It seems like Einstein was saying "there's no such thing as a theory-free fact," specifically in his case that observation itself is influenced by some pre-existing theory. Some deduction is involved. But this begs the question... where did *that* theory originate?

This was the fall of Einstein though. He refused to acknowledge that the world truly was incomprehensibly weird in the quantum realm and kept trying to find some intuitive workaround or another for decades. The world is a sadder place because his true unique mind could have propelled us to unimaginable leaps (unimaginable to us mere mortals) if he had taken his head out of his own ass and accepted the reality for what it is and try to find the next breakthrough.