Huge cache of Epstein documents includes emails financier exchanged with wealthy, powerful
Mira Nair, the Indian-American filmmaker and mother of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has been mentioned in a new cache of Epstein files released on Friday, January 30, by the Justice Department, which also revealed details on his communications with the wealthy not long before he died by suicide in 2019.
Millionaire American financier Jefferey Epstein was a convicted child sex offender, and the Epstein Files are several pages of documents, videos, images and emails with details of his criminal activities, often involving the world’s rich and influential. Congress, in November 2025, passed a law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, with US President Donald Trump signing it and directing the DoJ to produce, “with few exceptions,” all documents related to the financier’s prosecution.
From Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos to Mira Nair, the recent huge new tranche of files disclosed more than 3 million pages of documents, as well as 2,000 videos and 1,80,000 photos.
An email from October 21, 2009, sent by entertainment publicist Peggy Siegal to Epstein named Nair attending an afterparty at Epstein’s associate and convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell’s house for the screening of Nair’s “Amelia.”
“Just left Ghislaine’s townhouse…after party for film. Bill Clinton and Jeff Bezos were there…Jean Pigoni, director Mira Nair….etc,” the email read.
A 2009 biopic, Amelia, was directed by Mira Nair and starred Hilary Swank as aviator Amelia and Richard Gere as her husband George Putnam.
As with several figures mentioned in the files, inclusion implies connection with the convict and not necessarily involvement in criminal activities.
The documents show Epstein exchanged hundreds of friendly texts with Steve Bannon, a top adviser to President Donald Trump, some months before his death.
They discussed politics, travel and a documentary Bannon was said to be planning that would help salvage Epstein’s reputation.
In March 2019, Bannon asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome.
A couple of months later, Epstein messaged Bannon, “Now you can understand why Trump wakes up in the middle of the night sweating when he hears you, and I are friends.”
The context is unclear from the documents, which were released with many redactions and little clear organisation.
Another 2018 exchange focused on Trump’s threats at the time to oust Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom he had named to the post just the year prior.
Around the same time, Epstein also communicated with Kathy Ruemmler, a lawyer and former White House official. In a typo-filled email, he warned that Democrats should stop demonising Trump as a Mafia-type figure even as he derided the president as a “maniac.”
Bannon did not immediately respond to a message from The Associated Press seeking comment. Ruemmler said through a spokesperson she was associated with Epstein professionally during her time as a lawyer in private practice and now “regrets ever knowing him.”
Billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk emailed Epstein in 2012 and 2013 about visiting his infamous island compound, the scene of many allegations of sexual abuse.
Epstein inquired in an email about how many people Musk would like flown by helicopter, and the latter responded that it would likely be just him and his partner at the time. “What day/night will be the wildest party on our island?” he wrote, according to the Justice Department records.
It’s not immediately clear if the island visits took place. Spokespersons for Musk’s companies, Tesla and X, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment Friday.
Musk has maintained that he repeatedly turned down the disgraced financier’s overtures. “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island, and I REFUSED,” he posted on X in 2025
Epstein also invited Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to the island in December 2012. Lutnick’s wife enthusiastically accepted the invitation and said they would arrive on a yacht with their children. The two also had drinks on another occasion in 2011, according to a schedule. Six years later, they emailed about the construction of a building across the street from both of their homes.
Lutnick has distanced himself from Epstein, calling him “gross” and saying in 2025 that he cut ties decades ago.
Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019 and found dead in his cell just over a month later.
The latest batch of documents includes emails between investigators about Epstein’s death, including an investigator’s observation that his final communication doesn’t look like a suicide note. Multiple investigations have determined that Epstein’s death was a suicide.
The records also detail a trick that jail staffers used to fool the media gathered outside while Epstein’s body was removed: they used boxes and sheets to create what appeared to be a body and loaded it into a white van labelled as belonging to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
The reporters followed the van when it left the jail, not knowing that Epstein’s actual body was loaded into a black vehicle, which departed “unnoticed,” according to the interview notes.
(With inputs from AP)
This post was last modified on January 31, 2026 2:46 pm