When Critics of Power Drift Too Close to It
There’s been renewed attention this week on a deeply uncomfortable association involving Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals, and Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier whose name has become synonymous with elite abuse and secrecy. The focus isn’t on criminal wrongdoing by Chomsky, and that point needs to be made clearly right from the start. There is no evidence linking him to Epstein’s sexual crimes. What is being examined instead is judgment, proximity, and the uneasy questions that arise when moral critics of power are found inside its inner rooms.
The debate was reignited after new photographs were released by the US House Oversight Committee. Among them is an image showing Epstein seated beside Chomsky on a private aircraft. The photo is undated, and nothing improper is depicted. Still, presence matters. Epstein’s world was defined by private planes, secluded homes, and tightly controlled social spaces. Being there doesn’t imply guilt, but it does establish closeness, and in Epstein’s case, closeness was rarely accidental.
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Documents already in the public record had shown that this was not a casual acquaintance. Emails and letters describe repeated meetings and what Chomsky himself once called “regular contact,” involving long, wide-ranging discussions. In correspondence that later surfaced, Chomsky thanked Epstein for explaining the workings of the global financial system, describing those conversations as valuable to him. Epstein was also described as a facilitator, arranging introductions and conversations with diplomats and political figures whom Chomsky had written about critically.
There was even a financial transaction that raised eyebrows. Around $270,000 was transferred to Chomsky in 2018 from an Epstein-linked account. Chomsky has said the money was his own, moved through those accounts during a personal financial reorganisation, and that it did not involve Epstein’s funds. That explanation stands unless proven otherwise. What remains undisputed is that money moved, meetings happened, and appreciation was expressed.
That’s why this story unsettles. Not because it disproves his ideas, but because it tests them. Epstein didn’t contradict Chomsky’s analysis of elite systems. In many ways, he embodied it. What the record suggests is not hypocrisy, but a blind spot. It shows how easily access can be mistaken for neutrality, how familiarity can soften scepticism, and how even the sharpest critics of power are not immune to its social pull.
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