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| Andrew Blum |
At the height of the #metoo movement, I was approached by several #metoo men to provide crisis PR: two of them were all over the front pages and on TV news daily.
None of the projects happened for various reasons. But all the recent Jeffrey Epstein media coverage about the so-called “Epstein files” and “Epstein client list” and back-and-forth between Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and MAGA world over their release, takes us back a few years before COVID—resurrecting an old scandal, catapulting Epstein and #metoo back onto the national media and PR stage.
Epstein mania 2.0 has Trump calling MAGA supporters gullible “weaklings” for believing a “radical left” hoax that the government withheld Epstein files, and he said Democrats created the files. Then came the bombshell July 17 Wall Street Journal story.
The Murdoch-owned WSJ reported that a collection of letters for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003 included a note with Trump’s name and an outline drawn of a naked woman. Trump denied it, filed a $10 billion libel suit, and told Bondi to seek the release of Epstein grand jury material.
Two days earlier, on July 15, Alan Dershowitz, one of Epstein’s initial attorneys, wrote a WSJ op-ed headlined “The Inside Scoop on Jeffrey Epstein.”
He threw cold water on the whole mess, writing that there is no Epstein “client list,” adding, “The FBI interviewed alleged victims who named several ‘clients.’ These names have been redacted.” He said files should be released but that it was a “complex” matter, calling for Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to be given immunity to testify before Congress.
But assuming a 2019 New York Magazine article was accurate, as many as 174 well-known names may have appeared in Epstein’s “little black book” at some point. Think about that—almost 200 people somehow connected to an alleged pedophile and sex trafficker.
If these names all were released by the government in response to the cries for disclosure, that’s a huge need for crisis PR people. And what about Trump?
He seems somehow impervious to any sexually-related PR crisis: the NBC “grab them by the pussy” tape, Stormy Daniels, E. Jean Carroll, etc. So, will the new Epstein crisis be the crisis that costs him a lot of MAGA support and political clout?
The Epstein saga has already brought down Prince Andrew and damaged reputations of Trump, several Democrats, billionaires, financiers and even some lawyers. Trump was in photos and videos with Epstein before they had a falling out, after what the New York Times described as a 15-year friendship. Trump has also called Epstein a “creep.”
There were an estimated 200 men who were brought down during the #metoo movement, with Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey and Matt Lauer being the most well-known of the #metoo era. Epstein may have outdone them all in terms of disgusting and depraved behavior: going after young girls.
Some PR people would work for just about anyone but many might draw the line at tobacco companies, gun manufacturers and pedophiles.
So, ask yourself, would you take on a #metoo man as a PR client?
When Epstein died in jail in 2019 after a new indictment, he escaped prosecution. His death was ruled a suicide but it became a conspiracy theory because people didn’t believe he killed himself. His death and connections to famous people (per the NY Magazine story and a blizzard of other media coverage) kept the rumors spinning about a client list. Bondi said in February that Epstein files would be released.
Epstein’s estate has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to more than 200 survivors of his sex abuse and trafficking, according to multiple media reports. Other estimates say there may have been as many as 1,000 Epstein victims.
The DOJ said in July that “no incriminating ‘client list’” or credible evidence of Epstein blackmailing powerful people was located. But it kept digging a PR and conspiracy hole, saying there were files with a “large volume of images of Epstein, images and videos of victims who are either minors or appear to be minors, and over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography.”
So what else could all this mean for PR, media, and more importantly, Epstein’s victims? It’s safe to say the latest chapter in the Epstein story isn’t over.
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Andrew Blum of AJB Communications is a PR consultant and media trainer who has directed proactive and crisis PR for a wide range of clients and issues, and has done PR for more than 40 authors, professional and financial services firms, NGOs, startups and PR agencies. Email: [email protected] or Twitter: @ajbcomms
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