Steve Bannon: Friend of Jeffrey Epstein and Enemy of Trump World

American Thinker 

In the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency, few homegrown political controversies have been as tedious or corrosive as the prolonged Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Among right-wing media figures, precious few bear more responsibility for fanning the Epstein flames than Steve Bannon. This was not because Trump’s administration was part of some cover-up. I purely believe it was because Bannon chose provocation over truth, spectacle over resolution, and self-preservation over honesty.

By early 2026, the factual record was no longer ambiguous.

On Jan. 30, the Department of Justice released more than three million additional pages of Epstein-related material, along with over 2,000 videos and roughly 180,000 images. This fulfilled the legal requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed by President Trump in November 2025. Combined with earlier disclosures, the total reached approximately 3.5 million pages. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made clear that this was the culmination of an exhaustive review process designed to comply with the law and ensure transparency.

Two days later, Blanche addressed the central question driving public anger.

In a nationally televised CNN interview, he explained that a comprehensive review conducted the previous summer found no evidentiary basis for new prosecutions. He acknowledged the disturbing nature of the materials but stressed that prosecutorial standards require more than implication or revulsion. The public, he noted, could now examine the same records and decide whether the Department had erred.

That should have been the moment for closure. Instead, Steve Bannon escalated.

Months earlier, long before the final release, Bannon had begun publicly pressuring the Trump administration on his War Room program. In July, he warned that failure to resolve the Epstein issue would cost Republicans 40 U.S. House seats in the midterms and, potentially, the presidency itself. Days later, he demanded that Epstein evidence be handed to a special prosecutor immediately, openly criticizing Attorney General Pam Bondi and implying institutional bad faith.

By late July, Bannon was arguing that Epstein was consuming Trump’s presidency and threatening the administration’s credibility with ordinary Americans.

After last month’s document release, his rhetoric sharpened further. He questioned the completeness of the disclosures, claimed redactions protected powerful figures, and insisted that Trump personally intervene. Days later, even after acknowledging that newly released files included his own communications with Epstein, Bannon pivoted to demand still more declassification. He framed himself as a champion of transparency.

This posture might have carried moral weight if it were not for one inconvenient reality.

Steve Bannon was not an outsider to Jeffrey Epstein. He was deeply and personally entangled with him.

Emails released in late 2025 show that, by early 2018, Epstein described his relationship with Bannon as a genuine friendship, telling as much to an associate. Epstein further declared himself Bannon’s friend during a 2019 email exchange between the two. Epstein said “trump wakes up in the middle of the night sweating” about this.

In November 2018, Epstein acted as a logistical fixer for Bannon during a European tour, arranging alternative flights when protests disrupted Bannon’s schedule. Bannon thanked him by calling him “an amazing assistant.”

The relationship extended into tangible material support.

In March 2019, Bannon asked Epstein to provide his private plane for a pickup in Rome.

In May of that year, text messages revealed Epstein expressing frustration over money he had given Bannon, accusing him of gambling it away. Bannon responded submissively, emphasizing his desire to remain useful and referencing future collaboration.

Most damning of all was their media endeavor.

On July 6, 2019, the day Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, Bannon was actively planning a documentary intended to rehabilitate his patron’s public perception. This image had been tattered and left to fade for years, following Epstein’s child sex offense conviction in 2008.

However, a 2016 James Patterson true crime bestseller brought intense scrutiny back toward Epstein. Bannon’s documentary, by all appearances, was meant to counteract this.

By August 2019, Bannon had recorded approximately 15 hours of interview footage with Epstein, pressing him on ethics and money while offering him a platform to reframe his narrative. Portions of that footage resurfaced in the 2026 releases. These underscore the extent to which Bannon had positioned himself not as a critic of Epstein, but as an ally in reputational salvage.

Against this backdrop, Bannon’s relentless attacks on Trump over Epstein are not principled dissent. They are grotesquely hypocritical deflection.

The irony deepens when viewed through the lens of Bannon’s own history with Trump. Bannon served as the White House’s chief strategist and counselor from January to August 2017. He was fired amid concerns that he was leaking internal White House deliberations to the media. Trump later accused Bannon of spreading false information to inflate his own importance.

Despite that betrayal, Trump extended extraordinary grace. On Jan. 19, 2021, in the final hours of his first term, Trump granted Bannon a full federal pardon related to charges stemming from the 'We Build the Wall' fundraising scheme. That pardon spared Bannon a federal fraud trial and, of course, a possible stiff prison sentence.

However, it did not absolve him of state accountability. In February 2025, Bannon pleaded guilty in New York City to a felony count of scheming to defraud, admitting to misleading donors. He received a conditional discharge and restrictions on future fundraising activities.

Taken together, the pattern is unmistakable.

Steve Bannon has benefited from proximity to immense power, financial support from a disgraced financier, and generous presidential clemency, all while repeatedly undermining the very administration that spared him. His conduct during the Epstein episode of Trump’s second term was not an act of courage. In my pure opinion, it was the behavior of a man attempting to distract from his own past by setting fires in public.

For right-leaning populist media, this should be a reckoning.

Credibility is the non-left’s most valuable currency. It is squandered when figures with documented hypocrisy are treated as truth-tellers simply because they shout loudly and often. Saying things that emotionally gratify the masses isn’t populism. It’s carnival-barking. The Epstein files did not expose a Trump coverup. They exposed the limits of evidence and the dangers of insinuation.

Seemingly, Bannon chose to ignore this distinction because acknowledging it would have forced an uncomfortable mirror inward.

Republicans at every level should treat Bannon like the thankless, hypocritical, money-grubbing liability he is. This man is not a martyr, a conscience, or a guardian of accountability. Bannon is a cautionary tale. The Epstein episode should stand as the final repudiation of Bannon’s public authority within the populist right. Movements that claim to fight swamp creatures cannot afford to elevate men who embody what Americans despise about self-serving, two-faced political, and financial, elites.

History will not be kind to this chapter. But it can still be instructive.

This sad moment demands clarity, not cowardice. Steve Bannon did not expose corruption; he embodied it, then weaponized outrage to hide his own trail. Trump delivered transparency, mercy, and facts. Bannon delivered chaos, hypocrisy, and noise pollution. Populism survives only when it rejects grifters, even influential ones.

If the non-left forgets that lesson now, it will inherit the very rot it was built to destroy. There is no bright future without clear memory.