On Monday, less than a week after the split verdict was announced at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lengthy and contentious federal criminal trial, news came from the Trump administration regarding a different billionaire once beset with sex-crime charges. The Justice Department’s announcement that the much-hyped and sought-after Jeffrey Epstein files amounted to a whole lot of nothing. The two-page memo said Epstein’s much-speculated-upon client list didn’t exist and that there would be no further public releases related to his sex-trafficking investigation.
Conspiracy-mongers are now frothing at the mouth as both of the high-profile cases, while unrelated, reached unceremonious, and to many unsatisfactory, ends within just a few days of each other. Both the Diddy and Epstein sagas have captivated public attention and become lightning rods for disinformation and conspiracy theories. And now, it seems, both Combs and Epstein have narrowly escaped a life behind bars — the financier in a more permanent sense, having hung himself in his cell before trial, according to authorities — fueling public resentment that the wealthy elite have once again skirted justice.
Upon closer inspection, the hip-hop mogul and the mysterious financier to the billionaire class had more in common than their working-class roots. Both called New York City home, both enjoyed meteoric rises through their professions, both gained vast amounts of wealth and elite connections, and both were ultimately taken down by federal sex trafficking and assault accusations. Additionally, both cases became the subject of myriad conspiracy theories, most notably that each man was nefariously controlling and blackmailing several celebrities and world leaders who supposedly lived in fear of the sex-related kompromat that was secretly filmed at decadent sex parties.
Which rich and powerful figures may have been on Epstein’s list? Who was filmed doing what and where? The questions persist today — if anything, they have become more widespread due to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s tortured attempts to quell public interest with a stone-cold denial and reversal of what she indicated to Fox News earlier this year, when she bombastically suggested she had the infamous Epstein Files “on her desk” and it was only a matter of time till the truth came out.
“This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list,’” the DOJ said in the memo released this week, to much derision from the right and the left of American politics. “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
A list related to Diddy’s exploits had been whispered about and discussed long before Combs was involved in a civil abuse case filed by his ex, the singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. This was the lawsuit that prompted a federal probe into a potential racketeering and sex trafficking operation (for which Combs was just found not guilty), and led to the rapper’s arrest and eight-week trial that recently wrapped.
Yet during the proceedings, it never emerged that there were A-list names involved in a more rarefied fantasy version of Combs’ so-called “freak-off” parties that are mentioned throughout his indictment. Instead, the only list of celebrities that emerged was the one given to potential jurors during jury selection. The names ranged from Kanye West and Kid Cudi to Rita Ora, Michael B. Jordan, Usher, Wiz Khalifa and Mike Myers.
This entirely real list was given to potential jurors so they could identify to the court if they knew each listed person and in what capacity. It garnered headlines at most entertainment outlets. And it had the feel of a preview of the show to come. This hope of a sensational trial with celebrity witnesses dropping in to tell-all faded quickly a few days later, though, when the narrow scope of the government’s case was outlined during prosecutors’ opening statements on May 12: This trial, as those who read the indictment were aware, would be about Combs’ relationships with four specific women, who the prosecution called “Victims 1-4” in its indictment, and the criminal enterprise the government claimed he ran, using his employees as co-conspirators. And that was it. No Beyoncé and Jay-Z truth time. No Justin Bieber rumors having their moment.
Still, the rumors swirled, and Combs’ lawyer said, “by treating these ridiculous claims as anything but a pathetic extortion scheme, the government is fueling the fire of online conspiracy theories and making it impossible for Mr. Combs to have a fair trial.”
Combs’ next big moment will be his Oct. 3 sentencing for the transportation to engage in prostitution charges for which he was found guilty. In the meantime, his lawyers will be dealing with the dozens of civil lawsuits that he still faces. There’s no reason to believe that the rumors surrounding the disgraced music mogul will subside, despite the jury’s decision to acquit him on the most serious charges. We know this from the Epstein case, where rumors around the misdeeds of Epstein and his supposed cabal of billionaire deviants persist and won’t be extinguished by the DOJ’s probe being shuttered under the second presidency of Donald Trump, who lest we forget, the late financier reportedly claimed was his “closest friend.”
In fact, the DOJ itself left a gift to Epstein conspiracy theorists right there in its send-off note: a link to 10-plus hours of footage of the late financier’s jail cell door at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in New York on Aug. 9, 2019, which has a mysterious time jump: one-minute-and-12-seconds of the continuous footage seems to be missing.
When asked about the missing time on Tuesday, Bondi offered the following as an explanation for the discrepancy: “The minute missing from the video, we released a video showing definitively — the video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was, showing he committed suicide. What was on that, there was a minute off the counter, and what we learned from [Federal] Bureau of Prisons was, every year — every night, they redo that video. It’s old, from like 1999. So every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing. So we’re looking for that video to release that as well, showing that a minute is missing every night,” she told the gathered press.
“And that’s it on Epstein,” Bondi added.
Unfortunately, for Bondi, the reaction to the DOJ’s Epstein memo this week suggests this is one case that will be impossible to close.
