Files released by DoJ reveal the financier engaging in efforts to blunt the impact of the movement as it was gaining ground
Carter Sherman at The Guardian:
In August 2018, as the #MeToo movement spread across social media and women around the world demanded justice from sexual predators, Michael Wolff, a journalist, forwarded Jeffrey Epstein a plea for help. Wolff wanted Epstein to support Stephen Elliott, a writer looking to sue the creator of the Shitty Media Men List, a crowd-sourced Google Doc that detailed anonymous allegations of misconduct against dozens of men who worked in the media industry.
“I have always thought that the way back from this climate is through specific instances of individuals successfully challenging their persecution,” Wolff wrote to Epstein, according to emails released in a tranche from the so-called Epstein files. “If his story is solid he might be worth supporting.”
Initially, Epstein was unmoved. In a single-word, no-punctuation email, the convicted sexual offender replied: “tough.”
“Give it some further thought, if you would,” wrote Wolff, who had originally received Elliott’s pitch through Lorin Stein, the former editor of the prestigious Paris Review and another name on the Shitty Media Men List. “I think there is an opening here. What you need is an excuse – or opportunity – to make the public argument.”
Epstein relented: “ill help anyway i can. if you like.”
Weeks later, Elliott sued Moira Donegan, the Shitty Media Men List’s creator.
This chain of communications – from Elliott to Stein, from Stein to Wolff, from Wolff to Epstein – is just one of several exchanges, unearthed through the Trump administration’s staggered releases of the Epstein files, involving Epstein and men who had been accused of sexual misconduct.
There is no evidence that Stein or Elliott knew that their communications had been forwarded to Epstein or that Wolff would attempt to enlist Epstein’s support, nor that the pair personally communicated with Epstein.
But when taken together, the emails, texts and other documents contained in the releases reveal Epstein’s engagement with the #MeToo movement and the men felled by it. In some cases, the convicted child sex offender and a coterie of elites strategized over how to blunt the power of the #MeToo movement and the women who fueled it.
“So many guys caught in the me too . reaching out to me. asking when does the madness stop,” Epstein wrote in December 2018 to a recipient whose identity is redacted. (The Guardian is quoting his emails and texts, and those of his contacts, largely as written, with adjustments only for clarity.)
Epstein added: “Funny.”
Elliott didn’t respond to requests for comment. In a September 2018 essay, Elliott said he was shocked to find himself accused of rape in the Shitty Media Men List, denied allegations of wrongdoing and denied having had sex with anyone who works in media. Elliott and Donegan, who now works as a columnist for the Guardian, reached a settlement in 2023.
“I had not known that Epstein had been aware of the case; I came to know of his exchange about it yesterday morning,” Donegan said in an email. “But having now read the exchange between Epstein, Wolff, Stein and Elliott, I can say that it is no mystery to me why someone like Mr Epstein would take an interest in the lawsuit against me, or why he would wish to help with it. I think the emails speak for themselves.”
Stein, who was not involved in Elliott’s lawsuit and declined to speak on the record, resigned from his job at Paris Review in 2017, after a workplace inquiry stemming from the Shitty Media Men List. At the time, Stein said his sexual activities were consensual, but his behavior was “an abuse of my position”.
Some of the exchanges between Epstein and his vast circle of wealthy, famous associates had previously been disclosed. However, the release last Friday of another 3m records related to the financier, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, widens the window into Epstein’s efforts to track and respond to the #MeToo movement. It also offers a stunning glimpse into the many prominent people who wanted to complain to Epstein – who had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008 – that the movement had gone too far.
The Guardian has a bombshell scoop on how the late disgraced Jeffrey Epstein tried to halt the then-burgeoning #MeToo movement’s spread.
Apparently Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump competed to see which one would first sleep with the late Princess Dianna. This contest probably ended in a tie with neither one ever bedding down with her.
Epstein and Trump had gained access to the Royals in the first place through Ghislaine Maxwell whose father was a prominent UK newspaper publisher. Maxwell was one of Prince Andrew's many mistresses.
This comes from a new podcast called Inside Trump's Head featuring podcasters Joanna Coles and Michael Wolff.
The same two podcasters were featured in this regular Daily Beast podcast episode. Michael Wolff recounts how Jeffrey Epstein secretly went to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin.
President Donald Trump admitted in a Truth Social meltdown Sunday that a number of his advisers may have spilled the beans in a bombshell new book.
The book, All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America, written by Michael Wolff and set to come out on Tuesday, includes revelations such as the claim that first lady Melania Trump “f---ing hates” her husband, and that the president was afraid he was about to die in a plane that was previously owned by notorious sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
Wolff had previously earned credit for speaking with Epstein at length about Trump in August 2017, with Epstein describing himself as Trump’s “closest friend.”
As the president fumed about the latest bombshells, he indicated some of those close to him may have spoken out.
Why the White House is starting to panic about elections
Michael Wolff explains to Joanna Coles why the White House has begun to panic over the possibility that Republicans could lose both the House and Senate—and the detrimental consequences this could have for Trump and his administration.
Can anything stop this legal juggernaut?
00:00 - Introduction
00:36 - Trump's Deputies Are Saying Trump "Can't Course Correct"
03:01 - Steve Bannon Says If Dems Win Midterms He's "Going To Prison"
06:00 - Trump's Weird Reaction After Man Collapses During Press Conference
09:27 - Steven Cheung White House Coms Director On GLP-1
10:54 - Will Trump Make American Thin Again?
12:34 - Melania Trump Delivers Word Salad At FOX News's Patriot Awards
15:40 - Live Inside Trump's Head Podcast Taping At The Museum Of The City Of New York
16:40 - Institutions Coware In Face Of Trump's Unprecedented Year Of Destruction
19:15 - In Light Of Institutional Failures Voters Move Against Trump
23:29 - Nuremberg Movie Glimpse Into Repercussions Of Power Collapse
25:43 - Why Trumpworld Is Currently Politically Cornered
28:34 - Why Trump Has No Restraining Voices Around Him
30:22 - Stephen Miller Poised To Trump Into Further Destructive Actions
32:01 - Epstein Files Will Reemerge Now Election Is Over
32:43 - Ask Melania: Questions That Michael Will Ask Melania Under Oath
Michael Wolff joined Joanna Coles to examine the looming legal battlefield of Trump’s 2026 strategy, where every move is filtered through lawyers and litigation.
As the White House braces for the possibility of losing both the House and Senate, Wolff revealed the unraveling logic guiding a president who cannot course-correct, while aides scramble to protect their careers.
From redistricting schemes to potential Supreme Court battles over voting rights, this episode shows how Trumpworld is preparing for an election fought not just at the polls—but in the courts.
Joanna asked the central question: Can anything stop this legal juggernaut?