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In this second installment of our weekly deep dive into the Epstein files, Robert Scheer and media scholar Nolan Higdon unpack a wave of newly unredacted documents that expose the scale—and the culture—of Epstein’s elite network. In the last 24 hours alone, Congress forced the release of additional co‑conspirator names, revealing ties that stretch from Wall Street to Harvard, Silicon Valley, global finance, and even the intellectual world of Noam Chomsky.
Higdon walks through the emerging picture: a ruling class that treated Epstein not as a pariah but as a peer, confidant, fixer, and ideological fellow traveler. The files show billionaires, academics, and political figures trading favors, seeking image management, and in some cases engaging in coded exchanges about trafficked girls—all while U.S. institutions look the other way.
Scheer and Higdon connect these revelations to the broader crisis of American democracy at its 250‑year mark: a Second Gilded Age defined by impunity, eugenics‑tinged technocracy, collapsing accountability, and a political‑economic system engineered by figures like Lawrence Summers to shield the powerful from scrutiny. This conversation asks the question the mainstream press won’t touch: Is the Epstein network a window into the true culture of American power?
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Highlights From the Show
• New unredacted Epstein co‑conspirator names released
Nolan Higdon explains that congressional pressure from Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna forced the DOJ to release eight previously redacted names tied to Epstein. These include Les Wexner, Jean‑Luc Brunel, Ghislaine Maxwell, Leslie Groff, and Emirati billionaire Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem—whose emails to Epstein include disturbing sexual boasts and references to a “torture video.”
• Congress threatens to read names on the House floor
Because members can view unredacted files but cannot photograph them, they threatened to publicly read the names if DOJ continued withholding. Ro Khanna then named four additional alleged co‑conspirators on the record.
• A bipartisan, elite “ruling class of the corrupt”
Scheer and Higdon emphasize that the Epstein network spans Democrats, Republicans, billionaires, academics, tech leaders, financiers, and media figures. The scandal reveals a culture of impunity that crosses party lines.
• The Chomsky revelations
Higdon details how Noam Chomsky:
- Advised Epstein on how to rehabilitate his public image after sex‑crime charges
- Framed Epstein as a victim of a “witch hunt”
- Expressed excitement about traveling to the Caribbean with him
- Misrepresented the nature of their relationship in public statements
Scheer notes the irony: the world’s most famous critic of propaganda advised Epstein to conceal, manipulate, and “manufacture consent.”
• Epstein’s deep ties to academia
Epstein’s relationships with Harvard and MIT figures went far beyond research funding. He offered favors, image‑management, and personal assistance to academics and administrators—including individuals accused of mishandling sexual‑misconduct cases.
• Eugenics and the “DNA farm”
Higdon highlights emails showing Epstein’s obsession with eugenics, gene editing, and a proposed “DNA ranch” in New Mexico. Epstein discussed “making Black people smarter” and fetishized blonde‑haired, blue‑eyed traits. Chomsky appears in some of these email threads.
• Silicon Valley and Wall Street connections
The files show friendly relationships with Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Leon Black, and others. Branson even wrote that he looked forward to seeing Epstein’s “harem.” Higdon notes that other countries are launching investigations into Epstein‑linked elites—while the U.S. is not.
• Intelligence ties
Multiple powerful figures—including the head of Rothschild Bank, Steve Bannon, and New York Times editor Thomas Friedman—believed Epstein had intelligence connections. Emails suggest he maintained contact with the Trump administration during Trump’s first year in office.
• Why U.S. institutions won’t investigate
Higdon argues that the political class, media, and legal establishment are too intertwined with Epstein’s network to pursue real accountability. Many of the same elites who shape public narratives are implicated.
• The Epstein scandal as a window into American power
Scheer asks whether the Epstein network represents the true face of American capitalism at its 250‑year mark:
- extreme inequality
- eugenics‑tinged technocracy
- impunity for the wealthy
- contempt for working people
- a collapsing democratic system
Higdon calls this the “Second Gilded Age,” where deregulation, financialization, and elite impunity—engineered by figures like Lawrence Summers—produced a ruling class capable of the abuses seen in the Epstein files.
• Wall Street deregulation as the financial engine of decadence
Scheer connects Epstein’s rise to Summers’ role in dismantling financial oversight through the Financial Services Modernization Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. These laws enabled the concentration of wealth that fueled the culture of excess, exploitation, and corruption reflected in the Epstein network.
TRANSCRIPT Edited and Rushed
Robert Scheer: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence. It runs on ScheerPost and Apple, Spotify, blah, blah, blah — it’s all there. I’m thrilled to be doing number two in my weekly discussion about the Epstein affair with, I think, the sharpest observer of the whole thing, Nolan Higdon — Professor Nolan Higdon, Dr. Nolan Higdon.
He’s at UC Santa Cruz, has a great website, does the Gaslight Gazette. You can check him out. We’ll promote it a few times during this discussion. The reason we’re getting together every Wednesday morning — and he’s being very generous with his time — is the devil is in the detail, and the details keep piling on as more stuff gets redacted and other stuff gets sealed. I’m not going to go on and on. Some people criticized me last time for interrupting, so I’m really going to try to restrain myself. Where are we now in the Epstein file?
Nolan Higdon: Well, it’s really interesting we chose to do this on a Wednesday, because just in the last 24 hours there’s been a lot of blockbuster news. When I was on the show last time, I mentioned that a couple of documents indicated the FBI thought there were at least ten co‑conspirators with Epstein. And Ghislaine Maxwell claimed there were actually at least twenty‑five co‑conspirators who she said got deals from the federal government.
Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna pressured the DOJ to release some of those names. We were able to get eight names released in the last 24 hours — people the government’s investigation thought were co‑conspirators.
Some were not revelatory, like Les Wexner, who oversaw the Victoria’s Secret empire. He’s long been associated with Epstein. He gave Epstein millions of dollars and the Manhattan residence where many of these crimes took place. Another co‑conspirator was Jean‑Luc Brunel, involved in beauty pageants, accused of sex trafficking, and who died of what was ruled a suicide in jail.
The other co‑conspirators were Ghislaine Maxwell — well known — and Leslie Groff, Epstein’s longtime secretary. The biggest new name the DOJ unredacted was Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati billionaire and CEO of DP World.
We now know he sent some very interesting emails. One in September 2015 to Epstein said, “She got engaged, but now she back with me. The best sex I ever had. Amazing body.” In another, he apparently sent a video to Epstein, and Epstein responded, “I love the torture video.”
Those names were unredacted. But there are many others still redacted. Congress can go in and see some of the unredacted documents, but they can’t take photos — only notes. They threatened to read the names on the congressional floor if more weren’t released. Ro Khanna didn’t even wait 24 hours; he went down and named four others: Nikola Kapetu, Salvadori Nuara, Zurob Mikladez, and Lenik Lenoff. These are the names the federal government at one point thought were co‑conspirators. Now people are trying to learn all they can about them.
Robert Scheer: So in all of this, what we’re learning is there’s almost a ruling class of the corrupt. And the ruling class is bipartisan. A lot of Democrats were involved. Unfortunately, it includes people from the far right who consider themselves principled right‑wingers with puritanical values. But shockingly — and we ran Chris Hedges’ column on Noam Chomsky — it’s sad, but deeply concerning.
What in the world could the person so many of us revere have been thinking? You spend your life attacking ruling‑class culture, and then you descend into the pit of its ugliness, exploitation, and crassness. Have you looked into that?
Nolan Higdon: Yeah, I looked heavily into Chomsky. Epstein is connected to a lot of sectors of power — financial, intelligence, political, legal, and academia. But even in academia, Chomsky stands out. A lot of academics came into contact with Epstein because they needed funding for research. That’s how he got into their lives. But at the point Chomsky came into contact with Epstein, he wasn’t looking for research funding. He was mostly on his way out of academia.
The files reveal he served a lot of purposes for Epstein. Epstein asked Chomsky for advice on how to resuscitate his public image following the sex‑crime charges.
Robert Scheer: It was terrible advice. It was “say nothing, conceal.” Nixonian advice. Not “tell the truth,” not “show integrity.” The very thing Chomsky is important for — exposing manipulation of truth by the powerful — he told Epstein to do. Get the right PR person, manipulate, conceal. Manufacture consent — for Epstein. Isn’t that what Chomsky told him?
Nolan Higdon: Essentially. And it gets worse. Before giving the advice, Chomsky talks about Epstein like he’s a victim — like this is a witch hunt. He seems very defensive of Epstein’s reputation. And in subsequent emails, Chomsky talks about how excited he is to go to the Caribbean with Epstein. This isn’t just someone he works with — it’s someone he’s excited to spend time with.
This is very different from how Chomsky described the relationship publicly, where he said they had one meeting about estate planning after his previous wife died. That’s total BS, clearly, from the emails.
Robert Scheer: His current wife responded, and Hedges took her to task. She’s responded further, trying to defend all this somehow. Yet in the files she is quoted as saying she would like to go to the island. Why in the world — if they know what goes on at the island — how do you… I don’t know, it’s just—
Nolan Higdon: That’s where we get into speculation. And this becomes another issue with the so‑called files: there are still three million more we don’t have. There are tons of redactions. There are tons of financial files on top of that. There are Epstein estate files we don’t have. So we can only speculate what Chomsky wanted to do or did do, if anything, on that island.
Robert Scheer: Let me take the question of the academic community he was involved in. You mentioned academics who just wanted contracts. Well, that’s deplorable, but of course people go to bad sources for funding for legitimate research. That’s the name of the game. The Nobel Prize is named after an arms merchant. Carnegie, others — we look the other way when rich people give money.
But when I look at that list, it was the center of American education — Harvard and MIT. Henry Rosovsky, the dean of Harvard, was one of his colleagues. I respected him enormously. Someone I don’t respect is Lawrence Summers, who was the head of Harvard and certainly facilitated a lot of what Epstein did. And it wasn’t just over contracts — Epstein went to him for personal advice, guidance in his love life, whatever. So let’s talk about the academic world. I don’t think we should give them a pass like they’re starving intellectuals. These are people who embraced the lifestyle. Certainly Dershowitz and other Harvard big names.
Nolan Higdon: Absolutely. To be clear, the opportunity to get funding for research was his way in the door, but it went dramatically beyond that. Epstein would do favors for them. There was a psychology professor accused of sex crimes on campus — Epstein helped him manage his public image. Kenneth Starr got busted as chancellor at Baylor for not taking sex crimes seriously — Epstein worked with him too.
There’s another deranged part of this. Chomsky appears in some of these emails as well. Epstein was a big believer in eugenics. He was interested in gene editing. This connects to a plan he had for a DNA farm at his New Mexico residence, which hasn’t gotten much media attention.
In the emails, he openly talks about ways he thinks gene editing could “make Black people smarter,” how human characteristics could be changed through DNA editing. He believed blonde hair and blue eyes were signs of the most “elite” or “supremacist” genes in his estimation.
Chomsky is in some of these conversations. He’s not endorsing the theory, but he’s talking to a person making 19th‑century eugenics arguments.
We still don’t know where Epstein got his money. How did he finance these relationships with academics? How does this connect to his relationships with big tech, which has always had close ties to academia? Those questions come out of academia, and that’s why you’re right — it’s not just about the poor academic. It’s part of a larger network we see in the Epstein story.
Robert Scheer: Let’s explore that. People who don’t know about the eugenics movement — it’s the godfather of fascism, of Nazism. The idea that there’s a chosen people, not chosen by a higher power but by skill, knowledge, skin color. You want more of them and prevent others from being born.
Unfortunately, that got associated with Margaret Sanger and the birth‑control movement: aggressive family planning so the “right people,” meaning rich white people, have more children and the rest are stopped. China went far in that direction in the name of communism. Now it has to work its way back.
It was conventional wisdom: “China can’t develop, too many people.” I remember being at the Center for Chinese Studies at Berkeley — that was the line. Now it’s: “Wait, we need more people, not just to exploit in factories but to send to universities.”
Even with Lawrence Summers — the idea that Harvard women can’t learn the sciences, so get used to it, learn something else.
This connects with Silicon Valley: “Let’s have robots, we don’t need people to do the work, we don’t need them in our cities.” Easier than running off to Mars.
I think there’s a big idea here. Epstein was attractive to these people because they thought he was on the right track. That’s what’s disturbing about the Chomsky thing.
Chomsky — I’ve met him, respected his work — but he wasn’t warm and fuzzy. We had a frosty interview. Fine. But then I think: why did he get along so well with Epstein? I think the eugenics, the idea of merit, smartness — aside from corruption or money — Epstein was an attractive package to Bill Gates. Let’s go through the names.
It’s one thing if you hold your nose to get money for research or a community project. But no — they liked this guy. They thought he was enlightened. That’s what’s being left out. What was enlightened about Epstein?
Nolan Higdon: That’s critically important. In my new piece, The Epstein Class, I argue that media narratives portray Epstein as just a wealthy guy with connections. But the files show he didn’t just have connections — he had friendly relationships. He did services for them. And when he wanted things, he could be shrewd, demanding millions.
There’s an exchange with Leon Black about money. Bill Gates was friendly with him. Richard Branson encouraged Epstein to visit him and said he couldn’t wait to see Epstein’s “harem.”
There are people across Silicon Valley, finance, and legal offices. Other countries are launching investigations — into Lord Mandelson, Prince Andrew for insider trading via Epstein. We’re not seeing that in the U.S., even though the DOJ files indicate they believed crimes were committed.
Some of the emails are obvious. They talk directly about “girls” being traded. One email says, “I had a nice night with one of your littlest girls. She was naughty.” Other times they use code — ordering girls like pizzas (“a shiny pizza”), or calling them “sharks” or “shrimp.”
There are indications of insider trading. No investigations. Epstein had close connections to intelligence, and powerful people believed he did — the head of Rothschild Bank, Steve Bannon, Thomas Friedman. You see that in the emails.
There’s plenty here to open investigations. We haven’t seen that in the United States.
Robert Scheer: But why are we seeing more of this? Let’s talk about the reporting. Let’s talk about the government investigations. Is this a case where you’re part of the class? Even successful journalists get to schmooze with these people, get the benefits. Is it too good to check, or too intimate to your life to check? What are we not getting?
Nolan Higdon: One thing is that the news media covers a lot of these stories, but they don’t give context or connect the reporting. That’s why I try to put everything in one place on Substack.
Robert Scheer: Before we lose that thread — tell people how to get your pieces.
Nolan Higdon: Go to nolanhigdon.substack.com. Put your email in for free and the Gaslight Gazette comes right to you. What I’ve tried to do with these Epstein documents is take all the reporting and put it in one place. The media covers the stories, but without context. The public struggles to see how it all connects.
Another reason is that people in positions of power control whether investigations happen. Epstein had contacts in news media, law firms, government — including Donald Trump. Some documents reveal Epstein may have been in contact with Trump or the Trump administration during Trump’s first year in office, which is a decade later than Trump previously claimed.
To your point about class allegiance: academics who study media or journalism were upset they had to admit Chomsky was in these documents. Imagine if your entire friend base was the elite — the people in these files. Those are their friends, associates, collaborators. They know their families. It’s a hard nut to crack.
I don’t have a lot of faith in this administration because of its deep ties to the Trump administration — which goes beyond Trump. Leon Black was connected to Epstein and his son is in the administration. Howard Lutnick is in the administration. The Secretary of the Navy, Phelan, had ties to Epstein in the files. This administration is far too tied to Epstein to do anything serious. It would take a new generation of Congress members willing to spend political capital to make traction.
Robert Scheer: So why is this important? Chomsky advised Epstein to ignore it — “it’ll blow over,” “don’t concede anything.” Tell us why you think this shouldn’t go away. And is this maybe the most important face of American democratic capitalism at this stage of world history?
When we talk about the decline of Rome or France, we look at the dominant culture. If it’s male supremacy, eugenics, wealth as license, lying, deceit, blackmail — is this an important key to understanding American civilization on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence?
This is a historic moment. There are great claims about human freedom, responsible governance, separation of powers. Do we now find ourselves in one of the most decadent, corrupt atmospheres any society has created?
Nolan Higdon: There’s a lot there. I’d position it this way: in academia we talk about the late 1970s to the present as the neoliberal era — some call it the Second Gilded Age. Massive inequality, destructive capitalism, declining democratic power.
These documents help us understand who managed that era. Epstein isn’t the whole story, but his contacts are a major part of it. Because he’s central to their culture and communication, the documents reveal how depraved many of these people are.
The way they see humans — particularly young girls and women — as traffic to be traded. The way they see the working class. There’s a line where someone tells Epstein that people are home watching sports and listening to Jay‑Z instead of being in the streets angry at the rich. “We’ve co‑opted them off the streets and into their homes with capitalist entertainment.”
There’s real disparaging of working people, women, people of color. And the kicker is: these were the people who ran the cultural vanguard. They wagged their fingers at working‑class movements — “you’re racist, you’re sexist, you don’t understand.” Now we look behind the scenes and see they were perpetuating racism and sexism, virtue‑signaling to conceal it.
As for America at 250 years: it’s a dark picture. The Second Gilded Age represents Americans being bamboozled into believing government was the problem and free‑market capitalism would deliver what Marxism could only promise. Fifty years later, what we have is a powerful class of depraved individuals committing what would be criminal acts, excused by the powers that be. It’s left the country and its people in terrible shape.
Robert Scheer: To wrap up this second segment — and I hope we keep doing this as you pour through these documents — I think this is a very big idea. Lawrence Summers looms large. Epstein is a product of Wall Street. He gamed the system. Summers didn’t just talk with him about personal matters — Summers is the clearest architect of the end of accountability on Wall Street.
The Financial Services Modernization Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act — Summers was critical to both. These unleashed the drugs‑and‑sex Wall Street culture we see in films. These people were often stoned out of their minds. But what they constructed were financial devices — liar’s loans backed by phony credit‑default swaps — that concentrated wealth in the hands of people who turned out to be louts, using money in the most decadent, corrupt way of a dying empire.
Isn’t that the big takeaway? This was all financed because money no longer mattered. It wasn’t about making better products. It was about monopoly and cartel positions. We did away with Adam Smith’s invisible hand.
And as a result — Black people, brown people, Black college graduates lost 60% of their wealth. Brown people closer to 70%. That’s the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. These were the people hit hardest by the housing meltdown, financial scams, Wall Street mania — and now they’re the people despised by the elite who say, “We don’t need them anymore. We’ll go for AI and robots.”
Why don’t you take a little time to spell that out? You’ve found the beginning of a very big—
Nolan Higdon: Right. And that’s where the documents really help us understand the larger system. The deregulation you’re talking about didn’t just create financial chaos; it created a class of people who could operate without accountability. Epstein is a product of that world. He thrived in a system where money could be conjured out of financial instruments, where oversight was dismantled, and where the wealthy were insulated from consequences.
The housing meltdown — the liar’s loans, the credit‑default swaps — those weren’t accidents. They were engineered. And the people who engineered them are the same people who show up in Epstein’s orbit. They’re the ones who benefited from the concentration of wealth, while Black and brown communities lost 60 to 70 percent of their wealth. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the system working as designed.
And now those same elites are saying, “We don’t need people anymore. We have AI, we have automation.” It’s a continuation of the same logic: extract everything you can from working people, discard them when they’re no longer profitable, and build a world where a tiny class controls everything — wealth, technology, even the future of human biology, if you look at Epstein’s eugenics fantasies.
So yes, I think this is a very big idea. The Epstein files aren’t just about one man’s crimes. They’re a window into the culture, values, and operations of the ruling class in the Second Gilded Age. They show us how power really works in America — and how far removed it is from the democratic ideals we claim to celebrate at 250 years.