WASHINGTON, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Americans believe that rich and powerful people are rarely held accountable, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found following the release of millions of records about late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections in elite U.S. business and political circles.
About 69% of respondents in the four-day survey, which concluded Monday, said their opinions were captured “very well” or “extremely well” by a statement that the Epstein files “show that powerful people in the U.S. are rarely held accountable for their actions.”
Another 17% said the statement described their views “fairly well,” while 11% said it did not reflect their thinking. Among Republicans and Democrats, more than 80% said the statement described their thinking at least reasonably well.
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Under orders from Congress, the U.S. Department of Justice released a series of documents linking the late financier to a number of prominent people in politics, finance, academia and business, both before and after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges, including enticement of a minor. Epstein’s 2019 death in a Manhattan jail cell, following his arrest on charges of sex trafficking of minors, was ruled a suicide.
The scandal has been a persistent political headache for President Donald Trump, who has long fueled suspicions surrounding Epstein and has been the target of criticism that his administration did not fully disclose everything the U.S. government knew about the case.
The revelations began to cause the downfall of prominent people. Executives at Goldman Sachs and Hyatt Hotels have resigned.
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Others maintained important positions. Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick apparently visited Epstein’s private island for lunch in 2012 and invited him to a 2015 fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential election, emails show.
Doctor Mehmet Oz, administrator of the US Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Trump, emailed an invitation to a Valentine’s Day party in 2016 for Epstein, according to Justice Department documents.
Neither Lutnick nor Oz are accused of wrongdoing.
The Republican president, who spent a lot of time with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s, has denied any knowledge of the financier’s crimes and says he broke off relations in the early 2000s, before Epstein’s plea deal.
While Americans generally have low expectations that elites will be held accountable, they are somewhat divided along party lines over how long the nation should dwell on the Epstein case.
When asked whether their views were well described by the statement that “it’s time for the country to stop talking about the Epstein files,” 67% of Republican respondents in the survey said that captured their thinking at least reasonably well, while only 21% of Democrats said the same.
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The Reuters/Ipsos survey, conducted online and across the country, gathered responses from 1,117 North American adults and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
