Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) has locked down his House district for over a decade. Democrats think his Senate bid presents them an opening in a seat that has raced away from the party.

Kentucky’s 6th District — anchored by Lexington in the heart of the Bluegrass State — hasn’t elected a Democrat to Congress since Ben Chandler in 2010. Barr has held the seat since 2013 and has proven difficult to dislodge. The last time a Democrat came close was in 2018, when fundraising juggernaut Amy McGrath came within about 3 points of defeating him.

But Barr won his last reelection in 2024 by 26 points, outperforming President Donald Trump, who carried the district by 15 points according to calculations from The Downballot.

If Barr had sought another term, Democrats privately concede they stood little chance.

But with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) retiring and Barr opting to run for his seat, a rare open seat is now in play — and firmly on Democrats’ target list.

In the Democratic primary, two candidates have emerged as frontrunners, according to national Democrats watching the race: Zach Dembo, a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor, and Cherlynn Stevenson, a former Kentucky state representative. Each is offering a different theory for how to flip the deep-red district.

The question of how a Democrat could win the seat dominated a Democratic primary debate earlier this month, where candidates leaned on sharp criticisms of the Trump administration, ranging from its decision to strike Iran to affordability issues as a result of the president’s tariffs.

Stevenson has branded herself a “Mountain Democrat,” leaning into her Appalachian roots and pitching herself as someone who could mend the disconnect between the party and rural voters by focusing on cost-of-living pressures and access to affordable health care. She said her upbringing in a small mining town in eastern Kentucky and years living in Lexington allow her to bridge the district’s urban-rural divide.

“Winning right here in Kentucky requires cultural fluency and trust,” Stevenson said in an interview. “I know how to talk to working families, rural communities and independents because I am one of those people.”

She’s also got experience flipping seats. She was the first woman and first Democrat elected to represent Kentucky’s 88th state House district, where she also served as state House minority caucus chair.

Dembo, meanwhile, is pitching himself as a “Beshear Democrat” — a nod to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who performed well in the 6th District during his 2023 reelection campaign.

“This is 100 percent a flippable district,” Dembo said in an interview, pointing to headwinds from “all of the terrible decisions of this Republican Congress.”

He has emphasized his experience as a Navy JAG officer and former federal prosecutor, arguing his resume gives him crossover appeal in a Republican-leaning district. Dembo resigned from his position at the Justice Department during Trump’s second term, saying he could no longer remain in his role amid what he described as corruption and the Trump administration’s “abuse of the criminal justice system.”

Both Dembo and Stevenson have posted solid fundraising numbers. And Republicans have a contested primary as well, in a race that includes state Rep. Ryan Dotson and former state Sen. Ralph Alvarado.

“We’re giving Republicans a run for their money in places that they never thought they would have to compete before, and now they do,” said DCCC spokesperson Madison Andrus.

But the race will still be incredibly challenging for Democrats, even though the DCCC has had the seat on its “Red to Blue” battleground list. Kentucky’s federal delegation remains overwhelmingly GOP. The seat also got nominally redder during the post-2022 redistricting process, making it even tougher terrain than during McGrath’s close call in the last Trump administration midterms eight years ago.

Most election watchers believe the seat is well outside the core House battleground as well, and it has not attracted notable outside spending, underscoring how steep the climb would be for Democrats to win even without an incumbent on the ballot.

Republicans dismissed the Democrats’ optimism outright.

“Democrats have been enjoying too much bourbon because their Kentucky 6 wishes are delusional,” said NRCC spokesperson Zach Bannon. “Republicans are poised to keep KY-06 red to retain and expand our majority.”

Democrats in competitive primaries keep fighting about corporate PAC money. It has opened up a muddy and sometimes performative debate.

The issue has played out in contested Senate primaries, where Democrats have pledged not to accept corporate PAC money to signal their support for campaign finance reform and show voters that they are not beholden to special interests. Among the Democrats seeking to distinguish themselves: Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton in Illinois, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, and both state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and former public health official Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

Corporate PACs, which raise money from their employees and distribute it to candidates, usually give in similar amounts to Republicans and Democrats. For several cycles, a growing number of Democratic candidates have sworn off the money, citing the outsized influence of business interests on politics.

But for many, the pledges not to take the money are mostly symbolic. Candidates who aren’t currently in office receive almost no corporate PAC donations anyway, as more than 99 percent of those funds have gone to sitting senators or representatives this cycle, according to a Blue Light News analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission. And rejecting one specific type of donation doesn’t actually mean candidates can’t receive support from outside interests — often in much larger amounts than corporate PACs are allowed to send.

Corporate PAC money can also still end up indirectly supporting new candidates: A majority of Democratic senators receive the funding, as do official party groups, both of which donate to and otherwise help Senate hopefuls.

As a result, the escalating debate over corporate PAC money has comparatively little impact on Democratic candidates’ ability to raise money — but it has created an opening for heated attacks from all sides.

Stratton rejected donations from corporate PACs, but millions of dollars in support she has received from a super PAC has been the focus of a flurry of attack ads from Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), one of her top rivals who himself has received millions in super PAC support. Flanagan and McMorrow have both faced criticism for accepting corporate money in past roles, despite their pledges not to do so in their respective Senate races now.

While the push by some Democrats to reject corporate money goes back several cycles, even emerging as a point of contention in the party’s 2020 presidential primary, the focus in Senate primaries is newer.

For Democrats looking for any advantage in crowded races, rejecting the money carries potential electoral benefits. Polling shows the issue resonates not only with a Democratic base interested in money-in-politics reform but also with independent and Republican voters.

“Pledging to forego corporate PAC money is one way that candidates signal to voters that they reject business as usual in Washington and want to work to fix our broken campaign finance system,” said Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform at Issue One, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Still, “even when a candidate rejects a PAC check, there are still ways for corporate interests to curry favor,” Beckel said.

The debate among Democrats comes at a time when corporate PACs account for a smaller share of funds influencing races. Corporate PACs face strict limits for their political giving, $5,000 per cycle, a number that has not changed in decades, even as individual giving limits are indexed to inflation. Far more funds now flow through super PACs — which candidates are free to criticize but don’t have to reject.

And the questions are unlikely to fade: The Democratic National Committee has sought to explore how it could limit corporate money, along with harder-to-trace “dark money” that flows through nonprofit groups, in the party’s 2028 presidential primary.

“I think it just shows this fundamental shift even inside the Democratic Party, that running on anti-corruption is no longer a niche position,” said Tiffany Mueller, president of End Citizens United, which backs Democrats supportive of campaign finance reform and has, since 2018, had candidates sign pledges that include a promise to reject corporate PAC money.

The group’s pledge this cycle, which includes several money-in-politics reforms, has gotten signers quicker than past pledges, Mueller said.

In Illinois, where early voting is already underway ahead of Tuesday’s primary, Stratton has made rejecting corporate PAC money a key component of her campaign in a three-way primary against Krishnamoorthi and Rep. Robin Kelly. The lieutenant governor, who was endorsed by End Citizens United, accused both opponents of benefiting from a “broken” campaign finance system.

“I’m the only candidate rejecting corporate PAC money, because my campaign is about the people of Illinois, not special interests,” she said in a statement.

Kelly, in an interview, defended her own record of accepting some donations from corporate PACs, saying that the funds over the years supported Democrats and never influenced her voting record. She noted the much greater flow of super PAC money supporting both of her opponents.

“When I came to Congress, I didn’t know my dues were going to be the level that they were. I didn’t know that I was expected to give money to my other colleagues, or people that wanted to be my colleagues,” Kelly said. “And frankly, the money I collect, that’s where a lot of it has gone through the years, paying dues to the DCCC.”

While Stratton has sought to carve out a lane as the reformer, Krishnamoorthi’s campaign has gone after her finances, with ads running on both television and digital accusing her of taking “corporate and MAGA money” and calling attention to a super PAC backing her. Krishnamoorthi’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Stratton has benefited from $11.8 million from a super PAC linked to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, with additional support from the Democratic Lieutenant Governor’s Association. Meanwhile Fairshake, backed by major cryptocurrency interests, has spent nearly $10 million attacking her to help Krishnamoorthi.

The scrutiny on corporate PAC money in primaries comes as a majority of sitting Democratic senators continue to take those donations for their campaigns and leadership PACs. That includes several senators who have actively been endorsing in the primaries, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Ct.), who has endorsed Flanagan in Minnesota, and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who has endorsed both Flanagan and McMorrow.

Corporate PACs can — and do — give larger donations to party committees. That has been a point of conflict in Minnesota, where opponent Rep. Angie Craig has hit Flanagan for corporate PAC donations accepted by the DLGA while she was its chair. The group is now backing her campaign along with Stratton’s.

Flanagan’s campaign has said she did not have sole decision-making power over the DLGA’s donors. In a statement to Blue Light News, a spokesperson for Flanagan accused Craig of “trying to distract from the fact that she’s taken millions of dollars from corporations and special interests.”

“Peggy is the only candidate in this race to reject corporate PAC money,” the spokesperson said. Craig’s campaign declined to comment.

The divide extends from safe-seat races to the most competitive. In the Michigan Senate primary, which sets up a must-win open seat for Democrats looking to take back control of the upper chamber, the issue has already arisen in candidate forums. El-Sayed, who previously ran for governor, has sought to distinguish himself on the basis that he has never taken corporate PAC money.

“There’s only one candidate in this race who’s understood corporate money to be the central disease of our politics from day one when they ran in 2018,” said Sophie Pollock, a spokesperson for El-Sayed’s campaign, in a statement.

Rep. Haley Stevens, meanwhile, received donations from corporate PACs as a representative and has continued to for her Senate campaign. Her campaign spokesperson, Arik Wolk, noted she repeatedly voted for campaign finance reform and recently received an “A” grade from End Citizens United on its anti-corruption scorecard.

And although McMorrow previously accepted corporate PAC money for her state legislative campaign and leadership PAC, she has rejected it for her Senate campaign.

“As a first-time candidate, there were people who said, ‘We need to fight like the Republicans fight. If we don’t, we will lose,’” McMorrow said in an interview. “And I’ve learned through my time in the legislature that, you can’t talk out of both sides of your mouth, that people won’t trust you. And also, not only can we fund campaigns without corporate PAC dollars, but frankly, we need to.”

Leading Washington strategist Juleanna Glover publicly argued for a third-party presidential candidate halfway through Donald Trump’s first term, calling for a “morally lucid” leader akin to abolitionist Abraham Lincoln.

At the same time, she was privately trading emails with Jeffrey Epstein — a decade after he went to jail on child prostitution charges — to share possible presidential tickets “outside the partisan lanes.”

Glover even offered some “radical combinations” in an August 2018 email to a group of “third party thinkers” she then forwarded to Epstein via his now infamous address jeevacation@gmail.com. Her list of dream tickets mixed and matched figures like former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, former Republican Govs. Larry Hogan of Maryland and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, and Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates, coincidentally an Epstein associate himself.

Glover proposed: “Biden/Romney? Bill Gates/Hogan? Bloomberg/Haley? Howard Schultz/Bob Corker? Sandberg/Kasich?”

Their correspondence about centrist fantasy politics was only a small piece of a professional and political relationship that stretched across more than a year. Their workaday messages about third party campaigns, conversations that could have easily been with a well-regarded opinion columnist, underline the degree to which a large number of influential people treated Epstein as if he was just another rich guy to be courted rather than a convicted sex criminal with a troublesome reputation.

Glover, who has long been a leading Never Trump figure, told Blue Light News in an interview that her motivation for engaging with Epstein was solely focused on unearthing any potential information that could sink Trump’s reelection.

Despite that claim, there are no emails between Glover and Epstein that show her soliciting information from him about Trump. While she referred Blue Light News to a fellow Never Trumper to corroborate that motivation, a second person involved in some of her interactions with Epstein at the time, said they were not aware of her approach.

And in an interview, Glover acknowledged she had also asked Epstein for help in a business matter in 2017 involving her then-most prominent client, Elon Musk, and Saudi Arabia. In one Tesla-related email, Glover said that if Epstein was advising any sovereign wealth funds wanting to help “a prominent company go private,” she could help. In the second email to Glover, Epstein criticized Musk for not being “fluent” in how to deal with Middle Easterners’ “bluster” and “bloviating bragging” after Saudi funding did not come through.

Glover took a stab at helping reintroduce Epstein to parts of mainstream society and made a brief attempt to fashion him into a champion of democracy, arranging a meeting with the head of the nonprofit group Freedom House in 2017. And it wasn’t just Glover advising Epstein — he also offered suggestions on how to talk to New York Times reporters writing about Musk’s rumored drug use.

Glover’s and Epstein’s relationship encompassed several dozen emails, two in-person meetings and a number of calls, according to a Blue Light News review of the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice. Her name returns 191 results in the files, although many mentions are duplicates.

Glover characterized the relationship as a limited series of interactions comprised of 31 emails that she sent him, of which 12 dealt with logistics and 15 regarded Tesla. (The Tesla emails showed that Glover was leveraging the relationship with Epstein to help her client.) She said they had two meetings and three calls. She said the remaining were two emails on third party politics, one on MAGA stalwart Steve Bannon and the last connecting Epstein to a pro-democracy nonprofit. Glover said that he was never a client and she “never took anything of value from him.”

Their dynamic, catalogued here in full for the first time, further demonstrates the expansive reach of the late sex offender’s connections across the political spectrum. His Rolodex ranged from moderate former Republicans like Glover to Bannon and giants of the American left like Noam Chomsky.

Glover, a former aide in the George W. Bush White House and an adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, had by 2017 largely moved on from professional electoral politics and built a thriving practice as an adviser to executives and corporations seeking to navigate the media landscape.

Her townhouse in Kalorama is a gathering place for a wide array of D.C. operators, think tankers, campaign funders and journalists. She has built goodwill across the town and a thriving personal network in part with her willingness to host book parties, new job celebrations and more: Indeed — she was a co-host of an engagement party in 2023 for the author of this article, and has thrown book parties for multiple past and present Blue Light News reporters.

Glover consulted for Axel Springer, Blue Light News’s owner, several years ago, according to a company spokesperson.

‘Captive’ to Elon Musk

Glover came to know Epstein through another type of fixer who was also advising him on PR strategies. The journalist Michael Wolff, a shared acquaintance of the two, first mentioned Glover to Epstein in March 2017 as she was consulting for Musk.

“I rolled the dice when Michael Wolff asked me to meet with Epstein against the backdrop of Epstein talking publicly about Trump,” she said in a statement. “My interactions with Epstein were in service to that objective; not to help him in any way or improve his image. Wolff was seemingly positioning me as someone smart enough for him to take advice from.

“To wit, I repeatedly steered Epstein to talk to top investigative journalists including Jim Stewart of the NY Times and Epstein eventually did so, ultimately talking to Stewart about writing his book. I never knew what Epstein was planning to say, but a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist almost found out,” she said, referring to Stewart.

At the time of her interactions with Epstein about Stewart, Musk’s move to try to take Tesla private led to a Securities and Exchange Commission probe and rumors of drug use. He needed all the communications help he could get.

“[T]here’s a Washington PR type named Juleanna Glover with whom you might want to ch=t,” Wolff wrote to Epstein that spring. “Elon Musk basically owns her now and I’m not sure she can take on o=her clients, but she will have a valuable perspective on how you get to wh=ere you want to be.”

Two months later with the subject line “More PR,” Wolff reminded Epstein that they had spoken about Glover, reupping the Musk connection.

“She’s captive to him, so not hireable. But she’s exceedingly smart and well connected and has interesting things to say,” he wrote. “She can offer an extremely informed overview on how to think about larger steps. Not so much about the trial per se, but going forward. Anyway she is in NYC on Thursday with some time if you wanted me to arrange a meeting.”

Within an hour, Epstein wrote back, “Yes please.”

Three days later, Epstein, Glover and Wolff had lunch together on a day that Epstein was set to have breakfast with private equity investor Leon Black and dinner with director Woody Allen and his wife Soon Yi Previn, according to his schedule. (Black has been accused of sexual assault by two women but has denied all allegations.)

Wolff has written books critical of the president and in 2016 even told Epstein “you’re the Trump bullet” to stop his rise given their former relationship. Last November, Wolff posted an Instagram video in which he said, “These two men, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, had the closest of relationships for more than a decade.”

Trump has said he wasn’t involved in any of Epstein’s criminal activity and that they had a falling out years ago. Epstein was once a frequent visitor at Mar-a-Lago and court records indicate that Trump flew at least once on one of Epstein’s planes and his phone numbers were in Epstein’s directory. There’s no evidence to suggest Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation.

Wolff said in a statement that he worked on an effort with Glover to get Trump to publicly respond to questions about his relationship with Epstein during the 2016 presidential campaign. Glover said that Wolff had called her in the fall of 2015 to try to have reporters ask Trump about Epstein. That’s why Wolff emailed Epstein that year regarding how Trump might handle questions about their shared history.

“In 2017, I encouraged Juleanna to see Epstein in the hope that she might help convince him to go public about what he knew about Trump,” he said. “I believe she suggested to Epstein that Jim Stewart at the Times would be receptive.”

Glover referred Blue Light News to an anti-Trump political consultant, Rick Wilson, with whom she had been in touch about Epstein in 2015, years before her correspondence with Epstein began.

Wilson told Blue Light News that he and Glover had a phone call in the fall of 2015 to try to figure out if Epstein had any dirt on Trump.

“She’s a great communicator, and that’s why people seek her out, and that’s why she was so valuable in this anti-Trump fight at the time,” he said. “She was definitely in the pursuit of trying to stop Trump.”

In the summer of 2018 she asked Epstein about Stewart, who was writing a piece on Musk.

“Do you like Jim Stewart?” she wrote to Epstein in August 2018. “Will send him to you for deep backgound [sic] convo if y=u like? But only if you like.”

“[N]o thanks,” Epstein replied. “I live in dark background.”

During several days in August, the two exchanged emails and calls about Musk, who was looking for wealthy investors to buy out shareholders.

“If you are advising re: sovereign wealth funds looking to help a prominent company go private, let me know if I can help w any approp additional information,” she wrote Epstein on Aug. 12.

“Clever,” he replied. She also offered a primer on how Tesla’s Autopilot worked.

Epstein passed along names of potential candidates to join Tesla’s board, suggesting former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Obama White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler and Margaret Thatcher, not realizing she had been dead for five years. (Summers and Ruemmler have apologized for their connections to Epstein and left their jobs after their ties to him were highlighted in the files.)

Epstein also offered to “help shape your story” and gave Glover advice on how Musk should talk on the record to Stewart or then-Times reporter Landon Thomas Jr. about the situation.

“Will try,” Glover replied.

Two days after Epstein’s death, Stewart wrote a column recounting a meeting he had with Epstein in which he claimed to know information about wealthy and famous people that was “potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.”

Thomas Jr. left the Times in 2019 after he solicited a major charitable gift from Epstein, who’d been a source, according to an investigation by NPR and a statement the publication made to the New York Post. Thomas Jr. declined to comment to NPR and didn’t respond to a request for comment from Blue Light News.

Stewart said in a statement that he wasn’t aware at the time of any relationship between Glover and Epstein and didn’t know about anything Epstein might have told her.

“As I would with any potential source, I reached out to Epstein because I’d heard he was recruiting board members for Tesla at the behest of Musk,” he said. “Epstein wanted to meet in person, so I went to his townhouse. (I subsequently wrote about that encounter.) I don’t recall using anything Epstein had to say in any story about Musk. He certainly didn’t ‘shape’ any story I was involved in.”

Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades-Ha said in a statement that Thomas Jr. hadn’t worked at the Times since 2019 “after editors discovered his failure to abide by our ethical standards. Times editors were not aware at the time of Thomas’s now-public emails with Epstein.”

Referring to Musk, Epstein told her that he only said “great things about your boy” while sharing that “some of the papers are looking into whether you [sic] boy was on drugs.” He then asked Glover if there are “different colors of cocaine. ? ! ectasy [sic]. (I know zero about drugs).”

“Nothing to it,” she replied. “He barely even drinks.” She acknowledged three days later, “Oh and re burning man, he hasn’t gone in years but may go w his musician girlfriend the last weekend in aug – that is the best the rumor mongers can do.”

After the Times published the interview, Elon Musk Details ‘Excruciating’ Personal Toll of Tesla Turmoil, Epstein emailed Glover, saying “good work – interview apart from the one short seller comment. :)”

Glover responded: “Glad you think it improves situation.”

The exchanges about Musk show how their relationship was a give-and-take compared to a more formal adviser-client set up with Epstein giving positive feedback to one of the nation’s leading communications strategists on her own media approach. At the same time, Glover also steadfastly defended her client, insisting he didn’t do drugs less than a month before he smoked marijuana live on The Joe Rogan Experience.

Glover said that her interactions with Epstein about Musk came during a tense time as Tesla’s leadership was pushing hard to take the company private, which Musk had announced the Saudis and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were key to getting done.

“Epstein had bragged that he was close to MBS, so I reached out,” she told Blue Light News. “Musk was unaware that I’d done so. I shared publicly available information about the company, with the intent that Epstein would advise the Saudis to hold steady on their commitment to Musk to take the company private. I was trying to encourage him to weigh in with the Saudis to keep their word to Musk. I do not believe he was in any way useful to this effort as there are no known communications with MBS in the DOJ files.”

Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.

An attempt at a pro-democracy rehabilitation

Glover’s firm Ridgely Walsh emphasizes “bespoke public affairs services” and the DOJ files reveal the kind of strategic matchmaking services she might offer clients. For Epstein, who needed to burnish his image, she found an advocacy group in need of funding.

After their first lunch meeting in May 2017, Epstein thanked Glover for her time and said he was happy to meet the leadership of the democracy nonprofit Freedom House as he tried to overhaul his public reputation after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. (He served 13 months on a work release program that allowed him to go to his office during most days.)

“The pro- democracy fund=ng is a good idea, no matter what positive fallout it may have on me perso=ally,” he wrote.

He also invited Glover and a guest to see the Tony-award winning play Oslo, in which he bragged that he had bought out the entire Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center so that many U.N. diplomats could attend. “[Y]ou would be part of the private gatherings. Many interesting people will attend,” he noted.

Glover doesn’t appear to have replied to Epstein’s invitation but seven weeks later she told Epstein she had secured a date for Michael Abramowitz, the then-head of Freedom House, to come see him. They were all supposed to meet in person on July 24, but Epstein ended up being out of town so the three joined a call. Glover, who has long worked for international dissidents of various stripes, connected the two via email after the call with Abramowitz responding, “nice to meet you. Talk soon I hope.”

A month later, Abramowitz emailed Epstein, saying he hoped he had a good summer and had enjoyed talking to him. While he sent four attachments about the organization, Epstein had the brusque reply “thx” with a link to an article on HuffPost promoting his work funding scientists. (The articleno longer appears on HuffPost.)

The pair ups didn’t always work, although for Freedom House the mismatch turned out to be a positive. Numerous politicians have had to give away Epstein donations to charitable causes and other figures associated with the late sex offender have lost their jobs or resigned from posts.

Freedom House referred a request for comment to Abramowitz.

“I was asked to have a conversation with him about philanthropy,” Abramowitz said in a statement. “It was a brief phone call, and Freedom House never accepted money from him.”

Glover said she connected Epstein to Abramowitz because Epstein was interested in funding nonprofits. Glover and her firm have experience working with pro-democracy efforts including work on the Magnitsky Act, much of which she does pro-bono. (The Magnitsky Act allows the U.S. government to punish foreign officials for human rights abuses.)

“We do much work in the pro-democracy space, so I asked Freedom House to talk to Epstein about what overseas nonprofits might prove to be the most effective in supporting democracy efforts in Russia and Eastern Europe (at that time Russians were in the streets in large numbers protesting Putin),” she said.

“There was was also growing awareness about Putin directing interference in the U.S. 2016 election and the U.S. was certainly not going to step up to support free elections given Trump’s growing closeness to Putin so I suggested Epstein do it,” Glover said.

“I suspected these foreign groups would welcome his money in their vital, but cash-strapped work,” she added. “I have apologized to the good leaders of Freedom House for connecting this storied institution to this monster. Nothing came of that conversation. Epstein of course lied about his intent and/or ability to marshal money.”

A warning about Steve Bannon

There were tensions embedded in Epstein’s relationship with Glover, a classic establishment GOP operator, and his similarly newfound friendship with Bannon, the conservative firebrand who was separately giving him strategic advice. It’s an illustration of Epstein’s success at cracking the political world that he was able to maintain relations with both of them.

In their 2018 correspondence about unconventional presidential tickets, Epstein took care to write “(not bannon)” when telling Glover that his other “friends with great knowledge of the system” thought the third party idea was “brilliant.”

Glover replied back with a link to a New York Times op-ed she authored about third parties “that says something of the same.”

In December 2018, Epstein replied back to a blast from Glover sharing a Blue Light News Magazine op-ed she had written about how Joe Biden should run on a unity ticket with Mitt Romney.

“[Y]ou are right of course,” Epstein wrote.

Months earlier, Glover passed along a request by the BBC to put the outlet in touch with Wolff about Epstein. Wolff forwarded it to Epstein, who told him to get more information on the matter.

“On the job,” Wolff replied.

Glover emailed him to say she was going to be in New York City the next day and wanted to check in. Epstein wrote back that he “would have loved to however i am in the caribean [sic] please try again next time.”

“Will do,” Glover replied. “Take care.”

In April, Glover checked in again to ask if Epstein would be free in a few days in New York City, adding “Hope all is well.” He told her he was not in town that day. But the two met up in July after Glover emailed him again asking if he was in Manhattan, adding “Hope all is great.”

On her way to the meeting at his Upper East Side mansion, she apologized for being a few minutes late, saying “I am so sorry!”

Among the topics of discussion at their meeting was Epstein’s dealings with Bannon.

“On reflection, I don’t think any good can come from Steve being in your sphere,” Glover wrote to Epstein the next day. “I have only met him once but there is a malice and manipulative vengeful nature there that can only cause you harm. He will use his access to you to leverage something unwelcome – not sure what, but he’s conjuring dark forces and access to you is only energizing him.”

Epstein thanked her, and added, “I will take advice.” (Despite telling her that, hecontinued to talk to Bannon up until his arrest the next year on new sex trafficking charges and sat down for interviews with Bannon for a documentary he was making.)

Asked why she had warned Epstein about Bannon, Glover told Blue Light News that Epstein had mentioned to her he was seeing Bannon later in the day during their July 2018 meeting. “I warned Epstein away from Bannon, as I thought Bannon would block Epstein from saying what he knew about Trump,” she said.

A spokesperson for Bannon declined to comment.

The last instance of Glover in the files is in March 2019 when Epstein emailed hera link to a letter to the editor of the Times that his four lawyers had written defending Epstein and saying “the number of young women involved in the investigation has been vastly exaggerated.” It continued that the earlier “case lacked the credible and compelling proof that is required by federal criminal statutes.”

She did not reply.

He died by suicide in his New York jail cell five months later on Aug. 10, 2019.