WSJ: How Jeffrey Epstein Tried to Tap Into Trump’s Circle...with a RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT in 2016...

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How Jeffrey Epstein Tried to Tap Into Trump’s Circle

Before the 2016 election, the convicted sex offender invited Trump campaign backers Peter Thiel and Thomas Barrack to meetings with a Russian diplomat.
www.wsj.com www.wsj.com

How Jeffrey Epstein Tried to Tap Into Trump’s Circle​

Before 2016 election, the convicted sex offender invited Trump campaign backers Peter Thiel and Thomas Barrack to meetings with Russian diplomat​

By Khadeeja Safdar

and David Benoit

Aug. 30, 2023 at 5:30 am ET
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During the 2016 presidential campaign, Jeffrey Epstein began setting up meetings with people close to Donald Trump. He introduced some of them to another of his associates, a top Russian diplomat.

Although Trump was a sizable underdog to Hillary Clinton, Epstein began saying in 2016 that he thought Trump could win, and the convicted sex offender bragged about how many people in Trump’s orbit he knew, according to people he met with at the time.

Epstein scheduled lunches with venture capitalist Peter Thiel and real-estate investor Thomas Barrack in 2016, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. At the time, both were high-profile financial backers of Trump’s campaign.

Epstein invited Thiel and Barrack to separate meetings with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations. Churkin, who died of an apparent heart attack in early 2017, had at least eight meetings scheduled with Epstein between 2015 and Churkin’s death, the documents show.

The documents, which include thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017, don’t make reference to any meetings or conversations between Trump and Epstein. The documents also make no mention of any scheduled meetings with Hillary Clinton or her husband, Bill Clinton.

Epstein had a history of using relationships like steppingstones to get closer to powerful people, and to try to restore his reputation in the years after he became a convicted sex offender in 2008. He had been friendly with both Trump and Bill Clinton in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The documents don’t specify Epstein’s purpose in scheduling meetings with Trump’s associates or the Russian ambassador. Even some of the people who met him in 2016 said they don’t know why he arranged the meetings when he did. Epstein died in 2019 in jail awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Thiel, who had several interactions with Epstein starting in 2014, according to the documents, said his October 2016 meeting with Epstein and Churkin featured “nothing memorable.”

“I was rather naive,” Thiel said in an interview, “and I didn’t think enough about what Epstein’s agenda might have been.” Barrack, founder of Colony Capital and a longtime Trump ally, declined to comment.

“None of these people were Trump campaign officials, and in fact President Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago,” a Trump spokesman said in a statement.

Epstein’s scheduled meetings with Churkin haven’t previously been reported. The Journal couldn’t verify whether every meeting on Epstein’s calendar took place.

Robert Mueller’s two-year special counsel investigation and a bipartisan Senate investigation found that Russia attempted to meddle in the election to benefit Trump, but neither established that anyone affiliated with Trump’s campaign knowingly conspired with those efforts.

Churkin isn’t mentioned in the Mueller or Senate reports. Russia has denied it interfered in the election. Spokesmen for Russia’s embassy in Washington and its U.N. mission didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Epstein and Trump spent time together in the 1990s and were photographed at social events. Both men have said that they subsequently had a falling out. That happened before Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008, served time in a Florida jail and registered as a sex offender.

When Epstein was arrested in 2019, Trump said he hadn’t talked to Epstein for about 15 years. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you,” Trump said at that time.
 
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Thomas Barrack, who was head of Trump’s inauguration committee, at Trump Tower in 2017. Photo: Anthony Behar/pool/Zuma Press
Epstein bragged to many people that he had ties to Trump and Bill Clinton and knew both of them well. Both Trump and Clinton took trips on Epstein’s private jet, flight records show. Contacts for both men were in the now public address book Epstein used.

In August 2016, when Trump was considered a long shot, Epstein scheduled a lunch with Barrack, then an informal adviser to Trump’s campaign and a fundraiser. Barrack would later be named the head of the inauguration committee. (Barrack was acquitted in a 2022 trial after federal prosecutors charged him with lobbying Trump on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.)

Epstein had known Barrack for years, and Barrack’s name was also in his book of contacts. Barrack’s name doesn’t show up until the summer of 2016 in the documents and schedules reviewed by the Journal. That’s when Epstein planned the lunch that included Barrack, Churkin and Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel, the documents show.

Barrack appears twice in Epstein’s schedules for that September, including for an open house planned for a large group at Epstein’s New York townhouse on a Sunday afternoon. Also on the guest list was Churkin, Barak and filmmaker Woody Allen.

Barak didn’t respond to requests for comment. He previously told the Journal that he often met Epstein on trips to New York and discussed politics with interesting people at his townhouse. A spokeswoman for Allen previously said he went to Epstein’s social events with his wife.

Russian diplomat​

Churkin had been Russia’s envoy at the U.N. since 2006. He was a top government spokesman—first for the Soviet Union and then Russia—a diplomat sent to negotiate peace accords in the Bosnian war, and a staunch defender of President Vladimir Putin at the U.N. for years.

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Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, had at least eight scheduled meetings with Epstein. Photo: DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images
During the 2016 campaign, Churkin told reporters he had twice met Trump, the first time in 1986, and that “he really impressed me.”

Epstein cultivated contacts at the U.N. and often hosted businessmen and foreign officials at his townhouse. In one 2009 email, Epstein cited a meeting with “one of putins people.” Most of the people who spoke to the Journal said they met with Epstein for reasons related to his wealth or connections.

His first scheduled meeting with Churkin shows that he was introduced to Epstein as a friend of Terje Rød-Larsen, a Norwegian diplomat who was a frequent guest at Epstein’s townhouse, the documents show. Rød-Larsen didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In September 2016, the documents show, Epstein was scheduled to meet with another old Trump acquaintance, Nicholas Ribis Sr.

Ribis had been CEO of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts in the 1990s, then later worked with Barrack’s Colony Capital. In early 2016, he was named as one of the backers of a political-action committee supporting the Trump campaign.

Epstein and Ribis were scheduled to meet several times from 2011 to 2017, the documents show. Ribis had only a passing connection and had no business relationship with Epstein, a spokesman for Ribis said.

Silicon Valley ties​

In July 2016, Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor and PayPal co-founder, spoke at the Republican National Convention that nominated Trump. That October, Epstein invited him to lunch with Churkin. Epstein’s assistant labeled it an “important lunch.”

Thiel had more than a half-dozen meetings scheduled with Epstein at his townhouse between 2014 and 2016, including with other guests such as Allen and former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, the documents show. Ruemmler has said she had a professional relationship with Epstein and regrets it.
 
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PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel speaking at the Republican National Convention in July 2016. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
For years, several Epstein acquaintances had emailed Thiel suggesting that he meet Epstein, documents show. In March 2014, fellow billionaire and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, a major donor to Democrats, emailed Thiel to introduce Epstein and arrange a meeting at Thiel’s San Francisco home.

“Meet one of the guys who invented derivatives, Jeffrey Epstein?” Hoffman wrote, echoing an inaccurate claim Epstein sometimes made. Hoffman wrote that Epstein was “mostly fun, very interesting guy, you may find him perverse, but very smart on biology, computation, macro econ.”

Hoffman said he regrets all his interactions with Epstein and that he made the introduction to help fundraise for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Epstein indicated he would be more likely to donate to MIT in collaboration with other tech leaders,” he said in an email. “In the intro, I used the claims Epstein asked me to do, including how he characterized himself. I trusted MIT’s vetting and did not do my own.”

MIT has said it was a mistake to accept gifts from Epstein and that it was “the result of collective and significant errors in judgment.”

When asked recently about the emails and other documents, Thiel said he had ignored earlier messages proposing meetings with Epstein, but agreed to meet with Epstein and Hoffman in 2014. Hoffman and Thiel had known each other since they were students at Stanford University.

Thiel said he doesn’t remember MIT ever coming up in interactions with Epstein and Hoffman, and that it is a “preposterous notion” that he would help fundraise for a university given that he created a fellowship in 2010 that pays students to skip or drop out of college.

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Venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, a major donor to Democrats, introduced Thiel to Epstein. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News
Thiel said Epstein lured him into further interactions mostly by offering introductions to other people. “He was a crazed networker and low on substance in one-on-one conversations,” he said. “It was all smoke and mirrors.”
 
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Clinton circle​

Epstein met with and donated to Democrats more often than Republicans, according to the documents and campaign donation records. The Journal has reported that his schedules included meeting several people who had served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. In his townhouse, Epstein hung a painting that depicted Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress and red heels.

In 2019, a spokesman for Bill Clinton said the former president had cut off ties more than a decade before and didn’t know about Epstein’s alleged crimes. The spokesman said then that Bill Clinton took four flights on Epstein’s plane and once visited the townhouse, each time with his Secret Service team and for reasons related to the Clinton Foundation’s work. The spokesman declined to comment for this article.

Public records show Epstein donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 campaign for the Senate, and tax records indicate he donated $25,000 in 2006 to what is now the Clinton family’s global philanthropic foundation. A spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton declined to comment.

After his conviction, Epstein maintained connections with some former members of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, including Lawrence Summers, who served as Treasury secretary, and Bill Richardson, who served as energy secretary. He also met with Clinton alumni leaving the Obama administration, including Ruemmler and the current head of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns.

Summers has said he regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction. A spokeswoman for the CIA said Burns, who was then in the State Department, didn’t know anything about Epstein other than he was billed as a financial expert.

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Epstein maintained connections with some former members of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, including Bill Richardson, left, who served as energy secretary. Photo: STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP/Getty Images
Epstein planned a dinner with Richardson, who had endorsed Hillary Clinton, at his townhouse in September 2016, the documents show. The former New Mexico governor said he didn’t meet with Epstein in 2016 and that he doesn’t know why he appears in the schedules. He said he gave to charity a 2006 donation that Epstein made to his gubernatorial campaign.

2016 election​

Early on Nov. 9, 2016, Trump was declared the election’s winner. Epstein told associates he was pleased with Trump’s win, boasting that he knew several potential cabinet members.

In the weeks that followed, Epstein planned more meetings with Churkin and with Churkin’s son Max Churkin, then a business-school student in New York. Max Churkin later went to work at one of Russia’s largest banks, Sberbank, according to his LinkedIn profile. Max Churkin and officials at Sberbank didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In January 2017, Epstein’s assistant forwarded Epstein a message from Max Churkin that read: “Would like to ask you to let Jeffrey know that I am back in NYC and at his disposal.” They were scheduled to meet two days later.

Epstein had his final scheduled meeting with Vitaly Churkin on Jan. 10, 2017. The following month, the diplomat died on the eve of his 65th birthday. The New York City Fire Department said it responded to a report of a cardiac condition, but later autopsy results were kept private because of his diplomatic status. Trump, by then the president, issued a White House statement saying he was saddened by the news and praising Churkin as an accomplished diplomat.

Three days after Churkin’s death, Epstein sent an email to Thiel: “as you read my russian ambassador friend died. life is short, start with dessert.”

Write to Khadeeja Safdar at khadeeja.safdar@wsj.com and David Benoit at David.Benoit@wsj.com
 
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BigMoneyGrip said:
Jack Smith will revisit what Mueller failed to do once he get these trump convictions :mjgrin:
Click to expand...
speaking of which...

Former NM Gov Richards allegedly took bribes to fund 'sexual services'

Epstein accuser says she was told to have sex with Gov. Richardson

www.inquirer.com

Jeffrey Epstein sent girl to governor and senator for sex, she testified

Virginia Giuffre, now an adult, testified in court documents that were made public for the first time Friday.
www.inquirer.com www.inquirer.com

Theres a lot more of this story to come out...Bill Richardson died today...

www.usatoday.com

Bill Richardson, former New Mexico governor who freed hostages, is dead at 75

Bill Richardson, a veteran ambassador and diplomat, has died. He was a former congressman, governor, Energy secretary and 2008 presidential candidate.
www.usatoday.com www.usatoday.com





:patrice:
 
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