Memorandum — Definition of Terms
What does “the Epstein Class” mean?
Three words did what thirty years of arguing couldn’t: they named the thing everybody can already see. Below is the plain definition, where the phrase actually came from, what it does not mean, and the polling that says most of the country agrees with it. Sources are named inline. Where we’re making an argument rather than reporting a fact, we say so.
Exhibit A — The entry
Case No. 001
- Epstein class
noun — political and social commentary
It’s not a person — it’s a class. The Epstein Class is the social tier the rules don’t apply to: private jets, public bailouts, sealed files, zero convictions.
That is our definition — the house position of CLASS ACTION, not a quotation from anyone else. Published definitions elsewhere agree on the shape of it: OtherWords calls it “the global network of elites whose power and privilege continues to protect them from accountability,” and on WBUR’s On Point the term was described less as a guest list than as an operating system — rootless, horizontally loyal, and reliably immune when its members fail.
Section 02 — Provenance
Where the term came from
Nobody owns it. The phrase reached a Senate floor speech only after years in comment sections, and the people who popularized it don’t agree on who said it first. That is the honest answer, and it’s a better one than a coiner would be — a term that spreads because it fits doesn’t need an author.
Before it was political
In the comment sections
The phrase was in circulation online — X, Threads, Instagram Reels — well before any elected official said it out loud. HuffPost's explainer on the term found no single originator and no first speech, only a phrase that kept surfacing until the mainstream caught up with it.
November 25, 2025
The interview
Democracy Now! aired a segment under the name, in which author Anand Giridharadas described the group as a borderless network of people more loyal to each other than to any country or community — people positioned across politics, finance, academia and philanthropy who share a talent for not hearing anyone without power.
Late 2025
The first politicians
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) was among the earliest elected officials to use the term. Sources disagree on whether he originated it: The Ink credits him with coining it outright, while HuffPost reports the phrase predates any politician. We note the disagreement rather than settle it — nobody has produced a first utterance.
Source: The Ink — “Our new series, the Epstein Class, unmasks how power works now” (Feb 20, 2026) ↗
February 7, 2026
The speech that moved it
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) used the term in a speech, describing an elite that governs the country while presenting itself as an outsider to it. Explainers since have treated that speech as the moment the phrase crossed from internet shorthand into mainstream political language.
February 20–26, 2026
The essays and the broadcast
Giridharadas launched a reporting series under the name at The Ink, framing the work as making sense of “an operating system” rather than naming names. Six days later WBUR's On Point ran an hour on it with Giridharadas and Fergus Shiel of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Section 03 — Motion to Strike
What the term is not
Stricken 01
Not one man.
Jeffrey Epstein is dead. The class isn't. He is the name on the case file because his was the case that got documented — the term describes the arrangement that outlived him and never needed him. Using his name is shorthand for a structure, the way “Watergate” stopped being a building.
Stricken 02
Not a party.
The phrase has been swung as a partisan weapon — so far mostly by Democrats — and we don't use it that way. The record doesn't support it. The law that pried the files open was a bipartisan bill from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), forced to the floor by discharge petition over the objections of Republican leadership and the President, and passed by a near-unanimous Congress in November 2025. The polling below crosses the aisle in both directions. The seating chart is the only bipartisan document in America.
Stricken 03
Not a conspiracy theory.
The term makes no claim about a secret cabal steering world events. It makes a claim about outcomes, and outcomes are countable: files that stayed sealed for years, cases that dissolved into settlements, a tier of people who keep not being charged. You don't need a hidden hand to explain impunity when the paperwork is public.
Stricken 04
Not a code word.
Writers including Commentary's Seth Mandel have warned that the phrase is being picked up and repurposed by antisemites. That warning is worth taking seriously. The class this term describes is defined by impunity and proximity to power — not by anyone's religion, ethnicity or nationality. Anyone using it as a euphemism for a people has grabbed the wrong shirt off the rack, and we'd like it back.
Section 04 — Stipulated Facts
The numbers, with receipts
Two separate pollsters, two different questions, two months apart. Same finding. Almost nothing else in American life returns majorities in all three columns.
72%
of American voters say the Justice Department and FBI should do more to hold the people named in the Epstein files accountable — against 23% who say enough has been done.
69%
say the statement “the Epstein files show that powerful people in the U.S. are rarely held accountable for their actions” describes their own view very or extremely well.
Same bars. Same color. Deliberately. Whatever else the country can’t agree on, it agrees the powerful are rarely held to account — and it agrees in both directions.
Section 05 — Questions from the Bench
Answered on the record
Is “the Epstein class” about one person?
No. It names a class, not a man. Jeffrey Epstein is the case file the term borrows its name from, but the phrase describes the tier of people around and above that case — the ones whose files stayed sealed and whose cases ended without convictions. The class predates him and outlasted him.
Who coined the term “the Epstein class”?
Nobody can point to a first utterance, and honest reporting on the term doesn't try. It circulated in comment sections and social feeds before any politician used it. Rep. Ro Khanna was among the first elected officials to say it in late 2025 — The Ink credits him with originating it, while HuffPost's explainer reports it was already in the wild — and Sen. Jon Ossoff's February 7, 2026 speech is generally marked as the moment it went mainstream. It emerged organically. That's the answer.
Is “the Epstein class” a left-wing or a right-wing term?
Neither, though it has been used as both. The politicians who popularized the phrase have mostly been Democrats, and critics on the right have argued it's a vague cudgel. But the bill that forced the files into daylight was bipartisan — Khanna and Massie — and passed near-unanimously, and the polling splits 87/73/57 and 81/68/58 across Democrats, independents and Republicans. There is no version of this where one party is the class and the other isn't.
Is “the Epstein class” an antisemitic dog whistle?
It is not, and it must not become one. The criticism that the phrase is being repurposed by antisemites is a real and documented concern, raised in Commentary among other places, and we take it seriously. The class described here is defined by impunity and access — sealed records, dropped cases, unenforced law — and by nothing else. Any use of the term to describe an ethnic or religious group is a corruption of it and gets no cover from us.
Shipping, returns and sizing are filed separately under Frequently Filed Motions — Motion 07 answers the short version of this page. Journalists and anyone quoting us: the boilerplate and brand assets are in the press kit, free to republish with attribution.
Section 06 — Relief Sought
The term is also a wardrobe.
Exhibits A–PP.
The fine print
EPSTEIN CLASS is political satire and commentary. The Epstein Class names a social class, not any private living individual. This page names public figures only in their public roles and only as users or critics of the term itself — no accusation of any kind is made or implied against anyone named here. Polling figures are reproduced as published by the named pollsters; follow the links for full toplines and methodology. Corrections: record@epsteinclass.shop.