Author Michael Wolff reveals new details of Trump-Epstein friendship

As scrutiny of Donald Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein continues, new information is coming to light.

Michael Wolff, the author of four bestselling books about Trump, began recording hundreds of interviews with the financier five years before Epstein’s death in 2019 and attended private events at his New York apartment.

For years, no publisher dared to touch these recordings. Wolff claims the recordings total nearly 100 hours, divided into about 30 sessions.

Wolff, who has released only a small portion of the recordings to date, told The Telegraph that Trump and Epstein were once even closer than previously thought.

In a 2002 profile published in New York Magazine, Trump described Epstein as a “terrific guy,” adding, “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

In audio files previously released on Wolff’s Fire and Fury podcast, Epstein stated he had been Trump’s “best friend” for 10 years. Wolff also mentioned that Trump’s nickname for Epstein was “Jeffy.”

“From 1988/89 to 2004, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump were best friends,” said the 71-year-old Wolff, speaking by phone from his home in the Hamptons. He continued:

“These were men of the 80s, coming from an era where money forgave everything and everyone idolized anyone with money. Having money gave you extraordinary privilege. These were the last days of being a playboy. They had money, they had planes, they completely disregarded middle-class rules. […]

They had the same interests. They did the same things, attended the same activities, and often pursued the same women. Someone called me the other day and said, ‘You don’t mean to say Trump was interested in little girls, do you?’ I said, ‘no… but both of them [Trump and Epstein] were obsessed with models.’

They founded modeling agencies, they invested in modeling agencies. Trump has his beauty pageants, Epstein had his Victoria’s Secret business [Epstein was an advisor to Victoria’s Secret boss Les Wexner].”

Wolff says the center of their friendship was Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein and Trump were neighbors.

Indecent photos of Trump at Epstein’s pool may be in the FBI’s possession

“There were a dozen Polaroid photos of Trump around Epstein’s swimming pool,” Wolff recalls. He claims these photos were stored in Epstein’s safe and were seized by the FBI during raids on his New York and Palm Beach homes in July 2019.

“I remember three very clearly,” the author says. “In two photos, topless girls were sitting on Trump’s lap, and in another, there was a stain on the front of Trump’s [trousers], and three or five topless girls were pointing at it and laughing. These men complemented each other. Epstein is the best window into understanding Trump.”

After decades of friendship, Trump and Epstein had a falling out in 2004 over a real estate deal that Wolff describes as “acrimonious.” They were estranged during the time of Epstein’s alleged crimes on Little St. James, known as “Epstein Island,” in the US Virgin Islands.

Following this, the first accusations against Epstein began to surface, and in 2008, he was sentenced to 13 months in prison for soliciting prostitution.

In 2014, Epstein approached Wolff, a columnist for Vanity Fair magazine and a highly respected journalist in New York, with an offer to write a book about him.

At the time, Wolff had just begun writing about Trump, and this work would form the basis of his first book about the president’s time in the White House, Fire and Fury.

“Epstein said, ‘You can ask me anything, I have nothing to hide, you can decide for yourself if I’m being honest’,” Wolff recalls. After a few “quite interesting” conversations, Wolff began attending events hosted by Epstein at his Upper East Side mansion, considered one of New York’s largest private residences.

“It was quite extraordinary. The people there were incredible. From Bill Gates to [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Barak and Larry Summers, they came one after another,” Wolff remembers.

Wolff states that Epstein held these meetings at his dining table, with people coming and going from early morning until late at night. He noted that “women were very few” and there was a “men’s club atmosphere.” “But frankly, it was impossible to resist that environment, and I must admit I had a good time. The topics were foreign policy and economics. The girls were never discussed; that subject never came up,” he claims.

‘MAGA’ ideologue Bannon was also friends with Epstein

Wolff emphasizes that it was “very surprising” when Epstein began talking about his relationship with Trump in 2015, as Trump was launching his presidential bid. He says that by 2017, Epstein had become friends with Steve Bannon, and the two constantly talked about Trump.

Steve Bannon is one of the “ideologues” of the Trumpist coalition known as “Make America Great Again” (MAGA).

In his 2020 article, Jeffrey Epstein’s Last Days, Wolff details the animosity between Epstein and Trump. Epstein described Trump as a “moron” and used derogatory terms regarding his leadership style.

Following the dispute over the real estate deal, Wolff says Epstein began to believe that Trump, who had close ties to law enforcement in Florida, was the one who informed on him before he was jailed for soliciting prostitution in 2008.

In the same article, Wolff recounts Bannon telling Epstein that the “only person” Trump feared during his first presidential campaign was Epstein, implying Bannon believed the financier knew dangerous secrets about Trump.

Epstein reportedly replied, “He should be.” Epstein was arrested during Trump’s first presidency.

The Department of Justice to meet with Epstein’s partner, Maxwell

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is making arrangements to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for child trafficking and other crimes connected to her long-time partner.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Tuesday that they would sit down with Maxwell in the coming days to hear her testimony about who else might have been involved in Epstein’s crimes.

Trump also said on Tuesday that he was not consulted in advance about reaching out to Maxwell but argued that the move “would be an appropriate thing.”

Before her criminal trial, Maxwell had testified in two civil lawsuits stemming from allegations of her role in Epstein’s crimes, where she vehemently denied the existence of a criminal enterprise or a large-scale sex trafficking operation. The Department of Justice charged her with perjury for these statements.

Father Maxwell was alleged to be a Mossad agent

Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, media mogul Robert Maxwell, was accused of being a Mossad agent. A good friend of Israel throughout his life, the elder Maxwell made significant investments in the country’s publishing, pharmaceutical, and computer companies.

Speculation that he was an Israeli spy was reignited after his death when he was given a near-state funeral in Israel, attended by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and President Chaim Herzog, and buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Conspiracy theorists claim that Mossad killed him because Israel had refused to grant him a loan, and he had threatened to retaliate.