Epstein Files Fuel Online Outrage at Figures With No Criminal Allegations

Mark Tramo is an associate adjunct professor of neurology at UCLA. Whether he will remain in that position is unknown. A sign-wielding woman has reportedly camped herself outside the building where he works, and has demanded that UCLA fire him.

“I screamed by myself for an hour,” she said in a video that went viral on social media.

Tramo’s crime? He is, under the incredibly broad definition popularized in media reports on this subject, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

This is not to say that he is accused of sex crimes against underage women. On the contrary, no one has accused him of any crime whatsoever. His moral failing, according to his critics, is that he emailed Epstein with some frequency over the years, including about his scientific research and areas of academic interest. In one such email, he mentioned reading a study that found “a newborn will suck on a pacifier more vigorously” if the baby hears his own mother’s voice rather than some other woman’s.

Judging by the reaction on X, social media users have found this email highly incriminating. It’s what the woman with the sign referenced when she screamed at the department that Tramo should lose his job. The conservative writer Rod Dreher is with her, writing: “God bless this woman! What kind of monster must Mark Tramo be?”

People seem to have imagined that Tramo was giving Epstein advice about something very graphic. But this notion is patently absurd.

Tramo was a professor of neurology and of music. He had coauthored articles on the effects of music on premature babies. He had received funding from Epstein to create a research institution for the study of music and the brain. The idea that he was assisting Epstein in the sexual abuse of babies—instead of just sharing an interesting fact related to his area of academic expertise—is extremely far-fetched. Frankly, the idea that Epstein would have been interested in this knowledge for disgusting sexual reasons is also quite doubtful. (Epstein was convicted of sexually abusing teenage girls; there is no evidence he was sexually attracted to babies.)

Nevertheless, since Tramo’s communications with Epstein continued after the disgraced financier’s 2008 incarceration for sexual misconduct, he is among the names of people considered to have associated with a known abuser. In statements to the media, Tramo denied having knowledge of Epstein’s specific crimes, saying that he thought Epstein had been convicted of prostitution.

“I myself had not heard anything [about] statutory rape or minors being involved, I never saw him with young girls, never visited the island, never flew in his planes,” he said. “I was introduced to him by the Harvard Provost—he donated several millions to Harvard and was dangling a lot more.”

It is unclear if UCLA is taking any action against Tramo, though the university website did remove his profile page from its media list of designated field experts. UCLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the meantime, Tramo tells Reason that he has been besieged with hate mail, including death threats.

“My wife and I have received many threatening and malicious emails, texts, and voicemails the past several days,” Tramo wrote in an email. “Some include death threats and many accuse me of being a pedophile who conspired with Epstein to sexually abuse infants.”

Tramo’s situation was on my mind as I watched Reason‘s Zach Weissmueller interview Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), who is one of the most libertarian-leaning members of Congress, and also the foremost advocate—along with Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.)—of releasing the Epstein files. He has regularly made appearances alongside purported survivors of Epstein and demanded that the Department of Justice (DOJ) provide information on sexual abusers who participated in Epstein’s crimes. Massie and Khanna accused the feds of failing to properly disclose documents relating to Epstein, a violation of the law, either due to incompetence or maliciousness.

It seems clear that unlike so many other political actors who have taken up the cause of Epstein disclosure for self-serving partisan reasons—namely, a quest to disparage the reputations of the Clintons and/or Donald Trump, depending on one’s own partisan valence—Massie and Khanna are engaged in a sincere effort to arrive at the truth. Their complaints that the DOJ has mishandled Epstein transparency are well-taken. Attorney General Pam Bondi previously claimed that she had the Epstein client list “sitting on her desk”; in Epstein parlance, this was taken to mean that there was a list of elite political figures, academics, and businessmen for whom Epstein procured underage girls. But no such document has ever been released, and FBI Director Kash Patel subsequently stated that there is no one else involved in Epstein’s sex crimes.

Most people demanding more answers about Epstein have alleged a vast and sinister conspiracy, involving not just Epstein but other powerful abusers. At yesterday’s House Judiciary hearing, lawmakers accused Bondi of failing not just Epstein’s victims, but also hundreds of young women victimized by Epstein and his associates.

“Those are just some of the hundreds of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s global sex trafficking ring who are demanding that the truth be told and are demanding accountability for the abusers who trafficked and raped them,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D–Md.).

If there are other men who sexually abused underage girls, the public ought to know about it. But that remains an open question, since none of the files substantiate the idea that Epstein procured underage girls for a cabal of sexual abusers.

The files do, however, reveal the names of people who met with Epstein, took money from Epstein, or continued to email with Epstein over the years. These people are not accused of crimes; in many cases, including Tramo’s, the idea that the named individual did something particularly bad seems to spring from a misconception. In other words, releasing the files has resulted in some real-world harms.

Tramo, for what it’s worth, asserts that he did not have specific knowledge about the nature of Epstein’s crimes, the details of which were mostly unknown to the public until a 2018 expose in The Miami Herald.

Massie does not find this persuasive. Weissmueller asked him directly whether he was worried about a “witch hunt” effect. In response, Massie said: “I haven’t seen a single person in the United States suffer any consequences from this.”

Massie also contends that people who interacted with Epstein after his incarceration may in fact deserve any reputational harm that is coming their way.

“If you were associated with Jeffrey Epstein after 2008, you were associating with a known convicted sex offender who had wild parties,” said Massie. “He’s not the most savory character.”

Niall Stanage and Amber Duke joined me to discuss—what else?—the Epstein files and Massie and Khanna’s claims.

I just finished reading my first Miss Marple mystery: The Murder at the Vicarage. I found the mystery a bit underwhelming and the solution predictable—and I miss Poirot!—but I am moving right along to the next one, The Body in the Library.