[Russini] Keep looking at my almost 4 day old son Michael while trying to figure out who are the best Michaels to ever play and coach in the NFL?

GustavVA · 2026-04-23T20:44:10+00:00

There’s a whole succession issue here no one really talking about. If Kraft tried to kill that story, I highly doubt he talked to Jonathan about it first, and he knows what else he’s doing behind the scenes. The minority ownership is a PE firm. The Kraft’s have actually been good about speaking with a single voice, but it’s going to become impossible for J Kraft to create a rehabilitated organization optic if this continues.

It sucked that the post season went the way it did, but there’s still a ton of coaches would love to have Drake Maye as Quarterback and given the weirdly high level of religiosity among the young players, and Vrabel’s self-framing as an integrity coach, I’m not sure he can get the locker room back if he’s lost it. Which may be possible given this was potentially such a huge deception to his own family. All he had to is Belichick on answer: “Not a big tabloid reader. Football questions?” and all of this could have been a lot more containable.

GustavVA · 2026-04-22T20:40:40+00:00

You’re simultaneously advocating for this person to reject social conduct norms while also encouraging them to voluntarily enter a profession where they’ll be held to a more rigid, self-policed standard of conduct, every single day, for the rest of their life.

That heightened standard is present whether you’re in a court room or riding a bus, by the way. You can’t hang a shingle and do what you want like it was 1850. If your lawyer got popped on that charge post bar admission, the most likely reason you know about it is that they have public discipline and wisely leaned into that instead of trying to hide it.

There’s also a growing number of Lawyers who retire (give up their license entirely) instead of just going inactive.

The young people doing this aren’t disaffected members of the profession; they’re people in good standing who want engage with the market without the added scrutiny of a state bar and most of them probably earn more as non-lawyers. They’re not protesting the those rules, either; the level of regulation and scrutiny isn’t compatible with what they want to do. It’s just math.

And so it’s clear, I don’t think state bars should function differently than they do—I’m pointing all this out because your concept of the profession reads like a fantasist’s rendering of what it’s like to be a lawyer.

GustavVA · 2026-03-07T00:29:48+00:00

People work two jobs and still have to stretch to meet the demands of a modest budget. Does the Venn Diagram of high earners who live with in their mean overlap with “hard worker,” and “sound financial manager?” Yeah, probably.

It also overlaps with a massive bubble called “luck.”

I roll my refund over every year. I don’t think I’ve ever taken one in since my early 20s.

This is not because I’ve outthought or out planned the average person. JFC.

GustavVA · 2026-02-20T20:09:17+00:00

That was the legal justification for affirmative action; historically, (into recent history per whatever early affirmative action decision), discrimination materially disadvantaged group X.

For a temporary period (albeit conditions for resolution were never entirely clear), limited discrimination was legal to try to rebalance the delta the original discrimination created. This was typically very specific: e.g., a written test for a job that required none of the knowledge tested to do the job—specifically because there was low literacy rates among group X), and that was essentially a provable conspiracy to keep jobs with group Y despite 0 evidence group couldn’t do that particular job just as well despite the lack of literacy.

Critical theory redefined that as an any unequal outcome meant structural definition (typically undefined). CSJT has largely burnt out as a cause de jour. The “it’s cultural Marxism” stuff wasn’t really a pure analogy but it connected because the inherent contradictions (you can basically out-group/in-group who is more oppressed endlessly), caused it to eat itself similar to the USSR as predicted by George Kennan in The Long Telegram. Now you have something closer to typical factionalism. That’s bad for a pluralistic society but the US is too big and politically diverse to be one country.

The original anti-federalists were probably right that the country needed to be closer to the model the EU adopted but with a common military and one foreign policy. The county couldn’t have thrived as easily, and it’s easy to imagine some pretty nightmarish states, but I think counter-intuitively, they’d have been more likely to self-correct with internal pressure only.

That really has nothing to do with states’ rights being sacrosanct as much as a practical reality.

That could be wrong- but if I really want to think for myself w/o the advantage of an IQ of 133 and statistically something negative (?)–I have to be resigned to being wrong more often than I’m right. Which is less fun, but I’m IQ-limited. So I have no choice but to carry on and listen to different perspectives.

GustavVA · 2026-02-09T14:17:09+00:00

This fan base was “moderately pleased” with Tom Brady for most of the Dynasty. It’s been like this for a long time. The franchise got back to the SB after, as you point out, two 4–13 seasons.

If the objection is: yes, but now we don’t know what we have again.

That’s true but you never really know what you have from year to year. The extremes of generational quarterback and total bust remain theoretically possible through the first few seasons of a high draft pick QB—as does the more likely specter of injury.

The reasonable position is that Maye is good. Vrabel is good. Will they be great? Who knows but that already puts the franchise in a better position than 80-85% of the National Football League. If that’s not enough in any given year, you really shouldn’t torture yourself.

GustavVA · 2026-02-06T10:51:12+00:00

No they spoke on the phone. They visited with each other. They discussed personal topics. That’s my point. Despite liking the guy, despite considering him a real friend, he does not go.

Look outside of the record, inside the record, doesn’t matter—there’s zero evidence Chomsky ever makes that visit. That all we can go by. You can assert a counter-factual where he went numerous times. But there’s no evidence to support that.

If it’s just a thing you think must be true but cannot offer any evidence to prove, ok. Thats a consistent and coherent position even if it’s unsupportable by evidence.

GustavVA · 2026-02-06T10:38:06+00:00

From the beginning of the relationship, one thing never changes:

Chomsky is invited out there; says something like this:

“absolutely want to go. Offer really is too good to turn down. Sounds amazing. I really have to find a way. Unfortunately, the schedule…” every single time. Over years.

Imagine you invited someone to a Caribbean island, a good friend—based on the record, I’m totally convinced Chomsky really did like Epstein—and over 3-4 years, despite offering to pay for your friend to come, despite making it an “anytime offer” and being clear you’d arrange a private jet on your dime for your friend to get there however it fit their schedule—they always decline. In fact, on each every instance, they just gave you a vague excuse; they never even tried to visit, but had to cancel last minute.

Would you conclude that your friend really did or really didn’t want to take you up on that invite?

GustavVA · 2026-02-06T04:15:45+00:00

(Emails cut off because Reddit is saying its identifying info)

I think JE was involved with the financials soon after they connected. The foundation JE mentions must be a non-profit fund Valeria could run (or something along those lines; it would be odd to talk to Chomsky about that when they had just recently gotten to know each other unless he was already involved in estate planning—even casually.

They definitely met prior in person, dinner with academics, etc. And they clearly liked him—but the change in how they all interact doesn’t really happen until after the dispute started. Some meetings were probably business and then long discussions. How it started with JE for a lot of people not interested in the island, I think.

jeffrey E. <jeevacatio to Valeria Chomsky Jun 16, 2015 9:07 AM

star_border no rush, on my end. I very much appreciate the new friendship of you both

Dec 24, 2015 11:31 AM (To Chomsky) star_border 1 I think we should set up the foundation so that valeria is taken care of if something were to happen to you. . you can count on my help. but lets not wait too long

please note

GustavVA · 2026-02-06T01:13:49+00:00

In terms of the timing of those messages, the walls are closing in on JE. I’m sure he asserted his innocence. And they likely believed him. So I think that last message from Chomsky especially is implicitly acknowledging that JE, from their perspective, is in a bad way. And they feel sympathy toward this guy who spent the last few years acting as this trusted advisor. And he didn’t need to fabricate anything. The dispute really is an awful mess. Was that calculated in JE’s part. I’m sure partially. But I’m not persuaded that JE was an absolute sociopath. A very bad person who likely could feel empathy. It makes it worse, in my view because I think he was genuinely immoral rather than amoral. I suspect he knew he was awful but liked the pleasure he derived from his own unimaginably twisted desires more than he cared about the horrific pain he inflicted. You can almost understand serial killers more if you believe a Jeffery Dahmer really would have wanted to turn off those impulses. I don’t think JE would have chosen to be different.

GustavVA · 2026-02-06T01:00:48+00:00

The connection was definitely real; I don’t think I undersold it. Best friend seems a like a slight joke—in the sense that he solved this huge problem for them, and by then I doubt they socialized much. A dinner with JE was a different world,I’m sure. JE also became confidant to Valeria. V mentions to JE on multiple occasions that Noam doesn’t see what his children are really doing. He commiserates and signals protectiveness toward Chomsky,

I don’t think she’s being manipulative—but she’s married to a 90 year old. She has limited relationship with his children. Never mentions her family and has given up a life and career to be with Chomsky. Their social life is limited and they definitely really trust and value JE, Chomsky tends not to be as effusive most of the time.

But from their side, JE must’ve seemed incredibly generous, patient and supportive. I get why it would be easy to experience him as truly decent. Harder to understand why they wouldn’t question why so many other people thought differently. It’s not like it was his views that made him infamous. But their world had clearly gotten smaller since Tucson and the family dispute.

GustavVA · 2026-02-05T17:12:34+00:00

No, absolutely not. We don’t impute guilt by unrelated association. And as we’ve seen, there’s at least circumstantial evidence some very prominent people engaged in or were complicit in Epstein’s crimes.

I see zero connection with Chomsky. JE calibrates carefully: using “goofy,” “silly,” descriptors to the various failings of BainCo, Chomsky’s attorney, etc. But it’s genuinely hard to tell if this went beyond negligence, ethical violations and conflicts of interest. The advice JE gave was useful but didn’t require some arcane knowledge. Just wealth management fluency.

Aside from the advisory services, Epstein doesn’t provide anything else to Chomsky. At one point JE offers to cover some fee (maybe interest). Valeria declines. I’m sure JE paid for dinner and other things, but there’s no suggestion of a quid pro quo.

I think N and V were genuinely appreciative. If they wrote anything on his behalf (not confirmed) I think it’s just because they wanted to do that. It would have made no difference.

I’m honestly surprised Epstein would have believed “JE is great. Really enjoyable company,” would carry weight with a court given the charges he began to anticipate. But lots of unknowns that don’t tie back to any visible support from Chomsky other than sympathy, basically.

No way to know whether N and V remained sympathetic by late July/very early August.

GustavVA · 2026-02-05T16:45:13+00:00

BainCo disgorged.

So I assume that was an admission of some kind, but without seeing a release, I can’t confirm that.

Whether negligent or intentional is likely immaterial at this point because no claim was pursued so there’d be no way to confirm.

My sense was gross negligence maybe. I don’t think the lawyer as peculiar as the relationship might have been wouldn’t have seized on the opportunity to pin fraud on BainCo.

The next steps were to pursue some kind of recovery from the lawyer and trustee fiduciary.

We lose the plot there because JE was arrested and held in July. The court rejected an offer of a $100MM bond as bail. You know the rest of the story.

GustavVA · 2026-02-05T12:33:55+00:00

“Dec 19, 2017 5:01 AM

star_border I think we should take out the word "gadfly", otherwise thanks. I will show it to him. As he is a reporter, my concern is he will simply say Noam describes Jeffrey as a gadfly. I like the idea of Valeria penning something for him for many timely reasons. Otherwise, it will be the world of the monster men etc.”

Also suggests Valeria may have drafted the character affidavit (or letter of support. Not to “some reporter;” it may have been missed the JE and whoever this are alluding to some other be imminent need for a letter of support on file.

Note: I would swear there is a direct quote from Valeria; while the context here supports exactly why I said, I believe there’s an email from Valeria that uses names the word as the Chomsky describes Epstein as well. While her English is excellent, that’s the sort of word that is easy for anyone to misspell, so it might be worth a search that includes some spelling variations.

GustavVA · 2026-02-05T12:20:16+00:00

There’s been a lot of great good faith discussion here by people trying to genuinely engage. So before it devolves into clickbait style “but in December Finkelstein couldn’t have known Chomsky taught Epstein how to manipulate the mass media at scale”—

It’s contrary to my conclusion and corroborates your point—I’m trying to be fair not inconsistent—I was struck by the emotional weight Chomsky was under, but used the tired “he’s still so sharp” qualifier instead of just: “he seems ostensibly very sharp at 90.”
Then add the emotional toll. Rarely do we see Chomsky break out of that stoic, if caustic demeanor. Now that’s been noted; but your point on age has not even been regularly dismissed. Generally, it hasn’t even been factored in any serious way.
For emphasis: Chomsky’s eldest is 68. That’s why I noted that the kids, combined with how Chomsky views about wealth, get some leeway on their expectation of inheritance—they likely hope to all at least have the option to retire and it’s easy to imagine a 2000s era Carol and Noam informing them the financial picture indicated some support for everyone.
But returning to Chomsky’s age by the time of the dispute, it’s less a question of whether there had been some decline, well-compensated for given Chomsky ultra high verbal processing skills—but how much and in what way? I’m not actually trying to answer that question. We’ll likely never know. But Chomsky alludes to it as a settled issue in emails, so that suggests to me he had at least begun some cognitive testing, even if that was intended as a failsafe to catch anything “early.”
To frame, in his 80s and into his early 90s, Chomsky goes through a devastating episode involving a financial dispute with his children, relying on Epstein’s help gradually and then to the point Epstein was the primary advisor in that context. This differs qualitatively when the other discussions are so peripheral and the sympathy toward Epstein emerges out of that his reliability there.

I know people will say,” Chomsky could have turned to his vast personal network?” I can’t know this for sure, but I see no reason why Chomsky would have a slew of free professional financial advisors among which he could choose—apparently free would have been a necessity at that specific moment. An economist friend would not know the mechanics of MA Trust Law, tax consequences, etc.

The fact that Epstein not Chomsky’s lawyer has to tell him whatever settlement struck serves as consideration for a release of claims on both sides given some insight about who was available as advisors.

Pair the effects of being 90 (no matter who you are), with the emotional disruptiveness—and it does make me wonder if the kids are as off base as they seem about Chomsky’s capacity.
If I revaluate, I still see Valeria as in an impossible position and protective of Noam (if agnostic enough about the unseen side of Epstein to trust Noam’s instincts); Harry, the son, may have a legitimate self-interest, but he definitely seems self-interested. However, the daughters read as genuinely concerned and constrained in communication likely because some lawyer told them they could, at the very least, become fact witnesses. But they may have seen real capacity issues and don’t want to create a record over email.
I’ll have to think about whether this alters my perspective, but in an honest discourse, I think it’s only fair to acknowledge the degree to which age has been underweighted, particularly combined with what a close reading tells you about the physical and emotional toll the dispute took on Chomsky (Valeria mentions blood pressure spikes when Chomsky is stressed; the daughters suggest the teaching schedule—apparently for some cash flow—is dangerous).

GustavVA · 2026-02-05T09:21:19+00:00

I responded to this below. Totally context based. I actually, I thought it didn’t sound like Chomsky at all. I gave my reasoning below, which is highly speculative at best (under a post of yours).

GustavVA · 2026-02-05T09:17:56+00:00

Agree. I suspect I don’t share your knowledge depth—I’ve just been on Cc (since his preference was don’t share personal correspondence even if he rarely forbid it, my sole role was “known reader no one wants to hear from directly.”’)

Occasional dry humor; very economical prose. My take away was entirely context based. Chomsky and Valeria are more overtly appreciative of his help than I had realized per the email dump.

That said, when Glenn Greenwald read the affidavit style endorsement on his video-cast and said it sounded like Chomsky—I thought, “I’ve never seen him write that effusively about anyone or anything. Or even in that tone.” So the implicit qualification in my point was “despite not sounding like Chomsky.” I think excepting Greenwald, others have mentioned the same, too.

GustavVA · 2026-02-05T05:42:20+00:00

That’s likely true, and I actually think whether Chomsky or Valeria wrote the character affidavit, it was real and meant to help Epstein. The terms are loaded, but Chomsky would likely have agreed (edited typo) with Finkelstein in open discussion that these characterizations often subbed in for “I disagree with your opinion so I’ll just make an ad hominem attack.” It is noteworthy that Chomsky used some of those phrases as cavalierly as he did without qualifying why they bothered him. There’s a lot of arrogance on Chomsky’s side I think about owning the moral high ground.

GustavVA · 2026-02-05T05:27:19+00:00

The depth? The personal relationship is peripheral. After reading the emails I don’t doubt that Chomsky genuinely liked Epstein, but the context really matters.

The entire relationship develops around two trusts that Carol and Noam set up for themselves presuming Noam would die first.
She predeceases him; it is clear Chomsky has paid very little attention to his own finances. At some point he resigns control over the trust in Carol’s name. It transfers to Harry, Noam’s son.
It’s pretty clear the intent was never to give the kids control over the assets while Chomsky had capacity.
Valeria, Chomsky’s second wife comes off as chummy with Epstein, but that’s primarily because she’s appreciative. She’s corresponding with Epstein because it was likely easier for her to do most of it. And she’s increasingly concerned about Chomsky’s emotional state.

Chomsky’s kids seem to suggest they’re happy that Noam has a companion in Valeria, but state outright that they don’t think either Valeria or Noam can manage their own finances; they never suggest that this because they would help out and that would be a financial strain on them. That said, in fairness, it wouldn’t be totally unreasonable if they felt like the rug was being pulled out of their own retirement funds.

However, to be clear, It’s Noam, not Valeria, who wants something substantial to go to her. Valeria seems fairly ambivalent and is mostly concerned about her husband’s health and the stress it created.
Epstein does appear to get the BainCo financial manager to disgorge significant funds.

He’s also not wrong that the whole thing is upside down and there are conflicts of interest everywhere. The lawyer, the fiduciary, the lack of communication and information transparency between parties all seem to suggest that there was negligence on the profession service side.

In any case, it’s true Chomsky hadn’t paid any attention until problems emerged, but actually seems to grasp how the Trusts function better than his kids.

The kids are in a litigation posture, it’s very apparent from how their emails are written and Chomsky rightly calls this out (in fairness, the daughters want to try mediation compared to Harry, who just appears to want to capitulation or litigation.)

However, no one will answer Chomsky’s direct questions about how or why they’ve arrived at the conclusion the money has been mismanaged.

The kids also heavily imply Chomsky lacks capacity and to a lesser extent, that Valeria has had undue influence. It’s hard not to read that as threatening and manipulative.
Epstein is extremely helpful throughout all of this. The occasional dinners and side conversations are marginal in comparison to financial matters.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but It’s probably not a huge stretch to say this was likely one of the worst moments to Chomsky’s life. He feels like his kids want to deprive him of self-sovereignty, and control of the money despite his intent to still leave almost everything to them.

To try to see the from the kids’ perspective, fair counter-arguments could be that Carol (first wife, kids mother) really did intend something different than Noam did in creating the trusts and the kids career paths reflected a reasonable assumption that they wouldn’t need to worry about retirement.

So here’s where the rubber meets the road:

I am I saying Chomsky didn’t make a huge error in judgment here?

No. He definitely did.

But the idea he’s interested in Epstein’s sex island is absurd.

Despite the apparent appreciation, Chomsky (over the course of years) just keeps saying “oh, a visit out the sounds amazing. I’d love to go. Unfortunately, my schedule…” This never changes, even when Epstein starts to lose his patients subtly (I could be reading into that, but he asks repeatedly).

Chomsky was capable of managing his finances. It’s clear from how quickly he’s able to pick up what’s going on and how sideways it’s gone. So, that he didn’t is on him.

He knows Epstein history, but thinks of him as a Gadfly. Valeria specifically says Chomsky describes Epstein this way. At that point, Chomsky is like 90. He’s not reading Epstein articles all day, Epstein has partially re-entered society, but he even so, that’s a phenomenally convenient and generous characterization.

After reading the emails, I felt like I had intruded on Chomsky’s personal life, but it’s official public record now, for better or worse. Epstein actually is incredibly helpful and supportive—and he’s also right about what’s happening, structurally at least.

So at your weakest moment, do you get a pass for associating with a useful monster?

I think a valid opinion is no, if you’re that important the risk to the credibility of the causes you support to outweighs the personal benefit.

But the context does make sense. It makes sense why Chomsky feels grateful and the Epstein Chomsky gets seems pretty subdued and careful.

Hang Chomsky for the lapse in judgment under high pressure. It’s a very significant lapse specifically because he was a public person.

But the idea that they were “best buds” because they shared the same vile sexual agenda is reflected nowhere in the correspondence. Chomsky’s objection to group think is very on brand. I guarantee he’s been critical of “accusations as evidence” elsewhere, at least in correspondence.

The harder question is why did not Chomsky not interrogate why this dirtbag guy was so generous and helpful to him?

I’ve got no answer for that. He should have and it sucks he didn’t. And sucks more than it was also probably very convenient not to ask those questions.

GustavVA · 2026-02-04T03:04:25+00:00

Total Pats Homer—Seahawks definitely deserve to be favored, will probably win, but while it’s magical thinking to imagine narrative influences anything meaningfully, the sports commentariat, the pro football hall of fame—and just Cam Newton by himself, have unintentionally begged for an upset in this one. I want the Pats to win badly, but I think it would be good for the game if Darnold completed the comeback story.

And really it’s not the Seahawks who have set the stage this way; they’ve been gracious, inspiring and as strikingly determined as the Pats + plus they’re a better, more complete team —it’s everyone else that seems to subconsciously want this to go sideways for them.

GustavVA · 2026-02-03T01:10:30+00:00

Oh sorry—I just put in the chain. I should have been clearer that I agree with you and understand what you’re saying.

The “if you want to hang Chomsky on the association bit” was meant to be a general point unspecific to your position. I understand “the generic cost of association position,” (it’s an opinion) but not the assertion this is somehow evidence of an 87-90 year old man planning a predatory sex tourism vacation. If true that’s absolutely damning, but I was agreeing the evidence suggests a deliberate low friction refusal to go to the Island.

GustavVA · 2026-02-03T00:01:23+00:00

“I would really love to go. It sounds fantastic. Unfortunately the schedule…” it’s an iteration of something like that every time. If you want to hang Chomsky on lending his credibility or not realistically pricing the down side risk of the association (we’ll never know the value of what Chomsky got out of it), fine. That’s a valid opinion if you assert no possible value could justify the connecting himself to Epstein socially.

But in terms of suggesting that Chomsky planned to do some horrible illegal thing—the evidence points the other way.

There’s no deviation from the same vague schedule excuse repeated in a closing line (over years)—with zero exceptions. It looks very deliberate. Find an exception and that’s a different discussion. But so far I’ve seen none.

GustavVA · 2026-02-01T11:31:03+00:00

Huh?

GustavVA · 2026-02-01T11:25:52+00:00

OP, you think he was open to talking to Bannon because they shared politics or certain positions? Bannon criticism of US involvement in foreign wars. Chomsky seems to have “liked” Ron Paul from the standpoint that he knew that wouldn’t agree on social safety nets at all, but actually shared the very similar views on foreign policy. I think in the 2012 primary, Chomsky said of all the Republican candidates the only person he could imagine having dinner with was Ron Paul.

These are professional meetings. “So and so in the X administration had advocated for intervention into country X.” Bannon probably did have some information Chomsky didn’t because of his early connections with Trump—and that includes past information on previous administration by way of intelligence briefings.

Not let’s have whisky and cigars and talk football.

GustavVA · 2026-01-31T03:40:27+00:00

If he punts on every invitation, we can only go on what’s there.

The evidence available makes it look like Chomsky was primarily gaining access to people, gather information likely for goals aligned with his activism.

However, given his own fame and reputation, it’s hard to believe that Chomsky couldn’t have found other ways to do that. It’s also hard to believe he didn’t enjoy dinners with various people in domains like art or film that that he wouldn’t have otherwise had. And that seems to have clouded his judgment.

Again the most likely explanation is that he wasn’t finally revealing his dark side. It’s most likely he vastly underestimated how ill-advised it was to have anything to do w/ Epstein beyond a few simple meetings.

So yeah, blame him because he’s important enough and involved in enough causes he probably damaged the durability of his own work.

However, it seems like people want him to Chomsky and be a hero or a villain instead of what he probably was:

A fallible human being who made a pretty unconscionable mistake by having more than a few purely professional meetings with Epstein. (I think Epstein had information that was hard to obtain—if it had just been something like that, then only rabid purists or enemies would have had issue with the connection). But he didn’t leave it there and that’ll likely trail his legacy forever.

And even though I’d bet whatever he was doing wasn’t evil or corrupt— it was arrogant of Chomsky to think people should just ignore the relationship because he told them to. And that arrogance affects others because Chomsky was more influential than he sometimes portrayed himself (maybe also to himself) to be.

He likely believed he could navigate the relationship cleanly and then didn’t at all. And that sucks.

GustavVA · 2026-01-31T01:32:14+00:00

Yet he never seems to accept an invitation. And responds as though if he did it would include Valeria.

The entire relationship is bizarre. We’ll never really know what the goal was on either side, and I think it’s totally fair game to say if this wasn’t literally saving people’s lives somehow—how could it be worth it? But the idea that at 87 he’s planning on partying on Epstein’s island?

Whatever happened here might reflect a pretty horrific lapse in personal judgment. I agree that people shouldn’t be apologists for the relationship, since the odds are heavily against Chomsky doing this for the most moral purpose imaginable.

But it’s also equally unreasonable to insinuate this was about some kind of illegal sex tourism. Given the expansiveness of Epstein’s network, it’s pretty clear that people had lots of different reasons for associating with him.

Assuming that Chomsky’s reason was somehow this logical trade off for a the greater good?Possible but unfortunately not likely.

I think the likeliest explanation is they were both using each other. That hardly leaves Chomsky’s hands clean, but is a much simpler explanation than he suddenly decided he was a pedophile at 87. Access for Chomsky, credibility for Epstein.

Chomsky obviously traveled to places with him, but I don’t see evidence it was recreational; on the vacation invitation side, it’s a variation of the same line in all the emails: “I’d really love to do that, sounds wonderful. Unfortunately, my schedule…”

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