Biden CIA Director Met with Jeffrey Epstein Multiple Times: Report
A review of the private calendar of Jeffrey Epstein has revealed that the convicted sex offender and financier had meetings not previously reported on with several prominent Americans, including the current CIA director.
Epstein had meetings scheduled with now-director of the Central Intelligence Agency William Burns, President Barack Obama’s White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, Bard College president Leon Botstein, and Professor Noam Chomsky, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal could not confirm that all the scheduled meetings took place.
None of the names the new documents have revealed appear in Epstein’s now-public “black book” of contacts or in the flight logs of passengers who traveled on his private jet.
The meetings in question all occurred after Epstein had served jail time in 2008 for a sex crime involving a minor. Epstein had been accused of sexually abusing girls as young as 14 in Florida two years earlier and was investigated by the FBI. He reached a deal with prosecutors to avoid federal charges and pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. Epstein also registered as a sex offender. At the time, the news prompted a lot of media coverage, with several politicians returning donations and a number of associates distancing themselves from him.
Burns first met with Epstein in Washington, D.C., in 2014 when he was deputy secretary of state. The now-CIA director also traveled to Epstein’s townhouse in New York. Despite these meetings, a CIA spokeswoman asserted that the pair had no relationship. “The director did not know anything about him, other than that he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general advice on transition to the private sector,” she explained to the Journal, referencing Burns’s departure from his role at State.
Ruemmler had a much more extensive professional relationship with Epstein. Epstein introduced her to potential legal clients, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. In 2014, Epstein called Ruemmler within weeks of her leaving the Obama White House, planning a lunch at his townhouse followed by a series of meetings to introduce her to a wider circle of his acquaintances. Epstein and his staff discussed whether Ruemmler would be uncomfortable with the young women who worked as his assistants and staffers. Over the next three years, Ruemmler had more than three dozen appointments with Epstein. She was also scheduled to fly with Epstein to Paris and in 2017 he planned to stop in St. Lucia to take her to his island home in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the documents showed. Ruemmler, who now works at Goldman Sachs, said she regretted ever knowing Epstein. A spokesman from the financial firm said she never traveled with the sex offender.
Botstein, the Bard College president, had about two dozen meetings scheduled with Epstein over about four years, most of which were visits to Epstein’s townhouse. The university president was soliciting donations from Epstein. The sex offender was invited to an opera at Bard in 2013 and then a concert in 2016. Botstein told the Journal that he knew Epstein was a convicted sex offender, but argued that he believed in rehabilitation. When Epstein visited Bard, he planned each time to bring some of his young female assistants with him, and he arrived by helicopter. The university president said security precautions were taken when Epstein visited. “He did not have any free access to anybody,” Botstein said.
Professor Noam Chomsky, a famous linguist and left-leaning activist, met with Epstein in 2015 to discuss Israel’s policies with regard to Palestine. When the Journal asked about his relationship with Epstein, Chomsky said: “First response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally.” Chomsky added that Epstein had a “clean slate” at that time, having already served his jail sentence.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was also at that 2015 meeting and at several others. Other guests of Epstein’s included Joshua Cooper Ramo, then co-chief executive of Henry Kissinger’s corporate consulting firm, and Ariane de Rothschild, who is now chief executive of the Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild Group.
Finally, Epstein had lunch with Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who studies romantic love and attachment, in January of 2016. Fisher said that after the lunch, Epstein invited her to speak with his staff. “And then, in filed, I would say, six young women,” she told the Journal. “All of them good looking. All of them young.” Fischer clarified she had nothing to do with Epstein after that lunch, not staying in touch.
In 2015, Virginia Giuffre accused Epstein of sexually abusing and trafficking her when she was a teen and forcing her to have sex with influential people, including Prince Andrew, who has denied the allegation and last year settled a lawsuit with Giuffre. Prosecutors charged Epstein in 2019 with a sex-trafficking conspiracy. According to news reports, he died by suicide that same year while awaiting trial.
