Inside the Epstein saga: Untangling his ties to Israeli spy agency, US presidents

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

Last week, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett rejected assertions linking the notorious financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, with Israel’s spy agency.

It followed journalist Tucker Carlson’s scrutiny of Epstein’s close ties with the Israeli regime and its spy agency Mossad, which has been widely documented over the years.

During a July 11 speech to the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, Carlson questioned the Mossad-Epstein connection, asserting that “every single person in Washington, DC, thinks that.”

He probed the puzzling trajectory of Epstein’s career, inquiring, “How does a guy go from being a math teacher at the Dalton School in the late 70s with no college degree to having multiple airplanes, a private island, and the largest residential house in Manhattan?”

Carlson noted that it was evident Epstein had direct ties to a foreign entity, pointing to Israel.

“Now, no one’s allowed to say that that foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that’s naughty. There is nothing wrong with saying that. There is nothing hateful about saying that. There’s nothing anti-Semitic about saying. There’s nothing even anti-Israel about saying that,” he told the enthusiastic crowd.

He also hinted that Epstein blackmailed people involved in his scheme on behalf of Mossad.

“The real question is not ‘Was Jeffrey Epstein a weirdo who was abusing girls?’ The real question is why was he doing this, on whose behalf, and where did the money come from,” Carlson said.

Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Epstein, born and raised in New York, taught mathematics and physics at the Dalton School in the mid-1970s, having studied physics and mathematics at university, though he never graduated.

His teaching skills caught the attention of a student’s father, who referred Epstein to a senior partner at the investment bank Bear Stearns.

Within four years, Epstein became a partner at the firm and, by 1982, had established his own successful company, J Epstein and Co., managing over $1 billion in client assets.

Epstein began spending his newfound wealth on extravagant properties, including a Florida mansion, a New Mexico ranch, and, reportedly, the largest private residence in New York.

He was known for socializing with celebrities, artists, and politicians, enjoying the luxurious life.

However, in 2005, allegations surfaced when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported to Florida police that Epstein had molested their daughter at his Palm Beach home. A subsequent search revealed numerous photographs of girls throughout the property.

Investigations conducted by the Miami Herald indicated that Epstein’s abuse of underage girls had occurred over many years. Despite the evidence, prosecutors reached a deal with Epstein in 2008.

This agreement allowed him to avoid potential life imprisonment from federal charges and instead serve an 18-month sentence. During this time, Epstein was permitted “work release” for 12 hours a day, six days a week. After 13 months, he was released on probation.

According to the Miami Herald, federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta, who later served as Secretary of Labor in the Trump administration, concealed the extent of Epstein’s crimes through a plea agreement.

This deal terminated an FBI investigation into possible additional victims or the involvement of other high-profile individuals in his scandals.

Acosta has reportedly admitted he had given Epstein the scandalous “sweetheart deal,” which allowed him to resume his sex trafficking operation after a relatively brief slap on the wrist, because he had been “told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”

Since 2008, Epstein had been listed as a level three on the New York sex offenders register, a lifelong designation indicating a high risk of reoffending. Despite this classification and his previous conviction, Epstein retained his assets and properties.

In July 2019, Epstein was arrested on federal charges for recruiting underage girls to his New York City mansion and Palm Beach estate from 2002 to 2005 for sex acts in exchange for money.

On August 10, 2019, he died under mysterious circumstances in his jail cell, in what was later ruled a suicide.

Trump-Epstein’s bromance

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” US President Donald Trump told New York magazine for a profile on Epstein in 2002, long before he jumped on the political bandwagon.

“He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

It is well established that Trump had a personal acquaintance with Epstein. The two were known to attend the same social gatherings in the 1990s, and flight logs show that Trump traveled on Epstein’s private jet at least seven times.

Many other high-profile people, including former US President Bill Clinton, were also recorded as guests on Epstein’s private plane.

The Wall Street Journal, in a story published last Thursday, revealed that Trump was among dozens of individuals who wrote birthday cards to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003 that were compiled together in a book.

According to the report, Trump not only wrote a message but also included sketches of nude women. Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture and threatened to sue the newspaper.

This revelation came shortly after the US Department of Justice issued an unsigned memo on July 7, announcing it would no longer release documents related to the deceased sex offender.

The memo said that Epstein did not keep a “client list” to blackmail other individuals involved in his sex trafficking scheme with underage girls.

The memo sparked widespread outrage, particularly among Trump’s most loyal supporters.

For years, Trump and several members of his administration hinted at undisclosed information within the so-called “Epstein files,” suggesting that critical details were being withheld from the public.

Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI leaders had repeatedly pledged to release all relevant Epstein documents, including a list of prominent clients involved in trafficking minors.

Yet in a surprising shift, some conservative influencers who previously criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the case are now urging their followers to move on from the issue.

Responding to the growing criticism, Trump posted a statement on Truth Social on July 12, advising supporters not to “waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein.”

The move has fueled speculation that Trump’s prior association with Epstein—and the potential appearance of his name in sealed documents—may be influencing the administration’s stance to protect Trump and his fellow elites.

Last month, Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and former Trump supporter, said that Trump himself was “in the Epstein files.” The remark was made in a post on X shortly after the two men parted ways.

“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,” he wrote. “That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

That post was removed overnight, and the link to the post now displays a message that reads, “Nothing to see here.”

Both The Wall Street Journal and CNN revealed on Wednesday that when Bondi briefed Trump in May on the Justice Department’s review of documents related to the Epstein case, she informed him that his name appeared in the files.

The reports contradict Trump’s recent denials that he was told he was in the files.

Pressed last week on whether Bondi had told him he was named in the documents, he said, “No, no. She’s given us just a very quick briefing.”

The Justice Department’s memo also reaffirmed the official conclusion that Epstein died by suicide, citing an FBI review of surveillance footage from the jail’s common area.

However, reports of a missing minute of that footage have reignited public skepticism and stirred fresh controversy.

Epstein’s deep Israel links

The US Justice Department’s refusal to release previously sealed evidence—alongside its abrupt dismissal of the existence of any “client list”—has lent credence to reports linking Epstein to Mossad.

In an attempt to deny the Epstein-Mossad link confirmed by Carlson, Bennett took to X on Monday, claiming that “Epstein never worked for the Mossad,” describing it as a “lie being peddled by prominent online personalities such as Tucker Carlson pretending they know things they don’t.”

However, netizens on X promptly challenged Bennett’s statement by citing a May 2023 report by The Wall Street Journal, republished by The Times of Israel and other Israeli media outlets, revealing the close ties between former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Epstein.

According to the WSJ’s report, Barak and Epstein had around 30 meetings between 2013 and 2017 at Epstein’s residences in Florida and New York, including an instance in 2014 when the former Israeli premier joined Epstein on his private jet from Palm Beach to Tampa, after which Epstein continued to New York.

The investigation further disclosed that Barak and Epstein held monthly meetings for almost a year, starting in December 2015.

The New York Times reported in July 2019 that Barak, then 77, had received approximately $2.3 million in payments between 2004 and 2006 from a foundation linked to Epstein.

Additionally, Epstein invested about $1 million in a limited partnership created by Barak in 2015.

Epstein and Jewish billionaire Leslie Wexner

One of the most scrutinized figures in this narrative is billionaire retail magnate Leslie Wexner, a prominent Zionist entrepreneur with deep ties to Jewish and pro-Israel causes.

Wexner has maintained close relationships with Israeli regime institutions and political leaders through his Wexner Foundation, which funds so-called leadership development programs for Israeli officials and Jewish community figures.

Wexner’s father-in-law, Yehuda Koppel, was an Israeli military veteran with ties to Mossad. Koppel is credited with helping in the occupation of Palestine in 1948, through his role as a commander of the atrocity-checkered Haganah, a terrorist organization in British Mandatory Palestine, which is considered a precursor to the modern Israeli military.

Koppel later became a director of Israeli airline El Al, which at various times went on to serve as a front for Mossad operations. Flight logs show that Koppel and his wife flew aboard Epstein’s private jet to France on September 3, 1997.

Wexner was Epstein’s key financial patron and allowed him unusual control over his business and personal assets.

At one point, Epstein held sweeping legal authority over Wexner’s assets through a power of attorney and was considered his sole known client.

Their partnership extended to business ventures as well: the two co-founded the New Albany Corporation, a real estate development firm responsible for shaping a suburb outside Columbus, Ohio. Epstein also maintained a residence in the area.

Epstein served as a trustee of the Wexner Foundation, though the organization has since downplayed his role, stating that his involvement was nominal and did not include day-to-day operations.

While Wexner has publicly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal conduct, his role in elevating Epstein’s financial and social status has drawn significant scrutiny.

His long-time relationship with the sexual predator finally rattled his reputation.

In 2020, amid mounting criticism, Wexner stepped down as chairman and CEO of Victoria’s Secret, the global lingerie brand he built over six decades that Epstein sometimes used to lure victims.

The recent Wall Street Journal report also revealed that Wexner—like Trump—had signed a sexually suggestive birthday card for Epstein, further fueling controversy over the depth of their association.

Epstein’s relations with Robert Maxwell

In a 2022 BBC documentary titled “House of Maxwell,” it was revealed that Robert Maxwell, the father of Ghislaine Maxwell – the convicted sex offender and Epstein’s former girlfriend – claimed Epstein aided him in concealing hundreds of millions he had stolen from his company’s pension funds.

During a 2020 episode of the Broken: Seeking Justice podcast, it was revealed that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were acquainted as early as 1988 through Robert Maxwell.

This was one of the first known claims linking Epstein to Robert Maxwell’s business dealings.

In their book “The Assassination of Robert Maxwell: Israel’s Superspy,” authors Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon assert that Robert Maxwell was a Mossad spy who was assassinated due to possessing sensitive information.

They describe Maxwell as “a powerful man who overstepped the mark,” with his killing being a meticulously planned operation involving a fatal nerve agent injection and a staged accidental drowning.

Other evidence linking Epstein to Israel

Ari Ben-Menashe, an Israeli businessman and former Mossad spy, said in the book Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales that Epstein ran a “honeytrap” operation.

According to Ben-Menashe, Epstein provided underage girls to influential political figures around the world, secretly recording the encounters to blackmail them on behalf of Mossad.

When federal agents raided Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in July 2019, prosecutors said they discovered a cache of suspicious materials.

In addition to diamonds and $70,000 in cash, agents found an expired Austrian passport bearing Epstein’s photograph, a fake name, and a listed residency in Saudi Arabia. The passport had been used to enter four countries during the 1980s.

Epstein’s career began when Donald Barr—a former officer with the agency that eventually became the CIA and then-headmaster of the elite Dalton School—hired the uncredentialed college dropout to teach there.

Years later, Barr’s son, William Barr, serving as attorney general under Trump, publicly labeled Epstein’s jailhouse death a suicide even before the investigation had run its full course.

The Rolling Stone in a story in 2021 explored Epstein’s involvement with Steven Hoffenberg in the financial sector.

Hoffenberg, who was imprisoned for 18 years for orchestrating a $450 million Ponzi scheme, said at the time that Epstein operated within intelligence circles.

However, when Vicky Ward, a writer for Rolling Stone, confronted Epstein about his relationship with Hoffenberg, he threatened her with legal action.

“If there’s any implication of wrongdoing, I will take legal action against you personally. I’m telling you so you understand,” Epstein told Ward in an off-the-record recording made years earlier as part of a Vanity Fair piece and subsequently released in the discovery+ docuseries, Chasing Ghislaine.

“I will be as harsh as I possibly can personally...not for the magazine, but you, because I had this discussion with you. This relationship is with you...You shouldn’t risk your future for a job.”

Adding to the speculation surrounding Epstein’s background, Eric Weinstein, former managing director of Thiel Capital, a venture capital and investment firm based in California, also expressed his doubts about Epstein’s financial expertise in an appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast hosted by Steven Bartlett.

Weinstein described Epstein as a “weird guy” who seemed to have limited knowledge of currency trading, noting, “He wasn’t a financier the day I met him.”

Former National Security Agency counterspy John Schindler wrote on his Top Secret Umbra blog in January 2024 that Epstein may have been involved in a covert Israeli spy operation, codenamed “MEGA.”

Schindler indicated that such an operation would require a significant team of people to manage and keep it hidden from public view, given the scale of Epstein’s sex trafficking and abuse over several decades.

“That’s not a one-pedophile job and, given the industrial scale of Epstein’s abuse over decades, with at least hundreds of victims, it would take a considerable retinue if not a small army to keep that sordid operation going and out of public view for any extended period.”

What others are saying?

In the wake of the US Justice Department’s decision to withhold further records on Epstein, several conservative voices renewed direct associations between Epstein and Mossad.

US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene floated the linkage immediately following the Justice Department’s decision, telling far-right YouTuber Benny Johnson that “there’s a clear line right there” and “are we supposed to deny what our eyes and ears tell us?”

Conservative commentator Saagar Enjeti, during an appearance on Carlson’s podcast last month, noted that “in early 2008, it was open talk in New York society that Epstein moved all his assets and fled to Israel to escape his charges. From there, he negotiated his sweetheart plea deal, which allowed him to come back and escape real justice.”

Right-wing pundit Candace Owens, who has drawn criticism in recent months for her anti-Israel remarks, also noted that political motives were behind the reluctance to expose Epstein-Israel links.

“If a person cannot admit that Epstein was running a pedo blackmail ring on behalf of Israel, then they are not sincere in their calls for his files to be released,” Owens said.

Right-wing commentator Megyn Kelly also said that “the US attorney who spiked [Epstein’s] case, Alex Acosta, is on record as saying Epstein was an intel agent, and he was told to get rid of the prosecution. If Epstein was an agent, it was clearly either for the US or Israel – both deny it. What would you expect them to say? He had multiple odd Israeli connections. This denial is meaningless.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald, also in a post on X, highlighted several connections between Jeffrey Epstein and Israel, questioning Epstein’s relationship with Mossad.

Greenwald presents five key points to support his inquiry:

“1) One of Epstein’s closest friends was former Israeli PM Ehud Barak; 2) A key source of Epstein’s vast wealth, though mysterious, was from Les Wexner, whose primary life cause is Israel; 3) Ghislaine Maxwell’s father - the billionaire Robert Maxwell -- was a Mossad agent who mysteriously died after that was reported.

“Though Maxwell was British, Israel gave him a state funeral when he died; 4) Epstein got the red carpet treatment when visiting Israel; 5) Epstein bankrolled major investments in Israeli tech. ... But fine, if Epstein had no ties to Israeli intelligence or any other intel service - which is theoretically possible - why can’t Pam Bondi, CIA and FBI say that?”

Reports about Epstein’s Mossad ties predates his legal troubles. A New York Post article from March 2000 described Epstein as an “enigmatic figure” with rumors circulating about connections to both the Mossad and the CIA.

“Rumors abound — including wild ones about a career in the Mossad and, contrarily, the CIA,” said the article.

One of Epstein’s former girlfriends, TV personality and diet guru Nicki Haskell, was quoted in that same article saying Epstein once said to be a spy.

“He told me he was a spy hired by corporations to find major amounts of money which had been embezzled,” Haskell recalled. “He made it sound very glamorous.”

More recently, a woman identified as Jane Doe 200 filed a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate in June 2024. In her suit, she said that Epstein boasted of being a Mossad agent shortly before sexually assaulting her at his New York mansion.

The California woman said Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, hinted he was an agent for Mossad, just like Maxwell’s father, Robert.

For her part, Ghislaine “warned Doe that it was not good to be Epstein’s enemy.”

“It became obvious that Epstein was not only extremely wealthy but also suspiciously well-connected, more so than all the other powerful men with whom he associated,” said the suit, which was filed in Manhattan federal court.

Amid growing frustration over the Justice Department’s decision to close the case, users on X have circulated viral posts drawing symbolic comparisons between Epstein’s crimes against children in the West and Israeli military genocidal actions against children in Gaza.

One widely shared image features side-by-side photos of the White House and the rubble of Gaza, with bold yellow text reading: “Israel uses kids to sexually blackmail people here, so it can bomb kids over there.”

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