There is a lot of stuff in the Epstein files that has been redacted out of the public eye, I guess. We’d been suspicious of Leon Botstein, the long-running (but now former) president of Bard College, and Jamie Raskin kept digging and unearthed some incriminating rot.
Documents in the Department of Justice’s Epstein files show that in May 2014, Epstein sent an aspiring young vocalist he’d been trafficking, called Jane Doe, to meet with Botstein, “ostensibly for him to assess her musical talents and provide her with educational guidance,” Raskin wrote. In a May 15, 2014, email to Epstein, Botstein asked, “Is [Jane Doe] for me, or are you keeping her for yourself.” The Department of Justice redacted Botstein’s official presidential email address in the publicly available file, but members of Congress were allowed to view the unredacted file at the DOJ, according to Raskin’s office.
That’s a dense paragraph. We learn that:
- Members of congress have access to the unredacted Epstein files. Wouldn’t this be better managed by journalists?
- Botstein was actively involved in sex trafficking.
- Botstein regarded students as potentially “for him”. The attitude is horrifying.
- In 2014, Epstein was a convicted sex offender, and Botstein should not have had the power to recruit students, so what was the nature of the “guidance” he was offering?
I’m wondering what aspirations a young vocalist might have had that were met by being sent by a rich sex trafficker to meet with a bald old man in a bow tie. We’ve also learned what advice she was getting.
But instead of helping her pursue her career, the lawmakers said in their letter, Epstein pressured her to take sex education and massage courses, and “employed” her while he was sexually abusing her.
This was an effective revelation.
The latest development appears to have triggered the immediate resignation of Botstein from all Bard-affiliated positions, including his professorship and roles in Bard’s music programs. Botstein had led the college for 50 years and only recently stepped down as president.
Fifty years too late. Botstein had made at least one trip to Epstein’s island and multiple trips to his New York townhouse, and we all know there’s only one reason to visit those places.
With this coming out about Botstein there’s a number of comments from https://faithandleadership.com/leon-botstein-if-i-had-known-what-i-was-doing-i-would-have-said-no that land a whole lot differently.
We’ve known that members of Congress have access to the unredacted files for a while. However, it’s my understanding that their access is time limited and there is an enormous amount of material.
I don’t see any reason to trust journalists. I don’t think I would trust anyone from Fox News, for instance.
Definitely don’t trust big corporate journalists. Frankly, I just want to skip ahead to releasing/leaking the entirety to the public.
26 days until voting day. Then 30 days until the new Congress is seated. Then perhaps we can sweep away the restrictions on the Epstein files and do what needs to be done as the truth about all of this comes out. And I have just read 35$ of the females students at Cornell University report being sexually assaulted. Something here is very, very wrong.
https://abcnews.com/US/35-cornell-undergraduate-women-reported-sexually-assaulted-survey/story?id=136849509
@4: Minor correction: Sixty days, or thereabouts (61 this year due to the variability of Election Day), until there’s a new Congress at 1200EST on 03 January of the following year. That’s a bit more dangerous, especially if you’ve ever followed closely what tends to happen in Congress between about the 12th and the 23d of December.
• • •
But I have to gently disagree with PZ because I think he’s underplaying just how bad Botstein’s behavior was: There’s more than one reason for people to have been involved with Epstein, but judging which is worst is like choosing between “execution by drawing and quartering” and “execution by being thrown into a pool of piranhas.” In Botstein’s instance, the most-probable rationale — that he was initially trying to just maintain good relations with a rich potential donors and “fell” into “temptation” — fails at the first step, not just the second one. This reflects a structural failure in higher education, and especially in private institutions: Establishing the President/Chancellor/any member of a Board of Trustees as “Chief Fundraising Officer” already betrays the interests and values of both the institution and those others (faculty, staff, and students) who are part of it. Even when it includes the Hoover Institution and similar dens of iniquity and (self-) deception.
Even if Botstein had not had any reason to know about Epstein’s conduct (then-established, and knowable to anyone not intentionally ignoring everything aside from “has spare potential donation money”), and had not himself engaged in any “questionable” conduct facilitated by Epstein, he would still have been acting unethically and inconsistently with the precepts of Bard College as an institution of higher education. That this was not just accepted, but expected, conduct — maintaining “relationships” with sugar daddies regardless of context — in which Botstein eagerly participated was already an epic failure. (In all of the “benefits of a classical education” senses of “epic failure.”)
What is far, far too often neglected is that when one is choosing the lesser evil, one is still choosing evil. We need more focus on breaking out of systems that present only choices among evil, especially when leadership positions are determined overwhelmingly by something other than competence with the thing(s) being led.
Deep intellectual stimulation?
I doubt it. The newcomer congresspeople are working for the donor class, many of whom are likely listed in those redacted files.
@ ^ Trump supporting Dishonest Troll “beholder” (TSDTB)
Evidence? Specifics? Unsupported vague Conspiracist rubbish from the TSDTB as usual.
Also the midterms are most likely going to be rigged or cancelled possibly both. The USoA lost its Democracy and Gaza lost its last hope of ending the genocide* when Kamala Harris was robbed of the last ever free and fair~ish USoA election and people like TSDTB put the Fascist Trump cult in unchecked power.
.* Added because the Trump Supporting Dishonest Troll “Beholder” once falsely claimed to care about that and used Netanyahu’s genocide there as their supposed excuse for not supporting and instead undermining the only leftwing party actually in contention and able to stop Christianist Trumpist Fascism from taking over the world’s most powerful nation. Despite being repeatedly warned of the catastrophic consequences of them doing so.