The CIA Director Has Got to Go

The newly revealed relationship between Director Burns and the late Jeffrey Epstein compromises CIA and the Intelligence Community

Since his death in a Manhattan jail cell nearly four years ago, reputedly by his own hand, Jeffrey Epstein has lingered like a dark cloud over our elite. Despite the best efforts of the great and the good to make the Epstein scandal go away, his taint remains on those he touched, which includes an impressive all-star list of VIPs from the United States and across the West: politicians, financiers, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, myriad celebrities, plus royalty.

The 2021 conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, the deceased’s sometime paramour and full-time collaborator and procurer, on a raft of federal charges relating to child sex trafficking brought down the curtain on most media coverage of the Epstein affair. With Maxwell packed off to prison on a 20-year sentence while her partner in crime is conveniently dead, that curtailed the media’s interest in this sordid scandal, which still contains major blank spots in its official narrative. Jeffrey Epstein seems destined to remain a notorious international man of mystery and pedophilia in perpetuity.

Nevertheless, Epstein revelations continue to emerge and with them at least some media interest. The latest can be fairly termed a bombshell. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published a salacious report based on Epstein’s daily schedule. This is different from his notorious “black book” or the passenger log for Epstein’s private jet, the so-called Lolita Express, which have previously been made public. Epstein’s schedule, however, contains new information about whom the dead financier-cum-sex criminal was supposed to meet with. Although WSJ cannot confirm that all the scheduled meetings took place, these findings are important on their own, as they reveal new circles of Epstein’s shadowy influence among top VIPs.

One of these contacts was Leon Botstein, president of Bard College (and the longtime music director for the American Symphony Orchestra), had two dozen meetings scheduled with Epstein over a four-year period. Even more prolific was Kathryn Ruemmler, a high-profile attorney who had dozens of meetings with Epstein after she left her position as White House counsel for President Barack Obama in 2014. This appears to be more than a professional relationship: Epstein planned for Ruemmler (who is currently Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel for Goldman Sachs) to join him on a 2015 trip to Paris and a 2017 visit to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean. How much Ruemmler was aware of her friend’s criminal lifestyle is an open question, as the WSJ reports:

Epstein and his staff discussed whether Ms. Ruemmler, now 52, would be uncomfortable with the presence of young women who worked as assistants and staffers at the townhouse, the documents show. Women emailed Epstein on two occasions to ask if they should avoid the home while Ms. Ruemmler was there. Epstein told one of the women he didn’t want her around, and another that it wasn’t a problem, the documents show.