Hardeep Puri's pointed rebuttal to charges levelled by Rahul Gandhi: ‘Met Epstein only on…’

Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri

• Hardeep Puri: Met Epstein a few times with IPI delegation.
• Puri stated his meetings with Epstein were unrelated to any criminal wrongdoing
• Rahul Gandhi mentioned Puri's name in Epstein files during Lok Sabha speech

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Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday responded to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s reference to his name in the Epstein files, clarifying that he had met the late and disgraced American financier only “on a few occasions”.

The minister, addressing a briefing, offered a point-by-point rebuttal over Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Lok Sabha earlier today.

What Hardeep Singh Puri said?

In his statement, Puri mentioned that he met the sex offender as part of an International Peace Institute (IPI) delegation.

“Congress leader Supriya Shrinate raised in an email - 'who introduced Hardeep Puri, I presume to Epstein...'. These facts are known in the public domain. Three million e-mails have been released. I was in New York for eight years, from May 2009, when I joined as India's Ambassador to the UN. In 2017, I became a minister.  There are references to possibly three or four meetings in eight years,” he said.

“I decided to tell Yuva Neta, Rahul Gandhi, and in the note to him, I told him that after I retired as India's Ambassador to the UN, a few months later, I was invited to join the International Peace Institute. I was not part of the IPI per se... I was secretary general of Independent Commission on Multilateralism (ICM). This was a commission set up in the IPI as a project. As part of the delegation of the IPI or the ICM, I met Mr Epstein on a few occasions (three or maximum four). The ICM was dealing with international issues, and Mr Epstein was not part of it,” the minister stated.

The minister further said that in eight years, there are two references for one e-mail that he exchanged.

"Epstein Files, the yuva neta should know, are about wrongdoing, criminal offences. The Epstein Files are about charges that he had an island where he used to take people to indulge their sexual fantasies, charges of paedophilia, there are victims of this. Those victims have brought cases against people in authority. My interaction had nothing to do with that,” he clarified.

The statement came soon after Rahul Gandhi told the Lok Sabha that Hardeep Puri’s name is mentioned in the Epstein files, which outline the late financier’s criminal conduct and reference various public figures, political leaders and celebrities associated with him. Among those named in the documents are US President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton.

Epstein faced federal sex trafficking charges in August 2019 and died in a New York jail cell the following month.