It's almost never about acquiring new power, they don't need that. It's about enforcing policy through a more specific enlightenment (ie don't do this, this isn't acceptable, etc). In other words, it's encouragement to aggressively keep with the line they've drawn. The party goals are dramatically easier to achieve/uphold if they have lots of lower level hands willingly helping.

Isn't this up for debate?

On one hand, in SK a Samsung chief and heir and also former President are facing long prison sentences (some of the protests leading up to this were argued to be the largest peaceful protests in history, ever).*

On the other, in the US a convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, never spent a day in jail. He is a billionaire and very close friend of Bill Clinton's.

I am interested in historically how well the rule of law in the US has or has not applied equally to all citizens?

*I personally found it really strange this has gotten so little attention in Western media.

That is incorrect. He spent 13 months in prison and is now a registered sex offender.

According to federal prosecutors, only one of the girls would agree tontesitfy against him and that wasn't enough to get a conviction.

If you read about the case in sources that aren't determined to link the whole thing to a Bill Clinton conspiracy, you'll see it wasn't an open and shut case. It's pretty likely prosecutors agreed to a deal because they thoght he'd walk otherwise.

The local DA convened a grand jury and they thought there was only enough evidence to support fairly minor charges. Maybe he was paying off witnesses, but you need evidence of that.

Regardless he still spent time in jail.

Anyways, one of the interesting things about his involvment was that he has paid out in civil lawsuits to about 40 victims.