Jeffrey Epstein sent an eerie message to author Michael Wolff the night before he died.
In a new episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, the Trump biographer says he had known Epstein for years before he died by suicide while in detention in 2019. The convicted sex trafficker asked Wolff in 2014 if he would be interested in writing a book about him, but the author declined.
“I believe that I got the last message from him before he died,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles. “And this came through one of his lawyers on a Friday evening. He died on Saturday morning.”
“His message to me hours before this happened was—and it was just in response to me asking how he was—and he said, ‘Still hanging around.’”
Epstein was found hanged in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019. A 2023 report by the Department of Justice determined that he died by suicide.
The disgraced financier’s death has since become a magnet for conspiracy theories, with many believing that his death was a homicide.
President Donald Trump vowed on the campaign trail to release the infamous “Epstein files.” On Monday, however, the Justice Department dashed those hopes when it said it found no evidence that Epstein kept a list of his clients or that he was murdered.
The memo set off a firestorm in MAGA World, with many Trump loyalists torching Attorney General Pam Bondi to deliver on the much-hyped files.
For Wolff, the truth behind Epstein’s death is likely to remain a mystery.
“He could not, as described, have killed himself,” Wolff said. “As the circumstances presented, he could not have been murdered.”
Asked by Coles for his theory on how Epstein died, Wolff simply responded: “I don’t know.”
Those who buy into the theory that Epstein was murdered believe that he was killed to shield the reputation of his alleged clients.
Epstein was famously well-connected, with court filings showing that he rubbed elbows with everyone from Prince Andrew to former President Bill Clinton.
By Epstein’s own account, one of his closest friends was Trump himself.
In 2017, Wolff interviewed Epstein about the president while researching his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
“I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years,” Epstein said in the tapes obtained exclusively by the Daily Beast last year.
Though Trump’s camp blasted the tapes as “false smears” and “election interference,” Trump has spoken on the record about his friendship with Epstein.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
In a statement provided to the Daily Beast, Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, said: “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s–t and has been proven to be a fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
Wolff recalled that during the 2016 election, Trump’s campaign chief Steve Bannon jokingly told Epstein, “You were the only person I was afraid of.”
“Bannon felt that the one person who had the goods on Donald Trump was Jeffrey Epstein,” Wolff said.
When contacted for comment about Wolff’s claims, David Schoen, Bannon’s attorney, stated: “I certainly have no comment on anything Michael Wolff said on your podcast other than to say, if Wolff said it, I would assume it was a lie because from my experience he surely seems to prefer to lie rather than tell the truth when given the option.
“Jeffrey Epstein had no ‘goods‘ on Donald Trump,” Schoen continued, “and I can assure you this is a subject on which I can speak with authority.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Steve Bannon for comment.
New episodes of The Daily Beast Podcast are released every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Follow our new feed on your favorite podcast platform at beast.pub/dailybeastpod and subscribe on YouTube to watch full episodes.
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