EXCLUSIVE: Epstein and Intelligence: Part V
CIA, FBI, NSA – what in the Epstein complex remains classified?
The original version of this article, the final segment of a five-part series, appeared at the German news portal NiUS.de and can be read here.
Part I of this series explained that the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein got a pass from serious prosecution in 2008 because, the top federal prosecutor in south Florida explained, Epstein “belonged to intelligence.” This series has exclusively revealed whose intelligence Epstein belonged to – especially Israeli and Russian spy services
In the last part of this series, we explore which other intelligence agencies were involved with Epstein’s network. Hard evidence is difficult to come by, thanks to the secretive nature of such activities. Nevertheless, it’s no surprise that Washington was aware by 2008 that Epstein was engaged in the spy business, in fact, for multiple countries. Epstein’s absymal information security, including his incessant use of unencrypted emails, means that numerous spy agencies were likely reading his messages and knew his business.
Epstein was involved in the 1980s with international arms trading and other dubiously legal activities. There are hints – it can’t be termed evidence – that he and his partner and backer Les Wexner were caught up in such schemes in the Middle East, possibly even involving the notorious Iran-Contra Affair, which was enmeshed with Israeli intelligence. Rumors that Epstein was cooperating with multiple spy agencies across the Middle East and Europe are plausible, perhaps even likely, but they cannot be confirmed based on publicly available information.
A European intelligence agency with a good reputation shared with me their findings on the Epstein network, which concluded that the operation was primarily run by Israel, mostly through cut-outs, but a half-dozen other countries’ intelligence agencies had some sort of relationship with Epstein. Like any skilled conman, Epstein knew that, given the perilous nature of his business, the more friends he had in more places, the better.
Given what Epstein was up to, in both his business affairs and his revolting personal life, most of which was conducted on American soil, there’s simply no way that U.S. intelligence was unaware of his activities, at least in outline, before 2008. Donald Trump told Florida police in 2006 that “everyone has known” that Epstein, his former friend, was molesting kids, while the current president described Ghislaine Maxwell as “evil.” Surely U.S. intelligence knew more than Trump, then a private citizen, was aware of.
Since Epstein communicated regularly with foreign VIPs, including some not friendly to the United States, we should assume that the National Security Agency was intercepting some of those communications. Officially, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s interest in Epstein commenced in 2006, when it opened Operation Leap Year to investigate the pedophile, but that’s an unclassified answer. U.S. intelligence officials told me that the FBI was investigating Epstein well before 2008 – but that was the classified, counterintelligence side of the bureau, not the criminal investigation side, and such records remain hidden behind a wall of secrecy.
Epstein entered into some sort of cooperation agreement with the FBI as part of his 2008 “sweetheart” plea deal with DoJ, but we don’t know the extent of that relationship. Certainly any agreement he reached with the FBI failed to deter Epstein from continuing to rape and traffic young women over the next 11 years, until he was arrested in 2019
Did he have a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency? That’s been rumored but we can’t know based on the available evidence. Robert Maxwell cooperated sometimes with British intelligence, which understood that his real allegiances were to Mossad and the KGB. This seems to have been an effort by Maxwell to keep British spies off his back, and it’s reasonable to assume that Epstein did the same with CIA and the FBI, for similar reasons (perhaps so did Ghislaine Maxwell: there are many unanswered questions in this spy affair).
If Epstein had a relationship with CIA, however, it soured by 2011, when Epstein’s attorneys demanded any records pertaining to their client in CIA’s possession. Three years later, Epstein’s attorneys made a similar demand of NSA. Those attorneys had to understand that their requests would be denied since any such records would be state secrets. Moreover, such requests would not have been appreciated by CIA or NSA. This constitutes a tell that whatever relationship Epstein may have had with American spy agencies ended on a bad note long before his death.
Given how U.S. intelligence operates in the real world, not movies, we can be certain that multiple American spy agencies, preeminently CIA, FBI, and NSA, possess their own classified “Epstein files.” However, that doesn’t mean that Epstein was working for any of them, although he certainly may have been, at some point. Since the public isn’t allowed access to such secret files, it’s all speculation.
Epstein was enamored with spying. On multiple occasions he hired private intelligence firms and hackers, some with Israeli connections, to spy on his suspected enemies. This is now commonplace even with major spy agencies. The intelligence services of China and Iran have been caught in recent years hiring private investigators to spy on and harass dissidents in the United States, in an effort to provide some deniability for their illegal actions. In 2009, Epstein even tried to hire former NSA codebreakers to work on one of his strange projects to perfect the human race.
At some point, U.S. intelligence simply didn’t want to know what Epstein was doing. Perhaps his personal behavior was too upsetting, moreover Epstein’s network, which included many rich and powerful people, was deeply enmeshed with Israel, a close U.S. ally. For any sensible spy bureaucrat in Washington, the messy Epstein affair may have been simply “too hot to touch.”
Certainly the FBI seems to have averted its eyes regarding Epstein and Maxwell. Hence its bizarre claim, after a massive investigation following Epstein’s 2019 arrest and death, that the bureau found no evidence that Epstein was running any sex trafficking rings. If that’s true, what is Ghislaine Maxwell sitting in prison for the next two decades for?
It seems that the FBI didn’t look very hard for evidence against Epstein. One of Epstein’s properties was in New Mexico, the sprawling Zorro Ranch. Even though numerous women claimed to have been molested by Epstein and Maxwell at the Zorro Ranch, going back to the mid-1990s, New Mexico authorities claim that the property has never been visited by federal investigators. It’s easy to understand why nobody looked closely at the Zorro Ranch during the first Epstein investigation in 2006-08, since New Mexico’s governor at the time was Bill Richardson, who died in 2023. Richardson was a close friend of Epstein who was himself accused of sex crimes committed on Epstein’s property. It’s more difficult to explain why the FBI didn’t visit the Zorro Ranch in 2019, during their supposedly comprehensive investigation into Epstein and his crimes.
Not wanting to know about Epstein is a problem that extends far beyond Washington. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, facing a crisis given the connections between top members of his Labour Party and Epstein, insists he was unaware of the “darkness” surrounding the dead pedophile. However, British police knew at least six years ago, in great detail, about Epstein sexual crimes, while British intelligence surely knew much more, much earlier. Has Starmer never heard of Robert Maxwell, who was a Labour politician?
Pressure is mounting in Washington to reveal the full, unpleasant truth regarding Epstein, but the Trump administration has shut the door. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent train-wreck testimony before Congress about Epstein, including her shouting at lawmakers, made plain that the White House intends to move on from this scandal. Bondi then claimed that DoJ has released all Epstein files, which few believe is true, indicating that the matter is closed.
The Epstein scandal will never go away, given its hideous revelations about the crimes and perversions of so many VIPs, yet neither can it be properly resolved without exposing the dead pedophile’s connections to intelligence agencies – including American ones. Already one member of Congress has demanded that CIA open its Epstein files, but more pressure will be required for the full truth to emerge. Since the Trump administration seems determined to continue its cover-up of what Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were doing, the only avenue left is the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this case, independent of Bondi and her Justice Department. Moreover, any Special Counsel must have access to all U.S. government documents pertaining to this case, no matter how classified they are. Otherwise this awful scandal will remain an open wound on Western politics in perpetuity, with Epstein’s many victims receiving no justice for the crimes perpetrated against them.