Financial and political information?Of course. But Bold Face Names wanted more from the disgraced sex offender and former Trump friend.
Biggest takeaways from Epstein’s emails and references to Trump
Josh Meyer, USA TODAY’s domestic security correspondent, investigated thousands of Epstein emails. Here are the biggest takeaways about President Trump:
WASHINGTON – Emails arrived day and night from the world’s rich and powerful people. They all sought advice from disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, especially after their former friend Donald Trump became president.
That’s certainly political advice. And, of course, to take advantage of Epstein’s much-touted — albeit opaque — financial acumen.
But that wasn’t the only bold name Epstein was asked for, and that wasn’t the only thing he gave in response, according to a USA TODAY review of bombshell revelations contained in more than 20,000 pages of Epstein’s emails released by the House Oversight Committee on Nov. 12.
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in April 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
“Who’s going to do your colonoscopy?” asked friend and author Michael Wolff on May 30, 2017, after Epstein canceled a breakfast meeting in Manhattan because he was undergoing surgery. At the time, Wolff was writing a book about President Trump’s 2016 campaign and rise to the White House.
On May 8, 2017, Jonathan Farkas, a department store heir and husband of President Trump’s ambassador to Malta, asked Epstein what he thought about a woman he was dating who was not his wife.
“Please note that she cannot be trusted in ALLL,” Epstein said in one of his typically cryptic, typo-filled, short-sighted responses.
“Two-timer?” asked Farkas?
“It’s worse,” Epstein said.
“Jeffrey, please help me. She’s a prostitute,” Farkas asked.
Epstein’s response: “Alcohol, drugs, unstable, terrible liar. Be careful.”
As a side note to the conversation, Farkas said his wife, Summers, was “appointed by Trump” to a White House committee “because she bundled it,” likely referring to raising money for Trump’s campaign.
“Being irritated shows compassion, and not whining shows strength.”
Mr. Epstein regularly joked with Lawrence Summers (whom he called Larry), a former president of Harvard University and secretary of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton. One of their favorite topics was Trump and his transition from real estate mogul to candidate to president.
“How plausible is the idea that Trump is a real cocaine user?” Summers asked Epstein on October 2, 2016.
“Zero!” Epstein replied. “Would you like to have dinner with the Rothschilds in New York? Thursday, Woody?”
The identity of Rothschild or any of the Rothschild bankers was never revealed. The Woody was almost the same Woody mentioned elsewhere in the email. Woody Johnson, billionaire businessman, prominent Trump campaign fundraiser, and owner of the New York Jets. (Mr. Trump appointed Johnson as ambassador to the UK during his first term.)
But Ms. Summers also sought relationship advice from Mr. Epstein. Epstein was arrested in 2006 on charges of sex trafficking with underage girls and was back in the news thanks to the Miami Herald’s shocking investigative series. So was the surprisingly lenient 2008 plea deal Epstein made with a prosecutor named Alex Acosta, who was a member of the Trump administration as labor secretary at the time he sent the emails.
In a March 16, 2019 email, Summers complained that an unidentified woman he was dating had feelings for another man.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ She said, ‘I’m busy.’ I said that I’m very shy,” Summers wrote to Epstein, saying the woman had thrown away her weekend plans in favor of “guy number three.”
“I said, okay, call me when you feel like it. It didn’t sound very nice,” Summers added. “Even though we are friends without benefits, we don’t want to participate in gift-giving contests.”
Epstein responded a few minutes later with a letter praising Summers’ response.
“She is smart. She will make people pay for their past mistakes,” Epstein wrote. “I’m going to ignore Dad and go out with the biker guys. You responded well. Being irritated shows you care. Whining shows strength.”
When Summers emailed another woman the previous November to say he was going on radio silence, Epstein replied, “She’s already starting to look needy 🙂 Nice.”
(The period at the end of Epstein’s quote at the end of the sentence was added by USA TODAY. Epstein wasted no time in ending most sentences with a period.)
“Thank you a million times, Jeffrey.”
Why all of these bigwigs, mostly men but also women, assumed that Mr. Epstein would give them insight into what was in their minds was revealed virtually never.
Epstein had no college degree. His first job was as a mathematics and physics teacher at Manhattan’s elite Dalton School.
Despite his unconventional start, with no transparent or easily explained path to wealth, Epstein emerged as a globetrotting fixer, spending his time between luxury homes, private jets, and Caribbean islands. His financial empire was opaque and appears to have been built primarily on connections, secrecy, and perceived influence.
Often, they went back and forth on the day’s headlines, especially when it came to Trump. In some cases, they implied or outright asked for money.
“Larry said that you and a friend would like to contribute to my project (Hallelujah, and thank you a million times, Jeffrey) and that I should… write a proposal asking for 500,000,” Summers’ wife Lisa New wrote in an Oct. 27, 2014 email.
New, a professor of American literature at Harvard University, wanted to do “post-production and distribution of the entire historical period of American poetry” from 1914 to 1945, including three television episodes of the PBS series “Poetry in America.”
Mr. New also gave Mr. Epstein literary advice.
On November 25, 2018, she recommended Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” about a married academic in his 30s and his sexual obsession with a 12-year-old girl.
And in light of Epstein’s legal problems, she said without a trace of irony: my antonia by (Willa) Cather, next time you take a long trip on a plane. ”
“The prose is excellent, and the book has a similar theme to ‘Lolita,’ in that, if you think about it, it’s a story about a man whose entire life is forever marked by the impressions of a young girl,” she wrote.
After Epstein’s legal troubles became public, his private plane, which transported VIPs and young girls to his private islands and other strongholds, was nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”
“Trump is really stupid.”
Kathryn Lemmler, the Obama administration’s White House counsel who famously brought down energy giant Enron as the Justice Department’s star prosecutor, often spoke with Epstein about Trump.
“Trump is really stupid,” Ruemmler wrote in a July 21, 2017 email. In another, she said he was “so disgusting.”
In an email to Ruemmler, Epstein downplayed Trump’s wealth, saying, “Donald doesn’t actually own much. He just lends his name.”
In another document, Epstein wrote to Ruemmler, “I know how dirty Donald is.” This was in response to one of many news articles the two shared, an August 2018 New York Times column about President Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Epstein also liked to introduce various friends and acquaintances to each other as part of a relentless campaign to cultivate relationships with the rich, powerful, and simply famous.
It was in this spirit that Epstein introduced Wolf to one of his former defense attorneys, Kenneth Starr, and asked him to help with the investigation. Mr. Starr was an independent attorney who led the exhaustive “Whitewater” investigation into Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s.
“Thank you Mr. Jeffrey and I am happy to be in your orbit. I look forward to our conversation,” Mr. Starr wrote to Mr. Wolf in an email he shared with Mr. Epstein.
“A chance to step forward”
Many of those who contacted Epstein hoped to profit from their conversations, but some, like Wolf, offered to help the disgraced investor in return.
Wolf emailed Epstein on Oct. 29, 2016, just before Election Day, saying, “I have an opportunity this week to come forward and talk about Mr. Trump in a way that will garner your great sympathy and end him.” “Interested?”
There is no indication in the email that Epstein responded or complied with Wolff’s request.
transparent notebook:
Michael Wolff was a freelance USA TODAY contributor from 2012 to early 2017. USA TODAY had no knowledge of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or any of his activities beyond his publication submissions. We value integrity and transparency in order to uphold our editorial standards and maintain the trust of our readers.
