Journalists and researchers will spend the next months ferreting through the Epstein files in search of further criminal conduct or a new conspiratorial wrinkle. But one truth has already emerged.

记者与研究人员将在未来数月里深挖爱泼斯坦相关文件，寻找更多犯罪行为或新的阴谋论线索。但有一个真相已经浮出水面。

In unsparing detail, the documents lay bare the once-furtive activities of an unaccountable elite, largely made up of rich and powerful men from business, politics, academia and show business. The pages tell a story of a heinous criminal given a free ride by the ruling class in which he dwelled, all because he had things to offer them: money, connections, sumptuous dinner parties, a private plane, a secluded island and, in some cases, sex.

这些文件以毫不留情的细节揭露了一群不受问责的精英阶层曾经隐秘的活动，他们有钱有势，大多来自商界、政界、学术界和娱乐圈。文件讲述了一个令人发指的罪犯如何被他所属的统治阶层庇护纵容，只因为他能为这些人提供金钱、人脉、奢华晚宴、私人飞机、隐秘岛屿，在某些情况下，还有性服务。

That story of impunity is all the more outrageous now in the midst of rising populist anger and ever-growing inequality. The Caligula-like antics of Jeffrey Epstein and friends occurred over two decades that saw the decline of America’s manufacturing sector and the subprime mortgage crisis, in which millions of Americans lost their homes.

如今，在民粹主义情绪高涨、不平等日益加剧的背景下，这种逍遥法外的故事显得愈发令人愤慨。杰弗里·爱泼斯坦及其圈子的卡里古拉式荒诞放纵的行径持续了20多年。而这期间，美国制造业衰落，次贷危机爆发，数以百万计的美国人失去了家园。

If Mr. Epstein’s goal was to build a wall of protection around his abuse by surrounding himself with the well connected, he failed in the end. But both before and after he was first prosecuted for abusing girls, his correspondence described a network of people whose high-flying lives belied the struggles of ordinary Americans. And at the center of that network was a sexual predator seemingly on top of the world.

如果爱泼斯坦的目的是靠结交权贵为自己的性侵行为筑起保护墙，他最终还是失败了。但无论在他首次因性侵少女被起诉之前还是之后，他的往来通信都描绘出一个权贵网络，这群人纸醉金迷的生活与普通美国人的挣扎形成鲜明反差。而在这个网络中心的，是一个看似站在世界之巅的性掠夺者。

“We’ve heard so much about the Epstein scandal over the past several years,” said Nicole Hemmer, a history professor at Vanderbilt University who writes frequently about political culture. “And yet people do seem shocked by the scope of elite complicity in his world. It’s a level of corruption that the public is now getting a full view of.”

“过去几年我们已经听过太多关于爱泼斯坦丑闻的消息，”经常撰写政治文化相关文章的范德堡大学历史学教授妮可·亨默说。“但人们似乎依然对精英阶层在他的世界里共谋的程度感到震惊。公众现在终于完整看到了这种腐败的程度。”

In 2002, Mr. Epstein hosted former President Bill Clinton and the actor Kevin Spacey on a tour of African countries aboard his private jet.

2002年，爱泼斯坦曾邀请前总统克林顿和演员凯文·史派西搭乘他的私人飞机前往非洲多国访问。

His talent for entertaining attracted interest from one of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk, who emailed Mr. Epstein in 2012 to ask, “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” (Mr. Musk has said on social media that he “had very little correspondence with Epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island.”)

他擅长款待客人的能力吸引了世界顶级首富埃隆·马斯克的注意。马斯克在2012年给爱泼斯坦发邮件问道：“你岛上最疯狂的派对是哪天/哪夜？”（马斯克曾在社交媒体表示，他“与爱泼斯坦往来极少，并多次拒绝了其登岛邀请”。）

He dispensed favors to, and rubbed elbows with, Woody Allen; Noam Chomsky, the linguist and intellectual; Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel in the Clinton investigation; Kathryn Ruemmler, a former Obama White House counsel and currently the general counsel of Goldman Sachs; Stephen K. Bannon, one of President Trump’s top political allies; Deepak Chopra, the New Age guru; the film producer Barry Josephson; Lawrence H. Summers, a former president of Harvard and former Treasury secretary; Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew; Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York; Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway; and a cavalcade of financial titans.

他向以下人士提供便利并密切往来：伍迪·艾伦；语言学家与学者诺姆·乔姆斯基；负责调查克林顿案的独立检察官肯尼斯·斯塔尔；前奥巴马白宫法律顾问、现高盛总法律顾问凯瑟琳·鲁姆勒；特朗普总统最重要的政治盟友之一史蒂芬·班农；新时代灵性导师迪帕克·乔布拉；电影制片人巴里·约瑟夫森；前哈佛大学校长、前财政部长劳伦斯·萨默斯；前英国安德鲁王子；前约克公爵夫人莎拉·弗格森；挪威王储妃梅特-玛丽特，以及一众金融巨头。

史蒂芬·班农是与爱泼斯坦有往来的权势人物之一，这些人皆拥有广泛的人脉关系。

James E. Staley, who recently stepped down as the chief executive of Barclay’s in the wake of allegations involving his ties to Mr. Epstein, emailed Mr. Epstein in 2014 to suggest that upper-caste Americans like themselves were unlikely to ever face a populist uprising like the protests taking place in Brazil at the time.

近期因与爱泼斯坦关联的指控辞去巴克莱银行首席执行官一职的詹姆斯·斯塔利在2014年给爱泼斯坦发邮件称，像他们这样的美国上层精英，几乎不可能遭遇当时巴西那样的民粹主义抗议浪潮。

Pointing to Super Bowl ads that year, Mr. Staley wrote: “Its all about hip blacks in hip cars with white women. The group that should be in the streets, has been bought off. By Jay-Z.”

斯塔利在提到当年的超级碗广告时写道：“全都是时髦黑人开着豪车载着白人女性。本该上街抗议的那群人已经被收买了。收买者正是Jay-Z。”

詹姆斯·斯塔利在卷入与爱泼斯坦有关的指控后，辞去了巴克莱银行首席执行官的职务。

The shocking nature of some of the revelations, combined with the prominence and status of those in Mr. Epstein’s orbit, has done nothing to quiet the conspiracy theories that his behavior spawned and that both the right and the left have sought to weaponize for political advantage. If anything, the raft of new details has spiraled into feverish new speculation with little or no factual basis.

部分爆料的骇人性质，加上爱泼斯坦圈子里人物的显赫地位非但没有平息由此滋生的阴谋论，反而让左右两派都试图将其用作武器，以谋取政治利益。新披露的大量细节反而催生出更多近乎狂热、几乎毫无事实依据的猜测。

In 2014, Mr. Epstein received an email from an associate whose name has been redacted that said in full, “Thank you for a fun night … your littlest girl was a little naughty.” In another email, Mr. Epstein instructed a recipient whose name is also redacted to buy several sex toys, adding: “I want you to talk as nasty, vulgar, imaginative as you can … It will free your mind. Its like a mental sneeze.”

2014年，爱泼斯坦收到一封联系人（姓名被涂黑）的邮件，全文只有一句：“谢谢你带来的愉快夜晚……你最小的那个女孩有点调皮。”在另一封邮件中，爱泼斯坦指示另一位同样被涂黑的收件人购买多件性玩具，并补充道：“我要你说最下流、最粗俗、最放浪形骸的话……这会解放你的思想。就像一次精神上的喷嚏。”

Mr. Epstein wrote to another undisclosed recipient in 2009, who was identified on Wednesday in a House hearing as Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, a powerful Emirati businessman: “where are you? are you ok, I loved the torture video.”

2009年，爱泼斯坦写信给另一位未公开身份的收件人——此人在周三的一场国会听证会上被确认为阿联酋权势商人苏丹·艾哈迈德·本·苏莱姆：“你在哪？还好吗，我喜欢那段酷刑视频。”

Lacking context, such messages are subject to speculation about their meaning and provide fresh opportunities for those intent on drawing attention to themselves and their views.

由于缺乏上下文，这类信息很容易被随意解读，亦为那些渴望博取眼球之人提供了新素材。

An assistant to Mr. Epstein wrote to him in 2011: “I ordered sweet young coconuts from Thailand for you and they just arrived … just so you don’t have to drink juices from old hairy things.”

爱泼斯坦的一名助手在2011年写信给他：“我为你从泰国订了清甜的嫩椰子，刚到货……这样你就不用喝那些老毛玩意儿榨的汁了。”

Underscoring how even the apparently mundane can be stretched into the potentially conspiratorial, frequent references to pizza have given fresh life to the discredited 2016 “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, in which prominent Democrats were said to be torturing and raping children in the basement of a Washington restaurant. That the places and characters in Pizzagate are almost entirely different from the ones appearing in the Epstein files has not stopped some from insisting that there is a connection.

就连看似平淡的内容也能被歪曲成潜在阴谋，例如文件中频繁出现的“披萨”一词，让2016年已被证伪的“披萨门”阴谋论死灰复燃——该论调称，知名民主党人在华盛顿一家餐厅的地下室虐待、强奸儿童。尽管披萨门涉及的地点和人物与爱泼斯坦文件几乎完全不同，仍有人坚称两者存在关联。

Ms. Hemmer, the Vanderbilt professor, said that the shadowy nature of Mr. Epstein’s life, coupled with the Trump administration’s haphazard production of the documents, was “bound to beef up a ton of conspiracy theories.”

范德堡大学的亨默教授表示，爱泼斯坦的生平本就扑朔迷离，再加上特朗普政府杂乱无章地公布文件，“注定会催生大量阴谋论”。

Newly released video logs of the prison wing where Mr. Epstein was found dead, for example, suggest that a human figure not previously accounted for in the records was moving in the general direction of Mr. Epstein’s cell late that evening.

例如，爱泼斯坦被发现死亡的监狱区域最新公布的监控记录显示，当晚深夜，有一个此前未被记录的人影朝爱泼斯坦牢房的方向移动。

This has led some internet sleuths to conclude that Mr. Epstein, whose death in federal custody in 2019 was ruled a suicide, might have been killed. Others have speculated that he might not be dead at all, given that Mr. Epstein testified in a deposition in 2017 that he had a barbed-wire tattoo on his left biceps, but no such tattoo is visible in the recently released photo of his body.

这让一些网络侦探得出结论：2019年在联邦羁押期间死亡并被裁定为自杀的爱泼斯坦可能是他杀。还有人猜测他根本没死，理由是爱泼斯坦在2017年的一份证词中称自己左臂二头肌有一道铁丝网纹身，但在最新公布的遗体照片中却看不到这处纹身。

Representative Ro Khanna, the California Democrat who worked with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Republican congresswoman, and Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, to pass legislation compelling the release of the documents, dismissed the conspiracy theories.

加州民主党众议员罗·卡纳曾与前共和党众议员玛乔丽·泰勒·格林、肯塔基州共和党众议员托马斯·马西共同推动法案，强制公开相关文件。他对这些阴谋论嗤之以鼻。

But, he said in an interview, “we must ask ourselves how we have produced an elite that is so immature, reckless and arrogant.”

但他在采访中说：“我们必须扪心自问，我们为何会造就出如此幼稚、鲁莽且傲慢的精英阶层。”

While Mr. Epstein’s remarkable web of connections suggests to some that he was a puppet master calling the shots for a cabal of elites, that same web offers at least some proof to the contrary. Mr. Epstein counted presidents and cabinet members as his friends, but his influence on American policymaking was negligible.

尽管爱泼斯坦惊人的人脉网络让一些人认为他是操控精英小团体的幕后黑手，但这个网络本身至少也提供了部分反证。爱泼斯坦把总统和内阁成员当作朋友，但他对美国政策制定的影响微乎其微。

His chums in the media were not newspaper publishers and TV network chief executives but those farther down the food chain, including the author Michael Wolff and a New York Times financial reporter, Landon Thomas Jr., who left the paper after admitting that he had solicited money from Mr. Epstein for a personal charity.

他在媒体界的朋友并非报业大亨或电视网高管，而是食物链更底层的人物，包括作家迈克尔·沃尔夫，以及前《纽约时报》财经记者小兰登·托马斯——后者承认曾为一个个人慈善机构向爱泼斯坦募款后离开了报社。

Notably absent from his coterie were any federal prosecutors, judges or law enforcement figures who could have allowed him to escape justice.

值得注意的是，爱泼斯坦的圈子里没有任何能让他逃脱法律制裁的联邦检察官、法官或执法人员。

In the end, Mr. Epstein was arrested, charged with serious sex crimes and died in prison while awaiting trial. His associate Ghislaine Maxwell also remains incarcerated.

最终，爱泼斯坦被捕，被控严重性侵犯罪，并在候审期间死于狱中。他的同伙吉斯莱恩·马克斯韦尔目前仍在服刑。