This last week, AG Pam Bondi confirmed there was no Epstein "client list." Of course there wasn't — there was never any evidence that there was. In rational debate, if you make a claim, you have to cite evidence for that claim. If you say "there was an Epstein client list," you have to cite the thing that supports that claim.
Here, everyone just started assuming there was a client list, despite not being able to point to the source of this claim.
Such assumptions happen a lot.
For example, on election day in Fulton County, Georgia (home of Atlanta), there was a minor water leak in an upstairs urinal that delayed ballot counting for an hour. In the news, this quickly escalated to a "pipe burst" and then a "water main break." If you google the news stories, that's what they'll claim. They frequently quote each other, even though no official said this.
No official denied it, either. The official statement simply says "leak." This is a quasi-confirmation of the assumption of a "pipe burst" or "water main break."
Right before the 2016 election, activist techies claimed "DNS" Internet evidence showed secret communications between a Trump Organization server and a Russian bank (Alpha Bank). Since the Trump Organization is based out of Trump Tower, the stories frequently described this as a server located in Trump Tower.
But the actual server was located in a data center in rural Pennsylvania, and had nothing to do with the Trump Organization. This assumption is important because if it were used for secret communications, it would require a large conspiracy among several businesses unrelated to Trump.
In the case of Jeffrey Epstein, there was never any evidence that he was a pimp or that he had "clients," and therefore, no reason to believe in a "client list." But people didn't pay attention to the details and made assumptions. They heard the word "trafficking" and made assumptions.
For example, people ask how Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell could have been convicted of trafficking if there were no clients to traffic for. The answer is that she was only convicted of trafficking them for Epstein and herself.
There are a lot of people arguing that this was "trafficking to nowhere," that it's inconceivable that they would be trafficking without clients. But it's perfectly conceivable—they were trafficking children so that they themselves could abuse them. The "trafficking" law was used instead of plain "child sex abuse" laws because it has greater penalties, not because anybody thought there were "clients." Their actions were thoroughly evil, and deserved such higher penalties.
Another example is how people are claiming Bondi first admitted there was a "client list" before denying it. They are referring to a February interview where she was asked about the "client list," and responded "it's on my desk for review."
She now clarifies those remarks. It was the Epstein files that were on her desk, and at the time, she assumed (like everyone else) that they would contain a client list. But since she hadn't reviewed the files yet, she didn't know that the files did not actually contain a client list.
In other words, her words at the time do not contradict the story she's telling now. They are perfectly consistent. She thought there was a client list with the files on her desk, but she had not yet reviewed them. She wasn't confirming something she'd seen—she was simply repeating the assumption from everyone else.
There's certainly reason to believe others were involved. One of the victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, testified she was also forced to have sex with other men, including Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz himself claims he knows that there's evidence implicating others.
But none of these statements are consistent with pimping or having "clients" who paid Epstein money for such services. All the statements are consistent with Epstein sharing his abhorrent practices with like-minded friends.
Thus, there may be evidence implicating others, including many billionaires. Given the mishandling of the evidence surrounding Epstein's death, it would take much evidence to convince me that he was murdered.
It's just that there is no reason to believe a "client list" ever existed. That's just something everyone started assuming, triggered by words like "trafficking" rather than an examination of the details.
Now, I’ve really only looked at the details slightly more than everyone else, such as speed reading the 2019 indictment. I’ll happily update this story if I’m wrong and there actually was a source for the “client list” claim. It’s just that my cursory investigation couldn’t find one, and I know that people misunderstand such things like “trafficking” and “it’s on my desk”.