New emails show that Jeffrey Epstein tried to contact Russia’s top diplomat with knowledge about President Donald Trump prior to a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018.
Among the hundreds of emails released yesterday by Congressional investigators were emails in which Epstein contacted former Prime Minister of Norway, Thorbjorn Jagland, who was Secretary General of the Council of Europe in 2018.
“I think you might suggest to Putin that Lavrov can get insight on talking to me,” Epstein wrote to Jagland in June 2018, referencing longtime Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Epstein indicated that he had also spoken to Russia’s former UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, who died in 2017.
“Churkin was great,” Epstein wrote. “He understood Trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something its that simple.”
NEW: Jeffrey Epstein said in emails that he had been advising the Russian government on how to deal with Donald Trump, one of several cases in which he wielded his connections to try to influence the course of foreign affairs. w @nahaltoosi www.politico.com/news/2025/11…
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney.bsky.social) 2025-11-12T20:43:06.125Z
The July 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki was widely seen as a foreign policy disaster for Trump. Indeed, Larry Summers, former Clinton administration Treasury secretary, called it “appalling” in an email to Epstein.
“Do the Russians have stuff on Trump?” Summers asked Epstein, who called Trump’s actions at the meeting “predictable.”
“Im sure his view is that it went super well,” Epstein wrote to Summers. “He thinks he has charmed his adversary.. Admittedly he has no idea of the symbolism. He has no idea of most things.”
Epstein’s assessment of Trump was not limited to the realm of foreign policy. The emails also included insight into the kind of man he thought Trump to be, calling him “dirty.”
“you see, i know how dirty donald is.” Epstein wrote to former Obama White House lawyer Kathy Ruemmler in 2018. “my guess is that non lawyers ny biz people have no idea what it means to have your fixer flip,” he wrote, referencing Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen.
Epstein also claimed that Trump had knowledge of his sex trafficking practices at Mar-a-Lago, something that allegedly got him removed from Trump’s club.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote to American journalist Michael Wolff. “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” he wrote to journalist Michael Wolff, referencing his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Trump was also said to have spent significant time at Epstein’s private residence with one of his victims.
“[VICTIM] has spent hours at my house with him,” Epstein wrote. “He has never once been mentioned. Police chief, etc.”The victim in question was identified as Epstein accuser, Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year.
Trump has denied going to Epstein’s residence, yet an email from 2015 suggests he was present there with “girls.”
In an email to New York Times journalist Landon Thomas, Epstein asks if they would “like photos of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen.”
Trump called the findings part of a so-called “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” and said the Democrats were using them as “deflections” from the government shutdown. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the emails prove that Trump “did nothing wrong.”
However, in the Giuffre email sent to Maxwell, Epstein suggested that Trump was keeping quiet on what he knew. “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump,” Epstein wrote.
Read more
about the Epstein scandal
