A former butler to dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein spoke to a French news channel and said that Epstein courted some famous guests at his Paris apartment, including former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, Prince Andrew and Bill and Melinda Gates.
The butler, identified by France Info only as Gabriel, said he “served crowned heads, diplomats, businessmen and politicians,” some of whom we just named above.
According to Gabriel, Bannon visited Epstein in Paris in the fall of 2018. This is what article, which was in French, said:
Gabriel affirme également que le chantre de l’ultra-droite américaine Steve Bannon s’est retrouvé dans l’appartement parisien d’Epstein à l’automne 2018. “J’ai même été son chauffeur à Paris”, affirme ainsi Gabriel. Contactée à plusieurs reprises, sa porte-parole a répondu que l’ancien conseiller politique de Donald Trump séjournait systématiquement à l’hôtel Bristol lors de ses déplacements à Paris.
This is how that translates:
Gabriel also asserted that ultra-right [wing] American Steve Bannon found himself in Epstein’s Paris apartment in the fall of 2018. “I was even his driver in Paris,” says Gabriel. Contacted several times, a spokesperson replied that the former political advisor of Donald Trump stayed at the Bristol Hotel while traveling in Paris.
Judging by the New York Post’s reporting on this, the spokesperson’s response focused on Bannon not staying at Epstein’s place because other people mentioned in the article (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Prince Andrew) were said to have “crash[ed] several nights at the apartment while Epstein was out of town.”
Investigators with the French police this week searched the Paris apartment formerly occupied by Epstein in connection with allegations that the infamous sex offender sexually abused and trafficked women and girls prior to his death by suicide in August, according to France 24. French prosecutors last month opened a preliminary investigation into Epstein’s alleged rape of minors.
The reported Bannon-Epstein meeting in Paris occurred months after Page Six said Bannon visited Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse. That was in Aug. 2018. An unnamed source speculated that Bannon was meeting with Epstein because he “need[ed] money to bankroll his political agenda” and Epstein was known to have “plenty of money, and crave[d] power and access.”
Bannon’s tenure as Trump chief strategist ended in Aug. 2017.
A Gates representative said on their behalf that “Any allusion to a business or personal relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Bill and Melinda Gates is totally false.”
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
[Image via mugshot]
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Follow Law&Crime:
