Michael Wolff’s Unsatisfying Explanation for Cozying Up to Epstein
In a recent edition of *The Atlantic Daily*, the spotlight is cast on journalist Michael Wolff, whose controversial interactions with the late Jeffrey Epstein have resurfaced in newly released emails. The correspondence reveals Wolff’s approach to journalism, which some critics argue crosses ethical lines. Drawing parallels to Janet Malcolm’s exploration of the manipulative dynamics between journalists and their subjects in her book *The Journalist and the Murderer*, Wolff’s actions raise significant questions about the morality of ingratiating oneself with sources, particularly those with dubious backgrounds like Epstein. In the emails, Wolff appears to advise Epstein on how to navigate his public image in relation to Donald Trump, suggesting strategies that could turn negative situations into opportunities for Epstein.
Wolff’s history as a journalist is marked by his sensational reporting style, particularly in his best-selling book *Fire and Fury*, which chronicled the Trump administration. However, his credibility has been a point of contention among peers, with accusations of prioritizing sensationalism over accuracy. Critics highlight that Wolff’s tactics—such as fostering close relationships with controversial figures—may ultimately undermine public trust in journalism. This distrust is exacerbated by his perceived willingness to engage in unethical practices, as evidenced by his guidance to Epstein on how to manipulate public perception. Despite the backlash, Wolff maintains that such strategies are necessary for securing valuable insights from his subjects, a stance that reflects a broader tension in the field of journalism regarding the ethical boundaries of source engagement.
The implications of Wolff’s methods extend beyond his personal reputation; they contribute to a growing skepticism toward the media as a whole. With trust in journalism at an all-time low, Wolff’s case exemplifies the potential fallout from prioritizing access and sensationalism over integrity and accuracy. As the media landscape continues to evolve, the challenge remains for journalists to balance the need for compelling narratives with ethical responsibilities, ensuring that the pursuit of a story does not come at the expense of moral judgment. Wolff’s situation serves as a cautionary tale for aspiring journalists navigating the complexities of source relationships and the inherent risks of the trade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjunW1pKRCU
This is an edition of The
Atlantic
Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture.
Sign up for it here.
In her classic book
The Journalist and the Murderer
,
Janet Malcolm
studied how the author Joe McGinniss buttered up the accused killer Jeffrey MacDonald—formally joining his legal-defense team and sending fawningly supportive letters after his conviction—only to turn around and publish a scathing book portraying him as a sociopath. Observing McGinniss’s approach, Malcolm draws a distinction between the reporting phase, when a journalist courts her subject, and the writing phase, when she betrays them. Many reporters take offense at this depiction of their trade as shamelessly exploitative, but Michael Wolff seems to take inspiration from it.
Wolff is the author of several best sellers, including 2018’s dishy Donald Trump chronicle
Fire and Fury
, but he’s in the spotlight this week because he shows up in
newly released emails
to and from the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. In the emails, Wolff appears to be positioning himself less as a reporter than as a media adviser to Epstein.
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff wrote to Epstein about Trump in December 2015. “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. 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.” In October 2016, after the release of a tape in which Trump boasted about sexual assault, Wolff wrote to Epstein that he could speak about Trump “in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him.”
The emails seemed to concern even Joanna Coles of
The Daily Beast
, with whom Wolff has a
podcast on Trump
. In a
discussion on Wednesday
, she told Wolff: “What I want to say is, in this particular email, it sounds like you’re advising a convicted pedophile about what to do, and you’re colluding with him against a potential presidential candidate.” Wolff spun his wheels a bit in answering: “What emails sound like—would one have rewritten them in hindsight? Yeah. Of course. You know, emails always are:
Oh, that’s embarrassing
.”
When I emailed Wolff yesterday, he was more forthright. “You ingratiate yourself so that people—your subject—will talk to you,” he wrote. To some degree, this is unquestionable. Journalists work to get sources to talk to them, including by suggesting what’s in it for the source. To what degree, though? Here, Wolff was coaching a sexual offender on how to look good. Surely, I suggested to him, there is a point at which currying favor simply goes too far. “I think you draw the line at what you write—ingratiation stops there,” he replied, citing his damning reporting on Epstein in an essay in his book
Too Famous
. “That’s what the ingratiation earned me.” In a
video on Instagram
this week, he lamented that his release of tapes of Epstein talking about Trump before the 2024 election had little impact.
One reason for the tapes’ muted effect may be that Wolff’s credibility was already damaged. He has long inspired
acid reactions
among other reporters. Some of this is surely due to jealousy—Wolff sometimes gets great access, as when he persuaded Steve Bannon to let him roam the White House for
Fire and Fury
, or in his earlier reporting on Rupert Murdoch. But some of it is because Wolff seems uninterested in bothering to sort fact from fiction, and is happy to print
juicy rumors even without proof
.
This isn’t just my opinion. Here’s what he wrote in
Fire and Fury
: “Many of the accounts of what has happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue. Those conflicts, and that looseness with truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book. Sometimes I have let the players offer their versions, in turn allowing the reader to judge them.” He can also be quite sloppy, as
more traditional competitors
are quick to note. In addition to simple errors of names and titles, critics have observed a pattern of questionable claims. As the late
journalist David Carr
put it, “One of the problems with Wolff’s omniscience is that while he may know all, he gets some of it wrong.”
The Daily Beast
recently
retracted and apologized for a
story
that cited Wolff’s reporting about connections between Epstein and Melania Trump, after she threatened to sue. (Wolff filed his own
lawsuit
in response, saying that the first lady’s threat took his claims out of context and was meant to chill speech.)
This puts the exchanges with Epstein in proper context. Wolff rightly criticizes others for their warm relationships with Epstein, but the messages reveal his own coziness with him. The problem is not just the obsequious tone, though. Wolff was able to get Epstein to talk critically about Trump in ways that no one else was, but Epstein was a notorious liar, and although it’s possible that he was telling the truth here, the emails show that Wolff was working hard to wring just such material out of him.
The cost of operating this way is high. Trust in the press is at a historic low; Wolff’s interactions with sources and what he extracts from them threaten to make that worse. (Wolff has sometimes egged on that distrust: In
Fire and Fury
, he manages to attack the mainstream press for bias against Trump while writing a vitriolic take on the president.) Wolff’s methods undermine him too. His Epstein reporting didn’t get the traction he’d hoped it would, and his closeness with Epstein tarnishes his own standing.
Not that Wolff seems to see it that way: He is defiantly confident that whatever it takes to get a scoop is justified. Malcolm’s famous opening sentence of
The Journalist and the Murderer
is too cynical a view of journalism as a whole, but it seems apropos here. “Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible,” she declares. Wolff is certainly not stupid.
Related:
Michael Wolff is the author Trump deserved.
(
From 2018)
Wait, are the Epstein files real now?
Here are three new stories from
The Atlantic
:
Something feels different about the economy.
Jonathan Lemire: Epstein returns at the worst time for Trump.
Four simple questions for Marjorie Taylor Greene
Today’s News
President Donald Trump directed
Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI to investigate
Jeffrey Epstein’s relationships with Bill Clinton and other prominent Democrats and institutions, following the release of new Epstein-related documents on Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee.
Trump
is expected to sign an order
reducing tariffs on products, reportedly including beef, tomatoes, coffee, and bananas, to help lower grocery costs, a White House official said.
More than 22 million people in Southern California
are under flood watches as a storm threatens burn-scar areas
with heavy rain, mudslides, and debris flows. Evacuation warnings are in place through this evening for multiple burn zones across Los Angeles County, officials said.
Dispatches
Time-Travel Thursdays
:
“Amid an overload of information of uncertain value,
The Atlantic
’s founders wanted to create something that was solid and enduring,” Jake Lundberg writes,
looking back to the magazine’s founding
168 years ago.
The Books Briefing
:
Vladimir Nabokov’s leap away from Russian, his native language,
was not an instantaneous, effortless transformation
, Boris Kachka writes.
Explore all of our newsletters here.
Evening Read
Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic
Why Hotel-Room Cancellations Disappeared
By Ian Bogost
Delayed two hours, hunched over my laptop in the Dallas Fort Worth C-terminal Admirals Club, I was frantically rearranging my plans. The government shutdown, still ongoing at the time, had caused major
disruptions
at U.S. airports. If my flight were canceled, the airline would refund me for my ticket. But my hotel room in Charlotte, North Carolina, appeared to be another matter. I clicked around the booking website on my screen. Its policy on cancellation was austere: You could void your reservation only if you did so three days in advance. If your plans happened to fall through unexpectedly the night before (because, let’s say, your nation’s legislature had failed to pass a budget), then you’d be out of luck.
Read the full article.
More From
The Atlantic
Adam Serwer: The president who cried hoax
Charlie Warzel: The dumb truth at the heart of the Epstein scandal
What reconstructing Gaza really means
Culture Break
Listen.
In the
inaugural episode of Charlie Warzel’s
Galaxy Brain
, Hank Green talks about outrage, creativity, and what exactly went wrong with the internet.
Watch.
Noah Baumbach’s new film,
Jay Kelly
(streaming on Netflix),
takes a gamble with its fantastically successful protagonist
, David Sims writes.
Play our daily crossword.
PS
Staff writer Caity Weaver is on a quest to find the best free restaurant bread in all of America and wants to hear from you! Which is your favorite? Fill out
this form
, or drop Caity a note at
cweaver@theatlantic.com
.
— The editors
Rafaela Jinich
contributed to this newsletter.
When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting
The Atlantic
.
