"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
War in the Middle East and a congressional ethics probe have led conservatives to invoke the long-dead sex offender in political attacks
When notorious pedophile and wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein died in a jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors, he left conspiracy theorists with a tangled web of lurid mysteries that would keep them busy for years to come. Suspicions that Epstein hadn’t really hanged himself soon gave way to claims of a vast coverup — the man supposedly murdered to prevent him from revealing the worst secrets of the global elite.
Now, four years later, far-right politicians and commentators are again fixated on Epstein’s personal connections, and using his vile reputation to push a variety of agendas — from trying to derail a congressional ethics probe to raising the temperature of Israel-Hamas war rhetoric. [...]
