Jeffrey Epstein attempted to work his way into Donald Trump’s inner circle during the 2016 presidential election, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died in a New York jail cell in 2019. His death was ruled to have been by suicide. The jail facility, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, was later closed.
From the archives (June 2023): Jeffrey Epstein’s final days: Secret phone calls and last-minute will changes
Also see (June 2023): Records shed new light on Jeffrey Epstein’s jail suicide and frantic aftermath
Epstein arranged for at least two wealthy Trump backers — billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel and real-estate investor Thomas Barrack — to meet with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., the report revealed, citing sources characterized as familiar with Trump as well as documents.
Thiel told the Journal that the meeting with Churkin resulted in “nothing memorable” and that he had been naive about Epstein as a financier and influence peddler. “I didn’t think enough about what Epstein’s agenda might have been,” Thiel is quoted as having said. Barrack declined to comment to the Journal.
A Trump representative reportedly told the Journal that none of the people Epstein reached out to were Trump campaign officials and that Trump had banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach, Fla., membership club at which Trump resides.
The two socialized together in the 1990s but had a falling out after that, it has been widely reported.
Epstein was awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges at the time of his death.
He is the subject of two ongoing legal actions: a lawsuit by the U.S. Virgin Islands against JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPM,
for allegedly facilitating Epstein’s operations and a separate suit by JPMorgan against Jes Staley, a former bank executive who worked with Epstein.
Barrack, whose speech at the 2016 nominating convention was received as an endorsement of then-candidate Trump’s personal character, was acquitted in November of having acting as an unregistered agent for the United Arab Emirates and leaking U.S. intelligence to that emerging Gulf power.
The German-born Thiel, who did not publicly support Trump’s failed re-election bid in 2020, chairs the board at Palantir Technologies Inc.
PLTR,
which he co-founded. He first came to wide public attention as a co-founder, with Elon Musk and others, of PayPal, of which Thiel was CEO.
Also read: Leon Black refused to answer questions about his financial dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, Senate committee says as it unveils tax probe
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