.png)
For months, members of the political and media classes have been primed for major revelations in the Jeffrey Epstein saga that would take down some of the most powerful people in the country. They seemed to get a scalp recently, when Brad Karp stepped down as chairman of the high-powered law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison following the disclosure of emails that he exchanged with Epstein.
If this sounds like some sort of watershed moment in elite accountability, think again.
Although Karp’s reputation may have been tarnished in the public eye, his professional and personal fate is not remotely as bad as many people expected or as the media’s coverage has suggested.
When the emails first broke, lawyers piled into Reddit forums and group text chats wondering what Karp had been thinking and contemplating his demise. Some alumni of the firm — where I once worked — told me they wondered whether this would be the end of his legal career, an ignominious conclusion to a decades-long run at the center of the white-collar legal world.
In the end, however, Karp was not thrown overboard by the firm. Nobody “took him down,” as Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of the authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, claimed. As the firm’s own statement made clear, Karp is still a partner at the firm representing clients and participating in the firm’s hefty profits.
The reaction to Karp’s supposed downfall — generally received as a major development in Epstein-world accountability — is a cautionary tale about how easy it is for the political and media classes to go astray amidst the ongoing Epstein frenzy and to over-interpret developments to fit preexisting narratives or biases. Politicians in Washington are eager to justify their passage of the law requiring Epstein disclosures, particularly as controversy grows over the law’s wisdom; meanwhile, the public and the media alike are hungry for the earth-shattering revelations that they were promised by lawmakers.
A closer look at how Karp and Paul, Weiss have approached the Epstein mess for years — well before the “Epstein files” first erupted — offers some clues as to what’s really going on. Neither Karp nor Paul, Weiss offered a comment or answered a series of questions for this story. Alumni of the firm I spoke to were granted anonymity to speak candidly about still-influential figures in the legal profession.
Much has been made of the fact that the firm tapped M&A lawyer Scott Barshay to succeed Karp, but this is little repudiation of Karp. In fact, it was well known in legal circles that Karp had been planning for years to soon step down as chair even before he reportedly suffered a heart attack last January. The frontrunners had long been Barshay and Karen Dunn, a prominent Democratic lawyer who oversaw Kamala Harris’ 2024 debate prep. But Dunn left the firm last year after the firm’s wildly controversial deal with Trump to commit tens of millions of dollars in free legal work to causes supported by the Trump administration in exchange for Trump rescinding an executive order that targeted the firm. Barshay’s ascension at that point was practically guaranteed — the question was “when,” not “if.”
Put it all together, and what seems to have happened here is that Paul, Weiss accelerated a succession process that was already planned. The misconception that something truly dramatic occurred, however, is a useful one for Paul, Weiss, because it suggests that there has been some sort of meaningful turnaround at the firm whose partners were best known, until roughly two weeks ago, for capitulating to the Trump administration.
Indeed, the accounts from within the firm that have popped up in recent days have contained some curious details. According to one report, for instance, senior partners at the firm grew concerned as they saw the emails coming out “that Mr. Karp’s relationship with Mr. Epstein was deeper than they had thought.”
There is reason to be skeptical of this sentiment. Karp’s relationship with Epstein is not news among the firm’s most senior ranks, according to former partners at the firm, and there have been questions for years about how deep it actually went, notwithstanding Karp’s public and private protestations. Some have privately mused, however improbably, that Karp may have been so quick to cut the firm’s deal with the Trump White House last year in part to somehow curry favor and avoid being outed by the administration over his ties to the late convicted sex offender.
Karp’s colleagues were also not in the dark when the Financial Times reported back in 2022 that Karp had contacted the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to try to get prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into a woman who had accused Leon Black of sexually assaulting her. Black co-founded Apollo Global Management, and both Black and Apollo remain major Paul, Weiss clients, but Black’s personal and financial connections with Epstein had been broadly known for years even then. (The saga surrounding the assault accusation is a long and complicated one, but Black denied assaulting the woman and her case was eventually dismissed due to a nondisclosure agreement.)
Karp’s effort on behalf of Black was questionable, but he was not flying solo. According to a person familiar with the episode at the time, at least one Paul, Weiss partner joined Karp in the attempt to launch a criminal investigation by the Manhattan DA. In any case, the firm quickly moved on with business as usual after the news broke of Karp’s efforts. The truth is that there is a very high tolerance in the world of large law firms for these sorts of shenanigans — and for working with highly disreputable people if they generate enough business — and none of this will change anytime soon.
Still, as crazy as it all sounds, you could make a case on the merits that Karp only deserves the slap on the wrist that he received. We already knew that Karp corresponded with Epstein after his 2008 conviction for solicitation of prostitution with a minor, and the emails do not establish that Karp knew about Epstein’s subsequent misconduct.
You can riffle through them yourselves, but as I have written before, it is generally not a good idea to jump to firm conclusions because you saw some scattered emails, and it is important to recognize the difference between engaging in criminal misconduct and simply being friendly with a felon. You are of course free to judge someone harshly based on such a friendship given the particular circumstances — to criticize them, to withdraw your business or to change your consumption patterns — but by itself, it is not a crime, nor was it the reason that the Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed in the first place.
The political and media consensus surrounding Karp’s supposedly dramatic fall from grace may have something to do with the fact that it is in almost everyone’s interest to believe — or simply to act as if — that is what happened.
For Paul, Weiss, the firm gets the appearance of some distance from Karp and his legacy, both concerning Epstein and the firm’s surrender last year to the White House. If the firm’s leaders really wanted to do something, however, they would have pushed Karp out of the firm — something that they have done before with partners who they thought were not pulling in enough business. The fact that Karp does not (yet?) fall into that category is telling in itself, and for the moment at least, it undercuts the notion that anyone “took him down” in any meaningful sense of the phrase.
The public and the media get the appearance — if not the reality — of some karmic justice. Many people have looked to Europe with envy as heads have appeared to roll among the political class as a result of their ties to Epstein (though so far the potentially criminal conduct in question concerns the improper disclosure of government information to Epstein, not sex crimes). Here in the United States, there is a palpable desire for something similar to happen here.
Can you blame them? The expectations for the release of the Epstein files were sky-high.
In the days leading up to the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Khanna made his case for the law that he co-sponsored with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) by declaring that “Epstein had set up a rape island, where rich and powerful men were abusing young girls with impunity.” Plenty of other politicians have said or insinuated the same thing — and almost everyone in Congress voted for the law — but it is a serious and disturbing claim that should not be offered to the American public lightly.
Thus far at least, nothing concrete has emerged from the disclosure of the files to back up that expansive theory.
Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that based on its review of the material released to date, the “FBI collected ample proof that Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused underage girls but found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men.” The underlying document review was undertaken in collaboration with journalists from several other prominent media outlets, but it is not the final word on the matter, particularly since lawmakers only just received access to the redacted material in the files this week.
But lawmakers care about results too — or at least their constituents do — and there is a political need, spanning both parties, to justify the extraordinary, if unstated, expense of this law.
The result is a wide-ranging desire for a morality tale — one in which someone, anyone, but ideally your political or social adversary, is taken down a major peg.
English (US)