Its coverage of the files, combined with suggestive references in the document trove, raise questions that merit scrutiny
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Buried in the Justice Department files pertaining to the late pedophile, money man, and intelligence fixer Jeffrey Epstein is a curious passage from the draft of an article by Michael Wolff . It was apparently commissioned by New York magazine and references a relationship between Epstein and the family that controls America’s most important and prestigious newspaper, The New York Times, stretching back to his years as a teacher at a pricey prep school in Manhattan.
Dalton fathers were attracted to [Epstein] as a young man clearly on the make. Punch Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, and a Dalton father at the time, tried to recruit Epstein to come to the Times. (Epstein recounts a story of riding with Sulzberger in his wood paneled station wagon to the family’s country estate and Sulzberger talking to the chauffer [sic] on a phone from the backseat to the front.) But he wasn’t interested in being a journalist.
The article was subjected to a fact-checker, who asked Epstein to verify late Arthur Ochs Sulzberger’s effort to recruit him and his ride to the country, but was never published, though Wolff has said he has incorporated some of its content later into a book.
Epstein could have been bullshiting Wolff, and the passage above could be ignored were it the only reference to the relationship between the pedophile and the family overseeing America’s most revered news outlet. Butm in fact, there are other emails in the files that suggest that Epstein not only continued to swirl about in the same social circles as the Sulzbergers, but had access to salacious private information about the now-retired former chairman of the Times, Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr.
The Times coverage of the Epstein files releases has also raised eyebrows. Its reports have veered from dismissively downplaying the Epstein emails as nostalgic reminders of a bygone era to nibbling at the story’s edges with trivial celebrity tripe. The story that caught my eye and prompted me to dig into the Sulzberger matter was a round-up of disturbing revelations about Epstein that the Times was seemingly ignoring until they were so widely known they could not go unreported.
Even the hint that the family overseeing America’s most important newspaper could be implicated in a scandal involving sex crimes and intelligence services raises concerns.
The Times has also doggedly ignored well-documented allegations that Epstein served as some kind of fixer for Israeli intelligence and had ties to US and Russian covert operations, as reported by Drop Site News and other news outlets. That as it boasts about the resources it has devoted to covering the files.
Other than Epstein’s unverified claims that he spent time with the Sulzbergers during his time as a schoolteacher and was invited to join the newspaper, no communications prove any direct contact between Epstein and the family. “Arthur Sulzberger Jr. has no memory of ever meeting Epstein,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for the Times, responding to an inquiry.
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Reputation laundering
Sulzberger Jr.’s name first emerges in the Justice Department files a little over a year after Epstein was released from prison in Florida on charges of soliciting a minor. Epstein initiated a discussion with the now disgraced UK Labour Party apparatchik Peter Mandelson.
The Brit told Epstein that Sulzberger, along with publisher and billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, financier Leon Black and former PBS host Charlie Rose were the “New York establishment people” the sex criminal needed to “win back,” presumably in order to get into the good graces of society. Mandelson noted that anyone recruited for a possible event “must be people you can trust not to gossip,” and suggested that Epstein’s partner-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell “fluff everyone up.”
He suggested inviting former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, one of Epstein’s closest contacts, could draw some topnotch guests. “Remember that everyone will want to know what’s right/wrong with peace talks so Ehud will be a hot ticket,” Mandelson wrote.
The Times said Sulzberger never attended any event.
A #MeToo Target
Sulzberger goes unmentioned in the files until seven years later, when the #metoo movement begins. Epstein seemed sure in November 2017, in the wake of allegations of sexual assault against film producer Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men targeted for their abuses of women, that Sulzberger would be felled. “Charlie Rose Arthur Sulzberger,” he wrote in emails to former Times journalist Landon Thomas and former Goldman Sachs attorney Kathy Ruemmler, both of whom later lost their jobs over their associations with Epstein.
“How about Sulzberger,” Epstein wrote to New York attorney Brad S. Karp. “Would that be funny?”
Karp replied, “That would be pretty ironic and give a whole new meaning to his nickname, Pinch.”
The next day, in a now widely reported Nov. 2 exchange, Epstein and journalist Michael Wolff discussed the possibility that Sulzberger would be outed as an abuser of some sort, the same way Charlie Rose was exposed, by President Donald Trump’s then chief-of-staff Steve Bannon.
“If Bannon outed Charlie and Pinch Sulzberger, then what?” Epstein asked.
“The end of the establishment as we know it,” Wolff replied.
In December, after Matt Lauer was ousted from NBC News over sexual abuse allegations, Wolff and Epstein renewed their speculation about who would be the next powerful man to fall.
“Sulzberger? Sports guys? Wall Street? Silicon Valley guys said that they are few and far between as no one has any fun or creates jealousies,” Epstein wrote.
Sulzberger was never felled by any #metoo allegations. He retired from his position as publisher at the end of 2017, handing off the reins to his son while remaining chairman of the board until 2020. No evidence has emerged that Sulzberger, now retired, has been accused of workplace or any other impropriety. The Times says that the plans for the transition were first disclosed in 2015. “AG Sulzberger was named deputy publisher in 2016,” Rhoades Ha said. “In December 2017, we announced that AG would become publisher effective in 2018. Arthur Sulzberger remained as chairman of the board through 2020.
Conspiracy theories
The New York Times has other ties to Epstein. A member of the company’s board of directors, Joi Ito, for example, was forced out in 2019 after the New Yorker reported he had deeper financial ties to the by then deceased Epstein that previously disclosed. Times columnist David Brooks, after downplaying the Epstein matter for months, was exposed as having attended an event with him.
America’s paper of record complained the other day that conspiracy theories are flourishing about the Epstein files. But it is contributing to the confusion and speculation by ignoring the geopolitical and national security angles of the Epstein files in favor of trivialities. Meanwhile, the Times has failed to scrutinize Epstein’s extensive relationship with Barak, his shadow diplomacy on behalf of Israel, and his attempts to connect Israel with the US defense technology sector despite troves of emails suggesting he was doing just that. It has also ignored the sometimes salacious references to the Sulzbergers.
“The New York Times’s coverage of the Epstein files is extensive, ground-breaking
and free of any agenda.” —Danielle Rhoades Ha, New York Times spokeswoman
The Times stands by its reporting. “The New York Times’s coverage of the Epstein files is extensive, ground-breaking and free of any agenda,” Rhoades Ha said. “We edit our Epstein stories the same way we edit other investigative and news coverage. Our Standards editors look carefully at any potential conflicts in Times coverage and recommend disclosures, changes or other actions as appropriate. They have found no conflicts related to our Epstein work.”
Trust in US institutions has hit an unimaginable nadir. Even the hint that the family overseeing America’s most important newspaper could be implicated in a scandal involving sex crimes and intelligence services raises concerns. The Times requires reporters to explain or disclose even the appearance of a conflict of interest that could be perceived as affecting coverage. It now needs to subject itself to the same standard.
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