Like nearly all people else nowadays, Steve Bannon has been pounding the desk for the discharge of the Epstein recordsdata, blasting the disgraced financier as a “globalist little one molester” and calling for full public transparency. Seems, although, Bannon wasn’t all the time so important of the late billionaire.
As not too long ago as 2019 — as mounting press protection and renewed investigations have been closing in earlier than his arrest at Teterboro Airport on intercourse trafficking prices, as most everybody else in Epstein’s orbit had already shunned the 66-year-old — Bannon was nonetheless standing by his man. The rumpled former Trump aide reportedly suggested Epstein from the shadows, joined technique calls, and finally helped stage a behind-the-scenes media makeover, arranging a collection of videotaped periods at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse wherein Bannon served as his interlocutor.
The setup appeared like a documentary shoot — a small crew, skilled lighting, with Bannon lobbing powerful, prosecutorial questions from off-camera. They have been a sort of debate-prep, seemingly designed to get Epstein prepared for an image-changing sit-down interview with a information outlet like 60 Minutes, with Bannon taking part in the a part of Mike Wallace. However Epstein, The Hollywood Reporter has discovered, might have footed the invoice for all of it, throwing possession of the footage into query.
The interview by no means occurred — some PR rehabs are simply too daunting — however for months now, Bannon has been publicly selling that footage of his erstwhile good friend — 12 to fifteen hours, by his personal depend — as the inspiration of a deliberate docuseries, working title The Monster. He’s been pitching it as journalism, a uncooked look inside Epstein’s pathology. In reality, although, these tapings appear to have been far from journalistic.
In keeping with creator Michael Wolff, who was there for the primary taping and reviewed transcripts of others — and who first revealed the existence of those tapes in his 2021 guide Too Well-known — the purpose wasn’t publicity. It was spin. “There’s no query the tapes have been media coaching,” he tells THR. “And there’s no doable manner Epstein would have signed off on them being utilized in a documentary.”
That context — his alleged monetary association with Epstein, the teaching position he performed, the aim of the tapings — has been conspicuously absent from Bannon’s personal public commentary in regards to the Epstein scandal over the previous few months. The onetime Trump advisor has been among the many most vociferous critics of Epstein and has loudly denounced the administration for its refusal to launch the Epstein recordsdata.
Bannon, who didn’t reply to repeated calls and emails, has previously denied Wolff’s account and reviews of his friendship with Epstein. However over the previous 5 years he’s been significantly extra hazy in regards to the launch of the Epstein tapes, waving off any inquiries about their whereabouts. Then, final March, he appeared on The Jimmy Dore Present and at last spoke in regards to the footage, claiming he was producing a documentary collection round them — “perhaps for Netflix” or one other streamer. “He’s a product of the elite,” Bannon mentioned of Epstein, “and all the pieces that’s been put out about him will not be precisely the reality.”
To Wolff, who knew each Bannon and Epstein effectively, Bannon’s latest assaults on Epstein belies the comfy nature of their relationship. He claims the 2 males have been good pals, assembly someday round 2017, shortly after Bannon’s compelled exit from the Trump White Home, and remained shut proper till his demise in August of 2019. Throughout these years, Wolff claims, Bannon was a frequent customer to each Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse and his Paris house, and the 2 exchanged calls and emails nearly every single day. Their affinity was not altogether shocking: The 2 males shared a Wall Avenue background, a style for the excessive life and an advanced relationship with Donald Trump — each have been near the president earlier than being iced out. (Bannon’s break with Trump got here quickly after the publication of Wolff’s bestselling Trump exposé Hearth and Fury, for which he was extensively rumored to be a significant supply.)
In reality, it wasn’t till years after Epstein’s alleged prison-cell suicide that Bannon publicly modified his tune on Epstein. By then Bannon was coping with his personal authorized issues, convicted in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to 4 months in jail in 2024.
Since Bannon’s launch late final yr, he’s gone on to reestablish himself as a MAGA kingmaker with a top-rated podcast (Bannon’s Warfare Room) and a gradual stream of sold-out public appearances. Because the Epstein scandal has heated up once more, although, he’s additionally been on the receiving finish of MAGA lashings from supporters who need to see the tapes go public. At a Turning Level USA occasion in July, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna stood on the podium and urged Bannon to launch his personal Epstein recordsdata. The group — not precisely recognized for its nuance — roared in approval.
Bannon didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark for this story.
As for the tapes themselves, Wolff says he has no thought the place the voluminous footage is now — and means that Bannon might don’t have any possession rights to them in any case. “No matter exists is technically owned by Jeffrey Epstein or his property,” he says. “I had a dialogue with Jeffrey and Bannon individually about the fee, and it was expressly about media coaching. There’s no doable manner that Epstein would have allowed it to be in documentary kind. It was too uncooked and too revealing.”
Even when the tapes survived, Wolff says, Bannon might not have entry to them. Together with the remainder of the billionaires’ property, he says, they might probably be within the possession of Epstein’s co-executors, legal professional Darren Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn. The legal professionals, who’re based mostly within the U.S. Virgin Islands, didn’t reply to a number of calls or emails.
“I’m very keen on Steve and I believe he’s terribly vibrant and insightful,” Wolff says of his erstwhile pal. “However with out query he’s the most important opportunist I’ve met in a lifetime of assembly opportunists. Bannon’s dream has been changing into the chief of the MAGA motion and he’s utilizing this [Epstein controversy]. However he additionally understands that the recordsdata are by no means going to be launched, as a result of have been they to be launched, the individual throughout it might be Steve Bannon — by way of the e-mail visitors between the 2 of those guys. It was fixed!”