Epstein Files, Spiegel: ‘Documents reveal Bannon’s insults towards Merkel and interest in the AfD’

Frankfurt (Germany), 2 February (LaPresse) – The so-called “Epstein Files”, published by the US Department of Justice and analysed by Der Spiegel, reveal repeated attacks by Donald Trump’s former strategist, Stephen Bannon, against former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The documents also reveal Bannon’s direct interest in the rise of the AfD in Germany. In an exchange in May 2019, Trump’s former strategist points out that the far-right party was then credited with 13% in the polls, presenting the figure as a sign of imminent political change and as part of a broader strategy to weaken the European leadership embodied by Angela Merkel. In a series of messages exchanged between 2018 and 2019 with Jeffrey Epstein, Bannon mocks Merkel and hopes for her political downfall. In a message from May 2019, on the day of the announcement of the resignation of then British Prime Minister Theresa May, Bannon writes: ‘May is gone; Merkel and Macron on Monday,’ adding that the chancellor would be ‘thrown out.’ In another exchange, also cited in the documents, Bannon says he hopes Merkel ends up ‘under a bus.’ The messages were sent to Jeffrey Epstein, the US financier and sex offender who died in prison in 2019. According to Der Spiegel, the documents show a closer than expected relationship between Epstein and Bannon, who shared political assessments and hopes for a strengthening of right-wing populist forces in Europe. In several passages, Merkel is referred to by Bannon as a symbol of the “globalist” elites and the European Union, a line already publicly supported by Trump’s former adviser, who in the past had called the chancellor “incompetent”, “arrogant” and responsible for a “massive influx” of migrants, going so far as to describe her as “the most destructive politician of the 21st century”. In a 2018 exchange, Epstein sent Bannon a quote from Merkel on the destabilising potential of migration for Europe. Bannon’s response was dismissive: “I smell fear”. An email to Epstein states that there are certainly still Germans ‘who would prefer Adolf Hitler to Angela Merkel’. However, he adds, one certainly cannot find any prominent politician in Germany who ‘still praises the nobility of the Nazis’.