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Noam Chomsky's wife responds to Epstein controversy

78 points by Red_Tarsius

by cthalupa

4 subcomments

It's very easy to believe that Epstein cultivated a massive quantity of relationships with any sort of rich, famous, influential, or powerful person he could. It's very easy to believe that many of them, for much of his existence, had no idea what was really going on. It's very easy to believe that plenty of "normal" (for relative values of normal here) people had no idea how to act when this all came to light and just shut up and avoided it and hoped none of this ever surfaced.
But we also know a whole fucking lot of them did know exactly what was going on and partook in some manner.
And as an everyday person who can realistically make zero impact on any of these people? Fuck if I've got the time to try and sort out which person falls into which group. The courts can figure that out if they actually start doing anything about all of this.
For me? I'm writing 'em all off.

by zappb

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Turns out that blindly supporting the “oppressed” leads to supporting rightfully oppressed people like pedophiles.

by krautburglar

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From the emails I've read, Chomsky prematurely handed a big chunk of his net worth over to his children. With the new wife and the move, Noam was burning through cash at considerable speed. His kids started tightening the purse. Jeffrey Epstein came in as a financial fairy godmother to wrangle the purse strings back from Noam's kids. Given that Epstein and Maxwell were working hard for Israel, and Chomsky is a famous critic of Israeli policy, having Noam owe him one must have been a bit of a coup. Not that it would silence him, but it would at least get Chomsky to moderate his tone.
If you deal with the same people over time -- even highly intelligent ones -- you will notice the stark decline in intelligence in the later years. I didn't even like Chomsky when he had his marbles, but it's hard to get worked-up over "Old guy gets mixed-up with the wrong people and does dumb shit."
But even in 2016, even with his diminished faculties, Chomsky was not just a news-hound, but a news BEAST. This, "oh, we didn't know until 2019" is a massive load of shit.
The only HERO I've come across in these e-mails is Norman Finkelstein.

by KingOfCoders

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We didn't know anything.
"Noam’s email to Epstein, in which Epstein sought advice about the press, should be read in context. Epstein had claimed to Noam that he [Epstein] was being unfairly persecuted".
and
"2019 did we learn the full extent"
Full extent? So what did you know before? All of this does not make any sense.

by _wire_

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Epstein has successfully polluted many powerful people and it looks like he was built for the task of compromising others, where everything in Epstein's sphere seems designed, arranged and executed for such purpose. Epstein's immense wealth appears to come from nowhere. He operated with a bold posture of impunity.
Maxwell's family is highest-level states intelligence, media control, and arms trade. Robert Maxwell, died in an unfortunate boating accident on yacht named for his daughter!
Epstein's sexploitation crimes seems relatively innocuous compared to the costs of war and value of the kompromat, which reaches into the highest state offices of U.S. and UK (I choose the word kompromat for its literal meaning not for its national connotations, although Epstein's network is said to include Israeli, UK, and Russian intelligence services).
The way the Epstein files are being managed seems designed to generate maximum confusion, distress and distraction, which is a helpful modality for burying the hatchet once the conflict has served its purpose; make a big mess so there will be no getting to the bottom of it.

by krupan

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Amazing when it comes to Epstein (and other controversial actions/decisions) how detailed and open minded we are when it comes to someone we liked and supported, and how cut and dry we want things to be when it's someone we don't like.

by foldr

3 subcomments

>In order to clarify the check: Epstein asked Noam to develop a linguistic challenge that Epstein wished to establish as a regular prize. Noam worked on it, and Epstein sent a check for US$20,000 as payment. Epstein’s office contacted me to arrange for the check to be sent to our home address.
This part honestly makes no sense. There is no 'Chomsky linguistic challenge'. I guess the claim is that Chomsky was paid as a consultant to develop the supposed challenge which was then to be administered by Epstein (who – guess what – did nothing of the sort). But it sounds an awful lot like an entirely spurious reason for sending someone $20k.

by tzs

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What many people overlook is that, in Marvel terms, Epstein was not the kind of villain that Magneto or the Red Skull or Thanos are/were.
Epstein was the kind of villain that Wilson Fisk or Norman Osborn or Alexander Pierce are/were.
The former don't make any attempt to hide their evil.
The latter go to great effort to have public personas that do good.
Wilson Fisk for example was known to the public and most authorities as a philanthropic New York City businessman known for his major donations that the city and its institutions. Behind the scenes he was know as the Kingpin of Crime running a large organized crime, human trafficking, drug, and assassination operation. But only a few heroes (Daredevil and Spider-Man) and some officials knew or suspected.
To succeed in the latter kind of villainy it is essential that you cultivate relationships with a lot of respectable people who you make sure do not get involved in the evil side so you can keep the public persona's reputation clean.

by belviewreview

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I think it is plausible that this piece by Chomsky's wife is honest. However, I have one problem with it. This is that it does not say what they did when they learned the truth about Epstein in 2019. Did they cut off all relations?

by alecco

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Oh, f** off.
> The philosopher and the sex trafficker were in contact long after Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor, documents reveal
> The letter recounted how Epstein had arranged for Chomsky – a political activist, too – to meet with someone he had “studied carefully and written about”: the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/22/noam-chomsky...
> There additionally was an exchange in which Chomsky wrote to Steve Bannon, the rightwing chief White House strategist during Donald Trump’s first presidency, requesting an introductory meeting. “Lots to talk about,” Chomsky wrote, adding that he had been provided Bannon’s contact information by Epstein, a former friend of Trump.
> Undated photo of Jeffrey Epstein, right, speaking to academic and linguist Noam Chomsky. [in Epsteins private jet!]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/03/epstein-file...
> A photograph of Steve Bannon and Noam Chomsky released from Epstein files. [Having a laugh!]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/03/jeffre...
I used to idolize Chomsky when I was young. People went to war for much less.

by tgv

5 subcomments

Although I'm not a fan of Chomsky, neither of his political-philosophical, nor his linguistic work, he's never come across as dishonest, and I won't believe implications until corroborated by hard evidence.

by api

2 subcomments

One of the crazy things about these files is: it’s clear that the root motivation for a huge number of these guys is just to get with very young girls (and sometimes boys).
Nothing sophisticated. Nothing inspired. Just what the most atavistic parts of the brain stem want.
They were billionaires and high ranking academics and politicians. They could have done so many things but that’s where a huge portion of their energy went. It was clearly one of the most important things to them.
Makes me think of the paperclip maximizers idea. We are paperclip maximizers. This is how a paperclip maximizer would behave. They could extend health and life and explore the universe, but paperclips. Must make paperclips.
I also get the impression that the reason a lot of these guys are attracted to authoritarian right wing ideology, neo-monarchism, etc. is the same. It’s because it would let them have little girls without pesky enlightenment notions like rights or woke nonsense about equality getting in the way.
Gotta make paperclips. Burn the world to make paperclips.

by ndiddy

0 subcomment

> Noam and I were introduced to Epstein at the same time, during one of Noam’s professional events in 2015, when Epstein’s 2008 conviction in the State of Florida was known by very few people, while most of the public – including Noam and I – was unaware of it.
I hate when people act like there was no way they could have known about Epstein's criminal behavior. It was widely reported in the New York Times ( https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/us/questions-of-preferent... ), and there was more extensive coverage in the Palm Beach Post ( https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2006/08/14/had-ever... ) among other sources. There was also another wave of coverage when Epstein was indicted for child trafficking in 2010. We're expected to believe that none of these powerful and intelligent people could have ever bothered googling the name "Jeffrey Epstein".
> We had lunch, at Epstein’s ranch, once, in connection with a professional event; we attended dinners at his townhouse in Manhattan and stayed a few times in an apartment he offered when we visited New York City. We also visited Epstein’s Paris apartment one afternoon for the occasion of a work trip. In all cases, these visits were related to Noam’s professional commitments. We never went to his island or knew about anything that happened there.
There's no way they could have visited Epstein's townhouse without thinking that something seriously wrong was going on there. Chomsky also knew about Epstein's island, there's an email where he said that visiting it was his "special fantasy". https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02465...
> Noam’s email to Epstein, in which Epstein sought advice about the press, should be read in context. Epstein had claimed to Noam that he [Epstein] was being unfairly persecuted, and Noam spoke from his own experience in political controversies with the media. Epstein created a manipulative narrative about his case, which Noam, in good faith, believed in. It is now clear that it was all orchestrated, having as, at least, one of Epstein’s intentions to try to have someone like Noam repairing Epstein’s reputation by association.
From looking at the email, Chomsky clearly knew about the accusations (this was after the Miami Herald exposé in 2018) and still decided to stick with Epstein and help him defend himself https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA010325... .
I also find it disappointing that the article doesn't even try to explain Chomsky palling around with Steve Bannon at all. Chomsky publicly referred to the Republican party as the "most dangerous organization in human history" and a "serious danger to human survival" ( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/noam-choms... ) while secretly hanging out with the man most responsible for Trump's rise. I think it casts a shadow over Chomsky's legacy that he chose to abandon his values to spend his last few good years being a court jester intellectual performing for a billionaire pedophile and a right-wing propagandist.

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by brewcejener

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by KingOfCoders

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by dauertewigkeit

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by fukukitaru

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by KingOfCoders

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by Der_Einzige

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by 47282847

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I am not a fan of any person as idol or hero, we are all children of the same flesh, but I am a fan of Chomskys work and thought processes. But even if you disagree on his positions, any involvement in Epsteins narcissistic games just don’t fit his life story and his writings at all, whereas it makes perfect sense to me that he and his wife fell for it and really assumed good faith. Which is, ultimately, at the core of his belief system and transpires from all his writing. I did in the past, until I got hit hard by how cruel and dark some people can be who I considered to be close friends. So, overall, I totally believe them, I wish them all the best to recover, from deep in my heart, and I am certain they will learn a hard lesson from this, and will try to make up for their mistake of putting too much trust in other people’s hands. Which is sad but the reality of the broken state of humans who have survived unspeakable cruelty in their childhood and have not received the necessary support to process it. Like Epstein and Trump, to only name two.
(For transparency: I met Chomsky twice.)

by phatfish

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There must be a template going round for these "Epstein scammed us we knew nothing" attempts at deflecting. Doesn't surprise me at all the Noam Chomsky was on team Epstein.

by mlmonkey

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I read the first 5 paragraphs which were all "Noam", "Noam", "Noam" and then lost interest. The letter should have started by first acknowledging the heinous crimes committed against innocent children.