This article uses Jeffrey Epstein's emails (which were recently released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee) to follow up on a Signpost article from March 2020 about Epstein. These emails are not part of the Epstein files, which are required by Epstein Files Transparency Act to be released by the DOJ within 30 days of passage of the act, or around December 19.

1. Optimizing good information to push down the negative: using new content (blog, websites, press releases, public network profiles, google images, etc) and search engine optimization. Changing the Wikipedia profile. Notes Wikipedia below.

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WIKIPEDIA

This is a tough nut to crack. And I need to do more research on this. Wiki comes up first on the Google list due to its powerful domain and contains totally lopsided and damning content on you.

But we'll crack it. On the surface, Wiki is controlled by a morass of copyediting geeks who have nothing better to do than to discuss reference tags etc. It is also 'the people's' encyclopedia, dictated by the tyranny of the majority—so no objectivity at all.

— Christina Galbraith to Jeffrey Epstein, 12/16/2011, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025233 (via Jmail)

On November 12, 2025 Republican members of congress on the U.S. House Oversight Committee released about 20,000 email records from convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Seventy-two of these records referred to Wikipedia in some way, but not all are about whitewashing, e.g. here's one about genetics. About 20 of the emails include Epstein and his hired wikiwashers discussing their plans, strategies, and even progress reports on editing two Wikipedia articles, Jeffrey Epstein and Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation. They include Epstein's complaints about the cost of the wikiwashing.

In March 29, 2020 The Signpost published the article "Jeffrey Epstein has asked me …" by this reporter using Wikipedia’s extensive edit histories to document how this wikiwashing was done, and how it affected people outside this encyclopedia. The earlier article is republished in this issue at From the archives for easy reference.

This article shows in detail, in the words of Epstein and his employees, how their planning affected the articles and how other Wikipedians resisted their efforts.

The emails come from a disorganized database given to the Oversight Committee by Epstein’s estate.[1] They are occasionally crude or vicious, and often lack proper grammar and conventional spelling. I’ve generally left them as is, without copy editing, to preserve their spirit, except in cases where a few changes are needed in order to understand them. Mostly, though, they are reasonably calm or even boring discussions of how to whitewash Wikipedia and the rest of the internet. This article has greatly benefited from the work of others who provided data and new information. User:Dflovett first reported the existence of the email records about Wikipedia on his Substack blog "Did Jeffrey Epstein edit his own Wikipedia article?" He also performed the difficult task of sorting out the files and formatting several of them into readable form. The Verge, wrote an excellent article How Jeffrey Epstein used SEO to bury news about his crimes which gives additional information and interpretation from an expert. Later The Verge also did a remarkable job in taking the disorganized data dump of 20,000 emails, and putting it in a readable format at Jmail. An earlier attempt at journaliststudio.google.com can be checked for additional people who were copied on the email, or in one case for an attachment that wasn’t included in Jmail.

The Epstein article was created on August 4, 2006 featuring Epstein’s indictment for the solicitation of a minor for prostitution and included a reference to the charge within the first 4 edits. The first apparent whitewashing occurred in July 2007 by an anonymous IP editor 63.165.175.250 who removed the text about the charge and the reference. They made a dozen similar edits through October 2007. Another IP editor 71.190.134.66 made three edits that July, adding complimentary information about Epstein. These methods of whitewashing are very simple - just remove controversial, but cited facts, and add complimentary information. When other editors put back the cited information, the whitewashers just use the complimentary information to push the cited facts to the bottom of the article.

These edits took place before the earliest available email evidence, but the strategy described in the emails was the same: brute force removal of cited information combined with the addition of complimentary info to push the ugly facts away from the readers’ view.

Epstein’s emails with several practitioners of online reputation management (ORM) begin in 2010. Their strategies offered to Epstein were not limited to Wikipedia, but aimed at censoring the entire internet. Most of these strategies were as simple as they were brutal. Any website or newspaper article in the top dozen items from a Google search that told the truth about Epstein’s crimes were to be forced off that page by complaints to Google or the website owner or by other tools in the search engine optimization (SEO) toolkit. Any websites which presented complimentary information on Epstein were to be promoted on the Google results page, perhaps by linking these articles to each other or writing new articles with those links. Also articles were to be posted that simply confused matters such one about Jeffrey Epstein (plastic surgeon). The strategy was not limited to Wikipedia, but since this encyclopedia was generally listed as the top article on the Google search page, it was of special importance.

As Al Seckel wrote on December 10, 2010

Wikipedia was an important victory, as it will always be at the top of the search engine results. (N)ow the head lines do not mention convicted sex offender or pedophile. Instead, Philanthrophic work, Epstein Foundation, Promotion of Scientists. … Your wiki entry now is pretty tame, and bad stuff has been muted, bowlerized, (sic) and pus(h)ed to the bottom. … We hacked the site to replace the mug shot and caption, and now has an entirely different photo and caption. This was a big success.

We pushed the Edge all the way up to the front page, where it was previously buried on page 5 of google search.

We have promoted the other jeffrey epsteins, and other pages are also filled with your material.

— Al Seckel to Jeffrey Epstein, 12/15/2010, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022216.txt.pdf (via Jmail)

Al Seckel may have been the first reputation manager to work for Epstein, but he was not the best or the most experienced. The current Wikipedia article about Seckel casts doubt on his honesty by the end of the first paragraph.

His connection to Epstein may have been made through Seckel’s domestic partner Isabel Maxwell who was Ghislaine Maxwell’s older sister. Ghislaine was Epstein’s former girlfriend who was convicted for child sex trafficking.

Epstein and Seckel argued about the cost of the whitewashing. Epstein complained

I was never told never, that there was a 10k fee per month,, you inittaly said the project would take 20.. then another 10. then another 10..
— Epstein to Seckel, 12/16/2010, (via Jmail)

Seckel responded, in part,

My initial estimate, given to me by Pablos, was 25, and that was based solely on his quick look at the situation, and not knowing what was really out there. In fact, as I have repeated many times, the job was far far worse that originally expected, you have a dedicated group of people trying to undo and damage you, including now, they have started up in the last week full force again, as it is obvious that they can't fux with your wiki page any more as we blocked that..

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Then, there was the issue of trying to create additionally on you a positive web presence, with the science and org sites.

I spend literally four months of non-stop work, creativity, and my own political capital to get you this so far, which saved you not only time, but countless dollars, and isn't something that can be readily bought. ...

We were trying to fix up your mess. I didn't create it. Just thought it would be something to help. This was NEVER about trying to pull money out of you, and fact, we have don't everything possible to keep the costs down considerably.

I must talk to you about the island thing asap. When can we do that?

— Seckel to Epstein, 12/16/2010, (via Jmail)

The Verge notes the argument about the price and quotes an SEO expert, Rand Fishkin, saying that the cost should have been $100,000 to start with more than a $10,000 monthly maintenance fee. "The prices just looked insanely low to me. Here’s a billionaire who supposedly is worried about his reputation as a fucking pedophile coming out in public arguing over a few thousand dollars. Honestly, the chutzpah is insane." [2] Archived

Epstein’s dissatisfaction with Seckel's efforts (and prices) seems to be reflected in an apparent ORM proposal from Osborne & Partners LLP, a U.K. PR firm, dated 14 June 2011. It is long and detailed and emphasizes material in the U.K. press. Apparently this proposal was not accepted. (This link is not to the Jmail site, because Jmail does not include attachments to the emails.) The following year Osborne, who was also a venture capitialist, reportedly lobbied his contacts at Epstein's behest, to install Jes Staley as CEO of Barclays Bank. Staley was Epstein's long time banker at J.P. Morgan & Co. and his work with Epstein was involved with his departures at both Morgan and Barclays.

Another long and detailed apparent ORM proposal was sent to Epstein by Christina Galbraith on Dec 16, 2011. She was recommending the firm Reputation.com and stated

You need people who eat, drink and sleep algorithms and search engine optimization. I've researched several companies and the most skilled, discrete, award winning and comprehensive is a company called, www.reputation.com based in Silicon Valley.

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I would serve as a liaison between you and Reputation. I would monitor their progress and provide them with all positive content that they need. They would make sure that the content has maximum algorithmic potential. You could keep your positive content simple (using you Edge.org summary which is good), or expand your content with updates on current science work and scientists. The benefit of the former, is that it keeps you more anonymous. The benefit of the latter is that is algorithmically associates you to a larger pool of known scientists, further pushing up positive content. My advice would be to combine the two: a simple repetitive bio summary of you but with a larger list of scientists added on. But I would ask the Reputation team about this: saying that the main goal is to enhance anonymity and algorithmic associations at the same time.

— HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025233 Christina Galbraith to Epstein, 12/16/2011 (via Jmail)

Reputation.com apparently was never hired by Epstein but Galbraith was. She served as his in-house publicity director and published a dozen or more press releases at PR Newswire giving her name and work phone for journalists to contact. After this proposal, Galbraith was an influential figure in the ORM project, being copied in 4 email threads on the topic and serving as a go-between for Epstein and the reputation managers.

Galbraith has an interesting background. Her father Evan Galbraith was successful on Wall Street and was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to France under President Ronald Reagan. He was also a friend and supporter of William F. Buckley and the National Review.

Buckley died a month after Evan Galbraith and Christina Galbraith wrote an appreciation of their long friendship in the National Review in her father's voice.[3]archive In 2013 she also wrote a puff piece in the National Review about Epstein's donations to Harvard University.[4]

Galbraith’s emails with Tyler Shears, a reputation manager who worked for Epstein in 2014 and 2015, were very specific suggesting that she was managing or closely monitoring him.

Im at a Kinko's.

wrote:

I see that you're boosting non-website url's -- are you sure this is the right approach? (vs. boosting Jeffrey's sites?) the .org and foundation sites are slipping down and the USVI and science are permanently off the first page.

Thanks for you input.

Christina

— Galbraith to Tyler Shears (via Jmail)

Jeffrey Epstein and his often changing group of online reputation managers planned, edited, and tracked their whitewashing of Wikipedia as part of a larger effort to keep reports of Epstein's crimes off the internet. The effort to whitewash Wikipedia was one of the key parts, often the first step, of these efforts. Given the large amount of money spent and the number of whitewashers hired, it is surprising that Wikipedians were at all successful, but they continued to update the articles and helped frustrate Epstein's coverup. Though Epstein was partially successful for a decade, he could not succeed in the long run.

This type of whitewashing is powerful. Given the legally required release of of the Epstein files, you might expect to see similar reports in the future, perhaps in the next issue of The Signpost.