Senator Chuck Schumer: "If you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you." This statement is tantamount to an admission that the intelligence agencies control the elected government. Elected officials are afraid of them, and cannot restrain them or cross them. Blackmail is probably #1 out of six.]
Chuck Schumer is a serial liar. He will say anything and then will contradict himself the next day. He was threatening Trump in that quote for not going along with Brennan's and Clapper's little scheme re; the the Steele dossier. Schumer is not a reliable source on anything.
At the end of this post below, is a transcript from a video made by a Washington D.C. bureaucrat, Catherine Austin Fitts , who explains that blackmail is used routinely. "We're literally watching a government that is being run by coercion whether it's the blackmail or control file or physical violence. If you don't do what you're told, there's really issues of physical violence now.".
Fitts is in no position to know anything about intelligence operations. She is, at best, repeating rumor.
Just from following the news I came to the conclusion that many people in congress and many judges were being blackmailed long before I heard about Epstein.
Sure. Politicians are craven liars and have no ethics, generally speaking. But you're confusing politicians with intelligence operations. The two are not the same.
Acosta, your friend at the DIA, and Assistant Secretary of Housing - Federal Housing Commissioner at HUD Catherine Fitts (below), are going with the intelligence/blackmail explanation. That is corroboration by people either in a position to know or with experience that qualifies them to have an opinion who think an intelligence/blackmail operation is the best explanation.
My retired DIA friend has been wrong before. He has blind spots. He has an intense dislike of Israel. IMO it is clouding his judgment. Acosta and Fitts would not be informed about the goings on in the IC world. Anyhow, even if there's anything to the alleged quote from Acosta saying the Epstein "belongs" to intelligence, it may not mean what you want it to. It could be interpreted to mean that, having been arrested and put on trial, Epstein agreed to tell what he knows to intelligence so that the IC could use the info for their own purposes. Acosta might have not even said that. If he did, it might have been a lie to justify the lite sentence and save his political skin.
You're not thinking this through. If Epstein worked for US intelligence, then why would Bill Clinton go on Lolita Express airplane trips with the guy? How could the E be blackmailing Clinton? Clinton would definitely know who the guy is. Clinton has people to tell him these things. Same if E worked for Israeli intelligence. Clinton is going to put himself at risk of a felony and damnation in the public eye by going on trips with a known blackmailer? Nope. Sorry. That's a stupid theory.
In order to believe this conspiracy theory, you have set aside another; that the Clintons kill inconvenient people. Why wouldn't the Clintons just have Epstein killed when he threatened to blackmail them?
The best fit given what we know is that Epstein is a socially hyper-active, slick talking, psychopathic/libertine pervert (probably a democrat to the extent that he is party affiliated) who made money in more or less underhanded ways; off shore money laundering for drug dealers, arms dealers, some semi-legit businessmen and some legit billionaire trust fund baby types dodging taxes they would face on-shore, rock stars and other wealthy celebrities. He no doubt obtained all kinds of insider trading tips from his menagerie of wealthy friends. With the tips, he'd make a lot of money for his wealthy "clients" and pocket an agreed upon percent of the profit.
If one of these one of these potential investors was into teenage girls, I'm sure E had no problem hooking them up. In exchange the investor provides insider tips. No blackmail required. I'm sure E provided all kinds of weird and below board goods and services; whatever it takes to grease the wheels and get the deals going. I'm also not opposed to the idea that once in a while some intelligence service would approach him and purchase information on key targeted individuals. No doubt E happily exchanged that info for favors, cash or other goods and services. He probably only guessed at the true identity of the contact. In short, IMO, E worked for himself. I betting that's all there is to it.