Bannon, Epstein Were Plotting a Redemption Doc With Plans to Bring on Wolff — On Day of Arrest

The day of his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges, Jeffrey Epstein was planning a documentary to rehabilitate his image, and to counter the soon-to-be-released Netflix documentary Filthy Rich, a trove of newly released emails reveals. His partner in the project? Former Trump chief of staff, Steve Bannon, who has emerged as one of Epstein’s staunchest critics after his death.  

The Epstein-backed doc was to feature interviews with luminaries across media, academia and politics to reshape the narrative, one high-profile name being Michael Wolff, an Epstein pal and avid chronicler of the Trump presidency who was consulting with Epstein on how to handle dealings with the president.

“If we arrange it can we film on the island,” Bannon asked, referring to Little St. James, Epstein’s private Caribbean island where he’s alleged to have sexually abused minors. Epstein immediately agreed.

The same day, Bannon, who had produced several movies before his ill-fated turn as Trumps chief of staff, again texted the financier to schedule a filming date. “Can we do late morning say 11. Am?”

Minutes later, Epstein curtly responded, “All canceled.” No explanation followed.

“You r not coming?” Bannon inquired. He never received a reply, because just around the same time he was typing out his message, Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport, New Jersey on federal charges of sex trafficking dozens of minors.

The exchange, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, was part of a huge trove of emails released by lawmakers earlier this month as scrutiny over Epstein’s ties to Trump and other high profile intensifies. It shines a spotlight on a behind-the-scenes media makeover spearheaded by Bannon, who has subsequently denied reports of a friendship with the financier and has emerged as one of the loudest critics of the Trump administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files. The emails suggest the ex-Trump advisor and frequent visitor to Epstein’s Manhattan mansion before his arrest may have been more aware of Epstein’s conduct than he has publicly acknowledged while expanding the scope of the relationship between Wolff and the disgraced sex offender.

As Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, the Netflix docuseries based on the James Patterson book, was taking shape in late 2018, Epstein, Bannon and publicist Peggy Siegal, a one-time fixture in both the New York media scene and Hollywood’s award season who helped facilitate the financier’s return to elite social circles, put their heads together to try to head off the damage. The impetus was a request producers sent to Siegal asking her to talk on-camera.

Three months before Epstein’s arrest in July 2019, Tim Malloy, a TV journalist who wrote the book with Patterson, asked Siegal if she might want to appear in the show. Malloy noted the involvement of, among others, documentarian Joe Berlinger, who would go on to serve as an executive producer on the series.

“The tawdry side of the story has been told. We hope you can give us some insight and context into who he was before his life fell apart,” Malloy wrote her on April 22, 2019, according to the newly released emails. “We thought of you because of your remarkable reputation in the public relations and show business world and the fact that you were an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein.”

Siegal turned to Epstein and Bannon. “Jeffrey….how much do you know about this?” she emailed, saying she would try to find out more from friends at Netflix. Epstein had a cinematic reaction. “Berlinger is a bit of a hack,” he wrote.

Bannon was snarky about what the series would be. “Patterson, the Perversion of Justice Team, and the guy making the ‘Ted Bundy’ film [Berlinger] — sounds like a potential hagiography,” he said sarcastically, subtextually implying Siegal shouldn’t participate (Perversion of Justice, Miami Herald writer Julie Brown’s bestselling book, was not cited in the email and was not credited in the final series). The thread ended there, and Siegal did not end up participating.

Two months later, however, Bannon returned to the idea of a pro-Epstein documentary. He got as far as coordinating interviews and arranging travel, with plans to shoot at Little St. James, where the financier entertained famous friends and allegedly trafficked underage girls for sex.

One familiar name floated by Epstein to participate in the documentary: Wolff, who appears to have acted as something like an unofficial consigliere to the sex offender, though he has denied being an advisor and insists his conduct was a ruse to get access.

In one message, from June 2019, Epstein asked Bannon, “Should we use Michael Wolff?”

“I think very late in production we get wolf — late late late,” Bannon responded.

The newly released emails include dozens of messages between Epstein and Wolff, including some of which show him coaching the financier on his media relations.

Exhibit A: An email with the subject line “Heads up” sent to Epstein in December 2015 notifies him that CNN is “planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you — either on air or in scrum afterwards.”

“If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?.”

Wolff replied: “I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”

In another email depicting what appears to be a give-and-take relationship, Wolff solicited advice from Epstein on what to ask Trump in an interview, asking: “What’s the one question that pierces through.” Epstein answered only hours later.