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Author Michael Wolff called Jeffrey Epstein a “good friend” and acted as his advisor and PR guru for eight years, emails between them show.
Over 1,200 exchanges between the pedophile financer and Wolff have been released by the Department of Justice, spanning from 2010 up to seven weeks before Epstein’s 2019 arrest on sex trafficking charges.
Within them a picture of Wolff, 72, emerges which goes far beyond him cultivating a source, as he has long claimed.
Wolff first arranges to meet with the then-convicted sex offender in January 2010. A year later he wrote to say he had “been defending you to the world’s press — my pleasure, of course.”
The sucking up continued in July 2011 when Wolff signed up for what was called “The Project” — an attempt to rehabilitate Epstein’s public persona.
He wrote: “I’d personally have a sense of satisfaction in both helping you out and, in addition, figuring out the process here and striking a blow for reason and sense. It’s a kind of journalistic effort in reverse. Also, I think we’d enjoy working together.”
Epstein, who died in jail while awaiting trial in 2009, had at that point introduced Wolff to Ian Osbourne, a British publicist also working to rehabilitate his image.
Together the three men hatched a plan for Wolff to write a book and a potential accompanying documentary, neither of which ever materialized.
An insider told The Post, “They were constantly trying to find things [on how to cleanse Epstein’s reputation]. Basically, these guys were two grifters.”
Asked if Wolff would have received payment for the advice he offered Epstein, the insider replied, “I don’t know that Epstein would give him cash. But he did give him cachet.”
When Epstein’s lawyer received an interview request from a reporter who described themselves as being with the “ABC News investigative unit,” Wolff advised poo-pooing it.
“ABC doesn’t really have an investigative unit,” he wrote back. “So unless you want to hand it to them they won’t pursue, so ignore.”
In regard to an editor named Tina – Tina Brown told The Post it was “very” likely her – the ever-ready Wolff wrote, “Let me think about Tina … She seems to have it in for you. There are lots of ways to neutralize her.”
Asked what she makes of that, Brown told The Post, “That is so creepy. I was certainly hostile to Epstein and wanted nothing to do with him. I have no idea what Wolff imagined he could do to ‘neutralize’ me.
“Astonishing that Wolff was serving as his consigliere! You should ask Wolff what he meant by all the mafioso innuendo.”
Wolff did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. In an article titled “Michael Wolff’s Unsatisfying Explanation for Cozying Up to Epstein” in The Atlantic, he previously claimed: “You ingratiate yourself so that people – your subject – will talk to you.”
In 2013 he wrote to Epstein — by then well known for enjoying erotic massages from young girls — to introduce a candidate to become his assistant.
Wolff wrote, “I know Victoria mentioned to you that my good friend Jeffrey Epstein is looking for an assistant. So let me introduce the two of you.” The name and email of the person being recommended are both redacted in the version released by the DoJ.
In 2015, as Epstein is panicking about a story written about him, Wolff advises, “I’d go with stressing that these are unidentified complainants and a dubious lawyer making these allegations.
“On my part, this press wave is an opportunity for me to deal with the whole business in a larger context, casting you as a victim of media, zeitgeist, and ambulance-chasing lawyers.”
The emails also feature a long back-and-forth over a story Wolff wrote for New York Magazine, of which Wolff eventually offered “we can still bail on the whole project,” which Epstein asked him to do. The magazine never published it.
Another boundary-blurring exchange happened in November2016 when Wolff told Epstein, via email, “I have a bit of an idea for you… re media and Saudi friends.”
A month later he added: “I have been thinking about this Saudi thing. It is really the ultimate change-the-narrative gift. It instantly redefines you — in kind of a mind-boggling way.”
As generous as Wolff may have been with tips on managing the media, it was a two-way street.
In a March 2016 email, with the subject-line of “Trump,” referring to the then-President, Wolff wrote, “I’m interviewing him this afternoon. Anything you think I should ask?”
Epstein replied, “Do you want to be provocative?” Then reeled off potential questions involving the mortgage on Mar-a-Lago and Donald Trump’s father allegedly buying casino chips in his Atlantic City casino “to stave off bankruptcy.”
Donald Trump and Epstein had both been features on the Palm Beach, Florida, scene in the late 90s and socialized, but Trump says their friendship ended shortly after the new millennium after because Epstein kept hiring workers away from his Mar-a-Lago country club.
Considering Wolff had interviewed Trump on many occasions by the time he asked Epstein for questions, it could be written off as a tactic.
However, it’s easy to wonder what Wolff gained from his relationship with Epstein.
“Wolff has always been the guy who wants to be in the room where it happened,” said the insider.
“And Epstein was his ticket to be in the room where it happens. He was invited to things and [Epstein] was connected. [Wolff] benefitted from that constantly.”
Indeed, in 2018 — two years after Wolff solicited questions to ask Trump — Epstein went so far as to email famed lawyer and Bill Clinton investigator Ken Starr with a request from his “good friend Michael Wolffe [sic].”
He told Starr “he wanted some color on indicting a .. sitting pres,[sic]”
Starr replied that he’d be “happy to do so.”
When told it sounds like Epstein did more for Wolff than the other way around — not least for the fact one is dead and the other still podcasting — the source, who referred to Wolff as “like the snake” replied, “For sure. Not even close.”
What can no longer be in doubt is how close they actually were, to the point they even felt comfortable discussing colonoscopies.
After Epstein begged off from a breakfast meeting because he’d be undergoing the procedure, Wolff asked via email, “Who’s your colonoscopy man?”
When Epstein replied with his doctor’s name, Wolff messaged back, “His son was in my son’s class at Collegiate.”
English (US)