Recently released documents by Congress from the estate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are shedding new light on the disgraced financier’s relationship with prominent Illinois civic figure Thomas Pritzker.
Pritzker, Gov. JB Pritzker’s cousin, exchanged at least 20 back-and-forth emails with Epstein that show the two remarking on current events and making plans to see each other, according to a review of some of the 20,000 pages of documents released by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform committee last week.
“Looking for a time to catch up in NY,” Thomas Pritzker wrote to Epstein in an August 2016 exchange apparently centered around an invite list for an unknown event.
“im in santa fe for the next two weeks come visit,” Epstein responded. The governor’s cousin didn’t write back.
Thomas Pritzker has not been accused of any wrongdoing, nor has he been named in any investigation into Epstein’s crimes. Thomas Pritzker declined to comment on the newly released documents through a spokesperson for Hyatt Hotels Corporation, where he currently serves as executive chairman.
The emails stretch from at least 2010 — two years after Epstein was convicted of soliciting sex from a child as young as 14 — to early 2019, the year Epstein was arrested for child sex trafficking before killing himself in jail, according to the local medical examiner.
In those years, Thomas Pritzker and Epstein exchanged friendly emails on at least five occasions, once about the Chicago way of politics. Separately, Epstein or his staff made reference to Pritzker numerous times in nondescript lists or scheduling emails. One marked Pritzker on a “possible Invite List” for a seminar on “MONEY & POWER” that also included Bill Clinton and Jeff Bezos.
In 2016, Epstein appeared to list his schedule for the week while coordinating plans with former Harvard President Lawrence Summers: “ehud in on sun pritzker mon. you around? dinner woody sunday.” The list could be referring to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Woody Allen, both of whom were among those who wrote to Epstein for his 63rd birthday in 2016.
The Democratic party power structure sure seemed to know Epstein after 2008 when he was a convicted sex offender.
