Les Wexner Is Lying To Our Faces
The fashion mogul thinks we're all gullible idiots. He's dead wrong.
Watching Les Wexner during his deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee was a remarkable experience. He laughs, he jokes, he creatively stalls at times, and gave the general impression of a man who believed he could talk his way out of anything. Right from the start, when asked to briefly summarize his career for the record, he told a well-practiced yarn about coming from a poor family who received a loan from an aunt and how he opened a Limited store and then more and more and more stores, and gave everyone from the cleaning crew on up stock in the company. He mentions Express, but did not say a word about Victoria’s Secret—which seemed rather strategic, given the tarnished reputation it held after Epstein’s crimes.
As questioning began, one of Wexner’s three attorneys, Michael Levy (bringing three attorneys was surely designed to try and intimidate the committee), lodged an objection. He was told that was not allowed in congressional depositions. Said attorney continued to do it, regularly jumping in with objections to questions throughout, objecting in general, asserting spousal privilege, asserting attorney-client privilege, objecting to “hearsay,” and even objecting to “double hearsay.” While that is something you’d do in a court of law, it looks rather ridiculous to do so because a congressional attorney asked if a story that his friend told in Vanity Fair was accurate. All you have to do is answer yes or no!
The former CEO of Victoria’s Secret was asked if Epstein negotiated his prenuptial agreement, and said he didn’t remember if he had one, which seems striking—that’s hardly a thing a man would forget! If you felt the need to have one, you’d hardly forget about it. He said that “he didn’t know shit” about Maria Farmer, who has testified she was raped on Wexner’s property. Wexner kept saying that Epstein never stayed there, but bought his neighbor’s house. In the same vein, he made a point to say that it wasn’t his plane Epstein rode on with him, it was the company’s plane. Throughout the questioning, a constant nervous laugh punctuated many of Wexner’s answers. He made faces towards the end of the first hour, pantomiming being hard of hearing after a long pause by his questioners. It was an utterly bizarre moment in a serious proceeding.
Wexner said he never witnessed abuse, never witnessed minors or other young women with Epstein, never witnessed Epstein in any sexual behavior, etc. Wexner said they had no personal relationship, and that he’d never discussed anything sexual with Epstein. Folks, I’ve got Epstein Files that make these statements appear to be baldfaced lies.
The mogul later testified, repeating a story he’d described vaguely told after Epstein’s death, that Epstein had stolen from him, and here is where, in my view, Wexner’s claims about Epstein and his relationship with him fall completely apart. This self-made billionaire, this titan of business, who by all accounts worked very hard and kept up to speed on everything in his businesses, a complete workaholic, responded to this alleged multi-million dollar theft by:
Not going to law enforcement
Not telling anyone on Wall Street or in the retail/fashion industry to avoid Epstein or not to do business with him
Not confronting Epstein himself, but having his wife do so instead, and that his wife got Epstein to return $47 million to the Wexner Foundation (charitable)
Never having specified exactly how much was “stolen” from him
Furthermore, he testified that he cut ties with Epstein at this point in 2007, and a year thereafter Epstein went to prison. Except…Les Wexner and Epstein had this email exchange in 2008, which doesn’t fit his tale.
Subject: Re:
To: Wexner, Les (LesW@Limitedbrands.com)
From: J. Epstein
From Address: jeeproject@yahoo.com
Date: 06/27/2008, 12:14:06 AMno excuse
----- Original Message ----
From: “Wexner, Les”
To: jeeproject@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:45:03 PM
Subject:
Abigail told me the result...all I can say is I feel sorry. You violated
your own number 1 rule...
Always be careful.
“All I can say is I feel sorry. You violated your own number 1 rule…Always be careful.” That doesn’t read like they had cut ties. That doesn’t sound like someone you were disgusted with. Wexner sounds like a disappointed parent after their talented kid got into trouble with the law. Why would you feel sorry for someone you allegedly fired a year prior for A: stealing millions from you and B: being a sexual predator?
When paired with the lack of credible answers to this subsequent list of questions…
Why did he not confront Epstein?
Why did he not tell his business partners and law enforcement about this?
Why did he not testify against Epstein (a situation that Epstein told others could never happen, and was clearly right about)?
Why did he do nothing until he was hounded into saying something, and then why did he make a statement had more holes than a wheel of Swiss cheese?
…one can only conclude that Leslie Wexner is hiding things he’ll probably go to the grave with.
When Epstein was released from jail in July 2009, there were immediately people waiting to do business with him. Prince Andrew threw a welcome home party for him. Epstein still had his money, his jet, his multiple properties. It’s right after Bernie Madoff has been caught running his own Ponzi scheme—one in which many other wealthy people were conned out of money—and Les Wexner does not use this favorable environment to wreck Jeffrey Epstein’s ability to make money or resume his sex trafficking. Why is it, despite having all the motivation in the world if you take Wexner at his word, that the billionaire sat on his hands?
In the most charitable telling of this time period, Wexner failed to stop a monster from harming more people because he felt like a fool and his ego didn’t allow him to tell others about the shame he felt. In the less charitable description, he knew about Epstein’s true nature and did nothing, or he participated in the criminal enterprise to enough of an extent that his lawyers are objecting repeatedly at a deposition where they legally cannot object because they’re terrified their octogenarian client might slip up and incriminate himself? I suspect they were extremely nervous, because towards the end of the deposition, his lawyer leans over and tries to whisper (but gets caught on a hot mic), “I’ll fucking kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, okay?”
There are other oddities in the files that make it seem as if a lot of their correspondence has been withheld. Epstein advised him on reacquiring Express from its new ownership; Epstein was asked to speak with Wexner about taking back control of some of his brands because his successor was demoralizing staff and Epstein “is considered one of the few people who still has Les’s ear.”; Epstein and Wexner discussed the design of a new yacht. Lastly, in 2016, Epstein emailed Alan Dershowitz’s frequent legal partner Marty Weinberg (both had represented Epstein in negotiating his infamous 2008 plea deal)) to complain about Dershowitz’s references to Wexner:
Epstein’s tone indicates that he is protecting Wexner in some capacity here. It could be he doesn’t want to draw Wexner’s ire (if Wexner’s account is true of their split), or that Dershowitz risks exposing Epstein’s current activities by drawing attention to Wexner (and therefore, himself), or that they still had a genuine friendship and good feeling about each other. It’s hard to know without the context of missing emails and files, but there’s one thing that is for certain.
Les Wexner thinks we’re a bunch of gullible idiots. This deposition was a final grand performance by a master salesman and his attorneys, running the good guy/bad guy act in a unique fashion, desperate to not leave any opening for which Wexner could face actual consequences for his decisions. As with Prince Andrew, we can not and should not let up until there is justice from the man who helped Jeffrey Epstein become the monster he was.