Epstein Data Wiki

Robert Axelrod

Properties2
tagsperson, academic, university-of-michigan, game-theory, edge-foundation, john-brockman, 2015, 2018, scheduling
aliasesRobert Axelrod, Bob Axelrod, Axelrod, Robert, R. Axelrod, Bob A.

34 min read

Name as printed in the files”Robert Axelrod” in the header fields of his own messages; “Bob Axelrod” in the office’s subject lines; “Bob A.” and “Bob Axelrod” in his sign-offs123
How a document describes him”Robert Axelrod, Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding, U. Michigan; Author, The Evolution of Cooperation, Member, National Academy of Sciences; Recipient, the National Medal of Science” on a list sent to Epstein on 16 July 20154
Documents56, on searches run 25 October 2026 and described at the foot of this page5
Documents in which he is the writer20 of the 56 carry his name in a sender field6
Earliest and latest dated documents6 July 2015 and 30 November 201873
Meeting with EpsteinNone. No document read for this page records a meeting between them taking place8
MoneyNo document read for this page shows any payment to him, or any request by him for one9
AllegationsNone. This page carries no allegation against him of any kind
ChargesNone. He has not been charged with any offence and is not a party to any case in the material read for this page

Robert Axelrod

what this page is about, and what it is not

This page records what the released Epstein files show about a University of Michigan political scientist between July 2015 and November 2018, and it stays inside that. It is not a biography. His academic career, his published work and his standing in his field are matters outside these files, and this page describes them only where a document in the files describes them. He is not accused of anything here, and nothing below should be read as an accusation.

Robert Axelrod is a political scientist. The released Epstein files describe him that way, and they contain no other kind of description of him. The single sentence the files use most often is the one John Brockman typed onto a list for Jeffrey Epstein on 16 July 2015: “Robert Axelrod, Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding, U. Michigan; Author, The Evolution of Cooperation, Member, National Academy of Sciences; Recipient, the National Medal of Science.”4

What the files mainly document about him is an attempt that failed. Between 16 September and 30 November 2018 Epstein’s office tried to put him in a room with Jeffrey Epstein. Over eleven weeks a breakfast was offered, accepted, pencilled in, chased, cancelled by Epstein, re-offered by Axelrod on two further dates, carried forward to December, and finally cancelled by Axelrod himself. No document read for this page shows that the two men ever met.8

He is not a bystander in that correspondence. Twenty of the fifty-six documents carry his name in a sender field, which is to say he wrote them.6 A subject who writes is better evidenced than a subject who is written about, and almost everything specific this page can say about him comes from his own messages.

Eleven weeks in 2018

The correspondence runs under a subject line that is simply the name of the man he was being asked to meet.

At 14:28 UTC on Sunday 16 September 2018, Lesley Groff wrote to him under the subject “Jeffrey Epstein”:

Good morning Bob. Jeffrey would like to set an appointment with you while you are in NY…I understand you will be in NY on Tuesday Oct. 2. Might you be available for breakfast at 8:30am?

Jeffrey’s home address is 9 East 71st Street between 5th and Madison.

The message is signed “Lesley / Assistant to Jeffrey Epstein”. The spacing and the ellipsis are the sheet’s own.1

He replied an hour and nineteen minutes later, correcting himself:

I made a mistake when I gave my availability. I should have said:

I will be in NYC on Wed Oct 3. The best time for me to meet that day would be 7:30 am to 11 am, or after 5 pm. But I could be free any time that day. I could also meet Oct 4 at 7:30 am to 10 am.

So I could breakfast Oct 3 or 4.

It is signed “Cheers, Bob”.2

Fifteen minutes after that, the office put the problem to Epstein. Groff wrote to him: “Bob Axelrod will only be in NY Oct. 3 and 4…I show you will be away…do I make an appointment for you?”10 Epstein answered at 16:44 the same afternoon, in six words:

make anyway , we can cancel

That sheet carries the printed stamp EFTA_R1_01052786, and the doubled space before the comma is on the paper.11

The office then did exactly that. At 17:07 Groff asked him, “Bob, May we pencil in breakfast for Wed Oct 3 at 8:30am? As the date approaches, I will reconfirm…would that be ok?” At 17:27 he answered: “Yes, that works.”12

Nine days of silence follow on the sheets read here. Then, on Tuesday 25 September, he chased it himself: “I wonder if you can now confirm breakfast for Wed Oct 3 at 8:30am? Thanks, Bob A.”13 Ten minutes later the office relayed the question to Epstein and asked for an instruction: “Robert Axelrod is asking if we are able to confirm the Oct. 3rd breakfast at 8:30am…OK to tell him it will not work this time and cancel?”14 Epstein’s reply, at 13:58, was one word:

cancel

15

At 14:03 the office wrote to Axelrod: “we will unfortunatley need to cancel the Oct .3rd appointment. Jeffrey will be out of the country. Please do let us know when you will be back in NY and we can try again!” The misspelling is the sheet’s.16

He tried twice more. At 15:35 on 25 September: “Could we do 3 pm Oct 2? Cheers, Bob”. Two minutes later the office closed that door too: “I wish!…he is leaving now on Sept. 29th..”17

Three weeks later he came back with December. On 16 October he wrote: “Lesley, I might be able to be in New York on Dec 10 or 15. Do either have a good chance of working? Cheers, Bob A.”18 Groff answered within four minutes: “Hello Bob! You are WAY ahead of the game! I can cross my fingers Jeffrey will be in NY Dec. 10 or 15, but that is about all I can do right now! I will put your dates in Jeffrey’s calendar and as Dec. approaches, lets circle back!”19 He replied: “Sounds like a plan!”20

It ended on Friday 30 November 2018. At 7:29 that morning the office asked: “Good morning Bob. I show you are to be in NY Dec 10 and then again Dec 15. Does this still hold true?” It is signed “Lesley / Assistant to Jeffrey Epstein” and “Sent from my iPhone”. At 16:05 he answered:

No. I had to cancel the trip I had scheduled. I’ll let you know the next time I plan to be in New York. Thanks for checking. Regards, Bob Axelrod

The reply from the office, at 21:06 UTC, was “ok! thanks for getting back to me…do keep us posted.” That is the last dated exchange between them in the material read for this page.3

How he got into the correspondence

He did not approach Epstein. He was introduced, and the introduction is documented on John Brockman’s page rather than this one.

The short of it is that on Saturday 15 September 2018, the day before Groff’s opening message, Brockman wrote to Epstein recommending him, Epstein asked whether he was “around the week of the 24th”, and Brockman replied that he was copying him in and that Epstein should meet him. Axelrod answered the same afternoon with his own dates, and Groff moved to book a meeting within half an hour. That thread, its nine documents and its quotations are set out in full on Brockman’s page and are not restated here.21

What belongs on this page is the position the introduction left him in: a man who had been handed to Epstein’s office by a third party, and who then spent eleven weeks dealing with that office directly.

What the files show he was present at, and what they do not

He appears on four gathering lists, all of them Brockman’s.

Napa, 31 July to 2 August 2015. On 6 July 2015 Brockman wrote to Epstein under the subject “fyi - important addition for Master Class”: “JE, Robert Axelrod is joining the group in Napa as a participant.” The same message attaches Richard Dawkins’s preface to the second edition of Axelrod’s book.7 Ten days later Brockman sent Epstein the list headed “CONFIRMED:” on which Axelrod’s name is first.4 On 24 July 2015 Brockman described the gathering to a long list of people that included Epstein, and described Axelrod’s part in it: the class was Philip Tetlock teaching “A short course in =uper-forecasting”, “aided by such luminaries as Danny Kahneman and Robert =xelrod (“The Evolution of Cooperation”)”. The broken spelling of his surname is printed on the sheet itself and is not repaired here; the reason it matters is set out below.22 A head-count message of 31 July 2015 lists him first among the participants for lunch and dinner the following day.23

Winvian Farm, Morris, Connecticut, 7 to 9 September 2018. On 2 August 2018 Brockman invited Epstein to “the second ‘Brockman Conference’” and wrote: “In addition to the essayists in POSSIBLE MINDS, I have invited a few additional extraordinary thinkers: Danny Kahneman (thinking), Robert Axelrod (game theory), David Chalmers (philosophy), and Demis Hassibis (computation), the first three of which to date have agreed to attend and to chair a session on their topics.” Axelrod’s name is third on the list headed “CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS”.24 That the conference then happened, and that he spoke at it, is established by a different document, discussed below. On the evening of 9 September 2018, the day it ended, Brockman sent Epstein a message headed “the 2nd Brockman Conference!” whose entire body is a list of who was there, Axelrod among them.25

A book launch, 21 February 2019. On 20 November 2018 Brockman forwarded Epstein an invitation to the launch of Possible Minds at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge. Axelrod’s name is second in the recipient list on the forwarded message.26 No document read for this page shows whether he attended, or whether Epstein did.

A mailing, 4 July 2017. He is one name among roughly a hundred and thirty on a message Brockman sent about the Edge platform’s twentieth anniversary. Epstein’s name is on the same list.27 A shared mailing list is not a meeting and is not treated as one here.

What he was told

One document records what Brockman says he told Axelrod about Epstein’s money. On 9 September 2018, the day after the Winvian conference ended, Brockman wrote to Epstein under the subject “the meeting”. The sheet opens ” Did you tell the group of my involvement”, and then:

The subject of money never came up. Nobody asked. I didn’t offer.

In talking to Bob Axelrod, I told him you funded people like Seth, Nowak, Lee, and were a regular backer of EDGE, but it was not specific to the meeting.

This is Brockman’s account of his own conduct, written to Epstein, and it is evidence of what Brockman wrote rather than proof of what Axelrod heard. No document read for this page carries Axelrod’s response to it, or any statement by him about Epstein’s funding of anyone.28

The same document prints, under the heading “TALKS” and the sub-heading “ROBERT AXELROD”, a paragraph describing what he planned to speak about at the conference. It is about the boundaries between academic disciplines, and it names no person.28

His own published work is in the files

Separately from any of this, his scholarship circulates in the released material as scholarship.

A seven-sheet scan of the revised edition of The Evolution of Cooperation, with Dawkins’s foreword, is in the release as a document in its own right.29 And eleven further documents cite his work in the ordinary way one scientific paper cites another, in bibliographies alongside Trivers, Hamilton, Fudenberg and Maskin. Those are papers that happen to be in Epstein’s files; they are evidence about what he was reading, not about Axelrod.30

The surname is not his alone

A reader searching these files for “Axelrod” will mostly not find him. The bare surname appears on 214 sheets across 165 documents. Of those, 87 documents carry the surname with no forename that identifies the bearer, and they were read individually for this page. They break down as follows.31

What the 87 turned out to beDocuments
A news byline in a press-monitoring digest, under outlets including The Hill, CBS, Axios and ABC News47
A bibliography entry citing this subject’s published work11
The phrase “Axelrod’s book party”, on a message of 12 February 2015 that gives no forename11
The law firm name “Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod LLP”4
A Palm Beach property roll, printing the surname first: “AXELROD GERALD A” and “AXELROD ARLENE S”4
Julius Axelrod, the Nobel-winning pharmacologist, in scientific prose3
A person named in a Classmates.com notification3
A school reminiscence naming a different man2
Matthew S. Axelrod, an Assistant United States Attorney, in a signature block1
Not a person at all, but damage in the released text1

Not one of the 87 is this subject acting, writing or being corresponded with. Eleven of them cite his books. The rest are other people.

Two documents where his name is not spelled with an A

Some of these documents do not print the surname at all, and a reader searching for it will not find them. Two of the 56 print it as “=xelrod”, the opening letter replaced by an equals sign, and the substitution is on the released sheet itself rather than in any later reading of it. It runs right through both documents: the same sheets print “W. =aniel Hillis”, “Neil =ershenfeld”, “Frank =ilczek”, “David =halmers”, “Alison =opnik”, “Seth =loyd” and “San =rancisco”. It is the signature of an e-mail encoding that has been flattened into the page, and on these two sheets it swallowed the first letter of a great many names.

Neither document can be found by searching these files for “Axelrod”, “Robert Axelrod” or “Bob Axelrod”. Both were found instead by listing the indexed words that contain the letters “elro” and checking the ones that resemble the surname. They are the two most recently added to this page’s count, and the count was 54 before they were read. A journalist working on any name in these files should expect the same problem: the two documents the ordinary search missed here are both participant lists, which is exactly the kind of document a search by name is used to find.

Two further documents print “David =xelrod” the same way, and they concern David Axelrod rather than this subject.32

The best-known other bearer is David Axelrod, the political strategist, whose name appears in full in 23 documents, and in two more where the surname is printed in the same damaged form described above, making 25.32 He and this subject share one document only, and that document is not about this subject at all: a magazine article about the Obama White House which happens to print “David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs” in a list, so that the two words “Axelrod” and “Robert” fall side by side.33 A second document was excluded for the same reason, a 1959 pharmacology citation reading “Tomchick R, Axelrod J”.33 Both were removed from this page’s count after being read.

How this page was made, and what it does not cover

The 56 documents were assembled on 25 October 2026 from searches of the released files for “robert axelrod” (40 documents), “bob axelrod” (14), “r axelrod” (5), “axelrod, robert” (2) and the misspelling “axlerod” (6), which is how Epstein himself wrote the name. Those sets overlap, and the union of them, after removing the two documents described above, is 54. The last two were not found by any search for the name, because the name is not printed on them: they came from listing the indexed words that contain the letters “elro” and checking those that resemble the surname, which is also how the four-document total for the damaged form was arrived at. A search of every indexed word beginning “ax” returned 4,995 distinct forms, of which six resemble the surname closely enough to check; all six were checked.5

Several things this page does not do.

It does not describe his academic work except where a document in the files describes it. It does not say that he knew what Epstein had been convicted of, because no document read for this page says so either way. It does not say the two men never met, only that no document read for this page records a meeting; the correspondence ends with his own cancellation and the office’s “do keep us posted”, and what happened after 30 November 2018 is not covered by the material read here.8

Of the 56 documents, the quotations and dates printed above were read from the page images of eleven of them. The remaining 45 were read only in the released text of the files, and nothing is quoted from them that is not also carried on a sheet that was imaged.34

One document inside the 56 was read and then deliberately left out, because what else is printed on it concerns private individuals who have nothing to do with this subject. It is not cited, quoted, linked or described here, and nothing on this page depends on it. Everything it would have supported about his December dates is documented in his own message of 16 October and in the reply to it.1819

No contact value is reproduced anywhere on this page. Where the producer has withheld a sender or a recipient on a sheet, this page does not supply it from elsewhere.

Footnotes

  1. E-mail, Lesley Groff to Robert Axelrod, Subject “Jeffrey Epstein”, Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 14:28:47 +0000. EFTA00481649 p.1, the whole run of one sheet. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch. The sender field prints “Lesley Groff” and the recipient field prints “Robert Axelrod”; the address value beside each is barred and neither is reproduced. The quoted passage is the first two paragraphs of the body and is given in full; the body continues “Please let me know if this will work with your schedule.” and the sign-off. The foot of the sheet is blank, so it carries no printed stamp. ↩ ↩2

  2. E-mail, Robert Axelrod to Lesley Groff, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 15:47:43 +0000. EFTA00481650 p.1, the whole run of one sheet. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch. The sender field is an “on behalf of Robert Axelrod” form rather than a plain sender value. The body is quoted from the salutation “Lesley,” onward, omitting only that salutation; the sheet then quotes the 14:28 message back in full. The released text of this sheet reads “7:30 am to II am”; the image prints “11 am”, and the figure above is the image’s. The foot of the sheet is blank, so it carries no printed stamp. ↩ ↩2

  3. Three messages of Friday 30 November 2018, all carried on one sheet: EFTA00486008 p.1, the whole run of one sheet, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2018 21:06:32 +0000. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch. The sender field of the 21:06 message is barred on this sheet and is not supplied here, and a short value after “do keep us posted.” is barred and is not described. The 16:05 message prints “Robert Axelrod” in its attribution line; its salutation is barred and is omitted from the quotation, which begins at “No.” The released text of this sheet reads “Fillet you know”; the image prints “I’ll let you know”, and the quotation above is the image’s. The 7:29 message is signed “Lesley / Assistant to Jeffrey Epstein” in its own body. Each of the three is attributed to its own time and they are not run together. The foot of the sheet is blank, so it carries no printed stamp. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. E-mail, John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “List”, Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 16:13:10 +0000. EFTA00851125 p.1; the run is 4 sheets. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch. The sheet is headed “Confidential: Here’s the list below.” The quoted line is the first bullet under the heading “CONFIRMED:” and is reproduced in full. The same sheet carries a paragraph of family detail about private individuals, which is not quoted, described or relied on here. The sheet’s remaining three pages list further confirmed participants, press, and names recorded as having declined or not responded; none of that is quoted here. A second copy of this message exists in the release and is not cited. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. Searches of the released files run on 25 October 2026, each a phrase search of the full-text index: “robert axelrod” 50 sheets in 40 documents; “bob axelrod” 14 in 14; “r axelrod” 5 in 5; “axelrod, robert” 2 in 2; “axlerod” 6 in 6. An earlier working note on this subject recorded only the first of those five figures, and the “bob axelrod” form alone is 14 documents it did not count. The five sets overlap; their union is 56 documents, from which two were removed after being read, leaving 54. Two more were then added from the term enumeration described next, giving 56. A control phrase invented for the purpose returned nothing, and a control phrase expected to return a large population returned 15,489 documents, so the searches were running.

    The index was also enumerated by term, and this is what found the last two documents. Every distinct indexed word beginning “ax” was listed, 4,995 of them, and the six within two character-edits of the surname were each tested, being “axelrad”, “axelrao”, “axelrod”, “axelson”, “axeror” and “axlerod”. That enumeration cannot reach a word whose first letter is gone, so a second one listed every indexed word containing the letters “elro”. It completed through the end of the alphabet and returned 357 such words, of which 56 are within three character-edits of the surname; each of those was checked. One of them was “xelrod”, four sheets in four documents, which is the surname with its first letter replaced and which no search for the name can reach. Two of those four are this subject and are counted above; two are David Axelrod. The enumeration also returned “elrod”, 45 sheets in 43 documents, which is a different surname borne by several people and none of them this subject, and four other near forms which were each opened and are damage on bank and tax forms rather than anyone’s name. Two further enumerations then listed every indexed word containing “xel” followed by “od”, and every indexed word containing “lrod”, so as to reach a form in which the middle of the surname rather than its opening is damaged. Both completed. The first returned 30 words. The second returned 149 words, of which 24 are within three character-edits of the surname and 17 of those could not have been seen by the “elro” enumeration at all, because the letters “elro” are not in them. Every one of the 17 was opened and every sheet read: 24 sheets in 19 documents, and not one of them is a person of this name. They are damage on brokerage statements, a telephone-call log, a delivery form and legal boilerplate: six of the seventeen are the same statement footnote in which “annualized income” has been mangled, “flrod” is “find”, “ftlrod” is a Florida city abbreviation, “hanclrod” is “handling”, and “milrod” is Milrod, a real and entirely different surname appearing in a client list and a revenue table. One further sheet was reached by these enumerations and is deliberately not cited, described or counted here: it carries another copy of a message already quoted above, his name on it is run together with the value printed beside it, which is why no search for the name reaches it, and that value is barred by the producer on the copy this page does cite. Nothing above depends on it, and no other document of this subject was found outside the 56 by any of the four enumerations.

    The whole index holds 12,121,974 distinct words and cannot be listed in one pass, so these four enumerations are ranges of it rather than the whole. A damaged form of the surname that contains none of “ax”, “elro”, “xel…od” or “lrod” would still be missed, and that remains the honest limit of the search. ↩ ↩2

  6. Of the 56 documents, 20 carry “Robert Axelrod” or “Bob Axelrod” in a sender field, 11 more carry it only in a recipient or copy field, and 25 carry it in neither. The test was applied to the released text of each document with whitespace flattened, so that a field label separated from its value by a line break is still matched. On several of the 20 the sender field is an “on behalf of” form rather than a plain sender value, and those are counted as his because the name is in the field. The count was taken on 25 October 2026. ↩ ↩2

  7. E-mail, John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “fyi - important addition for Master Class”, Date: July 6, 2015 at 10:59:01 PM EDT, forwarded within a message of Sent Wed 7/8/2015 7:02:44 PM. EFTA02075618 p.1; the run is 2 sheets, the second carrying only a confidentiality notice. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch, and the printed stamp EFTA_R1_00648698 was read from the native scan rather than from a re-rendering. The forwarded message’s recipient field prints “Epstein Jeffrey” with the published address value; its copy field is barred and is not described. The quoted sentence is the opening of the forwarded message, which continues “Tetlock, Kahneman, Axelrod, among others. It doesn’t get any better than this.” The released text of this sheet reads “Tctlock, Kahncman”; the image prints “Tetlock, Kahneman”, and nothing above rests on the released text of it. The preface the message says is set out below it does not appear on this sheet. ↩ ↩2

  8. This is a statement about the documents read for this page. The correspondence described above runs from 16 September to 30 November 2018 and ends with his own cancellation; no document among the 56 records a meeting between him and Epstein taking place, on any date. Documents dated after 30 November 2018 were not located for him by the searches described at [^union], and this page makes no claim about any period those searches did not reach. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. This is a statement about the documents read for this page. None of the 56 records a payment to him, an invoice from him, a grant to him, or a request by him for money. The one document that mentions Epstein’s funding in connection with him is the message at [^themeeting], in which Brockman tells Epstein he had mentioned to him that Epstein funded other named people. ↩

  10. E-mail, Lesley Groff to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “Bob Axelrod”, Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 16:02:49 +0000. EFTA01022963 p.1, the whole run of one sheet. The body is the single sentence quoted, in full. Read in the released text of the files only; the same sentence is quoted back on the next sheet, which was read from the page image. ↩

  11. E-mail, Jeffrey Epstein to Lesley Groff, Subject “Re: Bob Axelrod”, Sent Sun 9/16/2018 4:44:15 PM, a bare label field carrying no time zone. EFTA02258054 p.1, the whole run of one sheet. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch, and the printed stamp EFTA_R1_01052786 was read from the native scan rather than from a re-rendering. The sender field prints “jeffrey E.” in lower case, as given. The body is the six words quoted, in full, and the doubled space before the comma is on the paper. Beneath it the sheet prints the 16:02 message quoted back in full. ↩

  12. Two messages of Sunday 16 September 2018, both carried on one sheet: EFTA02258222 p.1, the whole run of one sheet, Sent Sun 9/16/2018 5:27:41 PM, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch, and the printed stamp EFTA_R1_01053126 was read from the native scan rather than from a re-rendering. The sender field of this sheet prints “Robert Axelrod” plainly, and the recipient field prints “Lesley Groff”, each with its address value barred. The sheet’s own body is the three words “Yes, that works.”; beneath it the sheet prints Groff’s 17:07 message in full, from which the longer quotation is taken. The two are attributed above to their own times and are not run together. The clock times are the bare label stamps printed on the sheet and need no time-zone conversion. ↩

  13. E-mail, Robert Axelrod, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 13:23:47 +0000. EFTA00482076 p.1; the run is 2 sheets and the second carries one character. The sender field is an “on behalf of Robert Axelrod” form; the recipient value is barred on this sheet and is not supplied here. The body is the one sentence quoted and the sign-off, in full. Read in the released text of the files only. ↩

  14. E-mail, Lesley Groff to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “Robert Axelrod”, Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 13:33:42 +0000. EFTA01021960 p.1, the whole run of one sheet. The body is the single sentence quoted, in full. Read in the released text of the files only. ↩

  15. E-mail, Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “Re: Robert Axelrod”, Sent Tue 9/25/2018 1:58:52 PM, a bare label field carrying no time zone. EFTA02258532 p.1, the whole run of one sheet. The recipient field is barred on this sheet and is not supplied here. The body is the one word quoted, in full; beneath it the sheet prints the 13:33 message quoted back. Read in the released text of the files only. ↩

  16. E-mail to Robert Axelrod, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 14:03:00 +0000. EFTA00482094 p.1; the run is 2 sheets. The sender field is barred on this sheet and is not supplied here; the message is described above as coming from Epstein’s office, which is what the correspondence it sits in shows. The quotation begins at “we will unfortunatley” and omits the opening words “Hi Bob… glad you are checking in…”; the misspelling of “unfortunately” and the spacing of “Oct .3rd” are the sheet’s. Read in the released text of the files only. ↩

  17. Two messages of Tuesday 25 September 2018. His, Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 15:35:34 +0000, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, body “Could we do 3 pm Oct 2? Cheers, Bob”: EFTA00482129 p.1, run of 2 sheets. The reply, Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 15:37:41 +0000, body “I wish!…he is leaving now on Sept. 29th..”: EFTA00482131 p.1, run of 2 sheets; the sender field of that reply is barred on its sheet and is not supplied here. Both read in the released text of the files only, and each quotation is attributed to its own message. ↩

  18. E-mail, Robert Axelrod to Lesley Groff, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2018 13:43:20 +0000. EFTA00483391 p.1; the run is 2 sheets. The sender and recipient fields both print names, with the address values barred. The body above the quoted thread is the two sentences and the sign-off quoted, in full. Read in the released text of the files only. ↩ ↩2

  19. E-mail, Lesley Groff to Robert Axelrod, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2018 13:47:05 +0000. EFTA00483393 p.1; the run is 2 sheets. The body above the quoted thread is quoted in full; the capitals in “WAY” are the sheet’s. Read in the released text of the files only. ↩ ↩2

  20. E-mail, Robert Axelrod to Lesley Groff, Subject “Re: Jeffrey Epstein”, Sent Tue 10/16/2018 2:21:53 PM, a bare label field carrying no time zone. EFTA02261764 p.1; the run is 3 sheets. The body is the three words quoted, in full. Read in the released text of the files only. ↩

  21. The introduction of 15 September 2018, the nine documents it runs over and the quotations from them are set out on John Brockman’s page and in its footnote on that thread. Nothing from that thread is quoted on this page, and this page does not restate it. ↩

  22. E-mail, John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “Edge San Francisco Science Dinner”, Sent: Friday, July 24, 2015 1:12 AM. EFTA02717365 p.1; the run is 2 sheets. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch, and the printed stamp EFTA_R1_02161516 was read from the native scan rather than from a re-rendering. The released text of this sheet gives the year as 2011; the image prints “Friday, July 24, 2015 1:12 AM”, and the date above is the image’s. The quoted passage is reproduced exactly as printed, including the damaged spelling of the surname and of “super-forecasting”; the sentence continues with a web address and two access values, which are not reproduced here. The sheet also carries a long recipient list in which most address values are barred, and Epstein’s published address is among those not barred. Nothing else on the sheet concerns this subject. ↩

  23. E-mail, John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “body count for lunch/dinner tomorrow”, Sent: Friday, July 31, 2015 8:55:41 PM. EFTA01744495 p.1, the whole run of one sheet. His name is first under the heading “PARTICIPANTS”. Read in the released text of the files only, and nothing from this sheet is quoted above beyond the heading. ↩

  24. E-mail, John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “The Second Brockman Conference - An Invitation”, Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2018 16:00:33 +0000. EFTA00479127 p.3; the run is 5 sheets. Sheet 3 was read from the page image at 96 dots per inch, and the quoted sentence and the list heading are on it. The misspelling of Demis Hassabis’s surname is the sheet’s own and is reproduced as printed. The conference dates and the venue are given on sheet 1 of the same document, which was read in the released text only. A second copy of this message exists in the release and is not cited. ↩

  25. E-mail, John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “the 2nd Brockman Conference!”, Sent: Sunday, September 9, 2018 8:19 PM. EFTA02623886 p.1, the whole run of one sheet. Read from the page image at 96 dots per inch, and the printed stamp EFTA_R1_01833693 was read from the native scan rather than from a re-rendering. The sender’s address value is barred; the recipient field prints “Jeffrey Epstein”. The body is a list of names and nothing else, and his name is printed on it in the damaged form described above, which is why no search by name reaches this sheet. Nothing is quoted from the list above. ↩

  26. E-mail, John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject ""Possible Minds” Book Launch [Thu, Feb 21, 2019]”, Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2018 21:05:45 +0000, forwarding a message of November 20, 2018 at 4:03:40 PM EST. EFTA00485539 p.1; the run is 2 sheets. His name appears in the recipient list of the forwarded message, with its address value barred. Read in the released text of the files only; that text is heavily damaged across the recipient list, and nothing is quoted from it above. ↩

  27. E-mail, John Brockman, Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2017 7:55 PM, Subject concerning the Edge platform’s twentieth anniversary. EFTA02645578 p.1; the run is 2 sheets. His name and Epstein’s are both in the recipient list. Read in the released text of the files only, and nothing is quoted from it above. ↩

  28. E-mail, John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein, Subject “the meeting”, Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2018 22:30:17 +0000. EFTA01023686 p.1; the run is 6 sheets. Sheet 1 was read from the page image at 96 dots per inch, and both quotations above are from it. The opening line ” Did you tell the group of my involvement” is printed without a question mark and with the leading space shown. The two quoted paragraphs are consecutive on the sheet and are given in full as far as “it was not specific to the meeting.”; the same paragraph continues with Brockman’s account of the mood at the conference, which is not about this subject and is not quoted here. The heading “TALKS” and the sub-heading “ROBERT AXELROD” are on the same sheet, with a descriptive line and a single paragraph beneath them; that paragraph is described above and not quoted. Sheets 2 to 6 carry the equivalent paragraphs for other participants and were read in the released text only. ↩ ↩2

  29. A scan of the revised edition of The Evolution of Cooperation, carrying his name on the cover and Richard Dawkins’s foreword. EFTA00315773, 7 sheets. Read in the released text of the files only. The surname-first form “Axelrod, Robert.” appears in its own reference list on sheet 6, citing his 1997 book. ↩

  30. Eleven documents cite his published work in a bibliography or in passing, with no forename or with the initial only: EFTA00632631, EFTA00748858, EFTA00810742, EFTA00953999, EFTA01071023, EFTA01199747, EFTA01902624, EFTA01902772, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015501 (a container, not a single page), HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015518 and HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015525. Four further documents cite him under the initial form “R. Axelrod” and sit inside the 56: EFTA01074265, EFTA01091492, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_026521 (also a container, not a single page) and HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_026534. All fifteen were read in the released text of the files only, and none is quoted above. Two of them are merged runs held as one entry rather than one sheet each, so no sheet can be pinned in them and nothing above rests on either; they are named here only so that the count can be checked. The five documents in the HOUSE_OVERSIGHT series have reader pages but no page image is served for any of them, so none of the five could have been checked at the image even had anything rested on it. They are listed so that a reader can separate citation of his work from contact with him. ↩

  31. The 165 documents carrying the bare surname were compared against the union of all documents carrying a forename form, including David Axelrod’s, leaving 87 documents in which the surname stands without an identifying forename. Each of the 87 was opened and the surname read in its context, with whitespace flattened first so that a name split across a line break would still be found; the surname was located in all 87, so none was classified unseen. The classification in the table is the result. The 11 documents in the “book party” row are copies of one message of 12 February 2015 which prints the surname alone; no forename appears on them and this page does not guess at one. ↩

  32. “david axelrod” as a phrase returns 27 sheets in 23 documents. Two further documents, EFTA02713558 and EFTA02485131, print “David =xelrod” in a forwarded header in the damaged form described above; both were opened and read, both concern a medical charity and a thank-you note that have nothing to do with this subject, and neither is counted among his 56. They are recorded here only so that the arithmetic of the bearer split can be checked. Nothing from either is quoted or described further on this page. ↩ ↩2

  33. EFTA00684460 is a magazine article about the Obama White House. It was returned by a search for the words “axelrod robert” adjacent, because the article prints “Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, David Plouffe” in a list. All four occurrences of the surname in that document refer to David Axelrod. EFTA00566738 is a pharmacology paper; it was returned by a search for “r axelrod” because its reference list prints “Brown DD, Tomchick R, Axelrod J.” and refers to Julius Axelrod. Both were read before being removed, and neither is counted in the 56. ↩ ↩2

  34. The eleven documents read from the page image are EFTA00481649, EFTA00481650, EFTA02258054, EFTA02258222, EFTA00486008, EFTA01023686, EFTA00851125, EFTA00479127 EFTA02075618, EFTA02717365 and EFTA02623886, each rendered at 96 dots per inch, the scanners’ own resolution. For each, the number of sheets in the file was checked against the number of sheets the release records, and the two agreed. A request for a document identifier known not to exist was refused by the server in the same session, so a successful fetch means the document was served rather than invented. The other 45 were read in the released text of the files only. Where a quotation above appears on an imaged sheet and also on sheets that were not imaged, the imaged sheet is the one it is taken from, and the footnote says so. ↩

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