[GRADE A2 — EFTA02555632 (Epstein jmail archive, VOL00011)]
On December 23, 2017, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss emailed with subject "Re: Welcome to Caret Petitions, Jeffrey":
yup! heading to peru tomorrow.. i sent you initial list of invites.. hope you received it. Lawrenc
The email sits within a 4-message thread and received 4 stars. An accompanying auto-reply (EFTA02555196) confirms Krauss was traveling to "remote areas, with very limited access to email" from December 23, 2017 to January 7, 2018 — indicating a personal vacation, likely including Machu Picchu.
CRITICAL CORRECTION: The "invite list" was not for Peru. Deep-dive analysis of the full email thread reveals the invite list was for the Origins Project 10th Anniversary event planned for April 5–9, 2018 at the Boulders Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Krauss had sent the list on December 8 (EFTA02550445: "origins 10th anniversary list so far") and was following up. The "Caret Petitions" subject line is a garbled OCR artifact of "Care2 Petitions" — an environmental petition website. Epstein had signed up for Care2 using Krauss's email, prompting Krauss to forward the welcome email: "did you sign this with my email? !!!" (EFTA02555259). The conversation then shifted to Peru travel and the Origins invite list in the same reply chain.
Lawrence Krauss, an Arizona State University theoretical physicist, received $250,000 in Epstein funding through the Enhanced Foundation between 2010 and 2017 for his Origins Project at ASU. In 2006, Krauss organized a prestigious physics conference titled "Confronting Gravity" on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands — near Epstein's private island — funded by the J. Epstein VI Inc. Foundation and CWRU's CERCA. That conference brought together 22 elite scientists including Stephen Hawking, Gerard 't Hooft, David Gross, and Frank Wilczek (multiple Nobel laureates). Epstein attended the Origins Project's 2014 five-year anniversary gala, photographed with Krauss and Steven Pinker. A September 2015 email shows Krauss expressing eagerness to visit Epstein's Caribbean island.
The "invite list" is now confirmed as referring to the Origins 10th Anniversary, not a Peru event. However, Epstein's role as gatekeeper for scientific event attendance is documented: Krauss routinely sought Epstein's approval before inviting scientists (from 2009 through 2018), including asking permission to invite Lisa Randall, Peter Gruber, and Elon Musk. On January 15, 2018 (immediately after returning from Peru), Krauss followed up: "what do you think of the invite list" (EFTA02537936). The 10th Anniversary event was cancelled after BuzzFeed published its article in February 2018. The jmail archive contains 1,539 total Krauss emails — one of the deepest sustained correspondences in the entire archive.
A related email thread (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_032992, March 22, 2017) shows Epstein writing to Krauss about climate change, with the body containing a "lima" substring match. Additionally, EFTA02669241 (November 15, 2016) is another Epstein-to-Krauss exchange tagged to Lima through substring matching.
Krauss was placed on leave from ASU in March 2018 following a BuzzFeed News investigation documenting multiple sexual misconduct allegations. ASU found he violated sexual harassment policy (July 2018), the dean recommended termination (August 2018), but a settlement allowed Krauss to retire in May 2019. The Peru trip (December 2017) occurred two months before these allegations became public.
WHAT THIS SHOWS AND DOES NOT SHOW: The email establishes that Krauss traveled to Peru as a personal vacation (Dec 23, 2017 – Jan 7, 2018) and was simultaneously coordinating the Origins 10th Anniversary invite list with Epstein. The invite list was for the Scottsdale event, NOT for Peru. Krauss received $250K in Epstein funding and organized Epstein-funded science conferences near Epstein's island. This does NOT establish that the Peru trip had any connection to Epstein's activities. However, the entire exchange occurred during the BuzzFeed sexual misconduct investigation of Krauss (December 11, 2017 contact), with Epstein actively coaching Krauss's response strategy. The convergence of Peru travel, invite-list coordination, and crisis management in a single email thread illustrates how deeply embedded Epstein was in Krauss's professional and personal life.