Chris Hedges, Nick Bryant, and the Total Collapse of Journalistic Standards
NOTE FROM MT: Astonishingly, I have received no reply whatsoever from Max Jones (the producer of “The Chris Hedges Report”), Chris Hedges, or Robert Scheer — despite repeated emails, text messages, phone calls, and DMs. Even though Max Jones has previously invited me on multiple podcasts associated with the ScheerPost, where he also works. They’ve chosen to simply ignore my inquiries. The total collapse of any journalistic standards in relation to this story never ceases to amaze.
August 10, 2025
To: Max Jones, Chris Hedges, Robert Scheer
From: Michael Tracey
The sheer volume of blatant distortions, egregious misrepresentations, and outright falsehoods pervading this July 16, 2025 video of Nick Bryant on “The Chris Hedges Report” is genuinely remarkable. Virtually every other sentence, something factually deficient is said. Of course, I will demonstrate my conclusion with copious evidence, such that it will become indisputable to anyone with a modicum of journalistic integrity that the only viable course of action is to remove the video immediately. As of current writing, the video has 1.6 million views on YouTube — which means an extraordinary number of people have consumed this whirlwind of provable falsity. To spare untold more who may yet watch the video, it should be taken down at the earliest possible opportunity, and a correction should be issued.
At 51:33, Nick Bryant says about the Epstein Victims Compensation Program: “If you get a settlement from that fund, or that program, you’ve got to sign an NDA, and you cannot name any other of your perpetrators.”
This is just outrageously, provably false. You can find the literal court-submitted and approved protocol for how that settlement program was administered. The protocol says: “Individual Claimants are not bound through the Program by any rules of confidentiality. Claimants may, at their sole and voluntary option, disclose information in their possession regarding their claim, their compensation and their experience with the Program.” Furthermore, receipt of settlement funds “will not operate to preclude or limit the Claimant’s ability to report and discuss allegations of sexual abuse with law enforcement officials or anyone else. In other words, the Release will not impose any rules of confidentiality on claimants, who are expressly permitted to discuss their allegations without restriction, should they choose.”
One of the administrators of the fund, Jordana Feldman, said any settlement recipient would remain free to pursue claims against other individuals to whom they might allege they were sex-trafficked. Settlement recipients were required to foreclose any future litigation only against the Epstein Estate, or entities/individuals deemed sufficiently tied to the Epstein Estate. But recipients were not required to foreclose future litigation against other alleged “perpetrators,” should there be grounds or desire to bring it — nevermind forbidden to make public “disclosures” about other alleged perpetrators, as falsely claimed by Bryant. There was simply no “non-disclosure agreement” at all required by the settlement terms.
Virginia Giuffre sued Prince Andrew on August 9, 2021, after she would’ve already received her cut of the Epstein Victims Compensation Program settlements. No legal barrier prevented Giuffre from subsequently making sex crime allegations against Ghislaine Maxwell, Naomi Campbell, and Jean-Luc Brunel, among others, after her receipt of the settlement funds. On May 29, 2025, Maria Farmer, another recipient of settlement funds, filed a lawsuit against the US federal government in which she alleges wrongdoing by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Leslie Wexner.
Bryant insinuates that the Epstein Victims Compensation Program was set up by lawyer David Boies to shield other “perpetrators” from public scrutiny or criminal charges, but his claim is just completely made up. All four of the witnesses who the government called to testify at the Ghislaine Maxwell trial in 2021 received settlement payouts, and were obviously not barred from making allegations against Maxwell, nor anyone else. Annie Farmer, yet another recipient of settlement funds from the program, was on CNN this very week (August 8, 2025) freely “naming” Ghislaine Maxwell as an alleged “perpetrator” of various misconduct.
Bryant’s claim is false on every level. There was no “NDA.” There was no barrier imposed against “naming any other” alleged perpetrators, and no requirement for “non-disclosure” of any kind. It’s just unambiguously, demonstrably false.
At 11:44, Bryant says, “[Ghislaine] Maxwell sued her [Virginia Giuffre] for defamation, and she counter-sued.”
Again, just factually false. Virginia Giuffre initiated the defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell. Here is the initial defamation complaint filed by David Boies on behalf of Virginia Giuffre on September 21, 2015 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Maxwell countered with a filing on March 16, 2016 that demanded the dismissal of Giuffre’s complaint with prejudice, and that Maxwell be awarded costs and fees. The case was entitled Giuffre v. Maxwell because Giuffre was the plaintiff and Maxwell was the defendant. Whatever else is true, Maxwell did not initiate the defamation lawsuit against Giuffre. That is false. Giuffre initiated the defamation lawsuit against Maxwell.
At 21:23, Bryant says: “Wolff also claims that he saw pictures of topless underage girls on Trump’s lap, too.”
Michael Wolff has not claimed he conclusively knows that any of the females pictured with Trump in the photos Wolff says he saw (which he says Epstein showed him) were “underage.” Wolff said on July 20, 2025: “I don’t know the ages of these girls, but they were young girls — let’s be specific, I doubt if they were 20 years old. They may have been 18, but I don’t know.” On June 10, 2025, Wolff said they were “girls of an uncertain age.” Bryant mischaracterizes what Wolff has claimed. If Bryant can cite any evidence of Wolff ever claiming that he knows with certainty that the females in the photos he was shown were “underage,” presumably Bryant could provide the citation. If not, he should issue a correction, as should Chris Hedges, who let the statement pass without challenge.
At 32:53, Bryant claims that Epstein “would actually molest underage girls… he would molest underage girls when he was ostensibly incarcerated.”
There is no credible evidence that Epstein was ever even alleged to have “molested underage girls” during the period when he was in the carceral custody of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, from June 30, 2008 to July 22, 2009. Lawyer Bradley Edwards claimed in July 2019 that Epstein was able to have female “visitors” during this period of incarceration. “I don’t know if any of his visitors were underage,” Edwards said, “but I do know he was able to have visitors under the age of 21.” In August 2009, Edwards filed lawsuits on behalf of alleged Epstein victims who claimed to have had sexual contact with Epstein during his period of incarceration. Katlyn Doe claimed to have had sexual contact with Epstein “in June or early July of 2009,” when she was at least 19 years old. Priscilla Doe was at least 21 years old when she claimed to have had sexual contact with Epstein during his period of incarceration. Lisa Doe, another of Edwards’ anonymous clients, was at least 22 years old during Epstein’s period of incarceration, though it’s not clear from the lawsuit if Lisa Doe specifically alleged to have had sexual contact with Epstein between June 30, 2008 and July 22, 2009. Lisa Doe claimed to have engaged in “commercial sex acts” with Epstein until 2010, but specific instances of sexual contact during the period of Epstein’s incarceration are not described, unlike in the other two anonymous accusers’ lawsuits.
In sum, there is no credible evidence that Epstein “molested underage girls” during his period of incarceration in 2008-2009. When Epstein was federally indicted in July 2019, there was no illegal sexual conduct with minors alleged to have occurred after 2005.
At 49:04, Bryant claims, “The Department of Health and Human Services commissioned a study, and that study found that between 240,000 and 325,000 women and children are trafficked in the United States every year.”
No study commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services ever found any such thing. Bryant is flagrantly misrepresenting a 2001 report by Estes and Weiner that estimates the total number of children in the United States deemed to be “at risk” of “commercial sexual exploitation” due to a host of purported factors, such as “use of psychotropic drugs” and belonging to “sexual minority groups.” The authors explicitly clarify that these figures “do not... reflect the actual number of cases” of child sexual exploitation in the United States — nor even an estimate of the number of children and/or women who have been purportedly sex-trafficked. Rather, the authors purport to estimate the number of children who could theoretically be “at risk” for exploitation — 25 years ago. In no way did the report “find,” as Bryant falsely claims, that “between 240,000 and 325,000 women and children are trafficked in the United States every year.” When I asked Bryant to provide a link to the study he was citing after I saw him make this claim on a different show, he ignored the request, and instead chose to effectively call me a pedophile.
At 17:22, Hedges says Alan Dershowitz “makes these claims that he only traveled on the Lolita Express with his wife. You know the flight logs as exposing this to be untrue.” Bryant then says, “Dershowitz is taking lots of flights with girls like Tatiana and Clare.”
Dershowitz expressly said in an October 15, 2015 deposition that during the timeframe he was accused of committing illicit sexual acts against Virginia Giuffre, and had traveled on Epstein’s plane, “My wife accompanied me on two occasions… During that period of time, on occasion my wife did not fly with me.”
As to Bryant’s claim that Dershowitz was “taking lots of flights with girls like Tatiana and Clare,” it was established during the 2015 deposition that Dershowitz took a flight on Epstein’s jet on November 17, 2005, and also on that flight was a woman — not a “girl” — named Tatiana Kovylina, who it was established was 24 years old at the time. This was several years after the period in which Giuffre accused Dershowitz of committing sex crimes against her (Giuffre claimed to have separated from Epstein in 2002.) Flight logs show the earliest date on which Dershowitz could have taken a flight with a “girl” named Clare was February 9, 1998. This “girl” was in fact Clare Hazell, who would have been 23 years old at the time. Given the context of the discussion, viewers would falsely assume that by “girls,” Bryant was referring to underage minors, rather than female adults.
At 13:58, Bryant claims “a number of” Epstein victims were “under the age of 10.”
Has Chris Hedges or anyone else asked Bryant to provide the slightest bit of substantiation for this sensational claim — beyond Bryant’s purported conversations with unidentified “therapists”? Bryant claims the media is “not going to report on victims under the age of 14.” Why on earth wouldn’t the media report on this, if there were any credible evidence? Does Bryant seriously think that in 2025, the media is reluctant to report on damning accusations against Jeffrey Epstein? Why doesn’t Bryant supply the evidence that there were sex-trafficking victims “under the age of 10,” if he’s going to assert this as fact in front of a mass audience?
At 14:14, Bryant describes his investigation of the claims of “Katie Johnson,” who filed a lawsuit in 2016 claiming to have been violently raped by Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at age 13. Bryant says, “It’s very difficult to know what exactly went on there, because she was — she I guess was threatened.”
By all credible accounts, this lawsuit was a fraud coordinated by a former Jerry Springer show producer and serial publicity stunt orchestrator named Norm Lubow. Julie K. Brown, who authored the 2018 Miami Herald series that catalyzed the groundswell of renewed public interest and prosecutorial action against Epstein, said the “Katie Johnson” allegation was a “red herring” and rejected its veracity.
At 8:33, Bryant says, “And then things that I strongly disagree with are that he [Epstein] did this by himself, and that there wasn’t blackmail involved. And if he did this by himself, why is Ghislaine Maxwell in prison?”
Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison because she was convicted in 2021 of participating in a sex-trafficking conspiracy that the government alleged consisted of two named individuals — herself and Jeffrey Epstein. In other words, Maxwell was convicted of “trafficking” to Epstein. None of the four alleged victims that the government called to testify against Maxwell ever claimed they were trafficked by Maxwell to anyone other than Epstein. Knowing the bare-minimum facts of the 2021 Maxwell trial could have answered Bryant’s question.
Many additional problems with many other claims in this video could also be identified, but hopefully by now I have given a sufficiently comprehensive explanation of the provable falsehoods that suffuse the video, and which have now been consumed by 1.6 million viewers and rising. If “The Chris Hedges Report” has an ounce of journalistic integrity, this unsalvageable video would be immediately removed, and a correction would be issued.
Please let me know what your plan is for removing the video and taking corrective action by Monday, August 11, at 12pm EST, as I plan to publish an article on this matter.
-Michael Tracey
People keep attacking Tracey over these articles, but I am still struggling to find the actual flaws in Tracey's work.
I appreciate your work on this and the links to relevant legal documents. Lee Fang has done some great independent reporting on Epstein and his payments to officials in the Virgin Islands. It’s important to separate the hyperbole from the facts. It seems to me that we’ve only scratched the surface of what Epstein’s racket was but these people who spread sensational lies do not help us discover the truth.