It doesn't matter if he literally asked or not. Anti-corruption laws are much more concerned with the appearance of impropriety than they are with the actual tu

It doesn't matter if he literally asked or not. Anti-corruption laws are much more concerned with the appearance of impropriety than they are with the actual turn off events. That is to say, they err on the side of caution. Anything that could have come about through abuse of the professional relationship is verboten, even if it was "happenstance". Simply put, disregarding all of the other issues, given the prior relationship between Ito and Epstein for the MIT Media Lab donations, there was no legitimate path for Epstein to invest in any private venture of Ito's.