Jeffrey Epstein last year claimed to New York Times columnist James B. Stewart that he knew a “great deal” about rich and powerful figures—including “potentially damaging or embarrassing” information he said they’d divulged to him. “People confided in him without feeling awkward or embarrassed,” the late financier and convicted sex offender reportedly told Stewart on background, suggesting that his checkered history made elites feel comfortable sharing their own secrets.

“One of my first thoughts on hearing of Mr. Epstein’s suicide,” Stewart wrote days after Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell after apparently hanging himself, “was that many prominent men and at least a few women must be breathing sighs of relief that whatever Mr. Epstein knew, he has taken it with him.”

Stewart’s recounting of an afternoon in Epstein’s enormous Manhattan mansion last August doesn’t provide any new revelations about the financier, whose famous friends included Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. But it does paint a profoundly creepy portrait of a predator completely at ease, seemingly confident that he’d never be held accountable. The purpose of Stewart’s interview was to ascertain whether Epstein was advising Elon Musk, who was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission after tweeting he had secured funding to take Tesla private; the S.E.C. would eventually sue him for making “false and misleading statements” that impacted markets and investors. (Musk and Tesla denied Epstein’s involvement to the Times on Monday.)

But Epstein was apparently reluctant to talk about Tesla, turning the conversation instead to the famous people he knew—Clinton, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Woody Allen—and, disturbingly, his views on sex with underage girls. “He said that criminalizing sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration and that at times in history it was perfectly acceptable,” Stewart wrote, noting that Epstein compared the broader culture’s views on the statutory rape of young girls with how homosexuality had been viewed in the past.

That casual attitude toward his victims, of course, is unsurprising. For years, Epstein allegedly presided over a underage sex trafficking network, apparently for the benefit of him and his wealthy friends, with the help of enablers like Ghislane Maxwell, the socialite who is said to have procured young girls for Epstein. “They’re nothing, these girls,” a source close to Maxwell recalled her saying of the victims, according to my colleague Vanessa Grigoriadis. “They are trash.”

What’s perhaps most striking about Stewart’s account is how brazen Epstein was about his proclivities. The columnist recounts that upon arriving at Epstein’s home, he was greeted at the door by what appeared to be a girl in her early 20s or late teens. “Why would Mr. Epstein want a reporter’s first impression to be that of a young woman opening his door?” Stewart wondered. After their meeting, Stewart said, Epstein invited him to two dinners—one with Allen; another with journalist Michael Wolff and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. (Bannon told the Times he did not attend a dinner, and Wolff and Allen didn’t respond to the outlet’s request for comment.) He declined both invitations, he said. Epstein also asked Stewart earlier this year if he’d write his biography. Stewart turned that down, too. But “after his arrest and suicide,” Stewart wrote, “I’m left to wonder: What might he have told me?”

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