Epstein, preternaturally responsive to both the price of oil and to the politics of the Middle East, entertained that evening a delegation from Qatar, including Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim, the foreign minister. Hamad , indeed, lives across the street in a similarly furnished house—he and Epstein have the same decorator. Epstein, in his relaxed and amused manner, kept prodding: “Why are you financing the bad guys? What do you get out of that?” The Qatarians, in some mild diplomatic discomfort, seemed most worried that their bid for the World Cup might be compromised by bribery allegations. At 9 the next morning, Epstein was joined for breakfast in the dining room by Reid Weingarten, who’s represented, among other fat cats in trouble, Worldcom’s Bernie Ebbers and Goldman Sach’s Lloyd Blankfein, and is one of attorney general Eric Holder’s closest friends. Weingarten, hoarse, with a cold, and dejected, is just back from a failed defense of former Connecticut Governor John Rowland. After a blow by blow of the trial, there’s a discussion of the Qartarian’s visit—Epstein is serving chocolate made from pistachios grown on the Sheikh’s farm—and speculation about who actually controls ISIS, with Weingarten arguing that the Turks are not getting enough scrutiny (he posits that ISIS is part of their proxy war against the Kurds). There is, in Epstein’s dining room, always an alternative version of world events—” “perception versus reality,” says HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022871