• ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      It’s from an Arthur Conan Doyle story; Sherlock solved the case of the horse stolen at night by noting that the dog didn’t bark, ergo, the dog was a direct familiar of the person who stole the horse, because it would have barked at a stranger. It’s a statement about guilt, and how silence is itself a powerful accusation in the right context, like when you’d expect a dog to bark (or a noise to be made in a way it usually is) but strangely nothing happens, all remains silent.

      The way the phrase is used in the email is a bit off because the guilty party is neither a barking or non-barking dog, but look at the date of the email: April, 2011, after Epstein’s first conviction and around the time that victims started filing serious lawsuits, especially Virginia Giuffre, and going after the powerful men who not only abused them but then defamed them.

      At the time this was written, the previously reliable walls of wealth, connection, and privilege were already unraveling, Epstein was getting sued, the media kept poking around, his own moneyed friends were already starting to distance themselves . . . so in this email Epstein is essentially pointing to the unspoken guilt surrounding the ONE person in the middle of all his troubles for whom the dog hasn’t barked.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      I noted that too. I don’t think it means ratted them out; my guess is it means he didn’t give them the intel/money/people/thing they wanted from him yet.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        That’s the way I’ve heard it used. This person knows/is complicit/is involved in a thing but they ain’t said shit yet. It would be the opposite of the old cliche phrase about a stool pigeon singing.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      16 hours ago

      It meant he’s kept his mouth shut. He relished his secret relationship with Epstein, as evidenced by his contribution to Epstein’s Birthday Book.