The whole thing about whistleblowing is very odd. I've tried it myself re nursing homes and adult social care (euthanasia, frankly) and found to my astonishment it goes nowhere. The bigger the scandal, the bigger the cover up.
There seems to be a sort of code, that in state organisations it is a badge of honour, a sign of being an adult, that you get entrusted with certain secrets, and the darker the secrets, the higher up you are. So long, of course, as you are prepared to maintain secrecy, not if you're a whistleblower - why, then you are clearly not part of the team and deserve to be hounded; cast out as a scab.
Of course, one way to ensure this is for a pension to be lined up for you at the end of play, upon retirement, so you are all on the same gravy train and don't want to see it derailed.
Another reason to maintain secrecy is if they have something on you - some skeleton in your closet which they can use against you at any time. For this reason, the person who has screwed up on the job at some point may fear for their future but quite wrongly - it actually. makes them more employable and promotable simply because there is dirt on them. They are then regarded as a safe pair of hands.
This may be a reason why paedophiles get a free pass at a high level - it is such an odious crime, it's a way of getting folk to keep the dirty secrets, if they have a few of their own. And the State does have some really dirty secrets.
Freemasonry is perhaps a form of this - all the nonsense rituals, the secrecy. It's 'secrets for secrets' sake' - a kind of currency.
What scares me about the whole Epstein island thing is, how would you expose it? It would make Jonathan Pine's situation in The Night Manager look like a stroll in the park. Set up a spy camera in that situation - say to expose abuse in a school changing room, and you can easily see how that would backfire, and make you look like the pervert. You simply don't know if the person you are reporting it to is onside or has been bought up (it's said Harvey Weinstein had the police in his pocket; ironically the Israeili spy outfit Black Cube protected him - but it was disgruntled Black Cube staff who whistleblow his misdeeds to Ronan Farrow - his book Catch and Kill is superb). Some people who claim to be on your side are actually carrying out surveillance on complainants and reporting back your moves. It's not a fun world to find yourself in.
If you were high up in your organisation, why would you throw that all away and make yourself unemployable in your sector just to report someone's misdeeds, after all nobody else has reported it, so it can't be that bad, and maybe the women look like they're enjoying themselves and are up for it so why break ranks etc etc so the thinking would go.
If you were a lowly rank in your organisation, why would anyone believe you? And would you have time to gather the necessary information/evidence without in some way making yourself complicit over time, or getting found out?