Of course, when we’re talking about ongoing investigations into 9/11, we’re no longer talking about government investigations. Those are all over, having largely ended in farce. Recall how we learned back in November 2021 that the FBI has quietly formally closed “Operation Encore” in May of 2021, which was the FBI’s last remaining investigation into the 9/11 attacks. The investigation focused on three men — Fahad Al-Thumairy, Omar Al-Bayoumi, and Musaed Al-Jarrah — suspected of provided or directed others to provide Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar with “assistance in daily activities, including procuring living quarters and assistance with assimilating into Southern California.” None of the three men were ultimately charged, and yet documents released indicated that the FBI had extremely compelling circumstantial evidence of their involvement in the plot. As we’ll see, Omar Al-Bayoumi’s role aiding the hijackers on behalf of the Saudi government is at the core of the ongoing $1 trillion lawsuit against the Saudi government on behalf of the 9/11 victims.

Also recall how we’ve previously seen how US-born al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was not just serving as a kind of spiritual advisor to the San Diego cell of the hijackers, but he may have been involved in what looked like a Saudi-government-sponsored ‘dry run’ two years before 9/11. Al-Awlaki was, of course, later killed in a US drone strike in 2011.

There’s the bizarre May 2020 story, where the FBI accidentally publicly released Musaed Al-Jarrah’s name in an FBI document that was redacted but neglected to redact Jarrah’s name. And in doing so, the accident basically admitted that the FBI knew back in 2012 that these individuals were working on behalf of the Saudi government. That partially-redacted documented admitted that FBI agents had uncovered evidence that Thumairy and Bayoumi had been “tasked” to assist the hijackers by a third individual (al-Jarrah) whose name was blacked out. The families of the 9/11 victims sued to get that third name (al-Jarrah’s) publicly released. Ironically, the partially-redacted FBI document was written in support of a move by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to block the release of these names under the premise that doing so would cause “significant harm to national security.” We weren’t supposed to know all that, but now we do thanks to that redaction mess up.

Then there was the March 2022 declassification of an FBI memo that confirms that, yes, Omar Al-Bayoumi was indeed receiving a monthly stipend from Saudi intelligence. According to the June 14, 2017 memo, Bayoumi was tasked with gathering information “on persons of interest in the Saudi community” and passing the intelligence to Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, the Saudi ambassador at the time. A second declassified FBI memo reports that confidential source told the FBI that there was a “50/50 chance” that Bayoumi had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and “assisted two of the hijackers while residing in San Diego.” Omar Al-Bayoumi didn’t just randomly provide all this assistance to the San Diego al Qaeda cell, although that was actually his answer when initially questioned days after the 9/11 attacks.

And let’s not forget how, April of 2023, Kit Klarenberg was one of a handful of US journalists to report on the the explosive 21-page court filings by Don Canestraro — a lead investigator for the Office of Military Commissions, the legal body overseeing the investigation into the 9/11 defendants — that was filled with claims from both FBI and CIA sources all revealed a pre‑9/11 pattern of blocking attempts to identify and stop the 9/11 hijackers. Numerous agents involved with Operation Encore — the FBI’s post‑9/11 investigation into possible Saudi involvement in the attacks — were among the sources. Those efforts to block the pre‑9/11 investigation appear to have been at the direction of Alec Station, the CIA’s unit that included personnel from the FBI and other intelligence agencies and set up in 1996 to track al Qaeda. Alec Station had been tracking al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar as they met with al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia and initially prevented the CIA from informing the FBI that the two were back in the US following that meeting. In late August of 2001, an FBI agent discovered al Qaeda ties to the ‘San Diego’ cell — al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar — the same two individuals directly assisted by Bayoumi. FBI officials explicitly told this agent to “stand down” and “cease looking”, claiming an “intelligence gathering investigation” was to be opened. It was two days after that order that Alec Station finally formally informed the FBI that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were in the US. So Alec Station, but also senior FBI and CIA officials, were keeping the knowledge of the hijackers on US soil an official secret until less than three weeks before the attacks.

And as we later learned, Alec Station was allegedly interested in ‘flipping’ someone inside al Qaeda and was likely getting intelligence on the hijackers from Saudi, or maybe Jordanian, intelligence services. Richard Clark, the national security advisor during the attacks, claimed, “What I was told at the time was that they were going to try, for the first time, to get sources on the inside.” Clark also recounted an emergency July 10, 2001, meeting at the White House with then-CIA Director George Tenet and the CIA’s counterterrorism leaders Cofer Black and Rich Blee, where there was no mention of the presence of al Qaeda operatives on US. Why no mention? Clark speculates that “only conceivable reason that I’ve been able to come up with” is that they were running an illegal domestic operation to recruit al-Mihdhar or al-Hazmi and they didn’t want the FBI to get involved. Keep in mind that the meeting in Malaysia where al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were seen meeting with al Qaeda was Kuala Lumpur, home of the 88-story tall Petronas Twin Towers. So we have evidence that elements of the US government were interested in ‘flipping’ members of hijacker network at the same time they were allowed to use the US as a place to receive their flight training. It was the kind of detail that raised the grim question: Was there an initial plan to havethe twin towers of Kuala Kumpur targeted, which was only later changed to US targets? This is a good time to recall how Michael Scheuer, the head of Alec Station, is an open fascist today. And one of the people named by whistleblowers as being one of the key figures at Alec Station who blocked the sharing of information about the 9/11 hijackers was Alfreda Bikowsky, who went on to become a central person in the CIA’s black site interrogation programs. Scheuer and Bikowsky married in 2014.

And that formal, too late, warning by Alec Station about the presence of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar in the US less than three weeks before the 9/11 attacks brings us to another investigative mystery: Omar al-Bayoumi isn’t the only suspected Saudi agent who appears to have played a direct support role for the hijackers and suddenly left the US shortly before the attacks. Recall all of the questions about the sudden disappearance of Abdulazzi al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, who left their Sarasota home two weeks before the 9/11 attacks in what appears to have been such a hurry that they left dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms. Evidence indicates the family had been visited by some of the hijackers including lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. We also learned that FBI agents in New York had been exploring the possible prosecution of an unnamed suspect for providing material support to the hijackers. The suspect’s name was redacted but declassified information indicated this was in relation to the San Diego cell of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. And as we learned, Nawaf al-Hazmi spent time in South Florida in addition to San Diego

And, of course, there’s the lingering questions about the ‘fifth plane’, United 23, with substantial circumstantial evidence indicating the plane was intended as a hijacking target on 9/11, with four young Arab men in first-class who seemed extremely anxious to just take off as the airspace across the US was getting shut down. After the grounding, the cabin crew reportedly barricaded themselves inside the cabin and reported to ground crews their concerns about the four men, who quickly fled the airport following the return of the plane to the terminal. Box cutters and al Qaeda documents were apparently found in their baggage. All of their was described to the FBI and yet none of their made it into the 9/11 Commission report. In addition, two uniformed people were seen running into the plane cabin about 20 minutes after the plane was brought back to the terminal and evacuated, and authorities found the hatch leading to the belly of the plane had been left open. Adding to the mystery is that box cutters were later found in the first-class seat pockets of the plane that was adjacent to United 23, leading to speculation by United 23’s pilot that someone placed the box cutters in the wrong plane, adding to the mystery of the two uniformed employees. And that plane next to United 23 wasn’t even the only plane to have been found with box cutters hidden in the first class seat pockets during the immediate post‑9/11 investigations.

And that’s just some of the incredible updates we’ve received in recent years about the state of the 9/11 investigations. Investigation that have official closed when it comes to government agencies but are still chugging along in the courts, with more and more stunning revelations year after year. And that brings us to a new set of revelations from someone intimately familiar with one chapter of the pre‑9/11 story: Holly Ratchford, the apartment manager at the San Diego complex where Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar stayed for a while. She’s only now publicly sharing her story. As Ratchford makes clear, it was largely due to the assistance of Omar al-Bayoumi that the pair were able to get the apartment in the first place. “They didn’t meet the income criteria at all, or the bank account. They had none of that,” she told reporters, adding that it was initially a quick no to Bayoumi’s request. So Baymoumi took them to the bank the next day and helped them open an account. He then co-signed their lease, becoming the legal guarantor for their apartment. And when they fell behind on rent, Bayoumi paid it for them. He was also their emergency contact and his Parkwood home was listed as their current address.

All of this stands in stark contrast to the narrative Bayoumi told investigators, who claimed to have just a fleeting relationship with the pair. Bayoumi ended up leaving the US for the UK shortly before 9/11, but investigators soon identified him as a suspect. After being arrested on September 21, 2001, in Birmingham, Bayoumi was held by the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terror branch and faced questions for seven days. Initially denying he knew any of the hijackers, he later admitted to helping “Nawaf” and “Khalid”, but insisted that he merely met them randomly at a restaurant in LA, after overhearing them speaking in Arabic. He told them that if they were even in San Diego he could help them, and the next day they showed up at his local mosque in San Diego saying they needed a place to live. He then helped them find the apartment and then largely avoided them. That was the narrative he gave. Amazingly, the US DOJ decided not to extradite Bayoumi and he was released by the UK police after seven days.

And yet the FBI continued investigating Bayoumi, and discovered that two companies linked to the Saudi Ministry of Defense were providing Bayoumi with his $90,000 pay, and also that he never went to work and accrued “outrageous” expenses. And documents shared with the FBI by the Met police revealed letters to a Saudi government-linked charity with direct ties to al-Qaeda, materials which they assessed could “demonstrate Omar al-Bayoumi’s anti-American sentiments and beliefs”, and writings by Bayoumi himself which they determined “can be interpreted as jihadist”. According to Richard Lambert, the FBI agent who led the San Diego FBI office investigation after 9/11, “It was a general consensus of people in the San Diego Muslim community that Bayoumi was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service,” adding that, “as we began to identify the hijackers’ associates, what became clear is that there was a network headed up by Omar al-Bayoumi.” Lambert now works as a consultant for the families in the $1 trillion lawsuit. Additional support Bayoumi provided the hijackers included help obtaining California driver’s licenses, applying to flight schools, receiving Middle Eastern wire transfers, and even arranging dental treatment. This was all known at the time Bayoumi was held by the UK police. And yet, he was just let go with no extradition or eventual prosecution. Bayoumi left the UK for Saudi Arabia in August of 2002. Two years later, the 9/11 Commission report was released and absolved Bayoumi of any culpability, concluding he was “obliging and gregarious” and “an unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamist extremists”. When asked about why a prosecution of Bayoumi was never pursued, the DOJ told the BBC it was unable to comment on matters and decisions from 25 years ago, involving staff who no longer worked there. The BBC also asked the FBI why the agency had not known the 9/11 Commission the information it had on Bayoumi but the agency declined to comment.

But, despite the near complete capitulation by US investigator, the civil trial is at least proceeding for now. In fact, in August of 2025, Judge George B Daniels found that there was “a reasonable inference that all the apartment-related assistance he [Bayoumi] provided for the hijackers was not just acts of a good Samaritan, but rather that he was following” instructions from the Saudi government.” The judge ruled the $1 trillion lawsuit could move forward, with oral arguments scheduled to start in October. That’s the pathetic, arguably treasonous, state of affairs in the now-25-year-old 9/11 investigation. The evidence of government roles in the 9/11 plot continues to build, years after the official investigations ended in farcical ‘we had no idea’ conclusions. But it’s not just a role by the government of Saudi in setting up and facilitating the plot through agents like Omar al-Bayoumi. There’s also the role of US agencies in both blocking the pre‑9/11 investigations into the hijacker networks but also covering all of this up after the fact.

But let’s also keep in mind one of the other gross investigative failures that is potentially playing a role in how all of this pans out: the still-unexplained role played by the governments of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel in the 22016 race on behalf of the Trump campaign. As we’ve seen, there was the secret Trump Tower delegation in August of 2016 on behalf of the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE offering the assistance of a social media manipulation campaign that had been formulated by Israeli private intelligence firm PsyGroup. And then there’s the remarkable story about the role a close associated to Benjamin Netanyahu, Isaac Molho, played in serving as the alleged middle-man between ‘Guccifer 2.0’ and Roger Stone in the dissemination of the stolen DNC emails. The sad reality is that whatever sordid US government arrangement with the government of Saudi Arabia and others in the region that may have played a role in the execution of 9/11 is likely just one of a number of unacknowledged mega-scandals involving the US and Saudi governments. What kind of role might these other mega-scandals play in how this ongoing legal battle plays out? If the Saudi government, which is arguing that is has sovereign immunity in the case, does ultimately lose and faces a $1 trillion judgement, what are the odds the Trump administration wouldn’t somehow meddle on behalf of his Saudi friends?

That’s all part of the depressing context of this round of 9/11 revelations. The more we learn, the more apparent it becomes that a giant cover up started before 9/11 even happened and continues to this day. And the closest we’re going to get to any form of justice might be a lawsuit that had been strung along for a quarter of a century, no matter how much damning information we learn along the way:

BBC

Landlady to 9/11 hijackers reveals their links to alleged Saudi spy

Jane McMullen
BBC Panorama and BBC Radio 4
08/28/2026

Holly Ratchford still cannot believe that the man who moved into the residential complex she once managed would go on to be accused of involvement in the darkest day in recent US history.

“It’s almost impossible for me to wrap my head around who he said he was, and who he really is. I still struggle with that,” she tells the BBC.

The man, Omar al-Bayoumi — a Saudi in his early 40s — moved to the complex in San Diego, California, with his family in September 1999.

The new resident at number 152 Parkwood Apartments quickly became a regular at Ratchford’s pool parties. “He was always so bubbly and smiling,” she recalls, “and just very, very friendly.”

A few months later, Bayoumi would introduce Ratchford to two apparently unassuming, “polite” men, who would also become her neighbours.

The pair would become infamous for hijacking American Airlines flight 77, and crashing it into the Pentagon, in the 9/11 attacks.

...

“Whenever I had parties he would come and be a part of the activities,” she recalls, adding that his family would invite her in for food.

“I enjoyed going over.”

But Bayoumi, the one-time resident of 152 Parkwood, is now at the centre of the $1 trillion (£733bn) lawsuit brought against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by several thousand families of victims and as well as survivors of 9/11.

...

Bayoumi is alleged to have facilitated the 9/11 plot through the support he provided for the first two hijackers to arrive in the US — Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar — who lived at Parkwood for several months prior to the attacks.

The federal judge in the 9/11 families’ lawsuit in New York found a year ago that the evidence created “a reasonable inference” that Bayoumi and a Saudi diplomat based in the US had been “co-ordinating with the Saudi government when providing assistance to the hijackers”.

The judge’s ruling has allowed the families’ case to move forward. Saudi Arabia is appealing it and, together with Bayoumi, has always denied the allegations.

...

Ratchford — who saw him interacting with the hijackers and witnessed him providing a crucial act of support for them — has given a sealed declaration to the New York court.

But she has never spoken publicly about what she saw.

...

I tracked her down to the high desert in the western US — rattlesnake country. She told me she avoided the news, and definitely did not speak to journalists. But, to my surprise, she agreed to talk.

Her interview with me casts doubt on the version of events Bayoumi has told police, the FBI and the New York court, and features in the BBC Radio 4 podcast, Intrigue: A 9/11 Story, and an upcoming BBC Panorama, 9/11: The Saudi Connection.

In early 1999, Ratchford landed on her feet. Life before then had been untethered — she had moved around, been married, pregnant and divorced before she was 21. But now, aged 27, she had a job she loved and a home.

As the new property manager of Parkwood Apartments, a squat complex of 175 low-rise apartments and townhouses in the San Diego suburbs, she says she excelled. Properties were never empty for long. But it was not the paperwork, nor the healthy pay check, that made the job a dream, it was the people.

Ratchford not only worked at Parkwood, she lived there too. Her clients were also her neighbours. And many were more than that — she says they became her friends.

....

Omar al-Bayoumi moved into Parkwood claiming to be a mature student.

“I knew he was going to school. I’m not sure, other than that, what he did,” Ratchford says.

More than two decades later, declassified FBI documents and court filings would reveal that Bayoumi’s studies had, in effect, come to a halt in 1998. He was spending much more time organising religious activities in the Muslim community, which he often videotaped.

His constant filming, and his inquiring questions, aroused suspicions.

“It was a general consensus of people in the San Diego Muslim community that Bayoumi was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service,” Richard Lambert, who led the city’s FBI office investigation after 9/11, tells me.

But it was not Ratchford’s business to pry. What mattered to her was whether he could pay the rent. And he could.

The FBI would later discover he was being paid about $90,000 (£55,600 at the time) a year.

Bayoumi presented himself as an ordinary family man.

The Bayoumi who Ratchford saw was captured on his never-before-broadcast home movies — throwing a ball around with his family by the Parkwood pool, laughing when it drifted into the water.

Another video reveals him on an excursion to Las Vegas with his family. Wearing a floral shirt, he points out the rollercoaster by the New York, New York hotel casino.

...

But that version of Bayoumi is at odds with the man who emerges from other videos.

In summer 1999, Bayoumi filmed the United States Capitol in Washington DC from different angles, noting a “plan”, and turning the camera on himself to deliver a reporter-style commentary.

The 9/11 families’ lawyers allege he was surveilling the building as a potential target for the attacks. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia maintains it is a tourist video.

In his August 2025 judgement, the New York judge found that “all the Court can conclude” from the video is that Bayoumi “visited Washington DC and that he filmed the city”.

On 3 February 2000, Bayoumi brought two young men into Ratchford’s San Diego rental office. In an obvious hurry, she says, he perched on the filing cabinet as he told her that the two men were from his mosque and were staying with him while they looked for a place to rent.

...

The two men spoke no English, but Bayoumi took charge. Ratchford says he asked her what the two men would need to show in order to qualify for a Parkwood apartment.

“They didn’t meet the income criteria at all, or the bank account. They had none of that,” she tells me.

Ratchford had rules. It was a quick no.

But the two men did have several thousand dollars in cash. Bank records show that, the following day, Bayoumi took them to the nearest bank and helped them open an account.

Back at Ratchford’s office on the third day, he figured a way around the problematic income criterion. He would co-sign their lease — becoming the legal guarantor for their apartment.

The rental agreement shows Bayoumi’s multiple signatures. He was their guarantor, their friend, their emergency contact, and his Parkwood home was listed as their current address.

Without further delay, the two men moved into number 150, a one-bed apartment just a few doors down from Bayoumi’s poolside townhouse.

The two men Bayoumi was assuming legal responsibility for — Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar — would become 9/11 hijackers.

Holly saw the pair repeatedly in the following few months.

“I would have cookies and tea with them. It wasn’t like they were just someone that came into the office and rented from us,” she says.

Hazmi and Mihdhar stayed in their apartment until the end of May that year, and then moved out. Ratchford thought no more about it.

Sixteen months later, as America reeled in shock and grief in the days following the 9/11 attacks, she says a woman called asking her for a rental reference for them. Without thinking, she rattled off their details.

But the woman was not a property agent — she was a reporter.

Her next question shook Ratchford: “Did you know that they were two of the terrorists that flew their plane into the Pentagon?”

...

Then, the FBI came knocking.

On 14 September 2001, two special agents interviewed Ratchford in her Parkwood office.

She gave them Bayoumi’s guarantor form, triggering an investigation into the man they would come to see as the main facilitator of the two hijackers’ lives in San Diego.

Richard Lambert, now retired from the FBI and working as a consultant to the 9/11 families’ lawsuit, says “as we began to identify the hijackers’ associates, what became clear is that there was a network headed up by Omar al-Bayoumi”.

The FBI found that Bayoumi’s contacts had helped Hazmi and Mihdhar obtain California driver’s licences, apply to flight schools, receive Middle Eastern wire transfers, and even arrange dental treatment.

The FBI agents wanted to interview Bayoumi. They traced him more than 5,000 miles (8,000km) to the UK, to Birmingham, where he had moved just before 9/11.

On 21 September 2001, he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terror branch and detectives began questioning him.

Seeming unflustered, and at times indignant, Bayoumi initially denied knowing any of the hijackers.

He said he had often helped people find accommodation but, when detectives pressed him, said he could not remember the names of anyone for whom he had guaranteed an apartment.

A day later, he said he remembered helping two individuals, “Nawaf” and “Khalid” — the first names of Hazmi and Mihdhar.

He admitted they were the only two people to whom he had given this level of support.

Bayoumi claimed he had met the pair in Los Angeles, after briefly overhearing them speaking Arabic in a restaurant. He said he had told them that if they ever went to San Diego, he could help them.

The next day, he told the British detectives, the men had shown up at his local mosque in San Diego saying they needed a place to live. He had then driven them back to Parkwood to see Ratchford about finding them an apartment.

After Hazmi and Mihdhar had moved in, Bayoumi said he had avoided them. He said he had left town, and that when he returned, he found they had moved on.

In his account, Bayoumi’s association with the future hijackers was fleeting. But his story does not match Ratchford’s version of events.

“I know that’s what he said, and I know that’s bulls hit,” she says.

Before he brought the hijackers to her office, Ratchford says Bayoumi had asked her several times about finding an apartment for two people.

“I would tell him what would be available and he’d be like, ‘oh no, no, I want that one’,” she says. “He wanted something near him, and he was hoping for the least expensive place.”

She also contradicts Bayoumi’s claim that he hardly saw the hijackers after he secured their apartment, explaining that she had seen them together over the weeks that followed. On one occasion, the three of them had come to her office for tea and cookies.

“It’s not like he just found them an apartment and never talked to them again,” she says, adding that the three men “were definitely friendly”.

Ratchford also told the FBI that when the hijackers had fallen behind with paying their rent, Bayoumi had paid it.

The Met Police held Bayoumi for seven days — the maximum at the time. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) decided not to extradite him to face charges.

On 28 September 2001, Bayoumi was released.

Ratchford is still stunned.

...

The FBI continued to build a case against him, however.

San Diego agents discovered that two companies linked to the Saudi Ministry of Defence were providing Bayoumi with his $90,000 pay, but that he never went to work and accrued “outrageous” expenses.

His pay more than doubled just after the two hijackers’ arrival in San Diego, agents found, and fell again after they left the US west coast.

Meanwhile, agents from the New York FBI office combed through a trove of documents received from the Met Police, following the search of Bayoumi’s properties in Birmingham, the BBC has learned.

The FBI uncovered letters to a Saudi government-linked charity with direct ties to al-Qaeda, materials which they assessed could “demonstrate Omar al-Bayoumi’s anti-American sentiments and beliefs”, and writings by Bayoumi himself which they determined “can be interpreted as jihadist”.

But none of this led to an indictment or prosecution.

The DOJ told the BBC it was unable to comment on matters and decisions from 25 years ago, involving staff who no longer worked there.

Bayoumi left the UK for Saudi Arabia in August 2002.

Two years later, he was, in effect, cleared when the US’s 9/11 Commission — the independent inquiry into the attacks — concluded he was “obliging and gregarious” and “an unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamist extremists”. The FBI had not shown the Commission all the evidence it had gathered — and declined to comment when the BBC asked about this.

Meanwhile, the 9/11 families had started their attempts to pursue him through the courts, adding him as a defendant to their $1tn suit against various individuals, companies and governments for allegedly supporting al-Qaeda.

For years, the families campaigned for the FBI’s investigation to be declassified. The wait was agonisingly slow, but since 2018 tens of thousands of pages of documents have been released to the New York court and via a presidential order signed by Joe Biden — including the FBI’s interviews with Holly Ratchford.

In August last year, having considered the entire body of evidence, the judge in the 9/11 families’ legal case said the evidence did not support the conclusion that Bayoumi had been “just an innocent participant”.

Judge George B Daniels also noted later in his judgement that there was “a reasonable inference that all the apartment-related assistance he [Bayoumi] provided for the hijackers was not just acts of a good Samaritan, but rather that he was following” instructions from the Saudi government.

Saudi Arabia denies any involvement in 9/11 and has consistently argued that Omar al-Bayoumi was not a Saudi agent and did not have any involvement or foreknowledge of the attacks. It maintains that, under US law, it has sovereign immunity — official exemption of a ruler or state from certain types of civil suit and criminal prosecution — and that the case should be struck out.

The case is now with the US Court of Appeal, which will hear oral arguments in October.

...

———–

“Landlady to 9/11 hijackers reveals their links to alleged Saudi spy” by Jane McMullen; BBC; 08/28/2026

“But Bayoumi, the one-time resident of 152 Parkwood, is now at the centre of the $1 trillion (£733bn) lawsuit brought against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by several thousand families of victims and as well as survivors of 9/11.”

Questions around Omar al-Bayoumi have been lingering over the 9/11 investigation from the very beginning. And here we are, 25 years later, with al-Bayoumi at the center of a $1 trillion lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on behalf of several thousand 9/11 victims and survivors. And the pace of this trial has been agonizingly slow, for decades now, progress is happening, including a ruling last year by a federal just that the evidence created “a reasonable inference” that Bayoumi and a Saudi diplomat based in the US had been “co-ordinating with the Saudi government when providing assistance to the hijackers”. If Omar al-Bayoumi was indeed acting on instructions from the Saudi government, that $1 trillion lawsuit is going to have a lot more momentum. At least that’s assuming the Saudi government doesn’t ultimately prevail in its assertion that it has sovereign immunity over the entire matter. And with oral arguments slated to start in October, these are the kinds of rulings that will have to come sooner or later. With all of the diplomatic turmoil and backroom dealing that comes with it. Will the Trump administration allow such a case to move forward? And what kind of inducements are the Saudis offering Trump to just make it all ‘go away’? And what about all of the still-unanswered questions about the Saudi crown prince’s direct involvement in the 2016 US elections on behalf of Trump? And let’s not forget about all the questions implicit in this story about what kind of secret arrangements the US government may have had with the Saudi government in the lead up to 9/11. How are all of those still wildly under-explored topics potentially impacting not just the outcome of this legal case but much of US Middle Eastern foreign policy to this day? That’s all part of the wildly depressing context of this story. The case hasn’t just been progressing at an agonizingly slow pace. We also have every reason to suspect that agonizingly slow pace is intertwined with the deep corruption that has long defined the US’s relationship with the Saudi monarchy:

...
Bayoumi is alleged to have facilitated the 9/11 plot through the support he provided for the first two hijackers to arrive in the US — Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar — who lived at Parkwood for several months prior to the attacks.

The federal judge in the 9/11 families’ lawsuit in New York found a year ago that the evidence created “a reasonable inference” that Bayoumi and a Saudi diplomat based in the US had been “co-ordinating with the Saudi government when providing assistance to the hijackers”.

The judge’s ruling has allowed the families’ case to move forward. Saudi Arabia is appealing it and, together with Bayoumi, has always denied the allegations.

...

For years, the families campaigned for the FBI’s investigation to be declassified. The wait was agonisingly slow, but since 2018 tens of thousands of pages of documents have been released to the New York court and via a presidential order signed by Joe Biden — including the FBI’s interviews with Holly Ratchford.

In August last year, having considered the entire body of evidence, the judge in the 9/11 families’ legal case said the evidence did not support the conclusion that Bayoumi had been “just an innocent participant”.

Judge George B Daniels also noted later in his judgement that there was “a reasonable inference that all the apartment-related assistance he [Bayoumi] provided for the hijackers was not just acts of a good Samaritan, but rather that he was following” instructions from the Saudi government.

Saudi Arabia denies any involvement in 9/11 and has consistently argued that Omar al-Bayoumi was not a Saudi agent and did not have any involvement or foreknowledge of the attacks. It maintains that, under US law, it has sovereign immunity — official exemption of a ruler or state from certain types of civil suit and criminal prosecution — and that the case should be struck out.

The case is now with the US Court of Appeal, which will hear oral arguments in October.
...

And with that ongoing legal case slowly grinding through the US courts, we are only now getting an interview of Holly Ratchford, the apartment manager whose interactions with Bayoumi stand in stark contrast to the version of events Bayoumi told investigators. So with Bayoumi at the center of that trial, Ratchford’s recollections could now be crucial evidence in a $1 trillion lawsuit:

...
The man, Omar al-Bayoumi — a Saudi in his early 40s — moved to the complex in San Diego, California, with his family in September 1999.

The new resident at number 152 Parkwood Apartments quickly became a regular at Ratchford’s pool parties. “He was always so bubbly and smiling,” she recalls, “and just very, very friendly.”

A few months later, Bayoumi would introduce Ratchford to two apparently unassuming, “polite” men, who would also become her neighbours.

The pair would become infamous for hijacking American Airlines flight 77, and crashing it into the Pentagon, in the 9/11 attacks.

...

“Whenever I had parties he would come and be a part of the activities,” she recalls, adding that his family would invite her in for food.

“I enjoyed going over.”

...

Ratchford — who saw him interacting with the hijackers and witnessed him providing a crucial act of support for them — has given a sealed declaration to the New York court.

But she has never spoken publicly about what she saw.

...

I tracked her down to the high desert in the western US — rattlesnake country. She told me she avoided the news, and definitely did not speak to journalists. But, to my surprise, she agreed to talk.

Her interview with me casts doubt on the version of events Bayoumi has told police, the FBI and the New York court, and features in the BBC Radio 4 podcast, Intrigue: A 9/11 Story, and an upcoming BBC Panorama, 9/11: The Saudi Connection.

...

Ratchford — who saw him interacting with the hijackers and witnessed him providing a crucial act of support for them — has given a sealed declaration to the New York court.

But she has never spoken publicly about what she saw.
...

And as we can see, Bayoumi didn’t just help Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar find an apartment. He helped them open bank accounts, served as the legal guarantor for their apartment, and paid their rent when they fell behind, a far more involved role than what Bayoumi told investigators:

...
On 3 February 2000, Bayoumi brought two young men into Ratchford’s San Diego rental office. In an obvious hurry, she says, he perched on the filing cabinet as he told her that the two men were from his mosque and were staying with him while they looked for a place to rent.

...

The two men spoke no English, but Bayoumi took charge. Ratchford says he asked her what the two men would need to show in order to qualify for a Parkwood apartment.

“They didn’t meet the income criteria at all, or the bank account. They had none of that,” she tells me.

Ratchford had rules. It was a quick no.

But the two men did have several thousand dollars in cash. Bank records show that, the following day, Bayoumi took them to the nearest bank and helped them open an account.

Back at Ratchford’s office on the third day, he figured a way around the problematic income criterion. He would co-sign their lease — becoming the legal guarantor for their apartment.

The rental agreement shows Bayoumi’s multiple signatures. He was their guarantor, their friend, their emergency contact, and his Parkwood home was listed as their current address.

Without further delay, the two men moved into number 150, a one-bed apartment just a few doors down from Bayoumi’s poolside townhouse.

The two men Bayoumi was assuming legal responsibility for — Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar — would become 9/11 hijackers.

Holly saw the pair repeatedly in the following few months.

“I would have cookies and tea with them. It wasn’t like they were just someone that came into the office and rented from us,” she says.

...

In his account, Bayoumi’s association with the future hijackers was fleeting. But his story does not match Ratchford’s version of events.

“I know that’s what he said, and I know that’s bulls hit,” she says.

Before he brought the hijackers to her office, Ratchford says Bayoumi had asked her several times about finding an apartment for two people.

“I would tell him what would be available and he’d be like, ‘oh no, no, I want that one’,” she says. “He wanted something near him, and he was hoping for the least expensive place.”

She also contradicts Bayoumi’s claim that he hardly saw the hijackers after he secured their apartment, explaining that she had seen them together over the weeks that followed. On one occasion, the three of them had come to her office for tea and cookies.

“It’s not like he just found them an apartment and never talked to them again,” she says, adding that the three men “were definitely friendly”.

Ratchford also told the FBI that when the hijackers had fallen behind with paying their rent, Bayoumi had paid it.
...

But perhaps the most remarkable part of this whole story is the fact that Bayoumi moved to the UK shortly before 9/11, and was arrested there just 10 days after the attacks and kept for questions by the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terror branch. But he was never extradited back to the US despite the FBI immediately discovering Bayoumi was instrumental to the hijackers’ support network. Instead, the US DOJ decided not to extradite him to face charges and he was released a week after his arrest:

...
Omar al-Bayoumi moved into Parkwood claiming to be a mature student.

“I knew he was going to school. I’m not sure, other than that, what he did,” Ratchford says.

More than two decades later, declassified FBI documents and court filings would reveal that Bayoumi’s studies had, in effect, come to a halt in 1998. He was spending much more time organising religious activities in the Muslim community, which he often videotaped.

His constant filming, and his inquiring questions, aroused suspicions.

“It was a general consensus of people in the San Diego Muslim community that Bayoumi was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service,” Richard Lambert, who led the city’s FBI office investigation after 9/11, tells me.

...

Richard Lambert, now retired from the FBI and working as a consultant to the 9/11 families’ lawsuit, says “as we began to identify the hijackers’ associates, what became clear is that there was a network headed up by Omar al-Bayoumi”.

The FBI found that Bayoumi’s contacts had helped Hazmi and Mihdhar obtain California driver’s licences, apply to flight schools, receive Middle Eastern wire transfers, and even arrange dental treatment.

The FBI agents wanted to interview Bayoumi. They traced him more than 5,000 miles (8,000km) to the UK, to Birmingham, where he had moved just before 9/11.

On 21 September 2001, he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terror branch and detectives began questioning him.

Seeming unflustered, and at times indignant, Bayoumi initially denied knowing any of the hijackers.

He said he had often helped people find accommodation but, when detectives pressed him, said he could not remember the names of anyone for whom he had guaranteed an apartment.

A day later, he said he remembered helping two individuals, “Nawaf” and “Khalid” — the first names of Hazmi and Mihdhar.

He admitted they were the only two people to whom he had given this level of support.

Bayoumi claimed he had met the pair in Los Angeles, after briefly overhearing them speaking Arabic in a restaurant. He said he had told them that if they ever went to San Diego, he could help them.

The next day, he told the British detectives, the men had shown up at his local mosque in San Diego saying they needed a place to live. He had then driven them back to Parkwood to see Ratchford about finding them an apartment.

After Hazmi and Mihdhar had moved in, Bayoumi said he had avoided them. He said he had left town, and that when he returned, he found they had moved on...

...

The Met Police held Bayoumi for seven days — the maximum at the time. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) decided not to extradite him to face charges.

On 28 September 2001, Bayoumi was released.

Ratchford is still stunned.
...

And yet, despite the DOJ deciding against extradited Bayoumi, the FBI continued building a case against him, including $90,000 in payments from two companies linked to the Saudi Ministry of Defense. The FBI even uncovered letters to a Saudi government-linked charity with direct ties to al-Qaeda, materials which they assessed could “demonstrate Omar al-Bayoumi’s anti-American sentiments and beliefs”, and writings by Bayoumi himself which they determined “can be interpreted as jihadist”, and yet no indictment of prosecution followed. What is the explanation? There is none. The DOJ asserts that it is unable to comment on matters and decisions from 25 years ago. Worse, it turns out the FBI didn’t even show all of this evidence to the 9/11 Commission. Again, no explanation is provided:

...
The FBI continued to build a case against him, however.

San Diego agents discovered that two companies linked to the Saudi Ministry of Defence were providing Bayoumi with his $90,000 pay, but that he never went to work and accrued “outrageous” expenses.

His pay more than doubled just after the two hijackers’ arrival in San Diego, agents found, and fell again after they left the US west coast.

Meanwhile, agents from the New York FBI office combed through a trove of documents received from the Met Police, following the search of Bayoumi’s properties in Birmingham, the BBC has learned.

The FBI uncovered letters to a Saudi government-linked charity with direct ties to al-Qaeda, materials which they assessed could “demonstrate Omar al-Bayoumi’s anti-American sentiments and beliefs”, and writings by Bayoumi himself which they determined “can be interpreted as jihadist”.

But none of this led to an indictment or prosecution.

The DOJ told the BBC it was unable to comment on matters and decisions from 25 years ago, involving staff who no longer worked there.

Bayoumi left the UK for Saudi Arabia in August 2002.

Two years later, he was, in effect, cleared when the US’s 9/11 Commission — the independent inquiry into the attacks — concluded he was “obliging and gregarious” and “an unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamist extremists”. The FBI had not shown the Commission all the evidence it had gathered — and declined to comment when the BBC asked about this.
...

No comment. That’s the official US government response. And presumably will be the response no matter how much more damning information is revealed. It’s not like there’s a viable mea culpa option available at this point. More deafening silence is the only answer we’re going to get.

And as we also saw, it was a shared interest in cryptocurrencies and setting up alternative financial systems that apparently sparked Epstein’s multi-year quest, starting in 2009, to meet and collaborate with Peter Thiel, culminating in their 2014 meeting and the friendship and alliance that soon blossomed. In a November 2016 email exchange between Epstein’s longtime accountant, Richard Kahn, and Brock Pierce — a crypto investor who once called Bannon “my right-hand man for, like, seven years” — Kahn tells Pierce that Bannon should “talk privately with Jeffrey,” since Epstein “knows more about international finance than anyone on Trump’s team, by a long way,” with Pierce responding that he would “work on getting us all together.” Emails also show Epstein instructed Kahn to follow up by suggesting that Thiel be included. “Please communicate with Jeffrey, who is also close to Peter Thiel,” Kahn then write to Pierce. “Jeffrey thinks Peter is really thoughtful.”. As we’ll see, one of the things Epstein was offering Bannon was a cryptocurrency-based political funding architecture to finance the political movements they were envisioning.

And in a twist that is morally gross but not especially shocking, one of the promises Bannon repeatedly made to Epstein was that the political influence network they were constructing would stave off the ‘#MeToo’ movement for a decade or more. In fact, as Bannon writes to Epstein at one point, “there is a crazed jihad against u – ive never seen anything like it – and I’ve seen a lot.” Yes, Epstein was facing a ‘crazed jihad’ unlike anything Bannon had seen before. The private comments to Epstein are quite a contrast to Bannon’s claims during the Turning Point US conference in July of 2025, where Bannon declared Epstein to be a ‘deep state’ plot against Trump and the MAGA movement. “In that arc of looking at how the deep state has tried to stop Trump and the MAGA movement, you can easily fit in,” Bannon told the crowd.

During one exchange where Epstein and Bannon are discussing the details of crypto-based campaign financing, Epstein makes a remarkable suggestion. “should it have a christian component? tithe? if you form a church you may be able to tell mueller you have a confession privelege. :)” That obviously never happened, but try not to be shocked if we discover one day that crucial evidence for a political network has its communications protected from legal discovery through clergy-penitent privilege. This is a good time to recall how Bannon happens to be a member of the Council for National Policy (CNP), the powerful organ for Christian Nationalist-theme fascist politics in the US over the last 45 years. If any political network can arrange for the creation of a church-like entity for funneling political donations, that would be CNP.

Epstein and Bannon discuss at time who else they would like to bring into their crypo-political finance project, including Jeffrey Wernick and Jide Zeitlin. Wernick’s name was brought up in an email thread in February 2018 when Epstein asks Bannon if he knows of a ‘super smart FEC person’ they can reach out to. Bannon cites Wernick as the person he has in mind, with a rather amusing considering the ethics conundrum Wernick helped create for Trump White House back in 2020. Recall how, Wernick, an investor in the far right Parler social media platform, was involved with discussions to recruit President Trump to join platform. The negotiations were proceeding until the White House Counsel’s office found out about the negotiations and put a stop to it, arguing that it would constitute a violation of ethics. It was Epstein who brings up Jide Zeitlin, a former Goldman Sachs partner with access to world leaders. In March of 2018, Epstein sends Bannon an email about a dinner gathering they are organizing, with Epstein announced that attendees will include Gerald Baker, then editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, along with Miroslav Lajčák, a Slovakian minister who was then the sitting President of the United Nations General Assembly, along with Bannon. In May of 2018, Epstein sends an email about relaying how Zeitlin had failed in his plans to meet up with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the chairman of Dubai World / DP World, offering the excuse that he was stuck at the White House during the narrow window when the Sultan would be available, while also mentioning how he was able to speak with then-Vice President Mike Pence. In July of 2018, Epstein is giving Bannon tips on how to expand his influence in Europe with lessons like, “If you are going to play here, you’ll have to spend time, Europe by remote doesn’t work. Lots and lots of face time and hand holding,”, following that up with another email hours later adding, “There are many leaders of countries we can organise for you to have one-on-ones. however… you will have to come, stay 8–10 days… The fear is that you gin up their hopes and emotions and then abandon them. I think you want to be an insider, not an outsider flying in and out.” And in mid-2019, not long before his arrest, Epstein sends a “list for bannon steve” that appears to be a list of contacts Epstein is planning on introducing Bannon to which included politicians, Nobel-calibre scientists, tech billionaires (including Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman), editors, bankers, diplomats, former prime ministers, celebrities, royalty, and intelligence-linked figures.

That’s the picture that emerge from an examination of what was just 45 emails between Epstein and Bannon sent in 2018–2019. Similar to his relationship with Thiel, Epstein is serving a international list of one elite contact after another as the two work toward a common goal of building a far right influence network financed with crypto currencies and spreading its influence in more than just the US. Epstein was even involved with the production of Bannon’s pro-GOP 2018 documentary Trump@War. Bannon’s characterization of Epstein as part of a ‘deep state’ doesn’t seem like a gross exaggeration. But as should be clear, if Epstein’s network is to be characterized as comprising a ‘deep state’, it was pro-Trump ‘deep state’ and Bannon clearly wanted in on all that ‘deep state’ action:

Byline Times

Steve Bannon Offered Trump’s MAGA as Shield for Jeffrey Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein helped shape Trump’s MAGA movement through a secret alliance with its chief architect, Steve Bannon, who told him it could help him “stave off Time’s Up for a decade” in return for strategic and financial support

Nafeez Ahmed
14 November 2025

Jeffrey Epstein – long portrayed by the Republican right as part of a deep state liberal conspiracy – was providing strategic, financial and media support to the very heart of Trump’s MAGA movement, working directly with Steve Bannon on political planning in Europe and US campaign messaging from 2018 to 2019. The payoff would be a movement that neutralised the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment in the workplace.

For years, Bannon – the architect of MAGA, Trump’s first campaign manager and former White House chief strategist – has used his War Room podcast to promote QAnon conspiracy theories about the Democrat Party as a cabal of child molesters.

He once described QAnon as “the elephant in the room”; had Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on his show calling Democrats “the party of paedophiles”; and urged listeners to call their senators and oppose the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by relaying “your unexpurgated opinion on what you think of Judge Jackson in this area of child torture, child rape, baby torture, and baby rape.”

...

Resisting #MeToo

Epstein offered potential financial support to Bannon through opaque cryptocurrency schemes designed to evade regulatory scrutiny, along with extensive political networks, strategic planning and routes to European leaders – not to mention advice on pro-Trump video campaign materials.

In return, Bannon offered Epstein something irresistible: to build a right-wing MAGA coalition that would “stave off” the global movement against sexual harassment for more than a decade.

Earlier this year, Steve Bannon repeatedly claimed that the convicted child sex offender was operating as part of a deep state anti-Trump conspiracy. “In that arc of looking at how the deep state has tried to stop Trump and the MAGA movement, you can easily fit in,” Bannon told a crowd at a Turning Point US conference in July.

“Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things,” he said. “Not just individuals, but also institutions. Intelligence institutions, foreign governments, and who was working with him on our intelligence apparatus and in our government.”

However, newly released emails now show Jeffrey Epstein acting as an intimate political fixer for Steve Bannon himself between 2018 and 2019.

Over this period, Epstein arranged access to world leaders for Bannon, proposing opaque crypto-based funding structures, drafting contact lists for the MAGA architect, and even offering the President of the UN General Assembly to guide Bannon’s “EU project.”

...

The correspondence also shows Epstein helping to shape Bannon’s public image. In one message, he tells journalist Michael Wolff that if Republicans held the House in 2018, “Steve would deserve most of the credit”, while Bannon privately reassured Epstein during renewed scrutiny that “there is a crazed jihad against u”.

The emails reveal a political partnership across these two years in which MAGA’s architect worked hand-in-hand with a convicted sex offender – contradicting everything Bannon has since claimed about Epstein and the so-called “cover-up”.

Undisclosed Meetings

Although it is known that Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein had several meetings that year through to early 2019 to provide him with media coaching, the extent of their relationship has remained opaque until now.

Byline Times can confirm that the newly released batch of Epstein emails includes at least 45 pieces of correspondence directly with Steve Bannon.

At 8:08 pm on 11 March 2018, Sean Bannon – aide and nephew to Steve – sends Jeffrey Epstein a brief message from his iPhone:

“Roger that. Thanks for having us today.”

The email appears to confirm that both Steve and Sean Bannon had met Epstein in person that afternoon. Epstein replied that same evening. His tone was brisk, confident, and already looking ahead:

“Spoke to [the] country leader we discussed… I leave Wednesday, back Friday. We should lay out a strategy plan when I’m back. Travel safe.”

This was not their first contact. In another message from the same period, Epstein’s brother Mark drops an almost throwaway line into an email to Jeffrey:

“Bannon with me.”

...

The weeks around the March meeting reveal that Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein were already speaking the same political language, exchanging ideas and intelligence in a way that makes the townhouse meeting feel less like a beginning and more like an escalation.

———–

A Hidden Working Relationship

An early signal appears on 24 February 2018, in a chain that starts with a Politico link but rapidly veers into the architecture of a political movement. Epstein opens with a technical query:

“coin issues: receive coins, distribute coins, pay in coins, coin cooperative, prohibitions foreign donor? i need to understand flow of funds… donor to campaign c’s. does it have to go to campaign first?”

It is a remarkable set of questions pointing straight at the rules governing political finance. Epstein is not dabbling – he is asking how to build an alternative funding system. Bannon replies without hesitation:

“On it.”

Minutes later, Epstein presses further:

“should it have a christian component? tithe? if you form a church you may be able to tell mueller you have a confession privelege. :)”

Even allowing for gallows humour, the suggestion is extraordinary: create a religious entity that could invoke clergy-penitent privilege to shield communications from the special counsel criminal investigation into Donald Trump regarding Russian interference in the 2016 elections, led by then FBI director Robert Mueller.

Bannon’s response outlines the coalition he believes can power the next decade of right-wing politics:

“Populist/Nationalist first.Conservative Christians (catholic/evangelical) next.Reverse Alabama.This coalition staves off ‘Times Up’ for next decade plus.”

“Time’s Up” was a movement originating Hollywood designed to hold powerful men accountable for sexual abuse and misconduct. By September that year, Bannon publicly positioned himself as a supporter, describing Time’s Up as “the single most powerful potential political movement in the world” at festival in New York, and wondering why the #MeToo movement “hasn’t cut through corporate America with a bigger scythe”.

But earlier that year, Bannon wrote directly to Epstein – arguably the most notorious sexual predator in American public life even at that time – explaining how together, they can build a pro-Trump MAGA coalition that can neutralise the movement for the “next decade plus”.

The email chain continues on financial operations. Epstein asks:

“is there a super smart FEC person?”

Bannon provides one:

“I think I have the most solid guy on the right – tied into the ‘swiss’ guys – named Jeffrey Wernick… he can walk u thru the deal.”

Epstein then asks:

“do you have coin guys. brocks people. or should we find? some of the lefty crypto guys might find it difficult to join, but they said bringing tech to discourse is on a higher plane.”

While blockchain evangelist Jeffrey Wernick’s involvement in helping Bannon explore a crypto project for the populist right is a matter of record, Epstein’s secret proximity to Bannon’s efforts is revealed here for the first time.

...

And then the discussion widens. Epstein sends:

“BTW spent some time on the phone with Jide. he’s looking to be read into Saudi. too early.”

Jide Zeitlin – a former Goldman Sachs partner with access to world leaders – is being discussed as though he is part of the same operational landscape Epstein and Bannon are navigating. Bannon replies:

“Yes… I’ve got the 2nd best – best is Don McGahn who is occupied currently.”

Don McGahn, at that moment, is the sitting White House Counsel in the Trump administration. At face value, these exchanges are the behaviour of two actors building a political machine: one (Epstein) probing funding and legal structures, the other (Bannon) offering to supply operatives and strategic doctrine. Whether and what meetings they resulted in, Byline Times cannot confirm.

The tone continues into March. The thread that leads to the townhouse dinner on 15 March 2018 is, if anything, even more explicit. Epstein opens:

“yes I saw it. 1. I will invite Gerry Baker to our dinner tonight. 2. Miro Lajcak, president of UN, will guide the EU project if you like him. his govt will fall this week — as planned. :) 3. later today we can discuss michael and his coins. 4. sultan — dubai in new york 21 22.”

In this extraordinary email, Epstein is not only inviting the then editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, Gerald Baker, he also offers up the sitting President of the United Nations General Assembly (Miroslav Lajčák), claims foreknowledge of the collapse of the Slovakian government, references “Michael and his coins” – tying directly back to the crypto-funding exchanges – and flags the visit of a Gulf actor.

...

————–

Epstein – Bannon’s Strategic and Operational Partner

The deeper one goes into the correspondence, the clearer Epstein’s position becomes. He speaks like a fixer – a man who still believes he can move governments, pull networks together, and put the right people in the right rooms. And Bannon receives him that way.

Just weeks after their March dinner, Epstein is already advising Bannon on the realities of building a political empire in Europe. In a message sent in the early hours of 23 July 2018, he writes from Europe:

“If you are going to play here, you’ll have to spend time, Europe by remote doesn’t work. Lots and lots of face time and hand holding.”

It is the voice of someone warning a client about the terrain he is entering. Hours later, he expands the point:

“There are many leaders of countries we can organise for you to have one-on-ones. however… you will have to come, stay 8–10 days… The fear is that you gin up their hopes and emotions and then abandon them. I think you want to be an insider, not an outsider flying in and out.”

The phrase “whatever is good for you – I’m in”, which Epstein sends later that day, lands like a pledge of loyalty:

“I am unaware of your playbook. however, whatever is good for you – Im in.”

The confidence that runs through his messages comes from somewhere – and the surrounding emails show where. Epstein is not just offering encouragement; he is offering people: diplomats, foreign leaders, sovereign wealth figures, tech financiers, media editors.

On 3 May 2018, he forwards Bannon one of the most extraordinary exchanges in the archive, again involving Jide Zeitlin. Epstein gives Bannon a one-line introduction:

“fyi.”

Then follows Zeitlin’s report of his failed attempt to meet Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the chairman of Dubai World / DP World, one of the largest port operators on the planet:

“Unfortunately, bin Sulayem and I did not meet. I was stuck at the White House and he had a narrow window before heading to Cyprus.”

Zeitlin then describes discussing port strategy with Nigeria’s trade minister:

“Okey Enelamah… stopped by my home this evening as he was still in town after Buhari’s visit with Trump.”

He adds, casually:

“Separately, I spoke earlier with the Vice President.”

Epstein’s network appears to include senior White House access, Gulf sovereign wealth leadership, African trade ministers fresh from meetings with the Trump administration. All packaged up by Epstein for Steve Bannon. By mid-2019, Epstein sends himself a document that reads like a fever dream of elite names, all poured into a single message with a subject line that reveals its purpose:

“list for bannon steve”

What follows is a continuous stream – politicians (Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson), oligarchs, Nobel-calibre scientists (E.O. Wilson, Brian Greene), tech billionaires (Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman), editors (Sulzberger), bankers (Jes Staley), diplomats (Jagland), former prime ministers (Barak), celebrities (Woody Allen), royalty (“queen, pres, king, pm”), and intelligence-linked figures.

Epstein appears to be assembling an inventory of relationships – people he can call, connect, or weaponise – specifically to support Bannon in his efforts to build a MAGA coalition that can neutralise scrutiny of offenders like Epstein. It strongly suggests that Epstein saw himself as part of Bannon’s project, and that he intended Bannon to draw on the full breadth of his network.

————-

Supporting Bannon’s Pro-Trump Campaigning

This dynamic carries straight into the summer of 2018, when the mid-term campaign begins to peak and Bannon is preoccupied with the release of his political documentary Trump@War, a film designed to energise Republican voters. The emails show Epstein was an insider to the production, not an observer. Epstein asks Bannon:

“did you get the first cut of American Carnage?”

A few hours later, Bannon writes back with his assessment:

“American Carnage amazing – An Emmanuel financed it and he loves it – Eroll’s besties tell him it will end his career because he gave a platform to a monster… Officially in Venice, Toronto and New York Film Festival.”

It is a revealing moment. Bannon is giving Epstein the details because Epstein is part of the process. The point is confirmed in a second thread that same month, when Bannon asks his aide Sean:

“Can we get Jeffrey latest version of film”

...

Epstein is no longer just receiving geopolitical gossip, but actively previewing Bannon’s propaganda films – being given cuts, and his feedback being solicited. He is inside the political machine that will be rolled out across the United States in the run-up to November.

————

‘Crazed Jihad’ Against Epstein

And Epstein wants Bannon credited for his pro-Trump efforts. That becomes evident months later, when journalist Michael Wolff writes to Epstein on 5 November 2018, outlining his plan to feature both men in his next book:

“I was thinking of opening with you and Bannon talking about Trump… would let you sound smart and offer… a crowd-pleasing perspective, and make you seem like a credible player – former friend of Trump, adviser to world leaders, sought after person…”

...

It is crucial to recall that all of this is playing out while public scrutiny of Epstein is accelerating in the form of civil suits and journalistic investigations. During this period when most public figures distanced themselves, Bannon writes to Epstein:

“there is a crazed jihad against u – ive never seen anything like it – and I’ve seen a lot.”

Steve Bannon has sought to recast himself as the man sounding the alarm about a liberal Epstein “cover-up”, insisting that the real scandal lies in the hidden networks Epstein built among Democrats, financiers and “globalists”. On his broadcasts, he has spoken in apocalyptic tones about dark elites and state complicity.

The newly released emails make that position untenable. Taken together, the 45 emails collapse the distance between two public myths. The myth of Epstein as a creature of the liberal elite, and the myth of Bannon as the man exposing him. In their place emerges a private record that is far more revealing. They show how a convicted sex offender and a self-styled populist strategist – the very architect of the MAGA movement – worked together in the shadows, swapping contacts, advice, political intelligence and favours, while hiding the relationship from the very public whose anger they sought to mobilise.

...

———–

“Steve Bannon Offered Trump’s MAGA as Shield for Jeffrey Epstein” by Nafeez Ahmed; Byline Times; 11/14/2025

“Earlier this year, Steve Bannon repeatedly claimed that the convicted child sex offender was operating as part of a deep state anti-Trump conspiracy. “In that arc of looking at how the deep state has tried to stop Trump and the MAGA movement, you can easily fit in,” Bannon told a crowd at a Turning Point US conference in July.”

Jeffrey Epstein was part of a deep state anti-Trump conspiracy. That’s been Bannon’s line for years now. And as we can see from the copious communications between the two, Steven Bannon was arguably Jeffrey Epstein’s closest pal and collaborator in the years leading up to Epstein’s ‘suicide’. And as we can see, Epstein wasn’t just offering Bannon accessing to his extensive list of elite contacts. Epstein was offering to help Bannon build a cryptocurrency-based political financial system. Amazingly, in return, Bannon seemed to be offering the promise of ‘staving off’ the #MeToo movement! Yes, ending #MeToo was apparently an Epstein priority. It’s not exactly shocking that Epstein would see ending #MeToo as desirable but it’s rather remarkable that Bannon was dangling that promise to Bannon in exchange for Epstein’s assistance in building a crypto-based financial system for right-wing candidates:

...
Epstein offered potential financial support to Bannon through opaque cryptocurrency schemes designed to evade regulatory scrutiny, along with extensive political networks, strategic planning and routes to European leaders – not to mention advice on pro-Trump video campaign materials.

In return, Bannon offered Epstein something irresistible: to build a right-wing MAGA coalition that would “stave off” the global movement against sexual harassment for more than a decade.

...

“Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things,” he said. “Not just individuals, but also institutions. Intelligence institutions, foreign governments, and who was working with him on our intelligence apparatus and in our government.”

However, newly released emails now show Jeffrey Epstein acting as an intimate political fixer for Steve Bannon himself between 2018 and 2019.

Over this period, Epstein arranged access to world leaders for Bannon, proposing opaque crypto-based funding structures, drafting contact lists for the MAGA architect, and even offering the President of the UN General Assembly to guide Bannon’s “EU project.”

...

The correspondence also shows Epstein helping to shape Bannon’s public image. In one message, he tells journalist Michael Wolff that if Republicans held the House in 2018, “Steve would deserve most of the credit”, while Bannon privately reassured Epstein during renewed scrutiny that “there is a crazed jihad against u”.

The emails reveal a political partnership across these two years in which MAGA’s architect worked hand-in-hand with a convicted sex offender – contradicting everything Bannon has since claimed about Epstein and the so-called “cover-up”.

...

It is crucial to recall that all of this is playing out while public scrutiny of Epstein is accelerating in the form of civil suits and journalistic investigations. During this period when most public figures distanced themselves, Bannon writes to Epstein:

“there is a crazed jihad against u – ive never seen anything like it – and I’ve seen a lot.”

Steve Bannon has sought to recast himself as the man sounding the alarm about a liberal Epstein “cover-up”, insisting that the real scandal lies in the hidden networks Epstein built among Democrats, financiers and “globalists”. On his broadcasts, he has spoken in apocalyptic tones about dark elites and state complicity.

The newly released emails make that position untenable. Taken together, the 45 emails collapse the distance between two public myths. The myth of Epstein as a creature of the liberal elite, and the myth of Bannon as the man exposing him. In their place emerges a private record that is far more revealing. They show how a convicted sex offender and a self-styled populist strategist – the very architect of the MAGA movement – worked together in the shadows, swapping contacts, advice, political intelligence and favours, while hiding the relationship from the very public whose anger they sought to mobilise.
...

Adding to the remarkable nature oof the crypto-based scheming Epstein and Bannon were engaged in starting in 2018 is the proposal by Epstein to incorporate some sort of “christian component” to the scheme that somehow involves forming a church which would give Bannon the clergy-penitent privilege to shield communications from the special counsel criminal investigation then being led by Robert Mueller. Which makes this a good time to recall all the hints we’ve received that Epstein may have been part of the various Middle Eastern back channel negotiations underway during the first Trump administration. Was Epstein also interested in covering up his own role in that story?

...
An early signal appears on 24 February 2018, in a chain that starts with a Politico link but rapidly veers into the architecture of a political movement. Epstein opens with a technical query:

“coin issues: receive coins, distribute coins, pay in coins, coin cooperative, prohibitions foreign donor? i need to understand flow of funds… donor to campaign c’s. does it have to go to campaign first?”

It is a remarkable set of questions pointing straight at the rules governing political finance. Epstein is not dabbling – he is asking how to build an alternative funding system. Bannon replies without hesitation:

“On it.”

Minutes later, Epstein presses further:

“should it have a christian component? tithe? if you form a church you may be able to tell mueller you have a confession privelege. :)”

Even allowing for gallows humour, the suggestion is extraordinary: create a religious entity that could invoke clergy-penitent privilege to shield communications from the special counsel criminal investigation into Donald Trump regarding Russian interference in the 2016 elections, led by then FBI director Robert Mueller.
...

And when see see how Bannon offered Jeffrey Wernick as someone who can help ‘walk u thru the deal’ when Epstein asked for a ‘super smart FEC person’ — which is presumably someone who is very familiar with US election finance law — it’s worth recalling the story Wernick was involved with in 2020 when Parler attempted to recruit then-President Trump to join the platform, with Wernick, a Parler investor, being involved with the discussions. But then the White House Counsel’s office found out about the negotiations and put a stop to it, arguing that it would constitute a violation of ethics. In other words, Bannon’s ‘super smart FEC person’ tried to recruit Trump into a blatant ethical violation in 2020. Because of course:

...
The email chain continues on financial operations. Epstein asks:

“is there a super smart FEC person?”

Bannon provides one:

“I think I have the most solid guy on the right – tied into the ‘swiss’ guys – named Jeffrey Wernick… he can walk u thru the deal.”

Epstein then asks:

“do you have coin guys. brocks people. or should we find? some of the lefty crypto guys might find it difficult to join, but they said bringing tech to discourse is on a higher plane.”

While blockchain evangelist Jeffrey Wernick’s involvement in helping Bannon explore a crypto project for the populist right is a matter of record, Epstein’s secret proximity to Bannon’s efforts is revealed here for the first time.
...

Then we get to the remarkable emails in February and March of 2018 with mysterious references to Middle Eastern actors. First, Epstein mentions how he spent some time talking to Jide Zeitlin — a former Goldman Sachs partner with access to world leaders — adding that Zeitlin is “looking to be read into Saudi. too early.” The next month, Epstein is planning a dinner with a guest list that will include Bannon along with the then-sitting President of the United Nations General Assembly (Miroslav Lajčák), and talks about the Sultan of Dubai visiting NYC later that month:

...
And then the discussion widens. Epstein sends:

“BTW spent some time on the phone with Jide. he’s looking to be read into Saudi. too early.”

Jide Zeitlin – a former Goldman Sachs partner with access to world leaders – is being discussed as though he is part of the same operational landscape Epstein and Bannon are navigating. Bannon replies:

“Yes… I’ve got the 2nd best – best is Don McGahn who is occupied currently.”

Don McGahn, at that moment, is the sitting White House Counsel in the Trump administration. At face value, these exchanges are the behaviour of two actors building a political machine: one (Epstein) probing funding and legal structures, the other (Bannon) offering to supply operatives and strategic doctrine. Whether and what meetings they resulted in, Byline Times cannot confirm.

The tone continues into March. The thread that leads to the townhouse dinner on 15 March 2018 is, if anything, even more explicit. Epstein opens:

“yes I saw it. 1. I will invite Gerry Baker to our dinner tonight. 2. Miro Lajcak, president of UN, will guide the EU project if you like him. his govt will fall this week — as planned. :) 3. later today we can discuss michael and his coins. 4. sultan — dubai in new york 21 22.”

In this extraordinary email, Epstein is not only inviting the then editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, Gerald Baker, he also offers up the sitting President of the United Nations General Assembly (Miroslav Lajčák), claims foreknowledge of the collapse of the Slovakian government, references “Michael and his coins” – tying directly back to the crypto-funding exchanges – and flags the visit of a Gulf actor.
...

And by mid-2019, Epstein sends a “list for bannon steve” that politicians (Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson), oligarchs, Nobel-calibre scientists (E.O. Wilson, Brian Greene), tech billionaires (Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman), editors (Sulzberger), bankers (Jes Staley), diplomats (Jagland), former prime ministers (Barak), celebrities (Woody Allen), royalty (“queen, pres, king, pm”), and intelligence-linked figures. It’s not a random list. It’s a list of people Epstein is apparently hoping to somehow assists in their joint schemes:

...
The deeper one goes into the correspondence, the clearer Epstein’s position becomes. He speaks like a fixer – a man who still believes he can move governments, pull networks together, and put the right people in the right rooms. And Bannon receives him that way.

...

The confidence that runs through his messages comes from somewhere – and the surrounding emails show where. Epstein is not just offering encouragement; he is offering people: diplomats, foreign leaders, sovereign wealth figures, tech financiers, media editors.

...

Epstein’s network appears to include senior White House access, Gulf sovereign wealth leadership, African trade ministers fresh from meetings with the Trump administration. All packaged up by Epstein for Steve Bannon. By mid-2019, Epstein sends himself a document that reads like a fever dream of elite names, all poured into a single message with a subject line that reveals its purpose:

“list for bannon steve”

What follows is a continuous stream – politicians (Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson), oligarchs, Nobel-calibre scientists (E.O. Wilson, Brian Greene), tech billionaires (Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman), editors (Sulzberger), bankers (Jes Staley), diplomats (Jagland), former prime ministers (Barak), celebrities (Woody Allen), royalty (“queen, pres, king, pm”), and intelligence-linked figures.

Epstein appears to be assembling an inventory of relationships – people he can call, connect, or weaponise – specifically to support Bannon in his efforts to build a MAGA coalition that can neutralise scrutiny of offenders like Epstein. It strongly suggests that Epstein saw himself as part of Bannon’s project, and that he intended Bannon to draw on the full breadth of his network.
...

Epstein was apparently even helping Bannon produce his Trump@War pro-Trump documentary released in 2018 and designed to energise Republican voters. Epstein was literally helping Bannon craft the message designed to help Republicans in the 2018 mid-terms:

...
This dynamic carries straight into the summer of 2018, when the mid-term campaign begins to peak and Bannon is preoccupied with the release of his political documentary Trump@War, a film designed to energise Republican voters. The emails show Epstein was an insider to the production, not an observer. Epstein asks Bannon:

“did you get the first cut of American Carnage?”

A few hours later, Bannon writes back with his assessment:

“American Carnage amazing – An Emmanuel financed it and he loves it – Eroll’s besties tell him it will end his career because he gave a platform to a monster… Officially in Venice, Toronto and New York Film Festival.”

It is a revealing moment. Bannon is giving Epstein the details because Epstein is part of the process. The point is confirmed in a second thread that same month, when Bannon asks his aide Sean:

“Can we get Jeffrey latest version of film”

...

Epstein is no longer just receiving geopolitical gossip, but actively previewing Bannon’s propaganda films – being given cuts, and his feedback being solicited. He is inside the political machine that will be rolled out across the United States in the run-up to November.
...

If Epstein was part of an anti-Trump ‘deep state’, that ‘deep state’ sure has an odd way of manifesting that opposition. But, of course, everything we’ve seen points towards an Epstein ‘deep state’ that wasn’t just pro-Trump, but pro-Thiel and pro-Bannon too. And with Thiel and Bannon positioned to continue influencing the GOP long after Trump exits the stage, the question is raised: given everything we’ve seen about the last decade of Epstein’s life and his extensive interactions with top MAGA-aligned political movers and shakers like Thiel and Bannon, at what point should we start referring to the ‘Epstein network’ as the ‘Epstein/Thiel/Bannon MAGA deep state’?

In all probability, it was Thiel who drove the “Epstein train.”

I covered Thiel’s ascent in 2010:

https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-718-in-your-facebook-a-virtual-panoptican/

Keep up the great work!

This is a good time to recall the contents of Barrett Brown’s piece published back in April about Thiel’s ties to white supremacist hacker Andrew “weev” Auernheimer and other extremists in the 2016 election cycle. As Brown’s piece noted, the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence’s official journal StratCom actually published a 2016 paper by Jeff Giesea — a long-time close Thiel business associate with extensive extremist ties of his own to extremists — with the title “It’s Time to Embrace Memetic Warfare”, touting the psychological warfare social media methods of figures like Charles Johnson as a means of combatting ISIS. It was a story that raised enormous questions about the relationship between the US national security state and extremist hackers like ‘weev’, and what role ‘weev’ may have played on behalf of the US national security interests and the potential role Thiel may have played as a kind of behind-the-scenes organizer for these activities. And then Brown dropped that explosive revelation during the Patreon that knowledgeable sources consider Auernheimer’s ex-roommate, hacker Alex Pilosov, as the real culprit behind the DNC hacks, raising even more questions about what this Thiel-affiliated white supremacist hacker network may have been up to over the last decade.

This is also a good time to recall not just Epstein’s ties to the Qatari royal family but his apparent role in behind-the-scenes Middle Eastern diplomacy that put him very much in the same orbit as another figure who has an alarming number of parallels to Epstein: George Nader, the long-time ‘international man of mystery’ whose close ties to the UAE placed him in a number of still-unexplained roles involving ‘back-channel’ negotiations between the 2016 Trump campaign/first administration and the governments of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Back-channel negotiations that, based on available information, could very well have involved Epstein. At a minimum, Epstein was eager to play such a role in global affairs. And as we’ll see in the following piece, Epstein very much did play a kind of secret role in shaping global affairs when it came to his relationship with Thiel, with Epstein repeatedly offering to introduce Thiel one influential global figure after another.

It sounds like Epstein had been trying to get in touch with Thiel since at least as early as 2009, with Epstein’s interest in cryptocurrency being the initial reason. As Epstein saw it, it was time for setting up alternative financial and PayPal, founded by Thiel, served as a starting point. Ben Goertzel, a mutual acquaintance of Thiel and Epstein, informed Epstein back in 2009 that Thiel was interested in starting his own currency outside the scope of nation-states, a goal that could be see as a precursor to the ‘TheoBro’ agenda. Recall how AI proponent Goertzel is a key figure in the ‘Singularity’ movement and one of Epstein’s foundations made a $100k donation to the Worldwide Transhumanist Association — since renamed Humanity Plus — to pay Goertzel’s salary as the group’s vice chairman. One of the projects the donation helped to finance was the development of OpenCog, a software development kit that allows for the building of ‘smart’ AI characters. It’s a reminder that a shared interest in transhumanism and AI is also likely part of what drew Epstein to Thiel in addition to cryptocurrencies. But also a reminder that the transhumanist strains and focus on AI we see throughout the ‘TheoBro’ movement is something both Thiel and Epstein were promoting long before the TheoBros became a thing.

Keep in mind that Bitcoin was launched in January of 2009, so Epstein was onboard with the cryptocurrency ideology almost from the beginning and spent years trying to connect with Peter Thiel over it. Considering we still don’t know the identity of the pseudonymous ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, we have to ask if Epstein was at all connected to the secret network behind Bitcoin’s origins. People have satirically suggested Epstein is Satoshi Nakamoto. But considering Epstein was trying to create an alternative system of finance right as Bitcoin was getting start and demonstrably wanted to operate out of the public eye, we have to ask if Epstein at least knew Nakamoto’s real identity.

Epstein had a particularly bizarre idea for an alternative currency that would have some dark potential synergy with his alleged role as a kind of blackmail king pimp for elites: Epstein wanted to create a system where Facebook “friends” would trade “favors.” He floated the idea in two separate 2014 emails to Thiel, suggesting it would be huge.

Epstein even made a $3 million investment in the crypto-exchange Coinbase in 2014. Amazingly, in an August 2014 email from Epstein to Thiel, Epstein claims to have a meeting coming up with the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service’s chief legal adviser about cryptocurrency, offering to ask any questions during the meeting that Thiel might have. Was Epstein really meeting with Treasury officials in 2014 about cryptocurrency? In April of 2016, Epstein wrote to Thiel about how former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers “is now on board with rethinking the financial system, digital currency etc.,” and will “join with us in concocting a plan. Fun.”

Intriguingly, it was apparently Reid Hoffman — one of Thiel’s fellow ‘PayPal Mafia’ alums who has gone on to become a Democratic mega-donor — who finally introduced Epstein to Thiel in 2014. As we’ve seen, Hoffman has a number of ties that make him a rather interesting Democratic mega-donor. Recall how it was Hoffman who helped to financed the fake ‘Russian bot’ campaign that was influencing voters in Alabama’s 2017 special senatorial election. Other participants in the project, dubbed “Project Birmingham”, included Renee DiResta, the lead author on the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian disinformation. And as we saw, it was Hoffman who arranged for an August 2015 dinner where Epstein was a guest along with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Peter Thiel. Hoffman tried to deflect criticism when this dinner party was first reported by insisting it was just a fund-raising dinner for MIT’s Media Lab, one of the academic institutions whose reputation was most sullied by the Epstein scandal. Hoffman even visited ‘Epstein island’ at least once. And as we’ve also seen, while Hoffman is ostensibly a Democrat, he’s the kind of Democratic mega-donor who uses that influence to rail against ‘government bureaucracy’ and advocates for a kind of unrestrained hyper-capitalism global gig economy that sounds an awful lot like the ‘aristopopulism’ endorsed by the TheoBros.

Adding to the mystery of the nature of Epstein’s and Thiel’s relationship is that it sounds like Thiel actively served as a reputational shield for Epstein in exchange Epstein’s favors and tax advice. Keep in mind that Epstein was one of the leading figures in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in the history back in the 80s. What kind of exotic ‘tax advice’ was Epstein offering that Thiel couldn’t easily get elsewhere? Is ‘tax advice’ a euphemism for something else? Either way, it appears that others would refer to potential Epstein associates to Thiel, who would apparently vouch for Epstein and point out that Epstein was a major investor with Thiel.

Amazingly, emails between Thiel and Epstein show how Thiel sought advice from Epstein on how to handle bad press. For example, in early 2015 the story about a lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre against Epstein made the news. Two weeks after those headlines, Thiel emails Epstein telling him that he made it to Miami at the end of the month, “I’ll stop by your island!” Eight days later, Epstein replies, “Does my bad press give you pause?” “If I was intimidated by bad press, I would not have gotten anywhere in life,” Thiel replied, adding “Do you have any sense on whether this press cycle is going to keep excalating [sic]?” Thiel then follows up with a message to Epstein about how, “It would be [good to] compare notes at some point, on strategies on this sort of stuff...”

As we’ve seen, 2015–2016 was also the period when Epstein made significant investments in Thiel’s Valar Ventures. And as we’ve learned from Ed Opperman, it’s the investments in Valar Ventures that constitutes the bulk of the remaining assets — worth potentially more than $100 million — left to the Epstein estate to use as it sees fit. Interestingly, at one point Epstein floated the idea of investing in Palantir, although Thiel advised he hold off until they discussed it later. It’s also worth keeping in mind that cryptocurrencies represent a particularly opaque class of asset to be dealt with following Epstein’s ‘suicide’ and the subsequent legal battle of the substantial assets in his estate. We know that federal prosecutors left the estate with substantial assets but that doesn’t mean the estate didn’t quietly retain control of undeclared cryptocurrency assets that may or may not have been disclosed to authorities.

That 2015–2016 period was also the time when Thiel took a much more public role as a Republican mega-donor, with Thiel serving as a Trump delegate and even taking a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. Emails show how Epstein was actively encouraging Thiel to take on this public role. But as we’ve learned from Barrett Brown’s explosive reporting, 2015–2016 was also a period with Thiel and his close associate Jeff Giesea were cultivating ties to figures like Andrew ‘weev’ Auernheimer. And as Brown revealed in his Patreon talk back in July, knowledgeable insider suspect it was weev’s roommate and fellow hacker, Alex Pilosov, who carried out the 2016 DNC hacks. If true, it immediately raises questions about potential roles both Thiel and Epstein may have played in that subterfuge. That’s also part of the intriguing context of the guidance Epstein seem to be giving Thiel during this time.

It also sounds like the political guidance Epstein was conveying to Thiel during this period went beyond strategies for dealing with bad press. Once Epstein finally befriended Thiel, he proceeded to introduce Thiel to all sorts of influential figures in the world of government, finance, and politics. Epstein really was operating as a kind of behind-the-scenes elite matchmaker, constantly suggesting to one of his friends that they should meet another one of his friend. One of those old friends Epstein introduced Thiel to was someone who turned out to be an old friend of both Epstein and Donald Trump: Tom Barrack. As we’ve seen, Tom Barrack wasn’t just an old friend of Trump and fellow real estate developer. Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee — which faced all sorts of investigations involving foreign influence peddling by governments that included Qatar, with Steven Bannon and Michael Flynn helping the Qataris — was chaired by Barrack. Also recall how Barrack is long-time friends with Paul Manafort and reportedly tried to get Manafort Qatari clients after Manafort was let go from the Trump campaign in August of 2016, a reflection of Barrack’s extensive Middle Eastern contacts. It was Barrack who reportedly recommended that Trump hire Manafort to run his campaign in the first place. Barrack was also deeply intertwined with the lobbying for a kind of ‘nuclear Marshall plan for the Middle East’ scheme during the first Trump administration. So when we see how Barrack was also an old friend of Epstein, it’s hard not to suspect that Barrack knew both Trump and Epstein back when the pair were close party pals. But it also places Epstein even closer to the whole 2016 ‘Russiagate’ affair and subsequent foreign influence peddling scandals. And as we’ve seen, with Epstein’s close ties to the Qataris and role as a behind-the-scenes Middle Eastern diplomat and deal-maker, it’s not hard to imagine Epstein was part of the numerous Trump 2016 backroom negotiations too. And with Epstein and Barrack being old friends and mutual acquaintances of Donald Trump, we have all the more reason to suspect that Epstein may have a much bigger role in all sorts of aspects of the 2016 Trump campaign fiascos than currently recognized.

And while there aren’t email or other documents that have been released with the Epstein Files with direct ‘Russiagate’ implications, keep in mind the substantial number of still-redacted or unreleased files. But also keep in mind that encrypted communications were very much a standard thing during this period. As we’ll see, in late August 2016, following the RNC Convention where Thiel spoke, Epstein emails Thiel to let him know that Barrack was very impressed with Thiel after the conversation the two had the convention greenroom. Thiel asks Epstein if he has thoughts on the 2016 race, with Epstein replies, “Lots, and you should be closer. So that your advice is considered.” At that point Thiel asks that they continue the conversation over Signal. It’s a reminder that the ‘Epstein Files’ from the later years when encryption became standard are really just the communications that Epstein or his cohorts didn’t feel needed to encrypt.

But the article points out another just incredible revelation that only adds to questions about what kind of behind-the-scenes diplomat/dealmaker role Epstein could have been playing during the 2016 campaign: Bill Burns, who became Joe Biden’s CIA director in 2021, actually met with Epstein back in September 2014, shortly before Burns retired as deputy secretary of state the next month. Yep, Epstein somehow managed a meeting with the deputy secretary of state in 2014. And given that Burns was soon retiring, we can reasonably speculate that his post-government work was likely a topic of discussion. In other words, there’s a very reasonable chance that Epstein did a favor for the then-deputy secretary of state and future director of the CIA. It’s the kind of context that makes a putative behind-the-scenes diplomat/dealmaker role for Epstein a lot more plausible.

As we should expect at this point, Bill Burns is another figure Epstein put Peter Thiel in touch with. In fact, Epstein made the suggestion that Burns meet Thiel on at least five different occasions between May and October of 2014. And not only did Epstein and Burns meeting in late September that year, but Burns had been supposed to attend a gathering Epstein arranged earlier that month that included retired senator Bob Kerrey, Kathryn Ruemmler, and Thiel. Burns had to back out at the last minute because of work, but it sounds like the gathering happened without him. Recall how, in addition to being an Obama White House Counsel from 2011 to June of 2014, Ruemmler was also the lawyer for George Nader during the Russiagate congressional hearings. Hearings about backroom deals involving Middle Eastern governments that Epstein had spent years cultivating relationships with. A White House Counsel has to know about a lot of powerful secrets. And her she was, dining with Epstein and Thiel in a dinner set up by Epstein with the apparent intention of introducing Thiel to Epstein’s other influential friends. How many times did this happen and to what extent is the rise of Peter Thiel as the super-villain oligarch he is today a product of Jeffrey Epstein’s tutelage?

Other figures Epstein offered to introduce Thiel to included Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen; Slovakian conservative politician Miroslav Lajčák; a“Sultan from Dubai,” which likely referred to businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem; then-Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdor; Anil Ambani, an Indian businessman with close ties to Narendra Modi’s government; and Norwegian politician Børge Brende, who had become the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum. Epstein referred to Brende as the “new head of DAVOS” when he dangled the possibility to Thiel. Epstein offered to arrange a meeting for Thiel with then–Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland four time between 2014 and 2017. When the UN would convened, Epstein would invite Thiel to New York by dangling the opportunity to meet with foreign ministers and world leaders, at one point bragging, the “head of Nobel Peace Prize committee staying with me.” While we don’t know how many of these meetings Thiel accepted, the offers indicate that Epstein was in very regular communication with Thiel.

One foreign official Epstein did manage to arrange for Thiel to meet was Sergei Belyakov, a former Russian official and graduate of the country’s spy academy. Recall how Epstein’s ties to Belyakov were seen as hinting at ties to the Russian government and yet, as we saw, Epstein apparently attempted at one point to arrange a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Belyakov although there’s no indication that meeting ever happened. It’s a strong hint that Epstein’s relationship with Belyakov should not be seen as indicative of Epstein’s ties to Putin but more a propensity to make incredible claims about access. In other words, Epstein’s relationship with Belyakov was, if anything, likely fueled by the false assertion on Epstein’s part that he had Putin’s ear and it probably wasn’t the only time Epstein made such a false assertion. It’s a reminder that we should assume at least some of the claims found in the Epstein Files were false boast and part of how Epstein operated. He clearly had very real access to elites and governments around the world, but he presumably achieved that, in part, by selling himself as an individual with incredible access and influence.

That’s all part of why we increasingly need to ask what kind of role Jeffrey Epstein played in making Peter Thiel the power-mad behind-the-scenes techno-fascist oligarch he is today. Not that he wasn’t already fascist-minded decades ago. That’s well documented. But Epstein had a significant interest in first meeting Thiel over their shared ideologies and then went on to apparently introduce Thiel to his elite network while encouraging and coaching Thiel’s entry into politics. And here we are today with Thiel doing public speeches about the Antichrist and serves as a leading sponsor of the next generation of fascist-minded tech-oligarchs and an ideological figure in the TheoBros movement. Thiel and Epstein were ideological ‘bros’ laying the groundwork for the techno-fascist ‘TheoBros’ movement Thiel leads today. Which is why we have to ask: How much of Peter Thiel’s super-villainy can we attribute to the years Epstein spent promoting and shaping Thiel both a business partner and ideological ally:

Jacobin

Jeffrey Epstein Encouraged Peter Thiel’s Political Journey

Peter Thiel has gone from reclusive billionaire to high-profile political overlord. Hundreds of emails show that that journey was encouraged and facilitated by the late multimillionaire financier who considered him a “great friend”: Jeffrey Epstein.

By Branko Marcetic
April 27, 2026

It wasn’t so long ago that Peter Thiel was a reclusive figure, so protective of his privacy that he bankrolled a lawsuit to ruin the news outlet that publicly revealed he’s gay. A decade later, the fifty-eight-year-old Thiel no longer avoids the political spotlight.

Over the past decade, Thiel has become an increasingly active and vocal right-wing political donor. Central to this is his close, more-than-decade-long relationship with his former employee and protégé J. D. Vance, the vice president and Donald Trump’s likely successor as leader of the Republican Party, whose political ascent— first to the Senate, then into Trump’s good graces, and finally the vice presidency— Thiel has bankrolled and facilitated. As recently as a month ago, the two men reportedly sat down for a private dinner in the vice president’s residence.

Thiel’s close relationship with Vance and other young right-wingers all but ensures that the tech billionaire will continue to shape politics and policy for many years— decades, if his technological plans to extend his lifespan work out. And, in spite of Jeffrey Epstein’s mysterious death seven years ago, it ensures the same for the quiet influence of the billionaire pedophile, who private emails show was not only good friends with Thiel but encouraged Thiel’s involvement in right-wing politics.

Among the millions of Epstein-related documents released by the Department of Justice so far are hundreds of email exchanges between Epstein and Thiel that show the deep, symbiotic friendship between the two men. In return for Epstein’s favors and tax advice, Thiel provided investment insights and served as something of a reputational shield. When Thiel expressed a growing interest in geopolitics, Epstein encouraged his curiosity, setting up meetings with officials and political power players at home and abroad. After Thiel became part of the 2016 Trump campaign, Epstein urged him to grow his influence within Trumpworld and advised him on how to do it.

...

“Will Peter Thiel Be Around?”

It’s not clear exactly when Epstein and Thiel became friends. Emails suggest the two had no relationship in February 2013, the date of an audio recording unearthed earlier this year in which Epstein advised his friend, then-outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, to get involved with Thiel and his surveillance firm Palantir.

For years, Epstein unsuccessfully tried to connect with the tech billionaire, at that point best known for cofounding PayPal and later selling it to eBay for $1.5 billion— at least ten separate times between August 2009 and November 2012, according to emails reviewed by Jacobin. Other times, people in his circle offered to make an introduction, his primary conduit being Ian Osborne, a former British fixer who was well connected, and well invested, in Silicon Valley.

Emails suggest that what may have initially drawn Epstein to Thiel was his interest in creating an alternative financial system. In one of the earliest Epstein documents that mentions Thiel, an August 2009 email from Epstein to literary agent John Brockman requesting that they be brought together, Brockman told him that he would need a reason for the sit-down to happen.

“Idea is now is the time for a new financial alternative, that is what PayPal started as,” Epstein replied. (Jacobin has, as usual, cleaned up Epstein’s often borderline-incomprehensible grammar.)

Another mutual acquaintance, computer scientist Ben Goertzel, an early champion of AI, dangled the prospect of personally interacting with Thiel as a way to get Epstein to the Singularity Summit, a yearly gathering of AI superintelligence enthusiasts, in October that year. Thiel “wanted to start his own currency outside the scope of nation-states,” Goertzel told him.

The vision Epstein had in mind bordered on the goofy. He told a friend years later that he thought Facebook could be the basis for that alternative system, in which Facebook “friends” would trade “favors.” Silly as it sounded, Epstein was dead serious, pitching the idea personally to Thiel two separate times years later. It appeared to be related to his interest in cryptocurrency, as suggested by an April 2016 email to Thiel about former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers joining the effort.

“Larry Summers is now on board with rethinking the financial system, digital currency etc.,” he wrote Thiel. “He will join with us in concocting a plan. Fun.”

Epstein’s interest in Thiel was undeterred by the fact that several of his acquaintances were far from impressed by the PayPal founder. Brockman warned him that Thiel disliked democracy and considered the granting of voting rights to women and the poor a mistake. Another contact told him that while she had once found Thiel interesting, after seeing him speak about Singularity, she decided she “didn’t think he knew what he was talking about and lost interest.” Epstein acknowledged that while most of the big names on the Singularity side were “goofballs,” there did seem “to be a kernel of an idea here and there, even if by accident.”

The two men seem to have finally connected in March 2014, thanks to another Epstein associate from the tech world: Reid Hoffman, whom Osborne had once charmingly described to Epstein as the “fatty at LinkedIn.” Emails indicate that Hoffman set up the meeting between the two men that month at his house, seemingly at Epstein’s nudging.

“Will Peter Thiel be around, as you said he was in your first circle?” Epstein somewhat thirstily emailed Hoffman at the start of that month.

“Does My Bad Press Give You Pause?”

Once the two connected, they appear to have become fast friends. Thiel and Epstein exchanged constant emails, regularly met and talked on the phone, collaborated on business ventures, and discussed everything from politics and science to investment possibilities— as in one now-notorious email exchange about Brexit, in which Epstein seemed to revel in the “return to tribalism” and “collapse” that it heralded.

By the time their friendship was in full swing, Epstein’s crimes against underage girls were years old. In fact, they had become national and global news at the start of 2015, after Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz were named in a lawsuit against Epstein that alleged he had run an underage sex ring.

Roughly two weeks after that lawsuit made global headlines, Thiel emailed Epstein, telling him that if he made it to Miami at the end of the month, “I’ll stop by your island!” Eight days after that, as the unflattering headlines and public denunciations piled up, Epstein followed up.

“Does my bad press give you pause?” he asked.

“If I was intimidated by bad press, I would not have gotten anywhere in life,” Thiel replied. “But I do hope that you’re holding up well, and that the cycle won’t go much further.”

“Do you have any sense on whether this press cycle is going to keep excalating [sic]?” Thiel asked eighteen minutes later. “It would be [good to] compare notes at some point, on strategies on this sort of stuff...”

...

Just like with his close friendship with Steve Bannon, Epstein lavished Thiel with generosity. He proposed flying the billionaire to the Virgin Islands in his helicopter, offered to connect him with “the top sleep doctor in NY” (“I would like you to stay alive,” Epstein told him), and encouraged and advised him on buying a private plane. “We need to hang out way more often,” Thiel told him in one of these exchanges.

Early on in their friendship, Epstein suggested speaking with Thiel or one of his advisers to give him financial advice.

“I suspect your personal tax regime can use some tweaking,” Epstein emailed him. “Yes, this would be awesome,” replied Thiel. “I *never* question your judgment on tax-related issues,” he reiterated a few months later. Another time, Epstein informed Thiel he would be discussing cryptocurrency at a meeting with the Treasury Department and what appeared to be the Internal Revenue Service’s chief legal adviser, and asked him if he had any questions he wanted asked.

Epstein in turn solicited investment advice from Thiel. He at one point floated giving him $50–$100 million to invest, which Thiel gladly accepted (“Whenever someone offers you money out of the blue, you should always take it :),” he wrote) and proposed they discuss where best to put it.

Epstein asked for Thiel’s thoughts on an offer to invest in Spotify, as well as the prospect of investing in Thiel’s own company, Palantir, with Thiel advising he hold off until they discussed it later. A month after that, Thiel arranged a meeting between Epstein and his two fellow cofounders of venture capital firm Valar, counseling the convicted sex offender to invest between $10 and $20 million into a new fund they were starting.

“I thought your insight into the Israeli startup world was great,” Epstein emailed Thiel later that month on Christmas eve.

At one point, Thiel’s business partner, Blake Masters, at Thiel’s request, sent Epstein a physical copy of the book the two men had cowritten. “I know he’d love to hear what you think...lt’d be great to meet you sometime in NYC. Warm Regards, Blake,” the note read. (Eight years later, Masters ran a failed Senate campaign in Arizona on a supposedly pro-family platform, costing Thiel $20 million.)

In the case of one business venture, Epstein leaned on his relationship with Thiel to overcome how reputationally toxic his name had become.

In a July 2018 email exchange, Epstein and Bitcoin developer Jeremy Rubin strategized how exactly they would have him invest in Bitcoin mining startup Layer1 while keeping his identity under wraps, since Rubin worried “otherwise potential investments Googling your name might get spooked (especially given SF politics).” When the company refused to move forward until they knew who they were getting in bed with, Epstein instructed Rubin to be honest about who he was and to tell them “I am a major investor with Thiel, they can ask him.”

“They’re not bothered, they’ll chat with Thiel,” Rubin reported back after the conversation.

“Playing With Donald”

As the pair’s friendship deepened, emails suggest Epstein encouraged Thiel’s growing interest in politics.

“Trump delegate? Fun,” Epstein emailed him a day after Thiel’s name popped up in a Trump campaign filing in California in May 2016.

Thiel quickly became one of Trump’s most high-profile supporters, garnering attention not just because of his sexual orientation, but because of his status as an outlier in a Silicon Valley that generally leaned liberal and Democratic. Throughout that year’s July and August, during which Thiel appeared in a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention (RNC), Epstein emailed him praise and encouragement, calling him a “star,” and asking him, in response to a recent article about him, if he was “enjoying raising your public profile.”

“Not really...need to stop this!” was Thiel’s somewhat unsurprising reply. Though it’s unclear exactly which article Epstein was referring to, two weeks earlier, his accountant, Richard Kahn, had sent him a now-infamous report alleging that Thiel was funding a project to prolong his life by transfusing young people’s blood into his own veins.

Epstein appeared eager to make sure Thiel, his new friend, grew his influence with his old friend, the future president of the United States, through a mutual friend: real estate investor Tom Barrack, who would end up serving in both of Trump’s administrations.

“Don’t know how well you know Tom Barrack he is great,” Epstein emailed Thiel a week before he was due to speak at the final night of the RNC, directly before Barrack, who was himself the last speaker before Trump was introduced. “He will be a speaker at the convention,” Epstein explained when Thiel told him he didn’t. “He runs Colony Capital. Solid, great real estate judgement. Donald’s fund raiser.”

An email exchange from the end of August that year suggests Barrack and Thiel may have connected at the RNC, something Epstein urged Thiel to seize on to cultivate greater influence within Trumpworld.

“Tom Barrack really liked you, he told me the conversation in the green room,” Epstein emailed Thiel. When Thiel asked if he had thoughts on the race, Epstein told him: “Lots, and you should be closer. So that your advice is considered.” The two men then turned, at Thiel’s request, to a phone conversation on Signal.

A few weeks later, Epstein offered to call Thiel while Barrack was visiting him. What appears to be a list of calendar items from Epstein’s computer dated to late 2016 includes an hour-long meeting that October, which involved all three men and someone who appears to be former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, another close Epstein associate. Once Trump won, Thiel would end up serving on the then-president-elect’s transition team.

...

“Are you still playing with Donald?” Epstein asked him six months into Trump’s presidency. Kahn regularly kept his client abreast of news about Thiel, passing on to Epstein, on the day of the 2017 inauguration, a CNBC story about Trump possibly tapping the PayPal founder to serve as US ambassador to Germany and, seven months later, a Buzzfeed article reporting unflattering comments Thiel had privately made about the administration.

“Read the Buzzfeed article. Careful!” Epstein emailed Thiel the same day. “Donald is vindictive, especially when it is pointed out that he is not the smartest person in the room. Or it is just made obvious.”

“Yes, agreed...Will call later today, sorry I’m so overdue,” Thiel replied.

Thiel did take more care from there on. His public comments about Trump and his administration were invariably, carefully positive, as when he defended Trump’s frequent lies as mere “exaggerations of the truth” that were par for the course in politics (“I liked your Trump exaggerations not lies,” Epstein emailed him). By the end of 2018 Thiel was again an extravagantly generous donor to Trump’s coming presidential campaign.

Steve Bannon, the president’s former Svengali, was another Trump insider Epstein tried to connect Thiel with. Bannon’s close relationship with the late pedophile was one of the major revelations of the first round of DoJ document releases, but more recently released emails suggest Epstein’s efforts to ingratiate himself with Bannon began earlier than previously thought.

According to a November 2016 email exchange between Kahn and Brock Pierce, a crypto investor who once called Bannon “my right-hand man for, like, seven years,” Pierce had consulted Epstein’s accountant about the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Kahn emailed Pierce that Bannon should “talk privately with Jeffrey,” since Epstein “knows more about international finance than anyone on Trump’s team, by a long way,” with Pierce responding that he would “work on getting us all together.” Emails show Epstein instructed his accountant to follow up by suggesting Thiel be thrown into the mix.

“Please communicate with Jeffrey, who is also close to Peter Thiel,” Kahn dutifully emailed Pierce. “Jeffrey thinks Peter is really thoughtful.”

Later, once Epstein had teamed up with Bannon in earnest to try and create an oligarch-funded movement of right-wing populism, he tried several times to get the two men in a room together, and may have succeeded at least once. In one case, he suggested the trio could “discuss response to tax cut criticism”— specifically, work on talking points pushing back on the portrayal of Trump’s tax cuts as a handout to the rich.

Yet for all this work to connect Thiel with Trumpworld, Epstein could also be disdainful toward the tech billionaire. When Larry Summers emailed him a list of possible Treasury secretary picks for Trump shortly after the 2016 election, Epstein dismissed the inclusion of his “great friend.”

“Peter Thiel autistic, no global sense,” Epstein told Summers.

“Many Interesting People”

It wasn’t just Trump. Epstein regularly proposed to introduce Thiel to a variety of influential political players, often in the fields of foreign policy and intelligence. Jacobin has previously reported on Epstein’s successful efforts to connect Thiel with Ehud Barak, efforts that produced a business relationship that prefigured Thiel’s current partnership with the Israeli military. But it went far beyond that.

Epstein appeared particularly set on connecting Thiel with Bill Burns, the future CIA director who at that point was at the tail end of his stint as deputy secretary of state for Barack Obama. “Best and most respected diplomat in the admin, you should meet him, he conducted the secret Iran negotiations, kept them secret for a year and was involved in the most sensitive of missions for years,” Epstein told Thiel. “I can set up when you are avail.”

Between May and October 2014, emails suggest that Epstein made at least five attempts to get the two together in the same room, including a September 13 meeting that, according to a text exchange between Burns and Epstein, the diplomat had to back out at the last minute because of work.

“Please give my best to Peter, and look forward to another opportunity to meet soon,” Burns texted him. One of those times, with Burns’s permission, he put the two in touch directly, telling them they “would enjoy each other.”

“Peter, look forward to meeting, and sorry I wasn’t able to come to NY last month,” Burns emailed Thiel three days later. “Jeffrey, many thanks for making introduction.”

“Bill— likewise, on this end. Look forward to meeting in person!” Thiel replied.

Another former Democratic official meant to attend that weekend was retired senator Bob Kerrey, whose former role on the Senate Intelligence Committee Epstein specifically advertised to Thiel, and who enthusiastically agreed to the meeting (“I think both [dates] work but let me double check with Jen!” Kerrey replied, referring to his firm’s executive assistant). “Sunday lunch with Kerrey would be great,” Thiel told Epstein.

Kathryn Ruemmler (“former Obama counsel for five years,” as Epstein pitched her) was likewise invited to a dinner with Thiel that weekend. “You should meet,” Epstein told her that month, as he tried repeatedly to connect the two. “Any of your spook friends might want to attend,” Epstein emailed her about a June 2015 meeting he proposed, referring to connections Ruemmler may have had in the intelligence world.

Epstein was similarly eager to introduce Thiel to Tom Pritzker, hotel billionaire and executive chairman of the foreign policy think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a contact he had tried to connect with others in his circle on the basis of a shared hostility on China. Epstein would insist to Thiel that Pritzker was “a good contact for you,” even as CSIS’s hawkish outlook clashed with what Thiel as late as 2019 described as his belief that “the US should have a less interventionist foreign policy.” Epstein took the rare step of putting the two in touch directly (“have fun”) while Thiel was visiting Pritzker’s hometown of Chicago in October 2014, and nudging Thiel when he failed to respond to Pritzker’s outreach.

...

Epstein fed Thiel’s growing interest in politics by trying to introduce him to a parade of foreign government officials, many of them European. A year earlier he had taken the rare step of connecting Thiel directly with Sergei Belyakov, a former Russian official and graduate of the country’s spy academy, who later told the pedophile that Thiel’s insights on subjects like the Russian economy had been “very helpful.”

Belyakov wasn’t the only Russian official. Epstein tried several times to have Thiel meet decorated and long-serving Russian diplomat Vitaly Churkin (“Russian ambassador, most involved, he and [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov control,” as Epstein put it to him), including a month before Churkin’s death in 2017. “Sorry you are not here, Vitally [sic] Churkin debriefing on Syria, wild,” Epstein emailed Thiel in late September 2016.

It’s not clear if a meeting with Churkin, who served as Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN until the day he died, ever happened, though an October 2016 schedule shows a lunch meeting involving the trio. Elsewhere, in December 2017, Epstein told Maria Drokova, a Kremlin-sponsored activist who became a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, she would meet Thiel when Epstein visited her.

“I’ve been learning from him through his books/speeches,” she replied. “Seems like he has very certain political plans now...”

Other European officials Epstein tried to connect Thiel with included longtime friends and associates like Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen; Slovakian conservative politician Miroslav Lajčák (“great friend would like to do big things”), whom Epstein and Bannon viewed as the future European leader of Bannon’s right-wing movement; and then–Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland (“I think if you want Europe...He has the best understanding of reality on the ground. And I will vouch for your discretion,” Epstein told Thiel), who Epstein tried to arrange Thiel to meet at least four times between 2014 and 2017.

At least three times, in 2014, 2015, and 2018, Epstein invited Thiel on the week that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was convening, dangling the possibility of encountering various power players: “foreign ministers,” “many of the worlds [sic] leaders,” the “head of Nobel Peace Prize committee staying with me.”

...

In spite of Thiel’s professed interest in European politics, Epstein also tried to put him in touch with leaders in Asia beyond Israel’s Barak: “Sultan from Dubai,” which likely referred to businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem; then-Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, attending a UN summit in New York at the time; “the Qataris,” including “his highness”; and Anil Ambani, an Indian businessman connected to the far right government of Narendra Modi. In late May 2017, Epstein suggested individually to both men that they meet each other.

Other times, Epstein dangled the possibility of meeting the “new head of DAVOS,” as he put it— meaning, Norwegian politician Børge Brende, who had become the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum (Brende resigned two months ago over his relationship with Epstein). _And as he invited Thiel to his New Mexico ranch, he casually mentioned that also in attendance would be “some presidents next week.”

“There are no people for miles and miles,” he told him. “No eyes, just peace and quiet.”

...

————-

“Jeffrey Epstein Encouraged Peter Thiel’s Political Journey” By Branko Marcetic; Jacobin; 04/27/2026

“Thiel’s close relationship with Vance and other young right-wingers all but ensures that the tech billionaire will continue to shape politics and policy for many years— decades, if his technological plans to extend his lifespan work out. And, in spite of Jeffrey Epstein’s mysterious death seven years ago, it ensures the same for the quiet influence of the billionaire pedophile, who private emails show was not only good friends with Thiel but encouraged Thiel’s involvement in right-wing politics.”

They weren’t just good friend. It was Epstein who encouraged Thiel’s foray into right-wing politics, which makes it all the more interesting that Epstein apparent spent years unsuccessfully trying to connect with Thiel before they finally met some time in 2014. Epstein sought out the role of being a kind of Thiel influencer and succeeded.

Notably, the person who finally served as that connection was Reid Hoffman, someone who is not only one of Thiel’s fellow members of the ‘PayPal Mafia’ but has also been shown to have an intriguing relationship with the US national security state. Recall how it was Hoffman who helped to financed the fake ‘Russian bot’ campaign that was influencing voters in Alabama’s 2017 special senatorial election. Other participants in the project, dubbed “Project Birmingham”, included Renee DiResta, the lead author on the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian disinformation. And as we saw, it was Hoffman who arranged for an August 2015 dinner where Epstein was a guest along with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Peter Thiel. Hoffman tried to deflect criticism when this dinner party was first reported by insisting it was just a fund-raising dinner for MIT’s Media Lab, one of the academic institutions whose reputation was most sullied by the Epstein scandal. Hoffman even visited ‘Epstein island’ at least once. And as we’ve also seen, while Hoffman is ostensibly a Democrat, he’s the kind of Democratic mega-donor who uses that influence to rail against ‘government bureaucracy’ and advocates for a kind of unrestrained hyper-capitalism global gig economy that sounds an awful lot like the ‘aristopopulism’ endorsed by the TheoBros. So when learn that it was Epstein who encouraged Thiel’s interest in financing right-wing politics and it was Hoffman who was apparently the person who first connected Thiel to Epstein, it raises more questions about the role Hoffman, as a mega-donor seeking to shape the Democratic party’s priorities towards a libertarian pro-corporate bent, is playing in US politics:

...
It’s not clear exactly when Epstein and Thiel became friends. Emails suggest the two had no relationship in February 2013, the date of an audio recording unearthed earlier this year in which Epstein advised his friend, then-outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, to get involved with Thiel and his surveillance firm Palantir.

For years, Epstein unsuccessfully tried to connect with the tech billionaire, at that point best known for cofounding PayPal and later selling it to eBay for $1.5 billion— at least ten separate times between August 2009 and November 2012, according to emails reviewed by Jacobin. Other times, people in his circle offered to make an introduction, his primary conduit being Ian Osborne, a former British fixer who was well connected, and well invested, in Silicon Valley.

...

Epstein’s interest in Thiel was undeterred by the fact that several of his acquaintances were far from impressed by the PayPal founder. Brockman warned him that Thiel disliked democracy and considered the granting of voting rights to women and the poor a mistake. Another contact told him that while she had once found Thiel interesting, after seeing him speak about Singularity, she decided she “didn’t think he knew what he was talking about and lost interest.” Epstein acknowledged that while most of the big names on the Singularity side were “goofballs,” there did seem “to be a kernel of an idea here and there, even if by accident.”

The two men seem to have finally connected in March 2014, thanks to another Epstein associate from the tech world: Reid Hoffman, whom Osborne had once charmingly described to Epstein as the “fatty at LinkedIn.” Emails indicate that Hoffman set up the meeting between the two men that month at his house, seemingly at Epstein’s nudging.

“Will Peter Thiel be around, as you said he was in your first circle?” Epstein somewhat thirstily emailed Hoffman at the start of that month.
...

Fascinatingly, we are told it was an interest in creating an alternative financial system that first drew Epstein to Thiel, and this interest was already there by August of 2009, right as the US was in the middle of the 2008 global financial crisis. But Thiel wasn’t the only person alternative financial system ambitions. Larry Summers — the Treasury Secretary from 1999 to 2001 — was on board with the plan too. And based on emails from 2016, Epstein, Thiel, and Summer gathered at least once that year to discuss that agenda. But Epstein didn’t just have access to a former Treasury Secretary. As an August 2014 email indicates, Epstein had a meeting with the Treasury Department and what appeared to be the Internal Revenue Service’s chief legal adviser about cryptocurrency! How was Epstein able to get that kind of access in 2014? And why would the Treasury Department have any interest in Epstein’s views on crypto? And then we get to the claim by Richard Kahn in 2016 that Epstein “knows more about international finance than anyone on Trump’s team, by a long way,” which only adds more questions to the role Epstein was playing as a kind of global elite influencer. Is it just a coincidence that the guy who managed one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history was apparently a global elite finance guru? And when we see Ben Goertzel as a mutual acquaintance of Thiel and Epstein and the person who let Epstein know that Thiel was interested in starting his own currency outside the scope of nation-states, recall how Goertzel is a key figure in the ‘Singularity’ movement and one of Epstein’s foundations made a $100k donation to the Worldwide Transhumanist Association — since renamed Humanity Plus — to pay Goertzel’s salary as the group’s vice chairman. It’s a reminder that a shared interest in transhumanism is also likely part of what drew Epstein to Thiel in addition to cryptocurrencies:

...
Emails suggest that what may have initially drawn Epstein to Thiel was his interest in creating an alternative financial system. In one of the earliest Epstein documents that mentions Thiel, an August 2009 email from Epstein to literary agent John Brockman requesting that they be brought together, Brockman told him that he would need a reason for the sit-down to happen.

“Idea is now is the time for a new financial alternative, that is what PayPal started as,” Epstein replied. (Jacobin has, as usual, cleaned up Epstein’s often borderline-incomprehensible grammar.)

Another mutual acquaintance, computer scientist Ben Goertzel, an early champion of AI, dangled the prospect of personally interacting with Thiel as a way to get Epstein to the Singularity Summit, a yearly gathering of AI superintelligence enthusiasts, in October that year. Thiel “wanted to start his own currency outside the scope of nation-states,” Goertzel told him.

The vision Epstein had in mind bordered on the goofy. He told a friend years later that he thought Facebook could be the basis for that alternative system, in which Facebook “friends” would trade “favors.” Silly as it sounded, Epstein was dead serious, pitching the idea personally to Thiel two separate times years later. It appeared to be related to his interest in cryptocurrency, as suggested by an April 2016 email to Thiel about former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers joining the effort.

“Larry Summers is now on board with rethinking the financial system, digital currency etc.,” he wrote Thiel. “He will join with us in concocting a plan. Fun.”

...

Just like with his close friendship with Steve Bannon, Epstein lavished Thiel with generosity. He proposed flying the billionaire to the Virgin Islands in his helicopter, offered to connect him with “the top sleep doctor in NY” (“I would like you to stay alive,” Epstein told him), and encouraged and advised him on buying a private plane. “We need to hang out way more often,” Thiel told him in one of these exchanges.

Early on in their friendship, Epstein suggested speaking with Thiel or one of his advisers to give him financial advice.

“I suspect your personal tax regime can use some tweaking,” Epstein emailed him. “Yes, this would be awesome,” replied Thiel. “I *never* question your judgment on tax-related issues,” he reiterated a few months later. Another time, Epstein informed Thiel he would be discussing cryptocurrency at a meeting with the Treasury Department and what appeared to be the Internal Revenue Service’s chief legal adviser, and asked him if he had any questions he wanted asked.

...

Steve Bannon, the president’s former Svengali, was another Trump insider Epstein tried to connect Thiel with. Bannon’s close relationship with the late pedophile was one of the major revelations of the first round of DoJ document releases, but more recently released emails suggest Epstein’s efforts to ingratiate himself with Bannon began earlier than previously thought.

According to a November 2016 email exchange between Kahn and Brock Pierce, a crypto investor who once called Bannon “my right-hand man for, like, seven years,” Pierce had consulted Epstein’s accountant about the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Kahn emailed Pierce that Bannon should “talk privately with Jeffrey,” since Epstein “knows more about international finance than anyone on Trump’s team, by a long way,” with Pierce responding that he would “work on getting us all together.” Emails show Epstein instructed his accountant to follow up by suggesting Thiel be thrown into the mix.

“Please communicate with Jeffrey, who is also close to Peter Thiel,” Kahn dutifully emailed Pierce. “Jeffrey thinks Peter is really thoughtful.”
...

We are also told that Thiel served as a kind of reputational shield for Epstein in exchange for Epstein’s favors and tax advice. What kind of favors and tax advice is Epstein offering someone like Thiel? As we’ve seen, Thiel was already using a Roth IRA to shield himself from billions of dollars in taxes over his PayPal investments. Was Epstein really offering some kind of exotic financial advice that Thiel couldn’t get elsewhere? This is a good time to recall how Epstein was one of the leading figures in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in the history back in the 80s. Was he offering financial advice? Or something more criminal?

...
Among the millions of Epstein-related documents released by the Department of Justice so far are hundreds of email exchanges between Epstein and Thiel that show the deep, symbiotic friendship between the two men. In return for Epstein’s favors and tax advice, Thiel provided investment insights and served as something of a reputational shield. When Thiel expressed a growing interest in geopolitics, Epstein encouraged his curiosity, setting up meetings with officials and political power players at home and abroad. After Thiel became part of the 2016 Trump campaign, Epstein urged him to grow his influence within Trumpworld and advised him on how to do it.

...

Once the two connected, they appear to have become fast friends. Thiel and Epstein exchanged constant emails, regularly met and talked on the phone, collaborated on business ventures, and discussed everything from politics and science to investment possibilities— as in one now-notorious email exchange about Brexit, in which Epstein seemed to revel in the “return to tribalism” and “collapse” that it heralded.

By the time their friendship was in full swing, Epstein’s crimes against underage girls were years old. In fact, they had become national and global news at the start of 2015, after Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz were named in a lawsuit against Epstein that alleged he had run an underage sex ring.

Roughly two weeks after that lawsuit made global headlines, Thiel emailed Epstein, telling him that if he made it to Miami at the end of the month, “I’ll stop by your island!” Eight days after that, as the unflattering headlines and public denunciations piled up, Epstein followed up.

“Does my bad press give you pause?” he asked.

“If I was intimidated by bad press, I would not have gotten anywhere in life,” Thiel replied. “But I do hope that you’re holding up well, and that the cycle won’t go much further.”

“Do you have any sense on whether this press cycle is going to keep excalating [sic]?” Thiel asked eighteen minutes later. “It would be [good to] compare notes at some point, on strategies on this sort of stuff...”

...

In the case of one business venture, Epstein leaned on his relationship with Thiel to overcome how reputationally toxic his name had become.

In a July 2018 email exchange, Epstein and Bitcoin developer Jeremy Rubin strategized how exactly they would have him invest in Bitcoin mining startup Layer1 while keeping his identity under wraps, since Rubin worried “otherwise potential investments Googling your name might get spooked (especially given SF politics).” When the company refused to move forward until they knew who they were getting in bed with, Epstein instructed Rubin to be honest about who he was and to tell them “I am a major investor with Thiel, they can ask him.”

“They’re not bothered, they’ll chat with Thiel,” Rubin reported back after the conversation.
...

And, that brings us to Epstein’s investment in Thiel’s Valar Ventures fund in the 2015–2016 period. As we’ve learned from Ed Opperman, it’s the investments in Valar Ventures that constitutes the bulk of the remaining assets — worth potentially more than $100 million — left to the Epstein estate to use as it sees fit. Epstein’s investments with Thiel are alive and well long after Epstein’s ‘suicide’ in prison:

...
Epstein in turn solicited investment advice from Thiel. He at one point floated giving him $50–$100 million to invest, which Thiel gladly accepted (“Whenever someone offers you money out of the blue, you should always take it :),” he wrote) and proposed they discuss where best to put it.

Epstein asked for Thiel’s thoughts on an offer to invest in Spotify, as well as the prospect of investing in Thiel’s own company, Palantir, with Thiel advising he hold off until they discussed it later. A month after that, Thiel arranged a meeting between Epstein and his two fellow cofounders of venture capital firm Valar, counseling the convicted sex offender to invest between $10 and $20 million into a new fund they were starting.

“I thought your insight into the Israeli startup world was great,” Epstein emailed Thiel later that month on Christmas eve.
...

Incredibly, it really does appear to be Jeffrey Epstein, of all people, who was pushing Thiel into becoming the active right-wing political kingmaker back in 2015–2016 when Trump was first running for office, with Epstein encouraging Thiel’s backing for Trump and public role as a speaker at the RNC. Epstein really was a kind of Thiel-whisperer with real influence:

...
As the pair’s friendship deepened, emails suggest Epstein encouraged Thiel’s growing interest in politics.

“Trump delegate? Fun,” Epstein emailed him a day after Thiel’s name popped up in a Trump campaign filing in California in May 2016.

Thiel quickly became one of Trump’s most high-profile supporters, garnering attention not just because of his sexual orientation, but because of his status as an outlier in a Silicon Valley that generally leaned liberal and Democratic. Throughout that year’s July and August, during which Thiel appeared in a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention (RNC), Epstein emailed him praise and encouragement, calling him a “star,” and asking him, in response to a recent article about him, if he was “enjoying raising your public profile.”

“Not really...need to stop this!” was Thiel’s somewhat unsurprising reply. Though it’s unclear exactly which article Epstein was referring to, two weeks earlier, his accountant, Richard Kahn, had sent him a now-infamous report alleging that Thiel was funding a project to prolong his life by transfusing young people’s blood into his own veins.
...

Epstein’s ties to Tom Barrack add another layer to the question of what possible role did Epstein and/or Thiel play in the various 2016 campaign ‘Russiagate’ mysteries. Recall how Tom Barrack wasn’t just an old friend of Trump and fellow real estate developer. Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee — which faced all sorts of investigations involving foreign influence peddling by governments that included Qatar, with Steven Bannon and Michael Flynn helping the Qataris — was chaired by Barrack. Also recall how Barrack is long-time friends with Paul Manafort and reportedly tried to get Manafort Qatari clients after Manafort was let go from the Trump campaign in August of 2016, a reflection of Barrack’s extensive Middle Eastern contacts. It was Barrack who reportedly recommended that Trump hire Manafort to run his campaign in the first place. Barrack was also deeply intertwined with the lobbying for a kind of ‘nuclear Marshall plan for the Middle East’ scheme during the first Trump administration. So when we see how Barrack was also an old friend of Epstein, it’s hard not to suspect that Barrack knew both Trump and Epstein back when the pair were close party pals. But it also places Epstein even closer to the whole 2016 ‘Russiagate’ affair and subsequent foreign influence peddling scandals. And as we’ve seen, with Epstein’s close ties to the Qataris, it’s not hard to imagine Epstein was part of these backroom negotiations too. At this point, given everything we’ve learned, it would almost be surprising if he wasn’t:

...
Epstein appeared eager to make sure Thiel, his new friend, grew his influence with his old friend, the future president of the United States, through a mutual friend: real estate investor Tom Barrack, who would end up serving in both of Trump’s administrations.

“Don’t know how well you know Tom Barrack he is great,” Epstein emailed Thiel a week before he was due to speak at the final night of the RNC, directly before Barrack, who was himself the last speaker before Trump was introduced. “He will be a speaker at the convention,” Epstein explained when Thiel told him he didn’t. “He runs Colony Capital. Solid, great real estate judgement. Donald’s fund raiser.”

An email exchange from the end of August that year suggests Barrack and Thiel may have connected at the RNC, something Epstein urged Thiel to seize on to cultivate greater influence within Trumpworld.

“Tom Barrack really liked you, he told me the conversation in the green room,” Epstein emailed Thiel. When Thiel asked if he had thoughts on the race, Epstein told him: “Lots, and you should be closer. So that your advice is considered.” The two men then turned, at Thiel’s request, to a phone conversation on Signal.

A few weeks later, Epstein offered to call Thiel while Barrack was visiting him. What appears to be a list of calendar items from Epstein’s computer dated to late 2016 includes an hour-long meeting that October, which involved all three men and someone who appears to be former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, another close Epstein associate. Once Trump won, Thiel would end up serving on the then-president-elect’s transition team.
...

And all of those questions about what Epstein was up to in the 2014–2016 period brings us to what is arguably the most incredible Epstein revelation we’ve learned: At some point in 2014, Epstein arranged a weekend gathering that initially included former CIA director Bill Burns, then the deputy secretary of state for Barack Obama before he retired in October 2014, along with Bob Kerrey, the former senator who was a longtime member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Kathryn Ruemmler, along with Thiel. Recall how Ruemmler was not just a longtime associate. She was also the lawyer for George Nader during the Russiagate congressional hearings. Hearings about backroom deals involving Middle Eastern governments that Epstein had spent years cultivating relationships with. Burns had to back out of the meeting at the last minute but it sounds like happened without him and Epstein and Burns met later that month. It’s like an Epstein US foreign affairs gathering, in 2014, that almost included the deputy secretary of state:

...
It wasn’t just Trump. Epstein regularly proposed to introduce Thiel to a variety of influential political players, often in the fields of foreign policy and intelligence. Jacobin has previously reported on Epstein’s successful efforts to connect Thiel with Ehud Barak, efforts that produced a business relationship that prefigured Thiel’s current partnership with the Israeli military. But it went far beyond that.

Epstein appeared particularly set on connecting Thiel with Bill Burns, the future CIA director who at that point was at the tail end of his stint as deputy secretary of state for Barack Obama. “Best and most respected diplomat in the admin, you should meet him, he conducted the secret Iran negotiations, kept them secret for a year and was involved in the most sensitive of missions for years,” Epstein told Thiel. “I can set up when you are avail.”

Between May and October 2014, emails suggest that Epstein made at least five attempts to get the two together in the same room, including a September 13 meeting that, according to a text exchange between Burns and Epstein, the diplomat had to back out at the last minute because of work.

“Please give my best to Peter, and look forward to another opportunity to meet soon,” Burns texted him. One of those times, with Burns’s permission, he put the two in touch directly, telling them they “would enjoy each other.”

“Peter, look forward to meeting, and sorry I wasn’t able to come to NY last month,” Burns emailed Thiel three days later. “Jeffrey, many thanks for making introduction.”

“Bill— likewise, on this end. Look forward to meeting in person!” Thiel replied.

Another former Democratic official meant to attend that weekend was retired senator Bob Kerrey, whose former role on the Senate Intelligence Committee Epstein specifically advertised to Thiel, and who enthusiastically agreed to the meeting (“I think both [dates] work but let me double check with Jen!” Kerrey replied, referring to his firm’s executive assistant). “Sunday lunch with Kerrey would be great,” Thiel told Epstein.

Kathryn Ruemmler (“former Obama counsel for five years,” as Epstein pitched her) was likewise invited to a dinner with Thiel that weekend. “You should meet,” Epstein told her that month, as he tried repeatedly to connect the two. “Any of your spook friends might want to attend,” Epstein emailed her about a June 2015 meeting he proposed, referring to connections Ruemmler may have had in the intelligence world.
...

And when we see how Epstein reportedly used a shared animosity towards China as a grounds for introducing Thiel to elites like Tom Pritzker, hotel billionaire and executive chairman of CSIS, it’s a good time to recall how Bannon and Thiel were publicly accusing Google of “treason” for its business in China back in July of 2019, which would have been right when Epstein was in arrested and weeks before he ‘committed suicide’. Was that coincidental timing? Either way, it’s clear that anti-Chinese chauvinism has a lot of uses in these circles:

...
Epstein was similarly eager to introduce Thiel to Tom Pritzker, hotel billionaire and executive chairman of the foreign policy think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a contact he had tried to connect with others in his circle on the basis of a shared hostility on China. Epstein would insist to Thiel that Pritzker was “a good contact for you,” even as CSIS’s hawkish outlook clashed with what Thiel as late as 2019 described as his belief that “the US should have a less interventionist foreign policy.” Epstein took the rare step of putting the two in touch directly (“have fun”) while Thiel was visiting Pritzker’s hometown of Chicago in October 2014, and nudging Thiel when he failed to respond to Pritzker’s outreach.
...

And when we see how Epstein’s interactions with Russian officials included directly connecting Thiel with Sergei Belyakov, a former Russian official and graduate of the country’s spy academy, recall how Epstein’s ties to Belyakov were seen as hinting at ties to the Russian government and yet, as we saw, Epstein apparently attempted at one point to arrange a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Belyakov although there’s no indication that meeting ever happened. It’s a strong hint that Epstein’s relationship with Belyakov should not be seen as indicative of Epstein’s ties to Putin but more a propensity to make incredible claims about access. In other words, Epstein’s relationship with Belyakov was, if anything, likely fueled by the false assertion on Epstein’s part that he had Putin’s ear and it probably wasn’t the only time Epstein made such a false assertion:

...
Epstein fed Thiel’s growing interest in politics by trying to introduce him to a parade of foreign government officials, many of them European. A year earlier he had taken the rare step of connecting Thiel directly with Sergei Belyakov, a former Russian official and graduate of the country’s spy academy, who later told the pedophile that Thiel’s insights on subjects like the Russian economy had been “very helpful.”

Belyakov wasn’t the only Russian official. Epstein tried several times to have Thiel meet decorated and long-serving Russian diplomat Vitaly Churkin (“Russian ambassador, most involved, he and [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov control,” as Epstein put it to him), including a month before Churkin’s death in 2017. “Sorry you are not here, Vitally [sic] Churkin debriefing on Syria, wild,” Epstein emailed Thiel in late September 2016.

It’s not clear if a meeting with Churkin, who served as Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN until the day he died, ever happened, though an October 2016 schedule shows a lunch meeting involving the trio. Elsewhere, in December 2017, Epstein told Maria Drokova, a Kremlin-sponsored activist who became a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, she would meet Thiel when Epstein visited her.

“I’ve been learning from him through his books/speeches,” she replied. “Seems like he has very certain political plans now...”
...

And when we see how it was Epstein who was repeatedly introducing Thiel to one world leader after another in the 2014–2017 period, including the “new head of DAVOS”, it’s apparent that Epstein’s influence of the global elite has been, if anything, understated in the coverage since his death and the release of the Epstein files. Keep that in mind when it comes to all of the Epstein files that have yet to be released:

...
Other European officials Epstein tried to connect Thiel with included longtime friends and associates like Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen; Slovakian conservative politician Miroslav Lajčák (“great friend would like to do big things”), whom Epstein and Bannon viewed as the future European leader of Bannon’s right-wing movement; and then–Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland (“I think if you want Europe...He has the best understanding of reality on the ground. And I will vouch for your discretion,” Epstein told Thiel), who Epstein tried to arrange Thiel to meet at least four times between 2014 and 2017.

At least three times, in 2014, 2015, and 2018, Epstein invited Thiel on the week that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was convening, dangling the possibility of encountering various power players: “foreign ministers,” “many of the worlds [sic] leaders,” the “head of Nobel Peace Prize committee staying with me.”

In spite of Thiel’s professed interest in European politics, Epstein also tried to put him in touch with leaders in Asia beyond Israel’s Barak: “Sultan from Dubai,” which likely referred to businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem; then-Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, attending a UN summit in New York at the time; “the Qataris,” including “his highness”; and Anil Ambani, an Indian businessman connected to the far right government of Narendra Modi. In late May 2017, Epstein suggested individually to both men that they meet each other.

Other times, Epstein dangled the possibility of meeting the “new head of DAVOS,” as he put it— meaning, Norwegian politician Børge Brende, who had become the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum (Brende resigned two months ago over his relationship with Epstein). _And as he invited Thiel to his New Mexico ranch, he casually mentioned that also in attendance would be “some presidents next week.”

“There are no people for miles and miles,” he told him. “No eyes, just peace and quiet.”
...

Did Thiel ever end up meeting “some presidents” and “No eyes, just peace and quiet” at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch? We’ll probably never know. Just as we’ll probably never know about the vast majority of what Epstein was up to. But that doesn’t mean we don’t already know enough to conclude that Peter Thiel probably wouldn’t be the person he is today were it not for the ‘wisdom’ and ‘guidance’ of Jeffrey Epstein. He would undoubtedly still be a techno-fascist lunatic, as we clearly the case well before he met Epstein. It’s not really in question. But would Thiel be the public super-villain he is today had he not befriended Epstein? That’s a much more interesting and open question.

Never heard of the filmmaker, but Thornley and his ilk were sacks of Fresh Fertilizer.

Sounds like this bag got torn open and enriched some unfortunate seedlings.

Best,

Dave

At least that’s the story we get, over and over, with each new federal award. And while experts observe that it’s US tax payers who are ultimately paying for these lucrative federal contracts, it’s worth noting another feature of 1789 Capital’s ‘patriotic capitalism’: roughly 40% of its raised capital have come from foreign investors, according to SEC filings. Which foreign investors? We don’t know for sure, But we can reasonably speculate given that 1789 Capital co-founder, Omeed Malik, was asked about the foreign investment during an event in May of this year and replied by challenging the event moderator to find “any asset manager that has over half a billion under management that doesn’t have money from the Gulf.” Although we shouldn’t assume it’s limited to Gulf money. Don Jr met with business or political leaders in more than a dozen countries in Europe, the Middle East and other parts of Asia as part of a 19-country global tour since the 2024.

We are also told Don Jr frequently pitched his proximity to the Trump administration as a feature of 1789 Capital. But, again, we’re just supposed to ignore that and accept the assurances that all of the federal contracts that have been pouring into 1789 Capital’s companies were awarded purely on merit. It’s a meritocracy, you see! 1789 Capital is just overflowing with merit!

It’s also worth noting that a number of the companies in 1789 Capital’s portfolio didn’t get their first federal contracts under the Trump administration. A large number of contracts had already been awarded under the Biden administration, although the $1.6 billion in federal contracts and grants in the first 500 days of Trump’s second term were still 79% greater than the amount federal awards and contracts obtained during the same time period at the end of President Joe Biden’s term. Which is a reminder that the economic wealth of the ‘TheoBro’ network really is heavily based on federal contracts that really are awarded by both Democrats and Republicans. Yes, the awards might be higher under Republican administrations, but Democrats have been effectively fueling this movement too. Peter Thiel’s Palantir, which has had is an obvious example, along with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Palmer Luckey’s Anduril. In fact, both Palantir and Anduril were a product of the CIA’s In-Q-Tel venture capital arm. And while SpaceX’s post-IPO stock has been on a bit of a rocky ride lately, it turns out a huge portion of 1789 Capital’s assets are tied up in pre-IPO SpaceX. We don’t know the price 1789 Capital paid, but we can be pretty confident the confident has done very well with that investment. An investment that, again, is heavily reliant on federal contracts, especially with the US military. That’s all part of the context of 1789 Capital’s model of ‘patriotic capitalism’. The company may not describe ‘patriotic capitalism’ as getting copious cushy federal contracts and raising undisclosed investments from governments and oligarchs around the world, but that’s what it is.

And that report on 1789 Capital’s extensive ‘patriotic’ foreign investments — the kind of investments that serve as obvious vehicles for influencing peddling with the Trump White House — brings us to another recent report on the ‘patriotism’ of a major TheoBro entity with extensive federal contracts: It turns out Palantir paid $0 in US federal taxes in 2025. In fact, the company reported $1.657 billion in pre-tax profit in 2025 and yet paid just $22.7 million in corporate taxes globally. That’s effective global tax rate of 1.4%. Who knows how exactly, but these companies seem to have managed to game the global tax system at the same time they’ve mastered the ‘art’ of government contracting. Not on are global democracies paying to slit their own throats through the enrichment of companies like Palantir, but they aren’t even collecting taxes on those payments. Which is also a reminder that the real ‘patriotism’ exhibited by these TheoBros firms is a patriotic fervor for the oligarch-run Network States they are planning on breaking away from the rest of society:

CNN

Trump Jr.’s investment firm has soared since his father’s election. So has federal funding to companies it backs

By Majlie de Puy Kamp, Curt Devine, Casey Tolan
July 20, 2026

A short drive from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, in a small office a block from the beach, sits the headquarters of 1789 Capital, a firm founded just a few years ago with plans to invest in businesses aligned with conservative values.

Since Donald Trump Jr. joined as a partner shortly after his father’s reelection, 1789 Capital has rapidly grown to manage billions of dollars in assets with a strategy that closely reflects the president’s policies.

Companies backed by 1789 Capital have also significantly increased their federal funding under the Trump administration, a CNN analysis of contracting data found.

Ten defense, space and software companies that Trump Jr.’s firm is invested in have been awarded over $1.6 billion from federal contracts and grants in the first 500 days of Trump’s second term – 79% more than the amount they were awarded during the same time period at the end of President Joe Biden’s term. That doesn’t include a handful of other federal loans and subcontracts worth more than $1 billion in total that other startups backed by the firm are on track to receive under the Trump administration.

1789 Capital leaders have also backed companies that could financially benefit from policy moves made by the administration – including a firm promoting direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical sales, a company that sells testosterone and a vaping manufacturer.

There’s no evidence that 1789 Capital or Trump Jr. have pushed for the companies they’ve invested in to get any federal funding. Asked whether anyone with 1789 Capital has ever discussed federal contracts involving those companies with the Trump administration, Thomas Clare, an attorney representing the firm, said in a statement “the answer is unequivocally no.”

A spokesperson for Trump Jr. also said he plays no role in the contracting process. And the companies receiving the contracts say they have no knowledge of anyone with the firm swaying public funds.

“Don does not interface with the Federal Government as part of his role with any company that he invests in or advises,” Trump Jr.’s spokesman told CNN, describing him as a “lifelong businessman and serial investor with the same Constitutional rights as any other law-abiding private American citizen.”

At the same time, the younger Trump has publicly pitched investors that his proximity to the administration gives 1789 Capital a leg up.

“We understand what the administration wants to do, because we helped craft some of that messaging,” Trump Jr. said at a Saudi business conference last fall, referencing his work with the fund. “So we can be on the outside but still have that understanding of what they plan to do.”

1789 Capital, which pitches itself as dedicated to “patriotic capitalism,” grew from less than a billion dollars-worth of assets under management last year to about $3.5 billion now, its leaders say. Records show a significant share has come from foreign investors.

Other firms have launched funds in recent years that similarly aim to boost US industries and have invested in some of the same companies winning federal contracts.

Still, government watchdogs say the rapid growth of 1789 Capital and its investments in companies benefitting from the Trump administration’s agenda could undermine public trust because of the prominent role of the president’s son.

“There’s money from my paycheck and your paycheck that is being taken out in the form of taxes and is going directly into the pocketbooks of these companies and by extension to the Trump family,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, an interim vice president at the Project on Government Oversight. “It casts a black cloud over all the decisions that are being made when it comes to contracts.”

...

Skyrocketing growth

Days after Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2024, Donald Trump Jr. appeared for an interview at a GOP donor retreat. In front of a few hundred conservative luminaries still buzzing over the big win, the presidential scion was asked whether he would work in his father’s administration.

Trump Jr. said he had other plans: joining a little-known Florida investment firm.

1789 Capital had been founded by a friend of Trump Jr., Omeed Malik, and two other financiers. Malik, a former Bank of America managing director, had left the Democratic Party during Trump’s first term after feeling abandoned and betrayed by the party’s support for the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter and Covid policies, he told The Free Press. He met Trump Jr. in 2019, and later traded Manhattan for Palm Beach, Florida, where he became a Mar-a-Lago member.

In 2023, Malik and his cofounders announced the launch of 1789 Capital – named after the year the Bill of Rights was drafted – to invest in US companies. According to an SEC filing that year, the venture sought to raise $100 million.

At the Saudi investment conference last year, Malik said the firm aimed to “always look through a prism of how we can benefit the United States.”

The firm’s finances quickly spiked after Trump’s victory and Trump Jr.’s announcement about joining as a partner in November 2024. Less than a year later, 1789 Capital disclosed managing nearly a billion dollars in assets; Paul Abrahimzadeh, a partner in the firm, told the Financial Times in May that it now managed about $3.5 billion.

About 40% of the firm’s money comes from foreign investors, SEC filings show. The filings don’t disclose where the foreign investors are based.

Clare said other funds often have higher rates of foreign investors and noted that 1789 Capital only backs US companies.

That influx of money into the fund came as Trump Jr. embarked on a global tour, traveling to at least 19 foreign countries and territories since the 2024 election.

While a few of those trips appear to have been personal vacations, he met with business or political leaders in more than a dozen countries in Europe, the Middle East and other parts of Asia, according to social media posts and regional news reports. In some places, recordings show he specifically plugged 1789 Capital.

Malik has said the influx of foreign funds is normal for a growing investment group.

“It’s the same thing as what the Trump administration is doing with foreign direct investment,” he said at an event in May. “The idea is that if you have allied countries that want to help the United States, we’d be happy to take money from abroad and put it in America to create US jobs.”

He later challenged the event moderator to find “any asset manager that has over half a billion under management that doesn’t have money from the Gulf.”

But Hedtler-Gaudette said the fund could also give foreign entities a way to try to indirectly influence the administration.

“This is a way for large amounts of cash to be infused into the pockets of people who are close to the president without having to deal with all those pesky sort of disclosure and reporting rules you would have to if you were directly lobbying,” he said.

Federal funds increase

Since Trump’s reelection, 1789 Capital has invested in several government contractors that have succeeded in winning contracts and loans for more federal money.

Vulcan Elements, which manufactures rare-earth magnets for defense and other purposes, was selected for a $620 million loan from the Trump administration within months of 1789 Capital’s investment in the company. That loan came after Peter Navarro, a White House adviser and friend of Trump Jr., requested the loan be given to the company, ProPublica reported.

A Vulcan Elements spokesperson told CNN the company did not ask its investors to facilitate that loan, for which the company was picked after a year of diligence by multiple government agencies. Clare said that 1789 Capital had “zero knowledge any of these transactions were even contemplated” and learned about the loan from media reports.

The Pentagon denied in a statement that any company has received preferential treatment, and a spokesperson for Trump Jr. said he did not speak to Navarro about Vulcan. Navarro did not respond to requests for comment.

Separately, CNN’s analysis found that 10 federal contractors backed by 1789 Capital have been awarded slightly more funding in the year and a half of the Trump term than they did during all four years of the Biden administration, according to data from USAspending, the federal government’s contracting database. That includes federal obligations on both new and existing contracts and grants during the time periods.

One of the biggest recipients that 1789 Capital has invested in is Anduril, a defense contractor developing drones and other technology. The Trump administration has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the company to build autonomous munitions for the military and surveillance towers for US Customs and Border Protection. In total, the business was awarded about $1.25 billion during Trump’s first 500 days, compared with about $760 million under Biden’s last 500 days.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Anduril headquarters in California last year, and the company quoted him in a social media post declaring his agency closely aligned with the company’s priorities: “We’re going to innovate, we’re going to scale, and we’re going to do it at cost. I think I just described the mission of Anduril,” Hegseth said.

Anduril did not respond to a request for comment. Founder Palmer Luckey has said the company “doesn’t get any special treatment” from the Trump administration and has argued it’s winning more contracts because “our products are better and faster and cheaper” than rival offerings.

Trump Jr.’s fund has also invested in Axiom Space, a Texas-based company working to build a commercial space station, which was awarded more than $300 million in government contracts under Trump’s first 500 days – up from about $153 million in the same period at the end of Biden’s term.

Axiom Space told CNN its most significant contracts have been awarded by NASA through open competition. “We are proud to have earned the confidence of NASA and the US government across multiple administrations,” the company stated.

PsiQuantum, a quantum computing company, signed a letter of intent with the Commerce Department in May for $100 million in funding, along with multiple other firms. A PsiQuantum spokesperson told CNN the company’s government partnerships have spanned multiple administrations, including as one of only two companies in an advanced stage of a defense research initiative.

One business that bucked the trend was Firehawk Aerospace, a rocket propulsion company. It was awarded about $4.5 million in federal contracts from the Trump administration, down from about $10.3 million during Biden’s last 500 days.

1789 Capital has also invested in Elon Musk’s companies, and a partner at the firm said at a forum in June that it counted SpaceX as its “biggest” holding. SpaceX, which has long received government contracts worth billions of dollars, has been awarded contracts worth a similar amount in Trump’s term to date as compared with the last part of Biden’s term. CNN excluded SpaceX from its analysis because it dwarfs the other contractors and is led by Elon Musk, who has his own connections to the Trump administration.

After a group of Democratic senators questioned the Pentagon about contracts and loans awarded to companies associated with Trump Jr. and 1789 Capital, the department stated in March that its Office of Strategic Capital “is committed to upholding the highest ethical standards and ensuring that its investment decisions are free from conflicts of interest” involving its personnel. Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez also told CNN that “outside affiliations, investors, or political connections play absolutely no role in the Department’s funding decisions.”

Many of those contracts came through a full competition, but some of the firms backed by 1789 Capital have seen an increase in no-bid deals as well since Trump returned to office. Altogether, about 18% of the funding awarded to 1789 Capital-associated companies during Trump’s first 500 days was tied to no-bid federal contracts, compared to about 7.5% of the funding under Biden’s last 500 days.

Clare said the companies 1789 Capital has invested in are “the hottest private companies in the market” and that they have also received investments from other major firms. “There is no possible basis to report that 1789 has done anything with respect to these private companies other than making the same smart investments as other well-respected funds and investors,” he said.

Testosterone, vapes and pharma

1789 Capital has also backed numerous companies that may stand to grow their businesses thanks to Trump administration policies.

BlinkRx, a 1789 Capital-backed company that has named Trump Jr. to its board, offers online prescription-drug delivery. Last July, President Trump called on pharmaceutical companies to embrace direct-to-consumer distribution. About a week later, BlinkRx announced an initiative to help pharmaceutical companies do just that. BlinkRx also hosted an event with drug company leaders and administration officials earlier this year.

A BlinkRx spokesperson said the company has not generated revenue from the administration’s drug-pricing orders or letters to manufacturers, adding, “We had no involvement with the development of any of those actions, and learned about them for the first time from press reports.”

1789 Capital has also invested in Enhanced Games, which hosted an athletic competition in May that allowed participants to use performance-enhancing drugs. Beyond its flagship event, the business also makes money by selling drugs such as testosterone injections and peptides to boost skin quality.

Under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has acknowledged personally using testosterone, the administration has pushed to deregulate sales of those same types of products. A panel convened by the FDA last year called for loosening restrictions on testosterone to make it more widely available, and Kennedy said earlier this year the administration would allow some peptides to be “more accessible.” Enhanced CEO Maximilian Martin told CNN earlier this year, “We have nothing to do with politics. Where you sit on a political spectrum is independent of the fact that enhancements can help you.”

Another 1789 Capital-backed company is the vaping manufacturer Juul, which the FDA allowed last year to continue selling e‑cigarettes, following scrutiny that included a later-rescinded order during the Biden administration to stop product sales. Juul’s CEO referred to that FDA decision last year as a “big day for the company.” More recently, the FDA moved to allow companies like Juul to once again sell flavored e‑cigarettes, despite public health concerns about the flavors hooking teens on smoking.

Potential new scrutiny

As Trump Jr. has grown his financial empire, he’s rejected parallels to another presidential son who raised ethics concerns – Hunter Biden, who pursued foreign business deals and landed a lucrative gig as a board member for a Ukrainian energy company when his father served as vice president.

Trump Jr. has repeatedly dismissed any notion that he has sought to profit from government connections in the way Republicans long accused the Biden family of doing.

“I get the ‘Don Jr. is the next Hunter Biden,’ and I say, it’s such a false equivalence,” Trump Jr. said at a forum in Qatar last year. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. We were businessmen both before, we will be businessmen after my father’s presidency.”

Trump Jr. may face increased scrutiny of those deals in the next two years, especially if Democrats regain control of the House or Senate and can launch committee inquiries with subpoena power. Some lawmakers have already called for investigations. After the House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat asked for a probe into defense contracts that may benefit the Trump family, the Defense Department’s inspector general met with committee staff and is preparing a response, a spokesperson for the office said.

...

METHODOLOGY

CNN reviewed data from the research firm PitchBook, which identified more than 35 companies backed by 1789 Capital. Of those, at least 11 have been awarded federal contracts and grants in recent years.

CNN’s analysis excluded several large loans and other funding awards that were not included in USAspending.gov data as of this week, either because they are not yet fully approved, because they were awarded under non-traditional contracting authority, or because of delays in public posting.

It also excluded federal contracts to SpaceX, which 1789 Capital executives have described as the firm’s largest holding, because it dwarfs the other contractors and is led by Elon Musk, who has his own connections to the Trump administration. SpaceX, which has long received government contracts worth billions of dollars, has been awarded similar amounts of federal funds during Trump’s term to date as compared with the last part of Biden’s term, according to the USAspending data.

———

“Trump Jr.’s investment firm has soared since his father’s election. So has federal funding to companies it backs” By Majlie de Puy Kamp, Curt Devine, Casey Tolan; CNN; 07/20/2026

“1789 Capital, which pitches itself as dedicated to “patriotic capitalism,” grew from less than a billion dollars-worth of assets under management last year to about $3.5 billion now, its leaders say. Records show a significant share has come from foreign investors.”

Yes, it turns out a large portion of the funds backing 1789 Capital’s dramatic growth has come from foreign investors, with roughly 40% of the firms cash coming from foreign investments. We aren’t allowed to learn the specific origins although it’s pretty clear that much of it is from Middle Eastern investors. It’s a very interesting feature for a company pitching itself as the modern day paragon of “patriotic capitalism”. And as Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, an interim vice president at the Project on Government Oversight, observes, the sudden surge of government contracts awarded to 1789 Capital’s many investments means it’s ultimately US tax payers that are going to be fueling the profits for 1789 Capital’s investors, domestic and foreign alike:

...

“There’s money from my paycheck and your paycheck that is being taken out in the form of taxes and is going directly into the pocketbooks of these companies and by extension to the Trump family,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, an interim vice president at the Project on Government Oversight. “It casts a black cloud over all the decisions that are being made when it comes to contracts.”

...

At the Saudi investment conference last year, Malik said the firm aimed to “always look through a prism of how we can benefit the United States.”

The firm’s finances quickly spiked after Trump’s victory and Trump Jr.’s announcement about joining as a partner in November 2024. Less than a year later, 1789 Capital disclosed managing nearly a billion dollars in assets; Paul Abrahimzadeh, a partner in the firm, told the Financial Times in May that it now managed about $3.5 billion.

About 40% of the firm’s money comes from foreign investors, SEC filings show. The filings don’t disclose where the foreign investors are based.

Clare said other funds often have higher rates of foreign investors and noted that 1789 Capital only backs US companies.

That influx of money into the fund came as Trump Jr. embarked on a global tour, traveling to at least 19 foreign countries and territories since the 2024 election.

While a few of those trips appear to have been personal vacations, he met with business or political leaders in more than a dozen countries in Europe, the Middle East and other parts of Asia, according to social media posts and regional news reports. In some places, recordings show he specifically plugged 1789 Capital.

Malik has said the influx of foreign funds is normal for a growing investment group.

“It’s the same thing as what the Trump administration is doing with foreign direct investment,” he said at an event in May. “The idea is that if you have allied countries that want to help the United States, we’d be happy to take money from abroad and put it in America to create US jobs.”

He later challenged the event moderator to find “any asset manager that has over half a billion under management that doesn’t have money from the Gulf.”

But Hedtler-Gaudette said the fund could also give foreign entities a way to try to indirectly influence the administration.

“This is a way for large amounts of cash to be infused into the pockets of people who are close to the president without having to deal with all those pesky sort of disclosure and reporting rules you would have to if you were directly lobbying,” he said.
...

And, again, as we’ve seen, while we are repeatedly given these absurd assurance from 1789 Capital that nothing untoward is happening with the awarding of all these federal contracts, those assurances stand in contrast to Don Jr touting his proximity to his dad to potential investors. They really do think we’re stupid. And why not? It’s not as if treating the public like a bunch of credulous buffoons has negative consequences. This is an age of elite impunity:

...
There’s no evidence that 1789 Capital or Trump Jr. have pushed for the companies they’ve invested in to get any federal funding. Asked whether anyone with 1789 Capital has ever discussed federal contracts involving those companies with the Trump administration, Thomas Clare, an attorney representing the firm, said in a statement “the answer is unequivocally no.”

A spokesperson for Trump Jr. also said he plays no role in the contracting process. And the companies receiving the contracts say they have no knowledge of anyone with the firm swaying public funds.

“Don does not interface with the Federal Government as part of his role with any company that he invests in or advises,” Trump Jr.’s spokesman told CNN, describing him as a “lifelong businessman and serial investor with the same Constitutional rights as any other law-abiding private American citizen.”

At the same time, the younger Trump has publicly pitched investors that his proximity to the administration gives 1789 Capital a leg up.

“We understand what the administration wants to do, because we helped craft some of that messaging,” Trump Jr. said at a Saudi business conference last fall, referencing his work with the fund. “So we can be on the outside but still have that understanding of what they plan to do.”
...

But it’s also worth noting that a number of 1789 Capital’s investments already had federal contracts that were gained under the Biden administration. They just have even more contracts now. Which is a reminder of the reality that these fascist-minded capitalists have long had their ambitions fueled through copious government financing, with Peter Thiel’s Palantir and Elon Musk’s SpaceX as prime examples. The US democratic institutions really have been slitting their collective throats for years by repeatedly cuddling up to and empower anti-democratic oligarchs:

...
Since Donald Trump Jr. joined as a partner shortly after his father’s reelection, 1789 Capital has rapidly grown to manage billions of dollars in assets with a strategy that closely reflects the president’s policies.

Companies backed by 1789 Capital have also significantly increased their federal funding under the Trump administration, a CNN analysis of contracting data found.

Ten defense, space and software companies that Trump Jr.’s firm is invested in have been awarded over $1.6 billion from federal contracts and grants in the first 500 days of Trump’s second term – 79% more than the amount they were awarded during the same time period at the end of President Joe Biden’s term. That doesn’t include a handful of other federal loans and subcontracts worth more than $1 billion in total that other startups backed by the firm are on track to receive under the Trump administration.

1789 Capital leaders have also backed companies that could financially benefit from policy moves made by the administration – including a firm promoting direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical sales, a company that sells testosterone and a vaping manufacturer.

...

Separately, CNN’s analysis found that 10 federal contractors backed by 1789 Capital have been awarded slightly more funding in the year and a half of the Trump term than they did during all four years of the Biden administration, according to data from USAspending, the federal government’s contracting database. That includes federal obligations on both new and existing contracts and grants during the time periods.

One of the biggest recipients that 1789 Capital has invested in is Anduril, a defense contractor developing drones and other technology. The Trump administration has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the company to build autonomous munitions for the military and surveillance towers for US Customs and Border Protection. In total, the business was awarded about $1.25 billion during Trump’s first 500 days, compared with about $760 million under Biden’s last 500 days.

...

Trump Jr.’s fund has also invested in Axiom Space, a Texas-based company working to build a commercial space station, which was awarded more than $300 million in government contracts under Trump’s first 500 days – up from about $153 million in the same period at the end of Biden’s term.

...

After a group of Democratic senators questioned the Pentagon about contracts and loans awarded to companies associated with Trump Jr. and 1789 Capital, the department stated in March that its Office of Strategic Capital “is committed to upholding the highest ethical standards and ensuring that its investment decisions are free from conflicts of interest” involving its personnel. Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez also told CNN that “outside affiliations, investors, or political connections play absolutely no role in the Department’s funding decisions.”

Many of those contracts came through a full competition, but some of the firms backed by 1789 Capital have seen an increase in no-bid deals as well since Trump returned to office. Altogether, about 18% of the funding awarded to 1789 Capital-associated companies during Trump’s first 500 days was tied to no-bid federal contracts, compared to about 7.5% of the funding under Biden’s last 500 days.
...

And lastly, it’s worth acknowledging that Don Jr does have a point when he assert that there’s no parallels to the corrupt nature of Hunter Biden’s deals with Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas giant. Hunter Biden was making roughly $1 million a year off of his Burisma work. Don Jr’s grift is orders of magnitude larger:

...
As Trump Jr. has grown his financial empire, he’s rejected parallels to another presidential son who raised ethics concerns – Hunter Biden, who pursued foreign business deals and landed a lucrative gig as a board member for a Ukrainian energy company when his father served as vice president.

Trump Jr. has repeatedly dismissed any notion that he has sought to profit from government connections in the way Republicans long accused the Biden family of doing.

“I get the ‘Don Jr. is the next Hunter Biden,’ and I say, it’s such a false equivalence,” Trump Jr. said at a forum in Qatar last year. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. We were businessmen both before, we will be businessmen after my father’s presidency.”

Trump Jr. may face increased scrutiny of those deals in the next two years, especially if Democrats regain control of the House or Senate and can launch committee inquiries with subpoena power. Some lawmakers have already called for investigations. After the House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat asked for a probe into defense contracts that may benefit the Trump family, the Defense Department’s inspector general met with committee staff and is preparing a response, a spokesperson for the office said.
...

Now let’s take a look at a recent report by the Center for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) which found that Palantir — a company that has long branded itself as being the ‘more patriotic’ counterpart to its Silicon Valley rivals — paid 0% in US federal taxes in 2025. In fact, the company paid hardly any taxes at all, with a global tax rate of just 1.4%. Despite that, the company kept getting more and more government contracts from governments around the world. Democracy really is financing its own demise, globally:

Common Dreams

Palantir: Surveillance State Profiteer Making Billions in Profits, But With an Effective US Tax Rate of... Zero

“The likes of Palantir need to stump up what’s due,” said one expert. “Tech giants raking off billions in profit can’t be free to pay what they please.”

Brett Wilkins
Aug 06, 2026

Palantir Technologies, one of the world’s most influential—and controversial—surveillance tech companies, enjoyed an effective tax rate of just 1.4% globally last year while paying no US federal income tax despite recording substantial profits, an analysis released on Wednesday revealed.

The study, Who Pays for the Surveillance State?, was written by the Center for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) in partnership with the European Federation of Public Services Unions. The report “examines how Palantir is capturing ever-larger government contracts while paying no US federal corporate income tax and shifting much of its foreign profits back to the US, avoiding taxes in Europe.”

“In 2025 the company reported $1.657 billion in pre-tax profit, booked $22.7 million [in] corporate tax paid globally, and paid $0 in US federal income tax, resulting in an effective tax rate of just 1.4% globally,” CICTAR found.

“The report’s core claim of profit-shifting is based on the gap between revenue and profit location: 26% of Palantir’s revenue came from outside the US, but 96% of pre-tax profit was booked in the US,” the analysis states.

“The Trump administration has not only been granting record amounts in new contracts to Palantir but is running a global protection racket to help it—along with larger US tech giants—avoid paying tax both in the US and globally,” the report contends.

“In Europe, the report finds a pattern of subsidiaries providing services to the US parent on cost-plus terms, leaving low taxable margins locally while related-party payments move value back to the US,” CICTAR added.

Palantir maintains that it complies with applicable tax laws in every jurisdiction where it operates. Company representatives have said that transfer pricing arrangements and other accounting practices cited by critics are standard among multinational corporations and comply with existing regulations.

The Palo Alto, California-based company’s soaring revenues are partly driven by government contracts, with the US Department of Defense being the data analytics specialist’s biggest client. Palantir is also integral to the Trump administration’s deadly anti-immigrant crackdown, selling technology used by Department of Homeland Security agencies—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—to identify, track, and target people for arrest and deportation and manage their cases.

Palantir has also drawn scrutiny from Democratic US lawmakers, including Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who demanded answers following reporting last year that the company was “amassing troves of data on Americans to create a government-wide, searchable ‘mega-database’ containing the sensitive taxpayer data of American citizens.”

Palestine defenders have also denounced Palantir and other tech giants for selling technology to the Israeli government and military despite findings by rights groups, scholars, national governments, and a United Nations commission of inquiry that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

...

In Europe, advocacy groups have raised concerns about Palantir’s contracts involving sensitive medical records, immigration systems, and predictive analytics. Campaigners argue that centralized data platforms create attractive targets for misuse, unauthorized access, or mission creep beyond their original purposes.

CICTAR’s report concludes that “European public authorities should be able to exclude companies that take public money while shifting profits away from the national tax base that funds public services, and provide the basis for national security that Palantir claims to defend.”

Responding to the report, Andrea Egan, general secretary of UNISON, the largest trade union in the United Kingdom, said that “a big multinational aggressively avoiding tax and dodging its responsibility to pay a fair share is probably no surprise. But the fact the UK and other countries are rewarding Palantir with massive government contracts is what beggars belief.”

...

————–

“Palantir: Surveillance State Profiteer Making Billions in Profits, But With an Effective US Tax Rate of... Zero” by Brett Wilkins; Common Dreams; 08/06/2026

“Responding to the report, Andrea Egan, general secretary of UNISON, the largest trade union in the United Kingdom, said that “a big multinational aggressively avoiding tax and dodging its responsibility to pay a fair share is probably no surprise. But the fact the UK and other countries are rewarding Palantir with massive government contracts is what beggars belief.””

Yes, it is rather baffling how governments continue to shower a company as ethically dubious as Palantir with one government contract after another. But it keeps happening. Which makes this a good time to recall how Peter Thiel used a Roth IRA to dodge billions of dollars in taxes capital gains taxes he would have otherwise had to pay for the sales of his shares in both Palantir and PayPal. No matter how many stories come out about these billionaires dodging more taxes, they keep getting more and more federal contracts. That’s including stories about $0 in US federal taxes. Funny how that works:

...
“In 2025 the company reported $1.657 billion in pre-tax profit, booked $22.7 million [in] corporate tax paid globally, and paid $0 in US federal income tax, resulting in an effective tax rate of just 1.4% globally,” CICTAR found.

“The report’s core claim of profit-shifting is based on the gap between revenue and profit location: 26% of Palantir’s revenue came from outside the US, but 96% of pre-tax profit was booked in the US,” the analysis states.

“The Trump administration has not only been granting record amounts in new contracts to Palantir but is running a global protection racket to help it—along with larger US tech giants—avoid paying tax both in the US and globally,” the report contends.

“In Europe, the report finds a pattern of subsidiaries providing services to the US parent on cost-plus terms, leaving low taxable margins locally while related-party payments move value back to the US,” CICTAR added.

...

In Europe, advocacy groups have raised concerns about Palantir’s contracts involving sensitive medical records, immigration systems, and predictive analytics. Campaigners argue that centralized data platforms create attractive targets for misuse, unauthorized access, or mission creep beyond their original purposes.

CICTAR’s report concludes that “European public authorities should be able to exclude companies that take public money while shifting profits away from the national tax base that funds public services, and provide the basis for national security that Palantir claims to defend.”
...

“European public authorities should be able to exclude companies that take public money while shifting profits away from the national tax base that funds public services, and provide the basis for national security that Palantir claims to defend.”

Yep, it seems like European authorities should be a lot more concerned about the character of these service providers. US authorities too. But nope.

And in other news, the UN just renewed a 5‑year contract renewal with Palantir for services related to the UN’s World Food Programme despite ongoing privacy concerns related to the fact that UN program involves a vast biometric database. Yes, the company founded by Peter Thiel — someone who has been giving public speeches where he argues that the UN is a product of the Antichrist and should be replaced by “the secret coordination of the world’s intelligence services, as the decisive path to a truly global pax Americana.” This surveillance supersystem, Thiel wrote, could act as “a political framework that operates outside the checks and balances of representative democracy as described in high school textbooks.” — just had a 5 year contract renewed that would give the company access to a sensitive global biometric database. Again, funny how that works. Over and over.

Of course, as we’ve seen, secret Middle Eastern diplomatic negotiations were a defining feature of the 2016 Trump campaign, with George Nader playing a very prominent role. Recall how Nader clearly worked with the US government on sensitive matters going back to the 80s and was repeatedly caught with child pornography and yet kept getting lenient sentences (including a light sentence by the Czech government). Nader was described as a trusted middle-man who volunteered to act as a line of communication between the US and Middle Eastern governments. And then, in 2016, Nader served as the representative for the crown princes of the UAE and Saudi Arabia — UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — during the Seychelles ‘back channel’ meeting between Erik Prince, Kirill Dmitriev, and Nader.  Nader and Prince also made the August 3, 2016 trip to Trump Tower with Joel Zamel, the CEO of the Israeli private intelligence firm PsyGroup, in order to inform the Trump campaign that MBZ and MBS wanted to help Trump win and pitched a social media manipulation campaign to be run by PsyGroup. But as we learned, Nader had actually started approaching the Trump campaign in early 2016, during the primaries, with offers of UAE assistance for Trump. Nader also reportedly held numerous meetings with Trump campaign officials in the final weeks of the campaign, which certainly suggests that the Trump team did indeed accept the offer of PsyGroup’s help even though that’s never been admitted.  Kathy Ruemmler — a high-powered lawyer revealed to be very close to Epstein — was George Nader’s lawyer back in 2018 when he was facing various ‘Russiagate’ related questions. And then, after Trump took office in 2017, Nader was hired by Elliot Broidy, the former finance chair for the RNC, to lobby the Trump administration and US congress on behalf of the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE during the first Trump administration. A major goal of this lobbying was to convince the US government to take a harder line against Qatar. Nader emerged as a figure whose role in the whole ‘Russiagate’ affair was both central and, somehow, never really elucidated by investigators and remains a mystery to this day, which is part of what makes questions about Epstein’s role in these secret diplomatic negotiations so fascinating.

While Epstein has described al Thani as his “Arab brother”, the emails from Epstein al Thani suggest Epstein was actually working on behalf of the Saudi, UAE, and Israeli governments in many of the emails and basically laying out terms for a diplomatic normalization at a time when tensions with the Saudis and UAE had boiled over into a full-blown blockade of Qatar that started in June of 2017 and lasted over three years. By July of 2017, Epstein was pitching himself as a mediator who could work out a deal for Qatar. For example, in one July 2017 email to al Thani, Epstein suggests that Qatar could normalize relations if it was able to normalize ties with Israel. “If the people would allow your country to recognize israel. ‚could be interesting to discuss. If not maybe consider putting 1 billion into a fund to benefit the victims of terrorist acts. asking the other gcc memebers to match it,” Epstein wrote in a July 9, 2017 email. Interestingly, Epstein suggests that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had successfully followed similar advice, writing, “The Indian Prime minisiter modi took advice. and danced and sang in israel for the benefit of the US president. they had met a few weeks ago.. IT WORKED.!” Was Modi taking advice from Epstein?

The Kuwaiti government was apparently also involved in these behind-the-scenes negotiations. In a July 4, 2017, email to Anas al-Rasheed, a Kuwaiti professor who also served as a government cabinet minister, Epstein indicates the former prime minister of Qatar would like to meet with MBS, with a reference to “our primary goal”: “I am keeping our primary goal in mind. in that regard I know that HBJ would like to sit with MBS in a face to face. . IF your guy can organize, i think it would be a good step,” Epstein wrote. HBJ is Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, who served as prime minister of Qatar from 2007 to 2013.

It turns out former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak also played a role in these secret negotiations, which shouldn’t be a surprise given the extensive ties between Barak and Epstein. As we’ve seen, Epstein reportedly financed the bulk of Ehud Barak’s 2014 investment in Reporty, a technology start up. Ehud Barak’s name has already surfaced in the stories of Epstein following reports that Barak visited Epstein’s Manhattan residence and his private island. Barak asserts that he met Epstein 17 years ago after being introduced by Shimon Peres and has never attending any parties with him or seen him in the company of women or young girls. But Epstein’s Manhattan neighbors claim that Barak frequently stayed at Epstein’s place and photos have been released showing Barak entering Epstein’s place in the company of four women including one identified as an Epstein traveling companion. Barak and Epstein are so close it would almost be a surprise if Barak wasn’t involved in secret diplomatic initiatives Epstein was conduct on behalf of Israel. In a 10 November 2018 email to Barak, Epstein wrote, “just left hbj. He would like to sit with you.” Barak and HBJ ended up meeting the next month in a meeting reportedly arranged by Jabor Al Thani. “Please convey my thanks to HH HBJ for finding the time to m=et with me. I’ve enjoyed very much our exchange and=conversation. I hope to have more opportunities in the future,” Barak wrote to al Thani after the meeting, CCing Epstein on the email.

And this was all happening at the same time the Saudis and UAE were blockading Qatar and using Broidy and Nader to lobby the US government against Qatar. Which, again, raises the question of whether or not Epstein and Nader were effectively secretly working together. What are the odds that two of the most infamous high-powered pedophiles on the planet were secretly working on the same Qatar-focused diplomacy and didn’t know about each other’s involvement?

And that questions brings us to an interesting detail regarding the arrest of George Nader in June of 2019: The day after Nader’s arrest, Epstein emailed Steve Bannon about it. “Not cool,” Bannon replied to Epstein, with Epstein replying “Mandatory minimum 15.” Bannon went on to suggest that “MBZ must have coughed him up,” and Epstein replying “Nope”. Bannon ask how Nader got extradited, observing that he could have stayed in the UAE forever. Epstein replies that Nader was “duped”. So Nader — one of the key figures in the secret diplomatic overtures to the 2016 Trump campaign by MBZ and MBS — was somehow “duped” into leaving the UAE and returning to the US.

Was Epstein speculating or did he somehow know Nader was “duped”? We don’t know, but the fact that Epstein was apparently involved in the same, or at least heavily overlapping, secret Middle Eastern diplomatic overtures that Nader was managing in the years leading up to Nader’s arrest suggest that Epstein might very well have been privy to what led up to Nader’s arrest. As we’ll see, Nader’s lawyer claimed he was arriving in the US for treatment for a heart condition, so if he was indeed “duped”, the duping would presumably involve some sort of assurance from someone in the government that nothing would happen. We’ll likely never know if someone in the first Trump administration gave such an assurance, but the fact that Nader really was safe and sound in the UAE so Epstein’s ‘duping’ scenario doesn’t sound implausible.

Also keep in mind that when Nader returned to the US in January 2018, he was arrested by the FBI and questioned about his role in the ‘Russiagate’ affair. As we’ll see, FBI agents found 50 graphic images of children on his phone, included some that depicted sexual scenes and children “in pain”. And yet, he was allowed to leave the country, apparently thanks to his cooperation with the Russiagate investigation. So it wouldn’t be a shock if Nader thought it was safe for him to return to the US in June of 2019 given the fact that he was literally caught with child pornography on his phone by the FBI the prior year and allowed to leave.

It’s also worth noting that the fact that Nader had images of children “in pain” and toddler-aged males engaged in sexual acts with farm animals suggests he was also into the kind of ‘gore porn’ of the variety found on online forums of groups like The Com and 764, where extreme gore and violence are celebrated and fetishized. In fact, even Epstein criticized Nader in the emails to Bannon for possessing child pornography that included sexual acts with farm animals. Nader was apparently too obscene for Jeffrey Epstein’s taste. And that brings us to another very remarkable detail that came up during Nader’s legal defense over the child pornography charges: Nader’s lawyer also claimed his client’s pedophile ways were long in the past and nothing to worry about anymore. The judge rejected that claim, referring to the content found on Nader’s phone in his January 2018 arrest by the FBI. Nader’s lawyer then argued the child pornography images he was caught with weren’t truly pornographic in nature. At least not for Nader, because he didn’t use the images for sexual gratification. No, he had those images shared with him by his cohorts in the Middle East as part of a “dirty joke”. That’s right, Nader’s legal defense included the claim that all the child pornography he was caught with actually came from his Middle Eastern cohorts. Which raises the question: did he receive or share these images with “cohorts”? Might that, in part, explain his mysterious stature as some sort of behind-the-scenes diplomat? Was Nader’s trove of child pornography something that came in handy as part of the diplomacy he was secretly managing for decades? We’ll probably never know, but what are the odds that two of the most infamous high-powered pedophiles on the planet just randomly ended up secretly working as secret diplomats for the same Middle East governments? Is that just happenstance? And both were suddenly arrested by US authorities within a month of each other. Is that happenstance too?

Nader, of course, was ultimately sent to prison. Although, as we’ll see, it wasn’t the 15 year minimum Epstein predicted. The minimum he faced in his case was 10 years in prison, which is exactly what he got. In fact, the federal prosecutors asked for the 10 year minimum, arguing that 10 years was enough punishment for Nader, given his past cooperation with prosecutors (like a reference to ‘Russiagate’ cooperation) and his promise to compensate one of his victims, a 14 year old boy from the Czech Republic who was transported by Nader to the US in 2000 and sexually abused. Nader paid the victim $150,000 in compensation. And that was enough to merit the minimum 10 years for George Nader.

Not that he actually served the full 10 years. No, it turns out Nader was released from prison in early February 2025, just weeks into Trump’s second term. It’s unclear why Nader was released so early, especially since it turns out he was given an additional year and 8 months in prison in 2024 over campaign finance violations he engaged in while acting as a UAE lobbyist. So he had a nearly 12 year sentence and was released in less than 5 years. Mysteriously for no reason. The Newsweek article we’re going to look at doesn’t give a reason and that article is pretty much the only article on Nader’s release available. It’s as if it didn’t happen. But it did happen and George Nader has once again been allowed to leave the country, which sure looks like another federal sweetheart deal for George Nader. Maybe not as sweet as the deal Jeffrey Epstein got in 2008 or the deal Nader got in 1991, but still pretty sweet, all things considered. And this all mysteriously happened just weeks into the second Trump administration with almost no reporting and no explanation given. Was Nader released early by the Trump administration so he could once again act as some sort of Middle Eastern secret diplomat? We, by definition, won’t know. Or at least we’re not supposed to know. It’s supposed to be a secret. Kind of like all the child gore porn that’s apparently shared as a joke by Nader’s cohorts who will presumably also be engaged in these negotiations.

Ok, first, here’s a look at a BBC piece from back in February describing how Epstein was about to buy a Moroccan palace right before his July 2019 arrest, which is especially notable given that Morocco doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US. The article also notes how Epstein made periodic visits to Morocco starting in 2012, staying at the palace of Jabor al Thani, Epstein’s “Arab brother”:

BBC

Epstein tried to buy a palace in Morocco days before his arrest in 2019

Emir Nader and Samuel Owers, BBC Eye Investigations
27 February 2026

Jeffrey Epstein tried to buy a multimillion-dollar palace in Morocco the day before his arrest in 2019, according to documents released by the US Department of Justice last month.

Epstein had pursued acquiring Bin Ennakhil since 2011, but disputes with the seller over the price and purchase arrangement dragged on for years.

The grand palace in the luxury Palmeraie neighbourhood of Marrakech has been described as an architectural masterpiece, built by 1,300 craftsmen and featuring ornate carvings and mosaics.

Epstein signed a $14.95m (£11m) wire transfer on 5 July 2019, the day before his arrest, following an agreement to buy the offshore company that owned the property for €18m (£13.3m).

According to the released documents, the transfer was Epstein’s last major financial transaction in the period before his arrest by US authorities on sex trafficking charges upon his return to New York.

Three days after the arrest, Epstein’s accountant Richard Kahn cancelled the wire transfer and the purchase was ultimately never completed.

Morocco has no extradition treaty with the US and local media has speculated that one of Epstein’s motivations to purchase the property may have been to retreat to the country to avoid arrest, if new charges were brought against him.

However, a former associate of Epstein, who preferred not to be named, said the transaction showed Epstein “had no clue” about his imminent arrest.

They added that “it would make sense if he was thinking of a potential sanctuary where he could still live like a king”.

...

Epstein’s connections to Morocco go back to at least the early 2000s, with Virginia Giuffre, one of his most prominent accusers, recounting in her memoir of being flown to Tangier by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to inspect the interior design of a number of luxury properties.

...

In 2002, Epstein attended the wedding of Moroccan King Mohammed with Maxwell, having been invited by former US President Bill Clinton.

Epstein’s connections

Epstein was convicted in the United States of soliciting underage sex in 2008, and following his release from house arrest in 2010 his interest in Morocco seems to have grown.

The released files appear to show that in the same year, Epstein asked former Labour cabinet minister Peter Mandelson to find him an assistant who could “fin[d] a house in Marrakesh” for him.

The documents detail how Epstein made periodic visits to Morocco from 2012, staying in the exclusive Palmeraie district, home to a wealthy community of expatriates including Jabor al Thani of the Qatari royal family, a close associate whom he described as his “Arab brother”.

...

Bin Ennakhil and ‘Mr Kiss’

Epstein’s long-term girlfriend Karyna Shuliak began leading the search for a property in Marrakech, with numerous visits and negotiations documented in emails under her name.

Marc Leon, a partner of Kensington Luxury Properties, told the BBC that Epstein’s focus settled on their property Bin Ennakhil — Arabic for “between the palm trees” — as early as 2011.

At that time, Epstein thought the palace, owned by German waste magnate Gunter Kiss, was overvalued at €55m and his initial offer was so low that Kiss was offended and refused to deal with Epstein again, the source who was close to Epstein told the BBC.

Subsequently, Epstein used his girlfriend Shuliak and his network of contacts in Morocco to conduct further inspections of the property. In 2018, Epstein himself visited the property before Shuliak made final bids on the property while pretending to be acting on behalf of Leon Black, a billionaire investor friend of Epstein.

Ultimately, it became clear that Epstein was the real prospective buyer but the seller “Mr Kiss” — as he is known in the emails — agreed to continue the negotiations, according to the documents and the source close to Epstein.

Inside the Moroccan palace that caught Epstein’s eye:

The files show that, at one stage, Kensington Luxury Properties proposed to Epstein a “sale and tax strategy”, whereby the property would be registered with the Moroccan authorities as sold for €10m while a transaction of €20m would take place for the shares of an offshore company that owned the property.

The arrangement would have allowed Epstein to register his name on the title deeds of the property while reducing the tax he would pay to Moroccan authorities.

However, Kensington Luxury Properties denied to the BBC that there was an unethical or illegal attempt to minimise tax.

...

The property company was at the time the local real estate representative of the renowned UK-based auction house Christie’s.

Ultimately, Epstein decided to purchase the property solely by paying for the shares of the offshore company and was in the process of determining how to register it in Morocco at the time of his 2019 arrest.

———–

“Epstein tried to buy a palace in Morocco days before his arrest in 2019” by Emir Nader and Samuel Owers; BBC Eye Investigations; 02/27/2026

“Epstein signed a $14.95m (£11m) wire transfer on 5 July 2019, the day before his arrest, following an agreement to buy the offshore company that owned the property for €18m (£13.3m).”

A Moroccan palace, purchased just one day before his June 2019. Jeffrey Epstein’s was living the high life right up until the end. And with Morocco lacking an extradition treaty with the US, it’s not hard to suspect he was planning on preemptively dodging US law enforcement, despite the claims from unnamed associates that this wasn’t the case:

...
Three days after the arrest, Epstein’s accountant Richard Kahn cancelled the wire transfer and the purchase was ultimately never completed.

Morocco has no extradition treaty with the US and local media has speculated that one of Epstein’s motivations to purchase the property may have been to retreat to the country to avoid arrest, if new charges were brought against him.

However, a former associate of Epstein, who preferred not to be named, said the transaction showed Epstein “had no clue” about his imminent arrest.

They added that “it would make sense if he was thinking of a potential sanctuary where he could still live like a king”.
...

Interestingly, it appears Epstein initially attempted to make his bids on the property while pretending to be acting on behalf of Leon Black, one of the billionaires who maintained a still-unexplained close relationship with Epstein over decades. It raises the question of the extent to which Epstein was using the pretense of acting on behalf of one of the billionaire associates to conduct his business over the years. This presumably wasn’t the first instance of Epstein doing this:

...
Epstein’s long-term girlfriend Karyna Shuliak began leading the search for a property in Marrakech, with numerous visits and negotiations documented in emails under her name.

Marc Leon, a partner of Kensington Luxury Properties, told the BBC that Epstein’s focus settled on their property Bin Ennakhil — Arabic for “between the palm trees” — as early as 2011.

At that time, Epstein thought the palace, owned by German waste magnate Gunter Kiss, was overvalued at €55m and his initial offer was so low that Kiss was offended and refused to deal with Epstein again, the source who was close to Epstein told the BBC.

Subsequently, Epstein used his girlfriend Shuliak and his network of contacts in Morocco to conduct further inspections of the property. In 2018, Epstein himself visited the property before Shuliak made final bids on the property while pretending to be acting on behalf of Leon Black, a billionaire investor friend of Epstein.

Ultimately, it became clear that Epstein was the real prospective buyer but the seller “Mr Kiss” — as he is known in the emails — agreed to continue the negotiations, according to the documents and the source close to Epstein.
...

And then we get to this very interesting detail about Epstein’s relationship with Jabor al Thani of the Qatari royal family, who Epstein described as his “Arab brother”:

...
The documents detail how Epstein made periodic visits to Morocco from 2012, staying in the exclusive Palmeraie district, home to a wealthy community of expatriates including Jabor al Thani of the Qatari royal family, a close associate whom he described as his “Arab brother”.
...

And that intriguing “Arab brother” reference brings us to another report from back in February describing Epstein engaging in back-room diplomacy on behalf of Qatar in the country’s dealing with its Middle Eastern neighbors. Although it’s not actually clear who exactly Epstein was advocating for in these secret negotiations. Was he speaking on behalf of the Israelis? Saudis? Qataris? We don’t really know, in part because all of these negotiations were completely in secret:

Middle East Eye

Epstein said Qatar had to ‘sing and dance’ for Israel like Modi, to escape blockade

Convicted sex offender Epstein also brokered a secret Track II meeting between Israel’s Ehud Barak and former Qatari prime minister in London

Sean Mathews
Published date: 3 February 2026 19:25 GMT

Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein told a Qatari businessman that Doha needed to “sing and dance” forIsrael to get on US President Donald Trump’s good side during a blockade of the small Gulf state.

The email, part of the US Justice Department’s tranche of documents released over the weekend, shows Epstein inserting himself into a rift that erupted in the Gulf between Qatar on one side and the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the other.

Epstein told a man identified as “Jabor Y” that Qatar could apparently come in from the cold if it was able to normalise ties with Israel.

“If the people would allow your country to recognize israel. ‚could be interesting to discuss. If not maybe consider putting 1 billion into a fund to benefit the victims of terrorist acts. asking the other gcc memebers to match it,” Epstein wrote on 9 July 2017.

In other emails, Jabor Y appears under the name Jabor Yousef Jassim Al Thani. He is a Qatari businessman and member of the royal family. In a 2016 document, he appears to ask for permission for Epstein’s plane to land in Doha.

...

Epstein suggested that Qatar’s problems could go away if it stopped “kicking and arguing” and forged closer ties to Israel. He said Qatar needed to follow India’s example, which has emerged as a close Israeli partner.

“The Indian Prime minisiter modi took advice. and danced and sang in israel for the benefit of the US president. they had met a few weeks ago.. IT WORKED.!” Epstein wrote to Jabar.

Turkey stops invasion of Qatar?

Epstein had ties to intelligence networks and arms dealers going back to the 1980s. He was particularly close to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Epstein in 2019 mysteriously died in his New York City jail cell, which was deemed a suicide, but he was following the blockade of Qatar closely and engaging in track II diplomacy with Barak right up until his death.

On 30 June 2017, he suggested that an invasion of Qatar was prevented because the Turkish military had deployed in force to the Gulf state.

“I think with the Turks inside, the military option is no longer viable,” Epstein wrote to a man named Anas al-Rasheed, who appears to be a Kuwaiti professor who also served as a cabinet minister.

Turkey established its first military base in Qatar in 2015, but expanded its presence massively in the summer of 2017 in defiance of the UAE and Saudi-led blockade.

By July 2017, Epstein was pitching himself as a mediator who could fix Qatar’s problems.

“I am keeping our primary goal in mind. in that regard I know that HBJ would like to sit with MBS in a face to face. . IF your guy can organize, i think it would be a good step,” Epstein wrote to Rasheed on 4 July. MBS is the acronym for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

HBJ is the acronym for Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, who served as prime minister in the Gulf state from 2007 to 2013. Epstein claimed at the time that the leader was the only “adult” in the Gulf state.

While it’s not clear if the meeting between the former Qatari prime minister and Saudi crown prince took place, Epstein successfully brokered a meeting between Barak and his Qatari counterpart.

Epstein brokered Ehud Barak and Qatar meeting

“just left hbj. He would like to sit with you.” Epstein wrote to Barak on 10 November 2018.

The email exchange offers a rare glimpse into Epstein arranging what is effectively unofficial diplomacy between former senior Israeli and Qatari officials.

...

The meeting between the two former officials was facilitated on the Qatari side by Jabor Al Thani. The meeting took place in December 2018 at One Hyde Park, an ultra-posh apartment complex in London.

“Please convey my thanks to HH HBJ for finding the time to m=et with me. I’ve enjoyed very much our exchange and=conversation. I hope to have more opportunities in the future,” Barak wrote in an email to Jabor after the meeting, which cc’d Epstein.

The two men appeared to discuss a “security company”, according to a follow-up email by Jabor addressed to Barak.

...

———–

”
Epstein said Qatar had to ‘sing and dance’ for Israel like Modi, to escape blockade” by Sean Mathews; ; 02/03/2026

“The email, part of the US Justice Department’s tranche of documents released over the weekend, shows Epstein inserting himself into a rift that erupted in the Gulf between Qatar on one side and the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the other.”

Secret Middle Eastern diplomacy. It’s quite a remarkable discovery in our ongoing quest to understand the full scope of the role Jeffrey Epstein was playing in the world. And as we can see, it was none other than Epstein who was delivering the terms for Qatar normalizing relations with the Saudis and UAE. And this is all happening in 2016 and 2017, the same period of time when the Saudis, UAE, and Israel were engaged in all sorts of secret negotiations with what was first the 2016 Trump campaign and, eventually, the first Trump White House:

...
Epstein told a man identified as “Jabor Y” that Qatar could apparently come in from the cold if it was able to normalise ties with Israel.

“If the people would allow your country to recognize israel. ‚could be interesting to discuss. If not maybe consider putting 1 billion into a fund to benefit the victims of terrorist acts. asking the other gcc memebers to match it,” Epstein wrote on 9 July 2017.

In other emails, Jabor Y appears under the name Jabor Yousef Jassim Al Thani. He is a Qatari businessman and member of the royal family. In a 2016 document, he appears to ask for permission for Epstein’s plane to land in Doha.

...

Epstein suggested that Qatar’s problems could go away if it stopped “kicking and arguing” and forged closer ties to Israel. He said Qatar needed to follow India’s example, which has emerged as a close Israeli partner.

“The Indian Prime minisiter modi took advice. and danced and sang in israel for the benefit of the US president. they had met a few weeks ago.. IT WORKED.!” Epstein wrote to Jabar.

...

Epstein in 2019 mysteriously died in his New York City jail cell, which was deemed a suicide, but he was following the blockade of Qatar closely and engaging in track II diplomacy with Barak right up until his death.
...

Underscoring the stakes of the secret negotiations Epstein was conducting is his suggestion that Qatar would have been invaded (presumably by the Saudis and UAE) had it not been for a Turkish military base there, which is an interesting take given that the US also has a massive military base in Qatar which apparently wouldn’t have been an issue. That was the opinion he shared with Anas al-Rasheed, a Kuwaiti cabinet minister, in June of 2017. The next month, Epstein write to Rasheed about how “I am keeping our primary goal in mind,” while attempting to arrange a meeting with the former prime minister of Qatar and MBS. So in terms of who Epstein was ultimately working for, it would appear the Kuwaitis were at least one of his clients or at least part of the secret negotiations:

...
On 30 June 2017, he suggested that an invasion of Qatar was prevented because the Turkish military had deployed in force to the Gulf state.

“I think with the Turks inside, the military option is no longer viable,” Epstein wrote to a man named Anas al-Rasheed, who appears to be a Kuwaiti professor who also served as a cabinet minister.

Turkey established its first military base in Qatar in 2015, but expanded its presence massively in the summer of 2017 in defiance of the UAE and Saudi-led blockade.

By July 2017, Epstein was pitching himself as a mediator who could fix Qatar’s problems.

“I am keeping our primary goal in mind. in that regard I know that HBJ would like to sit with MBS in a face to face. . IF your guy can organize, i think it would be a good step,” Epstein wrote to Rasheed on 4 July. MBS is the acronym for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

HBJ is the acronym for Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, who served as prime minister in the Gulf state from 2007 to 2013. Epstein claimed at the time that the leader was the only “adult” in the Gulf state.

While it’s not clear if the meeting between the former Qatari prime minister and Saudi crown prince took place, Epstein successfully brokered a meeting between Barak and his Qatari counterpart.
...

And as we can also see, this wasn’t all just bluster. A meeting between Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister from 2007 to 2013, and Ehud Barak, was brokered by Epstein had took place in December of 2018, just months before Epstein’s arrest. Keep in mind that the blockbuster “Perversion of Justice” series of articles in the Miami Herald about Jeffrey Epstein that reignited the investigation into him was first published in November of 2018. To learn he was engaged in secret Middle Eastern diplomacy at this time adds a fascinating new context to the Epstein’s 2019 arrest:

...
“just left hbj. He would like to sit with you.” Epstein wrote to Barak on 10 November 2018.

The email exchange offers a rare glimpse into Epstein arranging what is effectively unofficial diplomacy between former senior Israeli and Qatari officials.

...

The meeting between the two former officials was facilitated on the Qatari side by Jabor Al Thani. The meeting took place in December 2018 at One Hyde Park, an ultra-posh apartment complex in London.
...

But, of course, when we are talking about secret negotiations involving the UAE and Saudi governments in 2016 and 2017, we can’t ignore the many already well known stories involving another ‘international man of mystery’: George Nader, who was directly involved in a variety of ‘backchannel’ negotiations, first involving the Trump 2016 campaign and then, after Trump took office, as a secret lobbyist for the UAE alongside Elliot Broidy. So when we see how Steve Bannon and Epstein were commiserating about Nader’s June 2019 arrest on child pornography charges, it’s hard not to wonder if the secret Middle Eastern diplomacy both men were engaged in on behalf of the Saudi and UAE governments in 2016 and 2017 were the same secret diplomacy:

Middle East Eye

Epstein files: Bannon accused UAE’s MBZ of ‘coughing up’ paedophile George Nader

Former Trump strategist was discussing arrest of advisor to Abu Dhabi ruler on child sex charges with Jeffrey Epstein

MEE staff
Published date: 3 February 2026 15:45 GMT

Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon accused the ruler of the UAE of “coughing up” convicted paedophile George Nader to US authorities, according tofiles newly released by the Department of Justice related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Bannon was messaging convicted sex offender and financier Epstein on 4 June 2019.

Epstein sent a link to Bannon of a CNN article about the arrest a day earlier of George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman and former adviser to Mohammed bin Zayed, the leader of the UAE who was then the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

...

“Not cool,” Bannon says to Epstein reacting to the arrest, to which the financier responds, “Mandatory minimum 15.”

“MBZ must have coughed him up,” Bannon alleges in an apparent reference to the UAE leader who is commonly known by his initials.

Epstein responds “Nope.”

“How did he get extradited ?– could have stayed in UAE forever,” asks Bannon.

Epstein remarks that Nader was not extradited, but rather “duped”.

The financier appears to then criticise Nader over the charges of possessing child pornography showing young children being sexually abused, including by animals.

...

In 2020, Nader pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and bringing a 14-year-old boy into the US for sex in 2000. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Nader, 61, served as a key point of contact between members of US President Donald Trump’s inner circle and Mohammed bin Zayed in the leadup to and after Trump’s victory in the 2016 election.

...

He also arranged a meeting between Dmitriev and Erik Prince, the Trump-linked founder of the US private mercenary firm Blackwater, which has been accused of committing war crimes in Iraq.

In January 2018, Nader was caught with “visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct” on his phone after he landed in New York on a flight from Dubai, the US Justice Department said.

The guilty plea and 10-year sentence are mostly based on a 2000 incident when Nader brought a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic into the United States for sexual exploitation.

Nader had a long career as a businessman and dealbroker, despite a string of child sex offence allegations and convictions.

Prosecutors called Nader’s crimes “grave and dangerous,” fitting into a pattern that dated back to 1984 when he was investigated for child pornography obtained by mail. He “escaped responsibility” for this offence after a court in Washington ruled that the evidence was improperly obtained.

In 1991, he received a sentence of six months in prison for attempting to bring two films of young boys being abused into the United States. At the time, he was helping free American hostages in Lebanon as a broker.

He was also sentenced in the Czech Republic to one year in jail for sexually abusing minors.

————–

“Epstein files: Bannon accused UAE’s MBZ of ‘coughing up’ paedophile George Nader” by MEE staff; Middle East Eye; 02/03/2026

“Epstein sent a link to Bannon of a CNN article about the arrest a day earlier of George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman and former adviser to Mohammed bin Zayed, the leader of the UAE who was then the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.”

As we can see, it was Epstein who sent the link to Bannon about Nader’s arrest, just a day after it happened. Cryptically, Epstein asserts that Nader wasn’t extradited. He was “duped”. How did Epstein know this and how exactly was Nader “duped” into returning to the US? Did the Trump administration dupe him? If not, who else could have possibly done the duping?

...
“Not cool,” Bannon says to Epstein reacting to the arrest, to which the financier responds, “Mandatory minimum 15.”

“MBZ must have coughed him up,” Bannon alleges in an apparent reference to the UAE leader who is commonly known by his initials.

Epstein responds “Nope.”

“How did he get extradited ?– could have stayed in UAE forever,” asks Bannon.

Epstein remarks that Nader was not extradited, but rather “duped”.
...

Lastly, note how Nader was given just a 6 month prison sentence in 1991 for similar charges, with the fact that he was helping free American hostages in Lebanon as a broker serving as the pretext for the light sentence:

...
Nader had a long career as a businessman and dealbroker, despite a string of child sex offence allegations and convictions.

Prosecutors called Nader’s crimes “grave and dangerous,” fitting into a pattern that dated back to 1984 when he was investigated for child pornography obtained by mail. He “escaped responsibility” for this offence after a court in Washington ruled that the evidence was improperly obtained.

In 1991, he received a sentence of six months in prison for attempting to bring two films of young boys being abused into the United States. At the time, he was helping free American hostages in Lebanon as a broker.

He was also sentenced in the Czech Republic to one year in jail for sexually abusing minors.
...

And that light sentence from 1991 — a federal ‘sweetheart deal’, it would appear — brings us to Nader’s sentencing for the new child abuse crimes carrying a minimum of 10 years in prison:

Courthouse News

Trump Campaign Adviser Pleads Guilty to Child Porn, Sex Trafficking

An informal adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign who testified in the Mueller probe pleaded guilty Monday to charges of child sex trafficking and possessing child pornography.

Brandi Buchman / January 13, 2020

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – An informal adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign who testified in the Mueller probe pleaded guilty Monday to charges of child sex trafficking and possessing child pornography.

George Nader, 60, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia’s Eastern District.

...

Nader faces sentencing April 10 on the new conviction. The first count of possessing child pornography carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and 20 years maximum plus a $250,000 fine. He would also face a minimum of five years supervised release that could be extended for the duration of his life.

On the second count, transporting a minor for sex, Nader faces a minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 30 years. A $250,000 fine would also apply for this charge. He is also required to register as a sex offender for life.

Nader’s defense attorneys seek a 10-year sentence to run concurrently.

...

————

“Trump Campaign Adviser Pleads Guilty to Child Porn, Sex Trafficking” by Brandi Buchman; Courthouse News; 01/13/2020

“Nader faces sentencing April 10 on the new conviction. The first count of possessing child pornography carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and 20 years maximum plus a $250,000 fine. He would also face a minimum of five years supervised release that could be extended for the duration of his life.”

10 years minimum, 20 years maximum. That’s what Nader was facing. Guess what sentence he ultimately got:

Courthouse News

Child-Sex Trafficker From Trump Tower Meeting Gets 10-Year Sentence

Once an informal adviser to President Donald Trump and later a witness for the Mueller probe, George Nader was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for possession of child pornography and transporting a minor into the United States for sex.

Brandi Buchman / June 26, 2020

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) — Once an informal adviser to President Donald Trump and later a witness for the Mueller probe, George Nader was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for possession of child pornography and transporting a minor into the United States for sex.

...

Nader pleaded guilty in March, less than a year after federal prosecutors charged him over graphic images found on multiple devices belonging to Nader, including videos of toddler-age boys engaging in sex acts with young goats and other farm animals.

Prosecutors added the sex-trafficking charge in July, saying Nader had arranged in 2000 to transport a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic to his home in Washington, D.C. Holding onto the minor’s passport, Nader had told the teen and his mother that they would go to prison if they tried to report him.

Two decades later, Nader’s victim is married with a young son and lives in the Czech Republic. His name was not revealed in court Friday as he teleconferenced into Nader’s sentencing hearing to read a roughly four-minute statement.

“It’s been a long journey,” the man said in Czech, his testimony read back to the court through an interpreter. “My health is bad. I have ulcers. I stopped eating. I had nightmares. I am still dealing with those now.”

...

Nader agreed to pay the victim $150,000 in restitution. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema also fined Nader $25,000.

Jay Prabhu, an assistant U.S. attorney and chief of his office’s Cybercrime Unit, told the court Friday that Nader is a repeat offender but that the minimum sentence of 10 years was enough punishment for Nader, given his past cooperation with prosecutors and his promise to compensate the victim.

Nader previously served six months in prison in 1991 after he was convicted of transporting child pornography in the United States.

...

According to his testimony before a grand jury during former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Nader was tapped by Trump’s first presidential campaign team to offer his diplomatic and political insights into the Middle East.

Nader’s professional relationships with power players there, like Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates crown prince, was seen as a boon by the Trump transition team. Nader was eventually able to secure a Trump Tower meeting in December 2016 with the crown prince, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the campaign’s chief strategist at the time, Steve Bannon.

The meeting’s focus was to convince Kushner and Bannon that, with Trump elected, America should cool its longtime alliance with Qatar, a longtime enemy of the U.A.E.

Trump’s then-finance chairman, Elliott Broidy, also promoted an anti-Qatar agenda.

Broidy ended up receiving a $2.5 million check from Nader in April 2018 that, according to an investigative report first published by the Associated Press, resulted in the bankrolling of anti-Qatar initiatives in Congress and later, donations to lawmakers like California Republican Ed Royce, who as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs committee at the time, backed the shift in foreign policy.

Nader awaits sentencing for separate federal charges in Washington related to his coordination of illegal foreign contributions to President Trump’s inaugural fund as well as Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Defense attorney Jonathan Jeffress told Judge Brinkema that Nader’s age and health merit consideration in sentencing. Nader is prediabetic and had a quadruple bypass just months before his arrest. When he was arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2018, he was coming to the U.S. to receive rehabilitative treatment for his heart, Jeffress said.

Given that 20 years has elapsed since Nader transported his victim, Jeffress said the potential for Nader repeating the conduct was “nonexistent.” He also said that the only fundamental disagreement between prosecutors and the defense was that Nader still exhibits a pattern or proclivity for child pornography.

“These are things Mr. Nader has largely put behind him,” Jeffress said.

Brinkema was not convinced, noting during the 2018 arrest that there were more than 50 graphic images found on Nader’s phone — images that prosecutor Prabhu said obviously depicted children sexually or “in pain.”

Prabhu pointed out that Nader’s criminality stemmed as far back as 1984 when he was investigated for receiving child pornography. That case was ultimately thrown out because the search that uncovered the porn was faulty.

“I raise these issues not to embarrass Mr. Nader or shock the court. I raise it because it shows he has a persistent issue with this,” Prabhu said before also calling the former Trump campaign adviser a “persistent and dangerous voyeur for years.”

Jeffress disagreed, saying that the images shared with Nader by his cohorts in the Middle East were widely regarded as “dirty jokes.”

“It meets the definition of obscenity but it’s not child pornography that someone would use to stimulate themselves,” Jeffress said.

———–

“Child-Sex Trafficker From Trump Tower Meeting Gets 10-Year Sentence” by Brandi Buchman; Courthouse News; 06/26/2020

“Jay Prabhu, an assistant U.S. attorney and chief of his office’s Cybercrime Unit, told the court Friday that Nader is a repeat offender but that the minimum sentence of 10 years was enough punishment for Nader, given his past cooperation with prosecutors and his promise to compensate the victim.”

A 10 year sentence was “enough punishment” for Nader. That as the opinion of the US federal prosecutors. We would expect his defense attorneys to argue for 10 years. But the prosecutors too? This sure looks like another federal ‘sweetheart deal’.

Intriguingly, as the article notes, the work Nader was doing as a lobbyist for the UAE government during Trump’s first term was work promoting an anti-Qatar agenda. In other words, Nader and Epstein were both engaged in secret diplomatic negotiations involving Qatar. Which raises the question: was this a kind of ‘good cop’/‘bad cop’ negotiation, with Epstein acting as the ‘good cop’ friend of Qatar? Because that’s the picture that emerges:

...
Nader previously served six months in prison in 1991 after he was convicted of transporting child pornography in the United States.

...

According to his testimony before a grand jury during former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Nader was tapped by Trump’s first presidential campaign team to offer his diplomatic and political insights into the Middle East.

Nader’s professional relationships with power players there, like Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates crown prince, was seen as a boon by the Trump transition team. Nader was eventually able to secure a Trump Tower meeting in December 2016 with the crown prince, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the campaign’s chief strategist at the time, Steve Bannon.

The meeting’s focus was to convince Kushner and Bannon that, with Trump elected, America should cool its longtime alliance with Qatar, a longtime enemy of the U.A.E.

Trump’s then-finance chairman, Elliott Broidy, also promoted an anti-Qatar agenda.

Broidy ended up receiving a $2.5 million check from Nader in April 2018 that, according to an investigative report first published by the Associated Press, resulted in the bankrolling of anti-Qatar initiatives in Congress and later, donations to lawmakers like California Republican Ed Royce, who as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs committee at the time, backed the shift in foreign policy.
...

Interestingly, given Epstein’s suggestion that Nader was “duped” in to returning to the US, it was treatments for his heart that was the alleged purpose of the visit. Was Nader tricked into thinking he was allowed to return to the US? If so, who tricked him?

...
Defense attorney Jonathan Jeffress told Judge Brinkema that Nader’s age and health merit consideration in sentencing. Nader is prediabetic and had a quadruple bypass just months before his arrest. When he was arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2018, he was coming to the U.S. to receive rehabilitative treatment for his heart, Jeffress said.
...

Finally, note this incredible line of defense of Nader’s attorney: Nader shared the pornographic images with his cohorts in the Middle East as a “dirty joke”, and therefore they weren’t pornographic! So Nader’s child pornography collection — which included children clearly in pain — wasn’t a depraved personal vice. No, his Middle Eastern “cohorts” shared the images with him. It was all just a dirty joke. That was literally his defense:

...
Nader pleaded guilty in March, less than a year after federal prosecutors charged him over graphic images found on multiple devices belonging to Nader, including videos of toddler-age boys engaging in sex acts with young goats and other farm animals.

...

Given that 20 years has elapsed since Nader transported his victim, Jeffress said the potential for Nader repeating the conduct was “nonexistent.” He also said that the only fundamental disagreement between prosecutors and the defense was that Nader still exhibits a pattern or proclivity for child pornography.

“These are things Mr. Nader has largely put behind him,” Jeffress said.

Brinkema was not convinced, noting during the 2018 arrest that there were more than 50 graphic images found on Nader’s phone — images that prosecutor Prabhu said obviously depicted children sexually or “in pain.”

Prabhu pointed out that Nader’s criminality stemmed as far back as 1984 when he was investigated for receiving child pornography. That case was ultimately thrown out because the search that uncovered the porn was faulty.

“I raise these issues not to embarrass Mr. Nader or shock the court. I raise it because it shows he has a persistent issue with this,” Prabhu said before also calling the former Trump campaign adviser a “persistent and dangerous voyeur for years.”

Jeffress disagreed, saying that the images shared with Nader by his cohorts in the Middle East were widely regarded as “dirty jokes.”

“It meets the definition of obscenity but it’s not child pornography that someone would use to stimulate themselves,” Jeffress said.
...

And that 10 year minimum sentence from June of 2020 brings us to the following update from early February of 2025, less than a month into Trump’s second term: Nader was about to be released and allowed to leave the US, meaning he was released after serving less than half the minimum sentence. No explanation for the release is given:

Newsweek

Judge Rebukes Lawyer Over ‘Outrageous’ Request to Keep Mueller Witness In US

By Sean O’Driscoll
Published Feb 05, 2025 at 01:19 PM EST

A judge sharply rebuked a lawyer for trying to keep a man in the U.S to give evidence in a criminal trial.

The man, George Nader, was central to the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into foreign interference in U.S. elections.

...

Why It Matters

Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, a Lebanese American businessman, is awaiting trial in a Washington, D.C., federal court, accused of being at the center of a scheme to funnel foreign donations to U.S. presidential candidates.

According to a Justice Department statement, Khawaja is a fugitive from that indictment. He is also a fugitive from an additional indictment in Massachusetts, where he is accused of deceiving banks into processing $150 million worth of credit and debit card transactions for ultra-high-risk businesses such as payday loan companies.

What To Know

Nader, who was a donor to the presidential election campaigns of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, was compelled to give evidence to Mueller, who was investigating foreign interference in U.S. elections, with a special emphasis on Trump’s links to foreign donors and governments.

Nader also served as an informal foreign policy adviser to Trump. He was indicted and reached a plea deal in January 2020 related to charges of possessing child pornography and transporting a minor for sex. In June 2020, Nader was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a federal judge.

On July 18, 2024, largely because of the findings of Mueller’s investigators, Nader was sentenced to an additional year and eight months in prison for his role in funneling at least $3.5 million in unlawful contributions from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) “to unwitting political committees in the United States,” according to a Department of Justice statement at the time.

The Justice Department alleged that Nader “conspired with co-defendant Ahmad ‘Andy’ Khawaja to transfer $4.9 million to facilitate unlawful contributions to unwitting political committees in order to gain access to and influence with a then-candidate for President of the United States and others in connection with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

...

On February 4, just two days before Nader is due to be released from custody, Khawaja’s lawyer, Kenneth Julian, appeared before Washington, D.C., federal Judge Randolph Moss, asking Moss to compel Nader to stay in the U.S and become a defense witness for Khawaja when he goes on trial.

Moss said he would not detain Nader in the U.S. after he is released but could order him to attend a pre-trial deposition in which he would be interviewed by defense attorneys. In his February 4 order, Moss ruled that Nader’s deposition can be taken some time within the following two days, which suggests that he wants it completed before Nader is released from custody on Thursday.

The deposition would be contained to one day, lasting no longer than seven hours, Moss ruled, so Nadir would not be held in the U.S. indefinitely until Khawaja is located.

————

“Judge Rebukes Lawyer Over ‘Outrageous’ Request to Keep Mueller Witness In US” By Sean O’Driscoll; Newsweek; 02/05/2025

“A judge sharply rebuked a lawyer for trying to keep a man in the U.S to give evidence in a criminal trial.”

A sharp rebuke over a request to keep George Nader in the US after his February 2025 release from prison. That 10 year sentence was reduced to less than 5 years, and that’s despite Nader being sentenced to an addition year and 8 months in prison in 2024 over campaign finance violations he engaged in as part of his work for the UAE:

...
On July 18, 2024, largely because of the findings of Mueller’s investigators, Nader was sentenced to an additional year and eight months in prison for his role in funneling at least $3.5 million in unlawful contributions from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) “to unwitting political committees in the United States,” according to a Department of Justice statement at the time.
...

It’s not actually clear why Nader was released so early. But the fact that almost no other news reports of Nader’s release from prison exist suggests that this release is a story the US government would prefer we not talk about. Nader is gone, end of story. Weeks into Trump’s second term, with no explanation.

Where is he now? Who knows. Maybe he’s hanging out with Epstein’s ghost somewhere. Although we can be pretty sure he’s back in the Middle East. Probably engaged in more secret diplomacy while he exchanges more child pornography with his cohorts. All as a joke, of course.

And as shocking as it is on the surface to announce a deal that transfers US nuclear technology to one of the regional archrivals of Iran right as hostilities between the US and Iran are reigniting under the pretext of thwarting Iranian nuclear ambitions, the details of the deal are even more shocking. Because it turns out the deal does NOT include a “123 agreement”, which is seen as the “gold standard” for ensuring nuclear energy technology doesn’t get retooled into a nuclear weapons program. Without such an agreement, there are no bans on the enrichment of nuclear fuel and not requirements for inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Adding to the alarm is the fact that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has openly threatened that Saudi Arabia would obtain nuclear weapons if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon. It’s not a new threat, with Pakistan having long been suspected of having a nuclear weapon sharing agreement with the Saudis that goes all the way back to the Saudi role in Pakistan’s own nuclear technology proliferation network. So we’ve gone from a US-led war against Iran, ostensibly over a rogue nuclear program, that has not only failed thus far but has arguably made Iran even more likely to pursue nuclear weapons as soon as possible. And now Saudi Arabia will receive US nuclear technology that will very likely be used for nuclear enrichment purposes and the eventual development of a nuclear weapon.

And, again, none of this is new. At least when it comes to the Saudi desires for nuclear enrichment capabilities and the Trump administration’s desires to sell them that technology. It was a story that was intertwined with the whole ‘Russiagate’ fiasco and yet it was never really thoroughly explored despite all the media fervor over that story. First, recall the reports on Michael Flynn’s work in 2015 and 2016 as a lobbyist for a project to build nuclear power plants across the Middle East (but not Iran). Flynn was working for an American company, X‑Co/Iron Bridge and the plan appeared to be lead by another American company ACU Strategic Partners. Saudi Arabia would be financing the project and Russia would be involved providing services. The idea was that the US and Russia would jointly control the Arab world’s rush to obtain nuclear power.

Next, recall the scheme to upgrade Ukraine’s nuclear power plants hatched by Andrii Artemenko, Felix Sater, and Robert Armao. As we saw, Westinghouse is deeply involved in the Ukrainian nuclear power sector. Back in 2018, we were getting reports that Westinghouse was also involved in an push to build and service nuclear power plants for Saudi Arabia, but the Saudis are trying to avoid an agreement (the “123 measure”) that would prevent it from enriching nuclear material for use in nuclear weapons. And Energy Secretary Rick Perry was working on an agreement that would allow enrichment which could, in turn, trigger a clause in the 123 measure the UAE signed that would now allow the UAE to enrich nuclear fuel too. Yes, while the UAE did indeed agree to a “123 agreement” in its own nuclear program that would prevent nuclear enrichment, the UAE could arguably go ahead with its own enrichment if the Saudis do it first.

Now, as of 2019, the US was still insisting on a “123 agreement” with the Saudis. But that insistence has apparently been dropped. It took a while, but it happened, arguably at the worst possible time, diplomatically.

And if it’s not clear that the Trump administration is just kind of winging it on these negotiations, that became clear the day after this agreement was announced, with the Trump administration adding a new provision to the deal in the midst of heavy international criticism of the deal: the Saudis will also have to recognize Israel under the Abraham Accords. While the White House now insists that this is not a new provision to the deal, the Saudi response to this new demand remains unclear.

Will these new demands ultimately undo the deal? We’ll see, but it would appear that the Saudis finally to the US to agreement to a major nuclear technology transfer agreement without the “123 agreement” that the Trump administration insisted on during the first term. Patience pays off. Well, patience and all of the bribes and graft that presumably went into making this a reality:

National Public Radio

Trump administration signs commercial nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia

By Shannon Bond, Geoff Brumfiel
July 22, 2026 5:17 PM ET

The Trump administration has signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia that would allow American companies to run commercial nuclear power plants on Saudi soil.

The agreement was signed by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Department of Energy announced on Wednesday. They also signed an accompanying agreement about safeguards. The deal must be reviewed by Congress, which has 90 days to consider it.

The cooperation agreement gives American companies priority access to the Saudi nuclear energy program, meaning they can supply nuclear reactors and fuel, according to an administration memo about the agreement seen by NPR. It’s expected to last decades and be worth billions of dollars, the Energy Department said.

...

However, the memo seen by NPR said the agreement does not include provisions known as the “gold standard” that would prohibit the kingdom from enriching uranium and reprocessing nuclear fuel, nor does it require Saudi Arabia to adopt terms that would lead to greater oversight from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The lack of those restrictions will raise concerns over providing the kingdom a pathway to weapons development. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would follow suit.

...

The memo says the U.S. does not support a Saudi nuclear weapons program, and that the agreement is limited to peaceful cooperation on nuclear energy.

The memo notes that the agreement includes nonproliferation terms under the Atomic Energy Act. It also says that while the agreement provides a legal pathway for cooperation on the nuclear fuel cycle, it does not obligate the U.S. to transfer any fuel cycle capabilities or technologies to Saudi Arabia.

“I think it may make negotiating a reasonable deal with Iran more difficult,” said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear proliferation expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered.

Bunn said that Iran was less likely to sign an agreement involving intrusive inspections of its nuclear program if Saudi Arabia was also not committing to such agreements.

—————-

“The cooperation agreement gives American companies priority access to the Saudi nuclear energy program, meaning they can supply nuclear reactors and fuel, according to an administration memo about the agreement seen by NPR. It’s expected to last decades and be worth billions of dollars, the Energy Department said.”

It’s not exactly a surprise to find that US companies will be given priority access. It would be shocking if that wasn’t the case. The surprise here is the lack of any “gold standard” provision that would prevent the Saudis from enriching the nuclear fuel or submit to international oversight. Which, of course, were the same demands the Saudis had back during the first Trump administration that the Trump administration seemed fine with at the time. And while the Saudis might insist that they have no plans to weaponize that enriched Uranium, it’s hard to know what else they would be planning on using it for. It’s not like they would need enriched Uranium for alternative nuclear energy technology:

...
However, the memo seen by NPR said the agreement does not include provisions known as the “gold standard” that would prohibit the kingdom from enriching uranium and reprocessing nuclear fuel, nor does it require Saudi Arabia to adopt terms that would lead to greater oversight from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The lack of those restrictions will raise concerns over providing the kingdom a pathway to weapons development. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would follow suit.
...

And as the following article notes, while Saudi Arabia may be insisting that it has no nuclear ambitions, the Saudis are also insisting that it has a right to acquire nuclear weapons should Iran do so first. It’s not an idle wish either, with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan having already signed a mutual defense pact in response to Israel’s attack on Hamas’s leadership in Qatar and Pakistan’s defense minister declaring that the country’s nuclear program “will be made available” to Saudi Arabia if needed:

Associated Press

Trump approves nuclear agreement that may allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium, 2 AP sources say

By AAMER MADHANI, MICHELLE L. PRICE and JON GAMBRELL
Updated 10:11 PM CDT, July 21, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has approved an agreement with Saudi Arabia that could potentially provide the kingdom with uranium enrichment capability for its civilian nuclear program, according to two people familiar with the matter.

...

The deal is expected to last 30 years and is also expected to involve U.S. firms in developing the program. The deal could allow for the building of a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia following a joint U.S.-Saudi study.

But the deal, which is expected to be submitted to Congress for review, could face headwinds among lawmakers who fear that helping the Saudis fulfill their long-standing desire to enrich their own uranium would open new rounds of nuclear proliferation and competition.

Saudi Arabia is a member state of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a Vienna-based agency which promotes peaceful nuclear work but also inspects nations to ensure they don’t have clandestine atomic weapons programs.

But the agreement is not expected to include the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which would allow for more monitoring, inspections and verification, according to one of the people.

...

Both Trump and former President Joe Biden tried to reach a nuclear deal with the kingdom to share American technology.

But nonproliferation experts warn any spinning centrifuges within Saudi Arabia could open the door to a possible weapons program for the kingdom, something its assertive de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has suggested he could pursue if Tehran obtains an atomic bomb.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to Saudi Arabia last year shortly before Trump visited the kingdom and discussed building out the kingdom’s commercial nuclear power industry with his Saudi counterpart. The U.S. Department of Energy did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.

Already, Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact after Israel launched an attack on Qatar targeting Hamas officials. Pakistan’s defense minister then said his nation’s nuclear program “will be made available” to Saudi Arabia if needed, something seen as a warning for Israel, long believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed state.

Enrichment isn’t an automatic path to a nuclear weapon — a nation also must master other steps, including the use of synchronized high explosives, for instance. But it does open the door to weaponization, which has fueled the concerns of the West over Iran’s program.

The United Arab Emirates, a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, signed what is referred to as a “123 agreement” with the U.S. to build its Barakah nuclear power plant with South Korean assistance. But the UAE did so without seeking enrichment, something nonproliferation experts have held up as the “gold standard” for nations wanting atomic power.

—————-

“Trump approves nuclear agreement that may allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium, 2 AP sources say” By AAMER MADHANI, MICHELLE L. PRICE and JON GAMBRELL; Associated Press; 07/21/2026

“Already, Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact after Israel launched an attack on Qatar targeting Hamas officials. Pakistan’s defense minister then said his nation’s nuclear program “will be made available” to Saudi Arabia if needed, something seen as a warning for Israel, long believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed state.”

The fact that the Saudis have informal access to Pakistani nuclear weapons isn’t exactly new news. But it’s pretty notable considering the context. A context that includes a US-led war against Iran over a nuclear weapons program. Again, don’t forget that, while the UAE agreed to a “123 agreement”, that agreement includes the provision that the UAE could considering enrichment if others in the region do it first. If this agreement results in a Saudi nuke, it’ll result in an UAE nuke too:

...
Enrichment isn’t an automatic path to a nuclear weapon — a nation also must master other steps, including the use of synchronized high explosives, for instance. But it does open the door to weaponization, which has fueled the concerns of the West over Iran’s program.

The United Arab Emirates, a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, signed what is referred to as a “123 agreement” with the U.S. to build its Barakah nuclear power plant with South Korean assistance. But the UAE did so without seeking enrichment, something nonproliferation experts have held up as the “gold standard” for nations wanting atomic power.
...

And that’s the declared deal. Or at least that was the declared deal at first. And then, a day later, there was an addendum: the Saudis had to recognized Israel, per the Abraham Accords:

BBC

Saudis must recognise Israel for nuclear deal, says Trump

Robert Greenall
07/23/2026

The deal between the US and Saudi Arabia to help the Gulf kingdom develop nuclear energy is dependent on Riyadh recognising the State of Israel, President Donald Trump has said.

“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!)... which pertains only to non-military use... will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump said on Truth Social.

It was not immediately clear if the condition of joining the accords was stipulated in the text of the nuclear deal — which has not been released — or that Saudi Arabia had agreed to that condition.

...

Trump’s comments come come after criticism from experts that the US-Saudi deal announced on Wednesday could run the risk of future nuclear proliferation in an already unstable region.

———–

“Saudis must recognise Israel for nuclear deal, says Trump” by Robert Greenall; BBC; 07/23/2026

““The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!)... which pertains only to non-military use... will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump said on Truth Social.”

There will be no enrichment of material! So declares President Trump, while he touts a deal that ... *checks notes* ... allows for the enrichment of nuclear material as the Saudis have long demanded.

Will these new demands about recognizing Israel somehow derail the deal? Time will tell. If so, keep in mind there’s still two and a half years left in the second Trump administration. Plenty of time for the Saudis, along with the US nuclear energy industry, to lobby for an even more corrupt deal.

Other components of the AfD’s platform include supporting large families of ethnic Germans and purging German education of what they describe as an unhelpful focus on national guilt over WWII. The the decades-long tradition of “Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung”, or coming to terms with the past, has created a guilt complex and undermined national pride. The party has plans to impose a “patriotic cultural policy”, where schools focus more closely on medieval rulers and 19th-century giants of German history such as the “Iron Chancellor”, Otto von Bismarck. Social and psychological support and integration measures would be scrapped. This is a good time to recall how, back in 2017, AfD leader Björn Höcke called for a “180-degree turn” in Germany’s attitude to the Second World War. These aren’t new views for the AfD. What’s new is the party winning the popular voting and taking control of a state.

And if it’s not clear what to expect when the AfD takes control of Saxony-Anhalt in a couple of months, note the story of Max Heckel, a public school teacher in the state who teaches craft and technical work has found himself in the middle of a political firestorm after a student asked him if he voted for the AfD. Heckel replied that no he had not and that the party had been labeled a right-wing extremist organization by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV). Weeks later, he got a formal warning for breaching rules that required teachers to remain politically neutral in the classroom. The AfD also touts the fact that it won an interim order for the BfV to suspend its judgement, although the Saxony-Anhalt branch of the BfV still classifies the party as extremist.

Heckel has gone on to be abused online, threatened with violence, had his car vandalized, and been verbally attacked by senior AfD politicians. He continues to challenge is reprimand. He points out that many colleagues are reluctant to speak out over fear of disciplinary actions and harassment directed at themselves.

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s candidate for premier in Saxony-Anhalt, has repeatedly brought the story up on the campaign trail and points to it as an example of the kind of thing the party will focus on purgin from education if elected. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an architect of the party’s cultural and education agenda in Saxony-Anhalt, said education would be one of the main focuses of an AfD government. “We want a completely new, a completely different education policy,” Tillschneider told journalists. “Political influence on children, as we experience it – political indoctrination – is not a job for schools.” It’s a message that isn’t scaring away voters. At least not enough, with the AfD at around 40 percent in recent polls.

The far right’s time has come in Germany. Again. The far right is going to have decisive control of state policy for the first time since WWII, and it’s gearing up to mass purge immigrants, strip non-ethnic German citizens of their citizenship and deport them too, provide extra state support for large families of ethnic Germans, and make education more Nazi friendly. And publicly harass and vilify random people like Max Heckel who don’t go along with the plan. There are consequences to not learning from history. And they include the consequence of having your history education foundations destroyed while everyday citizens are terrorized by fascists. Here we go again:

BBC News

Germany’s far-right AfD adopts ‘radical’ manifesto ahead of key polls

11 April 2026
Bethany Bell
Germany reporter

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is riding high in the opinion polls in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt and could win an outright majority in regional elections there in September.

It would be the first time a far-right party has held power in a German state since World War Two.

This weekend the AfD officially adopted what has been described as a “radical” and pro-ethnic German government programme for Saxony-Anhalt at a party conference in the central city of Magdeburg.

The AfD’s leading candidate in the state, Ulrich Siegmund, a TikTok star who was given a standing ovation by the delegates, said it was an historic moment, not just for Saxony-Anhalt.

...

He said his party had the courage to speak out about what was going wrong in Germany, “that we don’t feel safe anymore, that we scarcely feel at home anymore, that we don’t recognise our homeland anymore”.

“Let’s take back our country,” he added.

The programme, which is more than 150 pages long, contains wide-ranging plans to overhaul Saxony-Anhalt, clamping down on immigrants and supporting large families of German origin.

It also wants to improve relations with Russia, directly contradicting the policies of the federal coalition government, which is a key supporter of Ukraine.

“We say yes to consistent deportations, we say yes to free childcare facilities, we say yes to remigration,” Siegmund said.

Some of the proposals appear to be unworkable at a state level, requiring action by the federal government, but many others are feasible.

Eva von Angern, leader of the left-wing Linke Party parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt, earlier described the AfD’s plans as a “nightmare scenario for Saxony-Anhalt and for our democracy”.

She said the AfD was promoting an authoritarian state that would severely curtail fundamental rights.

Accusing the party of harbouring “inhuman fantasies of omnipotence”, von Angern said the public must be made aware of the AfD’s “ugly truths” and the “very negative consequences for them personally if the AfD were to govern”.

Saxony-Anhalt, like much of the former Communist East Germany, is an AfD stronghold, but the party is doing well all over the country.

It came second in federal elections in Germany last year, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote.

The state branch of the AfD has been classified in Saxony-Anhalt as a “far-right extremist organisation”

In 2023, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony-Anhalt classified the AfD branch in the state as a “far-right extremist organisation”.

...

The draft manifesto, seen by the BBC, says “a complete U‑turn” on migration policy is necessary. It calls for measures to put an end to what it calls “illegal, culturally alien and anti-native mass migration”.

These include plans to deport refugees and asylum seekers or to house them in central accommodation.

The draft contains a number of references to the controversial term “remigration” — the mass removal of people with “non-German” backgrounds from the country.

Two years ago, Germans were shocked by revelations that senior AfD figures attended a meeting in Potsdam where remigration or mass deportations were allegedly discussed. But now the term is a central theme of the government programme.

The manifesto specifically calls for the “remigration” or return of Ukrainians to their own country.

“Stop recognising Ukrainians as war refugees!” it says.

...

Central to the AfD’s plans are measures to support large families of people who are ethnically German.

Saxony-Anhalt has the oldest population in Germany, and the proportion of older people is increasing.

The AfD says it wants to fight against “the extinction of the German people” by giving tax breaks to large families and providing free childcare.

It espouses a very conservative view of the family, which it says should consist of “a father, a mother and as many children as possible”.

The party blames the low birth rate in part on what it calls “sexual deviations and non-reproductive lifestyles”. It plans to ban gay pride flags in schools.

The manifesto also says it plans to withdraw funding for public broadcasting in Saxony-Anhalt.

...

Last year the national party was also classified as “right-wing extremist” by the country’s domestic intelligence service, a decision criticised by the White House. The party challenged the move and a German court has now issued a temporary injunction stopping the use of the term until it has issued a ruling over it.

———–

“Germany’s far-right AfD adopts ‘radical’ manifesto ahead of key polls” by Bethany Bell; BBC News; 04/11/2026

“This weekend the AfD officially adopted what has been described as a “radical” and pro-ethnic German government programme for Saxony-Anhalt at a party conference in the central city of Magdeburg.”

A ‘pro-ethnic German’ policy agenda. That was what the AfD rolled out back in April for the state of for Saxony-Anhalt, where the party is on track to take power in September’s elections according to polls. And as we should expect, “remigration” is a core element of that agenda. As we’ve seen, it was back in November 2023 when Martin Sellner organized a secret conference in Potsdam, Germany, with neo-Nazis and members of the AfD where they discussed a plan to deport “unassimilated citizens” of non-German ethnicity to a a “model state” in North Africa. Remigration has long been a core part of the AfD agenda. But it wasn’t also so public. Interestingly, the AfD appears to have put a focus on remigrating Ukrainians, which presumably helps the party deflect charges of racism. But it’s also the kind of policy that, if implemented, would arguably be a ‘pro-Ukrainian’ policy in the sense that it would be sending all sorts of draft-age men back to Ukraine where they would likely be conscripted into the ongoing war:

...
The programme, which is more than 150 pages long, contains wide-ranging plans to overhaul Saxony-Anhalt, clamping down on immigrants and supporting large families of German origin.

It also wants to improve relations with Russia, directly contradicting the policies of the federal coalition government, which is a key supporter of Ukraine.

...

Some of the proposals appear to be unworkable at a state level, requiring action by the federal government, but many others are feasible.

...

The draft manifesto, seen by the BBC, says “a complete U‑turn” on migration policy is necessary. It calls for measures to put an end to what it calls “illegal, culturally alien and anti-native mass migration”.

These include plans to deport refugees and asylum seekers or to house them in central accommodation.

The draft contains a number of references to the controversial term “remigration” — the mass removal of people with “non-German” backgrounds from the country.

Two years ago, Germans were shocked by revelations that senior AfD figures attended a meeting in Potsdam where remigration or mass deportations were allegedly discussed. But now the term is a central theme of the government programme.

The manifesto specifically calls for the “remigration” or return of Ukrainians to their own country.

“Stop recognising Ukrainians as war refugees!” it says.
...

And when we see the pro-natalist policies — specifically just for ethnic Germans — that will provide state support for large families, but also blame for low birth rates on what the party calls “sexual deviations and non-reproductive lifestyles”, it’s not hard to see where this is heading. It starts with state support for large families but it’s just a matter of time before childless households and the LGBTQ community are directly targeted for state punishment:

...
Central to the AfD’s plans are measures to support large families of people who are ethnically German.

Saxony-Anhalt has the oldest population in Germany, and the proportion of older people is increasing.

The AfD says it wants to fight against “the extinction of the German people” by giving tax breaks to large families and providing free childcare.

It espouses a very conservative view of the family, which it says should consist of “a father, a mother and as many children as possible”.

The party blames the low birth rate in part on what it calls “sexual deviations and non-reproductive lifestyles”. It plans to ban gay pride flags in schools.
...

And when we see how the Trump White House criticized the move by the BfV classifying the AfD as a “right-wing extremist” party, recall how it was Trump’s own former US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) chief, Greg Bovino, who headlined the recent 2026 “Remigration Summit” in May along with US white nationalist leader Jared Taylor. Remigration isn’t just at the core of the AfD’s 2026 manifesto and demonstrably popular in Germany, with the AfD coming in second in last year’s federal elections. It’s the future of MAGA too:

...
Saxony-Anhalt, like much of the former Communist East Germany, is an AfD stronghold, but the party is doing well all over the country.

It came second in federal elections in Germany last year, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote.

...

In 2023, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony-Anhalt classified the AfD branch in the state as a “far-right extremist organisation”.

...

Last year the national party was also classified as “right-wing extremist” by the country’s domestic intelligence service, a decision criticised by the White House. The party challenged the move and a German court has now issued a temporary injunction stopping the use of the term until it has issued a ruling over it.
...

And that story from back in April brings us to the follow update on the AfD’s political successes: the party now has a 20 point lead over the CDU in the state of Saxony-Anhalt with the election just two months away, making it likely that a far right extremist party will take power at the state level for the first time since:

Times of Israel

Germany’s AfD vows to expel all migrants without legal status if it wins eastern region

Far-right party, which is leading rival conservatives in polls, says it aims to shift school curricula away from what it deems an excessive focus on Nazi-era guilt

By AFP 11 July 2026, 5:35 pm

MAGDEBURG, Germany — Germany’s far-right AfD party on Saturday unveiled a manifesto for its first 100 days in office if it wins control of an eastern region, pledging to immediately expel all undocumented immigrants.

The Alternative for Germany has a lead of nearly 20 points over the mainstream conservatives in opinion polls in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, which votes for its government in September.

In an address to delegates in the city of Magdeburg, AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund set out the first 10 measures he promised to implement once in office, following the September 6 vote.

The 35-year-old said he would expel all irregular migrants from the state “from the very first minute.”

...

If the anti-immigration, pro-Russia, and pro-Donald Trump AfD wins, it would be the first far-right party to govern a German federal region since the end of World War II.

It has surged in popularity in recent years of economic turbulence, in line with far-right parties elsewhere in Europe.

Siegmund said the party would defend a traditional family model, made up of “a man, a woman and children from that couple.”

He vowed to ban the LGBTQ+ rainbow flag in schools and ensure instead that the national flag be flown in public establishments.

In the longer term, he aimed to change history curricula in schools, which he said were too focused on Germany’s Nazi-era guilt.

...

————-

“Germany’s AfD vows to expel all migrants without legal status if it wins eastern region” By AFP; Agence France-Presse via Times of Israel; 07/11/2026

“The Alternative for Germany has a lead of nearly 20 points over the mainstream conservatives in opinion polls in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, which votes for its government in September.”

It’s hard to a 20 point lead dissipating this close to an election, especially for a party as infamous as the AfD. Sure, a scandal could erupt, but the party is already inherently scandalous and yet in the lead. An AfD-led Saxony-Anhalt is coming soon. And while the party won’t be able to keep all of its promises, it’s going to succeed where it can, with ‘culture war’ issues being a likely focus. And those culture war issues happen to include how they educate kids about the Nazi atrocities. This is a good time to recall AfD leader Björn Höcke and his calls for Germany to make a “180 degree turn” in Germany’s attitude to the Second World War. We know where this is heading. It’s not a mystery. And yet, the AfD is on track to win the popular vote:

...
In an address to delegates in the city of Magdeburg, AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund set out the first 10 measures he promised to implement once in office, following the September 6 vote.

The 35-year-old said he would expel all irregular migrants from the state “from the very first minute.”

...

It has surged in popularity in recent years of economic turbulence, in line with far-right parties elsewhere in Europe.

Siegmund said the party would defend a traditional family model, made up of “a man, a woman and children from that couple.”

He vowed to ban the LGBTQ+ rainbow flag in schools and ensure instead that the national flag be flown in public establishments.

In the longer term, he aimed to change history curricula in schools, which he said were too focused on Germany’s Nazi-era guilt.
...

And as the following article makes clear, the AfD and its supporters aren’t waiting to wage this culture war over schools. As one Saxony-Anhalt teacher has learned, criticizing the AfD in the classroom — including accurately stating that the BfV found the party to be “confirmed right-wing extremist” — will not only get you reprimanded by administrators but also harassed by the AfD supporters, including senior AfD politicians. He’s even had his car vandalized and experienced threats of violence. This is at the same time Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an architect of the party’s cultural and education agenda in Saxony-Anhalt, has already declared that education would be one of the main focuses of the upcoming AfD state government:

Reuters

Schools become battleground as Germany’s far-right AfD eyes regional election

By Tanya Wood and James Mackenzie
July 14, 2026 4:04 AM CDT
Updated July 14, 2026

Summary

* Polls show AfD near 40% in Saxony-Anhalt, ahead of Merz’s conservatives
* Election takes place on September 6
* Party wants “completely new” schools policy with focus on traditional values
* Critics say AfD stance could curb debate and weaken democratic safeguards

STENDAL, Germany, July 14 (Reuters) — A woodwork teacher in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt has triggered a dispute over political expression in the classroom ahead of a regional election in two months that could produce radical changes in schools if the far-right AfD wins.

...

Max Heckel, who teaches craft and technical work in the town of Stendal, was reported to Saxony-Anhalt’s Schools Office last year after a conversation with a pupil who he said had asked him as he was clearing up after a lesson whether he had voted for the AfD (Alternative for Germany).

Heckel said he had explained that he had not voted for the party, in part because the domestic security service had classified it as “extremist”.

TEACHER’S CHAT WITH PUPIL TRIGGERS THREATS AND ABUSE

Weeks later, he received a formal warning for breaching rules that require teachers to remain politically neutral in the classroom.

Since then, he says, he has been abused online, threatened with violence and had his car vandalised, and been been verbally attacked by senior AfD politicians, all while challenging the reprimand as unjustified.

Heckel, who said teachers have a responsibility to defend Germany’s democratic foundations, said many colleagues were reluctant to speak out for fear of disciplinary procedures as well as antagonism from outsiders.

He said the affair showed that schools were under pressure, even before the Sept. 6 election, not to allow criticism of the AfD, which surveys suggest could take around 40% of the vote. The centre-right CDU, headed nationally by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, stands at under 30%.

...

For the AfD, Heckel, a part-time musician who runs an informal cultural centre in Stendal and has clashed with the party in the past, exemplifies a left-wing culture it is determined to stamp out in schools.

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s candidate for premier in Saxony-Anhalt, who has raised the case repeatedly in the state assembly and elsewhere, said the party would remove political influence as part of a wider overhaul of education.

“We want lessons to remain neutral, so that pupils can form their own views of the political landscape in this country. We don’t need teachers who campaign in any particular direction,” he told Reuters.

He dismissed the security services’ evaluation of the AfD as politically motivated. The AfD won an interim order this year suspending an assessment by the BfV, the national domestic security agency, that the party was “confirmed right-wing extremist”.

AFD CLASSED AS EXTREMIST GROUP IN SAXONY-ANHALT

But the Saxony-Anhalt BfV still classifies the state branch of the party as extremist — meaning that it opposes the liberal-democratic foundations of the state, a characterisation the AfD rejects.

The AfD sees Saxony-Anhalt, where it hopes to form a regional government for the first time, as a stepping stone to winning a federal election, and the dispute over a conversation in a classroom in Stendal points to wider tensions ahead.

...

Education has particular resonance because the system was designed in part as a bulwark against the Nazi ideology of the 1930s and 1940s. Schoolchildren have for decades been required to learn about wartime atrocities committed in the name of racial purity and national supremacy.

The AfD believes the decades-long tradition of “Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung”, or coming to terms with the past, has created a guilt complex and undermined national pride. It says the school system has been weakened by falling standards and functions that have nothing to do with education, such as integrating children from refugee families.

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an architect of the party’s cultural and education agenda in Saxony-Anhalt, said education would be one of the main focuses of an AfD government.

“We want a completely new, a completely different education policy,” he told Reuters. “Political influence on children, as we experience it – political indoctrination – is not a job for schools.”

Under a “patriotic cultural policy”, schools would focus more closely on medieval rulers and 19th-century giants of German history such as the “Iron Chancellor”, Otto von Bismarck. Social and psychological support and integration measures would be scrapped.

UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION

To the CDU and other mainstream parties, the AfD is threatening to undermine a post World War Two consensus aimed at reinforcing the foundations of a democratic society.

They have ruled out cooperating with the party under a so-called “firewall” policy aimed at isolating it and preventing it from forming a coalition if it does not win an overall majority.

For the party’s critics, the AfD’s interpretation of neutrality would effectively restrict informed debate and limit children’s ability to decide.

...

———–

“Schools become battleground as Germany’s far-right AfD eyes regional election” By Tanya Wood and James Mackenzie; Reuters; 07/14/2026

“For the AfD, Heckel, a part-time musician who runs an informal cultural centre in Stendal and has clashed with the party in the past, exemplifies a left-wing culture it is determined to stamp out in schools.”

As Max Heckel learned, acknowledging the fact that the AfD was labeled a right-wing extremist organization by the BfV is apparently the exemplification of a left-wing culture that the AfD is determined to stamp out in schools. And the ‘stamping out’ will include online harassment, vandalism, and even threats of violence:

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Max Heckel, who teaches craft and technical work in the town of Stendal, was reported to Saxony-Anhalt’s Schools Office last year after a conversation with a pupil who he said had asked him as he was clearing up after a lesson whether he had voted for the AfD (Alternative for Germany).

Heckel said he had explained that he had not voted for the party, in part because the domestic security service had classified it as “extremist”.

TEACHER’S CHAT WITH PUPIL TRIGGERS THREATS AND ABUSE

Weeks later, he received a formal warning for breaching rules that require teachers to remain politically neutral in the classroom.

Since then, he says, he has been abused online, threatened with violence and had his car vandalised, and been been verbally attacked by senior AfD politicians, all while challenging the reprimand as unjustified.

Heckel, who said teachers have a responsibility to defend Germany’s democratic foundations, said many colleagues were reluctant to speak out for fear of disciplinary procedures as well as antagonism from outsiders.

He said the affair showed that schools were under pressure, even before the Sept. 6 election, not to allow criticism of the AfD, which surveys suggest could take around 40% of the vote. The centre-right CDU, headed nationally by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, stands at under 30%.
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It’s the rejection of “Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung”, or coming to terms with the past. As Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an architect of the party’s cultural and education agenda in Saxony-Anhalt, makes clear, education will be one of the main focuses of an AfD government. Teaching about the Nazis is “political indoctrination”. Instead, they’ll be given a “patriotic cultural policy” that emphasizes figures like Otto von Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor”:

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Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s candidate for premier in Saxony-Anhalt, who has raised the case repeatedly in the state assembly and elsewhere, said the party would remove political influence as part of a wider overhaul of education.

“We want lessons to remain neutral, so that pupils can form their own views of the political landscape in this country. We don’t need teachers who campaign in any particular direction,” he told Reuters.

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The AfD sees Saxony-Anhalt, where it hopes to form a regional government for the first time, as a stepping stone to winning a federal election, and the dispute over a conversation in a classroom in Stendal points to wider tensions ahead.

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Education has particular resonance because the system was designed in part as a bulwark against the Nazi ideology of the 1930s and 1940s. Schoolchildren have for decades been required to learn about wartime atrocities committed in the name of racial purity and national supremacy.

The AfD believes the decades-long tradition of “Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung”, or coming to terms with the past, has created a guilt complex and undermined national pride. It says the school system has been weakened by falling standards and functions that have nothing to do with education, such as integrating children from refugee families.

Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an architect of the party’s cultural and education agenda in Saxony-Anhalt, said education would be one of the main focuses of an AfD government.

“We want a completely new, a completely different education policy,” he told Reuters. “Political influence on children, as we experience it – political indoctrination – is not a job for schools.”

Under a “patriotic cultural policy”, schools would focus more closely on medieval rulers and 19th-century giants of German history such as the “Iron Chancellor”, Otto von Bismarck. Social and psychological support and integration measures would be scrapped.
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A “patriotic cultural policy” for schools that, today, will casually gloss over the horrors of the Nazis. But how long before the lesson plan decides to refocus on WWII, but from a more ‘patriotic’ prism. It’s not hard to see where this is going.

Although there was that time last year when AfD candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel and Elon Musk mused about how ‘Hitler was actually a Communist’, so who knows what to expect from the AfD’s capture of German education policy other than that it will involve a gross distortion of history done on behalf of a bunch of fascists to the detriment of almost everyone.