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Another interesting name has turned up regarding the late convicted underage sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
President Joe Biden’s current CIA chief, William Burns, is among a number of other names of people who met on more than on occasion with the convicted pedophile.
“The nation’s spy chief, a longtime college president and top women in finance. The circle of people who associated with Jeffrey Epstein years after he was a convicted sex offender is wider than previously reported, according to a trove of documents that include his schedules,” the WSJ report begins.
“William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency since 2021, had three meetings scheduled with Epstein in 2014, when he was deputy secretary of state, the documents show. They first met in Washington and then Mr. Burns visited Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan,” the report adds.
The newly released documents show that despite not appearing in Epstein’s “black book” or flight logs, multiple high-profile individuals met with him after he served jail time in 2008 for a sex crime involving a teenage girl and was registered as a sex offender. The outlet added that the documents, consisting of thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017, have not been previously reported.
The documents do not reveal the purpose of the meetings, and the WSJ reported that it could not verify whether every scheduled meeting occurred.
According to the Journal’s interviews with most of the individuals mentioned in the documents, their visits to Epstein were primarily related to his wealth and connections. Some believed he had rehabilitated himself after serving time for his previous sex crime conviction.
According to CIA spokeswoman Tammy Kupperman Thorp, Burns met with Epstein about a decade ago as he was preparing to leave government service. She stated: “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. They had no relationship.”
In 2014, when Burns, a career diplomat, served as Deputy Secretary of State, he had meetings with Epstein. According to the documents, there was a lunch scheduled in August at the office of the law firm Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, as well as two evening appointments at Epstein’s townhouse in September. After one of the meetings, Epstein arranged for his driver to take Burns to the airport.
Thorp said that Burns recalls meeting Epstein once briefly in New York and being introduced in Washington by a mutual friend. She added that the director doesn’t recall any further contact with Epstein, including receiving a ride to the airport.
“The following month, October 2014, Mr. Burns stepped down from his role at the State Department to serve as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank. He ran the Carnegie Endowment until he was nominated in early 2021 by President Biden to serve as CIA director,” the WSJ added.
In 2006, Epstein faced public accusations of sexually abusing girls in Florida who were as young as 14 years old. Following investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and police, Epstein made a deal with prosecutors in 2008 that allowed him to avoid federal charges. Instead, he pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution, registered as a sex offender, and served about 13 months in a work-release program.
The media extensively covered Epstein’s case, with numerous reports from the U.S. and around the world detailing accusations of abuse from underage girls and young women. In 2006, several politicians returned donations they received from Epstein, and some of his associates attempted to distance themselves from him. His largest known client, retail billionaire Leslie Wexner, announced in 2007 that he had cut ties with Epstein. In 2013, JPMorgan Chase & Co. closed Epstein’s accounts, although some bankers reportedly continued to meet with him for several years afterward, the WSJ noted.
“In 2015, Virginia Giuffre publicly 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. Prince Andrew has denied the allegations and last year settled a sex-abuse lawsuit by Ms. Giuffre,” the report continued.