Top figures continued to meet with Epstein after sex conviction, report says

The circle of global power players who continued to meet with Jeffrey Epstein after his first sex conviction was much wider than previously revealed, according to a lengthy report fromHe Wall Street Journal posted on sunday.

Using source documents that include Epstein’s schedules, the newspaper identified meetings between the disgraced financier and figures such as the current CIA director, a former White House lawyer, a university president and a member of a dynasty. international banking.

“None of their names appear in Epstein’s now public ‘black book’ of contacts or in the public flight logs of the passengers who traveled on his private plane,” the spokesperson said. wsj informed. “Documents show Epstein arranged multiple meetings with each of them after he served jail time in 2008 for a sex crime involving a teenage girl and was registered as a sex offender. The documents, which include thousands of pages of emails and timelines from 2013 to 2017, have not been previously reported.”

Epstein, a wealthy and well-connected New York financier, pleaded guilty in June 2008 to one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution of a person under the age of 18. He was released from prison the following year but, after a decade of public accusations of abuse by multiple women, he was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. He died in jail weeks later and the death was ruled a suicide.

There has always been speculation about the extent of Epstein’s contacts and the nature of their interactions, and a redacted version posted online in 2015 sparked a flurry of explanations and denials among the world’s elite. The new wsj The report, however, reveals hitherto unknown contacts, some who say they “regret” their association with the sex offender or deny any knowledge of his criminal activities.

The documents used as a source of information do not reveal the purpose of most of the meetings and the Diary he was unable to verify whether all scheduled meetings took place, he reported.

William Burns, who became CIA director in 2021, had scheduled meetings with Epstein in 2014 when he was assistant secretary of state, according to the newspaper: a planned lunch at a Washington, D.C. law office and two scheduled appointments at Epstein’s home. .

“After one of the scheduled meetings, Epstein arranged for his driver to take Mr. Burns to the airport,” WSJ reported.

A CIA spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that Mr. Burns recalled being introduced to Epstein in DC by a mutual friend and meeting the financier once briefly in New York, but “does not recall any other contact, including receiving a ride to the airport,” he said.

Burns resigned from the State Department in October 2014 and served as Chairman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace until he was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as CIA Director. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the independent.

Also reportedly meeting Epstein in 2014 was Kathryn Ruemmler, a White House legal adviser under President Barack Obama. According to the wsjEpstein called Ms. Ruemmler in 2014, a few weeks after she left the White House, and “planned an August 2014 luncheon at her home, followed by a series of meetings to introduce her to a wider circle of his acquaintances.” .

The disgraced financier and his staff also “discussed whether Ms. Ruemmler, now 52, ​​would be uncomfortable with the presence of young women who worked as assistants and staff at the home, documents show,” the newspaper reported. . “The women emailed Epstein on two occasions asking if they should avoid the house while Ms. Ruemmler was there. Epstein told one of the women that he did not want her anywhere near her, and another that it was not a problem, the documents show.

A spokesman for Goldman Sachs, where Ms Ruemmler currently serves as chief legal officer and general counsel, told the newspaper that the lawyer did not see anything concerning in the house.

“Over the next several years, Ms. Ruemmler, then a partner specializing in white-collar advocacy at Latham & Watkins, had more than three dozen dates with Epstein, including over lunches and dinners,” the official said. Diary informed.

She told the newspaper: “I’m sorry I met Jeffrey Epstein.”

A Goldman Sachs spokesman said the independent that many of Ms. Ruemmler’s contacts included potential representation of a major foundation, representation of a major bank, and “other business opportunities.”

Some of those who interacted with Epstein after his 2008-2009 conviction and jail term said they felt he had served his time.

Leon Botstein, president of Bard College since 1975, told the Diary He first “visited Epstein’s townhouse in 2012 to thank him for unsolicited donations to Bard High Schools, then returned for several years in an attempt to garner more donations. In 2015, Epstein donated 66 laptops, the documents show.

“We looked him up and he was a convicted sex offender,” Botstein said, adding that the university provides education for prisoners. “We believe in rehabilitation.”

The Bard president also invited Epstein to an opera at the school in 2013 and to a concert at the university in 2016, the newspaper reported.

Botstein had visited the financier’s home and told the newspaper: “He introduced himself as a billionaire, a very, very rich person. I found him strange and arrogant. And what I eventually came to believe, which is why we stopped contacting him, is that he was simply misleading us” regarding donations to the school.

Bard’s president did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the independent on Sunday.

Another academia member associated with Epstein was MIT professor Noam Chomsky, with whom the financier arranged meetings in 2015 and 2016 to discuss geopolitical and academic issues, WSJ reported.

commenting on the story the independentChomsky said: “I realize that several people quoted stated the obvious: all the reports concern 2015-16, when what was known about Epstein was that he had been sentenced and therefore had a slate on him. new account under US law and regulations. Britain too.”

He Diary the report also included scheduled meetings with powerful international figures; Ariane de Rothschild, now chief executive of Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild Group, had more than a dozen meetings with Epstein, discussing not only business matters but also personnel and furniture, she reported.

A French woman who married into the famed Rothschild banking family “purchased nearly $1 million worth of auction items on Epstein’s behalf in 2014 and 2015, documents show,” according to the WSJ.

He added: “In 2019, after Epstein’s arrest, the bank said that Ms. de Rothschild never met Epstein and had no business ties to him.

“The bank recognized the Diary that his earlier statement was not accurate. He said Ms de Rothschild met with Epstein as part of her normal duties at the bank between 2013 and 2019, and Epstein introduced the bank to US financial leaders, recommended law firms and provided tax and risks.

“In parallel with that, Epstein personally solicited her on a couple of occasions for advice and services on asset management,” the bank told the newspaper.

“Ms. de Rothschild was unaware of any legal proceedings against Epstein and “was not aware of any questions regarding his personal conduct,” the bank said. After later learning of his conduct, the bank said, ‘she feels and support the victims,’” said the Diary informed.

A spokesman for the Edmond de Rothschild Group said the independent on Sunday he had no further comment.