Wolff discussed something that I had never heard before: that Steve Bannon, basically right up to the time Epstein died, was working with him on a combo rebrand/crisis comms effort to rehabilitate Epstein’s reputation. Yes! Bannon was working as Epstein’s image rehab specialist. The man at the center of all the anti-“elite”, anti-“globalist” pedophiles was tight with Epstein and trying to help him come in from the sex offender cold. He’d actually done hours of video interviews with Epstein as prep for either a 60 Minutes or 60 Minutes-style interview to revive his reputation.

Stuff like this is a reminder that what I’m describing here is mostly a media story. It’s no huge surprise that Bannon is an utter sleazebag or someone with a high tolerance for sexual predators. I confess to being perversely wowed by the brazen shamelessness of the switcheroo. But that’s another story. What’s kind of mystifying is how little Bannon or his Epstein image rehab doc project has gotten in the furor over the Epstein emails. It’s not that it’s gone unnoticed. The presence of Bannon-Epstein emails got at least a mention in many reports. But not the sheer volume or really the substance. Indeed, the press reports I was able to find about the image rehab doc tend to be in the entertainment press, like this one in The Hollywood Reporter. There’s much less in the political press.