Hey, it's Ari Melbur, the journalist and attorney. We're at MS Now, although we're off air outside Extra. And I have Emily Bazelon, New York Times Legal Writer. Nice to see you. Glad to be here. We want to talk about some serious stuff, including what we've learned in the Epstein case and how that's unfolding. I also want to ask you because here we're talking about everything under the sun and how you feel about whether law works.

Is it worse?

Is it falling apart?

So we're going to start with Epstein and then get to that.

When I look at this story, I feel like it started out as very obviously a traditional crime story, what in other venues we call true crime.

Then the extent of the political links and other things he had became evident.

And then somewhere over the next couple years, it became a mass movement story because a lot

of people really were interested and care about it.

How do you view it?

And obviously you might view it differently, but as a legal writer, do you feel

like it's evolved into something larger? Is it approaching like JFK levels? I mean, it's obviously, yes,

it's absolutely evolved in something larger. I remember the sweetheart deal. I remember thinking that that was

really strange. I didn't understand it. It was puzzling and those kinds of things

bother me because it feels like the justice system is not behaving in any way in an even-handed

manner. Yeah. And then I feel like it, you know, his death in jail was a big turning

point because that also seemed mysterious. And it, then there was like a kind of sense that there was a big turning point because that also seemed mysterious.

And then there was like a kind of sense that there was a conspiracy theory, but then it was like one of those conspiracy theories like JFK's assassination that feel like, well, maybe there is

actually a conspiracy here.

Yeah.

And it's funny.

Lawyers, when we say conspiracy, that's its own legal term, which involves

more than one person conspiring to break the law. There are conspiracies in law. Then there's

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