Global Courant 2023-05-01 17:35:58
Jeffrey Epstein’s recently revealed private calendar showed scheduled meetings with the current CIA director, a university president and lawyer who served in the Obama administration, according to a report published Sunday.
New documents, which belonged to the wealthy convicted pedophile and were obtained by The Wall Street Journalshowed scheduled meetings with a slew of high-profile individuals, including now CIA director William Burns, Bard College president Leon Botstein, Obama White House attorney Kathryn Ruemmler, and professor Noam Chomsky.
All scheduled meetings were to take place after Epstein was jailed in 2008 on charges of solicitation, including soliciting a minor. WSJ could not prove that every scheduled meeting actually took place, and the documents did not reveal the purpose of the meetings.
A spokesperson for Burns, who has taken over the helm of the CIA under the Biden administration since 2021, said the country’s spy chief met with Epstein a decade ago when he tried to leave the government.
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Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend the Grisogono Sponsors the Wall Street Concert Series Benefiting Wall Street Rising, at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005 in New York City. (Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
“The director knew nothing about him except that he was presented as an expert in the financial services industry and gave general advice on transitioning to the private sector,” CIA spokeswoman Tammy Kupperman Thorp said. “They had no relationship.”
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According to WSJ, Ruemmler had dozens of meetings with Epstein after her work for the Obama administration and before she took over as Goldman Sachs’ top attorney in 2020. The documents show that Epstein planned for Ruemmler to accompany him for a trip to Paris in 2015 and another visit to his private island in the Caribbean in 2017.
CIA Director William Burns speaks on “Addressing the Global Threat Landscape,” at the Georgetown Hotel and Conference Center on February 2, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
A Goldman Sachs representative told the outlet that Ruemmler had a working relationship with Epstein when she was employed at law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, but did not travel with Epstein. The spokesman said Epstein introduced Ruemmler to potential legal clients, such as Bill Gates.
“Many of Ms. Ruemmler’s contacts related to a potential representation involving the Gates Foundation, an Edmond de Rothschild bank representation, and other business opportunities,” a Goldman Sachs spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Sunday.
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“I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein,” Ruemmler said, according to WSJ.
The Journal reported that the majority of people they spoke to said they met Epstein for donations or to make powerful connections. Botstein, who has been president of Bard College since 1975, said he met with Epstein to try to get him to donate to the liberal arts school.
“I was a failed fundraiser and actually the object of a bit of sadism on his part in dangling philanthropic support,” Botstein told the outlet. “That was my relationship with him.”
A March 28, 2017 file photo of Jeffrey Epstein. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, file)
Botstein said he visited Epstein in 2012 and thanked him for unsolicited donations and then met him several times afterward in an attempt to get more donations.
“We looked him up and he was a convicted felon for a sex crime,” Botstein said, noting that Bard has an educational program to help inmates. “We believe in rehabilitation.”
Chomsky told the outlet that he met Epstein and the two discussed politics and academia. Epstein arranged meetings with Chomsky between 2015 and 2016 and had donated at least $850,000 to MIT between 2002 and 2017, according to the Journal. MIT, where Chomsky is a professor emeritus of linguistics, later said it donated the funds to organizations that support victims of sexual abuse.
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Chomsky told Fox News Digital on Sunday that he noticed several of the people quoted in the WSJ story were “saying the obvious.”
“The reporting covered 2015-16, when what was known about Mr. Epstein was that he had been convicted of a crime, served his sentence, clearing the slate by US law and standards,” he said.
“The gossip column chose not to publish the extensive information they have about much worse criminals who not only donate to MIT and other institutions, but, much more seriously of course, are greatly honored by them,” Chomsky continued, also taking a look at WSJ and Fox News.
Other prominent figures on the documents included: Ariane de Rothschild, CEO of the Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild Group; Joshua Cooper Ramo, who served on the boards of Starbucks Corp. at the time. and FedEx Corp.; former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; Martin Nowak, professor at Harvard University; and anthropologist Helen Fisher.
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Epstein was found dead in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Botstein, the CIA, Nowak and Fisher did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Edmond de Rothschild Group told Fox they have no additional comments on the matter.
