I thought then and think now that the murder theory was a longshot at best.

Notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein didn't keep a supposed "client list," and he was not murdered during his short stay in a Manhattan lockup, the Justice Department and FBI reportedly concluded in a joint probe.

The investigation, the results of which were detailed in a memo obtained by Axios, also found no evidence that Epstein "blackmailed prominent individuals."

The Trump administration plans to release a video to prove the agencies' findings on Epstein's 2019 death, which bred mounds of conspiracy theories.

"He's the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it," FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in late May.

The video falls in line with the medical examiner's assessment post-mortem that Epstein committed suicide, according to the memo.

...

No one else involved in the Epstein case will face charges, according to the memo, beyond his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years for child sex trafficking and other related crimes.

President Trump previously promised to release the apparently debunked "client list" during his re-election campaign.

Trump has asserted that he had never visited Epstein's notorious private island, where scores of underage girls and young women were allegedly abused.

But the president has said "a lot of people did" -- whom he was willing to unmask.
Photos regarding Jeffrey Epstein's suicide were obtained by 60 Minutes and aired Jan.

Back in February, Trump's DOJ released Epstein's contact list as part of a long-awaited trove of documents connected to the notorious sex predator.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Alec Baldwin and Mick Jagger were among the high-profile names on Epstein's contact list.

But the hyped-up February release was panned by critics as containing little to no new information about Epstein's case.

I see some alleged MAGA people essentially accusing Trump of a cover-up.

Do I once again have to be the Real MAGA Supporter here?

Trump would have no possible reason to cover any of this up, except for the obvious possibility that he's an Epstein client himself. I strongly doubt that, given that the Deep State attempted for ten years to frame Trump for various crimes. If Trump was an "Epstein client," we'd've heard about it in 2015.

So why would he cover this up? It makes no sense.

It doesn't surprise me that there was no murder. It is a little surprising that there is no "client list," but maybe it shouldn't be.

We kept hearing chatter about a "client list."

But did that ever make sense?

When you think about Epstein's operation, did you conceive it more as a sexual influence operation, in which he'd invite well-connected politicians and billionaires to his Pedo Island and then leverage those relationships into insider information and political favors?

Or did you think he was running an actual house of prostitution, whereby "clients" would pay him cash-on-the-barrelhead for specific sexual acts from specific prostitutes?

That last possibility seems pretty unlikely to me. I never thought he was selling girls for actual cash. I always thought of the girls as inducements for the Not So Great and Definitely Not Good to come to his island and engage in some compromising behavior that could be exploited for the real money. Not a thousand here or there renting out a child prostitute.

So I don't know if this report denying an actual, literal "client" list, like an actual brothel would keep, should be surprising. It wouldn't work that way, I don't think. I don't think he'd keep a ledger of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's payments for sex. I think this operation was more of the kind where the Johns didn't want to think of themselves as johns for a child prostitution ring. I think the johns would want the illusion that the "girls just liked them" and wanted to have sex with them.

As for the denial of blackmail: Well, I do think the whole point of this operation would be influence and leverage, but again, it might not be as formal as "do this for me or I'll expose you." It might just be a subtle thing where, completely hypothetically, Bill Gates will do favors for you not because you formally extort him but just because he knows you could reveal his secrets, so it's best to keep you happy.

Sometimes the real answer is the obvious one. Sometimes there is no Secret History behind the obvious.

I don't even know if this report is accurate. It comes from Axios. It also comes, apparently, through an illegal leak, and criminal leakers do not put their freedom in jeopardy just because it's so fun to talk to the self-righteous idiot drips and wallflowers that call themselves "journalists." The leak could be distorted for political motivations, such as the always-popular "own the CHUDs" or "stir up dissent within MAGA."

So I'm withholding judgment about whether this leak is even accurate.

But even if it is, it doesn't surprise me, now that I think about it, that there wouldn't be an actual "client list" nor any formal blackmail.