A few weeks ago, commentator Peggy Tierney wrote a Substack piece in which she referenced a long article — a profile piece — written about Jeffrey Epstein in 2014 by well-known author and journalist Michael Wolff. According to Tierney, although the article was intended to polish Epstein’s public image, it was never picked up by any publication but nevertheless somehow ended up in parts of the “Epstein files.”

The countless articles, books and media documentaries about Epstein have fixated on his insatiable sexual appetites and predilection for teenage girls, as well as his willingness to provide the services of those very young females to some of his friends and colleagues. That lens on Epstein’s life could easily lead one to conclude that the primary purpose of his existence was to serve as a wealthy and somewhat eccentric pimp for elites.

Wolff’s article, however, reveals otherwise. As gross as that behavior may have been, the teenage-girl sex stuff was a mere pastime, and fixating on it is a dangerous distraction.

Wolff starts out astonished that Epstein’s Florida convictions for sex with minors did not deter the powerful people who sought him out. Wolff writes that Epstein’s meetings with the world’s movers and shakers “somehow stayed private or secret … not out of any formal or stated restrictions, but because, in some sense, it would be very hard to explain just what you’re doing there with a brazen sex offender in a guffaw-inducing home flaunting all moderation.

Who were these visitors to Epstein’s salons — his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, his apartment in Paris, his private island in the Caribbean, his lushly appointed private jets?

Heads of state and other political leaders, of course; Wolff mentions former President Bill Clinton, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and a high-ranking member of former President Barack Obama’s administration who asks not to be named.

Wolff describes a recent dinner as something out of a “conspiracy theorist’s fantasy”: Six tech entrepreneurs worth hundreds of billions of dollars between them, sitting around Epstein’s dining room table “trying to figure out how to … shape the world to their liking.”

Epstein was only too happy to help.

Interestingly, Sergey Brin’s ex-wife and former Democratic Party vice presidential candidate Nicole Shanahan just gave an interview with conservative podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey in which she talks about this.

Shanahan explained how billions of dollars were funneled into nongovernmental organizations, purportedly for charity but really to implement policy.

In that vein, Wolff’s summation of Epstein’s role is telling. He says, “Epstein’s position in this … is not as a philanthropist but as a sort of adviser or guru or brain — a rich whisperer — making him … arguably among the most influential people you’ve only heard of for reasons that have nothing to do with his influence.”

Those who don’t believe Epstein committed suicide are certain he was taken out because he had “dirt” on men for whom he procured sexual services. Perhaps. But it seems more likely that the threat was not so much the potential exposure of the sexual exploitation per se but rather the possibility that all the revealed smut would undermine the longer-term political, economic and social objectives of Epstein’s cohorts and advisees.

It’s worth mentioning that there are plenty of others who are just as set upon taking control of the world, and who had zero interest in Epstein. They are just as dangerous, because they see themselves as the rightful rulers. Whether or not they have sexual depravity in their background, they are exploiting all the power and financial resources available to them and using the same neo-Marxist and envirofascist propaganda to achieve their goals. They, like Epstein’s fawning coterie, must never acquire the power they seek.