Newly Hired CBS Contributor Explains Away Epstein Files Link | EUROtoday

A newly employed contributor to CBS News could quickly be out of the job after some actually embarrassing emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein turned public over the weekend.

Last week, the community introduced the names of 19 contributors who could be showing as consultants on its varied platforms, together with Dr. Peter Attia, who focuses on longevity.

However, Attia’s community gig seems to be short-lived after the most recent Epstein information dump confirmed that he had a longstanding relationship with the disgraced financier that started about eight years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction.

A spokesman for Paramount, CBS’s father or mother firm, instructed The Wrap that the community will probably finish Attia’s place as a contributor earlier than it formally begins.

Attia’s emails verge on sycophancy, together with one the place he says the “biggest problem” about being buddies with Epstein is “the life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul.”

In one other e-mail, Attia tells Epstein that “p―-y is, indeed, low carb,” and provides, “still awaiting results on gluten content, though.”

In addition, Attia discovered his connection to Epstein so essential to his profession aspirations that he stayed in New York to satisfy with him whereas his son and spouse battled a critical medical emergency in one other state.

Attia’s elimination as a CBS contributor hadn’t been formally introduced as of Monday afternoon, however he tried to clarify away his Epstein connection on Monday in a prolonged submit on X.

After apologizing that he “did not get this out sooner,” as a result of he needed to be thorough, Attia insisted that he’s not one of many people within the Epstein information who “participated in criminal activity, enabled it, or witnessed it. I am not in any of those categories, and there is no evidence to the contrary.”

To be clear:
1. I used to be not concerned in any felony exercise.
2. My interactions with Epstein had nothing to do along with his sexual abuse or exploitation of anybody.
3. I used to be by no means on his aircraft, by no means on his island, and by no means current at any intercourse events.

That mentioned, I apologize and remorse placing myself ready the place emails, a few of them embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible, at the moment are public, and that’s on me. I settle for that actuality and the humiliation that comes with it.

Attia then addressed an e-mail change with Epstein with the topic line “Got a fresh shipment,” that included a photograph of metformin, “a medication I had just received from the pharmacy for my own use.”

The topic line referred to the image of the bottles of treatment, however Epstein responded with the phrases “me too” and a photograph of an grownup lady.

“I responded with crude, tasteless banter. Reading that exchange now is very embarrassing, and I will not defend it,” Attia mentioned. “I’m ashamed of myself for everything about this. At the time, I understood this exchange as juvenile, not a reference to anything dark or harmful.”

Attia claimed that in the intervening time he met Epstein, he hadn’t been round that stage of prominence, and admitted, “that level of access was novel to me.”

Everything about him appeared extreme and unique, together with the truth that he lived within the largest dwelling in all of Manhattan, owned a Boeing 727, and hosted events with probably the most highly effective and distinguished leaders in enterprise and politics.

I handled that entry as one thing to be quiet about quite than mentioned freely with others. One line in that change, about his life being outrageous and me not with the ability to inform anybody, is being interpreted as consciousness of wrongdoing.

That just isn’t how I meant it in any respect. What I used to be referring to, poorly and flippantly, was the discretion commanded by these social {and professional} circles–the concept you don’t discuss who you meet, the dinners you attend and the facility and affect of the individuals in these settings.

What I wrote in that e-mail reads terribly, and I personal that.

Attia mentioned that he met Epstein in 2014 whereas elevating funds for scientific analysis, and mentioned the financier “was widely known in academic and philanthropic circles as a funder of science and moved openly among credible institutions and public figures.”

He additionally admitted he met with Epstein in New York seven or eight occasions between the summer season of 2014 and spring of 2019, however “I never visited his island or ranch, and I never flew on any of his planes.”

Attia claims being surrounded by so many high-profile individuals led him “to make assumptions about him that clouded my judgment in ways it shouldn’t have.”

Although Attia immediately requested Epstein concerning the 2008 conviction shortly after they met, Epstein minimized the prostitution-related prices.

He additionally insists he by no means witnessed any unlawful conduct or any underage individuals whereas round Epstein, however was “repulsed by what he learned” after studying a Miami Herald expose in 2018.

Attia mentioned he instructed Epstein to his face that he “needed to accept responsibility for what he did,” and claims he tried to get Epstein to pay for residential care and lifelong remedy for his victims.

“In hindsight, even attempting to facilitate accountability was a mistake and, once again, reflected just how naive I was at the time. Once the full scope of his actions was clear, disengagement should have been the only appropriate response,” he wrote.

Although Attia insisted he didn’t need “a pass” from his followers, and he wasn’t asking for individuals to disregard his emails, or defend his actions. however mentioned, “the man I am today roughly ten years later, would not write them and would not associate with Epstein at all.”