Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Harvard and Bard Face New Questions Over Jeffrey Epstein (6/19/26)

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Harvard and Bard Face New Questions Over Jeffrey Epstein (6/19/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:07
  Epstein Chronicles. There's no story that includes Jeffrey Epstein that
• 0:13
  can avoid the fact that he was embedded in academia.
• 0:18
  And after all these years, the bill is finally coming due,
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  and people like Larry Summers and Leon Botstein are finally
• 0:26
  being called upon to answer for their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
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  And as you can imagine, their answers have not been great.
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  And of course it's led to Larry Summers being shit
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  canned at Harvard. And now Botstein is stepping down from
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  his president's position. Now, of course he's not leaving Bard entirely,
• 0:47
  but he's stepping down from that position. And now we
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  have Jamie Raskin, who is looking for a comprehensive accounting
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  and he wants to have an interview with mister Botstein.
• 0:59
  And look, just be clear, I'm not saying that mister
• 1:02
  Botstein was taking part in any kind of abuse. I
• 1:05
  don't know that, but I do know that he enabled
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  Jeffrey Epstein. I know that he helped refurbish Jeffrey Epstein's image,
• 1:12
  and I know that led to other people being abused.
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  And if this was a Rico case well might be
• 1:17
  a different conversation. But considering that's just a hope and
• 1:21
  a dream, we have to deal with the reality before us.
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  And when it comes to people like Botstein, people like Summers.
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  The most we can hope for probably his embarrassment, and honestly,
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  that's a drop in the pill compared to the suffering
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  of Jeffrey Epstein's victims and survivors. So look, I get
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  it right, nobody wants to demean somebody. I'm not going
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  to sit here and call somebody a diddler if we
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  have no proof of it. But at the same time,
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  you have to answer for your relationships. You're a grown
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  ass man. You can't have relationships with people like Jeffrey
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  Epstein when he's a known child abuser and then think
• 2:00
  that it's going to be okay, that nobody's going to
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  have anything to say about it, Because I assure you
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  people have some shit to say, so do why. Today's
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  article is from The Guardian and the headline Harvard and
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  Bard face fresh questions from lawmakers overties to Epstein. This
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  article was authored by Stephanie Kirch Gasner. Harvard University and
• 2:26
  Bard College are facing new questions about the institution's relationship
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  with Jeffrey Epstein amid allegations at the convicted child sex
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  trafficker leveraged his ties to the universities and their faculty
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  to traffic women while also burnishing his reputation to avoid detection.
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  That's exactly what happened. That's not an allegation, that's not
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  a maybe. That's what happened. And for all these years
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  they've denied it, they've made excuses, and they've acted like
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  it's been overblown. But the truth is they've been covering
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  it up. And not to veer too far off course,
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  but it looks like a serious trafficking ring has been
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  covered up over in the UK as well. Rupert Lowe
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  has a new report out about grooming gangs, and we're
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  going to get into that too, because I think it
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  dovetails with what we talk about now. Of course, there's
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  people who say that the numbers inside of that inquiry
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  are overblown, but my response to that is even one
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  girl is enough. If one girl suffered that kind of
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  fate at the hands of some kind of grooming gang
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  and it was covered up, that needs to be investigated.
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  And I think it goes directly to the heart of
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  what we're dealing with when it comes to Epstein. A
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  lot of it has to do with institutional embarrassment. I
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  need you guys to understand that, and these governments will
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  go to great lengths to try and make sure that
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  that doesn't occur, even if that means covering up something
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  like Jeffrey Epstein or the grooming gangs. Over in the UK,
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  Jamie Raskin, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said
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  in a statement that Harvard and Bard had both previously
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  attempted to investigate the role their universities and leadership played
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  in facilitating Epstein's abuse, but that those attempts either failed
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  or fell short of a full accounting of what occurred. Well,
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  hold on one second, you mean internal investigations don't work.
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  Come on, you should be able to investigate yourself, right
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  if you commit a crime, he don't worry about it.
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  I'm taking a look at myself. I just looked at
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  my books and everything's okay here. Meanwhile, you're stealing money
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  hand over fist. The whole entire internal investigation is some
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  of the biggest bs in the history of big bs.
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  Among other demands for information, Raskin has asked Bard to
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  make Leon Botstein, its outgoing president, whom Bard has said
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  will retain a role at the college, available for a
• 4:53
  transcribed interview. Raskin also requested records related to Ebstein's donations, communications,
• 4:59
  admission interactions, and institutional decision making, as well as the
• 5:04
  full results of an internal review by the college. Raskin
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  is also seeking extensive records from Harvard, including all records,
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  financial documents, and communications relating to Ebstein's funding of research
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  and his personal relationship with faculty members. I mean, that's good,
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  and we should be getting all of that, but I
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  doubt he will. Remember a lot of this stuff was clandestine,
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  A lot of this stuff was done on the down low,
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  and Epstein knew not to have a paper trail. He
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  knew better. So the whole entire internal review has always
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  been a bunch of nonsense to me. Raskin is also
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  seeking extensive records from Harvard, including all records, financial documents,
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  and communications relating to Ebstein's funding of research and his
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  personal relationships with faculty members. Raskin said Harvard's previous investigation
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  into the university's ties to Epstein, conducted in two thousand
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  and eight in twenty nineteen, we're at best incomplete and
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  at worst misleading. Man, Am I really agreeing with Jamie
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  Raskin right now? Not exactly, somebody I agree with all
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  the time, but he's not wrong here, and there needs
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  to be a full accounting. Any of these universities that
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  receives one single dollar in public money should be on
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  the hook to explain away their relationship with someone like
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  Jeffrey Epstein, and up until this point Harvard has not done. So.
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  Every single excuse they give, every reason they give, is
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  worse than the last. I mean, if the president of
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  your university is palaling around with Jeffrey Epstein, and Jeffrey
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  Epstein has an office on the campus of Harvard, I'd
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  say that that's a problem that starts at the top,
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  right the president of the university. We're not talking about
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  some rebel ass professor who decided to do this after
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  the university told him no. The universe encouraged it. They
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  might not have said it, but their behavior encouraged this
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  kind of shit, and with their internal reports, the idea
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  was to whitewash that, to make it like the university
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  had no idea and that it was just a couple
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  of professors and a couple of people on campus who
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  thought it would be a good idea to have a
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  relationship with Epstein. That's what they tried to frame it as,
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  but that was never the truth, and now Jamie Raskin
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  is calling them out. Raskin said the internal investigation failed
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  to uncover a series of donations Epstein made after Harvard
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  had instituted a ban against such donations in two thousand
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  and eight, as well as the full extent of his
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  relationship with Harvard faculty members, including Harvard's former president Larry Summers,
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  and the depth of his personal involvement with student admissions
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  and faculty research. Yeah, how many people got in there
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  because of Epstein? How many times did Epstein reach out
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  and get somebody into the school? I'm sure if you remember.
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  At the heart of it, that's what Jeffrey Epstein was
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  a fixer, and he knew if he could get some
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  vulnerable girls into Harvard, then he'd be able to abuse
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  them and not just actually, but in general, have them
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  do whatever he wants them to do, whenever he wants
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  them to do it, because if they don't, well, they'll
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  lose their spot at Harvard, and they'll lose their immigration
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  visa and they'll have to go back to whatever country
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  they're from. And that was the guillotine hanging over the
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  head over these girls. It's time for Harvard, like the
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  rest of America, to come clean and engage in the
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  comprehensive accounting that will allow us to learn from this nightmare,
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  take appropriate legislative action, and make sure nothing like it
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  ever happens again. Raskin sent in a letter to Harvard
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  President Alan Garber, and look, I doubt we're going to
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  stop it from ever happening again, but hopefully we're more
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  vigilant this time, and hopefully people recognize the signs and
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  they do something about it, they step up. Harvard announced
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  in February that Summers was resigning from teaching at the
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  end of the academic year. The announcement followed the Justice
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  Department's release of the Epstein files, which revealed more details
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  about Summer's and Epstein's relationship. The email showed Summers and
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  Epstein communicated frequently on topics ranging from politics to women,
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  including Summers pursuing a relationship with a person who saw
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  them as an economic mentor like I never understood the
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  whole thing about teachers try and hook up with their
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  students even in college. What are you doing? Why would
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  you cause yourself that kind of headache, that kind of drama.
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  Go to the local pub, find yourself somebody else, a
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  different girl. Whenever there is that power imbalance, you're setting
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  yourself up for a disaster. And when you walk into
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  it willingly, well, you get what you deserve. Summer served
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  as Harvard's president from two thousand and one to two
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  thousand and six. Epstein donated more than nine million to
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  Harvard and its affiliated program from ninety eight to two
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  thousand and eight, which overlapped with Summer's tenure. Somers has
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  previously said, I am deeply ashamed of my actions and
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  recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility
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  for my misguided decision to continue communicating with mister Epstein. Yeah,
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  after you got called out, after the whole country knew
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  you were a scumbag, how come you didn't do it previously?
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  In a separate letter addressed to Bar chair James Cox Chambers,
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  whom The Guardian previously reported has recently stepped down from
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  that role, Raskin said he was seeking to understand how
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  Epstein exploited and leveraged multifarious ties in higher education from
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  Bard to Columbia University, Harvard and NYU. Raskin pointed out
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  in the letter that Botstein was resigning from his position
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  as president, a role that he held for more than
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  fifty years, following Obard initiated investigation that concluded his tenure
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  was marked by substantial lapses in leadership and candor not
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  exactly legacy building. Huh, imagine they do this report and
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  that's what they come back with. Now can you imagine
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  what an external report would find? There was evidence. Raskin
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  said that Epstein's relationship to Botstein and barred leaders helped
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  them maintain and expand his illegal activities, including potentially trafficking
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  women in New York and the Russian Federation. And that's
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  a big story the Russian Federation. I doubt it's ever
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  going to get legs, but boy, there were a lot
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  of women and girls abused from the Russian Federation one
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  hundred percent. And that's because Epstein knew that he had
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  friends in FSB that would press these women, make sure
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  they didn't talk. I mean, look at the emails that
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  he sent about Ganijeva and the response from his Russian contact,
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  how they're gonna press her, How she's not protected by
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  anybody in Russia, so it should be easy. And that
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  should give you a little bit of a look at
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  how these people operated. And when we're talking about people
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  from the Russian Federation, what are they going to do?
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  Go to the local police chief who's in the pocket
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  of insert oligarch here. The Guardian reported last month that
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  Bard's Board of trustees voted to end Botstein's fifty one
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  year tenure after board members were presented with the results
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  of an independent review of his relationship with Epstein. Botstein
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  friened his departure as a long plan retirement in a
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  statement on May first. Oh yeah, retirement, forced retirement. You
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  mean these people shouldn't be able to save face with
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  those kinds of statements. An Epstein victim who had previous
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  interactions with Botstein, said she believed the Bard College president
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  was part of a group of influential and accomplished men
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  whose proximity to Epstein helped to rehabilitate his reputation one
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  million percent. And that's the part that a lot of
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  people leave out. A lot of people are like well,
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  so and so didn't take heart in any abuse, So
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  what's the big deal? They enabled, They helped rehabilitate this
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  piece of shits reputation, and that of course led to
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  countless girls being abused. And there was certainly levels to it,
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  and there were certainly levels that reached criminality. And if
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  we ever had a real investigation, well we would have
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  seen that. A summary of an internal investigation conducted by
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  the Wilmer Hell Law Firm, which was initiated by Bard's
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  Board of trustees and was released publicly on May first,
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  found that nothing Botstein did in connection to his relationship
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  with Epstein was illegal. It also found that the Bard
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  president was not fully accurate in describing his relationship with
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  Epstein publicly or to the Bard community, and stated that
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  Botstein did not fully see a risk to Bard's reputation
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  when he pursued Epstein as a donor for the college,
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  or the potential risk his contacts with Epstein posed to
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  Bard's students. I mean, you know, a guy that's already
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  been to prison for abusing a girl who was under age.
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  No risk here, guys, squeaky clean, He's the fucking pope.
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  The law firm noted that Botstein had not disclosed fees
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  he accepted under a consulting agreement with epstein entity. Botstein
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  previously denied being friends with Epstein, and has also said
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  he never witnessed anything inappropriate nor had any visibility in
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  Ebstein's monstrous crimes. He's never been charged with any wrongdoing
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  related to Ebstein. We have received the letter and are
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  reviewing it, a Bard College spokesperson told The Guardian. Harvard
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  did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Raskin
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  is seeking information from both universities by July. First. Look,
• 14:39
  this story is just beginning when it comes to higher
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  education academia, and places like Harvard and Bard and like usual,
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  will be here every step of the way as a
• 14:52
  story unfolds. As for this one, well that's going to
• 14:56
  do it. All the information that goes with this episode
• 14:59
  can be found in the description box.