What facilitated that is a wider climate of scorn and impunity: the value system that still, even after Epstein was convicted, did not disqualify him from his friendship with others, nor disqualified those others from being appointed to roles such as British ambassador to the United States. Those caught in the revelations resort to the same excuses. We didn’t know. We were lied to. We did not know the full extent. Some perhaps took the word of a convicted criminal that it was a bit more complicated than that; others took the word of a man who was twice forced to resign from government, and who continued his relationship with Epstein even after his conviction.