NYT: Epstein, Blackmail, and a Lucrative "Hot List"

That looks like Vice's Shane Smith.

When a big bear of a man in flip-flops showed up with a bottle of Japanese whiskey promising to deliver evidence implicating some of the world’s richest and most powerful men in an epic cover-up of sexual misconduct, our reporters were hooked.

The man went by a pseudonym, Patrick Kessler, and he said he had terabytes of video surveillance from Jeffrey Epstein’s residences and other materials that, if true, would validate theories Epstein was engaged in an extensive blackmail operation. Kessler said he would share it all with The New York Times.....

As his outrageous story began to unravel, he illuminated something else: how two of America’s top lawyers considered using the promised trove of Epstein information.

This special hourlong episode of “The Weekly” tells the wild story of four Times reporters chasing one of the biggest stories of the year – if only it were true. In the course of their reporting, they get a rare glimpse into the secretive world of legal settlements in which wealthy people are allowed to make damning evidence disappear.

Accusations of sexual predation had followed Epstein for years, though it wasn’t until his arrest in July that the scope of his abuse became clear.

Epstein long maintained ties to a number of high-profile public officials, celebrities and business moguls.

In an interview with Times columnist James B. Stewart a year before Epstein killed himself in jail, he claimed to know potentially damaging or embarrassing secrets about his rich and powerful friends.

David Boies, long considered one of the top litigators in the country, represents five of Epstein’s accusers who are suing his estate for unspecified damages. They’re also trying to extend the window when victims of sex crimes can bring civil claims to court.

Boies suffered “an unprecedented public relations disaster” after his longtime client Harvey Weinstein was branded a sexual predator and another of his clients, the blood-testing firm Theranos, on whose board Boies served, was exposed as a fraud.

The New York Times fired Boies’s firm, which was representing the newspaper on unrelated matters, after learning he was involved in efforts to smear Weinstein’s victims and deceive Times reporters.

John Stanley Pottinger, a lawyer, former investment banker and best-selling novelist, has been working with Boies to represent women who say they were abused by Epstein. Pottinger’s legal career dates to the Nixon administration, when he served as an assistant attorney general for civil rights.

So the Epstein sex tapes are the new Hitler sex movies?

Do people really think that Epstein killed himself? I don’t give two shits about that man, but I think he was assassinated.

Whatever it is, if this hacker is for real, they are paying it as we speak.

It doesn't require a violent stretch of the imagination that Epstein had every square inch of all his residences covered by hidden cameras. Handy blackmail fodder. If the footage from these cameras was seized by whomever it was that raided his residences, who would give a flying fuck about what this guy's flogging? It's already catalogued. Another non-brilliant move by the formerly brilliant NYT. That news organ wot had credibility, around a thousand years ago.

So did he have the tapes and were they real or not? I am not going to read a bunch of NYT turd reporters long-winded article if there's no "there" there.

There were no tapes and it was an elaborate fraud.

Funny how many people will refuse to read a highly entertaining news story that takes about 10 minutes to read, but when it's eventually made into an endless, bloated 2-1/2 hour movie, they're all over it.

I'm not interested in reading a story if it's about a fraud and I wouldn't watch the movie either. There are so many real stories worth pursuing that it seems very self-indulgent to write about something like this.

Boies is the Clintons' double agent who works with the victims so that he can screen and probably "misplace" evidences.

I am sure Russian Intelligence or Mossad raided that place a long time ago and got their copies. Maybe Epstein himself traded with them a few secret recordings in the past.

In other words, there are no tapes and this was a blackmail attempt.

[quote] They’re also trying to extend the window when victims of sex crimes can bring civil claims to court.

So that lawyers like David Boies can reap unimaginable fees from these cases, whether on the plaintiff or defense side.

R6, not everything is a conspiracy. He had every reason to kill himself

Boies is a deeply suspect character.

Yesterday Meghan Markle was seen holding hands and kissing Prince Andrew in a Woking cafe. At first it was difficult to recognise the former Duchess as she has had extensive cosmetic surgery.

Friends said that they have been business partners, and grifters, for decades and have only recently become lovers. Meghan stated that their shared sense of not belonging and being trolled and abused by the media had brought them together. Prince Andrew smiled inanely and stated that he could not comment as "Mummy told me not to speak to the media people anymore and Charlie won't like it either".

The Duke of Sussex was asked for comment but did not return calls, emails or texts. This afternoon he was located at Brighton beach sucking Sarah Ferguson's fungal infected toes.

wrong thread AGAIN sorry

David Boies, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and the Clintons were all linked at the hip.

dinner with Harvey Weinstein and his wife, Georgina Chapman, and the Clintons in New York in December 2016.

Oh, so now David Boies is a villain? Et tu, gay married couples?

I read the article when it first appeared online and found it to be one of the most bizarre, convoluted, cockamamie NYT offerings since the Jayson Blair scandal. One glaring gaffe was a photograph of Boise mis-captioned as being that of Alan Dershowitz.

Russia, if you're listening...distract!

I believe David Boies has been a villain for quite some time by his own undoing.

Boies was Weinstein’s lawyer and harassed the victims to scare them into not pressing charges