I fail to see how being on that list implies anything. Imagine for example if you are a person with some status which implies that you are socially/politically active, and some rich folk calls you and invites you to have a talk at a dinner, would you instantly decline it? For example even if you dislike this class of people, don't you at least feel curious how will this meeting pass? Isn't it an interesting, even useful experience even if you know that you are going to decline any offer he will propose there anyway?
Your notions of why Chomsky was meeting with Epstein (or more than that, why Epstein was meeting with Chomsky) are touchingly naive, especially given everything we know about how Epstein influenced other MIT faculty via funding. It certainly casts Chomsky's constant inveighing against any form of conspiratorial analysis from the left in a new light, just as Chomsky's meeting with Ehud Barak calls his criticisms of BDS into question.
