Does the term “Emperors Club VIP” mean anything to anyone anymore? For those with short memories or just too young to know, that seems to have been a rather notable high-end escort agency popular among some unknown contingent of our ruling class (or similar) a couple of decades ago. I say high-end because it seems that the sitting governor of the state of New York at the time only rated the #9 spot on the office speed-dial. The actual extent of the “unknown contingent” – those rated both above and below the #9 spot – was eventually left only to our imagination because, when it all went down in 2008, the FBI took possession of everything and – GET THIS FOLKS: Never leaked a damn thing beyond the Eliot Spitzer material. As I mentioned in various old posts like the one reproduced below: “I can only imagine the immense collective power that resides in [the still anonymous] Clients #1 through #8.”

I bring this up because of more recent news items like this:

AG Pam Bondi says ‘truckload of evidence’ related to Epstein case has been delivered to FBI headquarters

Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed Monday that her office has received a “truckload of evidence” related to the Jeffrey Epstein case at FBI’s headquarters — all of which she promised to soon make public.

Bondi had given the FBI New York field office a Feb. 28 deadline to turn over information about the late pedophile’s case. She previously accused the office of withholding “thousands of pages of documents” related to Epstein ahead of the Justice Department’s long-awaited release of his contact book and flight logs.

“So, we got them all — hopefully all of them — by Friday at 8 a.m.,” the attorney general told Fox News host Sean Hannity, noting that there are “thousands of pages of documents.”

“I have the FBI going through them,” Bondi said, adding that FBI Director Kash Patel “is going to get us a detailed report as to why” the documents had been withheld. …

[Emphasis added]

And, speaking of Kash Patel, let’s look at this one too:

Kash Delivers Earthshaking Response After FBI Tries to Trick Bondi With Misleading Epstein Files

In a message posted to the social media platform X, Patel responded to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s accusations against (and directives toward) the FBI Field Office in New York by declaring that the Bureau, on his watch, will no longer conceal evidence pertaining to the late child sex offender and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Patel did not mention Epstein by name. But the context of his message left no room for doubt.

“The FBI is entering a new era—one that will be defined by integrity, accountability, and the unwavering pursuit of justice,” Patel began. He then promised “no cover-ups, no missing documents, and no stone left unturned.” …

Earlier in the day, Bondi had published a letter alleging insubordination at the FBI Field Office in New York. She indicated that the FBI had lied to her about having produced all materials pertaining to …

“THEN, last night a whistleblower contacted Bondi & revealed that the SDNY [Southern District of New York] was hiding potentially thousands of Epstein files, defying Bondi’s order to give them all to her,” she added. …

The FBI spent years hunting down and prosecuting ordinary Americans in connection with the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021.

Meanwhile, that agency has shown no interest in bringing Epstein’s powerful pedophile clients to justice. In fact, the FBI has played an active role in concealing nearly all Epstein-related materials. …

[Emphasis added]

Granted, the focus on the big shiny object that is the Epstein case is warranted but…for all the promise offered in the political current situation, I would like Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel to clean up some of this other dirt while they are at it.

As promised above, here is that old post of mine:

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Power and Privilege (First posted on November 14, 2018)

With a hat tip to Instapundit, I bring you today’s winner of the internet:

“If you want to know what power looks like, watch a man safely, even smugly, do interviews for decades, without ever worrying whether he will be asked the questions he doesn’t want to answer.” — Monica Lewinsky

While I did hesitate a bit to bring that to you because the topic easily slips, a mere two decades hence, into the all too common (and, for the most part, intentionally — either consciously or unconsciously) misunderstood Clinton impeachment arena that embarrasses far too many (even in this neighborhood), there is a whole lot of awesomeness in that one sentence. For those rather new to the news-junkie game (i.e., less than a decade of really paying attention) this hits hard at the serial dishonesty that our politico-media class has operated under since 1992.

“We” all had to pretend not to notice the rapist just off the stage in order to allow the victim-bashing, enabling wife to try her hand in the big leagues too. The unrelenting repetition of that pretending went on for so long that it became a learned habit for some and the primary mode of unthinkingly observing the game for a whole new generation or more. So much so that far too many don’t even flinch at the similar serial (and oh-so-tiresome) dishonesty of the “Trump-Charlottesville-Racialism” types on either side of the aisle. But, I digress.

And yet, as a commenter at Instapundit mentioned, the word “power” just isn’t correct. As I have written about before, the most magnificent demonstration of real power to slip into the public arena (while at the same time remaining mostly unnoticed), and the one that must serve as the definitive demonstration of the term for all time, can best be summed up in these [eighteen] words:

I can only imagine the immense collective power that resides in [the still anonymous] Clients #1 through #8

That previously mentioned commenter suggested “privilege” as the more proper term but, while I cannot improve on that at this time, I do suspect improvement is possible. Any thoughts?

___ ___ ___

I suspect that (finally) cleaning up this old Emperors Club VIP mess would reveal in hindsight many embarrassments and hypocrisies along the lines of having “to pretend not to notice the rapist just off the stage” that would have changed many of the familiar faces in seats of power and media over the last decade and a half. While late to need and mostly irrelevant, I would like to see the account settled for those powerful and privileged who abused both of those trump cards and think they got away with it. I hope they are at least starting to get a little nervous about this.