Brad Karp

A deduplicated FEC ledger identifies 151 direct federal receipt rows attributable to the Paul, Weiss lawyer from December 1996 through November 2025, totaling $328,930 gross and $320,680 after $8,250 in identified refunds

Method: queried every two-year FEC cycle from 1978 through 2026 for Brad Karp variants in New York; retained records tied to Paul, Weiss/attorney occupations or the subject’s repeatedly reported Central Park West address; excluded two Liz Claiborne same-name records and a 1995 record lacking resolving identifiers; removed amended duplicates, memoed downstream allocations, 24T conduit rows, and ActBlue earmark conduit rows. The resulting 151 receipt rows span 105 committees. Gross by cycle: 1996 $250; 1998 $750; 2000 $1,000; 2002 $1,000; 2004 $2,500; 2006 $2,600; 2008 $10,550; 2010 $4,500; 2012 $11,500; 2014 $7,000; 2016 $26,100; 2018 $51,600; 2020 $30,500; 2022 $31,500; 2024 $136,630; 2026 $10,950. Distinct refunds were $1,000 in 2007, $2,500 in 2018, and $4,750 in 2026. These are individual contribution receipts, not evidence of bundling; the ledger supports no bundling amount or intermediary-fundraising claim.

The 151-row Karp federal receipt ledger is predominantly Democratic by FEC committee metadata but not exclusively partisan: 101 rows totaling $200,850 went to committees tagged DEM or DFL, seven rows totaling $18,700 went to REP-tagged committees, and 43 rows totaling $109,380 went to committees with no party tag or an UN tag

This extends verified finding #13095 without changing its $328,930 gross total. The tagged Democratic/DFL subset is 61.1% of gross, the tagged Republican subset 5.7%, and the untagged/UN subset 33.3%; untagged joint-fundraising and PAC committees were not reassigned by inference. The three largest committee-ID totals were C00744946, currently named Harris Victory Fund ($47,800; its 2020 receipt was contemporaneously described as Biden Victory Fund), C00042366/DSCC ($36,000), and C00010603/DNC ($35,000). These are Karp-attributable individual receipt rows, not Paul, Weiss PAC spending, other lawyers donations, proof of fundraising credit, or proof of access or quid pro quo.

A cross-source-deduplicated official New York state/local ledger identifies 44 positive direct receipts attributable to Brad Karp from February 2000 through July 2025, totaling USD 74,600 gross; five documented refunds totaling USD 14,781.18 produce USD 59,818.82 net across 31 candidate/committee recipient labels.

NYSBOE contributes 35 unique Schedule A transactions totaling USD 63,250 plus two Schedule M refunds totaling USD 7,781.18. NYC CFB contributes 13 positive rows totaling USD 14,850 plus four negative adjustments totaling USD 7,750; matching date, amount, and recipient shows four positive NYC rows and one refund duplicate NYSBOE records, so the combined ledger retains 44 positive transactions and five refunds. Exact-name rows were attributable by Brad/Brad S Karp, New York 10023, and 101/115 Central Park West or Paul Weiss identifiers. The official finance tables do not supply a party field; no party-coded dollar total is inferred.

A released Paul Weiss FY2013-2014 invoice summary itemizes $1,979,761.41 billed to Leon Black across existing estate planning, Project Art, Family Office, estate planning for family members, townhouse acquisition and a 2012 Sirius/XM derivative-suit balance; it records $706,603.94 in payments and $1,273,157.47 due, but does not provide timekeeper-level allocations.

This supplies a matter-level Paul Weiss denominator for two years. It does not identify Karp as a timekeeper, allocate later 2015-2017 firm fees, or identify any payment to Epstein.

The NYC Campaign Finance Board 2025 intermediary table lists Karp, Brad, a Paul Weiss attorney, as an intermediary for Andrew Cuomo with USD 26,900; the underlying contribution rows carry his intermediary field on 18 positive receipts from 17 donors, including the USD 2,100 Karp receipt.

The intermediary aggregate is distinct from Karp personal giving. The 18 underlying positive receipts are dated March 1-6, 2025. Excluding the Karp receipt leaves USD 24,800 from 16 other unique donors; one donor, Gaines Gwathmey, has two receipts. The direct Cuomo receipt was adjusted by negative USD 1,700 on March 11, leaving USD 400 direct net, but the official intermediary summary remains USD 26,900. No record here establishes a quid pro quo or a relationship to Karp legal work.

The 2024 IRS returns for four nonprofits where Karp held board roles show materially different institutional scales; these are organization-level finances, not Karp assets or compensation.

IRS-derived Form 990 financial rows report: Mark Messier Foundation revenue $145,400, expenses $233,616, and year-end assets $508,884; Lincoln Center revenue $171,655,256, expenses $219,982,780, and assets $1,232,597,371; JA Worldwide revenue $22,135,475, expenses $22,092,483, and assets $21,007,769; and Garden of Dreams Foundation revenue $10,373,005, expenses $8,565,298, and assets $6,302,573. Findings #13089, #13191, and #13192 establish Karp’s uncompensated board roles. The amounts contextualize the institutions only and do not imply ownership, control, or personal benefit.

Primary records document four early Karp-Epstein contact events: a November 7, 2013 2 p.m. appointment at Brad Karp's Paul Weiss office; a December 20 call request and January 31 returned call; an April 25, 2014 visit scheduled for 2 p.m. and then changed to 3 p.m.; and a May 2014 screening exchange in which Karp named his son David and asked whether his daughter could attend.

In EFTA01783306, Karp wrote, 'Slightly better.'

Caesars is a Tier-2 firm-level overlap: primary records establish Paul Weiss work for Caesars Entertainment, while an August 29, 2016 exchange shows Epstein asking Karp whether Caesars was getting better or worse and Karp replying, 'Slightly better.'

The source proves a direct matter discussion between Epstein and Karp and a separate Paul Weiss-Caesars representation. It does not establish Karp's personal mandate, what metric 'better or worse' referred to, whether the answer was public or nonpublic, or any privilege/confidentiality breach.

On December 11, 2016, Karp forwarded Epstein a Paul Weiss update concerning Josh Harris’s 2014 gift-tax audit. Alan Halperin wrote that the IRS had agreed to close the audit with no return change while seeking a modest valuation increase that would increase annuity flows to Harris.

The forwarding header reads 'Fyi, Jeffrey.' This is a direct Karp-to-Epstein transmission of another Apollo founder's specific tax-audit status. The page does not establish Harris's authorization, the exact representation boundary, or a privilege breach.

The released chain contains four relevant statements: 'Dealing with Ghosn crisis. Will step out shortly'; 'That was quick. On call with DOJ now. Will call right after'; 'Just returning from tokyo. Your guy totally had it right'; and 'when free I can bring you up to date on google. ghosen SIC and ...'.

These quoted lines do not identify the source, prove that the DOJ call concerned Ghosn, establish the client or mandate, or prove that privileged information was disclosed.

Two separate records contain the statements 'Sort of. Spoke to him yesterday.' and 'obviously don't mention my role with brad till we both think it useful.'

These two quoted lines do not by themselves establish the client, mandate, subject of the prior conversation, a privilege breach, or that Karp advised Misra.

Primary records dated February 21 through March 30, 2019 contain: 'Called and left a vm'; an urgent request for lawyer help for John Havens and a separate line about Kraft; a civil-attorney request and 'I've got some ideas'; a promised call from Augusta; and 'I use Nardello, who I think is better at these types of matters.'

A July 26, 2012 archived Paul, Weiss biography publicly identified Apollo as a Karp client in several litigations and advisory matters.

The archive says both that Apollo was a significant representation in several litigations and advisory matters and that Karp then currently represented Apollo. The snapshot does not identify an engagement start date, individual Apollo principals, or the specific matters.

Black’s February 2013 estate-planning agreement formally retained Epstein and Southern Trust Company to assist Paul Weiss and McDermott in advising Black. The agreement’s Paul Weiss notice contacts were Alan Halperin and Kenneth Schneider, not Karp.

The contract scope was Black estate planning and defined affiliates. It is evidence of a formally structured Black-Epstein-lawyer workflow, but does not establish authorization for every later exchange.

Reviewed 2014–2015 Phaidon records identify Paul Weiss lawyers Colin Kelly, Brad Okun, Alan Halperin, David Lakhdhir, Christopher Hurtado, and Aaron Wax in underlying tax, entity, licensing, or document work; the cited underlying-work pages do not name Karp. Karp appears later in Epstein’s Phaidon-linked compensation briefing and dispute mediation.

This is limited to the reviewed cited pages and is not proof Karp had no Phaidon role elsewhere. It distinguishes the technical workstream from Karp’s later client-management/intermediary role. Some descriptions of the Paul Weiss work are embedded in Family Office or Epstein-team emails rather than authored by the named lawyers.

Primary records document a July 21, 2015 dinner calendar listing Brad Karp and wife; Karp's July 22 thanks; a September 24 phone date; a January 2016 thank-you exchange; an August 26 conference call; a cancelled October 7 visit followed by a call; and December 1, 2, and 7 call activity.

Karp acted as an intermediary in the Black-Epstein compensation dispute: in January 2016 he replied that he was about to see Black; in April 2018 he said he had pressed Alan Halperin for a status and would forward what he received; in May he acknowledged a message Epstein labeled 'for your Leon meeting.'

The emails establish Karp’s coordinating and mediation role, not the truth of Epstein’s claims about fee formulas, transaction authorship, Phaidon value or payment entitlement. The same record is consistent with both reciprocal professional use and ordinary outside counsel managing a client-adviser fee dispute.

On February 22, 2016, Brad Wechsler told Epstein that a March 8 meeting with Black would include portions with Epstein and Black alone and other portions with Wechsler and Family Office personnel, with Paul Weiss lawyer Alan Halperin joining for much of the day. Karp is not named on the reviewed agenda.

The document supports explicit Black/Family Office authorization and organized Paul Weiss participation, but not Apollo corporate retention of Epstein. The agenda elsewhere covers art, balance sheets, estate flow, trusts, BRH, aircraft and TRA; those additional workstreams are context, not part of this quote-bounded summary.

Two nonredundant exchanges document professional value moving in both directions across separate matters: in 2016 Epstein asked Karp for a Caesars status assessment and received one; in 2019 Karp asked Epstein to identify a lawyer for John Havens and Epstein reported that the two were talking.

This cross-matter pattern is evidence relevant to a reciprocal-resource hypothesis, but it does not establish an explicit agreement, equal value, a regular cadence, a formal partnership, a client relationship with Havens, or misconduct. The events are separated by roughly two and a half years and can also be read as episodic elite-network assistance.

The historical Forms 8865/reasonable-cause workflow was iterative: Karp proposed a Sunday call in the reasonable-cause chain; Epstein emailed Karp and Melanie Spinella that 'we need to craft' the letter; and Paul Weiss associate Brian Grieve later told Black that revised statements reflected Epstein’s comments, with Karp, Brad Okun, and Mindy Lin copied on the drafting chain.

The records support coordinated drafting and vetting for Black’s statements. They do not prove that Paul Weiss represented all three Apollo founders, that every transmission was authorized, or that Epstein’s recommendations were accepted without independent review.

Primary records place Karp and Epstein inside the same Black/Apollo advisory workflow: Paul Weiss was outside counsel to Black and his Family Office, and a 2016 Apollo email directed that both Karp and Epstein receive circulated materials and upcoming calls on historical Form 8865 work, Karp to stay abreast and Epstein for substantive expertise.

Apollo's filed Dechert report identifies Paul Weiss as outside counsel to Black and the Family Office, states that Epstein provided professional services to Black from 2012 through 2017, and says Black's advisors including Paul Weiss vetted Epstein's ideas. EFTA02450093 then records Brad Wechsler directing Apollo personnel to copy Karp and Epstein on the 8865 work. This proves overlapping participation in a client-advisory process; it does not by itself prove an explicit Karp-Epstein agreement, a confidentiality breach, or who authorized every transmission.

Primary scheduling records document a May 19, 2017 meeting invitation with Kathy Ruemmler at 9 East 71st Street; a July 11 appointment; a December 7 appointment with unstated location; a January 31, 2018 dinner with President Lajcak and Michael Wolff at 9 East 71st Street; June 8 and August 9 meetings there; and an October 18 meeting there for which Karp reported a traffic delay.

On April 7, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein messaged Steve Bannon, “Need to work magic to get Brad Karp admitted to Augusta golf club”; this documents an attempt at elite-access brokerage but does not show that Karp requested it, that Bannon acted, or that membership resulted.

Karp wrote Epstein, At Augusta National; no cell phones allowed. Will call as soon as I break free. Nine days later, an iMessage thread labeled Steve Bannon begins with the Augusta request; Bannon replied, The head of Paul Weiss Brad Karp? This establishes that Epstein sought Bannon assistance for an elite-club admission connected to Karp. The records do not establish that Karp asked Epstein to intervene, that Bannon acted, or that Karp obtained membership. This is an access-brokerage episode, not campaign finance, lobbying, or proof of a broader political quid pro quo.

Dechert drew a corporate boundary around the Black-Epstein relationship: it found that Epstein did not invest in Apollo-managed funds and that no other Apollo executive retained him, while also documenting that an Epstein entity bought Apollo IPO shares and that Epstein tried to reach other Apollo executives.

This is a firm-commissioned investigative report rather than a contemporaneous communication. It supports treating Black, Black Family Office/BRH, and Apollo corporate as distinct scopes; the report itself said broad claims of 'no relationship' required nuance.

IRS filings list Brad Karp as an uncompensated Garden of Dreams Foundation director beginning in June 2022 and continuing in 2024; a current executive-directory profile attributes that board role to the Paul, Weiss lawyer, supporting but not independently proving the same-name match.

The official IRS return identifies the role but not employer or middle initial. The attribution is therefore calibrated to medium confidence and rests on the exact board-role match in a current profile of Brad Karp, Paul, Weiss lawyer. No claim is made that the Foundation was a client, that Karp owned it, or that board co-members were personal associates.

UK Companies House lists Brad Karp as the managing officer of Paul, Weiss's registered overseas entity, appointed November 16, 2022; the record identifies him as an American attorney resident in the United States and states his responsibility as attorney and firm chairman.

Companies House entity OE004150 is Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, a Delaware limited liability partnership registered as a UK overseas entity. Its service address is 20 Air Street, London. The officer record resolves the July 1959 Brad KARP candidate to the subject by employer, occupation and chair role, correcting finding #13093's treatment of that candidate as an incompatible London same-name person. The company profile reports no charges or insolvency history and the API returned no PSC records; those are entity-scoped fields, not statements about Karp personally.

Mount Sinai’s 2023 nonprofit filings list Brad Karp as secretary and/or trustee across seven Mount Sinai legal entities

IRS-derived 2023 officer rows list Karp as trustee/secretary at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center (EIN 13-2997301), Mount Sinai Medical Center (13-6271888), Icahn School of Medicine (13-6171197), New York Eye & Ear Infirmary (13-5562304), Beth Israel Medical Center (13-5564934), and Mount Sinai Hospital (13-1624096), and as secretary of Mount Sinai Health System (46-4248304), all with $0 compensation. Mount Sinai’s official 2019 commencement program independently lists Brad S. Karp among the combined boards, resolving the lawyer’s identity; the 2023 legal-entity roles come from the corresponding Form 990 rows.

Primary nonprofit records resolve Karp as an uncompensated director of both the Mark Messier Foundation and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in their 2024 tax-year filings

The IRS-derived 2024 officer rows list BRAD KARP as DIRECTOR with $0 compensation for Mark Messier Foundation (EIN 81-3578531) and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (EIN 13-1847137). Identity is independently resolved: the Mark Messier Foundation’s own board page describes its Brad Karp as Paul, Weiss chair and a 1984 Harvard Law graduate; Lincoln Center’s official board list names Brad S. Karp among directors as of June 2026.

JA Worldwide records resolve Brad S. Karp as an uncompensated director: its 2020 annual report identifies him as Paul, Weiss chairman, and its 2024 Form 990 continues to list Brad Karp as a director with zero compensation.

The annual report supplies the identity bridge missing from the abbreviated IRS officer row by printing the full middle initial and Paul, Weiss affiliation. The 2024 IRS row establishes the later formal director role and compensation amount. This is nonprofit governance, not evidence that JA Worldwide was a Karp client or that he owned the organization.

Two news organizations identified Karp as a 2024 Harris fundraising organizer, but the public records reviewed here verify only his personal contributions and do not supply an attributable bundled-fundraising amount

Fortune reported on July 24, 2024 that Karp was among the hosts of a Wall Street meeting intended to raise money for Kamala Harris. Reuters reported in February 2026 that he reached out to hundreds of corporate lawyers in a fundraising push soon after Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket. FEC Schedule A verifies a separate $25,000 Karp-attributable September 14, 2024 receipt to committee C00744946, now named Harris Victory Fund. Finding #13172 found no Karp or Paul Weiss text match in 2018-2020 Form 3L filings, but that cannot test 2024 non-lobbyist fundraising. This finding preserves the distinction between reported organizing, verified personal giving, and an unverified bundled amount.

A 2024 SEC Schedule 13D lists Brad Karp on Continental Grain Company’s board of directors; a separate 2026 public executive roster identifies that director as Paul, Weiss chairman Brad Karp, resolving the same-name attribution while not implying personal ownership of Continental Grain or the securities reported in the filing.

The Schedule 13D concerns Continental Grain’s Lamb Weston investment and lists Brad Karp only in the CGC director roster. The filing expressly says identified CGC directors disclaim beneficial ownership of the reported shares except to any pecuniary interest. The later executive roster identifies Brad Karp as Chairman of Paul, Weiss and Director of Continental Grain Company. This is a corporate-director role distinct from firm representation, a client reference, and ownership.

A May 7, 2004 WorldCom securities-litigation settlement memorandum filed by Citigroup lists Brad S. Karp with Martin London and Eric S. Goldstein at Paul, Weiss on behalf of the Citigroup defendants; the agreement states a $2.65 billion cash settlement subject to court approval.

The signature block says Martin London signed for Paul, Weiss and lists Karp and Goldstein below him. The document identifies Citigroup Inc., Citigroup Global Markets entities, and Jack Grubman as the Citigroup defendants. The record establishes Karp's named counsel role, not that he personally signed the memorandum or an admission of wrongdoing by the defendants.

In a May 2, 2005 Dynegy securities-litigation settlement filed with the SEC, Brad S. Karp signed for Paul, Weiss as attorney for defendants Citigroup Inc., Salomon Smith Barney Inc., and Citibank, N.A.

The stipulation covered a consolidated securities class action and stated that the settling defendants denied wrongdoing, fault and liability. Karp's signature block establishes his personal counsel role for the three Citigroup defendants; it does not establish liability or a role for him on behalf of the other defendant groups.

Federal docket metadata confirms Karp was formally listed as counsel across major institutional matters over at least 2009–2026, including KV Pharmaceutical v. Citigroup Global Markets, Optima Media Group v. Bloomberg, and recurring NFL concussion litigation.

These examples establish personal docket appearances rather than merely firm-level client claims. The attorney search returned many additional matters, especially NFL-related cases, but result caps and duplicated/related dockets mean the search should not be treated as a complete case count.

Primary records place Karp in an Epstein-linked professional channel by December 3, 2009, when he and Eric Goldstein, as attorneys for The Bear Stearns Companies LLC, filed a JPML tag-along notice identifying Financial Trust Company v. Bear Stearns and attached the complaint naming Epstein as Financial Trust president, director, and sole shareholder. On March 25, 2010, Epstein counsel addressed settlement-confidentiality terms to Karp for March 26 Briger-Epstein discussions and identified Karp as counsel for the Fund. The earliest located direct personal Karp-Epstein exchange remains November 7, 2013; the pre-2013 records do not identify a social introducer or prove a personal meeting.

This supersedes finding 13116 as the origin chronology. The December 2009 filing shows the first located Epstein-linked institutional act and a client-mandate pathway through Bear Stearns. The March 2010 agreement shows Karp as the Fund-side counsel counterpart in a separate Fortress matter, but a contemplated meeting with outside counsel does not by itself prove that Karp attended or interacted directly with Epstein.

ACRIS establishes that Brad Karp and Roberta Karp were co-executors of Sondra Karp’s estate and that estate property at 10 Park Avenue unit 14R passed to and was later sold by Brad Karp; the deeds do not establish any kinship among them

Document 2010081200783001, dated 2010-08-04, lists ESTATE OF SONDRA KARP plus BRAD KARP AS EXECUTOR and ROBERTA KARP AS EXECUTOR, all c/o Paul, Weiss, as grantor-side parties. It lists KARP, BRAD at 115 Central Park West as grantee for Manhattan Block 864 Lot 35, 10 Park Avenue unit 14R, with $0 consideration. Document 2018071200423001, dated 2018-07-10, lists KARP, BRAD at 115 Central Park West as grantor and Analisse Taft and James Gersten as grantees, with $505,000 consideration. Executor status alone does not identify a parent, spouse, sibling, or other family relationship. Existing finding #2173’s statement that Sondra was likely Karp’s mother is unsupported by these deeds.

The February 2013 Black-Epstein agreement imposed an express authorization boundary: Epstein and Southern Trust Company could not disclose privileged or confidential estate-planning information except as authorized by Paul Weiss, McDermott, or Black.

This sentence supports a contractual authorization framework for the Black estate-planning mandate. It does not prove that a particular later message was authorized, confidential, privileged, or within that mandate; those elements must be established communication by communication.

In a February 2013 Narrows art/use-tax exchange, Paul Weiss tax lawyer Alan Halperin warned Epstein that New York could disregard the entity under Moline Properties and impose use tax, a substantive legal risk that had to be considered in comparing planning strategies.

The exchange is evidence of substantive legal challenge and vetting within the Black/Epstein/Paul Weiss workflow. It does not identify Karp as a participant and does not establish the final tax treatment or transaction outcome.

The source record contains a material dispute over Epstein’s role in Black’s 2015 step-up-basis transaction: Dechert reported that outside counsel said the idea did not originate with Epstein but that he was instrumental in completion, while Black’s later response said it originated with other legal advisers.

This is a synthesis of attributed, conflicting accounts. The Senate letter states the Committee’s concerns and evidentiary assessment; it is not proof that the transaction or payment was unlawful. The reviewed record does not identify Karp as the originating technical lawyer.

In March 2016, Karp sought internal guidance after Black asked Paul Weiss to establish a two-million-dollar escrow for monthly payments under a contract with an unnamed individual. The firm-policy answer was that Paul Weiss did not act as escrow agent except in standard personal-real-estate transactions, and Karp told Epstein he needed to escalate.

The record identifies neither the contract counterparty nor its purpose, and it does not show whether Paul Weiss ultimately accepted the funds. It cannot be tied to Epstein compensation, art, yacht, aircraft, or another workstream without more evidence.

Seven Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings identify Brad Karp as a Paul, Weiss lobbyist for Carlos Ghosn Bichara from the 2018 fourth quarter through a first-quarter 2020 termination report. The filings describe advocacy with media and the U.S. government concerning bail and a fair trial in Japan.

The registration, four quarterly 2019 activity reports, the 2018 Q4 activity report, and the 2020 termination report all list Karp among the lobbyists. Reported income was $20,000 for Q4 2018; $50,000 in each 2019 quarter; and $20,000 in Q1 2020. These are firm-client filing amounts, not compensation attributable to Karp.

An archived November 6, 2018 Paul, Weiss biography listed SoftBank among Karp’s recent clients in significant securities, commercial, and regulatory matters.

This official archived firm biography independently establishes that Karp had represented SoftBank by November 6, 2018. It does not identify the matter, dates, scope, billing client, or Rajeev Misra as Karp’s client, and it does not establish that the January 2019 Misra conversation concerned an existing SoftBank engagement.

Karp’s first surviving Ghosn-crisis message is dated the same day that Paul, Weiss’s federal lobbying registration says its Carlos Ghosn engagement became effective: November 20, 2018.

EFTA02616157 records Karp writing “Dealing with Ghosn crisis” on November 20, 2018. The official Lobbying Disclosure Act registration for Carlos Ghosn Bichara gives an effective date of 2018-11-20 and lists Karp among the new lobbyists. The date alignment anchors the email to a documented firm mandate, but does not establish that any Epstein conversation formed part of the mandate, that information was exchanged, or that privilege was waived.

Paul, Weiss states that Karp led the team advising Carlos Ghosn in the September 23, 2019 SEC settlement; the SEC says Ghosn agreed to a $1 million penalty and ten-year officer/director bar without admitting or denying its allegations.

This independently confirms a public downstream outcome of Karp's Ghosn mandate and identifies Michael Gertzman and Kaye Yoshino as co-leads, with Daniel Juceam and Chikara Momota also on the team. It does not show that any information supplied by Jeffrey Epstein was used in the SEC matter.

After Executive Order 14237 imposed clearance, contracting, access, and hiring restrictions on Paul, Weiss, a March 20, 2025 presidential post said Trump met firm chair Brad Karp and announced firm commitments including political-neutrality policies, a DEI audit, and $40 million in pro bono services. Executive Order 14244 revoked the prior order on March 21 and recited those commitments.

The March 20 post contains a White House characterization of what Karp acknowledged and a separate, narrower quote from Karp welcoming withdrawal of the order. The finding records what the government and Karp publicly said; it does not independently validate the government’s allegations or determine the agreement’s legality.

DOJ FOIA records show that on March 19, 2025 White House and Justice Department personnel circulated an "ASAP Paul Weiss Order" for rapid White House Counsel, DOJ, and OLC review, and a White House official relayed a proposed Karp statement for the next day. This establishes pre-announcement government coordination and a relayed draft statement; the 15-page release does not itself supply a signed bilateral agreement or a direct Karp-to-government email.

At 6:33 p.m. May Mailman wrote "Per POTUS, this EO needs to be ready now" and asked WHCO, DOJ and Kyser to review within 30 minutes and send it to OLC. At 9:18 p.m. she relayed what she described as "the draft statement Paul Weiss has prepared for themselves and POTUS tomorrow," followed by a proposed statement attributed to Karp. This is stronger evidence of coordinated drafting than the public March 20 announcement alone, but the provenance is a White House relay inside an interagency thread.

In its May 2, 2025 Perkins Coie decision, the U.S. District Court for D.C. used Executive Order 14237 as a comparator: it said the Paul, Weiss order directed the same actions as the Perkins order except for one section, and said Paul, Weiss’s rapid agreement and revocation demonstrated the coercive power of such targeting. That judicial characterization did not adjudicate Executive Order 14237 or the Paul, Weiss agreement, which were not the claims before the court.

The court held EO 14230 unconstitutional and void. Its Paul, Weiss discussion is important judicial context, not a judgment against Karp or Paul, Weiss and not a determination that their agreement violated law.

In a September 24, 2025 oversight letter addressed to Karp, members of Congress said Paul, Weiss’s April response supplied no requested records and clarified only that its $40 million pro bono commitment would run over four years; they sought records about reported work for the Commerce Department and implementation of the March agreement.

The letter is primary evidence of congressional inquiry and claimed information gaps, not independent proof that any reported Commerce engagement violated law or formed part of the Trump agreement.

A November 2025 Schedule 13G/A names Brad S. Karp and Merryl Tisch as executors of Elizabeth G. Weymouth’s estate; the filing treats Karp in fiduciary executor capacity and does not attribute Weymouth’s Graham Holdings shares to him personally.

The amendment reports Weymouth’s September 29, 2025 death and says she ceased to own the shares. It identifies Tisch and Karp as estate executors and both sign in that capacity. This record must not be coded as Karp beneficial ownership, a family relationship, or a corporate board seat.

Free Speech For People submitted an April 2, 2026 complaint asking New York’s First Department Attorney Grievance Committee to investigate Paul, Weiss, Karp, and other management-committee members over the firm’s 2025 agreement with President Trump.

The complainant alleged likely violations of Rules 8.4(a), 8.4(b), and 1.7, while expressly stating that its factual summary relied solely on public information and that it had no personal or institutional knowledge. This finding establishes the public complaint and request only; no public adjudication or committee finding was located.

On June 5, 2026, four months after resigning as Paul, Weiss chair, Karp personally entered an appearance in the Third Circuit for the National Football League and NFL Properties LLC in appeal No. 26-2222. This is a direct post-chair practice record, not merely a docket roster association.

The federal-giving and Epstein-contact timelines overlap, but the tested records do not establish an operational campaign-finance channel: 48 Karp receipt rows totaling $89,200 fall within the November 7, 2013 through March 30, 2019 direct-contact window, while 41 rows totaling $36,650 predate it and 62 rows totaling $203,080 follow it

The three non-overlapping buckets sum to all 151 positive receipt rows and the $328,930 gross total in finding #13095. Exact Kabasshouse searches using the direct-mailbox selector bkarp returned zero results for donation, fundraiser, Schumer, Hillary, Harris, Biden, DNC, and DSCC; the one bkarp campaign hit was only a URL utm_campaign token in a forwarded news link. The release corpus is incomplete and these are narrow term searches, so the result does not prove that political topics were never discussed. It does mean the disclosed contribution ledger should not be merged with Epstein communications merely because their dates overlap. The separate Bannon-Augusta access attempt is recorded in finding #13182 and is not campaign finance.

Seven deduplicated New York state/local positive receipts totaling USD 10,000 fall inside the November 7, 2013 through March 30, 2019 direct Karp-Epstein contact window; USD 14,000 predates it and USD 50,600 follows it, but the finance records do not name Epstein or establish an operational campaign-finance channel.

The three gross-positive buckets sum to all 44 deduplicated direct state/local receipts and USD 74,600. The seven in-window receipts are Hoylman-Sigal for Senate, Ken Thompson for DA, New Yorkers for Garodnick, Cyrus Vance for Manhattan DA, Andrew Cuomo for New York, Tim Sini for DA, and Maloney for New York. This is temporal comparison only; the absence of an Epstein field in campaign records does not prove no political discussion occurred elsewhere.

The reviewed Nardello pages contain five relevant statements: 'The recording was made with the consent of JD'; 'sureveillance? report also bill to date?'; 'probably a good idea for your nardello guy to be at the restaurant'; a request to review London and New York personnel 'with you and nardello'; and 'Attached is a draft transcript of today's meeting at the Four Seasons.'

These quoted lines do not by themselves establish who retained Nardello, who the legal client was, the complete mandate, or that Epstein directed an operation on his own behalf.

Released records support, but do not adjudicate, a bounded identity match between the 2015 Nardello JD/GG recording series and Leon Black’s dispute with Guzel Ganieva; the formal Nardello contracting client and payer remain undocumented.

The federal complaint is a party pleading. It alleges that Black engaged professional investigators and separately identifies the October 19 Four Seasons meeting, $100,000 monthly for 15 years, about $1 million in loan forgiveness, and £2 million for UK status. Nardello records identify an August 12 Four Seasons recording between JD and GG, use the name Guzel inside the transcript series, and document an October 19 Four Seasons transcript delivery to Karp and Reisner. The matching particulars support identity resolution only at medium confidence; no located engagement letter or invoice identifies who retained or paid Nardello.

In 2015 Karp directly relayed post-lunch location and movement details to Epstein, including that a woman left through a garage in a tinted-window car and that license-plate numbers had been collected; a month later Karp wrote that surveillance had been stopped and no evidence had been found on a prostitution lead.

The pages do not name the woman, identify the payer, formal client or investigator, or establish that Karp accepted Epstein’s request to use Nardello or Russian contacts. Epstein’s separate claims about Leon Black, arrest or deportation are not adopted as facts.

The located reasonable-cause materials establish Paul Weiss review and drafting for Leon and Debra Black, but do not establish that Paul Weiss represented or drafted statements for Joshua Harris or Marc Rowan: a contemporaneous message asks, rather than answers, whether Paul Weiss was writing for all three founders.

Exact-name searches across Kabasshouse, Unified, LMSBAND and House Oversight located a Leon/Debra statement and Paul Weiss drafts sent to Leon Black; no Rowan statement and no affirmative answer to the three-founders question was located. This is a scoped corpus conclusion, not proof that no such engagement existed.

A contemporaneous chain documents an April 23, 2018 lunch planned for Epstein, Leon Black, Karp and Alan Halperin; Dechert later reported that a fee-dispute meeting occurred in April 2018 and that Black made no additional Epstein payments afterward, but the reviewed records do not prove that the scheduled lunch and Dechert meeting were the same event.

This narrows but does not fully resolve the April 2018 meeting gap. Dechert does not name the lawyers at its described meeting, and a confirmed schedule is not proof of attendance.

Two released email signatures identify Brad Karp as a Paul, Weiss partner and Brad S. Karp as a Paul, Weiss chairman, supporting resolution of those source-name forms to canonical entity #3720.

EFTA02375189 contains the signature 'Brad Karp | Partner / Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.' EFTA02213572 contains the signature 'Brad S. Karp | Chairman / Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.'

The available identifiers do not safely attribute the Vice President’s Residence Foundation’s 2024 Brad Karp officer row or any of 25 exact-name ACRIS David Karp rows to the subject or his family; those records are excluded pending an employer, middle initial, shared verified address, or other independent identifier.

The VP Residence Form 990 row says only BRAD KARP, Treasurer & Secretary, with no employer or middle initial; exact-name searches located no authoritative organization biography tying that row to Paul, Weiss Brad S. Karp. ACRIS returned 25 KARP, DAVID party rows across unrelated addresses and no match to the profile’s verified Karp addresses. The profile warning bars merging Karp’s son with the Tumblr founder or other David Karps. These are scoped exclusions, not proof the subject lacks such a role or that no family property exists.

A 2022 ACRIS real-property transfer record lists Brad S. Karp and Roberta Schuhalter Karp together as party-one transferors for 115 Central Park West unit 3D in a $6.6 million transaction and gives both the same 101 Central Park West unit 9E address; the record establishes the joint transaction and shared reported address, not their kinship.

ACRIS document 2022061600856001 is an RPTT&RET record dated June 16, 2022. It lists KARP, BRAD S and SCHUHALTER KARP, ROBERTA as party type 1, Timothy and Karen Bock as party type 2, and document amount $6,600,000. This supplements the separate estate-capacity records in #13098 and must not be used by itself to label Roberta as spouse or to assert ownership of 101 Central Park West.

Primary Family Office records identify technical yacht and aircraft counsel outside Karp: Richard Joslin wrote that BJAV and Avioneta return reporting relied on aviation and maritime attorneys and Rick Bronstein of Paul Weiss, while Heather Gray identified Sidley lawyer Richard Leavy as an engagement candidate with yacht and plane experience for a BJAV sales-tax question.

The records narrow the counsel gap but do not identify all specialized attorneys, prove that the proposed Sidley engagement was executed, or establish a Karp role in the yacht or aircraft work.

Kept separate from the Brad Karp totals, official state/city records contain 19 deduplicated positive receipts totaling USD 29,542.45 under Roberta or Robberta Karp at the 10023 address shared with Karp in an ACRIS transaction; the primary property record supports shared-address association, not a spousal characterization.

NYSBOE has 14 positive rows totaling USD 18,242.45 under Roberta, Roberta S, or Robberta Karp at 115 Central Park West. NYC CFB has seven positive rows totaling USD 12,800; two Reshma Saujani receipts totaling USD 1,500 overlap NYSBOE, producing 19 unique positives and USD 29,542.45. This adjacent ledger is excluded from all Brad Karp direct totals and does not establish that he directed, reimbursed, or coordinated the contributions.

A 2004 Union College alumni record placed Karp on Paul, Weiss's management committee and as securities-practice co-chair while identifying him as Citigroup lead counsel in Enron and Jack Grubman-related matters.

The institutional alumni profile also described his work as a second-year associate on Pennzoil v. Texaco and listed Dennis Levine, Michael Milken, the NFL, and financial institutions among earlier civil or white-collar representations. It is a retrospective alumni profile, not a docket-level role audit.

Official institutional records place Karp in repeated convening and governance roles independent of his client work: mobilizing major law firms for a 2015 access-to-justice project, nomination as a New York City Bar vice president, a Union College trusteeship and trustee counsel role, leadership of a New York courts working group, and Harvard Law fundraising and advisory roles

The New York City Bar says Karp and two other firm chairs led organization of the law-firm community for Court Square Law Project start-up funding; 19 founding sponsor firms are named. Its 2017 notice nominated Karp as one of three vice presidents for a May 2018 election. Union College named him a term trustee in July 2019 and listed him in September 2024 as ex-officio general counsel to the Trustees on its presidential search committee. A November 2020 New York Unified Court System release says Chief Judge Janet DiFiore appointed the Commission to Reimagine the Future of New York Courts and that Karp and Mylan Denerstein led its Online Courts Working Group; its report was unanimously adopted. Harvard Law identified Karp in 2021 as chair of its Annual Fund and a Law School Advisory Council member. These are formal civic, educational, and professional roles; they are analytically distinct from Karp personal donations, Paul Weiss activity, client lobbying, and the Epstein access-brokerage record.

A reproducible lower-bound denominator for Karp's 2013-01-01 through 2019-07-06 client universe contains 59 distinct client complexes: 57 separately named in Paul, Weiss's archived May 7, 2019 description of Karp's recent clients, plus the Arizona Cardinals and Kansas City Chiefs, for which CourtListener/RECAP docket entries personally name Karp in active 2014 matters. This is not a complete denominator: the firm used the non-exhaustive word 'included,' gave no engagement dates, and CourtListener undercovers private, regulatory, arbitral, and state matters.

The 57-name firm roster was counted after splitting the combined text 'Merck, Johnson & Johnson' into two entities and keeping OneWest Bank together. Affiliates and individuals were not added separately. CourtListener produced 116 unique dockets across Brad S. Karp / Brad S Karp / Brad Karp variants; applying filed <= 2019-07-06 and terminated null or >= 2013-01-01 left 50 dockets, which were conservatively deduplicated into the official roster plus two separately proven club clients. NFL, NFL Properties and Roger Goodell were grouped under the official NFL client; repeat MDL/member dockets and Citigroup/Glencore affiliates were not counted again.

NYU Law's Directors' Academy records show Karp as a panelist on Governance of Crisis Management in 2022 and moderator of a Crisis Management panel in 2023.

The 2022 panel also included Zach Carter, Jim Freis, and Jacquelyn Kasulis. The 2023 panel included Pallas Global Group co-founder Bonnie Jonas, Julie Kane, Pfizer general counsel Douglas Lankler, and former SEC Enforcement co-director Steve Peikin. Shared participation is a public professional event, not evidence of a client, financial, or private advisory relationship.

In an October 2024 firm publication, Karp said Paul, Weiss had been extremely busy in M&A and described New York as a hub for much of that activity.

This is Paul, Weiss's summary of a promotional LEADERS Magazine interview and establishes Karp's own public strategy description, not independently audited office-growth or revenue metrics.

Paul, Weiss's current biography identifies Brad S. Karp as the firm's chair from 2008 through 2026, Litigation Department chair from 2000 through 2007, and a lifelong Paul, Weiss lawyer

The firm's first-party biography resolves the subject's professional identity and tenure. It lists Karp as a current partner in New York at 1285 Avenue of the Americas and states that he spent his entire career at the firm, beginning as a summer associate.

Paul, Weiss announced on February 4, 2026 that Scott Barshay became chair immediately after Karp decided to resign as chair. The firm said Karp, chair since 2008, would continue full-time client service; Karp attributed the decision to recent reporting becoming a distraction.

The official announcement establishes the succession and Karp’s continuing firm role. It does not itself identify the subject of the reporting or state that the firm removed him.

The Justice Department published more than 3 million additional Epstein-file pages on January 30, 2026; Paul, Weiss announced Karp’s resignation as chair on February 4, five days later. The primary records establish that sequence, but not causation: Karp attributed his decision only to unspecified "recent reporting," and the firm release did not name Epstein or the March 2025 agreement.

Secondary reporting linked the resignation to coverage of Karp-Epstein communications, but the firm’s own announcement did not specify which reports or state that the January 30 publication, the March 2025 Trump agreement, partner pressure, or any other factor caused the decision.

Paul, Weiss’s current Karp profile identifies him as a New York partner and former firm chair for 2008–2026, and it lists a June 24, 2026 Second Circuit Review publication. Together with his June 5 Third Circuit appearance, the firm’s own current record confirms continued post-chair professional activity.

Black-family cash-flow records list aggregate 'professional fees' of $30 million in a 2014 projection and $1.56 million in a preliminary 2016 projection, but neither page identifies a payee. Those figures cannot be allocated to Paul Weiss, Karp, Epstein, or another adviser from the cited records.

This is a bounded negative finding about payment attribution, not a conclusion that no such allocation exists elsewhere. The 2016 budget separately listed plane and boat operating and financing expenses, but did not link Karp to those workstreams.

Karp’s January 2016 email proves participation in a Xero board call, but Xero’s 2016 annual report does not list him among the company or subsidiary directors; the record does not establish that he was a Xero director

In EFTA02473480 Karp wrote that he was on an interminable Xero board call and later had a board dinner. The first phrase establishes participation in a call concerning Xero but does not say he held a board seat. Xero’s annual report for the year ending March 31, 2016 lists eight company directors—Chris Liddell, Rod Drury, Craig Elliott, Lee Hatton, Sam Morgan, Graham Smith, Bill Veghte, and Craig Winkler—and lists subsidiary directors; Karp is absent. Participation could reflect counsel or adviser status. Existing finding #600 inferred directorship and should not be relied on.

A bounded review found no text match for Brad Karp or Paul, Weiss in the 265 FEC Form 3L lobbyist-bundling filing PDFs dated 2018 through 2020, the period encompassing his disclosed Ghosn lobbying registration

Method: downloaded the Federal Election Commission 2009-2026 lobbyist-bundled-filings index (1,816 filing rows), selected all 265 filings received in 2018, 2019, or 2020, downloaded each filing PDF from docquery.fec.gov, extracted text with pdftotext -layout, and searched case-insensitively for Brad Karp, Karp Brad, and Paul Weiss spelling variants. All 265 PDFs yielded nonempty text, although OCR quality varied; 239 contained a lobbyist/registrant label and 203 contained a full-name label. This is not proof Karp did no fundraising. Form 3L covers only above-threshold contributions forwarded by or credited to a current LDA registrant or lobbyist-controlled PAC; it does not cover all fundraisers, and 2024 reporting that Karp fundraised for Harris falls after the disclosed Ghosn registration ended.

A bounded GovInfo exact-name search found one congressional-hearing package, but the record shows Karp only in a list of law-firm leaders appended to a collective statement supporting Legal Services Corporation funding, not as a personal witness or author of separate testimony.

Searches for the exact forms Brad Karp and Brad S. Karp in the CHRG collection returned zero and one packages respectively. In CHRG-115shrg99104863, the substantive statement uses the collective 'our firms' and Karp appears in the signatory roster. This does not rule out every mention or appearance under other forms or in non-GovInfo collections.

The local FBI Epstein Files corpus returned zero matches for the exact forms 'Brad Karp', 'Brad S Karp', 'Bradley S Karp', the selector 'bkarp', and the paired query 'Paul Weiss' plus Karp.

This is a negative result for the indexed local FBI release and is not proof that no unindexed or unreadable page contains a Karp reference.

The recorded exact-form searches returned zero results for 'Bradley S Karp' in Kabasshouse, Unified email/doc, LMSBAND, House Oversight 20K, FBI files, and the reporting corpus.

This is selector hygiene for the configured corpora, not evidence about Karp's legal full name outside them.

Exact-name checks on July 14, 2026 found no matching Brad S. Karp record in the configured FARA bulk registrant/foreign-principal corpus, OpenSanctions search, or ICIJ Offshore Leaks reconciliation. These are scoped negative results, not proof that no record exists under every alias or in every source.

FARA returned empty registrant and foreign-principal arrays; OpenSanctions returned zero; ICIJ returned fuzzy candidates but no exact Brad Karp match. The FARA CLI misleadingly summarized its empty object as one result, logged as papercut #1079. LittleSis was unavailable with HTTP 500 and is excluded from this result.

Exact-name searches did not identify a subject-owned company, UCC filing, LEI, sanctions record, FAA registration, USVI corporate record, government securities transaction, or FARA registration attributable to the Paul, Weiss lawyer

Sources and scope: unified corporate registry entity/officer search for Brad S. Karp and Brad Karp; UCC debtor search; GLEIF exact name; OpenSanctions person exact name; FAA registry exact name; USVI corporate database text search; DS-10 State Department public financial disclosure transaction search; and FARA exact-name search. All returned zero attributable records in their stated scopes. A UK Companies House fuzzy officer search also returned 1,662 candidates; follow-up resolved the exact Brad KARP record to the subject as managing officer of Paul, Weiss overseas entity OE004150, so that firm-governance record is excluded from this personal ownership/asset negative and recorded separately in finding #13243. Common-address unified-registry pivots timed out and remain an unresolved coverage gap. These bounded negatives do not prove that no private holding or foreign entity exists.

Completed public-record checks on July 14, 2026 returned no Brad S. Karp match in the local SEC enforcement action or defendant indexes; a CourtListener opinion search after the April 2, 2026 grievance submission likewise returned no public discipline/grievance opinion. These are source-scoped negatives and do not establish the existence or status of any confidential grievance process or a live New York registration status.

The official New York attorney-registration portal could not be queried because of its managed Cloudflare challenge. Targeted NYSCEF guest searches also encountered CAPTCHA challenges and are excluded rather than counted as zero results. CourtListener coverage is incomplete; the SEC result concerns SEC enforcement actions, not attorney discipline.

Exact-form searches for 'Bradley S. Karp' returned zero CourtListener docket and RECAP-document results; this adds federal-court selector coverage but does not establish Karp's legal full name.

CourtListener cases and RECAP document searches were each run with the quoted exact form on July 14, 2026. The CourtListener exact form 'Brad S. Karp' returned results in the comparison search.

A bounded exact-phrase EDGAR review returned eight filings; four used “Brad S. Karp” only in Paul, Weiss letterhead or a firm roster and therefore do not independently establish his personal work on those matters.

The four roster-only hits were Yamana Gold correspondence (2012), an NRX Pharmaceuticals legal opinion (2021), 1847432 Alberta correspondence (2019), and a Chubb credit-agreement exhibit (2005). The remaining four exact hits were separately resolved to Graham Holdings/Weymouth executor reporting (#13189), Citigroup/WorldCom counsel (#13245), Dynegy/Citigroup counsel (#13246), and Credit Suisse’s Archegos report (#13115). This classification prevents a common EDGAR false-positive: a lawyer’s presence in a firm-wide letterhead list is not proof of engagement.