sudden interest of the Bush FBI in the case, moved the

sudden interest of the Bush FBI in the case, moved the case from solicitation to scandal, and a plea deal with a sentence of 18 months. He got out of jail in 2009, serving 13 months, and moved mostly seamlessly back into his life, to the shock-shock of tabloids whenever they are reminded of his existence (notably, when Epstein’s payment of Fergie’s debts slipped out, likely leaked by Fergie herself). Some things changed. While surprisingly few others dropped him, the Clinton’s did, an irony of the present tabloid interest in Epstein’s old address book with its many Clinton contacts. And his sex offender status has transformed him from libertine playboy to pedophile in tabloid parlance. While he has regularly entertained PR proposals aimed at his public rehabilitation, until Gates prodded him, and until this recent renewed tabloid fever, Epstein had concluded that he was perfectly satisfied living behind high walls and in his own exclusive club. Even the recent Dershowitz-Prince Andrew chapter seems like a parallel disturbance rather than something that is actually affecting him. “Bad press is not something actually bad,” he notes, trying to balance perception and reality. But true or not, the story has taken on a life of its own, with the US and British tabloid press continuing, so far unsuccessfully, to search for a smoking gun connecting Clinton to underage girls, which could HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_024248