A sudden resurgence of interest in Jeffrey Epstein, and unanswered questions about his crimes, has been measurable this month in book sales, Netflix streams and YouTube searches.
The data points to deep public curiosity in Epstein’s underage sex trafficking operation, and a possible government cover-up, at a time when US President Donald Trump is trying to shift attention away from the topic.
Old copies of investigative reporter Julie K. Brown’s 2021 book Perversion of Justice, about Epstein, have been snapped up by buyers in recent weeks, leaving the book out of stock all across the web, from Amazon and Barnes & Noble to smaller and independent shops.
Brown said she has been hearing from interested buyers who can’t find any print copies.
“I’m told the publisher is printing more copies,” she wrote on X to people who have been asking.
Harper Collins, the publisher, confirmed to CNN that the book is now entering its third printing.
“I hope it reflects that people really want to understand the story from the beginning,” Brown added in an interview with CNN.
A 2016 book about Epstein from James Patterson’s true crime series, Filthy Rich, has also climbed up Amazon’s sales chart in recent days.
A Netflix docuseries based on that book, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, came out in 2020, and gained new viewers earlier this month when the Trump administration said it would not release any further material from its years-old probe of Epstein.
The case-closed message from the FBI and Justice Department fuelled an uproar — and a dramatic spike in people searching for more information about the matter.
Google Trends showed a sudden uptick in Epstein-related searches when the government statement was released on July 17, and even higher levels of interest after Trump attempted to quell the outrage.
Similarly, from the first full week of July to the second week, US viewership of the Netflix docuseries rose 268 per cent, as measured by minutes watched, according to Luminate, a streaming data firm.
A search of Epstein’s name on YouTube, filtered only to show videos uploaded in the past week, found more than 40 videos with more than one million views each. Most of the top clips featured late-night TV hosts roasting Trump and speculated that the president wants certain secrets kept under wraps.
Last Friday, Trump sued the Wall Street Journal for libel over the newspaper’s account of a birthday letter to Epstein bearing Trump’s name and an outline of a naked woman.
On CNN’s NewsNight, New York Post editor at large Kelly Jane Torrance said the new Journal lawsuit might be a “bad idea” for Trump because “it’s the Streisand Effect all over again”.
“Donald Trump is bringing so much more attention to this story than if he had just ignored it,” she said.
Two recent polls indicate that the public’s interest in Epstein and the Epstein-adjacent universe of conspiracy theories does not outrank public policy matters like immigration and inflation.
However, when polled on the topic, Americans say the government should disclose more. “Americans overwhelmingly suspect that the files contain damaging information about powerful and wealthy people,” CBS News pollsters reported on Sunday.
Brown told CNN that she has been even busier this month — with source calls, TV interviews and the like — than she was when Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in 2019.
The reporter remains intrigued by unresolved questions, particularly about the sources of Epstein’s riches. “As they say, ‘Follow the money,'” she remarked on AC360 last week.
Brown also said she believes government officials “want to put a lid on this,” and that has made some of Epstein’s victims even more anxious.
“I spoke to a couple of them over the past few days and, you know, they’re afraid,” Brown said.
Then Brown paraphrased what the sources had said to her: “The more our government covers up for Epstein, the more fearful I become because I keep thinking, ‘Who is this guy? Who are the people that are in these files?'”
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