The release of more than 20,000 emails from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein throws fresh light on the depraved and criminal character of the American ruling class. What the documents reveal is not simply the private perversions of a single individual but the character of the entire capitalist elite—its interlocking networks of finance, intelligence, media and politics—and the depth of its descent into moral and social rot.
Epstein operated for decades as a highly connected middleman for the rich and powerful. He trafficked underage girls to a clientele that included billionaires, politicians, diplomats and intelligence operatives. He was everywhere that influence could be sought, traded and turned into money—tremendous amounts of money.
His connections included not only Wall Street moguls and leading US politicians, from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, but also extended overseas, including the former Prince Andrew, now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, brother of King Charles III. His close personal ties to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and other high-level officials indicate longstanding links to Israeli intelligence.
The newly released emails expose the extent of Epstein’s integration into elite circles, including regular contact with top officials, media figures, academics and foreign policy strategists. They also confirm that this entire layer of society was well aware of his crimes—and actively worked to cover them up.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the connection between Epstein and Donald Trump. One email from 2011 captures Epstein reminding Ghislaine Maxwell that a trafficking victim, later identified as Virginia Roberts Giuffre, had spent “hours” with Trump at Epstein’s house, but that this was a “dog that hasn’t barked”—the episode had never been publicly exposed.
Another set of emails from 2015 shows Epstein coordinating with writer Michael Wolff, author of a hostile biography of Trump, on how to use information as political leverage, now that Trump was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Epstein boasted of having photos of Trump with girls in bikinis in his kitchen. In one exchange he wrote that Trump “knew all about the girls.”
The 20,000 emails now released add considerable detail on Epstein’s crimes, but he was found hanged in his cell in August 2019, under circumstances that strongly indicate a high-level decision to act on the adage, “Dead men tell no tales.”
The Democratic Party had ample opportunity throughout the Biden administration to delve into the Trump-Epstein connection, but did not do so because the scandal implicated prominent Democrats as well.
The Epstein case is clearly significant in its own right. However, the Democrats’ decision now to release a number of the most incriminating emails, which mention Trump by name, and the massive publicity provided by the corporate media, indicate the case is being revived as a weapon in the murky conflicts within the financial aristocracy. These concern principally the war against Russia in Ukraine and Trump’s reckless and erratic conduct of foreign policy in general, including the imposition of tariffs that are disrupting world trade.
The entire financial aristocracy subscribes to the goals of the Trump administration, but there is growing fear that Trump is too widely hated and too erratic, or too oblivious of the dangers, to successfully carry out his class war program. The seemingly unstoppable rise in government debt, the gyrations in the financial markets and the rise in both layoffs and inflation are all symptoms of an onrushing economic crisis of global dimensions.
In this context, it is revealing that the Democrats decided to surrender to Trump on the government shutdown but fight him on the Epstein scandal. After the “No Kings” protests and the Republican elections debacle on November 4, the Democrats chose as their battleground not the defense of jobs and social programs, but rather the squalid relationship between Trump and the convicted sex trafficker.
Trump is also facing mounting defections within the Republican Party. House Speaker Mike Johnson, after weeks of delay, abruptly announced Thursday that the House will vote next week on a resolution to compel the Department of Justice to make all Epstein documents public. Johnson’s reversal came after it became clear that support for the measure had reached a critical mass.
The measure will likely be blocked by the Senate or vetoed by Trump, but the focus on Epstein will serve to conceal the bipartisan dealmaking over slashing federal spending, US aggression against Venezuela and stepped-up attacks on immigrants and refugees.
As for Trump, the moves to massively escalate the preparations for outright war against Venezuela are driven in no small part by the escalating crisis of the administration. On Thursday afternoon, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon was launching “Operation Southern Spear,” following 20 strikes off of Venezuela and Colombia that have murdered at least 76 unarmed civilians.
It would not be the first time that an American administration has sought to deal with domestic problems, and create the framework for a massive assault on democratic rights, through military aggression.
The working class must not be drawn behind either faction in this struggle within the ruling class. The Epstein case does not indict Trump alone—It indicts the entire bourgeoisie. It lays bare the corrupt physiognomy of a ruling class that long ago abandoned any connection to democratic principles or social progress. It has handed power to gangsters, frauds and predators.
The working class must intervene in the mounting political crisis on the basis of its own interests, through its own program. The crimes of Epstein are manifestations of a social system that defends private property, class privilege and the political monopoly of a corrupt elite. The same system that covered for Epstein is now waging war abroad, cutting food stamps for tens of millions and unleashing police and intelligence agencies to repress opposition at home.
The Epstein case is not merely about the past. It is about the present and the future. The ruling elite is morally and politically bankrupt. It cannot be reformed or “held accountable” through the existing institutions. It must be overthrown. What is required is a movement of the working class—armed with a revolutionary socialist program—to put an end to the rule of oligarchs and to build a society based on equality, truth and human dignity.