'Totally inexcusable': Why the Trump admin's Epstein investigation has yielded few results

Although the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) spent many years investigating Jeffrey Epstein, only one of the billionaire financier's associates went to prison in the United States: Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving a 20-year federal sentence. DOJ has released, in redacted form, thousands of files related to its Epstein investigations, yet many questions remain unanswered.

In an article published on March 1, three New York Times reporters — Benjamin Weiser, Matthew Goldstein and Mike Baker — offer some reasons why DOJ's Epstein probe has so far yielded few results from a prosecutorial standpoint.

"In the six-plus years since his death," the Times journalists explain, "the lack of prosecutions has given rise to outrage and conspiracy theories about why powerful people have gone unpunished. The millions of pages of recently released Justice Department e-mails, prosecutorial memos, interview transcripts and other records help explain why more people weren't charged and why Mr. Epstein was able to act with impunity for so long."

Weiser, Goldstein and Baker, "Part of the reason was a series of missed opportunities, in both Democratic and Republican administrations, to bring him and others to justice: A tip that went unaddressed in the 1990s. A controversial plea deal in Florida that left FBI agents and prosecutors unsatisfied. A yearslong investigation by federal drug agents that went nowhere. And a miscommunication among federal officials in 2016 that scuttled a potential investigation in New York."

DOJ's Epstein probe spanned several presidencies — from George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump to Joe Biden — and Maxwell was arrested in 2020.

"The records also show that in their initial zeal to quickly build a case against Mr. Epstein, federal prosecutors focused primarily on sex crimes against teenage girls in the early 2000s," according to the Times reporters. "Within months of Mr. Epstein's death, prosecutors believed that they did not have enough evidence to charge anyone besides him and Ms. Maxwell with the trafficking of minors or other federal crimes."

Weiser, Goldstein and Baker continue, "They did have evidence of possible crimes against women, but they believed those were state offenses, not federal ones. Yet the records also show that prosecutors did not aggressively pursue other potential avenues, such as how Mr. Epstein moved his money through banks around the world. They did not interview any of the men who were Mr. Epstein's main financial sponsors."

One of the Democratic lawmakers who is expressing his frustration about Epstein is Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).

Wyden told the Times, "To this day, there has not been a comprehensive, follow-the-money investigation of Epstein's network performed by any federal law enforcement agency. I find that totally inexcusable."

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