Why “Other Countries Are Holding Those in the Epstein Files Accountable” Is a Comfort Story—Not a Fact
The Biggest Lie About the Epstein Files
Jack Lang, resigned as head of Paris’s Arab World Institute following reporting about his contact with Jeffrey Epstein and the opening of a financial investigation. (Reported Saturday, February 7th, 2026 in The Guardian.)
Why “Other Countries Are Holding Those in the Epstein Files Accountable” Is a Comfort Story—Not a Fact
The Biggest Lie About the Epstein Files
The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #767: Sunday, February 8th, 2026.
There’s a claim making the rounds right now that sounds reassuring.
“Other countries are holding people named in the Epstein files accountable.”
“The U.S. is the outlier.”
“At least Europe is taking this seriously.”
It’s a comforting story.
It suggests that somewhere…outside our borders…serious adults are doing serious work. That the Epstein scandal…is finally being treated like the global crime it was. That a deep…aggressive investigation…is underway to figure it all out.
But…if you slow down…and look carefully at what’s actually happening…that story collapses.
Because what we’re seeing abroad…is not a full-scale reckoning.
It’s containment.
And…the reason matters…because it tells you exactly why this scandal keeps stopping just short of the truth…no matter the country…the party…or the press cycle.
Start with the uncomfortable question
If other countries are “taking Epstein seriously,” where is the evidence?
Where are the multinational task forces?
Where are the coordinated subpoenas?
Where are the expansive financial probes mapping facilitators, enablers, intermediaries, and protection networks across borders?
Where are the criminal indictments that go beyond:
Reputational fallout
Ethics violations
Narrow financial charges
Resignations framed as “stepping aside”
They don’t exist.
What does exist…is something far more familiar to anyone who has watched elite scandals before: selective pressure…narrow scope…and rapid narrative management.
What’s Actually Happening Overseas
Yes…some countries have reacted.
There have been:
Resignations
Police inquiries
Ethics reviews
Limited criminal probes tied to specific, domestic allegations
But…these are not broad investigations into Epstein’s global operation.
They are localized damage control efforts…each one carefully bounded…to a single official…a single institution…a single legal hook.
That distinction is everything.
A finance ministry investigates tax exposure.
A police unit looks at whether a public official misused office.
A regulatory body checks compliance failures.
Each inquiry answers a small…defensible question.
None attempt to answer the real one:
How did a transnational sex-trafficking operation operate for decades across multiple countries, industries, and power centers…without being stopped?
That question remains untouched.
Why “Being Named” Isn’t The Same As Being Investigated
Part of the confusion comes from a basic legal reality that’s being blurred in public discourse.
Being named in a document is not the same as being investigated for a crime.
Most of the Epstein materials released publicly:
Are not findings
Are not indictments
Are not determinations of guilt
They are raw records…emails…contacts…calendars…contracts…references…many of which are ambiguous by design.
Prosecutors cannot simply say, “You were mentioned, therefore we charge you.”
So what do governments do instead?
They look for clean, low-risk entry points:
Financial irregularities
Conflicts of interest
Procedural misconduct
Ethics breaches
Those are easier to prove.
They’re easier to explain.
And…crucially…they don’t require opening the entire ecosystem.
The Myth of The “Brave Foreign Reckoning”
Here’s the narrative people want to believe:
“Europe is different. They’re not afraid. They’re actually digging.”
But look closely.
No country has announced:
A mandate to reconstruct Epstein’s full network
A survivor-centered, international trafficking investigation
A joint inquiry into financial enablers across banks…trusts…foundations…and shell entities
A coordinated intelligence or law-enforcement effort to map compromise and leverage
What they’ve announced…instead….are discrete…manageable investigations…each one small enough not to destabilize the system conducting it.
That’s not courage.
That’s institutional self-preservation.
This Isn’t About One Country Failing
It’s about all countries having the same incentives
At this point, you don’t need a shadowy cabal to explain what’s happening.
You just need aligned incentives.
Every major state faces the same risks if this story is pursued to its logical end:
Exposure of political elites
Exposure of financial institutions
Exposure of intelligence failures
Exposure of regulatory capture
Exposure of transnational facilitation
That’s not a scandal.
That’s a crisis of legitimacy.
And bureaucracies are designed…above all else…to avoid those.
So instead of a unified global investigation, you get:
Fragmentation
Compartmentalization
Plausible deniability
Procedural exhaustion
Each country handles its own embarrassment.
No one volunteers to open the whole box.
The Truth Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud
The Epstein scandal is not a “case.”
It’s a system failure.
And system failures…are the hardest things for systems to investigate…because the investigation…implicates the investigators.
Law enforcement.
Prosecutors.
Regulators.
Banks.
Intelligence agencies.
Political parties.
Philanthropic institutions.
Media gatekeepers.
None of them emerge unscathed if the question becomes:
Who knew what, when…and why wasn’t it stopped?
So the question…gets quietly reframed.
How The Frame is Being Managed
Watch the pattern:
Focus on individual morality…not structural enablement
Shift to reputational consequences…not criminal architecture
Narrow the timeline…not expand it
Isolate jurisdictions…don’t connect them
Emphasize complexity…not accountability
This creates the illusion of action without the danger of exposure.
People see movement.
Headlines appear.
Officials resign.
And the core machinery…remains untouched.
Why The U.S. Looks Uniquely “Bad” (but isn’t uniquely guilty)
It’s true that the United States looks inert compared to the noise abroad.
But…that’s partly because the U.S. already absorbed its reputational shock in 2008…and again in 2019.
The earlier failure to prosecute Epstein properly created a kind of institutional scar tissue. Everyone knows the system failed. Investigations documented it. Reports criticized it.
What hasn’t happened is something much more dangerous:
A forward-looking, structural inquiry into:
How elite deference functions
How prosecutors weigh power
How financial institutions flag…or ignore…patterns
How influence reshapes enforcement priorities
Other countries aren’t doing that either.
They’re just at an earlier stage….of the same containment cycle.
“So are you saying no one wants the truth?”
Not exactly.
Individuals want the truth.
Journalists want the truth.
Survivors want the truth.
But institutions?
Institutions want closure without destabilization.
They want an ending that preserves:
Legitimacy
Continuity
Authority
A true global reckoning…would threaten all three.
So instead….we get something else.
The Epstein Paradox
Everyone agrees the scandal is enormous.
No one behaves as if they intend to uncover all of it.
That contradiction…tells you everything you need to know.
If there were a genuine…coordinated international effort to “figure it all out,” you would see:
Centralized leadership
Shared investigative frameworks
Survivor-first processes
Financial mapping across borders
Visible pursuit of facilitators, not just abusers
We see none of that.
What we see…is containment dressed as accountability.
Why This Matters More Than Any Individual Name
The danger isn’t that Epstein’s network remains partially hidden.
The danger is the lesson being taught:
That when power…money…and influence intersect at scale…the system’s response is to shrink the question…not expand it.
That’s the precedent.
And…that precedent…doesn’t just apply to Epstein.
It applies to the next scandal.
And the one after that.
The Uncomfortable Conclusion
You’re not wrong to be skeptical.
There is no clear evidence that any country wants to dig deeply enough…to risk what would be revealed.
That doesn’t require a single global controller.
It only requires shared vulnerability.
When too many institutions would be embarrassed…or worse…by full exposure…the system converges on the same outcome:
Partial truth. Limited accountability. And a hard stop before the architecture comes into view.
Final Orientation
So when you hear:
“Other countries are holding people accountable.”
Translate it properly:
“Other countries are managing fallout in ways that don’t threaten the system.”
That’s not nothing.
But…it’s not justice.
And it’s damn sure…not truth.
And until someone is willing to ask…and pursue…the questions that put institutions at risk, not just individuals…
The Epstein scandal will remain what it has always been:
A crime everyone condemns.
A system no one wants to examine.
#HoldFast
Back soon.
-Jack
Jack Hopkins
P.S. If a genuine, global reckoning were underway…you wouldn’t have to infer it from resignations…ethics reviews…or carefully scoped probes. You’d see coordinated investigations…shared mandates…and institutions willing to put themselves at risk. The absence of those signals is the signal.
Resources
Understand the playbook
The Authoritarian Playbook (Protect Democracy) — A practical framework of common tactics used to consolidate power, with examples and a reporter-friendly checklist.
V-Dem Democracy Report 2025 — Data-driven overview of global “autocratization” patterns and how democratic erosion typically unfolds.
Democratic erosion & executive aggrandizement (Brookings) — Explains the “legalistic” route: power consolidation through norms, personnel, and institutional capture.
Civil resistance and “pillars”
Pillars of Support (ICNC) — The clearest explanation of how power depends on institutions (and how movements succeed by shifting those pillars).
Why Civil Resistance Works (Stephan & Chenoweth, International Security) — Foundational research comparing violent vs. nonviolent campaigns and why broad participation changes outcomes.
ICNC Resource Library — Deep library of short guides, case studies, and training materials on strategic nonviolent action.
Protect civic space and protest rights
ACLU: Protesters’ Rights — Know-your-rights guidance for lawful protest and what to do if approached by police.
Coalition Protest Safety & Rights Resources (PDF) — Practical checklists (legal observers, surveillance, safety planning) and links to additional guides.
Freedom House: Foundations of Freedom—Civic Space — How governments restrict association, expression, and assembly—and what those restrictions look like in practice.
Elections and democratic guardrails
Election Officials Under Attack (Brennan Center) — Threat environment, failure points, and policy fixes to protect election administration and democratic integrity.
International fallout & limited accountability
The Guardian — “Veteran French politician quits as head of prestigious institute after Epstein links revealed”
Reporting on former French culture minister Jack Lang resigning as head of the Arab World Institute after appearing in the Epstein files. French prosecutors opened a financial investigation, illustrating political and institutional fallout abroad—while also underscoring the narrow scope of most inquiries.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/07/veteran-french-politician-quits-as-head-of-prestigious-institute-after-epstein-links-revealed
There are many seriously good hackers working on showing what's underneath the redactions. And they are going to succeed in this. Do you think the "outing" of the people behind the redactions will change the equation at all?
Gut punch 👊🤮. Thank you for your perspective on this madness.