The Epstein List - No Surprises There Except One

Of course Donald Trump's name is on the Jeffrey Epstein list as well as a hundred others of the Washington establishment. There is nothing new or surprising about the sexual affairs of state, the basic perk of office, the sine qua non of political life.  Why would one get into politics if there were not some reward?

 

The list of philanderers, adulterers, cheats, and cads is endless, from the high-end JFK who bedded starlets and spies, to the low-end LBJ who used the Secret Service to pimp for him, an easy job because the busy President simply wanted sex, any sex, as often as an African man for whom, to paraphrase the old Italian adage, 'Una giornata senza sesso è come una giornata senza sole'. 

Former Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, enjoyed weekend trysts with call girls in the honeymoon suite of the Mayflower.  When outed and asked why, he said he said as a busy man doing the nation's business, he had no time for love. He was dunned out of office for his indiscretions, but insisted that he had done no wrong. 

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, an important French politician in line for the presidency, outed for having orgiastic sex with prostitutes at all night Paris parties. 'How was I to know they were prostitutes?', he replied. 'All women look the same with their clothes off'. The glorious chutzpah of the man!

Every President in US history with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter who admitted that he lusted after women but never acted on his desires has had affairs.  Even the jowly, humorless Richard Nixon had his cinq a septs and joined the Roosevelts, Taft, and old, pinched, sour Calvin Coolidge in infidelity. 

'Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac', said Henry Kissinger, an elixir for the men who have it and for the women who want it.  Former French Presidents Sarkozy and Mitterrand were not shy about their affairs.  Sarkozy's lover had a bedchamber in the Elysees Palace, and Mitterrand's mistress and illegitimate daughter stood grieving by his grave along with his wife and children.

The one surprise on the Epstein list was that of Macdonald Roberts who because he was far more adept at bald chicanery than Frank Abagnale, Jr., Ferdinand Demara, The Great Imposter, Rudy Kurniawan, wine fraudster, and Bernie Madoff all put together, was unheard of and unknown.  And yet he was Epstein's pimp extraordinaire, his go-between, his fixer, a man in the shadows, slipping in and out of the light, working his seductive magic, without which Epstein's stable would have been empty. 

Roberts was a magician, a trickster who sold twenty-volume phantom sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica when he as a college student, made thousands as a tin man, conning homeowners into imaginary aluminum siding, graduated into Glen Garry, Glen Ross investment fraud, and then worked his way into Washington where the real money was as a comer, a political genius, a campaign strategist, and - to the point of this story - high-class gofer for Jeffrey Epstein. 

Yes, Epstein was a pedophile, sex magnet, Barnum & Bailey showman with  mansions, yachts, five-star everything as honeypots for young girls and fabulously exotic weekends for the rich and famous. 

However, without Macdonald Roberts, he never would have had the company of the best and the brightest.  You see, Roberts in addition to being the master impersonator and the consummate con man, was also a brilliant sexual intermediary.  At a glance he knew exactly what Congressman X wanted in bed, or what Senator Y dreamed of, or what West Wing Aide Z had once imagined but never had.  

Macdonald had a divining rod, an almost magical sense of finding human weakness and making the satisfaction of prurient desire seem as normal as buying a loaf of bread.  He was a genius and was recognized by Epstein early on.  The unidentified man in the background of photos with the young Donald Trump and Epstein was Macdonald as was the one on the private plane bound for the Epstein manor in the Caribbean.  

 

Invisibility was part of his con, part of the necessary subterfuge to keep a fantastically successful business going.  Epstein showered millions on him, and he was gifted millions more by grateful johns. 

To be honest, it didn't take much for Macdonald to play the part of brilliant sexual entrepreneur.  Washington has always been the locus of sexual desire - the place to be to feel the testosterone surge and the heady aphrodisiac of power.  Politicians cheated, lied, and misinformed to hide their indiscretions; but soon after their tearful apologies went right ahead with their sexual escapades and bald excuses. 

Senator John Edwards tapped a close aide to claim paternity of his bastard child, the Governor of North Carolina who went on a fugue to Buenos Aires to join his Argentine lover, said he had been hiking the Appalachian Trail.  Newt Gingrich left his wife to die of cancer in a Washington hospital while he cavorted with his paramour.  

Televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart bawled on prime time television, begging for forgiveness for his sexual wanderings, and promising to return to the righteous, holy path of Jesus; and no sooner did the wailing and rending of garments pass, then he was found in flagrante delicto with an Arkansas chippie.  Incorrigible, reprehensible for a man of God perhaps, but no man can resist the enticements of a beautiful young woman. 

Sexual meandering is Washington's perfect storm - men of power, older men, in the heady atmosphere of privilege and renown cannot possibly resist blandishment and seduction.  Men like Donald Trump who as a young real estate mogul enjoyed every last bit of the New York sexual free-for-all, partying like a trooper, loving sequins, tinsel, and faux diamonds, squiring the city's most desirable women and loving its libertine, anything-goes life, never thought much about consequences.  Rich men didn't have to. 

There have been high-class call girl rings in Washington since the beginning.  While Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton managed their own sexual affairs - beautiful mulatto slave women were there for the having - it wasn't long before the business of selling sexual favors became a growing concern. 

The famous Madame X whose sexual empire was a Fortune 500-worthy enterprise, ran a successful high-end bordello for Washington's power brokers, and her lists which were made public were exhaustive.  Politicians went scurrying for cover during the scandal, but America forgives easily, and with heartfelt apologies, they were forgiven, pardoned, and welcomed back. 

Now, God only knows what awful things Jeffery Epstein and his wife arranged - allegations of child sexual abuse, pornography, sexual slavery, and worse have been alleged and some proven; and Epstein was likely murdered in prison to keep his mouth shut; but things sexual, like all things, occur on a bell curve.  There are minor peccadilloes at one asymptote, horrific happenings at the other, with most indiscretions falling under the big curve - nothing exceptional, weekends in the Shenandoah, 'working late' rendezvous, lazy indiscretions at best.  

 

Macdonald Roberts never cared about the bell curve - the ups and downs, slides and elisions of sexual behavior.  He only wanted to profit from it - that is to service through the offices of Epstein clients who were of every possible sexual ilk.  It was because of this marvelous confluence of power, eternal male sexual desire, and the sense of invulnerability that power confers that Macdonald became a rich man. 

When the Epstein list is made public and Macdonald's name appears on it, the press will only say, 'Macdonald who?'.  A surprise revelation, but since he was not a player, not a recognizable face in the Washington pantheon, not even a backroom influencer of any note, his page was turned, and the yellow journalists salivated over the biggies, the men of power caught with their pants down with the most smarmy man ever. 

After Epstein's death Macdonald faded away which took little doing since he was never in the spotlight and because he was a natural chameleon, and to this day there have been imagined sightings of him everywhere.