Dozens of messages in the latest batch of files linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have exposed attempts by Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for US President Donald Trump, to use Epstein for support and funding to strengthen European far-right parties, the British newspaper The Guardian reports today.
The messages mostly date from 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being fired by Trump, regularly visited Europe in an effort to forge a movement in the European Parliament that would unite far-right and Eurosceptic forces from several countries, including Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Austria.
Bannon specifically targeted Matteo Salvini, the Italian deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, who was at the height of political power at the time. Italian opposition parties this week called on Salvini to clarify whether Epstein influenced the League's rise, after Salvini was repeatedly mentioned in messages exchanged between Bannon and Epstein.
In France, the left-wing France Inconquered party also called for an inter-party parliamentary investigation after Epstein's latest posting featured several French figures, including Jacques Lange, the former culture minister, and his daughter, as well as correspondence between Epstein and Bannon in which Bannon spoke of his desire to raise money for far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
In Germany, files revealed correspondence between Epstein and Bannon in which they promoted the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party while simultaneously disparaging then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
In messages from 2018, Bannon boasted of his influence as an "advisor" to new right-wing populists and saw the gains of those parties in Europe as an opportunity to use them for his own and Epstein's benefit.
There is no evidence of any direct relationship between Salvini and Epstein, nor any indication that Salvini was involved in Epstein's sex trafficking network. But what the messages do reveal is Epstein's interest in European nationalists.
In a message found in one of the files, dated March 5, 2019, a few months before the European Parliament elections, Bannon writes that he is "focused on raising money for Le Pen and Salvini so they can actually run with complete electoral lists."
Other messages detail Bannon's travels around Europe at the time and his ambition for nationalists to consolidate power in Brussels, highlighted in a series of intense exchanges between the two around the time of the European Parliament vote in late May 2019.
The messages also refer to Bannon's meeting with Salvini in Milan in March 2018, just days after Italy's general elections that ended with the League forming a government with the populist Five Star Movement.
Bannon met Salvini again in Italy in September of that year, when the League joined his anti-EU organization, the Movement. By the following summer, Salvini was in opposition, having collapsed the League's coalition with the Five Star Movement in a failed attempt to trigger early elections.
There is no evidence that Epstein funded the League, which returned to government in 2022 as an ally in the ruling coalition of current Prime Minister Giorgi Meloni, or other European far-right parties. However, Bannon appears to have tried to extort funds from him, according to the Guardian.
Andrea Casu, a politician from the center-left Democratic Party, who raised questions about the funding in the Italian parliament on Tuesday, said: "We are asking the government, not only Salvini, for clarity and transparency... first we need to understand if there is a connection, not only with Bannon, but also with those who are playing the political game with these right-wing forces today at the European level."
Riccardo Maggi, president of the left-wing More Europe party, claimed that the Epstein files "implicate Matteo Salvini in the alleged financing that Bannon promised to provide for his election campaign," a claim that "raises concerns about possible external influence that could affect the second-largest party in the current majority."
Bannon declined to comment to US media on the correspondence from the latest Epstein files. Salvini's League dismissed speculation that Epstein may have paid the funds as "unfounded" and "serious exaggerations". They added that the party "has never requested or received funding" and would defend itself, like Salvini, "in every possible way in the event of insinuations or associations with despicable figures".
In France, Lang, who heads the Arab World Institute, a cultural organization, appears in emails discussing meetings and vacations. He admitted to knowing Epstein, saying it was "at a time when there was nothing to indicate that Jeffrey Epstein was at the center of a criminal network."
His daughter Caroline, a film producer, resigned from France's Union of Independent Producers this week after emails showed she had set up an offshore company with Epstein in 2016 to invest in the work of young artists. There was no indication of wrongdoing. She said she left the company when Epstein's crimes became known.
The emails also revealed extensive communications between Epstein and Olivier Collomb, a former diplomatic adviser to former right-wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy. One 2018 email exchange with Collomb suggested that former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had been to Epstein’s New York home at some unspecified time. A person close to Le Maire told Politico that in September 2013, before he became finance minister, Le Maire did not know whose house he was visiting, and that he quickly left when he saw Epstein at the residence, never to meet him again.
Kaso said the problem is not the Epstein files themselves, but the questions the messages raise about powerful foreign influences and networks aimed at weakening Europe.
"These files are getting a lot of attention in the US, which is obvious. But in my opinion, they should get just as much attention because of what they represent for Europe today, and because of the political situation we are in," Kasu said.
According to the official version, Epstein killed himself in a New York prison cell on August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
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