Prepare for a jaw-dropping glimpse into the shadowy world of political maneuvering as newly released emails reveal a discredited author’s audacious plot to leverage a convicted criminal against a presidential hopeful.
Emails unearthed by the House Oversight Committee show Michael Wolff, a writer with a controversial reputation, urging Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted pedophile, to exploit alleged ties with Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential run for political gain or public relations advantage, as the New York Post reports.
Back in December 2015, Wolff tipped off Epstein about an impending media ambush, warning that a major news outlet was gearing up to grill Trump on their connection.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you -- either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote in a December 2015 email to Epstein, setting the stage for a calculated trap.
That wasn’t just idle gossip. Wolff followed up the next day with a chilling suggestion to let Trump stumble into a denial that could be weaponized for Epstein’s benefit or to create a debt if Trump seemed poised for victory.
Such advice reeks of cynical opportunism, the kind of backroom scheming that fuels distrust in media and political circles among everyday Americans tired of elite gamesmanship.
By January 2016, with Trump’s candidacy gaining traction, Wolff doubled down, cautioning Epstein that journalists would zero in on their past and urging him to craft a defensive strategy.
Just a month later, in February 2016, Epstein himself noted an uptick in reporter inquiries as Trump’s poll numbers climbed, a sign of the growing scrutiny Wolff had predicted.
Wolff also revealed that a prominent newspaper and a rival campaign were digging into the Epstein-Trump link, pushing Epstein to consider preempting the narrative before it spiraled out of control.
Right before the 2016 election, Wolff saw a golden window for Epstein to strike, emailing him with the subject line “Now could be the time” to suggest a public move against Trump that could both garner sympathy and deal a fatal blow to his campaign.
“There’s an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him,” Wolff wrote to Epstein. It is a line that drips with calculated malice.
One has to wonder whether this was less about principle and more about personal gain, a gambit to reshape narratives for profit in a culture obsessed with scandal over substance.
After Trump’s election, Wolff didn’t let up, confiding to Epstein in February 2017 that he was penning a book on Trump for a hefty payday, even securing direct input from Trump’s team, including a lengthy phone rant from the man himself about media bias.
Wolff’s first book, Fire and Fury, became a blockbuster, selling nearly 2 million copies in just three weeks after its January 2018 release, despite Trump slamming it as “trash” and “full of lies,” a critique echoed by journalists who panned its sloppy reporting.
While Wolff churned out three more Trump-focused books and built a career off the controversy, it’s hard not to see this as exploiting public fascination with drama over delivering hard truths. This trend often drowns out genuine policy debates in favor of sensationalism.
