Every generation is distinguished by a troubling incident, one that transcends its historical context. John Brown’s raid against the federal armory at Harpers Ferry instigated the Civil War, defining an era; a century later, Pres. Truman’s decision (following Pres. Roosevelt’s lead) to drop atomic bombs on two residential Japanese cities culminated in U.S. control over much of the post-WW-II world, thus defining a very different era.
Two relatively recent events illustrate how this tendency has played out over the last half-century. The first involves the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy in 1963; the second, the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. For this generation, it might turn out to be the death of Jeffrey Epstein.
JFK was assassinated in November ’63 and since then there have been innumerable news reports, popular articles, scholarly studies and even a Congressional committee speculating as to who killed Kennedy. The long-held official theory assumed that a single communist-sympathizer, Lee Harvey Oswald, assassinated Kennedy. In 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations was established to investigate the killings of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. It reported: “The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.” The killer – killers – of the popular president remains unaddressed.
Similarly, there is a growing chorus of skeptics who see the collapse of 7 World Trade Center as separate and different from the 9/11 attacks on the WTC. WTC-7 was a 47-story skyscraper located on Vesey Street, north of the WTC center. More disturbing, WTC-7 was not hit by a plane like the rest of the complex but was bombed! The bombing let to WTC-7 being destroyed from a fire that burned for 7 hours — until the building collapsed at 5:20 p.m. The unanswered question remains: why did WTC-7 collapse?
A similar “troubling incident” seems to be developing around Epstein’s death on August 10, 2019, at New York’s Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC), a federal prison for individuals held for pending cases before the Southern District of New York. He was a notorious sexual predator, a convicted pedophile, who not only systematically exploiting under-age-of-consent girls but – due to his enormous wealth – socialized with the powerful and influential, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Allen Dershowitz and the Prince of Wales. More than 80 girls and young women have come forward to attest to his – and many of his associates – particular sexual predilection.
Epstein’s wealth and influence led to one of the many recent travesties of justice, his trial, conviction and slap-on-the-risk sentence for engaging in commercial sex with underage girl in Florida. The federal prosecutor in the case, Alexander Acosta,was honored for his miscarriage of justice by being appointed by Pres. Trump – a notorious sexual predator – to Sec. of Labor for his handling of Epstein’s case.
Two recent developments in the ongoing unraveling of the Epstein case raise questions not only about his death but about corporate media coverage of celebrity sex abusers.
Amy Robach, a co-anchor of ABC News’ 20/20, recently revealed in a leaked video released by the right-wing group, Project Veritas, that the network killed her story about Epstein. In the video, she states: “I’ve had this story for three years. I’ve had this interview with [Epstein accuser] Virginia Roberts. We would not put it on the air. First of all I was told, ‘Who is Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.'” Going further, she details how Roberts claimed in a 2015 court filing that Epstein trafficked her, at 17 years of age, to Prince Andrew. “Then the [British] palace found out we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us in a million different ways,” Robach stated. And the story was killed.
Corporate media jumps when those in power shout. A similar situation to Robach’s revelations involves Ronan Farrow who formally worked at NBC News. He resigned in protest when NBC News executives killed his 2017 investigation into Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuses. He details his experiences in a New Yorker story and in his recently published book, Catch and Kill.
Robach’s revelations came out at the same time that doubts about Epstein’s alleged suicide have be seriously challenged. Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, questioned the legitimacy of federal authorities’ claim that he committed suicide and retained Dr. Michael Baden, a leading forensic pathologist, to assess Epstein’s autopsy results. Baden reported that Epstein had three fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx. “Those fractures are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation,” Baden noted. In addition, he reported that there were hemorrhages in Epstein’s eyes that are also more common in strangulation than in hangings. “Hanging does not cause these broken bones, and homicide does. Usually two bones, even three, is a huge amount of pressure [that] was applied,” he said on Fox & Friends.
Baden’s report comes after the failure of the MCC to safeguard Epstein following an alleged suicide attempt on July 23rd. Questions have been raised as to why he was removed from suicide watch on July 29th and returned to the MCC’s special housing unit. Under operational rules, Epstein was supposed to be assigned a cell mate and monitored by prison guards every 30 minutes, but this was not done.
Further revelations about Epstein’s life and death are likely to squeak out. News reports note that hundreds of third parties are involved in a civil case relating to Epstein and the Justice Dept is conducting an investigation into his death to emerge. Still more worrisome is reports concerning Epstein’s involvement with Mossad, the Israel spy agency, and other secret agencies.
Whether these developments will reveal the whole story about Epstein is open to question. More than likely, his case will be another troubling incident, one that transcends its historical context, like JFK’s assassination or the collapse of WTC-7.