Investigative reporters at the Miami Herald documented not only the known horrors of Jeffrey Epstein's reign of terror over young girls across the world, but also the complicity of figures throughout the political sphere.

The five-part series deserves to be read in full, but at its most basic level, it tells the story of the grossest miscarriage of justice in the most perfect union in the world. That Epstein effectively evaded justice points to a truth even uglier than flaws in our legal system: that the powerful will always defend the powerful above all else.

The cast of characters in the Epstein freak show is vast: President Trump's Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz, George Stephanopoulos, Katie Couric, Prince Andrew, and Chelsea Handler.

To recap, Epstein raped and held dozens of children as sex slaves, using older girls to coerce younger ones to attend his various mansions for sexual consumption. As it turns out, even in America, when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything, not with consent, but with friends in high places and prosecutors willfully attempting to give you the slightest slap on the wrist for crimes of monstrous proportions.

Most horrific in the reporting are not just Epstein's crimes, which have been public knowledge for a decade, but the level of the United States government's complicity in them.

Before he was Trump's Labor Secretary, U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta brokered a deal with Epstein's attorneys, including Dershowitz, who was also accused by one of Epstein's victims. In making Epstein plead guilty to two prostitution charges in state court, Epstein effectively ended the FBI's investigation into the number of victims and perpetrators in Epstein's sick, sad world.

Even after Epstein's crimes went public, Couric, Handler, Stephanopoulos, and fellow creep Woody Allen all had dinner at Epstein's homes. Time's Up, I guess.

The Herald reports that despite former President Bill Clinton's and Trump's close friendships with Epstein, "there has been no evidence" that either "engaged in underage sex activities."

But it's worth asking, how could Clinton have never heard a single whisper of Epstein's crimes if he flew on Epstein's "Lolita Express" plane a grand total of 26 times, ditching his Secret Service detail on five occasions?

Last year a woman claimed in a lawsuit that Epstein's sex trafficking ring recruited from Trump's estate, Mar-a-Lago.

"He's a lot of fun to be with," Trump said of Epstein in 2002. "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

Again, absolutely nothing has been proven about Trump or Clinton participating in or knowing about Epstein's crimes. But in the era of conspiracies as inane and pervasive as QAnon and anti-vaxxing, the greatest and most sinister one may be true. The powers that be, across the political spectrum, never let the public and the victims obtain justice.