BEST OF THE WEB: Epstein, Israel, and the CIA: How the Iran-Contra Planes landed at Les Wexner's Base

Jeffrey Epstein helped Leslie Wexner repurpose the CIA's Iran-Contra planes from arms smuggling to shipping lingerie. This week, the New York Times awoke from its slumber to publish an extensive investigation on Jeffrey Epstein that purported to put to rest the question of how the man made his money early in his career. In it, the Times dismisses the possibility that Epstein could have worked for or adjacent to intelligence agencies. "Abundant conspiracy theories hold that Epstein worked for spy services or ran a lucrative blackmail operation, but we found a more prosaic explanation for how he built a fortune," the paper wrote. To the paper's credit, their journalists have put into the record some details that took an impressive effort to track down. For instance, the paper reported about Epstein's business associates in the early 1980s: Epstein had been spending extravagantly, and despite his lofty compensation at Bear Stearns and his work for [Douglas] Leese, he found himself...