Description:

Review

Volume 2 of One Nation Under Blackmail focuses its lens on the figure around whom the entire two-volume project pivots: Jeffrey Epstein. Where Volume 1 laid the historical groundwork of organized crime-intelligence networks stretching back to the mid-twentieth century, this volume traces Epstein's trajectory from his early years teaching at the Dalton School through his Wall Street career at Bear Stearns, his murky 1980s activities as a self-described financial "bounty hunter," and his eventual emergence as the operator of a sprawling sex trafficking and sexual blackmail enterprise with deep intelligence connections.

Whitney Webb's method is forensic and relentless. She constructs her case through an overwhelming accumulation of public records, SEC filings, court documents, flight logs, corporate registrations, newspaper archives, and on-the-record interviews. The book's core argument is that Epstein was not an anomaly or a lone predator, but a node in a multigenerational network where organized crime, intelligence agencies (principally American and Israeli), and financial power have been deeply intertwined since at least the mid-twentieth century. Webb traces how Epstein's sex trafficking operation functioned as an intelligence tool -- a means of gathering compromising material on powerful individuals to ensure their compliance.

The early chapters are among the strongest, building a densely documented web of connections between Epstein and figures like British arms dealer Douglas Leese, Saudi weapons broker Adnan Khashoggi, and media baron Robert Maxwell. Webb draws on testimony from Steven Hoffenberg and former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe to argue that Epstein was involved in arms trafficking and was brought into Israeli intelligence circles by Maxwell in the mid-1980s. The documentation of the Towers Financial Ponzi scheme, in which Epstein was deeply implicated but from which his name was mysteriously dropped, demonstrates Webb's talent for uncovering how legal investigations were systematically redirected away from Epstein.

The book's middle section maps the world of Leslie Wexner through his mentor chain: Max Fisher, A. Alfred Taubman, and their shared connections to organized crime-linked figures, defense contractors, and intelligence-adjacent philanthropic organizations. Webb traces how the Gouletas real estate empire, the savings and loan crisis, Drexel Burnham Lambert's junk bond universe, and Wexner's retail empire were all connected through a surprisingly compact network of individuals, attorneys, and financial institutions. The chapters on Wexner's co-founding of the Mega Group with Charles Bronfman, and its intersection with pro-Israel lobbying and intelligence activity, are particularly detailed.

Webb's documentation of Epstein and Maxwell's sex trafficking operation draws on court filings, victim testimony, and police records to build a granular picture of their methods: the targeting of aspiring models through Jean Luc Brunel and Victoria's Secret, the recruitment of art students and musicians, and the systematic exploitation of economically disadvantaged girls in Palm Beach and New York. The use of hidden cameras to record victims with powerful clients -- creating the blackmail material that was the operation's true product -- is documented through victim statements and law enforcement reports.

The final chapters are the book's most ambitious contribution. Webb traces the Maxwell sisters' deep involvement in Silicon Valley through companies like the McKinley Group, CommTouch, and Chiliad, making a documented case that Christine and Isabel Maxwell continued their father's intelligence-linked technology work. The connection she draws between the stolen PROMIS software of the 1980s, the Pentagon's shuttered Total Information Awareness program, Christine Maxwell's co-founding of Chiliad with the CIA's chief information officer, and the subsequent rise of Peter Thiel's Palantir is provocative and well-sourced. Her core insight -- that the transition from sexual blackmail to digital surveillance represents a continuity rather than a break in how these networks operate -- is the book's most important argument.

The work has limitations. At over 600 pages, it can be repetitive and occasionally loses the reader in tangential biographical detail about peripheral figures. Webb sometimes draws inferences from proximity -- the fact that two people attended the same fundraiser or appeared in the same contact book does not always demonstrate collaboration. Some arguments rely substantially on the testimony of figures like Hoffenberg, whose credibility is complicated by his own criminal history. And the sheer density of names, dates, and corporate entities can become overwhelming, occasionally obscuring the narrative's central thread.

Nevertheless, the cumulative weight of documentation is formidable. Webb has produced a deeply researched work that takes seriously the institutional dimensions of the Epstein case that mainstream coverage has consistently underexplored. Whether one accepts every connection she draws, Volume 2 succeeds in demonstrating that Epstein cannot be understood outside the context of the intelligence and organized crime networks that enabled, protected, and ultimately discarded him.

Reviewed 2026-04-15

Notable Quotes

The end result of is that the long-time reliance on the control of information, including information used for blackmail, by the power structures discussed throughout both volumes of this book has led them to create a society that gives them access to more information than ever before. Enabled by remarkable advances in technology, today the United States and much of the world have their digital secrets in the hands of people who will do absolutely anything to maintain their wealth, power and control. Essentially, the US -- rather than one nation under God -- has become one nation under blackmail.

Webb's thesis statement from the Introduction, summarizing how the evolution from physical to digital blackmail has expanded control from targeting elites to encompassing the entire population — surveillance, blackmail, power, technology, digital privacy

I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone.

Alex Acosta's reported statement to the Trump transition team explaining why he signed off on Epstein's lenient plea deal, as recounted in the book's discussion of Epstein's intelligence ties — intelligence agencies, impunity, institutional protection, espionage

He was my best friend for years. My closest friend for years. We ran a team of people on Wall Street, investment people that raised these billion dollars illegally. He was my guy, my wingman.

Steven Hoffenberg describing his close working relationship with Epstein during the Towers Financial Ponzi scheme, one of the largest in history — financial crime, Ponzi schemes, Wall Street, complicity

The guy's a genius. He's great at selling securities. And he has no moral compass.

Douglas Leese's recommendation of Epstein to Hoffenberg, as recounted by Hoffenberg to the Washington Post -- a characterization that defined Epstein's usefulness to those who employed him — amorality, financial talent, exploitation, character assessment

we all knew what he was doing.

Cindy McCain, wife of Senator John McCain, stating at a January 2020 event that Epstein's crimes were an open secret among the powerful, and that authorities were 'afraid' to apprehend him — complicity, institutional failure, open secrets, power

He [Maxwell] wanted us to accept him [Epstein] as part of our group. I'm not denying that we were at the time a group that it was Nick Davies, it was Maxwell, it was myself and our team from Israel, we were doing what we were doing.

Former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe describing how Robert Maxwell introduced Epstein into his intelligence circle in the mid-1980s — intelligence recruitment, Israeli intelligence, Robert Maxwell, espionage networks

When I was with him, I felt power. Like being at the White House. Beyond that, it was a collective power, not my personal power. I was part of this unit.

Isabel Maxwell describing her father Robert Maxwell to Haaretz, suggesting the Maxwell children functioned as extensions of their father's intelligence-linked power — dynastic power, family networks, intelligence operations, legacy

My father was most influential in my life. He was a very accomplished man and achieved many of his goals during his life. I learned very much from him and have made many of his ways my own.

Isabel Maxwell on Robert Maxwell's influence, given while she served as president of the Israeli tech company CommTouch -- a company with documented intelligence connections — legacy, family influence, intelligence continuity, Israel

He's got to spend $375m a year to keep his tax-free status, why not allow me to help him.

Isabel Maxwell speaking in a 'faux southern belle accent' about persuading Bill Gates to invest in CommTouch, suggesting the investment came through the Gates Foundation rather than personally — philanthropy, tech industry, Bill Gates, intelligence-linked companies

One of the post-September 11 themes is collaboration and information sharing. We're looking at tools that facilitate communication in ways that we don't have today.

CIA Chief Information Officer Alan Wade articulating the post-9/11 intelligence objective that would drive the creation of Total Information Awareness, Chiliad, and ultimately Palantir — surveillance, post-9/11, intelligence sharing, mass data collection

The major effect of the panopticon is to induce in the inmate a state of consciousness and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.

Webb quoting Foucault's Discipline and Punish to frame Palantir's surveillance apparatus, noting that Palantir CEO Alex Karp chose to pose beneath a portrait of Foucault for a New York Times profile — surveillance, panopticon, social control, power structures

a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived 'enemies of the state' almost instantaneously.

A senior government official describing Main Core, the database developed during Iran-Contra using stolen PROMIS software, designed for use during continuity of government protocols — mass surveillance, political dissent, continuity of government, civil liberties

a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.

The first president of the National Endowment for Democracy confessing to the Washington Post in 1991, cited by Webb to illustrate how covert intelligence operations are laundered into legitimate-seeming institutions — intelligence laundering, covert operations, institutional fronts, democracy promotion

she is secretive to the point of paranoia and her business affairs are deeply mysterious.

The Sunday Times describing Ghislaine Maxwell's business activities in the late 1990s, when she described herself as an 'internet operator' while secretly building a business empire 'as opaque as her father's' — secrecy, Ghislaine Maxwell, business fronts, intelligence operations

She would go to every art gallery opening and was a familiar presence at auctions and parties at Christie's and Sotheby's. The art world is full of pretty young girls and many of them are young and broke. You'd see her everywhere, often with beautiful blonde girls in tow.

A former friend of Maxwell describing how she recruited young women from the art world for Epstein's trafficking operation, targeting auction houses controlled by Epstein's benefactors — sex trafficking, recruitment, art world, exploitation of vulnerable women

He has a licence to carry a concealed weapon, once claimed to have worked for the CIA although he now denies it -- and owns properties all over America. Once he arrived at the London home of a British arms dealer bringing a gift -- a New York police-issue pump-action riot gun.

Nigel Rosser's 2001 Evening Standard article on Epstein, one of the earliest published profiles linking him to intelligence, arms dealing, and Bill Gates — intelligence connections, arms dealing, Epstein profile, early warnings

Jeffrey Epstein was a major participant and principal in the arms trafficking and money laundering operations of Adnan Khashoggi and Sir Douglas Leese, jointly. For Israel, for what they were doing in the United Kingdom.

Steven Hoffenberg's claim to journalist Edward Szall about Epstein's role in arms trafficking during the early 1980s, parallel to Iran-Contra — arms trafficking, money laundering, intelligence operations, Israel

Max is a patrician, in the best sense of the word. He is so courtly that reporters are charmed by his taking the time to talk and seeming -- when he does say something -- to talk frankly with them. Yet I wonder if they ever analyze what he tells them, how little he reveals. You won't get any secrets from Max.

A. Alfred Taubman describing Max Fisher's masterful media management, revealing how Fisher maintained his public image while concealing his activities behind a veneer of candor — media manipulation, public image, power, secrecy

Upon realizing the reality of the situation, as this book has endeavored to show, non-compliance is a must when facing a system that, among other crimes, is willing to enable and engage in the unconscionable exploitation and abuse of children to further its stranglehold over the country, and ultimately over us.

Webb's closing argument, framing non-compliance with corrupt institutional power as a moral imperative in light of the networks documented throughout both volumes — resistance, institutional corruption, moral imperative, child exploitation

The more we live our lives on our phones and our computers, the more we can be exploited if and when certain groups and networks with access to our data decide that they want something from us.

Webb's warning about how digital dependence has made the entire population vulnerable to the same blackmail tactics once reserved for political elites — digital privacy, mass surveillance, data exploitation, blackmail evolution

In a world where blackmail is overwhelmingly electronic, people like Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell become liabilities to be silenced, rather than assets to protect.

Webb's argument that the shift from sexual to digital blackmail rendered Epstein expendable -- a key claim about the motive behind his death — digital blackmail, expendability, Epstein's death, technological obsolescence