But when you do assert that basically the entire U.S. government has collaborated on murdering Epstein
Isn’t this a straw man? If someone powerful wanted Epstein dead, how many people does that require, and how many of them even have to know why they’re doing what they’re doing? It seems to me that only one person—the murderer—absolutely has to be in on it. Other people could get orders that sound innocuous, or maybe just a little odd, without knowing the reasons behind them. And, of course, there are always versions of “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” to ensure deniability.
I’m exaggerating for comedic effect. Obviously the entire U.S. government does not have to literally be in on the scam.
If someone powerful wanted Epstein dead, how many people does that require, and how many of them even have to know why they’re doing what they’re doing? It seems to me that only one person—the murderer—absolutely has to be in on it. Other people could get orders that sound innocuous, or maybe just a little odd, without knowing the reasons behind them.
I guess some of these orders are more suspicious than others, in the moment. But you’d have to be one really stupid correctional officer to get an order to disable the cameras around Epstein’s cell the night he was murdered, and not know who killed him after he dies. Even if you were that dumb, it seems like something you would mention unless you were threatened, in which case you obviously are now a possible defecting member of the plot.
And, of course, there are always versions of “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” to ensure deniability.
For the most part, the movie/TV thing of phrasing an order strangely in order to have “deniability” in case that person is wearing a wire doesn’t actually work. If you’re giving someone an order and they follow through with it, they obviously have interpreted what you say as an order and will testify to that fact if they defect. It’s not as if they don’t know the dragon isn’t in the garage.
It sometimes hinders third parties from understanding an order you give in the same way an encrypted connection prevents others from reading your password, but in my criticism I’m already assuming that Bill Barr has some safe way to communicate with these people (which might not even be true!).
But you’d have to be one really stupid correctional officer to get an order to disable the cameras around Epstein’s cell the night he was murdered, and not know who killed him after he dies. Even if you were that dumb, it seems like something you would mention unless you were threatened, in which case you obviously are now a possible defecting member of the plot.
If I were a prison guard who had just seen a well-connected group of conspirators murder someone who had become inconvenient to them and easily get away with it, it seems to me that one of the stupidest things I could possibly do would be to tell anyone about it. Why would they need to explicitly threaten me? We both understand there’s no one I could “defect” to who could stop them or protect me.
The point I was making in the post is that they would still effectively be members of the conspiracy, and that the conspiracy is thus larger than just one or two people. A more complicated question is “would this particular party defect if they were?”, which I don’t really think is possible to answer without any more specific details in particular cases.
But you’d have to be one really stupid correctional officer to get an order to disable the cameras around Epstein’s cell the night he was murdered, and not know who killed him after he dies.
I assume you mean “who ordered him killed.”
Here’s what a news report says happened:
A letter filed by Assistant US Attorneys Jason Swergold and Maurene Comey said “the footage contained on the preserved video was for the correct date and time, but captured a different tier than the one where Cell-1 was located”, New York City media report.
Prince Andrew spoke to the BBC in November about his links to Epstein
“The requested video no longer exists on the backup system and has not since at least August 2019 as a result of technical errors.”
Could be a lot more subtle than that. Just ask for the wrong video. A little mess up in procedures. Maybe some operative clandestinely gets into the system and causes some “technical errors.”
I’m not an expert on assassinations, and I suspect you aren’t either. It seems to me that you’re using the argument from lack of imagination—“I can’t think of a way to do it, therefore it can’t be done.” If, say, the CIA were behind Epstein and didn’t want him to talk, is it unreasonable to suspect that they would know of many techniques to assassinate someone while covering their tracks that neither you nor I would have a clue about?
Note that I’m not claiming that there’s a strong case that Epstein was assassinated, just that it’s not so easy to rule out.
Isn’t this a straw man? If someone powerful wanted Epstein dead, how many people does that require, and how many of them even have to know why they’re doing what they’re doing? It seems to me that only one person—the murderer—absolutely has to be in on it. Other people could get orders that sound innocuous, or maybe just a little odd, without knowing the reasons behind them. And, of course, there are always versions of “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” to ensure deniability.
I’m exaggerating for comedic effect. Obviously the entire U.S. government does not have to literally be in on the scam.
I guess some of these orders are more suspicious than others, in the moment. But you’d have to be one really stupid correctional officer to get an order to disable the cameras around Epstein’s cell the night he was murdered, and not know who killed him after he dies. Even if you were that dumb, it seems like something you would mention unless you were threatened, in which case you obviously are now a possible defecting member of the plot.
For the most part, the movie/TV thing of phrasing an order strangely in order to have “deniability” in case that person is wearing a wire doesn’t actually work. If you’re giving someone an order and they follow through with it, they obviously have interpreted what you say as an order and will testify to that fact if they defect. It’s not as if they don’t know the dragon isn’t in the garage.
It sometimes hinders third parties from understanding an order you give in the same way an encrypted connection prevents others from reading your password, but in my criticism I’m already assuming that Bill Barr has some safe way to communicate with these people (which might not even be true!).
If I were a prison guard who had just seen a well-connected group of conspirators murder someone who had become inconvenient to them and easily get away with it, it seems to me that one of the stupidest things I could possibly do would be to tell anyone about it. Why would they need to explicitly threaten me? We both understand there’s no one I could “defect” to who could stop them or protect me.
The point I was making in the post is that they would still effectively be members of the conspiracy, and that the conspiracy is thus larger than just one or two people. A more complicated question is “would this particular party defect if they were?”, which I don’t really think is possible to answer without any more specific details in particular cases.
I assume you mean “who ordered him killed.”
Could be a lot more subtle than that. Just ask for the wrong video. A little mess up in procedures. Maybe some operative clandestinely gets into the system and causes some “technical errors.”
I’m not an expert on assassinations, and I suspect you aren’t either. It seems to me that you’re using the argument from lack of imagination—“I can’t think of a way to do it, therefore it can’t be done.” If, say, the CIA were behind Epstein and didn’t want him to talk, is it unreasonable to suspect that they would know of many techniques to assassinate someone while covering their tracks that neither you nor I would have a clue about?
Note that I’m not claiming that there’s a strong case that Epstein was assassinated, just that it’s not so easy to rule out.