STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly highlighted his relationship with the former chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee as he invited and spoke with elites including Richard Branson, Larry Summers, Bill Gates and Steve Bannon, a top ally of President Donald Trump, Epstein documents show.
Thorbjørn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee from 2009 to 2015, appeared hundreds of times in millions of documents released last month by the U.S. Justice Department about the former U.S. financier and convicted sex offender.
Jagland, 75, has been charged with “serious corruption” in Norway since the documents were released in connection with an investigation sparked by information in the documents, the Norwegian police’s Økokrim economic crime unit said.
Økokrim said it would investigate whether gifts, travel and loans were received in connection with Jaglan’s position. On Thursday, the team searched his home in Oslo, as well as two other properties in the southern coastal town of Risel and in western Loland.
His lawyer at the Norwegian law firm Elden said Jagland denied the accusations and was interviewed by police on Thursday.
Although there is no evidence in the documents seen so far of any overt lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize, Epstein made a point of hosting Jagland at his properties in New York and Paris on several occasions in the 2010s.
From ‘interesting’ guest to Bannon’s target of banter
In September 2018, during Trump’s first term, in an apparent attempt to hint at his interest in the Peace Prize, Epstein had multiple text message exchanges with Bannon, including one with untidy grammar that read: “If Donald knew you were good friends now with the person who will decide the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday, his head would explode.”
“I told him it should be you who is in charge next year when we solve the China problem,” he added, without elaborating.
In a 2013 email that mixed investment skills with praise for his PR skills, Epstein told British entrepreneur and tycoon Richard Branson that Jaglan would be living with Epstein in September of that year, adding: “If you were there you might find him interesting.”
A year after Kathy Ruemmler resigned as White House counsel to President Barack Obama in 2015, she received an email from Epstein that read: “The Nobel Peace Prize winner is visiting, want to join?”
In 2012, Epstein wrote to former Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President Larry Summers about Yagland, saying: “If you are interested, the person responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize remains with me.”
During that exchange, Epstein said Jagland – who is also a former prime minister of Norway and former president of the human rights body the Council of Europe – was “not smart” but offered a “unique perspective.”
The financier wrote to Bill Gates in 2014 that Jagland had been re-elected as president of the European Commission.
“This is good,” wrote the Microsoft co-founder and former world’s richest man. “I assume his position on the Peace Prize Committee is also pending?”
During Jagland’s tenure as chair of the committee, the committee awarded the Peace Prize to Obama in 2009 and to the European Union in 2012.
Jagland was brought into Epstein’s orbit by Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød Larsen, who helped broker the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinians.
Larsen and his wife also face corruption charges in Norway over their ties to Epstein.
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Associated Press writer Jamie Ketten in Geneva contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press is working with reporters from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC to review the documents released by the Justice Department. Reporters in every newsroom are working together to review these documents and share the information within them. Each media outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of these documents.
