BOOK REVIEW: The Epstein Birthday Book
by Maria Bustillos
BOOK REVIEW: THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS, The Birthday Book of Jeffrey Epstein, 2003; Ghislaine Maxwell, ed.
★☆☆☆☆
This soul-poisoning book was compiled and annotated by editor and future convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. Her handwritten captions narrate the book throughout. It consists of notes, letters, and drawings provided by friends and associates—Donald Trump among them—as a 50th birthday gift to Maxwell’s mentor and accomplice, the late Jeffrey Epstein, who would die, reportedly by suicide, in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City in August 2019.
Scans of the 238-page book were provided by the Epstein estate to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in response to a subpoena, and yesterday these scans were released to the public.
Maxwell was convicted in 2022 for her role in “a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade.” She is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Last month the Trump administration moved her from a Florida prison to “a new minimum-security prison in Texas.” There has been a lot of talk about a Trump pardon for Maxwell.
Legacy media has failed to reckon with the contents and significance of the Birthday Book and its publication. First, let’s have a brief look at what CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post had to say about it.
Here’s the heading of the email I received, as a subscriber, from the Washington Post on the publication of The First Fifty Years.
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