Chomsky and Botstein acknowledge doing business with Epstein - WSJ

The Wall Street Journal reported that philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky and conductor Leon Botstein had previously been involved in transactions with Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of procuring a child for sex work and soliciting a prostitute. Chomsky told the Journal that he didn't receive any money from Epstein and only asked him to help with a technical matter relating to the disbursement of common funds from his first marriage. The transfer of around $270,000 from an Epstein-linked account in March 2018 was "restricted to rearrangement of my own funds, and did not involve one penny from Epstein," he insisted. The 94-year-old explained that the simplest way seemed to be to transfer funds from one account in his name to another, by way of his office. Chomsky and Botstein had discussed political and academic issues, and Botstein had approached Epstein in an attempt to raise money for Bard College.

He received checks for $150,000 from Epstein-linked accounts in 2016, but transferred the money to the school as part of a larger donation of over $1 million. Botstein said Epstein designated him as a consultant for one of his projects and transferred the funds to him as payment for the job, but he did not actually do any consulting for the convicted sex offender.