let’s be realistic
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If he paid me $100m I’ll tell him whatever he wants to hear lol
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Like the degree to which the reporter defers to a biglaw produced “independent investigation” is absolutely staggering. You don’t need to be an expert in tax law to instantly see that it is pure bullshit!
Imagine you are a billionaire. You have the best lawyers in the world on retainer. Do you:
- Walk into Skadden / Cravath / Boies / Wachtell and pay the literal best experts on the face of the planet $2,000 per hour (or $5 million per year if you hire them for the entire year!) to design an estate plan
or
- Pay $150 million to a non-lawyer who is a convicted sex offender
LOLOLOLOL and don’t tell me he just happened to agree to a “non-standard” billing arrangement because he didn’t know what he was doing, this is one of the most sophisticated consumers of legal services on the planet.
NYT reporter also seriously telling on himself here acting like a GRAT is some super complex tax strategy only employed by, uh, Jeffrey Epstein, or something, pretty much anyone worth more than $50 million already uses GRATs and any marginally competent estate lawyer can do it for like $500 per hour, max.
Also, “Mr. Epstein killed himself in prison…” JLAW OK GIUSE
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I mean, they can frame the story as “here is what Black says he paid Epstein $150M for. Today, we interviewed 10 of the top estate and trust attorneys in Manhattan and asked them how much they would charge to plan an estate for a high net worth client” or even “here is the hourly rate for a partner at the top estate firms in NYC, and how many hours of work you’d need from those partners to add up to $150M”. Instead, they framed the story as “hey guys, we looked into it and actually this guy paid 9 figures for estate planning, which seems legit to us!”
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Dun doxx me bruv
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I mean, the NY Post somehow managed to cover it correctly:
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He’s a billionaire who made his money thru investments too so pretty sure he knows a few cheaper guys than the child sex trafficker but he picked him for reasons lol
https://twitter.com/davidenrich/status/1354239228004204545
Enrich is financial editor at the NYT. He is apparently under the impression that their piece effectively communicated skepticism.
One of the problems at the NYT is the extent to which they think everyone already has context on every story and can read between the lines. If you’re skeptical about something then the headline should communicate that, you don’t bury it in like paragraph fucking 6 of the story.
Edit, I rarely tweet but:
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It makes a lot of sense if you’re not deliberately obtuse. “Why is this billionaire giving millions of dollars to a child sex trafficker? IT MAKES NO SENSE.”
I get that reporters can’t straight-up accuse people of diddling kinds without hard evidence but there has to be another way to report this kind of story without doing this kabuki theater routine where journalists pretend to be idiots and readers are expected to read between the lines.
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Yeah, in almost all cases where people are alleging a conspiracy there are underlying facts that make such an explanation unlikely. See Robinhood/Citadel.
In this case ALL available evidence points to Leon Black having sex with children. Don’t assume your audience knows “it doesn’t make sense” = “Leon Black almost certainly did some really bad shit.” People are stupid, duh.
Yeah it’s weird though, because if I’m the type of person that knows paying some unqualified muppet with a eugenics ranch $148M for tax advice doesn’t pass any test, I also know that the most powerful man in the world could very easily own an exercise bike and a nice watch. Yet, it seems like they really went out of their way to point out the decadence of those items.
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“What exactly is a ‘device’ used in ‘sexual activities?’ Would bath oil, a tub, or a table qualify?”
Your honor, my client is a creepy incel who doesn’t know anything about the sex or sex toys, therefore she is clearly not guilty of doing the pedo sex crimes.
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Wouldn’t want to besmirch her good name.
If you’re gonna traffic and rape kids, make sure it’s the worst possible crazy shit you can imagine or else a judge might release it to the public.
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I can’t even come up with an analogy to highlight how ridiculous this is.
Imagine a drug prosecution where the prosecution and defense agree to keep substantially all factual information redacted. Good lord.
I’m not mentally ready to watch her walk free after the judge pulls some insane schenanigans.
These Q people are honestly on the right track, there is a ring of child abusing global elites, probably indeed including Bill Clinton!
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