White House declines to comment on CIA director’s multiple meetings with Jeffrey Epstein
Fox News
President Biden’s White House declined to comment on revelations that CIA Director William burns met with Jeffrey Epstein multiple times in 2014, after the disgraced billionaire had been convicted of sex crimes.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the issue during a Tuesday briefing. The 2014 meetings saw Burns, who then severed as deputy secretary of state, meet Epstein twice: First in Washington and then again at Epstein’s home in Manhattan.
Reporters pressed Jean-Pierre about the issue in the briefing room on Tuesday.
“Does President Biden have any reaction to CIA director William Burns meeting with Jeffrey Epstein in 2014? This, obviously, was after Epstein had served time for a sex crime and was a registered sex offender,” a reporter asked.
“I’m just not going to comment on that from here,” Jean-Pierre replied brusquely.
JEFFREY EPSTEIN DEATH RAISES QUESTIONS THAT ‘MUST BE ANSWERED’ FOR VICTIMS, GLORIA ALLRED SAYS
GHISLAINE MAXWELL MOUNTS $10M APPEAL AGAINST 20-YEAR SEX TRAFFICKING SENTENCE: REPORT
A spokesperson for Burns, who has taken the CIA’s helm since 2021 under the Biden administration, said the nation’s spy chief met with Epstein a decade ago when he was trying to leave the government.
“Director Burns recalls being introduced by a mutual friend in Washington, DC, and then met with him once briefly in New York City, about a decade ago as the Director was preparing to leave government service,” CIA spokeswoman Tammy Kupperman Thorp said in comment provided to Fox News Digital.
“The Director did not know anything about him, other than he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general advice on transition to the private sector. The Director does not recall any further contact, including receiving a ride to the airport. They had no relationship.”
Burns was among multiple who met with Epstein, according to records of Epstein’s calendars obtained by the Wall St. Journal. Other prominent figures on the documents included: Ariane de Rothschild, chief executive of the Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild Group; Joshua Cooper Ramo, who at the time served on the boards of Starbucks Corp. and FedEx Corp; former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; Harvard University professor Martin Nowak; and anthropologist Helen Fisher.