DARPA, otherwise known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is a Department of Defense Agency that works on innovative national security projects. Areas of research include AI, robotics, space related research, cybersecurity, biotech and autonomous vehicles. It was created in response to the Soviet Union Sputnik launch in 1958. While often seen as a secretive agency, it is funded by Congress, publicly acknowledged and many of its projects discussed openly.
DARPA doesn't create products and research itself but instead backs university, corporate or private labs to conduct their own research and develop new products. It is a relatively small agency which is highly versatile and known to change its program managers often. It has a reputation for taking on bold and risky projects.
DARPA will designate some new defense related projects as "classified", that involve advanced weapon systems, intelligence tools, surveillance products or cyber security operations.
In 2001, DARPA created the Information Awareness Office (IAO), with the goal of the agency holding and maintaining a large amount of information available to monitor global terrorist threats. DARPA was criticized for mass collecting information on all Americans and the office was later defunded in 2003. Regardless, leaks that were released by Edward Snowden showed some of the surveillance programs that were created in 2001, still existed up until 2013.
Several other offices have been closed at DARPA. They include the Advanced Technology Office, which dealt with high payoff maritime missions, communications and special operations. Another office that has now closed, has been the Special Projects Office, which dealt with underground enemy facilities and space warfare related projects. It seems likely these offices have moved to other areas within the Defense Department.
Some active DARPA offices include the Defense Sciences Office, which involves engineering and science and how it can impact game changing national security initiatives. There is also the Information Innovation Office, the Microsystems Technology Office, the Strategic Technology Office (that involves global projects that include multiple services) and the Biological Technologies Office, that was created in 2014 for national security purposes.
So what connection did Jeffrey Epstein have with DARPA? We know through review of some of the emails from the Epstein Files released by the Justice Department that Jeffrey Epstein had an interest in science and math. He was a former math teacher and worked with complex financial instruments as a broker and financial planner. His email communication showed he received newsletters that provided updates and announcements for engineering and scientific innovation and developments. He also communicated and socialized with scientists and academics including theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Lawrence Kraus, Harvard math professor Martin Nowak, Princeton evolution professor Corina Tarnita and Yale computer science professor David Gelernter. Epstein also communicated with MIT Media lab professor Neil Gershenfeld and neuroscientist Edward Boyden, as well as MIT engineer Seth Lloyd.
Some of the professors and researchers who Epstein communicated with received DARPA grants. MIT engineer Seth Lloyd had a DARPA and Department of Energy (DOE) grant, involving quantum computing in1994 and in 1999. The DOE Secretary in charge of the agency in 1999, who would have overseen the DOE grant, was Bill Richardson, who had a history of regular contact with Epstein. The released DOJ files show Bill Richardson visited Epstein's NY residence and had his state government secretary contact Epstein's executive assistant, "just to say hi". Bill Richardson was also named as an abuser by Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre, 2 days before Epstein's death at a NY Federal detention center.
MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld worked under a DARPA grant, according to a White House biography release under President Obama. A WIRED profile article mentions that MIT professor Edward Boyd received a grant from DARPA and worked on a team at Columbia Engineering that worked under a DARPA funded research team. Epstein also communicated and met with Yale professor Nicholas Christakis who received a DARPA grant for the International Technology Alliance in 2016. These would just be the publicly acknowledged grants and wouldn't count classified DARPA work or scientific teams that didn't openly discuss DARPA funding or the full list of participants.
Within the email communication released by the Justice Department, there are also mentions of DARPA. In file EFTA02505180, a redacted person emails Epstein in April 2016, "want to talk about DARPA offer?" In EFTA01850019 file from November 2011, Boris Nikolic says to Epstein, "Just done with DARPA meeting - since 8AM". Nikolic was named as a successor executor in Epstein's $600 million will, 2 days before Epstein's death and was also an adviser to Bill Gates. He is described as a biotech venture capitalist, who is a Harvard graduate professor and physician.
In March 2015, Epstein receives an email from a redacted person in EFTA02507452, "DARPA. Want to Talk soon". He responds, "Great". In January 2012, Tom Pritzker emails Epstein, "I'm seeing DARPA lady tonight". Epstein responds, "ask her if we can NSA code breaking (signal processing) to work on brain activity and intracellular deception". This appears to reference some type of proposed brain signal reading capabilities.
In a text exchange from 04/20/2017 in the EFTA01613019 file, there is a text from "MW" to Epstein saying, "Bill Hellman has some ideas on how to create a business around this and monetize the concepts/plant to human translational research and don't worry, he's incredibly discrete. And discreet. Also Geoff Ling the former head of DARPA and total genius is also my good friend and very supportive - didn't give a ton of detail but he says he will do whatever or even help run, advise, etc. he knows how to make science fiction science fact". Epstein responds, "both are welcome to our secret society, they will join ed boyden and caleb (MIT agro)." MW says, "Geoff is crazy" to which Epstein responds, "I like crazy". The exchange followed texts regarding the declining share of the world's population living in poverty. Plant to human translational research describes discoveries in plant studies being used to benefit human health. In a later part of the exchange, Epstein tells MW that he should go to MIT and visit the media lab where he can get MW an appointment in the media lab. MW says they tried to get him to work at DARPA.
In March 2010, Dan Dubno emails Epstein about how "brother Mick" left retirement to build a market trading platform for Bank of America, which was similar to what he built for Goldman Sachs and gave them critical advantage. He then discusses how he wants Epstein's help to create a crypto program that will help them "circumvent authoritarian regimes" in an effort of "getting through" to scientists and human rights workers. He discusses research on encryption where he's coordinating with "Israeli hackers" and the "chief disruption officer" at DARPA, Dr. Peter Lee. He also mentions computer programmer and bio hacker, Meredith Patterson. Dan Dubno is a technologist and CBS News producer. Recent news reports show Dan Dubno also worked for DARPA, before having worked at CBS. The president of Microsoft Research is named Peter Lee, who according to his employee profile at Microsoft, used to work at DARPA, "where he established a new technology office that created operational capabilities in machine learning, data science, and computational social science".
In file EFTA00765200, computer scientist Ben Goertzel, who had emailed Epstein about research funding, mentioned DARPA would not fund his AI research in 2010. He says that most AI researchers didn't believe in AI in the short term and that Epstein's idea was being missed by people without vision.
Why would the DARPA references matter in relation to Jeffrey Epstein? Mostly, Epstein was in touch with numerous researchers, scientists, engineers and academics and had the ability to fund projects. But he also seemed to have an inside track on how the projects were approved and organized and was in contact with powerful decision makers from government to finance, who could green light and fast track various projects. Epstein funded numerous programs himself, and surely some of the research and business opportunities he was interested in would have had a chance to potentially become successful when additionally funded with eligible government grant money, including DARPA. The files show Epstein was a central figure who could connect money with opportunities and opportunities with interests. Epstein could connect prominent people with talented people and could link those working in finance to those in government, law, medicine, culture or academia.
Millions of files have been released but it seems almost certain that more files will become available to the public. We may not have the full picture of how Jeffrey Epstein's world operated without his testimony but with evidence and files now easily accessible, it has become easier to put some of the pieces of the puzzle together.