When Jeffrey Epstein mysteriously died in 2019, he took a lot of secrets with him involving the notorious and the semi-beloved alike. The disgraced financier was friendly with Bill Clinton, and he was chummy with another president, Donald J. Trump. As per a new report by Insider, when the latter was in the midst of his first presidential run in 2016, one of his closest advisers was reportedly very worried he’d spill some very nasty beans indeed.
Insider got their hands on a copy of Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book, Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Damned, the Notorious — Twenty Years of Columns, Essays and Reporting. (Wolff has written multiple bestsellers about Trump, including Fire and Fury and Siege: Trump Under Fire.) His latest book alleges that Epstein was sure he could bargain himself out of criminal charges by turning over intel on both Clinton and Trump. He even believed, Wolff says, that investigators were specifically targeting him because of his ties to the now-former presidents.
As per Wolff’s book:
“The White House, through the Justice Department, was looking to press a longtime Republican obsession, and Trump ace-in-the-hole, and get Epstein to flip and reveal the sex secrets of Bill Clinton. Trump, if he was obsessed with Clinton, which he was, was also obsessed with what Epstein knew about Clinton.'”
But Trump wasn’t the only one worried about Epstein’s potentially loose lips. Wolff claims Steve Bannon, then the former president’s chief strategist, “repeatedly” called Epstein up. Wolff even personally witnessed one call that took place shortly before Epstein’s arrest during a press visit. (Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was also there, he says.)
“You were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign,” Bannon told Epstein, Wolff claims. “As well you should have been.”
So what does that mean? Did Epstein have real, damning dirt on Trump? Or was Bannon just being paranoid? And, perhaps more importantly, if whatever Epstein knew about Trump came out, would it at all matter to his loyal supporters, who have stuck by him through thick and thin, even after he seemed to mock their gullibility by claiming, rightly, that he could “shoot somebody” on Fifth Avenue in New York City and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” You never know, but probably not.
(Via Insider)