Fact-Checking The Hollow Howls Of Mr Wolff
The Democrats have released a carefully-selected sample of emails, presented without context, between Jeffrey Epstein and American journalist Michael Wolff. They give insight into a rabid obsession.
Michael Wolff is not merely a controversial journalist — he often seems like a tabloid writer who slipped into the business section. Over the years, he has amassed a staggering catalogue of contradictions, factual blunders, and public embarrassments that call into serious question his reliability, his integrity, and whether he is more interested in drama than truth.
Wolff first shot into notoriety with Fire and Fury, a book that exploded onto bestseller charts and ignited one of the most vicious accuracy wars in recent media memory. He claimed to have had deep access to the Trump White House, but nearly as soon as the book dropped, critics pounced.
Many of his most sensational anecdotes came under fire for being poorly sourced, uncorroborated, or flat-out wrong. Fact-checkers documented a series of glaring errors: confusing timelines, such as inaccurately reporting when John Boehner left the speakership; he mixed up people (like identifying a “Mark Berman” when he likely meant Mike Berman, the lobbyist, not the Washington Post reporter); he repeatedly misidentified Wilbur Ross’s cabinet role, calling Ross a “labor secretary” when in fact he was commerce secretary. Beyond that, he peppered his work with typos and sloppily written passages that altered meanings — hardly the work of a careful chronicler.
On top of these factual misfires, Wolff attributed quotes to powerful figures who publicly denied ever saying them. He claimed Tony Blair warned Jared Kushner about British intelligence, but Blair called that account a “complete fabrication.” He put words in the mouths of Tom Barrack, Katie Walsh, Sean Hannity, Anna Wintour, and others — and many of them took to the press to refute his portrayals. Those denials piled up, undermining the credibility of his self-described “fly-on-the-wall” method.
Then there was the most salacious claim of all: Wolff insisted, in interviews, that he was “absolutely sure” Donald Trump was having an affair while president. He even hinted that a close reading of Fire and Fury pointed to Nikki Haley.
Haley exploded publicly, calling it “disgusting” and “absolutely not true.” When pressed again, Wolff, caught out in a lie, backed away: “I do not know if the president is having an affair,” he bitterly conceded in a later television appearance.
That shift alone reveals a remarkable lack of accountability — or perhaps a deeply opportunistic use of innuendo.
Wolff’s relationship with his subjects raises real ethical concerns. He constantly blurs the line between access journalism and social climbing, getting close enough to powerful people to pick up their juiciest stories — and then distorting or exaggerating them for maximum impact. Media analysts have repeatedly criticised his methodology, arguing that he affords too little weight to source verification and too much weight to sensationalism.
His recent entanglements only deepen the ethical mess. In 2025, reporting revealed that Wolff had been exchanging emails with Jeffrey Epstein’s circle — allegedly offering PR advice as Epstein’s reputation came under fire and, as the recently-released emails demonstrate, attempting to manipulate Jeffrey Epstein to attack Trump. This raises a serious conflict of interest: the man who styled himself as a muckraker was not interviewing, but advising one of the most publicly deplored figures in the world.
When Melania Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue him over unsubstantiated Epstein-related insinuations, Wolff used it as an opportunity to make more money, and has now launched a crowdfunder and is pitching himself as some sort of moral crusader against the president - not, I suspect, because he actually believes he is in the right, nor because he seeks to defend freedom of speech, but because he is fuelled by a mysterious rage towards a man who, for whatever reason, he has a vendetta against. I hear that within the MAGA movement, they call this kind of thing ‘Trump Derangement syndrome’.
His recently-released email correspondence with Epstein didn’t actually reveal much at all - it has merely been manipulated by Democrats and Democrat-friendly media outlets to once again attempt to inflict upon Trump some form of ‘death by innuendo’.
For example, one of the emails being heavily focused on shows Epstein claiming that Trump came to his home in West Palm Beach whilst Virginia Giuffre was allegedly there. But Virginia’s name was intentionally redacted; intentionally, I say, because those who made that email public knew the inconvenient truth: Giuffre had already, on multiple occasions, including in a 2016 deposition whilst under oath, clearly stated that she had never witnessed Trump engaging in anything illegal or improper.
Perhaps the most damning of all is Wolff’s behaviour during a televised interview when he was asked to apologise for his affair insinuations. On Australia’s Today Show, host Ben Fordham pressed him: “You were absolutely sure” Trump was having an affair — now you say you don’t. Wolff suddenly claimed he couldn’t hear the question, fumbling with his earpiece and answering, “I’m not getting anything … I’m not hearing anything.” Then he ripped off the device and walked off the set. But the show later released video from Wolff’s own studio, proving beyond doubt that there were no audio issues — he could clearly hear Fordham. In short, Wolff lied, pretended technical failure, and making a cowardly exit rather than owning his backtracking.
Taken together, this isn’t just a pattern of exaggeration — it’s something more corrosive. Michael Wolff has built a career on sensationalism, misquotation, and self-serving ambiguity. He cloaks himself in the veneer of insider access, but the record shows a man willing to bend or abandon the facts when it suits him. His rewrites, denials, and dramatic exits expose a fundamentally untrustworthy chronicler — one whose greatest talent seems to be spinning a good story, no matter how shaky the truth.Andrew Lownie, a pseudo historian presented by the press as a ‘royal expert’.
We have similar characters like Wolff in the United Kingdom. Among them is pseudo historian Andrew Lownie, whose odd hatred of certain members of the royal family, and lust for fortune and fame, has seen him make numerous dubious claims and sell countless madhatter tidbits to the tabloids. It has also led to him publishing a book, a fact-resistant smear piece targeting Prince Andrew, intentionally ignoring irrefutable evidence sent to him, in favour of sticking to his preset narrative based solely on confirmation bias and, I suspect, mythical ‘anonymous sources’.
Lownie asked to interview me for his book. Instead, I sent him a report, over 200 pages long, listing, with full evidence, the many contradictions and demonstrable fabrications made by Prince Andrew’s accuser, the late Virginia Giuffre. He responded to me with amazement, telling me that the evidence I had compiled was ‘impressive’ and that it was ‘damning’ towards Giuffre. But then he chose to ignore it all, because, sadly, fiction is often more saleable than fact.
He has also shown animosity towards any information that contradicts his smear campaigns. As has Wolff.
But the truth is like kryptonite to these glorified gutter gossip columnists, these lesser Lady Whistledown’s who have made a comfortable living from - when insider information is unavailable - resorting to simply making it up.
They often like to insinuate they have ‘anonymous sources’ feeding them with a never-ending flow of shocking revelations.
They don’t.
And the press like to portray the endless sensational, click-bait articles that come about as the consequence of these smear jock’s claims as being based on serious journalistic practices and rigorously verified facts.
They are not.