via thedailybeast:
The constant trickle of bad press has resulted in some charities and political candidates keeping their distance from the perverted hedge-funder.
In 2006, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said he’d distribute Epstein’s $50,000 campaign donation to charities throughout the state, while New York’s gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer and attorney general hopeful Mark Green returned donations of $50,000 and $10,000, respectively, from the billionaire.
In 2015, nonprofits including Florida’s Ballet Palm Beach told Reuters they’d no longer accept Epstein’s money following Giuffre’s headline-grabbing allegations. “The further I can keep myself from anything like that the better,” the ballet’s founder said.
When Epstein tried donating to House Democrats last October, they quickly returned a $10,000 offering from the political pariah. One spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told The Daily Beast, “Without second thought, the DCCC immediately refunded this unsolicited donation.”
Still, others have quietly welcomed Epstein’s cash. His former charity, the C.O.U.Q. Foundation, donated $25,000 to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charity, according to C.O.U.Q.’s 2006 tax return. The group is listed among past and present donors on the Clinton Foundation’s website.
Harvard also kept a $6.5-million check from Epstein to fund the university’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, the Harvard Crimson reported in 2006.
In March of this year, The Daily Beast revealed Epstein had funded the nonprofitof a Russian model who advocates for women entrepreneurs.
And Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770, which includes the university’s historic theater troupe, noted Epstein among its top donors in 2018, under the category “The Guardians of the Sphinx.”