"The Epstein Class": Anand Giridharadas on the Elite Network Around the Sexual Predator

While much of the recent interest in Jeffrey Epstein has focused on the late sexual predator's relationship with President Donald Trump, his emails also reveal his close relationships with other powerful figures from the worlds of politics, finance, academia and beyond. The thousands of files released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this month include his correspondence from April 2011 through January 2019, after he was already a registered sex offender for abusing underage girls in Florida. The fact that so many prominent and influential people could ignore those crimes is indicative of their membership in a borderless network of people who are more loyal to each other" than anything else, says journalist Anand Giridharadas. He had chosen this particular kind of social network, this American power elite, because he could be sure that it would be able to look away."

Giridharadas is author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World and recently wrote about the Epstein emails for The New York Times opinion section.