Chomsky sympathised with Epstein over ‘horrible’ press treatment, thanked him for ‘care packages’

WASHINGTON – Renowned American linguist Noam Chomsky privately sympathised with Jeffrey Epstein over what he described as the “horrible way” the press treated the sex offender, urging him in a 2019 e-mail to lie low and avoid media “vultures”.

The exchange, revealed in a newly released cache of US government files, took place months before Epstein’s arrest on child sex trafficking charges and points to a closer relationship between the financier and the revered left-wing academic than previously known.

Responding to an e-mail from Epstein seeking advice on how to handle his “putrid press”, Mr Chomsky decried “the horrible way you are being treated in the press and public”.

“What the vultures dearly want is a public response, which then provides a public opening for an onslaught of venomous attacks, many from just publicity seekers or cranks of all sorts,” added Mr Chomsky, who is now 97.

“That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”

The exchange took place in February 2019. Epstein would be arrested in July 2019, and was found dead in his New York jail cell in August of the same year.

Previously released Epstein materials showed Mr Chomsky maintained a relationship with him long after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. An image released by Democrats in Congress shows Mr Chomsky seated next to him on a plane.

Mr Chomsky defended that relationship, telling the Harvard Crimson in 2023: “We knew that he had been convicted and served his time, which means that he re-enters society under prevailing norms.”

Other newly released e-mails point to the depth of Mr Chomsky’s social ties with Epstein, and to a planned meet up with Mr Steve Bannon, a former adviser to US President Donald Trump credited as the architect of his rise to power.

Mr Chomsky’s wife Valeria writes “Jeffrey is a very dear friend, and we look forward to meeting you” in a 2019 e-mail to Mr Bannon with Epstein copied.

In a 2016 exchange, Epstein invites Mr Chomsky to either New York or the Caribbean – a likely reference to Little Saint James, notoriously known as Epstein Island.

Mr Chomsky, in response, appears to thank Epstein for “care packages”, adding: “Valeria’s always keen on New York. I’m really fantasising about the Caribbean island.”

The mere mention of someone’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply any wrongdoing by that person.

However, the documents made public show at the very least connections between the sex offender or his circle and certain public figures who have often downplayed – or even denied – the existence of such ties. AFP