@smutmag@mstdn.social @petergleick@fediscience.org If I was to guess, I'd say they're less-dumb than they look, they're just being blackmailed and know they're losing everything if they cross the people with the dirt on them. That's why everything is so absurd, why anything (even the obviously incoherent or stupid) is better than that getting out

@bthalpin@mastodon.social @petergleick@fediscience.org That, and a whole lot of them are in the Epstein files and have been blackmailed about it for the better part of 15 years