President Biden’s choice for his top science adviser is facing an uphill confirmation battle in Washington as ties to Jeffrey Epstein emerge as an issue in his consideration, according to a report.
Questions over Eric Lander’s association with Epstein have delayed his nomination to be director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Politico reported.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) wants to know more about how Lander, current director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a prominent geneticist, came to be associated with the pedophile financier before his death in 2019.
Cantwell and Lander have reportedly met, and her office told Politico, “We’re having a hearing on him next week and we’ll see what happens with that.”
Lander, who previously served as a part-time scientific adviser to President Barack Obama’s administration, had been photographed with Epstein multiple times, and the financier showcased some of their pictures together on his charity work website, JeffreyEpstein.org.
He claimed to have sponsored Lander, an assertion the geneticist rebutted. Other scientists have issued similar denials.
Epstein poured millions of dollars into scientific institutions to burnish his image and to hawk harebrained ideas like impregnating dozens of women to propagate his own DNA.
Lander and other distinguished scientists lunched with Epstein in 2012 in the office of now-disgraced Harvard professor Martin Nowak. Epstein pleaded guilty to solicitation of an underage prostitute four years prior.
Lander’s confirmation hearing is scheduled for April 29, while Biden’s other cabinet picks have been confirmed for months now.
The White House acknowledged the unsavory connection but defended Lander in a statement: “Dr. Lander briefly met Epstein in Spring 2012, at two events with multiple Harvard donors, faculty and others, and he correctly decided to have nothing to do with Epstein.”
The White House noted that the institute Lander leads, the Broad, neither solicited nor accepted funding from Epstein, nor did Lander receive personal donations, as other MIT professors did.
Lander pleaded ignorance to BuzzFeed News when asked about the meeting in 2019, claiming he did not know Epstein would be there and did not know the infamous pedophile’s history.
Epstein died in 2019 by suicide in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. His longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell is now charged with sex trafficking for allegedly grooming and procuring girls for him to abuse.
