It has come to light that the late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein scheduled meetings with some of former President Donald Trump‘s top donors in 2016, in a possible attempt to worm his way back into the elites’ good graces following his sex crimes conviction via Daily Mail.
During the summer of 2016, Epstein scheduled lunches with Peter Thiel and Thomas Barrack, both prominent Trump supporters, according to documents reported by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Epstein also invited Thiel and Barrack to separate meetings with Vitaly Churkin, then Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, and scheduled a total of eight meetings with Churkin between 2015 and the diplomat’s 2017 death of a heart attack.
The purpose of the scheduled meetings is unclear, but Epstein had a history of cozying up to powerful figures through intermediate relationships, and at the time was trying to restore his reputation after a 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida.
Epstein passed away behind bars in 2019. It was ruled a suicide, as he awaited trial on federal charges for sex trafficking of minors.
The documents reported by the Journal don’t make any mention of meetings or conversations between Epstein and Trump, or with his 2016 presidential election opponent Hillary Clinton or her husband.
Epstein had been friendly with Trump, as well as Bill Clinton, in the 1990s, but had a falling out with Trump prior to the financer’s 2008 conviction.
‘None of these people were Trump campaign officials, and in fact President Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago,’ a Trump spokesman said of the 2016 meetings.
When Epstein was arrested on federal charges in 2019, Trump said he’d had a falling out with him long prior, saying: ‘I don’t think I’ve spoken to him in 15 years. I wasn’t a fan.’
Thiel told the Journal his October 2016 meeting with Epstein and Churkin featured ‘nothing memorable.’
‘I was rather naïve, and I didn’t think enough about what Epstein’s agenda might have been,’ Thiel said.
