The Epstein Files Obsessives Keep Lying About Their Critics
Tara Palmeri insinuated that Michael Tracey disagrees with her because he's paid by Epstein associates. That's a lie.
One of the most prevalent propagators of the idea that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked underage girls to rich and powerful men was unable to best a critic in open debate, and instead resorted to pure ad hominem attack. But due to a poorly timed mishap, the internet has convinced itself that this attack went unanswered, and was justified.
I am speaking, of course, about an unfortunate occurrence during an exchange between journalists Michael Tracey and Tara Palmeri on Piers Morgan Uncensored. The guests on Morgan's show are usually remote, and in this case, Tracey had trouble hearing what Palmeri was saying; as a result, he was not able to immediately answer a question from her about whether any Epstein associates were paying Tracey to undermine the Epstein narrative. Palmeri summarized what happened thusly on X:
"Michael Tracey, who calls himself a journalist, has been smearing Jeffrey Epstein survivors—and sometimes me," she wrote. "I can take it. But I asked him one simple question: Are you being paid by someone powerful to attack sex-crime victims? Yes or no. His audio mysteriously died. Weird."
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Moments later, Tracey did answer the question, asserting that he was not being paid by any particular associate of Epstein, and that he makes money the same way most other independent journalists make money: from subscribers on Substack and various other platforms. Yet Palmeri was perfectly happy to insinuate on social media that Tracey had not responded to this (frankly quite ridiculous) question of hers. Various high-profile figures subsequently retweeted Palmeri's insinuation, and are working to codify the false idea that Tracey is paid opposition.
Amazing. None of these people bothered to watch 30 seconds further, where the instant I could actually hear @tarapalmeri's ludicrous question, I immediately and unequivocally replied that OF COURSE I AM NOT BEING PAID by any Epstein co-conspirators! What utter defamatory garbage! pic.twitter.com/RPoFSKlfgc
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 18, 2026
This is very telling, and quite representative of how the Epstein obsessives operate: Poke holes in their claims, point out that they have no evidence of what they are stating, or invoke very basic principles relating to norms of due process, and they attack you as an enabler of pedophiles, a tool of Israel, or some other nefarious thing. They resort to ad hominem because they cannot defend their central thesis, which has collapsed under scrutiny.
It Doesn't Add Up
Let's back up a bit. Tracey, if you haven't guessed, is an independent-minded journalist whose contrarian views frequently put him in conflict with the mainstream media and the Democratic establishment. For example, he was previously a major debunker of Russiagate, the theory that then-candidate Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. He is not, however, a supporter of Trump, or really a conservative of any kind. He has appeared frequently on Glenn Greenwald's show, and has guest-hosted it when Greenwald was unavailable.
Lately, Tracey's work has singularly focused on tearing down what he has described as the mythology of Jeffrey Epstein: the notion that Epstein was the head of a global cabal of pedophiles who raped children with impunity. This idea was blithely asserted as fact by the many, many commentators who have obsessively demanded the release of the Epstein files for years—but now that we do have millions of pages of documents relating to Epstein, we know that there is shockingly little evidence in support of it.
Cards on the table: I have largely come around to Tracey's way of thinking about all this. When I first learned about Epstein, around the time of his arrest and subsequent death in prison, I did not really question the sensational things I heard about him from other commentators who knew more than I did. (I never bought the idea that his death was something other than a suicide, though.) These things included the following: Epstein had procured underage girls for his elite friends; Epstein was an asset for U.S. or perhaps Israeli intelligence; the authorities had overlooked Epstein's crimes and given him a light sentence. I supported the release of the Epstein files so that we could learn more about the government's failure to obtain justice for Epstein's victims.
I now know better. Epstein himself was a serial abuser of underage girls (teenagers, not children), but there is no evidence he procured girls for other men to engage in illegal sex. There is no evidence he worked for an intelligence agency. And while it's perfectly possible to criticize the government's handling of Epstein's initial prosecution in 2008, one of the reasons that he was charged with prostitution rather than with sex-trafficking is that the evidence against him was relatively weak. And it was weak because many of the purported victims did not see themselves as such, and declined to testify against him.
But after the Epstein estate began paying out settlements, some of their tunes changed. Today, there are many Epstein victims who say that they were sex-trafficked by other rich and powerful men. Some of their stories are notoriously dicey. The most high-profile victim of Epstein, Virginia Giuffre, suffered from mental illness and ended up withdrawing her accusation against legal commentator Alan Dershowitz. (She later committed suicide.)
Those are just the facts. Epstein is still a very bad human being and a sex criminal. Many powerful people remained in contact with him even after he went to prison for sleeping with underage girls, and some even remained in close contact with him right up until the end of his life. The public is free to form negative impressions of Steve Bannon, Noam Chomsky, or Bill Gates because of this.
But the central idea of the Epstein narrative—which prompted Congress to take the unprecedented step of releasing millions of pages of uncorroborated investigative documents—was that people other than Epstein were also guilty of very serious sex crimes and had gotten away with it. We needed to release the files in order to learn which powerful men had taken advantage of Epstein's sex-trafficking services.
It has not worked out like that. The millions of pages released three weeks ago do not provide any evidence that Epstein pimped out underage girls to other elites, let alone that he was running a cabal of pedophiles. Moreover, efforts to identify names of alleged perpetrators have gone completely awry. Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.), for instance, inadvertently smeared four random men who had appeared in a police lineup as criminal associates of Epstein. (They had nothing to do with Epstein.)
This is why I've become extremely worried about the release of the Epstein files, as innocent people are now being smeared as complicit in Epstein's crimes. And I am hardly alone in this:
Great list, but what should we call ourselves? Epstein rationalists, perhaps.https://t.co/3bSwnOtp8U pic.twitter.com/vctcKcChzU
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) February 18, 2026
But there are still a great many commentators for whom it is treated as a proven fact that various global elites remained friendly with Epstein because they were complicit in his sex crimes. When you point out that there's no proof of this, then they say, well, what are you hiding?
This is becoming the textbook definition of a witch hunt, and it is extremely telling that the propagators of the Epstein narrative are willing to mislead their readers, viewers, and listeners about a critic's source of income.
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