Every time new emails drop, elites do the Epstein shuffle: Yes I knew him, but I didn't KNOW him' | Emma Brockes

"As I left, I remember looking across the room at the host and thinking: you silly bloody bint, I'm embarrassed for you. I thought about that party and Irving this week while reading, with grim amusement, the absolute scramble currently under way in the US among media and other public figures seeking to explain, justify, downplay and generally paddle away as fast as they can from their social interactions with Jeffrey Epstein."

"I'm not talking about the men alleged to have joined the late paedophile in abusing trafficked girls, but rather the apparently endless list of notable figures mostly in New York, but also reaching down to Washington DC, and across America's Ivy League campuses who enjoyed his hospitality, appeared with him at parties, and exchanged cordial emails with the man long after his true nature was known."

"For those who associated, however glancingly, with Epstein, the major stumbling block to an effective claim of ignorance is, obviously, the paedophile's 2008 conviction and subsequent prison sentence for soliciting an underage girl for sex. That phrase soliciting underage girls, along with its sister phrase, sex trafficking of minors has a sanitised, legal air that, back in the 2010s, would've allowed more moral wriggle room among those wanting to remain in contact"

An attendee left a London party upon encountering David Irving, treating Holocaust denial as social pariahdom and rejecting notoriety-based guest lists. A comparable scramble has emerged among US media and public figures seeking to explain or downplay social ties with Jeffrey Epstein. Many notable individuals enjoyed Epstein's hospitality, appeared with him at events, and exchanged emails long after his 2008 conviction. Senate votes to release Epstein files intensified defensive "we didn't know" claims. Legal phrases like "soliciting underage girls" and "sex trafficking of minors" created sanitized language that enabled moral wriggle room for ongoing contact.

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