THE Donald Trump met officially for the first time, in his capacity as US president, with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in July 2018 (the previous meetings the two had in 2017 in Germany and Vietnam are considered unofficial).

That meeting in Helsinki, however, had caused a stir within the US at the time, since Trump appeared on camera to trust more what Putin told him (about Russia's non-interference in the 2016 US presidential election) than what the US intelligence agencies and the CIA told him (about Russian interference). .

Just a few weeks, however, before that meeting, in June 24, 2018 , the Jeffrey Epstein had sent an e-mail to Thorbjorn Jagland , former Prime Minister of Norway who then led the Council of Europe, in which he stated: I think you could tell Putin that Lavrov can get information (ed.: regarding Trump) if he talks to me. Epstein was, in other words, presenting himself as willing to give information to the Russians (Putin, Lavrov) regarding Donald Trump , who had taken office as US president in January 2017.

In his response, Jagland wrote that he was going to meet with an aide to Lavrov the next day and suggest that he contact Epstein. Based on what has been learned so far, it is unclear whether any contact between the Russians and Epstein followed those emails.

Epstein himself, however, claimed in his e-mails that had already held discussions about Trump with Vitaly Churkin, then ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, before the beginning of 2017. . Churkin was excellent. He understood Trump after our discussions. It's not complicated., Epstein wrote in one of these emails.

The way the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki in 2018 ultimately unfolded, however, raised suspicions, as many began to wonder why Trump was so receptive to the Russian leadership.

Larry Summers, former Clinton secretary, had sent an email to Epstein on July 16, 2018, after the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, in which he asked him whether the Russians have information on Trump (ed.: that is, if they know things about him through which they could pressure him, or even blackmail him In his response, Epstein had criticized Trump, whom he had described as ignorant (he has no idea of most things), without, however, providing any information regarding what the Russian side may or may not have known...

Vitaly Churkin died in New York in February 2017 at the age of just 65. Officially, they said he died of natural causes, which has, however, been disputed by some commentators.

Jeffrey Epstein, on the other hand, was found dead in August 2019 in his prison cell where he was serving a sentence in New York as a pimp and sex offender with minor victims. Officially, he committed suicide.