When You Can No Longer Tell Whether It's Right or Wrong to Advise a Sexual Predator
Pop quiz for all aspiring journalists:
Would you ever embed yourself in a criminal organization? Would you ever get close to your target's close acquaintance by joining his inner circle? Would you ever provide off-the-record counsel for this acquaintance during a difficult time? And would you ever turn a blind eye to the crime of sex trafficking underage girls to remain in your acquaintance's good favor?
If you answered yes to all these questions, your name is Michael Wolff.
While the usual GOP scumbags like Donald Trump and Steve Bannon have emerged in last week's Epstein email dump, what has naturally gone underreported was the media's role in providing cover for what was clearly an out-in-the-open sex trafficking ring. What conspiracy groups like QAnon accused Democrats of doing was happening right under the noses of, and with the complicity of, the leaders of the Republican Party. The affiliation and involvement in such an operation of a major party presidential candidate would have immediately ended the campaign of any candidate in the later decades of the 20th century. But flash forward 20 years, and no such thing happened. And it didn't happen because of journalists like Michael Wolff, who found himself a central figure of the Epstein emails released last week. From an article from the BBC:
One of the email threads, dating from 15 December 2015, bore the subject line: “Heads up”. In it, Wolff warned Epstein that later that day, at a televised debate for the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump was likely to be quizzed about his years-long social relationship with the financier.
By then, Epstein had pleaded guilty in Florida to solicitation of prostitution with a minor. Though Trump has always claimed they had fallen out years earlier, their association remained – as it still does today – politically problematic for him.
Epstein responded to Wolff’s alert by asking for personal advice. “If we were able to craft an answer for him [Trump], what do you think it should be?” he wrote.
“I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency,” replied Wolff.
“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.”
When this particular exchange came to light, Wolff was forced to respond with an emergency edition of his podcast, where he provided the following explanation:
“What emails sound like—would one have rewritten in hindsight? Yeah, of course. Emails always are—that’s embarrassing...
...I’m the person who sees this, this elemental story, Donald Trump. I’ve gone through this with Epstein deep into the background. Donald Trump is the best friend of, you know, evil. He is the best friend of of a deeply, deeply diabolical person...I’m a writer who manages to make relationships that let me tell a story in the ways that The New York Times or other, very reputable, journalistic organizations are unable to tell."
No, Michael. That's not "embarrassing." And it's not a testament to you being a somehow superior writer to your peers. What this is is you injecting yourself into the story to protect your source. You have become the story, something journalists from the middle school paper on through journalism school know not to do. But you did it anyway because you knew how explosive an Epstein-Trump debate question would have been for Donald Trump. And you knew that type of question would stall out the momentum that Trump was starting to build during that portion of the campaign. Rather than being an independent journalist, you intentionally put your thumb on the scale to provide advice that would minimize damage and keep the subject of your story in good standing in the public eye.
You spit on the grave of Edward R. Murrow and those who came before him. And you did it because you knew you could make a few bucks. Not only did you try and advise a convicted sex trafficker, but you later ignored the clear-as-day evidence on January 31, 2019, when Jeffrey Epstein admitted that Donald Trump knew about the young girls that were being trafficked in an email to you. Yet you withheld this revelation because you wanted to use it for your book. Imagine how absolutely soulless a person has to be to turn a blind eye to sex trafficking because he wanted to sit on that information to write a best-seller down the line. Meanwhile, countless girls were trafficked, and tragically, one, like Virginia Giuffre, later died by suicide. But Michael Wolff, whoo boy, he had the makings of one helluva novel!
Fuck him. And fuck everyone who sold their soul for this conman from Queens. The Fourth Estate dropped so many balls it now looks like a 1990s ball pit at a Burger King. Access journalism covered up crimes that could have and should have ended Donald Trump the moment after he descended from his golden escalator. But there were simply too many Michael Wolffs and Maggie Habermans in the rank-and-file Beltway Media. Lines were blurred. Sources were protected at all costs. Visions of best-sellers danced in these journalists' heads. Meanwhile, this cabal of criminals exploited anyone and everyone, starting with those who were sex trafficked out of Mar-a-Lago. It was about exerting their power over young women. It was about owing favors to powerful men. It was about having leverage over those who were openly committing crimes. And it was about what the most powerful man in the world knew and when he knew it.
Yet throughout Wolff's entire research, he never once asked the question: Did Donald Trump have knowledge of what was happening? Not a single follow-up email asking that. What story is Michael Wolff telling if he's writing a book on Donald Trump and not providing that answer? Because if you're not answering that question, if you're sweeping that chapter of his life under the rug, you aren't an independent journalist; you're a publicist. Making editorial choices based on what hurts the subject of your story completely clouds your judgment and makes you no better than the White House Press Secretary. For Michael Wolff and for all other journalists found to have information about Jeffrey Epstein and not having released it, your day of reckoning will come. It may not be in this lifetime, but you will be held accountable for turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering of so many young girls so you could make money writing your book. You will be seen among the worst of this generation and of coddling a would-be dictator to make a quick buck. May your example be noted in all future history books.
And may your example be given of what never to do for all the future aspiring journalists.