Epstein files: How MAGA strategist Steve Bannon tried to get support and funding for far-right parties in Europe

Dozens of messages contained in the last tranche of Epstein files released to the public reveal the attempts of Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, to convince Jeffrey Epstein to provide support and funding to support far-right parties in Europe, writes The Guardian, quoted by News.ro.

The messages mostly date from 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being fired by Trump, regularly visited Europe in an attempt to create a movement in the European Parliament to unite far-right and Eurosceptic forces in several countries, including Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and Austria.

Bannon focused his attention in particular on Matteo Salvini, Italy's deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, which at the time was at the height of its political power. Italy's opposition parties this week asked Salvini to clarify whether Epstein influenced the rise of the League, after Salvini's name was mentioned several times in messages exchanged between Bannon and Epstein.

In France, the left-wing party La France Insoumise also called for a cross-party parliamentary inquiry after several French figures, including former culture minister Jack Lang and his daughter, appeared in the latest batch of Epstein documents. Similarly, there are also exchanges of messages between Epstein and Bannon, in which Bannon talked about his desire to raise funds for Marine Le Pen, the head of the extreme right in France.

In Germany, the files revealed exchanges of messages between Epstein and Bannon in which they promoted the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, far-right) party and denigrated Angela Merkel, the German chancellor at the time.

In messages in 2018, Bannon boasted of his influence as an “advisor” to the new right-wing populists and saw the successes of European parties as a chance to use them to his and Epstein's advantage.

Bannon and Italy

There is no evidence of a direct relationship between Salvini and Epstein, nor any suggestion that Salvini was involved in Epstein's sex trafficking ring. But what the messages reveal is Epstein's interest in European nationalists, notes The Guardian.

In a message contained in one of the files and dated March 5, 2019, a few months before the European parliamentary elections, Bannon writes that he is “focused on raising funds for Le Pen and Salvini so that they can run with full lists.”

Other messages detail Bannon's travels in Europe at the time and his ambition to increase the power of nationalists in Brussels, as revealed in a series of text exchanges between the two in the run-up to European parliamentary elections 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 election that saw the League form a government with the populist Five Star Movement.

Bannon met Salvini again in Italy in September of the same year, when the League joined his anti-EU organization, the Movement. By the following summer, Salvini was in opposition after breaking up the League's coalition with the Five Star Movement in a failed attempt to trigger early elections.

There is no evidence that Epstein financed the League, which returned to government in 2022 as an ally in Giorgia Meloni's governing coalition, and other far-right European parties. However, Bannon reportedly tried to extort funds from Epstein.

Andrea Casu, a politician from Italy's center-left Democratic Party, who raised questions on the subject of funding in the Rome parliament on Tuesday, said: “We are asking the government – not just Salvini – for clarity and transparency. We need to first understand if there is a link, not only with Bannon, but also with those who today are playing a political game with these right-wing forces at the European level.”

Riccardo Magi, president of the left-wing Più Europa (More Europe) party, said the Epstein files “implicate Matteo Salvini in the alleged funding that Bannon had promised to give to his election campaign”, an allegation that “raises concerns about potential outside influence on the second largest party in the current majority”.

Bannon refused to comment in the American media on the exchanges of messages in the latest Epstein files. Salvini's League party rejected speculation that Epstein contributed funds, calling them “unfounded” and “gross exaggerations”. He added that the party “has never requested or received funding” and that it will defend itself and Salvini “in every way possible against insinuations or associations with disgusting characters”.

Bannon and France

In France, Jack Lang, who runs the Institute of the Arab World, a cultural organization, appears in emails discussing meetings and vacations. He acknowledged that he knew Epstein, saying he was “at a time when there was nothing to suggest that Jeffrey Epstein was at the center of a criminal network.” His daughter Caroline, a film producer, resigned this week from France's Union of Independent Producers after emails showed she founded an offshore company with Epstein in 2016 to invest in the work of young artists. There was no suggestion of illegality. She said she resigned from the company when Epstein's criminal acts were revealed.

The emails also showed extensive communications between Epstein and Olivier Colom, a former diplomatic adviser to former right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy. An email exchange with Colom in 2018 suggested that former finance minister Bruno Le Maire had gone to Epstein's home in New York on an unspecified date. A person close to Le Maire told Politico that Le Maire did not know whose home she was visiting in September 2013, before becoming finance minister, and quickly left when she saw Epstein at the residence, never to see him again.

Casu 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, obviously,” he pointed out. “But, in my opinion, they should be given as much attention for what they represent for Europe today and for the political situation we are in,” he pointed out.