The lead prosecutor in Paris has opened an inquiry into claims that Jeffrey Epstein, who apparently hanged himself in his New York jail cell earlier this month, was running a massive child sex-trafficking ring. The fresh charges are just the latest indication that, though Epstein himself is dead, his alleged misdeeds will remain in the public eye for years to come.

Naturally, one of the things now being raked through a fine-tooth comb is Epstein’s relationship with President Trump. The Washington Post -- one of Trump’s most ferocious critics -- recently published a detailed account of Trump and Epstein’s rollercoaster acquaintanceship, illustrating how the two Palm Beach magnates oscillated between being friends, neighbors, “each other’s wingmen,” and bitter rivals.

The blow-by-blow of the two tycoons’ relationship also sheds light on another case which has provoked a good deal of discussion: the saga of the Maison de l’Amitié (French for the House of Friendship), an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion which has featured prominently in some of the wilder Russiagate theories.

The property everyone wanted

Even among luxury homes, Maison de l’Amitié was a standout. The 60,000 square foot house,  one of the most expensive in the world, boasted a garage big enough to house 80 cars, a massive swimming pool, a ballroom, and a whopping 18 bedrooms. Most importantly -- and most expensively -- the house had 475 feet of Palm Beach ocean frontage. For real estate developers in the area, it’s the land itself that’s the biggest prize, not the mansion -- Palm Beach ocean frontage can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars a linear foot.

There aren’t many houses like Maison de l’Amitié -- its combination of close proximity to the town center and its copious ocean frontage made it one of the best properties on the island -- so it’s not surprising that two of Palm Beach’s star residents, Epstein and Trump, both coveted it. The house had been owned by nursing-home tycoon Abe Gosman before he fell on hard times, and went up for auction in late 2004 as part of Gosman’s bankruptcy. Epstein -- sitting in a bankruptcy court in Palm Beach -- and Trump -- over the phone -- outbid each other again and again. A third bidder, Mark Pulte (a member of the Pulte family, one of the largest developers in the U.S.), waded into the fray after Epstein had dropped out. Trump was determined, however, to get the house “no matter the price,” and won out with a bid of $41.35 million.

The events of the long-ago 2004 auction would be relegated to a mere footnote in the surreal Trump-and-Epstein saga, if not for two things. First, Trump—whose intention had never been to live in the home, but to renovate it, making it into the “second greatest house in America” after Mar-a-Lago, and then resell it for a profit -- flipped the house to Russian potash billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev four years later for $95 million. Second of all, Trump became President of the United States.

Every conspiracy under the sun

Since then, those disappointed by Trump’s election have tried to convince themselves that he only made it into the Oval Office through some kind of dastardly Russian plot. With any concrete evidence of Trump-Russia collusion in short supply, conspiracy theorists have run wild. Many have particularly seized on the Maison de l’Amitié sale to Rybolovlev, since -- as Trump himself put it -- “the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach, Florida… for $40 million and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million including brokerage commissions”.

Leftists have gone so far as to argue that the real estate deal “raises specter of Putin buying Trump”. Their core argument? The notion that Rybolovlev paid “too much” for the house and that something sinister must be lurking behind such a top-dollar purchase.

A top-dollar portfolio

Unfortunately, this theory doesn’t exactly hold water. For one thing, Rybolovlev could easily afford to pay high prices for real estate. The Russian billionaire was especially flush with cash at the time, having just added over $1 billion to his net worth following his company’s IPO.

Nor was the Palm Beach mansion Rybolovlev’s only flashy acquisition. Over the years, the potash magnate has also snatched up a $323 million penthouse in Monaco -- reportedly the world’s most expensive apartment -- not to mention the private Greek island of Skorpios, where Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis were married. Throwing a further wrench into the conspiracy theories, Rybolovlev shelled out nearly as much as he did for the Palm Beach house on a New York penthouse for his daughter Ekaterina -- an apartment which previously belonged to Sandy Weill, according to his own words a big fan of Hillary Clinton who’s given thousands to her Senate and presidential campaigns.

Stable value

The details contained in the recent Washington Post piece on Trump and Epstein’s history further complicate the saga. Back at the time of the 2004 sale, the Maison de l’Amitié clearly solicited a lot of interest, as Trump, Epstein, and Mark Pulte were all furiously outbidding each other. Epstein was reportedly so upset that Trump had won the bidding war that it may have broken up their longstanding friendship.

Pulte, meanwhile, saw so much potential in the property that he didn’t stop coveting a piece of it. In fact, after Rybolovlev demolished the mansion -- which, due to a contentious divorce, he never actually lived in -- and sold off the land between 2017 and 2019 in three parcels, Pulte laid out $37 million for a 2.24 acre piece.

You don’t have to be an experienced real-estate developer like Trump to recognize that if Pulte was willing to pay $37 million for a mere third of the property -- without the luxury mansion which once stood on the lot -- that the $95 million Rybolovlev plunked down isn’t unusually high at all. In fact, Rybolovlev ended up turning a profit on the property, garnering $108 million in total for the three land parcels. This reality, however, isn’t as exciting as the notion that the real estate deal was a cog in some secretive scheme -- so the wild conspiracy theories are sure to continue.