On the Epstein files, Dr. Peter Attia, and the difference between cancel culture and reasonable moral expectations

Opinions aren't behavior. But the reverse is also true. And we can expect the people who want to be our leaders (or thought leaders) to meet minimum standards for their actions.

When does lousy personal behavior become a public concern?

Put another way: What do we do with scumbags? Especially if they’re public figures?

As you know, the Department of Justice has released millions of records it compiled during its investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by hanging in a New York jail in 2019.¹

I’m sorting through the new documents for a big piece (I can’t say more until it comes together. But, spoiler alert: the files do not reveal a global pedophile ring killing kids.²

They do show some of the world’s richest and most powerful men cozying up to Epstein years after he had already pled guilty in Florida to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14, a plea that was no secret to any of his business or social partners.

—

(Cozying up to the truth, not the rich. With your help.)

—

So what should we do with what we continue to learn from the files about the pecadilloes of people like Reed Hoffman, the billionaire founder of LinkedIn, or Kathryn Ruemmler, the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs and former White House counsel for Barack Obama?

I am actually sympathetic to the argument the government should not have released the files en masse, that with federal surveillance more powerful than ever, we should protect the privacy of people who are not charged with crimes.

And many people whose names are in the files clearly did nothing wrong. Journalist Nellie Bowles has been attacked for visiting Epstein’s mansion in 2018 and for a couple of emails she exchanged with him after.

But Bowles did so as a New York Times reporter — she was considering writing about Epstein, though she ultimately didn’t.

—

(The Guardian, July 2, 2008. Epstein’s behavior was no secret; if anything, he reveled in it even after 2008.)

—

I am not good at the kind of “access” journalism Bowles specializes in.

I’m an outside reporter, I prefer documents and emails when I am looking for the truth, not making nice to rich or powerful people so they’ll talk.

In reality news organizations need both kinds of reporters. There is a special skill to getting executives or politicians to open up and tell you more than they meant, then trading that information with some other insider for more tidbits, then writing it all in a way doesn’t make the secret-keepers feel burned, so they’ll talk to you again. It’s greasy, but it’s necessary.

As Bowles wrote in defending herself in the Free Press, where she now works:

I promise you’ll get more information when you sound nice and polite. And you sometimes should interact with criminals… given that our profession is about exposing the powerful and the corrupt and the truly evil, it’s essential.

Now, it’s definitely cleaner to do that work from the outside: little social media investigations and Freedom of Information Act requests and regurgitating law enforcement records. [NOTE: Bowles shows her own bias here and significantly undersells investigative reporting.] But I mean sitting down and talking with a very bad person; looking them in the eye; describing what they are like.

In fact, Bowles makes a compelling case that her big mistake was failing to report on Epstein and his continued relationships with wealthy people even in the face of the #MeToo movement that surged in the late 2010s.

—

But.

But the files also reveal plenty of behavior that, though not criminal, is stomach-churning.

Take the case of Dr. Peter Attia, which oddly enough is also connected to the Free Press. Last week, Bari Weiss, who happens to be married to Bowles and is the founder of the Free Press, named Attia as a contributor on CBS News, which she now runs.

Unfortunately for Weiss and CBS, Attia’s name is all over the files, appearing in 1,731 search results. He offered Epstein medical advice, including this memorable nutritional tip:

—

Perhaps most disturbing of all, Attia revealed in a book that in July 2017 he remained in New York for 10 days rather than fly home to San Diego to be with his wife and infant son after his son suffered a cardiac arrest and was hospitalized in intensive care. The emails show that the morning after his son was hospitalized, Attia made plans to meet Epstein.

No, Attia didn’t do anything illegal.

It just feels that way.

Maybe we’d all be better off if that incident had stayed between Attia and his wife.

But it didn’t. No one hacked these files. Congress in its infinite wisdom decided public interest in the files outweighed privacy concerns because Epstein’s conduct and the conduct of his enablers was so reprehensible.

Now we get to see all that conduct, criminal or not.

And Attia showed terrible judgment generally by involving himself with Epstein, and specifically in what he said. His scumbaggery was private, but it isn’t anymore. The release of the files has revealed it to the world.

For now, Weiss has not publicly said whether she plans to cancel Attia’s contract. Weiss famously quit the New York Times because she (correctly) felt it was intolerant of her conservative views, and multiple news outlets have reported that she views the attacks on Attia as another form of cancel culture.

—

If that’s true, Weiss should reconsider.

“Cancel culture” — as I know very well — is an effort to ignore or silence people for their views. On Covid lockdowns or mRNA jab mandates, say.

Attia’s views are not the issue. His behavior is. He has forfeited his right to be taken seriously as a public figure because of his actions.

Maybe we shouldn’t know about those actions, but we do, and we cannot pretend otherwise. And maybe he will earn the public’s trust back one day, but at the moment he does not have it and for Weiss to pretend otherwise is to sacrifice her own credibility.

And for what? Attia is not a uniquely talented war correspondent or a CBS employee who has given decades to the network. There is no shortage of doctors who can read headlines from the latest journal article about Ozempic. Plus Weiss named him last week. If anything she should be angry that Attia didn’t disclose the mess he was about to make (I presume he didn’t). Did he really think his name wouldn’t be in the files?

—

(Plowing through the muck, so you don’t have to. And finding gold. For pennies a day.)

—

So for the sake of the Free Press, which I very much enjoy, and independent journalism generally, I hope Weiss cuts Attia loose pronto.

Even in this battered and cynical moment, let’s try to hold the line at If you want to be a public figure in a position of trust, don’t leave your infant and his mother in the hospital while you make a date with a convicted sex offender.

It would be nice if Goldman Sachs got rid of Ruemeller too.

Enough is enough.

1. “Died by hanging” seems to be an acceptable compromise acknowledging the fact that almost no one trusts the official report that Epstein’s death was a suicide. In truth, Epstein probably did kill himself — he knew he might never be free again and he was in a horrendous and badly run lockup. But simply agreeing to that fact without acknowledging the oddities in the case sounds deeply credulous.

2. The files do show that after Epstein died a lot of people called the FBI and made completely evidence-free claims about global pedophile rings and the like. The invaluable Eugyppius explained the difference in a piece yesterday called “The internet is awash in metric tonnes of shallow Epstein bullshit.” The title tells you what you need to know.