A newly released email from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case files reveals that the deceased financier boasted about giving Russian government officials instructions on how to deal with President Donald Trump.
The email, reported on by Politico, was sent by Epstein to former Council of Europe Secretary General and former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjorn Jagland in 2018, just a month before Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for their infamous summit in Helsinki.
“I think you might suggest to putin that lavrov can get insight on talking to me,” said Epstein in the email, referring to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Epstein then commented he had spoken with former Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin about how to deal with the U.S. president, before Churkin's death in 2017.
“Churkin was great,” wrote Epstein. “He understood trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something its that simple.”
This comes as Democrats release other new emails from the Epstein case files, including one in which Epstein told co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell that Trump was fully aware of his sex trafficking of underage girls but was "the dog that hasn't barked" to the authorities about it. Maxwell was recently upgraded to a luxury federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, against Bureau of Prisons policy, after giving an interview to the Trump Justice Department's second-in-command, Todd Blanche, in which she denied Trump had any involvement with Epstein's trafficking operation.
It also comes as a bipartisan discharge petition to compel the administration to fully release all the case files looks set to acquire the last signature it needs, with the controversially long-delayed swearing in of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ).