Everywhere You Look in the Epstein Files, Two Names Keep Coming Up: Trump and Putin
The fact speak for themselves: In 3 million pages of documents released by the DOJ, there are at least 5,400 Trump mentions, and 1,056 mention of Vladimir Putin.
Over the weekend, I reported that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick lied about his neighbor Jeffrey Epstein — despite claiming to have cut contact Lutnick brought his family to Epstein’s island for Christmas 2012. I reported that Elon Musk another billionaire with close ties to Putin asked Epstein about “the wildest party on your island.” And I reported how Leon Black paid $158 million to a man with no financial credentials while sitting on the advisory board of Putin’s $10 billion sovereign wealth fund.
Today I’m going deeper into the files. Into the Russian operation at the heart of Epstein’s network. And into a connection that reaches back forty years—to the Soviet diplomat who first recruited Donald Trump.
The fact speak for themselves: In 3 million pages of documents released by the DOJ, over 1,056 mention Vladimir Putin by name. Over 9,629 mention Moscow.
This wasn’t a sex trafficking operation that happened to involve Russians. This was a Russian intelligence network that used sex trafficking, kompromat, and financial market manipulation to integrate in every spect of American life. And Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein both connect to former Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin
THE DIPLOMATS WHO RECRUITED TRUMP
In the fall of 1986, at a New York luncheon hosted by cosmetics magnate Leonard Lauder, Donald Trump found himself seated next to two Soviet diplomats: Yuri Dubinin, the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations, and Vitaly Churkin, then a 34-year-old “second secretary” in the Soviet embassy.
Both men effusively professed their infatuation with Trump Tower. They suggested Trump should build something similar near the Kremlin—on Red Square itself.
Seven months later, in July 1987, Trump made his first visit to the Soviet Union. Dubinin and Churkin helped organize the trip.
What happened next has been documented: Trump returned from Moscow and immediately took out full-page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe attacking NATO and American foreign policy—positions that perfectly aligned with Soviet interests. The ads cost nearly $100,000.
Trump had never shown interest in foreign policy before Moscow. He showed intense interest after.
Churkin’s career advanced. By 2006, he had risen to become Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations—the same position Dubinin held when they first recruited Trump. Churkin served until his death in February 2017—one day before his 65th birthday. He was the fifth Russian diplomat posted abroad to die unexpectedly since November 2016, all in remarkably similar fashion.
The U.S. State Department issued a gag order suppressing the cause of death, citing diplomatic immunity.
THIRTY YEARS LATER: EPSTEIN AND CHURKIN
Here’s what the newly released files reveal: Between 2015 and 2017, Vitaly Churkin met with Jeffrey Epstein at least eight times.
The same diplomat who recruited Trump in 1986 was meeting with Epstein thirty years later—during Trump’s campaign and transition.
In June 2017, months after Churkin’s death, Epstein emailed Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe:
“Churkin was great. He understood trump after our conversations. I think you might suggest to putin, that lavrov can get insight on talking to me.”
Epstein was offering to brief Putin’s foreign minister on Trump—through an intermediary—just as he had briefed the now-dead Churkin.
And when Churkin died, Epstein emailed Peter Thiel: “As you read my Russian ambassador friend died.”
Thiel. The billionaire whose Founders Fund invests alongside Day One Ventures—the firm run by Putin youth leader Masha Drokova. The same Drokova who introduced Epstein to a Thiel Fellow with Palantir connections weeks before the 2018 midterms.
The network is smaller than it appears. And older than anyone realized.
MASHA DROKOVA: PUTIN’S OPERATIVE IN SILICON VALLEY
Before she became Jeffrey Epstein’s publicist, Masha Drokova was a “commissar” of Nashi—Vladimir Putin’s youth movement. In 2008 she received a medal from Putin himself for “contributions to the fatherland.” She was known in Russia as “the girl who kissed Putin.”
By 2014, Drokova had moved to Silicon Valley and opened a PR firm for tech companies. In 2017, she did PR work for Epstein—work she now refuses to discuss.
That same year, she launched Day One Ventures, a venture capital firm. Public filings reviewed by Byline Times show 94% of its funding comes from undisclosed non-U.S. persons via Cayman Islands entities. The firm invests in NTechLab—37% owned by the Russian government.
FBI documents released in the Epstein files flag Drokova’s “entrepreneurial projects in Silicon Valley” as suspected technology theft operations.
But her most revealing work wasn’t technology. It was recruitment.
The files document that Drokova helped Epstein recruit Russian girls through an agency called “Shtorm” based in Krasnodar—funneling young women from Russia into Epstein’s network.
November 22, 2018—Thanksgiving Day—Drokova emailed Epstein to introduce him to Neil Serebryany, a 20-year-old Thiel Fellow starting an AI security company “with a number of significant advisors from Washington” and funding from “Palantir founders.”
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