A Democratic megadonor who is helping bankroll a rape and defamation lawsuit against former president Donald Trump visited the private Caribbean island of Jeffrey Epstein years after Epstein registered as a sex offender for soliciting underage girls.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman visited Epstein’s compound in the Virgin Islands in 2014, known as "Pedophile Island" because he allegedly housed young girls there. Hoffman may have also stayed overnight at Epstein’s New York City residence in December 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal. Those visits came years after it was publicly revealed that Epstein pleaded guilty on charges that he solicited sex from underage girls. Hoffman has been funding former journalist E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against Trump since 2020.
"It gnaws at me that, by lending my association, I helped his reputation, and thus delayed justice for his survivors," Hoffman told the Journal. It’s not the first time Hoffman has come under fire for meeting Epstein. He apologized after Epstein’s death in 2019 after revelations that he hosted Epstein at a dinner in 2015. Hoffman did not disclose his earlier encounters with the registered sex offender.
Hoffman is one of the Democratic party’s largest donors. He contributed $1.5 million in 2020 to a super PAC supporting President Joe Biden and has given tens of millions more to other Democratic groups. He has also funded several controversial political operations on behalf of the Democratic party. In 2017, he funded a tech firm that created fake online personas to pressure conservatives not to vote in the Alabama special election. He has funded ACRONYM, the group behind a network of partisan news sites that are disguised to look like legitimate local news organizations.
He donated $2 million to Integrity First for America, a legal advocacy group that gave $620,000 to a legal defense fund for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the infamous Steele dossier, which falsely accused the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia.
Hoffman, who serves on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, began funding the Trump lawsuit in 2020. He backed the lawsuit through one of his nonprofits, American Future Republic, court filings revealed.
Hoffman says he supports the lawsuit because of "Trump’s hostility towards women."
"Supporting women fighting for progress and justice in philanthropy, politics, and business has been a longstanding priority of mine, as is supporting America against the threat of Trump—a stance that I’ve not only made public, but also have prioritized over recent years," Hoffman said.
Hoffman did not respond to questions about whether he has funded any of the sexual abuse lawsuits filed against Epstein.
According to the Journal, Epstein’s private calendars show Hoffman was scheduled to visit Epstein’s island in March 2014 and November 2014. Hoffman may also have stayed overnight at Epstein’s residence in New York City in December 2014.
Epstein rubbed shoulders with numerous business leaders, academics, and politicians well after his sex crimes were publicly known. The Journal recently reported that CIA director William Burns met with Epstein three times in Washington, D.C., and New York in 2014, allegedly to solicit career advice from the mysterious financier.