Here's a look at the Clinton-Epstein relationship through the other end of the telescope.  What if the man who put Jeffrey Epstein on the path to mega-wealth and who knew him before Bill Clinton and the other movers and shakers can explain that it was Bill Clinton who was the corrupter-in-chief?  Not Epstein running a lure for corrupting the rich and famous, but the other way around — corrupt Bill Clinton launching a man with too much money to spend on a path of alleged criminal perversion?

David Richardson, writing in The Observer, offers the mentor a platform.  That mentor is, to be polite about it, a suspect source, currently living in the Graybar Hotel.

Jeffrey Epstein's former Wall Street mentor says the financier's coziness with former President Bill Clinton "absolutely" led to his ruin.

"The Clinton relationship destroyed Jeffrey Epstein and did not help Clinton. Because that was his first major high-profile relationship, and he enjoyed the media pizzazz, not understanding it and letting his ego be inflated by being put in articles next to a former president of the United States," Steven Hoffenberg told Observer. "That raised his pridefulness enormously. It inflated his ego… That changed him." (snip)

"As he increased his wealth, he became more godly in attitude," said Hoffenberg of his former protege. "Jeffrey Epstein, sadly to say, became a tragedy… What you've got is a tragedy for the girls."

Becoming a billionaire does a lot to raise "pridefulness" on its own.  But Wall Street billionaires get a lot less public attention than presidents and former presidents, so maybe there is some truth to it.  The billionaires have less influence on prosecutors than prominent politicians.  The key question is why Epstein thought he was a "master of the universe" (in Tom Wolfe's expression), exempt from the law and common decency in acting out his sexual desires.

But we have to take Hoffenberg's charges with a grain of salt:

Hoffenberg's Tower Financial Corporation hired Epstein in the 1980s for $25,000 per month, though the two split in the years before the former pleaded guilty to defrauding investors in a massive Ponzi scheme. In 2002, Hoffenberg told reporter Vicky Ward in an interview from prison that Epstein's courtship of Clinton would draw attention to his business ventures, and the investor would be best served flying "below the radar."

There will be no shutting down this probe this time.  #MeToo has changed the equation.  The Left will not unite in suppressing the story.  The radar is sensitive and covers all altitudes.

If you were facing life in prison, is there a better "big fish" to offer to prosecutors in return for a deal than a president or former president of the United States?

Photo credit: Mug shot.