The President of the World Economic Forum, Børge Brende, is trying to put out the fires by claiming that he was “completely unaware” of Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal past when they met in 2018 and 2019.
He calls Epstein a “monster” and lays it on the line in an article on NRK. It’s an exercise in disclaimers that insults the intelligence of anyone with a smartphone.
Brende expects us to believe that, as head of one of the world’s most powerful organisations and a former Norwegian foreign minister, he never bothered with even the most basic background check on the man he sat down to dinner with. That claim makes no sense whatsoever when you look at the timeline. Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t first “exposed” in 2019. He was convicted back in 2008.
A decade earlier, long before Brende broke bread with the financier, Epstein had already pleaded guilty to procuring sexual favours from an underage girl. He served thirteen months in prison and was registered as a sex offender in the United States. This was not classified information. It was public knowledge, splashed across major international media.
A simple Google search in 2018 would have lit up the screen with the words “sex offender” and “paedophile” within seconds.
The timing makes it even worse. Brende met Epstein in 2018 and 2019. In November 2018 the Miami Herald published its explosive investigative series Perversion of Justice, which reopened the entire scandal and laid bare how Epstein had received an astonishingly lenient deal in 2008. The whole world was talking about it.
As president of the World Economic Forum—an organisation that lives and breathes information, networks and risk analysis—Brende (or his staff) failing to notice that one of their contacts was a convicted sex offender is about as believable as Father Christmas. The WEF is notorious for its rigorous vetting of participants. If Epstein slipped through the net, that points to a complete systemic failure.
Brende points the finger at Terje Rød-Larsen, claiming he was introduced through him. It’s the classic move: shift the blame elsewhere. But Brende is a grown man in a top job. He bears personal responsibility for the company he keeps.
Hiding behind “Rød-Larsen said he was nice” is frankly embarrassing for someone of Brende’s stature.
The truth is that in those circles money and influence trumped morals—right up until the police knocked on the door. As long as Epstein was a free man with billions in his pocket and access to the right people, the doors stayed open. Only when the handcuffs went on in July 2019 did the global elite’s memories suddenly fail and the condemnations begin.
When Børge Brende now says he is shocked and disgusted, it looks like a desperate attempt to save his own skin.
We are left with two possibilities. Either Brende knew exactly who he was meeting and didn’t care about the 2008 conviction, or he is so staggeringly ill-informed that he is unfit to run a hot-dog stand, let alone the World Economic Forum.
Neither option is remotely reassuring.