Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. There's no story that includes Jeffrey Epstein that
Speaker 1: can avoid the fact that he was embedded in academia.
Speaker 1: And after all these years, the bill is finally coming due,
Speaker 1: and people like Larry Summers and Leon Botstein are finally
Speaker 1: being called upon to answer for their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: And as you can imagine, their answers have not been great.
Speaker 1: And of course it's led to Larry Summers being shit
Speaker 1: canned at Harvard. And now Botstein is stepping down from
Speaker 1: his president's position. Now, of course he's not leaving Bard entirely,
Speaker 1: but he's stepping down from that position. And now we
Speaker 1: have Jamie Raskin, who is looking for a comprehensive accounting
Speaker 1: and he wants to have an interview with mister Botstein.
Speaker 1: And look, just be clear, I'm not saying that mister
Speaker 1: Botstein was taking part in any kind of abuse. I
Speaker 1: don't know that, but I do know that he enabled
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. I know that he helped refurbish Jeffrey Epstein's image,
Speaker 1: and I know that led to other people being abused.
Speaker 1: And if this was a Rico case well might be
Speaker 1: a different conversation. But considering that's just a hope and
Speaker 1: a dream, we have to deal with the reality before us.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to people like Botstein, people like Summers.
Speaker 1: The most we can hope for probably his embarrassment, and honestly,
Speaker 1: that's a drop in the pill compared to the suffering
Speaker 1: of Jeffrey Epstein's victims and survivors. So look, I get
Speaker 1: it right, nobody wants to demean somebody. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to sit here and call somebody a diddler if we
Speaker 1: have no proof of it. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you have to answer for your relationships. You're a grown
Speaker 1: ass man. You can't have relationships with people like Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein when he's a known child abuser and then think
Speaker 1: that it's going to be okay, that nobody's going to
Speaker 1: have anything to say about it, Because I assure you
Speaker 1: people have some shit to say, so do why. Today's
Speaker 1: article is from The Guardian and the headline Harvard and
Speaker 1: Bard face fresh questions from lawmakers overties to Epstein. This
Speaker 1: article was authored by Stephanie Kirch Gasner. Harvard University and
Speaker 1: Bard College are facing new questions about the institution's relationship
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Epstein amid allegations at the convicted child sex
Speaker 1: trafficker leveraged his ties to the universities and their faculty
Speaker 1: to traffic women while also burnishing his reputation to avoid detection.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened. That's not an allegation, that's not
Speaker 1: a maybe. That's what happened. And for all these years
Speaker 1: they've denied it, they've made excuses, and they've acted like
Speaker 1: it's been overblown. But the truth is they've been covering
Speaker 1: it up. And not to veer too far off course,
Speaker 1: but it looks like a serious trafficking ring has been
Speaker 1: covered up over in the UK as well. Rupert Lowe
Speaker 1: has a new report out about grooming gangs, and we're
Speaker 1: going to get into that too, because I think it
Speaker 1: dovetails with what we talk about now. Of course, there's
Speaker 1: people who say that the numbers inside of that inquiry
Speaker 1: are overblown, but my response to that is even one
Speaker 1: girl is enough. If one girl suffered that kind of
Speaker 1: fate at the hands of some kind of grooming gang
Speaker 1: and it was covered up, that needs to be investigated.
Speaker 1: And I think it goes directly to the heart of
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with when it comes to Epstein. A
Speaker 1: lot of it has to do with institutional embarrassment. I
Speaker 1: need you guys to understand that, and these governments will
Speaker 1: go to great lengths to try and make sure that
Speaker 1: that doesn't occur, even if that means covering up something
Speaker 1: like Jeffrey Epstein or the grooming gangs. Over in the UK,
Speaker 1: Jamie Raskin, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said
Speaker 1: in a statement that Harvard and Bard had both previously
Speaker 1: attempted to investigate the role their universities and leadership played
Speaker 1: in facilitating Epstein's abuse, but that those attempts either failed
Speaker 1: or fell short of a full accounting of what occurred. Well,
Speaker 1: hold on one second, you mean internal investigations don't work.
Speaker 1: Come on, you should be able to investigate yourself, right
Speaker 1: if you commit a crime, he don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: I'm taking a look at myself. I just looked at
Speaker 1: my books and everything's okay here. Meanwhile, you're stealing money
Speaker 1: hand over fist. The whole entire internal investigation is some
Speaker 1: of the biggest bs in the history of big bs.
Speaker 1: Among other demands for information, Raskin has asked Bard to
Speaker 1: make Leon Botstein, its outgoing president, whom Bard has said
Speaker 1: will retain a role at the college, available for a
Speaker 1: transcribed interview. Raskin also requested records related to Epstein's donations, communications,
Speaker 1: admission interactions, and institutional decision making, as well as the
Speaker 1: full results of an internal review by the college. Raskin
Speaker 1: is also seeking extensive records from Harvard, including all records,
Speaker 1: financial documents, and communications relating to Ebstein's funding of research
Speaker 1: and his personal relationship with faculty members. I mean, that's good,
Speaker 1: and we should be getting all of that, but I
Speaker 1: doubt he will. Remember a lot of this stuff was clandestine,
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff was done on the down low,
Speaker 1: and Epstein knew not to have a paper trail. He
Speaker 1: knew better. So the whole entire internal review has always
Speaker 1: been a bunch of nonsense to me. Raskin is also
Speaker 1: seeking extensive records from Harvard, including all records, financial documents,
Speaker 1: and communications relating to Ebstein's funding of research and his
Speaker 1: personal relationships with faculty members. Raskin said Harvard's previous investigation
Speaker 1: into the university's ties to Epstein, conducted in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight in twenty nineteen, we're at best incomplete and
Speaker 1: at worst misleading. Man, Am I really agreeing with Jamie
Speaker 1: Raskin right now? Not exactly, somebody I agree with all
Speaker 1: the time, but he's not wrong here, and there needs
Speaker 1: to be a full accounting. Any of these universities that
Speaker 1: receives one single dollar in public money should be on
Speaker 1: the hook to explain away their relationship with someone like
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein, and up until this point Harvard has not done. So.
Speaker 1: Every single excuse they give, every reason they give, is
Speaker 1: worse than the last. I mean, if the president of
Speaker 1: your university is palaling around with Jeffrey Epstein, and Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein has an office on the campus of Harvard, I'd
Speaker 1: say that that's a problem that starts at the top,
Speaker 1: right the president of the university. We're not talking about
Speaker 1: some rebel ass professor who decided to do this after
Speaker 1: the university told him no. The universe encouraged it. They
Speaker 1: might not have said it, but their behavior encouraged this
Speaker 1: kind of shit, and with their internal reports, the idea
Speaker 1: was to whitewash that, to make it like the university
Speaker 1: had no idea and that it was just a couple
Speaker 1: of professors and a couple of people on campus who
Speaker 1: thought it would be a good idea to have a
Speaker 1: relationship with Epstein. That's what they tried to frame it as,
Speaker 1: but that was never the truth, and now Jamie Raskin
Speaker 1: is calling them out. Raskin said the internal investigation failed
Speaker 1: to uncover a series of donations Epstein made after Harvard
Speaker 1: had instituted a ban against such donations in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, as well as the full extent of his
Speaker 1: relationship with Harvard faculty members, including Harvard's former president Larry Summers,
Speaker 1: and the depth of his personal involvement with student admissions
Speaker 1: and faculty research. Yeah, how many people got in there
Speaker 1: because of Epstein? How many times did Epstein reach out
Speaker 1: and get somebody into the school? I'm sure if you remember.
Speaker 1: At the heart of it, that's what Jeffrey Epstein was
Speaker 1: a fixer, and he knew if he could get some
Speaker 1: vulnerable girls into Harvard, then he'd be able to abuse
Speaker 1: them and not just actually, but in general, have them
Speaker 1: do whatever he wants them to do, whenever he wants
Speaker 1: them to do it, because if they don't, well, they'll
Speaker 1: lose their spot at Harvard, and they'll lose their immigration
Speaker 1: visa and they'll have to go back to whatever country
Speaker 1: they're from. And that was the guillotine hanging over the
Speaker 1: head over these girls. It's time for Harvard, like the
Speaker 1: rest of America, to come clean and engage in the
Speaker 1: comprehensive accounting that will allow us to learn from this nightmare,
Speaker 1: take appropriate legislative action, and make sure nothing like it
Speaker 1: ever happens again. Raskin sent in a letter to Harvard
Speaker 1: President Alan Garber, and look, I doubt we're gonna stop
Speaker 1: it from ever happening again, but hopefully we're more vigilant
Speaker 1: this time, and hopefully people recognize the signs and they
Speaker 1: do something about it, they step up. Harvard announced in
Speaker 1: February that Summers was resigning from teaching at the end
Speaker 1: of the academic year. The announcement followed the Justice Department's
Speaker 1: release of the Epstein files, which revealed more details about
Speaker 1: Summer's and Epstein's relationship. The email showed Summers and Epstein
Speaker 1: communicated frequently on topics ranging from politics to women, including
Speaker 1: Summers pursuing a relationship with a person who saw them
Speaker 1: as an economic mentor like I never understood the whole
Speaker 1: thing about teachers try and hook up with their students
Speaker 1: even in college. What are you doing? Why would you
Speaker 1: cause yourself that kind of headache, that kind of drama.
Speaker 1: Go to the local pub, find yourself somebody else, a
Speaker 1: different girl. Whenever there is that power imbalance, you're setting
Speaker 1: yourself up for a disaster. And when you walk into
Speaker 1: it willingly, well, you get what you deserve. Summer served
Speaker 1: as Harvard's president from two thousand and one to two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. Epstein donated more than nine million to
Speaker 1: Harvard and its affiliated program from ninety eight to two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, which overlapped with Summer's tenure. Somers has
Speaker 1: previously said, I am deeply ashamed of my actions and
Speaker 1: recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility
Speaker 1: for my misguided decision to continue communicating with mister Epstein. Yeah,
Speaker 1: after you got called out, after the whole country knw
Speaker 1: Y were a scumbag? How come you didn't do it?
Speaker 2: Previously?
Speaker 1: In a separate letter addressed to bar chair James Cox Chambers,
Speaker 1: whom The Guardian previously reported has recently stepped down from
Speaker 1: that role, Raskin said he was seeking to understand how
Speaker 1: Epstein exploited and leveraged multifarious ties in higher education from
Speaker 1: Bard to Columbia University, Harvard and NYU. Raskin pointed out
Speaker 1: in the letter that Botstein was resigning from his position
Speaker 1: as president, a role that he held for more than
Speaker 1: fifty years, following Abart initiated investigation that concluded his tenure
Speaker 1: was marked by substantial lapses in leadership and candor not
Speaker 1: exactly legacy building. Huh, imagine they do this report and
Speaker 1: that's what they come back with. Now can you imagine
Speaker 1: what an external report would find? There was evidence. Raskin
Speaker 1: said that Epstein's relationship to Botstein and barred leaders helped
Speaker 1: them maintain and expand his illegal activities, including potentially trafficking
Speaker 1: women in New York and the Russian Federation. And that's
Speaker 1: a big story the Russian Federation. I doubt it's ever
Speaker 1: going to get legs, but boy, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of women and girls abused from the Russian Federation one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. And that's because Epstein knew that he had
Speaker 1: friends in FSB that would press these women, make sure
Speaker 1: they didn't talk. I mean, look at the emails that
Speaker 1: he sent about Ganijeva and the response from his Russian contact,
Speaker 1: how they're gonna press her, How she's not protected by
Speaker 1: anybody in Russia, so it should be easy. And that
Speaker 1: should give you a little bit of a look at
Speaker 1: how these people operated. And when we're talking about people
Speaker 1: from the Russian Federation, what are they going to do?
Speaker 1: Go to the local police chief who's in the pocket
Speaker 1: of insert oligarch here. The Guardian reported last month that
Speaker 1: Bard's Board of trustees voted to end Botstein's fifty one
Speaker 1: year tenure after board members were presented with the results
Speaker 1: of an independent review of his relationship with Epstein. Botstein
Speaker 1: friend his departure as a long plan retirement in a
Speaker 1: statement on May first. Oh yeah, retirement, forced retirement. You
Speaker 1: mean these people shouldn't be able to save face with
Speaker 1: those kinds of statements. An Epstein victim who had previous
Speaker 1: interactions with Botstein, said she believed the Bard College president
Speaker 1: was part of a group of influential and accomplished men
Speaker 1: whose proximity to Epstein helped to rehabilitate his reputation one
Speaker 1: million percent. And that's the part that a lot of
Speaker 1: people leave out. A lot of people are like, well,
Speaker 1: so and so didn't take heart in any abuse. So
Speaker 1: what's the big deal? They enabled, They helped rehabilitate this
Speaker 1: piece of shits reputation, and that of course led to
Speaker 1: countless girls being abused. And there was certainly levels to it,
Speaker 1: and there were certainly levels that reached criminality. And if
Speaker 1: we ever had a real investigation, well we would have
Speaker 1: seen that. A summary of an internal investigation conducted by
Speaker 1: the Wilmer Hell Law Firm, which was initiated by Bard's
Speaker 1: board of trustees and was released publicly on May first,
Speaker 1: found that nothing Botstein did in connection to his relationship
Speaker 1: with Epstein was illegal. It also found that the Bard
Speaker 1: president was not fully accurate in describing his relationship with
Speaker 1: Epstein publicly or to the Bard community, and stated that
Speaker 1: Botstein did not fully see a risk to Bard's reputation
Speaker 1: when he pursued Epstein as a donor for the college,
Speaker 1: or the potential risk his contacts with Epstein posed to
Speaker 1: Bard's students. I mean, you know, a guy that's already
Speaker 1: been to prison for abusing a girl who was under age.
Speaker 1: No risk here, guys, squeaky clean, He's the fucking pope.
Speaker 1: The law firm noted that Botstein had not disclosed fees
Speaker 1: he accepted under a consulting agreement with epstein entity. Botstein
Speaker 1: previously denied being friends with Epstein and has also said
Speaker 1: he never witnessed anything inappropriate nor had any visibility in
Speaker 1: Ebstein's monstrous crimes. He's never been charged with any wrongdoing
Speaker 1: related to Ebstein. We have received the letter and are
Speaker 1: reviewing it, a Bard College spokesperson told The Guardian. Harvard
Speaker 1: did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Raskin
Speaker 1: is seeking information from both universities by July.
Speaker 2: First. Look, this story.
Speaker 1: Is just beginning when it comes to higher education academia
Speaker 1: and places like Harvard and Bard and like usual, will
Speaker 1: be here every step of the way as a story unfolds.
Speaker 1: As for this one, well that's going to do it.
Speaker 1: All the information that goes with this episode can be
Speaker 1: found in the description box. Hey, what's up, everybody, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the program. We're gonna get right into it tonight.
Speaker 1: Considering this is a relatively long article, it's really an
Speaker 1: editorial that was posted by Lawrence Lessig over at the
Speaker 1: Harvard Crimson Now. Lawrence Lessig is the RL Furman Professor
Speaker 1: of Law and Leadership at Harvard, and he's taking Harvard
Speaker 1: to task in this editorial. Folks, I've been calling for
Speaker 1: this kind of rhetoric for quite some time, and very
Speaker 1: few people in academia were willing to stand up and
Speaker 1: say anything about this stuff. Doctor Stephen Delay was one.
Speaker 2: Of the very few.
Speaker 1: So it's nice to see Lawrence Lessig show up to
Speaker 1: the party. I mean a little late, obviously, but still,
Speaker 1: what do I always talk about? If the people that
Speaker 1: are within these institutions aren't holding their peers and each
Speaker 1: other responsible for their behavior, then how can anybody on
Speaker 1: the outside ever expect for that to occur? So it
Speaker 1: starts on the inside and seeing seeing Lawrence Lessig pen
Speaker 1: this essay, this editorial here is certainly a step in
Speaker 1: the right direction. So let's jump right into it and
Speaker 1: let's see what he has to say. This appeared in
Speaker 1: the Harvard Crimson. Author is Lawrence Lessig. Harvard has apparently
Speaker 1: concluded its review of its relationship to the convicted child
Speaker 1: sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein in September twenty nineteen, after
Speaker 1: expressing that he profoundly regrets Harvard's association with Epstein. University
Speaker 1: President Lawrence S. Bakow promised to review how we prevent
Speaker 1: these situations in the future, and what did we get.
Speaker 1: Like usual, when it comes to these internal reports, or
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a real reflective look in the mirror
Speaker 1: and we're gonna see how we can be better. Whenever
Speaker 1: it's that kind of stuff, it usually falls flat on
Speaker 1: its face. At least with my experience here in the
Speaker 1: Epstein case, every single time one of these groups does
Speaker 1: a internal review, it always turns out to be absolute garbage.
Speaker 1: The report found Harvard had taken no money from Epstein
Speaker 1: after his conviction, though there were further questions that merited study.
Speaker 1: Two weeks ago, after completing that study, Harvard determined to
Speaker 1: shutter the research center Epstein's money had founded and discipline
Speaker 1: its academic director. Yet in these steps, Harvard has still
Speaker 1: not given us a fair accounting of our past, and worse,
Speaker 1: in this latest step, it hides that account behind a scapegoat.
Speaker 1: And that is definitely the case. They have scapegoated from
Speaker 1: the jump over at Harvard. None of the people at
Speaker 1: the top, none of the trustees, Lawrence back Out, none
Speaker 1: of these other people that are you know, top dog
Speaker 1: at Harvard, people that are supposed to be responsible for
Speaker 1: this sort of thing. None of these people have felt
Speaker 1: the full weight of what occurred. None of them have
Speaker 1: stepped down or lost their positions, or lost tenure or
Speaker 1: lost anything like that. Instead, a few of the people
Speaker 1: who were getting that money directly from Epstein ended up
Speaker 1: being the only people to take the fall. And while
Speaker 1: they should have, right the people that facilitated the Epstein
Speaker 1: money in the first place, the scientists that he was
Speaker 1: collecting and that we're taking money from him, all of
Speaker 1: those sons of bitches should have lost their jobs for sure,
Speaker 1: They should have lost tenure, they should have lost everything, honestly,
Speaker 1: But the same goes for the people above them. Is
Speaker 1: there no accountability when it comes to the management level,
Speaker 1: so to say, in this situation, is it just the
Speaker 1: professors who should be sanctioned who should lose their jobs?
Speaker 1: Or should everybody who was around at that time, everybody
Speaker 1: who should have seen what was going on who didn't,
Speaker 1: either willfully or because they're morons. All of those people
Speaker 1: should not be in the positions that they're in. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of capable positions people to fill those positions.
Speaker 1: There are three chapters in the evolving relationship between academic
Speaker 1: institutions and Jeffrey Epstein in the first before his conviction
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. Everyone loves Epstein, and that
Speaker 1: is the case. All of these people were gush over Epstein.
Speaker 1: Remember the Vanity Fair article. You know, these people were
Speaker 1: gushing over Epstein. And they'll tell you now that, oh,
Speaker 1: we had no idea what Jeffrey Epstein was. There was
Speaker 1: no signs nobody had any idea. Meanwhile, we know that's
Speaker 1: a bunch of bs, right, we all know that that's garbage.
Speaker 1: Epstein didn't wake up one morning and decided to become
Speaker 1: an absolute scumbag pervert. This is who he was. This
Speaker 1: is the kind of person he was. This was his character.
Speaker 1: All of those crass jokes while you guys are all
Speaker 1: around at a science conference, that didn't ring a few
Speaker 1: alarm bells. I mean, come on, already, there's a time
Speaker 1: and place for everything. You know, you're sitting around with
Speaker 1: the guys. It's a poker game. You want to have
Speaker 1: some crass language.
Speaker 2: I get it. Yeah, of course that's what guys do.
Speaker 2: I get it. You're at a science conference.
Speaker 1: Why do you need to have girls with you? Why
Speaker 1: do you need to talk about disgusting topics that you know,
Speaker 1: these there's no place for it in the in the
Speaker 1: environment or the setting. And that didn't ring any of
Speaker 1: the alarm bells, didn't go off for anybody. It didn't
Speaker 1: ring any alarm bells for any of these people. Please
Speaker 1: give me a break. I'm just you know, I'm so
Speaker 1: sick of the well, we had no idea. We didn't
Speaker 1: hear anything, we didn't see anything. Well, you certainly didn't
Speaker 1: say anything in the third after the twenty eighteen article
Speaker 1: in the Miami Herald detailing his depravity, everyone hates Epstein.
Speaker 1: A hold on a second, You guys should have hated
Speaker 1: him a long time before that. This stuff was out there.
Speaker 1: People were talking about who Epstein was. There was, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot going on in that realm of the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: People knew exactly what Epstein was. It didn't take the
Speaker 1: Julie Brown article to let people know what Jeffrey Epstein was.
Speaker 1: The Julie Brown article that got people to start paying attention.
Speaker 1: But in the second there is an ambiguous dance between
Speaker 1: this generous funder pedophile and universities that recognize complexity in
Speaker 1: taking his money. See, and that's one of my biggest
Speaker 1: problems with this. They knew it was wrong to take
Speaker 1: old boys dough, but they did it anyway, and then
Speaker 1: when they're called out on it, they start with the
Speaker 1: whole nonsense of, well, what do you mean we had
Speaker 1: no idea, you knew, everybody knew you took that money anyway,
Speaker 1: And what you thought was that Jeffrey Epstein was in
Speaker 1: the clear. He did his time, They weren't gonna come
Speaker 1: get him again because of all of his connections. There
Speaker 1: was no way that was going to occur. So these
Speaker 1: dudes hopped right back into bed with them, had their
Speaker 1: hand out, and Jeffrey Epstein was handing out the hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands. In two thousand and eight, former university president
Speaker 1: Drew G. Faust resolved that complexity with clarity, but incompletely
Speaker 1: unlike others such as MIT, Faust determined that Harvard would
Speaker 1: take no more money from Epstein. According to the May
Speaker 1: twenty twenty report, Yeah, okay, but very much like others,
Speaker 1: including Mit, she gave no directive about how the many
Speaker 1: other ways that Epstein was connected to the university should
Speaker 1: be affected by her determination. Of course, she didn't go
Speaker 1: all the way, you know, that's called mister Lessig. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure you know, you're a very skilled lawyer, very
Speaker 1: intelligent man, well schooled, much more well schooled than me,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. But the cynic in me says it
Speaker 1: was left there on purpose as a loophole so they
Speaker 1: could still get that money while re attaining plausible deniability.
Speaker 1: In particular, she gave no guidance about how the center
Speaker 1: that Epstein's main contribution to Harvard had established, the Program
Speaker 1: on Evolutionary Evolutionary Dynamics, should negotiate its continued interactions with Epstein.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that mister Lessig here is going to
Speaker 1: give us a different avenue and a different bit of thought.
Speaker 1: But for me, the cynic in me, and I'm sorry
Speaker 1: I have to be so cynical when dealing with this case,
Speaker 1: but the track record has made it so so it
Speaker 1: looks to me like this is a loophole that she
Speaker 1: left in there so that the professors could still continue
Speaker 1: to rake in the dough, while the university at the
Speaker 1: same time could say, well, look, we have these guidelines
Speaker 1: in place. We're not involved in that. We didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about it, so it was kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: wink wink, nudge nudge kind of deal in particular, Oh
Speaker 1: past that excuse me, because from the start, Epstein was
Speaker 1: constantly engage with PED and with others through PED. And
Speaker 1: that's the program on evolutionary dynamics. That's the the way
Speaker 1: that they talk about it, you know, when they abbreviate it,
Speaker 1: it's called the PED. According to a letter that Martin Nowak,
Speaker 1: the ped's academic director, sent to administrators when the center
Speaker 1: was founded, Harvard's then president Lawrence H. Summers. Huh that
Speaker 1: name sounds familiar, doesn't It got Epstein to pay the
Speaker 1: rent for ped's office not on Harvard's campus, but in
Speaker 1: commercial space in Harvard's Square. And you all remember Larry Summers, right,
Speaker 1: Lawrence H. Summers, good friend of Obama's, you know, one
Speaker 1: of those guys. Yeah, Larry Summers. Typical academia scuzzball. From
Speaker 1: the beginning, Epstein treated that space as a second office
Speaker 1: in Cambridge. Epstein traveled to Cambridge regularly to meet with
Speaker 1: Harvard's most luminary, including Summers, regularly, but not exclusively at PED.
Speaker 1: Those meetings are described as interesting and intellectual in Noac's letter.
Speaker 1: There is no suggestion they involved any inappropriate behavior, well beyond,
Speaker 1: of course, the inappropriateness of including Epstein himself. So I'm
Speaker 1: certainly not laying out the charges that there was inappropriate
Speaker 1: behavior as far as abusing girls here. I'll leave that
Speaker 1: to some of the other fantasists that are floating around.
Speaker 1: What I am saying, though, is Larry Summers is an
Speaker 1: absolute jerk, an absolute scuzzball, and an absolute moron. Larry
Speaker 1: Summers is the kind of guy that epitomizes everything that
Speaker 1: was wrong with academia and their relationship with Epstein. Politically connected,
Speaker 1: locked in at the university, top of his field, and
Speaker 1: the exact kind of guy Jeffrey Epstein loved Hanging around.
Speaker 1: These sores continued long after the two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: ban on raising Epstein money. The question is why some
Speaker 1: thought the ban would be temporary. Some hoped Epstein's reputation
Speaker 1: might be restored. All right, Well, hold on, hit the brakes,
Speaker 1: restored his reputation restored? Huh Again, We're not talking about
Speaker 1: somebody who was involved in a money a money scam here.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about somebody who got into a fight
Speaker 1: in the bar and things went too far and the
Speaker 1: person he was fighting with got hurt severely. You know,
Speaker 1: people make mistakes, right, you can forgive mistakes, is what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get at.
Speaker 2: But this is no gray area mistake.
Speaker 1: This is no Ah Man, I really really screwed up
Speaker 1: this time. That's not what this was. This was human
Speaker 1: trafficking of children, point blank period. Some believed it morally
Speaker 1: obligatory to give a criminal a chance at redemption, and.
Speaker 2: That's such BS two.
Speaker 1: All of these elites love to talk about that, But
Speaker 1: what have they done to really give people who need
Speaker 1: a second chance a second chance? The dude that got
Speaker 1: popped for selling some pot, guy on the corner, who
Speaker 1: got nailed with some crack who's doing a lot longer
Speaker 1: than the dude who had the same amount of powdered coke.
Speaker 1: Where are they to help these people out? Nowhere to
Speaker 1: be found are they. They loved the Blovi eight and
Speaker 1: they love the virtue signal, but they don't love to
Speaker 1: strap on their boots and get down to work. Noac
Speaker 1: was told as much by his spiritual advisor, which he
Speaker 1: shared in his letter to the administration. His spiritual advisor, huh,
Speaker 1: I mean, are you really your spiritual advisor told you
Speaker 1: that you should help Jeffrey Epstein refurbish his image.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: Talk about passing the buck, talk about absolutely passing the buck.
Speaker 1: Whatever the reason, the reality is that there was no
Speaker 1: real change in the practical relationship that Epstein had to
Speaker 1: Harvard beyond his ability to write Harvard a check. The
Speaker 1: meetings continued, the relationships grew deeper, The conversations on and
Speaker 1: near campus were many, and there are just tons and
Speaker 1: tons of people who have talked about this, who have
Speaker 1: witnessed it, and it's in their report itself, So there's
Speaker 1: no denying Jeffrey Epstein's presence on the campus and around
Speaker 1: these professors. What continued as well was PD's need for money.
Speaker 1: Like Epstein's, PD's rent was substantial. Noak reports that at
Speaker 1: first after fosse Ban, Harvard had agreed to assume it,
Speaker 1: but after the financial crisis, Noac was informed that he
Speaker 1: would have to raise it himself. So again, Harvard is
Speaker 1: not getting off the hook here, at least not with me.
Speaker 1: Some people might let them off the hook, but not me.
Speaker 1: They're the institution here, They're the ones where the buck stops.
Speaker 1: So after the financial meltdown, you clowns didn't have the
Speaker 1: money to fund this department. So you told this professor
Speaker 1: it's up to him to do it himself. And then
Speaker 1: there was no checks and balances like you had never
Speaker 1: seen Epstein's name before. All of its smacks of absolute
Speaker 1: b s. Foundations usually don't give academic grantees money to
Speaker 1: cover rent, so everyone knew those additional funds would have
Speaker 1: to be like Epstein's, from private individuals. An FAS Development
Speaker 1: Office staff member encouraged Noak as late as twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: to ask Epstein to ask his friends to help. According
Speaker 1: to the May twenty twenty report, so we want Epstein's money,
Speaker 1: but we don't want the stink of Epstein on it.
Speaker 1: So let's have Epstein middle man it and get some
Speaker 1: of his rich ahole homies to fill the void. And
Speaker 1: then that'll give us the cover we need because we
Speaker 1: could say, well, Epstein didn't give us the money. Insert
Speaker 1: scumbag here did as late as twenty seventeen to ask
Speaker 1: Epstein to ask his friends to help. Noak followed Harvard's direction,
Speaker 1: Epstein obliged, securing substantial support from his friend. Oh here's
Speaker 1: a name that all of you are going to know,
Speaker 1: Leon D. Black among others. So you see, the Leon
Speaker 1: Black story just keeps getting deeper and deeper though quicksand
Speaker 1: as a hold. And we talked about this months ago,
Speaker 1: months and months and months ago, that Leon Black was
Speaker 1: in this up to his ears and that he has
Speaker 1: some explaining to do. Now you add on the new
Speaker 1: allegations against Leon Black. Oh yeah, oh boy is up
Speaker 1: up the creek right now without a paddle. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt about that. Throughout this period, apparently no one with
Speaker 1: any authority, certainly not the university, not its former president Summers,
Speaker 1: not its development office, not the dozen or so Harvard's
Speaker 1: most elite, saw any inappropriateness in this ongoing academic relationship.
Speaker 1: And that right there says it all. Everybody involved, everybody
Speaker 1: that was around. If they're still there, if they're still
Speaker 1: drawing these gigantic ass paychecks at this overpriyst once great university,
Speaker 1: they should all be fired. A new broom sweeps clean.
Speaker 1: What they should do is get Morgan Freeman's character from
Speaker 1: that Stand By Me movie and have him show up
Speaker 1: at Harvard and whip these guys into shape. Despite the
Speaker 1: obvious harm that a sex offender could trigger in the
Speaker 1: members of our community, who themselves might have been victims
Speaker 1: of sexual abuse. The elite of Harvard's elite continue to
Speaker 1: nurture a relationship with a sex offender. Yeah, because that's what.
Speaker 2: The elite do.
Speaker 1: I hate to be the bearer of bad news for
Speaker 1: anyone who holds these people up on high. But the
Speaker 1: so called elite, Yeah, that's a class of sick ass people,
Speaker 1: a whole group of people who literally have zero morals
Speaker 1: and who do not care about anything that does not
Speaker 1: increase their wealth or their power. And that's not just
Speaker 1: me saying it. Their actions bear it out. Despite the
Speaker 1: clarity of all of our views. Now, they apparently so
Speaker 1: saw no wrong in what all of them were doing then,
Speaker 1: at least until chapter three, when all worked diligently to
Speaker 1: forget what had happened between two thousand and eight and
Speaker 1: twenty and eighteen.
Speaker 2: Yo.
Speaker 1: Lessig is going hard in the pain here, he's leaving.
Speaker 1: He's really shooting from the hip and giving all of
Speaker 1: these guys the business as he should. It's about time
Speaker 1: so and at Harvard stood up and did the right thing.
Speaker 1: Harvard's made twenty twenty reports celebrated Faust's moral clarity, but
Speaker 1: it identified some details that required further investigation. In March,
Speaker 1: Harvard completed that determination. It did not release any public accounting. Instead,
Speaker 1: its conclusions were shared internally by email to the affected departments. Predictably,
Speaker 1: that email was leaked. And in this day and age,
Speaker 1: if you have some sort of explosive email and you're
Speaker 1: in a situation like an institution like Harvard, you have
Speaker 1: to expect that if the email is getting leaked, so
Speaker 1: you better be on your game, beyond your p's and q's,
Speaker 1: and say exactly what you want to say in that email.
Speaker 1: The effect was completely foreseeable. Airbrush from the history are
Speaker 1: the many Harvard luminaries who participated in and encouraged the
Speaker 1: ongoing relationship with Epstein after two thousand and eight. Left
Speaker 1: standing alone is Noak, ped's academic director.
Speaker 2: Who is now to be disciplined.
Speaker 1: And disciplined is in quotes, he's not wrong, no act,
Speaker 1: while should be while you should be disciplined, and he
Speaker 1: should be in big trouble for all of this, and
Speaker 1: like I said, lose his job. In my opinion, all
Speaker 1: of these other people need to lose their jobs too.
Speaker 1: What's protecting them that they're a trustee, that they're so
Speaker 1: called part of the elite enough already with these people,
Speaker 1: and thus we the community are allowed the comfortable view
Speaker 1: that Drew Foss got it right in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and the university followed her lead, even if even if
Speaker 1: a very few among us apparently didn't get the memo.
Speaker 1: So kind of a cover right for Harvard here with
Speaker 1: that statement, Oh, it's not the whole institution. We got
Speaker 1: it right with what Foss said, but there are still
Speaker 1: still some Yes, that doesn't cut it with me. Sorry,
Speaker 1: everybody who was around, let me be very clear, everybody
Speaker 1: who was around who was involved when Epstein donated that money,
Speaker 1: they all need to be fired. Yet this framing is absurd,
Speaker 1: and its lie is revealed in the thinness of the
Speaker 1: charges against Martin Noak, because Noak has not been punished
Speaker 1: for associating with Epstein. How could he be when so
Speaker 1: many others from Harvard, much more famous and prominent, had
Speaker 1: associated with Epstein as well. And again it comes back
Speaker 1: to for me, anyway, this is a Harvard problem, folks.
Speaker 1: Something stinks at that university. And I wouldn't spend one
Speaker 1: red cent to send my child there, not one cent.
Speaker 1: It is absurd what occurred in those alleged hollowed halls.
Speaker 1: Neither has he been punished because he asked Epstein to
Speaker 1: help him address PDS funding needs by securing donations from
Speaker 1: Epstein's friend Leon Black. How could he be when Harvard's
Speaker 1: Development Development Office itself asked Novak to askin for help.
Speaker 1: And there's the rub of it, right, And he gets
Speaker 1: to the heart of the issue, in my opinion, and
Speaker 1: that is everybody who is there, everybody involved, all of
Speaker 1: these people that are hitting us with virtuous signaling. Okay,
Speaker 1: the virtue signaling has to stop by these people. Somebody
Speaker 1: has to take responsibility for what occurred. You're all making
Speaker 1: big bucks and with that big money comes big responsibility,
Speaker 1: or it should.
Speaker 2: Rather.
Speaker 1: Noak is being disciplined because of offenses that are plenty
Speaker 1: not offenses at all, or that, when committed, we're not
Speaker 1: viewed as anything more than simple mistakes. The most extraordinary
Speaker 1: of these is the Charge and Faculty of Arts and
Speaker 1: Sciences Dean Claudeine Gay's notification to Noak, which states that
Speaker 1: he exhibited profound negligence in misrepresenting the source of PEDS
Speaker 1: matching funds to one of his funding sources, the Templeton Foundation.
Speaker 1: This is a gross misrepresentation in itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: Not a big fan of Claudine Gay or the way
Speaker 1: she handled this. And to make Noak the scapegoat and
Speaker 1: the only one really getting punished is laughable considering we
Speaker 1: know the relationship somebody like Larry Summers had with Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: If they were to sanction everybody at Harvard who had
Speaker 1: a relationship with Epstein, those would be some empty.
Speaker 2: Asshols, folks.
Speaker 1: The May Report had speculated this might have happened, but no.
Speaker 1: AE Emails with the Templeton Foundation revealed that the precise
Speaker 1: words used to report his funding were actually requested by
Speaker 1: the foundation. The Templeton Foundation was neither confused or misled,
Speaker 1: meaning there could be no misrepresentation, so they knew nothing
Speaker 1: was misrepresented to them. They knew exactly what what they
Speaker 1: were getting into, they knew what the money was for,
Speaker 1: and they knew where the money originated. They did not care.
Speaker 1: And that's really what it comes down to. That's what
Speaker 1: it boils down to. The balance is just as weak.
Speaker 1: From the very start, Harvard knew Epstein treated PD as
Speaker 1: a second office. According to the May twenty twenty report,
Speaker 1: Harvard knew as early as two thousand and six that
Speaker 1: Epstein even had his own phone. So again, Epstein has
Speaker 1: set up, got this office, Larry Summer sets that up,
Speaker 1: got himself a phone line. He's missed big shit on
Speaker 1: the campus of Harvard. Now, yeah, I'm Jeffrey Epstein for
Speaker 1: her college drop out, drop out here, drop out there,
Speaker 1: but got myself a fellowship at Harvard. What an absolute
Speaker 1: joke and what disrespect to the people who actually work
Speaker 1: hard for those fellowships. According to Noak, Summers walked with
Speaker 1: Epstein as he secured access to ped's offices with his
Speaker 1: own key card. Not once did he or the university
Speaker 1: say that this access was wrong or must end. But
Speaker 1: now Noak is to be disciplined in part because PED
Speaker 1: gave Epstein a different key card after the Harvard access
Speaker 1: system had changed. So even after they changed the system,
Speaker 1: the access system, even after you know, they updated the locks,
Speaker 1: they had to make sure their boy Epstein was taken
Speaker 1: care of, right, They had to make sure their golden
Speaker 1: ticket was taken care of. They had to make sure Jeffrey.
Speaker 2: Was all right.
Speaker 1: Sure, I guess one could say that a university wide
Speaker 1: change in security protocols was meant to signal to PED
Speaker 1: that it should stop granting Epstein access to the PED offices.
Speaker 1: But wouldn't a memo from the ad administration have been
Speaker 1: a clear and cheaper way to send that message. Well,
Speaker 1: they got money to burn there, obviously. I mean, with
Speaker 1: the insane amount of money they charge the students. Every
Speaker 1: single toilet bowl should be gold plated. They should all
Speaker 1: be eating five star meals every night in the commissary.
Speaker 1: And you know, whatever the top Egyptian count sheets are,
Speaker 1: they got to have those.
Speaker 2: This is Harvard after all.
Speaker 1: Finally, noaks to be disciplined because the Center allowed Epstein's
Speaker 1: biography to appear on ped's web page after Epstein's publicist
Speaker 1: requested it. Of course, the story of Center benefactors commonly
Speaker 1: appear on Center web pages. Of course they do. That's
Speaker 1: part of it, right, What do you think these guys
Speaker 1: donate all of this money and they don't get anything
Speaker 1: on the flip back. Of course they do. But during
Speaker 1: a period in which Harvard was inviting Jeffrey Epstein to
Speaker 1: the launch of its capital campaign and the most elite
Speaker 1: of the elite at Harvard were regularly meeting with Epstein
Speaker 1: at PED and around Cambridge Fas blames Noak for failing
Speaker 1: to recognize that it was a misuse of the Harvard
Speaker 1: dot edu domain to reveal Epstein as a friend of
Speaker 1: ped wasn't wrong to take his money, okay, wasn't wrong
Speaker 1: to use him as a benefactor.
Speaker 2: Wasn't wrong to give him an office.
Speaker 1: But it was wrong to let everybody know that all
Speaker 1: about saving face. It's never about the people who were affected.
Speaker 1: It's never about the girls who were abused or anything
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: You would think, with as much.
Speaker 1: Involvement people from Harvard have, that they'd start their own
Speaker 1: sort of program here where they'd offer free.
Speaker 2: Courses to these gals.
Speaker 1: None of these offenses would have even been no noticed
Speaker 1: but for Harvard's need to appear vigilant, if only against
Speaker 1: one of the very many who continue to engage Epstein
Speaker 1: at Harvard after two thousand and eight, that one it's scapegoat.
Speaker 1: It was wrong for Harvard to continued any association with
Speaker 1: Epstein after two thousand and eight. No one should be
Speaker 1: forced to live or work in an environment that celebrates
Speaker 1: in any way a man who crossed this critical line,
Speaker 1: or woman at that for that matter.
Speaker 2: Let's be very clear.
Speaker 1: Thirty eight percent of people who are engaging in trafficking
Speaker 1: are women. All right, we went through that report already.
Speaker 1: But the point stands. Nobody should feel uncomfortable at work,
Speaker 1: nobody should feel uncomfortable at school. And this environment, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what, not an environment I'd want my people in.
Speaker 1: That's for sure. Sex abuse is permanent, Its survivors carry
Speaker 1: its costs forever. All of them are entitled the very
Speaker 1: least to an environment that does not trigger re traumatization.
Speaker 1: To have suffered from the likes of an Epstein and
Speaker 1: then see Harvard's most elite, most elite hanging with Epstein
Speaker 1: is to add injury to insult. And that is a fact.
Speaker 1: That is definitely a fact, and it's no different. Let's
Speaker 1: be very clear with Kamala Harris hanging out with Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1: We have to be consistent here, right, None of these
Speaker 1: dudes should be given air to breathe if they're involved
Speaker 1: in this sort of thing. And this wrong is about
Speaker 1: much more than funding. It's about the continuing relationship with
Speaker 1: so many at Harvard. Our accounting for that is wildly incomplete,
Speaker 1: and it betrays the truth and a commitment to institutional
Speaker 1: integrity to allow Harvard to stand as innocent while one
Speaker 1: faculty member went rogue. And I look, I couldn't agree
Speaker 1: more with what he's saying here, folks. I think that
Speaker 1: noac needs to be disciplined, needs to be punished, but
Speaker 1: everybody does. I just want I want to drive that
Speaker 1: point home. The story of Chapter two at Harvard is
Speaker 1: not the story of one bad apple. It is of
Speaker 1: an institution blinded by what money, brilliance celebrity from what
Speaker 1: seems to us now as an obvious moral truth. Of course,
Speaker 1: we were right not to take Epstein's money after two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, but we were deeply wrong to continue
Speaker 1: to celebrate him at Harvard in all the ways that
Speaker 1: so many of the most prominent among us did. That
Speaker 1: is powerful, and he's calling to account all of his
Speaker 1: colleagues on campus who took part in refurbishing this guy's
Speaker 1: image and helping him have this access. That wrong is
Speaker 1: not excused or hidden with a scapegoat. We need an
Speaker 1: honest accounting of that past and a plan for how
Speaker 1: Harvard will avoid this failure in the future. Should all
Speaker 1: criminals be banished, always, should particular criminals those whose crimes
Speaker 1: particularly affect members of the Harvard community be banished always,
Speaker 1: and by always I don't mean for any purpose. An
Speaker 1: event at which a criminal was asked to reflect on
Speaker 1: at least some crimes or even offer his justification could
Speaker 1: be different, at least if properly framed, from a workshop
Speaker 1: in which the criminal is just one more participant, celebrated only,
Speaker 1: or especially because he happens to be rich. These are
Speaker 1: hard questions, no doubt, especially in an age of tweet
Speaker 1: length attention spans. Boy, can I get a clap from
Speaker 1: the back of the room there? That is exactly the
Speaker 1: age we're in the attention span.
Speaker 2: Of a tweet.
Speaker 1: But it betrays our tradition hide from these more complicated
Speaker 1: questions simply because some might misunderstand. We are a university
Speaker 1: that openly and eagerly engaged with the child sex predator,
Speaker 1: not just before he was convicted, but long after. How
Speaker 1: did our culture allow this to happen? And how can
Speaker 1: we now allow this failure to be obscured by scapegoating
Speaker 1: just one Yes, Harvard's virtue has been signaled to anyone
Speaker 1: blind to what actually happened right here among us. But
Speaker 1: the vice of what happened, the open and regular engagement
Speaker 1: with a sex offender has not been reckoned. Here it
Speaker 1: is that which Harvard must finally account for, openly, fairly,
Speaker 1: and honestly. Well, folks, there you have it, somebody finally
Speaker 1: connected to Harvard, somebody with a serious voice on campus
Speaker 1: calling his colleagues to account. If you'd like to contact me,
Speaker 1: you can do that at Bobby Kapuchi at ProtonMail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's b O B B y c A p U
Speaker 1: c c I at ProtonMail dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at b O B B y
Speaker 1: underscore c A p U c c I. All of
Speaker 1: the links that go with this episode can be found
Speaker 1: in the description box.