New Delhi: Documents released by the US House Oversight Committee recently and a new tranche of some 18,000 Epstein emails obtained by Drop Site News, have claimed that Jeffrey Epstein allegedly offered to set up a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon in mid-2019, just two months before his arrest in the child sex trafficking case.

The revelations were made on the same day when Trump signed a legislation authorising the US Justice Department to finally make thousands of pages of files on Epstein public.

Not only that, the documents have revealed that Epstein allegedly maintained a relationship with high-profile Indian political and business figures in the years before his death.

According to the Drop Site report, the correspondence comes from the Yahoo inbox of Epstein. 

The report stated that the recipient of Epstein’s messages in 2019 pushing to set up a meeting with Modi is redacted in the House Oversight Committee releases. However, the details “match closely with the contemporaneous activities and locations of Steve Bannon”. 

The unidentified person discussing Modi told Epstein that he was in Kazakhstan, whereas Bannon, who at the time was the chairman of the advisory board of We Build The Wall, was attending a conference there at the same time. 

While Bannon was fired from the White House in 2017, he remained influential in the MAGA world, and offered advice to Trump on political strategy.

According to the Drop Site report, Bannon messaged Epstein on May 23, 2019, the day Modi won a commanding majority in the Lok Sabha elections and secured re-election as prime minister, saying, “I’m doing a one hour show for India on Modi while here – bringing American Hindu guys with us.”

Epstein reportedly responded, “his focus wants to be stopping China.” 

Bannon did an interview with the WION the next week and discussed Modi, and the importance of a US-India relationship in depth.

Epstein had reportedly pressed further for a meeting: “I can set”, “you should meet with modi”, he allegedly wrote. Bannon reportedly replied, “please”, followed by Epstein asking when he could do it.

Epstein sent further messages to Bannon pushing for contact with Modi, according to the report, encouraging him to overcome any obstacles to the meeting. One of his messages reportedly read: “my guy said to tell you that you are missing a great opportunity, look at your underwear. it either says made in china or made in india. . how is it possible that you guys don’t understand shared goals.”

While the disclosures by House Oversight do not show any significant intervening correspondence between Bannon and Epstein on the subject, hours later, Epstein reportedly wrote again: “modi on board.”

At the time of publishing this report, neither Bannon nor Modi’s office responded to Drop Site’s requests for comment.

Alleged email exchanges with an Indian billionaire

In 2017, an individual whose name was redacted from the files and whose identity could not be determined by Drop Site asked Epstein, “The white hse announced yday pm modis trip to dc. Can u tell me whn and the dates ? Thanks.”

Epstein reportedly responded that Modi’s visit to Washington, which was to be his first meeting with Trump, was “a part of Israel strategy” and added, “should know more after i return from paris.” Epstein later continued, “...what i am told is that discussions re Israel strategy were dominating modi dates. however lots and lots of internal conflicts taking priority.”

Activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan took to social media claiming that there were “many emails” exchanged between the convicted sex trafficker and Indian business tycoon Anil Ambani, sharing screenshots of the alleged mail trail.

The Drop Site report too mentions this correspondence, which dates back to March 2017, when an email account linked to Anil Ambani, the brother of Asia’s richest individual Mukesh Ambani, was reportedly used to interact with Epstein. 

The e-mail reportedly mentioned an article from Business Standard titled ‘After trump phone call, govt weighs if Modi should visit US early’, and reportedly stated: “Dear Jeffrey, Info. BR, Anil.” Epstein reportedly replied, “India Israel Key -not for email.”

Epstein’s communications regarding India-Israel relations came weeks before ties between the two countries reached new heights in July 2017, with Modi becoming the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel.

Notably, Ambani’s company, Reliance Defence Ltd, had also entered a joint venture with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd, a state-owned Israeli defense firm, to produce air-to-air missiles and air defense systems in a deal valued at USD 10 billion in 2016.

The BJP government, led by Modi, had leaned towards Israel as soon as it came into power in 2014, with a visible embrace of Tel Aviv with frequent ministerial trips. In 2015, Pranab Mukherjee became the first Indian president to visit Israel as part of a multi-country tour. That same year, India had abstained on a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council which condemned Israel for atrocities during the 2014 Gaza invasion. However India’s vote in annual recurring resolutions in the UN General Assembly have not deviated from its traditional pattern, with New Delhi continuing to publicly support a two-state solution.

India has been the largest buyer of Israeli weapons for more than two decades. According to SIPRI data, India has been the biggest client of the Israeli arms industry under both the UPA government and the BJP-led NDA government.

Anil Ambani has not responded to Drop Site's request for comment.

Drop Site News also reported that disclosures from Epstein’s private calendars showed “several appointments with Hardeep Singh Puri, a senior leader of Modi’s ruling BJP party”.

Puri’s name appears in Epstein’s list of scheduled appointments at least five times between June 2014 and January 2017, according to documents released by the House Oversight Committee. He has served as a minister in the Modi government since September 2017.

A former Indian foreign service officer, Puri retired as India’s permanent representative to the UN in New York in March 2013. Before the 2014 elections which brought Modi to power, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He was largely based in New York during that period, having taken a senior role in the non-profit International Peace Institute as Vice President and Secretary General of the IPI’s multi-year project, Independent Commission on Multilateralism.

According to Drop Site News, Puri’s first mention in Epstein’s calendar was in June 2014. That entry for the meeting also listed Terje Rød-Larsen, a Norwegian diplomat known for his role in the Oslo Accords, who was then the president of IPI.

The US-based news outlet described Rød-Larsen as a “close friend of Epstein”, who had also been reportedly involved in efforts to broker a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia backed by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.

Puri was listed again for appointments with Epstein in September 2014, October 2014, January 2016 and January 2017. Entries for the 2014 meeting carried a redaction alongside Puri’s name. A February 2015 reminder in Epstein’s calendar was for Puri’s arrival date in New York that day from India.

Questions have been sent by The Wire to Hardeep Puri regarding these claims.

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