The Cyber-Audacity of Ghislaine Maxwell
Sometimes I find myself thinking about what Jeffrey Epstein would be up to these days had he not tragically chosen to end his own life rather than face the consequences of his unspeakable crimes.
Epstein would be in prison, of course. That’s for certain. Even a motherfucker as slippery and singularly gifted at getting away with things as Epstein would not be able to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison as one of the most reviled real-life super-villains in American history.
But not every prisoner or prisoner stint is the same. There are prisoners who inspire the world with their bravery and determination, like Nelson Mandela. Some prisoners write books that will live forever. And some prisoners get shanked in the showers because they’re pedophile monsters whose transgressions horrify even hardened criminals.
A glimpse at what Epstein might be up to if he had not passed away can be found in the actions of the person whose legacy will forever be inextricably intertwined with the notorious sex criminal. No, not his good buddy Donald Trump. Or his pal Bill Clinton. Or even that noted degenerate Alan Dershowitz.
No, I am talking about Ghislaine Maxwell. Who is Ghislaine Maxwell? According to the FAQ section of a website set up by her family, “Ghislaine is kind and compassionate.”
That is not, however, how the world sees Maxwell. Now that Epstein is flame-broiling in hell she has taken Epstein’s place as the most despised and notorious sex trafficker in the world. For odious years, even decades, Epstein and Maxwell were joined at the hip, partners in crime in the most literal sense.
The evidence against Maxwell is overwhelming and damning, just as it was for Epstein. For decades it seemed like these toxic twins, these soulless soulmates, these loathsome international sex criminals had so much money and so many powerful friends and so much power that nobody could touch them.
Then Epstein killed himself—something that definitely happened—and on July 2nd, 2020 Maxwell was finally arrested for the fairly central role she played in Epstein’s crimes grooming underage girls and facilitating sex trafficking.
At this point it seems like too much damage has been done to Maxwell’s reputation for any damage control to work. But when reports started circulating that the stylish, trim world traveler and notorious criminal was dropping monster deuces in prison toilets and then not flushing, on account of being a gross, nasty, disgusting human being in every conceivable sense, her “people” decided that something needed to be done.
So they set up the poignantly pathetic website https://www.realghislaine.com/ in order to give her side of the story and highlight the many aspects of her life and career that do not involve facilitating the sexual assault of teenage girls at the behest of a best friend who was downright satanic in his evil.
In addition to sharing sympathetic stories about Maxwell portraying her as a dedicated philanthropist rather than “the fictional one-dimensional character created by the media”, the website keeps sex trafficking super-fans abreast of what’s on Maxwell’s reading list so they can form a Ghislaine Maxwell Book Club with all their friends.
So far selections in this most exclusive of literary clubs include Tony Horwitz’s The Blue Latitudes, James McGrath’s Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power, Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail, Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Boris Johnson’s The Churchill Factor and Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan.
Will one of my books make this list of the damned? I can only hope.
This led me to wonder if, before he met his maker, Epstein also had a personal website promoting his non-criminal endeavors. Sure enough http://www.jeffreyepstein.org/ is somehow still a functioning website, complete with a “Contact” section with an email address for Epstein at Jeffrey@jeffreyepstein.org.
I sent Mr. Epstein a VERY strongly worded email condemning him and his actions and learned, unsurprisingly, that it’s no longer a working email address.
Even though Epstein is no longer with us, he maintains a ghostly presence online designed to keep up the facade that he’s a big-hearted philanthropist out to share his love of science with an adoring world and not what he clearly was, which is one of the worst people ever.
Maxwell’s not too far behind on that list of the most cretinous, deplorable creatures ever to breathe air on this wretched and beautiful planet, despite what her promotional website might insist.
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