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Transcript:
Look. I know that on this channel, I often criticize prominent people for actions that I find detestable: accepting dark money and failing to disclose it, producing propaganda for Big Oil, silencing critics with phony libel lawsuits, and on and on. And inevitably in the comments there will be people saying that I’m a hypocrite because nobody’s perfect and one day someone will air out MY dirty laundry and reveal to the world that I’m not what I seem.
Well, after several decades in the public eye, I am finally faced with this exact scenario. Emails I sent fourteen years ago, which I expected to remain private, have just been made public by a congressional committee.
That’s right: I’m in the Epstein files.
I know that this is going to be very disappointing for many of you, and for others it will be the ultimate vindication of what you always suspected was true: I am, in fact, a literate person who loathes sex predators and holds them accountable even in private. That’s it, that’s what’s in my private correspondence. I’m actually pretty pleased with this development, if I’m honest.
Let me back up a bit. As most people know by now, in 2008 Jeffrey Epstein was first jailed for raping dozens of girls as young as 13. Despite the severity of his crimes, he secured a sweetheart deal that allowed him to only serve 13 months in what was essentially a state-sponsored hotel room, which he was allowed to leave for most of every day.
The victims fought for years to get any form of actual justice, and by 2011, two of them made enough headway that international news was beginning to pay attention. The Daily Beast was doing a lot of good reporting on it at the time, and one day in April of 2011 a reader of my blog, Skepchick, sent me a piece about how Epstein’s high society buddies were circling the wagons. They specifically wanted me to weigh in on a quote from Lawrence Krauss, a relatively famous theoretical physicist who often appeared at skeptic and atheist events and whose work was in part funded by Epstein: “ “If anything, the unfortunate period he suffered has caused him to really think about what he wants to do with his money and his time, and support knowledge,” says Krauss. “Jeffrey has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young women but they’re not as young as the ones that were claimed. As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.” Though colleagues have criticized him over his relationship with Epstein, Krauss insists, “I don’t feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it.”
I was shocked by this quote. I didn’t know Krauss well, but I had been at conferences with him and attended his lectures whenever he came through whatever city I happened to be in at the time. I was absolutely positive that he had been taken out of context. And so I emailed him.
Dear Professor Krauss,
We met briefly after your talk in Ithaca a few months ago — I’m the girl on The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast. I’ve really enjoyed your talks and books, but I was surprised to see you quoted in the Daily Beast recently defending Jeffrey Epstein.
Can you confirm if the following quote [I just read] is accurate?
Thanks,
Rebecca Watson
He replied pretty quickly, writing:
“yes it is.. Based on my direct experience with Jeffrey, which is all I can base my assessment on, he is a thoughtful, kind, considerate man who is generous to his friends, and all of the women I have known who have been associated with Jeffrey speak glowingly in the same words.. why are you asking? “
This was my face as I read this.
And let me be clear: we know way more today than we knew back then about the full horror of Epstein’s crimes against young girls. But back then, in 2011, decent people all knew quite enough to be disgusted by him. And so I replied thusly:
“Thanks for getting back to me. I was asking because I found the quote shocking . . . the evidence against Epstein is overwhelming and he’s even pled guilty to paying for sex with a minor. It’s in no way scientific or rational to assume that because you never saw him with an underage girl he must actually be innocent. It is possible for a person to be kind and generous with his friends but still a criminal paying for sex with underage girls in his private life.
I’m going to write about the topic on Skepchick, and I’ll include any additional statement you’d like if you want to provide more context or if you’ve changed your mind.
-R”
He proceeded to double down, replying: “jeffrey apparently paid for massages with sex… I believe him when he told me he had no idea the girls were underage, and I doubt that people normally are asked for or present a driver’s license under such circumstances… Moreover, I also believe that Jeffrey is an easy target for those who want to take advantage of him… Moreover, I can say with great honesty that Jeffrey’s time in prison led him to seriously examine his life in very positive ways and I don’t believe in blanket condemnations of people. He served time for
something that was determined was inappropriate. I honestly don’t know who was the victim in this case. I fully expect that these masseuses knew what they were doing, and were not swayed to do anything with Jeffrey that they were not already doing. That is not to approve of the whole behavior, but lots of peopleI know and like have behavior I don’t entirely approve of. I know it is not politically correct to say that, because in general this is a very sensitive issue and all other things being equal one should take the side of the young women. But all things are not equal in this case, from my point of view. It is a judgement call, and I will not turn my back on a good friend so easily.”
At this point, two things became very clear to me: one, Lawrence Krauss is either a monster or an idiot. Possibly both. And two, Lawrence Krauss’s book editor does not get paid enough, because the man wrote like a teenager. You know, the age of the children Jefferey Epstein raped and helped his friends rape.
And so rather than become his editor pro bono, I replied to let him know that I would be publishing his emails as is. I didn’t want to do the extra work, I certainly didn’t want to be accused of editing him to look better or worse, and honestly I really wanted my audience to see how illiterate this man is:
“Okay, thanks for this statement,” I replied. “I’ll print it in full along with the article, probably today. I very, very strongly disagree with your position and hope you eventually reconsider, but I do appreciate you taking the time to respond.
-R “
In a rather sudden glimmer of self awareness, Krauss agreed to this but had a second thought of a way to make him look slightly less terrible. He wrote, “ok.. I just sent an additional email which moderates this.. everyone was a victim, including Jeffrey here.. and there was no happy resolution.. please add.. “probably everyone was a victim, with no happy resolution or consequences of these activities”, after “was the victim in this case.”
I felt that was fair, so I made those edits and published my post roundly condemning Krauss for his disgusting victim-blaming in the service of protecting a billionaire who ran an international child sex trafficking ring.
Because I had a lot of male skeptics and atheists in my community, many comments supported Krauss, like a lot of men who wanted to argue that it’s not “rape” if the child isn’t SUPER young, or that it’s actually libel to say that there was ample evidence to suggest that Epstein was a child sex trafficker. Or this comment downplaying a middle aged man raping a child from DJ Grothe, who at the time was running the James Randi Educational Foundation and who was hosting Krauss a few months later as a featured speaker at their annual meeting in Las Vegas. Probably just a coincidence that Grothe decided to accuse me of making Epstein’s guilt more “black and white” than it really was. Also probably a coincidence that the following year, Grothe blamed me, personally, for women not wanting to go to his conference any more because I made them “believe that women would be unsafe because we feature this or that man on the program.”
That said, most of the commenters felt the same as me, expressing disappointment and disgust with Krauss. He was extremely annoyed by this, writing in the comments that HE was disappointed in OUR lack of “skepticality.” He goes on to say this: “I have read numerous reports of orgies on Jeffrey’s island involving me and other scientists during our meetings.. Orgies that never happened, I am VERY skeptical of other claims on his behavior.”
I found that really interesting, because I didn’t mention any reports of Krauss even being on “Jeffrey’s island,” let alone participating in orgies, because I had never heard of any reports like that. He just…volunteered it. Getting out ahead of it, I guess.
Anyway, in one final clarifying comment, Krauss wrote, “I was not going to comment further, but a dear friend has asked me to make my position even clearer.” He then restates that he doesn’t think Epstein did anything wrong, ending his comment with “ As some of you know, I just wrote a book about Richard Feynman, and as I thought about the derision on the web, I remember his statement, What do you care what other people think? I think he would have done the same thing I have done if he assessed the situation as I have.”
Now, at the time I didn’t think much of his continued hole-digging. I certainly didn’t wonder which “dear friend” asked him to make his position clearer. Because from perusing the 20,000 previously unseen emails to and from Jeffrey Epstein, I kinda think that’s the dear friend.
Because that’s how I ended up in a historical public document drop: immediately after he replied to my emails, Lawrence Krauss forwarded our conversation to the famous child sex trafficker himself, writing “just so you know.. you can read from bottom up.. you may be mad that I was blunt… haven’t heard from you.. hope all is well..”
“no it was appreciated. thanks,” replied Jeffrey Epstein.
In a reply that caused unintentional full-body cringe, Lawrence Krauss ass-kissed, “Beyond anything else, you are my friend. I hope we can both always remember that, no matter what.
Are you coming this weekend at all?”
“no i am in paris thanks,” replied the pedophile.
In another email, Epstein complained “what evidence? no real sex.. where is she getting her so called facts”. For the record, I got my so-called facts from his Florida court case. Also, what exactly is “real” sex? Is that the kind you have with consenting adults?
Anyway, Krauss needed Epstein to know that he was a victim, too: “people are now throwing out my books, according to her blog.. more nonsense..” Poor guy. He was so right when he said “probably everyone is a victim.” Epstein. Trump. Krauss. Other rich white guys. Victims.
He then writes, “PS. I have decided that Feynman would have done what I did.. and I am therefore content.. no matter what.. :)”
“so would i,” replied the child sex trafficker.
Krauss concludes, “I know.. it is one of the reasons I respect you.”
This exchange has caused a bit of confusion online. In the Skepchick comment he made at the same time, Krauss cites Feynman’s quip, “What do you care what other people think?” But it was still unclear: what exactly did Krauss do in this Epstein case that he thinks Feynman, a notorious “lady’s man” and, it’s worth noting, wife beater, also would have done?
When someone recently asked Krauss about it in a now-deleted post on BlueSky, Krauss replied “Defend an unpopular friend. He did it numerous times.” He did not appear to reply to any of the many comments asking him to expand upon why Epstein was unpopular. Still, it got me to thinking, okay, maybe Krauss really did mean that Feynman famously defended unpopular friends, and not that Feynman also loved sexually harassing young women. So I reached out to the physicist Angela Collier, who has an incredible YouTube channel where she recently did a deep dive on Feynman. I asked her if in her research she came across this penchant for support that I had previously missed: had Feynman at one point defended a friend who was accused of being an international sex trafficker?
Collier was similarly baffled by Krauss’s reference to Feynman, and told me that the only examples she could come up with were “the CalTech sexism case. Jenijoy La Belle was the first tenure track woman hired, they denied her tenure and Feynman wrote a letter of support saying she had been denied because of sexism. La Belle goes on to be the first woman to get tenure.”
And “Also during the McCarthy era Feynman was interviewed by the FBI a bunch of times and reportedly defended his Manhattan Project colleagues from communist accusations. I don’t know if the records exist of who specifically he had to defend. Probably David Bohm and Heisenberg.”
So yeah, I will leave it to you to decide what happened, here: in defending Jeffrey Epstein, did Lawrence Krauss think he was like Richard Feynman because Feynman helped a female professor overcome sexism? Or was it because Feynman fucked? Who can say.
I know that the big BIG news with this Epstein document dump is that many emails directly implicate the President of the United States, in which Epstein candidly tells friends that Trump knew about what was going on, that he cartoonishly slammed his face into a glass door because he was staring at girls in swimsuits, and that he spent several hours with one of the victims. But that’s being covered by the mainstream press, so fuck it, I’m just going to focus on my lane, which is the fucking scientists and academics who not only accepted Epstein’s money for research and conferences but also were licking his asshole in these emails and not-so-subtly begging for money.
Just to stay on Krauss for a minute, I was fascinated to read some of his other conversations with Epstein. For instance, in 2017 I was contacted by a reporter working from Buzzfeed, who asked me if I had any dirt on Krauss (other than his open support of a child rapist). By then, I certainly did: I was very close with a number of employees at Center for Inquiry when a woman complained that Krauss had propositioned her to have a threesome with him and his wife on an expensive CFI cruise, which she found understandably awkward and upsetting. Over the employees’ objections, the director of CFI, Ron Lindsay, insisted that he would continue inviting Krauss to events and cruises because he sold tickets. Who gives a shit about that one woman?
When the Buzzfeed article came out, it became crystal clear that it wasn’t just one woman. There were dozens of accounts of Krauss being an unrepentant sex pest towards fans, colleagues, and even students.
But way back in 2017 when the same reporter reached out to Krauss to comment on all the accusations, it turns out that Krauss desperately needed advice. And who better to coach you through responding to dozens of accusations of sexual molestation and harassment than a convicted child rapist who was about to go to prison for running an international sex trafficking ring?
In a newly revealed email, the Buzzfeed journalist reached out to Krauss describing the accusations against him, the first of which was this:
• In November of 2006, at an event launching the new Center for Inquiry in Washington D.C., you met a
volunteer for CFI D.C.
• At the event, you asked for her business card. Later, you followed her as she was leaving and asked
her if she was “of age.”
• Later, you emailed her to invite her to dinner.
• You planned to dine with her in the restaurant at the Washington D.C. hotel where you were staying.
• You told her to come up to your room first because you needed to finish some work.
• In your hotel room, you seemed in no rush to leave. You ordered a cheese plate, and later champagne,
despite her suggestion that you go down to dinner.
• You then made a comment about her eye makeup, getting very close to her face.
• You then lifted her by her arms, and pushed her onto the bed beneath you, forcibly kissing her and
trying to pull down the crotch of her tights.
• She struggled to push you off her.
• You said, “When I was in college I could never get a girl that looked like you.”
• When you pulled out a condom, she got out from under you. She said “I have to go,” and rushed out of
the room.
Krauss told the reporter that that was “a consensual encounter in my hotel room in 2006 where we mutually decided, in a polite discussion in fact, that taking it any further would not be appropriate, and there were respectful and platonic encounters afterwards.”
“To clarify,” the reporter followed up, “are you saying that this mutual decision was reached in the hotel room? Or was this discussed subsequently?”
That sounded like a reasonable question to me but it apparently panicked Krauss, who forwarded the exchange to Jeffrey Epstein and asked “Is this a reasonable response? Should i even respond? Could use advice.”
Epstein replied: “did You have sex with her ). ? Condom ? Did she take it? I wouldn’t respond . My advice is consistent. Off the record.”
Which is interesting, because it means either he didn’t read Krauss’s response to the reporter in which he says they didn’t have sex, or else he assumes that Krauss was lying to the reporter in some way. Regardless, Krauss reiterates, “No. We didn’t have sex. Decided it wasn’t a good idea.” Which of course is fully in line with the victim’s statement. SHE decided it wasn’t a good idea, and luckily was able to get far enough away from Krauss that he had to accept that it wasn’t a good idea, too.
In another email, Epstein suggested “normaly thier strategy will be to take back your defense to theaccusers. and attack each one. if they find you are right they will leave out. and only go with the conflicted. I think you should include short concise cover letter. that you would like published in it entirety. it can refence your attaciment that you will put on your web site? . that goes into more details but in general, these are false. they were either investigated and found lacking or ignored. etc. often they throw out the near publishing date merely to get you to ansser.”
The advice ultimately didn’t pay off. After the Buzzfeed piece landed in early 2018, the reaction came from many of the organizations that had thus far ignored all Krauss’s red flags.
“I had my call with the Bulletin (of Atomic Scientists),” Krauss wrote to Epstein. “I am going to take a voluntary leave as Chair of the Board.. allowing me and them to make nice statements about me and how the board appreciates me, has never had a complaint, how professional I am, and how they hope I will return after this has subsided.. The alternative was worse.”
“Yikes,” replied the child sex trafficker.
“They claimed they had 1500 hits for their announcement about me and buzzfeed, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but they thought so, and they are getting pressure from various of their supporters and senior people.. this three week thing may be true, but I wonder if I will ever really recover.. I wish they would indict Trump or something right now..”
That’s actually really funny. Sorry Larry, no Trump indictment was going to bury your lifetime of sexual harassment.
Epstein still recommended Krauss try making the women seem insane: “concentrate on your point by point refutation.
• article on women agreeing on seeing flying saucers.
• does not make the claim real. break the charges into ludicrous. ogling. jokes. . etc. • nancy language in hertweets. stirred up emotion. •”
I found this particularly interesting, though: Krauss’s complaint/celebration about how easy the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists let him off. That’s just life for a rich white guy, isn’t it? Center for Inquiry let him continue doing talks and cruises for them after several credible reports of him harassing women, and he USED THAT FACT to insist that it must mean none of it happened when responding to Buzzfeed:
“The fact that I have remained a professor in all Universities with which I have been associated, in good standing, and also an officer or an invited speaker at organizations like CFI, which have strict harassment policies, is a confirmation of the fact that their experience validates a trust in
my behavior. I was asked to be an honorary director of CFI, and continue to be invited to their last 3 meetings to speak, specifically because, as they have written me after the fact, the attendees universally appreciated my talks, my courtesy, and graciousness in spending time with the attendees.”
Powerful white men, at both CFI and the universities where Krauss was quietly shuffled around like a priest with a dirty secret, dismissed dozens of credible accounts of Krauss’s behavior simply because they wanted him to keep selling tickets, and books, and admissions, and he used that to defend himself against any new allegations. It’s a cycle of power and abuse where the rich white guys always come out on top and the rest of us just end up with less power and more abuse.
In 2019, my friend Jamie Bernstein wrote about the ongoing Epstein case on Skepchick. She focused on how openly he committed his crimes, something that I’ve been thinking about a LOT this year. I had to stop talking to my own family members because they refused to believe that Trump and Epstein were very good friends and it was obvious Trump was engaged in some of the same activities, despite the fact that we have a decade of photos, recordings of them talking about abusing women, so very much documentation long before this latest document drop. But regular people don’t want to see it.
As Jamie wrote, the Epstein story is “about a world of the rich and famous where having underage girls supplied to you at secretive parties is a part of the culture. It’s not seen as seedy or illegal or ethically wrong, but is so normalized that it’s expected. Getting to rape young girls is a perk, not a crime.
“Epstein may have been involved in very serious crimes, but he committed those crimes openly, at least among his friends. This isn’t the story about one man but an entire system that protected him because they benefited from that same system, whether by being supplied with young girls by Epstein, or allowed to ride on his private plane to his private island, or being given money to support their research.”
“The world of the rich and powerful is one where sex with underage girls is a luxury item akin to access to a fine wine or a ride on a private jet. It can be bought and traded and given or received as a gift. It’s an entitlement. As we all know by now, the President of the United States of America once said “Grab them by the pussy,” but that’s not actually the full quote. The full quote is “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” Because it turns out, if you are a powerful man, you can do anything. You can get away with anything. Epstein might go to jail, but what will happen to all these men who protected him and benefited from the system that Epstein set up? Time will tell, but with history as a guide, we’d be lucky if they come out of this with even a small blemish on their reputation.”
I think that Lawrence Krauss knew that Jeffrey Epstein was also a sexual predator–much worse than even himself. Maybe it gave him comfort to know that what he, Krauss, was doing wasn’t so bad. It’s not like he was prostituting children, after all. And I think that despite his knowledge, he enjoyed the benefits of looking the other way–not just because, as I thought prior to seeing these emails, Epstein gave him loads and loads of money for research projects and flights on a private jet to a conference on a private island.
But it WAS more than that. In October of 2018, Krauss was scheduled to deliver a “major lecture” in Heidelberg, Germany, before speaking for a smaller event elsewhere in the country. In August of that year, though, Arizona State University concluded their investigation into one of the Buzzfeed accusations, finding that Krauss had in fact groped a woman’s breast at an event in Australia. This caused Heidelberg to cancel the event. In a panicked email to Jeffrey Epstein, Krauss wrote “Hi.. so, here is the event I am still invited to give in Germany. It is Oct 19th. I was previously invited to give a major lecture in Heidelberg Oct 14 but they had to cancel it after the university determination re australia was publicized by the bitch.”
I will pause here to say that while I have been a dedicated hater of Krauss ever since our first conversation about Epstein, I do not think I am “the bitch” in question as I never contacted any institution that was hosting him in Germany. I suspect that honor goes to Virginia Hughes, the Buzzfeed reporter who took the lead on the post announcing that Krauss had been let go from ASU. Anyway, he continues:
“That air ticket, which they had paid fo, was about 5250 euros. There is a $900 cancellation fee, and they have agreed to let me keep the ticket if I pay them 4500 euros. I offered that to the other place but they only have $5K USD total, which includes the $4K fee they originally offered me. I am going to check other tickets now, but wanted to know if you might be flying to europe around then and could take a hitchhiker. :)”
Not only did Lawrence Krauss fly on the Lolita Express, but he used it as a back-up plan when his own actions of sexually assaulting a woman resulted in him being on the hook for a flight he didn’t feel like paying for.
Sadly, in this case, when Epstein didn’t respond all day, Krauss sent an update: “actually I found I can buy an economy (YUK) ticket for only $1300.. so maybe I can buy that and try to upgrade it using miles..”
Yuk indeed! Economy? That’s for people who actually care about the sexual abuse of minors! Did you know they even have anti-trafficking posters in the women’s bathrooms??
In an earlier exchange between Lawrence Krauss, Jeffrey Epstein, and Noam Chomsky, which occurred a full four years before I wondered publicly how Krauss got someone like Noam Chomsky to appear on his podcast, Epstein randomly tells Krauss that he should invite Johnny Depp to visit him while they are in the “caribean.”
“When I was with him yesterday I told him we were going to caribbean and he asked where.. He has an island in bahamas, making you two the only people I know who own islands.. :) will ask him if he is free then.”
“or we can visit him on his,” replied the man with the island full of sex-trafficked young girls.
“will bring up that possibility. :) so glad we are aging to see you down there.. working hard now after a week of traveling with Johnny and late nights, to finish my new book so I can actually celebrate that as planned on the trip.”
As a reminder, in 2020 a judge found that Johnny Depp had abused Amber Heard on at least a dozen occasions. Two months prior to this email about Johnny Depp visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s island with Lawrence Krauss, Depp grabbed Heard by the throat and pushed her into a wall. A month after, he threw a glass decanter at Heard, slapped her, and dragged her through the apartment by her hair before hitting her in the back of the head and headbutting her in the face (which he admitted to in a voice recording but claimed in the trial that it was an accident). He then pushed her face into a mattress and repeatedly punched her.
Of course, Krauss didn’t believe any of that as he defended his “super tight” best friend on Twitter, almost as much as he defended Epstein. But it is odd, isn’t it? How all these men just found one another? Rich, white, powerful, and with a peculiar penchant for abusing women.
But yeah, this incomplete record of emails really shows how it wasn’t just the scientific funding that lured in people like Krauss. It was an entire lifestyle, of helping one another sexually harass women like Epstein did for Larry Summers wooing his mentee, of helping one another wiggle out of things when they’re inevitably caught sexually harassing women, of helping one another avoid flying coach (YUK!), of using the spelling and grammar of children as if it’s a secret code.
Oh, and on that note, over the years I saw a lot of men defend Epstein as a genuine lover of science. Sure, he destroyed the lives of a bunch of young girls and their families, but he was so intelligent! He loved learning! That’s why he gave these scientists so much money!
Allow me to read you some of Epstein’s deep thoughts, emailed to himself in January of 2018 and logged as HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019871, since removed from the Google docs but thankfully archived by the Epstein document search:
beards and long hair , are meant to catch and hold smells. ?
skin as part of brain? . memebrane. ?
does the eye tranmsit information.
plants. communication. surface area. similairy tohumnas. . do we get plant diseases. ?
numbers , not good for many things
Okay yes he was obviously on drugs when he wrote that but it wasn’t just one random high note-to-self. In December of 2016 he asked Lawrence Krauss, “is the south pole getting colder and more ice ? is it accurate to say that climate changes can only be measured over long periods. 20 years or more. I m here with the trump peopl in palm and when asked i say i dont have any idea if this global warming is a threat that can be reduced , currently, carbon taking machines. i guess if that is really a concern. i would also like to know what groups prefer warming. canada?”
He thought Canada would PREFER global warming. Because it’s chilly up there. I really cannot stress how reading through all these emails broke my brain. It’s not just that these men are monsters. We knew that. It’s that they’re fucking idiots. Krauss is BFFs with this guy for years, patiently answering his fucking idiot questions because that’s the job, and he has the audacity to tell the media what a fucking intelligent and passionate defender of science this fucking idiot was? Seriously, open up the files and click randomly and within 60 seconds you’ll understand that Epstein had a brain as smooth as a bowling ball. In fact, I’m now convinced he didn’t kill himself because I don’t think he could have figured out how. He would probably try to strangle himself by tying a rope around his dick and balls because that’s where most of his neurons were.
I was originally going to make this video a bit more general, pointing out more of the emails from Larry Summers, Noam Chomsky, and Robert Trivers, the evolutionary biologist who defended Epstein by claiming that “By the time (girls are) 14 or 15, they’re like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous.”
But honestly I’m exhausted just delving into Lawrence Krauss. It’s so frustrating, because after his public defense of Epstein he was voted Humanist of the Year by the American Humanists. He went on to do loads of lectures. After the Buzzfeed article about his history of sexual assault and harassment, he was put on the board of Atheist Alliance International. He’s currently touring the world promoting his shitty new book about the War on Sex Predators. I’m sorry, I mean science. The War on Science. Oh also that speaking engagement is for the “Free Speech Union of Canada,” an organization that was founded earlier this year by, um, Lawrence Krauss. But that’s how things go for rich white guys: even when polite society finally decides to reject you for being a pedophile-enabling sex predator, you can just start your own organization dedicated entirely to platforming your inane views. And the thing is, he could actually come back from this! Go back and look at those comments on my initial post 14 years ago, when a simple glance at the court documents showed that Epstein had abused DOZENS of young girls and pimped them out to his friends. I wasn’t just making it up. I was reporting what was already known. But loads of men were telling me that this wasn’t a big deal; that Epstein didn’t really do anything terrible; that it was justice for him to spend a year sleeping in a prison hotel each night; that Krauss was just speaking honestly about his good friend; that Krauss was actually heroic to defend his friend. But no. What was heroic were Epstein’s victims who didn’t let this Greek chorus of assholes bully them into giving up. Actually, “chorus” is the wrong metaphor because these men don’t just see themselves as supporters, mere side characters to the main show. They think they are peers. They believe that by defending the child sex trafficker, and by defending the sex predator who defends the child sex trafficker, one day they will be part of the club. One day the patriarchy will reward them with a book deal and a tenure position and a lecture tour and a pretty young girl.
It’s great that one billionaire rapist is dead, but the system of Good Ol’ Boys who protected and tried to rehabilitate him is still in place. And they’re going to cling to their lifestyle for all they’ve got, no matter how many girls and women and marginalized people are abused and killed and ruined. After all, what’s the alternative? Flying coach?
