Why did Steve Bannon and Noam Chomsky love Jeffrey Epstein so much?

You might have heard that the House Oversight Committee released some interesting records this week. For anyone who, like me, has developed an unhealthy fascination with the Jeffrey Epstein saga, there’s a wealth of material to keep you occupied for days — scrolling and scrolling till your eyes bleed, if you want.

Here are some noteworthy findings I’ve come across so far, without having gone through all 23,000+ documents yet. Very few of these have gotten any media attention, which (what else is new) has focused almost exclusively on the tantalizing tidbits pertaining to Donald Trump. And I will get to the Trump stuff later. But for now…

Steve Bannon had a far more extensive relationship with Epstein than previously known, even though it was previously known that Bannon had conducted 15+ hours of video interviews with Epstein — and kept the footage concealed for over six years. And it was previously known that Bannon had participated in many PR strategy sessions with Epstein, in hopes of preparing him for a potential network TV appearance, in which Epstein could give “his side of the story” and try to rehabilitate his image. That prospective interview never happened, but the two men clearly still established a very lively and mutually fulfilling friendship. (Jeffrey Epstein: the solution to the male loneliness crisis?) They checked in on each other frequently, with routine picayune updates about their lives, travels, and thoughts. They forwarded each other lots of news articles; the default “love language” for men of a certain age, it would seem.

“U around Sunday?” Jeffrey texted to Steve on a Friday in June 2018. “Doing ABC Sunday morning LIVE for entire hour,” Steve excitedly replied, eager to share his latest media coup with his equally media-savvy confidant. “Ny or dc,” a supportive Jeffrey asks. “DC,” Steve confirms. They both seemed to feel better knowing eachother’s daily whereabouts. “Zucker ?” replies Epstein, never missing an opportunity to scoop up some gossip; he seems to be asking if Jeff Zucker, the CNN executive, had anything to do with arranging the interview. Bannon briefly misunderstands the question, then explains that the interview will be conducted by Jonathan Karl. (You need to become a linguistic expert in garbled Baby Boomer email-speak to decipher any of these messages.) “Sorry- did yoh get to meet with zucker,” clarifies Jeffrey. “Couldn’t get sked to work -- trying for Tuesday,” says Steve. “Need passport details for entourage,” says Jeffrey, changing the subject to their upcoming joint travel plans. “K,” says Steve. They continue bantering about travel logistics and other trivia — this appears to be in advance of one of their trips together to Paris, for a stay at Epstein’s luscious apartment in the 16th arrondissement. “Good luck tomorrow,” Jeffrey tells Steve the next day, before the big ABC interview. “Thanks,” Steve replies.

HEY STEVE, IF YOU’RE LISTENING, RELEASE YOUR DANG EPSTEIN FILES!

Quit your sly trolling about a Third Trump Term, and let us all see the work product you and Jeffrey put so much passion and energy into creating together. And while you’re at it, how about letting us know whatever financial arrangement you may or may not have had? Did he ever pay you for these elaborate PR services, or did the two of you cultivate such sincere fondness for each other that you did it all for free?

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Something else from this batch of documents I found very interesting and unexpected was the remarkably close friendship Epstein evidently had with none other than Noam Chomsky. It had already been reported that Chomsky would visit Epstein on occasion, and Epstein performed some sort of low-level financial task for Chomsky related to transferring the assets of Chomsky’s late wife. Epstein was also known to have displayed a photo of himself with Chomsky (and second wife Valeria) at his New York townhouse. And notably, Chomsky might well be the only prominent figure who cantankerously refused to grovel or apologize when he was confronted by journalists with evidence that he’d met or had dealings with Epstein.

When asked about his relationship with Epstein, Mr. Chomsky replied in an email: “First response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally.”

Mr. Chomsky told the Journal that at the time of his meetings “what was known about Jeffrey Epstein was that he had been convicted of a crime and had served his sentence. According to U.S. laws and norms, that yields a clean slate.”

It’s bizarre that this has come to be perceived as such a radical, shocking statement. Here is what Chomsky could have realistically known about Epstein at the time they were meeting and corresponding in the 2010s. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to two state-level prostitution charges in Florida. People get really offended when you simply recite this fact, because they’re aghast that the crimes they believe Epstein committed could be described as “prostitution.” But that’s literally just the text of the Florida statutes Epstein pleaded guilty to violating: FELONY SOLICITATION OF PROSTITUTION and PROCURING PERSON UNDER 18 FOR PROSTITUTION. So those are literal “prostitution” crimes — the literal letter of the law — notwithstanding how cultural and legal mores may have shifted since 2008, such that it’s unconscionable to now categorize anything “Survivors” might have been involved in as “prostitution.”

If for some reason Chomsky cared to investigate the matter further — and it seems doubtful that he would’ve cared that much — he theoretically could have read the transcript of the June 30, 2008 court hearing in which Epstein entered his guilty plea. (You’d have to do boring stuff like search through dockets to find it, but if anyone could summon the analytical willpower, it’s Chomsky — even if the self-proclaimed Epstein “researcher” and/or journalist cadre never appears to have had much interest.)

As you can see below, there was a single “person under 18” whom Epstein pleaded guilty to “procuring for prostitution.” (Hence the language of the statute.) The judge and prosecutor engage in a colloquy about this person, whom the prosecutor clarifies was no longer under the age of 18 at the time of the hearing.

The identity of this person remains redacted in court records (all of them that I’ve seen anyway) but if you’re a total maniac, like myself, you can use your powers of inferential reasoning to ascertain who the person is. At least based on other testimony she’d given to the Grand Jury and police. And it’s a young woman, by this point in college, who told a detective she had sex with Epstein just before her 18th birthday. And it was consensual, according to her. And she wasn’t particularly traumatized by it (she was much more unnerved about being ensnared in the investigation.) You can get mad at me for relaying these facts all you want, but that doesn’t make them any less true. As such, it won’t become any less true that if Noam Chomsky for some reason chose to do deep research on what precise conduct Epstein had pleaded guilty to committing in 2008, this is the fact-pattern he would have discovered. As would Steve Bannon, or Peter Thiel, or Bill Gates, or Larry Summers, or any of the other prominent people who infamously continued to “associate” with Epstein after the 2008 plea, and have consequently faced hectoring calls to apologize and repent for how they could possibly have consorted with such a malevolent person. But it’s just true that the only thing they would’ve known by dint of his guilty plea was that Epstein had been convicted of two prostitution charges. Not that he was a “trafficker” or a “pedophile.” Neither term factored into the 2008 plea whatsoever. Sorry, but it’s true.

Chomsky should therefore be commended for not buckling to this irrational censure. Not because Jeffrey Epstein was entitled to a joyous social life, or had some God-given right to hold swanky soirees with his favorite academics and business titans. But because the censure is… irrational. It’s divorced from facts and evidence. It flies in the face of due process, and basic tenets of fairness, which Chomsky rightly points out are foundational to the American system of justice — at least insofar as “justice” can be properly dispensed by that system. If a new moral and political stricture is going to be declared, whereby if someone pleads guilty to prostitution crimes, and serves their sentence, people are thereafter barred from ever meeting or communicating with him for the rest of his life — that’s injurious to the entire society. Sorry. Hence why this whole Epstein affair, and the brainless censorial outrage it continuously spawns, has implications that go well beyond the particularities of Epstein’s (admittedly novel and strange) situation. The hysterical bleating, the moral panic, the mass hysteria, creates a series of new “norms” to which we all are ultimately subject, having supplanted the prior “norms” that Chomsky reminded the Wall Street Journal about.

So why did Chomsky have such friendly feelings for Epstein? It’s a good question. I’ll admit I was unaware of the full extent of their relationship until the document dump this week. Chomsky wrote a lengthy letter testifying to the virtues of Epstein, and affirming how “valuable” and “rewarding” he always found their relationship. The exact impetus for the letter is slightly unclear, though it reads like Chomsky agreeing to serve as a “character witness” of sorts for Epstein, perhaps to appeal for leniency on Epstein’s behalf from a sex-offender registrar. Or maybe Chomsky wrote it when Epstein was arrested in 2019, to be included in his bail petition? I’m not sure; there is no date specified. Either way, the letter could not be more laudatory. Chomsky raves about a meeting Epstein set up for him to discuss Middle East policy with the Norwegian diplomat who brokered the Oslo accords, a longstanding interest of Chomsky’s. On another occasion, Epstein had Chomsky over his house to meet with Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel. “We have our disagreements, but had a very fruitful discussion,” Chomsky writes.

He continues: “The impact of Jeffrey’s limitless curiosity, extensive knowledge, penetrating insights, and thoughtful appraisals is only heightened by his easy informality, without a trace of pretentiousness. He quickly became a highly valued friend and regular source of intellectual exchange and stimulation.”

Chomsky is about the last person I’d expect to say something like this unless he really meant it. Why else, in his late 80s, would he bother heaping praise on an eccentric money-manager? Chomsky can be irascible, and doesn’t like to have his time wasted. So it would seem most logical to conclude that he really did get a lot of value from his relationship with Epstein. Nor is it conceivable that Chomsky would have consorted with Epstein if he felt it would make him complicit in some Israeli intelligence plot, given that Chomsky has been perhaps the world’s most visible and vociferous critic of Israel for literally decades. Take from that what you will, I suppose.

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Yes, I have plenty more to say about the document dump. I will get to the Trump stuff. And yes, I have read the “Drop Site” articles that everyone’s been clamoring for me to read, about Epstein’s dealings with Israeli intelligence. I have submitted some extremely polite queries to one of the authors. Hopefully he’ll respond soon. That next article will be paywalled, so consider upgrading to a paid subscription, if you’re interested.