The Epstein files did not tell me much I did not already know, although I must say I was astonished at the low-brow water-cooler gossip from people who have high-brow jobs. Why certain high-profile people wasted time typing anything to Epstein, let alone wondering such unlikely things as, for example, if Donald Trump has a cocaine habit, is beyond me. (Trump famously disapproves of drugs and alcohol because of the early tragic demise of his brother, Fred).
But I was intrigued to read of Epstein’s seeming obsession with Trump - a man whose character and psychology he claimed to know well - and yet to whom he had no access after 2004. Instead, Epstein appears to have relied on Steve Bannon and Trump’s biographer, Michael Wolff, for any inside information on what was going on in the Trump White House. (Predictably, he parlayed this “inside knowledge” to the Russians and presumably anyone else he thought he could sucker into paying him.)
But why did Epstein remain so obsessed with Trump for years after their relationship was over?
That’s the question that nagged me while reading these emails in which Epstein and his friend group discusses Trump more than anyone - or anything - else.
And why did Epstein think it was noteworthy that Trump stayed silent - alluding to “the dog that hasn’t barked” - when Virginia Roberts Giuffre started talking to the media in 2011? Why did that stand out, also, to Ghislaine Maxwell at the time?
We know Trump and Epstein fell out around 2004 and that Epstein was livid that Trump acquired a mansion outside of Palm Beach at auction, outbidding Epstein after Epstein had told Trump he wanted to buy it for himself. I’ve reported before that Epstein believed something shady had gone down because he didn’t think Trump had the $45 million he paid for the house. So, where, he wondered, had the money come from? Despite the absence of any actual hard evidence, Epstein suspected all was not above board and he told Michael Wolff (who told me in an interview here) that he threatened to expose Trump (to whom and for what, it’s not clear to me) - and in return….well, in return, Epstein believed Trump ratted Epstein out to the Palm Beach police.
Just two weeks after the mansion sale, someone tipped of local Police Chief Michael Reiter that girls were seen going in and out of Epstein’s house, according to The Washington Post.
Trump subsequently sold the mansion to the Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev in 2008 for a whopping $95 million.
I had not really given Epstein’s convoluted allegations much thought or credence. Not least because, apart from the house purchase and sale, there are few verifiable facts underlying any of it. And because Epstein was a superb liar.
But last night I read the email Epstein apparently wrote to himself in early January 2019, a time when the net around him was starting to tighten in the wake of Julie K. Brown’s fantastic reporting about his sex crimes in The Miami Herald. He forwarded it on to Michael Wolff saying: “have fun”.
In it he appears to be accusing Trump of tax evasion and/or money laundering (again, with no actual evidence for either).Trump has never talked publicly about the house sale, or gone into any detail as to what caused the rift, only mentioning that he kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago.
But why, I wondered was Epstein so squarely focused on an acquisition and sale that Trump did fifteen years previously at a time when Epstein ought, surely, to be hunkering down with his lawyers and be focusing on matters rather closer to home.
Based on these emails, I am beginning to seriously believe that Epstein seriously believed that Trump was the original source of all his legal problems. Which would explain his lasting obsession with the guy.
But if Trump was the person who tipped off Palm Beach police about Epstein, it puts Trump squarely on the right side of history.
And it does not explain why Trump does not want us to see what’s inside the files.
That remains a head-scratcher.
