The level of shock from people reading the Epstein files is interesting.

I’ve read thousands of pages so far (I’m in there as a high profile advocate for victims) and other than the pathetic obsequiousness of seemingly influential people like Noam Chomsky, Deepak Chopra, Bill Gates, Alan Dershowitz, and ex-Harvard president Larry Summers, who fawned over Epstein’s money like heroin addicts jones-ing for their next fix, there’s nothing shocking in the files for those of us who work in the “business” of sexual violence.

Even my closest friends and colleagues seem shocked, which is odd because I’ve been telling them stories about my work for a long time. A few have been texting me about Epstein, saying things like “you’ve been talking about this for a long time, but I didn’t really listen because I didn’t want to believe it.”

They believe it now because it’s everywhere. They knew Epstein did very bad things on planes, but now they also know that he had a bed on his plane, and that bad things can happen on planes because at a certain altitude, even the worst crimes cannot be prosecuted because there’s no legal jurisdiction unless the crime interferes with the operation of the plane.

Bombarding the public with disturbing information helps people get comfortable with their discomfort, which will at least help jurors convict more rapists because they won’t find victims’ testimony difficult to believe anymore. And with luck, the public will now refuse to vote for District Attorneys who disrespect victims and refuse to file rape and child abuse cases. We should make Epstein the most important issue in every race for District Attorney (elections are this fall), but we won’t.

See, as with most things, there’s more to the Epstein story than meets the eye. The predictable talking heads blame Trump or the Democrats, but both parties are deep in the crap on this one because the line-up of bad guys is as much blue as red.

Those who think Epstein is bigger than partisan politics are trying to unite across party lines to do whatever it takes to stop the epidemic of sex trafficking, child abuse, violence against women, torture, and human slavery. These human rights atrocities should be a top priority at the voting booth, but they won’t make a dent because nobody seems willing to focus on the money. Who paid whom, how much, for what, and where did the money go?

These questions matter more than everything else, including what will happen to Andrew formerly-known-as-Prince. Andrew is nothing compared to the money issues.

Not that it doesn’t matter when a prince gets prosecuted. It does — because at least that one guy will be stopped. But token incarceration of a high-profile does nothing to protect women and children in the future. We saw this with the so-called MeToo movement. Splashy news stories made a lot of money for the people involved in lawsuits against Cosby and Weinstein, but once the settlement checks cleared, the story ended. The same thing will happen with Epstein. He’s out of business now, but someone else just like him is still doing the same things to other women and children.

We all noticed when a class action suit by some of Epstein’s victims settled last week for upwards of $50 million. And we’re all watching to see what other deals are being negotiated behind the scenes with other perpetrators, either to keep cases out of court, or keep their names redacted in the slow drip of documents.

Bottom line, there’s always more to the story, and it’s NEVER about the victims. As I’ve said many times in this space, race trumps sex, politics trumps race, and money trumps everything.

Wendy Murphy is a victims’ rights attorney and advocate.

Disgraced former Prince Andrew (Jordan Pettitt/Pool Photo via AP, file)
This undated photo released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP)