“It’s early 2019, a few months before Jeffrey Epstein will be arrested on sex charges, and he is sitting in the vast study of his New York mansion with a camera pointed at him as he practices for a big ’60 Minutes’ interview that would never take place. The media trainer is a familiar figure: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s campaign guru and onetime White House adviser. Mr. Bannon is both conducting the interview and coaching Mr. Epstein on the little things, telling him he will come across as stupid if he doesn’t look directly into the camera now and then, and advising him not to share his racist theories on how Black people learn. Mainly, Mr. Bannon tells Mr. Epstein, he should stick to his message, which is that he is not a pedophile. By the end, Mr. Bannon seems impressed.”

“‘You’re engaging, you’re not threatening, you’re natural, you’re friendly, you don’t look at all creepy, you’re a sympathetic figure,’ he says. This explosive, previously unreported episode, linking a leader of the right with the now-dead disgraced financier, is tucked away at the end of a new book by Michael Wolff, ‘Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Notorious, the Damned.’ Mr. Bannon confirmed in a statement that he encouraged Mr. Epstein to speak to ’60 Minutes’ and said that he had recorded more than 15 hours of interviews with him. He disputed Mr. Wolff’s characterization of the transcript, however. Mr. Bannon, who has made 15 documentaries, said that he ‘never media-trained anyone’ and was recording the interview for a previously unannounced eight- to 10-hour documentary meant to illustrate how Mr. Epstein’s ‘perversions and depravity toward young women were part of a life that was systematically supported, encouraged and rewarded by a global establishment that dined off his money and his influence'” – New York Times.