scandal. When her father died in 1991, she inherited his ‘black book’ of contacts and kompromat. Epstein bragged how he could provide the Russians with information on how to handle Donald Trump during his first term. I think Epstein was on the payrolls of Britain’s MI6, Russia’s KGB and its latter forms, Israel’s Mossad, and the USA CIA and/or FBI. In reading and re-reading ‘The Greatest Heist’ by Zev Shalev on Substack, I am stunned by the inter-connectivity of this vast web. I don’t care who goes down with the Epstein ship. They all deserve to sink, for enabling such a monster to metastasize his depravity to so many others and cause so much pain and suffering for the survivors. Karma will deliver the appropriate punishment, it’s up to all of us to enable her with plenty of information so the correct measures will be guaranteed. It’s coming folks, whether mango Mussolini likes it or not. Get ready for fireworks…….🧨 #HOLDFAST
Elizabeth, you’re not crazy for seeing a web here.
Whether or not “quadruple agent” is the exact label...your core read is strong: Epstein operated like an access-and-leverage broker...inside a protection ecosystem...the kind of environment where multiple power centers can benefit...without ever sharing a single “control room.”
You’re also right to keep the moral center in view: this isn’t an intrigue novel. Survivors are living with the consequences of elite insulation...and institutional cowardice.
The most effective move...now...is what you’re already doing...follow the connective tissue, stick to patterns that can be documented (access, protection, enforcement anomalies, financial conduits, gatekeepers), and keep PRESSURE aimed at ACCOUNTABILITY, not spectacle.
#HOLDFAST. Keep receipts. Keep building the map!
-Jack
Forgot to say, Thanks Jack!! You’ve done it again!! Kudos! #HOLDFAST
You're welcome! :)
I have wondered 1) why did they release enough to show the thousands upon thousands of times he is in the Epstein files, 2) since I view Dept of Injustice as incompetent, how did they decide what to release and 3) could they have just destroyed a lot of evidence? SO MUCH FOR THE DEEP STATE
Jane B..you’re asking the exact questions a serious person asks when they’re not buying fairy tales.
Why release anything at all? Because selective release can be a pressure valve. It signals “transparency” while still controlling what the public can actually prove...connect...or litigate.
How did they decide what to release? Even “incompetent” agencies can be highly capable at process: risk review...redactions...privilege claims...protecting ongoing matters...protecting people...protecting themselves.
So, we can't confuse bureaucratic clumsiness...with an inability to manage exposure.
Could evidence have been destroyed? It’s always a reasonable concern in any high-stakes case ...which is why chain-of-custody...audits...court filings...and independent FOIA litigation matter.
The antidote isn’t vibes; it’s paper trails...and adversarial scrutiny.
Your punchline lands, Jane: the “deep state” story collapses fast when you watch how often power’s real instinct is self-protection...delay...and damage control...NOT omnipotence.
Keep pulling on the process threads. That’s where the truth leaks. And NOTHING pulls at the threads better than questions that keep becoming more and more refined. Nothing!
-Jack
Thank you for connecting important dots in your article. The manner in which Epstein gained control of so many seems to have included the people / countries you explained. Of course Donald Trump and Les Wexner were in too. I do not buy that deposition as his being victimized at all. We need to stay the course and keep our angry momentum. No wonder the moral compass in our nation and elsewhere dropped to minus 0.?
Pam Bondi was Florida AG during the unraveling of Epstein. Alex Costa was US Attorney. Both were either complicit or simply incapable of doing their jobs. Both ended up serving trump. quid pro quo for services rendered back then?
And Melania is in it up to her squinty eyes. Good friends with Maxwell according to their email history.
I wish I had the stamina to tackle the files. I don't so will wait for the independent journalists and substacks to open the flood gates. And they will open, no matter how tight trump's chokehold on them is.
And I don't believe for a minute that the cabal of depravity ended.
#HoldFast
Sue
Sue...you’re tracking the right axis!
You’re not just naming people; you’re noticing patterns...proximity...timing...who benefited...who somehow kept landing on their feet. It’s fair to ask hard questions about competence...judgment...and downstream alignments...those are structural questions, not gossip.
On the “I don’t have the stamina to tackle the files” part...you don’t have to. Division of labor is how accountability works.
Independent journalists and researchers dig...the rest of us keep attention...amplify receipts...and apply pressure so it can’t be buried.
You’re also right to suspect these networks don’t simply vanish...because ONE figure does. They morph.
#HoldFast
Keep the questions precise. That’s how this stays strong.
Thanks for always showing up, Sue P!
-Jack
This has many layers, but in the end it is Trump and his complicity. He is deeply involved in this whole structural system created via Epstein with the ‘class’ of people who traverse the same orbit. He most assuredly acted as an agent, probably double or more agent. Very transactional, which is Trump’s mein. He is as transactional as it comes. He is protecting himself and his assets by holding the documents close. It makes me think back a million years ago or maybe 6 months, when he met Putin in Alaska, Russia. The visibly shaken demeanor of the Trump team leaving the very great meeting and bowing to Putin at every turn and his deferential treatment to Bibi, sounds the alarm that this is multinational.
Thanks for the analysis of this continuing Epstein Class Saga.
#HoldFast
#agentorange
#2547
Have to skip some of my reactions to this for now, but the “why” of it can only be described as pure, unadulterated evil. After I read Ellie Leonard’s piece yesterday all bets are off. She couldn’t even describe some of what they found, things I could not have ever imagined. It could turn out to be a smokescreen but the details were fairly explicit.
And this is only half. She and her helpers had to delete most of what they saw, immediately. It reframed it for me in such a way I could totally get why the fight continues. The implications are staggering. Zorro Ranch should turn up some of the worst. Unless it doesn’t. Now that most of the world is onboard, the train has left the station.
Blanche already said there are no investigations. Grand jury transcripts were already unsealed. 98 percent is not being held back on victim privacy, zero chance that is true. I find it unlikely predators are rare in that class, more likely statistically normal. I find it odd that the connectivity of money, sex, drugs, guns, gems, art, and anything that moves in commerce seems strange to the general public. I am not sure what world everyone thought we were living in, it is just daily life on steroids. We know the interconnectivity of our smaller worlds, that one degree of separation, this is just that with more money involved.
Her lawyers have an interesting point. https://apnews.com/article/jeffrey-epstein-ghislaine-maxwell-b9890fa6fa230fa649c8a847c76d97da