Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday May 14 are of international significance and are being followed around the world. There are 64 million voters in Turkey and abroad.
The elections take place under the shadow of the US-led NATO powers’ escalating war against Russia in Ukraine. A poll taken after the war began last year showed that 80 percent of the population in Turkey opposes the Ukraine war. However, the opposition to the war and the urgent social aspirations of working people find no political expression in these elections.
Despite their tactical differences, the two main contenders, the People’s Alliance of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Nation Alliance of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), share this in common: loyalty to imperialism and hostility to the working class.
While Kılıçdaroğlu promises to better serve NATO, Erdoğan plans to continue maneuvering between the United States on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. This is a decisive factor in the preference for Kılıçdaroğlu in Washington and the European capitals, which are at war with Russia in Ukraine and preparing war against China.
Erdoğan’s 20-year rule has been marked by massive political crimes, including support for imperialist wars and a draconian assault on democratic rights. His response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to the economic crisis have discredited him. On February 6, earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria, causing tens of thousands of preventable deaths and displacing millions of people, further deepening opposition to Erdoğan in the working class.
The Nation Alliance of Kılıçdaroğlu, backed by the Kurdish-nationalist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and pseudo-left parties as a “progressive” alternative to Erdoğan, is complicit with Erdoğan on all these crimes. It supported NATO expansion and wars, the deadly official response to the COVID-19 pandemic, enriched finance capital at the expense of the working class, and ignored scientists’ warnings about earthquakes and unsafe housing.
The Socialist Equality Group (SEG), the Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), rejects the claim that masses of workers and youth should choose between the two right-wing bourgeois alliances and their supporters. It stated:
Whatever their outcome, the elections will not solve any of the fundamental problems facing the working class. This is because none of these problems can be solved on a national basis, or without a frontal social assault on the wealth of finance capital.
Erdoğan, the leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has ruled Turkey since 2002, could lose the presidency in the first round, according to most polls. The latest poll on May 10-11 by ORC Research, which largely correctly predicted the outcome of the 2018 presidential election, shows Kılıçdaroğlu could win in the first round with 51.7 percent. Erdoğan, on the other hand, remains at 44.2 percent.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s chances of winning the election in the first round rose after Muharrem İnce, the CHP’s presidential candidate in 2018, withdrew from the race on Thursday, over allegations of a sex scandal which İnce denied and blamed Fethullah Gülen, an Islamist preacher and long-time CIA asset in the US. The Nation Alliance, the pseudo-left parties behind it and the pro-opposition media all demanded that İnce withdraw from the race.
Bekir Ağırdır, general manager of Konda Research, said that it expects most İnce voters to support Kılıçdaroğlu. “Among voters who said they would vote for Muharrem İnce, 7 out of 10 or even 8 out of 10 said they would support Mr. Kemal if the election went to the second round... Those who will go to the polls will probably vote for Mr. Kemal. Therefore, [İnce’s withdrawal] is a development that increases the possibility of Mr. Kemal being elected in the first round.”
Kılıçdaroğlu reacted to İnce’s withdrawal with an unprecedented barrage of accusations that Russian President Vladimir Putin had interfered in the elections. This underscores the central role played by NATO’s war against Russia in the Turkish elections. Kılıçdaroğlu tweeted, “Dear Russian Friends, you are behind the montages, conspiracies, Deep Fake content, tapes that were revealed in this country yesterday.”
Kılıçdaroğlu did not provide any evidence for this explosive accusation. The lack of any substantiation for his accusations is so obvious that it attracted questions even from the establishment media. “If we didn’t have it [concrete evidence], I wouldn’t have tweeted,” he told Reuters, before admitting that his campaign had not contacted the Russian embassy on the matter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov categorically denied Kılıçdaroğlu’s allegations, saying: “We have repeatedly said and insisted that we do not interfere in the internal affairs and electoral processes of other countries. We officially declare: there can be no talk of any interference. If someone provided Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu with such information, they are liars.”
Peskov noted that allegations of “Russian interference” in the 2016 US elections turned out to be unfounded. Recalling the fiasco of the Democratic Party’s impeachment of then-President Donald Trump, Peskov said: “In the US, the entire government, the entire administration, for a long time claimed that Russia had interfered, then they spent tens of millions of dollars on the investigation and finally came to the conclusion that there was no interference.”
The Democrats’ unsubstantiated claim that Russian interference had caused their candidate, Hillary Clinton, to lose to Donald Trump, played a critical role in escalating the anti-Russian campaign amid the NATO-Russia proxy war in Syria and the civil war in Ukraine. Ultimately, the escalation of NATO’s arming of the Ukrainian regime after Joe Biden took office in January 2021 provoked Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kılıçdaroğlu told Reuters: “We don’t want to break our friendly relations but we will not allow interference in our internal matters.” Reuters wrote that Kılıçdaroğlu plans to “push for another peace initiative between Russia and Ukraine, following a failed bid by Erdogan in 2022.”
Asked whether he would support NATO’s further eastward enlargement encircling Russia, Kılıçdaroğlu said, “Of course … We will maintain our relations with NATO within the same framework as we had in the past.”
Kılıçdaroğlu wore a bulletproof vest at his rally in Samsun yesterday after his campaign circulated allegations that he could be assassinated by killers traveling through Georgia, a country located between Russia and Turkey.
CHP deputy Murat Balkan made further serious allegations about election day. He claimed the Interior Ministry sent a letter to provincial governors asking them to have Turkish Armed Forces personnel and armored vehicles ready on Sunday. The National Defense Ministry denied the allegation in a statement.
With the support of the HDP and the Turkish pseudo-left parties, Kılıçdaroğlu is preparing to take power and increase Ankara’s participation in NATO’s war with Russia. This policy, carried out behind the backs of the population, is deeply unpopular. It can proceed, however, because the entire capitalist establishment, including Erdoğan, supports the NATO war.
Yesterday, in response to Kılıçdaroğlu’s accusations against Russia, Erdoğan attacked him, saying: “Biden handed down the verdict that Erdoğan must be defeated. It is in the archives. You are impotent, pathetic. When Biden said that, I did not say why he said it. When you attack Russia, I do not approve. Our relations with Russia are not less than with America. We trade more with Russia than with America. Mr. Kemal, you do not know how to administer the state, you do not understand.”
Referring to the failed, NATO-backed coup attempt against him in July 2016, Erdoğan said in another statement: “No matter what attacks we face, we will not cast a shadow on the will of the nation and our democracy. If necessary, we will defend our independence and our future at the cost of our lives, as we did on the night of July 15 [in 2016].” He claimed that he would win the election and declare those who did not recognize his victory as “coup plotters.”
Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu also said yesterday that Washington was behind the allegations that forced İnce to withdraw, declaring: “America has been interfering in this election from the very beginning. Biden said that we weren’t able to do this with a coup in 2016. This time we will do it with an election, not a coup.”
Soylu’s statements constitute an indictment of his own government. Despite the 2016 coup, the Erdoğan government remained loyal to NATO and joined in its escalation of the war in Ukraine. This laid the ground for Kılıçdaroğlu, assisted by the HDP and its pseudo-left allies, to mount his own provocations against Russia.
As China’s pursues its efforts to start negotiations to end the US-NATO war in Ukraine against Russia, the US appears to have switched tack from outright rejection to guarded and conditional support. While determined to pursue its war aims of crushing Moscow, Washington is manoeuvring to prevent Beijing from taking advantage of cracks appearing in the NATO alliance as the conflict grinds on.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands after talks at The Grand Kremlin Palace, in Moscow, Russia, March 21, 2023. [AP Photo/Mikhail Tereshchenko, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool]
The Chinese government announced a 12-point plan in February to facilitate talks “so as to gradually de-escalate the situation and ultimately reach a comprehensive cease-fire.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken slammed the proposal, claiming any call for a ceasefire “that does not include the removal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory,” would effectively be “the ratification of Russian conquest.”
Nevertheless, Beijing has continued to advocate the plan. Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on April 26 for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. China has insisted that it maintains a neutral position, refusing to condemn the Russian military intervention but, at the same time, not supporting Russian annexations of Ukrainian territory.
While reiterating that there could be no peace at the expense of territorial compromises, Zelensky declared it had been “a long and meaningful phone call” with the Chinese leader covering the full range of bilateral issues. “Particular attention was paid to the ways of possible cooperation to establish a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine,” he said in a statement.
China’s foreign ministry quoted Xi as saying that “mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity is the political basis of China-Ukrainian relations.” Beijing’s lack of support for Russian annexations stems from its concerns that the US will exploit separatist tendencies within China, particularly in Taiwan, to undermine its territorial integrity.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang is in Europe this week for talks with his counterparts in Germany, France and Norway to push, in particular, its plan for talks to deescalate the Ukraine war. The visit follows high-level visits by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to Beijing last month.
Macron’s comments in China highlighted the differences within Europe and with the US over strategic issues, including relations with Beijing and any Chinese involvement in seeking to de-escalate the Ukraine war. Far from rejecting China’s peace proposals, he reportedly called on President Xi to “bring Russia back to a reasonable policy in Ukraine,” to which Xi responded by pledging to “work with France” to prevent a further deterioration in the Ukraine crisis.
At the same time, Macron made clear that France and Europe should not follow the US blindly as it accelerates its war drive against China. Europe, he said, should not allow itself to be drawn into crises “that are not ours.” If it is only a “follower” on the subject of Taiwan and “adapts to the American pace and a Chinese overreaction,” Europe would become a “vassal.”
Macron’s remarks provoked a sharp rebuke from the European Union and Germany in particular. The German foreign ministry declared that while it was opposed to fierce competition with China, the belief that Europe could stand aside in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan was absurd. During her visit, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock played down any policy differences with France.
Nevertheless, those differences were on display this week as Baerbock sparred publicly with Chinese foreign minister Qin in Berlin on Tuesday. Qin insisted on Beijing’s neutrality in the Ukraine war, declaring “China will neither watch the fire from the other bank nor add fuel to the fire.” Baerbock, however, while stating that China could play a significant role in ending the war, rejected its diplomatic stance, saying “neutrality means taking the side of the aggressor.”
Amid these signs of tension within NATO over the Ukraine war, the US has softened its attitude to China’s proposal for negotiations. In an interview with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius last week, Secretary of State Blinken cautiously declared that “in principle, there’s nothing wrong with if “China or other countries that have significant influence that are prepared to pursue a just and durable peace… it’s certainly possible that China would have a role to play in that effort. And that could be very beneficial.”
Blinken went on to state that there were some “positive” items in China’s 12-point peace plan including respecting “the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries,” which implies a Russian troop withdrawal. He also declared that the Xi-Zelensky phone call had been “a positive thing, because it’s vitally important that China and other countries that have been seeking to advance peace hear from the victim, not just the aggressor.”
The endless denunciations of Russian aggression by the US and its close allies is to obscure the fact that the primary responsibility for the war rests with American imperialism which has, by expanding NATO borders to encroach on Russia, deliberately goaded Moscow into launching military action. Washington, which is pressing Kiev into launching a Spring offensive, has to date rejected any talks that do not start with Moscow’s complete capitulation.
In his commentary, Ignatius pointed to the motive behind Washington’s latest response to Beijing’s proposal for peace talks. As he stated, the US initially dismissed the plan as part of its efforts to block a broader Chinese role in Europe and “keep European allies from making sweetheart deals with Beijing.” However, “when even Zelensky—who depends on US military aid for his country’s survival—is welcoming contact with Xi, excluding China might be unrealistic.”
An article in the Wall Street Journal last weekend noted: “The interest in negotiations brings Washington in closer alignment with some European countries, which are eager to see the conflict end, or at the very least moderate in intensity, and have been the most intent on discussing some resolution this year.”
However, at the same time, WSJ pointed out US support for negotiations is linked to the planned offensive in Ukraine. Citing unnamed senior French and German officials, the article said the expectation was that “the aim is for Ukraine to regain important territory in the south, a development that could be interpreted as a success even if Russia retains chunks of territory its forces have occupied.”
These comments make clear that the US shift is purely tactical. While nominally allowing Beijing to proceed, Washington will do everything in its power to sabotage any peace talks as it continues to inflict military defeats on Russia. US imperialism’s strategic aims in provoking the war in Ukraine remain the same: to recklessly prosecute the war so as to weaken, destabilise and break up Russia regardless of the terrible consequences for the Ukrainian and Russian people and the dangers of plunging the world into a global conflict involving nuclear-armed powers.
German imperialism is not only playing a leading role in NATO’s escalation of the war against Russia in Ukraine, Africa, too, is increasingly coming into its focus. The coalition government is aggressively pursuing the goal of increasing Berlin’s political, economic, and military influence on the resource-rich continent.
At the end of last week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrat, SPD) visited Ethiopia and Kenya, together with high-ranking business representatives. It was the chancellor’s second trip to Africa. Last May, he had visited Senegal, Niger, and South Africa. In parallel, Germany is developing its military presence. A few days before Scholz’s departure, the Bundestag (federal parliament) initiated a new Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) deployment in Niger.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, center-left, and Kenya's President William Ruto, center, stand for national anthems and to observe the honour guard, during a visit to State House in Nairobi, Kenya Friday, May 5, 2023. [AP Photo/Khalil Senosi]
The offensive is not, as official propaganda declares, about the “fight against terrorism” or even “human rights” and “democracy.” It is, as in the past, about geostrategic and economic interests. At the end of the 19th century, German imperialism under Kaiser Wilhelm II claimed a “place in the sun,” meaning above all the acquisition of colonies in Africa. For German great power aspirations in the 21st century, the continent is once again playing a prominent role.
At a press conference in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Scholz declared, “We must prepare ourselves for a world that will be multipolar and in which many countries of the global South will assume great importance.... Africa is of central importance for us in Germany, is of central importance for us in Europe.” He said it was part of “a long-term political decision, therefore, that I am now once again speaking to heads of state and government here in Africa.”
Scholz’s entire trip made clear what is at stake. Berlin is trying to secure access to African energy and raw materials and lucrative sales markets and cheap labour in a race with the other major powers—first and foremost Russia and China, but also its imperialist allies.
Media commentaries speak about this openly. Under the headline “Catching up in Africa,” tagesschau.de, for example, praised Germany’s increasing presence in Africa. The continent was needed “politically.” In the Ukraine conflict, for example, “many African countries have a problem taking a clear stand against Russia.”
Above all, however, “the topic of business is driving up visitor frequency.” In many countries, small and medium-sized businesses were growing, and with them the sales markets. In addition, for the “sustained, ‘green’ transformation of Western industries... important raw materials such as cobalt or lithium are found on the continent.” This was also “important if the industries’ dependence on China or Russia is to be reduced.”
Scholz and his entourage were working on this agenda on the spot. Germany wanted to “increasingly create regular, legal immigration opportunities for those who want to work in Germany, and at the same time we want to push back irregular migration,” the chancellor explained at a press conference with Kenyan President William Ruto in Nairobi. He said he saw “great potential in Kenya for skilled migration in many areas of our economy.”
Kenya is also seen as an important partner in energy matters. For more than two decades, Berlin has been investing in energy projects through institutions such as the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and the Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Among other things, it was involved in the construction of the world’s largest geothermal plant, Olkaria, which Scholz visited together with Ruto. Now, the German government plans to invest in the development of a hydrogen economy in Kenya.
For his part, Ruto sought further German investment. He said Kenya had already “made progress in terms of the economy, so German investors can be made more attractive.” He said the investment potential was “huge” and that he also wanted to “point out the geostrategic advantage” Kenya represented “as an energy hub for investment on the continent.” He promised the German business delegation he would provide further “incentives” so that “you can successfully invest in [the] great potentials in our country.”
What this means is clear. To attract foreign investment, Kenya’s ruling capitalist class will further intensify its attacks on the country’s impoverished and starving masses. In March, Ruto banned the first mass opposition protests against his government. He mobilized 5,000 heavily armed police and the notorious paramilitary General Service Unit (GSU), which used tear gas against protesters and arrested dozens, including numerous members of parliament.
When Scholz speaks of the governments in Kenya and Ethiopia as guarantors of “stability” and “peace” in the region, it is pure mockery. In fact, it is about suppressing the growing social and political opposition among workers and youth and “pacifying” conflicts by force if necessary.
Ruto, who began his career under Kenya’s long-term dictator Daniel arap Moi, was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2011. The Hague accused him of inciting murder, forced displacements and persecution in the wake of Kenya’s 2007-08 political unrest. According to the ICC indictment, more than 1,100 people were killed and more than half a million forcibly displaced in the process.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whom Scholz courted in Nairobi, even dwarfs Ruto in his crimes. Between 2020 and 2022, under his leadership, the Ethiopian army drowned the Tigray region in blood. It is estimated that some 500,000 people were killed and at least two million people forced to flee. Ahmed’s units are accused of massive human rights crimes—including the rape of 22,500 Tigrayan women at the very beginning of the conflict.
The permanent presence of the Bundeswehr on the continent illustrates that German imperialism does not only seek to enforce its predatory interests in Africa by force through its proxies. On April 28, the coalition government of the SPD, Liberal Democrats (FPD) and Greens, supported by the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), decided on a new military mission in Niger. At the end of May, the Bundeswehr mission in neighbouring Mali, which began around ten years ago, is to be extended for a proclaimed final time by one year.
The German government cites Russia’s growing influence in Mali and crimes committed by the Malian armed forces as reasons for shifting the focus to Niger. The fact is that the Western occupation forces are hated by the population. Last year, the former colonial power France was forced to withdraw its combat troops from Mali and partially relocated them to Niger.
German politicians’ references to Malian and Russian war crimes are also intended to conceal the real nature of their own intervention. In fact, the crimes against the civilian population are committed by the same Malian army that the Bundeswehr has been training for about ten years. The imperialist occupation forces are directly or indirectly involved in the crimes and bring nothing but war and terror to the entire region.
In this context, the deployment in Niger, which initially provides for the stationing of about 60 Bundeswehr soldiers, is only the prelude to an ever more aggressive and comprehensive military presence by Germany.
“The geostrategic and security environment has also become harsher in the Sahel, in Africa as a whole,” Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) stated during the Bundestag debate on the Niger deployment. The Sahel was and would remain “strategically relevant, especially in view of the Russian presence in the region,” he said. It was becoming “increasingly important that we are represented in the region, that we remain committed and demonstrate we are there.” That included “showing presence, including militarily.”
Officially, the Niger mission serves to “build the capacity of the Niger armed forces” as part of a European Union-led “military partnership mission” (EU Military Partnership Mission in Niger—EUMPM Niger). But behind this, German imperialism is seeking to transform the Niger army into a powerful proxy force that will impose the interests of German and European imperialism in a region which boasts significant reserves of uranium, gold, coal, iron, limestone and phosphates.
Pistorius praised the fact Niger wanted “among other things, to double its armed forces by 2025, from 25,000 to 50,000 troops.” For the country to be able to do that he said, it “needs the support of the international community.” The Social Democratic defence minister sees the Bundeswehr playing a leadership role in this regard. “The German contribution” to EUMPM Niger included “above all participation—this should also be emphasized—in the mission’s command structures on the ground.”
The text of the mandate adopted explicitly provides for the future expansion of the mission. Among other things, it states that “further strengthening projects to support the civilian and military security forces in the Republic of Niger are planned for the coming years.”
In August 2019, financier Jeffrey Epstein died in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan as he awaited trial for criminal charges relating to his decades-long sex trafficking of underage girls. While officially declared a suicide, his death was more likely murder, a contract killing to silence the specialist in deal-making and tax evasion—and sex trafficker—before a trial could produce evidence that would implicate many others in the US ruling elite.
At the time, the World Socialist Web Site asked two important questions. First, why was the media dismissing questions about Epstein’s death as “conspiracy theories”? Two, who wanted Jeffrey Epstein dead?
We argued Epstein’s case was significant not because of the financier’s particular depravity but rather because his operation and death expressed something true about capitalist society as a whole. We wrote:
The super-rich prey upon the poor and the vulnerable, using them as they wish. They make use of their connections to cover up their crimes, or, depending on the circumstances, arrange for the elimination of those former friends and associates whose activities have become an inconvenience or a danger.
Almost four years after Epstein’s death, a series of articles last week in the Wall Street Journal have made it possible to peer further into this incestuous world of high finance and corporate-state power in which Epstein played a key intermediary role.
Due to ongoing lawsuits filed by the attorney general of the Virgin Islands, and by an unnamed victim of Epstein’s abuse, the Journal has been able to access thousands of pages of emails and schedules of Epstein, dating from 2013 to 2017. The lawsuits are against JPMorgan Chase and allege the bank knowingly facilitated the financial transactions that Epstein used to fund his abuse of young girls.
Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017 [AP Photo/New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP]
The material from the Journal is limited to dates from a calendar diary of Epstein’s meetings and various notes and emails over the four-year period. It provides just a small window into Epstein’s operations over 30 years, and his wide circle of contacts. However, it is enough to get a glimpse—or perhaps a smell—of this world of powerful corporate, financial and state actors, and their incessant intermingling.
Epstein was regularly meeting with the most powerful figures in the global economy, as well as their key political agents—from Kathryn Ruemmler, general counsel in the Obama White House and later at Goldman Sachs, to Leon Black, the billionaire owner of Apollo Global Management, one of the largest asset managers in the world.
It is no secret that a few thousand people, and the institutions they control, have effective ownership over nearly every major company and bank in the world. The development of capitalism into a highly stratified world dominated, not by competition, but by the decisions of a handful of giant monopolies, is a central prediction of Marx’s economic work.
Today, this process of monopolization and globalization has produced a remarkably narrow financial oligarchy. Stripped of their money and ownership, they would be little more than a handful of people confronting the great mass of the population. And yet the global economy is subordinated to their quest for enrichment.
A fixer for the financial aristocracy
Epstein functioned essentially as a fixer for this layer. He serviced the top layers of the financial oligarchy, parasitically attaching himself to them in the process.
Epstein himself was not a leading banker or financier in his own right. His $500 million fortune was amassed by helping billionaires manage and direct their own fortunes. His rise to power and influence was based on his initial role in managing the fortunes of Leslie Wexner, the billionaire owner of the Limited, corporate owner of Bath & Body Works, Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret and other well-known retailers.
Reflecting the general rise of financial parasitism in the global economy, Epstein amassed half a billion dollars without ever being involved in the production of anything.
His “work”—as further revealed by the Journal’s report—was that of connecting the ultra-rich, and those who wanted access to them. He made tens of millions of dollars in the process.
To succeed in this rarefied world, Epstein threw lavish parties, exchanged favors and sought to woo and impress, through various means.
The sex-trafficking operation Epstein ran was, in this sense, a kind of tool he leveraged as part of his larger operations to acquire financial clients and establish relationships. It allowed him to monetize his own proclivities and those of selected clients.
As one person familiar with Epstein and his operations explained anonymously to the Guardian, “If you invested money with him, he’d get you laid. They were young girls with no contacts, who they [potential investors] had no ability to meet. It was like a dating service and the girls were like the candy on a stick.”
There was, of course, another side to this for Epstein: insurance in the form of blackmail.
Epstein purportedly had video cameras throughout his compound in the Virgin Islands, as well as his Manhattan and Florida properties. When the FBI raided Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, they found boxes of hard-drives and CDs, photos and binders, which included labeled pornographic material collected from his cameras. With the shutdown of the criminal case following his death, none of this material has been brought to light.
Epstein with Ghislaine Maxwell in 2005. Maxwell was later convicted of helping him coerce teenage girls into sex. [Photo: US Department of Justice]
Sex with women and girls, however, was by no means the only or even principal tool Epstein was using to cultivate relationships with the ultra-rich. The vast majority of the people mentioned in the recent Wall Street Journal reports are not suspected of having partaken in the massages, sex and orgies Epstein proffered, yet Epstein curried favor with them in other ways.
Epstein frequently entertained guests at his Manhattan townhouse or flew people down to his island in the Caribbean. Epstein’s meeting diary, which the Wall Street Journal obtained, contains notes on the food preferences and interests of various guests. He made sure a specific type of sushi roll was available when he met with Kathryn Ruemmler. Likewise, he had special food items provided for Joshua Cooper Ramo, the former co-chief executive of Henry Kissinger’s consulting firm. His secretary would be tasked with upgrading the flights of financiers and lawyers he was trying to woo, giving them first class tickets.
Epstein tried to cultivate connections with noted academics and artists, including Jeffery Koons, Noam Chomsky, Martin Nowak (a Harvard biologist), Leon Botstein (music director of the American Symphony Orchestra) and Helen Fisher (a leading anthropologist).
The Wall Street Journal writes that Barnaby Marsh, an executive at the time of the John Templeton Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world, “often went to Epstein’s townhouse for gatherings because it was full of academics and wealthy people who discussed philanthropy ideas.” Marsh told the Journal, “So many of those billionaires knew him. And he would sit in the corner, just kind of watching.”
The former prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, told the Wall Street Journal that Epstein “often brought other interesting persons, from art or culture, law or science, finance, diplomacy or philanthropy” to his Manhattan parties.
One of the key services that Epstein provided was to bring figures within the financial aristocracy together for mutual profit.
Mutual favors and “finder’s fees”
He was essential, for example, in hooking up the billionaire Glenn Dubin with Jes Staley, an executive of JPMorgan Chase and close confidant of Epstein. For this role, Epstein reportedly received a “finder’s fee” of $15 million for his role in brokering the sale of Dubin’s Highbridge Capital to JPMorgan Chase. Highbridge Capital oversees several billion dollars’ worth of assets, including GFL Environmental, one of the largest waste management companies in Canada, and the Danaher Corporation, a Washington D.C.-based industrial and biotechnology conglomerate.
Epstein also exchanged various favors with Ariane de Rothschild, one of the richest women in the world and CEO of the Edmond de Rothschild Group, one of the largest private banks. In 2013 she helped Epstein in finding a multilingual female assistant. The next year she purchased a million dollars’ worth of auction items for him. In 2015, after she became president of Edmond de Rothschild Group, she made a $25 million contract with Epstein for his company to provide risk analysis. In the following years, the Journal reports Epstein returned the favor, introducing “the bank to U.S. finance leaders.” He also “recommended law firms and provided tax and risk consulting.”
These dealings form only a part of Epstein’s overall activities. But they give a sense of the backscratching world of the ultra-rich, one in which everyone more or less knows each other as they trade in a stream of personal favors and extravagant, often sordid, experiences.
Private jets, tropical island retreats, lavish star-studded parties, access and leverage over prestigious academic institutions like Harvard and MIT, the lending of hundred-million-dollar yachts for vacations, and, yes, sex—these were all currency among this thin layer of the population for whom anything is obtainable.
In Epstein’s case he proffered, among other things, a world of massages and sex with pubescent girls. These extremely young women, coming from impoverished, destitute communities—trailer parks in Florida and broken homes—were lured by the promise of a few hundred dollars. The cash was significant to them but mere pennies for the men who abused them.
But this economy of decadent, nepotistic and often illegal favors served fundamentally to grease the wheels of what was the main event: massive economic transactions involving hundreds of millions, sometimes billions of dollars.
Epstein’s ties to the financial and political elite
Below we review several of the significant connections Epstein had that were revealed by the Wall Street Journal’s report, and the type of dealings that occurred.
Leon Black—Billionaire, Apollo Global Management
Leon Black co-founded Apollo Global Management, currently ranked in the top 25 largest private equity firms in the world. In 2022, Apollo had a staggering $548 billion worth of assets under management. Apollo holds and manages a wide range of assets ranging from Harrah’s Entertainment to Smart & Final.
Epstein met with Black well over a hundred times between 2013 and 2017. A review from Apollo found that Black paid $148 million to Epstein for what was described as “tax and estate planning.”
Essentially what Epstein was providing was advice on tax evasion. Apollo’s report stated that Black “believed and witnesses generally agreed, that Epstein provided advice that conferred more than $1 billion and as much as $2 billion or more” in reduced taxes. One or two billion dollars is an incredible amount of missed tax money. And that from a single firm—Apple, Amazon, every major corporation engages in elaborate schemes of this sort year in and year out. Meanwhile the capitalist politicians and the corporate media declare that “there is no money” to fund necessary social services for working people and the poor.
Black and Epstein are reported to have frequently socialized with each other. Epstein was a founding trustee of the Debra and Leon Black Foundation, the charitable foundation Black established.
Black’s net worth is $9 billion. Black also served as a trustee for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He owns tens of millions of dollars’ worth of art, including Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which he bought for $119.9 million in 2012.
Black stepped down from his position at Apollo Global Management in 2021, after his close ties to Epstein were revealed. He is being sued by several women who claim that he sexually assaulted them at Epstein’s mansion, suits newly permitted under the Adult Survivors Act, the same New York state law that allowed E. Jean Carroll to sue former president Donald Trump.
Kathryn Ruemmler—General counsel for Obama White House, Goldman Sachs
Kathryn Ruemmler is a leading figure in the legal establishment, specializing in civil law. She was the lead federal prosecutor in the case against the executives of Enron. In 2011, she was invited by the Obama administration to become the White House Counsel, leading a team of 25 lawyers, which she did until 2014.
Among other things, Ruemmler was involved with the administration’s attempt to cover up the Obama administration’s extrajudicial drone assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year old son—both American citizens.
According to Newsweek, Ruemmler was opposed to revealing to the public either the killing of Awlaki or the pseudo-legal justification the administration had produced to justify it. Later she played a key role in convincing Democratic lawmakers to overlook the issue in the case of the confirmation of David Barron, the author of the legal memos justifying the assassination, as he faced a congressional vote on his appointment to a federal judgeship.
When Ruemmler left the White House, Obama stated that she was “a close personal friend” and that he would continue to make use of her advice and counsel. At the very same time, Ruemmler began to have dozens of meetings with Epstein.
Epstein originally met with Ruemmler to see if she would be interested in representing Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Ruemmler, however, did not, and went back to her old job at Latham and Watkins, the second largest law firm in the world. At Latham she worked in white-collar defense, that is defending corporations against lawsuits, including ones brought by the government.
Her career trajectory typifies the “revolving door” between corporate lawyers tasked with evading government oversight and the federal prosecutors ostensibly charged with carrying it out.
Later, Epstein was key in connecting Ruemmler to Ariane de Rothschild. The CEO of the Rothschild family’s private bank, Edmond de Rothschild Group, paid Latham tens of millions of dollars to help them navigate US financial regulations.
Kathryn Ruemmler (former White House counsel, now Goldman Sachs counsel) [Photo: Pete Souza]
According to the Journal, Ruemmler was “scheduled to fly with Epstein to Paris and in 2017 he planned to stop in St. Lucia to take her to his island home.” A spokesperson for her at Goldman Sachs, where Ruemmler now works as general counsel, denies that this happened.
Internal memos from Epstein’s staff show concern about whether Ruemmler would be “uncomfortable” with the various young women at Epstein’s properties. Epstein told some of these women not to be there when Ruemmler visited but told others it was okay.
It is hard to believe that Ruemmler did not see anything. Even people who only briefly spent time with Epstein noticed.
Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who visited Epstein’s compound in the Virgin Islands, hoping to obtain funding for her work—but did not—remarked to the Journal, “I didn’t have anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein. But I remembered it because of his spectacular house and because of the six young women.”
Epstein curried favor with Ruemmler in other ways, upgrading her flights and ensuring her favorite sushi dish was on-hand when she visited for meetings.
In 2020, Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs, where she was the global head of dealing with financial regulations. She is now the bank’s Chief Legal Officer.
Glenn Dubin—Billionaire hedge-fund manager
Glenn Dubin is a billionaire hedge fund operator who founded Highbridge Capital Management. Eva Anderson-Dubin, his wife, a former “Miss Sweden,” dated Epstein in the 1980s and is now a well-regarded doctor in New York City, specializing in breast cancer treatment. Eva and Epstein remained in contact years after they dated.
Epstein played the key role in helping Dubin sell Highbridge Capital to JPMorgan Chase in 2004. The sale was for more than $1 billion. Epstein made $15 million from brokering the deal and $29 million in profit from his own share of ownership in Highbridge. According to the Journal, “Some people [at Highbridge] felt it was odd to compensate [Epstein] for an introduction years earlier.” The amount is about 14 times what the average, full-time worker in the United States would make in a lifetime—40 years—of work.
While the Dubins claim they were “horrified” to learn of Epstein’s sex-trafficking, their former full-time chefs claimed in a 2016 deposition that the couple flew a distraught 15-year-old Swedish girl back to Sweden who was “involved in some forced sexual activity at Epstein’s Caribbean island.” The Dubins deny this.
Epstein went on to assist the Dubins’ daughter. He arranged for her to obtain modeling jobs with some fashion brands and set up a meeting for her with a professor at Harvard while she was a student there. On another occasion Eva and her daughter dined with Epstein and Bill Gates at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.
Ariane de Rothschild—Billionaire banker, Edmond de Rothschild CEO
Ariane de Rothschild married into the Rothschild banking family and is now head of the Edmond de Rothschild bank, based in Switzerland. Rothschild met with Epstein over a dozen times between 2013 and 2019. It is unclear how they originally became acquainted.
Rothschild and Epstein engaged in a variety of favors for each other. Epstein asked Rothschild to scout him a new female assistant that was “multilingual … organized.” Epstein brokered Rothschild’s hiring of Ruemmler’s law firm Latham and Watkins.
Ariane de Rothschild was named CEO of the bank in 2015; previously she was a vice president. In 2019, when the bank became fully private, she became chairman of the board. The bank is one of the largest privately owned banks in the world, with $178 billion in assets. It has vast real estate and industrial investments throughout the world, but especially in Europe and Africa, including biotech companies, logistics centers, commercial and residential real estate, and energy.
Following internal disputes and general financial difficulties under the changed economic environment of the last year, Ariane de Rothschild resumed control of the company as CEO this March.
Rothschild helped Epstein buy some $1 million worth of items at auctions in 2014 and 2015. She also hired Epstein’s company, Southern Trust Co., for “risk analysis and the application and use of certain algorithms” for $25 million.
Epstein also introduced Rothschild to various other figures around him. For example, he scheduled a meeting between her and Joshua Cooper Ramo, a leading executive of the geopolitical consulting firm of Henry Kissinger and a member of the boards of FedEx and Starbucks.
Mortimer Zuckerman—Billionaire, U.S. News & World Report, Boston Properties
A Canadian American billionaire, Mortimer Zuckerman, helped found and formerly ran Boston Properties, a $21 billion real estate trust that owns significant downtown and commercial real estate throughout the US. He has owned U.S. News & World Report since 1984. The news company is known for its rankings such as “Best Colleges and Universities.” Zuckerman has over $2 billion in assets.
From left, billionaires Mortimer Zuckerman, Sergey Brin, and Michael Ovitz [AP Photo/Scott Roth, Evan Agostini, Evan Agostini]
Zuckerman met with Epstein over a dozen times between 2013 and 2017. It is unclear what the meetings were about. Their Manhattan townhouses were near each other in the elite Upper East Side neighborhood. Zuckerman has been subpoenaed as part of the lawsuits against JPMorgan Chase.
Lawrence Summers—Former US Treasury Secretary, former chief economic adviser to Obama, former president of Harvard
Lawrence Summers is one of the most important economic policymakers in the United States of the last two decades. He was the secretary of the treasury from 1999 to 2001 in the Clinton administration. In 2009 he became President Obama’s chief economic adviser, directing the National Economic Council.
During this time, Obama orchestrated a massive bailout of the major banks and corporations and backed the Federal Reserve program of ultra-low interest rates that led to one of the largest transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich in American history. Summers was also advising Obama as he restructured the auto industry, which, among other things, reduced the pay of new autoworkers by half. Summers was also president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006.
Summers held more than a dozen meetings and dinners with Epstein between 2013 and 2016, likely in New York at his townhouse. Records show Summers emailing Epstein for help with his wife’s fundraising. Summers’ wife, Elisa New, is a Harvard professor who runs a nonprofit that puts on the TV show Poetry in America. Epstein donated $110,000 to the nonprofit in 2016.
Larry Summers and then President Barack Obama in 2013. [Photo: Pete Souza/The White House]
The New York Times reported that Summers also attended social gatherings at Epstein’s mansion, including one in 2011 which included Jes Staley, the executive of JPMorgan Chase, as well as Bill Gates.
Reid Hoffman—Billionaire, LinkedIn
Reid Hoffman is a tech industry capitalist and billionaire known for starting LinkedIn, which he sold to Microsoft in 2016 for $26 billion. He has an estimated personal worth of $3 billion. Reid is also an influential policy figure as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Reid met with Epstein to help raise funds for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He visited Epstein’s island in the Caribbean for a weekend for the purpose of fundraising for MIT. The university confirmed that it instructed Hoffman to do so; it is unclear how many other interactions he and Epstein had.
Thomas Pritzker—Billionaire, Hyatt Hotels CEO
Thomas is a member of the Pritzker family, one of the richest families in the world, worth a total of $36.9 billion. He is the second wealthiest member of the family, with assets valued at $5.3 billion. Their wealth comes mainly from the Hyatt Hotel corporation, the fifth largest hotel corporation in the world, where Thomas Pritzker is CEO. The Pritzkers are major donors to the Democratic Party. Thomas’s cousin J.B. Pritzker is the current governor of Illinois.
According to the Journal, Epstein “scheduled several events at his [Manhattan] townhouse with Mr. Pritzker.” It is unclear what these events were and who attended. Neither Hyatt nor Pritzker has issued a comment on it.
Bill Gates—Billionaire, Microsoft
Gates, the founder of Microsoft and once the world’s richest man, had significant ties to Epstein. Previously, the New York Times reported that Gates and Epstein began meeting at least as far back as 2011, when Gates attended a dinner party at Epstein’s that included Eva Anderson-Dubin and her daughter.
The Times reported that their meetings continued after that: “Mr. Epstein spoke with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and JPMorgan Chase about a proposed multibillion-dollar charitable fund.” Epstein stood to gain substantial amounts of money in fees from this.
2011 photo taken at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion. From left: James E. Staley, at the time a senior JPMorgan executive; former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers; Epstein; Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder; and Boris Nikolic, who was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s science adviser.
On September 8, 2014, Gates spent an entire six hours with Epstein attending meetings in Manhattan. However, by the end of the year, the Times reports, their relationship had soured. Gates Foundation officials seemed to believe that Epstein’s claims of what he could do for them were dubious.
According to the Journal, Barnaby Marsh, an academic and ex-executive for the Templeton Foundation, “Epstein convened people, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, to try to solve problems facing rich donors, such as how to make large gifts.” Marsh also told the Journal that Epstein stated he was managing Gates’ money—but the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation disputes this.
William Burns—Current director of the CIA
William Burns, the current director of the CIA, met with Epstein twice in 2014 as he was leaving the post of deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration. A CIA spokesperson said, “The Director did not know anything about him, other than he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general advice on transition to the private sector. The Director does not recall any further contact, including receiving a ride to the airport. They had no relationship.”
Burns is a seasoned member of the US intelligence agencies and State Department. In 2008 he was promoted by then President George W. Bush to the position of Career Ambassador, the highest position in the US foreign service—somewhat akin to being a four-star general. He was the ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008 and played a significant role in the US-NATO expansion eastward. In the Obama administration he ran the State Department day to day from 2011 to 2014, serving as deputy first to Hillary Clinton and then to John Kerry. It is hardly credible that someone so steeped in the world of the US intelligence agencies would “not know anything” about Epstein when they met.
CIA Director William J. Burns [Photo: Central Intelligence Agency]
Terje Rød-Larsen—Norwegian politician, International Peace Institute
Rød-Larsen was the key figure in the Oslo Accords—the first agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is a Norwegian politician and diplomat.
Rød-Larsen visited Epstein’s townhouse frequently between 2013 and 2017. There were also plans for him to visit his island. Rød-Larsen received a $130,000 direct loan from Epstein on one occasion and Epstein funded Rød-Larsen’s foundation with a $650,000 donation.
Epstein sought to cash in on various attempts to broker deals between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, thus his meetings with Rød-Larsen as well as Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister, and Noam Chomsky.
Ehud Barak—Former Israeli prime minister
Ehud Barak, Israeli prime minister from 1999 to 2001, was also the leader of the Labor Party. Barak scheduled over 30 meetings with Epstein in the time covered by the Journal’s investigation. They also flew together on Epstein’s private plane and visited his Palm Beach mansion together.
“I flew only twice on his airplane, together with my wife and Israeli security detail,” according to Barak. “In retrospect, [Epstein] seemed to be a terrible version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but at the time seemed to be an intelligent person, socially well connected.”
Joshua Cooper Ramo—Vice chairman, Kissinger Associates
Joshua Cooper Ramo was an executive at Kissinger Associates, the New York-based geopolitical consulting firm founded by the former secretary state and war criminal. It technically belongs to the U.S.-Russia Business Council, a trade organization consisting of ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase, Pfizer and other major corporations.
Purportedly, Ramo and Epstein met over a dozen times between 2013 and 2017. It is unclear what they met about.
* * * * *
The names here are just a snapshot of a segment of Epstein’s life. His schedule was remarkable, but probably not all that unique. The financial oligarchy regularly carouses and convenes, conducting business in between lavish lunch dates and tropical getaways. Epstein may have been exceptionally brazen in his trafficking of teenage girls for sex, but the overall culture of indulgence and excess is a general feature of this layer.
This minuscule segment of the global population provides the day-to-day, sometimes minute-by-minute, direction of the global economy. They are continually engaged in making deals involving tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions, for their own personal gain. All global economic and financial life is effectively subordinated to their acquisitive impulses.
Epstein latched himself like a parasite to these proceedings, making himself useful as a conductor and fixer, and providing how-to advice for tax evasion.
It should be obvious why Epstein died suddenly four years ago, once he fell into the clutches of the US legal system. He knew too much about what really goes on in the financial oligarchy. In offering orgies and other crimes as part of his career as a financial dealmaker, he had hard evidence of the sordid lifestyles of dozens of extremely powerful people.
At the end of the Roman Empire, the slave-owning elite retreated to their lavish villas in Tuscany and France. Hoping to avoid the general disintegration of urban life, they plunged their heads into barrels of wine, living out fantasies in their villas.
But for all their excess, these ancient aristocrats could not hold a candle to the degree of debauchery achieved by the modern-day financial aristocracy. Surrounded on all sides by impossible conditions—economic decline, internecine political warfare and growing mass discontent—they participate in spectacles of wealth and excess that would outrage their modern-day slaves and provoke unstoppable anger, and thus are better left a secret.
Epstein was, at the end of the day, a facilitator, a bit player, not a major actor in this world. His crimes, however grotesque, were a distilled expression of the far broader exploitation this layer oversees and from which it profits.
