Ekaterina Girnyk09:35, 13.11.25

Before the meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki, Epstein offered Lavrov information about the US President.

Newly released documents in the case of controversial American businessman Jeffrey Epstein suggest he passed information about Donald Trump to the Russians. As Politico reports , nearly a month before Trump’s 2018 meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Jeffrey Epstein attempted to convey a message to Russia: “If you want to understand Trump, talk to me.”

“I think you could suggest to Putin that Lavrov (presumably referring to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov) speak to me,” Epstein wrote in an email on June 24, 2018, to Thorbjørn Jagland, the former Norwegian prime minister who at the time of the correspondence was president of the Council of Europe.

Epstein also indicated that he had previously spoken about Trump with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the UN.

“Churkin was a great man. After our conversations, he understood Trump. It’s not difficult. You have to see him to understand how simple it is,” Epstein wrote.

In emails, Jagland stated that he would meet with Lavrov’s aide the following day and propose establishing contact with Epstein. It is unclear whether this led to any results, Politico notes.

But Epstein later expressed his opinion about Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki.

“Do the Russians have dirt on Trump? Today was a horrific day even by his standards,” Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, wrote in an email to Epstein on July 16, 2018, the day of the summit with Putin in Helsinki.

“My email is full of comments like that. Wow,” Epstein replied the next day. “I’m sure he thinks it went very well. He thinks he charmed his opponent… Clearly, he has no idea about symbolism. He has no idea about most things.” He also called Trump’s behavior at the summit with Putin “predictable.”

Epstein’s other connections

In an email exchange with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Epstein said Bannon needed to have a physical presence in Europe to exert influence on the continent.

“If you’re going to play here, you’re going to have to put in the time, Europe isn’t working remotely,” Epstein wrote.

He told Bannon that he could arrange personal meetings with foreign leaders, but that he would have to stay for several days to do so.

“The fear is that you build up their hopes and emotions and then abandon them. I think you want to be an insider, not an outsider, coming and going,” he said.

Trump and Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein  is a notorious American financier. He was repeatedly accused of sex crimes for relationships with minors and organizing prostitution. In 2019, he committed suicide in a US prison.

Among Epstein’s “clients” were the names of such famous people as Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Michael Jackson, Bill Gates and others.

Earlier, the US Congress released some of the 23,000 documents provided by Epstein’s heirs. Among them, it was revealed that Donald Trump “knew about girls” who were in Epstein’s sexual slavery . 

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