The relationship between former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is documented across hundreds of emails, iMessage exchanges, flight records, and meeting coordination documents within the Epstein case files. The earliest documented connection dates to November 18, 2016 ; just days after Trump's election ; when Epstein associate Alain Forget forwarded Bannon's 2014 Vatican speech to Epstein (d-17568). That same day, Epstein emailed associate Richard Kahn suggesting Bannon ‘talk privately with jeffrey,’ pitching himself as knowing ‘more about intl finance than anyone on trumps team’ (efta-02669769).
The most substantively significant exchanges occurred in February 2018, when Bannon and Epstein engaged in detailed discussions about building a political coalition. Bannon outlined the strategy: ‘Populist/Nationalist first, Conservative Christians next. Reverse alabama.
This coalition staves off times up for next decade plus’ (d-15231). Epstein responded with operational questions about funding mechanisms, particularly cryptocurrency: ‘coin issues: receive coins, distribute coins, pay in coins. coin cooperative. prohibitions foreign donor.? I need to understand flow of funds.. donor to campiagn c?s’ (d-27101).
Bannon referenced White House Counsel Don McGahn as the ‘best’ contact for implementing their plan (d-16760). A discussion of creating a church entity to invoke ‘confession privilege’ against the Mueller investigation further complicates the picture (d-28560).