If I'm ever accused of a crime, please, please, get literally anyone other than Alan Dershowitz to defend me in the court of public opinion.

Stuff like this is deeply unserious.

> I have absolutely no doubt that Epstein never worked for any intelligence agency. If he had, he would surely have told me and his other lawyers, who would have used that information to get him a better deal.

"Yes, I'll betray the Mossad! That sounds great."

(I'd note that Dersh himself is accused of being in the files. He has a vested interest in discrediting the whole thing.)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/epstein-li...

> Former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz issued an explosive response maintaining his innocence after a tranche of documents relating to his former client Jeffrey Epstein raised allegations that he took part in the late paedophile’s sex trafficking ring.

> However, the newly released documents contained allegations that Mr Dershowitz forced a minor girl, named in court documents as Jane Doe 3, to have sex with him on several occasions. The filings by attorneys for Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, in which Mr Dershowitz is named a total of 137 times, also allege that he witnessed other girls being abused. Mr Dershowitz previously denied allegations in 2015 that he had sex with an underage girl.

Seems like damage-control.

Pretty much sums it up.

hoo boy this needs a 100 foot tall flashing neon sign saying "consider the source"

Dershowitz was Epstein's lawyer in 2006 [0] when he was granted immunity from federal prosecution:

> According to the Miami Herald, the non-prosecution agreement "essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes". At the time, this halted the investigation and sealed the indictment. The Miami Herald said: "Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims."

Dershowitz was also accused [1] by Virginia Giuffre of being one of the people she had sex with while being trafficked by Epstein. she later retracted those allegations after a defamation lawsuit from Dershowitz.

and now, here's Dershowitz claiming that the "client list" doesn't exist, don't worry about it, there's nothing to see here.

however, if a "client list" did exist [2] it seems like there's a damn good chance Dershowitz would be on it, in some form or another, potentially corroborating Giuffre's allegations and contradicting Dershowitz's denials.

also, a potential release of Epstein-related files from the DOJ might include documents about that 2006 sweetheart deal that would paint Dershowitz in a pretty bad light.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Non-prosecutio...

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz#Retracted_sexu...

2: I think there's excessive focus, but for understandable reasons, around the idea of a single "Client List.docx" document, when the reality is much more likely that there are a huge pile of documents seized under a search warrant, and not necessarily one single smoking-gun document.