Brazilian linguist Valéria Chomsky, wife of American linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, denied that her husband had brokered a call between the businessman convicted of sexual crimes Jeffrey Epstein and the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during a visit by Chomsky to the prison where Lula was in 2018.
In a statement sent to CNN Brasil, Valéria classified the allegation as “unfounded and untrue”. She said that her husband is unable to speak out on the matter due to the consequences of a stroke he suffered in June 2023.
“As Noam Chomsky’s wife, I participated with him in the visit, on September 20, 2018, to President Lula in prison. I clarify that we had to leave our cell phones at reception and we were searched by the Federal Police before starting the visit”, said Valéria, in a note sent to CNN Brasil.
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Chomsky’s wife said she was present during the entire visit and was an interpreter for the conversation between Chomsky and Lula.
“Any allegation that there was a telephone conversation, during the visit or at any time, between President Lula and any interlocutor mediated by Noam Chomsky is unfounded and untrue”, adds the note. Palácio do Planalto also denied that the call took place.
E-mails de Epstein
One of the emails from tycoon Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of sexual crimes, cites an alleged connection between the financier and Lula, which would have been brokered by the American linguist and left-wing theorist Noam Chomsky.
The email is in file 027406, among more than 20,000 pages of documents linked to Epstein released this week by a US Congressional committee.
The message, found among the files published by Democratic parliamentarians in the United States, contains a short sentence, in English, without going into the subject that would have been discussed:
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“Chomsky called me with Lula. From prison. What a world,” Epstein wrote.
The content was released after the House of Representatives Oversight Committee released email exchanges between Epstein and well-known names, such as his former partner Ghislaine Maxwell, currently imprisoned for sex trafficking, and writer Michael Wolff, author of books about Donald Trump.
In the archives, the messages still mention the Brazilian election of that year. The financier’s interlocutor in the email exchange, whose identity is not revealed in the files, says: “Tell him that my guy will win the election in the first round.”
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Some messages below, the financier writes: “Bolsonaro [sic] the real deal” (Bolsonaro is the guy).
