Was Jeffrey Epstein involved in a plot to tie the 2016 Trump campaign to Russia?
A disturbing new report in the Wall Street Journal reveals that LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman introduced Trump's inner circle to Jeffrey Epstein, who then introduced them to a 'top Russian diplomat.'
As a reminder, Hoffman;
- Bankrolled an online disinformation hoax against Roy Moore, conducted by a former Obama administration official - who also created the "Hamilton 68" propaganda website purporting to track Russian bots. Hoffman later apologized when caught.
- Bankrolled Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll.
- Gave $600,000 to a legal defense fund for Fusion GPS - the opposition research firm which prepared documents for the infamous 'Trump Tower' setup meeting with Don. Jr. and facilitated the Hillary Clinton-funded Steele Dossier.
- Was a major Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2016 US election.
According to the Journal, Hoffman emailed people in Trump's orbit to introduce them to Epstein, who then invited one of them - Peter Thiel - to meet with Russia's ambassador to the UN!
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 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. -WSJ
So, Epstein - pal to the Democrats and a prolific pedophile, had extensive dealings with a Russian diplomat that he tried to connect with Trump's inner circle?
The report also notes that "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," and "don’t specify Epstein’s purpose in scheduling meetings with Trump’s associates or the Russian ambassador."
Notably, these Epstein-Russia meetings happened when the Russiagate hoax was in full swing with the FBI's involvement.
Yet, according to Thiel, the October 2016 meeting with Epstein and Churkin featured "nothing memorable."
"I was rather naive," Thiel told the outlet, "and I didn’t think enough about what Epstein’s agenda might have been."
Meanwhile, a Trump campaign spokesman said: "None of these people were Trump campaign officials, and in fact President Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago."
As the Journal further notes:
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.
Which begs the question, was Epstein just another prong in the Democrats' attempts to tie Trump to Russia in 2016?
