I’m not going to get into too much interpretation of the names on this list until more details come out.

The way Epstein worked was to court those he saw as socially powerful - scientists, business leaders, politicians, actors - and fete them to create a social network around himself. He might throw a dinner party and say Bill Clinton is coming, and he’s really interested in your ideas about eradicating malaria.” I don’t know if he did so with the intent of feeding his own ego or of increasing his own sphere of influence, wealth, and power, although he obviously did so.

I also know that with at least a subset of his social network, he engaged in enabling the rape of children, and that this was key to several of those relationships.

What I’m not certain of at this time is who among his social network were of the dinner party set and who were part of the raping children set. Having spent a lot of time in academia, I honestly believe that it’s entirely possible - I’d even call it probable - that there’s many people of note who would not have heard of Epstein and who would not have harbored a suspicion that they should check out someone looking to introduce them to philanthropists or people in positions of power. I’ve had meals with Nobel laureates and could not have told you anything about anyone else at the table who weren’t previously known to me, and even there the context would be limited to their professional work.

I think this needs to be investigated fully, and I think that anyone guilty of raping children should have the consequences of their actions. I’m just unwilling to judge an association based on a list of names of a known social crawler whose entire purpose was collecting people.

I’m simply saying that I’m going to hold off on making assumptions about the nature of their relationship to Epstein without further revelations.