Leonard C. Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense attorney and co-owner of the newly independent Reader.
The problem for the victims is that a deep dive into the Epstein-Maxwell network would implicate not just powerful men like Bill Clinton, who took at least 26 trips on Epstein’s private jet—nicknamed the Lolita Express—but also untouchable U.S. intelligence officials like Michael Hayden, who was CIA director in 2007 when Acosta was told to “leave [Epstein] alone.”
Robert David Steele, a former CIA officer, told a radio interviewer in 2017: “Many politicians have been compromised. It was a Mossad/CIA operation . . . There are videos of some of the most powerful players in the most humiliating positions. If this gets out, not only are the politicians ruined, but the extortion game is over and suddenly, the influence CIA and Mossad wield over Washington is gone.”
In a functioning democracy, the people would get to learn the truth about their government’s involvement in criminal activity. But we live in a corporate state where the government serves the moneyed interests and regularly lies to the people. Our best source of information about government crimes has recently come from whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. But the persecution of their publisher, Julian Assange, has made it harder to get the truth out to the people. The mainstream press has become a lapdog to power. Thankfully, the Internet has made it possible for alternative noncorporate outlets, like the Grayzone and Consortium News (and of course the Reader), to investigate and push back against official lies. Support independent media! v
