this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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I have my issues with Brooks' article, but come on. Appearing in the same place/event as Jeffrey Epstein, by itself, means nothing.
They have multiple photographs of Brooks at the event and Epstein isn't in a single one. This is a nothingburger.
Congress passed a law demanding disclosure of all files the government had about an infamous pedophile and child trafficer, with an explicit ban on redactions for embarrassed adults. Today they released a whole bunch of files, with essentially every adult in the pictures reacted.
Anyone who thinks this is a non-story is either a pedophile themselves or intentjonallh covering for child trafficing pediphiles. Especially if they are an old white guy who was definitely associated with the inhuman scum at the center.
We don't know if David Brooks is a pedophile himself, but he sure as fuck isnt a journalist.
#1 apologist for the oligarchs.
Epstein isn't even in the photos with Brooks. Which pedophile am I covering up for, exactly?
That's entirely the point.
If you're covering for David Brooks, and we assume that Brooks is not himself a pedophile to be charitable, then you're covering for whatever unknown pedophile Brooks is covering for.
This isn't a court of law, it's an international private forum with no binding consequence on anybody's liberty. We don't have to presume people doing shady fuck are innocent, since we're not even accusing anyone of crimes.
People are very clearly accusing him of crimes, in the "court of public opinion". Evidence in said "court" shouldn't be considered the same evidence in a real court.
I mean, Michael Wolff is out there, with plenty of email evidence that he was a hack "journalist" that was practically a PR agent for Epstein. Why attack Brooks?
? Por que no los dos ?
Brooks is a notorious hack who built his career shilling for neoconservative policies from the Weekly Standard to the NYT to PBS.
But that social circuit ran through Florida and Texas, rather than New York and London. He's likely just tighter with a different group of pedophiles.
My guess is that many people who spent time around Epstein were probably not pedophiles. Maybe even the majority of them. His "day job" was a guy who knew all the powerful people and could introduce anybody to anybody else. If he had been a woman, we would have called him a socialite.
Some of the people were probably in his inner circle and participated in the child abuse. But, others were probably just using him as a way to meet royalty, or as a way to connect to VC money.
But, you know what? I'm ok if plutocrats who weren't actually pedophiles get caught up as collateral damage.
"I wasn't in the pedophile inner circle, I was just on the edges trying to curry favor so they'd let me join"
maybe isn't as great an excuse as it's made out to be
I imagine most of them didn't know that child sex abuse was going on. Even among the ultra rich, that's not seen as acceptable behaviour. Epstein was probably careful about who he let into the inner circle. They were probably fully vetted, and/or Epstein had compromat on them so they couldn't expose him without exposing themselves. The rest of them probably thought he liked women who were barely legal, but still legal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_child_prostitution_ring_allegations
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/prosecutors-detail-sex-abuse-allegations-against-dennis-hastert
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/14/more-than-300-pennsylvania-priests-committed-sexual-abuse-over-decades
Even setting aside Epstein, this abuse is fully rampant in the upper eschalons of American society.
And Brooks was going out with these guys, he was meeting their second and third and forth wives. He was writing long winded articles about Eastern Europe and the scandals of human trafficking, with the spin being a need for more US intervention to restore law and order in post-Soviet States.
Nothing in the info dumps we've received suggests Jeff was particularly discrete. He bragged about who he knew and slept with. Ghislaine bragged on his behalf. It was a selling point.
He had a plane christened The Lolita Express. Nothing about this screams subtlety
What is the evidence for that assertion?
His entire career
Theres a photo of me with a convicted murderer and a photo of me with a convicted child sex offender.
The guy did 10 years for murder and I knew him from the custom car scene, I knew him after he got out, didnt talk about it much. I worked with the child sex offender before he got found out and sent away, that motherfucker is a fight on sight if I ever see him again.
The photos exist out there on the internet somewhere and theres jack shit I can do about it. (Actually the murderer was a pretty chill guy by the time I knew him, that photo doesnt bother me.)
Excuses for the pedo apologist. No, this never happens on lemmy. I must be imagining it.
By all means, attack what Brooks said. Engage his argument!
The article linked does not engage his argument. Appearing at one event with Epstein 14 years ago is simply not newsworthy.
There's always some excuse to look the other way when the rich and connected look bad.
I think Epstein did everything he could to appear with as many notable people as possible. As you say, it doesn’t mean much just to have been in the same place as him. Now, on the other hand, we have people who were seen with him repeatedly, and even said on mic that they knew he was into young girls. Now THATS damning.