Epstein e-mails show he helped arrange White House visit for Woody Allen

Epstein's emails reveal his role in arranging Woody Allen's White House visit, highlighting their controversial friendship and shared scandals.

In 2015, Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn went on a trip to Washington, D.C. With the help of their friend Jeffrey Epstein, they were able to tour the White House.

Mr. Allen’s friendship with Epstein has been known for years, but e-mails in the huge trove of records released by the Justice Department in recent days illustrate that relationship in new depth.

The filmmaker, his wife and Epstein were neighbours in New York City, and the three dined together often, records show. They offered each other emotional support during periods when they were being criticised in the media. They commiserated about being accused — unfairly, they told each other — of sexual misconduct.

And in 2015, Epstein used his connections to another friend who had been in President Barack Obama’s administration to help the couple get a White House tour.

“Could you show Soon-Yi the White House?” Epstein wrote in a May 2015 e-mail to former White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler. “I assume woody would be too politically sensitive?” he said.

“I am sure I could show both of them the White House,” Ms. Ruemmler responded, although she doubted whether Epstein, who in 2008 had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, would be allowed in.