Jeffrey Epstein was registered as a high-risk sex offender, but it did not matter to the fundraisers working for Democratic leaders Sen. Charles E. Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who sent VIP dinner invites and sought private meetings with the millionaire for their quest to control Congress.
The Justice Department’s latest release of its long-hidden Epstein files shows fundraisers for lawmakers in Congress, most of them Democrats, didn’t hesitate to solicit Epstein’s company at exclusive fundraising dinners or to invite him to private meetings as recently as 2017.
They pursued his money and sought his favor for nearly a decade while he was a registered sex offender, since his 2008 conviction on soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The outreach continued even as lawsuits revealed that Epstein’s offenses were much worse and his underage victims far more numerous than his plea deal indicated.
A “Schumer Senate Candidate Reception” invitation, dated Sept. 18, 2012, asked Epstein to attend a reception for then-Rep. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat who was running for an open Senate seat in New Mexico.
At the time, Mr. Schumer was head of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
“Heinrich has done everything from lead white water river tours to build his own electric car. He is an engineer and would be one of the few people in the Senate with a science background,” Democratic fundraiser Darren Rigger wrote to Epstein.
Mr. Heinrich’s victory in New Mexico was critical to Democrats, who at the time were battling to hold on to their majority in one of the most competitive campaign cycles in memory.
“New Mexico is a key state for Obama,” Mr. Rigger wrote to Epstein.
Other top Democrats who solicited campaign funding in exchange for VIP access included New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, then a House lawmaker running for reelection, and Sen. Kristen Gillibrand of New York, who currently runs the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm.
The solicitations were made on behalf of the lawmakers by Dynamic SRG, a political fundraising and public affairs firm where Mr. Rigger served as a partner.
The outreach shows the extent to which Epstein continued to remain influential and sought-after in the highest political circles despite his conviction and mounting accusations that he had victimized underage girls. Lawsuits in 2008 accused Epstein of sexually abusing girls as young as 14 after luring them to his Palm Beach, Florida, home to give him a massage.
A 2009 lawsuit accuses Epstein of luring a 16-year-old into his home and sexually assaulting her, and then paying her $200.
The girl, who sued as an adult, “experienced confusion, shame, humiliation and embarrassment and has suffered severe psychological and emotional injuries.”
By the early 2000s, Epstein had become a major political donor, primarily to Democrats. According to Open Secrets, from 1989 until 2003, Epstein gave $139,000 to Democrats running for federal office and $18,000 to Republican candidates and groups. Among Democrats to rake in money from Epstein was Hillary Clinton, whose joint fundraising campaign accepted a $20,000 donation during her 1999 campaign for New York’s open U.S. Senate seat.
Fundraisers continued seeking donations from Epstein long after his 2008 conviction and as women began suing him for sexual abuse when they were underage.
In May 2013, Mr. Rigger wrote to Epstein, inviting the sex offender to the party’s congressional fundraising dinner with President Obama.
The email was on behalf of Mr. Jeffries, whom Mr. Rigger described as “one of the rising stars on the New York congressional delegation” and “Brooklyn’s Barack.”
Mr. Rigger invited Epstein to “shoot us an email or give us a call if you would like to get involved with the dinner or would like to get an opportunity to get to know Hakeem better.”
Later that year, Dynamic SRG partner Lisa Rossi wrote to Epstein to invite him to an “Old School Hip Hop, New School Politics” fundraiser for Mr. Jeffries, with special guest New York City Comptroller-elect Scott Stringer.
In July 2017, Epstein was invited to join Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands’ nonvoting member of Congress, for a dinner and meet-and-greet event with Mr. Jeffries in St. Thomas.
The email was sent by Ms. Plaskett’s campaign.
The Washington Times reached out to Mr. Jeffries, who deferred to a recent interview on CNN.
Mr. Jeffries said he had no knowledge of the emails sent to Epstein on his behalf by Dynamic SRG and never met Epstein.
Federal Election Commission records do not show any Epstein donations to Mr. Jeffries.
His campaign paid Dynamic SRG to fundraise on Mr. Jeffries’ behalf until 2015.
The Times reached out to the firm.
A spokesman for Mr. Schumer did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
Mr. Schumer and his fundraising committees accepted roughly $20,000 in campaign donations from Epstein in the 1990s, years before the powerful and wealthy financier was sentenced to 18 months in a Florida prison for soliciting underage girls for sex.
Ms. Plaskett maintained her connection to Epstein, even as federal law enforcement began investigating his sex trafficking. His private island, where some of the sex crimes took place, was part of Ms. Plaskett’s at-large district.
She reached out to Epstein a few months before he was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. She texted with him before and during a February 2019 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, asking for his help as she prepared to question Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former attorney and fixer.
By then, the Miami Herald had exposed that Epstein had settled lawsuits with more than 20 female victims of his sex trafficking and that the FBI had identified more than three dozen underage victims as young as 13 whom Epstein had sexually assaulted.
After Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019, Ms. Plaskett took Epstein’s contributions to her campaign war chest and donated them to Virgin Islands organizations for women and children.
Ms. Plaskett said Epstein’s donations were legal, but she was “uncomfortable having received money from someone who has been accused of these egregious actions multiple times.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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