Yeah, I don’t intend to absolve the garden gnome

BUT it’s also worth keeping in mind that people were approaching Epstein for alot of reasons and were approached by Epstein for alot of reasons. Could be related to his financial skullduggery, could be because Epstein liked to hang out and surround himself with academics, could be related to his high society / international / intelligence agency connections, could be cuz they’re Pedos. There’s not any good reason to be hanging with Epstein, but there’s conceivably non-pedophilia reasons to do so.