The Epstein mythology can be roughly defined as the popular belief, nearly ubiquitous on social media and adjacent outlets, that the deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein orchestrated a sprawling child sex-trafficking operation in which the powerful individuals across government, business, entertainment, and academia with whom Epstein consorted were systematically entrapped into compromising sexual encounters, surreptitiously filmed, and then blackmailed into silence or complicity—likely with the assistance of some unknown intelligence agencies (Mossad being a typical candidate). The true scale of this operation has been covered up, the mythology goes, because its exposure would unveil the evil at the very heart of global power structures.
More recently, the mythology has taken on a startling new dimension. While the second Trump administration promised to vanquish the Deep State and to bring long overdue justice to child-predating wrongdoers, there appears to have been a slight snafu. Justice was apparently to be served by releasing what had colloquially become known as the “Epstein Files”—a compendium of damning documents understood to be sitting in a government repository somewhere, shielded from public disclosure by reprobates in the Biden Administration—and indeed the first Trump administration, which had also been obstructed by the insidious Deep State. But this time, Trump would install only the most loyal and tenacious warriors. Incorruptible heroes such as Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Pam Bondi would stop at nothing to reveal the truth, once and for all. And yet now, in a shocking twist, Trump and his subordinates have decided to join the coverup, and let the elite pedophiles continue enjoying their impunity.
That’s a brief rundown of the current iteration of Epstein mythology. Of course, there are also non-mythological components to the Jeffrey Epstein saga. He really did procure teenage girls for his own perverse gratification. He really did hobnob with an astonishing array of well-connected and powerful individuals. He really did die under peculiar circumstances. It is easy to see why this story has morphed into an object of such sustained intrigue. But kernels of truth have long since given way to an ever-expanding mythology which cannot be falsified. No countervailing evidence could ever disabuse its most committed adherents of their essential belief: that organized sexual predation rings of the kind orchestrated by Epstein are pervasively real and play a decisive role in how power is distributed in society.