Five months before his arrest, Jeffrey Epstein wrote an email that explains everything.
"sasse was told im a witness against trump. ? others were told I m a witness against clinton. credibilitiy needs destroying, . unlikely . :)"1
One sentence. Two targets. A smiley face at the end.
Senator Ben Sasse had just sent a letter demanding the Justice Department investigate Epstein's sweetheart plea deal. Pressure was building from both parties. And Epstein, writing to billionaire Tom Pritzker on February 9, 2019, laid out his operating system in plain text: he was a weapon pointed in two directions simultaneously, and the play was to make sure neither side could use him without getting cut.
This wasn't panic. It was strategy. And the documents show he'd been running it for years.
The Wolff Memo
Three years earlier — March 18, 2016 — journalist Michael Wolff sent Epstein a strategy document that reads like a political consulting pitch. James Patterson's Filthy Rich was about to publish. Wolff's advice was explicit:
"I believe Trump offers an ideal opportunity. It's a chance to make the story about something other than you, while, at the same time, letting you frame your own story. Also, becoming an anti-Trump voice gives you a certain political cover which you decidedly don't have now."2
Read that again. Wolff — who would shortly embed himself in the Trump White House to write Fire and Fury — was advising a convicted sex offender to weaponize the Trump connection as a shield. Become an anti-Trump voice. Get political cover. Make the story about someone else.
But Wolff also saw the danger of the same weapon:
"Because this will be tied to the election, the Trump-Clinton angle will amp up the attention 10-fold, in fact, possibly, a hundred fold. Possibly more than anything you've encountered before."2
Wolff understood the double-edged geometry. Epstein's name was tangled with both Trump and Clinton. Any story about one would drag in the other. And that made Epstein simultaneously useful and dangerous to both sides — a position he intended to occupy permanently.
The Cleanup
Two days after Trump won the presidency, Epstein moved to protect the connection.
On November 10, 2016, he emailed Reid Hoffman a link to a Daily Mail article with a single word in the headline that did all the work: FABRICATED.3
The article was about the Katie Johnson lawsuit — the woman who accused Trump and Epstein of raping her at a party in 1994 when she was 13. The suit had been filed and withdrawn multiple times. The Daily Mail reported the story was fabricated.
Epstein sent it to Hoffman without comment. Just the link. Just the word FABRICATED in the URL, all caps, doing its job.
The same day, Epstein sent Hoffman a second message:
"lots to do. . . dont be worried - half of the stuff he said was only to get elected. you;ll see"4
A convicted sex offender reassuring a Silicon Valley billionaire that the new president wasn't really as bad as he seemed. The subtext: I know this man. I can interpret him for you. Stay close.
So within 48 hours of the election, Epstein was doing two things at once: debunking accusations that linked him to Trump (the FABRICATED email) and leveraging the Trump connection for influence (the "don't be worried" email). Protecting the asset and deploying it in a single news cycle.
The Bridge
The most vivid evidence of the double game is a single email, nine words long.
On November 14, 2017, Epstein wrote to Michael Wolff:
"you should suggest to SB that they talk to Doug Band re uranium 1"5
SB is Steve Bannon — Trump's former chief strategist. Doug Band is Bill Clinton's closest aide, the man who built the Clinton Global Initiative and managed Clinton's post-presidential life. Uranium One was the uranium mining deal that became a flashpoint of Trump-era political warfare — Republicans accused the Clinton State Department of approving the sale to Russia in exchange for donations.
And here is Jeffrey Epstein, brokering a conversation between the two camps on the most partisan issue of the moment. Trump's guy and Clinton's guy, connected by a convicted sex offender who had both their numbers.
This wasn't intelligence gathering. This was infrastructure. Epstein maintained live channels into both political operations — and he used those channels to make himself indispensable to each.
The Attorney General
Three weeks after the Bannon-Band email, the stakes escalated.
On December 6, 2018, Bannon forwarded Epstein a Power Line blog post about the Acosta plea deal coming under renewed pressure. Senators were demanding investigations. The article detailed calls for Acosta's resignation from Trump's cabinet.6
Epstein's reply — six words:
"do you know bill barr. CIA."6
William Barr had just been nominated as Trump's Attorney General. He would oversee any federal investigation into the Epstein case. And Epstein was probing his access to the man through Trump's own orbit.
The "CIA" notation hangs in the air. Barr's father, Donald Barr, hired a young Epstein to teach at the Dalton School. William Barr served as CIA general counsel. Whether Epstein was flagging the intelligence connection or something else, the intent was naked: he wanted a line to the incoming AG.
Seven months later, Epstein was arrested. He died in federal custody under William Barr's Department of Justice.
The Pattern
Zoom out and the architecture becomes clear.
Epstein didn't pick a side. He picked both sides, and he built infrastructure to make sure neither camp could afford to cut him loose. To the Clinton world, he was connected to Trump — useful as a source, dangerous as a witness. To the Trump world, he was connected to Clinton — useful as a broker, dangerous as a liability.
His media strategist told him to become an anti-Trump voice for "political cover." He circulated articles debunking accusations against Trump to protect the relationship. He brokered between Bannon and Doug Band. He probed for access to the incoming Attorney General. He told people in one camp he was a witness against the other.
Every move had a mirror image. Every connection served two functions: leverage and shield.
And when Sasse started pushing, when the walls began closing, Epstein's response wasn't to run. It was to attack credibility — in both directions. "Credibilitiy needs destroying." Not one side's credibility. Everyone's. Because if nobody's accusations are credible, nobody's accusations stick.
The smiley face at the end of that Pritzker email isn't casual. It's the tell. Epstein wasn't worried about being caught between two political machines. He was counting on it. The space between Trump and Clinton was exactly where he wanted to be — because it was the one place where nobody could touch him without getting splashed.
Until July 6, 2019, when federal agents met him at Teterboro Airport and the game ended for good.
This article draws on the Trump in the Epstein Documents research dossier. Previous in this series: The Speakerphone Call, Recruited at Mar-a-Lago, Innocent Bystanders, Your Pal Donald, One Victim, One Refusal.
Sources & Documents
- EFTA01030036 — Jeffrey Epstein to Tom Pritzker, February 9, 2019. "Witness against trump / witness against clinton." View →
- EFTA00831392 — Michael Wolff to Jeffrey Epstein, March 18, 2016. Strategy memo re: Patterson book, Trump as "political cover." View →
- EFTA02670013 — Jeffrey Epstein to Reid Hoffman, November 10, 2016. Link to Daily Mail article re: "FABRICATED" Katie Johnson accusations. View →
- EFTA02669934 — Jeffrey Epstein to Reid Hoffman, November 10, 2016. "Don't be worried — half of the stuff he said was only to get elected." View →
- EFTA02568165 — Jeffrey Epstein to Michael Wolff, November 14, 2017. Brokering Bannon–Doug Band connection on Uranium One. View →
- EFTA01014138 — Jeffrey Epstein to Steve Bannon, December 6, 2018. "Do you know bill barr. CIA." Response to Power Line article on Acosta plea deal. View →
