The Epstein Files: Power, Secrecy, and the Cost of Collective Silence

Some conversations are uncomfortable by design. The latest session in The Nanson's geopolitical discussion series was precisely that — and all the more valuable for it.

APAC Advisors CEO Steve Okun joined journalists, academics, and business leaders for The Epstein Files: Power, Secrecy & the Rules for the Rest. The evening was conceived by Alicia Ali, whose framing set the tone: these conversations matter because the questions raised by the Epstein files are not confined to one country or one moment in time. APAC Advisors' Noemie Viterale helped develop the dialogue and opened the discussion.

The group agreed the case is not simply a crime story — it is a stress test for democratic institutions. The files expose a two-tiered justice system, one that functions very differently depending on how much power you hold. The comparison to the Panama Papers was instructive, but the Epstein case goes further, layering financial entanglement with exploitation and raising harder questions about what is known versus what is ever acted upon.

A clinical psychology perspective from Sandy Tong added something the headlines rarely do: an honest examination of why victims stay silent for years. The answer is not passivity — it is shame, fear, and a rational calculation that power protects itself.

The most striking reframe of the evening: perpetrators like Epstein should not be treated as anomalies. Systems of permissiveness are cumulative, built slowly through small accommodations and years of collective silence. That shifts the question from how did this happen? to what do we change so it cannot?

The room left with cautious optimism. Awareness isn't accountability — but it is the precondition for it.

Thanks to discussion leaders Timothy McLaughlin, Sandy Tong, and Crispina Robert, and to the Nanson team — Kaajal Shivdasani, Tsoler Jekalian, Shan Kumar, Sophie Fitsall, and Yessi Y. — for building a space where these conversations can happen.