I haven't seen any allegation that Chomsky raped anyone, let alone kids. But Chomsky was quite close to Epstein and some of their leaked conversations tarnish his reputation quite a bit, irreversibly IMO.

I agree there is no proof, but merely calling it misjudged is too forgiving. I have had a lot of respect for Chomsky and his moral stance in life, so this relationship to Epstein was gravely disappointing. He tried to justify it a long time ago by saying Epstein was out of prison and had paid his dues, and that it was intellectual curiosity or something like that, and on paper I agree with this, but it was clear Epstein got off easy and in hindsight it should've been clear to the people around him he had never stopped. I don't think Chomsky raped anyone for what it's worth. But it's a big stain on his legacy.

There's also communications of his where he talks with Epstein about the allegations being ridiculous. Obviously, they weren't, and Epstein knew that, but I think the odds are good that Chomsky actually did think they were fabricated. Epstein knew so many people, it's highly unlikely that he would start chatting about child sexual abuse with everyone. Chomsky probably didn't get that version of Epstein - he just got the Epstein who liked to splash money around, help out famous friends with introductions, etc.

His Wikipedia article [0] gives a good summary of the connection they had.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#Friendship_with_J...

Chomsky is also somewhat unique in that he would communicate with literally anyone who wanted to talk to him. I remember seeing Manufacturing Consent for the first time in 9th grade in 1999, and I sent him an email, and he responded within the hour.