Jeffrey Epstein calendar reveals meetings with prominent figures
Fox News contributor Bill McGurn argues the prominent figures named in Epstein's private calendar were likely trying to 'extract' money.
Jeffrey Epstein’s newly-revealed private calendar showed scheduled meetings with the current CIA director, a college president and attorney who served in the Obama administration, according to a report published Sunday.
New documents, which belonged to the rich convicted pedophile and were obtained by The Wall Street Journal, showed planned meetings with a slew of prominent individuals, including now-CIA Director William Burns, Bard College president Leon Botstein, Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and professor Noam Chomsky.
All the scheduled meetings were slated to take place after Epstein was jailed in 2008 on charges of solicitation, including soliciting a minor. WSJ could not prove each scheduled meeting actually took place, and the documents did not reveal the purpose for the meetings.
A spokesperson for Burns, who has taken the CIA’s helm since 2021 under the Biden administration, said the nation’s spy chief met with Epstein a decade ago when he was trying to leave the government.
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Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors the Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising, at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005, in New York City. (Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
"Director Burns recalls being introduced by a mutual friend in Washington, DC, and then met with him once briefly in New York City, about a decade ago as the Director was preparing to leave government service," CIA spokeswoman Tammy Kupperman Thorp said in comment provided to Fox News Digital.
"The Director did not know anything about him, other than he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general advice on transition to the private sector. The Director does not recall any further contact, including receiving a ride to the airport. They had no relationship."
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Ruemmler had dozens of meetings with Epstein following her work for the Obama administration and before taking the reins as Goldman Sachs' top lawyer in 2020, according to WSJ. The documents show Epstein was planning on Ruemmler joining 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 Georgetown Hotel and Conference Center on Feb. 2, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
A Goldman Sachs rep 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 spokesperson 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, a representation of the Edmond de Rothschild bank, and other business opportunities," a Goldman Sachs spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Sunday.
"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 with Epstein for donations or to make powerful connections. Botstein, who has served as Bard College’s president since 1975, said he met with Epstein to try to get him to donate to the liberal arts school.
"I was an unsuccessful fundraiser and actually the object of a little 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 with Epstein in 2012 and thanked him for unsolicited donations and that he met him several times after in an effort to receive 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 assist prisoners. "We believe in rehabilitation."
Chomsky told the outlet that he had met with Epstein, and the two discussed politics and academia. Epstein arranged for 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 serves as professor of linguistics emeritus, later said it donated the funds to organizations that support victims of sexual abuse.
Chomsky told Fox News Digital on Sunday that he noticed several of the people quoted in the WSJ story "said the obvious."
"The reporting covered 2015-16, when what was known about Mr. Epstein was that he had been sentenced for a crime, served his sentence, which wiped the slate clean according to US law and norms," he said.
"The gossip column chose not to publish the extensive information they have about far worse criminals who not only donate to MIT and other institutions but, far more serious of course, are greatly honored by them," Chomsky continued, also taking a dig at WSJ and Fox News.
Other prominent figures on the documents included: Ariane de Rothschild, chief executive of the Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild Group; Joshua Cooper Ramo, who at the time served on the boards of Starbucks Corp. and FedEx Corp; former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; Harvard University professor Martin Nowak; and anthropologist Helen Fisher.
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Epstein was found dead in a jail cell in New York City in 2019 while he was awaiting a 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 comment on the matter.
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